Nikki slid the metal clip back into the pistol butt, shoved hard on the base until it clicked into place.
“Remove the clip again, please, Carrson-san, and hand it to me.” She did so. Dei pocketed the magazine, flashed another millisecond-long smile at her. “It pays to be safe when training beginners,” he explained, a little apologetically.
“One cocks the pistol by pulling back on the slide — the upper section here,” he went on. “Grip it like this”
— he positioned her left hand over the top of the gun
— “and pull it straight back until you hear a click. Try it now.”
She pulled the way he’d instructed, but nothing happened. The slide remained firmly in place. “It won’t move,” she pointed out.
“And why not?” he asked.
She was silent for a moment. Then she reached up with her thumb and flipped the safety off. She gripped the slide again and pulled. This time it slid smoothly back. There was a loud metallic click. She released the slide and it snapped back into position.
Dei was grinning broadly now. “Thank you for paying attention, Carrson-san,” he said, real warmth in his voice now. “You make my job easier. If there were a clip in place, your weapon would now be ready to fire. Please place your finger on the trigger and, um, take up the slack.” He spoke the last phrase in strongly-accented English.
She looked at him sharply, then grinned. He speaks English, does he? I wonder who else does around here. As Dei had instructed, she touched the trigger, pulled it back a fraction of an inch until it reached a stop. As she did so, Dei placed a broad palm a foot or so in front of the barrel. A bright red dot appeared on his palm.
“That’s the sighting laser,” he told her. “Apply 450 grams of pressure to the trigger and the laser is activated. Four hundred and fifty grams is about one pound,” he quickly — and needlessly — converted for her. “You must apply a pressure of almost 1800 grams — about four pounds — for the pistol to fire.
“Weapons like this are very easy to use,” he went on. “Wherever the sighting dot appears, that is the center of the flechette pattern. You don’t really have to aim at all, just put the dot on what you want to hit. It’s simple. Now squeeze the trigger. Slowly, just steadily apply more pressure until it ‘breaks.’”
Nikki did as instructed, slowly squeezing the trigger. The gun made a metallic clack noise.
“And you have just hit your target,” Dei concluded. “If you ever have to actually fire it, you’ll find the recoil is minimal.” He smiled again. “Congratulations, Carrson-sfljj, you have learned all you need to know to use your weapon safely.” He took the pistol from her loose grip. “We’ll keep the guns while we’re aboard ship, then pass them back to you when we reach the Inderagiri River scientific outpost. Thank you for being a good student.”
She thanked him quietly, feeling a little overwhelmed. So easy, she thought. So easy to use something that’ll kill someone. Then, I wish I’d had one of these in the Shinjuku alley, she thought harshly. She turned away, horrified and disgusted at herself.
Dei laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. She turned back.
The security guard’s face was serious again. “There’s one last thing, Carrson-san,” he said a little diffidently. “I know it’s disturbing to think about, but it’s something I feel I must tell you. If you ever have any need to use this weapon, please don’t fire just one shot. That works well on television, but not well in real life. If you have to shoot someone or something, keep firing. Keep firing until your gun is empty, or until your opponent goes down and doesn’t get up again. For both our sakes, remember this, please? Not doing so is the second most common serious mistake a gun user can make.”
Nikki nodded dumbly. She could sense his concern. Even though the idea frightened her, again she knew he was making sure she knew something he thought might keep her alive. “Domo arrigato gozaimas, Dei-saw,” she mumbled, “thank you for your concern.” She turned away.
O’Neil had finished with his trainer at about the same time she had, she noticed. The others — particularly Toshima — seemed to be having a hard go of it. The security guard assigned to Toshima looked like he was fuming with impatience, about ready to toss the slow-thinking fifty-year-old over the rail into the South China Sea.
O’Neil caught up with her as she entered the superstructure. “I’m going for coffee,” the pilot told her. “Join me?”
They went aft to the “passenger lounge” — a small, spartan room not much larger than Nikki’s cabin. Against one wall was an industrial-sized coffee urn that seemed always full of dark, bitter brew. The pilot poured himself a cup and one for Nikki. As they added cream — and in O’Neil’s case, sugar too — she reminded him, “You said you’d heard stories about Orrorsh.”
He nodded, but didn’t say anything until they’d settled themselves down at one of the small tables. “I talked to one of the workers on Spratly Island,” he started obliquely -— as he tended to do, Nikki noted. “His name was Jak-something, I didn’t catch the rest of it.” She nodded, recognizing that the only way to deal with O’Neil was to let him tell his stories in his own way. “He was an Indonesian, he said,” he continued, “he used to work in Palembang — that’s the biggest city on Sumatra.” He paused for a second, apparently expecting Nikki to break in with a question. When she didn’t,he smiled. “Jak-whatever was there when things began to change,” he went on. “He stayed for about six months, as things steadily got worse around him. That was the time when people started calling the area Orrorsh. Finally he couldn’t stand it any more, and hitched a ride on an Australian ship bound for Japan.” He chuckled. “He didn’t say it, but I figure he stowed away. Anyway, when he got to Japan, he got a job with Nagara as a freight handler, and they eventually shipped him to Spratly Island to help with the Inderagiri outpost transfer. That’s about as close as he ever wants to get to Orrorsh, he says.”
He paused, and his face grew more serious. “Jak says he left some family and friends back in Palembang. He couldn’t ‘arrange passage’ for them. He stayed in touch, of course, as much as possible with the upheavals in technology. But now he says there’s no reason to keep in touch. The last one died about a week ago.”
Nikki was silent for a moment. Then she asked, “What happened?”
“He didn’t want to talk about it,” O’Neil said with a shrug, “not specifically. But he said — I can remember his words exactly — ‘Orrorsh has become a land of horrors’. There are… things… in the jungle, things that kill people … or worse.” He hurried on to forestall Nikki’s next question. “He wouldn’t say exactly what he meant by ‘worse’. And now, he says, those things are moving into the cities. He implied, but he didn’t say directly, that those things killed his family and his friends.” He sighed. “Maybe I shouldn’t pay any attention, but I can’t help it. He worried me. He said ‘Orrorsh is a land where nightmares become real’.”
Nikki stared at the pilot, a sudden sense of sick worry writhing in her stomach. Nightmares becoming real? she repeated to herself, thinking of the dreams she’d had after Toshikazu’s death. What could be worse than that? “Did he say anything else?” she asked eventually.
“Isn’t that enough?” O’Neil countered bleakly.
*
Nikki’s eyes sprung open, rolled wildly as she tried to make sense of her environment. Featureless grey ceiling above, a dull, almost-subliminal throbbing that she felt through her bones as much as heard. Faint smells in her nostrils — smoke mixed with oil. It took her several seconds — seconds of panic — before she knew where she was. My cabin on the freighter, she realized at last. I’m safe …for the moment. She forced herself to sit upright, breathed deeply to clear the last tendrils of sleep — and the metabolic poisons of fear — from her body.
The dream had come back, as bad as it had been the first night after the ninja’s attack. The major elements were the same: Toshikazu, with his bloody smile, wielding a katana to cut her in two.
But the secondary details were different. This time, instead of the narrow alleys of Shinjuku, or the corridors of the Nagara building, it had taken place in the jungle: dark, fetid and claustrophobic.
And there’d been another figure involved, too: a dark, shrouded figure standing at the periphery of her vision. She hadn’t been able to recognize who it was — or who it was supposed to be — but she somehow had the sense it was a male. As Toshikazu had advanced with his gleaming sword, the shadowy figure had watched. And he’d laughed — a dry, menacing sound. It had been that laugh, and the brain-numbing horror that it had caused her, that had woken her from the dream, gasping and sweating.
I guess I should be grateful, she told herself grimly. Anybody who wakes me from one of those is a friend. She shivered, though: no matter how she rationalized it, she couldn’t accept the figure as anything but threatening.
Still breathing deeply to get her heart rate down to normal again, she checked her watch. Almost seven in the morning; almost time to get up. Even though she didn’t have anything to do on shipboard, she was trying to keep to her normal schedule. They key members of the freighter’s crew — the bridge officers and the “black gang” who worked in the engine room — were on round-the-clock watches, of course, so that meant the refectory on the main deck level was always open, and there was always coffee in the lounge. So she might as well go get some breakfast, she told herself.
She tried to make herself believe it was excitement that made her want to get up; after all, they’d be reaching the mouth of the Inderagiri River late this afternoon, and she might already be able to see Sumatra. But, deep down, she knew that what motivated her was fear: if she went back to sleep, mightn’t the nightmares be waiting for her?
*
Nikki couldn’t see much of Sumatra as the big freighter swung at anchor. During the night, the clouds had gathered again, and a thin mist hung over land and water. At least is wasn’t raining like it had been at Spratly Island, though, she comforted herself. And even though it looked like it should be cold, the temperature actually seemed to have gone up as a result of the clouds and mist. There was no wind, and the air was heavy with moisture. She could still smell the sea, but now she could scent something else, something very different. A heavy underpinning beneath the sharp salt tang —hoiv do you describe an odor? she wondered — a complex, damp smell of living things. It must be the jungle.
The freighter was a couple of hundred yards offshore. O’Neil had told her what he’d learned from the contacts he’d made among the crew. The Inderagiri was deep enough for the freighter — which had a shallow draught despite its apparent size — to make it a long way up-river, easily as far as the site of the outpost. (That’s what everyone else had taken to calling the Inderagiri Research Facility — “the outpost” — and Nikki found herself doing the same.) So there was no technical reason for them to anchor offshore at all.
No, according to O’Neil it had been the captain’s decision. For the first time, Nikki had realized that the ship wasn’t officially a Nagara vessel. She should have clued in to that immediately—the logo on the freighter’s funnel wasn’t Nagara’s blue and white crane—but the fact it was a Nagara operation, and the exclusively Japanese nationality of the crew, had blinded her to this. Instead, the vessel was of Philippine registry, operated by a Japanese shipping concern based in Manilla. Although the ship had never put in at Sumatra before, it had apparently made runs to Kampot, a port in Campuchia. Obviously close enough to Orrorsh for the captain to have heard stories, Nikki thought. The captain hadn’t wanted to make this voyage at all, and only extensive “voluntary gifts” by Nagara — in other words, personal bribery — had convinced him to accept the contract. While he’d eventually agreed to sail to the mouth of the Inderagiri River, there apparently wasn’t enough money in the world to convince him to sail up it. (“Smart man,” O’Neil had told her with a grim chuckle, “he wants money, but he also wants to live to spend it.”) So that’s why Nikki and the other passengers would be ferried the last fifty miles to the outpost in smaller vessels — “riverines,” O’Neil had called them—based out of the Inderagiri facility itself. As soon as everything had been off-loaded, the captain would be reversing his course and heading for the fastness of the South China Sea at the freighter’s best speed.
The first of the riverines was coming alongside, Nikki saw. She went to the rail for a better view. It was a smooth-lined boat apparently built for speed, she saw — low to the water, with an enclosed forward structure that presumably contained the wheelhouse and cabins for the crew. Painted a drab grey-green, it somehow seemed familiar, she realized with a mild shock.
It took her several moments to retrieve the memory. When it came, the recognition was disturbing. It looks like the patrol boat from that Vietnam war movie, Apocalypse Now.
Which only makes sense, she went on to herself after a moment. It’s built for the same kind of mission, cruising a river through the middle of the jungle. It’d be more surprising if it didn’t look like that. But, even with that rationalization, she found the connection disturbing.
The riverine approached quickly and quietly. Its engine sound was muffled, but it certainly didn’t sound like the kind of steam power plant driving the freighter. It’s more high-tech than that, she recognized. What does that tell me? That the technological… distortion … isn’t as bad as O’Neil said? That was reassuring, at least. If it was true about the outpost as a whole, she could look forward to much the same modern standard of day-to-day life that she’d enjoyed in Tokyo. And it means the genetic analyzers and computers should work, too. She wondered about the helicopter that was waiting up-river for O’Neil, but put the thought aside.
Crewmen aboard the freighter threw down lines, caught and tied off by men aboard the riverine, as the small vessel came alongside. The crew aboard the riverine looked young, fit and competent, and they wore the uniforms of Nagara security. When the riverine was made fast, the freighter crew lowered the same steep gangway Nikki had used to board ship at Spratly Island.
The passengers’ personal luggage had already been brought up on deck, and now the cases were passed down the gangway aboard the riverine. The other passengers themselves — except for the security guards, who’d be going on the next boat — stood in a knot near the top of the gangway. Nikki walked over to join them.
The other members of her workgroup looked decidedly uncomfortable, she noted. They didn’t talk among themselves, just shifted nervously from foot to foot, their gazes alternating between the riverine below and the mist-shrouded jungle two hundred yards away. As she joined them, they turned cold eyes on Nikki, then quickly looked away. She sighed. They still blame me for all this, she thought.
At least O’Neil gave her a warm smile as she approached. “Ready?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
They filed down the gangplank, onto the deck of the riverine. As soon as the last one was aboard, the boat’s crew cast off the lines. The stern dropped a little as power was fed to the screw, and they were off. There were benches mounted along the gunwales, Nikki saw. She picked a spot for herself near the stern and sat down. O’Neil joined her.
“How long to the outpost?” she asked him.
“About ninety minutes,” he answered. “Might as well enjoy the view.”
The view was fascinating, Nikki thought as they started up-river. Exotic, very different from anything she’d ever seen. Near its mouth, the Inderagiri was a wide river — at least two hundred yards, she guessed, although the mist, which seemed to be getting thicker, made it hard to judge. Its water was dark brown, almost black, presumably from mud and sediment it had picked up along the way. The jungle came right down to the river’s edge, dark and thick and lush. Just like in my nightmare, the thought came unbidden. She shivered.
To distract herself, she tried to recall what she’d read about Sumatra before leaving Tokyo. Something about the river and the jungle just didn’t seem ri
ght. Hadn’t the databases said that the east side of the island, particularly around the mouth of the Inderagiri, was a coastal swamp? She didn’t think she’d read anything about the jungle extending right to the sea.
What did that tell her? she wondered. She reminded herself that, in a way, this wasn’t Sumatra any more; it was Orrorsh. Could that have had some effect on the jungle itself, allowing it to spread out and claim territory that had been denied it before? Certainly, she admitted, looking at the jungle, the dark, forbidding trees seemed an excellent habitat for the “things” O’Neil had talked about.
She shook her head. Emotional foolishness, she told herself sharply. If reality doesn’t match what I think I read, why do I question reality?
After they’d been underway for about half an hour, they passed two more riverines and a slightly larger boat running downstream. They were going to pick up the security guards, O’Neil told her, and the cargo in the holds of the freighter. Nikki wondered about how they were going to make the transfer. I’m just glad I
don’t have to worry about it, she thought.
*
Her first view of the outpost came as a surprise. Eventually bored of watching the passing jungle, she’d let her mind drift and lost track of time. She’d been idly watching some big birds — too far away to recognize — circling high above the river, when O’Neil touched her on the arm. “Home sweet home,” he muttered.
There was a large clearing on the left side of the river, almost two hundred yards in diameter. Not a natural clearing, she saw at once. In places there were still the massive stumps of trees that Nagara’s workers had felled. (How long did this take? she wondered. They can’t have done all this in just two weeks.) There was no undergrowth at all. The margin of the jungle was sharp; in a couple of steps a person would go from levelled clearing to virgin jungle.
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