Authors: Taylor Anderson
“Why?” Pam asked.
“Oh, no reason, really. Perhaps I hoped to prove there’d been other events, such as the Squall that brought us here.”
“There
have
been,” Silva pointed out, gesturing at Horn. “That awful ship that brung them prisoners—and murdered most of ’em, an’ that damn tin can,
Hoo-dooy-yammy
, that
Walker
tangled with.”
“Yes, but those ships originated . . . appeared on this world, in the Philippine Sea. I’d hoped there might have been other, separate events
here
so we could begin to understand if we’re dealing with a geographically specific phenomenon. . . .”
“Careful what you wish for,” Silva said, then stopped watching Cook and resumed scanning the denser trees looming around them, his monstrous rifle at the ready. Suddenly, he didn’t like it here. They moved farther along, the Marines watchful, the rest of the party grouped together, coming up behind.
“If I was a super lizard,” Moe began, and Silva nodded. “Me too. Lots o’ grass-eatin’ critters would love this place; pygmy brontasarries an’ such, and you can see where rhino pigs been rootin’ around. You ’Cats better stay on your toes,” he cautioned the flanking Marines.
“We on it,” one answered.
Dennis looked down to see Pam’s diminutive form beside him. “Startin’ to cozy back up to ol’ Silva after all?”
Pam glared. “I’m cozyin’ up to that big gun o’ yers, that’s all.”
Dennis feigned a hurt expression. “So
that
’s all I ever was to you?”
Pam’s face flushed with rage and she stormed off after Stuart Brassey, who was moving farther along.
“Goofy broad,” Silva muttered.
“A woman scorned,” Horn corrected loftily. “You’re poking at a hornet’s nest with that one. I thought she was going to take that Blitzer Bug off her shoulder and hose you down. How come you don’t leave her be?”
“Why don’t she leave
me
be?”
Horn shook his head. The whole group was moving forward now that Cook was finished staring at the engine. “You might have everybody else fooled, but I know you’re not really that stupid. I knew you back when.” He studied Silva a moment. “You’ve changed, though, maybe a lot. I know most folks think well of you, and that’s a far cry from the old days.” He shifted his helmet back on his head and scratched a mosquito bite on his eyebrow. “I’m still not sure you’ve changed for the better, though. Sooner or later you’re going to have to give in to that gal, or make a clean break with her.”
“Hell, I don’t know
how
to break it any cleaner!” Silva protested. “I left her in the lurch, practically pushed her on another fella. I been treatin’ her like crap . . . what else can I do?”
“You idiot. You know that’s just the exact opposite of making a clean break. Or have you really been here long enough to forget? ‘Hard to get’ just makes ’em try harder to get you.”
“She ain’t no Filipino gal,” Dennis protested.
“No, but mean and ugly as you are, she’s got her sights set, and that’s all there is to it. The next-best way to get rid of her besides actually chasing
her
is polite indifference. Be nice to her; treat her like anybody else. They hate that . . . but it won’t make her want to shoot you.” Horn grinned. “Then who knows? Maybe I’ll start treating her like you’ve been doing, and she’ll chase after me!”
“You couldn’t handle her,” Silva warned. Gunny Horn started to reply, but Cook called out.
“Come look at this!”
They hurried to join the others at a large but badly battered cylinder that must’ve rolled away from the greater violence of the crash. Moe trotted up to the group as well. “All clear—for now. M’reens’ll stay on alert, an’ I got them damn Griks gatherin’ wood for fires. Nothin’ likes smoke.” He looked at the roughly thirty-foot object. “What dat?”
“Jap bomber,” Horn declared. “One of those cigar-looking jobs—a ‘Betty,’ they were calling them. I figured it was a Jap plane when I saw the color, and now you can see the meatball.” He pointed. “That’s the tail section with the stabilizers rolled or torn off. It probably broke off the rest of the thing when it wiped out and rolled over here.”
“Dat’s ’loom-num, right?” Moe asked.
“Yeah, mostly.”
“We all rich!” he giggled. “Ever-body lookin’ fer gold, now dat gold means money, but ever-body told to keep eyes open for crashed-plane ’loom-num just like dis! It worth twice its weight of gold!”
“Woop-te-do,” Silva said. “It ain’t like we’re gonna wag it outa here on our backs.”
“But . . . we come back for it, yes?” Moe demanded.
“Maybe. Not likely we’d find it again from a different direction, though.”
“I find it!” Moe persisted.
“So? What’re you gonna do with it? Be the richest hunter in the history of ’Cats?” Silva looked at the trees nearby, planning their camp. “If we get the word out, maybe Baalkpan’ll send somebody to get it. We sure need the metal.” He looked at Moe’s crestfallen blinking. “Don’t worry, we’ll get a share for findin’ it. More than you can spend. What would you blow it on? A new car?”
“Maybe I get a little hut closer to city,” Moe muttered. “Up off ground, like other Baalkpan folks, where old bones sleep good at night. Maybe I take a mate.”
Silva stared. Moe was probably the oldest ’Cat he’d ever seen, next to old Naga, Nakja-Mur’s Sky Priest who died with his Chief at the Battle of Baalkpan. Moe looked at least eighty, even if he was strong as an ox.
“Well . . . sure. Why not? Bound to be some nice, young . . . blind ’Cat gal who’ll take up with you—if you got enough dough.” He looked at Lawrence and the Sa’aaran beside him. The other Sa’aaran was scouting deeper in the woods. “Get them Griks to dump the woodpiles around those trees yonder, the white-trunked ones with no bark. Look kinda like yooky . . . yucky . . .”
“Eucalyptus trees,” Pam supplied sarcastically.
“Yeah. Them. I like those. There’s good visibility around ’em for a change, and lots of little branches to squirm up through. We’ll rig our hammocks up there for the night, with three fires a little ways off. How does that sound, Mr. Cook?”
“Excellent,” Abel replied absently, peering inside the crumpled fuselage. “Mr. Brassey and I will explore the wreckage to see if there’s anything of immediate use. Perhaps we’ll even find clues regarding the fate of the flight crew.”
Silva looked at Horn. “My money’s on ‘death by sudden, fiery, crunchy stop,’” he whispered. “Come on. Let’s get settled for the night.”
Dennis shinnied up the trunk of one of the strange trees, scrabbling for traction with his own already-battered Lemurian boondockers. Compared to a Lemurian, his ascent was ludicrous at best, but almost graceful compared to Horn’s similar attempt on a neighboring tree. Pam and Lawrence started up a third tree, and the dark-haired woman didn’t seem to need any help and didn’t ask for any. The Grik porters remained below to pass up their burdens. They didn’t much care for climbing trees, anyway.
Dennis suddenly stopped his ascent, staring straight into the dark crotch of the tree just a few inches from his face. He never said a word and his expression didn’t even change as he pulled the 1911 Colt from his holster and fired two shots directly in front of him. Lizard birds squawked and beat their membranous wings as the near quiet shattered.
“What the hell?” Horn cried out.
“Pokey” the Grik, the slowest (in a variety of ways) of the former enemy beings accompanying the expedition, dove face-first into the moldy undergrowth at the base of the tree, sniffing for the freshly fallen.45 ACP cartridge cases. Around his neck was a clinking bag filled with every shell he’d managed to find since they started out. Lawrence considered Pokey retarded, compared to the other two Grik they’d brought, and had appointed him the official “brass picker”; the only job he thought him fit for. Pokey quickly got more than brass when a heavy, long-tailed creature landed on his head, and he yelped.
“What was it, Chief Silva?” Abel cried, sprinting from his inspection of the shattered plane.
“Dunno,” Silva groused. He’d wedged himself into the tree and was shaking a bleeding hand. “Some nasty, lizard-coon-lookin’ thing.”
“How’s this trip ever gonna work if you shoot everything we run into?” Pam called from her nearby tree.
That ain’t fair,
Silva thought. There were lots of critters he hadn’t shot. “Damn thing bit me,” he defended.
“He’s all’ays shooting things,” Lawrence sighed conversationally to one of the Sa’aaran scouts who also came running, and the two standing Grik with the shelter/hammock canvas. “He’s shot ’ountain ’ishes, su’er lizards, too ’any Griks and Doms to count. . . . He even shot I once!”
“That was a accident—but maybe you had it comin’,” Silva snapped. “Don’t anybody care that it bit me? I might’a caught rabies—or the lizard pox!”
Pokey had picked up the dead creature and was clutching it close. “’or ’ee?” it asked, almost reverently.
“Sure,” said Silva with a sigh. “If you want. Let Mr. Cook and Mr. Brassey oogle it first. I’m sure they’ll let you eat it when they’re done.”
“I thought we were supposed to be quiet,” Horn observed. “You
have
shot a bunch of things since we started.”
“There’s quiet; then there’s quiet,” Silva countered. “Anything bites
me
is gonna die for it.” He looked at his wounded hand philosophically. “Course, that lizard-coon didn’t exactly chase me down and bite me. Little fella was just defendin’ what was his.”
“Well, it’s
your
tree now,” Pam said sarcastically. “I’ll look at that hand when we’re done makin’ camp.”
* * *
Clouds billowed in the sky as the sun made its customary rapid plunge. They contacted Baalkpan via their man-portable version of the wireless sets installed in the PB-1B Nancys while Pokey happily turned the crank on their pack generator. They couldn’t give an exact fix on the wrecked “Betty,” but they gave the best directions they could and reported their progress. Not much progress to report, really, but making contact with the comm ’Cats back home was always reassuring.
Their roost was as secure as they could make it. The branches intertwined the higher they went, so it was actually possible to move from tree to tree if they wanted. It must’ve looked odd, Silva thought; all the hammocks strung like bagworms in a juniper, but everyone was fairly close to one another. The trees weren’t much real protection from a major predator. A full-grown super lizard could knock them over if it wanted, but with most of them thirty feet or more in the air, even a super lizard couldn’t just snatch them like low-hanging fruit. Most of them, anyway. The Grik didn’t like being in trees, and even ordered to do like the rest, they’d slung their one hammock lower than the others ever since they started out—with all three clustered like chicks in a nest. In this one and only respect, their obedience wasn’t entirely pure, but Cook didn’t press it. He was actually encouraged that their “auxiliaries” seemed to be developing a trace of free will. And the arrangement served a purpose. Now and then, a Grik would slide down a rope to the ground and tend the fires that gave them some visibility.
As usual, Silva had arranged his weapons in the limbs around his hammock so he could get at them in a hurry; then he settled in, squirming and flouncing until he was comfortable. The jungle sounds in the wilds of Borno grew thunderous at night, filled with monotonous calls, squeaks, grunts, and the occasional roar. One could usually track the progress of a predator, no matter how stealthy, by the cries that accompanied it. Silva was used to the noises. They were the same ones heard in Baalkpan, even if they’d grown more distant and muted there. The sounds actually soothed him in a way, like crickets, frogs, and whip-poor-wills of his native Alabama. And up above, through the broad leaves and fleeting gaps in the clouds made visible by the freak passage of a doomed Japanese plane to a world its crew would never know, were the brilliant, searing stars. They were the same he’d always known. A little skewed at this latitude from the view he’d had as a kid, but still the same. He’d always loved the stars. Even as the high, racing clouds blotted them out, his eye slowly drooped. He was almost asleep when he heard a creak on a branch nearby and the eye popped open.
“Evenin’, doll,” he said, recognizing Pam crouching there in the glow of the fires and a sudden flash of lightning. “Come to cut my rope—or my throat?”
“Let me see your hand,” she demanded.
“Too dark. Have a look in the mornin’.”
Pam lit a small, silver-backed candle lantern with a Zippo and shone the reflected light at him.
“I’ll look at it now.” She propped the little lantern in a nearby crook.
“Suit yerself,” Silva grumped, displaying his wound. Gently Pam cleaned the bite with a damp cloth, then smeared some of the curative Lemurian polta paste on his hand, working it into the punctures with her thumbs. The paste felt cold, but the massage was . . . relaxing.
“So, how come you’re bein’ such a jerk?” Pam asked suddenly. Dennis snorted. It had taken her two weeks in the wilderness to cough up the question.
“You’re one to talk,” he replied. “I’m just respondin’ in kind.”
“You dumped me. I got a right to be sore.”
Silva sat up in his hammock. When he spoke, his voice was almost gentle. “I didn’t dump you. I just went on doin’ what I do—somewhere else. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say ‘So long,’ but I got shanghaied, if you recall.”
“You could’ve said ‘So long’ when you got my letter in Maa-ni-la.”
“What? You mean that grabby letter sayin’ I
b’longed
to you an’, an’ I
better
come on home?” He shook his head. “In case you ain’t noticed, there’s a war on. An’ aside from this little campin’ trip, I b’long where the war is more than I b’long to you—or me.” He shrugged. “It’s what I do. What I
am
now.”
“Sister Audry talks like that. Says you’re a ‘weapon of the Lord.’”
Dennis actually giggled. “Yeah, I heard that too. I like the good sister, but she’s crazier than a shithouse rat if she b’lieves that.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“You too? Look, doll,” Silva’s voice went cold. “I ain’t a good man. I done some real bad things, as a matter o’ fact, things the good Lord won’t
never
forgive, and damn sure wouldn’ta set me to. I done ’em ’cause they needed doin’—and I’d do ’em again.
Will
do the same sort o’ things again, most likely.” The terrified face of a powder boy, maybe ten years old, reappeared in his mind, staring at him through the flames he’d set that would quickly doom the kid—and maybe three hundred other mostly innocent souls aboard a ship he’d had to destroy. He’d killed all those people to save a handful that mattered to him, and that wasn’t the first time. Or the last, he was sure. He shook his head. “Now, you’re liable to maunder on about lovin’ me anyway an’ all that silly crap . . .”