clerk was. Mostly animals, bugs, places, and such. Must’ve been a naturalist like Bradford, in a perverted, lizard sort of way.” Matt nodded absently and motioned Shinya to bring another chart. He unrolled it carefully and placed his cutlass on one end and a couple of. 45s on the other.
At a glance, this one seemed most pertinent, at least in the short term. Even cruder than the others, it was less like a navigational chart than a map of enemy territory. It extended from the mouth of the Ganges River southward to include the Cocos Islands. From there, west to Timor, then back to Formosa. All French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies showed varying detail. The farther east, the vaguer the shapes of landmasses became. The Philippines weren’t shown at all.
Matt leaned over the desk, trying to see better by the light of the swaying lanterns. He was painfully reminded he’d discovered unknown muscles that day.
“Skipper, look at this!” exclaimed Alden. He held a tablet close to his face to see in the dim light. Reversing it, he displayed the page. Sandra cried out and sprang to her feet. Matt managed only a short bark of incredulous laughter. There, on the yellowish paper, was a highly stylized but clearly recognizable drawing of USS Walker, down to the “163” on her bow.
“Son of a bitch!” Alden breathed. “This must be the one that got away!”
“Maybe,” murmured Matt, “but does that make it the same one in company with the other two we destroyed? Why was it with two more so fast-if it’s the same? I wonder how many others it came in contact with.”
“Quite a few,” said Sandra, leaning back over the chart. Her voice was brittle. “Look. Many of these coastlines have been updated or redrawn periodically, like survey corrections. Also, see this dark splotch here?” She pointed at a spot on the map. “I’m no navigator, but that’s almost the exact place we came to Salissa’s assistance.”
Garrett squinted. “Looks like… blood, Captain. And look! Next to it there’s a little drawing of us! Just a thick line with four small lines sticking up, but I bet that’s supposed to be Walker.”
Shinya nodded. “It does look like blood. Possibly representing a place of battle? If that’s the case, you may note there are many such spots on this map.”
“There’s one at Tjilatjap,” Sandra confirmed. “Mr. Shinya may be right. There’s dozens of ‘spots.’ If they denote battles, and the picture of Walker seems to confirm that, this ship couldn’t have engaged in them all, or surveyed all these coastlines alone.”
“That means they communicate among themselves, even from one task force to the next.” Garrett’s brow was creased with concern. “That means…”
“Right.” Matt finished for him. “This may not be the one that got away. They might all know about Walker.”
There was a contemplative, nervous silence as they considered the implications.
“Okay,” said Matt, pointing back at the chart. “Battle here, battle here, battle here-each battle mark is accompanied by this thing that looks like a tree. Maybe that’s their symbol for the ’cats.” His finger traced the coast of Borneo. “Nothing at Baalkpan, so maybe they don’t know about Nakja-Mur’s People yet.”
“There is such a symbol at Surabaya,” Shinya pointed out, “although no battle mark.”
“I bet it won’t be long,” Alden growled. “I wonder what these little triangle symbols mean.”
Matt felt a chill, despite the dank, oppressive warmth of the cabin. “I bet those are Grik ships. And the circles around them represent their areas of operation. See? There’re three in the Makassar Strait.”
“Not anymore,” Alden quipped.
“They’re everywhere, then,” Sandra murmured, her voice quiet with despair. “There must be a dozen triangles in the Java Sea alone. And all those other charts we’ve looked at-there’re scores of triangles on them!”
“My God,” muttered Garrett.
Alden was idly tracing the procession of battle marks up the coast of Java and Sumatra. Suddenly he stiffened. “Look,” he said, his finger beside a brownish stain near the Banjak Islands. There was another thick line, but with only three smaller lines sticking out. With a rush of realization, Matt remembered a funnel that fell across a davit.
“Mahan,” he breathed.
The storm dwindled to nothing as the night wore on, and its only remnant in the boulder-strewn approaches to the refloated Big Sal was a disorganized chop. Otherwise, the sun rose bright above Celebes and the sky was blue and cloudless. All was back to normal aboard the huge ship, fake debris was cleared away and the stores that littered the beach returned. Water still coursed over the side, and it would for some time, since so much had been required to “sink” the great vessel. That was the part of the plan Matt had been most concerned about, but Keje himself suggested it as bait for the trap. He’d assured his friend that sinking and refloating Big Sal wasn’t difficult, or even unusual. They did it all the time.
Once a year it was deliberately done to cleanse the lower decks and “sweeten” the air. A suitable, sandy bottom in sheltered shallows was all they needed, and water was let in until Big Sal gently settled to the bottom of the sea. After a few days passed, she was pumped out and all hatches were laid open, allowing the interior to dry. This routine cleared the ship of vermin and insects, and washed away the foul smell of gri-kakka oil that seeped from barrels and grew rancid in the bilge.
The periodic “sinkings” were times for festivities and merriment, and contests in which younglings captured and tallied vermin that escaped to the upper decks. They never got rid of them entirely, and the little ratlike creatures were fruitful if nothing else, but for a long time afterward their numbers were diminished and Big Sal’s cavernous hold smelled fresh and clean. None of her previous soakings were accompanied by as much merriment and jubilation as this one, however, particularly when Walker appeared early that morning towing the dismasted hulk over the horizon.
Big Sal’s forward wing still wasn’t erected, but otherwise she was good as new when the great sweeps propelled her through the obstacles and into the open water to rejoin her ally. Hundreds of People crowded the shrouds and lined the catwalk to welcome Walker with thunderous roars and cheers of greeting. The great guns were loaded and fired in salute as the destroyer bore down with her prize.
Walker responded with repeated whoops from her horn. Destroyermen, Marines, and Lemurian cadets lined her rail, as did the prize crew on the captured ship. A makeshift flagstaff had been rigged atop her shattered mainmast, and an American flag streamed to leeward above the red and black pennant of the enemy.
For the first time since he’d seen the curious cloth, the meaning of the destroyermen’s flag, and what it could represent, was driven home to Keje. He felt a surge of pride at the sight of it, even if it wasn’t a symbol of his own People. There was also a twinge of something close to envy, and he determined then and there that one day his own People must have a flag. They had symbols aplenty that represented their clans, on the tapestries that adorned their great halls, but nothing they could look to that represented all the People everywhere. In addition to his heady dreams of the day before, it was a legacy that he thought the great uniting prophet, Siska-Ta, would surely approve of. The Americans had their flag and so did the Grik. It was time the People had one.
To cap the magical excitement of the moment, the great flying-boat descended out of the northeastern sky, thunderous motors adding to the joyful tumult of happy people. Keje watched as it skimmed low over the waves and made a proper landing for the first time, and the grace and power of the huge, flying metal contrivance took his breath away. It was a great day!
Walker hove to, her people returning Big Sal’s cheers. The launch went over the side and a few moments later arrived in Salissa’s lee, crowded with passengers who immediately climbed the netting lowered for them. An honor guard of excited Marines met them when the party reached the main deck, and a twitter of bone whistles simulated bosun’s pipes.
Captain Reddy saluted aft, as he’d always done, and again Keje wished there was something to salute. Regardless, he fervently returned the gesture Matt offered him and then enclosed him in a mighty embrace.
“We were worried about you, my Brother,” he said.
“We were worried about us too,” Matt replied. “I never doubted the outcome of your battle.”
Keje barked a laugh. “So certain were you? I was not! Not until the great guns spoke! It was… glorious!”
Matt couldn’t help but catch Keje’s infectious grin, but he asked a serious question. “Was the price very high?” Keje only smiled and allowed Jarrik-Fas to answer.
“We had no losses, lord. None! We slew the enemy with contemptuous ease! Our warriors never even drew their blades!”
