Each night after it got too dark for Warren to write in the yellow firelight, they would move inland. The mosquitoes stayed near the beach and there were a lot of other insects, too. Warren listened to fish in the lagoon leaping for the insects and the splashing as the Skimmers took the fish in turn. He could see their phosphorescent wakes in the water.
They smeared themselves with mud to keep off the mosquitoes, but it did not keep off the ticks that dropped from the trees. There was no iodine in Gijan’s box of random items.
Putting a drop of iodine on the tick’s tail was the best treatment and second best was burning them off. Each morning the men inspected each other and there were always a few black dots where the ticks burrowed in. An ember from the fire pressed against the tick’s hindquarters made it let go and then Warren could pull the tick out with his fingernails. He knew that if the head came off in the skin, it would rot and the whole area would become a boil. He noticed that Gijan got few ticks and he wondered if it had anything to do with the Asian skin.
The next morning Warren got a good catch, and when he brought it in he was sore from the days of work on the raft. After eating the fish he went for more coconuts. The softer fronds were good, too, for rubbing the skin to take away the sting of mosquito bites and to get the salt out. Finding good coconuts was harder now and he worked his way across the island, up the ridgeline and down to a swampy part on the southern side. There were edible leaves there and he chewed some slowly as he made his way back, thinking. He was nearly across a bare stretch of soil when he saw it was the place they had laid out the SOS. The light-colored rocks were there but they were scattered. The SOS was broken up.
Gijan was looking in the storage box when Warren came back into the camp. “Hey!” he called. Gijan looked at him, calm and steady, and then stood up, taking his time.
Warren pointed back to the south and glared at the man and then bent down and drew the SOS in the sand. He rubbed it out and pointed at Gijan.
Warren had expected the man to give him a blank look or a puzzled expression. Instead, Gijan put a hand in a pocket.
Then Gijan said quite clearly. “It does not matter.”
Warren stood absolutely still. Gijan pulled the pistol casually out of his pocket but he did not aim it at anything.
Warren said carefully, “Why?”
“Why deceive you? So that you would go on with your”—he paused—”your good work. You have made remarkable progress.”
“The Skimmers.”
“Yes.”
“And the SOS …”
“I did not want anyone to spot the island who should not.”
“Who would that be?”
“Several. The Japanese. The Americans. There are reports of Soviet interest.”
“So you are—”
“Chinese, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I would like to know how you wrote that summary. I read the direct messages you got from them, read them many times. I could not see in them very much.”
“There’s more to it than what they wrote.”
“You are sure that you brought all their messages ashore?”
“Sure. I kept them all.”
“How do you discover things that are not in the messages?”
“I don’t think I can tell you that.”
“Cannot? Or will not?”
“Can’t.”
Gijan became pensive, studying Warren. Finally he said, “I cannot pass judgment on that. Others will have to decide that, others who know more than I do.” He paused. “Were you truly in a shipwreck?”
“Yeah.”
“Remarkable that you survived. I thought you would die when I saw you first. You are a sailor?”
“Engine man. What’re you?”
“Soldier. A kind of soldier.”
“Funny kind, seems to me.”
“This is not the duty I would have chosen. I sit on this terrible place and try to talk to those things.”
“Uh-huh. Any luck?”
“Nothing. They do not answer me. The tools I was given do not work. Kinds of flashlights. Sound makers. Things floating in the water. I was told they are drawn to these things.”
“What would happen if they did not answer?”
“My job is over then.”
“Well, I guess I’ve put you out of work. We’re still going to need something to eat, though.” He gestured at the raft and turned toward it and Gijan leveled the pistol.
“You can rest,” the man said. “It will not be long.”