Deadly Shores (47 page)

“I fear they are speaking the truth about the Giver of Life,” Halik replied, “and also about their offer. Why? Because what have they got to gain by lying? They can destroy us, and we cannot stop them. What do they offer? Simply not to destroy us, I think!”

“They must have
some
purpose!” Ugla objected.

“Oh, they do.” Halik looked back at Alden and Rolak, and spoke to Geerki.

“Halik asks you tell he
rest
your deal—and then he tell you his,” Geerki repeated.

Pete frowned, but nodded, looking at both Grik generals. “My deal's easy. All you gotta do to live is get the hell out of India, and never come back. I don't care what you do after that. We'll watch you, see where you go. We might even stay in touch, because you never know—with the likes of Kurokawa out there, we might even wind up useful to each other down the line. Other than that, my troops'll stop chasing you once you're out of India. I'll even try to get the Czechs to leave you alone, but they do pretty much what they want. What's your ‘deal'?”

“Equally easy,” Halik said through Hij Geerki. “If you allow us to leave India with our lives, to make this ‘new start,' we will not
force
you to destroy us. I know well that is not something you can do entirely from the air. That will allow you to take a larger force elsewhere, General Alden, which is what I know you desire to do—and the only real reason you do not finish us now.”

Pete sputtered and Rolak actually laughed. Halik was largely correct in his assessment, of course, although Pete and Rolak, at least, were genuinely curious whether Halik really could change his army's stripes.

“Whatever I ‘desire,' we'll leave plenty here to rub you out if you come back,” Pete warned.

“Of course.”

“Okay then.” Pete gestured around uncomfortably. “So, I guess that's it. Scram.”

“One last . . . not condition, but request,” Halik said.

“Shoot.”

“General Niwa. We . . .
I
would consider it an agreeable indication if you would extend my invitation to him to accompany my army into exile, and if he accepts, that you would allow him to do so.”

Pete and Rolak both blinked. “You really do like the guy, don't you?” Pete muttered.

“He is of little use to us,” Rolak whispered. “His loyalties are too . . . strange.”

“Sure, but damn! Do you think he'd
want
to go?” Pete whispered back.

“I do. He despises what the Grik are, and even what he did for them, but he has a genuine affection for General Halik. I think he might be instrumental in helping
these
Grik discover what they might become.”

“Well, shit.” Pete looked at Halik and raised his voice. “He can go with you if he wants, I guess. I'll ask him.”

//////
Grik City

Madagascar

August 7, 1944

A
s the sun crept skyward on the third day after the battle, it exposed again the results of the dreadful victory. Morning breezes stirred the humid, smoky, night-steeped miasma of festering death that overlay the already-unbearable stench of the place, and carrion eaters of every description scurried or swooped amid black clouds of flies. Exhausted troops trudged through the corpses, heaping them on carts drawn by paalkas or strutted me-naaks, before hauling their grisly burdens to the docks. From there, the dead Grik were unceremoniously dumped in the water. The troops wore bandanas tightly drawn around their faces, scented with anything they could find, and
Big Sal
's and
Walker
's fire hoses were in near-constant operation, washing down the almost unbearably disgusted workers. Some went to the hoses whether they'd been working the disposal detail or not, just to wash the
sense
of it away. The harbor flickered and churned with the highest concentration of feeding flashies anyone had ever seen.

Matt Reddy frowned down on his battered, rust-streaked ship, her flag stirring fitfully at the mainmast. Her big battle flag had been taken down to be mended again, and have “Grik City” embroidered on its folds to join so many other names of other fights.
She made it through again,
he thought.
She
brought
us through
. His frown deepened.
But not all of us
. He'd never forget the desolate howls of anguish he heard when Diania first saw Chief Gray's body laid out beside the galley
. She really did love him,
he realized, a terrible, painful lump rising in his chest.
Well, so did most everybody else
.
I wish to God I'd made him sit this one out—but how many more would've died without him? Me, for sure
. He felt a growing pressure behind his eyes.
So long, Boats
.

Almost violently, he broadened his gaze to encompass the entire panorama below the Celestial Palace. He'd practically insisted that the first full-command staff meeting of First Fleet South scheduled since the battle be convened here on the northern steps Simon Herring had defended. The stench wasn't quite as overpowering, and that was an advantage, but mainly he wanted everyone to see the aftermath of what they'd done, good and bad, while they considered just what the hell they were going to do next. He always felt deeply responsible for those who died under his command, and in this case those losses were particularly painful, specifically personified in his mind by Irvin Laumer . . . and Chief Bosun of the Navy Fitzhugh Gray. For perhaps the first time, though, he now keenly felt that their deaths—and maybe most of the others—were somebody
else
's fault, at least as much as his. He didn't want to focus on blame because he regarded many who deserved it most as family, but he almost had to, to a degree, because he
did
want them to feel the pain of their mistakes, as he always did. Maybe then they wouldn't make the same ones again.

He became aware that Sandra's arm was around him, slowly moving up and down his back, her hand pausing occasionally to massage tense muscles. He took a tentative breath, tasting the air, before taking a deeper one. Then he turned. Everyone who was coming was there: Adar, Keje, Safir and Chack, Herring, Von Melhausen, Lange, Tikker. . . . Spanky had left Rosen in charge of the ship to stump up the steps on a crutch, and he and Courtney Bradford had found a place beside Matt and Sandra. Spanky's face was strained and angry, and even Courtney's expression was as grim as Matt had ever seen it. He was glad to see Adar blinking unrestrained horror as he absorbed the view. Maybe he was starting to see. Matt cleared his throat. “Thanks for coming here,” he said, looking at Adar. “Especially you, Mr. Chairman. I know it was inconvenient, and Keje's conference room on
Big Sal
's a lot more comfortable. But it seems like all we've done in there is talk
past
one another for quite a while.” He shrugged and looked around. “
I
came here for a raid. I suspected many of you had bigger ideas, so maybe I should've pushed it, but I really thought when it came down to it, everybody would stick to the plan. The good thing about that plan was, if we pulled it off, we'd have been in position to finish the job here after all, it seems. With a helluva lot fewer casualties. All it would've taken was another, carefully considered plan.” He grimaced. “I'm no Pollyanna. I know plans always fall apart, but you gotta have them so you at least have some idea how to sort things out when they do.” He held as many gazes as would meet his own before he spoke again. “As it turned out, we didn't have any kind of plan for this—or if we did, we had nearly as many plans as we had separate commands—and it turned into a sick, deadly, costly joke we were lucky to survive.” He gestured at the scene below. “You all know that, I think, but I also thought it might not sink in, in the luxury of
Big Sal
's conference room. We, all of us, needed to come up here together and get the big picture—so we can get back on the
same damn page
!”

Adar flicked a single blink of accusation at him, but then his eyelids fluttered with remorse.
Yeah, he sees,
Matt decided, then removed his hat and massaged his sweaty scalp. “We won,” he murmured simply, hollowly, “but as screwed up as everything was, we probably shouldn't have. Considering how many people we lost for no good reason, we damn sure didn't
deserve
to.”

Eyes looked down. Safir Maraan appeared particularly miserable; her II Corps had been decimated—again—and in the aftermath of the battle she was taking that very hard indeed. Chack blinked at her and put a supporting arm around her shoulders.
Yeah,
Matt realized,
they
all
see it now
. He cleared his throat and looked at Adar. “You're still in charge, Mr. Chairman. You wanted the whole enchilada, and it's lying in your lap. But being in charge means more than just taking the blame when things fall apart. It means you have to lead, and do your absolute best to make sure everyone knows what you want them to do. You didn't. Instead, you basically yanked the curtain up and let everybody else do whatever the hell they wanted.” Matt took another breath. “I was tempted to blame myself for letting you do that, but that would've been pretty stupid, in retrospect. As I've said before, either you're in charge or you're not. As it turned out, you were—but you weren't.” Matt's tone turned sharp. “Don't ever do that again. You're chairman of the Grand Alliance—and now this ‘Union' that's the biggest part of it too—and it's your job to set strategic objectives. If you'd said, ‘In spite of everything, I want Grik City in one fell swoop,' I'd have argued, but I'd have followed orders and”—he waved around—“we could've come up with a real plan with sufficient preparation—and a few backup plans—built in. At the very least, that would've saved some lives, I have no doubt.” He looked at Sandra and his voice fell. “Probably nothing could've saved Chief Gray and all those we lost on
Walker
,” he admitted. “That was just the breaks, and you're going to hit snags—or sandbars—from time to time.” He looked back at Adar. “But there was almost zero coordination between Second Corps and Chack's Brigade, nor was there any way for Tikker to sort out the mess that kept our air wing from providing proper ground support.” He glanced at Von Melhausen and saw the old man was beyond understanding what his thoughtless adherence to misguided instructions had cost. Lange knew, and would probably never let anything like
that
happen again. Matt's eyes bored back into Adar's. “And in the end, after all's said and done, that's on
you
, Mr. Chairman.” He paused, letting that sink in. “Now, you can accept it, accept the ‘blame' for that, like you wanted, and wallow in self-pity—I know what
that
feels like—or you can learn from all the mistakes that
everybody
made and fix the problem. In your case, you have to decide what you want to do next, then let me, as Supreme Allied Commander”—he looked around—“and all these other people here, figure out—together—how to get it done.”

The fur around Adar's eyes was wet. “You wound me, Cap-i-taan Reddy,” he whispered.

Matt's eyes narrowed. “No, sir. Maybe I hurt your feelings, but there are plenty of guys around here, 'Cats and men, who can show you what real wounds look like. The question for you, the same question I've faced too many times to count, is are you going to roll up in a ball and feel sorry for yourself, or learn from what happened here, shake it off, and try to do better? That's the choice, Mr. Chairman—and all that's at stake is the outcome of the war and the survival of everything you care about.” Matt looked around. “Easy choice, if you ask me.”

Adar's eyes blazed for an instant, but then he nodded, thoughtfully. “You make the choice most clear. And you are right, as is so often the case,” he breathed. He stood straighter. “Indeed. So. I will endeavor to ‘shake it off,' as you say, and since we are all here, let us decide—together—exactly what we shall do next. Let us get on the ‘same page,' at long last, and remain upon it.”

“Um. Hmm,” Courtney Bradford voiced, getting everyone's attention. “I presume our most pressing decision must certainly be whether to depart this dreadful place, or attempt to remain. I, for one, insist we
cannot
leave, having discovered that there are other beings, natural allies, already inhabiting the island. They've already helped us, and we can't just abandon them!”

“We could evacuate many,” Becher Lange said, but his expression was troubled.

“But not all,” Courtney persisted. “I vote we stay. Enlist the locals into the Alliance—they have every reason to help, after all—and remain a festering thorn in the side of the Grik Empire while at the same time using this place to stage further operations. Much as we use the Enchanted Isles against the bloody Doms.” Quite a few of those present growled in agreement, but Matt held up his hand.

“Mr. Chairman,” he said, “we really can't take a vote on this. We—all of us—can advise you and express our opinions. Hell, you've
got
to let us do that. But then
you've
got to make the decision that'll become
our
mission to plan for. That's the way it works—the way it
needs
to work from now on.” He paused and glanced at Courtney. “But before anybody gets carried away, we better hear from Captain Tikker.”

Captain Jis-Tikkar stepped into the circle of expectant faces. “As many of you know, who can still hear,” he said, absently fingering the shiny brass shell casing thrust through the hole in his ear, “we finally got the P-Forty floatplane airworthy again, and I took it on a scout of the Grik population centers on Mada-gaas-car—and beyond.”

Most nodded.

“I reported to Chairman Adar and Cap-i-taan Reddy that the two other Grik settlements I observed appear to have been laid waste by the ‘local beings' Mr. Braad-furd mentioned. The great walls around them were burned—still burning, in fact—and so were most of the buildings that could be set afire.” He hesitated. “I saw people from the air—hu-maan people. Most hid, but a few stood where I could see . . . and waved.”

“Isn't it bloody marvelous to be liberators!” Courtney enthused.

“Captain Tikker?” Matt encouraged.

“There were no ships in the ports at all,” the aviator added, “besides some wrecks. So I bet most of the Griks in those towns had already took off for the continent.” He blinked a shrug. “So I went there. I knew I'd be stretching my fuel, on the plane's first flight after we put her back together, but I figured we needed to know, right? Anyway, that's what I did. I flew to the Africaa coast.” Tikker seemed fully aware of the significance of being probably the first Lemurian besides those in the Republic ever to see the continent that spawned the Grik.

“What did you see, Captain?” Sandra prompted. Tikker looked at her, and his tail swished in agitation.

“I thought I'd see jungle. That's what Miyata said there'd be. But there was only flat dirt an' rock for a long way inland, and maybe ten miles up an' down the coast. Past
that
there was jungle. I flew north a ways, an' seen another dead spot, like the first.” He glanced around. “I figure they stripped the land for buildin' ships, but I didn't see many. Just a few. They must be someplace else.”

“Perhaps we sank them all, here and at Madras?” Courtney suggested. Tikker shook his head. “That jungle's
thick
, Mr. Braad-furd. Each one o' those dead spots coulda built more ships than we ever seen.”

“What else did you see, Captain,” Matt prompted quietly, “in the cleared areas?”

Tikker shifted on his feet. “Grik, sur,” he whispered. “Thousands of 'em.
Hundreds
of thousands of 'em, set up an' camped like a proper army, only there weren't many tents. Just Griks—like dark sand.”

“Damn it,” Spanky said in the sudden silence.

“Yeah.” Matt shrugged. “All the Grik in the world, just like we expected.” He measured the expressions he saw. “Now we need to decide what to do next,” he said. “
You
need to decide, Mr. Chairman,” he told Adar.

“Do you think we should leave?” Adar asked him. Matt glanced at Sandra and clasped her hand. Then he took a deep breath. “No, Mr. Chairman, I don't.”

There were murmurs of surprise.

“I know—I started this meeting bitching about how we got this place, but we've got it now. The blood's been spilled and there's nothing we can do about that—except make it mean something. We accomplished our mission, our ‘raid,' to the extent that even if we pack up, the Grik'll never be able to leave this place so weak again. But now
this
is the front, with Halik retreating from India, and we've got them by the tail. How can we ever let them go? They'll still outbreed us, as long as we're not killing them faster than they can, but the only way to do that is to stay after them.” He shrugged. “I'd rather do that on their territory than ours.”