B00BPJL400 EBOK (3 page)

With a dazed Minnie making her way to first, the bases were loaded when Earl Lanier waddled to the plate.

“Oh no,” Sandra muttered, and there was a collective groan. Earl was a good catcher and surprisingly quick, but his enormous gut was kind of in the way when it came to batting. “He shouldn’t even be out there,” Sandra said, a little hot. Earl’s belly had been laid open pretty badly a few weeks before.

“He’s okay,” muttered Chief Bosun Fitzhugh Gray on the other side of Matt. Gray was past sixty and now officially Chief Bosun of the Navy. He was often referred to as Super Bosun, or just SB, but was even more than that to Matt and Sandra. He was their friend, and commanded the Captain’s Guard. He took Matt’s orders and served as chief damage control officer aboard ship, but was no longer confined to any normal chain of command. To Matt, he was just “Boats.”

“He might split a seam, but it’ll be worth it. Watch,” Gray said.

“Well . . . but he’s still on report for taking a swing at Campeti, isn’t he?” Sandra demanded.

Matt shifted uncomfortably. “Uh, Campeti said it wasn’t a swing after all. Lanier was just grabbing for something as he fell. The sea was pretty heavy.”

Sandra glared at him, and he felt like squirming. “Campeti took it back!” he insisted. “What can I do? I didn’t see what happened!”

“You’re
in
on this! If he gets hurt . . .”

“Oh, he’s
gonna
get hurt,” Gray interrupted, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Think of it as takin’ one for the team—for his sins,” he added.

Earl suddenly struck a comically heroic pose by the plate and pointed upward at an angle of about 45 degrees past center field. The crowd roared and the bleachers thundered with stamping feet.

“Oh, my God,” Sandra said, raking away a few sandy brown strands that had escaped her ponytail. “I can’t watch!”

She watched.

Earl stepped into the box and pointed his bat at the pitcher. Then took a couple of grim practice swings before bringing the bat back, high, his fists behind his right ear.

The first pitch sizzled past and Meksnaak called it a strike. Earl stepped back, stunned.

“Scoot back up there an’ take yer dose, you big, fat, turd!” came a nasally shout that reached them even over the thunder of the crowd. Isak Rueben was on deck, shaking his bat at the cook. Isak was one of the “original” Mice, two extraordinarily squirrelly firemen who’d finally been forced to accept a wider—and different—world beyond their beloved fire rooms. The other original, Gilbert Yeager, was chief engineer on USS
Maaka-Kakja
(CV-4), off with the Second Fleet supporting operations around the Enchanted Isles. Tabby herself had been a third “mouse” before her promotion. Isak and Gilbert were half brothers—less of a secret than they thought—and they’d never been on the ship’s baseball team before the Squall that brought them here. It wasn’t because they weren’t any good; they just didn’t like anybody. Things were different now, of course, and if Isak still didn’t much like anyone, he loved his old
Walker
. He’d play for
her
.

Lanier glared at Isak and yelled something back that Matt couldn’t hear, but moved back in position, waving at the crowd. Finally, he was ready: bat high, helmet low, staring intently at the ’Cat pitcher. Here it came. In the mere instant the ball was in the air, Earl seemed to like what he saw. He started to swing, his great, fat body gaining momentum as it turned. The bat came around farther, faster, then stopped short as he checked the swing—just as the speeding ball vanished into his prodigious midsection. There was a stunned hush, until the ball popped out on the ground.

“Aaggghhh!” roared Earl, slamming the plate with his bat. “
Goddamn
, that hurt!”

Meksnaak took off his own helmet and stared at Earl, blinking amazed consternation. Then he saw the blood beginning to stain the tight, grungy T-shirt. Finally, he snorted and waved Earl toward first base.

“I can’t believe he
did
that!” Sandra shouted in Matt’s ear when the bleachers shook.

“What? You think he took a hit like that on
purpose
?” Matt hollered back. Saan-Kakja caught his eye, and he saw her amused blinking.

Tabasco trotted home—without notice by Meksnaak or the Rivet Drivers’s catcher, who were both watching Earl lumber to first.

Isak Rueben shuffled to the plate. He was a little guy, wiry, almost scrawny. Most of the Rivet Drivers knew him well. He’d been flown in from Baalkpan to oversee the first steps of a scheduled overhaul on
Walker
even before the old destroyer limped in after her fight with
Hidoiame
, and he’d been driving them hard on other projects. No one thought he was a weakling, but he obviously wasn’t a power hitter. They suspected he knew what he was doing, though, and the outfield moved in to prevent another scoring single.

Matt looked nervously at Gray, who stood with his arms crossed, wearing an expression of supreme confidence. Bashear was team captain, but Gray was the manager and chief strategist. Matt knew he’d conceived all sorts of schemes for this game to deal with any number of variables. One such was clearly unfolding now . . . but pinning all their hopes on Isak Rueben seemed a little nuts.

The first pitch blew past Isak and he just watched it go, as if studying it. He did the same for the second, and another huge groan rumbled in the park. The third pitch was way inside and probably would’ve shattered Isak’s bony elbow if he hadn’t jerked back.
Okay,
Matt thought,
Isak can read a pitch
.
But they can’t be counting on a walk—not with this pitcher!
The fourth pitch came, and with a fluid, almost nonchalant ease, Isak Rueben slammed it high in the air and deep into the crowd behind the center-field line.

Matt looked at Gray, stunned, as the whole city of Maa-ni-la seemed to erupt. Gray shrugged. “I seen the squirt bat before,” he shouted. “Back on Tarakan, after the fight with those three Grik ships. He was showin’ some of the ’Cat Marines.” He grinned. “I ain’t sure Isak Rueben didn’t
invent
baseball on this world!”

* * *

“A great victory!” Saan-Kakja gushed as their palka-drawn carriage and its me-naak-mounted guards churned through the busy streets toward the new industrial complex east of the city. There were seven in the carriage, counting the driver. Matt, Sandra, and Gray sat beside each other, facing Saan-Kakja, General Busaa of the coastal artillery, who now commanded the ATC, and the somewhat sullen Meksnaak. The driver, busy controlling his animal, said nothing.

Palkas, dubbed “pack mooses,” looked like a cross between an overblown moose and a Belgian draft horse. They weren’t fast, but they were strong and fairly steady under fire—much steadier than brontasarries. That made them perfect for pulling artillery, caissons, and virtually any combat-supply vehicle. They’d also eat just about any kind of vegetation. Me-naaks, or “meanies,” were the preferred Maa-ni-lo cavalry mount, and looked like long-legged crocodiles. A thick thoracic case made them almost bulletproof. They were obedient, even devoted to their riders, but dangerously prone to snatch “snacks” as they trotted along, so their jaws were kept firmly secured.

“I don’t know about that . . .” Sandra began.

“Of course it was!” Saan-Kakja insisted. “It showed our people that
Waa-kur
’s crew remains undaunted despite her injuries and losses. I cannot stress the importance of that enough! Also, it may perhaps boost the morale of your crew, Cap-i-taan Reddy, after the . . . inconclusive encounter with
Hidoiame
?”

“Didn’t seem inconclusive to me,” Gray grumbled. “And Spanky’s sure the damn thing’s done for.”

“Still,” Matt said. “We never
saw
her sink, and I know it nags the fellas. It nags me too.” He raised a hand at all of them, particularly Sandra. “Hey! I’m not complaining. Spanky made the right call!” He nodded down at the wound that nearly killed him. “I was out of it. Hell,
Walker
was finished! We were like an old, beat-up mutt tangling with a mountain lion, but I’m still as confident as Spanky that we kicked
Hidoiame
’s ass. Even if we only gave as good as we got”—he nodded at Saan-Kakja—“we had someplace to run, to lick our wounds.
Hidoiame
and her murdering crew have
no place
to go that they could hope to reach, even if they somehow knew about the Japs helping the Grik.” He shook his head. “Scouts haven’t seen her, and we haven’t overheard any transmissions. My bet is she’s sunk or on an island beach somewhere, shot up and out of fuel, and her crew’s busy cracking open those poison coconut things and slowly . . .” he stopped.

“Slowly shittin’ theirselves to death,” Gray finished with obvious satisfaction, “if you ladies’ll excuse me.”

The driver halted the palka in front of one of the largest wooden structures Matt had ever seen on land. It looked like a hangar for one of the old Navy’s dirigibles. Even Grik zeppelins wouldn’t need anything as big, since they were less than half the size of the ill-fated
Akron
and
Macon
. Standing near the building was a battery of smaller structures protecting boilers and direct steam generators. Matt reflected that the arrangement was a far cry from their first efforts at making electricity in Baalkpan not so very long ago, and the Lemurians deserved most of the credit.
Walker
’s own 25-kilowatt generators were direct steam drive, so the example was there, but their first domestic machines had been far cruder, more complicated belt-drive generators powered by reciprocating engines. They were already building the engines and hadn’t had the machining capacity to make even the relatively simple turbines for the better generators back then. The ’Cats themselves changed that, and real turbine
engines
were in the works in Baalkpan now.

High Sky Priest Meksnaak was obviously thinking about the generators too, and blinked disapproval at the buildings protecting them. “I confess . . . discomfort over this invisible force called eleks-tricky we grow so dependent upon,” he muttered. “It powers nearly everything now, particularly at this facility. The Sacred Scrolls themselves warn against placing faith in unseen forces other than the Maker.”

“You can’t see the wind,” Sandra countered reasonably, “but it moves the great Homes. There’s not much wind today, but you can feel it.”

“But the wind is a
natural
thing, given by the Maker,” Meksnaak insisted. “You build this eleks-tricky with machines!”

“
Electricity
is also made by the Maker,” Matt countered, stressing the proper, less-sinister pronunciation. “Lightning’s a prime example; it zaps down from the heavens all the time.”

“And represents the Maker’s
anger
,” Meksnaak persisted. “I can think of no better reason not to fool about with it! Yet everything you build either makes or uses it!”

“A hand fan makes a wind,” said Sandra. “Is that cooling breeze somehow dangerous?”

“A high wind can be most dangerous!”

Matt sighed and looked at Saan-Kakja. “Electricity’s vital to our industry, and ultimately the whole war effort. Sure, we generate it, harness it, and bend it to our will, but it’s not magic. We make it in much the same way the Maker generates it in the sky, only we make controlled amounts—and put it to use.” He shook his head. “How exactly that’s done is a question for engineers like Spanky, or the EMs Riggs and Ronson trained.” He chuckled. “We didn’t have electricity on Dad’s ranch when I was growing up. We used oil lamps just like you. We had batteries for the radio and the car and trucks, but that was it. Little generators in the vehicles kept the batteries charged. Anyway, though I understand the basics, I’m no expert. I do know we wouldn’t’ve had trucks or tractors or any number of things Dad needed around the place—things that gave him an edge—if electricity hadn’t helped make them. We need electricity to gain and keep an edge in this damn war.”

“We built many things before eleks-tricky came to us,” Meksnaak grumbled.

“Sure, and Dad had a ranch before we had trucks and tractors—but it took ten times the labor to grow fodder, transport stock, haul hay and fencing . . . the list is endless. And that was just a ranch, not a war. To win the war we need to free up as much of our labor force as we can to fight—while still producing more of the tools to do it.”

“Mr. Riggs explained it to me when I was in Baalkpan,” Saan-Kakja interjected. “He was . . . frustrated with me, I think, but he likened electricity to the gaas-o-leen fuel for the ‘Naan-cee’ engines—and others now. Generating it is like refining the gaas-o-leen, while the wires carry it to the lights and machines like fuel lines—somehow—even though there is no hole. Changing or regulating the . . .” She paused, remembering. “The vol-taage,” she said triumphantly, “is like metering the fuel to a machine engine, so only just enough can reach it. This . . . comparison helped me understand, though I remain unsure why two wires are needed. This ground, or dead, wire still confuses me.” She smiled. “We Mi-Anaaka—Lemurians—understand machines. We are good with machines. This machinelike explanation was good for me.” She peered at Meksnaak. “And elec-
tricity
is
not
invisible when it gets loose—or touches the dead wire somehow! It is like the lightning in the sky when that happens, so it is clearly running in the wires!”

“Huh,” Gray said, getting in the spirit of the analogy. “Think of the ground wire as the igniter that lights the fuel inside the electric motor—or in the lightbulb! It acts like the ground when lightning strikes!”

Saan-Kakja smiled at him. The expression didn’t extend across her face—’Cats didn’t have near the range of facial movement as humans, but her exotic eyes twinkled. “Thank you, Mr. Gray!”

A broad inlet of the bay snaked up past the building, and a variety of interesting boats floated beside a pier. The small, two-seat PB-1B “Nancy” flying boats of one of Maa-ni-la’s several patrol wings rested on wheeled trucks on a broad ramp by the water. Nancys were good little planes and had become the backbone of the Allied air arm. They looked like miniature PBY Catalinas, since that’s what inspired their lines, but they’d proven themselves effective at many roles, from reconnaissance to dive bombing.