Maelstrom

Maelstrom by Taylor Anderson Read Free Book Online

Book: Maelstrom by Taylor Anderson Read Free Book Online
Authors: Taylor Anderson
Tags: Destroyermen
thing was so far beyond his experience as to seem unthinkable. But he hadn’t been there; he hadn’t seen. Those he knew and trusted who’d beheld Amagi assured him it was true, and somehow he managed to believe them. The thought churned his gut with dread.
    A servant, a member of his expanded wartime “staff,” pushed through the curtain behind him and stepped into view, waiting to be noticed. Nakja-Mur sighed. “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t lurk behind me like that; I won’t eat you!” His tone was gruffer than he intended, and if anything it made the young servant cringe back a step.
    “He does not know you as I do, lord,” came a voice from beyond the curtain. It parted, revealing the hooded form of Adar, High Sky Priest of Salissa Home. Adar was tall for one of the People. He wore a deep purple robe adorned with embroidered silver stars across the shoulders and chest. The hood bore stars as well. His silver eyes peered from a face covered with fine, slate-gray fur. He gestured at Nakja-Mur’s stomach, which, though considerably shrunken from its prewar dimensions, was still quite respectable. Nakja-Mur chuckled.
    “I only eat youngling servants for breakfast these days, you know.” He patted his belly and it rumbled on cue. “Though perhaps . . .”
    “I will bring food instantly, my lord!” cried the servant, and he vanished from view.
    Adar blinked amusement. “Do you suppose he will return?”
    Now that the youngling was gone, Nakja-Mur sighed again. There was no need to keep up appearances for Adar. “Of course. Please be seated,” he said, gesturing at a cushion nearby. “We have much to discuss.”
    Adar folded himself and perched rigidly on the firmer cushion Nakja-Mur knew he preferred. For a moment he just sat there, looking at the High Chief and waiting for him to speak. Nakja-Mur was casually dressed in a light, supple robe, and sat with a mug of nectar loosely balanced on his knee, but his increasingly silver-shot fur, and the absently troubled cant to his large, catlike ears, would have belied his relaxed pose to any who knew him well.
    “The Amer-i-caans are planning a ‘fallback’ source of gish, to power their ships,” he stated abruptly. “So no matter what they say, they recognize at least the possibility Baalkpan will fall.” The strange Australian, Courtney Bradford, had been an upper-level engineering consultant for Royal Dutch Shell. That occupation allowed him to pursue his true passion: the study of the birds and animals of the Dutch East Indies. Also because of that occupation, however, stuffed in his briefcase when he evacuated Surabaya aboard Walker were maps showing practically every major oil deposit in the entire region. There’d been some skepticism that the same oil existed on “this” Earth that they’d found on their own, but after the success of their first well—exactly where he’d told them to drill—they were all believers now, even the Mice. Tasked by Captain Reddy to locate another source, he assured them they’d find oil in a variety of places. Most, for one reason or another, were rejected, but Tarakan Island seemed perfect. It was more than halfway up the coast of Borneo, bordered by the Celebes Sea. It was beyond anything the Grik maps showed they’d ever explored, and it was in a fallback position not only toward the Fil-pin lands, but one of Baalkpan’s “daughter” colonies nearby.
    The “colony” was a growing settlement right across the little strait in a marshy, swampy hell called Sembaakpan. There they gathered small crustaceans called graw-fish by basketfuls at low tide. They were very tasty in their premetamorphic stage, and considered a delicacy because no one knew them to exist anywhere else. They had a short shelf-life too, and were some of the strangest creatures the destroyermen had yet encountered. They looked and acted like little horseshoe crabs till they shed their shells and swam—and ultimately flew—away. Anyway, at

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