“We have a couple of minutes,” said Gil. “Arraez is going to circle once before the drop.”
Graham leaned against the nearest window and put his hands around his face to cut out reflections from inside the airplane. Up ahead, to the northeast, a dark shape on the water was cutting into the path of moonlight reflected on the sea from the recently risen half-moon. As his eyes got used to the dark, Graham saw that Ascension Island was much bigger than he had thought from the nickname of “the Rock”—though it was impossible to judge sizes accurately from an airplane at night without some familiar object to give a scale of reference. He remembered from his work on the Gamanovia Project that the island was somewhere between ten and fifteen kilometers in its maximum dimension.
The whine of the engines had dropped to a whisper as they glided toward the northern peninsula. To starboard Graham thought he saw a twinkle of lights against the blackness. That would be Georgetown. There had been some question about how to warn the handful of cable operators who lived there; a general broadcast about the approaching tsunami might be picked up by the gang and alert them. Then he, Graham, had thought of letting them know by cable, with a warning not to tell the folk at the turtle farm. The Georgetownians should by now have fled with their household goods to higher ground.
Then, about there, thought Graham, should be March’s turtle farm. Far away to starboard, Green Mountain reared itself against the stars as they dropped lower, then swung forward as the ’plane turned south.
“Get ready,” said Gil. “Remember, even if I’m boss now, as we reach ground you, Constable Sklar, are in command.”
One of the crew members stood with a hand on the door. Gil stared at his wristwatch. A sharp whistle came out of the squawk-box and the crewman yanked the door open. At once the ’plane was filled with draft and with the swish and whistle of the airstream outside.
Gil motioned Graham to give him a hand with the raft. They braced themselves, hands against the bundle, and waited.
The squawk-box whistled twice. “Out with it!” said Gil, and they pushed. Overboard went the bundle. Graham almost fell out the door, and instinctively caught the doorjamb to stop himself—and was catapulted out by a violent push in the small of the back. As he fell into the dark and the gale, he caught Gil’s voice faintly above the air sounds: “You next . . .”
For a heart-stopping second he was too frightened to do anything but tense all his muscles as if with a violent cramp, while the universe spun around him. Then he remembered to pull the ring. The blades of the rotochute opened like the petals of a flower, and the universe stopped whirling as he came right side up. The great wind ceased blowing up from underneath him, and its roar in his ears was replaced by the gentle whirr of the blades over his head. To one side and below him the moonlight caught the larger blades of the chute that was lowering the raft.
He looked towards the airplane, now invisible except for its fast-receding running lights. He could however hear its engines starting up again. Somebody blinked a flashlight in the air on a level higher than his. Somebody else called: “Hey, you there, Varnipaz? You there, Graham? Everythink all right?”
They called back and forth until all were identified. Graham, looking down, got another shock. They seemed to be dropping into the Atlantic Ocean.
“Hey!” called Graham. “Gil! We’re going into the drink!” And he began wondering how he could swim ashore laden as he was. He was a good swimmer but after all not a porpoise.
“The wind will carry us ashore,” said Gil. “I only hope Arraez allowed enough for windage, or we shall have to drag that filthy raft a long way to the beach. Remember what I told you about alighting; the Rock is the best place for breaking the legs you ever saw.”
The beach, marked by the phosphorescence of the breakers, slid up slantwise towards them as the wind bore them shorewards. Graham saw that it was, in fact, going to carry them inland. He got his flashlight ready for the landing. The sound of the surf below grew louder.
The beach slid under him, and from the dark below came the crunch of the raft bundle striking the shingle. Graham flashed on his light, directing the beam downwards. The rough surface rose steadily towards him, hummocks of lava enlarging until individual stones and pebbles could be seen in the beam. He flexed his legs to take the shock, jarred home, and fell on his back. The rotochute crashed against the rock.
“Ouch!” he muttered. A sharp piece of rock had bitten into his left forearm, though otherwise he did not seem hurt. He freed himself from the chute and scrambled up.
As he did so the other three came down with a similar racket, one by one. Graham could hear them moving about in the dark and uttering a powerful symphony of curses: Gil in Portuguese, Varnipaz in Sotaspeou, and Sklar in what Graham guessed to be Slovakian or something of the sort.
Sklar said: “I came down on a goddam cactus! Here, all of you follow me to the bitch. Kip the talk down.”
Graham found the warm wet wind, unnoticeable while he was borne along with it, now strong enough to ruffle his hair and his clothes. At least the sound of wind and wave would cover their approach. The place smelled of terns’ nests.
By the light of their torches they finally got together and picked their way down a little ravine that opened on the beach. It was hard going, requiring a hand as well as a pair of legs as they slipped and crunched over the rough stuff and around the boulders.
At the foot of the clifflet they found the raft bundle. Sklar and Gil broke it out, and after a muttered consultation the latter turned the valve that inflated the raft. The carbon dioxide hissed gently from its cylinder, and the raft humped up like a live thing, its folds popping open audibly as the gas filled them.
“I don’t like doink this in advance,” said Sklar, “but when we get back maybe there won’t be no time to blow it up. Let’s tie it fast so it don’t float away on the tide.”
When the painter had been secured to the nearest rock of convenient size, they unzipped the outboard motor from its compartment.
“Better set it up too,” said Sklar. “We’ll want all the spid we can get.”
Gil accordingly installed the motor, its propeller shaft sticking out behind the raft like a tail. Meanwhile Sklar said: “You two, how about pulling some of those spines out of my pants, huh? I don’t feel like rescuink no dame with my tail full of niddles.”
Graham and Varnipaz obliged by the light of their flashlights. Varnipaz said thoughtfully: “I should like to know more about our legal status. I can see how you and Graham and I are authorized to make arrests by Earthly law, though I do not understand why we do not have to have warrants. And as for Gil . . .”
“Ouch,” said Sklar. “We’ll kip the lecture till later.”
Gil said: “The motor’s ready.”
“Come alunk,” said Sklar, leading the way north along the beach. The going was easier here until the beach ended in a rocky point, over which they had to scramble as best they could. The cliff to their left rose far above their heads, then came down to eye level again, then rose once more and strode out into the water.
“Hey,” said Sklar, “no more bitch! Can we wade?”
“I don’t know,” said Gil. “Hold my gun.” And the Brazilian began feeling his way forward past the end of the beach, leaning against the cliff face. A few steps, however, brought him up to his hips in the water, which rose and fell with the swells. A big wave splashed water all over him. He turned his face back in to the beams of the flashlights.
“No good this way,” he said. “We’ll have to go back and find a route inland.”
Graham could not help remembering that any minute the water might start to rise, up—up—up, scores of meters above its usual level. The only safe places in such a case would be either on high ground inland or well out to sea where the tsunami’s slopes were gentle. Since the water usually receded in advance of a tsunami before it started to rise, they should have at least some minutes’ warning, perhaps even a half-hour. If they started se
award the minute this recession began, they might get a safe distance out before the wave arrived.
With this consideration in mind, Graham said: “Why don’t we take the raft? We could land right in front of the turtle farm . . .”
“No,” said Sklar. “No cover to approach. Might work, but if anybody was watching the bitch we’d be sittink ducks.”
They straggled back until they found another ravine cutting up into the cliff, and picked their way up it. A few sparse plants grew among the rocks, but otherwise the land seemed practically lifeless.
As they rounded a big boulder in the ravine, something whitish snorted and scrambled out of range of their flashlights. Graham’s heart leaped into his mouth until Gil, with a nervous little laugh, said: “Goat. They run wild here.”
They scrambled up the ravine, sweating with exertion, until they could climb out on level land. After a short rest they set out again, checking their direction by the map and the stars. Graham walked behind Sklar, the wind pushing at him gently but continuously.
The half-moon was high in the sky, and Graham was sure they had covered many kilometers when Sklar said: “Lights out; we’re getting close.”
Graham stumbled on the rough lava. The land at this point sloped all the way down to the beach on their right, instead of dropping off in the form of a cliff as it did elsewhere. As they came over a rise Graham could make out, in the moonlight, a group of structures ahead running up from the shore like steps. Behind him he heard Gil fall down with a crash and a string of whispered oaths.
“Quiet,” murmured Sklar. “Spread out.”
He led them down the slope towards the beach. As they got closer Graham could begin to make out the form of the turtle farm: the buildings proper well back from the water, and between them and the beach dozens of tanks in which March raised his stock. He sent a glance out to sea. Still no sign of the tsunami, the terrible mountain ridge of water . . .
“Let’s see that viewer,” said Sklar. Graham passed it to him. While Sklar looked through the viewer, Gil did likewise through that attached to the machine gun. After a while Sklar passed the viewer back to Graham, who looked through it. Gil offered his gun to Varnipaz, who whispered: “No thank you. My retinas are sensitive farther down in the infrared than yours, so I can see well enough.”
“They seem to all have gone to bed,” said Sklar, “but unless I miss my guess, they’ll have Miss Jeru locked up somewhere and a man watching outside her door. They don’t know about Wen yet, so maybe they ain’t expecting company. Varny, you come with me around the left side of the tanks, while you other two go around the right side and try to find this guard. Go slow and kip your heads down.”
He set off in a crouching position, and the others did likewise. Graham followed Gil, who every few steps raised his head above the level of the tanks to peer through his scope. From the tanks came faint bumpings as the turtles moved about.
They had reached the upper end of the tanks and had just turned left towards the other side of the layout when they heard a sharp “Pst!” They hurried ahead to where Sklar and Varnipaz crouched. The former whispered: “We found him! In front of a little buildink at the south end.”
“A concrete building with only small weendows, high up?” inquired Gil.
“That’s it.”
“That would be the sea water distilling plant.”
Sklar said: “We can’t blow up these buildinks until we know for sure which one she’s in. But we can make a diversion. Varny, take your stuff around to the north end and get it ready to make a nice big explosion and fire. But don’t set it off unless you hear shootink from us. Then come back and join us quick.”
“Gil had better do it,” said Varnipaz. “I do not know much about explosives.”
Gil accordingly took the bag and faded off into the night. The others began stalking the guard outside the distilling plant.
“He’s around the next corner,” breathed Sklar, passing his viewer back to Graham. The constable took out his paralyzer, raised it, and peered around the corner of the building they were hiding behind.
The gadget went brrrp!
There was an exclamation from the unseen guard, cut off in the middle, and then the clatter of a dropped gun. They rushed around the building that sheltered them, to find the man lying in the moonlight, his gun beside him. His eyes were open and he twitched in a way that showed he was still much alive. It was Hank, the attendant at the Bay Head nudery.
Graham examined the building the man had been guarding. It was, as Gil had said, a small concrete structure with no outside openings save one small square one high up on each wall, which looked more like ventilator openings with bars across them than windows and did not seem promising as means of egress.
The door was of wood, but stout and strong. It was also locked.
Sklar fumbled through the guard’s pockets. “No key. That The’erhiya is smart. See if you can make her hear.”
Graham put his mouth to the door and murmured: “Betty! Betty!”
After he had done this for half a minute he heard a faint: “Is that you, Gorodon?”
“Yes. Hold tight; we’re going to get you out.”
“Out of the way, sonny boy,” said Sklar, and attacked the lock with his lock-picker. After several tries he said disgustedly: “Don’t fit. We’ll have to blast the lock. Graham, take the viewer and find Gil. Tell him to light a lonk fuze and then come back to us.”
Graham took the viewer and stole off towards the north end of the settlement. He found Gil laying out an elaborate series of noise- and fire-making preparations against the northernmost building.
When Graham had given his message, the Brazilian said thoughtfully: “I theenk I will keep the gelatin. It’ll be useful on our way back; in that loose rock it will be as good as a fragmentation bomb.”
He finished pegging out his fuzes, snapped his cigarette lighter into flame, and applied it to the ends. When the fuzes were all fizzing, they headed back towards the other end of the hamlet.
Back at the distillery, Graham asked: “The fuzes are lit; what are you going to do?”
Sklar replied: “When they go off I’m going to blast the lock with this.” He patted the machine gun.
“Won’t the shots go through the door and hit Betty?”
“I told her to get behind the cooling coils, so she’ll be pretty safe . . .”
Wham! A sudden glare lit up the night sky and the shockwave buffeted them. The main explosion was followed by a series of lesser reports, and the pinkish flare of the incendiary mixture cast long lurid beams among the buildings.
Voices called into the night, to be drowned by further explosions. Somewhere doors opened and running feet pounded.
“Get back,” said Sklar. “Around the corner. Don’t want to hit you with a ricochet.”
The constable lay down on his back with his feet against the door of the distillery and began firing bursts at the wood around the lock. The hammering of the gun drowned out the other noises.
“Okus dokus,” said Sklar, and the three others ran around the corner of the building behind which they had taken refuge. Where the lock had been the door showed a gaping jagged black hole. With a little shaking the door came open.
“Betty!” called Graham.
“I come,” she said, and stepped out from behind the coils.
“Hurry,” said Sklar.
As Jeru-Bhetiru stepped out of the building, Graham saw that all she had on was a pair of men’s pants much too big for her and a pair of rope-soled Spanish shoes.
“Hey!” cried a voice, and a man started towards them between the rows of buildings.
Sklar, still holding the machine gun, whipped it to his shoulder and fired a burst. The man dropped. As he did so, the gun gave a final click and stopped firing, its bolt open.
“Take it,” said Sklar, and tossed it to Gil, who fumbled at his belt for another clip as he ran. They all trotted south back over the route by which they had come. The li
ght of the fire allowed them to run without their flashlights—for a while at any rate. As if in answer to the fire, the eastern horizon had now begun to show the first faint pallor of dawn.
Somewhere behind them a gun cracked. And again. And again. A bullet hit a rock and screamed off.
Then they were out of the firelight and had to slow down to avoid stumbling. Gil said: “You go on; I cover you.” He knelt behind a rock and sighted on the little black figures boiling out of the buildings, silhouetted against the glow of the fire.
Graham, his earlier fears forgotten, lusted to feel the kick of a gun. He rested his pistol on another rock. As the machine gun clattered beside him the little figures ducked this way and that. Graham squeezed his trigger. The pistol bucked in his hand, but it was too far for pistol-shooting and he could not tell if he had hit anybody. They were all out of sight, now, but from among the hummocks came little twinkling flashes and the sound of shots.
“Go on,” said Gil. “We have to take turns at this.”
Graham reluctantly went on, soon catching up with the others by virtue of his long legs. They picked their way, unable to use their lights for fear of drawing fire. Presently Gil panted up after them, saying: “If you want a turn, Meester Gordon, here it is,” and handed him the gun. “Don’t stay too long; just enough to make them stop and take cover.”
Graham found a place between a couple of boulders that gave him a loophole of convenient size. He waited while the footsteps of the others died away behind him. Too bad, he thought, that Sklar’s paralyzer had such a short range . . .
After a long time a light appeared. Somebody was coming ahead slowly, sweeping the surface of the lava with a powerful flash. Graham sighted on the light and fired a burst.
The light went out. There were cries and the sound of men running and stumbling. Graham, calculating that they would shoot at the flash of his machine gun, ducked back behind the larger of the two boulders. Sure enough, a rattle of shots came, mingled with the shrill ptweeoo! of the ricochets. Then there was a sharper crack and a straight line of blue arc flashed into being. It ended among the rocks on the seaward side of Graham. That would be an Osirian shock gun. Crack! The blue arc winked again, close enough to make Graham’s muscles jerk with the electrical surge.
The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens Page 28