Aqua's sizzling sun was getting hazy as it settled behind lower Pelo Head, outlining the violent peaks like teeth in some savage jaw. Ward stood on the bridge of the first-liner, Bad Weather, and watched the fleet and the late returning gliders. He never failed to marvel at these ships—sleek, sea-flying catamarans, steady, tall and wonderously beautiful. Their twin hulls skimmed the seas with hardly a roll. Their speed was something you had to feel to believe.
He watched the second-liner. South Bird, come around to catch her glider.
Both soaring upwind, they aimed for an intersection. As they drew closer, two long booms with netting between were extended over the stern. Slowly they angled together. When it appeared that the glider would crash the bridge it pulled up, stalled and fell softly into the net.
He never failed to exhale a long breath after such a landing—catching, rather.
Launching was even more spectacular. The ship raced out on fast beam reach with its glider poised upwind on its two poles. Then a streaking corvette hissed up under the stern, swung slightly upwind, caught the braided stretch-line and actually yanked the glider aloft. Ward was quite sure it was something he never wanted to try.
The Bad Weather was coming around now. He caught the white flash of her glider high downwind. Tahn came to stand by him, his quick, cat-like motions betraying his eagerness.
"They bring more news," he grinned. "The Grimnal in Anda Bay is starting to raise sail."
Ward frowned.
"They think to trap us between them. Perhaps they expect us to race into the Passage after dark."
Tahn coughed his pleased cough.
"But our—uh—tactics, is it? They are to keep out of the Passage?"
Ward smiled.
"For now. We fight them as two separate fights, not as one. We will overwhelm each in turn."
Tahn's cough was one of agreement.
"Yes," he breathed. "Just as long as we fight."

 

They turned to watch the glider make its long floating approach. It had dumped its spoilers and was losing altitude, when it suddenly climbed impossibly fast, spun completely around and exploded in a hundred pieces.

Tahn leaped to the rail, stared, then keened the Kali howl of alarm. Ward squinted downwind in puzzlement, then saw it—the seething, wild slice of a wind devil arcing toward the fleet.
Curling, lashing, faster than any ship, it bore down on them in a track of boiling foam. Other ships took up the cry. Knives flashed as sheets were cut and sails crashed down. Seamen ran aloft to furl the wild cloth. Some of the leading corvettes tried to turn and run out of the way, but the wind was too fast.
A corvette suddenly lifted her bows, flipped over backwards and slammed down like a thrown stone. A frigate lost her sails and masts in less than two seconds. Another corvette rose sideways on one hull, spun and broke in two. The wind shriek became deafening.
Another frigate lost its masts, lifted on its stern and fell back in an explosion of water. The first-liner, Thunder, lost its masts and rigging, put its bows down as if stepped on, spun a full ninety degrees and finally relaxed. A corvette went tumbling end over end into the side of a second liner, which immediately lost its masts and half its bridge. A corvette went streaking out of the fleet at blinding speed, one hull hiked entirely out of the water, and disappeared in a wall of spray.
It was abruptly silent.
The foaming wind track left the fleet and slashed toward the open sea. With a soft flutter, then a breeze, the westerly quietly resumed its push. The Kali appeared on deck again and slowly gazed about them. And the fleet lay dead in the water.
Ships lay heading in all directions. Wreckage, lines and bits of sail littered the water. A frigate lay listed hard over. Damage reports were coming in to the Bad Weather: the Thunder dismasted and leaking; another first dismasted; one second leaking badly, perhaps going down; three other seconds dismasted; one frigate sinking fast; two more dismasted and leaking; two more dismasted; six corvettes lost; four dismasted and damaged.
Tahn was grim as he scratched marks on a slate. Twenty-one ships out of action in less than a minute. Ward cursed and slammed the rail. Damned planet! Damned Grimnal! Damned everything! Tahn coughed beside him. And damned coughing!
"There is more news," Tahn said quietly. "We just fished out a glider flyer who had returned from cruising Pelo Head."
Ward turned. There seemed to be a smile flickering on Tahn's swarthy face.
"He says there is a great Grimnal force coming into the Break from th............