Most of the captives had begun a shrill, keening sound. In their tortured reality they probably thought their time had come to face the knives and saws. They seemed utterly mad. Matt remained for a while, watching while they were gently released a few at a time and taken on deck to the open air, as far from their prison as possible, by expressionless, furiously blinking Marines. Once there, they were wrapped in sailcloth against the wind and spray that came over the rail. They were fed and watered and carefully tended, but their chains weren’t removed. In their current state they might harm themselves or others if freed.
Silva was helping Chack through the stones (he’d flatly refused to be carried) when the Lemurian suddenly halted before a captive still chained to the hull. The wretched creature recoiled from his stare and made small gurgling sounds. Its skeletal chest heaved with terrified gasps. Matt stepped closer and regarded the creature with pity. He had great respect for the Lemurian people. He’d come to know them as stout warriors and generally cheerful, free-spirited individualists-not unlike his own destroyermen-but the things the captives had seen and endured would have broken anyone.
“Leave him alone, Chackie,” said Silva, uncharacteristically subdued. “Can’t you see he’s fixin’ to vapor- lock?”
Chack shook his head and leaned closer still. “I greet you. Do not fear,” he said in his own language.
“You know him?” Matt demanded.
Chack nodded, a strange smile on his face. “I know him.”
“Does he know you?”
Chack spoke rapidly, repeating a few words many times. A slight sheen slowly returned to the captive’s flat, dull eyes and, hesitantly, he spoke. After a moment, Chack turned. “He said these were mostly survivors of Chill- chaap, but there were some from other places. He himself was transferred from another ship-as was a Tail-less One like yourself.”
Matt remembered the skull. “What happened to the Tail-less One?” he demanded. Chack gestured as if it was obvious, and Matt nodded sharply. “You said you know him. Who is he?”
Chack almost seemed to sigh. “His name is Saak-Fas. Daughter-Mate of Keje-Fris-Ar.”
Tony Scott and Tamatsu Shinya found Gray resting in the gloom near the ship’s wildly spinning wheel. He was breathing hard and futilely wiping at the salt that stung his eyes. The coxswain had a cut on his shoulder that left a bloody scrap of sleeve flapping in the wind, and his lower lip was split and swollen. He still had no helmet, but he’d tied a rag around his head to keep the hair out of his eyes. The Thompson was lovingly slung over his undamaged shoulder.
“Cambin’s commimenpfs, Cheeb,” Scott said, trying to talk around his busted lip. “How are eberations goin’ ’or da tow?”
Gray groaned as he rose to his feet. “We’re under tow, you nitwit. Have been for the last fifteen minutes. I was about to report to the captain myself when you interrupted me!”
Scott nodded. “’Innat cay, cambin wans you ter sounderwell.”
Gray looked at him in the near-darkness. The ship rode much easier now that Walker was towing her and she no longer rolled beam-on to the swells.
“What the hell’s a sounderwell?” he demanded.
“Sound-the-well!” Scott painfully repeated. “Vinally got da las o’ dat verbin cleared out o’ da hold an’ da cambin wants to know if she’ll f-f-vloat. I’ll go vif you.”
Gray nodded. “Right. I’ll report to the captain first, though. What’s he doin’, anyway? I figgered he’d of been up here by now.”
“Lookin’ at fings. Charts an’ stuvv… an’ udder fings. There’s
… awful fings down dere.”
Gray turned for the stairs.
“Chief Boatswain’s Mate Gray,” said Shinya. “May I have a brief word?”
Gray’s face darkened, but he jerked a nod.
“I know you don’t like me, but you saved my life today, when the corvus parted. I would like to thank you.”
Gray shrugged. “There was guys behind you. I had to get your Nip ass out of the way.” He turned to follow Scott, but stopped again. “You got any kids?” he asked. Tamatsu was taken aback.
“No.”
“I did. A boy. Close to thirty, now. Took after his old man-’cept he was a snipe. Machinist’s mate. I hadn’t seen him in four years, but I was proud of him. He was my son, you know?”
“What happened to him?”
“They never found his body, so officially he was missing. But he was in Oklahoma’s fireroom when she rolled over. At Pearl Harbor. So don’t you dare thank me for saving your worthless ass! It makes me sick! I was just pitching you out of the way.” With that, he stormed down the ladder.
“Yes,” Shinya said to himself, “but it would have been easier to ‘pitch’ me into the sea instead of on the deck.”
“Well, we did what we set out to do,” Matt said grimly. “We’ve learned about the enemy.” He, Sandra, Garrett, Shinya, and Alden sat around the Grik captain’s desk poring over the tablets and charts they’d found. Walker towed the derelict charnel house in a wide, lazy circle across the Makassar Strait, into the Java Sea. That would keep them off the islands and shoals through the long night and bring them to Big Sal and their friends by morning. The sea was moderating, and Gray reported they’d float as long as the rhythmic clunk-thump of the chain pumps was maintained.
His report was uncustomarily subdued after he returned from inspecting the hull. It sustained little battle damage, but seams had opened while she wallowed in the heavy seas and water was coming in. That wasn’t what bothered him about his tour of the well, though. All of them would be haunted by the things they’d seen and survived that day, and by what they’d come to know about the nature of their enemy.
“They’re worse than Japs, sir!” said Alden with conviction mixed with quiet horror. The exhausted Marine belatedly glanced at Shinya, who bristled at the slightest comparison. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Hell, they’re worse than anything!”
Captain Reddy had in fact been idly searching his memory for any culture in human history to compare with the Grik. So far, his tired mind wouldn’t oblige. He rubbed his eyes and watched Shinya visibly relax. “Anything,” he repeated dully. “I think you’re right.”
It had been a long, bloody day. Eighteen Lemurian Marines were killed and almost that many wounded. Most of his destroyermen were lightly injured as well, although only Norman Kutas suffered a serious wound. That was when Scurrey dropped his cutlass down a companionway and nailed his foot to the deck. Miraculously, it missed the bones, but Kutas was off his feet for a while. Aside from the quartermaster’s mate’s pain, it might even have been funny under other circumstances-but nothing was funny now.
They had one of the Grik charts spread before them on the desk. Matt thought how horrified Adar would be to learn that the Grik had “Scrolls.” They were looking at an overview of the western Indian Ocean, Madagascar, and East Africa up to the equator and south to latitude 30. The eastern boundary of the map was the 80th parallel. The quality of the representations was poor-about on a par with sixteenth-century maps he’d seen in history books, but they, along with the printed information, were more than adequate for rudimentary navigation. The most startling and terrible thing about the charts, however, was that he could read them.
Most of the writing, and anything added by hand, was incomprehensible and resembled a slashing form of Arabic. But many of the place-names and nautical references used recognizable letters forming English words. All the numbers were familiar too. Obviously, the Grik got much more out of their British teachers than the Lemurians did. From what they’d seen that day, Matt imagined the Grik had certainly been more persuasive.
“Madagascar,” Matt said at last. “I bet old Bradford’s right about that being the original home of the ’Cats.” Sandra peered at the island.
“Probably. It’s been well within the Grik empire for a long, long time. In fact, every landmass shown seems to be part of their territory.” Garrett glanced at Matt with a worried frown.
“They’ve got a lot of weight behind them, that’s for sure. Way more than us.”
Matt looked at Alden. “Anything from the tablets yet?”
Pete shook his head. He’d been skimming the roughly twelve-by-twelve-inch booklets while the others studied the charts. They were filled, mostly, with pen-and-ink illustrations. “Captain Grik was a pretty good drawer, or his
