Flying to Pieces

by Dean Ing

  "Two dozen aerial salutes? Every night?"

  "Two dozen every couple of minutes! I'm telling you, when I saw all the waxed cartons of that wonderful old shit stacked up high as my head, I decided maybe Jean-Claude really is a rich man. Christ almighty, if that grass storage shack ever catches fire, you'll think it's a fuckin' heavy mortar attack."

  "I'm losing track of the days," Benteen sighed, stretching becomingly, in the moonlight. "How long before we get to see all these festivities?"

  "Three days," Chip replied. He looked around casually, then went on in softer tones: "And Pilau may need some' more logs. We'll know in the morning. I'm, uh, meeting someone in an hour to see about it."

  "I don't like the sound of that," said Lovett. In more ways than one.

  The others exchanged glances. "If you're up to some kinda high-school fuck around, we'll need particulars. This is a team operation, kid,"

  Myles told him.

  "Well, basically it's not our team, okay? Not my idea, either, but if it works, we score. I'm just gonna scope it out."

  "Kid's out of control, Lovett," Myles grumped.

  Lovett bridled. "Yeah? And who was the goddamn genius who smuggled him aboard the C-Fort in the first place?"

  Benteen's tone had more resignation than anger in it: "Oh, will you stop?" More softly, she said to Chip, "At least tell us where you're going."

  And in a wondrous softly snarling, nasal parody of a man he had seen only in classic films, Chip said, "Meeting a guy down on the waterfront,. Sweetheart. No place for a dame like you," breaking into laughter as he finished.

  "I give up," Benteen announced. "Wade Lovett, you created a monster, once removed."

  "I tried to remove him again at Mejit but you knew better," Lovett reminded her, then nodded toward his grandson. "Just remember the Fifth Flying Commandment, Chip."

  "Thou shalt have a damn good reason the FAA will buy," the youth quoted.

  "Got it. The fed you mean is the size of a barn." With that, Chip gave them a half-salute and slouched off in the general direction of the maintenance sheds.

  Myles began to chuckle. "You taught him your own Ten Commandments, did you, parson? What were the others?"

  Lovett stood-up, looking after the departed youth, feeling a thousand years old. "I'll give you one more. Avoid restricted areas. You're in one now," he added, and headed for his room.

  He had heard the soft knock, presumably Mel's, and ignored it because this was one night he needed to be alone. When his luminous watch dial said it was past ten, he eased out of bed and ghosted outside with a comm set in his pocket. He kept to the verge of the tree line, taking his time, and reached the edge of the wharf without seeing anyone.

  His-only alarin enroute came when he kicked a land crab by accident and

  **skip** it grabbed his trouser leg. The damned things were big, nocturnal, and generally edible, at least until you stomped it to marmalade while high-stepping an impromptu jig in pitch darkness. Ants and land crabs were worse in some respects than mosquitoes. Both kinds of critter tended to find you if you hunkered down for long. The ants were worse in one way because they gave you no warning until you felt those tiny hobnailed boots tromping up your leg. The crabs rustled fearlessly along giving you plenty of warning; but if one of them said howdy with a big claw, your reply was likely to wake the dead.

  A few villagers were still at work in distant torchlight across the lagoon, the pale flickers dancing like antic crescent moons on the silently flowing water. The wharf's wooden surface had been built to last, and did not give him away with creaks. Here, the channel had been dredged long ago to accept trading craft with shallow drafts. Lovett waited for some sign of Chip, biding his time by imagining how the place riiight have looked on a sunny afternoon when Funlsle's tourists and phosphate rock were still the chief industries on Fundabora.

  A little coastal steamer, or perhaps a graceful tall-masted ketch, might have been warped with hawsers to the-what, bollards?-big posts projecting from the wharf's edge. A couple of dumpy, middle-aged geography teachers on vacafion would have the time of their lives paddling a rented outrigger, or swimming the hundred yards between the banks of the lagoon which, Lovett knew, was really a misnomer. it wasn't a coral-fringed lagoon but a widening of the island's major creek into a tidal pool, bringing saltwater in during high fides, flushing it back out in slack tides.

  Some retired broker would be rubbing suntan lotion on the back of his bikini'd darling, many years his junior, as she sat on a towel away from the hustle and bustle of loading at the wharf, studying the play of muscles on half-naked stevedores through her half-closed lids and thinking idly about-and a fish flopped downstream from the wharf, and Lovett's little fantasy evaporated. But was it a fish?

  And again,, more of a swirl, barely audible. And then a series of rhythmic whooshes that gradually increased in volume, and Lovett knew he was hearing the steady breathing of a tired swimmer. Sitting against a bollard, Lovett might have been part of the gray on black that was the wharf itself.

  The swimmer's breath came in the long sighs of one who had been out there for a while, and his emergence onto breakwater stones beyond the wharf was almost noiseless. It was at this time that Lovett realized a second swimmer was closing in, making a bit more noise as he eased up from the water. Something was whispered, too faint to be understood from any distance. Then the two dim silhouettes embraced, a soft chuckle shared, and though he could see very little, now Lovett knew the slender silhouettes had to be Keikano and Chip who were now hurriedly putting their clothes on as they sat together on the big stones.

  I didn't want to see this, he told himself, thinking of that embtace against the stars. Maybe not, himself replied, but if you keep spying on the kid you deserve what you get. With great stealth, Lovett began to inch his way back to the darker black of old fuel drums at the wharf's edge until he brushed against one. And because it was empty, it made a sound like stroking a bass drum with a broom. To Lovett's subjective ear it seemed more like the tolling of a gong.

  Instantly the small sounds from the near distance ceased. A moment later, the unmistakable sounds of flight, footsteps swishing through rank grass, fronds clashing softly as bodies rushed away. And now Lovett was alone, and could stand up and make his way back, this time by way of the sheds. He strode into the council house as if he owned it, and beat Chip back to their room by a good half-hour.

  This time, when Chip disrobed, his grandfather didn't feign sleep. "So where the hell--cancel that." It wasn't even an honest question; he knew bloody well where Chip had been. "Got any news, Chip?"

  "Not yet. We'll see tomorrow," was the whispered reply, sounding suspiciously hoarse with exhaustion. And if Chip wasn't asleep in thirty seconds, he was a superb faker.

  The next morning, Chip deflected questions with, if there's news, somebody will tell us," and they'd been hard at work for an hour before they heard the half-track clamoring along the perimeter road.

  Keikano rode with the native crew, explaining that-surprise!-they would need several more loads of logs as replacements, and more still for spares. Somehow, he said with exaggerated innocence while Pilau looked on, their log rafts had broken loose during the night, floating out with the creek's flow as far as the breakwater. Now they were just so many logs again, flotsam thudding around in the surf. It would be quicker to have Benteen transport a few more loads than to recover the rafts that had already broken up in rolling waves.

  Myles again borrowed the half-track to move debris. Chip and the schoolteacher studiously avoided much interaction until, an hour later, Benteen went thundering off down the road again with the native crew, minus Keikano. Chip threw an arm around the shoulder of the smaller youth, watching the letoumeau disappear, and both began to laugh. A gentle High Five followed.

  Lovett did not want to admit that he knew the reason for their elation; he'd have to face Chip's accusing look when he did it. Instead, he waited until Coop asked what the joke was as they loaded b
rush into the half-track.

  "Rongi said the rafts should not be floated so soon," Keikano replied, with a look of di may so deliberately bogus that no six-year-old could have missed it. "But Merizo insisted. Now Jean-Claude will be angry at the delay and he will direct it at his minister." Eyes twinkling, he suddenly favored them with one of those gorgeous smiles. "I suggested that, in addition to replacing the rafts, an extra supply of logs should be left near the lagoon. Merizo liked that."

  "In case more rafts float away," Lovett nodded sagely. "Good idea, Keikano. But I think it could be very suspicious, in fact downright damned dangerous, if any more logs head for the surf." More sternly now:

  "You understand me?"

  "Oh yes," said Keikano brightly. "It was I who said that someone should sleep with the new rafts, to be sure they do not seek the sea again."

  "So of course you couldn't have shown them how to seek it," Lovett persisted.

  "It would be normal to think that way," Keikano agreed.

  Lovett's glance toward Chip was accusing. "Okay, it worked, and thanks.

  But I'm going gray-all right, dainmit, my roots are getting grayer-worrying about t. he pranks you two play on King Kong."

  "Kei would've done it alone, Pop," Chip said. "As long as I couldn't argue him out of it, I could help make the job go quicker. Actually we had to make sure those rafts would get all the way to the surf. If they got hung up I was afraid Pilau could've used the half-track like a mule to tow everything back this morning, and I didn't want to crow until the eggs hatched, so to speak."

  "No more jobs like that, Chip, unless you want to risk being a capon, okay?" Lovett waited for a nod, and Chip gave it to him.

  "You swim as my father did," Keikano said admiringly to the tall youth.

  "I had no idea. But you do make too much noise, Chip."

  "Tide going out means freshwater in the stream. I'm not used to working that hard to stay afloat," Chip explained.

  Keikano's shrug implied that anybody who would use such an excuse was, perhaps, not really at home in the water. Lovett realized that while Chip thought himself a regular Evinrude on a surfboard, islanders might as well have gill slits.

  By the day's end, long after Keikano had left with Pilau and his final load of logs, they could look down a long swath of runway to the beach itself. The rough strip was now about the width of the Betty's wingspan, its upper reaches terminating in that untouched stand of trees hiding the cave's half demolished wall. Benteen, who had been chauffering logs and natives for much of the day, learned about the rafting scarn later, as they were laboriously refueling her Letoumeau. Tropical rain fell in little spits and spats, though the late sun still shone. "We're topped off," she called to Coop, and replaced the fuel cap. From her commanding height, she squinted toward the cave. "Tomorrow I might get another twenty feet mowed. Then what?"

  "Keep mowing," said Myles who, like Lovett, had flown enough in Southeast Asia to intuit the problems Reventlo might have in landing.

  "Even if we don't get it all taken away, Cris will need enough clearance for wings."

  Chip brightened suddenly. "A big helicopter would be cool. Can he fly one?"

  "Dunno if he's qualified, but he's not coming in a helo," Myles said.

  "He knows we couldn't fuel it and anything with rotors uses more fuel than a blast furnace."

  "Pilatus Turbo could make it, I think," Lovett mused.

  For once Myles took Lovett's words for wisdom, nodding. "You could grease a little Pilatus down on this strip just as it stands, but whatever you're flying, get yourself a crosswind gust and those trunks would take your wing off like a chicken-plucker. "Or he could dig a wheel into a soft spot in this crap," Lovett said, kicking a clod, "and get a ground loop out of it. Same result. A lot depends on what he's flying; how slowly he can floater in with full flaps."

  Coop reminded them that Reventlo wasn't expecting a runway anyhow and would most likely be prepared for another beach landing. "I don't mind telling you, I expected him back by now. If he's bought a very damp farm out there somewhere we sure won't read about it in the Morning Fundaboran."

  Benteen, trying to mother a sourdough thirty years her senior, reminded Coop that their missing Brit had a lot of details to cover before his return. "He might have had trouble raising Quinn back in the States, or transferring the money," she said, looking to Lovett for ' support.

  And getting it. "Don't forget, the barge and crew could take, Jeez, I don't know how long," Lovett chimed in. "For all we know he'll come chugging into the lagoon from the breakwater on a barge with a crane."

  "Uh-huh," Coop said. "And then we-what, tow those freakin' Tojos behind my Letoumeau all the way down the beach?"

  "My Letoumeau," said the proprietary Benteen.

  "Pelele's Letoumeau," Lovett rerfdnded her.

  I 'What-effin'-ever," Coop said, unconvinced, inventing a scenario for effect: "Hi there, Jean-Claude, mind steppin' aside so's our shiny new fifty-year-old bomber doesn't grind your fat ass to lard while we load our property on a barge? What say? Oh, yeah; well, some air chines turn to shit when buried in the jungle, and some just get shinier. You'll buy that, won't you, ol' buddy? You won't? But hey, we've got a signed contract. Oh, you can't read, huh? Well, trust me, you can't violate that contract without the gummint's say-so.

  "Ahh, you say you are the gummint, and-whaddaya mean,' 'impound'?

  Whaddaya mean, yours?" By now, Chip and Mel Benteen were grinning openly, and Myles might have been smiling behind his thicket of beard.

  Lovett put up his hands in silent surrender, and old Coop nodded with the satisfaction of a vindicated pessimist. "That's what keeps me awake nights, anyway."

  Myles: "You been snoring like that, and you wide awake?"

  Coop ignored him. "I wish Cris was here, that's all. Wish I knew what options we'll have once we unveil these old beauties. You think we could get 'em loaded some night while ever'body's skunk-drunk during those games?"

  "Not a chance; you know better than that," Lovett said. "Look, sooner or later Pelele's crowd has to find out. Their annual bash may be over long before Cris gets back. Besides, it'll take time to move those planes so, that we don't collapse a gear strut or something, and the middle of the night is not that-time."

  "Well, they can let us scarf their food and haul their logs with everybody smiling and all, but the later those guys find out about our goodies, the better," Coop muttered.

  "No argument there," Myles said, tamping his pipe with a dirty finger.

  They moved off toward the Cushmans, making plans for the evening. Chip had sentry duty; Myles said he'd endure Keikano's company just to fiddle with the fireworks display again; Lovett had promised to find a receptacle in the council house kitchen to recharge the battery in Chip's little computer; and Melanie Benteen agreed to help Coop work on one of the scooters. it smoked worse than Myles, and her eyes worked better in lamplight than Coop's did though, she claimed, half the time as Coop's helper she had no more idea what she was doing than the much-maligned Pilau.

  More days passed with no sign of Reventlo, and the crew became moody with tension. On the afternoon when the games finally began, Benteen admitted she was fighting a great temptation to knock off early. She had seen that huge tree trunk erected in the central plaza with its tiny platform a dizzying fifty feet up, and recognized it for what it was. "I just hope they don't test it with kids first," she said with a shudder.

  "Aah," said Myles, "those kids all climb like monkeys, Benteen. They won't fall -off that platform."

  "No. They jump," she replied, and set her big vehicle in motion again, leaving Myles and Lovett to swap awed glances. Suicide leaps? She had to be kidding. Or maybe not, those glances said. in the center The cave wall was now completely removed to ground level, leaving parapets on each side-as high as a man might reach. They had piled brush and fronds in the entrance to the same level, but any native who got near enough could have seen what was in that cave. By now, however, the vill
age resounded with the beat of log drums that resounded faintly down the perimeter road. Evidently no villager had the slightest interest in what went on anywhere but in the central plaza.

  At last Benteen made her final pass of the day, getting an Ok sign from Lovett, silencing the rumble of her leviathan near the cave. "The hell with this," she announced.

  The drumming had stopped long before they puttered to the village plaza, and the sounds that greeted them reminded Lovett of a Little League playoff. Instead of Cokes and hot dog stands, they saw coconut milk and skewers with smoked pork, mystery meats, baked fish, and fruits lying on mats here and there, visited by a steady stream of noshers. Those pole bleachers were packed with citizens in their colorful, best attire and the newcomers strolled near to stand with the overflow crowd.

  Sitting at front center on his inevitable cushioned bench, surrounded by his retinue of teenybopper wives and beef trust offensive linemen, Jean-Claude Pelele gave a hand signal and a breech clouted boy separated himself from a half-dozen others, all holding cane javelins. The lad hefted his weapon, Aancing lightly as he gathered his concentration, then hurtled forward, releasing the javelin behind a line of whitewashed stones. The cane missile arced high though not very far, landing short of several previous efforts, and Lovett saw that there was no target; this was simply for distance. The audience gave a lusty cheer anyway, and presently Jean-Claude signaled to another contestant.

  Not far from the area where the javelins were falling stood a sort of easel covered by a, tattered cloth mat. Worked into the mat was the lifesized-or more accurately perhaps, death sized-figure of a man, a tan figure on green matting. "Mel, what's that all about," he said, pointing toward it.

  Benteen spoke with the raven-tressed woman nearest her for a few moments. Then: "Lance target," she confided. "They've finished with that already; something they haven't done since the years they fought the North village. I gather my informant isn't all that happy to see it brought back."