He trudged through the muck of the recent rain and avoided the heavy carts pulled by bawling brontosarries until he saw the smoke rising from “his” boiler. Several ’Cats tended the beast, and it shimmered with heat and suppressed energy. The engine it powered was one of the first they’d built, and it wheezed and blew steam from its eroded and imperfectly packed pistons. He hated the engine and wanted another one, but he had to respect it as well. It had been a prototype, crudely built and not expected to last, but here it was, still chugging away after, well, thousands of hours. The generator it turned was also one of their first and he was proud of it. He’d designed it himself, and it was doing fine. Laney’s shop had actually made the transmission gears that boosted the RPMs of the slow-turning engine to spin the generator fast enough to provide the calculated voltage, but Laney probably didn’t do it himself.
“Silly, useless bastard,” he muttered, and opened the fabric flap that covered the entrance to his domain.
“How you hand?” asked one of his new strikers solicitously. Rodriguez didn’t remember the ’Cat’s name. It was unpronounceable and he hadn’t earned a nickname yet, but he’d been one of the deserters he’d succeeded in keeping. The kid was working on one of their simplest products: thermocouples for the vast variety of temperature gauges everybody was screaming for. Essentially all he had to do was join a piece of copper to a piece of iron. When heat was applied to the joint, current was produced. The higher the heat, the more current. The reason he got to keep this ’Cat was that when he was trying to explain intangible, invisible free electrons, the little guy actually seemed to understand. He had high hopes for him.
Lemurians in general were almost naturally mechanically inclined and great with practical geometry. They were accomplished jokesters and pranksters and could conceptualize common hypothetical outcomes. They loved gizmos, and if they could see something, they could understand it without much trouble. They were very literal-minded, though. When it came to things they couldn’t see-like electricity-or even hypothetical outcomes they had no experience with, they had more trouble. He’d been forced to set up a few grade-school demonstrations to let them see electricity before he could convince them it was real. He also let them feel a little now and then, but had to caution them very carefully about feeling too much of it! He still wasn’t sure how much most of his ’Cat electrician’s mates and strikers really grasped, but they knew they had to make gizmos to create and harness the semimythical electricity, and they were good about scrupulously following safety regulations. The fact that he’d threatened to give them to Laney if they goofed around with the juice probably helped in that regard.
He waved his bandaged hand at the ’Cat with the unpronounceable name and moved along. He wanted to check on the progress of the portable DC generators they’d been working on when he hurt himself. He was surprised to find Steve Riggs waiting for him at the benches they’d set aside to assemble the things.
“Mr. Riggs! Good to see you, sir.”
Steve laughed. “You mean it’s good to see me without Laney for a change. Otherwise, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing here, getting in the way.”
“Well, yes, sir.”
“How’s the hand?”
Rodriguez raised his hand and flexed the fingers in the bandage. “Fine.”
“Good. Look, I really don’t mean to pester you, but these transmitters we’re putting together are pretty simple affairs. They don’t have tubes and their voltage requirements are somewhat critical. I just wanted to see for myself how you’re coming along.”
“Fair enough.” Rodriguez motioned him to a bench where several ’Cats were cleaning up a stack of short, pipe-shaped objects. “Those are the frames. They came out of Laney’s shop and they’re rough as hell. I have to have the guys file the burrs-with shitty files out of Laney’s shop…”
“I get the picture. Laney’s a piece of work. Skip it.”
“Aye-aye, sir. Anyway, those are the frames. These guys over here are wrapping the field coils.” He stopped, self-consciously. “That’s how I cut myself. It’s great the ’Cats can make wire; I just wish it was a little more, you know, round.”
“We’ll get to that someday,” Riggs said patiently. “For now, just be thankful. We’re starting to get a lot of wire out of Amagi, but we need it for other stuff.”
“Yes, sir. Anyway, there’s the pole shoes. We screw ’em to the frame on the inside and it holds the coils in place.”
Riggs gestured at a bin with a number of internal assemblies. “Those armatures look like they came out of the Delco factory.”
“Thank you, sir. They’re a bitch. First we have to turn the shafts on the one little lathe we have…”
“It is one of the ship’s lathes.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir. It would be nice if we could get the guys in the ordnance shop to make those, though. Them and the core. We can’t make those like they do at Delco. We have to mill the slots on the rotary table. It’s still not a huge job, but we’re going to need more capacity. We have to make the big generators one at a time, mostly using crap from Laney, and we can’t work on those at all while we’re doing this.”
“The guys at ordnance have their hands full. I’ll see if I can get you one of the new, bigger lathes, and maybe a bigger mill. You’ll have to make motors for them, though. This isn’t a belt-drive shop, and it isn’t going to be.”
“I understand. Motors we can do.”
“So, what are you insulating the coils with?”
“Fiber. Just like the real thing, only we mulch up some of Mr. Letts’s gasket material and mix it with some other stuff. Mikey’s in charge of that.”
“How does it hold up? What about heat?”
“So far, so good. We haven’t had the glue-up issues Ben has, for example, and it does insulate well. It’s kind of like putty. We cram some in on top of the coils in the core slot too. Anyway, the coils are soldered to the commutator bar.”
Riggs inspected one of the brush end frames that a ’Cat was finishing up. “You wave-wound the core, but you’re only using two brushes?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve still got a hell of a spring shortage. We’re actually using the same gear springs Ordnance is making for their musket locks! Wave-wound generators will work with two brushes or four. We might want to put four in later.”
Riggs pulled the short whiskers on his chin. “Musket springs!” He snorted. “How do the brushes hold up?”
“The springs are fairly stout and they don’t have much range of motion. The brushes’ll have to be replaced every hundred hours or so, I’m afraid. Since we have to use brass bushings, they’ll have to be kept lubed and replaced pretty often too.”
Riggs nodded. “Okay, I want a dozen extra brushes, two extra musket springs, and half a dozen bushing sets for each completed generator. What are you doing to regulate the voltage?”
“Well, sir, since you want these things to be wind powered, we’ve calculated a low cut-in speed and a high charging rate at those lower speeds. If a serious blow hits, it’ll need to be disconnected. If they spin up too fast, centrifugal force will throw the windings out of their slots and thrash the whole thing. To cap the voltage, well, we’ve got to use a voltage regulator.” Rodriguez pointed at yet another group of ’Cats working at a separate bench. “They’re making vibrating regulators. I don’t think they have a clue what they’re doing, but I calculated all the values and gave them the plans. They could all be watchmakers after the war. They won’t screw ’em up. Of course, I’ve got my ammeter to double-check each one. Managed to save that.”
Riggs smiled. “Very good. Very, very good. If you weren’t already in charge, I’d put you there.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Now, one more thing; just a little matter, really. How do you plan to refurbish the generators, motors, and other essential equipment on Walker after we raise the ship?”
“And this, dear boy, if I’m not much mistaken, is the spleen!” Co
urtney Bradford leaned back and fanned himself with his sombrerolike hat, as much to clear the vapors of the quickly putrefying creature as to cool himself. It was hot, even in the shade of the trees surrounding the parade ground where the lesson was under way. Abel Cook, his most avid student, leaned forward to view the structure. Abel was thirteen, and he’d long since grown out of the clothes he’d been wearing during his evacuation from Surabaya aboard S-19. Most of the other boys who’d been similarly saved had applied to become midshipmen in the American Navy. Abel had too, but of all of them, he was the only one who’d shown an interest in the natural sciences. Bradford couldn’t-and wouldn’t-try to prevent the boy from serving, but he saw in the blond-haired, fair-skinned, somewhat gangly teen a much younger version of himself. “We need more of me around here,” Courtney had argued with Captain Reddy, and to his surprise, Matt had agreed. Abel was still a midshipman, and naval dungarees had replaced his battered clothes, but Courtney would have him as an apprentice. For a while, at least.
“I believe you’re right,” the boy replied, his voice cracking slightly. “And that must be the gallbladder,” he said, pointing. “It is quite large!”
“The better to digest the dreadful things they eat, I shouldn’t wonder!” Bradford beamed.
Other students attended the dissection as well, ’Cat corpsmen trainees, and they shuffled forward to look. The cadaver was that of a local variety of skuggik, a much smaller but clearly related species to the Grik. Skuggiks were vicious little scavengers, mostly, and their arms had evolved away, so their external physiology bore marked differences to that of their enemy. Internally however, they were virtually identical smaller versions. Courtney had attempted to save actual Grik for the demonstrations, but there was no means of cooling them. His modest hoard of postbattle corpses had been revealed by their stench and he’d been forced to surrender them. For now, his little open-air class on comparative biology would have to make do with skuggiks.
“And what is that lobed structure it is attached to?” Bradford asked. “Be silent, Abel,” he admonished. “Let someone else answer for a change.”
“Lungs!” proclaimed one of the young Lemurians triumphantly. Most of the others snickered.
Bradford sighed. “Would you like another try?”
The ’Cat looked more intently and wrinkled her nose. “You say that other st’ucture is a spleeng? I thought you say spleeng is on lungs?” There was chittering laughter this time.
“Perhaps, my dear, you might consider applying for another posting?”
“It is liver!” burst out another voice. “Big, ugly Grik-like liver!”
“Precisely!” exclaimed Bradford, his gentle chastisement instantly forgotten. His eyes narrowed and he looked at the organ in question. “A rather dry, reeking liver, in fact. Perhaps it’s time we called it a day. Our specimen is withering before our very eyes… and noses!” He nodded at his assistants. “Please do dispose of this chap with all proper ceremony. We’ll continue the lecture tomorrow with a fresh, um, subject. Weather permitting, we may start before the heat of the day!” With that, all but Abel scampered away, glad to escape the stench.
“Well!” said Bradford, still fanning himself and gauging the height of the sun. “Still some hours before dinner, I fear. Most barbarous, this local custom of eating only twice a day! Most barbarous. I’ll never grow accustomed to it, and I may not survive.” Secretly, he was glad Abel hadn’t scurried off with the others. He didn’t know why, exactly. He’d always generally loathed children: silly, mindless little creatures. His own son had been different, of course. A rare, exceptional specimen, most likely. He doubted he’d ever see the boy again, or even know if he was alive. He’d gone to fly Hurricanes for the RAF back in ’39, and Courtney was slowly growing to accept that pining over his son’s fate was pointless. In his heart, the boy would live forever. His ex-wife never entered his thoughts. That left Abel. Maybe that was it? Perhaps the boy was becoming something of a surrogate son? He was clearly unusually bright: unlike the other children who’d been aboard the submarine, he had the sense to seek Courtney’s company and he had an insatiable curiosity.
Abel seemed to commiserate with him for a moment about the local customs, but then brightened. “Well, sir, if you’re hungry, I’m sure we could find something at the Castaway Cook.”
Bradford arched an eyebrow and looked at the boy. The Castaway Cook was a ramshackle, abandoned warehouse a short distance from the shipyard. It had suffered serious damage in the fighting and was really little more than a standing roof when Walker ’s cook, Earl Lanier, appropriated it as a kind of enlisted men’s club. It currently had little value as a warehouse, since there was no pier. In fact, it sported one of the few actual beaches on the Baalkpan waterfront. Earl was a ship’s cook, and that was all he was. With his galley underwater, he’d decided he better get back to doing what he knew before somebody made him do something he didn’t. Besides, “the fellas is always hungry,” he’d explained. He was right. The American destroyermen and submariners he fed were still accustomed to three meals a day, and with all the work there was for everyone, the Lemurian destroyermen and other naval personnel were often hungry too. It was good for morale. The various army regiments were beginning to establish haunts of their own, and with Captain Reddy and Adar’s approval had come the stern warning that Marines would also be welcome at Lanier’s establishment. Or else.
Earl did a booming business. Besides Pepper, he had five more cooks and half a dozen waitresses. There were also several bartenders and that was what made Bradford’s eyebrow rise. The Castaway Cook had another, possibly more common name: the Busted Screw. The entendres of that name were too numerous to count, but the accepted reference was to the party they’d held after replacing Walker ’s damaged propeller with Mahan ’s at Aryaal.
Bradford studied the boy’s innocent expression. “Well, I suppose,” he relented. Together, they dodged the ’Cats and marching troops, stopping now and then to admire various sea creatures on display in the bazaar. Coastal artillery crews drilled on their guns behind reinforced embrasures with augmented overhead protection. Abel watched it all, fascinated, and Courtney felt a growing benevolent affection for the lad.
“Do you ever miss the other children, the ones you were stranded among so long?” Bradford probed.
Abel cocked his head to the side. “I see them now and then,” he said thoughtfully, “but we never had much in common, you know. The girls were all-mostly all-ridiculous, squalling crybabies. Miss, uh, Princess Rebecca was the exception, of course.”
“Indeed she was. And is. Most extraordinary.” Even though Rebecca was also clearly a child, Bradford actually admired her. She had a quick mind and was utterly fearless. With a flash, he suddenly realized that Abel Cook obviously “admired” her as well. “Indeed,” he repeated. He motioned toward the martial exercises under way. “Do you wish you had more of that to do? Your, ah, other comrades, the ones old enough, are quite involved in it, you know. Of course you do.”
“I do miss it some,” Abel confessed. “I’d like to be a soldier or a naval officer.” He paused. “I think my father would expect it. Did you know, of all the children aboard S-19, I am the only one whose father was a military man? He was a naval attache and interpreter for Admiral Palliser.” He paused again, and continued more softly. “He was liaison aboard DeRuyter when she went down. I don’t… I’ll never know what happened to him.” The boy’s lip quivered ever so slightly, but his voice didn’t. Bradford knew then that he had far more in common with this lad than he would ever have imagined. “All the other children-the boys, at least-were the sons of important men, but I think Admiral Palliser got me on the submarine himself. Mum was supposed to come, but there wasn’t enough room there at the end. Sister Audry offered to leave the boat, but Mum wouldn’t have it. The captain, Ensign Laumer, even Mr. Flynn wanted to take her anyway, but that Dutch cow,” he said, referring to a somewhat dumpy Dutch nanny in charge of most of the girls, “said
it just ‘wouldn’t do.’ Things were ‘quite cramped enough as it was.’” Abel’s tone turned bitter. “There would have been room for several more people if they’d have just set that one ridiculous woman ashore. I’m sure she weighs as much as a torpedo and occupies three times the space!”
“Now, now,” admonished Courtney gently, “I can certainly see your point. But one mustn’t be unkind.”
Besides Sandra and Karen Theimer Letts, only two other Navy nurses had survived: Pam Cross and Kathy McCoy. Pam was engaged in a torrid part-time affair with Dennis Silva, and for a time that had left only one known, and… wholesomely unattached female in the entire world: Kathy McCoy. This intolerable situation had resulted in the increasingly desperate “dame famine.” That famine still existed to a degree. The only practical means of truly breaking it seemed to lie in establishing good relations with the Empire, but there were a few more women in Baalkpan now. There’d been four nannies, not counting Sister Audry, on S-19 to care for the twenty children of diplomats and industrialists aboard the sub. Two of them, one British and the “ridiculous” Dutchwoman, dropped all pretense of nannyhood and had taken it upon themselves to “thank” as many of their destroyermen rescuers as they could in the best way they knew how, as soon as they returned to Baalkpan after the battle. Both women were rather plain and had probably landed right in the middle of their version of heaven. Perhaps the dame famine was broken, but in spite of terrible losses, the male-to-female ratio was very considerably out of whack. They were only two women, after all, and their energy and gratitude had limits. For now, the dame drought still smoldered.
“Besides,” Courtney continued, “your mother surely found a far safer transport, in retrospect.”
“Possibly,” Abel allowed, but his tone sounded unconvinced. For a while, the pair walked in silence.
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