Blood In the Water (4 page)

Laborde scratched his mustache. “No,” he decided. “We cannot. If we attempt to capture
Amerika
, she will send a distress signal. All would know what we have done.”

Dupont's predatory grin grew. “She would not . . . probably. She retains the short-range high-frequency voice transmitter. No doubt the Americans gave it to her. But her long-range communications gear seems to have suffered a casualty.”

“Indeed? The timing is most interesting. Do you suppose one of our operatives might be responsible?”

Dupont looked thoughtful. “Under the circumstances, it would be amazingly coincidental if that were not the case. Which also leads me to wonder if it might not be the
desire
of someone in authority that we should . . . do something about her?”

Laborde was torn between a quickening elation and despair. “They might repair their transmitter,” he said, brooding.

Dupont released a frustrated breath. “And what if they do? Yes,
Amerika
might manage a distress signal, but we could interfere with it. And they constantly use their TBS, thinking no one can hear because none of them are ever close enough. If
we
get close enough to warn them not to send wireless messages, they would have to comply. Their ship is full of wounded, after all.” Laborde frowned in distaste, but Dupont
continued. “And if they sent a message anyway? Yes, people would know, but what could they do?”

“Despite your speculation, our explicit orders—”

“Were to
flee
Alex-aandra without a shot,” Dupont said—almost snarled—“and ‘linger in the vicinity of Christmas Island' until further instructed. The Sunda Strait is in the vicinity,” he stressed. “If we happened to be there and
Amerika
suddenly appeared on the horizon, we would have no choice but to act. Would we not?”

Laborde scratched his lip more vigorously, but looked at Dupont with new respect. “We would be risking a great deal.
Amerika
is large and fast and would make a fine addition to our fleet, but she is old and somewhat dilapidated by all accounts. Her capture alone might not be enough to save us from the wrath of the Triumvirate even if we were not revealed. The quality of these important passengers would have to be great indeed.”

Capitaine Dupont smiled and began to list the names gleaned from unguarded transmissions. When the significance of some of them began to dawn on Contre Amiral Laborde, he smiled as
well.

C
HAPTER
1

East of Diego Garcia (La-laanti)
September 25, 1944

It had been a day of squalls, very much like the day they were swept to this world—and war. But the squalls, like the world, were also profoundly different. The irony, Sandra Tucker Reddy thought as she leaned on the boat deck rail of SMS
Amerika
, just aft of the starboard bridgewing, was that even though the world was wildly goofed up, the war even more savage than the one she remembered, and the very ship she traveled on not . . . exactly right, the squalls marching across the horizon were entirely normal in every respect. They were dark blotches on an otherwise bright, blue day, some dense enough to make them completely opaque. Others were more ephemeral, mere dangling wisps that barely touched the sea. But none had that . . . malevolent, pulsing, singularly greenish hue that had been the most visual feature of the squall that somehow brought the old US Asiatic Fleet destroyer USS
Walker
, her, and who knew who or what all else, to this very different world.

Again, Sandra idly wondered what her reaction would be if she ever saw another such phenomenon. Would she try to reach it, hoping it might transport her back to the world she came from? Or would she flee in terror? After all, there was significant evidence now that the . . . well, “bridge,” for lack of a better term, wouldn't necessarily take her back
exactly
where she came from, judging by the various historical inconsistencies among other groups that had arrived here over time. So the implication was that even if they traveled “back” through one of the mysterious squalls, they'd likely wind up somewhere else just as weird. Courtney Bradford's theories about that still confused her.
They probably confuse him too,
she thought fondly.
But it seems to make a kind of sense to Matt
,
even if he doesn't pretend to understand why or how
.
Of course, as Supreme Commander of all the Allied powers, he has more pressing day-to-day concerns. Let him focus on winning the war—and surviving,
she prayed
. Courtney's imagination can run rampant on other things.

Absently, she touched her belly, feeling for the child beneath the barely perceptible bump.
No,
she thought.
Even if I knew the bridge would take me back, the time to wish for that is past
. Her husband, Matt, was here, as was his surviving crew, and all the people that comprised this new Union they'd built. As “Minister of Medicine,” she was needed by the Alliance, and more specifically at present, by the shipload of human and Lemurian wounded SMS
Amerika
was transporting to Baalkpan.
And ultimately,
she realized,
this world is home now. This is where I belong.

She shook her head to clear the unbound sandy brown hair from her eyes and leaned more heavily against the rail. Down below, the purple sea creamed to white along the fragile, age-thinning sides of the old liner-turned–commerce raider–turned . . . hospital ship, Sandra supposed.
Amerika
had given them their first notion that different pasts were represented on this world. Where she came from, she'd been fitted out as an auxiliary cruiser by the Imperial German Navy during the Great War. After a fairly successful spree against mostly British merchant ships, whose crews she'd taken aboard and treated virtually as guests in the finest traditions of the Hamburg-America Line, she tangled with a British “auxiliary cruiser” named
Mauritania.
After what had to have been one of the strangest naval battles of the war—two great, stately,
completely unarmored ocean liners slugging it out with light guns at high speed in mounting seas—both ships had been heavily damaged and at least partially disabled. Sometime during the night, tossed by a terrible storm that threatened to finish what
Mauritania
began,
Amerika
wound up . . . here. In much the same situation as USS
Walker
after her passage through her squall—shot up, and in need of friends—
Amerika
found a haven near where Cape Town, South Africa, should have been, but was now “Alex-aandra,” the capital of a diverse nation called the Republic of Real People, composed of both Lemurians and humans who'd arrived at various times throughout history.
Amerika
's crew and prisoners had joined the Republic, and
Amerika
, with her spacious and luxurious accommodations, and most especially her meager but modern armaments, had become the “War Palace” of the father of the current “Caesar,” or “kai-saar,” of the Republic, named Nig-Taak.

Some of the interesting things about the situation from Matt's historical and Courtney's scientific perspectives were that many of the human cultures that blended into or influenced the Republic over time had been out of time or place themselves, and the clincher had been that not only did
Amerika
and
Mauritania
never fight a duel in the history they knew, but
Amerika
had been seized to become an American troopship during the Great War. As far as Matt knew, she still served that purpose under a different name. Regardless of that, she was here, representing the Republic of Real People, the newest member of the Grand Alliance against the voracious, reptilian Grik, whom the Allies had finally pushed all the way back to Persia and Africa, the place of their supposed ancestral origins. A Grik army under General Halik still survived—under observation—in the rough mountains west of the Indus River, but Halik was . . . different. No one really expected him to stay out of the war if another army joined him to reconquer India, and certainly nothing like an alliance had been contemplated, but left to his own devices it was believed he'd focus foremost on the survival of his army.

The Republic had also morally, if not literally, joined the war against the evil “Holy Dominion,” a nation of twisted human zealots infesting much of Central and South America. Just as Matt had delivered yet another stunning if costly defeat on the Grik at Madagascar, Lord High
Admiral Harvey Jenks of the Empire of the New Britain Isles had won a naval victory over the Dominion Fleet near the isle of Malpelo and General Tomatsu Shinya had smashed a Dom army north of Guayak. It seemed to Sandra that, despite the numberless Grik reserves on the African mainland, and the fact that Shinya still had a mountainous jungle continent to fight across before he could threaten the Dom capital of New Granada, the tide of war might have turned at last. But still, she worried.

Matt's forces on Madagascar were so few, and even with reinforcements on the way, he might be hard-pressed to hold what he'd gained, much less take the fight to the Grik. The Republic was planning an offensive against the Grik in the south, while Matt kept their attention on Grik City, on the northern tip of Madagascar, but the Republic offensive had been delayed by the intimidating presence of representatives of yet another power called the League of Tripoli that no one knew a great deal about. They knew the League was powerful, though, and in addition to having an old French battleship they could afford to park indefinitely in the harbor at Alex-aandra until it was finally bluffed away, they'd actually attacked Matt's First Fleet (South) with a submarine. The sub was destroyed, but not before it did a great deal of damage and sank the only vessel that could perform serious repairs to
Walker
and the other ships in Matt's little fleet. In spite of this, the League had still assured the Republic that it meant no harm, but it was clear that they had an agenda of their own and remained a veiled menace to the Alliance.

In the East, Shinya was on the march, pushing the Doms, but his force was relatively weak as well. And in the aftermath of the Battle of Malpelo, an already difficult supply problem could soon become a crisis. If Shinya stalled and the Doms had time to gather enough troops to put in his way . . . Sandra shook her head again. She could worry about those things, and about her husband, Matt, but she couldn't do anything about them. Her priority was to get the wounded aboard
Amerika
back to Baalkpan, where they could get the real rest they needed to properly heal. Arguably, the early Iron Age Lemurians they'd met on this world, industrialized, and taught to fight had better “medicine” than she, a mere Navy nurse, had brought with her. Their curative “polta paste” was but one example. But she'd brought
trauma
medicine,
military
medicine, of a kind the generally peaceful Lemurians had never much needed, along with the teaching and organizational skills required
to treat the victims of an increasingly worldwide war. Matt had been right all along. They had plenty of medics, “corps-'Cats,” and even good surgeons in the field these days. It was time for her to quit following the fleet and get back to her real job at last.

“Good afternoon, Lady Saandra . . . Reddy,” came Adar's familiar voice beside her. Adar was the High Sky Priest and High Chief of Baalkpan, chairman of the Grand Alliance, and a very dear friend. “Forgive me,” he said, his eyes blinking amused confusion, “but I may never get used to this hu-maan changing of names when they mate!” Sandra knew better. Adar probably understood humans better than any Lemurian alive. She also knew he enjoyed throwing the “lady”—bestowed on her by their Imperial allies—at her because it never failed to fluster her. She turned to him with a scolding smile. He was dressed, as always, in what some referred to as his “Sky Priest suit,” a purple hooded cape with embroidered stars flecked across the shoulders. Beneath that was only a simple red kilt, like those worn by Lemurian wing runners. His large silver eyes regarded her from a gray, furry face, and his tail swished slowly behind him, causing the cape to shift. His face was as outwardly expressionless as many humans considered any Lemurian's to be. They used body language, ear and tail motions, and complex blinking to reveal things that humans relied on eyebrows and very different facial muscles to achieve. A grin was a grin, and 'Cats could even manage a kind of frown, but to most humans, that was it. Sandra knew 'Cats well enough by now to recognize other, subtle expressions, however, and she got the impression that, in spite of his playfulness, Adar was troubled. “I hope I am not intruding,” he added.

Sandra straightened, feeling somewhat guilty. There was nothing pressing at the moment. All the wounded who'd come aboard
Amerika
had either passed beyond her aid and been buried or burned when the ship touched at Laa-laanti, or were as well on their way to recovery as she and her staff could help them along under the circumstances. Still, she
had
come out here for a brief respite from the moans of the suffering. Even worse than the sounds of pain, though, were those who remained cheerful and appreciative despite their disfiguring or crippling wounds.

“Not at all, Mr. Chairman,” she lied.

“Excellent,” Adar said. “Would you care to walk with me? I do feel inexplicably restless.”

“Of course.”

They strode aft, beginning to pass the more ambulatory wounded, who took their ease on actual deck chairs that the ship's original German, and now very mixed, crew had never discarded.

“Having left the ‘tip of the spear,' as Cap-i-taan Reddy has been known to refer to the point of contact with the enemy, I do find myself anxious to resume my duties at Baalkpan,” Adar confessed quietly, nodding at those who watched them pass. “But I also find myself unsure how to proceed.”

“Just be yourself,” Sandra answered a little shortly. “You're a good leader, Mr. Chairman.”

“Adar, please. As always. But as to how good a leader I might be . . . I know that many doubt. Myself, not least among them.”

“I see,” Sandra answered, and she did. Adar
was
a good leader, but he'd also proven both impetuous and indecisive. She'd once ranted at him for a moment of indecisiveness herself when
Walker
's fate was in the balance—on the heels of his impetuosity. “Very well, Adar,” Sandra agreed and considered. “But why are you talking to me about this? You've got a whole staff to advise you.”