earned his post, and Matt couldn’t have taken anyone else. What he didn’t need was Chack getting all a-twitter and confused around his old flame, though. So far, it didn’t seem to be a problem, and Matt hoped it wouldn’t be. Probably wouldn’t. Chack was “engaged,” and he and Selass had their duty. They’d both amply demonstrated how important that was to them.
“Good morning, Selass,” he said, nodding at her.
“Good morning, Cap-i-taan,” she replied. She’d begun accompanying Bradford to the bridge after the two of them prepared her “battle station”-the wardroom-which would become a surgery in the event of battle. It certainly wasn’t due to any policy or anything; she just did it-like Sandra always had before. It probably even made sense in a way that the medical officer would want to come to the bridge and see for herself what was happening, so she’d have some idea what she might be about to face in the way of casualties. Matt hadn’t liked it when Sandra did it-at first-but as time went on, he couldn’t change it and didn’t really want to. She’d always known when it was time to leave. Now… to chase Selass off when there wasn’t any need would be hypocritical.
“Coffee?” Matt offered. Selass blinked distaste. Most Lemurians hated coffee, or “monkey joe,” as the destroyermen had dubbed the local equivalent. They considered it a medical stimulant, not a staple of daily life.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Bradford said.
Juan had returned with another carafe and he happily poured a steaming cup. “At least someone appreciates the labor necessary to render the strange seeds I get into something almost as good as the coffee I used to make!” he proclaimed piously.
Matt was glad he hadn’t been taking a sip just then, or he’d have spewed it out his nose. “Trust me, Juan, everyone appreciates it,” he interjected truthfully.
“That vile, bloated cook, Lanier-he just incinerates the beans and grinds them up! Sometimes he will even waste an egg!”
Matt’s brows furrowed. That explained a lot. Vile and bloated as Lanier certainly was, his monkey joe was actually better than Juan’s. And it didn’t have green foam on top.
“You know, I always kind of liked an egg in my coffee, Juan,” Matt experimented delicately.
“Nonsense, Cap-tan! If you want lizard-bird eggs, I will cook them for you, any way you like! Why eat disgusting green eggs, full of grounds?”
Matt sighed. “Oh, never mind.” Maybe he could drop another hint later. Juan was good to him, to all the officers. To come right out and tell him Walker ’s greasy cook made better coffee was out of the question. “Maybe I’ll have an egg sandwich, then, after all.”
“Good!” Juan approved. “You did not eat before GQ. You need to eat! You get too skinny!” The little Filipino-who probably didn’t weigh ninety pounds-scampered down the stairs behind them.
“That was close!” Bradford said. “For a moment I feared you might have gone too far! If Juan ever got his feelings hurt and went on strike, I know I would starve.” He shuddered. “Has Lanier ever actually bathed?” he asked. “Or even washed his hands, perhaps?”
Matt grinned sheepishly. “I had to try.” He turned back to Selass. “How’s everything in your department?”
“None are sick, oddly enough. I think they are too excited about our next landfall to malinger. All the injured have returned to duty but one, and he will recover.”
Matt remembered a striped, mustard-colored machinist striker who’d taken a rivet in the chest like a bullet when one of the thirty-pounders punched through the engine room. It had looked bad. Again, he was amazed by the curative properties of the Lemurian polta paste. “Glad he’ll be okay,” he said sincerely, then winced. “No, ah, screamers?” He asked, using Silva’s universally accepted term for diarrhea.
“None, Cap-i-taan. We seem to have arrived at a proper mix.”
The reason for Matt’s wince was that in spite of his best efforts to maintain Navy traditions and regulations, the U.S. Navy on this world was no longer exactly “dry.” One of Sandra’s longest-held concerns was that some bug in the water might annihilate the crew. This concern was not without foundation. For the longest time she’d insisted that the crew drink only ship’s water that had been either boiled or manufactured by the condensers. With personnel now spread so far apart, that was no longer always practicable. They’d consumed the various nectars and spirits produced by the Lemurians with no ill effects, but every time somebody even accidentally drank a little “local” water, they wound up with a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge. Even the various ’Cat clans had a few problems along those lines. The massive, lumbering seagoing Homes collected sufficient fresh water to keep them independent, but they almost always got a little sick when they visited the Homes of land folk. Before the destroyermen had arrived, they’d had no idea what germs were, but they’d settled on the simple expedient of making a sort of grog by mixing water with highly alcoholic “seep.”
Seep was a spirit made by fermenting the ubiquitous polta fruit that gave the Lemurians food, juice, and the fascinating curative paste. When seep was further refined and distilled, it produced a high-grade alcohol. Alcohol could be made from other things, such as certain grains the’Cats used in the production of their excellent beer. A beetlike tuber worked well, and their efforts to boost the octane of their gasoline had resulted in the discovery of other things that could be used to produce ethanol. Seep, or its distilled version, still remained the preferred ingredient in Lemurian grog. Matt didn’t know if they’d come up with the idea on their own or if Jenks’s ancestors let it slip, but under the circumstances, necessity dictated that some form of grog-the weakest effective mixture-be reintroduced aboard U.S. Navy ships.
Matt was certainly no Puritan, and he’d considered prohibition a useless, stupid, harmful political stunt, but as far as his Navy was concerned, he’d done his absolute best to maintain its traditions and regulations. He wouldn’t have a bunch of drunks running his ships. Fortunately, the mixture required to purify water could barely be tasted, much less felt, and the condensers still provided enough fresh water to dilute the mixture even further. At least on Walker. She utilized an open-feed-water system, with seawater going straight to the boilers. This hadn’t worked as well on some of the new boilers they’d made. Corrosion and sediment in the steam lines were already becoming a concern on USS Nakja-Mur and USS Dowden. The closed systems they were using on some of the newer steam frigates about to join the fleet when Walker left Baalkpan were fresh-water hogs. They’d have to keep fuel and water tenders trailing behind them wherever they went. Big Sal ’s massive engines were open systems, so maybe they could replenish from her. He shook his head. Ultimately, he wasn’t bothered nearly as much by the result of the policy as he was by the principle of the thing.
“How long until we reach this ‘Respite’ Island, Captain?” Bradford asked. “We’ll be there for a while, I take it?”
Matt refocused and shifted uncomfortably in his elevated chair. “A week and a half at this pace. Maybe more,” he said grudgingly, glancing out to port, where Achilles steamed. She’d set her fore course, topsails and topgallants, as well as her fore staysails. Soon, she would draw her fires and proceed under sail alone. She’d be just as fast, and didn’t have the fuel to keep her boiler lit for the entire passage.
“I say,” Bradford said, “couldn’t we just go on ahead without her? We could be there in a matter of days! If we dawdle along awaiting Mr. Jenks and his prizes, our oilers and other ships will most likely beat us there!”
“Oh, Courtney, come on. You know that’s ridiculous. I wish it were true, but our supply convoy from the Fil- pin Lands must travel under sail alone, and I’m afraid our stay at Respite will be longer than even you would like.” He didn’t say that he was far more anxious than Bradford to reach their destination and then be on their way. Billingsley, Ajax -and Sandra-drew ever farther from his grasp with each passing day.
“Well… but surely there will be some emergency that will prevent me from properly studying the biology there! No doubt something will derail my first opportunity to gaze upon the wonders of an utterly isolated land! It happens all the time, as you well know. Poke, poke along, and then ‘Do hurry up, Mr. Bradford! We must get underway!’ ”
Matt almost chuckled. In a way, he envied Bradford’s ability to set aside their primary objective, even for a while. At the same time, he kind of resented it too. A lot of people were counting on them, not only to rescue Sandra and the princess but to forge an alliance with a powerful seagoing nation. All in the midst of a cataclysmic war. To even contemplate other priorities at a time like this struck him as at least mildly selfish. He knew Bradford well enough by now to understand that the man just couldn’t help it though. It was just the way he was. What he was.
“We can’t go any faster,” he said, with a trace of lingering bitterness. “We don’t know these seas like we used to, and it might not be a good idea if we arrived at our first Imperial outpost without Commodore Jenks to
