CHAPTER 18
Yap Island
(Shikarrak)
“Okay,” Dennis Silva
hissed, “don’t nobody move! There’s one o’ them shit-sacks plopped
square on our path ahead.”
Instantly, the rest
of the group ceased heaving on the boat and did their best to
freeze in spite of the life-sapping heat. It was a good thing he
hadn’t told them to be quiet, because they simply couldn’t have
stopped their noisy gasping in the sodden air.
“Where?” Sandra
Tucker wheezed, trying to clear the burning sweat from her eyes
with the back of a grimy hand.
“Just ahead. Larry
seen it first,” Dennis admitted. Lawrence was poised, still as a
statue, staring straight ahead. “Little booger’s a good pointer.
Make a swell bird dog someday.” He was slowly easing the Doom
Whomper from his shoulder.
“I still don’t see
it,” Sandra said anxiously.
“I do, now that my
good eye’s turned thataway. Bastards is like camee-lee-ins. Blend
right in. I never seen anything like it!” There was genuine
admiration in his tone.
“My God!” Princess
Rebecca exclaimed. “I see it! It’s quite close
indeed!”
“I see it too,”
Captain Lelaa commented. “It must have sensed our approach and
positioned itself to intercept us. It takes them some time to blend
in so well.”
In recent days they’d
all learned far more about shiksaks than they’d ever cared to know.
There were more of them all the time, and Lawrence was growing
increasingly nervous and upset, urging them on whenever they
stopped to rest or sleep a very few hours. The boat was repaired,
but it was big and heavy and the move was slow going, even with all
of them pushing, pulling, or placing rollers in its path. They’d
almost reached the end of the bamboo jungle and the going would
soon improve, but their progress thus far could be measured in
yards and sometimes feet per hour.
“Nothin’ for it,”
Silva groused. “Larry, it’s time for us to do our ‘trick’ again.”
Lawrence twitched his growing bristly crest and then, as fluid as
mercury, flowed into the thick bamboo beside the trail. Silva
looked at Captain Rajendra. “You stay here. If that sumbitch hops
thisaway, you better already be dead if any harm comes to any o’
these ladies, you hear?”
“I hear you,
Mr. Silva,” he snarled. “Such a thing
goes without saying!”
“I hope so, but I
feel better with it said.” He was easing toward the trail Lawrence
had already taken. “Whatever you do, though, don’t shoot at it!”
“Mr. Silva?” asked
Abel Cook, rising from within the boat and grasping the gunwale
with his bandaged hand. His face was flushed. In spite of the polta
paste they’d almost exhausted on him, he still had a persistent
infection since they’d cut off his finger. Sandra was sure they’d
gotten all the kudzu stringers out, but suspected that tiny
particles may have entered his bloodstream. So far, it didn’t look
like they’d “taken root,” and she doubted they could, but they must
be toxic in some way and they’d clearly initiated a major response
by the boy’s immune system. “I would like to come,” he said. “I can
help!”
“No, boy,” Silva
replied in a gentler tone. “You and Mr. Brassey stay here and help
protect the gals. I know ya’ll will.”
With that, he was gone.
Lawrence could hear
the thing breathing as he snaked through the bamboo or the strange
cane alongside it. He’d never figured out whether the things had a
well-developed sense of smell, either when he was here before or
now, but he stayed downwind just in case. The breathing grew
louder, more labored-sounding, the closer he came to the beast.
With their immense bulk, shiksaks had to have a hard time sucking
air during their annual venture upon dry land. He’d heard during
his hatchlinghood and adolescent tutelage that the things sometimes
ventured ashore on Tagran, his native isle, and were killed in a
cooperative hunt, but here on the island that Silva called “Yap”
was the only place they regularly did so. The others that
occasionally menaced Tagran were probably lost or just old and
wanted to lay their eggs in a place without so much competition for
space and food.
Slowly, he eased
closer, until all that remained between him and the massive,
camouflaged flank was a single sturdy stand of bamboo. He glanced
directly downwind, hoping Silva had had enough time to get in
position. He took a breath. With a sharp, fierce cry, he lunged
forward with the musket he carried, burying the sharp triangular
bayonet deep into the monster’s side. Twisting the blade and
yanking it free, he fired the musket as directly into the gushing
wound as he could, spattering the thin, slippery, almost watery
blood all over himself and everything around him. Then he ran like
hell.
With a thunderous,
reverberating, outraged groank! the
shiksak heaved its head and torso high and to the right. The bamboo
splintered as the beast changed its direction and shifted its back
legs to position them for a leap. The camouflage pattern rapidly
drained away, replaced by a mottled greenish purple as the creature
launched itself through the tall shoots. Lawrence was faster in a
sprint than any human, but he nevertheless had to negotiate the
rigid upright obstacles. All the shiksak had to do was smash them
down. Still, he was clear before it landed with a crashing,
earth-trembling grunt. He raced ahead, even as the beast gathered
itself for another leap. A dense tangle of shoots appeared before
him, and he reversed the musket, trying to use the butt to batter a
way through. The bayonet end might have helped part the bamboo, but
it might also get stuck. He had no choice. Lowering his head, he
dug in with his claws and plowed forward. Behind him, he heard the
crash of the shiksak’s next hop and knew it would be close this
time.
It didn’t crush him,
just barely, but the tall, heavy bamboo it knocked down fell across
his legs and tail, pinning him to the ground. He struggled and
squirmed, trying to slip out from under the trunks, but there were
too many and they were too tangled. There was a gust of hot breath
and he felt the strain building as the shiksak scrabbled quickly
forward, keeping him pinned until it could seize him with its
jaws.
“Hey, Larry,” came a
calm voice. Just ahead. Lawrence saw a ragged pair of go-forwards
with two big feet stuck in them. His view traveled up past the
battered cut-off dungarees and latched onto Silva, standing there
with his bronze muscles tensed, his once black eyepatch faded and
stained white with sweat, the huge rifle aimed, muzzle bobbing
slightly in time with the motion of the shiksak.
The lock “clatched”
and a cloud of white smoke “fissed” and swirled from the pan, but
the gun didn’t go off! Still, Silva continued aiming, steady as a
rock. It probably took less than a second, but to Lawrence it
seemed a lifetime. Suddenly an orange jet of flame gushed from the
vent and a bigger jet vomited from the still gently bobbing muzzle
amid a distinctive roar and gout of choking white smoke. In an
instant, Lawrence felt himself grabbed by his proud new crest and
dragged out from under the tangled bamboo. Silva was hauling him
along the ground like a sack when Lawrence flailed at the hand and
managed to scramble to his feet. Together, the big man and the
smaller, ruffled Tagranesi bolted clear of the indiscriminate death
throes of the mighty shiksak.
“Popped ’eem right in
the noodle!” Silva chortled around great gulps of air as he and
Lawrence finally wove their way to a stop. Behind them came the
thundering, crashing, ground-shaking impacts of the thrashing,
flopping—brainless—beast. They knew from experience that the
shiksak might carry on like that for a quarter hour or
so.
“I thought he had’e .
. . I,” Lawrence admitted, gathering in his panting tongue to
speak.
“Naw, ol’ Silva
wouldn’t let that happen! You did good, you little scamp.” He
swabbed the Doom Whomper, wiped the lock with a piece of his shirt
he kept in his pouch, then reloaded. Lawrence did the same with his
musket when his hands stopped shaking. Silva held his weapon out,
examining it. “She kinda hung-fired on me, though. I never get a
chance to really clean her right, an’ with all this moisture in the
air, the fouling around the vent turns to soup.”
“How did you know it
’ould still . . . shoot?”
Silva cackled. “Yep,
I guess that must’a gave you a turn! I heard it hissin’, see? I
knew she’d go; I just had to hold her steady. Follow
through.”
“You sa’ed me,”
Lawrence said, a little resentfully. “Again.”
Silva rubbed
Lawrence’s crest, then patted it down. “Hell, you saved
me. All of us, likely.” He pointed at
his ruined eye. “Sometimes a fella don’t notice as much when one o’
his peepers is busted. I never saw the damn thing to start with. I
prob’ly would’a marched straight down its throat if you didn’t hit
on it.” He shrugged. “Let’s get back. Them gals’ll be worryin’.
’Bout you, anyway.”
Lawrence was looking
down, scratching the dirt with his toeclaws. Finally he exhaled
noisily and looked up at Dennis. “This ’ill not ’urk,” he said at
last. “Us see too ’any shiksaks. They are here in . . . lots. Us
take too long to go.”
“Sure,” Silva agreed,
“we’re seein’ more o’ them devils every day—most we don’t have to
fight with, thank God. I figger we can dodge ’em a few more days
till we can get the boat in the water, though.”
“No!” Lawrence said
adamantly. “I . . . should not tell you this, ’ut I ha’ to. ’Ecky
and Lieutenant Tucker are at stake.” He paused. “There lots shiksaks here, ’ut not near all. They all get
here, that is all there is.”
“Sure, that’s why we
need to get off this bump.”
“No. Too late. This .
. . lots o’ shiksaks on land, there hundreds—thousands? In sea near
here, they get ready to co . . .” He shook his head irritably. “To
get on land. No ’oat get out on sea until they are gone. Too
late.”
“Say,” said Dennis
thoughtfully. “You’re probably right about that. Damn.” He was
silent a moment, thoughtful.
“Only thing to do,
‘gals’ get in trees, ’ig, tall trees. Us try to devend gals as long
as us can. ’Orget ’oat. It no good. Us get gals in
trees.”
“You said everything
else that can will get in the trees too. They might need a heap of
defendin’.”
“True. No
choice.”
Silva was scratching
his beard. “Maybe not. Maybe so.” He grinned. “I just had me a
squirrelly notion. Maybe we can save the boat and everybody else too. Won’t be easy, but nothin’
else has been, so why whine about it? Maybe if all we save in the
end is the gals, they’re still gonna need that damn boat. I figger
it’s both, or what’s the point?”
“You really ha’ a
‘notion’?” Lawrence asked.
“I always got notions. Some are better than others,
I’ll admit, but this just might work.” He slung the Doom Whomper
and started back through the forest of bamboo. “C’mon. You’re gonna
hafta help me sell this scheme. ’Sides, we still got a ways to
heave that damn boat and time’s a’wastin’!”
“I keep saying that!”
Lawrence complained.
Silva’s “scheme”
almost killed them all. First, when he detailed it, it resulted in
yet another near-violent confrontation with Rajendra and his
remaining Imperials. Rajendra in particular thought it was insane,
and almost had Princess Rebecca believing him this time. She’d
thought their island ordeal was almost over, and she so wanted off the dreadful place. Young Brassey
didn’t remain silent this time, but openly sided with Silva and
ultimately Sandra and the princess as Lawrence’s clear certainty
finally convinced them that, wild as it was, Silva’s plan was their
only hope. It was unquestionably Abel Cook’s only hope, and Brassey
had grown very protective of his injured friend. He knew Rajendra
and the other Imperials considered the boy expendable, but he
didn’t, and he was beginning to suspect his princess didn’t either.
With Brassey, and eventually even carpenter Hersh, on Silva’s side,
that left only Rajendra, his engineer, and a single Imperial Marine
objecting. There was no question of a democratic resolution, but
the three holdouts doubted they could handle the “Mad American” by
themselves, much less the rest of the heavily armed party. When
Rebecca reluctantly decided to endorse the plan, the specter of
treason reentered the dispute and open resistance melted
away.
The second thing that
almost destroyed them, despite the fact that they were molested by
no more of the growing number of land-weary, lethargic shiksaks
they saw, was the blistering, killing, physical pace Silva set
beneath the murderous sun. The newly arrived shiksaks that had
ventured so far from shore—probably staking an early claim to an
ultimately less-crowded nesting area—would recover their “land
legs” in time. They had to be finished by then. As the day wore on
and they heaved the boat down the mild, much appreciated slope into
the narrow savannah that Silva called the “kudzu patch,” the
apparent tension of the island itself began to grow. Lizard birds
squawked querulously and the strange little birds in the clearing
swarmed erratically from place to place, or burst their formations
completely into chaotically buzzing individuals. The odd, purplish
flowers of the kudzu seemed to dance and sway with the breeze, as
though imitating live creatures grazing about. The prickly thorns,
so small and difficult to see when the group had passed this way
before, were now larger and more erect on the vines. They carefully
gave them a wide berth, laying the wooden rollers to clear the
menacing patches of the weed.
Odd, hoarse cries
resonated from the tall trees ahead that separated them from the
beach, and they saw many small—and not so small—creatures beginning
to gather there. Shrieks exploded as fights broke out between
different species. Lawrence warned that the fights would become
general among individuals eventually, as the furry, gourd-like
fruits in the trees were exhausted. Saying he had an idea, he
sprinted back the way they’d come. A smallish shiksak thundered
ashore, bellowing its arrival, beyond the massive trees ahead that
they’d chosen for their size. It thumped and thudded directly
beneath them, headed toward the boat at first, but then steered
hungrily toward the coyly twitching kudzu flowers, crashing into
the patch with a triumphantly gaping maw. It snapped voraciously at
the flowers for several moments, but then seemed to grow sleepy, as
if sated and now torpid. A little unsteady, it groped its way out
of the kudzu in the direction of a distant shiksak that was still
resting from its arrival.
“Young bull,” Silva
opined through gritted teeth as he reslung his weapon and took up
his rope again. “Bet he don’t get to be an old bull. Kinda sets a fella back, thinkin’ ’bout
all the times he’s acted the same damn way.” He gasped and heaved
in time with the others. “Whoo-ee! Liber-tee! Where’s the grub?
Where’s the broads?”
The raucous sounds of
wildlife grew, birds erupted from the grass, the trees, everywhere,
swirling madly and densely enough to create a kind of shade. Small
shapes scampered in all directions to the extent that tripping
became a concern. It was as if they somehow knew the full
infestation was finally at hand. Even Rajendra quieted his
objections and laid to with a will. It was late afternoon when,
exhausted, panting, they finally placed the boat between the two
trees they’d chosen, more by size, direction, and proximity than
anything else. They rested briefly, gulping the rum-tinged water
Brassey shared out with a tin cup. They’d already laid in plenty of
water, and most of Silva’s surviving “prize” rum he’d taken during
their escape from Billingsley had gone to purify it into a kind of
grog. Most, but not all. There were still medicinal purposes to
consider. They didn’t have a moment to lose, but they had to rest a little before they attempted their
next pair of tasks. A misstep now or a mishandled line would doom
them all.
“Are you ready for
this?” Sandra finally asked.
Captain Lelaa nodded,
looking at the trees, ears twitching appraisal. “I have been
climbing masts since I was born,” she said confidently. “These
‘trunks’ will be simpler.”
“Them double-block
falls are kinda heavy—an’ you gotta make sure they don’t get
tangled up,” Silva fussed. When they’d escaped, they unhooked the
falls, thinking at least the rope might be handy. Now the heavy
block-and-tackle arrangement might prove their salvation. They
never could have built a set in time.
Lelaa practically
sneered at Silva. “Mind your own business. Just keep those
creatures up there away from me,” she said. The creatures in
question, a wild variety perched high in the tree’s broad canopy
above, had stopped squalling and now peered sullenly down at
them.
Silva nodded, and
setting down the Doom Whomper, he selected a loaded musket from
within the boat. “You got it, Cap’n.”
“What can I do to
help?” Sister Audry asked, still somewhat breathless.
“Nothin’ right now.
Might not have to do anything a’tall ’til you climb aboard,” Dennis
answered, “unless you want to try your hand at
shootin’?”
Sister Audry shook
her head. She had no experience with firearms of any sort. She
still looked concerned. “But the boat is so heavy! How will we lift
it up there?”
“A double-block
rig’ll let you lift four times the weight as usual. I can hoist a
thousand pounds easy as peein’ with that rig . . . if you’ll ’scuse
me for sayin’ so.” He paused. “Just take my word for it. Five big
fellas, two strong ladies—countin’ the squirt—a ’Cat that’s prob’ly
stronger than me, and a fuzzy, stripey lizard—I figger we can lift
close to twice what that damn boat weighs. We oughta be able to
manage without you and Mr. Cook.” He looked around. “Say, where’s
that stripey lizard, anyway?”
Lawrence reappeared,
trotting carefully around the kudzu with something almost as large
as he was slung on his back. As he drew near, Sister Audry wrinkled
her nose and Rebecca scolded, “What is that vile, revolting
stench?”
Lawrence flung his
burden down unapologetically, and Silva stooped to examine
it.
“Yuk,” Dennis said.
“What the hell’s that?”
“The scent glands o’
that shiksak us killed,” he said. There was a little blood around
his mouth—he’d apparently paused long enough for a quick meal while
he hacked the reeking things off with his cutlass.
“Aggh, they stink!”
Silva exclaimed as the full force of the stench hit him. The glands
were little more than pebbly, scaly slits in two large, dark
patches of skin. “How’s that work?” he wondered aloud. “I seen deer
tarsals an’ such, but you’d think a sea monster wouldn’t do
that.”
“They aren’t sea
’onsters on land,” Lawrence pointed out.
“Well . . . what are
you gonna do with ’em? Roll around on ’em an’ pretend to be
one?”
Lawrence actually
seemed to consider it before shaking his head. “He’ig ’ull,” he
said.
“Bull?”
“Yess. His scent
keeph others a’ay. I tie these to trees, other ’ulls, at least,
stay a’ay.”
That made sense.
Dennis had been a little worried about that. Big as these trees
were, their roots weren’t all that deep. He figured a really big
shiksak might knock one over if he decided to whack on
it.
“Good thinkin’,
twerp. Course, now you got that stink all over you, where are you
gonna stay?”
“He can stay with
us,” Lelaa snapped, starting her climb. “If I can stand your stink,
I can learn to put up with his.”
For the first time
since they’d been marooned on Yap Island, Dennis Silva heard
Rebecca’s sweet, unfettered laugh. He grinned. “I guess I am
gettin’ a little ripe,” he confessed, “but with mucho respecto,
Cap’n, you smell kinda’ like a hard-used hairball.”
Lelaa snorted and
scampered up the tree. About forty feet up, still short of the
lower canopy, she stopped and began expertly rigging a seizing
around the trunk. Something quick and leathery, with what looked
like gliding wings stretched between its front and back legs,
lunged down at her. Rajendra’s musket flared, and light, fleshy
bark sprayed at the creature’s face. Never stopping, it leaped over
their heads with a shrill cry, arrested its gliding fall on their
other tree about fifty feet away, then raced into its darkening
bower of leaves.
“Missed!” Silva said
grandly, laying his musket against the boat and retrieving the Doom
Whomper in case anything large chose to investigate the noise of
the shot.
“So?” Rajendra said
hotly. “I did my job!”
“Yeah,” Dennis
replied, looking back at the clearing, “about as well as usual.
Half-assed. Spoiled my
shot.”
“Boys!” Sandra
insisted, steel in her voice. “You will
stop baiting each other and cooperate!” She knew she wasn’t being
quite fair to Rajendra. Silva had started it—as usual—but erratic
as Silva sometimes was, he was a lot steadier than Rajendra. For
Rebecca’s sake, she wouldn’t single him out. She was “playing
favorites” and knew it, but Rajendra had proven time and again,
once that very day, that her control over him was tenuous. He might
be loyal to the princess, but not to the group, and his judgment
had always been questionable. Silva couldn’t be controlled at all,
except through his loyalty to her and Rebecca, but the group as a
whole was “under his protection,” as he saw it. Also, his survival
judgment might sometimes be extreme and disproportionate, but it
had a good record of success. The last thing they needed right then
was for him to go into one of his infamous sulks.
Dennis Silva actually
thrived on adversity and Sandra suddenly realized that in that
sense he was a lot like Matt. Silva was over the top, where Matt
was thoughtful—unless he lost his temper—but like it or not, their
survival depended on the big gunner’s mate, and for all their
sakes, even Rajendra’s, “over the top” was okay with
Sandra.
Lelaa finished her
knot and hooked on, then slid down the trunk, straightening the
tackle as she went. On the ground, she hooked the bottom block onto
the eyebolt at the boat’s bow, leaving the fall rope dangling. She
scooped up the second tackle and went up the next
tree.
“Oh, please do
hurry,” Rebecca pleaded. “The sun is almost set!” It was true. The
sun was falling rapidly now, as usual, and the trees and the
clearing behind them were filling with gloom. Menacing shapes
crashed about, and other creatures, much like bats—maybe they
were bats—had joined the swirling
birds.
“I shall, Your
Highness,” Lelaa assured her patiently. As before, she quickly
finished her chore, with no distractions from above this time, and
scrabbled her way to the ground.
“How we gonna do
this, Cap’n?” Silva asked. “One end at a time, or climb in and try
to lift her from inside?”
Lelaa glanced at
Abel, alert and listening, but virtually helpless in the boat. “It
will be dangerous either way, and from within, it will be more so.
That is how it must be done, however. We will add weight that we
must also lift, but some cannot climb. Besides, if we remove the
provisions from the boat—which we must to lift it one end at a
time—we will then have to hoist them aboard as well.” She looked
around at the twilight. “We must risk a quick ascent or we will be
at this for hours. I do not think we have the time.”
“That’s it, then,”
Silva said. “Ever’body aboard!”
“This is madness!”
Rajendra stated. “We would all be safer to lift from the
ground!”
“Captain Rajendra,”
Lelaa said ominously, “we have worked together despite our
differences, but do not imagine those differences do not still
exist. You really must cease your
constant objections and observe the obvious. Add to my earlier
argument that we cannot secure the down-hauls within the boat if we
raise it from the ground. Where would you have us secure them? To
the trees here at this level, where any passing creature might gnaw
them in two? All aboard.”
Rajendra couldn’t
fault Lelaa’s logic, and whereas Silva had promised not to “hurt”
him, Lelaa had made no such pledge. She had simply swallowed her
anger and done as she had to. Her reminder of a possible reckoning
was probably more intimidating than Silva’s harangues because it
was the first she’d made in a long time, and she also had a more
untainted claim on his honor as far as he was concerned. Besides,
he harbored a real, secret . . . racial . . . fear of the
physically diminutive but powerful—alien—Lemurian captain. He made
no more objections.
Working together
creditably enough—despite their differences, most of the “muscle”
were seamen after all—they slowly, carefully hoisted the battered
longboat into the sky between the two trees. There was a bizarre
unreality about the whole situation that escaped none of them, but
it was indeed their only chance. As the final rays of the sun
surrendered to the sea, they saw the water beyond the trees, within
the breakers, almost working with humping, splashing shapes, eerily
void of color until they gained the shore, and then only briefly
until they absorbed the darkening shades of their new surroundings.
About thirty feet above the ground—high enough, they hoped—they
secured the down-hauls to cleats on the boat’s gunwales. Then they
sat quietly, staring at the starlit transformation of the island
they’d learned to hate but of necessity called home.
“God a’mighty,” Silva
whispered. “It’s like you threw the manhole cover off a sewer an’
looked down on a million man-eatin’ pollywogs swarmin’ in
there.”
As usual, he was
exaggerating, but not by much. Lawrence had been right. Evidently,
they’d made it just in time. They never would have survived another
night on the ground. The shiksaks had come to Yap.
“It’s a kind of
hell,” Rebecca said, and Sister Audry drew her close.
“How long will it
last, Lawrence?” Sandra asked, also whispering. It seemed
appropriate. All the creatures on the island, in the trees, had
gone silent except for the bellowing, grunting, roaring shiksaks
themselves.
“I don’t recall,”
Lawrence hissed back. “I stayed in the trees, hungry, thirsty. . .
. I don’t know. Long days and nights.”