This had been the worst punishment suffered yet. There were huge holes in many places on all the decks. The explosions had not only punched these on the decks and in the hull, but corridors filled with people had been blown open. A number of rocket-launching mechanisms, loaded with missiles, had gone up, adding their explosions. Several steam machine-gun turrets were knocked off their foundations.
The starboard paddlebox or wheelhousing had been almost blown off by two shells. But the paddle wheel was still operating at one-hundred percent efficiency.
"Clemens must have seen those shells hit the paddlebox," John said. "He could be fooled into thinking that he's crippled us. By Christ's cup, we'll make him think so!"
He gave the order to put the boat into a wide circle. The inner or starboard wheel was turned slowly while the outer or port wheel rotated under two-thirds power.
"He'll come a-running like a dog panting to finish off a wounded deer!" John said. He rubbed his hands and chuckled.
"Ay, he's bound toward us like a great beast out of Revelation!" John said. "But he doesn't know that there's an even more fearsome monster hot on his tail, about to vomit death and hellfire all over him! It's the vengeance of God!"
Burton felt disgusted. Was John actually equating himself with his Creator? Had his brains become a trifle addled from the shock of shells and rockets? Or had he always secretly felt that he and God were co-partners?
"They'll have to estimate distance with the eye, and in this light they won't do well," John said. "Their sonar isn't going to do any range calculation, either!"
The enemy would be getting more than return pulses from the beam directed at the Rex. The sonar operators were going to be confused. They'd see pulses from four different targets on their screens. Three would be from tiny remotely controlled boats circling in the lake, each emitting sound pulses of the same frequency as those of the enemy transmitter. The little vessels also contained noise generators which simulated the pounding of giant paddlewheels against the water.
Burton could see the upper structures of the Not For Hire silhouetted against the blazing stars and the shimmering gas sheets on the eastern horizon.
And then he saw a dark semicircle, the upper part of the Azazel, against the celestial illumination just above the Not For Hire.
"Fire your torpedo!" John said loudly. "Fire now, you fools!"
Peder Tordenskjöld, the chief gunnery officer, said, "Distances are deceiving now, sir. But the airship must've launched the torpedo already."
All glanced at the panel chronometer. The torpedo, if it hit, should do so within thirty seconds. That is, it would if the dirigible were as close to the boat as it seemed to be. The Azazel would have dropped the missile while it was only a few feet above The River. Lightened by the release of the heavy missile, it would have risen swiftly. Its speed would be increased also by the loss of weight. So, if it were now over, or almost over, the enemy, the torpedo should be about to strike.
The Not For Hire should be taking evasive action by now. Though the airship may not have been seen by the eye, the torpedo would be detected by the sonars of the enemy. Its location and speed would be instantly known, its shape and size indicated. The enemy would know that a torpedo was speeding toward its stern, as John inelegantly put it, "driving right up Sam Clemens' asshole."
John stopped. His face was a study in fury. "By God's teeth, how could it have missed at such close range?"
"It couldn't have," Strubewell said. "Maybe it malfunctioned. Didn't go off."
Whatever had happened, the enemy had escaped the torpedo. Behind it the semicircle of the Azazel, which had disappeared for a moment, rose again. The pilot and the bombardier would either have jumped out or be just about ready to jump. Their parachutes, equipped with a compressed-gas device, would unfold fully the moment they leaped clear of the gondola. Without that, they would not open before the two hit The River.
Burton estimated that the two men had to have left the semirigid by now. It would be set on automatic pilot now, and the clock in the release mechanism of the bomb would be ticking away. Another mechanism would be valving off hydrogen to lower the craft. When the bomb fell, the airship would be lightened and would rise. But not far. A few seconds afterward, if the explosion did not ignite the gas, a fourth mechanism would detonate a smaller bomb.
Burton looked out the port screen. The decks of the Rex were blazing in a dozen places; from the shells and rockets. Firefighters, clad in insulation suits, were spraying the flames with water and foam. Within about two or three minutes, the fires would be extinguished.
Burton heard the captain say, "Hah!"
He turned. Everybody except the pilot was gazing out of the port screen. The sausage shape of the dirigible was directly above the Not For Hire. Its nose would soon touch the back of the pilothouse.
"Incredible!" Burton said.
"What?" the captain said.
"That no one on the boat has seen it yet."
"God is with me," John said. "Now, even if it is seen, it will be too late. It can't be shot down without imperiling the boat."
Tordenskjöld said, "Something happened to the torpedo release mechanism. It's malfunctioning. But when the bomb goes off, it'll set the torpedo off."
John spoke to the pilot. "Get ready to bring her around. When I give the word, head directly for the enemy."
The chief radio operator said. "The two launches are heading for us, sir."
"Surely they can see the Azazel now!" John said. "No, they haven't!"
"P'raps the Not For Hire's radio is knocked out, too," Burton said.'
"Then He is indeed on our side!" John said.
Burton grimaced.
A lookout said, "Sir! The enemy launches are approaching on the port sternside."
Radar reported that both launches were at a range of four hundred yards. They were separated from each other by one hundred and twenty feet.
"They're planning to take us in our starboard side when we're on the other side of our circle," Strubewell said. "They think the motherboat should be firing on us by then."
"I can see that," John said somewhat testily. "You'd think by now that they'd be trying to signal the Hire. The radio must be out, too, but surely they could send up flares."
"There goes one," Strubewell said, pointing at the bright bluewhite glare in the sky.
"Now they'll see the Azazel!" John cried.
It was about thirty feet above the flight deck of the enemy or at least it seemed to be. It was difficult to estimate at that distance. It was not up to the pilothouse yet. That was apparent, since if it had been, it would have collided with the structure.
Something dark and small dropped through the area of bright sky between the airship and the Not For Hire.
"There goes the bomb!" John cried.
Burton couldn't be sure, but it seemed to him that the bomb had fallen on the stern of the flight deck, perhaps at its edge. The bombardier must have set its timed automatic-release mechanism, and then he and the pilot had jumped. But the timing had not been right. The release should have been activated when it was in the middle of the deck. Or, better, as close to the pilothouse as possible.
The explosion wreathed the flight deck in flames and silhouetted the pilothouse and the tiny figures in it.
The airship soared upward, bending in the middle, its keel twisted by the blast. And its envelope burst into flames, the hydrogen in it one huge ball of fire.
"The torpedo!" John shouted. "The torpedo! Why didn't it fall?"
Perhaps it had, and it couldn't be seen from the Rex.
But it should have been set off by now.
Now Burton could see the dirigible drift down, flaming. Its forward part fell upon the stern of the Not For Hire and then slid off into The River through the great hole made by the forty-pound bomb. The Not For Hire plowed on, leaving the blazing and spreading-out envelope behind it. The stem was aflame, too, the wooden flight deck burning furiously.
Joh
n yelled, "God tear those two to pieces in the deepest pits of Hell! They're cowards! They should have waited a few seconds more!"
Burton thought that the pilot and the bombardier had been very brave indeed. They must have waited until what seemed to them to be the last possible second before being able to jump. Under such pressure, they couldn't be blamed for having made such a slight miscalculation. Nor was it their fault that the torpedo had not exploded. They'd made several trial runs with a dummy torpedo, and the release mechanism had worked then. Mechanical devices frequently malfunctioned, and it was their bad luck, and the bad luck of their comrades, that it had failed now.
However, the torpedo might still go off. Unless it had slid off the stern with the wreck.
John was not so unhappy when he saw that the blast had ripped off all of the two lower decks of the pilothouse structure except for two vertical supporting metal beams and the elevator shaft. And these were bending forward slowly under the weight of the control room.
Somehow, a few people in the room had survived. They were silhouetted against the holocaust on the rear of the flight deck.
"God's balls!" John said. "He has spared Clemens so that I may take him prisoner!"
He paused, then said, "They won't be able to steer! We have them in our hands!"
He spoke to the pilot.
"Bring us up along the enemy's port at pointblank range!"
The pilot looked wide-eyed at his captain, but he said, "Aye, aye, sir."
John spoke to Strubewell and Tordenskjöld then, telling them to ready the crew for broadsides first and then for boarding.
Burton hoped that he would be ordered to join his marines. They had been sitting deep within the hurricane deck, behind locked doors, waiting. During the entire battle, they had not been informed of anything. All they knew was that the boat had rocked and shaken from time to time, and thunder had roared outside their room. Doubtless, they were all keyed up, nervous, sweating, wondering when they would see action.
The Rex plowed The River in a furrow angling in toward the stricken vessel. The gap between the two swiftly shortened.
"Batteries B2, C2, and D2 will aim for the pilothouse top deck," John said.
Strubewell relayed the orders. Then he said, "Battery C2 doesn't reply, sir. Either the communication's cut or it's out of action."
"Tell C3 to aim for the pilothouse control room."
"You forget, sir. C3's definitely out of action. The last salvo got it, sir."
"B2 can do it then," John said.
He turned to Burton. His face looked purplish in the night-light. "Get to your men now, Captain," he said. "Be prepared to lead a boarding party from the midport side."
Burton saluted and sped down the spiral ladder. He got off at the hurricane deck and hurried down a corridor. His men and women were inside a large chamber outside the armory. Lieutenant Gaius Flaminius was outside the hatch with two guards. His face lit up when he saw Burton.
"We're going into action?"
"Yes," Burton said. "Very quickly. Get them out here into the corridor."
While Flaminius bawled orders, Burton stood at the corner of the two corridors. He would have to lead his force down the corridor going to the outside. They would have to wait there until the command came down to board the Not For Hire. Or, if the communication system wasn't working, he would have to judge for himself when to order the attack.
It was while the marines were being lined up in the corridor that the broadside from the Not For Hire struck. The explosions were deafening; they made Burton's ears ring. A bulkhead down the corridor bulged in. Smoke poured in from somewhere, setting everybody to coughing. There was another roar that shook the decks and deadened their ears even more.
Up on the bridge, John hung on to the railing and shuddered as the boat vibrated. At a range of only thirty feet, the portside rocket batteries of four decks of the Rex and the starboard rocket and cannon and steam gun batteries – those still in force – of the Not For Hire had poured fire into each other. Great pieces of the hull had flown spinning into the air. Entire batteries of rockets and their crews had disintegrated in flame and smoke. The two remaining cannons on Clemens' boat had been torn from their mounts as the shell supplies behind them were touched off by rockets. Two steam machine-gun turrets, one on each vessel, had caved in, opened as a can opens to a metal punch, then had been peeled apart as rockets or shells came in through the tears in the metal.
The great boats were wounded beasts, cut open, their insides exposed, bleeding heavily.
In addition, certain batteries on each craft had aimed volleys at the control rooms, the brains of the beasts. A number of missiles had shot by their marks, either splashing harmlessly into the water or striking elsewhere. A few plumped ashore, starting more fires. None had hit the pilothouses directly. How they could miss at that range was inexplicable, but this often happened in combat. Shots that should have gone astray did not, and dead-certain shots went awry.
The sharp nose of the Not For Hire turned, whether from design or accident, John could not know. Its prow sliced into the giant port wheelguard of the Rex, tearing it off, lifting its many tons up and off and precipitating it into The River. The prow continued on, crushing the paddles, bending the frame of the wheel, and then snapping off the massive wheelshaft. In the midst of the eardrum-shattering explosions, the screech of tearing metal, the screams of men and women, the roar of burning hydrogen, both boats stopped. The impact of the collision hurled everyone who wasn't strapped in to the deck. The prow crumpled in and up, and water poured in through several rents in the hull.
At the same time, the pilot house of the Not For Hire toppled forward. It seemed to those within it, Miller, Clemens, and Byron, the only ones left alive in the structure, that it fell slowly. But it did not, being attracted by gravity as fully as any other object. It crashed upon the foredeck of the hangar deck, and out of it hurled Clemens and Miller. Sam landed on top of the giant, whose own fall was softened somewhat by the padded and insulated uniform and helmet.
They lay there for several minutes dazed, bruised, deafened, bleeding, too numbed to realize that they were lucky to be alive.
35
* * *
Sam Clemens and Joe Miller climbed down the ladder leading from the hangar deck. The fire raged behind them. Then they were on the hurricane deck. Joe carried his colossal axe in one hand. He said, "You okay, Tham?"
Sam did not reply. He grabbed one of the titanthrop's fingers and pulled him oh around the corner. A bullet struck the bulkhead, its plastic fragments whizzing around them. None hit flesh, however.
"The Rex is right alongside us!" Clemens said.
"Yeah, I thaw that," Joe said. "I think they're going to try to board uth."
"I can't control my boat!" Sam cried. He looked as if he were going to weep.
Joe seemed as calm and as impervious to destruction as a mountain. He patted Sam on the shoulder. "Don't vorry. The boat'll chutht drift athyore. It von't think. And ve'll knock Chohn and hith aththholeth thilly."
Then both were hurled to the deck. Sam lay for a while, groaning, unaware that the Not For Hire had ripped off a paddlebox and wheel of the Rex. During the firing that broke out as soon as the boats had come to a stop, he continued to lie with his face pressed against the cold hard deck. A hand reached down and grabbed his shoulder and picked him up by it. He yelled with agony.
"Thorry, Tham," Joe rumbled. "I forgot mythelf."
Sam held his one shoulder. "You dumbbell, I won't ever be able to use that arm again!"
"You egthaggerate ath uthual," Joe said. "You're alive vhen by all rightth you thyouldn't be. Tho am I. Tho get vith it, Tham. Ve got vork to do."
Clemens looked up at the flight deck. The flames had by now covered not only that but had reached down into the hangar deck. There was not much to burn, however. The barrels of methanol that were usually stored there had been taken to the lowest deck before the battle had started. Though the flaming hydrog
en was hot, it would burn itself out quickly.
As he thought this, he saw the flight deck cave in on itself. From this angle, he could only see its edges sticking out. But the crash that went with the falling parts told him that at least half of the structure had collapsed. And flame gusted out, like a dragon breathing at him.
Joe leaped forward, yelling, "Chethuth Chritht!"
He picked up Sam and continued forward until he had reached the edge of the hurricane deck. Then he dropped Sam.
"Tham, I think I'm burned!"
"Turn around," Clemens said. On inspecting the back, he said, "You clown! The armor saved you. You may be a little hot under the collar, but you're not hurt."
Joe went back to get the axe he'd dropped. Sam looked at the bulk of the Rex. Its port side was against the starboard port prow of his boat. Grappling lines were being shot or hurled from both sides on all three of the lower decks, and the boarding bridges were already extended. The walkways and the ports and hatches, as far as he could see, were crowded with men and women. All were either firing at pointblank range or getting ready to attack as soon as the lines were secured. The boarding bridges would be manned in a very short time.
He did not have a gun. Fortunately, there were plenty on the decks, dropped from nerveless hands. He picked one up, checked its chambers, removed a bandolier from a corpse, put it on himself, and removed bullets from the belt to put in the pistol. Joe's form loomed up from around the corner, startling him. He did not reproach Joe for being so silent, since Joe was supposed not to make noise. But he had thought his heart would stop.