Straits of Hell

by Taylor Anderson

  “Still nuttin’ for us, spaacsiffically,” the ’Cat groaned. “I send, but I guess we ain’t gettin’ through. Them mountains Mr. Braadf-furd says is between us, I bet, gets in the way. I still pickin’ up stuff, now an’ then. Some clear, some not.” He paused. “Amer-i-kaa get to Diego okay. That come through good early this mornin’. Still dark, here. Better, ah, ‘aat-mos-pherics,’ I guess. She gonna lay over for some few repairs before steamin’ on to Baalkpan. Mr. Braad-furd got some traffic from A-mer-i-kaa then too, but run me out to take it, an’ I don’t know what it was about,” the ’Cat said, then added thoughtfully, “Chairmaan Adar prob’ly askin’ him what bugs an’ such we seen so far, I bet.”

  “Swell,” Silva snapped, thumping Petey on the head. The little tree-glider was perched on his shoulder, a small, clawed finger picking in his ear while Petey stared inside in apparent amazement. Petey blinked. “Goddamn!” he shrieked, shaking his head.

  “‘Goddamn’ is right, you little shit. Did you hear that? You’d be cavortin’ on shore with plenty to eat, an’ all them Diego ’Cats—them ‘Lalaantis’—fawnin’ over you an’ stuffin’ fish down your miserable gullet if you’d’a just gone back to Miss Sandra like you should’a.” Silva still wasn’t sure why the Skipper’s dame hadn’t just taken the little creep back. She’d seen him often enough.

  “Eat?”

  “No, damn you, an’ keep your fingers outa my ear!” He looked back at the ’Cat. “How ’bout Walker? She get in okay?” The last they’d heard, Walker had gone to search the strait for survivors of Jarrik’s task force. She found two ships. One was Jarrik’s own Tassat, dismasted, her boilers wrecked, and wallowing dangerously close to one of the Comoros Islands. The other was one of the fast transports in similar shape a little farther north. No other member of the gallant little task force had been seen or heard from. Walker, still using a hand tiller while her steering gear was repaired, and then Santa Catalina, had been attempting to tow both ships back to Grik City.

  “They musta made it okay,” the ’Cat said. “I get reported that the tows got in, when they send the caas-ulty lists.”

  “Hmm. Damn it, we should’a been there. Feel like we was playin’ hooky from the fight, on this here pleasure cruise.” He held up a hand. “Not that I’m against playin’ hooky in general, but I surely hate to miss a fight.”

  Despite his first irritated inclination, the ’Cat wisely didn’t comment on how little difference Silva’s presence would’ve made to the outcome of the battle. Besides, even still slightly weakened by his wounds, Silva had proven many times just how much difference he was capable of making.

  “We’ll return soon enough, Mr. Silva,” Courtney Bradford consoled absently. The balding Australian had crowded in behind him in the cramped passageway between the berthing space forward and the engine room aft. He looked tired, disappointed, and . . . frightened? That wasn’t like him. “But we’re here, after all, and must at least have a look about while we are.” Even stranger, he sounded like he was trying to convince himself of that. “By the way,” he asked too casually, “have you seen Sergeant McGinnis? Or Corporal Miles? I need to have a word.”

  “A word with both, or just Miles? Silva asked, then shrugged. “I dunno, but they ain’t pals. I doubt they’re together. Miles is prob’ly hidin’ from the water. Look someplace dry. Shouldn’t take long. Ain’t many places to hide in this little teacup.” He squinted. “Last I seen Miles was just before dawn, I guess, pukin’ over the fantail, right out in the rain. Worst case o’ Marine Pukery I ever saw; worse than Gunny Horn. What is it with those guys?” He frowned. “But Horn’s a right guy. Miles is a sneaky, squeaky, chickenshit little possum turd. Don’t know why he came. Prob’y playin’ hooky for real. What do you want with him?”

  “It’s none of your concern, Mr. Silva,” Bradford assured somewhat forcefully, and that, of course, was the absolute worst thing he could’ve said if he wanted Silva to leave it alone. Without another word, Bradford squeezed past and worked his way forward.

  “Silva!” came Lawrence’s voice down the companionway. “Chack and Ensign Hardee are calling you on deck! You take a look at so’thing.”

  “Oh, all right, you goofy little skink.” He turned to the comm-’Cat. “Sing out, you hear anything new.”

  The ’Cat sighed. “Sure.”

  Silva crouched and took a couple steps aft, careful not to conk his head on the low deck beams, then poked it up through the companionway. The rain had finally stopped and a small gap had opened in the clouds, letting a stream of morning sunlight touch the misty jungle to starboard. Far beyond, to the west-northwest, high, hazy mountains reared to the sky. He grunted and climbed the steps to stand on deck behind the conning station beside Chack, Lawrence, Nat Hardee, and Nat’s Lemurian XO. Two others were hurriedly rigging the.30-caliber machine gun on the hard point newly attached to the starboard splash-guard bulwark. Nat was clearly upset and trying hard not to show it. “Yep,” Silva said seriously, “it’s a jungle.”

  “Look closer,” Chack said grimly, blinking furiously and pointing at the nearby shore. They’d all seen the jungle for the last couple of days, of course, but that was all they could see through the rain.

  Silva squinted his good eye, then widened it. “I’ll swan,” was all he said. Erected at the shoreline near the massive, rotted, tangled roots of the great Galla tree they were moored to was a lattice of bright green bamboo-like stalks, lashed together and obviously positioned so they’d easily see it. Spread-eagled and tied to the lattice was a naked man. At least it looked like a man. The corpse was horribly mutilated, with the flesh flayed from the bones of the arms and legs. The torso, though roughly intact, had been split from pelvis to sternum, and glistening loops of entrails dangled down past the hide-lashed feet. Empty eye sockets gaped upward, and the lower jaw and tongue had been hacked away.

  “Miles and McGinnis both have black hair,” Nat said simply. A bloody black mop of hair was the corpse’s only distinguishing feature. Courtney climbed from below, shaking his head, followed by a pale Ian Miles. “Sergeant McGinnis is not aboard,” he said. Miles quickly saw what they were all staring at and took a step back toward the companionway, his mouth working.

  “Poor bastard,” Silva said. “I kinda . . . didn’t hate McGinnis.” His tone and convoluted statement made it clear he’d have preferred it if Courtney found the sergeant alive instead of Miles.

  “But who gitteem?” cried Nat’s XO. “They had’ta come aboard! Along the Galla tree!”

  “And they could’ve gotten us all,” Chack agreed. “Why not?”

  “’Cause whoever it is either figgered they couldn’t take us all—or mainly wanted to scare us off,” Silva said, looking at the deck. “Too bad I can’t see no tracks. No way to tell what they are.”

  “What,” Chack said. “You mean ‘what kind of people.’” It wasn’t a question.

  “No ‘people’ did that, but yeah. Whether it was humans like the Maroons—or the ’Cats we came lookin’ for.”

  “Scaring us off worked on me,” Nat said abruptly. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “Damn right!” Miles agreed.

  “No, we’re not!” Courtney said harshly. “Not yet!”

  “But, Mr. Bradford!” Nat objected.

  “I’m in charge here!”

  “No,” Chack said softly. “I am. You’re in charge of any negotiations our presence may bring about, but I’m in charge of the mission.” He took a long breath. “That said, we came here for a reason, and we must go ashore and discover exactly who is responsible for this.”

  “What you mean is, to find out whether it was ’Cats or not,” Silva said. “The very folks we came to meet!” Chack jerked a nod. “Well, I’m game, Chackie, you know that,” he said, louder now, but still looking at his friend. They all knew the Grik were capable of terrible things. So were the human Doms. But they’d never enc
ountered any Lemurians in all their travels even remotely capable of what they now beheld. They were always the ‘good guys,’ generally peace loving, friendly, even possibly better in their own minds, in some indefinable moral way. And if it had been a tribe of Lemurians who did this thing, it could surely shake things up. Silva loved to shake things up, but even he wasn’t sure this was the best time for a racial, psychic shock like this. “If it was ’Cats, it was probably just one crummy little tribe that tries to scare folks instead of fightin’,” he consoled, “but my money’s on none of ’em bein’ quite as shy an’ peaceable as them Maroon fellas made out. And if I’m right, I wonder why they went on like they were?”

  “Because this may not have been done by Lemurians at all,” Courtney stated, still more harshly than his custom, “or as you say, it could’ve been the work of a single, isolated tribe.”

  “Or they told you that ’cause you ex’ect to hear it,” Lawrence speculated, “and didn’t tell the truth ’cause they ha’ just joined our struggle against the Grik, a struggle o’ ’Cats. They not anger us.”

  Silva appraised his Grik-like friend with rising brows. “Makes sense, an’ that’s what I woulda’ done,” he agreed. “Never piss off the guys with guns, fightin’ on your side.” He looked at Chack. “So we’re stayin’?”

  “For a while.”

  Silva nodded and opened a locker on the bulwark, retrieving his “personal” Thompson. He removed the magazine, checked it, then reinserted it and pulled the bolt back.

  “What are you going to do?” Courtney asked, suddenly alarmed. “We will stay, but in light of this new . . . development, we must carefully plan any explorations!”

  Silva looked at the gruesome display ashore and then touched the guard on the cutlass hanging at his side. “Whoever done that—a nutty human offshoot o’ the Maroons, wild, cannibal ’Cats, or the goddamn tooth fairy—they sneaked up on us to do it, and I doubt they gave McGinnis any kinda chance. Buncha cowards!” he suddenly bellowed, and Petey jerked on his perch around the back of Silva’s neck. The shout echoed dully off the surrounding jungle, and small flying creatures leaped into the air with raucous cries. He stepped around the bulwark and headed for the bow and the fallen tree beyond. “Somebody’s gotta go cut him down,” he growled.

  Chack hopped over the bulwark and pulled his own cutlass. “I will go with you, my friend,” he called, then looked back. “No one ever goes anywhere, or even stands on the deck of the Seven boat in this terrible place alone!” he said.

  “I think we need to get the hell out of here,” Miles insisted quietly.

  Palace of Vanished Gods

  Sofesshk

  First General Esshk, now wearing a long red robe instead of the shorter, customary cape over his armor, paced within the vast sunlit chamber of the Palace of Vanished Gods that he’d made his own. The new robe proclaimed his elevated status of Regent Champion of all the Ghaarrichk’k, and it swayed and dusted the tightly fitted stone floor as he strode back and forth, hands clasped before him in contemplation. The walls of the chamber were covered by dense, climbing ivies reminiscent of Tsalka’s lost palace on Ceylon. Together with the sunlight that bathed him by ingenious reflections through various openings, it was a far more inviting abode than the similarly arranged, but dank and dreary halls within the Celestial Palace on Madagascar.

  He wondered again how the slain Celestial Mother and her ancestors could’ve chosen to dwell in such a place when this one still existed. Perhaps her removal had been originally inspired by a desire to keep her remote from her subjects? A distant, unseen, idealized god was always easier to worship than one visible to all, he supposed. And though the previous Celestial Mother had been cunning in her way, and wore her authority with a sublime assurance, she’d been naive and suffused with too much assurance, perhaps, that her divinity should be universally accepted. Even by their foes. Better that she’d been so far away, Esshk decided. Her appearance had certainly been impressive and intimidating, even beautiful in his eyes, but liable only to inspire a fanatical, emulative gluttony in the elite Hij that might have had contact with her here. And her death, such as it was; revealed so publicly, so traumatically . . . He didn’t know how that would’ve affected the continental population. All knew she was dead and remained in a vengeful mood, but only he and the Chooser, through spies the Chooser had left behind—and no longer had access to, he fumed—knew how the Celestial Mother’s very pathetically dead head had been displayed on the palace steps. . . . He pushed that thought aside.

  “Lord Regent Champion!” came a satisfied voice from the single arched opening in the chamber, and the Chooser himself swept past the silent guards stationed there. He alone was allowed into Esshk’s presence without permission or announcement.

  “Not ‘First General’?” Esshk inquired. The Chooser made a throwing-away gesture.

  “That too, of course, but today you are Regent Champion first and foremost, with no remaining opposition!”

  They knew Ragak’s Swarm had been destroyed, by accounts from the few shipmasters who’d returned. The scope of his defeat was revealed only by observations made by the first zeppelin raid they’d been able to make since the terrible storm abated. They’d lost many more airships than on previous raids as well, which meant the enemy—Captain Reddy—Esshk was sure, now had more flying machines of his own with which to destroy them. Still, Ragak’s destruction had left Esshk—and the Chooser—secure in their positions, and the enemy more tenuous in theirs. It had not been a waste.

  “By all accounts, Ragak very nearly succeeded despite his handicap,” Esshk gurgled. “His was a rather brilliant plan, after all. A similar plan, better supported, would have succeeded, I believe. It is unfortunate he did not survive. I would have honored my pledge to make him a general. Perhaps even First General, in my place.” He hissed a sigh.

  “Truly?” the Chooser inquired. “Despite his ambitions?”

  “Truly. He may not have been as skilled at designing traditional battles as I, but we do not have those anymore. And he was imaginative. Cunning. Without General Halik, or any knowledge of whether he remains loyal—Kurokawa’s bizarre scenario aside—or whether Halik even still lives, Ragak showed the most promise. In the absence of others and in spite of his intrigues, I would have let him lead our armies.” He sighed again. “You forget, Lord Chooser, that I early recognized the threat our enemy poses to the very survival of our race, and that survival will always be more important to me than my own. I am the tool of our race—and of our new Celestial Mother when she gains the wisdom to lead.”

  “How fortunate then that you shall remain her sword as well until that happy day—and beyond,” the Chooser said, carefully picking his words. He lowered his voice. “She cannot rule effectively for some time yet, and I think, of necessity, the position of Regent Champion, supreme above all other regents, must maintain significantly greater influence than in the past. Even after the new Celestial Mother comes into her own.”

  “You are not wrong,” Esshk conceded. “The world has changed too much to return completely to what we had before. As has our race,” he added thoughtfully.

  “As must the status of First Chooser to the Regent Champion,” the Chooser lamented convincingly.

  Esshk regarded the creature for a moment, then made a diagonal nod. “Indeed. But in the meantime, I must continue to carry the sword as First General as well,” he said almost wistfully.

  “So, as First General now, what next?” the Chooser asked.

  Esshk paced again. “With Kurokawa returned to the hunt, our fortunes should improve at sea if half of what he claims about the forces he has assembled are to be believed.”

  “Do you trust him? And these ‘new hunters,’ this ‘League of Tripoli’ that has sworn him their allegiance. What of them?”

  “Of course I do not trust Kurokawa, or any creatures that associate with him. Not anymore. But I do trust
that his ambition, his most base desires, can be made useful to us—as Ragak’s were. Nothing motivates Kurokawa more than his lust for power and his desire to avenge himself on our enemy—and ‘Captain Reddy’ in particular.” Esshk grimaced the equivalent of a toothy grin. “We shall give him the illusion of the first while affording him the opportunity for the second. Our air raids on the Celestial City will continue regardless of losses. We can make them good for a while longer yet. Our new army, raised, trained, and equipped under the New Principles of war, is ready. And with Ragak and his army of merest Uul no longer consuming supplies, we can gather it at last. All that remains are the final improvements to the battle fleet and the resurrection of the Ancient Fleet with which we will strike. When all is done, and Kurokawa comes down, we will make our own thoughtful attack that will drive the enemy from the Celestial City and all the world, and turn them back to prey once more!”

  EPILOGUE

  ////// Chimborazo