Nigel Findley

by Out Of Nippon

  She saw a look of disgust cross the copilot’s face, but he nodded and grunted, “Hai, O’Neir-saw.”

  O’Neil slid his seat back and climbed out, careful to avoid bumping against the control yoke. He rolled his head from side to side to release tension in his neck and shoulders, then sauntered out into the passenger compartment. He indicated the seat across the aisle from Nikki. “Mind if I join you?” he asked lightly. “It’s much easier to talk this way.” Without waiting for her to answer, he settled himself down in the seat, stretching his long legs out into the aisle. He shot her a broad grin. “The only way to fly.”

  At another time, Nikki might have enjoyed his easygoing manner; now it was making her impatient. “Tell me about Sumatra,” she said.

  “Sumatra,” the pilot began. He hesitated, reached forward and pulled the curtain closed across the doorway. Then he settled back comfortably again. “First of all, they call the area ‘Orrorsh’ now.”

  “You mean Sumatra?” She thought back to Eichiro’s briefing. “I thought they called it ‘Majestic,’ or something like that.”

  “That’s Sumatra itself,” he explained. “Orrorsh is what they’re calling the whole region: Sumatra, Malaysia, Java, Timor, Borneo, the Celebes, even parts of Thailand and the Philippines.”

  “So it’s all one country now?” she asked.

  The pilot shook his head. “Not a country,” he told her firmly. “Orrorsh has nothing to do with politics or nationality. It’s like …” He paused, obviously struggling to order his thoughts. “It’s a … a place.” He shrugged. “Some people call it a ‘realm but maybe that’s not the best word. Orrorsh is an area where … where certain things happen.” He shrugged again, apparently not satisfied with his explanation.

  “What do you mean, ‘certain things’?”

  O’Neil was looking really uncomfortable, she noticed. “I’m what you’d call a shortwave junkie,” he started, somewhat obliquely. “It’s one of my hobbies. I’ve got a shortwave radio I built myself, and nights when I’m not flying I listen to shortwave broadcasts from around the world.” Nikki nodded, understanding —like me and the Voice of America.

  “It used to be I’d pick up a lot of broadcasts from Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, even from Palembang in Sumatra,” the pilot went on. “They’re close to Japan so they’d come in real clear. A couple of years back, though, those stations just went off the air. Like, I’d get nothing from that part of the world. And that’s when the stations I could still pick up — the ones in Manilla and a couple in Australia — started reporting weird stories. That’s when they started calling the area Orrorsh.

  “I’m a pilot,” O’Neil said, “so I paid most attention to things that affect pilots — changes in the weather, plane crashes, that kind of thing.” The man was consciously keeping his voice emotionless, but Nikki could see from his body language and expression that he was disturbed. “There were lots of plane crashes,” he went on. “A couple of airliners went down over Orrorsh. The international airlines rearranged their flight paths to bypass the area. Research expeditions were sent in to find out what had happened. Their planes went down. The new US government in Texas sent an SR-71 Blackbird spyplane up from Kadena Air Force Base, sent it over Orrorsh at 75,000 feet for a look-see. It fell out of the sky.”

  Nikki felt a cold fist tighten in her stomach. There was something highly disturbing about the dispassionate way O’Neil was describing the disasters. “Why?” she asked. “What went wrong?”

  O’Neil shrugged. “Nobody really knows,” he told her, “nobody outside Orrorsh. Maybe the people who still live there know—the ones who haven’t fled as refugees. But they’re not telling.” He hesitated. “From what the shortwave stations said, the planes just stopped working. All the high technology that makes a modern plane work — computerized navigation, radar, autopilot, the hydraulics and servos that drive the control surfaces… It all just stopped. From what they say, you can’t trust anything more technologically advanced than …” — he searched for an example — ” .. .than steamships.”

  Nikki shook her head. What O’Neil was saying didn’t make sense. High technology worked according to the laws of physics. If it stopped working, didn’t that mean that the laws of physics — the supposedly immutable laws of physics — had changed? Impossible …

  Or seemingly so. But wasn’t this just the kind of thing the Voice of America had been reporting over the last few months? According to reliable reports, dragons cruised the skies over the British Isles. But according to the laws of physics and aerodynamics, there was no conceivable way something built like a mythical dragon could ever fly. If I accept the reports that there are dragons, Nikki thought, doesn’t that logically mean that the laws of physics have changed? And I have to accept them.

  Another thought struck her. “And we’re flying in there?” she asked.

  O’Neil chuckled. “Nagara management doesn’t like to think about Orrorsh,” he said, “but they’re not that stupid. That’s why were landing at Spratly Island. We transfer to a transport ship — a ship with its diesel turbines replaced with coal-burning boilers, they tell me — and sail to Sumatra. A nice pleasure cruise, they tell me.”

  Nikki smiled, at least partially relieved. Suddenly she realized something. “You said ‘we,’” she pointed out.

  O’Neil grinned broadly. “That’s what I said,” he agreed. “You’re not getting rid of me easily, old buddy old pal. Iba-san, up front there, gets to fly this baby back to Tokyo. I got my transfer orders a couple of days back. I’m officially seconded to the Inderagiri Research Facility. Sounds like I’m in for the duration.”

  “Why?” Nikki demanded. “If planes don’t work…”

  The pilot’s smile faded. “Yeah, there’s that. But old Eichiro-san wants to cover all bases. Part of the outpost’s equipment is a small helicopter, stripped down for shipment. Some technicians are already there, they should have it airworthy by the time I get there. If my luck holds, the engine won’t fire, or I won’t be able to get the thing into the air. What really worries me is that I’ll be a few thousand feet up when Orrorsh suddenly decides that helicopters ain’t going to work no more.” His smile returned and he chuckled. “Ah, well, that’s why they pay me the big bucks. Yeah, right.”

  Nikki looked at the pilot with new interest. Doesn’t anything bother him for long? she wondered. His smile was infectious, and she found herself laughing. “Maybe a little sabotage would help you out,” she suggested lightly. “How about if I put some sake in the fuel tank?”

  “No no no no,” he shouted in mock horror, “that’ll burn better than avgas. Now maybe soy sauce would do it, or a yakitori skewer in the transfer housing.”

  Nikki fell silent for a moment. “If nothing more sophisticated than steam power works,” she wondered, “what about my equipment? Automated genetic analyzers, that kind of thing?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” he asked jokingly. ‘The cargo planes were loaded with wood-burning computers …”

  “… And printers with steam-driven carriages,” she added, laughing again, “I know.”

  “That sounds about right.” He sighed and stretched.

  “Well, I’d better get back to work. If I don’t keep an eye on him, Iba’s likely to make a torpedo run on the first American-flagged ship he sees.” He patted her on the shoulder companionably. “See you on board ship.” He shook his head in mock despair. “They’ve probably

  given me a cabin in steerage.”

  * * *

  Nikki didn’t get to see much of Spratly Island — not that there was much to see, according to O’Neil. As the V/STOL dropped below the cloud deck for its final approach, she could hear rain rattling against the fuselage like rock salt fired from a shotgun. Water streamed down the window, obscuring whatever view there might have been.

  When the plane was down, she and the other passengers had to sprint across the jury-rigged airstrip, which was right on the shoreline, to a quonset hut. In the dozen
or so seconds it took her, she was soaked to the skin with warm rain. The cloud cover was total — grey-black stormclouds—and lightning strobed in the sky. They had to wait in the hut for half an hour, chilling down and shivering, while the air filled with the smell of wet cloth. Then they had to brave the rain again, as they were shepherded out onto a makeshift jetty, and instructed to climb down a wet and slick ladder to the deck of a small tender. Sopping wet again, they huddled below decks as the boat pulled away from the docks. Five minutes later they were out in the downpour once more, climbing a steep, slippery stairway to the deck of the ship that would take them to Sumatra.

  The ship was big, bigger than Nikki had expected: a couple of hundred feet from bow to stern, broad-beamed and low to the water. As it rode at anchor, it rocked disturbingly with the waves. What’s it going to he like when we’re underway? Nikki wondered. Already Bojo and Matsukara from her workgroup were looking a little green around the gills, and Nikki herself — usually a good sailor — was feeling a little less than comfortable. To take her mind off her queasiness, she concentrated on unpacking some of her personal luggage, and making her cabin — a small compartment, not much larger than a single bed — as comfortable and homey as she could. She was reassured when the ship weighed anchor. Once underway, it seemed to ride much more smoothly, and her intimations of seasickness vanished.

  At her first opportunity, she explored the ship. Most of it was given over to cargo holds—some refrigerated — filled almost to capacity with wooden crates bearing cryptic annotations in kanji. From the few designations she recognized, she guessed that much of the cargo was food, and other necessities of day-to-day life. Presumably the lab equipment—for her group and for the Matsushima Bay team — had already gone ahead on another ship.

  The passenger accommodations were all in the large, blocky superstructure near the stern, while the crew cabins were directly below in the hull. There were twenty-four passengers, she was surprised to find: her workgroup — seven, including her — O’Neil and a couple of mechanics, with the remaining fourteen being Nagara security personnel. (More than a dozen security guards? she wondered. What is this place we’re going to?) Each of the cabins apart from hers had two bunks, and everyone else was doubled up. There are some benefits to being the only woman on board, she recognized.

  In response to her questions, one of the Japanese crewmembers had told her — somewhat grudgingly, she thought—the voyage to the mouth of the Inderagiri River would take about three days, at a top speed of seventeen knots. Three days of nothing to do, she thought.

  And then we’re in Orrorsh. This assignment wasn’t

  turning out the way she’d expected.

  *

  On the second day underway, the passengers were called to a meeting on the open deck of the ship, just for’ard of the superstructure. The weather had changed overnight, and a tropical sun was beating down from a cloudless sky. For the first time, the wardrobe choices Nikki had made — mainly shorts and light cotton shirts — made some sense.

  The meeting was conducted by the head of the security contingent, she was surprised to see. Arrayed behind him, like soldiers on parade, were the other security guards. The other ten passengers stood in a disorganized knot in front of him.

  “We are travelling to Orrorsh,” the security head started without preamble, his voice carrying easily over the low-pitched throbbing of the engines. “This brings with it certain security considerations. Your safety is our responsibility, and that of the security personnel already at the Inderagiri Research Facility.” That surprised Nikki. There’s more security guards?

  “It has been decided,” the man continued, “that this will be made easier if you have the ability to protect yourselves. “Therefore you will each be issued with a personal defence weapon.” The group of passengers burst into confused muttering, quickly stilled as the security head went on. “The purpose of this meeting is to familiarize you with this weapon and to give you an opportunity to handle it. You will be officially issued your weapons only on arrival at the outpost.”

  He reached down and pulled a pistol from a holster that Nikki only now noticed on his belt. He held it above his head. “This is the Komatsu ‘Viper’ Personal Defense Pistol,” he announced. “It is chambered exclusively for flechette rounds, with 14 rounds to a clip, and has an integral laser sighting system. You will please step forward one at a time to receive your weapon.”

  Nikki stared in shock. I can’t believe what I’m hearing, she told herself. Guns? They can’t expect us to take them …

  But of course they do, she realized as the others moved forward to receive their weapons. And all the good little sararimen go along with it without a single question. She was surprised — and, she had to admit, a little disappointed — to see that O’Neil was near the front of the group.

  He must have seen her disapproval in her expression. Separating himself from the others, he joined her at the back of the group. His smile — which she saw as maddening again, not charming—was in place. “Don’t like it, huh?” he asked quietly.

  “No,” she snapped, “no I don’t.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re scientists, not … not cowboys,” she almost sputtered. “I’ll never be in a situation where I’ll need a gun.”

  “You intend never to be in a situation where you’ll need a gun,” he corrected calmly. “Tell me, do you wear a life jacket when you go sailing?” Before she could respond, he asked the follow-up question:” Why? You don’t intend to fall overboard, do you?”

  Nikki shook her head impatiently; she’d seen the second question coming. “It’s not the same at all,” she stated.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?” he asked. “From the stories I’ve heard about Orrorsh, you carry a gun the way you’d wear a life jacket sailing in heavy seas: out of enlightened self interest.”

  O’Neil’s smile hadn’t faded, but there was something different in his eyes and in his voice that chilled Nikki to the core. He’s serious about this, she told herself, he’s dead serious. “What stories?” she asked, her voice hushed.

  He glanced around them. For the first time, she noticed that some of the others—including a couple of the security personnel — were watching them a little suspiciously. “I’ll tell you later,” he said. “Let’s get this out of the way.”

  A little cowed by the pilot’s manner and his words, Nikki joined the line-up.

  Eventually it was her turn. Each of the non-security passengers received the personal attention of one security guard. The man who stepped up to Nikki was short — the top of his head not even reaching the level of her eyes — but squat, and muscles bulged under his blue-and-white jumpsuit. “My name is Dei, Carrson-san,” he said politely. “Have you ever used a pistol before?”

  I’ve never even touched one. She didn’t say it out loud, however; she just shook her head.

  He held the pistol — my pistol, she thought uncomfortably — out toward her. “You are right-handed?” he asked. She nodded. “Then take it in your right hand, Carrson-sfln.”

  She looked at the pistol in his hand. It seemed to be made of black plastic, small — not too much longer than her hand — but even more deadly-seeming because of that. It wasn’t the brutal, hard-edged thing she’d expected. Its swept lines were smooth, graceful even. If she could have blocked from her mind its nature and purpose, she might even have found it beautiful. She shook her head: the idea was perverse, grotesque. Slowly, unwilling to touch it but forcefully suppressing her misgivings, she took the pistol, weighed it in her hand. It wasn’t as heavy as she might have thought; she guessed it weighed about two pounds. The grip was hard rubber, or some plastic that felt like rubber, ridged and grooved —checkered, she thought, for a good grip, so it won’t slip even if your hand’s sweating.

  Dei pointed to a switch on the left side of the gun, just above the grip. “This is the safety catch, Carrson-san,” he explained. “You can switch it on and off with your right
thumb as you hold the gun. Down, like it is now, the gun is safe: it can’t fire, and you can’t even cock it. Up, like this” — he moved her thumb, flipped the switch up with a metallic snick—“the gun will fire. Please remember that. The most common serious mistake a gun user makes is not knowing the state of his weapon. Do you understand?”

  Nikki nodded dumbly.

  “Then please make your weapon safe, Carrson-san.”

  Obediently, she snapped the safety back on.

  “Good,” Dei said.

  She looked at him. Was he patronizing her? No, she decided after a moment. The young man was businesslike, but friendly. If he considered her a second-class citizen because she was a woman and a gaijin, he hid it exceptionally well. He’s just making sure I know something he considers important, she told herself, something he thinks might keep me alive. She shivered.

  “This” — and now Dei pointed to button, on the left side of the grip just behind the trigger guard — “is the magazine release. Please hold your left hand under the butt of the weapon” — she did so — “and press this button.”

  She did as she was instructed. The magazine — a metal clip a little longer than the grip of the pistol — slid free and fell into her hand.

  “This, of course, contains the bullets,” Dei explained. “Or not exactly bullets, in this case. As my superior said, the Viper is designed to fire what are called flechettes — bundles of tiny slivers of metal, packed tightly together. Flechette rounds are designed to be particularly effective against lightly-armored or unarmored targets.” A smile, quick as a strobe light, flashed across his face. “Let us both hope you never have to check out their effectiveness personally.

  “Don’t worry about how the rounds go into the clip, or how to replace them,” the security guard went on. “If it ever becomes necessary, one of us will give you additional clips. When a clip is empty — after you’ve fired fourteen rounds — press the release, let the clip fall out, and slide a replacement into the butt. Try replacing the clip now. Press it in hard until you hear it seat.”