Alice wiped her hands on a towel and brought the laptop to the galley counter. Looking at the screen, her eyes widened in shock before her grin returned. She ran an auto-check that went through Jennifer’s answers, then let out a cheerful laugh.
“What?” Jennifer asked, her heart hammering.
“Ninety-one percent!”
“That’s…cool? Right?”
“Jennifer dear, ninety-one is superb!” Alice’s laugh gave way to her grin once more. “Especially since you only had to answer ten questions.”
Jennifer’s stomach dropped.
“You answered all fifty questions quicker than most graduates take to answer ten!”
Jennifer blanched, realizing she had been caught in Alice’s mischievous deception. Her first reaction was defense, but she regained herself, retreating into innocent amnesia.
“So that’s good? I don’t know—it just came to me.”
Like a wise owl eyeing her prey, Alice gave Jennifer a knowing smile. For a moment, Jennifer faltered, surprising herself at being intimidated by the beautiful redhead; she was paranoid from her many years as a clandestine agent of the SS. Clearly, I’ve underestimated her.
Alice closed the laptop and went back to the onions. “You know,” she said, her back turned to Jennifer, “with scores like that, you could get a scholarship to any university you wanted. All fifty questions—you know professors love seeing that kind of initiative. Marty certainly does. You’re a very smart young lady.”
Jennifer came up behind Alice, embraced her, and gave the surprised woman a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you very much, Alice. It makes me very proud to hear that from you.” Jennifer let go before continuing. “Please, allow me to help you with dinner.”
Her stride broken, Alice took a moment before recovering her usual cheerful smirk. “Of course, love. It’s well deserved. Here, you can set the table. The team’ll be back soon. Forks on the left, in case you don’t remember.”
Jennifer almost said, “What’s a fork?” but caught herself.
Jennifer laid out napkins and cutlery, making a mental note to watch herself around Alice. To study and adapt to this culture, she planned to become a graduate student even though she already had three PhDs. Her confidence came from her success with Trans-Time One and the strategic plan that fooled the superior Syndos. She had planned her escape for years and knew the twenty-first century as well as anyone in the thirtieth. Getting into the University of Hawaii would be easy enough—but perhaps she should select a field where she wouldn’t stand out. Maybe ancient history.
* * *
Dinner was beginning to smell wonderful and Jennifer was ravenous by the time she heard the hum of distant motors. Peering out the fuselage door, she saw the Zodiacs approaching.
“Alice, they’re almost here.”
“Right on time.” Alice finished placing bowls of cut fruit on the table around a large pot of seasoned fish stew she called bouillabaisse. “We didn’t bring much dried fish. But if their initial findings support past studies, we should be able to catch fresh fish in the ocean without having to worry about the radiation.”
“I can help with that. I did a lot of fishing while I was stranded, and I know a few good spots.”
“I hope you relied more on fish than any of the fruit you found on the island. We’re still worried you might have radiation poisoning from being there so long.”
“We can worry about that later, Alice.”
“You’ll have to tell us more over dinner, about how you managed to survive there all alone as long as you did. The others will be fascinated, I’m sure.”
“How many ‘others’ are there? I’ve only met Marty, Lacy, you, and Mike.”
“The rest are Marty’s other grad students: Ken Morikawa, Kai Smith, and Bill Kiaomoku.”
“What are they like?”
“You’ll meet them soon enough. Lacy is top of the class, but a bit shy. Bill’s a joker and Ken’s the quiet type, but they’re all hard workers and Kai…Well Kai is Kai.” Alice laughed at some private joke.
Jennifer looked at her quizzically.
“You’ll see. C’mon, let’s help ’em aboard.”
The Zodiacs arrived on the port side of the Albatross. Marty piloted the large Zodiac to the forward side of the port door. Jennifer tossed the mooring line to one of the men sharing the boat, then helped Lacy and the two young men aboard—one Polynesian-looking, the other more northern Asian like Lacy. Alice helped Mike tie off the second Zodiac on the other side of the door, and a petite blonde climbed up on her own, waving off Mike’s outstretched hand.
“I’ve got it, dude,” she said impatiently.
The tall Polynesian-looking man laughed and reached for Alice’s arm. “Not too proud for some help here—I’m still getting the hang of climbing in and out of this thing!”
Both groups looked worn from their long day of fieldwork in the tropical sun and ocean wind, but the smell of Alice’s cooking gave them new life. They piled into the amphibious plane in high spirits.
“Smells good, Alice,” Marty said when he saw the spread on the dining table. “Everyone step-to, get your samples secured in the lab and clean up. We’ve got good grub and a new guest to meet.” Turning to Jennifer, he continued, “Everything all right so far? I know it’s a bit cramped.”
“Everything is cool, thank you, Marty.”
With a grunt of approval, he lifted down the satchel slung across his shoulder and set it on the deck. Then Marty headed toward the back of the plane, Alice following.
“Hello again, Ms. Hero,” Lacy said, setting down her pack. “Wow, did you help Alice with dinner? It smells and looks really good.”
“Alice did all the cooking. I just helped set the table. And please call me Jennifer.”
“Okay.” Lacy blushed again and ducked her head. “Hey, everyone’s really been dying to meet you.”
“We all want to know the mystery woman,” said the tall, Polynesian-looking man, a bright smile spreading across his face. He offered his hand. “Bill Kiaomoku.”
Jennifer returned his firm handshake. “Jennifer Hero. Pleased to meet you.”
He looked at her with frank curiosity. “So how did you survive out here for months? Were you shipwrecked?”
“Whoa, Mister Twenty Questions! Maybe hold off on the interrogation until dinner?” The sultry voice belonged to the blonde who had refused Mike’s help getting into the plane. She emerged from the back where she’d evidently freshened up, her cargo shorts and tank top replaced with a t-shirt and linen Capri pants. “Bill is the original elephant’s child. Doesn’t matter what, he has to find out!” She lightly kissed the top of Lacy’s head as she passed, then brushed a strand of hair out of Lacy’s eyes. Lacy leaned away from the touch, looking annoyed.
“C’mon, Kai,” Bill said. “We all want to know, I’m just the one who asked first.” He turned again to Jennifer. “Roughing it out here all alone sounds tough.”
“Exactly,” said the shorter man following Kai, wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt that seemed at odds with his tidy crew cut and dark-rimmed spectacles. “She’s probably still worn out from it.” Approaching Jennifer, he offered a shallow bow and pushed up his glasses. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Kenji Morikawa. You may call me Ken for short.”
Jennifer thought he was probably the youngest of the four. Amused by his sincerely formal attitude, she flickered with mischief and summoned up her knowledge of twenty-first-century social mores. With a mock curtsey, she said, “The pleasure belongs to me, Ken-san.”
“She beat you at your own game, Ken-Mo!” Kai laughed. “Nice blush, buddy.” More seriously, she said to Jennifer, “It’s nice to have another girl around—now we have even numbers.”
Bill groaned. “And the bathroom will be even harder to get into.”
Jennifer fluffed her hair. “I’m going to need a lot of time to maintain this look, now that I have a comb.”
The others laughed.
“Al
l right, all right,” Mike said. “Enough standing around. You heard the captain. Get your samples into the lab. We’ll have more to jabber about at dinner.”
Kai pulled a face of intense sadness. “It’s a hard-knock life…”
“Yeah, California Girl,” Bill added, “snorkeling in paradise all day sucks.”
Ken permitted himself a smile while the other three students laughed. They headed toward the back, leaving Jennifer reeling from meeting so many new faces at once.
“Ornery, ain’t they?” Mike asked. “They’re fair dinkum cobbers, though. As long as that Bill don’t talk your ear off.”
Jennifer asked tentatively, “Fair dinkum…?”
“Don’t ye mind me and Alice,” Mike said. “We’re Aussie, can’t you tell from the accent? ‘Fair dinkum’ means pretty good, and a cobber’s a person you like.”
Jennifer nodded, mentally noting “Ozzie” or “Aussy” as something else to look up. So far, fitting back into the twenty-first century had gone smoothly. But maintaining “amnesia” was the hard part.
CHAPTER 7
Fishing at Sea
Jennifer woke in her bunk as the sun freed itself from the horizon. The crew of the Albatross was already up and preparing their diving gear.
“What’s on the schedule today, Professor?” Bill asked groggily. He absently chewed on a biscuit, then held it between his teeth as he tested his regulator.
“We’ll be at research site Bravo most of today,” Marty replied. The pungent scent of coffee drifted from the mug he held. “We need both terrestrial and aquatic samples. After sunset, we’re going back to Alpha to get nocturnal samples.”
Kai groaned. “Nothing like an easy day at my dream job.”
Bill whacked the back of Kai’s shoulder gently with his diving glove. “Suck it up, princess. You beat out how many other grad students for this project?”
Kai considered for a moment, then smugly announced, “Six.”
“Uh-huh,” Bill said.
Jennifer eyed the two curiously, but their teasing seemed part of a sibling-like relationship rather than anything deeper. And Kai was obviously much smarter than she chose to appear. Maybe I could learn something from her about subterfuge.
“Ah, g’day, Jennifer,” Alice said as Jennifer squeezed past her in the galley. “Got breakfast on the table. Help yourself, dear.”
“Thank you, Alice,” Jennifer said. “Good morning, Bill and Kai.”
She sat at the table, where Alice had fruit and biscuits prepared. Lacy already had a plate stacked with what looked like a week’s supply of food, her diving bag neatly prepped next to her.
“Bonjour,” Jennifer said as she reached for the platter. “Cela fait beaucoup de fruits!”
“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Hero,” Lacy shyly replied. “Je reçois tellement faim quand nous sommes sur l'eau.”
“I’m always hungry on the water, too! And remember, it’s perfectly all right just to call me Jennifer.”
“Ah…yes, of course, um, Jennifer.”
Mike climbed through the side door, evidently coming from one of the Zodiacs. “The large Zodiac’s all set and proper, Captain.”
Marty sipped his coffee. “Roger that.”
“Hey, Marty,” Alice asked, “you fellas are just taking the large Zodiac, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How about yours truly and Jennifer do some fishing today? She said she knows some good spots. We could take the smaller Zodiac and bring in some fresh catch for dinner tonight.”
Marty glanced skeptically at Jennifer.
“It’s true,” Jennifer said. “I had great success fishing with just my makeshift tools. With the proper equipment, I’m sure we can accomplish similar results.”
“Hear that, Captain?” Mike said. “Fresh catch would be spiffy.”
“I’m all for that idea,” Kai said as she approached, her dive bag slung across her shoulder. She eyed the breakfast biscuits with disdain, then looked directly at Kenji Morikawa. “I’d love to bite into a big slab of meat.”
Ken blushed scarlet to the roots of his hair and busied himself intently with his dive bag, while Lacy choked on her biscuit and had to be pounded on the back by Alice.
Bill whacked Kai with his diving glove again. “We know, we know, you’re a sex bomb. Now stuff it into a wetsuit and leave poor Ken alone.”
Kai made an exaggerated pout, but said no more.
Marty had either ignored the exchange or was genuinely lost in thought. In the silence that fell, he said, “I’ll want to wait for the results of our sampling before we ingest anything found near the study site.”
“If you’re worried about that, Jen-girl and I will just go out a bit farther—catch some tucker from the deeper waters. The migratory fish out there shouldn’t have any contamination.”
Marty chuckled. “That’s true, but I doubt you’ll have much luck hauling in a big catch from open waters.”
“I’ll have you know, Marty, I’m an excellent fisherwoman!” Alice said. “And the Amazon here survived four months on what she could fish up with scrapped tools.”
Marty still looked doubtful.
“C’mon, mate,” Mike said. “No harm letting them go out. Alice can handle choppy water so the Zodiac will be fine.”
“All right, all right. You two try some fishing. Just be safe.” Marty sipped his coffee and addressed his students. “Everyone else, hop to. Get your gear in the Zodiac and let’s head out.”
He drained his coffee mug and set it in the sink. “Oh, and Kai—cut it out.”
Now it was the California girl’s turn to blush, but she quickly grinned with good humor. “Roger that, Captain.” Kai headed for the aircraft door and mounted the ladder, but not before Jennifer saw her hand sneak out and pinch Ken’s rear end.
Mike kissed Alice and whispered a few words in her ear before he climbed back down into the raft. Jennifer’s heart gave a squeeze as she remembered sweet words in her ear from Zexton on their last assignment together. She had more in common with the married couple on the team than the very young graduate students.
The students busied themselves passing gear down to the Zodiac through a human chain before they climbed in. They shut the door as Alice joined Jennifer at the table.
“Help me clean up first, darlin’, and we’ll get the tackle ready. I can’t wait to prove Marty wrong when we bring back a huge catch.”
Fiery determination filled the redhead’s eyes. Jennifer smiled, inspired by Alice’s spirit.
The two of them cleaned off the table and quickly washed the dishes. Then Alice safety-checked the smaller Zodiac floating outside the Albatross before they loaded fishing supplies in.
“You’re a ripper help, Jennifer, thank you.”
“Of course.”
“I think we’re all set. Are you ready for some fishing? I want at least a fifty-pounder.”
Jennifer was not sure if Alice was sincere in her claim, but remembered not to underestimate the lively redhead. “If we’re hunting that large a target, I recommend netting some fresh baitfish first. There was a good spot near where I set up my camp. That is why I chose the spot.”
“And it doesn’t matter if they’re radiated—they won’t be in the big fish long enough to matter.”
With a determined smile, Alice started the Zodiac’s engine and they sped across the waves toward the shallows around the atoll.
On Jennifer’s guidance, Alice steered west toward a shallow reef on the ocean side near yesterday’s landing site. They carried the Zodiac, full of fishing gear, bags, masks, snorkels, a bang stick and a net for small fish, over the sand toward the ocean. They set the Zodiac back in the water and got in again.
With Alice holding one end of the net and Jennifer the other, they soon saw a flashing school of silver moving through the water. Working together, they pulled the net in a circle, snaring over two dozen opelu. Satisfied with the catch, they moved to the open sea. Jennifer operated the boat, steering it confid
ently through openings in the reef, which she had grown to know well. While she maneuvered, Alice rigged several hooks with the ten-inch-long bait fish.
“How far out do you want to go, Alice?” Jennifer asked, as the rough open waters grew choppier. She’d told Alice she was reasonably comfortable at the wheel, but didn’t want to be put in the position of showing her boating skills to avoid an accident.
Still focused on baiting the fishing lines, Alice answered, “Look for seabirds. There might be tuna schools migrating out here. Birds follow them to feed on small fish that tuna drive to the surface. That’ll be our signal.”
Jennifer was fascinated by Alice’s knowledge of fishing. She had resorted to the primal practice many times while on the island, knowing she would have to acclimate to killing and eating fish as well as using other primitive harvesting methods. Yet still she felt unaccustomed to the act of hunting. Perhaps Alice’s casual manner at the practice would have to grow on Jennifer if she was to fit in.
“How did you learn about using birds for fishing?”
“Mike told me about it,” Alice responded, moving on to another line. “He and Marty used to do a lot of ocean fishing back when they were in the Coast Guard together.”
“Coast Guard? That’s a military organization, right?”
“Yeah, but mostly the U.S. Coast Guard rescues people in peace time and that was Marty and Mike’s main reason to join. That was a while back. Mike later became a flight engineer for Delta just like his dad. That’s where he and I met—been married for three years now.”
No wonder they still kiss like newlyweds whenever they part. “And Marty? How did he become a professor?”
“Marty’s uncle is some famous ecologist. After the Coast Guard, he kinda followed in his uncle’s footsteps to become a scientist. Though he wants to focus on the oceanic environment instead of terrestrial environments like his uncle. He has real passion for it, you know? Never been concerned with the money aspect of it. Marty just wants to help people and make sure the next generation will know how to respect the ocean. When he called on Mike and I to help him pilot for the trip, we couldn’t refuse—it’s definitely better than just flying from point A to point B, thank you for flying, here’s your peanuts.”
30th Century: Escape (30th Century Trilogy Book 1) Page 6