Distant Thunders (53 page)

“Courtney?” Matt prodded.

“Of course. Where was I? Oh, yes. A mere trivial example of my preoccupation is my failure to extrapolate beyond a few observations I made when we first came to this world. Surely you remember when Miss Tucker and I dissected the creature we killed on Bali?”

The day Marvaney died. “Yeah, I remember,” Matt said.

“Well, you may recall that Miss Tucker and I disagreed about the physiology of the beast? I said it was more like a bird, with its furry feathers and hollow bones, et cetera, and she said its jaws made it a lizard as far as she was concerned—oh, please don’t take this as criticism of the dear woman—but, well, I was right, you see. I admonished her to judge them more by what they
were
like and less by what they
looked
like . . . and I promptly fell into the same trap myself. We bandied the term ‘lizard’ about for so long, I failed to pursue my original course of study. We
were
a bit busy at the time, as you’ll recall.

“In any event, it was the boy Abel who brought it back to my mind; he was quite fascinated with dinosaurs before his unpleasant experiences turned him slightly against them. But the point is we, the scientific community of which I consider myself a part, have always assumed dinosaurs were cold-blooded reptiles! Monstrous beasts, plodding along, lying in the sun like lizards on a rock, but we were wrong! If the fauna of this world is truly descended from the same fauna as our own, there would be a lot of egg on a lot of faces at the Royal Society, if I could ever report!”

“Well . . . that’s amazing, Courtney,” Matt said dryly, “but what’s your point? I’m afraid ‘lizards’ has pretty much stuck as slang for ‘Grik.’ I doubt you’re going to get folks to start calling ’em ‘birds’ at this point. Be happy with your win over ‘Lemurians.’ ”

“No! That’s not what I’m saying at all!”

“Then for God’s sake, for once in your life, say what you mean!” hissed Gray, exasperated. Matt looked at the chief and raised his hand, but couldn’t help agreeing with him.

“I’m trying to! Aren’t you listening at all?” Bradford asked forcefully, and Gray rolled his eyes. “The thing is, all my various preoccupations pushed some rather more important thoughts from my head. One such was retrieved by your ridiculous comment that the ‘exception proves the rule.’ I know you don’t believe that,” he hastened to add, “and neither do I. That brings us to some rather disturbing thoughts I’ve had regarding our arrival on this world. We already know we must have been given, or been the victims of, some exception to the rules we knew, because, well, here we are.”

“Clearly,” Matt said.

“We also now know that exception wasn’t necessarily an exception at all.”

“Shit, Mr. Bradford—’scuse me, Skipper—but just spit it out. I’m getting an ‘exceptional’ headache trying to figure you out!” Gray whispered, but Matt shushed him. He thought he knew where Bradford was going.

“Very well,” Courtney continued, a little stiffly. “Jenks’s ancestors came through a . . . phenomenon much like the one we did. They call it the Passage, and it occurred in relatively close geographic proximity to our Squall. We also agree there may have been other similar such episodes over the centuries. Maybe it happens quite often, in fact, but the transportees are otherwise in smaller, more vulnerable ships with smaller crews, who have no means of protecting themselves in this more hostile world. They either don’t survive the event, or are lost before locals like the Lemurians discover them and give them aid. The mysterious fate of the crew of the Tjilatjap transport,
Santa Catalina
, and even the original crew of our own lamented PBY would seem to support that theory. As noted, a few men in a fishing boat would have poor prospects of survival.

“We still don’t know what all else might have come through our Squall with
us
. Four ships now, counting the transport, plus a submarine and an airplane—that we know of. Now we learn of this Dominion that controls a portion of the Americas. Princess Rebecca is a dear child, but her history is not up to that of Jenks or Mr. O’Casey. They told me that this Dominion was founded by some bizarre combination of survivors from an ‘Acapulco’ or ‘Manila’ galleon and remnants of an even older, possibly pre-Columbian American tribe. I won’t go into the details of that twisted union at present, but it was the Acapulco galleon that rang the first warning bell.”

“What are you talkin’ about?” Gray asked. “What’s a ‘Aca-poolco galleon’?”

“What I’m talking about is that whatever phenomenon transported us to this world may not be nearly as unique as we first believed. Whatever conditions arise to trigger it might—
might
, I say—also ensure that it is a one-way transfer. I don’t begin to understand the mechanics of it yet, but that at least seems certain, since we’ve never encountered any lumbering Lemurian Homes or mountain fish on
our
world.” He paused. “Or maybe
that
is the key!”

Captain Reddy and Chief Gray looked at each other. Evidently, Courtney was on one of his stream-of-consciousness rolls, and they might as well let it run its course.

“What key?” Matt prodded.

“Metal! As far as we know, only recently—relatively speaking—has any quantity of
metal
been abroad on the oceans of this world! Perhaps large quantities of iron contribute some form of electromagnetic aspect to the phenomenon—or the superior conductivity of the bronze guns, copper fittings . . . precious nonferrous metals of our predecessors. . . . Oh, dear me, Captain, an entirely new avenue of contemplation has opened before me!”

“Well, let’s finish our little trip down the avenue you were already on, for now,” Gray almost pleaded. “What’s Aca-poolco got to do with anything?”

“Oh, dear, I do apologize! Let’s see, yes. Only that our little Squall was not unique. Probably not even
regionally
unique! There might well be other human civilizations beyond those we know of scattered about this hostile world. Perhaps many more. Now you understand, of course!”

Finally Matt understood. Bradford was right. The question had been sitting there in front of all of them, but they’d just been too busy to notice it and ask. The possible answer chilled him in spite of the warm day. “Acapulco galleons were Spanish treasure ships, Boats,” he explained. “They sailed once a year or so to Acapulco from the Spanish Philippines loaded with loot. We studied Commodore Anson’s circumnavigation at the Academy. He captured one of the things with a fifty-gun ship—
Centurion
, I think it was—and the loot set most of his crew up for life. At least, that’s the story.”

“So? I mean, it’s a neat story and all, but what good is a bunch of Spanish treasure to us?” Gray still didn’t get it.

“None,” Matt said. “None I can think of now, anyway.” He grinned, but then his expression turned serious again. “The problem is, no Acapulco galleon would have ever sailed into the Java Sea. If that’s indeed what it was, that means whatever happened to us could’ve happened in other
places
and not just other times, all over the world. Might happen again. To think otherwise would be expecting an exception to these screwy
new
rules.”

“Indeed,” Bradford said again. “I would think it’s inevitable. Something, some force, connects this world with ours. In the past, our world’s oceans were vast, mostly empty places, yet there have been many unexplained disappearances there. Perhaps some of those unfortunates wound up here as well. But right now, on our earth, a global war is under way and the seas are packed with many thousands of modern, quite seaworthy vessels. If my theory is correct, I fear it’s just a matter of time before we meet another lost traveler like ourselves, and it could happen anytime, anywhere.”

For a long moment there was silence on the bridge. Chief Quartermaster’s Mate Norman Kutas at the wheel, who’d clearly heard at least the gist of the conversation, finally broke it. “Well, if we do run into somebody else,” he said, “I hope to God they’re on our side. We got enough folks mad at us as it is.”

Glaring at Kutas, Bradford lowered his voice still further. “There is yet another quite bizarre possibility,” he said.

“Oh, no,” moaned the Bosun.

Bradford ignored him. “Just as we’ve discovered beyond any serious possible debate that there are
two
earths, as it were, how can we assume there are not many,
many
more?”

 

 

Walker
put in briefly at Paga-Daan, long enough only for Matt to go ashore and express his sympathies and for his ship to fill her bunkers from one of the tankers moored there. There were two so far and more on the way. Most would probably take their time, creeping along the archipelago and down the Mindanao coast. Matt couldn’t blame their captains, but he wanted to make sure the commanders and crews of the ships already there, that had taken the more dangerous route across the Celebes Sea, were recognized. Bunkers full,
Walker
steamed away before sunset, haze blurring the tops of three funnels.

Churning south-southeast, Matt now had a choice to make. He could continue in Jenks’s wake until he caught the Imperial within two or three days at most, or he could lose another day and swing south to Talaud. Irvin Laumer and his crew had been out of touch since the loss of
Simms
, and Talaud was a dangerous place. Once he caught up with Jenks he’d be slowed down, regardless, and they had to be closing the gap on Billingsly.
Achilles
was bigger and faster than
Ajax
and she’d been replenished periodically, allowing her to steam ahead in the face of contrary or indifferent winds. But where could
Ajax
refuel? She might have stopped and cut trees for her boiler on any number of islands, but that would have slowed her even more. Matt doubted Billingsly would have done so initially, but chances were the man considered himself safe from pursuit by now. He knew the Alliance had nothing beyond the Philippines, and
Simms
and the feluccas were the last gauntlet he had to pass. He would be in for a surprise.

But what of Laumer? With the full concurrence of his officers, Matt decided he had to check on the young lieutenant’s situation and at least leave him a transmitter. They recrossed the Celebes Sea in the dark of night and a severe rain squall, sonar pounding the depths. It was in these very waters, this bottleneck to the vast Pacific—or Eastern Sea—that
Walker
had once encountered
two
mountain fish in close proximity. The sonar had chased one away and they were pretty sure they’d killed the other one, but there was something about the area apparently, maybe the food-bearing currents, that allowed a higher percentage of the monsters to coexist than usual. In any event, in addition to the sonar, they made the crossing with extra lookouts, keen-eyed Lemurians scanning the sea for basking behemoths under the glare of the searchlights. None were seen.

Dawn revealed Talaud’s hazy outline under an oppressive gray sky. Campeti was serving as
Walker
’s gunnery officer for the voyage and he had the deck. He knocked quietly on the charthouse hatch and opened it a crack. Matt had taken to sleeping on a cot inside, intent even in sleep on the green flashes that lit the quiet sonarman’s scope. He liked to be handy if he was needed, but also, even though the new mattresses they’d made for the ship’s crew were comfortable, nobody had gotten around to fixing the fan in his stateroom. It got awfully stuffy in there.

“Captain, you awake?” Campeti asked.

“Sure,” Matt said, sitting up. He glanced at the sonarman. A ’Cat was usually in the chair, but Fairchild,
Mahan
’s chief sonarman or sound man, had taken the watch for this stretch. “Anything?” he asked.

“Nothing, Skipper. We’re going too fast to really tell, but since we’re trying to scare stuff off instead of hunting, I guess that’s a good thing.”

Matt grunted. “What’s up, Campeti?”

“Talaud’s off the starboard bow. It looks . . . kinda queer.”

“I’m on my way.”

Staas-Fin, one of Ronson’s best electrician’s mates, stood behind the big brass wheel and Courtney and Spanky were on the bridge when Matt joined them, putting on his hat. He hadn’t shaved. Of all the crew, Matt always tried to keep himself clean-shaven, but that was hard to do, sleeping in the charthouse. He needed to see if Staas-Fin, or “Finny,” could fix his fan. Otherwise, he might as well give up and grow a beard like the rest of the men. He wasn’t ready to let Juan shave him on the bridge in the captain’s chair. “What’s up?” he repeated.

Spanky pointed at the island. “Well, it looks a little different, for starters,” he said.

“Wow,” Matt muttered, agreeing. The quiescent volcanic mountain he remembered had grown significantly since he saw it last and the thick haze either came from it, or was the aftermath of some action on its part. The air had an acrid taste. The top of the mountain was lost to view, but there were occasional flashes of light, either from lightning or maybe even lava arcing into the sky.

“Fascinating!” Bradford exclaimed.

“Yeah. I hope our guys are all right,” Matt said.

“Hey,” said Spanky, “where’re all the damn birds?” On their previous visit the ship had been swarmed with lizard birds and even some real birds that pestered them constantly and defecated all over the ship. Nobody replied. They had no answer.

Just before noon,
Walker
rounded the northeast point of the island and entered the wide lagoon where they’d found the submarine. The sky was even blacker, but the air had cleared with a northerly breeze. At least they could breathe. Anchoring in almost the exact spot as before, they swung out the launch and steered for shore. Matt, Spanky, and the Bosun were accompanied by Stites, Chack, and six Marines. The Marines were the ones Chack thought had gained the most proficiency with their muskets.

At first glance, the camp around the submarine looked deserted. A lot of work had clearly been done and the sub itself actually seemed afloat in a basin on the beach. No smoke rose from the generator engine boiler, however, and as they drew near they could see a literal swarm of what looked like bizarre lobster corpses on the beach.