Into the Storm (45 page)

The well was situated in another artificial clearing, and one of their Lemurian security guards trilled a call from his watchtower near the pipeline cut.

“What’s he jabberin’ about?” Isak asked, irritably reaching for one of the old Krag rifles they always kept nearby. “I hope it ain’t another one of them Big Ones. We really need bigger guns for huntin’ around here.”

The “Big Ones” he referred to were forty-foot monsters Bradford insisted were allosaurs. Unlike most of the other dinosaur species they’d encountered, Bradford’s modern allosaurs were not stunted. They’d hardly changed at all from those in the fossil record—the only difference he could see, if anything, was they were bigger than their prehistoric ancestors. There weren’t many of them, though, and even if they looked built for speed, they preferred to lurk along well-used trails in the dense jungle and let their prey come to them. The destroyermen called them “super lizards” in spite of Bradford’s protests. Isak only knew they were hard as hell to kill and they scared the shit out of him.

“Hold on, Isak,” Gilbert said. “They all sound like monkeys to me, but that don’t sound like a lawsey-me-there’s-a-Big-One-a’comin’ yell.”

They both stared toward the cut for a few moments more, then relaxed a little when they saw humans emerge into the clearing.

“It was too,” Isak said. “That’s the Skipper.”

 

Matt waved at the Lemurian peering down from the tower. It was one of Alden’s Marines, armed with a Krag. This was arguably one of the most important parts of the “fuel project,” but aside from the sentry, there were fewer than a dozen people, including the Mice, working the site. Most of the labor currently involved cleaning and stacking the “bamboo” pipes they were using to case the well. At this stage, few hands were really needed to operate the rig and most were needed only when it was time to bail, or pull the bits for sharpening.

A pair of bits lay across hefty sawhorses now, and two workers held them down while another vigorously worked them over with a file. The bits were Spanky’s idea. He’d used a heavy I beam meant for shoring up buckled hull plates. He cut the twelve-foot beam into three segments and cast heavy copper slugs on the ends to give them more weight. By all accounts, they worked well, but they didn’t hold an edge and had to be sharpened a lot.

Matt stared, fascinated, at the bamboo derrick and the ingenious contraption operating it. He’d seen oil wells, but he didn’t know much about them. All he could say about this one was . . . it resembled an oil well. That the derrick was a strange greenish yellow did a lot to undermine the impression, however. His gaze swept to the platform and he saw the two firemen staring back.
That’s probably another reason there’s not more workers here,
he conceded. It took special people to voluntarily spend much time with the irascible Mice. Even if those people had tails. Together, he and his party slogged through the swampy ooze surrounding the rig until they reached the platform and clambered up.

“Good afternoon, men,” Matt began amiably. “Thought I’d see for myself how things are going.” Isak just shrugged and looked around as if to say, “Well, here it is.”

Bradford stifled a cough. “Yes, well, I think you can see they’ve done a marvelous job. Marvelous!” He beamed at the two men. “How deep are we now?”

Gilbert had retreated a few feet and stood next to the sampson post that supported the walking beam. Neither he nor Isak had been spoken to by officers more than a dozen times in their lives—not counting Spanky—and it always unnerved them a little. For the most part, throughout their Navy careers they’d lived in the fireroom, and officers lived . . . someplace else.

“Three hundred and sixty-nine feet, when the cable goes tight this time,” Isak said, and he glanced furtively between the visitors. He suddenly yanked the filthy hat off of his head. “If you please.”

“Excellent, excellent!” Bradford exclaimed. “Can’t be far now!” He turned to face Matt. “As I said, the fix is in! I happen to know oil was found on this very spot in 1938! A respectable deposit, too. Quite adequate for our needs!”

Matt smiled at him. “But what makes you so sure it’s here . . .
here
?”

Bradford blinked. “Why, you did, of course! As you said, the geography is the same. As we’ve all discussed at some length now,” he smiled patiently, “this is our very same earth. Only a few inhabitants have been changed about. The very same oil found here in 1938 should still be down there, since no one’s ever drilled for it!”

“I sure hope you’re right, Mr. Bradford. I’m not certain it’s the same thing. Just because Borneo’s here, does that mean the same oil’s under it?” A trace of sadness touched Matt’s smile. “I’m morally certain the North American continent exists . . . here. Its shores and distinctive landmarks are probably like those we remember. The Paluxy River may still run where my folks’ ranch should be. Do the same catfish I used to catch still swim that river, Mr. Bradford? I doubt it. If they do, they’d probably eat you.” He held up his hand before Bradford could protest. “I’m just saying if we don’t find oil here, we need to keep an open mind about where to look next. Above all, we mustn’t get everyone’s hopes up that finding it here’s a sure thing.” Matt’s smile twisted into a grin. “Always remember, gentlemen, oil is where you find it—but it may not be where you left it!”

Gilbert nodded solemn agreement with the captain’s words. What was that damned Aussie trying to do? Jinx them? He reached over and felt the cable. “Tight,” he announced. Isak nodded. He addressed the Lemurians on the draft beast.

“Hey, you monkeys!” he shouted. “Stop-o el dinosaur-o now-o! Time to bail! Chop, chop!” The two young ’cats gave very human nods and hopped down.

“Been picking up the local lingo, I see,” Letts commented dryly.

Isak shrugged. “Yep. Got to, I guess.”

 

In the launch, Captain Reddy was thoughtful. He was encouraged by how far along the “fuel project” seemed, and if Bradford was right, it was just a matter of finding the right depth at the rig before
Walker
’s bunkers were full to bursting. The thought felt good, even though he couldn’t shake his nagging concern. Contrary to what everybody seemed to take for granted, there actually were subtle differences in geography. Nothing pronounced, but enough to make him worry. For example, the land around Baalkpan Bay was higher than he remembered “back home.” Less erosion? Lower sea level? Or something else? If everything in the world was different now, why not oil deposits?

Bradford said it didn’t work that way. He said the ground under the well was geologically predisposed to form a reservoir for crude. Matt hoped he was right. In any event, now that he’d been there, he was confident that if there was any oil, it would be found. The strange firemen had everything well in hand. He sighed. Of course, then the refinery had to work. It was one thing to find oil and something else to turn it into fuel they could burn.

He listened to the others chatting about the wildlife they’d seen as the launch left the river behind and reentered the bay. A few colorful flying reptiles paced the boat and shrieked and swooped at the small fish churned up in its wake. Matt tuned out the conversation and, as he often did of late, found himself thinking about Sandra Tucker as he stared at the feathery whitecaps. He couldn’t deny that he was attracted to her. Who wouldn’t be? For that matter, with so few women and a ship full of men, who, in fact,
wasn’t
attracted to her? In spite of the situation, he really liked her a lot and believed he wasn’t unduly influenced by the scarcity of females. He was sure that under normal circumstances he’d have already made a move. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

So far, in spite of everything, the crew had stuck together. There was friction aboard—there always was—but not much more than normal . . . yet. He couldn’t imagine how everything fell apart so fast on
Mahan.
Jim was a good leader and he should have sorted it out. Probably would have if he hadn’t been shot. Brister thought the breakdown was due to Kaufman’s hysteria and the stress of their ordeal. At all costs, he had to prevent that kind of stress from taking root here. Right now the biggest stress to
Walker
’s crew was a lack of “dames.” He honestly believed they’d eventually find more humans, and the two Indiamen that had sailed east so long ago were a solid lead. But in the meantime it was hard to dispel the sense that they were all alone. All alone, with only two women. He’d always believed in leading by example, and regardless of his feelings, he thought it wouldn’t be fair to the men if he pressed his suit now. How could he expect them to show restraint if he didn’t set the example? At the very least, it would undermine his moral authority—and that was really the only authority he had left. The men sure weren’t getting paid. The situation was far too tense to risk jealousy and resentment by chasing one of the only two eligible females.

He glanced at Alan Letts. Maybe the only eligible female. Letts and Karen Theimer were seeing a lot of each other. Maybe that was why he’d been so industrious of late. Letts had better watch out, though. Matt knew Bernie and Greg were both sweet on the young nurse too. That was probably why his young officers were so formal to each other lately. There’d be trouble down the line, and the more he thought about it, the more disquieted he became. The “dame famine,” as the crew referred to the situation, was likely to be more explosive in the long term than any shortage of fuel or ammunition.

He wished, for the thousandth time, that he hadn’t sent the other nurses off in
Mahan
. Not just because of the dame famine, of course, but their presence might have taken a little pressure off. What it boiled down to was that somehow they had to find more people, and the sooner the better. He owed it to his men. He took a deep breath. But that would have to wait, and in regard to Sandra, he would have to wait as well. And so would
Mahan
, wherever she’d gone—at least until they had fuel to search for her—or other humans. Right now they had a war to prepare for and to fight. That was a kind of stress his men were accustomed to and one he knew they could handle.

“Some kind of regatta or somethin’ goin’ on today?” shouted Tony Scott over the engine and the spray they were making. Captain Reddy grunted and looked where the coxswain indicated. Across the bay, fishing boats pelted toward town as fast as they could. The growing mass of boats seemed to gather in all they came across, and sheets flew as more fishermen came about or set a new tack toward the wharves. On instinct, Matt glanced at his ship. He saw her now; the off-white experimental gray that the Chief had mixed was clear against the riotous color of the city and jungle beyond. Perplexed, he looked back toward the mouth of the bay and the Makassar Strait.

Standing in toward them under a fair press of sail was one of the red-hulled Indiamen of the Grik. All over the bay, the large conch-like shells the People used to sound the alarm began to blow, and the men in the boat heard the dull bass hum even over the exhaust of the engine.

“Step on it, Scott! To the ship, as fast as you can!”

 

Sandra peered over the top of her book as her next patient entered the wardroom. She was reading a battered copy of Henry Thomas’s
Wonder Book of History, Science, Nature, Literature, Art, Religion, Philosophy,
which was making the rounds. It reminded her a little of Courtney Bradford: engagingly pompous and full of a little information on quite a lot. The old book came from the large, eccentric library of the dead surgeon, Stevens. She closed it and regarded her visitor with raised eyebrows.

“Dennis Silva, as I live and breathe.”

Silva merely stood, staring stoically straight ahead and she looked at him more closely. The refit had exacted a toll on the destroyermen and their Lemurian helpers, mostly minor injuries and torch burns, but there were occasional serious hurts—crushed fingers and lacerations requiring stitches, for example. The complaints constituted a steady enough stream that she and Karen stood alternating watches in the wardroom, tending the wounded as they presented themselves. They usually shooed them back to their duties. The big gunner’s mate had no obvious injury, however.

“Well?” she demanded impatiently. “What’s the matter with you?”

Silva’s face reddened even beneath his short, dense beard and savage tan. “’M sick, ma’am.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Sick! You?” Silva’s constitution was legendary. His record showed his only previous appearances before the ship’s surgeon had been of the type to be expected of a rambunctiously male Asiatic Fleet destroyerman. She doubted that was his problem today, although with Silva . . . There
had
been rumors some of the men were experimenting with local females. Both species were certainly adventurous enough to try. She shuddered involuntarily and shook her head to clear the thought.

“Sick how?” she asked. Then she felt a chill. So far they’d been lucky, but she lived in perpetual dread of some unidentifiable plague sweeping the ship, something they had no immunity to.

Silva actually looked at his feet. “Got the screamers,” he muttered.

“The screamers?”

He nodded. “Been in the head since yesterday afternoon, and I . . . kinda need to go now.” Her eyes flicked down the passageway behind her, and he looked at her as if she were nuts. That was the officers’ head! “I, ah, can hold it.”

“What seems to be the cause of your discomfort? Something you ate?”

“Well, you see, tobacco’s worth its weight in gold, and that damn Chack—”

Sandra slapped her forehead and felt a smile of relief cross her face. Silva’s expression became more wooden at her sudden lack of compassion. “Has had you running around chewing on every dead leaf he can convince you to stick in your mouth!” she finished for him and laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s rich! I heard about that! You should watch out for that boy! He’s not the ‘simpleminded wog’ some of you guys think he is!” She giggled, then looked thoughtful. “It seems our Mr. Chack has a wicked sense of humor!” She made a mental note to tell Chack that some things that didn’t bother Lemurians at all might be poisonous to humans—and that he’d better grow eyes in the back of his head and expect retaliation.