Campeti almost giggled. In spite of the herculean task ahead of them, the spirits of those who’d come aboard were rising. Finally, after the long months of anticipation and helplessness, of toil and labor on other projects, they could get to work on what mattered most to them. It almost seemed as if they could sense something within the ship itself begin to stir as well. A renewed sense of purpose. A new lease on life.
“We wanna go down,” grouched a reedy voice behind Spanky, and he turned to look at the pair standing there. It was Gilbert Yeager and the silken, gray-furred ’Cat named Tabby. He had to concentrate for an instant, because without Isak Rueben, the scene just didn’t add up. Then he remembered Isak was the one they’d decided would accompany the AEF. Understanding complete, Spanky glared at Tabby when he saw she’d stripped almost completely, in the Lemurian way, to the point that all she wore was what looked like a skimpy little skirt. Despite her fine fur, her breasts appeared very human. It was distracting and annoying and she knew it. Sometimes Spanky harbored a secret, superstitious sense that the presence of women (the nurses’ first) aboard his ship was what had caused all their problems to start with. He’d finally allowed Tabby to stay in the firerooms at the captain’s orders and because she was a damn fine snipe. He’d broken one of his own cardinal rules, however: if something someone is doing bugs you, either make them stop, or pretend it doesn’t bug you. In Tabby’s case, he’d failed miserably in both respects. He couldn’t-wouldn’t now-make her go away, and there was no way he could pretend she didn’t bug him.
“You’re out of uniform, sailor!” he said harshly, almost plaintively. “Again!”
“Dirty work ahead, Chief,” she replied with a creditable drawl. “We ain’t got enough new uniforms yet to get ’em all scruffed up.”
She even sounds like them now, Spanky thought uncomfortably. She was also the only creature alive that the Mice were actually nice to, in their way. As a result of their association, she’d begun to take on many of their less agreeable attributes. But she looked like a pinup in a catsuit.
“I don’t give a good goddamn! You will put on some clothes or I’ll have you on report!” he bellowed. “We’ll see if you can remember to. ..” He stopped and watched her slowly unroll a T-shirt she’d been holding behind her back.
“Aye-aye, Mr. McFaar-lane. I’ll throw somethin’ on if it make you happy.”
“You…!” He stopped. She’d done it to him again! He whirled and pointed at the very deck access she’d pulled her companions from months before. “Down there. Let me know if the water’s draining out of the aft fireroom! I want you to describe every single piece of equipment as it becomes visible!” He ignored them then, and began delegating other tasks to different details. The Mice shuffled away and ducked down the hatch. Once inside, out of earshot, Gilbert began to chuckle.
“I swear, Tabby, you keep waggin’ yer boobs at Spanky like that, one o’ these days he’s gonna bust a vessel-or grab hold of ’em! You know it drives him nuts. Just havin’ wimmin aboard ship is enough to cause him fits-then you keep doin’ that!”
“He still needs to laugh,” Tabby replied. “I like to make him laugh and he will, later. He always does.” Her eyes grew unfocused and she continued softly: “And maybe someday he will grab ’em.” She looked away, but Gilbert could tell she was blinking embarrassment.
Jeez! Gilbert thought, stunned. Tabby’s sweet on Spanky! “Yeah, well,” he said, his chuckle now gone as he peered into the darkness below. The stench was unbearable and the water was still over the top of his beloved boilers. “Ain’t much to laugh about right now. Look at this mess!”
The oily water receded slowly, and purplish brown foam swirled and clung to everything as its support drained away. At some point, one of Walker ’s own hoses snaked down through the trunk with a bellowed, “Slide it in!” and moments later, it began to pulse and throb. The drainage picked up. Another hose, new made, joined the first and was soon jolting and juddering alongside it. Gilbert no longer noticed the smell, and as the water went down, he carefully descended to the upper catwalk, creeping slowly so he wouldn’t slip in the oily slurry. His beloved fireroom was a dreary sight in the gloom. He didn’t dare make a light.
He suddenly remembered finding a dead, bloated cow out in a pasture when he was a kid. It was one of his ma’s, and he’d been curious why it died. While he stood there staring at it, its hind legs started to move. At first, he thought he’d met a ghost cow, because there was no question it was dead. He started to run, but something stopped him. He’d never been scared of a live cow. What could a dead one do to him? With that certain mixture of horror and fascination only kids could conjure, he’d watched a medium-size possum come crawling out of the cow’s ass!
He’d pondered that occasionally over the years, that possum squirming around up in there. No matter how hungry he got after that, and there’d been some starving times during the Depression, he’d never eaten possum again. Now, looking at his fireroom, he suddenly imagined he knew what the inside of that old cow had looked like to that possum so long ago.
“Go get another hose, Tabby. A water hose!” he shouted. “Might as well rinse some of this shit down while they’re suckin’ it out!”
The water came from the basin and wasn’t by any means clean, but at least the pressure let him blow the worst of the goo away. Also, it didn’t hurt that he’d exposed a little of the lighter paint and it grew brighter in the compartment as the sun hung overhead. Soon, he and Tabby were standing on the slimy deck plates. While he aimed the hose, she held it for him. A couple of times, they raised a plate and stuffed one of the drain hoses in the bilge.
“Gonna need some kind of detergent!” he shouted.
“We use wood ashes, make lye soap?”
“I dunno. Lye does goofy stuff. Not much aluminum down here, but there’s zinc in brass and galvanize. Shoot lye on that and we get hydrogen gas! I doubt wood ashes’d be pure enough, but it might corrode the hell out of stuff.” Gilbert paused and wiped his face with his shirt. It was stiflingly hot. “I wish somebody’d raise those goddamn vents!” he roared. Almost as if they’d heard him-and maybe someone had-the grungy, nearly opaque skylight vents started going up. Soon, the fireroom was relatively bathed in light and at least a little air was getting in. A few more ’Cats soon came to join them. Gilbert felt mildly guilty. He knew everyone was busy, but hell. He and Tabby turned the hose over to their relief and started to go topside for a much-needed drink. He paused.
“You know,” he shouted over the gushing water, “speakin’ of corrosion, there ain’t much here. Not new, anyway. Maybe all this oily, slimy shit did us a favor.” He moved to one of the big Yarrow boilers, kicked the latch, and opened the door. A flood of black water gushed out all over him, knocking him down. Tabby picked him up, and together they peered inside.
“Ook,” Gilbert said. He couldn’t see much, but the firebricks were gone. Probably disintegrated when the cool water hit them. The lines looked okay, though, and even if a few had popped, he could fix that. New firebrick had been stockpiled long ago during their previous refits. He gently patted the old boiler. “Hey! We can hose her out! No need to get all black and sooty cleanin’ her!”
Tabby looked at him. He was covered from head to foot with black, slimy ooze. She laughed aloud. Gilbert grinned too, realizing how ridiculous the statement was under the circumstances.
“Well, we can,” he defended. “Mainly, though”-he patted the boiler again-“we can fix this.”
It was nearly dusk and it had been a long, eventful, and mostly happy day in spite of their early misgivings. Faces grew somber a few times when the occasional bone was discovered and reverently removed. There weren’t many, and those they found were deeply gnawed. There was no way to identify whose they were and it didn’t really matter anyway. Courtney Bradford might have told them whether the bones were human or Lemurian, but it ultimately made no difference. Lemurians traditionally preferred to be burned, so their spirits might rise with the smoke and join those in the Heavens who’d gone before, but regardless how distasteful most Lemurians considered the human practice of burying their remains, many Lemurian “destroyermen” had requested burial like-and beside- their shipmates. Their clan.
All the bones were sent to join those of destroyermen already buried in the little cemetery at the Parade Ground in the center of the city, that lay in the returning shade of the Great Tree of Baalkpan. The tree, and the new leaves sprouting from it, was a symbol of hope that all might be made right in the end-not least because of the graves it sheltered with its mighty boughs.
After the grisly chore of removing the dead was complete, spirits rose again. Not because anyone had discovered that the task before them would be easier than they thought; if anything they were beginning to cope with the fact that it would be much harder. Absolutely everything would have to be painstakingly repaired, including all the little things they hadn’t even thought of. But now at least the wondering was over. They knew what they had
