Muriname grimaced in spite of himself. “I presume Commander Riku has prepared a presentation on the more… specialized weapons we are making here, but as far as the new bombs we have made available to the Grik, training in their use is the most difficult challenge. The design and construction is fairly simple; resources are abundant. They are also light enough that they do not tax the payload of the airships. They are tragically wasteful,” he interjected with an almost bitter tone that Kurokawa let pass. “But they work well enough. I… have tested one myself.”
Kurokawa raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? Very well. You will stand ready to deploy your forces with whatever ordnance we have made available to the Grik at the appropriate time.”
“Yes, General of the Sea.”
Kurokawa looked at another man, bigger than Muriname. “Speaking of technology we will not share with the Grik, have there been any… further developments in your department, Signal Lieutenant Fukui?”
“No, ah, General of the Sea. Not since those few”-he looked around-“odd transmissions.”
One of the things they’d never revealed to the Grik was the existence of radio or any kind of remote communication. The Grik used horns operated by a bellows, and sometimes a crude form of semaphore. Kurokawa was content to let them remain ignorant. Fukui’s department had the still-operable radio from the grounded plane, and they’d produced other crude sets like they knew the Americans had done, but they could no longer eavesdrop on enemy communications because they knew they’d been burned once and always used codegroups now. Those in Fukui’s department led profoundly boring lives, sequestered from any possible contact with the Grik, and constantly listening for stray, unguarded transmissions from the Allies-or anyone else who might be out there. They never transmitted anything themselves.
Then, a couple of weeks before, they’d picked up-on the radio-a very weak voice transmission! Shortly after, there was another transmission from what sounded like a different source. The problem was, neither message sounded like English, but they didn’t think it was Japanese either. They just couldn’t tell. They considered the possibility it might have been Lemurians speaking, but whatever language the voices used, they sounded like human tones. It was a mystery.
“Hmm,” Kurokawa said thoughtfully, drumming the table with his fingers. “Keep listening,” he commanded.
Almost as an afterthought, he cocked his head and regarded Fukui. “I wonder if it might have been Miyata. Perhaps he reached the southern hunters at last, and they had some means of communication?”
Young Lieutenant Toryu Miyata had been on an expedition south to the cape of Africa, to contact some obscure, probably human “hunters” the Grik knew resided there. The Grik considered the region too cold and uninviting to conquer, especially while locked in an unprecedented battle for survival. General Esshk had sent Miyata and two other men, along with a Grik escort to make the Offer to the southerners to join the Great Hunt. This had never been done before, making the Offer without first testing the foe, but these were extraordinary times. The choice Miyata was to convey was basically “Join or die,” and Esshk told Miyata to stress that regardless how busy the Grik might be elsewhere, they could easily spare the meager force it would require to crush the people in the south.
Kurokawa had not been pleased by Esshk’s summary order, not that he cared anything for Miyata and the others, but at the time, he was in no position to refuse. Yet another slight that Esshk will one day regret! he promised himself.
“I… cannot say, General of the Sea,” Fukui answered his question.
Kurokawa shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. “It is of no consequence at present, but do get word to me, however you must, if you hear the voices again and are able to make sense of them.”
“Of course, General of the Sea.”
The conference continued into the early afternoon, while Kurokawa listened to reports, made comments, and occasionally harangued the speakers, but with only a shadow of his old venom. As much as it sickened him, he knew he needed to coddle these men for now, and in dealing so long with the Grik, he’d learned to hide his true thoughts well. At last, he stood abruptly, quickly followed by the other men.
“Soon,” he said, “within days, the Great Fleet we have built for the Grik vermin will move at last, and I- we! — will crush the enemy that invests India! It is the same enemy, my people, who brought us to this world and marooned us here! Again we will face the Americans, our natural enemy, and the Grik will face theirs: the Americans’ ape-man lackeys! In that, if nothing else, we share a common cause! It is still the Americans-and now their puppets too-who stand between us and our destiny. And only by destroying them utterly shall we achieve it!”
CHAPTER 8
Respite Island
March 3, 1944
Sandra woke slowly, savoring the soft, clean sheets that felt so smooth against her skin, and the large, firm mattress she sprawled upon. She’d always been a sprawler, and the tiny, claustrophobic berths she’d slept in for most of the past two years had been excruciating, despite her small size. Golden sunshine streamed through the open, curtained windows and a steady, cool breeze circulated in the bedroom of the surprisingly luxurious little bungalow. For just a moment, she was disoriented. Her eyes opened wider when she saw the dark hair and firmly muscled back of the man still sleeping beside her, and it all came flooding back: the hurried, awkward, glorious wedding; the boisterous reception that followed; the carriage ride to the secluded beachfront bungalow; and the night of gentle, soaring, laughing, whirlwind… electric passion that followed. She smiled, utterly content. They’d waited a long time, and sometimes she’d despaired that last night would never come, but it had been worth the wait, and more.
Matt lay on his side, taking only a small portion of the bed. He’s far more accustomed to tiny beds than I am, she reflected. He’s… economical in many ways; in tastes and often in words, but he’s extravagant in all the things that matter, she realized. He’d proven many times that his love for her knew no bounds, and he was maybe a little too generous of himself for his own good as far as his ship, crew, and cause were concerned. She gloried in the former, and had learned to accept the latter. That was part of the deal she’d made to have him, and she was wise enough to know he couldn’t-wouldn’t-ever change in that respect. As much as it worried her, she also loved him for it. It was why he was who he was.
She focused on the numerous white or purple puckered scars on his back. She remembered when he got most of them. The big, ugly one across his left shoulder blade had come from a Grik spear at Aryaal and had nearly killed him. Clusters of smaller scars had not been serious, mostly caused by tiny fragments of steel or glass she’d plucked from just under the skin. There was a long, jagged, older scar across his lower back, and she traced it softly with her finger, wondering what had caused it. She’d seen it before, of course, but it predated their acquaintance, and she’d forgotten about it. Suddenly, how he got it-like so many other things about him she didn’t know-became vitally important to her, and she cuddled up to him, molding her body to his.
“That can get you in a lot of trouble,” he warned in a pleasant, muzzy tone. She chuckled huskily.
“ That kind of trouble I can handle, sailor,” she said.
“Well, never say I didn’t warn you,” he said, mock serious, rolling over to embrace her.
“Wait!” She giggled. “We barely know each other!”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I’m serious! I want to know everything… like, where’d you get that scar on your lower back?”
“I was bitten by a whale!” he said, clasping her close and kissing her.
“Tell me!” she insisted, and he paused.
“Right now?” He looked at her. “You’re serious!”
“Sure, I am! We’re married now. I want to know.”
He started to speak, then paused. After all this time, they really didn’t know a lot about each other. They knew all the things that mattered, of course, but almost nothing about each other’s lives before they met. He shrugged. “I fell off a horse on a barbed-wire fence when I was fourteen.”
“That’s it?”
