“As to Joanna, yes,” Vickie said. “But more so. How do you think she keeps her head up in flight?”
“Bloody hell,” Herzer said. “That’s… a lot of nanotubes.”
“It’s one of the reasons they grow so slowly,” Vickie said. “And they’re continuous filament monomolecules. One of the strongest substances ever made.”
“Cutting them would be a stone bitch,” Herzer said. “Which means their wings aren’t going to be subject to puncture in combat.”
“Trust you to think of that.” Vickie chuckled. “But they can be dislocated. It’s one of their big weaknesses. But, no, they don’t break wing bones or tear wings.”
“If they were fighting on the ground the thing to do would be to wrap their wings around them,” Herzer thought. “Nothing would get through it.”
“They can be superficially scratched,” Vickie said. “And that takes a long time to heal. But their wings are, for all practical purposes, invulnerable. On the other hand, they take a lot of care and feeding.”
Which they did. On active days they required several feedings per day, totally nearly their own body weight. On inactive days they required far less, but every day it was excreted.
“Fortunately, they tend to let go in air,” Jerry said, as he was covering that aspect. “But with them cooped up as they are…”
“It gets messy.” Herzer grinned.
“That apparently was passed on, and Evan the Ever Efficient planned for it,” Jerry said. “The ship really does have enough stores to support them for a hundred days, but that’s at the cost of crew. This is a really skeleton crew for a ship this size.”
“I’d noticed,” Herzer said.
And the skeleton crew was kept busy. While Herzer was cramming his head with information about dragons the crew was busy fighting the storm. Again and again the sails had to be trimmed as the wind backed around, died down and then blew back up.
It was rough and nasty and apparently the life of the Navy. Herzer decided that they could keep it.
Working the night shift was not helping with Joel’s mission. He’d picked up a rumor that the head cook was peculating, probably with the help of some of the victuallers that supplied the ship. But that didn’t make him a spy, although Joel would include it in his report.
The problem with working the mid-watch was that he had minimal interaction with the officers. If there was a New Destiny agent on-board, the most damaging position would be among the officers. And although they rotated shifts so he’d been around each of them, if any of them were communicating with New Destiny, it wasn’t clear.
As he came on watch he picked up another jug of herbal tea and some mugs and stuck his head in the wardroom on his way to the quarterdeck. Commander Mbeki was standing at the rear of the wardroom table, just turning away from, apparently, contemplating the forward bulkhead.
“Get you anything, sir?” Joel asked, holding up the jug and mugs. “Nice shot of herbal tea for a cold night?”
“Thank you, Joel, I’d like that,” Mbeki said, his face wooden.
“You okay, sir?” the steward replied, frowning. “You look pretty down.”
“I’m fine, seaman,” the commander replied, taking the mug that was poured for him. “Just wish this storm would abate.”
“Well, if wishes were fishes, sir,” Joel replied with a patented young and stupid grin. “Storms don’t listen to wishes is my experience. You just ride with ’em or turn into ’em and ride ’em out.”
“You’ve sailed before?” the commander asked, surprised.
“Sailed small fishing boats in Flora, sir,” Joel said, taking a mug of tea for himself. “Then took a packet up the coast and joined the Navy. Seemed like the right thing to do.”
“What did you do before?” the commander asked. He didn’t have to say “before the Fall.” “Before” was always the same, before the world came apart.
“Mostly sailed,” Joel said, shrugging his shoulders.
“Family?” the commander asked, sitting down.
Joel paused and then nodded. “Wife and daughter, sir. Miriam, I’d guess she was home in Briton. We had a place on the coast. My daughter… she was visiting friends in Ropasa. Near the Lore.” He shrugged. “I try not to think about it. No more than, oh, a hundred times a day.”
Mbeki nodded sadly. “Don’t tell anyone that, if you take my advice.”
“That I think about it?” Joel asked.
“Where they were,” Mbeki said, his face hard. “You really don’t want New Destiny finding out. Trust me on that.”
“I will, sir,” the steward said, mentally filing the datum. And the face. And the body posture. And the radiating anger. “I surely will.”
Finally, on the fourth day after they had left the bay, Herzer emerged in the morning to a strong, cold north wind and beautiful clear skies. The seas were rough but he’d acquired some of the knack for moving on the pitching deck and he made his way down to the dragon deck gathering no more than two new bruises on the way.
“It’s a good day to fly,” Vickie said as he came down the ladder. She and Koo were engaged in feeding the wyverns and they, too, seemed to think it was a good day to fly since they kept looking up from their feed and cawing at the overhead.
“If you can get off the ship,” Herzer said. “And back on. If you thought the water was cold before…”
“What’s it like?” Jerry asked. “I still haven’t been topside.”
“Cold,” Herzer said, opening his coat in the warmth of the stables. “Windy. Really windy.”
“I’m willing to give it a try,” Joanna rumbled, from forward. She had moved down after the first night when all the stores possible had been moved aft and the dragon deck cleaned up. Now she stretched to the limit possible and rustled her wings irritably. “And if I’ve got to hit the water, I can handle the cold.”
“I’ll go see Commander Mbeki,” Jerry said, shrugging into a fur-lined jacket.
“See if you can at least get the hatch open,” Joanna said. “I’m tired of being cooped up down here.”
Herzer and Jerry made their way aft to the quarterdeck where Commander Mbeki was striding up and down, reveling in the breeze.
“Good morning, sir,” Jerry said.
“Morning, Mr. Riadou,” the commander replied. “I suppose you want to see about getting off the ship?”
“Commander Gramlich does, sir,” the warrant officer replied. “She feels that even if she can’t land, she can make a water landing and hoist herself aboard.”
“And a joyful moment that will be,” the XO said with a grin. “The skipper is taking a much needed nap; he was up through most of the storm. I have the con, but generally evolutions like air operations would mean his presence.”
“I understand, sir,” Jerry replied. “The commander requested that at least the main hatch be opened so she can get on deck and stretch her wings.”
“That I can comply with,” the commander said after a moment. “And I would suspect that by this afternoon the wind will have moderated somewhat and the skipper will be awake. We might be able to commence air operations then.”
“Thank you, sir,” the warrant officer replied. “I’ll go see about getting the hatch removed.”
The commander was as good as his word. By the time Herzer was finishing his lunch he heard the command “All hands, prepare to come about!” followed shortly by “Prepare for air operations!”
By the time he got on deck, Joanna was on the catapult. The ship had been turned with the wind off what he now knew to be her port bow. Jerry was on the launch lever and Evan was fussing with the new launching mechanism. The detachable balk of timber had been removed and a fixed device had replaced it. Joanna had shown that she could release in time and they were trying the less wasteful system for the first time.