“Except along Soochow Creek,” Silva agreed, mock serious, and both men exploded in laughter.
Utterly mystified, and wondering if he ever would-or wanted to-hear the tale Silva and Horn shared, Cook glanced at the cart that should be bringing the last of their supplies. “Oh no!” he breathed when he saw the cart’s lone passenger hop down. Nurse Lieutenant Pam Cross wore a light, linenlike smock and trousers of the nearly universal tie-dyed camouflage adopted from the Sa’aarans. She reached up and grabbed a medical pack and a Blitzer Bug submachine gun off the cart and carried them over to the suddenly speechless group.
“What’re you dopes gawkin’ at?” she demanded.
“Why… you, I s’pose,” Silva said evenly. “Just weren’t expectin’ you to show up here, all dressed up like you thought you was goin’ with us.”
“This outfit needs a doc,” Pam said simply, defiantly. “I’m it.” She handed Cook a sheet of rough paper. “Adar’s orders.”
“Bullshit,” Silva said more harshly. “We’re headed off to make contact with them Injun jungle lizards-which might be hostile as hell-through some of the scariest country we know of on this screwed-up world! This ain’t no trip fer-”
“For what?” Pam demanded. She gestured at some of the female Lemurian troops loading gear on the ferry. “For dames? I don’t think you can really stand there an’ say that, you big jerk. The dame famine’s over.”
“Wull… what about Colonel Mallory? Ain’t you two a item? What’ll he say?”
“He left,” Pam said harshly, “just like you have a dozen times. He doesn’t own me,” she snapped ironically, and Silva winced. “Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t do anymore, except a superior officer-an’ I damn sure outrank you. Adar said I could go, an’ so did Mr. Letts. We ain’t short o’ doctors anymore neither.”
“You outrank me, Lieutenant,” Abel Cook observed as neutrally as possible.
Pam shook her head. “I’m medical officer. You command the expedition.”
Without thinking about it, Cook looked at Silva. He might be in command, but everyone, including Adar, knew who was in charge. After a long moment, Silva shrugged, his one eye narrowed to a slit. “Suit yerself, doll,” he grunted, and turned to carry his ammo crate to the ferry. “Let’s get this circus on the road,” he growled over his shoulder.
Maa-ni-la
April 3, 1944
“By the Heavens above,” Saan-Kakja murmured in sick sorrow as USS Walker (DD-163) crept closer to the Navy dock at the Advanced Training Center on Maara-vella. “How often can that poor ship sustain such damage and survive?” she pleaded.
Chack-Sab-At stood beside her, summoned from some training exercises his special Marines had been undergoing. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Isak Rueben was there as well, with the floating dry dock Walker ’s escorting frigate had summoned, and Ambassador Lord Forester had accompanied Saan-Kakja from Maa-ni-la. Also present were General Ansik-Talaa of the new Fil-pin Scouts, Colonel Busaa of the coastal artillery, and quite a few troops and medical personnel who’d rushed down from the hospital and barracks in the booming military town.
Walker was low by the head and had a decided list to port. Gaping holes yawned wide just behind her tall, dingy, half-submerged number, and on the fo’c’sle just forward of the bridge. The bridge structure itself looked warped and disheveled, and the canvas on the rail around the fire-control platform was shredded. Water streamed from within the ship in solid torrents and splashed alongside, and more water ran from temporary hoses attached to auxiliary pumps and coursed along the deck. The forward funnel looked like a ruptured pipe, and the aft funnel was even worse. Smoke streamed only from number two, so the boilers in the aft fireroom had to be cold. The main blower behind the bridge still rumbled, but with an exhausted, hurting gasp. The whole ship looked diseased with rust.
Yet Walker still lived, and her torn battle flag streamed to leeward on the stiff breeze off the nearby mountains. ’Cats in whites stood on the leaning fo’c’sle with lines in their hands, contrasting sharply with the rust, smoke stains, and faded gray paint. The number one gun-all the ship’s guns, Saan-Kakja now saw-were clean and trained fore and aft, and men and Lemurians were on the bridgewing, amidships deckhouse, and fire-blackened aft deckhouse. It was from there, Chack finally told her, that the ship was being conned.
Isak Rueben took the pipe from his mouth and exhaled a stream of rank smoke that smelled like burning leaves and ammonia. He coughed.
“Just as long as her crew can take it, an’ as often as we got the stuff-an’ the gumption-to patch her back up, Yer Excellentness,” he said with uncharacteristic forcefulness. Saan-Kakja looked at the odd, scrawny man and saw tears on his cheeks.
“You are right, of course,” she agreed firmly, but deep down she still wondered.
The tired old ship was finally secured to the dock, and corps ’Cats streamed up the gangplank as quickly as it was rigged. Soon, Walker ’s wounded started coming ashore, helped along or carried on stretchers. Earl Lanier’s stretcher required extra, somewhat sullen bearers, and he waved imperiously as the space alongside the battered ship continued to fill. “Boats” Bashear was still swaddled in bandages, but he strode down the gangway unassisted. There was a sudden commotion aboard Walker as Chief Gray’s distinctive, comforting bellow gathered a side party, and amid a twitter of pipes, another stretcher came down the gangplank with Sandra and Diania anxiously pacing it and Juan Marcos clomping along behind on a crutch that replaced his wooden leg. Saan-Kakja and her party had been staying out of the way, but now they moved forward. Sandra saw them coming, and for just an instant, Saan-Kakja caught the slightest hint of the anguish that lay behind Sandra’s eyes. Rushing forward, the High Chief of all the Fil-pin Lands wrapped her arms around the taller woman and held her in a tight embrace.
“He’s going to be all right,” Sandra managed through the tears of relief and appreciation that began to flow. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as those gathering around, but she repeated herself with more certainty. “He’s going to be all right.”
Saan-Kakja looked down at the unconscious man on the stretcher, the man who meant so much to them all-not just because they needed him, but because they loved him.
“I have no doubt,” Saan-Kakja agreed, her mesmerizing, gold and black eyes beginning to fill. “Let us get him to the hospital, and then you must rest and refresh yourself!”
Matt was dreaming, sort of. He was awash in seep, and the differently refined version of the analgesic, germ-fighting paste that had been used to treat his wounds had left him almost comatose in appearance, but somewhat aware as well. Seep was a popular intoxicant in reasonable doses, but they’d learned it performed much like morphine when used in large amounts. Like the paste, seep also apparently had some antibacterial properties, because it killed off a lot of the good bacteria in one’s innards as well as the bad, and often left heavily dosed patients with a bad case of the “screamers.” He hated that. He also hated the sick, unreal, helpless feeling it gave him.
He felt himself being carried out of the wardroom and heard the Bosun’s pipes. He knew he was being brought ashore and Walker was safe at last. He even heard the voices of Sandra and his friends as they gathered round, and he was pleased, in a kind of disassociated way. But then, for a while, he… left.
“You’ve got an awful strange setup around here, Matthew,” Orrin Reddy told him, staring out at the sea. Somehow, Matt was back on New Ireland, and he’d been walking along the rocky, secluded northern coast under the warm sunshine where he’d taken a quick trip to visit his cousin. Orrin! Of all people to find in this goofed-up world! Orrin and a flight of Maaka-Kakja ’s Nancys had been helping scour the island of any remaining Grikbirds after the fearsome battles that snatched it back from Dominion control. He’d been conked on the head and wasn’t flying, but he would remain there as long as any of his pilots did.