To everyone else, and certainly to Ben as well, the planes represented an insurmountable leap ahead that their enemies couldn’t hope to match. Of the twenty-eight planes on board, Ben estimated they could assemble at least eighteen, maybe twenty. Through salvage and spares, they’d have the parts to keep them going for some time, but they would inevitably lose some to training accidents, maintenance foul-ups, and—to Russ—the simple quirky, unexplainable disasters that eventually befell all extraordinarily complicated equipment. Hell, what about those stupid MK-15 torpedoes? They would have to husband the planes that survived, cherish them, and treat them like the temperamental thoroughbred stallions they were—lavish them with attention and keep them in tip-top shape.
Ride Them easy
, he thought with growing confidence—and a growing anxiety similar to Ben’s—because when the gate pops open, they’re liable to win the war.
“S’okay, Mr. Mallory,” Russ said gently as the rumble under the hull died away. “Maybe I’m just a jumped-up torpedoman, but I’ve done this sort of thing before. We’ll get your toys out for you, me an’ this old rust bucket. Then me and
Tolson
’ll be back in the Navy war. You kick their heads off from the air, will ya?”
“You . . . you think we’ve made it?” Ben asked cautiously, hushed.
Russ released his own white-knuckle hold on the wheel, stretched his fingers, and clasped it again more loosely. “Yep, I think we have.” He actually giggled. “God help me, I think we have.” He sighed and turned to Monk. “Send to
Tolson
and the salvage squadron: ‘Expect company for dinner, and it better be good.’ Then get back here as quick as you can. We’ll be in the clear in a few minutes, and I think it’s time your ‘Air Snipe’ ass learned to handle your ‘new’ ship.” He grinned at Monk’s expression. “Hey, Mikey, don’t look at me like that! I already have a ship, and she’s a lot prettier too! You want me to give her to
Laney
?”
“Hell, no!” Monk exclaimed. “I just wasn’t expecting it! Imagine, me with my own ship!” He still looked stunned, and Russ and Ben both laughed. “Hard to imagine a lot of things these days,” Russ agreed. “Now run along and send that message!” He paused. “Oh, and send to
Tolson
to have an extra set of colors, Stars and Stripes, sent across as soon as we arrive. There’s nothing left of the flags aboard here, and
Santa Catalina
’s been without one for far too long.”
CHAPTER 22
Yap Island (Shikarrak)
D
ennis Silva was snoring loudly in the gray half-light of dawn. Sometime during the night, they’d decided the shiksak activity below had begun to taper off, and he’d produced a bottle of his reserved prize “medicinal” rum to celebrate. He’d shared—a little—and the bizarre phenomenon they experienced later, after he was liberally medicated, had blended into a twisted dream in which their boat was sailing through the air above the roaring rapids of a boundless river. Even now, as consciousness threatened, he remembered that the roar had been pretty loud, and somehow their little boat had become
Walker
from time to time. He was pretty sure Spanky had “blown tubes” at least once, judging by the sooty taste in his mouth. The dream was a hoot, even if the ride was a little bumpy. The circumstances were strange and maybe even ominous, but that wasn’t the point. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d been singing, and he imagined he’d been particularly witty when he ridiculed Rajendra for his girlish squeaks of alarm.
In any event, for once Silva wasn’t already fully awake before everyone else. The others had endured a long, tense, “unmedicated” night that hadn’t been entertaining in any way, and all except Rebecca Anne McDonald were still asleep after their ordeal, snoring under this momentous, utterly changed dawn.
“Mr. Silva,” Rebecca whispered, again prodding him disapprovingly with her toe. “Do wake up; something is eating our ropes.” She’d barely slept at all, staring down, trying to see what was happening during the seemingly endless, terrifying night. Long after the roar had passed, but before the meager light revealed a dark, diminutive shape near the falls, she’d heard gnawing sounds coming from the aft tackle.
“Mr. Silva!”
Dennis’s good eye popped open, and seeing Rebecca in the gloom, he immediately groped for his eyepatch. Oddly, despite his bizarre behavior in most respects, he didn’t like it when his “little sister” saw the gnarled, sunken socket where his left eye had been. His next priority was Truelove’s long-barreled pistol tucked in his rope belt.
“Umm?” he demanded groggily.
“The aft tackle. The falls.”
“What’s wrong with ’em?” he managed thickly.
Rebecca sighed exasperatedly. “Something is there, chewing on them!”
Silva twisted to look. “I’ll be . . . derned. You’re right!” He squinted. “Silly bastard’s gonna drop us on the water—I mean the ground! Hey, there, you little freak!” he growled menacingly, “get away from there, or I’ll blow your goddamn head off!” With his left hand, he pitched the empty rum bottle at the thing.
“Goddamn! Goddamn!” shrieked the creature, dodging the bottle and scampering up into the lower branches above.
“It spoke!” Rebecca exclaimed, shocked.
“Yeah,” Silva admitted, trying to draw a bead on the ill-defined shape above. “Sounds kinda like a parrot, don’t he? You know parrots?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Rebecca admitted. “The Founders carried some and they have quite devastated the indigenous songbird populations of New Britain. Horrid, obnoxious creatures!”
“Well, let’s see if they can be ate,” Silva murmured.
“Don’t you dare!” Rebecca objected. “It may be more than a strange parrot! What if it’s like Lawrence?”
“Not like Lawrence,” the Tagranesi proclaimed disgustedly, awakening to the voices and quickly grasping the situation. There was little trace of sleep in his voice. “They are annoying ’ests, and they
can
’e ate. Tasty too.”
“Well, then!” Dennis said, aiming at the dark shape more carefully. Over the last few days, they’d supplemented their rations with various arboreal denizens. It often sparked a race between them (usually Lelaa on a rope) and their native “neighbors” to retrieve the fallen creatures, and of course if any shiksaks were nearby, they didn’t want to draw their attention by leaving food beneath the boat. There was nothing they could do about their waste, and that was bad enough. Shooting and eating their “neighbors” was a diversion from the monotony of their situation if nothing else, and it kept them from digging too deeply into their increasingly limited supplies.
“No!” Rebecca exclaimed, glancing darkly at Lawrence.
“No! No! Goddamn!” came a shrill, indignant cry from above.
Silva shrugged. “Well, whatever the little bugger is, he talks as good as you, Larry.” He looked at Rebecca. “He’s gotta leave off chewin’ on our rope, though.”
The others in the suspended boat began to stir.
“What’s happening?” Sandra asked. “Is it over?”
Despite her bedraggled state, Silva couldn’t suppress a thrill at the sight of her pretty, morning face. He physically shook himself.
Damn!
He told himself.
Don’T even Think like That!
It was hard not to after all this time. He’d even occasionally caught himself looking speculatively at Sister Audry. She was a damn fine-looking gal, after all.
Such a waste
. . . He shook himself again.
“
ERRRrrrrrr!
”
“What?”
“Oh, nothin’. What do you mean, ‘is it over’?” He shook his still groggy head, deciding to answer Sandra’s first question before pondering the second. “The squirt wants a new pet. The bloom’s wore off poor Larry, I guess.”
“That’s not true!” Rebecca scolded. “And Lawrence is
not
a pet!”
“What is a pet?” Lelaa asked.
“A dog,” Lawrence said, a little wistfully.
“Pets ain’t all dogs,” Silva retorted, “but dogs can be pets. A pet’s just about any critter that likes it when you pet ’em on the head.”
“My God, Mr. Silva, you
are
a philosopher!” Sandra exclaimed, still muzzy herself.
“Yep. All I need’s a Navy-issue Greek suit.”
“Hand me a piece of biscuit, if you please,” Rebecca demanded. Half asleep, Rajendra grumpily fished in a canvas bag and produced a mildewed cracker. Snatching it away, Rebecca held it up to the creature, near the falls. “Here you are, little fellow!” she entreated. “Won’t you come down and eat? Show yourself! That’s a
good
little creature!” Tentatively, perhaps coaxed by her pleasant voice or the smell of food, the little vandal eased back out of the shadows.
“Why, it looks like an archaeopteryx!” gushed Abel Cook. The young midshipman/naturalist-in-training had improved considerably over the last few days. He was still weak, and like them all, literally covered with mosquito bites, but the lightly feathered creature sniffing its way skeptically down the falls had stirred his interest. It wasn’t much bigger than a cat, with a long neck and a toothy head just like any other lizard bird they’d seen, but its abbreviated wings and long, feather-vaned tail looked more suited to gliding than flying. Silva chuckled as the light improved because the thing was colored predominantly greenish blue and yellow. The creature retreated at the sound, hissing at Silva with an open mouth full of small, razorlike teeth.
“Sure
looks
like one o’ your relations, Larry,” Silva prodded.
Lawrence hissed at him too. Rebecca gave them both withering stares.
“Come on, little fellow!” Rebecca cajoled again. “Wouldn’t you like something to eat?”
“Eat?”
“Yes!” Rebecca teased it with the cracker. “Eat!”
“Eat!” the creature mimicked doubtfully.
“Yes, eat!”
Quick as a shot, the little thing raced down the falls, snatched the cracker, then disappeared again in the canopy above. Rebecca checked her fingers to make sure they were all there while Silva laughed. A moment later, they heard another querulous cry from above.
“Eat?”
It was immediately echoed by others. “Eat? Eat? Eat!”
“Uh-oh, now look what you’ve done!” Silva said, turning serious. In a blurry streak, what looked like the first creature bolted down the falls and bounded around the boat shrieking, “Eat! Eat! Eat!”
It bounced off Dennis’s leg and dug in its claws—which hurt—but it wasn’t even as heavy as it looked. Lawrence took a swipe at it with his sword, but it was just too fast.
“Well ... give it something to eat!” Rebecca commanded. The entire canopy above was beginning to thrum with the chant “Eat! Eat! Eat!”
“You feed that thing, it’ll never leave!” objected Silva. “Them other bastards’ll be down in a instant and eat us too!”
“Feed it!” Rebecca ordered, and Rajendra obeyed, tossing another biscuit at the creature.
“No!” Sandra almost shouted. Dennis was right, she thought, but it was too late. Seizing the morsel, the creature stuffed it in its mouth, showering crumbs in all directions. Lawrence was trying to get close enough to take another swipe with his sword when another, similar creature swooped down into the boat and defiantly demanded, “Eat!” To their amazement, the first one launched itself at the second, spewing crumbs and shrieking, “Eat! Goddamn!” It struck the stationary “intruder” like a bullet and, as quickly as that, in a shower of feathers and blood, the intruder was dead. Frizzed out now, its meager plumage standing on end, the first creature scampered back up the falls almost to the limbs above and spread its long arms, feathery, membranous wings taut. With formidable claws bared at the ends of long fingers, and its neck stretched out, teeth exposed, it
gobbled
thunderously like a tom turkey. All protests of “Eat!” ceased in the branches above, and triumphantly, the little creature strutted warningly back down the falls. Finally, hopping the distance to its dead cousin, it clutched the corpse and tore away a feathery gobbet. “Eat!” it chirped contentedly. “Goddamn!”
“Goddamn!” echoed Dennis Silva approvingly. “Little guy’s got the basics down!”
“Look,” breathed Sister Audry, pointing at the brightening world around them.
Sandra gasped. For nearly the last week, while they swayed between the tree trunks, living a miserable, virtually seagoing existence with all the attendant hardships and inconveniences (particularly on the ladies), Yap Island had worked with shiksaks. It had been almost like watching maggots in meat, except these maggots were nearly as voracious toward one another as they were intent on their primary goal. Mating pairs coupled everywhere, briefly and violently, and the act ended, as often as not, with the death of at least one of the participants. Abel speculated the fighting was the natural outcome of cramming so many highly territorial carnivores together in one place for any reason, but it seemed utterly senseless and unnatural to everyone else. Males died, females died, shiksaks of both sexes died fighting over the carcasses of the slain. When a clutch of eggs was laid, almost as casually as defecating, they were often eaten or crushed by their own mothers. Despite Abel’s speculation, he was at a loss to explain this aspect of their behavior, this utter disregard for their offspring.
Apparently, once laid and forgotten, the eggs were safe unless a creature just happened upon them, so maybe they exuded no attractive scent or maybe, as they’d speculated before, shiksaks just didn’t have a welldefined sense of smell out of the water. There was no telling. Abel and Brassey had calculated that despite this apparently self-destructive behavior, there would still be a net increase in the ultimate number of shiksaks. Even given the inevitable infant mortality, this annual smorgasbord/ orgy might be the only way the creatures had to keep their numbers at a sustainable level. At sea, they had no (known) natural enemies except mountain fish and one another. Sandra was surprised that even Sister Audry allowed that, sickening as it was, God may have allowed shiksaks to sort this hideous arrangement out for themselves, since she was incapable of believing he’d designed it thus. Secretly, Sandra reflected that Courtney Bradford would have felt somewhat vindicated after Audry had so violently attacked his faith in a partnership between creation and natural selection. She was glad he wasn’t here to crow about it.
That morning, however, when the day began to break upon the virtually denuded, devastated ... battlefield ... that Yap now resembled, all that remained of the great infestation was the destruction left in its wake—and the wake of something else that had happened in the night they still didn’t understand. Bloated, festering carcasses lay scattered among fallen trees and sandy, almost rippled soil. The whole place looked like reels Sandra had seen of Poland after the Nazis bombed whole areas into desolation, except that instead of dead livestock, dead shiksaks were littered about. She was fascinated to see green kudzu shoots already bursting forth from some of the dead, and wondered if those that had eaten of them had been infected as well. In all her view, there remained only a single, badly wounded shiksak, and it was determinedly dragging itself toward the sea.
“They’re gone,” she murmured in wonder.
“Gone,” Rajendra agreed. Until last night, he’d still maintained that Silva’s scheme of “riding things out” had been a mistake. Now he seemed as relieved as anyone else.
“Gone and washed away, by the look of things.” Silva said. “I would’ve expected even more bodies ... and look, there’s puddles all over the place, with junk all tangled up like after a flood.” Silva looked at Sandra. “Say, what
did
happen last night? I musta been ... preoccupied.”
“You were drunk,” Sandra said scornfully. “Not really your fault, I suppose. I should’ve stopped you, but I had no idea ...”
“A surge of seawater, like a tidal wave, came in shortly after midnight,” Abel said seriously. “Several surges, in fact. All were relatively gentle in a sense—no monstrous, crashing waves—but for a while, seawater surged right beneath the boat at the base of the trees. It gave us some concern,” he added as an understatement. They’d been very concerned that their trees might be undermined and fall, as a matter of fact.
“So it wasn’t all a dream,” Silva muttered. “Did Rajendra really squeak?”
“I wouldn’t have heard it over your yodeling!” Sandra said in an accusatory tone. She rubbed her brow. “Chorus after chorus of ‘In the Jailhouse Now,’ for God’s sake!”
Dennis looked at her blankly. “I cain’t yodel,” he said.