Keje met his gaze, but then looked at Adar and blinked furiously with shame and frustration. Matt continued, his voice angry and sarcastic. «Ever since we met, Walker has stood up for you and your people, and she’s lost a lot of good men — some to save that damn city I’m about to. lose more good men going into! But now, when it comes time to stand up for Walker, she’s not ‘one of you,’ is she? You almost had me fooled. I was ready to leave Rolak’s people to fend for themselves — even after they risked everything to come to our aid. We may have helped them first, but at least they know what gratitude is. Still, I was ready to leave them. Now I know there’s no way we can leave them here with that madmat+ yo

«Naw, I fudged the headings you gave me.» Ben frowned. «Captain said to check these little islands real careful. He figures if the storm drove Revenge aground, that’s where she’ll be.»

«What a mess,» Ed murmured, looking first at the distant islands and then the chart. «No way she’d have squirmed through, that’s for sure.»

«Yeah, well,» hedged Mallory uncomfortably, «maybe she did. Or maybe she’s fine and Rick’s still chasing lizards like he was Drake and they were Spaniards.»

«Who’s Drake?» Ed asked.

«Never mind. British guy.»

Tikker leaned forward and squinted until his eyes were tiny slits. «Let me see chart, please,» he said, and Ed handed it over. Tikker studied it carefully for a long time and squinted out the windscreen once more. «Very strange,» he said and shook his head. «Usually you charts are so good.»

«What? Why?»

«I see white islands where chart says should only be water.»

Mallory took off his sunglasses and squinted as well. «I don’t see anything.»

«You push pedals, I look for ship,» Tikker said smugly and resumed his study of the horizon. Ed left them and went to the engineer’s compartment. One of the few things they’d discovered that still worked in the half-sunken plane when they found it was a thermos. It had been empty at the time, floating in the sandy brown water in the fuselage. Ed rescued it and had used it ever since. The initials «EP» were lightly scratched in the thick aluminum and he was struck by the coincidence since they were the same as his. He often wondered what had become of the original owner. He picked it up and poked his head into the waist gunner’s compartment to make sure the other two spotters weren’t goofing off. Then he carefully poured a cup of joe into a tin mug and eased his way forward against the jostling motion of the plane.

«Coffee,» he announced, slowly extending the cup into Mallory’s line of sight.

Ben shook his head. «Can’t right now. I need both hands. Thanks, though.» Ed only shrugged and took a gentle sip himself. Tikker looked at him and wrinkled his nose. Not very many Lemurians liked real coffee, much less the local brew. Like real coffee, it had a stimulating effect and that’s what they used it for: medicine. Not because they liked the taste. The big island was growing larger and many of the smaller ones were easy to distinguish now. Tikker suddenly remembered the binoculars around his neck. He thought they were the neatest things in the world — next to the airplane, of course — but much as he loved them, their technology was still so unfamiliar that he often forgot he had them on. Somewhat embarrassed, he raised them now and adjusted the objective knob. Then he stiffened, and it seemed to Ben every sable hair on his body stood on end.

«What? What do you see?» For a long moment, Tikker couldn’t speak. «What is it?» Ben demanded. His copilot’s body language had sent a chill of concern down his spine.

«It is not islands where they do not belong,» he finally managed. «It is sails. Grik sails.»

«Here, give me those,» Ben said, taking the binoculars from Tikker’s neck. He tried to hold the wheel and the glasses steady at the same time, but found it impossible. He glanced at Tikker, who seemed immolently, «walking» around and sloshing its contents. He raised the glasses to his eyes.

«God a’mighty,» he whispered. The entire horizon, from the islands of Pulau Belitung to the distant hint of a smudge that was western Borneo, was dotted with hundreds of dingy pyramid shapes. The water below was still a little foamy and the whitecaps had turned the normally warm, dark blue sea a kind of dirty turquoise, but the hint of red from the enemy hulls made them stand out quite clearly. «God a’mighty,» he repeated, a little louder this time and with an edge of panic in his voice.

The intercom crackled and an excited voice reached them from one of the observation blisters. «Ship! Ship! I see ship! Right below! Wake up, you in front! You not see ship?»

Revenge had been through hell. As soon as the size of the storm became apparent, Rick Tolson and Kas-Ra-Ar knew their only hope was to beat north as far as they could and gain as much sea room as possible before the seas grew too large to do anything but run before them. With grim satisfaction, they’d pounded the lone Grik ship with a pair of broadsides as it drew near. Then, leaving the enemy trailing a shattered mainmast and at the mercy of the coming blow, Revenge went about. The wind drove out of the west-northwest at first, and the ship shouldered her way through the growing swells far into the Natuna Sea.

For thn one piece she’s fast, well built — thank God! — and weatherly.» Glancing past Kas at one of the many work gangs diligently at their labors, he added, «And she’s got the best damn crew any ship like her ever had in this messed-up world. A destroyerman couldn’t ask for much more.» He paused. «Engines would be nice, but then she wouldn’t need her sails and that’s part of her charm.»

He became serious again. «But that’s not what you asked.» He sighed. «Yeah, the war’s to blame. Those fishermen on the feluccas, they wouldn’t have been here if not for the war. They’d have been catching flashies and feeding their families instead of fighting for their lives in a storm they couldn’t beat. That’s the war’s fault, not ours. And before you think that if we weren’t fighting the war there wouldn’t be one, try to remember why we fight. It’s fight or die and that’s not much of a choice. You might die if you fight, but you will die if you don’t. If you look at it like that, the War isn’t an excuse but a blessing. A chance for survival.» Rick grew silent and thoughtful for a moment.

«You know, now that I think about it, it is different here. What I said before is all a bunch of crap. We can shake our heads and say, ‘It’s war,’ because it’s easy and it’s what my people are used to. At home, it might even be true sometimes. The war we left behind might’ve been different, but who’s to say? The Nazis and the Japs were very bad, but most of the time it’s not that black and white. Here? It’s the lizards. Period. They’re the ones to blame. ‘The War’ is what we’re doing to stop the lizards and when you think of it like that, it makes a good explanation.» Rick yawned hugely and then smiled at his friend.

«I’m tired, and I may not be making a lot of sense, but whatever else I said, I guess what I mean is, if we lost the feluccas, they didn’t die for nothing. They were helping fight the War, and in maybe this one and only instance, war is good.»

Kas grinned again. «Before the storm came, you certainly seemed to be enjoying it.»

Rick grinned back at him. «Well, when something needs doing, it always helps to be good at doing it, and we were so, so good»

Kas suddenly tilted his head as if listening intently. Rick heard it too. Within minutes, the entire crew of Revenge was jumping up and down and pointing gleefully at the sky as the small dark shape of the PBY grew larger and began a rapid spiraling descent. Soon it was skipping tentatively across the tops of the choppy waves until it splashed to a rather abrupt halt some distance ahead of the ship.