that was the right thing to do. With that murderous Jap ’can running around…”
“I told you to expect such things,” Bradford reminded him. “My theory regarding how objects and people arrive on this world is still all ahoo, but I’m convinced that metal and magnetism, or electrical conductivity is somehow involved. With a global war underway back home, brimming with magnetic or conductive weapons scattered prolifically about, we’re likely to have more visits here as time goes by.”
“I’m not so sure,” Matt said slowly. “I mean, I agree with your theory for the most part, but I’m not convinced that nothing from ‘here’ ever wound up ‘there.’”
Courtney stared at him blankly.
“Jenks’s ‘dragons,’” he explained. “The ‘sea monsters.’ If a few things from here got snatched the other way over time, that could explain a lot of human mythology.”
“Don’t forget the ‘mer-lizards’ of Chill-Chaap!” the Bosun snorted through clenched teeth, trying not to laugh.
Courtney’s eyebrows furrowed. “Blast!” he said suddenly. “My beautiful theory is assailed! Now I shall lie awake at night, trying to reconcile this new variable, deprived of sleep!”
“Don’t sweat it.” Matt laughed. “When you get it all sorted out, I’m sure it’ll make perfect sense. Remember, we came with the ship, and we’re not magnetic!”
“But…” Courtney clamped his mouth shut. The ’Cats on the bridge were just beginning to “believe” in the invisible force of gravity. He didn’t want to distract them with even more “invisible” powers just now. Maybe some of the ’Cat EMs would understand, and he was sure Matt did, despite what he’d just said. Spanky and Palmer probably did as well… Suddenly, he realized he’d inflicted consideration of the greatest “invisible” power of all upon Walker ’s crew just that morning. He shook his head. “I am the most incredibly inconsistent creature alive,” he admitted.
“Yeah, but at least you’re consistently inconsistent,” Gray jabbed.
“Lookout reports a sail, off the starboard bow!” Minnie interrupted.
“Range?” Matt asked, raising his binoculars.
“Lookout say ‘on horizon.’ It so clear, an’ with no range-finder.
…”
Matt thought for a moment. The sea was calm, the sky cloudless.. . and the kid needed to get back on the horse. “Call the air division to action stations and have them stand by for flight operations,” he ordered.
Lieutenant Fred Reynolds heard the call he’d both dreaded and craved. He yearned to get back in the air, but he hated that somebody had to ride the “Nancy” with him-somebody who might wind up dead because of him. Kari Faask, his friend and former spotter/wireless operator/ bombardier and copilot, had remained aboard despite Selass-Fris-Ar’s misgivings, but she was still recovering from serious wounds. Fred spent almost all his off-duty time with her, escorting her around the ship, gently helping with her therapy-and generally treating her like a china doll. It helped salve his conscience. His first real taste of responsibility as an officer had resulted in a lost plane, a wounded friend, and a severely shaken self-confidence that hadn’t had much to rebuild on. He’d manage, he was a good flier, but without Kari in the backseat… He wondered who Mr. Palmer would replace her with.
The deck crew chief, Jeek, met him as he emerged from beneath the amidships deckhouse and handed him his leather helmet, goggles, and scarf-pretty much the only “special” equipment he required to fly. After his previous flights in the open-air cockpit, he’d taken to wearing a peacoat, which he already had on. It seemed hot as hell right now, but he’d welcome the coat’s warmth when he got in the air. Jeek escorted him to the “new” plane they’d assembled from parts stowed in the torpedo workshop, aft. Jeek, or somebody, had painted the word “No” on both sides of the forward fuselage this time. Jeek had painted it on Fred’s first plane after he returned from the action against “Company” warships sent to intercept them, and Reynolds somehow contrived to shoot his own plane in the nose with a. 45. Despite his resistance, the tradition stuck, but now it seemed appropriate. He viewed the warning as a reminder not to pull any stupid stunts.
“The engine is still warm,” Jeek assured him, uncharacteristically serious. He worried about his pilot and the funk he’d settled into. “We ran it up for morning GQ.” Implicit also was Jeek’s reminder that Fred should have been there for that. Reynolds looked at the plane and did a quick walkaround. It looked just like his old one, a PB-1B with its broad, high wing and single four-cylinder engine. If not for that and the reversed position of the prop, the thing looked much like the old PBY Catalina that inspired its form.
“That’s fine, Jeek,” Fred said. “Thanks.” He clambered up the ladder to the cockpit and settled himself in the wicker seat, strapping himself in. The rest of the air division scampered about, preparing the plane for launch. They hadn’t done the “real thing” for a while, but they drilled for it every day. Fred was impressed by how efficient they’d become since that first awkward time. He felt the plane settle slightly aft as his new spotter clumsily joined him. He didn’t look back to see who it was, not yet; a ’Cat was hooking the forward lifting points to the crude davit arrangement that would hoist them up and lower them into the sea, and he always liked to make sure that was carefully done. “Cast off the tie-downs,” he shouted, noticing way coming off the ship by the diminishing wake alongside. “Take her up!”
The mostly wood and fabric plane creaked as the davit took its weight, and taglines, attached to the pin- release lifting points, controlled the plane’s orientation as it swung out over the water. He motioned for the ’Cats oavit to let him down. With a shuddering splap! the “Nancy” was in the sea and Fred lost no time. “Contact!” he shouted aft.
“Contact,” confirmed a familiar-wrong-voice. He turned.
“Kari!” he shouted back, incredulous. “What the devil are you doing here? Doc’ Selass’ll skin you!”
“She not here. Beside, she release me for light duty,” Kari said. “Sit in airplane while somebody else fly not hard. She no say I not fly!”
“That’s because it never occurred to her you’d be so stupid!” Fred roared. Somehow, Kari managed to stand and grasp the prop.
“You been actin’ too goofy to fly with anybody not say how goofy you are. You think I let you fly with some dope not know you?” She paused, waiting for a response. “You say ‘contact,’ right?”
Fred turned back to stare straight ahead. “Contact,” he confirmed in a subdued voice. Propping the motor was bound to hurt the wound in his friend’s side, and Kari-Faask didn’t even like to fly.
The takeoff was uneventful, and soon, amid the contented drone of her plucky motor, the “Nancy” was winging her way toward the distant contact while Walker resumed her twenty-knot gallop to close.
“Just one ship, it looks like,” Fred instructed Kari to report, through the speaking tube. From about two thousand feet, he could see the horizon beyond the stranger, and nothing else was in view. “White sails,” he added with mixed relief. Dominion warships wore a red suit-but that didn’t mean the contact was friendly. “I won’t get any nearer than necessary to make an identification,” he assured his companion self-consciously.
“You go close as you have to,” Kari scolded. “You go in mast high, an’ I drop my little bombs if Cap-i-taan Reddy says. You fly close enough to shoot them with you pistol again, you have to. Hear?”
His face hot, Fred could only nod. Evidently, they were seen before too much longer, and the ship suddenly hove to, its sails flapping in helpless disarray. A few white puffs from small-arms fire, at ridiculously long range, blossomed on the deck. They were more a reaction of panic at the sight of such a strange contraption as the plane, Fred thought, than any type of disciplined response. Still, conscious of what happened last time, he maintained his altitude and settled into a banking orbit about a thousand yards out.
“Is ‘Comp’ny’ ship,” Kari declared, identifying the red-and-white-striped flag through an Imperial telescope. Her precious Bausch amp; Lomb binoculars had been lost in the last crash.
“They can’t know the situation in New Britain yet,” Fred said. “Send it.”
“What we do?”
“We keep circling until Walker gets here. Company ships have cannons, and they might shoot them at us, if we get low enough. I bet they won’t shoot at Walker!”
Reynolds was right. The old destroyer raced to within five thousand yards, put an intimidating and unanswerable shot into the sea just forward of the Company ship, and continued to advance while the target hove- to more creditably and “officially,” yanking her flag to the quarterdeck. Fred and Kari watched Walker churn to a halt off the sailing ship’s bow, guns trained out to port.
“Signal at halyard,” Kari said. “Says ‘well done, return to ship, recover on swhiard side.’”
“Sounds good to me,” Fred said, feeling better about their first jaunt together since that last, traumatic flight. “Let’s go home.”
