Strontium Swamp

by James Axler

  Both J.B. and Ryan used the men they were tackling as shields, turning so that their immediate opponents formed a barrier between themselves and the two free crew members. As they choked the life from their struggling, flailing opponents, they made sure that the free men—one of whom carried a harpoon, the other an MP-5—couldn’t get a clear shot at them. As his opponent began to lose consciousness, becoming more of a deadweight, Ryan felt him slump into him, and he reached around to take the SMG as it began to slip from his grasp. Before his human shield had a chance to completely fall free, Ryan already had the SMG raised and rattled off a burst before the crew member opposite him had a chance to open fire. The one-eyed warrior’s burst stitched a ragged, bloody line across the crewman’s torso, running from his waist up to his neck, which exploded in a gout of blood where the carotid artery was ripped open. The crewman staggered back to the rail, where he teetered unfeelingly for a moment before pitching over the side and into the ocean.

  J.B. had almost throttled the life from his opponent, and as the crewman dropped, the MP-5 fell to one side, leaving J.B. exposed if he wished to drop the unconscious man and grab the SMG. The Armorer knew he couldn’t safely get the blaster if he kept hold of his shield, and it seemed as though the man opposite knew this, grinning with relish as he raised his harpoon gun and waited for J.B. to make his move. The grin suddenly turned into an expression of mute astonishment. He looked down at his side and noticed that the end of a harpoon was sticking out from just beneath his armpit. He turned his gaze back to J.B. with something approaching bemusement before falling sideways to the deck. The Armorer looked over and saw Jak holding the harpoon gun he had taken from his own opponent.

  But there was no time for thanks. They had taken out the crew, but Mildred, Krysty and Doc were still in the water, and the predatory sharks were closing in…

  Ryan was at the stern rail. He could see that the women had Doc free of his bonds, but the old man was still barely conscious, and it was all they could do to keep him on the rope. There was no way that they could get him up by themselves, and time was running short: the sharks were sniffing around, getting closer with every passing moment.

  Except for a few that were clustered around a foaming pool of water some 150 yards back…

  Of course—Ryan realized what had happened. Some of the predators had latched onto the crewman who had pitched over the side, and they were too preoccupied with his corpse to bother with Mildred, Krysty and Doc.

  “Grab the crew,” he yelled over the sound of the ocean. “Look…”

  J.B. and Jak both followed the direction of Ryan’s arm and could see the frothing, bloody pool in the middle of the sea. They knew immediately what he meant, and moved to gather the chilled crewmen. Taking them one at a time and swinging the bodies so that they sailed over the rail and into the sea, they worked their way through the seven chilled.

  The eighth member was the woman who had chilled one of her own with a flare gun; it still sat uselessly in her hand as she sat staring into space. Ryan went across to her, crouched in front and took the flare gun from her unresisting grip. He said nothing; he could see that she was a million miles away. He couldn’t throw her to the sharks when she was alive, in spite of the fact it was what she and her fellow crew members had been doing to the companions. She was no threat now; they would wait and deal with her later.

  There were more important matters to attend to: with the seven corpses now in the sea, the blood and meat was attracting the predators away from where Mildred, Krysty and Doc were huddled on the pole. Ryan leaned over the stern as far as he dared and yelled down at them.

  “Hang on, we’re gonna pull you up,” he yelled.

  As they looked up, Mildred and Krysty wondered how the hell the three exhausted men were going to haul up three people and a wooden pole. They were still wondering when Ryan disappeared from view. At least the sharks had gone for the moment. The bait of the chilled fishermen had worked, and sections of the sea were now frothing pools of blood, salt water and entrails.

  Back on deck, Ryan and J.B. had located where the ropes for the trailing poles were tied. They were knotted through metal loops at the base of a sail mast.

  “Jak, think we can do this?” Ryan asked, indicating the individual loops.

  The albino youth grinned. “Not get up any other way.”

  But all three of them knew that it wouldn’t be easy, and they had little time before the predators finished with the corpses tossed to them, and came in search of more meat.

  The first step was to untie the rope attached to the pole with Mildred, Krysty and Doc. As this was also the heaviest, it was the most risky to handle. But there was no other way. Ryan and J.B. took as much slack as they could and braced themselves while Jak unpicked the reef knot tying the rope to the loop. He yelled when the knot was loose, and the two men strained every muscle to try to keep the rope stable as Jak fed it from the loop, then played the slack around the sail mast before reknotting it to one of the other ropes.

  “Done,” he yelled when he was finished.

  Ryan and J.B. tentatively let loose the rope, testing if it would hold steady. It did.

  Then, while they kept a wary hand on the rope, Jak untied from its loops the rope to another three of the poles, attaching them also to the one rope. There were now four poles attached to one that was still looped. One of these poles—the occupied and heaviest—was wound around the mast.

  There was one independent rope, and as Jak took it and attached it to the others, the ropes began to groan.

  None of them had been sure if this would work in theory, let alone in practice. If it went wrong, they would lose their three companions to the ocean…and the predators who were lurking in the depths.

  Jak looked up at Ryan and J.B., who were still keeping a wary hand on the rope attached to the pole with Doc, Krysty and Mildred. Their silence bade him to continue. Jak began to unpick the knot that kept the final pole—the one to which all the others were now attached—secured.

  Ryan and J.B. tensed as they felt the shift in weight on the rope, and then released their grip as they felt the rope begin to move between their palms.

  It was a slow movement at first, but began to pick up impetus as the ratio of the weights shifted. And it was movement in the right direction.

  The idea had been simple. The weight of the unoccupied poles, if left free and unattached, would drag the occupied pole up onto the deck using the mast as a pivot. The unknown variable had been this: did the weight of five unoccupied poles add up to more than the single pole with three occupants? If it hadn’t, then the operation would have worked in reverse and they would have lost their friends to the sea.

  But now, as Mildred and Krysty, clinging to Doc, found themselves being hauled upward, there were other problems for the three men on deck. As the momentum of the pole increased, it would be whipped across the deck and around the mast, and would cause considerable damage to the vessel on the way—damage they couldn’t afford, as the vessel was their only way of attaining land.

  Ryan—who had located their belongings—had found his panga, and stood ready. “Climb! Hand up, Doc,” he yelled as they closed on the boat. Hurriedly, J.B. and Jak reached over the side and helped drag the old man, now coming around and able to assist a little in his own rescue, up onto deck. As Mildred and Krysty made to leap aboard, they were aware that the pole, suddenly decreasing in weight and leaping incrementally in momentum, was ready to unleash itself like a coiled spring.

  Ryan was ready to slash at the taut rope with his panga, his eyes fixed on Mildred and Krysty. He yelled at them, “Now!”

  As they leaped, he brought the sharp blade down in a slashing motion at the rope, hoping he could cut it that fraction of a second before the pole crested the rail and whipped across the deck.

  He had no idea if he had succeeded. The end of the rope jumped up violently and caught him across the face, driving him backward across the deck in a mist of blinding red pain. He
felt his head crack against the deck, and then nothing.

  When he came around, he was aware that Krysty was leaning over him.

  “Hey, lover, you should learn to duck,” she said softly.

  Ryan winced as he moved his head. His skull felt as though it were made of crystal, ringing and ready to shatter at the first opportunity. “What’s happening?” he asked in a hushed voice.

  “We’re heading toward the swamps. There’s hardly any food and water aboard. Guess they weren’t planning to be out that long, and we can’t go back that way, can we? Jak figures we’re near where we first found him, so mebbe we’ll land, get our bearings, see if we can find the people he left behind. Mebbe they got together the kind of ville they were looking for. Leastways, at least we know there’s a redoubt near there where we can jump.”

  Ryan grinned. “Seems like you got it all worked out.”

  A worried frown creased Krysty’s brow. “It’s not us I’m worried about. It’s really hard to catch the wind to take us the right way—too many changes out there. I’m worried we’re sailing into a storm, and it’s gonna take us way off course.”

  “What about our guest?”

  Krysty looked puzzled. “What about her? She’s a bit more coherent than she was. Shit scared we’ll chill her like the others, even though I’ve told her we would have done that already if it was our intent, but—”

  “She was on crew, right?” Ryan interrupted. “She must know these waters. Mebbe she could help.”

  “Why should she?”

  “Because if she doesn’t, she’s liable to get chilled, as well,” Ryan answered simply. He groaned as he got to his feet. “Now where the hell is she?”

  Krysty took him over to where the woman was sitting on the deck, huddled against the mast, looking sullen and withdrawn.

  “Lady, I haven’t got time to fuck about with niceties,” Ryan said simply, squatting before her. “We’re all in shit unless you help. If you do, then we’ll let you go when we reach land. If not, then you’ll probably buy the farm with us because we’re not sailors. Can’t be plainer than that. Do we have a deal?”

  The woman hadn’t been looking at Ryan as he spoke; she had been too concerned with the skies, which were glowering with low and ominous cloud banks, moving swiftly in the winds. She was also aware of the increasing pitch and yawl of the boat.

  She looked Ryan in the eye, as if trying to see if there was any indication of truth or lies in that ice-blue orb. Finally she spoke.

  “Guess I would be fishbait by now. Guess I may be if you’re really that shit at sea. Where you heading?”

  “The swamps,” Ryan stated, opting to be straight with her.

  She snorted. “Never do it unless I help. Storm’s blowing up, and it’ll drive northwest when you want to go south.”

  “Then, lady, you’d better get off your ass and help right now,” Ryan said softly.

  “Mebbe I will. Least I’ll stay alive a little longer, if nothing else…”

  Chapter Six

  “Hope you know what the fuck doing—this not respond,” Jak yelled at the woman over the roar of the ocean, which was growing louder as the storm clouds gathered overhead and the first heavy drops of rain were carried on the strengthening breezes.

  “Stupe boy,” she muttered by way of reply, wrestling the wheel of the boat from his hands. “You people listen to me, perhaps we’ll get through this. But you gotta do exactly what I say, or we’re fucked.”

  J.B. shot a glance at Ryan. Could they trust her? Ryan shrugged. Right now, they had little choice.

  The middle-aged woman, whose wide hips and seemingly fat physique belied a strength apparent in the way she handled the wheel, began to bark out a series of orders for the companions to change the tack of the sails and move the masts so that they could catch the crosswinds that would carry them in the right direction. Ryan and J.B. had worked on ships in their time, having once been stranded in a whaling port and left at the mercy of the insane and sexually voracious female ship’s captain Pyra Quadd, but Mildred, Jak and Krysty had less experience, and had to follow the woman’s orders to the letter. Doc was excluded from working, despite his willingness to lend a hand. The old man had tried to raise himself and assist, but was still too weak, and was persuaded that he should rest.

  If rest were possible in such a place. The storm came upon them rapidly as they sailed straight into the heart of it, unable to alter their course quickly as the sails were rerigged, taken up by the air currents swirling around the cloud systems.

  The rain started to beat heavily on the deck, huge fat drops that physically hurt as they pounded the companions’ raw and exposed skin. Drops hit them like hurled stones as they were picked up by the crosscurrents of wind and driven almost horizontally across the deck. Crosscurrents of wind battered at them, almost sweeping them off their feet and down from the mast as they clambered around, desperately keeping a handhold as they sought to redirect the sails and pilot the boat out of the storm.

  The deck rose and fell around them, making it hard to keep upright and to move with any degree of safety. At any moment, they could be pitched forward by a sudden roll of the water beneath, sent skittering toward the rail and over into the choppy waters beneath, where disturbed sea life either went deep to avoid the foam, or tried to take advantage of anything that was beaten down by the storm.

  Still the woman yelled—they didn’t even know her name, but she treated them as though they had sailed with her a thousand times. It was hard for any of the companions to tell if the boat was turning and making progress, as all around seemed to be a solid wall of rain and cloud, a permanent gray backdrop, illuminated occasionally only by sudden flashes of lightning as the clouds cracked together, the distant rumble of thunder buried beneath the whine of the wind and the roaring of the sea.

  She seemed to be pleased with what was happening, and whenever Ryan could spare a second from the work to look over in her direction, it seemed as though she might just be doing it. Her expression was determined, but there was a light in her eyes that showed triumph. It was hard for him to grasp, as all he could feel was an immense weariness that crept over him as the rain beat down, hard and cold, seeming to freeze him to the bone, his eye aching and sore from the salt spray that mixed with the rain. His vision was a constant blur, no matter no much he tried to wipe clear his eye. What was the point? His arm was soaked, water running off his skin and matting his hair as though he were standing beneath a waterfall.

  The deck beneath their feet—treacherous enough with the pitch and yawl of the sea—was made worse by the water that slopped over the sides and poured from the skies, making the planking slippery enough to land them on their backs, to slide them over the side. As if the work wasn’t hard and urgent enough, they now had to move slowly to try to keep some kind of balance lest they lose their lives in the irony of trying to save them.

  Concentration on the work needed to turn the boat around and pilot it out of danger was so intense and absorbing that they didn’t at first notice that the storm was beginning to abate.

  Mildred suddenly looked up, realizing that she was no longer being battered by raindrops like stones, even though the winds were still blowing strong. It was lighter than the gloom in which they had toiled for so long, and as she looked up she could see that although the clouds were skittering across the sky, they had broken, allowing the blue above to shine through.

  “Shit, I think we’re through it…” Mildred said softly, staring up at the sky with bemusement.

  Ryan paused, noticing that the deck beneath his feet was no longer pitching with such fury, and—as he looked across—he could see that the sea around them was starting to settle.

  “Fireblast, you might actually have done it,” he yelled to the woman at the helm.

  She looked back at him with a wry amusement. “Y’shouldn’t have doubted, One-eye. Save my own skin, then I’ve gotta save yours.”

  “Friendly gal, isn’t she,” Mildred
murmured to Krysty. “Better watch her.”

  “Look!” Jak yelled, pointing out over the stern. “Not safe yet.”

  “Shit shit shit…” screamed the woman at the wheel. “No way are we out of it yet.”

  Staring out over the stern at the dark shapes closing on them, it became clear why their helmsman was suddenly so terrified.

  “What the hell are those?” J.B. asked slowly, not really expecting an answer. The shapes were sleeker than the sharks that had trailed them when they had first been dragged into the ocean, and they were moving at a greater speed. Somehow, they looked more menacing, more purposeful, as they sped toward the boat.

  “Get back from the stern,” the woman yelled at them. “Seen those fuckers before, and they’ll have you over the side if you give them the chance.”

  Doc glared at her. “Madam, I feel you are overstating the case and being a little too presumptuous. The mere thought that these creatures could—” he swept his arm out over the side as he spoke and was silenced as one of the shapes broke the waters and lunged up the rear of the boat.

  They were dolphins, but unlike any kind of porpoise that any of the companions had ever seen before. Sleek and bottle-nosed, this particular mammal had twin rows of sharp teeth that were awesomely visible as its powerful tail propelled it out of the water and into the air. It hung over the rear of the boat, mouth open for what appeared to be an eternity, the twin rows of teeth looking razor-sharp and deadly, its fetid breath blowing back Doc’s hair as he stared into the maw.

  It made a noise—not the high-pitched intelligent squeak of dolphins they had seen before, but a lower, more menacing growl. Doc could almost swear he saw the creature’s uvula vibrate as the sound emitted from its cavernous mouth. And then it snapped shut its jaws with a sharp crack, like a whip with more than a hint of wood being chopped. Doc had just had the presence of mind to snatch back his arm, and the creature’s jaws closed on nothing but air. It hung there, disappointment almost obvious in the bright, intelligent eyes, before falling back into the wake of the vessel.