Blood In the Water (8 page)

The weird part was, according to the draft “Articles of Union” Alan Letts had prepared, that now meant his “clan” would enter the new union as, if not the most numerous, then certainly the most militarily powerful “state”—with him as
governor
! What's more, there'd been very little opposition to the scheme. He didn't know if that was a testimony to him personally, or the notion itself. The Navy had always remained as unbiased as possible and stayed out of domestic politics, beyond that which sometimes threatened support for those prosecuting the war. And he'd taken great pains to prove he had no desire to be anything but the leader of his “clan.”
And I guess it makes a kind of sense,
he decided.
Not only would the professional military that his clan represented have a greater say in how it was used, but it's still dependent on all the other “states” for material support
. He could see how the arrangement might someday be abused, but with the right training and traditions of impartiality and service instilled in his clan—his state—from the start, it would be an interesting experiment.

He glanced around the table. Dessert dishes were being taken away and only cups or mugs remained. He cleared his throat. “Any news from
Amerika
?” he asked, voicing his own most personal concern.

“Nothing since she sailed from Diego and passed out of range of her TBS,” Safir answered promptly, anticipating the question. “And except for the fire in her comm shack, there was no damage. I'm sure she—and all aboard her—are fine. She will pass other ships headed this way and they will report her progress and relay any messages she might send.”

“That fire, so confined and easily extinguished, still strikes me as suspicious,” Keje muttered darkly. Of them all, he still held the greatest reservations about their Republic allies. Matt was tempted to agree for purely personal reasons, but shook his head. “The ship's old, Keje. Even older than this one, and there's been no modernization at all. Particularly to her comm gear. She didn't even test it for years.”

“Tubes, resisters, and capacitors go bad,” Bernie supported. “Wires and connections corrode, particularly in salt air. Solder is lead; wire is copper. Dissimilar metals . . .” He glanced at Matt. “Anyway, there was probably a short. We get them pretty often ourselves and we maintain our equipment a lot better. We have to . . .” He trailed off again and Matt smiled. “I'm sure we'll hear from her periodically,” Matt agreed with Safir. Then his attention turned to the one she was most concerned
about. “What have we heard of Colonel Chack's and Mr. Bradford's expedition?”

Chack, Bradford, Chief Gunner's Mate Dennis Silva, and several others had gone on a mission to meet the reported remnants of indigenous Lemurians still inhabiting central and southern Madagascar. Courtney Bradford just wanted to meet them, but the main idea was to recruit them to the cause of defeating the Grik. Even with the populous Great South Isle, better known as Aus-traal, joining the Alliance at last, combat losses had created a growing man—and 'Cat—power crisis to the extent that they could barely crew all the new ships and planes the burgeoning industries in Baalkpan, Maa-ni-laa, and the Empire were turning out.
Two
new carriers were completing in Maa-ni-laa, for example, but their deployment east with Saan-Kakja and Governor-Empress Rebecca McDonald had been delayed while they worked up slowly arriving pilots and crews. Building entirely new infantry divisions was almost impossible, and most troops left the training depots as replacements for losses in existing units. That should change, in time, as the Aus-traal-ans fully mobilized, but time was a far greater ally of the Grik than it was to them.

The expedition south had traveled aboard one of the small motor torpedo boats built in Ma-nil-aa, the “Seven boat,” commanded by a young ensign named Nathaniel Hardee. Their first encounter with intelligent natives of some sort—they still didn't know who or even what they'd been—had been discouraging to say the least, and one of their number had been brutally murdered. Safir tried to order them back, but Chack—her mate—flatly refused.

“They probe up the river,” Safir said in exasperation. “That is all I know. Our communications with them are just as frustrating as those with
Amerika
, it would seem. The mountains . . .” She trailed off.

“Chack is a fine warrior and very smart,” Keje assured her, then laughed. “And with that man-monster Dennis Silva along, I cannot imagine any danger sufficient to overwhelm them.”

There was appreciative laughter. Dennis Silva was a maniac, but he was
Walker
's maniac, utterly devoted to his ship, his crew, his captain—and the few beings he considered friends. Chack was one of those. Keje was right. Silva had accomplished amazing things, but Matt—and Pam Cross, who was helplessly, possibly even self-destructively, in love with the big jerk—both knew he wasn't immortal. He was probably still hurting from wounds
he got helping to capture the Celestial Palace. If Silva was at his best, Matt would lay odds the man could walk the length of the artificially predator-rich island of Madagascar all by himself with just a compass and a pocketknife and still gain weight. But he wasn't at his best, was he? His little Grik-like Sa'aaran friend Lawrence would be a big help, as usual, but Lawrence was hurting too. That was one of the reasons Matt had agreed to let them go, damn it! To let them heal. He should've known the expedition would get weird. Everything always did.

“In any event, their last transmission reported that all but the casualty were well, and the Seven boat would proceed upriver, investigating signs of habitation along the way,” Safir concluded. “We will just have to wait and hope for a break in the mountains or favorable aat-mos-pherics before we learn more.”

Her tone changed. “Otherwise, USS
Donaghey
finally sailed from Alex-aandra, bound for the place you call Carib-bean.” One of the first three true warships the American destroyermen had helped the Lemurians make,
Donaghey
(DD-2) was a classic square rig sailing frigate of 1,200 tons, armed with twenty-four 18-pdr guns, a pair of “Y” guns, and depth charge racks. Like
Walker
, she'd seen a lot of action, and was the sole surviving dedicated sailing warship in the Alliance. Her mostly Lemurian crew of two hundred sailors and Marines were under Commander Greg Garrett,
Walker
's former gunnery officer, and she'd been chosen for the long-range scout specifically because her range wasn't limited by fuel capacity. Her mission had been delayed by the French battleship
Savoie
while she attempted to prevent the Republic from joining the Allied war effort.

We don't know nearly enough about
Savoie
and this weird “League” she represents,
Matt thought moodily.
From what Greg and others have picked up, it seems clear the League's greatest power and concern is centered in the Mediterranean—for now—and their primary interest here is to keep us—or the Grik—from growing strong enough to threaten them.
He closed his eyes.
Idiots! The last thing we want is
another
war!
The one
—two!—
we've already got are plenty!
Of course, that's probably the whole point, after all
. He wished he knew where
Savoie
had gone after leaving Alex-aandra, but everyone's best guess was that she'd steamed back north across the Atlantic. How could she sustain herself otherwise? But they'd somehow supported a sub in the Western Ocean for who
knew how long, and Matt supposed they probably at least suspected
Walker
sank it when it attacked his force on its way to Madagascar.
So we're already at war, in a sense,
he mused.
And if their blockade and threat of force at Alex-aandra wasn't an act of war, despite their protestations, I don't know what is
. Still, as long as they weren't actively hunting and shooting at Allied ships or cities, he'd try to stay content to merely learn as much about them as he could for the time being.

Inquisitor Choon, the Republic's chief snoop, believed the League had been gathering a lot of intel from the Allies, but
his
snoops had made progress of their own since
Savoie
sailed away, quietly catching a surprising number of spies that had infiltrated into Alex-aandra over a period of years. A far more complete picture of what composed the “League,” and what it was capable of, shouldn't be long in coming.

Matt caught Safir looking at him and smiled. “Sorry. Still thinking about those creeps that sat on
Donaghey
so long. Please continue.”

“Greg Gaar-ett reported that the Republic could not have been more appreciative or helpful, and his ship is in better shape and better provisioned now than since she was made.” She paused. “He did leave one of his two Nancy floatplanes and its air and ground crew with the Republic. They have experimental aircraft of their own, but have not dedicated a great deal of effort to producing combat planes until now. The example of the Nancy should be invaluable to them.” She paused. “In addition, and as you left to Greg's discretion, he allowed Cap-i-taan Bekiaa-Sab-At to remain in the Republic as a military liaison and advisor.” She smiled. “I authorized her promotion to major, and I understand they have given her the rank of tribune.”

Matt nodded. That was fine, and having Bekiaa on the ground there would be a big help. Not only would she be able to advise Choon and the Republic general staff on hard-won Grik fighting tactics, but her unvarnished reports regarding the readiness of the Republic to open a southern front against the Grik, transmitted to Safir and her staff at the Cowflop, would be invaluable. Greg would miss her, though; they were good friends and Bekiaa was a fine Marine. Matt hoped Greg wouldn't miss her too much—when he really needed her at some point.

“How long will we have contact with
Donaghey
?” Russ asked.

“She should be able to relay transmissions through Alex-aandra until she is perhaps a third of the distance across the unknown sea to
the west, to the unexplored land beyond,” Safir murmured, her concern obvious.

Matt was concerned too.
Donaghey
would be all alone and beyond any help if she needed it, but he suddenly remembered that Safir had never been to the Empire of the New Britain Isles and was now even farther from her home near where Surabaya, Java, ought to be than she'd ever been. That anyone she cared about might go even
farther
probably filled her with a measure of dread not easily suppressed. Virtually every Lemurian they'd met was fully aware the earth was round, but they also knew that gravity (whatever that was) pulled down. Therefore, if anyone ventured too far from the “top” of the world, possibly centered somewhere between their ancestral home on Madagascar in the West and the Filpin Lands in the East, they'd simply fall off into the void of the Heavens. All their notions of nature and even theology had been based on this. Rain fell to earth and eventually every last drop found its way to the sea. From there it ultimately fell off, back into the sky that surrounded the world, formed into clouds, and fell back upon them. People who fell off couldn't survive, but their souls would reside in the Heavens, joining the countless stars above. Lemurian dead had traditionally been cremated so the smoke could carry their souls to the Heavens as well, to join all who'd passed before them alongside the Maker of All Things. To some, like Adar, the Maker was unseen, incomprehensible, and watched them from the Heavens beyond the stars. Others, like Safir, believed the
sun
was the Maker and watched them from much closer. But amazingly, thankfully, this seemingly insurmountable dogmatic difference had never been the same source of ruthless contention that much more subtle differences in interpretation had proven to be in human history. 'Cats were more flexible. They had to be when science assailed all they'd ever believed.

Most still believed the spiritual side of things, though, and after a bumpy start were generally able to accept even the very different views many of the human destroyermen held into their malleable theology once they realized their notions of an afterlife with the Maker were not that dissimilar. Beyond that, there could be problems when one got down to details, but Sister Audry, and now even most of the spiritual leaders in the Empire, recognized they needed unity above all things in this time of crisis and their more specific Catholic and British church
teachings were gently applied in their separate quests for converts. Adar himself probably said it best when he proclaimed that they should all be free to find the Maker in their own way, merely sailing different courses to the same destination.

But the arrival of USS
Walker
and the necessary industrialization and education that followed had delivered a fatal blow to the Lemurian's understanding of nature, physics, geography—and one's ability to stand upright on the bottom of the world.

“Greg Gaar-ett is the best we have,” Keje assured Safir—and himself, it seemed.

“Uh, any news from Fred and Kari?” Tikker asked hesitantly, and Matt scowled.

“None,” Safir replied, as Matt expected. He had little doubt that Lieutenant (jg) Fred Reynolds and Ensign Kari-Faask were irretrievably lost at last. Fred had been
Walker
's youngest crewman when she came to this world and ultimately became a pilot of one of the PB-1B “Nancy” floatplanes they'd developed early on. Better planes were in the works, and they had a kind of small pursuit plane that was hell on Grik zeppelins, but Nancys were still the backbone of Allied air capability. Fred and his Lemurian friend and “backseater,” Kari, had gone off on a suicidal lark to find some supposed “other Americans” descended from arrivals from around the time of the US-Mexican War, who, as best they could tell,
might
control part of the Gulf Coast of North America. This all from a single meeting with an enigmatic spy who aided subversive elements in the land of the Holy Dominion. Granted, “Captain Anson,” as he called himself, had helped Fred and Kari escape the Doms after they'd been forced down by what amounted to flying Grik, but there'd been no contact with Anson or his people since. And now, on the tail of a major action near a bizarre sea passage through what should've been Costa Rica, and was supposed to encourage contact with naval elements of these “other Americans,” Fred and Kari had flown off looking for them.