“We had a hell of a time getting enough metal for the guns. It’s a bronze alloy from some old city, I guess. No, the hull’s not metal, just wood. But it’s got thin plates of some ceramic fitted over it. Damned good protection against most things, though not those bloody electrics. I must admit, I think you saved our necks there, my boy.
“The ships? Steer small, you copper-plated numbskulls! Think this is a canoe? How can they aim below with you barging around that way? Oh, yes, the ships. Well, Demero started moving seamen from the Beesee area over to a lake northwest of Namcush. A fair-sized lake, and the Dam People helped dredge a big outlet. They’re working with us now, you know. Lot been happening since you went off” gypsying down south.” He aimed an affectionate cuff at Hiero’s head, which would have stunned him if it had landed, then went back to bellowing at the men who manned the twin steering wheels. In a moment he was talking to Hiero again.
“None of this stuff is new. God alone knows where the knowledge got dredged up from, but it was pretty complete. Ail we had to do was ask a question and the answers came quickly. The Abbey files, I suppose. They gave us everything. How to build the damned things, how to build the engines. They call them ‘high-compression steam engines,’ and we blew up a couple before we got the hang of it. No one got killed, though. The old ships, the ones we copied, were built the same way, but with iron sheathing. We had no way of getting all that iron, at least not fast. But we got the formula for this ceramic, like a pottery dish but twenty times as hard, and it works fine. Now that I think of it, I’m kind of glad we didn’t have the iron. That lousy electric thing on those Unclean ships would have fried us all, maybe.
“Anyway, we got five of them built, the Dam People opened their sluices, and down the river to Namcush we came, early one morning, let’s see, about three weeks ago. We towed two regiments in barges along behind and we had that town in one half hour. Not one ship got away. Not too many of the Unclean were there, but a lot of crooked traders, frontier scum, and some just plain pirates. We threw everyone into a prison and interrogated the hell out of all of them. We hanged the pirates and locked up all the ships of the others. No way the Unclean were going to get warned. Then we began to move down the coast to this place. We couldn’t tow all those sailing ships, so we had to move fairly slowly for the others to keep up. And here we are. What’s that, son?”
A teen-aged boy had appeared from aft and stood at the salute.
“Signal from the admiral, sir. Move slowly in toward the town and conform to his movements. He is going to pass the troops through our line and start them landing while we give any cover needed.”
“Right. Cease fire and wait for commands below there.” He straightened from the voice tube and for the first time stared hard at the Children of the Wind. “Your friends are going to have front-row seats, old buddy. One big tough, two young toughs, and a real cutie. Now, where did you find them? Never saw or heard of anything remotely like them, and I know more than most about Leemutes—sorry, aliens.”
His admiration as his twinkling black eyes roved over M’reen’s supple shape was so obvious that it transcended the barrier of species. The young priestess bridled.
“Down, boy,” Hiero said. “The young lady you are leering at was solely in charge and responsible for ruining those two loads of Unclean, who otherwise would have happily blown your little toy boat here completely out of existence. Shall I turn her loose on you instead?”
Per Edard’s eyes widened at this astounding comment, but he knew Hiero too well to doubt a word of it. Instead, he bowed and addressed the four catfolk formally.
“I am honored to meet such brave warriors, the friends of my old companion. Please accept the thanks of all of us for your destruction of our mutual foes. You will receive more formal thanks later from our chiefs and wise ones. In the meantime, you are our honored guests and allies. Anything that we can do for you will be done at once. You have only to ask.”
Hiero translated and waited to see who would answer. It was B’uorgh, which made sense. The big war chief was the senior, despite M’reen’s rank in the Pride structure.
We thank you in turn. We have corns far to help our friend Hiero and his people. We wish to be led to battle against those you call the Unclean. Our name for them is worse. May we soon talk to you with our minds in true friendship. Meanwhile, is there any way we can breathe clean air? These stinks from that town and this floating thing are choking us. We ask only if this is possible. If not, we can endure. We will eat and drink when you do, go where you go, fight when you fight, and, if necessary, die when you die.
As he translated the answer, Hiero could see that Edard was impressed in spite of himself.
“Please tell them, Hiero, that I’ll get them on one of the outer picket ships as soon as I can. The air should be clean out on the sound, and those are sailing craft, so they won’t have the engine-room coal dust and oil to contend with. We have plenty of lignite coal, but even I think it stinks. Eight now I have to cover this landing. Here come the Guards going ashore.”
While Hiero spoke again to his friends, they all watched as the Metz Frontier Guards sailed through the armored steamships and cautiously approached the rotting wharves in front of them. There was no talking now; all stood silent, waiting to see if there were any counterattack coming. Hiero tried to reach out: with his mind and learned something new. The mind shield that the Abbeys were using to guard their war fleet blanketed his own powers as well. He could neither send nor receive on any mental band beyond the limits of the ship! He mentioned this to Per Maluin in a low voice.
“Yeah, that’s right. Abbot Demero told me about you, Hiero. I sort of gathered you had become the grand champion of the world at this sort of thing in the last year or so. Well, we have a lot of people trying to do the same trick now ourselves. And, man, are they going to be glad to have you back! But that’s by the by. When we got these shields for the fleet, the top people, which means the Council, of course, decided that we might just have one or two nasties in our own. ranks. As a result, this thing clamps down on everyone, so no one has a chance to pass any little leaks which might get us killed in an emergency. Get it?”
Hiero nodded, and they returned to watching the disciplined ranks of the Abbey infantry disembark and scatter out through the smoke-laden streets toward the inner part of Neeyana. Aside from distant screams which came dimly to them through the haze and the crackle of fires burning nearby, there was no sound. No evidence of any enemy action, organized or otherwise, was apparent. A second sailing ship, a two-masted coaster like the first, appeared and unloaded troops. Officers, several of whom Hiero recognized, gave quiet orders on the foreshore and then followed their men inland. One ship after another disembarked its human cargo, until Hiero estimated that at least two full regiments, perhaps four thousand men, had gone ashore. He watched, somewhat jealously, as they passed. He had the rank of Major (Reserve) in the Scouts, the elite of all the Abbey forces; hence he found himself wishing—childishly, as he reminded himself—that he were going in with them. Part of this feeling, he knew, was simply the trained reaction of a professional soldier on seeing others going into battle. But he was wise enough to know that there was more to it than that. For more than a year now he had been alone, in the sense that none of his own people had been with him. He had journeyed thousands of leagues and found new friends, a mate, new rank, new everything. But all had been new, and what he really was feeling now was simple homesickness. As the bronzed files padded down the narrow gangplanks and vanished into the murk, he simply wanted to be one of them, to be a part of the master unit that he had been trained to serve—the hive, the swarm, the legion, the corps. His feeling was as old as mankind, and he had no way of knowing that a legionary of the Imperial Tenth, stuck at Vindobonum, watching his cohort cross the Danube to take on a swarm of Gothic horse, had felt the same sensation.