half-a-mile further out and crashed in a thundering, foaming roar very like an entire broadside firing off.
There was no time to be lost: the boiling white seafoam was tinged pink with sunset, and Temeraire flew flat-out to the shore and landed by the tents, calling, "Laurence - Laurence, pray come and see - "
Laurence looked up from the letter which he was writing - to be carried back to England by the ships, about Demane, although privately Temeraire thought there was no reason why anyone should wish to be a captain in the Corps anymore. If the Corps did not want Laurence, their judgment was plainly unreliable, when even the Emperor had approved of him so highly, and Qian; Temeraire had not mentioned to Laurence, for fear of seeming an excessive brag, but her letter had mentioned him as well, and informed Temeraire that she felt he had made a most auspicious choice of companion.
"If you please, Laurence, would you come and fly out with me?" Temeraire said, "I should like to show you something," and Laurence looked at the water lapping high upon the shore and said, "I will have my harness in a moment," and spoke to Granby briefly as he shrugged into the leather straps.
"My dear, I know the situation must give you great pain," Laurence said, as Temeraire beat out - not so very far this time, still in eyeshot of the harbor. "I cannot like asking you to bear an insult to the nation of - not precisely your birth, but your origin, and certainly of intimate concern to you: I beg you to believe I do it with the utmost reluctance."
"Laurence, you do not like it yourself at all, though, do you?" Temeraire said. "You do not think that Willoughby should behave so badly to our hosts - you do not approve."
"No," Laurence said, " - but I find there is very little to approve of, particularly, in war or in the relations amongst nations. There is no secret of our colony in New South Wales, my dear; China certainly has known of it, and of our interests in the Indian Ocean trade. They cannot even pretend ignorance when they have been sending goods to Sydney herself, and there is certainly a degree of provocation in seizing upon a location so strategic, and so very near the boundary of Cook's claim to establish their own holding."
"But that does not excuse destroying the port," Temeraire said, "and perhaps killing our friends. I do not see that Cook had any business claiming anything anyway, but even if one should make allowances for that, he has not claimed this, so it is not as though one could call it a real challenge.
"But," he added, stopping to hover, "I do not mean to argue, Laurence; I have something splendid to show you."
Laurence paused and said, "We might fly further out."
"Well," Temeraire said, "I particularly thought it might be useful if Willoughby might see it, also, from where he is - "
He turned and looked, and the ships were making sail: the great billows of white spreading to catch the wind, and come about into the harbor; and the guns had rolled out of the portholes, black tongues. "The tide is not wholly in yet," Temeraire cried in protest.
Laurence laid a hand upon Temeraire's side. "My dear, pray let us go further; there is no reason you should be witness here."
"But you do not understand," Temeraire said. "I have done it: I have worked out how to make Lien's wave - " and on his back he felt Laurence go very still.
"No - no, Laurence. I did not mean - of course I did not mean that," Temeraire said, into that awful silence. "But if only they should see it, I thought - I thought they might not persist."
Laurence paused, very long, and then he said, "A threat rarely suffices which you do not mean to carry out. And regardless - no. I can have, I will have, no part of even issuing such a threat against the Navy. To prevent an officer of the King from performing his duty and from the commission of his orders would be equally grievous a crime whether committed by violence or mere intimidation. No. I have committed treason once, but in the service of a higher cause than nations, not the lower one of mere personal sentiment; I must beg you to excuse me."
He spoke with hard, bleak finality, and Temeraire shuddered