It wasn’t all rosy. Six ’Cats were killed in the aerial attack, and three were “missing,” including the lookout who’d been in the crow’s nest. Doubtless, the “missing” were dead too. Nobody even saw what happened to the lookout. A few men and ’Cats had been wounded, but unless they’d been poisoned or got infected with something the polta paste couldn’t handle, they’d be fine. The light nature of the injuries was confirmed when Fred saw Courtney Bradford on deck, apparently content to let his pharmacist’s mate deal with the “scratches” while he defended a relatively undamaged specimen of the new enemy from Bashear’s detail. Eventually, Captain Reddy himself came in response to Courtney’s shrill cries of outrage and interceded on his behalf, saying, “Cut it up; learn what you can. I particularly want to know what it eats, and your opinion of its intelligence. But get it over the side before dark. Their guts can’t be much different from Grik, and you’ve played with those pl, ap of times.”
Courtney set to work, and Fred and Kari moved aft.
“We fly with those things, what we do?” Kari asked.
Fred shrugged. “We’re faster, I think. We need to have a weapon, though-besides a pistol. Let’s find Campeti or Stites and see what they have to say.”
The storm in the west either dissipated or moved away, because the threatening clouds gave way to glittering stars when the sun finally sank into the sea. Walker churned north through increasingly quartering swells that maintained her sickening, corkscrewing motion, but she was no longer taking such heavy seas over the bow. The mood in the pilothouse was glum. Everyone knew they’d been on the verge of a momentous victory; one that might’ve even finished “this” war, at least for the time being, and allowed them to go “home” and get on with what many considered their “bigger business.” To be deprived of that victory and chased away by animals-and very Grik-like animals at that-left some a little confused, thoughtful, and reevaluating their priorities. Most of Walker ’s crew had fought in the Naval Battle of Scapa Flow, and it had been a bitter contest. Only a few had been ashore to see just how much like the Grik the troops of the Dominion behaved. Now a majority was beginning to realize that, regardless how different in some ways, this was the same war they’d already been fighting: a war against monsters bent on the destruction of people. That’s what it came down to, in the end.
“What’ve you got, Courtney?” Matt asked when Bradford stumped up the stairs from aft. His clothes were bloody, but his hands were clean. Jenks was behind him, walking carefully. His wounds had been treated and he’d be fine, but the curative paste of the Lemurians had a slightly intoxicating effect.
“You were right,” Bradford said. “Very Grik-like in most respects. The same, if even lighter hollow bones. A similar, though more colorful, downy covering. The wing structure is the greatest difference, but even the bones that support it look like radically elongated arm and finger bones! Of course, the musculature of the torso is different and more robust. I’m vaguely reminded of a pigeon.” He shook his head. “The proliferation and adaptation of the basic form is quite astonishing! First we had the various ‘races’ of Grik. Then Mr. Chapelle’s and Mr. Mallory’s expedition to recover Santa Catalina and her cargo revealed an amphibious species… Now we have one that flies!”
“You once said it yourself, Courtney,” Matt reminded him. “On this world, Grik, or creatures like them, have risen to the top of the evolutionary heap.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Bradford agreed with a frown. “Not only are they the most dominant life-form we’ve come across, they’re even more physically adaptable to their various environments than we ever suspected.” He glanced apologetically at the ’Cats in the pilothouse. “ Physically adaptable,” he repeated. “Like us meager humans, our Lemurian friends have had to, and been able to rely on mental adaptability to survive. Hand to hand, no human or Lemurian is a match for any of the… hmm… perhaps semireptilian?” He scratched his balding head.
“Courtney.”
“Excuse me, indeed. As I’ve long maintained, we’re no match for them physically, but we appear to have an advantage when it comes to our capacity for imagination. The enemy in the west has developed a competitive technology only with the aid of humans, past and present. Here, these ‘lying Grik,’ these ‘dragons,’ are the tools of our human enemy. They’re a disconcerting weapon, but that’s all they are. Our enemy here remains the humans that control them.”
“Okay,” agreed Matt, “so how does that work?”
Courtney nodded at Jenks. “The dragons have a similar brain capacity to other Grik. Perhaps slightly less, but not significantly. Still, greater than we’ve ever seen them demonstrate-with the exception of our own dear Lawrence and the rest of his people, no doubt. This is likely due to cultural imperatives and… well, their very physical perfection. Their lethality as predators has perhaps subdued requirements for imaginative thought. In other words, they’re so good at what they do, they don’t need to think about ways to improve!”
“Well… what makes Lawrence different?”
“I can only presume, as an island race, his people have had to imagine more efficient methods of survival than chasing prey and eating it. Their resources were limited, and they had to imagine and learn skills such as boatbuilding, fishing, even agriculture. The same may even be true of the ‘jungle’ Grik Mr. Silva discovered. It’s possible Lawrence’s people might have ultimately evolved along lines similar to those in the swamps of Chill-Chaap and become famous swimmers, but I believe they’d already crossed the figurative ‘Rubicon.’ ”
“That’s amazing,” Matt said, truly impressed, “but that still leaves us with how do the Doms control their lizard birds?”
Courtney frowned, and his eyes suddenly reflected a horrible sight. “There’s some training involved, certainly, but upon opening the specimen, I discovered… human remains.” He stared hard at Matt, then at Jenks. “They feed them people.”
There were gasps in the pilothouse. Courtney Bradford tried at times, but he really didn’t know how to whisper. Invariably, his various dissertations were overheard and spread throughout the ship. It didn’t really matter. Matt wanted his crew as well-informed as possible. “Scuttlebutt” often distorted things and made them worse. In this case, uninformed speculation would’ve probably sugarcoated the truth.
“It’s known that the ‘un-Holy’ Dominion engages in blood sacrifice at the drop of a hat,” Courtney continued, “as part of their ‘native’-inspired perversion of the already rather… insistent.. . early-eighteenth-century version of the Catholic faith they brought to this world, but using people to feed those monsters…!”
“Makes perfect sense from their evil perspective,” Jenks spit, his words slightly slurred. “Feed them the infirm, the sick, the wounded. .. perhaps the laborers they brought with them. Regardless, only able bellies are filled, and the priests probably manufacture ‘divine’ justifications!” He looked at Matt. “Do you think they’ll be kinder to conquered peoples?”
“Relax, Harvey,” Matt said. “We’ll stop them somehow. We would have already, if not for their pets.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, we have to assume they know that too. We can’t count on their being idiots. What’ll they do now that we’ve learned about their ‘secret weapon,’ but they know about Walker?”