Down to the Sea (35 page)

“I suspect there’s more,” Andrew announced.

She smiled crookedly. “We’ve just started. The farther away we are from the target, the longer the shell takes to get there. At ten thousand yards it’s over twenty seconds. In that time, the target could move a couple of hundred yards. Add into that the relative angle of travel of the target in relationship to you. What we need to be able to then do is calculate where the target will be, not where it is at, when the shells land. There are some other factors as well, wind speed, for example, and then finally our own motion and angle of direction in relationship to the target. If two ships are running parallel to each other, it isn’t all that bad, but both will be maneuvering, turning, and thus relative angles and distances will change second by second. We’re calling it the rate of change, and that component makes it very difficult to predict. All of that has to be calculated within seconds, then recalculated again, and yet again, while at the same time observers are calling down the splashes and correcting the range.

“You want to build a machine to do this, don’t you?”

“Sir, it is the only way. I doubt if I could explain this to most of the senators on the appropriations committee— they’ll have to trust me, or you, on it—but I can tell you it might take years and it will cost money, lots of money. But if we can figure this thing out, if we can shoot at ten thousand yards and they can’t, we have them. Also, there’s an advantage to hitting at greater ranges.”

“And that is?”

“Plunging fire,” Theodor interjected. “Ships have always had their heaviest armor on their sides. But when you start hitting them out at ten thousand yards the guns are at maximum elevation. That means the shell travels a couple of miles high, pitches over, then comes screaming straight down, through the more vulnerable top part of the deck.”

“What about just making old-fashioned monitors? They’re low to the water, and difficult to hit.” But even as he asked the question, he could see the heads shaking.

“That might work here on the Inland Sea, but this is the Great Southern Ocean. Even on a good day you’ve got six-foot seas. Any kind of blow, and it’s suddenly twenty-five-foot seas. No monitor can survive that.”

“All right then,” he sighed, “what else?”

“Improved shells, harder tipped for penetration. We’ve been talking about researching this new type of explosive refined from boiled cotton. It’d make our guns a lot more powerful, and the bursting charge in shells would be devastating.

“There’s a lot more. Our experiments in making laminated armor, both for ships and the newer class of land ironclads, recoil absorbers for artillery, new rations that are packed in cans, it’s all there.”

“You’ve dredged up everything you could think of over the last five years, haven’t you?”

“And a few new ones besides.”

“Varinnia, I almost think you are enjoying this.” Though her burned features were a mask, he could see a flash of anger and instantly regretted his foolish statement.

‘ “I want this country to survive. Last time around it was men my husband’s age who were doing the fighting. Now we have boys. It’s far harder now watching them go out.”

“I know,” Andrew sighed.

“We’ve got to get to work, Mr. President. Theodor is sailing with the
Shiloh
. I want to check some last-minute details. Will I see you down at the naval yard later?”

“I’ll try to make it. I’ve got meetings with congress all afternoon, but I’ll try.”

As the group stood, the door to the office opened. Andrew looked up, annoyed, wondering who would be barging in. Kathleen stood in the doorway, features pale, a piece of paper in her hand.

She saw who was there, but couldn’t contain herself. “One of the telegraphers from the War Office brought this over,” she announced, her voice tight, struggling for control.

Andrew took the sheet of flimsy paper, slowly read it, read it again, then stuffed it into his pocket.

“What is it?” Varinnia asked.

“Our son’s regiment,” Andrew whispered. “Half of the regiment was surrounded yesterday. Last report indicates they were wiped out. Abe was with them.”

“A lovely sight, my emperor.”

Emperor Yasim nodded in agreement. He looked over at Hazin, who had come up to the railing, and like him was leaning over, hands clasped. The two of them were alone on the imperial bridge, the rest of the watch respectfully having withdrawn to the starboard side. Hazin had transferred over to the emperor’s flagship the day before, and the emperor was obviously nervous about him being aboard his own ship.

The fleet of the Red Banner seemed to fill the ocean.

Looking astern, Yasim could see the other seven battleships following in the wake of their flagship, each one perfectly positioned a quarter league astern of the next. Flanking outward, encircling the battleships, were the dozens of cruisers and frigates.

They were still well inside the waters of the empire, but years of continual warfare had trained them well. The transports carrying the imperial legions and the Shiv were far astern, for it was not proper that such vessels sail with the elite.

Yasim looked over at Hazin and smiled. “The sickness of the sea, how do you fare?”

Hazin nodded, and Yasim chuckled.

“I for one am rarely bothered by it. Strange how that is.”

“Perhaps because you were bom to this, my lord, and I was not.”

“That’s why I thought the cruise would be good for you.” Hazin looked over warily.

“You know, I could but snap my finger”—Yasim motioned to one of his guards, who was standing at attention, gaze fixed at them—“and that warrior would come over here, break your back, and toss you over the railing.” Yasim laughed softly.

“No one would ever speak of it. We could simply report you lost by accident. Then we could turn these ships about, sail back through the transports, and sink every one of those laden with your Shiv. That would finish the Order.”

“Would it?”

“Is it the sickness of the sea, or a sudden nervousness I detect in your voice.”

“The sickness, damn it,” Hazin snapped.

“I’m not so sure. That was a plan suggested by more than one before we sailed.”

“How interesting. I’ll have to run inquiries when I return.”

“I figure you already have.”

“Yes, it was discussed with me. Shall we discuss your amusing plan?”

“By all means, Hazin.”

“Which of these guards is tmly yours?”

“I actually might be innocent enough to believe that all of them are.”

“That would be unworthy of you. That, my lord, has always been the base of the power of the Order. No one ever really knows who we are.”

“At times I wonder if it is all a hoax. You have your disgusting Shiv that you’ve bred, a few foolish priests in their white robes, and actually little if anything else.”

“If that was the case, why did you venture fifty million in gold to us against your brother? Why did you ensure my elevation in order to have that debt canceled. If you did not fear us, you would have slain the last Grand Master, slain me, and burned our temples, but you did not. Why?” ‘Yasim looked back over the railing. Yes indeed, why? he wondered. Why not kill him now? I know he plans eventually to kill me and seize the throne.

“You’re thinking about killing me because you fear that I am plotting to kill you.”

Yasim looked at Hazin and then slowly extended his hand. “For once, just for once, a moment of peace between us.”

“You were the one who started this line of conversation, my lord.”

“Enough, Hazin.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I know what would happen if I slew you. The needle would find me.”

Hazin said nothing.

“Damn, how we slaughter each other,” Yasim sighed. “My brother. I remember our youth, my first teacher, the eunuch Galvina. How I loved him.”

Hazin laughed softly. “Sire, he was one of us.”

Startled, Yasim looked over at him.

“There was some serious bidding for a while between those who wanted him to kill you and those who did not. Obviously those who did not won.”

“Damn you,” Yasim whispered.

“Go on, though, sire, your story.”

The emperor nodded. “Galvina tried to teach me never to love those of my blood. That all my brothers, my cousins—we would turn upon one another in the end. It had always been that way, for our race will tolerate nothing less than the strongest, the most ruthless upon the golden throne. The weaker barbarian clans to the north might allow an eldest son to rule and force the others to bow, but we of the Kazan needed ruthlessness.

“In my heart I rebelled, for I loved my brother Hanaga, and I knew there was a time when he loved me. Remember the incident when we were but cubs out sailing in the harbor and the boat overturned?”

Hazin nodded.

“I got tangled in the sails and went under. It was Hanaga who saved me. He could have left me to drown and thus have one less rival, but he saved me.”

“He was honorable in his way.”

“What was it like to kill him?” Yasim asked.

“It was the task assigned by the Grand Master. It was not for me to have feelings about it. I did as the Order required of me, an act that you were to pay for. So do not look at me that way, sire. It was you who, in the end, held the knife. I but gave him his release.”

His words cut deeply, and Yasim lowered his head. “Galvina the eunuch was right: love no one.”

“It has always been that way, it must always be that way.”

“Tell me, what have my surviving cousins offered you?”

“To kill you?”

“Yes?”

“Not as much as you have to keep you alive.”

“Damn all this. It is waste, contemptible waste.”

“Sire, it is our way. Show weakness, and you will die.” Yasim looked at him in surprise, wondering if here, for an instant, was genuine counsel, advice freely given, without calculation.

“Go on, I sense you wish to say more, Hazin.”

“Sire, we have been trapped on our islands for thousands of years. Until two hundred years ago, we did not have the knowledge, the ships capable of spanning the vastness of this sea, until the coming of the Prophet and his companions. They gave us the knowledge to begin the revolution that has taken us, in a hundred years, from ships of wood to ships of steel, from ships of sail to the power of the great engines below these decks.

“Now we can expand, and we must. I believe something has happened with the Portals. There were the Prophets, and now we find that the leader of the Bantag, their Qar Qarth came from another world—I suspect the same as the Prophets. This place is the meeting point between worlds.

“Sire, that I will tell you is part of the plan of the Order, to gain the Portals, to unlock them, to control them. For whoever does that first will survive. Whoever fails will perish.”

“And whoever controls them will have the power to rule,” Yasim interjected.

. “The Order answers to you, sire. They would be yours.”

Yasim smiled. “And the Shiv?”

“It started as an experiment, nothing more. We bred pets for our amusement, even our affections. We bred beasts to give us milk. The barbarians to the north bred horses that came from the human world to fit their size. Why not breed humans as well?”

“There is something I have never felt comfortable with concerning that.”

“Why?”

“They are intelligent. You’ve read the writings of Ovilla.”

Hazin laughed. “That they just might have souls? Nonsense.”

“They are self-aware, Hazin.”

“Perhaps horses are, too, but horses do not make guns, ships, machines that fly. The humans to the north breed wild, like beasts. I seek perfecting them and then the harnessing of them to our needs.

“With the Shiv we present two things to the humans who defeated our cousins. The first is the threat of them. They are unstoppable in battle and will fight with superior cunning. Second, they offer a hope that will weaken the will to resist.

“It will appear that we offer a way to end conflict. A way for humans and our race to live together.”

“Under your order.”

“Which answers to you,” Hazin replied quickly.

Yasim smiled. “Go on.”

“As the Republic is defeated and the Hordes to the north are placed under your banner, your cousins will be diverted, and in that time your throne will be secured. The internal wars will be forgotten in an external war of conquest. That has been the bedevilment of the Kazan for a thousand years.

“Prior to the coming of the Prophet, the wars were at least contained, the destruction limited, but even you will admit that within the last two generations, the carnage has become unsustainable. The weapons have become too destructive, too powerful.”

“Yes, I know that. I believe my brother Hanaga did, too.”

“What happened at Bukara, for example.”

Yasim wondered if there was an accusatory tone in Hazin’s voice. He had leveled Bukara, which had gone over to his cousin Tagamish. Over two hundred thousand had died.

“They had given a sacred pledge of support and then betrayed it. That was always our custom.”

“Before, you would have slain but the leaders of the city and their retainers. The entire city, though?”

“War changes. The city was a base. Its factories in the hands of a rebellious cousin unacceptable, and we could not hold it. Destruction was the only answer.”

“That is my point,” Hazin replied. “You did what was necessary, but that necessity is destroying us, while eventually the Republic of humans will expand until it is too late.”

“Visha started the change. We have reached the limits within our empire. So we expand.

“Your Shiv, though, I wonder what they will lead to.”

“Perhaps we should try the same experiment with our own race,” Hazin said, his voice barely a whisper.

Yasim felt a wave of revulsion, and he wondered if his reaction showed.

“Seriously, my lord. Why not? Allow our strongest, our most fit, our most brilliant to breed.”

“The rest?”

“There are ways to discourage them, or if need be prevent them.”

“Impossible.”

“Is it?”

“You’ve contemplated this?”