Naomi Novik - Tongues of Serpents

“They must be eradicated, at once,” Captain Willoughby said harshly, his wooden-leg stump stretched out awkwardly before his chair; he had insisted on accompanying them, though his injuries yet left his face grey and drawn with pain. “We must trace them to their harbor and put them to the sword; them and their masters.”

“Sir,” Laurence said, “we have already suffered a repulse from one attempt at taking a harbor so guarded, without sufficient preparation and, Captain Willoughby must pardon me, without sufficient provocation for the consequence we court. Surely there can be no justification for spurring on a war with China which, we now know, they have the means to carry against all our shipping. Even without the direction of intelligence, the serpents have been a constant peril to sailors before now; they need neither wind nor current in their favor to maneuver, and may strike wholly unexpected from below.”

“Yes,” Bligh said belligerently, “and there are a dozen of them outside our harbor this very moment. If the Chinese meant to teach us to respect their power, they have succeeded; if they meant to teach us fear, sir, they have failed and will always do so.”

“Hear, hear,” Willoughby said, glaring at Laurence, who compressed his lips at this ludicrous enthusiasm; he could scarcely fault Willoughby’s courage, having already lost both an eye and a leg to the serpents, but his sense offered more to criticize.

“The Navy gentlemen must forgive me,” MacArthur said, “but I cannot help but wonder if we could not manage to think of something better to do with these fellows who can, I gather, bring in twenty tons of goods from China to our shores in a month.”

Bligh might have purpled himself into an apoplexy in response; Macquarie raised a hand. “If you please,” he said: he was quiet-spoken, and his face drawn in craggy but warm lines, with deep-set dark eyes. But he would not allow the possibility of negotiation. “Our last orders, by Commander Willoughby’s report,” he nodded to that gentleman, “are plain enough: we are not to tolerate any foreign encroachment on this continent. If efforts to dislodge them from this northern port have failed, that is only more cause to repulse them before they can establish another, nearer.”

He was bent upon the eradication of the serpents; it was left only to discuss how it was to be done. “Bombs must be our surest method for disposing of the creatures,” Rankin said, “delivered from aloft: if they have been trained to come to fish-slops, we can easily bait them to their doom.”

His suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm, despite the obvious difficulties of delivering bombs upon creatures which could plunge to the ocean depths, and whose size alone would make them difficult to kill; Willoughby applauded regardless, and Macquarie approved. Granby, who had more experience of aerial warfare than Rankin, whose former experience had been in the courier service, looked doubtful, and said, “We had better try it on one, first, and at a good distance: if you drive them mad and it don’t work, they might do for all the shipping in the port.”

“Perhaps we ought to clear out some of the most valuable ships,” MacArthur suggested. “If we will be dropping on them from above, I cannot see there is any need to keep the Allegiance in port for them to gnaw on her anchor-cables.”

There was something disingenuous in this proposal: he had already offered his services and Johnston’s to arrange the manufacture of the bombs, which should give them excuse to postpone returning to England. But Riley had already once seen his ship nearly brought down by a sea-serpent, and could not be said to be eager to repeat the experience: he was only too pleased to second the notion, and Governor Macquarie did not disagree.

The plan of attack was agreed upon; the conference dismissed, not before Laurence was given his long-delayed post: three letters bundled together from Jane, and another two for Temeraire; and one to be passed on to Tharkay. He put them in his pocket as they departed; MacArthur caught him at the door of the governor’s office.

“I suppose they aren’t to be reasoned with,” MacArthur inquired, “—these Chinamen, I mean. Do they wish to have us all thrown into the harbor and fed to the things?”

“I will beg you, sir, not to entertain the sort of absurd fancies which I have grown used to hear from raw hands,” Laurence said, too exasperated to be courteous. “They are men, like any others, and like any others possess full measure of folly and vice; but I cannot say their portion is greater than our own.”

“Ah, well,” MacArthur said, “then we may all go to the Devil together.”

He touched his hat and they parted, Laurence to join Temeraire upon the promontory, to share their letters. The correspondence did not go any length to reconciling him to the imminent attack, devastating almost equally in success or failure: Bonaparte had indeed made alliance with the Tswana, according to Jane.

Put them on every Transport he has in his Pockets and shipped them straight across the sea: twenty-six Beasts delivered direct to Rio, nine of them heavy-weight, and two fire-breathers; you may guess what it was like, and I will spare You the Particulars: they don’t make Comfortable Reading, I will tell you .

The Portuguese are howling for Help, and we must do our Best, before they swallow their Pride and bend the Knee to France, but I have no Notion how we will keep these fellows from tearing all the Colony to Rubble if we cannot persuade the Inca to take an Interest. We must have Iskierka back at Any Price, and I would give an Arm for one of those Japanese fellows, the waterspout-makers .

Ten million pounds lost they say so far in Property; ludicrous, ain’t it? So far the Tswana only seem to care about the Plantations and the Slaves, but if they get a taste for War, as Dragons will if you give them half a Minute, and want More, you may be sure Boney will find some to offer them .

Laurence laid the letters down, bleakly: in such circumstances, to be opening another front against an enemy far better equipped than the Tswana to wage war upon their shipping, seemed still nearer to madness. He sent Sipho for pen and paper, and began to add to his own letter, however late and useless it should be, to advise Jane of these new circumstances, and of his fears.

“At least they have made some progress here,” Temeraire said, meaning on the quantity of cattle, and Governor Macquarie was proven very reasonable, he felt, having allowed them each two cows after the ordeal of the journey, despite the expense to the colony. With the shortage, it seemed hard to see so many cattle and sheep loaded aboard the Allegiance for her provisions: Iskierka would at least be at sea, and might eat fish if she chose, in all their variety; there was no reason she ought not take instead some kangaroos, and perhaps some of the grey cassowaries, and there would be seals at New Amsterdam.

She was unswayed by this argument. “And I do not see that I owe you anything,” she added, with a flip of her tail, “when I consider how long the journey, and how many pains I have taken over it. You might at least have given me an egg, for all my trouble.”

“You have caused a good deal of trouble, yourself, and no one wished for you to come from the beginning,” Temeraire retorted, but guilt smote him painfully when he had said it: Iskierka had been of material service, he could not quite deny it in the privacy of his own conscience. He squirmed with discomfort, but he thought rather despairing that Laurence should never approve if he permitted selfish interest to outweigh justice, so Temeraire drew a deep breath and heroically said, “You might stay, I suppose, if you wished to.”