time to kedge out your channel. This mission has already gone above and beyond what I ever expected of you.”
Irvin set his jaw. Later, Matt would realize that he probably hadn’t chosen those last words very well. “Sir,” Laumer said, “with all respect, I think we’ve earned the right to finish this job.” He looked around at the nods of his crew. “We don’t know if the spider-lobsters will even come back. It might have been a onetime deal. Lots of weird stuff going on.” He gestured at the mountain. “I think it has something to do with that. The thing is, if it blows its top, we’ll never get this boat out of here!”
“If it does that, there won’t be enough left of any of you to catch in a butterfly net!” Gray said.
Irvin nodded. “Maybe. But damn it, Captain, we’re almost done! All we need is a couple of weeks with a ship, an anchor, and a windlass!”
“And no storms to fill everything you’ve done in with sand!” Gray added.
“That would be nice,” Irvin admitted.
Matt rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Like I told you once, we need that boat, but we need you and your people more. Here’s the deal. We’ll leave you a transmitter and a receiver. If things get hairy, there’ll be no goofing around! You call for help, understand? Paga-Daan can have a felucca here to pick your people up in just a few days. Leave all the equipment. The same goes for when the supply ship arrives. Use it however you need to, but if things get bad, get the hell out, understood?”
Irvin sighed with relief. For a moment, he’d seen failure staring him in the face and only Captain Reddy could have pronounced that sentence upon him. No storm or spider-lobsters or even a volcano was going to stop him, but Captain Reddy could have. He saluted. “Thanks, sir. We will succeed!”
Matt was moody as Walker steamed out of the lagoon and into the open Pacific. He’d begun to realize the effect his words might have had on Laumer, and even though he hadn’t meant to, he’d practically challenged the young lieutenant to stay. He felt like a heel. He got up from his chair and stepped to the chart table. Kutas had marked the spot where they should rendezvous with Jenks, according to the latest position fixes O’Casey sent. One more day, maybe two, and they’d slow their sprint and take station with the Imperial frigate, maintaining visual contact, but sweeping east while covering the widest possible area. Apparently, the Empire had a few settlements in the Marshall Islands, but according to Jenks, they were notoriously independent places. Billingsly would find no haven there. He must be making for one of the main islands of the Hawaiian chain, probably New Ireland, as Jenks referred to it. The island was a Company hotbed and the center of its administration. New Scotland-was the primary naval base, and Hawaii itself was New Britain. None of the islands seemed “right” to Matt, when he’d looked at Jenks’s charts. Their shapes were distinctly changed from what he remembered. Most geographic differences they’d discovered so far were subtle, but the “Hawaiian” chain was more radically altered. He wondered why that was.
Walker could just barely make it to Hawaii before her bunkers ran dry, but what then? Matt was counting on the tankers following them to the Marshalls-if their crews didn’t chicken out or if mountain fish didn’t eat them. Regardless, Walker would be stuck there until she could refuel. He didn’t know what awaited them in New Britain, but he wasn’t going to arrive with empty bunkers. All he and Jenks could hope to do was catch Billingsly somewhere in the wide expanses that separated the Carolines.
“We’re coming for you, you son of a bitch!” he muttered under his breath.
CHAPTER 23
“ You may tell Captain Rajendra he can ask to speak to the mo on if he likes,” Princess Rebecca retorted sharply, “and he will be much more likely to get what he wants than by asking to speak to me!”
“But, Your Highness!” the boy in the passageway whispered urgently, “the captain had no choice! If he had refused the order, he would have been placed under arrest! How then could he assist you and your friends?”
“He is a dispassionate murderer,” Rebecca proclaimed. “A stain upon the honor of the Navy and the Empire!”
“Now, hold on just a second,” Silva whispered in the darkness. It was almost pitch-black in the brig. They were supposed to be asleep, and no lights were allowed at this time of night. “Rajendra wants us to trust him, does he? How does he mean to make us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean why should we trust him? We need proof. Real proof, not just a extra piece o’ cheese.”
“Well… what do you want?”
“I want my goddamn guns, but I bet they’d be missed. They keepin’ ’em in the armory? The magazine?”
“The aft magazine,” replied the boy. “It is the most secure place on the ship. The Marines’ arms are stored there as well, with ready ammunition. Besides, your largest gun would not fit in a weapons locker.”
“Hmm. You’re prob’ly right, at that. Tell you what. I want three things. First, I want a key to this here lock.”
“But-”
“Lookie here, you want us to trust him or not? It ain’t like we’re gonna break out an’ run loose all over the ship. I just want a key to where I can get us outta here if the time comes. ’Sides, what if the ship gets ate by one o’ them big fish? We’d be stuck in here.” That thought actually gave Silva the creeps. Earlier that day, the great guns had opened up, firing furiously for some time. Three full broadsides. At first they thought a battle was under way, until they heard the guns had been used to frighten off a mountain fish.
“Very well. I will see what I can do.”
“Next thing I want is our position. Our exact position!”
“Why?”
“Never you mind. If we take to trustin’ you, we’ll tell you why. One other thing. I want a lantern. A little one so we can look at our map in the dark. It’s too hard to go over it in the daytime ’cause you never know when somebody’s peekin’ in the door at us.”
“I have a one-sided lantern in my quarters,” said the boy. Dennis knew he was a midshipman or something and he actually did trust him, at least. For one thing, the little guy was clearly terrified of Billingsly.
“That sounds fine, just fine. You do that, and maybe I can talk the princess into speakin’ a word or two to Rajendra if he happens to mosey by.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“You bet. Now run along before you get caught-but before you go, there’s one last, final little thing.”
“Sir?”
“I want all that stuff tonight, see?”
“I… I will do my best,” whispered the boy a little shakily. They heard his quiet footsteps retreat.
Silva turned to the others in the brig. He couldn’t really see more than dark shapes in the gloom, but he knew where everyone was. “Good work, li’l sister,” he said to Rebecca. “He seemed ready to pee himself. I figger somethin’s up and Rajendra thinks he’d better do somethin’ before it’s too late.”
“It does seem that way,” Sandra said in a worried tone. “Maybe they think they’re safe enough from pursuit that they can get rid of the ‘extra’ hostages.”
“I fear that may be the case,” Rebecca said. “Billingsly no longer even pretends to care what I do or where I go. Nor does he seem to think it important to maintain the fiction of my status aboard. He may plan to eliminate more than us.”
Silva doubted Billingsly was through with Rebecca yet, but she might be right about the rest. “Cap’n Lelaa?” he asked.
“Rajendra is a murderer,” she said miserably. She’d been badly traumatized by the destruction of her ship, and for quite a while, all she’d done was lie curled in a ball in a corner of the cell. Finally, however, she’d begun to take some interest in their situation. She was a naval officer and she couldn’t indulge in self-pity forever. Silva was glad she was snapping out of it. When things hit the fan, they were going to have to move fast. He knew Sandra, Rebecca, and Lawrence had plenty of guts, but though he didn’t dislike her, he considered Sister Audry a deadweight. He didn’t need another one to worry about when the time came.
“Yeah, I guess he’s a murderer,” Silva said, “but so am I, by most lights. If the kid’s right, he did what he
