March To The Stars

'There was a good solid crack on that vertebra,' Dobrescu replied for Pahner in response to Roger's question. 'One of the reasons, at least, that it didn't come back at that ship was your shot.'

Dobrescu flicked his own lump of fish towards the prince's pet. The chunk of meat never came within a meter of the deck before it disappeared.

'There was also a fist-sized hole through the roof of its mouth,' the warrant officer continued, and raised an eyebrow in question as he glanced at the junior Mardukan at the foot of the table.

Fain was desperately trying to figure out the tableware. He'd tried watching Honal, Rastar, Chim Pri, and Cord, but that wasn't much help. The Mardukan officers had never quite mastered the knife and fork, either, and Roger's asi— technically, a slave, although Fain rather doubted that anyone would ever make the mistake of treating D'Nal Cord as anyone's menial—refused to use them at all.

In Cord's case, at least, Fain suspected, the refusal was mostly a pose. The old Mardukan shaman took considerable pains to maintain his identity as a primitive tribesman, but it was obvious to the Diaspran that the asi's knowledge—and brain—were more than a match for any Water Priest he'd ever met. In the others' case, the captain was less certain. Honal had hacked off a chunk of the rubbery meat and was gnawing on it, while Rastar and Pri had lifted slightly larger chunks and were doing much the same. The human ability to hold the meat down with a fork and cut off small pieces was apparently beyond them.

Now, trapped by the medic's implied question, Krindi cleared his throat and nodded in a human gesture many of the mercenaries had picked up.

'That would be Erkum,' he said. 'At least one shot, perhaps more. It was very ... confused on board, of course.'

'Not so confused that you lost your head,' Pahner noted, and took a sip of water. 'You had everyone with a weapon fire a volley. I doubt most of the Marines would have kept control of their units that well.'

'Thank you, Sir.' Fain rubbed a horn. 'But from what I've seen, I will politely disagree. Certainly, you and Prince Roger kept control of yours.'

'No, I didn't,' Roger said. He reached for the pitcher of water and poured himself another glass. 'I should have been giving orders, not shooting myself. But I got angry. Those were good troops.'

'Hmmm.' Kosutic frowned. 'I don't know, Your Highness. Let the cobbler stick to his last, as it were.' The slight frown became a smile. 'I have to admit that having you with a weapon in your hand never seems to be a bad idea.'

Pahner smiled at the chuckles around the table, then nodded.

'Whether His Highness should've been shooting or ordering, we need to find a berth for Captain Fain. The infantry side was already short, so I'm just going to consolidate your personnel into a combined company. We lost Turkol Bes on the Sea Skimmer along with your boys, so we need a replacement for Captain Yair, who will be promoted to major and take Bes' place. Initially, I'm going to attach you to His Highness as a sort of aide-de-camp. The bulk of your company's survivors are already aboard the Hooker. We'll work them into the rest of her detachment, and giving you a little experience with the 'staff' will give you a chance to see how things run. Hopefully, we'll have you fully on board by the time we land. Clear?'

'Yes, Sir.' Fain kept his face placid, but seeing 'his' company lose its identity was not pleasant, however necessary its survivors' absorption might be. 'One question ...'

'Yes, you can hang onto Pol,' Roger said with a very Mardukan grunt of laughter.

'Please do,' Captain—no, Major—Yair endorsed. 'You're the only one who can handle him.'

'We don't know how many more of these things there might be,' Pahner continued in a 'that's settled' tone of voice, and gestured at the pearl Dobrescu was still fondling. 'Or any damned thing else about threats along the way. But we've found out we can kill them, at least. Any suggestions about how to keep them from doing this again?'

'Mount a cannon at the rear. Maybe a couple,' Fain said without thinking, then stopped when everyone looked at him.

'Go on,' Roger said, nodding. 'Although I think I know where you're going.'

'Keep them loaded,' Fain continued. 'Ready to fire, with a crew to man them at all times. When it surfaces, fire. You have about a second and a half from when they appear to when you have to shoot.'

'You'd have to have somebody being very vigilant on a continuous basis.' Julian shook his head. 'Then you'd have to make sure the powder didn't get wet and misfire. I don't think we have the technical capability to do that without modifications we'd need a shipyard to carry out.'

'But a defense at the rear ...' Roger rubbed a fingertip on the table, obviously intrigued by the notion. Then a sudden, wicked grin lit his somber face like a rising sun. 'Who says it has to be a local cannon?' he demanded.

'Ouch!' Kosutic laughed. 'You've got an evil mind, Your Highness.'

'Of course!' Julian's eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. 'Set up a plasma cannon on manjack mode. If something disturbs the sensor area: Blam!'

'Bead,' Pahner corrected. Julian looked at him, and the captain waggled one hand palm-down above the table. 'Those things get too close for a plasma cannon. We'd torch the ship.'

'Yeah, you're right.' Julian nodded. 'I'll get it set up,' he said, then wiped his mouth and looked unenthusiastically down at the chunk of meat still sitting on his plate. 'You want me to break out some ration packs?' he asked in a decidedly hopeful voice.

'No.' Pahner shook his head. 'We need to eat what we've got. Until we know how long this journey is going to be, we still need to conserve our off-world supplies.' He paused and took a breath. 'And we also need to shut down the radios. We're getting close enough to the ports that we have to worry about radio bounce. They're low-intercept, but if the port has any notion that we're here, we're in the deep.'

'So how do we communicate between the ships, Sir?' Despreaux asked. The sergeant had been particularly quiet all evening, but she was one of the two NCOs in charge of maintaining communications. With Julian setting up the weapons, it was her job to plan a jury-rigged replacement com net for the flotilla's units.

'Com lasers, flags, guns, flashing lights,' Pahner said. 'I don't care. But no radios.'

'Yes, Sir,' Despreaux said, making a note on her toot. 'So we can use our tac-lights, for example?'

'Yes.' Pahner paused again and slipped in a strip of bisti root while he thought. 'In addition, the sailors in K'Vaern's Cove reported that piracy is not an unknown thing on Marduk. Now, why am I not surprised?'

Most of the group chuckled again. Practically every step of the journey had been contested by local warlords, barbarians, or bandits. It would have been a massive shock to their systems if it turned out these waters were any different.

'When we approach the far continent, we'll need to keep a sharp lookout for encroaching ships,' Pahner continued. 'And for these fish. And for anything else that doesn't look right.'

'And His Dark Majesty only knows what's going to come next,' Kosutic agreed with a smile.

CHAPTER FOUR

'Land ho!'

The lookout's cry rang out only two days after the attack by the giant coll. No one was really surprised by it, though. The evidence of an approaching landfall had been there for at least a day—a thin gray smoke on the horizon, and a golden alpenglow before dawn.

Julian swarmed up the ratlines to Hooker's fore topmast crosstrees with an agility which might have seemed at odds with his determinedly antiseaman attitude. He took his glasses with him. They were considerably better than his helmet visor's built-in zoom function, and he spent several minutes beside the Mardukan seaman already perched there, studying the distant land. Then he zoomed the glasses back in and slid back down to the deck.

'Active volcano, sure enough,' he reported to Pahner. 'The island looks deserted, but there's another in the chain just coming over the horizon.'