“Well, I’ll be damned, but you’ve got guts, Jap… I mean Lieutenant Jap.” He held up a hand with a wider grin. “No offense, but I don’t know your name.”
Tamatsu bowed slightly. “Lieutenant Tamatsu Shinya,” he said.
Silva nodded back, but his face darkened. “I ain’t gonna call you sir, no way in hell. You are a Jap. But I’ll call you Lieutenant Shinya, if that makes you happy.”
“That will suffice, Gunner’s Mate Silva,” he said, and a slight grin formed on his face as well. “And, yes, the Lemurians do drink seep, although there’s no telling what it would do to you.”
Silva arched an eyebrow. “Well! In the interests of science, and prob’ly diplomacy too, I reckon it’s my duty to find out!”
Sandra, who’d managed a grin of her own by now, cleared her throat. “Your duty, Mr. Silva, is to assist me and stay out of trouble. That duty most emphatically does not include testing the local booze. Do I make myself clear?”
Silva glanced at the cask and licked his lips. With a force of will, his expression changed to a beatific smile. “Aye, aye, sir!” He blinked. “Uh… ma’am-hell, that’s a mouthful!” His face lost all expression whatsoever as Sandra looked at him sternly. “Perfectly clear!” he managed at last.
Sandra straightened her back. There was a pain high in her hips that had grown more intense from leaning over to tend the wounded. For the first time in a while, she looked around. Already, Lemurian healers had swept into the “hospital area” on the open deck between the center and the shattered forward tower. They treated the injured in their own way. Some examined the stitches she had made, and jabbered in their quick, excited tones. Obviously, body language added a great deal of meaning to their speech, and she was growing convinced that their blinking eyes conveyed much as well. She walked into the almost-shade under the catwalk above. She couldn’t venture farther because that was where a sort of orchard of large pear-shaped fruit began. She’d heard it called polta fruit. The orchard ran entirely around the ship for a width of about fifteen feet. The wide catwalk was pierced at regular intervals by gratings that allowed light to the plants. The fruit itself, despite its familiar shape, had the color and shiny texture of purple grapes and grew in bunches as well, nestled in a mass of waxy, yellow-green leaves.
At the edge of the orchard was a Lemurian she knew was tall by the standards of his people, and his upper body was more muscular than most. He wore nothing but a bright red kilt stained dark by the blood matting his brindled fur and still seeping from a couple of cuts. He leaned on one knee over the still form of a female of similar color, raising her head so she could drink from a cup. One of the swords, like a cross between a machete and a scimitar, lay beside a blood-encrusted axe.
The female had clearly been in the fighting. Sandra had treated others as well. The first time she removed a bloody leather tunic from one of their “professional” warriors and discovered furry breasts beneath, she was shocked. Adar and his entourage were standing right there, though, and made no sign that the discovery of a female in the ranks was unusual. As she’d said earlier, the semi-nudity didn’t surprise her-although she’d finally rounded savagely on Silva and his buddies when she overheard their comments about the “cat-monkey booby farm”-but she hadn’t been prepared to find females not only fighting for their lives in a desperate situation but doing so as actual warriors.
After a time she grew inured-if not accustomed-to the apparent fact that among Lemurians there was total equality of the sexes. At least as far as warfare was concerned. But in this instance there seemed a contrast between that and the tender, very human concern she saw of a male for an injured female. She moved toward them unobserved. Adar was busy discussing something with Shinya and another Lemurian who’d approached. Silva, “distracted” again, suddenly noticed she’d wandered off and hurried after her, lugging his BAR. The big Lemurian straightened and regarded them as they neared. The female tried to rise, but Sandra made a lay-back motion with her hands and crouched beside her. The male and Silva remained standing, facing each other.
A quick survey showed Sandra no obvious life-threatening wounds, but there was a nasty cut above the left eye, slick with the healing lotion that Lemurians seemed to use as liberally as Mercurochrome. A possible concussion, then, but the eyes were alert. She smiled and crossed her hands over her chest. “Sandra,” she said. The female’s eyes fluttered rapidly and she glanced at the male who was now staring intently at Sandra as well.
With a wince, the female raised her left arm and patted herself. “Risa.” Then she pointed at the male and said, “Chack.”
Shinya and Adar joined them. “Lieutenant Tucker, Adar tells me their leader, Keje-Fris-Ar, desires we attend him once more.”
Sandra nodded, but reached out and gently patted Risa’s hand before she stood. “Very well, but please ask him to tell this one I hope she feels better soon.” She turned to Silva. “Stay here, and when Ensign Theimer and Pharmacist’s Mate Miller arrive, tell them whatever they do, don’t act like they’re taking over-just assist any way they can. Understand?”
“Yes, Miss… Lieutenant Tucker. I’ll tell Reavis and Newman that very thing, but me and Felts’ll tag along with you.”
“Really, Mr. Silva, that’s not necessary.”
He grinned. “Maybe not, ma’am, but I think we will anyway. Skipper’d have us thrown to the fishes if we let you out of our sight.”
Sandra sighed. “Very well. If you feel you must loom menacingly in the background wherever I go, I’ll not upset you by protesting further, but promise you’ll do so as peacefully as possible?”
“Absolutely, ma’am,” Silva said with an expression of purest innocence. “Everybody’ll tell you I’m as peaceable a critter as there is.”
Near dusk, the launch bumped into Walker’s side for the final time that day, and the passengers carefully climbed the metal rungs to the deck above. The nurses went first. The one named Theimer seemed almost catatonic, and Lieutenant Tucker had to help her up. Tony Scott had noticed she wasn’t quite with it when he took her across, but she looked even worse coming back, and she hadn’t said a word either time-not that he paid much attention, or even really cared. He just wanted out of the boat. He’d been in the launch most of the day, with the terrible silvery fish- and occasionally larger things-bumping against it. He’d controlled the urge to fire the Thompson over the side in mounting terror, but he hadn’t set it down all day. Now all he could think about was getting something more substantial than the wooden hull of a twenty-six-foot boat between him and whatever lurked below the surface of the water he’d always loved. He scrambled up last, urging Silva ahead of him.
“Calm down, Tony. What’s your rush?” jibed Silva as he neared the top, over Scott’s labored breathing below.
“Goddamn you, Silva! If you don’t hurry, I guess you’ll find out in a minute when I throw you in the water!”
Silva laughed as he clambered onto the deck and turned to offer the coxswain his hand. “Hell, they’s just fish, Tony, just like sharks. Sharks ain’t never spooked you before.”
As soon as he gained the deck, Scott moved quickly to the center, as far from the water as possible. Silva and Felts followed. Miller, Reavis, Newman, and the two nurses went below while others hoisted the launch aboard. Scott took a cigarette from Felts and lit it with trembling hands. He took several deep drags, eyes flitting nervously from point to point but carefully avoiding faces. “I been on the water all my life,” he said at last. “I grew up in Fort Lauderdale and had a sailboat, a fourteen-footer I’d take on the open ocean in the Gulf before my daddy figured I was old enough to drive.” He drew in another lungful of smoke. “Had some scrapes, too. Bad weather. Sharks…” He glanced at Silva, searching the big man’s face for ridicule. He shrugged. “From then to now, I ain’t ever been afraid of the water.” He shuddered. “Until today. It started creepin’ up on me when I went across to Mahan right after the Squall, but I guess it finally got the better of me. Even those critters that got Marvaney didn’t spook me like that constant bumpin’ all day long. Knowin’…” He shook his head and looked back at Silva. “They ain’t just fish, Dennis, and this ain’t the Java Sea. Not anymore. I’ve known it from the start, but with everything going on, it just never sank in till today. I finally realized the water ain’t even just the water anymore. The water’s death, fellas, and if I had my druthers, I’d never go near it again.”
He’d been speaking in quiet tones, but evidently louder than he thought. They heard a gruff laugh and turned to see Dean Laney by the rail, leaning on the safety chain by the number one torpedo mount. The big machinist’s mate wore a sadistic grin.
“Don’t that beat all? The coxswain’s afraid of the water! Har! I bet you’ll be strikin’ for snipe now, so you
