CHAPTER 3
Yap Island
(Shikarrak)
Chief Gunner’s Mate
Dennis Silva savagely hacked at the indifferent army of spiny,
bamboo-like shoots standing before him like a shield wall of
personal foes. The swath of “ bamboo” couldn’t be more than a mile
wide at most—judging by the crummy “chart” Silva had, the whole
island wasn’t much wider than that across this point—but it seemed
endless, and the party’s progress through it had been
excruciatingly slow. Even the mighty Dennis Silva was beginning to
tire. Sweat glistened on his skin, collecting grime and fragments
of the shredded flora, and the patch covering his ruined left eye
was soggy and blotched with salt. He stopped for a moment to catch
his breath and untwisted the canteen from the rope belt around his
waist. Sloshing it experimentally, he unscrewed the cap and took a
shallow swig.
“Now I know what a
ant feels like,” he pronounced a little breathlessly. “ ’Cept I
don’t guess ants have to gnaw their way through everything to get
anywhere.”
The rest of the small
party accompanying him was at least as tired as he was after
swinging their decidedly inferior cutlasses to widen the path
behind him. Silva was doing the lion’s share of the work, but the
steel in his pattern of 1917 Navy cutlass was of infinitely better
quality. In response to his statement, his companions could manage
only a few gasping grunts. The heat was hellish and the humidity
oppressive, but the sun didn’t bother Silva anymore. He was tanned
so dark, his various smudged tattoos had become merely darker,
unrecognizable discolorations on his skin. In contrast, his now
longish hair, matted beard, and the light, curly hair that
generally covered him from neck to feet had turned almost pure
white. For clothing, he wore only his battered “chief ’s” hat the
Bosun had given him, a pair of cut-off Lemurian-made dungarees, and
“go-forwards” he’d fashioned for himself.
He was otherwise
equipped with a large shooting pouch, slung over his shoulder, made
from the almost indestructible hide of a rhino pig. It contained
all the implements, components, and accessories necessary to keep
the “Doom Whomper,” the .100-caliber rifled musket he’d made from a
Japanese anti-aircraft gun, fed, maintained, and happy. He’d given
his pistol belt to Sandra Tucker—she knew how to handle a 1911
Colt—and there wasn’t much ammo for it anyway. She could use it if
she needed it, but it was his job to keep that from happening.
Instead of the 1911, Silva still carried his cutlass, and a
long-barreled flintlock pistol he’d taken from the Company assassin
Linus Truelove. Silva expected, with some satisfaction, that
Truelove had been reduced to a few floating ashen specks, when
Silva had contrived to blow up Ajax,
but the pistol was a dandy. It would shoot only once before
reloading of course, but they had plenty of ammo for
it.
He took the
opportunity to fish a whetstone from his pouch and run a few swipes
down each side of his cutlass blade. He then offered the precious
whetstone to the others, and when they took it, he watched keenly
while it made its rounds before being returned. Dropping the stone
back in his pouch, he carefully secured the flap. He took a deep
breath and resumed his attack on the shoots. They continued moving
slowly under the sweltering sun, through the rest of the morning
and into the early afternoon. Eventually, finally, it appeared that
the stalks were beginning to thin. After a little longer, Silva was
sure of it, and he slew the final shoots like the helpless
stragglers of a routed army.
Before him now
stretched a virtual savanna, filled with long grasses of various
types. Some looked like “normal” grass, like coastal Bermuda, but
there were large, almost islandlike clumps of taller stuff that
reminded him of kudzu, complete with blue and purplish foxtail
blossoms congregated near the edges. Strange birds (real birds, it
seemed) flitted and swarmed around the clearing on strange wings,
almost like dragonflies. There were a
few of the now ubiquitous lizard birds, which occasionally streaked
in to snatch one of the inoffensive-looking things, but even the
birds nearest the victims didn’t appear to give them any heed.
Perhaps from within the apparent security of their multitudes, the
weird little birds just didn’t notice.
“Every time I turn a
corner on this goofed-up world, I see somethin’ even more goofed
up,” Silva mumbled. He surveyed the expanse of the savanna for
several moments, trying to divine if it represented a threat of any
kind. There were few large animals on the island, and most of those
behaved aggressively only within the bounds of their apparently
single-minded desire to be left alone. They were retiring and
extremely heavily armored in the manner of giant land tortoises,
even if any physical resemblance was remote. The smaller ones could
be killed, with the Doom Whomper at least, and their flesh was fat
and wholesome, but they’d learned that killing anything on this island came with a dose of risk.
They’d met an interesting variety of smaller predators and
scavengers that were far more capable and dangerous than they
appeared. All were smaller than a man and most were fairly
skittish. Some were not, and those were usually more than happy to
contest them for the meat.
So far, they’d
encountered only one type of really large, dangerous animal during
their brief, limited forays—and those didn’t exactly live there. Silva now knew from experience that
they had to be particularly watchful for the occasional,
early-arriving “shiksak.” He called them “shit-sacks”; of course,
“shiksak” was a Tagranesi word and he tended to prefer his own
names for things. No matter what anybody called them, the damn
things gave him the creeps.
Once, if anybody had
ever told him he’d run across anything scarier than a “super
lizard” on land, he’d have called them a liar. Now he knew better.
Shiksaks were almost as big as super lizards, and although
generally slower moving, they were actually quicker in a sprint.
Maybe “lunge” or “leap” was a better term. They struck him as kind
of a twisted cross of a crocodile, an eel, and a frog. They had
big, fat bodies with long swimming tails with a ridge or finlike
arrangement beginning behind their heads that ran the length of
their backs, all the way to the ends of their tails. Their forelegs
were little more than stumpy, clawed “flippers,” but they had long,
powerful hind legs with heavily webbed “feet” like those of a frog
or toad. Add long, broad heads full of lots of teeth to the mix,
and they even looked sort of comical in a way, like a giant
pollywog that had swallowed most of an alligator. The young,
towheaded Abel Cook, who’d once been fascinated with the dinosaurs
of their “old” world, believed they were a type of mososaur that
had evolved an amphibious capability to lay their eggs on shore,
away from this world’s more treacherous seas. Maybe so.
“Mosey-saurs” they may once have been, but Silva was only concerned
with what they’d become.
Individually, they
weren’t really that bad, he admitted to
himself. A single shiksak wasn’t as
scary as a single super lizard. Unlike
super lizards, which seemed to possess a kind of creepy cunning,
shiksaks apparently weren’t any smarter than pollywogs. Also, even
if their thick, croclike skins made them practically bulletproof to
the Imperial muskets, nothing was immune to his treasured Doom
Whomper. No, so far the most pressing menace represented by the
usually lethargic “early bird” shiksaks was that the sneaky
bastards could change goddamn colors! That just wasn’t fair. They
crept ashore, made a nest, and plopped down to lay their eggs.
Sprawling there, in the dense Yap, or “Shikarrak ” Island jungle,
they were difficult to see—and they would gulp down anything that
came wandering by. Fair or not, even that wasn’t an insurmountable
problem: be careful, watch where you’re going, and stay in pairs.
Simple enough. The really big, scary problem—according to what
they’d squeezed out of Lawrence (“Larry the Lizard”)—was that
within a month the whole island would be working with the damn
things like maggots in meat, and nothing that wasn’t armored like a
tank, couldn’t climb a really big tree or squirm down a tiny hole,
would survive.
No human or ’Cat
would fit down a hole small enough that the shiksaks couldn’t dig
it out, and the trees . . . would be full of other dangerous
things. Larry had been here before when things got like that,
during his “trial,” and he’d survived. That was the point of the
trial—to test his wits. But he’d been all alone, with only himself
to look after. Dennis Silva had to make sure nothing happened to
Princess Rebecca, Lieutenant Tucker (the Skipper’s dame), the
Lemurian Captain Lelaa, Sister Audry, and the gawky but gutsy Abel
Cook. Maybe he would concern himself a little with a few of their Imperial companions who
didn’t like him very much—or maybe not. As he saw it, his plate of
responsibility was pretty damn full.
Larry hadn’t been
willing to “blow” about the danger at first, even though he blamed
himself for their presence there in the first place. He’d sworn an
oath. He finally agreed to tell Rebecca and Miss Tucker, since no
female was ever expected to undergo the trial. Even that might have
been stretching things, but he just couldn’t bear to let his
precious Rebecca face the dangers unprepared. Silva was still a
little put out that Larry hadn’t just told him. He had to know the
girls would blow. Oh, well, at least this way Silva got the word
without Larry having to technically break his. One way or another,
he’d learned what he was up against, as far as looking after the
girls was concerned, and ultimately that was all that really
mattered. Larry could look out for himself.
Dennis examined the
tall grass a little longer, then shrugged. He couldn’t see anything dangerous, but that didn’t mean much.
He thrust his cutlass into the scabbard tied to his belt and
unslung the Doom Whomper. The big, heavy thing had been strapped
diagonally across his back to keep it out of the way. “All right,
fellas, come on out, I guess,” he said. “If there’s any boogers out
there, I can’t see ’em. Just keep your eyes peeled.”
Abel Cook emerged
first from the bamboo forest. He’d also secured his cutlass and was
awkwardly carrying an Imperial musket in what he seemed to consider
a proficient and vigilant manner. He managed a relieved, tired
smile as he joined Silva. Midshipman Brassey of the Imperial Navy
appeared next. The dark-haired boy was no older than Cook, and even
if he was more accustomed to his cumbersome musket, he seemed just
as relieved to escape the oppressive, confining
thicket.
Captain Rajendra was
close on the boy’s heels. He was the only one of the marooned
survivors with skin darker than Silva’s, and whereas all the color
had been bleached from Silva’s, Rajendra’s hair, bushy mustaches,
and short, thick beard remained jet-black. In Rajendra’s case, it
was probably racial, but Silva had never asked and didn’t care.
Courtney Bradford might have been fascinated to learn more about
Rajendra’s genealogy, but God knew where Bradford was now. He might
be in Baalkpan or points west. He might even be ironically near,
with the Skipper, searching for the castaways. It was ironic
because even if that were true, they would never find them. The
Skipper had no way of knowing that the survivors of Ajax had become castaways and Ajax herself had literally ceased to exist. Silva
usually enjoyed irony to a certain degree, even if he’d only
recently learned the word. He even managed to glean a small measure
of amusement from it in the current situation. He recognized irony
for the bitch she could be and tended to be philosophical about it
when she turned around and bit him on the ass.
Rajendra didn’t
appreciate irony at all, as far as Silva could tell. Apparently he
didn’t appreciate much of anything. Even after all these weeks, he
seemed able to summon only a scowl when his eyes fell upon Dennis.
Silva was philosophical about that too. He’d saved the man’s life.
He’d saved all their lives. But the way he’d gone about it . . . He
supposed it was inevitable there’d be a touch of resentment. Like
the others, Rajendra went armed with a musket, but he also carried
a brace of pistols and a sword. Occasionally, absently, Silva
wondered if the man’s desire to use the weapons on him had waned at
all. He didn’t lose sleep over it, but it could be distracting to
know he really needed to watch his back as well as his
front.
At least one other
“person” looked after him besides the wellintentioned Abel Cook.
Larry the Lizard may not have been willing to technically spill the
beans about the island, but he was Silva’s friend. Larry was a
Tagranesi, a species strikingly similar in appearance to the hated
Grik. He was colored differently and not as big, but those
distinctions hadn’t been particularly clear when they’d
met.
There’s irony for you, Dennis thought, remembering
that he’d actually shot Larry, thinking he was a Grik, but the
little guy didn’t hold it against him. Hell of
a lot more forgiving Than Rajendra. I
didn’t even shoot him. Irony
again. Of course, having now seen the Grik and participated in the
Battle of Baalkpan, Larry understood why Dennis had shot him. That
had been a different time. The “lizards” were the enemy. All the
lizards. They now knew not all Grik-like beings on this world
were Grik, and that added even more
confusion to an already screwed-up situation. Just like folks, Dennis thought, hell, even Japs. There’s all different sorts. Things sure
were a lot simpler back when. you could just kill ’em all without
needin’ to sort ’em out first. Oh, well, those days were
over and it was probably just as well. Even Silva never thought in
quite such simple terms anymore. He was glad Larry liked him—and
that he always seemed to bring up the rear when one of their
Imperial co-castaways was behind Dennis in the bush.
Appearing last, as
usual, Larry was also armed with a musket. The weapon didn’t really
fit him—he just wasn’t built for it—but he’d probably had more
practice with one than most of the Imperials on the
island.
“There you are, you
little runt,” Silva said. “I figgered I’d have to go find your lost
ass . . . again. You been chasin’ butterflies or bugs or something?
Find a worm to eat?”
“I not lost,”
Lawrence grumped. “I thirsty, though.”
“Shouldn’t have drank
all your water so fast then.”
“I ’ound ’ater. I
al’ays do.”
“Even if it leaves
you draggin’ ass along like a one-legged toad? ” Silva
accused.
“I not draggin’ ass.
You draggin’ ass. I go slow to stay ’ehind you. I don’t need to
hack a hole to get giant, useless ass through here.”
“Mmm.” Silva looked
at the Tagranesi, who stared back with his head cocked slightly to
one side. According to Bradford, the young darkening and
lengthening crest atop it meant he was nearing adulthood—if he
hadn’t already reached it. Whether he was actually there or not, he
increasingly acted like it, and joking aside, Dennis knew exactly
what Lawrence had been up to. Oddly enough, his almost orange,
tigerstriped, downy-furry hide afforded him considerable
camouflage, even against the dark green, hazel, and almost bluish
foliage of the dense jungle covering most of the island. As usual,
he’d been hanging back to make sure he’d spot anything that went
after the main party so he could give warning before it was upon
them. He had a musket and he could shoot it, but his formidable
claws and teeth were probably a better deterrent to anything
sneaking up behind them.
“Well,” Dennis said
when the group had gathered around him, “let’s see if we can get
across that patch yonder in one piece.” Without waiting for
comments, he started across the clearing, entering the
ever-deepening grass. Behind him, Rajendra slung on his musket and
pulled out his pistols—the better to engage close-up threats. Silva
was mildly impressed that the usually puffed-up Imperial did
something he approved of without being told.
“Mister Silva?” Abel
asked. “I notice that you are avoiding the large clumps of colorful
foliage.”
“Yep. If there’s any
dangerous beasties out here, I’d expect ’em to live in the thicker
crap.”
“May I approach one
closer?”
Silva stopped. Abel
was kind of Bradford’s protégé, and was apparently just as
interested in strange critters and bushes as the Australian
“naturalist” was. “Well, I suppose,” he grumped. “You’re the next
thing to grown-up, and I can’t nursemaid you forever. Just be
careful.” He raised his voice. “Larry, Mr. Cook’s gonna gawk at
them weeds. Keep an eye on him, will ya?”
Larry nodded without
complaint. He’d learned to “kid around” with Silva and others, but
an order was still an order. Besides, he liked and trusted
Abel.
“We don’t have time
for this,” Rajendra grumbled. “We’ve wasted more of the day in that
dreadful bamboo than I care to contemplate. What if we reach this
dubious destination of yours and then can’t make it back to our
beach camp before dark? We may be forced to make camp out here
somewhere. I don’t relish that thought.”
“Oh, quit moaning.
It’ll be clear sailing from here. The sea can’t be far beyond that
little stretch of jungle past this plain. Hell, I can hear it. We won’t get stuck out here; all we got to
do is scamper back down this cut we made. It may have taken us all
day to make it, but we can be back at camp in an hour or two, I
guess. Why don’t you ever look on the bright side? We done thrashed
a damn road through here, like fleas marchin’ across a dog’s
back.”
“Where you are
concerned, Mr. Silva, the only ‘bright side’ to anything I seem
able to imagine involves fire and destruction,” Rajendra said
darkly. “You must forgive my lack of enthusiasm.”
“Gloomy, pessimistic,
and touchy,” Silva replied cheerfully.
“How you ever survived childhood, ugly as you are, is a myst’ry to
me.”
Rajendra’s face
clouded, but he didn’t respond. Dennis knew the man hated him for a
number of reasons, not least because Silva was very good at
pointing out Rajendra’s real failings. The problem was, Silva was
irrepressibly irreverent by nature, and friendly banter was as
necessary to his survival as food and water. Particularly now. The
worse things got, the more he joked around. It was his way of
dealing with stress. If it helped keep his and the others’ spirits
up, that was a bonus. He’d begun to suspect that Rajendra just
couldn’t take a joke though, especially from him, and probably took
his banter as calculated taunts and insults. Oh, well. He couldn’t
help what folks thought. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d finally goad
the Imperial captain into giving him an excuse to kill him. Then he
wouldn’t have to watch his back so much.
He eased a little
farther to the left while Abel and Larry approached the nearest
mound of “kudzu” so he could cover them a little
better.
“Goodness gracious!”
Abel exclaimed, reminding Silva of Bradford again, and causing a
grin to split his face. “It’s full of bones!”
“Bones? ” cried
Midshipman Brassey, hurrying to join Abel. The two boys shared many
interests and were becoming friends. “What sort of
bones?”
“Well, big ones!
They’re difficult to see through all the foliage, but they’re
perhaps comparable to those of a small whale.” He stopped, looking
at Brassey as the boy joined him. “Do you have whales? I mean, are
there any where you live?”
“We have creatures we
call whales,” Brassey admitted
thoughtfully, “but they may not be precisely the same. I’ve seen
drawings in books of the whales from . . . our old world—from the
time before the Passage—and we have similar things ...” He grew
silent as his eyes sought out what Abel had seen. “Look! There! I
see them too!” He moved slightly forward, pushing some of the
purple flowers aside. “It may well be an entire skeleton, fully
articulated!” He gestured around. “It’s as if all this viny grass
has grown up around it.”
Abel slung his musket
onto his shoulder and began parting the flowers as well. Larry
crouched, sniffing, staring into the shadows beneath the grass
around the bones.
“Come on, boys,”
badgered Silva, growing impatient. “So there’s some old bones. Quit
foolin’ around.”
“Wait,” said Abel,
“there’s something—Ow!”
“What? What is it?
Are you all right?” asked Brassey.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.
Something poked my finger. One of these little thorny things, I
believe. I thought for a moment I saw something moving in there.
You may think me mad, but it looked quite like a fox!” He held up
his hand and examined it, finding a tiny thorn in his left pinky.
“You see? It’s nothing. It doesn’t even hurt.” He removed the thorn
and cast it away. Just before a tiny drop of blood welled up, he
thought he might have seen a dark speck within the wound, but he
shrugged it off. “Come on, Brassey, we mustn’t anger Mr. Silva.
Perhaps we can look again when we return this way.”
Reluctantly, Brassey
agreed and the two boys moved back toward where Silva and Rajendra
stood. For a moment longer, Larry continued to stare at the kudzu,
until Silva whistled at him. Tossing his head, he bounded back
through the tall grass to rejoin his companions.
“Next best thing to a
dog,” Silva said, laughing. “Next best.”
“What is a dog?”
Larry asked, suspicious.
“Man’s best friend,”
Silva said, his grin fading. “If you saw a dog you’d prob’ly chase
him down and eat him, but dogs are the best. I guess you’ll just
have to do for now.” Larry looked at Silva as if unsure whether he
was being mocked or complimented. His uncertain pose provoked
another laugh and Dennis ruffled his crest. “Don’t worry, you make
a pretty good dog substitute. You can’t help what you are any more
than I can. Just wag your tail now and then and you’ll be close
enough as to make no difference. ’Specially if you don’t talk so
much.”
Larry glanced at his
slightly feathery tail and twitched it experimentally.
“Can we please resume
our march now?” Rajendra demanded exasperatedly.
“Why, by all means!”
Dennis said. “In fact, why don’t you lead the way, Captain
Rajendra? With them two pistols, you can pro-tect us from the
boogers.”
Meeting the
challenge, Rajendra stepped off and led them across the remainder
of the clearing. They passed several more clumps of the strange
kudzulike grass, and it looked like there were more bones in at
least a couple of them. Abel and Brassey chatted excitedly about
what it might mean, clearly hoping to crawl all through the things
as soon as they could. The little thorn that had pierced Abel’s
finger was already forgotten.
As Silva had
predicted, the stretch of jungle was not very wide, and though they
traversed it with care they soon saw the sea through dwindling
brush. Without a word, Silva resumed the lead and stepped out from
the cover of the jungle alone. Intently, he scanned the beach in
both directions for some time, looking for telltale tracks or marks
in the sand. They saw them sometimes, even near camp. When they
did, they knew they had to be extravigilant that day. Who knew what
improbable, screwy, terrifying damn thing might have squirmed up
out of the sea during the night? God knew the island was dangerous
enough without the shiksaks it was beginning to draw.
A mighty bolt of
lightning seared the guts of a distant, spreading thunderhead and
lashed the sea behind a black curtain of rain. Except for that one
squall, however, the sky remained mostly clear and the fierce sun
baked the sand around him. Silva saw no evidence that shiksaks or
anything else had come ashore nearby, and he motioned his
companions to join him.
“Well, here we are,
Mr. Silva,” Rajendra growled irritably. “I do hope you haven’t had
us thrashing about for most of a day merely so you might view yet
another beach—that looks quite identical to the one we left this
morning, I might add.”
“As a matter of fact,
that’s exactly what we’re doing here.” Silva waved out to sea.
“You’re a sailor. You’ve seen the beach we came ashore on. There’s
breakers, coral heads or something like them, for a mile or more
offshore. No way we’re gonna get the boat back through that even
after we’re done fixin’ it. It was some sort of biblical miracle we
came across in one piece the first time. I guess the tide was
running and them big waves helped a bunch, sort of tossed us over
the reef, or something. Anyway, like I said, we’re going to have to
break out somewhere.” He nodded beyond the beach. “This might not
be it either. If you look over there, the breakers seem to run even
farther out to sea.” He pointed southwest along the beach. “That
might not be too bad over there, though, see? The tide’s not out,
but it’s on the ebb. I don’t see anything but happy beach waves
there. We take the boat out at high tide, we might just make
it.”
Rajendra spluttered.
“Are you suggesting we attempt to move the boat through . . . I
don’t know, miles of terrifying jungle,
full of even more terrifying creatures? I consider you an evil man,
Mr. Silva, but not an idiot. It simply can’t be done.”
“It ain’t ‘miles,’
an’ not that much is even jungle. Did we just come the same way?
Besides, there you go about ‘evil’ again,” Dennis said, shaking his
head in frustration. “It’s been maybe a month since I blew up your
ship! Give a guy a break! You blew up Cap’n Lelaa’s ship first, and
helped start this whole mess, but she doesn’t whine and moan about
it on and on like you do. She’ll probably kill you someday when
this is over, but for now she’s put all that aside to get the
princess and Miss Tucker off this damn bump. Why don’t you do the
same?” He paused, reflecting. “I never said I ain’t an idiot,
though. If you can think of a better idea, maybe we’ll give it a
shot. Ain’t you been thinking about anything? Larry says this
joint’s gonna be jumpin’ with shit-sacks soon, and we can’t be here
when that happens.”
Rajendra surveyed the
apparent passage in the breakers. “Perhaps we could launch the boat
where it is and sail it around to this point,” he
speculated.
“Might work,” Silva
admitted. “I’ve walked the beach this far a couple of times, and
the patch this side of the breakers is real calm in places. The
rough stuff’s just too damn close in others. We’d have to land the
boat and cart it around a few times. Amounts to about halfway. I’m
not sure if that would be easier or harder. I’ve walked a lot
farther in the other direction, north, and it’s the same deal,
except I bet the breakers run two miles out to sea, and I never saw
a hole in ’em. This is the only place I’ve found so far. We can
keep looking, but anything we find is just going to be farther and
we’re runnin’ out of time. Unless you can come up with a better
stunt, moving the boat, one way or another, to launch it here is
what we have to work on.
“Now, one other
possibility might be to break it up and wag it over here in pieces,
since we’ve got it apart to fix it anyway. Bring it across a piece
at a time and rebuild it here. It’s either that or try to move it
in one piece. Float it and drag it, or drag it all the way.
Personally, I’m for bringin’ it overland. Less complicated. All we
have to do is clear a bigger trail and use rollers or somethin’. I
know it’s too heavy to carry, push, or drag without rollers.” He
shrugged. “Those are the schemes I’ve come up with. You conjure up
something better, we’ll do it.”
Rajendra was silent
for a long moment, staring at the shoreline, the breakers, and the
waves. Absently, he twisted the ends of his mustache probably out
of what was an old habit. He sighed. “The shattered planks on the
bottom of the launch have been removed. Sadly, there were quite a
few. Like you, I confess to believing only a miracle delivered us
across the breakers. The carpenter has been shaping planks from
what he hopes will be suitable trees—it is so difficult to tell
with these unknown woods—but even with the existing repairs, he
fears an inadequacy of fasteners. Nails. I don’t see how we can
disassemble the boat further without damaging or destroying even
more fasteners. That’s one thing we didn’t think to carry away much
stock of.”
“Carpenter forgettin’
nails is like a gunner’s mate runnin’ off without bullets,” Silva
accused. “Dumb-ass.”
“He does have tools,”
Rajendra said in defense of the carpenter. “A drill and some
bracing bits. Perhaps he can use dowels instead of nails, but I
don’t think we dare break the boat down into pieces small enough to
carry.” He looked at Silva. “I also agree, if you’re right about
the obstacles, that the combination of floating and portaging the
boat would be more complicated and potentially more dangerous.” He
sighed. “So for now it looks as though your tedious and laborious
plan is our best chance after all.”