Trial by Fire - eARC (48 page)

“But if you drop something in the water, and leave it behind, what then?”

“If we are seen dropping anything, even trash, over the side once we come within the fifty-kilometer limit, we will be boarded or sunk.”

“They monitor your trash? Really?”

“I know of two captains who ignored that restriction. They are both dead, their ships at the bottom.”

“I see. But what if something was in the water already, and was being towed behind you?”

“I’m quite sure they’d see it, unless it was very small, smaller than a life raft. Some people tried that the first week of the blockade. They’re now keeping company with the two captains I mentioned.”

“What if the towed object was small enough to remain concealed in your wake?”

Ong stared at the woman and decided that she was not only quite clever, but quite insane. “Ms. Smith, the wake of even this ship is extremely—”

“I am aware of its punishing force, Captain. My question is, could you rig a rope system that would allow me to remain in the wake, reliably?”

“Well, if we maintain the lowest allowed speed—”

“Which seems advisable for my health.”

“—then yes, I suppose so. But even if we pass within eight kilometers of one of the
pulau
, how do you plan to get to it? That is a very long swim, and I remain unconvinced of the effectiveness of the shark repellent we have been given.”

“Oh, once I’m in the water, and you’re going slowly enough, my friend can get me safely to land.”

“Your—friend?” Ong asked, looking about.

Ms. Smith only smiled and crooked a finger as she began walking forward. Ong followed.

She stopped at the midship hold, which was loosely covered. Probably no catch in there. Indeed, this part of the ship smelled unusually clean. Ong looked around. “Is your friend joining us here?”

“No. We just joined her.” She pulled back the cover.

Ong looked down. Set snug within the stained gray bulkheads of the ship was a large tank, at least four meters long by three wide by two deep. And in it was a sleek dolphin of medium size. Ong stared, speechless.

“Necessity is the mother of invention, Captain,” Ms. Smith explained. “Mariel here is one of a few score of trained cetaceans that were being used by tourist-trap sea-life exhibits all throughout Southeast Asia. I’m sure you’re familiar with the attraction: ‘swim with the dolphins.’ Most of the marine parks offering that experience were in Thailand and Malaysia, a few in Vietnam and one or two in exclusive resorts in the Celebes.”

“And so you plan—?”

“To have you tow me over the fifty-kilometer limit in the wake of your ship, with Mariel already in the water with me. When we reach your closest approach to the western islands on the way in to Jakarta, I’ll cut loose and she’ll tow me in. She’s quite good at following general signals, and we get along well. When I’ve gone ashore, she’ll start back to her home port.”

“In Singapore?”

“Borneo, now.”

“Then how did you get the dolph—?”

“Long story, and I can’t tell you all of it. Now, can you think of any reason why this plan won’t work?”

The scheme sounded outré, but… “No,” he heard himself say. “I cannot foresee any particular reason it would fail.”

“Very good, then, Captain Ong. I have a letter of authorization from the Singaporean authorities, and a printout and bank-stamped receipt of the handsome deposit that has been made into your account back home. Now, if you’d be so kind, Mariel and I would like to come aboard. The accommodation stairs will be fine for me, but I think Mariel’s tank is going to require your biggest winch.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Central Jakarta, Earth

Despite the spatter of the gushing cataracts spilling over the edges of the corner restaurant’s awnings, Caine heard a softer, steady
blipt blipt blipt
close by. He looked down, searching for the source of the dripping.

It was him, or rather his clothes, draining unhurriedly into a puddle alongside the leg of the table at which he was sitting. He looked up at the restaurant’s owner, who was wiping glasses behind the worn bar. Who looked at the puddle and then back up at him.

“Maafkan saya,”
Caine apologized.

“Tidak apa-apa,”
the man responded. Someone called him from the back. He disappeared behind a cloth hanging that separated the ten, peeling-chrome tables from the compact kitchen at the rear.

To Caine’s immediate right, the rain was a thrashing gray curtain, spattering hard and straight against the still-hot street. Each drop’s murderous impact shattered it into a hundred microdrops, most of which rebounded to knee height, the rest vaporizing into a thin, pervasive mist. The locals refused to label it a monsoon—yet. But during the past two days—first on the wharf in Sedari, then on the bus to Pataruman, and finally in the overcrowded train to Jakarta, Riordan had heard the word used more and more, and uttered less dismissively with each passing hour. And with each passing hour, there were more sirens, more sounds of gunshots, more distant columns of black smoke beating against the downward torrent, like curled fists trying to break through to the blue sky above. There were more smiles, too, but not the open, friendly kind reserved for
bules
who, like himself, could almost get by in mangled
behasa
. These new smiles were fierce and furtive, exchanged between the locals like secret messages slipped back and forth in a prison cafeteria. Daily, they were drawing more of their warders’ blood.

The sharp upswing in insurgent activity was logical. Cloud cover and precipitation eroded orbital imaging and ruined ground-level visibility. For tactical scopes or goggles, the humidity and superheated mist was a poor backdrop against which to pick out thermal silhouettes at longer ranges and the incessant drumming of the rain swallowed up any but the sharpest and loudest sounds. The rapidly growing resistance was able to initiate ambushes at closer range, plant control-detonated mines unobserved, and emerge from and fade back into the narrow streets and tangled jungles with the flawless ease that comes from a lifetime of experience.

The proprietor reappeared, carrying a bowl, a fork, a small napkin, and two bottles of different kinds of sauce—all in one hand. He placed the bowl in front of Caine:
nasi goreng,
Indonesian fried rice. Caine detected the faint scent of peanut sauce, and spied a few strips of what might be chicken, but—given recent conditions—were more likely dog. He smiled.
“Maafkan saya,”
he apologized, pointing at the meat and shaking his head.

The owner smiled. “’S okay, bro’. I speak English.”

Caine nodded. “Thanks. I just ordered the
nasi goreng
.”

“’S what you have, bro’.”

“I mean, plain
nasi goreng
. I can’t afford meat.” By way of proof, Caine dug the last, sodden five-hundred-rupiah note out of his pocket. “That’s all I have.”

The man looked at the note, then looked at him. “Keep your money,
bule
. Come back when the Roaches are gone and I’ll overcharge you enough for both times, hey?” And Caine couldn’t help returning the wide, disarming smile that always made him wonder,
how can they smile like that and kill so quickly and ferociously?
But he shook his head and pushed the note an inch closer to the owner. “No, take it. I’m not going to need it after I leave here.”

The man’s ample cheeks dropped along with his smile. His teak-brown eyes ran back and forth over Caine’s face. Then the man nodded somberly and picked up the note. Back at the bar, he looked up again. “I keep it for you, hey? ’Case you change your mind?”

“That’s kind of you, but don’t bother.”

The man spent a long time cleaning a single glass, occasionally looking at Caine, who knew, from seeing his own reflection in storefronts and restroom mirrors, that he presented a pretty unusual appearance. The tattered clothes he’d snatched from a drying line were two sizes too small, their incongruity magnified by his disintegrating woven-straw flip-flops, six day growth of beard, and improbably expensive watch. “So,” drawled the proprietor, picking up a new glass, “where you come from, Robinson Crusoe?”

“America.”

“I know that,
bule
. I mean, where you come from to get here?”

A more sensitive question. “I guess the answer I give depends on why you’re asking.”

The owner nodded, took extreme interest in cleaning the glass that had now been thoroughly cleaned four times. “So,” he said, smiling as widely as before, so casual that he might have been talking about a local soccer star, “you one of the swimmers?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know, you swim ashore?” A pause. “Like others do?”

Ah.
“Like others?”

“Yeah, like others.”

“You know these swimmers?”

“Me? Know them? Hey, no.” He looked up slowly. “But I’ve served a few.”

“In this restaurant?”

His smile returned. This time, it was like the secret smiles Indonesians shared when they heard a distant bomb go off. “No, never served swimmers here. But I’ve served them.”

Caine started on his
nasi goreng
, resolved not to wolf it down. “Well, now you
have
served a swimmer in your restaurant. But I’m not the kind of swimmer you mean.”

“Oh? What kind do I mean?”

Somewhere to the east, there was a distant, muted rumble, too short and dull to be thunder. Caine nodded in its direction. “I’m not the kind of swimmer who sneaks ashore to help you do
that.
”

The barkeep frowned. “No? Then what kind are you?”

“I’m here to talk.”

“To us?”

“To them.”

He stopped wiping the glass. “
Tai.
You musta bumped your head on a reef, bro’. That’s not a good idea.”

“It will be if I can talk to the right, er, person.”

“I don’t know. Those don’t seem to like talking very much.”

“That’s why I need you to tell me the kind of ‘persons’ who approach the corner behind me.”

“Whaddya mean?”

Caine finished the
nasi goreng
. “I mean, I need you to tell me when you see the next patrol coming, and whether it’s being carried out by ‘persons’ with two legs, or ‘persons’ with six legs, or both.”

“Almost never the six-legs on their own, bro’. They don’t like to come out and play very much.” He smiled. “They’re pretty smart that way.”

“They’re pretty smart every way.”

The proprietor leaned forward. “You sound like you know.”

Caine nodded. “I know a little. Enough to know that they’re actually pretty competent fighters, but they’re not comfortable outside. They’d rather work inside, or in tunnels.”

The proprietor started cleaning the same glass again. “Ho! Then why’d they land in Indonesia? Seen our sewers—the few we’ve got? Ever try to dig a tunnel? Man, why you think we’ve got no subways? Took ’em years trying put in fiber-optics, and they mostly gave up. I think.” A pause. “Hey, here they come.”

“A patrol?”

“Yeh, but not the one you want. Two-legs only. Four of them.”

“Thanks. Don’t stare.”

“Okay, okay. Hey, why don’t you face the other way, out into the street, see for yourself?”

“That might not be healthy for me.”

“They don’t seem to be take any special notice of
bules
, so—”

“That’s not it. I mean they might recognize me. Personally.”

He put the glass down. “What? You kidding me?”

“Nope. It’s not likely, but I don’t want to be recognized before I make my move.”

“Okay, I get it. I’ll—hey, hey.”

“What?”

“A pair of the six-legs, moving pretty fast. Coming from where the two-legs did, probably trying to catch up with them. The Sloths do that, you know. Make it hard for the Roaches to keep up. They don’t like ’em much.”

“Can you still see the Hkh’Rkh?”

“You mean the Sloths? No, bro’; they’re gone.”

Caine stood. “Thanks. I hope I’ll see you again.”

“Yah,
bule
.
Titi-deejay
.”

“
Hati-hati
, friend.” Caine turned, walked to the door, did not break his stride as he pushed it open. Or as he stepped out from under the awning into the downrushing wave of water. Two of the hexapedal powered suits used by the Arat Kur infantry were just entering the intersection. Caine walked straight at them, his hands held high. He cleared his throat to make sure his voice wouldn’t quaver or go hoarse, and shouted. “I greet the soldiers of the Arat Kur Wholenest.”

The two Arat Kur came to a skittering stop. Even with their suits hermetically sealed, Caine could make out their surprised chittering.

“I am without weapons,” Caine continued. “I am the human Speaker who went before the Accord, and who was rescued at Barnard’s Star. I have shared a roof with Speaker to Nestless Darzhee Kut. I have returned to speak with him.”

One of the suits was evidently equipped with a translator. “Are you the human named Caine Riordan?”

Caine was stunned by the rapidity with which he had been identified. “I am.”

“Then you must come with us. Immediately. Make haste.”

Caine walked briskly so that he was between them as they scuttled in the direction of the Arat Kur compound in the presidential palace. “How did you know who I am? Why are we making such haste?” he asked.

“The answer to both your questions is the same,” replied the Arat Kur with the translator. “The Wholenest’s allies wish to kill you. They have said so. Repeatedly.”

Presidential Palace, Jakarta, Earth

“Speaker Kut?”

Rubble and scree. Now what?
And only five minutes before Hu’urs Khraam was due to make planetfall to assume direct command of what was clearly a deteriorating situation—as much with their allies as their enemies. “Enter.”

A defense-tech clattered in, the front hatch of his suit open in respect and for sake of clear communication. “Darzhee Kut, we have a matter that requires your attention. Urgently.”