Pieces of Eight

by Deborah Chester

  Lady Pamela’s green eyes would never flash again. Her incisive voice would never rap out orders. Her lovely, rather serious face would never again grimace with impatience or melt into a radiant smile. She lay there, looking small and defenseless in her undergarments.

  Noel bowed his head, gripping her hand hard as though to recall her, wishing that he could reverse those hectic moments last night when he’d been too distracted to pay attention to her panic. If he’d been more patient, if he’d even bothered to tie a rope on her, she might be alive now.

  But was she supposed to survive the storm?

  He shook the question angrily away. The LOC had said she wasn’t listed among the survivors. He had known from that moment that he couldn’t save her. Yet it still hurt. He felt like a failure.

  For the first time in his career, he questioned the value of time travel. What good was it to know someone’s future if you weren’t allowed to save her? What kind of pathetic voyeurism was it to stand on the sidelines and watch someone fail or die, making recordings of the event for posterity, yet not helping?

  Travelers justified their noninvolvement on the basis of the time paradox principle. Yet although it was vital to protect the future and not change it, what good did it really do to enter the past? Had any research data collected by the historians done any good? Had it solved any of the social problems of the twenty-sixth century?

  No.

  Noel rose to his feet and stared bleakly at the horizon where the sun was dropping toward the ocean. The waves glittered like beaten copper. The warm breeze played on his back. His face twisted with bitterness and he dashed his tears angrily away with his hand.

  He was tired of it, tired of himself, tired of what he stood for. Maybe the anarchists were right and civilization had lasted too long. Maybe it was time to let things fall to dust and darkness.

  He swallowed hard and watched the ocean. It spread before him, eternal and uncaring. He felt like a fool.

  Chapter Ten

  He found Leon half-buried beneath a tangle of boards and rope, someone’s shoe, several water-logged books with the ink washed off their pages, and a brass sextant that should have sunk to the bottom of the sea. Weary of death, Noel stared down at his duplicate and almost left him there. But if nothing else, Leon deserved a burial. Slowly Noel went to work shifting the junk off him.

  When he pulled Leon out and rolled him over, Leon groaned.

  Noel’s heart stopped. He crouched there, his hands curiously frozen, and stared down at the pale, sunken features that were so like his own. Until now he hadn’t let him­self look closely at Leon. It was too much like seeing his own death.

  But now…

  He brushed sand from Leon’s cheek and felt the warmth and pliability of life. He saw the faint stir of breath in Leon’s chest. He hesitated, then fumbled to open Leon’s shirt. Beneath the bandage, Leon’s wound was ugly and purplish-black.

  Noel had little clothing left with which to make a fresh bandage. Certainly he had nothing clean. He ripped a strip off Leon’s shirt, soaked it in the sea to clean it, then folded it into a pad that he pressed gently over the wound and bound it in place with a length of rope.

  As medical care it was primitive, but it would have to do for now.

  Finished, he sat back on his heels to survey his duplicate. A sudden wave of dizziness passed over him. He shut his eyes a moment, then forced them open. It wasn’t relief, not even joy. Nothing that simple. He couldn’t tell what he felt, not now. Mostly he was numb and disbelieving, yet it seemed Leon looked more and more lifelike with every passing moment. There was more color in his cheeks now than when Noel had first found him. His pulse was stronger too. It was almost as though he drew strength from Noel’s proximity.

  Noel frowned at such fancies. Next he’d be imagining he could heal with a touch. He’d been too long out in the sun, and it was time he pulled himself together. Gently he gathered Leon in his arms and carried him down the beach, stopping every few minutes to rest and regain his strength. By the time he reached the others he was soaked with sweat and trembling with fatigue. The sun was setting gloriously at his back, filling sky and sea with blazing color. Wispy clouds were gilded with yellow, pink, and lavender. The air had cooled off.

  Kona had built a small fire hidden from the bay and was roasting flamingo eggs over coals. He’d gathered a stack of fruit and a rock for smashing coconuts. Lady Mountleigh had regained consciousness, but she looked wan and tired as though her head still ached. She seemed confused as to where she was and did not recognize Noel.

  Depositing Leon, Noel tried to catch his breath. He felt oddly weak and depleted, but Leon looked even better than before. Noel dropped cross-legged in the sand with a sigh and picked up a mango. “You’ve been busy, Kona.”

  The boy smiled shyly. “You are pleased?”

  “Very pleased!” Noel looked around. “Where’s Neddie?”

  Kona shrugged and pointed at the bay. “Gone to headland to make signal.”

  “What?”

  Kona started to repeat his answer, but Noel tossed aside his mango without listening and stood.

  “That damned brat! Is he crazy? He’ll bring the pirates back to us.”

  “He would not listen. He wants his white bwana father to rescue him.”

  “Damn.”

  Fuming, Noel headed toward the bay. In the twilight the jungle stood dark and furtive, filled with haunting bird cries and mysterious sounds. And bats, Noel thought warily. His bites were itching now.

  The nineteenth and twentieth centuries had been filled with folklore of monsters, vampires, werewolves, and such. People back then liked to scare themselves, probably as a result of the upheavals and changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution and rapid-fire development of technology. The same superstitions had persisted as entertainment even into Noel’s own century. Some fun. He didn’t think the vampire bats were calling his name right now, but he didn’t like venturing out into the shadows. He wanted to be close to the campfire before full dark.

  On the other hand, his cloud of fatigue was clearing rapidly, so rapidly in fact he suspected Leon had been drawing energy from him.

  My brother, the vampire, he thought and swallowed the semi-hysterical desire to laugh.

  It was too bad none of the brandy and rum kegs had washed ashore. He could use a stiff drink right now.

  He found Neddie on a low promontory, a tiny figure staring out to sea with all his hopes on his face. The boy had removed his ruffled shirt. It fluttered from a tall pole that he’d erected. The hole he’d dug was too shallow to support the height of the pole. It was canted over at an angle. Neddie had tried to correct the problem by bracing the base with rocks and seashells. Naturally that solution hadn’t worked. With luck the thing would fall over during the night.

  “Neddie,” Noel said quietly so he wouldn’t startle the boy.

  Neddie jumped and whirled around with his hand clutching the stick he carried through his belt like a sword. Noel noticed that the boy had whittled a sharp point on the end of the stick. He also held a razor-sharp clam shell in his hand.

  “Time to go back to camp,” Noel told him. Now that he was here, Noel wasn’t sure he wanted to admonish the child. Neddie was trying hard to cope with the situation, after all. He’d been through a lot in the last couple of days.

  “I’m going to keep watch for rescue,” Neddie announced. “My father will send the Royal Navy in search of us.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be waving a flag.”

  “Why not?” Neddie asked in his aristocratic drawl. He looked down his thin nose in a way that irritated Noel. “One would think you don’t want to be rescued. Are you afraid they’ll hang you for piracy?”

  “I’m not a pirate,” Noel said. Then, because he didn’t want to go on defending himself, he knocked down the pole.

  Neddie sprang at him. “Don’t! Don’t!” he cried tearfully. “It’s the only way they’ll find us.”

 
He tried to strike Noel, who blocked the weak blows before freeing himself from the boy’s clutches. Neddie was crying now, his small frame shaking with sobs. Tears streaked his dirty face.

  “I want to go home,” he wailed. “I want to go home.”

  “You’re going to get home,” Noel said. “I promise.”

  “Then why won’t you let us be rescued?”

  Noel met those baffled, angry eyes. “I want you to be rescued, kid. I’m just afraid Lonigan’s pirates will see your flag and come back. We need to keep watch up here all right. If we see a friendly sail, then we can raise the flag. How’s that?”

  Neddie sniffed and made no answer. Noel took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

  “Hey,” he said. “We don’t want the pirates to come back and bother us again, do we?”

  Neddie shook his head.

  “No. So let’s leave the flag down. It’s a very good one, by the way. We’ll keep it here for when we need it.”

  Neddie rubbed his eyes, trying to swallow his tears. “Who’s going to keep watch?” he asked.

  “We’ll take turns,” Noel said. “First thing in the morning one of us will—”

  “That might be too late!”

  “They can’t see the flag at night, son. We’ll be up here at dawn. All right?”

  Reluctantly Neddie nodded. He twisted free of Noel’s grip and went back to the camp ahead of Noel. His small back was stiff with resentment. Noel let him be. As long as the boy was quiet with his sulking, Noel didn’t care what he did.

  At the camp, they found Leon awake and sitting propped up against a broken sea chest that Kona had dragged there for the purpose of supporting the wounded man. In the ruddy light of the campfire, Leon’s eyes glittered watchfully. He looked tired and was obviously in pain, but he was better.

  Noel dropped down beside him in the sand, then edged farther away. He wasn’t sure whether Leon had to touch him to draw energy, but he kept his distance just in case. He’d given Leon enough. He had to make sure Leon didn’t drain him to the danger point. Which made the idea of sleeping near each other not such a good idea. He wouldn’t put it past Leon to hold his hand all night and drain him dry.

  “You look like hell,” Noel said.

  Leon dragged up one side of his mouth into a smile. “Hard to kill.” His voice was weak, but still full of the old bitter resentment.

  Noel frowned, squirming a bit, but it had to be said. “You saved my life last night. Thanks.”

  Leon made a raspy noise in his throat. After a few seconds Noel realized it was a chuckle. “Does it hurt so much to owe me a favor, brother?”

  Noel scowled and busied himself with the flamingo egg that Kona gave him. He broke it open and blew on the soft, cooked insides to cool them. While he’d been chasing Neddie, the resourceful Kona had found a pot and boiled their supper, presumably in sea water.

  “Grown shy, brother?” mocked Leon.

  “Don’t tire yourself.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask why I helped you?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you care?”

  Noel threw him a resentful glance. “I care.”

  Leon’s smile broadened. “I thought you would. Now you’re in my debt.”

  Noel spooned himself some egg. “Nope.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wrong! You stepped in front of that knife because you can’t afford to let me die. You acted from fear and self-preservation, not from altruism.”

  “The result is the same.”

  “Sure, but I don’t owe you squat.”

  Leon glared at him, looking baffled now and increasingly angry. “Hypocrite! You’re always preaching conscience and principle, but when it comes time to practice them you have a convenient excuse.”

  “You can’t force someone to feel gratitude,” Noel said.

  “But—”

  “If you try,” Noel broke in, “you create resentment and sometimes even hatred.”

  Leon shifted his head fretfully. “You already hate me.”

  Noel stared a long time at his food. “Not hate,” he admitted at last. “Perhaps…pity.”

  “Pity, hell! As usual you won’t admit any­thing base in yourself. You think I am the only one who has flaws. But you’re wrong. Noel, wrong! Don’t deny that you wish I didn’t exist. Don’t deny that when we traveled here, you were trying to kill me. You’d kill me now, in cold blood, if you could find a reason to justify it.”

  He paused, gasping for breath and suddenly white about the mouth. His rain-colored eyes gleamed feverishly, so bitter Noel could not meet them.

  Noel’s own temper chafed under the tight control he held on it. Leon, as usual, was twisting everything to fit his own bizarre perceptions. And, as usual, they could not spend even five minutes together without picking a quarrel. But Noel wasn’t going to explain the black anger that had swept him when Leon manipulated Cody Trask’s death in New Mexico. Leon had been put together with something essential missing, and Noel could never make him understand. The fact that Leon himself knew he wasn’t complete only drove him to worse behavior.

  Glancing up, Noel saw the others watching him and Leon from across the flickering campfire. He could not read their faces. Their expressions were neutral, wary, the way people look when a family argues in public.

  “You’d better rest awhile,” Noel said, keeping his voice as mild as he could. “Do you want some egg?”

  “Go to hell,” Leon whispered.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  Leon hesitated, stubbornness radiating from him. At last, he nodded.

  “We have no drinking water, bwana,” Kona said to Noel. “I could not leave these people long enough to search.”

  Noel swore to himself. He’d forgotten all about the responsibility of foraging. “There’s a freshwater spring that way, in the jungle.”

  Kona brightened. “Do you wish me to go there?”

  “No, not now.” Noel spoke more sharply than he intended. “It’s too late.”

  “I can find it, even in the dark.”

  “No. It’s not safe. We stick together and we stay by the fire.”

  Leon made his little rasping chuckle. “Afraid of the dark now, brother?”

  Kona, however, looked at Noel with respect tinged with a little apprehension. “Do dark gods walk this island, bwana?”

  Noel nodded. He walked over to the pile of coconuts and broke one with a rock. Then he handed half to Leon, who took it with a puzzled frown.

  “Have some coconut milk instead.”

  Leon stared at it.

  “Go on,” Noel said. “It’s tasty enough.”

  Leon flung it at him, sending the white milk splattering. “I don’t want it! You—”

  His voice and strength gave out on him. Gasping, he slumped back with his eyes closed. Noel stared at him a moment, then broke another coconut and knelt beside Leon. He lifted Leon’s head and tipped the coconut shell to his lips.

  Leon drank some of it, choking a little, then sighed and opened his eyes.

  “Don’t talk,” Noel said. “You’re too tired.”

  Leon’s eyes met his. “You know I can’t taste food,” he muttered. “You know I have to depend on you…even for that.”

  “Yeah.” Noel felt pity come back. “I forgot. I wasn’t trying to tease you. Go to sleep.”

  Kona took first watch. Scooping sand to fit his body’s contours more comfortably, Noel settled down by the fire, upwind of the drifting smoke. The scents of ash and flame were comforting. In minutes the rhythmic splash of waves upon the shore lulled him into the deep oblivion of exhaustion.

  It seemed he had hardly closed his eyes before Kona was shaking his shoulder. Noel lifted his head, seeing the sleeping forms and dying red embers of the fire without comprehension.

  “What’s wrong?” he mumbled.

  “Nothing, bwana,” Kona whispered. “It is your turn for watching.”

  “Oh.” Noel forced himself to sit up and
rubbed his face in an effort to wake up. He walked around and inhaled deeply of the balmy air. The sea looked black and flat beyond the tiny cove. Overhead a thin sliver of moon cast no light.

  Yawning, Noel settled down near the fire and fed it back to life with small bits of driftwood. The crackling flames were mesmerizing. He watched them flicker hungrily, yellow at the edges, white in the center. The embers hissed and popped.

  He yawned again and shook his head as drowsiness crept over him. He reached out to poke the fire again, but his hand felt heavy. It sank to the sand, and the charred stick rolled from his slack fingers.

  Pretty flames, he thought vaguely. Their shifting patterns cast black shadows on the ground that writhed and tangled.

  Snakes, he thought. Snakes around us.

  The hissing embers grew louder. The heat intensified until he was sweating. He leaned closer to the fire, fascinated, and the singing flames seemed to be calling him. If he got close enough perhaps he could make out the words…

  “Noel!”

  His own voice called him. Noel did not listen.

  “Noel!”

  Terror. Urgency. Noel blinked.

  “Noel! For God’s sake, help me!”

  Leon’s voice. Leon calling him. Calling him…

  “Noel! Help me! Please!”

  Noel blinked and came aware just in time to avoid toppling into the flames. Scorched, he threw himself back.

  “Noel.”

  It was a mere whisper, fading, fearful. Noel looked over at Leon and saw his duplicate sweating, his lips drawn back in a grimace. Concerned, Noel scrambled over to him and reached for his hand.

  “Don’t…touch me!” Leon said, jerking back from him. “Help me.”

  He was trembling violently. His back arched in a spasm. Not understanding what was happening, Noel gripped his arms, but Leon cried out and flung him back.

  “Stay away,” he gasped, obviously struggling to get the words out. His eyes rolled back in his head. “Mondoun…wants me.” He cried out, a terrible choking, strangled noise. The shudders wracking him grew worse.