Matt chuckled, and then his expression became serious again. “I owe him. But as far as the Mice are concerned… Well, I’m not going to bring them up on charges. They’re too damn valuable-I can’t believe I just said that!-and that’s exactly what I’ll have to do if I make a big deal about it. Their rig’s going fine with just a caretaker now. They’re no longer indispensable, just… valuable.”
He looked at the men working on the fo’c’sle. They were having difficulty with their usual chores since the cramped space was even further encumbered by a large apparatus that Matt hoped would soon prove useful. Some of the men stared curses at the thing as they maneuvered around it, and firing the number one gun to starboard would be tough while the thing was rigged for sea. But if that gun became essential to the operation, they’d failed anyway.
“Let them stay. They’ve earned it. But if they pull a stunt like this again, I won’t care if they learn to piss oil. Make sure that information reaches them, if you please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Together, they walked across the pilothouse and Matt peered over the wing rail at the water. Even this far upriver, it was getting choppy. Above, the sky was like lead: a low, monochromatic overcast with none of the flighty characteristics of the usual daily squalls. The heavens seemed to exude a restrained, pregnant power.
“Looks like Adar’s right,” he mused aloud. “We may be in for a real blow.” He turned and grinned at Dowden.
“Perfect.”
Ben Mallory couldn’t believe he was flying, particularly in such heavy weather. After the conversation in which Captain Reddy told him they’d have to wait to look for Mahan-and why-he’d been afraid the PBY would be treated like a museum relic. He’d been wrong. If the plane could let them know what was coming-and didn’t fly too far-the captain was reluctantly willing to risk it. Especially now that the radio worked.
Mallory was battling through the driving wind and rain north of a cluster of tiny, rocky islands off the southwest coat of Celebes. The world was gray, and the sea below was a roiling, foamy white. The thundering, rattling, swooping turbulence was enough to make him sick, and he was enjoying every minute. He spared a quick glance at his copilot. The young sable-furred ’Cat was peering through a pair of binoculars through the open side window. His name was Jis-Tikkar, but he liked “Tikker” just fine. He was a good companion and a fast-learning “wrench.” He worked as hard as anyone keeping the plane ready to fly. On this, his very first actual flight, he was enraptured by the wonder of soaring high above the world at a measly hundred and ten miles an hour. Oh, how Ben missed his P-40 E!
Whatever Ben called him, Tikker wasn’t ready to be a copilot yet. For one thing, he could barely see over the instrument panel. Mallory allowed him to take the controls for a little “straight-and-level” before they flew into the storm, but it would be a while before he did it again. As soon as the little devil got his hands on the oval-shaped wheel, he’d nearly put the big plane into a barrel roll. It was all very exciting, and the flying lessons abruptly ceased. Tikker’s duties reverted to observation, and keeping Ben awake with his irreverent humor. Currently, the humor was absent as the ’Cat concentrated on the business at hand.
The rest of the flight crew consisted of Ed Palmer and two farsighted Lemurians in the observation blisters. Ed sat directly behind the flight deck, checking in with Walker and keeping track of their navigation. He wasn’t a pro yet, but he was a quick study. In his short time aboard Mahan he had, for all intents and purposes, been the navigation officer, since Monroe couldn’t plot his way out of a paper sack. As long as there were landmarks he could identify, he wouldn’t lead them astray-and they were forbidden to fly at night.
“There is the felucca!” Tikker said.
Ben banked slightly and craned his neck. Far below, a dark shape slashed through the heavy sea. The Baalkpan feluccas were fore-and-aft rigged and surprisingly nimble, but heavy weather was rough on them. “He’s headed southeast! He must have run into something!” Ben banked again and dropped the nose, peering through the windscreen. The wipers flailed as fast as they could, but they only smeared the water.
“There!” said Tikker, straining his eyes through the binoculars. He looked at Ben. “The third Grik ship! It is chasing the felucca!” Through the wipers, he caught brief glimpses of a distorted red-hulled shape.
“Should we get closer?” Ed asked behind him. “I’d just as soon not get closer. Besides, they’ll hear us.”
“Not a chance, with all the sea noise down there and the rain,” Ben replied. “All the same…” He began turning south. “Get on the horn…”
“Wait!” said Tikker urgently. “There is another…! And another! Two more Grik are in company with the first!”
“Shit!” said Palmer. “Any more?” For a long moment they stared.
“Nooo,” Ben decided at last. The three ships were clustered close together, and no others were in sight. “No, I think that’s all.”
“That’s enough!” Palmer cursed and headed for the radio. He picked up the mike. “You still there, Clance? Tell the Skipper we’ve got three hostiles inbound!” Palmer transmitted in the clear. Who else was going to listen?
“Roger,” came Radioman Clancy’s terse reply through the static. “What’s the weather like up there?”
“Moderating,” admitted Palmer. “It’s gone from an eggbeater to a martini shaker. Adar was right. Those Sky Priests are way better than our weather weenies were!”
“I’ll say,” agreed Clancy. “Lots more to those guys than reading maps and wearing silly suits. Wait one.” A moment later Clancy’s voice crackled in Palmer’s ear again. “Skipper says to double-double-check the enemy numbers, then get the hell out.”
“But Ben… I mean, Lieutenant Mallory, thought we might fly cover. You know, shoot somebody up if you need us.”
“Negative. Captain says to get your big blue butt back to Baalkpan! It’s our show now. You’ve done what we needed you to. Hell, you can’t even set down!”
“Wilco,” Ed grumbled. He clipped the mike and lurched back to the flight deck.
“What’s the scoop?” Ben demanded.
“We double-double-check, then beat feet for Baalkpan. Damn, we won’t even know how it goes!”
“Yeah, there’re a few more guests than expected. It’ll make things more difficult, but not three times as difficult-I hope.”
“Well… what are we gonna do?”
Ben looked at him. “We’re going to follow orders, sailor. But he didn’t say we couldn’t come back in the morning!”
The storm had finally begun to subside. It had indeed been a real blow, more violent than even Adar anticipated. The wind still blew at thirty knots or more, and the whitecaps of the heavy sea disintegrated into foamy spray. Keje stood on the sandy, desolate beach and stared bleakly at his beloved Home. Salissa lay at an unnatural angle, decidedly low in the water, a few hundred yards offshore. She now rested, exposed for all to see, on the bottom of the gently shoaling sand of what Matt called the Gulf of Mandar. How they’d ever managed to get her there, through the maze of huge rocks and mountainous seas, he could barely remember. All he recalled at the moment, in his exhausted, sodden state, was that the effort had been chi-kaash-hell.
All around him, people erected shelters amid piles of vulnerable supplies and others tended smoky cook-fires for knots of soaked, bedraggled people who’d paused from their labors to warm themselves. As far as he could see, the beach was inhabited by the debris and pitiful, helpless survivors of a traumatic calamity. Some stood as he did, staring out to sea, and some just milled about. Others waded back and forth through the surf, bearing bundles on their shoulders from one of the feluccas driven onto the beach. Another felucca still stood offshore, beating impotently back and forth, unable to risk the rocks and surf to come to their aid. Behind him, the tufted fronds of the trees beat and cracked with the wind, and the tall, skinny trunks leaned forlornly against the gray afternoon sky. Keje looked back out to sea, straining his eyes against the stinging spray. Walker was nowhere in sight.