“We will have to build another ship,” said Odin, making his way to a nearby boulder and sitting on it with a sigh.
“Nothing fancy,” said Santiago. “Just to get across the strait.”
“We’ll need supplies,” Mordecai said.
“Alistair’s got plenty of those,” said one of Mordecai’s men.
“Are you volunteering my property?”
The question, and the note of irritation in it, stopped the man short. “I just meant…” he mumbled. “You know. Give back to the community. You’re rich.”
“Give back to the community, or give to the community?” The man blinked once, and all the rest, save for Santiago, stared at him in wonderment. “I don’t remember taking anything from the community.”
The hurt innocence of the crowd quickly became annoyance.
“You got a lot from us,” said one.
Another said, “You’ve got more than any man on the island.”
“I only have what you decided to give me,” said Alistair, his features turning crimson as he faced his audience. His words came out in a forced manner, as if the gears of his voice box were grinding. To his horror, a slight stutter crept into his speech, but the harder he tried to clamp down and control the words, the greater became the stutter. He felt their gazes as tingles all over his body. “You gave it to me in exchange for what I was offering, and I haven’t failed to provide the promised services.”
There was an immediate outburst in response to this, as men gesticulated in the direction of the destroyed buildings.
“I provided as much defense as I was able! I didn’t see any of you taking out the hovercraft or destroying the dreadbots!” Alistair swung an arm behind him in the general direction of where the hovercraft had idled. “I was as faithful in my end of the bargain as I could be, which is more than I can say for a few delinquents who haven’t bothered to pay for what they ordered!” He was angry enough that his eyes stung and embarrassed at what he considered the childish weakness of his stutter. Seeing no way to bow out gracefully, he said, against the tide of noise directed at him, “Anyone who wants to come can supply themselves,” and stomped away through the wide channel created as the men and women made sure to move far out of his path.
The recently obliterated village was not an ideal place to walk off in anger. There were no doors to slam, no rooms to retreat to, and not much else with which to occupy oneself. Not wanting to be seen running away from them, he stopped at the edge of the cliff and, as he calmed his breathing, folded his arms and gazed out over the lake. Santiago was at his side a few moments later.
“How many customers did that cost us?” he asked, but his tone was gentle.
“I would have been fine supplying the expedition!” Alistair exploded, and his arms were shaken loose from his chest. He refolded them a moment later and calmed his voice. It was easy to master himself with only Santiago there. “Just ask nicely. Don’t do business with me and then claim I am morally obligated to give your payment back.”
“I am the choir, Mr. Preacher.”
“It’s the implication. I’ve worked as hard as anyone here—”
“Harder.”
“— to establish a peaceful place to live. Then they try and tell me I’ve been taking from them and need to give back what I stole. That’s the implication. And then we take out the dreadbots and they try and pretend I’ve been shirking my duties!”
He felt another presence, and then a hand on his right shoulder. He looked and saw Giselle giving him a diffident smile. Suddenly sheepish about his emotions and his loose expression he gave her a faltering smile of his own.
“Of course I’ll outfit the team. But that’s the type of shit I heard all the time on Aldra. A society will not work better than the people in it.” The ex marine spat over the side of the cliff. “No society can thrive if it hates the ones who make it better. I’d rather not do business with any of them if that’s how they feel. They think I’m stealing from them, not doing my job? Fine. To hell with them!”
Giselle slid her hand down Alistair’s arm and grabbed his hand, giving it an affectionate squeeze, which had the effect of startling him. Santiago patted him on his other shoulder with a sigh.
“Alistair, my friend, you are not a businessman. I am not reproaching you; I say that like I say I am not a fútbol player. It is time for you to do what you do best, and we all need you to do it.” He gave him a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder and left him with Giselle.
“Alistair, I want to go with you,” she said after Santiago left. As Alistair started to give what was going to be a negative response, she continued, “It might come in handy to have a female along. All nine of you are men and there are some things, especially on Srillium, that might require a woman.” He looked at her uncertainly. “Come on. It can be your way of giving back to your workers.”
The comment elicited an unwilling smile from his lips. Seeing this and taking it for assent, she smiled and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, causing him to blush as furiously as when he was arguing with the crowd.
Chapter 70
Odin and his men had a wealth of experience building boats. Putting together a craft to carry them across a narrow strait was the easiest obstacle to overcome. It was a shoe that wanted tying on a mountain climber standing before the Himalayas. With plenty of hands at the task and a surfeit of idle lumber in the wake of the dreadbots, a boat that would hold together for the job asked of it was swiftly built. It would handle moderate waves and wind, bear the weight of a crew and its supplies, keep enough water out to stay afloat, and move fast enough to make the journey in a day. It would not, however, withstand a single blow from the great beasts, the krakens, patrolling the straits.
They would rely on the newly acquired weapons. There was no doubt the creature could be stopped by bullets and grenades; the true concern was whether they would have warning to fire before the creature shredded their little craft. None of their attacked ships survived, nor had a single passenger from those ships, nor had any debris or cadavers washed up on shore. No one they knew had encountered a kraken and survived the meeting, including the original inhabitants of the island. They were in a state of nearly complete ignorance, knowing only that this time, with a solitary ship trying to pass, they were certain to encounter one. Should the kraken mode of attack consist of a rise to the surface from the depths, directly beneath the boat, it was not something they could prevent.
The trip was to be made by ten men – Odin had convinced Alistair to allow Caleb to come – and a woman, armed as well as any modern marine platoon, but riding on a boat at which a Phoenician would scoff. The weapons they took with them consisted of four rifles, each with a range of several miles, whose projectiles were explosive; a rocket/grenade launcher, which looked like a thick, stubby rifle; and one automatic side arm apiece, which fired concussive blasts rather than a physical projectile. The ammunition was less plentiful and made Alistair uneasy. The concussive guns would cease to function only when the battery ran out, but they were old models. Though they were fully charged, he could not say how much juice they had in them. Each of the comparatively newer rifles had twenty rounds, and the rocket/grenade launcher had four rounds of convertible ammo.
The morning of the launch, Alistair was with Giselle, rummaging through their belongings, making sure they packed everything they would need. The newly risen sun heated the land, and sweat dripped from him as he moved. Intent on his task and running a hand over his brow to keep the sweat from the corners of his eyes, for a moment he forgot Giselle was with him until she spoke.
“Frank is scared,” she said as she, satisfied they had everything and only waiting for Alistair to reach the same conclusion, sank down onto a tree stump. To her comment he responded with an absentminded grunt. She went on, “The louder he boasts, the broader he grins, the harder he slaps his mates’ shoulders… I can see that he is scared.”
The words penetrated deeply enough into his mind to distract
his concentration, reaching that part of his conscious thoughts that recalled Giselle would likely appreciate some sort of verbal response.
“He’s never done anything like this before,” was his generous reply.
“You noticed it too?”
Alistair, who had never considered it before, hesitated with the response. “I suppose.”
He had just set his mind back to his task when she interrupted him with another idle observation.
“Odin isn’t afraid. Odin is determined. He’s seen too much, been too close to death too many times to be afraid.” When he did not immediately respond, she continued, “He’s as determined as you are. Probably for different reasons.”
“Did you pack the flint?”
“A long time ago.”
She smiled to herself as Alistair, after a nod of acknowledgement, returned to his appraisal. She understood his inattention to her was entirely innocent, a product of his concentration and not disinterest.
“Wei Bai and Duke aren’t scared either. But they’re not driven like Odin. They have other motives.”
“What about Mordecai?” asked Alistair, feeling obliged to participate.
“Mordecai is scared, but not of the krakens.”
This halted him, and he looked at Giselle, who crossed her right leg over her left and placed both hands on her right knee.
“What is he afraid of?”
“You.”
Alistair furrowed his eyebrow in an expression of pure skepticism.
“It’s true.”
Furrowing his brow even further and giving a doubtful frown, he scooped up a travel bag and slung it over his shoulder. “We’re ready to go. Why the hell would Mordecai be scared of me?”
“Alistair, do you ever look at people?”
“Of course I look at people,” he said with a tone of protest as she walked past him. He fell into step with her, his skeptical expression changed to one of complete incomprehension. “How the hell could I avoid looking at people?”
Giselle only grinned. “Do you need me to carry anything?”
“I’ve got it.”
“Can I ride on your shoulders?”
“You don’t have enough money.”
“I didn’t say which way I’d be facing.”
He gave her a quizzical look, then turned beet red when he figured out the geometry of her suggestion. His tongue was suddenly too thick to shape the sound issuing from his mouth into a clear reply, and the last thing heard on the hilltop was her laughter.
***
What soothed into languid slumber a tourist sunbathing on a beach now provoked shivers in the men who heard it as a ceaseless, taunting, ominous whisper. Many a glance was shot at the ocean’s waves as the boat was dragged into place on the beach. The grunting, struggling figures, their sweaty skin baking under the morning sun, approached the water with the sail boat in tow the way a man takes a saddle to a wild bronco. Word of their plans had spread, so a few score individuals came to see them off, as excited and awed as circus goers watching a tight rope walker and just as relieved not to be a part of the act.
There was a mild breeze rustling the leaves and churning up waves, and a few large, white, billowy clouds floated above, taking their time about passing overhead. As Srillium the moon neared its eclipse with Srillium the gas giant, the angular distance between sun and planet narrowed. Presently, Srillium, as a crescent, preceded the sun in rising, a great predator leading a smaller prey, preparing to swallow it.
When the boat was brought to the edge of the water, now on wet sand, now embraced by a wave expending itself, the Druid stepped forward with Clyde Oliver Jones just behind. The ten men and one woman paused in their labor and, heads bowed in most cases, turned to face the religious leader. He extended his right hand with its long, gnarled fingernails and began a sing-song chant in the Gaian tongue. Alistair, impatient for the ceremony to end, allowed his gaze to wander. He exchanged a glance with Wellesley, who raised his eyebrows in a mocking expression, and Alistair gave him a sympathetic grin. Mordecai stood still, staring at the Druid, but gave no indication of pious thoughts. Is he really scared of me? thought Alistair, but he detected in the man no indication either way, and with a skeptical frown concluded neither Giselle nor anyone else could either.
After the prayer, Alistair was ready to finish loading the boat, but first Duke and then Wei Bai felt compelled to give speeches, the former in English and the latter in Mandarin, so alike in form and substance as to make at least one of them unnecessary. Alistair, more out of a desire to be unobtrusive rather than polite, postponed his task and stood still to listen. Then, not wanting to seem subordinate, Mordecai took a turn with his own extemporaneous speech, which turned out to be a less graceful rehashing of the previous two. No sooner had the applause died down than Clyde stepped forward and launched another, and this proved more than Alistair was willing to bear.
Grabbing a length of rope, he said to Giselle, “Would you mention to these gentlemen the sun is not pausing to listen to them blabber and if we find ourselves on the water at night we will most likely be something’s dinner?”
Duke and Wei Bai both gave Alistair sharp looks, but the Aldran did not acknowledge them. Taribo and Caleb also heard and, almost sheepish, began to assist Alistair. When the others saw them return to work, they at first hesitated, but apart from Duke and Wei Bai, quickly passed from indecision to action and also resumed loading the boat. The result was that Clyde’s charismatic eulogy was directed at a group of people, the majority of whom gave him only passing nods and infrequent smiles while they spent most of their attention on the boat. Undeterred, Clyde smoothly switched his target, in mid-sentence, from the eleven of them to the audience and betrayed not the slightest sign of being nonplussed. When Clyde ceased talking, Alistair considered it a small mercy no one stepped forward to succeed him.
When the boat was loaded, the luggage secured and Bert, his hands bound, brought forward to hop on board, the throng of well wishers pressed forward to push the boat the final short distance into the ocean. When the sail was raised, a great cheer went up, and a hundred hands were raised in goodbye. Best wishes were shouted. Only the Druid remained stoic and motionless by the water’s edge.
The main body of the boat was little more than a large canoe, displacing little water and giving only just enough room for two people to sit side by side. There were four benches which had to be stepped over if one were to move from one end to the other, and luggage was stored in both the front and back. In the middle was the mast with its brown sail, filled with wind, tugging at it. At the top of the mast was a lookout tower at which someone was permanently stationed, either Alistair or Mordecai. The height of the mast necessitated design alterations to keep the boat from tipping, and Odin chose pontoons, attached to the boat on either side by three planks. Each three foot wide pontoon had a seat in the middle, allowing it to serve as a perimeter defense in addition to a stabilizer. At all times two men sat on the pontoons, rifles tied to the chair by a short length of rope and ready to fire.
They waited for their confrontation with a predator, knowing not when nor how the attack would come, only that it would. They felt that unsettling mix of feelings that comes from dreading an inevitable consequence yet being desperate that it should occur and end the terrible wait. Alistair took the first turn in the lookout perch. Silent, his only purposeful movement was to turn in circles, constantly scanning the waters, afraid that a mere blink could provide the margin of difference between eliminating whatever it was and being eliminated. He was the kind of alert that can only last for so long, that saps one’s energy; the kind of tensely vigilant adopted only when one knows one’s post will be relieved soon.
Taribo and Caleb, both former soldiers, were stationed on the pontoons, Taribo on the left and Caleb on the right. The West African faced his task bravely, but not stoically. He spared a hand to tug at his dreadlocks. He bit his upper lip. He bit his lower lip. He wiped sweat from his brow and shifted
in his seat. His face was set with a determined expression, but it was clear he sought relief from the churning in his guts through fidgeting. Caleb, on the other hand, only swayed when the boat moved beneath him. His rifle was at the ready, gripped in both hands, and he slouched in his seat, his long legs splayed out but bent to keep his feet out of the water.
Alistair suffered through dozens of false alarms, his eye tricked by the waves reshaping the light, occasionally seeming to make a flicker of solidity out of coalescing shadows. When the actual attack came, it arrived with an unyielding certainty as distinct from those ephemeral teases as a tornado from wisps of fog. A great form rose from the lightless depths, a grayish torpedo perhaps fifty yards to port, as large as a small submarine. Its great bulk, and the frightening speed at which it moved, combined to stir the surface of the water above. Alistair yelled an incoherent warning whose naked ferocity tore at his throat, escaping before his lips and tongue could move to shape words out of it, but his hands were trained in a way his voice was not. Even as his hysterical yell startled his companions, his rifle was brought to his shoulder, the scope to his eye, and his finger to the trigger.
Below, poor Taribo nearly tumbled from his seat when Alistair screamed but managed to keep from plunging into the water. Everyone else was on their feet, looking in the same direction as Alistair. Odin spotted the creature and pointed, letting out a cry of surprise, a cry repeated in some form by every passenger when they finally saw the monstrously large shape coming their way. Through the scope, as the creature drew nearer the surface, Alistair got his first clear image of what they faced. It rolled a bit to its side and he saw the pitiless, terrifying profile of a shark, its lifeless black eyes trained on its target, its maw full of teeth longer than a man’s forearm and as jagged and sharp as flint.
He pulled the trigger several times, and Taribo followed suit, his first shots overlapping with Alistair’s last. The tiny bullets, hardly more than slivers, sliced through the air, plunged into the water and pricked their target like a bee stings an elephant. What saved them were the explosions that followed, explosions occurring in the skin because the bullets did not penetrate far into the thick hide, especially after passing through a few feet of water. Though shallow they were, they shredded the skin near the head in nine successive blasts before the great expressionless shark plunged into the depths of the sea to escape the barrage. Alistair fired six times; Taribo got off five shots of value though he wasted a few more rounds after the beast went too deep to hit.
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