“We’ll weather the point,” Chapelle assured him, “but you’re probably right. It sure is hard to get used to not having engines.”
“I was just thinking that myself. It’s tough getting used to a lot of things here,” Garrett muttered.
Chapelle frowned. “Hey, Skipper, don’t beat yourself up. You did okay.” He gestured at the now clearly doomed Grik. It was rolling so violently, the masts must soon fall. With a distant, muted “crack,” the main snapped off at the deck and collapsed into the ck spoke to the surgeon in his own language; then he and Chapelle assisted Garrett down the companionway. Once they reached the wardroom, they eased him into a chair, where he sat and waited while others with more serious wounds were tended. He’d insisted as soon as he saw them. Some of the wounds were utterly ghastly: mangled limbs and terrible gashes-mostly caused by splinters, he again realized. His ship was in capable hands and his leg would keep. He looked at the ball he’d laid in his lap.
The cannons they’d helped the Lemurians create were bronze. There was plenty of copper and tin all over this region that had once been the Dutch East Indies. Iron was harder to come by and harder still to work. They desperately needed iron to make structural repairs to Walker and Mahan, and implement many of their other plans. In the short term, though, it didn’t seem critical. Bronze was actually better than iron for smoothbore cannons. The elongation was better and the quality control not as critical. They made their cannonballs of copper, which flew just fine. But without a steady source of iron, and the ability to smelt and forge it in quantity, there was only so far they could go, industrially speaking. Even with their limitations, Garrett had thought they would enjoy a significant advantage over the enemy for some time to come. At least until today. As he contemplated the projectile in his lap, it suddenly dawned on him with a sickening sense of dread that the Grik had not only caught them technologically, but taken a leaping bound ahead. The ball in his lap was iron. They’re making cannonballs of iron, he thought numbly. His thoughts immediately rearranged themselves. They have so much iron they can waste it on cannonballs!
“My God.”
CHAPTER 5
Hisashi Kurokawa, captain of His Imperial Majesty’s battle cruiser Amagi, paced nervously back and forth in the gloomy anteroom of the Imperial Regent’s palace. The regent, an imposing Grik named Tsalka, was not present, nor had he been since shortly after the disappointing setback delivered to the Grand Swarm in general, and Amagi in particular, by the “Tree Prey” and their American allies. He’d returned to Ceylon, where he presumably awaited either death for his failure, or a requested audience with the Celestial Mother, the Supreme Empress of all the Grik Herself, on the distant island of Madagascar where the Imperial Palace stood.
Kurokawa doubted he’d ever see Tsalka again. The regent would either be killed out of hand, or executed (hopefully eaten alive) after his audience with the empress. Even though he’d essentially been only a “passenger” aboard the Grand Swarm’s flagship, and not in actual command, he’d been the highest-ranking Grik in the region. Intolerance for failure was one trait the Grik shared with the Japanese, and if the one punished was not actually responsible for the failure, it was the example that was important. Even if he wasn’t killed, there was a very good chance he wouldn’t survive the trip to Madagascar. Voyages across the deep water of the Indian Ocean were notoriously hazardous. Apparently, the deeper the water, the larger the predators grew. Large enough to eat ships such as the regent would travel in. The thought warmed Kurokawa slightly. He patently loathed Tsalka-and all things Grik, in fact-even though only Tsalka’s forbearance had prevented him and all his surviving crew from being eaten in the aftermath of the “setback.” Kurokawa felt little gratitude, however, since one in ten of the Japanese survivors-a of their “allies.” It was nothing personal, he was assured, simply tradition. The hunter that drops his spear when the prey is brought to bay is always eaten in its stead, and the American torpedo that nearly sank his ship certainly made him drop the Grik’s mightiest spear.
Kurokawa had been indignant, but since he felt no real allegiance to his men either, he’d shed no tears for those who died. They were cowards and traitors all. Particularly his executive officer, Commander Sato Okada, who constantly questioned his decision to make alliance with the Grik, and would even make an accommodation with the Americans, he suspected, if he could. He’d grown far too close to their American prisoner of late. But Okada was not unique; his entire crew had betrayed him and The Emperor with their failure. After the strange storm that brought them here, Amagi had been the most powerful ship in the world. He’d believed it was only a matter of time before he could use her might to gain a position of power over the Grik. The Grik were loathsome creatures, but clearly the dominant species. Once he rose in their esteem, he could co-opt, or even supplant their ridiculous “Celestial Mother” and eventually rule this world himself-all in the name of Emperor Hirohito, of course.
Amagi ’s worthless crew had thwarted his ambition, at least temporarily. They’d allowed the mightiest ship this world had ever seen to be grievously wounded by an insignificant American destroyer, a ship so poorly armed and obsolete even the Americans had considered her class as expendable as napkins before the war. Therefore, Kurokawa cared nothing for the welfare of his crew, except insofar as their training and experience enhanced his own value and prestige. He couldn’t use them to further his aims if they were dead. He raged to admit it, but he himself would have little importance to the Grik without the skill and knowledge he commanded through his surviving crew. He therefore did his best to keep them alive and relatively comfortable.
Besides, the main reason Tsalka hadn’t killed them all was that another Grik, General Esshk, had intervened. Not immune to blame himself, it was he who prevailed with the argument that the Japanese and their mighty, wounded ship might be of use. Perhaps even essential to the ultimate success of the Swarm. Esshk made Tsalka realize the old ways of war, the Great Hunt that exterminated their prey almost as sport, might not succeed against the rediscovered Tree Prey, who’d escaped the conquest of Madagascar itself countless generations before. They’d grown much more formidable than the ancient histories described.
Kurokawa had learned that when the Grik first encountered the Tree Prey, as they were called, they’d posed no more of a challenge than any other predatory species the Grik had exterminated. They usually hid in trees, of all things, and when they fought, they did so ineffectually. But unlike any other prey the Grik had hunted, the Tree Prey somehow escaped. In desperation they’d built great ships from the dense forests of their home and braved the deadly sea the Grik couldn’t cross. Not until merely a couple of hundred years before had the Grik been given the gift of a seagoing ship to copy for themselves. A strange race of tail-less prey-not unlike the present Japanese, Esshk inferred-arrived in a three-masted ship with a sturdy, ingeniously planked hull. No one knew where they came from, and it really didn’t matter. The prey was devoured, but the ship and technical language required to make her was copied. Educated Hij among the Grik learned to write and cipher in the strange, captured toe re captured drafts referred to as “East Indiamen.” The Grik now had a fleet with which to expand their empire-although progress was slow. Even the much-improved ships the “English” prey brought were not proof against the largest denizens of the terrible sea.
It all made sense to Kurokawa. He suspected an East Indiaman had been swept to this world a few centuries before, just as Amagi had. Inexplicably, it was unarmed. He didn’t understand that at all. Historically, British East Indiamen usually carried an impressive armament for protection against pirates, and even belligerent warships. Perhaps those long-ago Englishmen already knew something about the Grik before they were captured, and feared what would happen if “modern” weapons fell into their hands. Maybe they heaved them over the side? If so, what had they thought they were protecting? Regardless, there were no cannons aboard when the Grik took the ship. Otherwise they’d already have them and they wouldn’t have come as such a devastating surprise when the hated Americans recently introduced the technology.
Kurokawa seethed. Oh, how he hated the Americans! They were responsible for his being here in the first place, instead of back where he belonged, riding the tide of Japanese victory across the Pacific. Perhaps the war was already won? The long-respected American Navy had proven ineffective, and had been unable to muster much of a defense after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. Nearly a year had passed since the bizarre green Squall transported him here. At the rate they’d been going, the Japanese Imperial Navy might have dictated terms to the United States from within San Francisco Bay by now. That was where he ought to be: covered in glory and recognized for his brilliance. Not here in this barbaric, perverted caricature world, where the emperor- his emperor-did not reign. The Americans were the cause of all that, and someday he’d have his revenge.
His value had been recognized by General Esshk, at least. The general was acting as forward vice regent in Tsalka’s stead, and his quarters were in the palace of the former king of Aryaal. Even Kurokawa had to admit the
