of B’mbaado, but she’d also shown herself to be wise and compassionate to her former Aryaalan enemies and strangers as well. He was certain she’d be a major unifying figure and a force to be reckoned with in the events that were to come. Beside him stood Chack, watching as well. The young Lemurian was tired but surprisingly alert after spending virtually the entire night in the crow’s nest. Matt nodded toward the queen.
«Go give them a hand if you want,» he said with a small smile. «Or you can hit the rack. It’s your choice.»
«If it makes no difference to you, Cap-i-taan, I will help the ladies.» He grinned.
«That’s fine, but be back aboard by the first watch. We’ve got a hell of a mess and the Chief’s going to need your help. Try to get some sleep between now and then. It’s going to be a busy night.»
«Aye, aye, Cap-i-taan.» Chack saluted him and bailed down the ladder. Matt shook his head. Very carefully, he tried to stretch. Not long before they opened Baalkpan Bay, he’d finally convinced Sandra to remove the rigid strapping that held his arm immobilized. He felt no pain at all from his ribs and the wound through his shoulder had healed remarkably well. That seemed to be the case with every patient treated with the infection-fighting goo. Sandra knew where it came from now — fermented polta fruit that was further processed in some seemingly mystical way — but she still didn’t know what made it work and she yearned for a microscope to study it with. Matt didn’t care what the stuff was so long as it worked and he was eager to get his considerably atrophied arm back in service. He stretched a little farther, tensing the muscles, and tried to raise the arm from his side. Salvos of pain shot in all directions, and with a wince he let the arm drop. The pain lingered, throbbing with heat, but as it began to subside, he tried again.
«Ahh!»
Deciding to delay his therapy a little longer, he looked back down at the dock. A procession of Guardsmen dressed in the colors of Nakja-Mur’s clan had arrived and Nakja-Mur himself was ascending the gangway with Alan Letts and Jim Ellis. Despite the mess and the chaos on deck, Chief Gray managed to assemble a side party to receive them and the sound of his bosun’s pipe twittered from below. A few moments later, the two men and the rotund Lemurian leader were admitted to the bridge. Out in the open air, salutes were exchanged and Jim and Alan extended their hands in heartfelt relief. To Matt’s surprise, Nakja-Mur enveloped him in a crushing embrace.
«Ah!» Matt said again, clenching his eyes shut.
«I am so glad you and your ship did not die!» the High Chief exclaimed in much improved English. He was oblivious to the pain he’d accidentally caused.
«Me too,» Matt agreed, once he could trust his voice. «
Nakja-Mur nodded grimly. «A terrible thing. I am deeply grieved and angered by its loss. As I am for
«
Tabby was surprised by the cook’s priorities, but Isak and Gilbert both nodded solemnly. «It’s a hell of a thing,» Isak agreed. «How’s your gut feelin’, Earl?» Lanier glared up at him.
«None of your goddamn business, snipe!» He straightened up on the stool as best he could and pulled his shirt closed over his grimy bandage. «Now you’ve stolen the best sammiches I had left, why don’t you quit goofin’ off and get back to work! I can’t fix the whole ship by myself!»
They crossed the deck and ducked under the bridge beside the radio shack. Clancy was inside with the hatch open. His earphones were on his head and he nodded as they passed. Who knew what he was listening for. Going through the hatchway that led onto the foredeck, they emerged into sunlight again. Finally they’d found a place that hadn’t been damaged the night before — beyond a few dents and scratches from shell fragments — and so, for now at least, it was probably the quietest place on the ship. They crawled up under the splinter shield of the number one gun and stretched out in the sparse shade beneath it.
«Laan-yeer is a strange man,» Tabby observed at length. «He think whole ship — just so he have galley.»
«Yeah,» Isak agreed from beneath his right arm, which rested across his eyes. «But we’re sort of the same way, I guess. Nothin’ really matters except our boilers. Spanky has it tough. He has to worry about the boilers
«Except the cap-i-taan,» Tabby said thoughtfully. «He have to worry about everything. Not just all ship, but
They lay quietly for a moment, listening to the racket from aft.
«Yeah,» Yager breathed at last. «I sure wouldn’t want his job.»
MAELSTROM
Coming from Roc in February 2009
There was a new rumbling sound below, but it went unnoticed by the eight-year-old girl swaying in the sailcloth hammock. Her slumber was already filled with the incessant rumbling and groaning of the working hull and the endless, hissing blows of the pounding sea. Then came another rumble and another, each more insistent than the last. Still she didn’t stir from her dream. In it, she’d been swallowed by a leviathan, just as she’d dreaded since before the strange voyage ever began. Every night, as soon as the lids closed over her large, jade-colored eyes, the same terrible dream came again. She was in the very bowels of the leviathan and the rumbling, hissing roar was the sound of its belly digesting the ship. The voices came — there were always voices — excited, urgent. Voices in a tone entirely appropriate. Of course there would be dreadful voices in a dreadful dream. She knew what would happen next.
She was facedown on the thundering deck and only her tangled bedding protected her delicate nose from the fall. Her eyes were instan feet.
«We must put her in a boat this instant!» he cried. His voice had returned to what was surely a more normal growl.
«My thanks, good sir,» Kearley replied. «I appreciate your assistance.» The man spared him an incredulous glance. Now that he recognized the girl, there was no question he would die to save her.
The girl was oblivious to the exchange. Around her in the darkness there was no longer any doubt: her terrible dream had come to life. Helpless canvas flailed and snapped and the once fascinating scientific intricacy of the rigging was a hopeless mare’s nest of tangled lines. A constant, deadly hail of blocks and debris fell from above. Beyond her immediate surroundings, she dimly saw the bow, twisting and bent, jackknifing ever upward until the bowsprit pointed at the sky. The fragile paddle wheels on either side, amidships, resembled twisted flowers, shorn of their petals. Steam and smoke jetted from the funnel. In the center of this catastrophe, the deadly sea coursed into the ship.
Then, past the bow, coal dark against the starry horizon, she saw a monstrous form. It was clearly the great leviathan that had destroyed the ship — possibly entirely by accident. It may have simply risen from the depths, unknowing and unconcerned, to inhale a cavernous lungful of air. Perhaps only then did it discover the water bug on its back. No matter, it noticed it now. Even as the girl watched with unspeakable dread, the island-sized creature completed its leisurely turn and came back to inspect the wounded morsel in its wake. The big man saw it too.
«Into a boat!» he bellowed, carrying her to the larboard rail, where a dozen men frantically tore at the quarter-boat tackle. «Make way, damn ye! Can ye not see who I bear?» A wide-eyed young officer motioned them through the gathering throng that regarded the boat with frantic, greedy eyes.
«Are you a sailor?» the officer demanded of the big man. «You are not one of the crew.»
«I was a sailor once,» he admitted. «And a soldier. I’m a shipwright now, bound for the yard at the company
