Nah, we’re in a league of our own. Abel chuckled. This crystal thing says you’re right below me.
Rimi looked up. She could see his shadow hovering over the veiled sun. I’m walking on the ocean bottom and have started to go gradually upward. And as I go, the mud I’m in feels firmer.
It could just be that you’re getting closer to the island, observed Abel. He was clearly adjusting well to communicating through his mind, because his telepathic messages were getting very clear. It’s only about two hundred meters to shore from here. I’ll come down with some of the tools and see if there’s anything under you. Light up one of those flares so I can see where you’re at. I’ll be down in a second.
Rimi popped the top off one of her flares as Faviola had shown her once when her Jeep had run out of gas just short of getting home and she’d called Fat Monti to bring her enough to get back to Playa de Palma. When he’d called out to them, and she could see headlights far in the distance, she’d done the same thing to let him know where she was in the pitch black of the rural Costa Rican night. Rimi now tossed the burning flare, impervious to water, out a ways in front of her, and she continued up the gentle slope, dragging her water shoes through the mud to see if they contacted anything hard or metal.
Suddenly, as if by magic, Abel was before her. She gave a little start of surprise.
Ha! I made you jump! came his thoughts as he stood there, smiling.
It’s because you look so scary dressed like that! thought Rimi to him. Like a sea monster from some of the movies mi madre’s shown to me!
And you standing there with no gear on makes you look like a mermaid or a sea nymph, either of which would have made me the envy of my old team if I ever saw one. Come on now, let me take this crowbar and do a little poking around with it.
Abel lifted off the ocean floor and drifted just above where Rimi was walking, poking with the straight-claw end of the crowbar. She walked along with him as he swam. Finally, after going together for perhaps fifty feet, the crowbar hit something hard. Rimi’s heart beat faster as Abel banged several more times, then used the other end of the bar to push aside mud and sand. Suddenly, the light from his headlamp was reflected back to them by an impossibly bright, shiny surface. Rimi gasped. It was the hull of her parents’ space cruiser.
***
Faviola was just finishing a late lunch over at the motel café when her cell phone beeped, and she answered.
“Señora Faviola, there are some men here at the front desk who wish to see you. One is Señor Monti, and the rest I’ve never seen before.” It was Javier, and he sounded on edge.
“Fine. Tell them I’ll be there shortly,” she said. She quickly paid her bill, left a tip for the waiter, a nice young man from Jacó whom she’d hired for the high season, and left, her high heels clicking on the asphalt that led from the restaurant across the road to the parking lot of the main building.
“Just like Fat Monti,” she groaned to herself in disgust. Why couldn’t he be on mañana time like everyone else in Costa Rica? No one ever actually showed up on time in Playa de Palma. It was against the pura vida, the Costa Rican expression for their laid-back lifestyle, to hurry around. Monti even came from Mexico, where being on time was considered rare. But he was always on time, and sometimes even early! She cursed him as she so often did. “No siesta for me,” she huffed. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get one either.”
Walking into the lobby, she observed a group of men (and one woman) who looked like stone statues sitting in the comfortable chairs. Everyone was stiff as a palm tree. One in particular was so large Faviola knew he could break her in half over his knee if he chose to. The woman was the only one who wasn’t motionless. She feverishly tapped keys on her cell phone as if she were having a silent debate with someone.
Standing at the counter was Fat Monti, who looked extra fat standing next to his companion, who was barely over five feet, five inches tall and was stylishly dressed in a light-colored business suit, his facial hair coiffed into a striking, pointed goatee.
“Ah, Señora Faviola!” Monti said lavishly as she entered and strode behind the front desk. “I want you to meet our new potential investor, Señor Vicente Galvan of—”
“Don Vicente Galvan,” corrected the man in a very staccato voice.
“Ah, yes,” cowered Monti. “Don Vicente Galvan of Cartagena is here as I told you he would be. He would like accommodations for him and his wife, as well as his men, as we talked about.”
“We talked about him, not his wife or his band of . . . gentlemen. I will see what I can do.” She quickly punched up Vicente Galvan’s beach house. “Señor Galvan, we have for you—”
“Don . . . Don Vicente Galvan,” corrected Galvan.
Faviola’s temper simmered, ready to explode, yet she held it in check. “Señor Vicente Galvan, I don’t know what you’re used to in Cartagena, but here in Costa Rica, we do not have knights or lords who own castles like the Spanish who conquered this land hundreds of years ago and ruled over everybody. We have señor y señora y señorita, and that is all. If you must be called ‘Don,’ perhaps you’d prefer to stay at Señor Ruiz’s house up the road.” She saw Monti cringing behind Galvan.
Vicente Galvan looked as if his temper was simmering, ready to explode as well, but he also held it in check. “Señora Faviola,” he said as smoothly as a Latino crooner, “forgive me for not understanding how crude things are here in this tiny town in Costa Rica.”
He signaled to the giant sitting in the lobby, and the man stood to his full height, which was over a foot taller than Faviola—and Vicente Galvan for that matter—and walked stiffly over and stood next to Galvan. Galvan made the slightest nod at the bell sitting on the front desk, and the giant grabbed it in one of his massive hands and squeezed. Faviola watched in terrified awe as Galvan continued.
“Thank you for informing me so I will not unintentionally offend someone else, and I do hope things will go well with us here at your inn, so I don’t have to show you how we deal with difficulties in big, beautiful cities like Cartagena. Now, you were saying?”
Faviola was still mesmerized by what the big man had done to her bell. It was now merely a mass of twisted metal on her front desk.
Finally, she shook herself visibly and said, “Señor Galvan, you and your wife will be staying in one of our best accommodations, a beach house right near the mouth of the river and the ocean. Here is a list of its amenities.”
At this point, Monti intervened. “Señora Faviola, a word with you for a moment.” He scuttled behind the front desk and dragged Faviola into the back office with him, smiling goofily at Vicente Galvan as he did. Galvan rolled his eyes.
In the back office, Monti’s face turned red with the strain of keeping his voice down. “Señora Faviola, Don Vicente Galvan was to have your finest accommodation, not your next finest accommodation. I thought I made myself clear—”
Faviola interrupted. “And I thought I’d made it clear that Señor Forrest is still the occupant of that beach house—at your request—and since he has not checked out today, it is still his beach house and will remain in his name! What is your problem with this Vicente Galvan, your investor? House number two just sits back a little from the beach. That is all. Otherwise, it is exactly the same as the other.”
“Exactly,” hissed Monti. “Because it sits back, its view is inferior, and you know it. Now, you will send your boy to clear all of Señor Forrest’s things out of Guesthouse Number One and put them into Guesthouse Number Two. Your maids will put fresh sheets on the beds and linens in the bathroom, and I will hear no more about it.”
He moved to walk back out, but Faviola stepped into his way. They glared at each other eye to eye.
“Who do you think you are, Fat Monti? Has this man convinced you that you are a don now, too, that everyone will bow and scrape to you like serfs just because you say so? I don’t kno
w what you and your investor have planned for this place, but if it involves bowing down to you and serving people like those out there, the population will not have it. They will run you out on a rail. I will contact Best Western and tell them that this is no longer a safe place for tourists, and your money will stop flowing as if someone turned off the water. This will be a haven for no one except surfing bums and nature lovers. See if you can get rich on that!”
Monti didn’t bat an eye. “Once Don Vicente Galvan and I are finished with that island, there will be no need any longer for tourists, or this motel for that matter. The money that our operation there will bring in will make me far richer than you can possibly imagine—and others as well if they choose to cooperate. How about you, Señora, will you cooperate, or that DEA agent, Forrest?”
“Estúpido!” spat back Faviola, straining to control the volume of her voice. “You will ruin everything we have here, everything! And for what? So you can get rich, you and this Don Galvan? You think the DEA is going to allow you to continue to operate as they have in the past? They’ll shut you and your friend’s operation down before it even gets started. How could you be so blind?”
“Because Don Vicente has already taken care of the DEA. Not only will they not shut us down, but they will also share in the profits, and we will hand over to them all of our competitors.”
Monti stopped and looked into Faviola’s face, now a mask of shock and horror.
“Please, mi amor, see if you can find a way to cooperate. No one wants to see you crushed like that bell out there.”
“Javier!” she called out.
Javier appeared immediately in the back office door. “Yes, Señora?”
“Take one of the crews of maids that are still here and go down to Guesthouse Number One. While the maids clean it up and change the towels and linens, you are to gather all of Señor Forrest’s personal effects and take them over to Guesthouse Number Two. Everything, please. Go now—do it quickly.”
“Sí, señora,” said Javier, and immediately exited. Monti gave Faviola a commiserating look, but she did not look to him at all.
***
A half hour later, Javier returned to the front office. Monti and the other men were gone, as was Señor Galvan and his wife, who had arrived in Guesthouse Number One just as Javier and the maids were finishing up. Javier had collected everything of Señor Forrest’s and taken it all to Guesthouse Number Two, all his clothes, his duffel bag (which seemed unusually heavy), and food from the kitchen. Lastly, he took down all of Señor Forrest’s pictures, some of which looked very beautiful, and zipped out of the house just as Señor Galvan walked up the front stairs. As he hastened away, Señor Galvan called out to him.
“Hey, muchacho! You dropped one of your pictures!”
Javier returned to Galvan, and Señor Galvan was just about to hand it to Javier when he stopped and looked at the picture more carefully.
“So, muchacho, who is this man in this picture?”
It was a picture of Señor Forrest standing outside the All-American Diner, the soda run by the two Americans, Señor Ron and Señora Elaine.
“That is Señor Forrest, the man who was using this beach house until now.”
Javier was startled to see that Señor Galvan was visibly angry and having a hard time controlling his temper. “Thank you for this information,” replied Galvan, almost grinding his teeth as he answered. “Now be gone.”
Javier was frightened for Señor Forrest because of the look on Galvan’s face, and so now, as he sat with Faviola in the office behind the front desk, he told her everything. He was afraid even more when he saw fear and anger welling up in Señora Faviola’s eyes as well.
“Have I done something wrong?” pleaded Javier. “I’m so sorry. I was sure that I had all the pictures. Why would this man become so angry about a picture?”
Faviola looked at him with pity, and she tried to sound gentle. “Nothing is your fault, Javier. Nothing. Now, please handle the front desk for me while I make some phone calls.”
26
—
For the next half hour, Abel and Rimi feverishly worked. They continued up what they knew now was most likely the roof of the space cruiser and did not have to go far to find where it was no longer buried in mud but exposed completely. There, Rimi determined within minutes that the space cruiser was definitely dead.
If it were still living, she thought to Abel, it would act as Bibi does, and I at least could enter it from anywhere by walking through the hull.
So Rimi led Abel to various places where she remembered hatches or doors in the event of an emergency. The ship’s hull was remarkably undeteriorated due to an anticorrosive alloy Rimi said all space-traveling vehicles from her world were coated with to give them durability in a variety of planetary environments, but it was also smashed and misshapen in many places, the result of the monumental force that their collision with the planet had generated. The aft part of the ship was only about twenty-five feet down, and the sunlight above caused a dazzling reflection off all its surfaces, showing how truly vast it was. Abel likened it to finding something the size of an airliner buried in mud and rock.
They finally found a hatch that would open near the rear of the main section of the craft, which seemed to be shaped roughly like a classic airplane, except the two wing sections actually had long, covered walkways along them that led to pods of sleeping quarters on each end. Entering the ship, completely filled with water and dark except where sunlight penetrated a cracked area or a window, was an eerie experience for Rimi. Though it had been over a century ago, seeing the ship now made it seem that it was just yesterday she and her parents and the rest of the crew were sailing through space, heading for Earth so that her father could fulfill his promise to the people he and his former crew had helped so much and come back to see how they were doing.
Now, Rimi used her headlamp to guide her through the main compartment, recalling as she went things like where observation decks were, the areas that she and several other children used to play, the areas where data analyzers had come out of the walls, the crew relaxation areas, and on and on. More importantly, though, she did not remember the exact location of the healing centers, where the vital, life-giving boxes of Xilinium, enough for the entire crew to exist for a year on an alien world, would be stored.
Grotesquely, wherever they went, there were bodies, or at least parts of bodies. Thankfully, most were unrecognizable, their flesh having been eaten away by microscopic sea bacteria and other organisms. Others had obviously been food for sharks and other predators. What was amazing to Rimi and Abel was how many crew members, or what was left of them, were still tethered with emergency tentacles. It was like looking at a macabre wax-museum reconstruction of the ship at the exact moment of impact.
As they worked their way into the darker parts of the ship, Abel led with his harpoon gun in one hand and the crowbar in another, clearing rubble and making sure it was safe, as it was much harder to see what sort of sea life might be around the next corner.
They came to a partially open door, and Abel used the crowbar to shove it open.
Watch out! he thought to Rimi as a large bull shark lazily drifted through the doorway. Rimi telepathically ordered it to leave, and it swished away. Then she went inside with Abel.
Looks like we finally hit the jackpot, he said. Surrounding them were several healing cylinders and compartments filled with strange devices and many boxes of what looked like medicines. As in the other areas, most personnel were tethered by emergency tentacles. Another body was actually strapped into a healing cylinder, like it had been being given some kind of first aid when the ship crashed. It appeared that the sharks had been particularly active here, as more bodies looked like they’d been fed on by some kind of carnivore.
Probably was more blood in here right after the crash, speculated Abel. Come on, let’s start checking o
ut these cupboards. What are we looking for?
They would probably be encased in large, waterproof chests or containers, and if some had spilled, they would be in watertight bottles with a large “X” on them.
It wasn’t long before they found what they were looking for, a closet full of five plastic-like chests with the letter “X” on them.
These are it, said Rimi, but there’s probably more somewhere else. This is not near enough for the entire crew.
The two bulldogged the containers onto the motorized water cart Abel had brought. They quickly opened the first container once they got it up to the surface to check its contents. Rimi smiled when she saw the boxes lining it, and inside each box, several bottles labeled Xilinium.
“You are a genius, Abel!” said Rimi triumphantly. “I shall not be dying in the next few weeks.”
She smiled at him, gave him a kiss, and then they got seriously to business. Abel retrieved the other cases and several other boxes from the water-filled healing area, then Rimi used her “go fast” ability and her incredible strength to get the crates quickly to the beach and stack them up, along with the loose boxes and bottles.
After their first haul was out, Rimi thought to Abel, I think this may be too many to carry in Faviola’s Jeep.
Yeah, I thought of that. Come on back here for a minute, replied Abel.
She did, and they talked as they held on to the side of Abel’s sled.
“Where’s the rest likely to be? Are there any cargo holds or something like that that maybe are below the living decks?”
“Yes, I believe so. They would be under the floor of the ship.”
The two went to work again, this time with much more light because they were near the ship’s more exposed stern section. After about ten minutes of banging on floorboards in the large aft storage area, they found a metal covering that rattled more than most. Yanking it off, they discovered a storage area belowdecks that encompassed the lower level of the entire ship. And lining the ship’s right side from the aft area as far as their eyes could see were more “X”-marked crates.
The Green Cathedral Page 23