Island in the Sea of Time

by S. M. Stirling

  Martha obeyed numbly as she was pushed into a position near the carved block of stone; in one hand she was to hold a stalk of maize, in the other a rod carved to represent a burning snake. It wasn’t until warriors led in the muzzled jaguar on two thick leashes that she could bring herself to believe what was going to happen. Lisketter began to scream and heave against the ropes that held her, and the big cat’s tail lashed as it licked its nose and took the scent.

  The connection was through a relay on the Eagle, but good enough. Alston went on: “The good part is that we gave them a first-class lickin’,” she said.

  “Casualties?” Cofflin’s voice.

  Strange to think of him in the air traffic control tower back on the island. It seemed so far, here in the night where the drums boomed and the light of fires silhouetted the great buildings of the plateau-city ahead.

  “Ours? One dead, one critical, twelve or so serious, and the rest walkin’ wounded. Theirs��� couple of hundred dead, maybe more. Plenty of wounded, too.” She hesitated. “The bad part is I still can’t get them to talk.”

  Silence came across the miles. “Can you get her back?”

  “Not by direct assault. That city isn’t walled, but it’s over a hundred feet uphill, and they still outnumber us. Storming that��� even if it worked, the butcher’s bill would be ugly. Nothin’ to stop them killing her right off, either. If I try to besiege them? Well, right now we’ve got them dazed, but they’ll get their wits back, maybe call up overwhelmin’ numbers to finish us off, or block the river back to Eagle.”

  “You’re giving up?”

  “Didn’t say that. There’s something I’m goin’ to try, but it’s damn dangerous, bit of a long shot.”

  Another long silence. “I’m leaving things in your hands. You’re the expert.”

  “Thanks, Chief. We’ll be in touch tomorrow, one way or another.”

  She turned to her command group, where they gathered around the folding table with the photographs of the city made with the carefully hoarded Polaroid.

  Town, really, she thought. For all the massiveness of the monuments and works, the housing didn’t look to have room for more than a few thousand permanent inhabitants. She turned the screw of the oil lantern, and the yellow flame grew brighter. A big tropical moth beat its wings against the glass. She shooed it away and traced a line with her finger.

  “This looks like the best approach,” she said, drawing a line up from the south, where the tumbled outlying hills of the plateau came right down to the water. From the picture they were covered with thick scrub.

  “This building here is where they were, and this courtyard is where the��� ceremony took place?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Toffler said. Beads of sweat glistened on his balding scalp. “By the big pond.”

  “That’s it, then. Any questions?”

  “Ma’am,” Ortiz said, “I still think it’s inappropriate that you lead this operation in person.”

  Alston nodded. “Acknowledged, Mr. Ortiz. However, I have certain skills that’ll increase the probability of success. So does everyone else I’ve picked.” From a very large pool of volunteers, surprisingly large. Amazing how many people will clamor for a chance at probable death. Though I should talk.

  She looked at her watch. “Twenty hundred hours. Let’s get going. If they move the hostages, things could get very sticky indeed.”

  There were five in the party. Herself and Swindapa, of course. Lieutenant Hendriksson, who came from rural Minnesota and went bow-hunting for deer as a hobby; she had her weapon in her hand, a Bear compound, and a carefully padded quiver over her back. Pulakis and Alonski, cousins from a small mining town in west-central Pennsylvania.. They were hunters as well, good shots with the crossbow, and both built alike-square young men the same width from pelvis to broad shoulders, long-armed, moon-faced under cropped black hair, their little blue eyes calm. Both of them could probably bend horseshoes with their hands. It was just as well to have a couple of heavy lifters along.

  A final check. Everyone was in loose dark clothing; she and the Fiernan were carrying their twin swords, with the.357, a blowgun, and the sling for distance weapons. Swindapa and Hendriksson had stocking caps to pull over their light hair. Burnt cork for rubbing on face and hands also went around; Alonski finished and began to hand it to her, then halted, wincing in embarrassment.

  “I’m covered,” she said dryly. She took up a final piece of equipment from the table, a slender section of hollow tubing, broke it down at the joint in the middle, and tucked it into her harness. “Let’s go.”

  She turned to Ortiz. “Lieutenant, in the event of failure, don’t throw good money after bad. Withdraw. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t look happy about it, but on the other hand, she didn’t intend to fail.

  “Mr. Toffler, you have the signals?”

  “Flashlight for Phase One, flare for Phase Two, yes.”

  “Then let’s be about it.”

  Martha sat in a corner of the cell, head in her hands. It was very quiet. Lisketter lay staring; she hadn’t made a sound or a voluntary movement since she stopped screaming, during the rite. When they’d pulled the jaguar off her and the priest-king in his costume of furs had come to take its place.

  Catatonic shock, she thought. Probably better. The stucco friezes made it plain what Martha’s part in tomorrow’s ceremony would be, the cutting and then the feasting.

  Now there was a sound-the intolerable taunting buzz of the ultralight going by overhead, freedom just beyond arm’s reach. Her head sank wearily down on her knees again.

  Then the sound altered; shouting came beneath it, a growing roar. After a moment, the faint light of watchfires that shone through the slit above her head grew brighter.

  “Here,” Alston whispered into the hot wet darkness of the river.

  Slow and muffled, the paddles slid the rubber boat toward the shore. Trees grew almost to the edge, roots grew into the stream, amid thigh-deep water. Do they have leeches here? she wondered, as they gripped at branches and made the boat fast. The water felt tepid and stagnant, and smelled of swamp. She went over the side, holding her swords high in one hand, and waded up to dry-drier- land. The cotton of her trousers clung wetly; she slipped the long katana back into the carrier across her shoulders and the short wakizashi into her belt. Then she took out the pipe, fitted the sections back together, and pushed a round through the plastic mouthpiece and into the tube. It was a steel needle five inches long, with the base set into a plastic bead; a dozen more waited in a case at her waist.

  Through a gap in the foliage she could see the riding light of Toffler’s craft, circling over the city ahead. Binoculars brought it closer, although not close enough to see the figure beneath or the night-sight goggles on his face. Not particularly modern ones, Israeli-army surplus bought from a catalog by someone on Nantucket before the Event, but they worked. She brought up the flashlight, braced it against a convenient stem, and blinked it on. Three long, one short��� and hope that nobody on the plateau was looking in precisely the wrong direction. The undergrowth buzzed with insects, and with slight crinkling and rustling noises. Nightbirds sang or croaked or screeched. Somewhere close a bull ‘gator bellowed, announcing his territory to the saurian world.

  She waited, controlling her breathing and feeling the sweat slide gelid down her flanks and spine. Might have to do it twice���

  No. The riding light on the aircraft returned the signal. She turned her head; the others had the boat tethered and tucked away out of sight. There was just enough light to see their faces as they approached. She knelt in the damp earth and laid down the photograph, then shone a red-dimmed light on it for a second. Swindapa put a hand out to help her steady the curling square of paper, grinning in the dark. Young, Alston thought, with a wrench of the heart that she thrust aside with an effort of will. Calm, calm, she could only be centered and calm at this moment. Don’t try to
hurry.

  In Heiho speed is not the true Way. Speed is the fastness or slowness which occurs when the rhythm is out of synchronization.

  “This heading,” she whispered, tucking the aerial shot away again. “Follow me.”

  Her head swung, sighting through the trees on pieces of easily recognized higher ground. It was appallingly easy to get lost in the dark, in unfamiliar brush. They moved forward, placing each step carefully. She pushed vines aside, unhooked from thorns, ignored unseen slapping branches that gouged for her eyes. Every thirty seconds she clicked her tongue softly and they all halted, listening. Good. Quiet. Swindapa quietest of all, and the others not much worse. Steeper ground, crawling on all fours. The lip of the plateau above them now, cutting off half the sky, and the rooftrees of thatched buildings beyond it. She looked at the compass and the landmarks, wiped the dirt and moisture off her palms on the sleeves, of her jacket. Excellent. And it was about time for Toffler to-A crash came from above, muffled by distance. Shouts. They waited; she could hear Swindapa trying to match her long slow breaths. A glow began to silhouette the rooflines ahead of her. She grinned, a silent snarl. World’s first firebombing. The homemade napalm would send those roofs of dried grass up like tinder, and they were an easy target, even in the dark.

  “Go!” she hissed.

  They surged up the final steep section and then sank down again, flattened to an earth roadway of pounded, colored clay. A log retaining wall loomed ahead of them, probably set to prevent erosion along the edge of the plateau. Two guards were walking along it, looking northward toward the fire, talking and pointing.

  Most excellent, Alston thought. These Olmecs seemed to make war to a rigid set of rules and conventions-duels by champions, taking prisoners for sacrifice; she had an intuition that they’d refused to talk because trying to get captives back was an outrageous defiance of custom. Their fighting garb was a clue as well, designed for formalized, almost ritual combat out in the open by day. She intended to wring every possible ounce of advantage out of that.

  She touched Swindapa’s shoulder and pointed to the right-hand of the pair; the men were only sixty feet away, and at that range the Fiernan was eye-punching accurate with the sling. An egg-shaped lead shot went into the pouch. Alston raised the mouthpiece of the blowgun to her lips, took a deep breath, aimed��� huff!.

  The man on the left stopped talking and went stiff. He turned, shaking; she could see his jaws gaping wide in a spastic yawn. Then he toppled forward like a cut-through tree. God. Must have caught him in the spine.

  Swindapa leaped upright as Alston fired. Her body flexed as she swept the sling twice around her head and loosed. A fraction of a second later there was a hard thock sound, just as the second guard was drawing breath to shout. He fell across the body of his comrade, leaking gray and pink from a skull shattered above the ear. The Americans dashed forward and flattened to the earth by the bodies.

  “Uh-oh,” Hendriksson muttered.

  Another man was standing between two bestial statues, looking over toward where the guards should have been. Hendriksson rose to one knee and drew an arrow through her compound bow; the four edges of the hunting broad-head glittered slightly in the distant firelight. The wheels on the tips of the stave flipped over as she drew to the ear and loosed. Another arrow was on the way before the first struck, but the man had time for one strangled shout. They sprinted past him, into a lane between two buildings atop mounds. Alston looked again at her compass and matched it against the memorized image viewed from the air.

  “This way. Go, go!”

  They ran; speed was more important than stealth now. A quick glance to her right showed the rooftops there aflame, and people swarming about them, forming bucket chains from the ponds and tearing at thatch with hooks on poles. Toffler circled above, the firelight red on the wings of his craft, now and then dropping another Molotov when it looked as if the workers might contain the blaze. The commando headed left, toward the larger building that crowned a mound at the avenue’s southern end. There was a wide doorway, flanked by monumental stone heads, and a spear leaning against one-probably the men here had gone to help fight the flames. Inside was a courtyard surrounded by wooden pillars, with rooms leading off from it, and corridors at the corners. Men stood at the entrance to one. When they saw the raiding party they began to shout; two turned and dashed off down the passageway they guarded.

  “There!” Alston shouted.

  Crossbows snapped, the bowstring slapped against its guard, Swindapa’s sling whistled. Two men fell, and another three retreated behind the angle of the wall. Their shouts rang loud.

  “No help for it,” Alston said grimly, drawing her katana. “Go for them.”

  They sprinted around the colonnade. The Olmecs were waiting, in the straight confines of the corridor, a splash of color moving in the darkness. Sekka no atari: the words flowed through her mind, but it was as if she were watching her own actions and commenting. Spark of the flint; to strike without windup, without raising the sword. It is not possible to deal this blow without diligent practice, Musashi had said.

  She’d had sixteen years of it. Her edge flashed in under the Olmec’s rising elbow, landing on the drum-tight skin just below his floating rib. Thumping jar of impact, elbows down, hands clenching as she ripped the curved blade across his gut. Ignore the falling body, turn as the blade swept around. Swindapa was backing up, parrying the blurring strokes of the stone-edged rake, clang and clatter and bang and rattle in the murk.

  Fast, she thought, as her body reversed stance to point her the other way. The Olmec was very fast. The blade came up, and her body went forward with the downstroke. Another grinding thump as the vertebrae of the neck parted. Hendriksson and the others were swarming silently over the last Indian, shields pinning him back and short swords stabbing. Alston ignored them and sprinted down in pursuit of the two who’d run first. They were bent over a door set into the painted adobe wall, a door made of strong hardwood and secured with a thick hide knot. One of them turned at the last minute to meet the point of her shoulder.

  “Ufff!” Their lungs gasped out air almost together, hers a controlled half-shout to add force to the blow, his an involuntary gasp; mi no atare, the body-strike. Even braced for it, she felt as if she’d rammed herself into a wall. The Indian was shorter than she, but half again as heavy and built like a solid block of mahogany. He staggered, though, falling backward. Her legs moved sideways again, sidethrust kick, the most powerful in the Empty Hand repertoire. Usually a bit slow, but here she was in perfect position for it. The heel caught him in the throat just as he started to straighten. She used the leverage of that to kick off and spin around, ignoring him-larynx crushed at least.

  The last Olmec had managed to get the knot slashed open. She saw his back disappearing into the cell, dropped her katana and drew the shorter wakizashi as she plunged after him. The light in the corridor was faint, but this was like diving into an ocean of blackness.

  She nearly died as her eyes adjusted. The spear whistled past, the shaft giving her a painful thump on the neck. She scarcely noticed; the Olmec was following his flung weapon, a dagger of volcanic glass in his hand. The ugly wind of it passed before her eyes as she jerked her torso back. Then it shattered against the curved steel of the wakizashi. The Indian shrieked a war-cry and drove in, reckless of the edge and point in her right hand.

  Can’t let him grapple. Not with his advantages of weight and strength. That was easier to think than do, in this dark confined space. Cut. Cut, and a hiss of pain. A second’s blind flurry, and she drove the point home in meat-into the biceps of his right arm. His shriek was as much agony as rage, but his left hand came up and grasped at her wrist, momentum driving her back against the adobe wall with bruising, winding force. The back of her skull rang off the sun-dried brick, and she barely managed to twist as they fell down on their sides. The eighteen-inch blade of the wakizashi wavered between them as he strove to force her wrist back. The Indian sudd
enly rolled, gaining the uppermost position.

  Can’t hold him. Luckily she had one more functioning arm than he did. It groped downward, between thighs spraddled as he tried to pin her and gain possession of the knife. All she could see was his teeth snarling, but her hand found what it sought. She grabbed, wrenched, and twisted.

  Some pains will reach even a berserker, and the Olmec wasn’t quite that far gone. He reared up in a soundless gape of agony. Behind him something moved, a bright horizontal slash and a wet heavy impact. The body pitched sideways. Swindapa stood there panting, sword out in the follow-through, her eyes anxious in the cork-darkened face; Hendriksson had a flashlight out behind her.

  ” ‘m all right,” Alston gasped. And there was Martha Cofflin, thank God. Coming this far and not finding her���

  “Good to see you,” the Yankee said, showing teeth and pushing herself upright along the wall.

  “Jared sends regards,” Alston said, with the flash of a smile. We’re going to pull it off, hot damn!

  “Lisketier’s in the corner.”

  “Oh, shit,” Alston said, as the light speared empty, mindless eyes. There was drool running down her chin. “Pulakis, you carry her. Swindapa, take point; Martha, you go with Pulakis; Hendriksson, Alonski, we’ll take rearguard. Move.”

  The squat Pennsylvania Slav bent and took Lisketter’s limp form across his shoulders in a fireman’s lift, rising again with effortless ease. Alston recovered her katana, wiping it down and resheathing it; catching her breath as well.

  “Right,” she said after a moment. “Let’s go home.”

  They moved out into the corridor, past the still bodies. The floor was wet with blood, enough to make the dirt tacky and slippery under their feet in the dark. None of the Americans had taken more than superficial bruises and cuts, but she had no illusions about that. They’d had surprise on their side. Now was time to get out, just as fast as they could.

  Swindapa darted out into the courtyard, and called them on. The raiding party followed, retracing its steps. The fires were bigger now, spreading to more of the north end of the city as tufts of burning thatch drifted with the wind. They were beside the ornamental pool when Lisketter started screaming.