Distant Thunders

PERRY BRISTER, CMDR, USN

20-24 Lights rigged. Water flow uninterrupted. No stoppages. Cmdr. McFarlane has allowed the hands to join the celebration by divisions. Inspection details to remain in place by rotation. A damn good day.

Steven P. Riggs, Cmdr., USN Approved: Examined:

Riggs held a lighted Zippo so he could see, and Spanky signed his name by “Approved” at the bottom of the page. Then he handed the log to Letts, who signed beside “Examined.” Before he closed the log on the previous day, Letts glanced up at the date and shook his head.

“Five days late for the ‘year and a third,’ but close enough, I guess.”

“That’s one of the reasons I pushed so hard to pull the plug yesterday. Give the guys something to celebrate so they wouldn’t dwell on what we left behind. What we lost,” Spanky replied.

Letts returned the log to Spanky, who handed it to Campeti, who had the watch again. They were all tired, but nobody was going to oversee this operation but Walker. Sandra Tucker had arrived, looking disheveled, but as anxious as they were for her first glimpse of the ship. Now she stood beside them, peering intently into the predawn gloom of the dry-dock basin at the still only vaguely defined shape.

They stood on what had once been the old fitting-out pier, but was now merely a walkway between massive wooden cranes and equipment sheds. The skeletons of still more new warships rose on the other side of the basin, silhouetted against the new dawn. Until recently, when the dry dock neared completion, the new ships had remained the priority projects. Now, for just a few days, work on them would slow while a large percentage of the laborers concentrated on another task. Steam and smoke jetted from crude, noisy engines while ’Cat “snipes in training” crawled all over them, oiling every conceivable point of friction. Some spun the huge, amazingly efficient Lemurian-designed pumps, and others powered generators that ran electric pumps of human design. The jury was still out on which were better, but Spanky was pretty sure the ’Cat machines would last longer. Hoses pulsed and brown water coursed into the sea beyond the dry-dock wall.

Together, Sandra, Spanky, Alan, Campeti, and Bernie, a growing crowd of human and Lemurian sailors and Marines, sleepy civilian revelers, and finally, to no one’s real surprise, Adar himself, watched the dawn gradually reveal what the ravages of seawater and battle had done to USS Walker. Throughout the night, while most of her crew and the people of the city celebrated her raising, the water level in the dry dock had steadily dropped. Now she lay, with a slight list to port, where she’d settled after her fight with Amagi. Almost half of her upper hull was now exposed and every heart sank as they looked upon her.

A clear demarcation showed how much of the ship had remained above the surface when she sank. It was plain to see, about three-fourths of the way up her four slender funnels and about halfway up her aft mast. The forward mast was gone. Automatic weapons had riddled her bridge, but the line glared dark and glistening below her empty pilothouse windows like an angry, oily slash. Above it, the paint was blackened by fire and dark with rust. Below the line she looked… even worse.

An entirely new color had been created. Dark brown mixed with tan, with malignant yellow streaks for contrast. A fair amount of blackened green dangled here and there, where rotting vegetation festooned her. Angry red globs and smears were everywhere and of every different hue, as the rust that caused them dried. Slimy gray-black tar pooled and oozed, and covering all was a translucent rainbow slick of oil that had leaked from her ruptured bunkers. Hatches stood agape, revealing dank interiors. Tangled cables drooped down her side, and brackish water gushed from countless holes as the water level in the basin receded below that still inside the ship. Eel-like chopper fish squirmed like maggots on her deck, their vicious jaws gaping and snapping as their gills labored in the morning air. As primitive as they were, it might take them hours to die.

Walker was a corpse, Sandra thought, and they’d been nothing more than ghoulish grave robbers to expose her to the sun. Hot tears ran down her cheeks. Thank God Matthew wasn’t there to see it.

“Lord,” Sandison murmured, “what are we going to do?”

Spanky patted his arm and sighed. “We’re gonna fix her, Bernie.”

The way Walker rested looked almost normal by the time the first boats went across: listing slightly and a little low by the stern, but the water wasn’t much higher than the greasy black boot topping. She was still full of water, however, and jets of varying intensity coursed from her many wounds. As a result, the volume of water the pumps displaced was reduced as the day wore on. If they emptied the basin more quickly than the ship could drain, they ran the risk of causing even more damage. But her crew was restless to get to work, and by early that afternoon, the first repair parties clamored up her slippery side and stood once more on her leaning deck.

Spanky McFarlane put his hands on his skinny hips and stared hard in all directions, his lips grimly set. A short while before, he’d been Minister of Naval Engineering for an infant nation. Right now, for a time, he was Walker ’s engineering officer again and nothing else. “All right, ladies,” he said at last, as men and Lemurians squelched through the ooze, “we got work to do. Mr. Riggs? Take your party to the bridge. Charts, manuals, anything like that we might’ve missed before are the first priority. Easy does it. If there’s anything left of that stuff, it’ll go to pieces if you’re not careful.” He looked quickly around. “Campeti! Where’s Mr. Sandison?”

Campeti gestured over his shoulder. “Went tearing ass up to the bridge. We removed the gun director a long time ago ’cause we could get to the platform, but he wanted to see the torpedo directors. He was like a cat havin’ kittens!” Campeti caught himself and looked quickly around. Some of the Lemurians were looking at him strangely. “Uh, no offense. Different kinda cats… Little buggers…” He held his hands close together, but then his face clouded with embarrassment. “Oh, just get to work, damn it.”

Spanky shook his head. “Well, until he gets back, or sends for you to help him, I want you to check the four-inch fifties and see if there’s anything left of the machine guns on the amidships deckhouse. When you get through with that, put together a detail to salvage as many fire hoses as you can. We’ll start rinsing the old girl off.” He couldn’t stop a grin. “Just think what the Bosun would say if he saw his decks in such a state.”

Campeti almost giggled. In spite of the herculean task ahead of them, the spirits of those who’d come aboard were rising. Finally, after the long months of anticipation and helplessness, of toil and labor on other projects, they could get to work on what mattered most to them. It almost seemed as if they could sense something within the ship itself begin to stir as well. A renewed sense of purpose. A new lease on life.

“We wanna go down,” grouched a reedy voice behind Spanky, and he turned to look at the pair standing there. It was Gilbert Yeager and the silken, gray-furred ’Cat named Tabby. He had to concentrate for an instant, because without Isak Rueben, the scene just didn’t add up. Then he remembered Isak was the one they’d decided would accompany the AEF. Understanding complete, Spanky glared at Tabby when he saw she’d stripped almost completely, in the Lemurian way, to the point that all she wore was what looked like a skimpy little skirt. Despite her fine fur, her breasts appeared very human. It was distracting and annoying and she knew it. Sometimes Spanky harbored a secret, superstitious sense that the presence of women (the nurses’ first) aboard his ship was what had caused all their problems to start with. He’d finally allowed Tabby to stay in the firerooms at the captain’s orders and because she was a damn fine snipe. He’d broken one of his own cardinal rules, however: if something someone is doing bugs you, either make them stop, or pretend it doesn’t bug you. In Tabby’s case, he’d failed miserably in both respects. He couldn’t-wouldn’t now-make her go away, and there was no way he could pretend she didn’t bug him.

“You’re out of uniform, sailor!” he said harshly, almost plaintively. “Again!”

“Dirty work ahead, Chief,” she replied with a creditable drawl. “We ain’t got enough new uniforms yet to get ’em all scruffed up.”

She even sounds like them now, Spanky thought uncomfortably. She was also the only creature alive that the Mice were actually nice to, in their way. As a result of their association, she’d begun to take on many of their less agreeable attributes. But she looked like a pinup in a catsuit.

“I don’t give a good goddamn! You will put on some clothes or I’ll have you on report!” he bellowed. “We’ll see if you can remember to. ..” He stopped and watched her slowly unroll a T-shirt she’d been holding behind her back.

“Aye-aye, Mr. McFaar-lane. I’ll throw somethin’ on if it make you happy.”

“You…!” He stopped. She’d done it to him again! He whirled and pointed at the very deck access she’d pulled her companions from months before. “Down there. Let me know if the water’s draining out of the aft fireroom! I want you to describe every single piece of equipment as it becomes visible!” He ignored them then, and began delegating other tasks to different details. The Mice shuffled away and ducked down the hatch. Once inside, out of earshot, Gilbert began to chuckle.

“I swear, Tabby, you keep waggin’ yer boobs at Spanky like that, one o’ these days he’s gonna bust a vessel-or grab hold of ’em! You know it drives him nuts. Just havin’ wimmin aboard ship is enough to cause him fits-then you keep doin’ that!”

“He still needs to laugh,” Tabby replied. “I like to make him laugh and he will, later. He always does.” Her eyes grew unfocused and she continued softly: “And maybe someday he will grab ’em.” She looked away, but Gilbert could tell she was blinking embarrassment.

Jeez! Gilbert thought, stunned. Tabby’s sweet on Spanky! “Yeah, well,” he said, his chuckle now gone as he peered into the darkness below. The stench was unbearable and the water was still over the top of his beloved boilers. “Ain’t much to laugh about right now. Look at this mess!”

The oily water receded slowly, and purplish brown foam swirled and clung to everything as its support drained away. At some point, one of Walker ’s own hoses snaked down through the trunk with a bellowed, “Slide it in!” and moments later, it began to pulse and throb. The drainage picked up. Another hose, new made, joined the first and was soon jolting and juddering alongside it. Gilbert no longer noticed the smell, and as the water went down, he carefully descended to the upper catwalk, creeping slowly so he wouldn’t slip in the oily slurry. His beloved fireroom was a dreary sight in the gloom. He didn’t dare make a light.

He suddenly remembered finding a dead, bloated cow out in a pasture when he was a kid. It was one of his ma’s, and he’d been curious why it died. While he stood there staring at it, its hind legs started to move. At first, he thought he’d met a ghost cow, because there was no question it was dead. He started to run, but something stopped him. He’d never been scared of a live cow. What could a dead one do to him? With that certain mixture of horror and fascination only kids could conjure, he’d watched a medium-size possum come crawling out of the cow’s ass!

He’d pondered that occasionally over the years, that possum squirming around up in there. No matter how hungry he got after that, and there’d been some starving times during the Depression, he’d never eaten possum again. Now, looking at his fireroom, he suddenly imagined he knew what the inside of that old cow had looked like to that possum so long ago.

“Go get another hose, Tabby. A water hose!” he shouted. “Might as well rinse some of this shit down while they’re suckin’ it out!”

The water came from the basin and wasn’t by any means clean, but at least the pressure let him blow the worst of the goo away. Also, it didn’t hurt that he’d exposed a little of the lighter paint and it grew brighter in the compartment as the sun hung overhead. Soon, he and Tabby were standing on the slimy deck plates. While he aimed the hose, she held it for him. A couple of times, they raised a plate and stuffed one of the drain hoses in the bilge.

“Gonna need some kind of detergent!” he shouted.

“We use wood ashes, make lye soap?”

“I dunno. Lye does goofy stuff. Not much aluminum down here, but there’s zinc in brass and galvanize. Shoot lye on that and we get hydrogen gas! I doubt wood ashes’d be pure enough, but it might corrode the hell out of stuff.” Gilbert paused and wiped his face with his shirt. It was stiflingly hot. “I wish somebody’d raise those goddamn vents!” he roared. Almost as if they’d heard him-and maybe someone had-the grungy, nearly opaque skylight vents started going up. Soon, the fireroom was relatively bathed in light and at least a little air was getting in. A few more ’Cats soon came to join them. Gilbert felt mildly guilty. He knew everyone was busy, but hell. He and Tabby turned the hose over to their relief and started to go topside for a much-needed drink. He paused.

“You know,” he shouted over the gushing water, “speakin’ of corrosion, there ain’t much here. Not new, anyway. Maybe all this oily, slimy shit did us a favor.” He moved to one of the big Yarrow boilers, kicked the latch, and opened the door. A flood of black water gushed out all over him, knocking him down. Tabby picked him up, and together they peered inside.

“Ook,” Gilbert said. He couldn’t see much, but the firebricks were gone. Probably disintegrated when the cool water hit them. The lines looked okay, though, and even if a few had popped, he could fix that. New firebrick had been stockpiled long ago during their previous refits. He gently patted the old boiler. “Hey! We can hose her out! No need to get all black and sooty cleanin’ her!”

Tabby looked at him. He was covered from head to foot with black, slimy ooze. She laughed aloud. Gilbert grinned too, realizing how ridiculous the statement was under the circumstances.

“Well, we can,” he defended. “Mainly, though”-he patted the boiler again-“we can fix this.”

It was nearly dusk and it had been a long, eventful, and mostly happy day in spite of their early misgivings. Faces grew somber a few times when the occasional bone was discovered and reverently removed. There weren’t many, and those they found were deeply gnawed. There was no way to identify whose they were and it didn’t really matter anyway. Courtney Bradford might have told them whether the bones were human or Lemurian, but it ultimately made no difference. Lemurians traditionally preferred to be burned, so their spirits might rise with the smoke and join those in the Heavens who’d gone before, but regardless how distasteful most Lemurians considered the human practice of burying their remains, many Lemurian “destroyermen” had requested burial like-and beside-their shipmates. Their clan.

All the bones were sent to join those of destroyermen already buried in the little cemetery at the Parade Ground in the center of the city, that lay in the returning shade of the Great Tree of Baalkpan. The tree, and the new leaves sprouting from it, was a symbol of hope that all might be made right in the end-not least because of the graves it sheltered with its mighty boughs.

After the grisly chore of removing the dead was complete, spirits rose again. Not because anyone had discovered that the task before them would be easier than they thought; if anything they were beginning to cope with the fact that it would be much harder. Absolutely everything would have to be painstakingly repaired, including all the little things they hadn’t even thought of. But now at least the wondering was over. They knew what they had to do. It would be hard, but they could do it. Walker would live again.

Alan leaned across a table erected under a colorful awning on the pier. A tired but upbeat Spanky was using a blueprint he’d hand-drawn from memory to describe some of the below-deck damage he’d seen.

“I was really surprised by how little silt there was in the turbines and boilers. The lube oil in the port reduction gear looks like peanut butter, though. Worn-out seals must have leaked.” He shrugged. “Everything’ll have to be taken apart piece by piece and cleaned, and the seals and gaskets will all have to be replaced-thank God we have plenty of gasket material! You really came through with that weird corklike stuff!”

Alan nodded self-consciously. “Yeah, well, like I said, Bradford discovered it. Some sort of tree in the northwestern marshes-where all those tar pits are. The trees draw the stuff up in their roots and deposit it in the lower outer layers of their trunks. Bradford says it protects them from insects.”

“Whatever. It’s good stuff. Mallory swears by it. He ran his little airplane motor for twenty hours straight the other day and never got a leak. He says it’s kind of hard to take stuff apart after it’s been heated up, though. It sort of glues things together. He’s calling it the ‘Letts Gasket’ and says you ought to take out a patent, since you’re the one who figured out the application.”

“I’ll be sure to share my wealth with Courtney.”

Adar had joined them, and when the laughter subsided, he addressed Alan. “What is a ‘patent’?”

Alan looked at him and his expression turned serious. “Well, it’s sort of a reward, I guess. It’s a way people are rewarded for coming up with good ideas. Where we come from, laws protect those ideas from being used by other people. For example, if I invented a new gizmo-say the ‘Letts gasket’-and got a patent on it, nobody else could swipe my idea and make the same thing without my permission. Usually, people would pay… or, ah, trade for permission.”

Adar blinked concern. “Among our people there are clans or guilds that possess secret skills only they may pass on. That has caused many of my problems with the shipwrights. Is that much the same? Are you telling me you want permission to use your ‘gaas-kets’?”

“No, Adar. It was a joke. ‘My’ gasket material is at everyone’s disposal! I’m afraid we do need to have a long talk about that sort of thing when we get a chance, though.”

Alan knew he was going to have to sit down with Adar one of these days and figure out some sort of financial system. Right now, everyone was highly motivated by the war effort and there was little grumbling about long hours, depletion of resources, and a somewhat lopsided distribution of labor and wealth. Before the war, Lemurian finance was based on an age-old, carefully refined, and fairly sophisticated barter system. Everything was worth exactly so much of something else. Even labor was valued in such a way. Some types of labor were worth more than others, but “wages” were still calculated by time-honored equivalent values. So much time in the shipyard, for example, was worth so many measures of gri-kakka oil, or grain, or seep. One length of fabric was worth so many weights of copper or fish, and so on. Obviously, people didn’t carry their “wealth” around with them, or always even have possession of it, but everyone kept careful tabulations of who owed what to whom. To Alan, it was all profoundly confusing and inefficient, but he could see how it had worked for so long and, admittedly, well.

The problem was, right now there was an awful lot of activity and production under way and nobody was being “paid” anything. The situation struck a lot of the destroyermen as downright Stalinist, or at least mildly Red. With so much time ashore to think about such things, there’d been increased grumbling over how many barrels of gri-kakka oil a month being in the U.S. Navy was worth. The guys were fed and their booze at the Busted Screw was free, but the time was approaching when they might want to buy something. Going back to the old barter system was almost impossible too, since no one had been keeping tabs for a long time now. They’d have to start all over from scratch, and Alan knew from experience how hard it was to clear the books when it came to trades and favors.

He’d been reluctant to approach Adar about the problem because the guy already had so much on his plate. There was the war, of course, and the question of what to do about Jenks. Sister Audry and the presence of the descendants of the “ancient tail-less ones” had him all stirred up about religious matters, and he was walking a tightrope while he tried to figure that out. All were serious matters, but the financial cloud beginning to loom had the potential to eclipse all those other concerns. Somehow, Alan and Adar had to make time for this talk. Soon.

Adar sighed. “Very well. I think I know what you mean and you are right. If we had been keeping track, the people’s surplus-guarded by Nakja-Mur and now myself-would have been gone long ago. With everything else… I do not look forward to that talk, but I welcome your suggestions.” He motioned to the ship in the deepening gloom. “What have you discovered… besides bones?” His tone was suddenly urgent. “Can you fix her? You do understand she has become something of a… talisman to my People. Younglings carve images-icons of her, almost like Sister Audry’s saints. The good sister speaks of your Lux Mundi, ah, Jesu Christo, and I must give that issue much thought.” He paused. “Perhaps very much was lost in translation long ago. In any event, right now Walker is seen as the savior of my People-the People of Baalkpan and many others. Can you comprehend how important she has become to all of us?”

“Yeah,” said Spanky, uncharacteristically quiet. “I wouldn’t go runnin’ around calling her a ‘savior’ or anything if I was you”-he glanced at Letts-“but we can damn sure comprehend how important she is. Trust me.”