Free The Hummingbird by Stephen P. Kiernan

conducting offensives all the way across the world’s largest ocean.
    The I-25 carried several deck weapons, including a pair of 25-mm machine guns. The main gun fired 5.5-inch shells, the explosive portion of which measured nearly 18 inches and weighed 60 pounds. This gun had a range of nine miles and sat on the stern for two reasons. The first was to leave room for a catapult on the bow, more on which in a moment. The other was to enable the ship to be shelling as it escaped.
    Lastly, the I-25 had six torpedo tubes. It had sunk the British Derrymore , as well the Fort Camosun, a Canadian freighter carrying war supplies for England.
    Yet in September 1942 the submarine’s primary weapon was its passenger. He sat below while the weather stormed. Imagine the atmosphere: diesel motors chugging, water leaking in one seam or another, sweaty sailors, food odors, smoke from Kinshi cigarettes, and under it all the sharp scent of human fear.

 

    CHAPTER 5
    WHEN I OPENED THE PROFESSOR’S FRONT DOOR, I saw that Cheryl had pulled one of the dining chairs into the entry. Rising from the seat, she held a finger to her lips.
    “What’s up?” I whispered.
    “We had a rough night last night.”
    “Sorry to hear that.”
    She motioned me into the living room, where she recapped the previous eight hours. “He just got grouchier and grouchier.”
    I scanned her notes on his chart. “For this one, that sounds normal.”
    “Way worse. Shouting at the television, at me, at his own body. I came in and he was jabbing himself in the side with one of the remotes. Look—” She went to the kitchen counter, bringing back a remote controller. The plastic casing was split. “It was like he was trying to stab his own kidney.”
    “Ouch. How much pain medicine did you give him?”
    “He declined everything. He said lucidity was his only strength. Also that he did not trust me.”
    “Cheryl, he doesn’t trust any of us.” I turned the cracked device over in my hand. Broken pencils, broken remotes, that kind of a morning. “Does he have any notion of what’s ahead?”
    Cheryl peered at me over her glasses. “Who would have told him?”
    “Someone must have. I mean he has already given explicit orders against more diagnostic testing. He did that in writing when Timmy was here.”
    Cheryl took the remote and tapped it against her chin. “We don’t need tests to know what the situation here is, do we?”
    “Not really. So what did you do?”
    “I tried to reason with him. It was clear he was in tremendous pain. About two hours ago, he finally gave in. Like he’d set a goal of sunrise? It was a miserable haul until then, poor guy. I gave him a good dose, and now he’s getting a deep break. If lucidity is one of his values, though, that’s far from ideal. If we could just convince him to let us get ahead of it . . .”
    “I’m with you,” I said. “And there’s my goal for the day.”
    “I don’t know.” Cheryl smirked. “With what it took to get that pain under control, I hope you brought something to read. He’ll be out for a while.”
    Barclay Reed snoozed till afternoon, waking with a bundle of needs. Because he’d slept with his mouth open, he was desperately thirsty. I refilled his jug and brought a fresh straw. He sucked and gulped, the whole time keeping his eyes trained on me. I suspect the Professor intended to appear intimidating; actually, he looked like a little boy. I offered to wipe his gums with glycerin too, to re-establish decent pH and moisture levels. But once I’d prepared the swab, he snatched it from me and did the job himself.
    Although the task was less strenuous than brushing his teeth, it left him depleted. I took the stick from his lax fingers and tossed it in the trash.
    The morphine had corked the Professor’s digestion, too. I gave him a mild laxative and heated some apple-onion soup I’d brought earlier. Then I spoon-fed him, his arms flaccid on the bed while he gulped and swallowed and