Isle of Broken Years

by Jane Fletcher

“No, it’s…” Ricardo sighed. “It no longer matters. That world is gone. Now we are here and must all work together.”

  At her shoulder, she heard Alonzo mutter, “Even with abominations.”

  Automatically, Catalina found herself seeking out Sam. What had she done to fire up so much hostility? Catalina spotted her sitting on the floor with her back to a wall, talking to Charles and another woman, presumably Babs.

  Babs, if that was her, was appreciably younger than Charles, maybe in her early thirties. She had angular features and a mop of curly auburn hair. Sam must have said something amusing, because both of them burst into laughter—a low bass woof from Charles and peals of giggles from Babs.

  “Are you tired, cariño?” Ricardo was speaking to Kali.

  “A little.”

  He cupped the side of her face. “Come. You need to lie down.”

  “I am not that far gone yet.”

  Ricardo leaned forward and whispered something in her ear. Kali’s smiled broadened. She looked at Catalina. “You must excuse us. Rico wishes to…show me something.”

  He offered a hand to help Kali from the bench, then gave a nod to Catalina and Alonzo. “Good evening, señor, señorita. It was a pleasure to meet with you.”

  “And you. Good night.”

  Catalina watched them go, then stared at her empty plate. It probably was too late to get another helping.

  “Allow me to clear away for you, Doña Catalina.” Alonzo had misinterpreted her sigh.

  While waiting for his return, Catalina looked around the room. Sam and Babs were talking, sitting cross-legged on the floor facing each other, like a couple of children. Except, even as a child, Catalina would not have acted in such an undignified manner. It was not hard to imagine what her parents would have said. Yet nobody was looking at the two women with disapproval, or even surprise. Most unexpected of all, watching them, Catalina felt a strange, conflicted set of emotions that she struggled to put a name to.

  Somewhere deep inside was an urge to talk to Sam, even if it meant sitting on the floor. Giving in to this was a bad idea—she knew it. Just thinking about it made her nervous, but not the same sort of nervousness the pirates or the hunters invoked. Had she ever felt this way about anything or anyone? It made no sense.

  Their time on the pirate ship had allowed plenty of chances for her and Sam to speak. She had not been interested then, and Sam was exactly the same person as before. What would they talk about anyway, with Alonzo standing at her heels like a guard dog? Better if he was not present. Yet the thought of being alone with Sam made the nervousness swell.

  Catalina pressed her hands flat on the bench to still them. She must concentrate on something else. So—if not Sam, who should she talk to? On the other side of the fountain, Liz was sitting with a man Catalina had not yet met, which was as good a reason to join her as any.

  Liz looked up as Catalina approached. “Hello, dear. Take a pew. Let me introduce you to Horatio.”

  He struggled off the bench and inclined his head in a crisp bow. “First Lieutenant Horatio Barnwell of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, at you service, madam.”

  Here at least was a gentleman. Unfortunately, his appearance was not as trim as his manners. Horatio clearly was someone who enjoyed his food. His smock top was twice the size of that worn by anyone else, and was still tight over his stomach. He was clean-shaved, aged about forty, and of a little below average height for a man. His mousy brown hair was tied back in a pigtail. His tanned face still held a trace of pink. Catalina thought she could identify an English accent.

  “Her Majesty? Queen Elizabeth?”

  “Queen Victoria.”

  “You came from a later time than I.” This seemed like a safe guess.

  “I arrived here 1838.”

  “It was 1631 for me.” They had lived two centuries apart. It still made Catalina’s head reel.

  “I was on the HMS Pendragon, Vengeur class, ship of the line. Spiffing old lady. We had seventy-four guns. Forty were thirty-two-pounders set over three decks. And for eighteen-pounders we had—”

  Liz put a hand on his shoulder, cutting off the catalogue of navel armaments. “Do you want to hear something I’ve just learned about Horatio, that makes me absolutely pig-sick jealous? Though I guess it’ll mean nothing to you.”

  “Umm…do you want me to tell her anyway?” Horatio asked.

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “Righto.” He blinked a few times. “Well, we were anchored off Hobart, Australia, when a British survey ship dropped anchor. Of course, we invited the captain over for dinner. A decent fellow. He brought a friend, the ship’s naturalist. Sort of thing we did dozens of times, that’s why I didn’t say anything sooner. Didn’t think you’d be the slightest bit interested.”

  Liz sighed and shook her head. “Horatio has lived here fourteen years and didn’t think to mention before now that he’d had dinner with Charles Darwin.”

  “How was I to know he’d become so jolly famous?”

  “Charles Darwin is famous?” Catalina asked.

  “Just about the greatest scientist ever.” Liz paused, thinking. “Except maybe Einstein.”

  Alonzo returned from the kitchen. Without being asked, he offered an arm to help Catalina up beside Liz. The top was comfy enough to sit on, but again Catalina’s feet were dangling in midair. She was finding it irritating.

  “Why is the bench so high?”

  Liz gave a laugh. “Most likely because it wasn’t made for humans. Has anyone said to you about the aliens?”

  “Yes, Madison did.”

  “Did she make sense?”

  “In part.”

  “Well, there’s a first! Anyway, the aliens were a tad bigger than us. Must have been about nine feet tall.”

  Now that Catalina thought about it, everything in the Squat was oversized.

  Liz continued. “My guess is the aliens lived on this inner island. The plants—they aren’t native to Earth. They made themselves a little home away from home here.”

  “A copy of their world in the stars.”

  “That’s my bet.”

  “What were the aliens doing here?”

  “Absolutely no bloody idea. Gerard had all sorts of theories, but never any proof.”

  “Gerard?”

  “My husband.” Liz’s face twisted in a sad smile “He’s been gone now, thirty-eight years.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “His own stupid fault. He went digging around in Old Town one time too many and never came back.”

  “Old Town? Charles mentioned it. He said it’s where the hunters have their nest.”

  “Nest is a guess, but it’s where you’re going to find more of them, quicker than anywhere else.”

  “Why did your husband go there, if it’s so dangerous?”

  “Gerard wanted to learn the secret of Atlantis.” Liz pursed her lips. “We all did once, but I grew out of it.”

  Horatio shook his head. “I’m not so sure. If you saw half a chance, you’d be jolly well onto it, quick as a flash.”

  “You reckon?” Liz raised her eyebrows. “Maybe. But I’m not holding my breath.” She returned to Catalina. “There were seven of us on the Thalassa. Scientists. Explorers. We were an international team. You won’t pick up on my accent, but I’m a Kiwi, from New Zealand. Gerard was French. Karim, Sofia, Ben, Mitch, and Ziggy were the others. We were investigating the Bermuda Triangle.”

  “Which is?”

  “A region of the sea where boats and planes keep going missing. We found it right enough. Gerard just wouldn’t stop searching for more.”

  “What is so important about Old Town that’s worth the risk?”

  “Stuff written down, books, and the like. The outer island was where the humans lived. It used to be mostly farmland, but it’s overgrown now.”

  “Humans?”

  “Yes. Who knows why the aliens had them here, though to my mind, the hunters point to them being slave workers. The hunters were
to take care of runaways. Now that the aliens have gone, they go after everyone.”

  “But what did Gerard think there’d be on the outer island? What would slaves know?”

  “No doubt quite a lot less than what the aliens did. However, since nobody knows the first thing about the alien language, we’ll never understand anything we find from them.”

  “What language did the slaves speak? Where did they come from?”

  “How good’s your history?” Liz waved her hand. “Never mind, dear. Quick version. Back in the twelfth century BC, the first Mediterranean civilizations were doing nicely, then something happened. Empires collapsed, everything went backward—trade, literacy, art. Cities vanished. It’s called the Late Bronze Age collapse. Nobody knows what happened, or why, but when the dust settled, the Greeks had a new alphabet and started telling stories about Atlantis.”

  “The ancient Greeks were here, with the aliens?”

  “That’s what Gerard was chasing. There are Greek inscriptions all over Old Town. He brought back pages and pages of writing.”

  “What does it say?”

  “We don’t know. That’s what made it all so bloody pointless. The daft bugger.” Pain and anger crackled in Liz’s voice. “Sofia was the only one who knew Greek, and she didn’t last out the first day here. I knew the names of the letters. That’s all. They get used in science. Pi for circles. Lambda for wavelength. I could sound out one word, and one word only—alpha, tau, lambda, alpha, nu, tau, iota, sigma. Which told us absolutely bloody nothing we didn’t already know. We were in Atlantis. But Gerard kept going back, searching for more, bringing it here. We’ve got it all stacked in the Barn. He was hoping one day someone would turn up who can read Greek.”

  Catalina cleared her throat. “My parents knew when I married I’d be mixing in foreign courts, so they taught me French, Italian, English, and German. When they discovered I had an ear for languages, they added Latin, for Mass, and Greek. I’m not sure why Greek, except I could read Plato and Homer in the original. Maybe I could have a look at what you have, tomorrow.”

  Liz stared at Catalina with surprise, but then nodded slowly. “Indeed. Why not?”

  * * *

  Jorge was a shorter, stockier, and much louder version of his younger brother. He had a ready smile, and a sparkle to his eye. Currently, his eye was definitely on Catalina. Jorge snapped off a pink and white flower as he passed, then turned and presented it to her with a dramatic flourish.

  “For you, señorita, though your beauty eclipses it ten thousand fold.”

  “If she wanted a flower, she could have picked one herself,” Piracola said.

  “You have no poetry in your soul.”

  “I also have no plant mess on my hands.”

  He had a point. Thick yellow sap dripped from the broken stem. Jorge sighed and tossed the flower head at Piracola’s feet. Piracola kicked it away.

  “Ugh. Now I have mess on my foot.”

  “Then wipe it off.”

  “Like this, do you mean?”

  Piracola balanced on one leg, while trying to wipe his foot on Jorge’s shorts. A spirited hopping battle followed. It was childish and amusing, but mostly childish. Who would think the two men were nearer thirty than thirteen?

  Piracola looked similar enough to Yaraha they also could have passed for brothers. Both had bodies decorated with bands of tattoos which they obviously liked to display, although Piracola’s were fewer in number and of noticeably poorer quality. Did this signify something? Catalina thought it probably did.

  Currently, Piracola was playing clown to Jorge’s jester. They made an entertaining duo, although Catalina was pleased Charles was with them. Normally, she could count on Alonzo as chaperone, but Horatio and Torvold wanted to see what salvage had washed ashore from the wreck of the pirate ships. Sam had agreed to go in the Inflatable to help them find the spot. That Alonzo also volunteered surprised Catalina, given his hostility to Sam.

  Catalina could have waited for Alonzo to return before investigating the Greek texts, but curiosity got the better of her. The material Gerard retrieved from Old Town was, apparently, stored in a barn a quarter mile from the Squat. When they overheard Charles offering to show her the way, Jorge and Piracola enthusiastically tagged along as well.

  Catalina was about to walk on, when a sound stopped her. “Meea, meea.” A caretaker had come to tend to the damaged plant.

  “We call them caretakers,” Charles said.

  “I know. We saw one yesterday. I was just wondering what sort of creature has a floor-sweeper on its stomach.”

  “They aren’t really alive. Madison says they’re bio-robots. Before she came, they were known as flesh golems. We’ve adopted Madison’s name.” Charles grinned. “It sounds less gruesome.”

  “What are they?”

  “An artificial life form. But saying that doesn’t leave us any wiser.”

  Jorge abandoned his tussle with Piracola. “Hey. I will show you.”

  He bent, grabbed two legs, and then, with a sharp pull, flipped the caretaker onto its back. The six legs waved wildly in the air, making it look even more like a huge spider. The pitch of the mewling raised a note or two. Despite an unsettled feeling, Catalina leaned forward for a better look.

  The underside of the caretaker was nothing like she had expected. Instead of bulging, off-white skin, there was a concave surface of shiny black glass. Dots of blue light traveled back and forth in the depths. Now that she was closer, Catalina could also hear a low monotonous humming.

  “Look here.” Jorge caught one of the front appendages and held it out to show the disc of black glass on the tip. “This is another magic bit. Don’t ask me how, but it can fix anything.”

  “And kill seagulls,” Piracola added.

  “It’s dangerous?”

  Jorge laughed. “Not to us. And you have me and my bold friend here, ready to lay down our lives for you.”

  “We are?” Piracola sounded surprised.

  Jorge nudged him and said in a false whisper, “It’s what you say to ladies. Normally, you don’t mean it, but for a beauty such as Catalina…” He winked at her.

  “Could the caretakers hurt us if they wanted to?”

  “Possibly,” Charles answered. “But they never have. And they only go after seagulls when they try to build nests on the inner island.”

  “But you should see them when they do. Whooph.” Piracola mimed an explosion.

  The sound of another caretaker made Catalina jump. She stepped back anxiously, but the new arrival merely set its fellow back on its feet and scurried away.

  “See,” Jorge said. “They never hurt us. We play a game to see who can get the most caretakers upside down at the same time. If I had flipped the one who came just now, in a minute, two more would arrive to right them both. Flip those two and you will get four arriving. And so on.”

  “I always win the game,” Piracola said.

  “He does not.”

  “Nearly always.”

  Jorge laughed. “One time, Piracola and I worked together, flipping them. I wanted to know how many caretakers there were. We got to nearly two hundred, but by then they were arriving so quickly we couldn’t keep up.”

  “Anything to keep the children entertained.” Charles smiled and continued through the gardens.

  A short way on, Catalina spotted a row of buildings. Unlike the houses in the Squat, the roofs were domed rather than flat.

  “What’s in there?”

  Charles shook his head. “We don’t know.”

  “Has nobody looked?”

  “We can’t get in. The doors have a keypad.”

  “A what?”

  “It’ll be easier if I show you.”

  Charles turned aside. The path ended at a blank arch, much like those at the Squat. However, rather than a black disc, a rectangle was laid out in a grid of one-inch squares, six rows deep by four across. Each square was marked with a symbol.

  Catalina took a clos
er look. “That’s the Greek alphabet.”

  “Press a key.”

  Catalina felt the alpha button click and heard a soft chime. “What does it do?”

  “Best guess is you need the right code sequence to open the door.”

  Jorge started tapping buttons. “You would not believe how many hours I’ve spent doing this. Maybe some day I’ll strike lucky.” He grinned over his shoulder at Catalina. “You could help me. Do you think I might get lucky with you?”

  Judging by his tone, the words had an alternate meaning, and one Catalina did not need a translation for. The look in his eyes was enough—just as well Alonzo was not present.

  “Or me?” Piracola was not to be left out.

  Catalina worked to hide a smile. “I’m sure it will be better if I leave it in your hands.”

  Jorge gave a good-natured laugh. “That’s something else I’ve spent hours doing.”

  Catalina returned to the building. “You’ve no idea what’s in here?”

  “None at all,” Charles said. “We can’t even be certain the Squat was originally housing. It seems to be bedrooms and a kitchen. But did the aliens sleep? Did they cook their food? We just don’t know.”

  After a few minutes more, they reached another building, far and away the largest Catalina had yet seen.

  “Allow me to present the Barn.” Charles waved his hand over the opening disc and stepped back.

  Catalina felt her jaw drop. Inside was one enormous room, the size of a cathedral. At a first glance, the space was empty, but it was just an effect of the scale. Numerous objects were assembled—parts of statues, parts of machines, tables, carts, things Catalina could not put a name to, all dwarfed by the building.

  Catalina shook her head. No…not the size of a cathedral. The height might be similar, but the floor space could have held the largest cathedral in Europe a dozen times over. How did the roof support the span? The name “Barn” could not do justice to the imposing space.

  Only once inside did she notice footprints in a thick layer of dust on the floor. “Don’t the caretakers clean in here?”

  “No. There seems to be some sort of ‘Do not touch’ order in place for them.”

  “Why?”