Distant Thunders

by Taylor Anderson

  Alan nodded self-consciously. “Yeah, well, like I said, Bradford discovered it. Some sort of tree in the northwestern marshes—where all those tar pits are. The trees draw the stuff up in their roots and deposit it in the lower outer layers of their trunks. Bradford says it protects them from insects.”

  “Whatever. It’s good stuff. Mallory swears by it. He ran his little airplane motor for twenty hours straight the other day and never got a leak. He says it’s kind of hard to take stuff apart after it’s been heated up, though. It sort of glues things together. He’s calling it the ‘Letts Gasket’ and says you ought to take out a patent, since you’re the one who figured out the application.”

  “I’ll be sure to share my wealth with Courtney.”

  Adar had joined them, and when the laughter subsided, he addressed Alan. “What is a ‘patent’?”

  Alan looked at him and his expression turned serious. “Well, it’s sort of a reward, I guess. It’s a way people are rewarded for coming up with good ideas. Where we come from, laws protect those ideas from being used by other people. For example, if I invented a new gizmo—say the ‘Letts gasket’—and got a patent on it, nobody else could swipe my idea and make the same thing without my permission. Usually, people would pay . . . or, ah, trade for permission.”

  Adar blinked concern. “Among our people there are clans or guilds that possess secret skills only they may pass on. That has caused many of my problems with the shipwrights. Is that much the same? Are you telling me you want permission to use your ‘gaas-kets’?”

  “No, Adar. It was a joke. ‘My’ gasket material is at everyone’s disposal! I’m afraid we do need to have a long talk about that sort of thing when we get a chance, though.”

  Alan knew he was going to have to sit down with Adar one of these days and figure out some sort of financial system. Right now, everyone was highly motivated by the war effort and there was little grumbling about long hours, depletion of resources, and a somewhat lopsided distribution of labor and wealth. Before the war, Lemurian finance was based on an age-old, carefully refined, and fairly sophisticated barter system. Everything was worth exactly so much of something else. Even labor was valued in such a way. Some types of labor were worth more than others, but “wages” were still calculated by time-honored equivalent values. So much time in the shipyard, for example, was worth so many measures of gri-kakka oil, or grain, or seep. One length of fabric was worth so many weights of copper or fish, and so on. Obviously, people didn’t carry their “wealth” around with them, or always even have possession of it, but everyone kept careful tabulations of who owed what to whom. To Alan, it was all profoundly confusing and inefficient, but he could see how it had worked for so long and, admittedly, well.

  The problem was, right now there was an awful lot of activity and production under way and nobody was being “paid” anything. The situation struck a lot of the destroyermen as downright Stalinist, or at least mildly Red. With so much time ashore to think about such things, there’d been increased grumbling over how many barrels of gri-kakka oil a month being in the U.S. Navy was worth. The guys were fed and their booze at the Busted Screw was free, but the time was approaching when they might want to buy something. Going back to the old barter system was almost impossible too, since no one had been keeping tabs for a long time now. They’d have to start all over from scratch, and Alan knew from experience how hard it was to clear the books when it came to trades and favors.

  He’d been reluctant to approach Adar about the problem because the guy already had so much on his plate. There was the war, of course, and the question of what to do about Jenks. Sister Audry and the presence of the descendants of the “ancient tail-less ones” had him all stirred up about religious matters, and he was walking a tightrope while he tried to figure that out. All were serious matters, but the financial cloud beginning to loom had the potential to eclipse all those other concerns. Somehow, Alan and Adar had to make time for this talk. Soon.

  Adar sighed. “Very well. I think I know what you mean and you are right. If we had been keeping track, the people’s surplus—guarded by Nakja-Mur and now myself—would have been gone long ago. With everything else . . . I do not look forward to that talk, but I welcome your suggestions.” He motioned to the ship in the deepening gloom. “What have you discovered . . . besides bones?” His tone was suddenly urgent. “Can you fix her? You do understand she has become something of a . . . talisman to my People. Younglings carve images—icons of her, almost like Sister Audry’s saints. The good sister speaks of your Lux Mundi, ah, Jesu Christo, and I must give that issue much thought.” He paused. “Perhaps very much was lost in translation long ago. In any event, right now Walker is seen as the savior of my People—the People of Baalkpan and many others. Can you comprehend how important she has become to all of us?”

  “Yeah,” said Spanky, uncharacteristically quiet. “I wouldn’t go runnin’ around calling her a ‘savior’ or anything if I was you”—he glanced at Letts—“but we can damn sure comprehend how important she is. Trust me.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The sky was perfect. There were just enough puffy clouds to provide an occasional respite from the overhead sun, and the blue was so pure and fresh from horizon to horizon that the contrast with the clouds was as sharp as a knife. Matt had spent a great deal of time staring at the sky over the last few days, since he now knew from experience that they were entering the stormy time of year. Currently, the sky meant them no harm and the sea retained that glorious, possibly unique purplish hue he found so difficult to describe. The steady cooling breeze blew up just enough chop to give it character. Gentle whitecaps magically appeared, sparkling under the sun, then vanished like unique little lives. Ahead lay the northeast coast of B’mbaado and the broad bay beyond. B’mbaado was not as thickly forested as Java, but from his perspective now, all Matt could see was a brilliant bluish green, turning golden at the top. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never be able to reconcile the sheer, exotic, primordial beauty he beheld all around him with the savage lethality that lurked behind the mask.

  Donaghey was an absolute joy, and he understood why Garrett loved her so. She and the other “first construction” frigates were built at the same time, but by the old methods. Unlike the new construction, there were subtle differences from one to the next. Tolson was a proud, stout ship and had a proud record too, but no matter what her crew did, she just didn’t have Donaghey’s speed and grace. Her bow was blunter, her beam a bit wider, her shear not as sharp. She was formed a little more like her Grik counterparts. Donaghey’s builders had made everything just a bit more extreme. The result was that the flagship of the 2nd Allied Expeditionary Force was also its fastest element, besides the feluccas, and she could outrun them with the wind abaft the beam.

  Tolson cruised not far behind, but the steam frigates were in the distance, laboring to keep up. They were screened by the altered corvettes whose characteristics, as expected, were respectable, and Matt grinned to think how frustrated their skippers must be. The problem wasn’t that the steamers were terribly slow; they weren’t. They were faster than anything they’d seen of the Grik under any circumstances. They were much faster even than Donaghey when the wind was still.

  With a good wind, the steamers were faster—and far more economical—under sail, but their paddles and screws caused drag and there was nothing they could do about that. On one of the new ships, Nakja-Mur, they’d tried a solution attempted in the previous century. Her screw was designed to be raised and lowered by means of a complex system that had slowed her construction considerably. The scheme worked, after a fashion—and at least it hadn’t failed catastrophically—but it didn’t really do much for her speed. Even with the screw retracted, there was still the large, blunt sternpost to consider. She did steer better however. Jim Ellis complained that Dowden’s steering was “mushy” unless she was under power.

  The new engines hadn’t really had a test yet. They’d gotten the ships under
way and out in the Makassar Strait without anything flying apart, but since the discovery that they only slowed the ships while under sail, they’d been secured. Matt wished he’d been able to test them further while they were close to home, but what if he needed them later and they’d already failed? It was a balancing act of necessities. Eventually he would need them. He just wished he knew whether he could count on them.

  As usual, Matt and Greg Garrett were standing companionably silent on the quarterdeck. It was a custom they’d observed many times. Sometimes there just didn’t need to be words. Matt knew Jim understood it too. The three of them had been through so much together, small talk was often not only superfluous, but distracting Safir Maraan and Lord Rolak ascended to the quarterdeck and caught their eyes. Matt smiled at them and waved them over. The B’mbaadan and Aryaalan troops were mostly on other ships, but Chack was aboard with most of his 2nd Marines. Rolak went where Matt went; he was still insistent on that, but Matt suspected Safir was aboard because of Chack. They weren’t “officially” mated yet, but it was just a matter of time. Matt expected a formal announcement and ceremony to cap the liberation of B’mbaado.

  “Cap-i-taan,” Safir greeted him.

  “My lord,” said Rolak.

  “Queen Protector, Lord Rolak,” Matt replied. He looked at Rolak. “Feeling better?” The old warrior grimaced and blinked irritation.

  “A glorious day and a beautiful ship!” said Safir. She’d grown almost giddy with excitement the closer they came to her home. With luck, it would be hers again. Hers and her people’s.

  “Indeed they are,” Matt agreed. “And as for the ship, I think I love her!” he admitted.

  “You can’t have her, Skipper,” Garrett said with a grin. “I just got her back!”

  Matt chuckled. “Don’t worry, Greg. I think peeling her paint with tweezers would be easier than getting you off this ship.” He nodded past the masts and taut canvas forward. “There’s your coastline, Your Majesty, and not a Grik ship in sight. You’d think they’d at least have a few pickets out, but we haven’t seen a thing.” He shook his head. “Silly to expect them to think like us, but we know they’ve picked up a few ideas.”

  “It is a sight I have long craved,” Safir admitted wistfully. “I am excited, I admit, but some of your uneasiness tugs at me as well.”

  “Am I uneasy?” Matt asked. “I suppose. I wish we had a little recon . . .” He avoided saying, I wish we had the PBY, for the ten thousandth time, but they all knew what he meant. “This steaming—I mean sailing—blindly into a situation we know nothing about reminds me too much of old times. I’d almost rather we had to chase down and pound on a few scouts. Besides”—he grinned predatorily—“it would be fun.”

  “ ‘Fun,’ he says.” Garrett chuckled. “Remember what happened last time I had a little ‘fun.’”

  “But surely this is different,” rumbled Rolak. “Even a large fleet would be no match for us now, and if there are no Grik to sound the alarm, the surprise of our arrival will be all the greater.”

  “In a perfect world,” Matt agreed. He didn’t elaborate on how imperfect he considered this world to be. “But they’ve had as much time to recover as we have. Okada didn’t think they could bring anything forward for a while, but with what we know they left in Aryaal when they moved on Baalkpan, they wouldn’t need to, to make it a damned bloody fight.” He looked at Safir. “I’ve no doubt we’ll win, but I’m always counting the cost. I have to. Besides, we know the Grik can surprise us—they’ve done it before—and if they didn’t eat Kurokawa, he might’ve helped them arrange something . . . unexpected.”

  Two Marines tromped up the companionway. One was clearly Chack, still wearing his battered American helmet at a jaunty angle. The other seemed vaguely familiar, but Matt couldn’t place him. He was uncomfortably aware that unless he knew them well and their coloration or dress was distinctive, he had a hard time telling one ’Cat from another. The two Marines drew close and saluted.

  “Cap-i-taans,” Chack said. “Lord Rolak”—he smiled slightly—“Your Highness. I beg to report the discovery of this . . . creature . . . in my own ranks!”

  Rolak peered more closely at the Marine. “By the Sun God’s tail! Lord Koratin, you have lost much weight!”

  Koratin! Now Matt remembered. He’d been a big wheel in Aryaal and had even been an advisor to its murdering king, Rasik-Alcas! He’d met him briefly when they retook the city right before the evacuation. For some reason, Rolak hadn’t hanged him and Matt had forgotten all about him.

  “Indeed!” replied Koratin. “I feel like a youngling again! I have always maintained that martial exercises strengthen the mind, body, and character.”

  “Character!” Rolak huffed. “I have occasionally—and briefly—wondered what happened to you after our last meeting. I assumed you were aboard Nerracca when she was lost, since you hadn’t been insinuating yourself in the business of the Alliance. Yet here you stand, proving once again your consummate skill for survival!”

  “Here I stand, Lord Rolak,” Koratin answered, suddenly less ebullient.

  Chack cleared his throat. “It seems Koratin enlisted in the First Baalkpan as a private as soon as he arrived in the city. He doubted he would be popular in an Aryaalan regiment. . . . In any event, he distinguished himself in battle and was therefore eligible to apply for Marine training.” Chack blinked irony. “He graduated ‘boot camp’ as a squad leader corporal.”

  As things now stood in the Lemurian Marine Corps, only combat veterans could be considered for promotion. If there were ever peace, that might change, but for now the system worked well.

  Rolak glanced incredulously at the twin red “stripes” on Koratin’s kilt. “You earned corporal’s stripes,” he said, astonished. “That is more than you ever did in any previous post.”

  “True,” Koratin agreed, “and I cherish those two stripes more than the finest robe I ever wore.” His voice was still soft. “I owed it to my younglings. To all the younglings of our people, Lord Rolak. This, at least, I think you will believe.”

  Rolak nodded and looked at Matt. “Koratin was never evil. Vain, venal, and grasping, but not evil. I did not hang him because I believed he truly tried to stop Rasik and warn us of his treachery.” He grumbled a chuckle. “It did not harm his case that Rasik was trying to kill him when we entered the city.”

  “You trust him?” Safir asked, surprised.

  “I trust his dedication to younglings. That was never in doubt. Even at his worst, he often told noble tales and performed dramas for younglings in open forum. Moral dramas that taught principles he never used to live by.”

  “I was corrupt,” Koratin agreed. “I thought I controlled my destiny. I knew my failings, yet I tried to set an example of integrity beyond myself so the younglings of our city might become better beings than I.” He looked at Matt. “I have heard the words of your Sister Audry when she has come among the troops and I know not what power guides all things, whether it is the Sun God, or this other God of yours. Maybe they are the same.” He shrugged. “But now I know that no one can hope to control destiny; it has a will of its own, its own plans for all of us. We are but leaves swept into a whirlpool not of our making. We do our best; that is all we can do, but in the end, in this arbitrary new way of war, our fates are in the hands of whichever God truly watches over us. Ultimately, we can only hope He will consider us fit company for the ones He has chosen to reward.”

  Taken aback, Matt could only stare. He hadn’t known Sister Audry’s “ministry” had penetrated so deeply. She hadn’t built a cathedral next to the Great Hall, so he figured she was keeping things low-key. He knew she’d helped many of his men who felt lost and confused, regardless of denomination, but thought she’d otherwise confined her discussions with Adar. He hoped they didn’t return to Baalkpan to find it locked in a holy war. “Jesus,” he whispered.

  “Carry on, Corporal Koratin,” he said at last. “You’re dismissed.” When salutes were e
xchanged and Koratin was gone, he looked almost helplessly at Chack and the others. “What were we saying about surprises?”

  “Are you sure he can be trusted?” persisted Safir. “Perhaps this is another of his dramas, and he speaks . . . most strangely.”

  Rolak looked thoughtful. “I don’t think he performs; he was never that good. He was always strange, however. Chack?”

  Chack blinked and shook his head. “His squad respects him, even the Aryaalans among them. When I said he distinguished himself in battle, it was something of an understatement.”

  “Let him be,” Matt decided. “I guess we’ll see. He’s right about one thing: none of us knows our destiny.” He glanced toward the now barely visible passage between B’mbaado and the distant Sapudis. “Or what we’ll find in that bay.”

  They pushed on through the day and into the night. Matt sent a detail of ’Cats to Jenks’s ship to serve as pilots, and keen-eyed Lemurian lookouts spied carefully ahead for shoals or enemy ships. A quarter moon gave more than sufficient light for them to warn of any danger. All night, the tension ratcheted up, and Garrett shortened sail on Matt’s orders so the fleet could consolidate. Two hours before dawn, he gave the order for all ships to advance in line abreast and come to general quarters. If they encountered the enemy, they’d execute a turn to port on a signal from the flagship, and form a battle line. Achilles would maneuver to keep the battle line between herself and the Grik.

  With the sun, they were close enough to see the remains of distant Aryaal through binoculars. Matt raised his precious Bausch & Lombs and adjusted the objective. It was still too far to make out any real details of the city, but except for a few jutting masts here and there that marked the graves of some recent Grik wrecks—possibly survivors of the Battle of Baalkpan that could make it no farther—there were no enemy ships in the bay.