now, but he was glad they wouldn’t have to make their way through the once-proud city. According to Rasik, what they sought was a number of miles up the estuary where the river became a swamp.
“Good morning, Cap-i-taan Ellis,” came a voice from behind him. He turned and saw Chack standing there, neatly maintained Marine battle dress at odds with the dented American doughboy helmet he wore. He wore a sword suspended from a black leather baldric, and hanging by its sling, muzzle down on his brindle-furred shoulder, was his Krag.
“Morning, Chack. You ready for this?”
“Of course.”
Jim nodded. Of course. Chack’s steadiness and complete competence were among the constants he’d come to rely on. He still found it hard to believe the young Lemurian had once been a confirmed pacifist.
“Very well. You, me, half a dozen Marines, and Rasik-Alcas. I guess we’ll take Isak Rueben in case this ‘treasure trove’ of Rasik’s includes anything he might be needed to evaluate.” Jim frowned. Isak had transferred to Dowden as chief engineer for the trip, since the ship would be on her own. Isak clearly understood the principles of Dowden ’s machinery better than anyone else, but he wasn’t a very good teacher. Once away from Tabby and Gilbert, he wasn’t quite as antisocial as usual, but he didn’t delegate worth a damn and tried to do everything himself. He probably needed a break from the engineering spaces as much as the engineering division needed a break from him. “One of the Marines will be Koratin?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust him?”
Chack’s tail swished thoughtfully. “In a fight, as a Marine, I trust him. His status as a former Aryaalan noble causes some mild concern. By all accounts, he once lived a life of expediency, taking the tack of best advantage for himself.” Chack blinked irony. “That is not necessarily consistent with the accounts of his performance in battle, so perhaps he has indeed changed.” Chack shrugged in a well-practiced, very human way. “We will see.”
The longboat went over the side and slapped the still water. The Marines escorted Rasik into the boat, followed by Isak, grumbling about the “stupid bulky rifle” he had to carry. Jim knew Isak was proficient with a Krag, but he also knew the wiry little Mouse didn’t like wagging one around. The black powder and hard-cast bullet loads they’d made for the weapons had proved fairly effective on animals as big as a midsize rhino-pig, but even the precious few remaining rounds from the Rock Island Arsenal barely got the attention of something the size of a super lizard. No one but Rasik had any idea what sort of monsters they might encounter, and on that subject, at least, he’d remained cryptic.
After a brief word with Muraak-Saanga, his exec and “salig maa-stir,” Jim was last over the side. He alone carried an ’03 Springfield with “modern” ammunition and extra stripper clips. He also had his 1917-pattern Navy cutlass and a 1911 Colt. Besides Chack, the Marines he’d handpicked were all armed with their swords and the shorter thrusting spears they preferred. None carried shields. Without the numbers required to form a wall, they’d only get in the way. Two had longbows slung over their shoulders.
Chack barked a command and the oars came out. First and foremost, Chack would always consider himself one of Walker ’s bosun’s mates, and whenever he was in charge of anything on the water, he reverted to that capacity. He moved to the stern and took the tiller himself. Jim settled in for what promised to be a long trip, and with another command from Chack, the oars dipped in unison. “Well, Rasik,” Jim said conversationally, “it’s your show now.” He grinned. “Don’t disappoint us.”
“You will not be disappointed.”
“Swell. I’m glad you want to please. Just to remind you, though, I’ll repeat the deal. You show us what you found. If it has any use at all to our war effort, you go free.” He gestured to the south. “That’s Nusakambangan. It’s a pretty big island, and even on my world there was plenty there to survive on.” He grinned again. “The Dutch used it as a prison, kinda like an eastern Alcatraz. For some reason, that strikes me as highly appropriate. Anyway, it may not be a palace, but if you managed to scratch out a living in the wild for nearly a year, you should have no trouble there. We’ll even leave you weapons.”
“I understand. Exile or death.”
Jim shook his head. “No. You lead us straight to what you found or there won’t even be exile, just death. If you try to give us the slip, I’ll kill you. If I even start to think you’re yanking my chain, I’ll hang you in the jungle and leave you for the skuggiks or bugs, whichever get you first. Period. We’ve come here on your word when my ship’s needed elsewhere-when I’d rather be elsewhere. If I find out you’ve been saving your miserable ass just to lead us on a wild-goose chase… you’ll wish you were in hell for quite a while before you get there.”
Methodically, metronomically, almost mechanically, the oars dipped and rose. They were following a major inlet north, and more than once, Jim wished they’d moved the ship farther inland. They didn’t have a clue about depths, snags, or sandbars, though, and there was really nothing for it. Eventually the inlet, or river, or whatever it was, began to narrow. So far, they’d seen only the usual wild variety of lizard birds and an occasional crocodile. Once, something large and heavy exploded out of the water near shore and went thrashing into the jungle. No one saw what it looked like. The water eventually grew shallower and opened into a vast swamp filled with fallen trees and stumps. The jungle around it remained dense and apparently impenetrable, and high, misty volcanic peaks were visible in all directions. Jim had no idea if the old Java looked like this around here; he’d never been anywhere but Tjilatjap, but they were always discovering geographic differences here and there. Whatever had changed this world, whether subtle or momentous, was still slowly at work.
A herd or flock-he had no idea what to call it-of strange creatures marched sedately across the swamp some distance away. They looked kind of like giant, fat ducks through his binoculars, but they didn’t have wings at all, that he could see, and their very ducklike beaks were proportionately much longer. Their necks were longer too, like a swan’s, and their heads bobbed as they moved, swiveling in all directions. Finally, they must have collectively decided the boat was getting too close and they began moving away. Quicker and quicker they moved, with a kind of odd, rolling, waddling motion, and it seemed like the faster they moved, the more panicked they became. One suddenly slammed into an underwater obstruction, a tree or something, and heaved itself up to scamper over it.
“Holy shit, Mr. Ellis!” Isak exclaimed with as much surprise as his voice had ever carried.
The creature’s long, gangly, almost delicate-looking legs must have been ten or twelve feet long! Apparently they weren’t very strong either, because it was having a hard time clearing the tree. It just kept leaping up, scrabbling pathetically, and falling back to splash in the murky water. What happened next was almost too fast to register in their minds. All they got was an instant-long glimpse of a terrifying jaws clamping tight on the flailing legs and a swirl of some mighty tail. Whatever got the duck thing must have been under the tree, or maybe it came from nearby, drawn by the thrashing sound of distress.
“Holy shit!” Isak said again, as the ducklike creature practically capsized, the short, severed stumps of its long legs flailing madly. For an instant, the head popped back out of the water and it mooed piteously before the long jaws came again, clamped on the graceful neck, and pulled the head back under.
They kept rowing, a little quicker now, as the capsized corpse continued jerking and heaving as something fed on it from beneath.
“That was… a little spooky,” Ellis said, controlling his voice. Isak was suddenly peering intently over the side at the dark water, Krag in hand.
Rasik smiled. “A ‘spooky’ place. You see why I and my followers”-he spit the word-“did not linger here despite our discovery.”
“And just where is this ‘discovery,’ damn you?” Ellis demanded.
“You do not see it?”
“What do you mean? I swear I wasn’t fooling! I’ll pitch you over the side and let whatever got that big duck have you!”
“A little farther then. Perhaps just a bit to the left. You will see it soon.”
They did.
“Sweet Olongapo!” Isak exclaimed when Chack suddenly pointed at something nestled against the western shore of the swamp. “It’s a goddamn ship!”
Closer they rowed until it was clear for all to see. It was a ship, heavily corroded, daubed entirely with rust, and almost consumed by the vegetation along the shoreline. If she was one of theirs, she had to have been in pretty sad shape even before being abandoned here for more than a year and a half. She listed toward shore and was clearly a freighter of some kind, with cargo booms, a single funnel, and a straight up-and-down bow.
