The Probing: Leviathan, The Mind Pirates, Hybrids, The Village

by Frank Peretti

  “Oh,” said the lady, “I’ll bet you have fun being a pirate!”

  “M’lady,” I said as I took their drink orders, “you have no idea!”

  Zedekiah Snow shook his head as Audrey, his eyes, scanned the computer screen. “No, no, we aren’t getting through. This has to be the ship’s system. It’s framed just the way Ben would have done it, but it won’t let us past the initial inquiry. It can hear us knocking at the door, but it’s waiting for the password to let us in.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Tank, pulling a notepad from his pocket. “What about what Andi said that first time, the aardvark thing?” He flipped through the pages until he found it. “Uh, Aardvark Basil Crustacean 233—”

  “Hold on, hold on!” said Snow, tapping away at the keys. “Now, is that just A, B, C, or the whole words?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’ll try the whole words.” He tapped them in. “Now, you have numbers?”

  “233 997 417709.”

  Snow tapped them in. “Mmm. Ben always liked big entry codes. Here goes.” He tapped Execute.

  They waited.

  CHAPTER

  17

  An Inquiry

  Thatch was in full character, strutting about the deck, sword waving above his head, wild-eyed and savage. “You’ll be taking your seats and causing us no grief, or we’ll sever the tendons behind your knees, roll you up in squid guts, and throw you to the sharks!”

  Our captives laughed. Context was everything.

  I brought up the last couple, definitely high rollers judging by the man’s watch.

  Rock took his turn letting the chosen twenty know where the restrooms and life jackets were, and from that point, as both ships eased into the lagoon and toward the wharf at Pirate Island, there were songs, demonstrations, and even a member of the crew who could juggle knives with his ankles behind his neck. I would never be able to do that.

  Andi knew, thanks to Ben’s memory, that another system was trying to link up with the system on the ship. She also knew such a fact could be an advantage if Sparks didn’t know about it. “Okay, this must be the codes and frequencies for the Readers. Where are they?”

  “In the Captain’s Quarters,” said Sparks. “They go ashore when we dock.”

  “Well, I need the identifier for each one so I can keep track of what I’m monitoring.”

  “Should be on your screen.”

  “I can’t find it.”

  “We’re pulling up to the wharf!”

  She faced him and shrugged with palms up, at a loss.

  That got him to move. “I’ll get the info off the units. Hold on.” He hurried out of the room, heading topside.

  She had her chance, a window of mere minutes. Hurriedly, she brought up the blinking box. One click and it became a menu, and within that menu was an inquiry. Somewhere, someone was requesting access to the Readers—and with that request was the access code, the words Aardvark, Basil, Crustacean, and the numerical sequence.

  Oh! It was like being able to breathe again, to live just one more moment. This was the outside world calling, the only people who would know this access code: Tank, Brenda, Daniel!

  Come on, come on, she pleaded with Ben’s memory, how do I accept?

  All she had to do was ask, and the memory came to her. She clicked here, entered a command there, assigned a path, and clicked Execute.

  “We’re in!” said Zedekiah Snow with a clap of his hands.

  Tank let out a whoop.

  Brenda asked, “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” said Zedekiah, “that now we can use a Writer at this end to receive brainwaves from a Reader at their end, to tap into what’s going on.”

  “Great!” said Tank.

  Brenda was rather quiet.

  Zedekiah got a little quiet himself. “And the fact that user input was necessary to complete the access tells me that someone running the system let us in.”

  “Andi!” said Daniel.

  Andi could see the code going through, the system responding—

  “Are we ready?” came the captain’s voice behind her.

  It made her jump. She rose from the chair, fumbled for the mouse, blocked the screen with her body. “Uh . . . uh, yeah, I think so. Uh, Sparks has gone up to get the identifiers from the Readers.”

  How long had he been standing there? Did he see the inquiry, the access code? Were they still on the screen?

  Well of course they were! She was dead. Fried.

  What was he holding? Some oversized green, feathery outfit. “Try this on.”

  “Uh, right, right. Just let me make sure . . .” Her hand trembled as she moved and clicked the mouse. The menu closed, but the system was acknowledging the inquiry, opening up all the Readers—both on the ship and . . . wherever else. Sparks was sure to notice.

  Speak of the devil. Sparks came back in with a list in his hand. “Okay, here are the identifiers—” He spotted the screen and pushed her aside. “Well, looks like you found them.”

  “Uh, yeah. Up and running as far as I can tell.”

  He sat in the chair. “Okay, Readers are online, ready to go ashore.”

  “Aye, and in good time,” said the captain. “Norwig will set them up. Got my Writer?” Sparks reached for a gold earring hanging on a hook and handed it to the captain. “Grand enough. Tell me when I can listen in.”

  “Will do.”

  The captain addressed Andi, “And as for you . . .” He handed her the green, feathery thing. “You, m’lady, will accompany me.”

  “What’s this?” had just escaped her lips when she saw the cartoonish parrot head and realized it was a costume.

  “Being the parrot always falls to Spikenose, but not today,” said the captain. “Today, it falls to you. I’ll not be leaving you aboard the ship unwatched, nor can I let your face be seen, so today you’re the parrot.”

  “Happy squawking, shipmate,” said Sparks, his glee all too evident as he turned to the console. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Zedekiah, still clicking and tapping for information. “The Predator’s GPS locator places the ship at Pirate Island. No surprise there. You were right, Audrey, they must have a show today.”

  “But that just proves you’re in the Predator’s system!” said Tank.

  “With the help of someone who recognized the access code, and that it could only come from you. Now if we can just pick up a Reader. Maybe your friend Andi will see to that . . .”

  Daniel always meant well, and I imagine he could discern Brenda’s misgivings about the magical earring. While all the others were focused on what was happening on Pirate Island, he gently took the earring from the table and looked it over.

  “I think I’m finding some of the Readers . . .” Zedekiah said.

  The screen went crazy!

  “Oh!” said Audrey.

  “Oh no, no, no!” said Zedekiah.

  Daniel didn’t have pierced ears. He may have thought he would hear something by pressing the earring to his ear.

  “Someone’s scrambled the system!” said Zedekiah, and perhaps the one great fear that came with that made Audrey scan the room for the earring. “Daniel!” she cried.

  “Daniel, stop!” Zedekiah screamed.

  Brenda’s hand grabbed Daniel’s wrist when the earring was only inches from his head and plucked the earring from his hand. As if it were red hot, she tossed the earring to the floor. Daniel was terribly frightened, of course, on the verge of tears, but she pulled him close. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. . . .”

  Zedekiah settled, shaking, into his chair. He had to clear his throat before he could say, “Audrey, if you please, the screen.”

  She returned to her post beside him and looked at the screen.

  Zedekiah slumped in his chair. “Where we once had a friend, we now have an enemy. Don’t touch that earring.”

  C

  HAPTER

  18

 
Pirate Island

  Pirate Island. It was pure fantasy, a seaport in miniature harking back to the Caribbean of the seventeenth century with its colonialism and rowdy decadence. As a tourist, I’d found it amusing. Now, save for my perilous situation, I could have been a part of it. Even as Scalarag and I helped secure the dock lines to moor the Predator safely against the wharf, I was enchanted by the village, the costumed populace, the seafaring music, the smell of the sea, and the majestic sailing ships. If I’d not been a captive, I could have been living in another time, caught up in the euphoria of make-believe.

  As were the tourists, I suppose, coming down the gangways and flooding the place, cell phones and cameras already clicking at the sights: the wenches peddling their goods, the jugglers, the fire eater, the traditional dancers, and Captain Thatch in full regalia accompanied by his costumed parrot.

  Andi did her best to be a parrot, waddling on her parrot feet and looking out through the cartoonish, two-way eyes, but her mind was on the system, the inquiry, Sparks sitting there watching that screen.

  The captain drew the gold earring from his pocket as he strutted, and Andi waddled up to the Pirate Island photo booth next to the wharf. Here the tourists could don the pirate hats, scarves, and earrings from the rack and get a souvenir photo with the captain and the Predator in the background. Norwig the Bean was running the booth; Harry the Scar was the photographer.

  And right now, they were idle.

  “Well?” asked the captain.

  “Ready when you are,” said Norwig.

  “Before the show, then. We’ll—” Thatch winced and put his finger to his ear. “What? Say again?” He was wearing an earbud to keep in radio contact with Sparks. It appeared Sparks was talking to him. “Why? We’re not taking any pictures yet. All the Readers are hanging on the rack in a dead calm.” He glanced at the earring in his hand and told Norwig, “Sparks says to put on the earring. We’re getting a signal.”

  Norwig and Harry looked again at the rack of scarves, hats, and earrings, which were all the Readers they had. “From what?” asked Norwig.

  Thatch radioed back, “All the Readers are right here, doing nothing . . . well, you give me a Read and I’ll put on the Writer!” He shoved the earring back in his pocket. “Keeps telling me to put on the earring. I hate that thing, and what’s to monitor?”

  “But have you noticed,” said Harry, “how many scarves and hats there are already?”

  The captain looked about, and so did Andi. Harry had a point. All along the wharf, across the dining plaza, and up the length of the cobblestone street, heads without a scarf or pirate hat of some kind were few and far between.

  “So why should they wear one of ours?” asked Norwig.

  “What about the mark?”

  “Aye, we met him. Mr. Ling. Cold as ice and not to be tangled with.”

  The captain gave that pill time to go down. “Ling, you say? And where might he be?”

  “Scarfing some grub.” Norwig jerked his thumb toward the dining plaza.

  The captain, with the parrot in tow, hurried back onto the wharf. “Gentlemen!” Scalarag and I snapped to a ragged attention. “You’ll return to the ship. Scalarag, we’ll be about a new business now. Have the prof lend a hand, and keep him under your watchful eye.” He turned to me. “Sorry, Prof. Still need to keep your pretty assistant in the right frame of mind, and . . . can’t have you talking or passing notes to anyone, now can we?”

  The parrot gave me a little wave and a lingering look as it walked beside the captain toward the village. Well. Of course Thatch would want her under his control at all times. Andi was falling into the role, waving, squawking, posing for pictures beside her flamboyant master.

  And what could I do as a prisoner? A hostage? Insurance to keep Andi in line? As Scalarag escorted me up the gangplank, my anger was getting the better of me. “So what now? Leg irons again? More humiliation while the silly game goes on?”

  “No,” Scalarag answered.

  “And to think at one time you had a conscience!”

  “I said No. No leg irons. Plan B.”

  I looked back at him. He nudged me onto the deck where we were unseen by those ashore. “The cap has a nose for trouble, and we might be in it. We have to load the cannons.”

  “What?!”

  He led the way below, toward the front of the hold. “You told me to do the right thing. Well, this is the right thing.” He stopped and faced me. “To my way of thinking, anyway.”

  He hurried onward; I followed. He came to a secure door, unlocked it, and flung it open. Inside were barrels upon barrels neatly stacked, each bearing the label National Munitions, Inc.

  I’d seen a few of these barrels topside during the mock cannon firing. “Gunpowder?”

  He gazed at the huge cache with visible awe and nodded. “Let’s each grab one.”

  “But . . . you’re not going to . . .”

  He hefted one into my arms. “If the captain says so.”

  “But what puts him in the right?”

  “The guns, I suppose.”

  We loaded the cannons on the landward side—they were aimed right at the plaza where most of the crowds had gathered.

  Of course I wondered what the devil I was doing, aiding and abetting a pack of scoundrels—or at least one scoundrel and his accomplice—but then again, Andi was out there in the company of the captain, and if any plan to save the captain would save her . . .

  There had to be something right about that.

  Regardless, pragmatically speaking, whatever action we took had to be preset without delay if it were to succeed when the time came, so having no time to fret about moralities, I helped fill the powder bags and rammed them down the bores.

  Where was our ammunition? Blast Scalarag! He drew a blank and left finding that up to me.

  Andi could smell barbecue even through her parrot head. The dining plaza was a town square with a clear view of the wharf and the ships tied there. Folks sat at tables while the serving wenches scurried about with trays of drinks and sandwiches.

  At a lone table on the edge of the plaza, two men sat having lunch and a beer. Thatch made a beeline for that table. “Keep up,” he told Andi, “and have a good look at these two.” He circled around the table to face the two men, with her beside him.

  And she walked right into her nightmare, right into that night: the wrinkly blonde with death in his eyes. The stone-faced Asian with the gleaming knife. Running for her life as Ben Cardiff ran for his, her body, his body, pummeled and thrown to a slow, drowning death.

  There they sat, the blond man, the big Asian man, looking so casual, nibbling on sandwiches, sipping beer. Thatch engaged the blond man in conversation about booking tour groups for the pirate show, how well the season was going, where all these extra hats and scarves came from. She couldn’t concentrate on the words, only on not shaking, not fainting, not screaming.

  The blond man introduced Mr. Ling, a big investment banker from Hong Kong. Ling looked just as Norwig described him: cold as ice and ruthless. He looked at Andi only once and, seeing only a silly parrot, looked back at the captain. The captain was suggesting a group picture, perhaps with an official Predator captain’s hat. The killer smiled as if he knew something.

  The blond man smiled, too. “Lots of tour groups lined up,” he said. “Very good gate this weekend.” He had a shirt with ST. CLEMENS TOURS embossed over the pocket, and above the embossing he wore a name badge: Bennett Piel.

  Bennett Piel!

  Her legs lost their strength. She stumbled backward a few waddled steps, reached out and found a palm tree to steady herself.

  Banana Peel!

  CHAPTER

  19

  Mutiny

  A sound, something like a cry, escaped Andi’s mouth before she could contain it. She disguised it with a parrot squawk. She flapped her arms a little. It drew a look and an impatient smile from Bennett Piel.

  The captain brought up future plans and recovered
Piel’s attention.

  Come on, act like a parrot. With all she had within her she stayed in character, squawked a little, and sidled away to give them space, to come up with a plan . . .

  To get to a buffet table and a bowl of fruit.

  She squawked a greeting to two dining couples—the women were the ugliest she’d seen in a while—and helped herself to a banana.

  She waddled back, moving behind the two men and facing the captain.

  Thatch talked with the men about the Predator. A good ship, she was. Ready for haul out next month. He had improvements in mind, budget allowing.

  She held up the banana hoping he would see it.

  He may have. Apparently he was getting another message from Sparks. He took the earring out of his pocket.

  She grappled and fumbled with the banana. It was hard to get the peeling started with feathery parrot wing-hands.

  The captain pulled his hair back to expose his ear and then began to open the loop on the earring.

  She got the peeling started and frantically pulled the segments down.

  He looked at her.

  With the banana peeled halfway down, she pointed at it while pointing at Bennett Piel with the feathery finger of her other hand. That’s the guy!

  The captain stayed in character, smiling, listening to the two men, looking from one to the other as the color drained from his face. He put the earring back in his pocket, and managing a weak flourish, said, “Gentlemen, the tide waits for no man. Adieu, and fair winds!”

  He beckoned to Andi with a glance and started walking back toward the ship. Andi was glad enough to follow.

  They didn’t get far.

  “Thatch!” Piel shouted from behind them. With that came the clicking of a gun.

  Click! Clack! Clicklick Clatter! Like dozens of traps springing, the tourists, male and female, sprang from their chairs and trained their guns on Thatch’s crew. Others on the rim of the plaza formed a closed circle, brandishing weapons. The ugly women turned out to be men, their hairy arms holding pistols.