Flying to Pieces

by Dean Ing

  And each day Crispin Reventlo grew more restive. In late afternoon after their fifth fruitless day of searching, he proposed a hike along the base of those rocky heights above the abandoned open-pit mine. "We'll tell Keikano it's to look over the land, but the team knows what we're checking on," he told Lovett.

  "You might tell me. Coop's pretty gimpy but I'd like to go," Lovett said.

  "Bats. You see them now and then, at dusk. Not the big fruit bats; those little nippers that like to roost in caves. When they come out at dusk, they might give us a bearing."

  "What does Keikano think about coming back in the dark?"

  "He thinks we're mad as March hares; probably isn't thinking about pocket torches. But if we're going, he'll guide us. And we're going," he said firmly.

  "Mad dogs and Englishmen hike on moonlit nights," Lovett misquoted, grinning. "We'll need every flashlight we can find.

  They left Coop in his room with a transceiver and, with Keikano in the lead, took a footpath that skirted the steep rocky heights. Chip pointed out the mining pit below in the distance, a broad ugly scar the jungle was slowly reclaiming. A mile beyond lay a shallow bay, freckled with tiny islands, their bases worn narrower than their tops by wave action so that each islet poked above the lapping tide with the shape of a giant's doorknob. Each was crowned with vegetation like an Afro haircut.

  "Keikano says tourists named the place Mushroom Bay; you can see why,"

  said the youth.

  Far beyond the bay, the north end of Fundabora sortied out into the ocean again, and there, starkly etched against the sky, tendrils of smoke hovered lazily, dark fingers pointing down as if to pinpoint Fundabora's exiles. Lovett hailed Keikano and pointed toward the smudges. 'They don't try to hide their fires," he said. "If anyone comes, they know," Keikano said simply. 'How do they know?" 'They know,"

  Keikano repeated with an apologetic smile. "Wrong-Long ago, they learned it was necessary."

  Lovett noticed the quick glance of Mel Benteen, who had been scanning the lava scarp behind them. She caught his eye, smiled, shrugged and looked away again. The late sun lit the planes of her face wonderfully and Lovett could easily imagine Melanie Benteen as a purebred island woman, one who had somehow avoided the tooth decay and a tropical sun that hammered wrinkles into the flesh from an early age. Island girls could be gorgeous at twelve, and crones at forty. Mel, already in her forties, could still give a man thoughts of will you knock it off.?

  She's mean as a pet squirrel and she's not interested, he snarled at himself. If anyone had a shot with Mel, it would be Reventio. He did, after all, share the same bed with her-probably, Coop had said, in the same way he might share it with a sore-footed sled dog.

  The footpath stood out clearly now, winding through declivities between jungle and the steepening lava scarp that was scoured too hard by the wind to permit anything more than tough grasses on its flanks. Far ahead of them the path descended, then rose again along the base of that rock spine they'd almost struck in their overflight. Palms and other growth crowded into small ravines that had captured wind blown soil. Lovett wondered for a moment how a coconut palm could become rooted that high on a rocky slope. Then he thought of typhoons with winds so powerful they could literally hurl a coconut a thousand feet up like a flung baseball, and wondered no more. Along the isthmus, below that rocky spine, vagrant sun glints through palmetto thickets proved that the salt swamp cut the island almost in two.

  And suddenly Lovett knew how it was that those northern outcasts could avoid surprise visits from Pelele's gang. A landing in the bay would be damned dangerous with those stone mushrooms creating crosscurrents.

  Anyone advancing in cover would do it through a mile or so of trackless swamp. Anyone advancing without it would have to use the path; and a single sentry, hidden somewhere in the rocky northern minarets, could give the alarm long before trouble could reach his village. A subtle movement on a nearby slope drew Lovett's gaze. He peered hard, then smiled. "Someone's pet pussycat," he said, pointing.

  Keikano saw it, a slim graceful creature with markings like an ocelot, before it slid from sight. "They are wild, except for a very few. A pet like that must be raised from a baby or-," he said, and made claws of one hand, niiming a, funous swipe.

  Lovett exchanged a glance with Chip and sighed. He hadn't come this far to waste time taming one of Mayday's distant cousins.

  The sun had touched the horizon when Lovett pointed behind them to the southern spires that overlooked council house, airstrip, and beach.

  "Keikano, does Jean-Claude keep sentries up there?"

  A pause, and a mystified frown. "I do not think so. There is no path there. Why would he want to? He has nothing to fear."

  "Just wondering." Lovett continued to gaze toward those dizzying pinnacles he'd seen daily from the other side, wishing he knew enough geology to understand the structure of a lava chimney.

  "I bet we could see a lot from there," Myles said, wiping sweat from his forehead.

  "There is no path and it is very dangerous," Keikano said with a finality that was almost brusque. "Especially after dark."

  Vic Myles grinned through his beard at Lovett. "Maybe some other time during daylight," he said.

  Keikano pointed his chin at a sun that had already half submerged into the Philippine Sea. "Will you have time to do these things?"

  "As much time as we want," Myles said.

  This was plainly not what the schoolteacher wanted to hear. He forced a bright smile and said, "We must return now. Soon the path will not be friendly to your feet."

  "It must be tough for you at night," Reventlo said casually, leaning against an outcrop, studying the heights.

  Keikano, just as casually: "Why would I take such foolish risks?"

  "I'm not sure why," said the Brit, smiling, "but I'm sure you do.

  Keikano, we already know you visit back and forth, and I don't think that meets with Jean-Claude's approval. It seems pretty clear you must do it in darkness."

  "I do not like to speak of this," Keikano said, and there was iron in the soft voice. "Will you come back with me now?" 'Not just yet," Lovett urged. If Keikano was this anxious to leave, maybe Reventlo was right about the bats.

  "But-it will be dark soon," Keikano said.

  Reventio: "We all have pocket torches." He pulled a compact Maglite from his pocket, twisted it to obtain a beam. Then he consulted his map before leaving the path for the uneven footing of old lava. "We should fetch up on the cliff above the airstrip if we keep circling the pinnacles this way," he said to the others.

  In that instant, an emerald flashbulb filled the sky and, in the next second, dusk enfolded their world Every one of the party paused in homage to the fallen sun. "Ohh," Chip breathed in awe. "What was that?"

  "I've seen it before," Lovett replied, placing a hand on his grandson's shoulder. "The green flash, they call it; happens now and then when sunset is lensed through a wave, and conditions are just right."

  "Rad. Why doesn't it happen in Santa Cruz?"

  Shrug. "Beats me, kid. Maybe it does." And with the briefest of mutual shoulder pats, their moment of intimacy passed.

  Moments later, Reventlo put hands on hips and surveyed the scarp ahead.

  "Bloody path's in shadow now, and I don't fancy a tumble down to the trees."

  "What path? Listen, the teacher's right," said Myles, glancing nervously ahead. "We gotta start back."

  The Brit was looking up and to his right, toward the pinnacles, as he said, "Forget what we came for, did we, Vic?"

  "No, 1-wup! There goes one," he said as a tiny scrap of blackness wheeled silently overhead like torn tissue on some unfelt breeze: a bat.

  Then he noticed Reventlo's hard glance in his direction. "What?"

  Reventio, acidly: "Would you like a megaphone, Vic?"

  "Sorry.,, Now they were all gazing around them, watching those scraps of sentient tissue flicker though the dusk. That was when Chip, facing the pinnacles, head thrown
back with the grassy downslope behind him, took one step to the rear. "Where d'you suppose;" he began to Keikano, and then lost his footing. "Wha, OOooo, bummerrrr," his cry dopplen'ng down as he slid, now rolling onto his back, arms out as he accelerated down the slick grass.

  "Chip! Chip," Lovett cried, watching in horror, unable to help as the youth plummeted to a terminal velocity that should have had a mach number attached. And when he reached broad-leaved undergrowth a hundred feet below, he simply kept going, his progress marked only by fainter and fainter shouts of, "Shit, shit, shit, Oh, shit..." Then silence.

  They all called, Lovett and Keikano beginning to search frantically for some safe way to follow. Lovett said, "I've got to get down there some-"

  and stopped as a blond head poked out of the greenery., It had an arm, and it was waving. "Whoa, dude, did I rip that one or what," floated up to them. In truth, Chip was no more than sixty yards away.

  "Goddamniit, Chip, you might've-this isn't a surfing run, idiot!

  "That's what you think, Pop. Yow, bitchin'," he shouted his delight.

  "Man, but I'm ainted."

  "Chip, will you get back up here before you kill yourself?" Lovett's shout was quavery with relief.

  "No way," said the youth. "That grass? I think Pilau must've oiled it.

  It's not so steep down below, why don't you guys come on down?"

  "The way you did?" Reventlo laughed aloud. "I would break every bone in my arse. Not a stellar plan." He turned to the others. "Any other mental cases care to try Chip's carnival ride to oblivion?"

  "Maybe not," Myles said, stroking his beard. "Absolutely not," Benteen agreed. 'I must go," Keikano blurted to the Brit. "Please, you must go back with those lights and please, please, stay on the path." Surely,"

  Reventlo began, "you're not going to," but by that time he saw that the slender Keikano was going to.

  Chip saw the long slide began, feet first, fanny down, and called, "Go for it, but look out for the Idmps." d Keikano began the descent more slowly using arms an feet with care, but then gravity did what gravity does. With a yelp of what could have been fear or delight, the schoolteacher went hurtling down the slope, head bobbing, clods flying. Keikano disappeared into the jungle for only a few yards before the top of a broadleaf sapling waved merrily, Chip scrambling off to help, or perhaps just to view the remains.

  When the little party on the scarp could hear laughter from below, they vented sighs of relief. "We'll take the long way," Lovett called, and heard an an-tiable reply float up from the jungle. _

  "And people ask me why I didn't have kids," Mel Benteen said.

  Reventlo snapped on his flashlight and turned back the way they had come. Every few paces, he stopped to scan the air. "I'd bet my flight pay there's a cave entrance somewhere about," he said.

  "Look for something like thin smoke," Myles said. "That's how a bunch of bats look against the sky from a distance when they first come out."

  Lovett snorted. "Now you're a bat expert."

  "Betcherass, Wade. Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin; one million Mexican free-tail bats under it, give or take a dozen. Nightly local event."

  "Why am I not surprised," Benteen chuckled.

  "Don't offend him, it's the Texas state bird," Lovett joined in.

  "Spin around on this bird, Lovett," Myles suggested, with a one-digit salute and the peculiar good nature of a man who has grown calluses on his state pride.

  "I'm not seeing anything like your smoke cloud, Victor," said the Brit, picking his way carefully back, still searching the darkening sky. "Any more useful tips?"

  "I got one for Lovett," said the Texan.

  "Enough with the straight lines, Cris," Lovett said.

  Myles, imperturbable: "Mex free-tails may not be like these but they say you need an air supply in their caves."

  "Bats must breathe, I should think," from Reventlo.

  "Sure, but they can take the ammonia and you can't. The ammonia's from their guano, batshit. Great fertilizer, used to be mined for black powder nitrates."

  "So if we smell ammonia, we could be near our cave," Benteen mused aloud.

  "So they say," Myles replied. "Stinks like a dungeon full of used diapers."

  Now they regained the footpath, remarking on the few bats they did see, less optimistic about their tactic with every step.

  Several times they were treated to an oddity that, at first, raised hackles: phosphorescence in rotting vegetation. The glow was dim but broadly suffused, like some eldritch candle hidden beneath layers of lime-green cloth.

  When they had made their way back to safe and familiar ground, Lovett hurrying ahead the sooner to see his grandson again, Benteen voiced one last question. "Myles, why do they call them free-tails?"

  " 'Cause," said the Texan, "the lucky little boogers get all the tail they want, and they don't have to pay for it."

  "You had to ask," Reventlo said mournfully, then raised his voice. "I say, Wade, lower your flaps. You're leaving us behind."

  The entire crew set up a vigil on the veranda, some picking at bits of fruit, Lovett pacing back and forth. When Chip trudged within sight he was alone and from the beach, not from the direction they expected.

  Lovett let go the deepest sigh in his collection at the youth's hail and returned it.

  Chip should have been exhausted; his hair was rumpled, clothes torn, smears of dirt on his face. His face glowed with delight.

  "Christ, kid," Myles said, "you look like you've been never mind," he subsided.

  "That grin of yours is a dentist's advert," Reventlo said, shaking his hand. "You had us worried, lad."

  Lovett, peering toward the beach: "Where's Keikano?"

  "He peeled off after we got to the airstrip. I knew where I was by then and just followed the beach. But, uh," he paused, shaking his head, still grinning. "Could we discuss it in the plane?"

  Reventlo frowned, nonplussed. "It's quite late. You mean, in the morning?"

  "If you want to wait that long," Chip said, his manner insinuating a great deal. "I don't think you do."

  Reventio's expression shifted gears instantly. "Well, I'll defer to your judgment-barring your unique way of getting down a Mountainside."

  "My leg's still a problem," Coop said. "Think I need to go?"

  "I really do," Chip said, and his grin continued to say more. "It's about some deposits. If you don't come along, I think you'll wish you had."

  They trooped out to the moonlit aircraft. Chip circled it as the others moved inside, then pulled the cargo door shut behind him. The cabin light threw his face into hard shadow as he said, "Nobody out there listening, I guess. I'd hate for them to find out before we're ready.

  But I guess that's up to you."

  "I trust all this mystery is in aid of something major," said Reventio.

  "Yesss," Chip said, with a raised fist, and looked around him, his grin refreshed. Then temptation overcame him and, enjoying his moment, Chip Mason became sly, primly secretive. "Let's see: there were supposed to be, what, six Japanese planes?"

  "Roughly," Lovett nodded, tired and grumpy and not enjoying this catechism in the least.

  "In a cave, preserved like new," Chip went on.

  Lovett drew a deep breath and jabbed a forefinger in his grandson's direction. "I don't know if you're still spankable, Chip, but the impulse is growing."

  Chip abandoned his game, throwing both hands into the air. "Well, it's true about the airplanes. All of it!"

  Keikano had seemed to arrive at some major decision, said Chip, after becoming convinced that his new friends had presented him with a sort of Catch 21, just short of a Catch 22. Having promised to take him along when they all left Fundabora, now they were in no hurry to leave.

  Leading Chip around the base of the rocky scarp in gathering darkness, Keikano had made his way unerringly between almost invisible goat trails, moving as if holding to some personal schedule and never needing to backtrack. Evidently Keikano's trail markers included a co
uple of those luminous mounds which, Chip said with an abashed look, took a bit of getting used to.

  They had stopped for a breather after an hour and Chip, only half-stunned by the moonrise over a Pacific island shore, realized they had circled to a position overlooking the old airstrip.

  There, as the American youth leaned against the cliff side while the Fundaboran rested in a squatting position, the schoolteacher saddled Chip with some friendly questions. Exactly how long, he wondered aloud, did the crew expect to stay on the island? And what were they really after?

  Chip said the length of their stay wasn't up to him. They hoped to find something worth exporting.

  And the sooner they found it, the sooner they'd take Ktikano away? Chip said it looked that way. The group had brought no shovels on this trek, Keikano pointed out, but had shown great interest in bats. Why?

  Maybe, Chip said carefully, they hoped bats would lead them to mineral deposits. Keikano had taken a long time to form his next question. Would they be just as happy, he asked, with more relics of aircraft?

  Chip had seen that his guide seemed to know exactly where he was going along those animal trails, and when to leave them. Now he believed that it was no accident they had emerged on a prominence overlooking the moonlit swath of second-growth jungle marking a Japanese airstrip. And given such a leading question, Chip replied that his elders might be very, very happy with aircraft relics-provided they were in much better condition than the stuff they'd already found corroding in the jungle.

  Chip recalled the next question verbatim, virtually whispered. "And if they were in condition to fly?"

  Chip had laughed aloud. "They'd probably forget about minerals," he'd burbled. "But that's impossible. Isn't it?"

  Chip's guide half arose but paused at his last phrase, comically bent as if wondering whether to make some vast, decisive leap.

  In what he later said was a flash of intuition, Chip applied the goad to Keikano's backside. "Yeah," he said smugly, "that's totally impossible."

  And that is when Keikano straightened, took a half-dozen steps, and knelt in moon shadow, straining at an up-thrust of rock as if to move a ton of stone. And when it did move, Chip realized it was a thin slab balanced to permit its rolling to one side. The hole it revealed was shoulder-high, blacker than night, and Keikano had disappeared through it in an instant without hesitation.