Island in the Sea of Time

by S. M. Stirling

  A little later a woman came with bowls of food: cakes of maize and cassava, fish, beans, and a small bowl of meat. The two Americans began to eat mechanically, after a while.

  “I wouldn’t touch that,” Martha said quietly when Lisketter reached for the bowl of meat.

  The kidnapper looked up dully. “Why not?” she said.

  “You can’t smell what’s cooking out there, stuffed up like that.” The other woman had been weeping until her nose ran. “I can.”

  Lisketter’s eyes and lips framed a question. There was no need for speech. After a moment she pushed the bowl violently away and curled around herself on the earth platform stacked with cut grass that served the cage as a bed. Martha doggedly forced down as much as she could. There was a gourd of fermented maize as well, like a thin gruel-beer. She drank that too. Tomorrow and in the days that followed she would need strength, and the baby had to be fed.

  When the time came��� she looked around. They’ll need to know we’re alive.

  *

  Alston lowered her binoculars. “No sign of them,” she said, keeping her face carefully blank. It was illogical to feel disappointed. Not sensible to expect the Bentley to be trapped neatly here, but there was a feeling of letdown all the same.

  “They’ll have gone upriver, Captain,” Ian said. “That’s definitely the Coatzacoalcos.”

  “Or they foundered on the way here, or passed on farther south, or stopped farther north,” Alston noted. Still, this was the maximum probability���

  “Ma’am!”

  The forward lookout called. “Something floating!”

  The winds were faint, and the echo sounder showed these waters to be shallow. It took some time to maneuver the Eagle close to the debris, and a few minutes more to lower a boat to hook onto it. Alston stood like stone, feeling the sweat trickling down her flanks even under the light tropical uniform with its short-sleeved shirt. The heat didn’t particularly bother her; it was even a little homelike-summers in the Carolina low country were much like this. Her gathering suspicions of what they would find, however���

  The sailor in the ship’s boat next to the flotsam prodded at something. “There’s a body here, ma’am, legs tangled in something. Looks like one of ours, from the clothing. Been in the water a while, couple of days.”

  “Well, you were right,” she said quietly to Arnstein. To the sailing master: “We’ll anchor here, Mr. Hiller.”

  Tom Hiller looked around at the estuary of the Coatzacoalcos. The land was low and flat, and the sea stretched behind them like hammered metal. “We could get a nasty blow out of the Gulf any time, ma’am,” he said. “It’s hurricane season.”

  “That’s not the only nasty thing ‘round here,” she said, nodding downward.

  The body was-had been-an American; the clothing was unmistakable. She heard Doreen swallow a retch behind her, but the Coast Guard officers were all familiar with the bloating that went with a submerged body and the way the sea life ate its way in. What drew her eye was the broken-off shaft that protruded from the dead man’s ribs.

  “Think of a few thousand of the locals coming out under cover of darkness,” she said. “Especially if we were farther in, where the banks are close and there’s no room to maneuver.”

  He nodded. “How are we going to get up the river at all, then, Captain?” he asked.

  “Cautiously, in small boats, and with difficulty, I suspect, Mr. Hiller,” she said thoughtfully. “But first we’ll have to find out what went on, and where everyone is. Call Mr. Toffler, and get his transport ready.”

  Assembling the ultralight was difficult in the cramped quarters of the Eagle’s waist deck; the wings were long enough to overlap the rails on both sides. It was essentially a big hang glider with an aluminum trapeze below, a tiny pusher prop and engine behind the seat, and rudimentary controls.

  Sort of like a beginner’s sketch of an airplane, the Kentuckian pilot thought. A far cry from going “downtown” in an F-4 Phantom; more like being a forward air controller, not a trade he’d ever wanted to take up before. The sodden heat was familiar enough, though, and the look of the shore. They were all sweating hard, and in this oily humidity it didn’t evaporate, just got into your shorts and chafed.

  Sailors and cadets finally mounted the frame on the cut-down metal canoes that served for floats and bolted the wing to it. The boom came around; two dozen hands held steadying ropes, while others hauled at the line that hoisted it free of the deck.

  “Careful, there,” he muttered; no point in saying it aloud.

  They slid it out sideways, threading the wings between the rigging and then swaying them around bit by bit until they were parallel to the ship. After that it was fairly simple to pay out the ropes until the God Help Us lay bobbing slightly beside the big windjammer. He’d named it himself, after the first flight back on the island.

  “Eagle, the Coast Guard’s first aircraft carrier,” he said as Captain Alston came up beside him.

  She nodded, as expressionless as usual. Toffler wasn’t quite sure about her. He didn’t really approve of women in situations like this, and he certainly didn’t approve of her private life; he was a good Baptist. On the other hand, he was pretty certain she wouldn’t lose her nerve. If she went wrong, it would be the other way.

  “Keep in close contact and follow the program,” she said. He nodded. “Remember that they may have rifles. And good luck.”

  “Thanks, Captain,” he said.

  I am certainly not going to forget that they may have rifles, he thought, climbing over the side. You didn’t necessarily get less brave as you got older, but you did start realizing that you could really, really, really die, and how easy it would be. Sometimes he wondered if war would be possible at all without that nineteen-year-old conviction of immortality. Well, you’re here, aren’t you? he asked himself sardonically. And you’re getting into this miserable goddam excuse for an aircraft, aren’t you?

  Crewfolk were holding the ultralight steady for him. He stepped onto one of the floats, ignored the alarming bob and dip, scrambled up into the seat, and strapped himself in. The earphones went on next.

  “This is GHU,” he said into the microphone before his lips. “Testing, testing.”

  “Eagle here. Loud and clear. Keep in touch.”

  “Roger wilco that.”

  The engine caught with a lawn-mower buzz. Toffler looked up to check the wind direction, came into it, and pushed the throttles forward. The little Rogallo-wing aircraft came up off the surface as if angels were pulling on rubber bands. He banked; the GHU was maneuverable enough, but only about as fast as a car. The height and stiff wind cut the muggy heat to something more nearly bearable, and he felt the exhilaration he always did aloft. Certainly more interesting than flying a puddle-jumper between Hyannis and Nantucket, ferrying tourists. Looking for whales and schools of fish had been getting pretty routine, too.

  The river wound through the forest beneath. He looked at the map taped to the frame to his right, and then at the compass strapped to his left forearm. “Heading west,” he said.

  “Roger.”

  The lesser canoes peeled off to villages along the riverbanks as they headed west. Martha and Lisketter had a good view; they were kept near the throne-seat of the chief at the rear of the catamaran. The settlements were much like the first they’d seen, but they grew larger and more numerous, the jungle between them less, as they traveled. None were very far from the river’s banks, though, or the banks of the tributaries that gave into it. Despite weariness, Martha found herself a fascinated spectator. We knew so little���

  Crops grew more densely on the rich silt of the riverbanks. Canoes and rafts passed ever more thickly, but the water still teemed with life and the sky was always full of wings. And the people��� Oh, damn, what I wouldn’t give for a camera, or even pen and paper to take notes! Part of her knew that the thought bordered on madness, but she pushed that away. Better than brooding on her hel
plessness.

  The river narrowed and the current became stronger; the sun blazed down through a sky half-hazy, and she was glad of the shade at the rear of the craft. At intervals servants-she assumed that those near-naked figures were such-brought food and water or the weak maize-beer-gruel to the commander and his warriors, and to the two American women; this time it included small avocados juicy enough to be eaten by themselves, and once a hot liquid brewed at a clay hearth amidships. After a moment she identified it as unsweetened chocolate, harsh and bitter, and set it aside. Others fanned the obese figure that sat cross-legged and silent on his platform beneath the gaudy colors of the carved beasts, brushing away insects and bringing a little, little coolness to the constant clinging heat.

  At last they came to a sudden fork, where the waters divided around an oblong island some miles across and more long. Most of it was covered with oxbow lakes, or drained for farming and speckled with thatched hamlets of clay huts. But the plateau at the southern tip had been sheered off and built up; suggestions of color and massiveness showed even at several miles’ distance. The catamarans turned for the shore; the paddlers were too exhausted now to chant, grunting in unison instead. Ten yards from the edge of the water they stopped with a final panting shout, and the big vessel coasted forward, sliding to a halt with hardly a jar. Crowds of attendants waited for them on the beach; warriors, more villagers or servants in plain loincloths and skirts, other types she couldn’t hope to identify. Drums beat, smaller than the great booming instrument in the bows of the catamaran; other instruments played, pipes, gourd rattles, shell whistles, and the people sang accompaniment. A dozen bore a huge litter, and those waded out into the water until the priest-king could step onto it dry-shod. They bore his massive weight without a bob or waver, walking back up onto the land and then swinging away in a disciplined lockstep trot.

  “We’re next,” Martha said.

  Another litter came down to the side of the catamaran. It was as ornately carved as its predecessor, but lacked the canopy above. Warriors shoved and pointed, indicating the two women should climb aboard it; around them were piled spoils from the Bentley.

  “Why are they doing this?” Lisketter whispered, as the bearers swung up the beach and onto a packed-dirt road. She hadn’t spoken since the previous evening.

  “Who knows?” Martha said. “At a guess, we’ve stumbled into some sort of myth that’s important to them-something to do with their primary god or goddess or whatever, the jaguar. We’re starring actors in a play and we don’t have any idea what the script is.”

  The bearers broke into a trot along the dirt road. It was embanked and neatly ditched, raising it a little above the soft black earth of the cornfields tasseling out around them and the cassava patches, vegetable gardens, groves.

  “Why? It doesn’t make sense, none of it makes sense.”

  “For someone who’s supposed to be a multiculturalist,” Martha said, “you had a really naive faith that everyone else’s sense would be the same as yours. That’s a little logocentric, isn’t it?” Lisketter winced as from a blow. Martha put a hand on her arm. “Sorry, but��� no, sorry. Just keep your eyes open. I have a very bad feeling about all this, and if we’re to come out of it alive we need to keep our wits about us.”

  Shouts broke out among the Indians crowding around them, and the workers in the fields. They were pointing southward, into the sky. Martha turned.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  October, Year 1 A.E.

  The natives are restless,” Alston said, listening to the drums as they echoed under the sound of the engines. Beside her Swindapa nodded gravely. Lieutenant Hendriksson cast a quick uncertain glance her way, then smiled wryly. Somebody farther back in the boat snickered.

  Good for morale, Alston thought. Let her people see that the skipper wasn’t oppressed by the alien weirdness of the surroundings. Much, she added to herself in blunt honesty. Besides, it had come to her spontaneously.

  The boats from the Eagle were advanced up the twisting river in a broad wedge, with the motor launches to the fore acting as scouts. Behind them came the twoscore big inflatable lifeboats; their powerful outboard engines let some of them tow long whaleboats brought along for this voyage. On either side the jungle reared, a medley of greens and great gaudy slashes of flowers, flights of birds like living jewels with their long tails dangling behind them in streaming banners of blue and turquoise, showers of rainbow-hued butterflies. Birdcalls echoed, raucous or sweet. Now and then an alligator, now and then a cluster of tapirs on the bank snorting away in crashing, noisy panic. Once the unmistakable scream of a jaguar. Always the muggy, clinging heat; always the faraway stutter of the drums.

  Sweat trickled down into the padding under her armor; a certain percentage were wearing theirs, the others keeping it near to hand, and the sets switching over at two-hour intervals. Practice and sound design meant that they could scramble into it in short order, even in the cramped quarters of the boats. Wearing it courted heat exhaustion, though; and anyone who went overside in forty pounds of steel��� well, it was a long wet walk along the bottom to the edge. She blinked at the huge red disk of the sun, sinking ahead of them. Not always directly ahead; the river wound considerably.

  What really worries me is how vulnerable these rubber boats are to flung weapons, she thought. And they were laden enough that the outboard engines gave them only a little edge of speed against a well-crewed canoe.

  A buzzing came from the radio. “GHU, this is Eagle, over.”

  “Eagle, the village is just around the next bend in the river,” Toffler said. His ultralight was circling at the edge of vision, perhaps a mile and a half ahead. “The sunken hulk is definitely the Bentley. Burned at her moorings, looks like.”

  “Sure they’ve cleared out, GHU?”

  “Ma’am, they ran like hell. Over.”

  “Rendezvous there, then. Over and out.”

  For a moment the craziness of it struck her. An aerial scout, a flotilla of inflated boats of complex synthetics driven by engines, the whole coordinated by radio, and each boat filled with Nintendo-generation warriors in steel armor armed with swords, spears, and crossbows. And the real irony is that this medieval metalwork is almost as far-future compared to the locals as the solid-state electronics in this radio. That reminded her to make yet another mental note to be careful with that equipment. Nantucket wouldn’t be making microchips in her lifetime.

  She had a Colt Python.357 Magnum at her side, but less than thirty rounds for it-twenty-seven, to be precise, counting the six in the chamber. The machine shop back on Nantucket could make more, in limited quantities, but there was nothing to charge them with, nor fulminate for the primers. There were three other handguns with the expeditionary force, and another back on Eagle, and that was it. The Bentley had, or had had, more in the way of firearms, and it hadn’t seemed to have done them much good. What Alston did have was two hundred trained, disciplined people. She hoped that would make the difference.

  They sailed into gathering murk; it was quieter as the day’s wildlife sought its lairs and roosts, and the nocturnal versions weren’t out. A long looping curve and suddenly there were cleared fields, then buildings and canoes drawn up on the bank.

  And the schooner’s grave. The tip of one mast still stuck forlornly out of the water, not far from where Toffler’s ultralight bobbed on its floats. She could see how fast it must have sunk by the relative lack of damage; it just looked like something had taken big black-fringed bites out of the sides. They’d brought an Aqua-Lung, but she didn’t think the diver would find much useful. On the north bank the village waited, smoke still trailing up into the darkening sky but eerily quiet, not even a dog barking.

  “We’d better get set up,” she said, and switched the radio to the general frequency. “Smith, Bulosan, take first picket.” Those were the motor launches; they also had the diver. “Group A, all personnel in battle order, and follow me. Mr. Ortiz, you’ll maintain station with G
roup B until I give the signal.”

  She put on her helmet and clipped a small walkie-talkie to the belt about her waist; it still felt rather odd to have no specific sensation of pressure or weight there, but the armor took all that. The lifeboat rocked under her as crew scrambled into their armor. A dozen boats turned inward for the shore, cut their engines, and grounded. The Americans leaped over the sides, hauled their craft up, and fanned out to make a perimeter. Alston was with them, eyes peering into the gathering murk. Nothing moved, except the rustling of scrubby-looking cornstalks and the buzz of insects. She raised the radio to her lips. “Lieutenant Ortiz, bring Group B in and take over here.”

  The others followed her as she walked down the single street of the village. The huts were laid out with some precision, and were bigger than she might have expected. Her followers inspected each, prodding at the recesses with blades to make sure nobody was hiding. She entered one herself, clicking on her flashlight. Bedding and tools lay tumbled, as if the locals had simply snatched up whatever was at hand when they fled the apparition in the sky. They must have been three-quarters terrified already, after the brush with the Bentley. The solid wattle-and-daub walls came only to waist height, leaving the hut relatively cool and airy with the woven mats rolled up under the eaves. Possessions were few: flat-bottomed pottery that looked hand-formed, not thrown on a wheel, and bigger globular jugs, both decorated with incised designs. One end of the hut held a terra-cotta figurine of a babylike figure with flat features and fangs; probably a shrine. Hooks, lines, barbed fishing spears, and stone hoes and adzes were in corners. A metate and grindstone lay abandoned, surrounded by corn and maize meal; beside it was a clay platter with a mound of oozing grated cassava.

  “Captain!”

  She dropped a hand to the pistol; that voice was urgent. A cadet dashed up. “Ma’am, Section Leader Trudeau says there’s something you ought to see right away.”