Taylor Anderson - Iron Gray Sea

“You can talk to them,” Toryu admitted, frowning. “In fact, I was sent here to speak with you on their behalf.” He shook his head. “They want an alliance with you-against other people like us.” He waved his hand to include the Lemurian. “All of us.”

“What kind of alliance? What are their terms?” Becher asked for the Inquisitor.

“A military alliance, sir, and the terms are simple: Join or die.”

“That is a… bold ultimatum to make against people they do not know,” Becher growled. “Can they make good on their threat?”

“That is their way,” Toryu stated simply. “Sir, I know nothing of your land, its population, resources, or military capability.” He pointed at the window. “All I know is what I have seen through that, so I cannot say if they can conquer you or not. I will tell you everything I know, however. I was sent here with a message, a message I have delivered. Having escaped them, I will not return, so it is in my interest to counsel you as best I can.” He paused. “The Grik are without number, and their empire stretches from just north of here to India, at least along the coasts. You do know the shape of the world?”

“ Ja,” Becher said, and Toryu nodded. Whatever the others were, Becher was a sailor, and obviously a relatively recent arrival.

“They had conquered their way as far as the East Indies before they were thrown back by those other people I mentioned,” Toryu continued, “but I fear that is only a temporary setback, since their numbers are almost infinitely greater than their enemies.” He looked Becher in the eye. “They are involved in the biggest war they have ever known, but whether they can conquer you or not, they will eventually try. And if they succeed… they do not take prisoners, but for food.”

Becher spoke animatedly with the others for several long moments before turning back. “Why, then, do I feel that joining them is not what you recommend?”

“Because they will surely destroy you then,” Toryu answered softly, “starting with your souls. I hate them, you see. I hate them for what they are and what they do-and because they have already destroyed the souls of my people they hold in their power.”

“Who are your people?” Becher asked, also softly, and Toryu stiffened.

“I came to this world aboard the Japanese Imperial Navy battle cruiser Amagi almost two years ago. At that time, we were allied with Germany and Italy against virtually the rest of the world, but most especially the British and Americans.”

“The Japs have joined the kaiser? And the Italians?” Becher laughed. “When last I knew, you both were leaning the other way… and America came in against us?”

Toryu looked at him strangely. “Ah… no. We did not join the kaiser. We fought against him-with the Americans, before I was born… Sir, if you would: when did you come to this world?”

“Nineteen fourteen,” Becher said, frowning. “Nearly thirty years ago now. My ship, SMS Amerika — that is ironic! — was taken from the passenger service and commissioned as an armed merchant cruiser. We captured the crews of nine British ships-that is why there are so many Britishers here with us! — and scuttled their ships.” His expression grew faraway. “Never did war prisoners enjoy such luxury! Amerika was a gorgeous thing!” Almost forcibly, he returned to the present. “She was badly damaged in battle with the Morrie, we called her. The Mauritania! She was armed too! What a fight! She was faster, of course, with her damned turbines, but so big, we could not miss her! Both of us were damaged, and we broke off the fight in the storm. But you might tell me! Did we sink the Morrie? I actually hope we did not”-he grinned-“but sometimes I hope we did! We were old rivals before the war for the Blue Riband!”

Toryu was confused. “I… I do not think so. There was a Mauritania carrying British troops to Singapore in 1942, but she might have been a newer ship with the same name.”

“Well, but what of the war? You Japs-with battle cruisers no less! — have joined us?”

Toryu’s face heated. “We did not join you! Your kaiser was defeated! Our war, besides our conquest of Asia, began little more than two years ago, and the Imperial Japanese Navy, the most powerful in the world, was in the process of destroying the combined fleets of the Americans and British! Only your submarines were of any use!” He stopped, realizing he’d given offense, but Becher’s expression only looked… odd again.

“The kaiser defeated? Impossible!” he muttered. Then he said something that stunned Toryu Miyata to the bone. “Yet another, different world again, then.” He saw Toryu’s expression and grunted. “You are surprised? Let me try to explain to you, quickly, of our land and our peoples, and you may understand. You may also then pass a… better-informed counsel.”

The Lemurian jabbered suddenly, then, and Becher listened before turning back to Toryu.

“In fact, if you feel able, Inquisitor Choon believes you should meet immediately with the kaiser- our kaiser, or cae-saar, as they say, at the War Palace. The maps there are the best.”

“I am able,” Toryu assured him, a little taken aback but determined. “After all, there is little time to lose.”

They supplied him with boots and a cloak and led him down the corridor to a side entrance facing the cobblestone street, and he stepped outside for the first time in… three weeks? Four? He jerked back when he came almost face-to-face with a huge, drooling, camel-like face that regarded him with disinterest before it swung away-on the end of a long, gray-furred neck, almost as long as a giraffe’s, but not nearly so upright. Becher laughed.

“He likes you! Sometimes those will bite!” He gestured to a long car, like a Pullman, hitched behind the beast and another like it. “We have steam cars,” Becher announced proudly. “We have been busy in our thirty years! But we do not bring them into the city.” He waved around. So many strange creatures! “They unnerve the animals-and the people!”

On either side of the Pullman car sat three guards in their Romanesque costumes, mounted on ordinary horses. One of them waved.

“There you are! Good to see you up and about!” The man paused at Toryu’s confused expression. “Blimey! I’m the other bloke what found you! Saved you, I did!” The man, also wearing a gray-streaked beard, tossed his chin at Becher. “You didn’t think that dastardly Hun’d give a toss if you lived or died?” He was grinning. “I’m Leftenant Doocy Meek, if you care to know!”

“I am appreciative, sir,” Toryu managed as he was hurried into the car.

“Doocy is a funny man,” Becher said gruffly, pulling Toryu into a seat beside him. “We all take our turns riding the frontier-anyone beneath the rank of centurion,” he added, by way of further explanation. “We, most of us from Amerika, are still considered part of the foreign centuries, but we also guard the War Palace and all access to it!”

Toryu started to ask how that could be, when the car shuddered and began to move. After that, his questions about the city came in rapid fire.

This amazingly exotic capital city of the Republic of Real People, or Volksrepublik, as Becher called it, was named Aalek-saan-draa, and the mixture of architecture and cultures that created it began to make some sense to Toryu as Becher answered his questions, and he saw the evidence with his own eyes.

He finally knew, knew, that whatever had happened to his Amagi — and the Americans-in the Java Sea was not unique. Many peoples had found themselves in this place over the millennia. The southern cape of Afri-kaa formed a bottleneck of sorts, between the land and the not-so-distant ice of Antarctica. The storms that plagued the same passage on Toryu’s world were even more intense here, and the seas more mountainous. And it was cold, if not always on land, then forever at sea. In a way, it was only logical, he decided, that so many people, so many ships throughout the centuries, trying to round the bitter cape, perhaps even unaware of the change they’d endured, should wind up here. They would be exhausted, their ships almost destroyed, but where they would be lost upon some other shore, here they found welcome… and a home.