“A thorn? What did it look like? The plant, I mean.”
“Well, Mr. Silva said it looked like something he called ‘kudzu,’ but I don’t know what that is. We have plants with similar blossoms at home, and they even have thorns, but they don’t cause anything like Mr. Cook’s reaction.”
“It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw,” Dennis murmured. “One little poke. It’s almost like it left a seed in there and it sprouted something fierce. Already putting out roots!”
Sandra felt a chill. “My God, I think that’s exactly what it’s done! You say these plants were growing up among and around skeletons of some sort?”
“Yes… ah… ma’am,” Brassey confirmed. “Great big ones.”
“Say,” Silva muttered thoughtfully, “they ain’t no big critters running around on this island! Not most of the time, anyway, except for them big lizard-turtle things, and if these were them, they’d’ve left big old shells layin’ around!”
“You’re saying that the skeletons must have been these shiksak creatures?” Sister Audry asked.
“No way around it,” Silva replied. “I bet those big old shit-sack toad boogers go hoppin’ through that kudzu stuff, get poked, and eventually wind up fertilizin’ a whole new patch of them nasty weeds! God… dern! I always hated kudzu!”
Sandra sighed and laid Abel’s hand down. “If you’re right-and I’m afraid you are-that finger will have to come off. Immediately. In just the few hours since he was infected, the ‘roots’ have spread nearly to his hand. Those are just the filaments I can see. Deeper down, they might already be in his hand.”
“We better get crackin’, then,” Dennis said.
“Right.” Sandra looked at Sister Audry. “Would you and Lawrence please boil some water? Mr. Silva, you still have a small amount of polta paste in your shooting pouch, do you not?”
“Are you absolutely certain we have no other choice? ” asked Rebecca.
The tears in her eyes reflected the candlelight.
“I don’t know that we can be certain without waiting,” Dennis answered her gently. “But if it does what we think it does, I don’t reckon we have time.”
Later that night, Dennis was one of the last to arrange his bedding in the sand. It had been a long day and he was exhausted. As usual, there were plenty of biting, stinging insects to pester him, but he doubted he’d notice them tonight. Captain Lelaa and Lawrence had the guard and he knew he could sleep soundly with them on duty, so he arranged his weapons around himself, scrunched down, and pulled his wool blanket up to his chin. There was often a chill before dawn. Almost as an afterthought, he pulled off the patch that covered his ruined left eye and stared at it for a moment. Hell, a pinky finger ain’t much, he decided. The kid was already resting easier. He laid the patch on his shooting pouch and closed his other eye.
From somewhere nearby he heard a strange sound. Opening his eye again, he raised up to listen. Over there. Sighing, he replaced the patch-no reason to disgust folks-and pulling his cutlass out of the sand, he crept over to where the sound was emanating. He sat.
“What’s eatin’ you, Li’l Sis?” he whispered. “You know you can tell ol’ Silva.”
The muffled crying continued a moment longer before Rebecca managed to control it. “It’s just so awful,” she said at last. “Not just Mr. Cook’s poor hand, although that is bad enough. It’s just.. . everything! This whole day has been dreadful! I don’t know how much longer I can bear it!”
“Now, now. You’re doin’ fine. I bet Abel’ll be just fine too. We’re gonna get outta this jam, I promise.” He cocked his head. “I’m glad Miss Tucker finally laid down the law, though.”
“And that’s another thing! She seemed fully prepared to shoot Captain Rajendra! That can’t sit well with her. She is so kind and gentle! Do… do you think she would have done it?”
“Yep. Lookie here, she may be kind and gentle, but she’s a tiger when it comes to you and the Skipper. Hell, when it comes to any of us she thinks of as her kin.”
“Do you think it will matter?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause Rajendra and the rest o’ his people… your people, believed her. Believed you too. You and her is so much alike it spooks me now and then, honest to God. You look alike, act alike, you both got plenty o’ brains, but you got even more guts.” He snorted. “A time or two, that’s got you both in trouble.”
“You think I have ‘guts’?” Rebecca asked, incredulous.
“Yep. Big, long, heapin’ piles of ’em, and you’re gonna need ’em too. I’ll tell you somethin’ else. Havin’ guts is one thing, but bein’ too sleepy to use ’em is another. So why don’t you just squirm on down there an’ shut them little eyes. Ol’ Silva’ll be right here.” He paused a moment, looking out at the surf and the hazy moon beyond. In a quiet, gravelly voice he started to sing:
“Once upon a time the goose drank wine.
The monkey chewed tobacco on the live steam line.
The steam line broke, the monkey choked,
And they all went to heaven in a little tin boat.”
Rebecca snorted a giggle. “What’s that supposed to be, a lullaby?”
A little embarrassed, Dennis shrugged. “Nope,” he said. “Just a stupid song.”
CHAPTER 6
Andaman Island
General Pete Alden, former sergeant in USS Houston ’s Marine contingent, stood in USS Dowden ’s captain’s quarters staring at a map on the bulkhead. Captain Greg Garrett of Donaghey and “Commodore” Jim Ellis sat at the table behind him with General Muln Rolak, Safir Maraan, and several other officers. How times had changed. Jim had originally been Matt’s exec on Walker, and Garrett had been the gunnery officer. Rolak and Queen Maraan had been bitter enemies, but were now as close as a father and daughter might be. All were waiting for Pete to speak.
“You know this is nuts, right? ” he finally pronounced, raking his dark hair back from his forehead. He still kept the hair burred short everywhere but on top.
“I thought it was possible you might think so,” Ellis said, grinning through his light brown beard. “That’s why I wanted your opinion.”
“Well, there it is. I just don’t see how we can run along and leave that nest of snakes at our backs, sitting right on top of our supply lines.”
“But they are not,” Safir Maraan pointed out, her silver eyes reexamining the map. “With Aan-daa-maan as our forward staging area, we can watch this Raan-goon place closely enough. As long as we control the sea, the forces trapped there can do nothing but slowly starve. They cannot affect our campaign against Ceylon.”
Rolak grunted. “I fear I must agree with General Aal-den,” he said. The scarred old warrior pointed at the Malay Peninsula. “With a little initiative-something we have learned the enemy leadership, their Hij at least, is capable of-this force at Raan-goon might attempt to threaten our new base at Sing-aa-pore. We know that when we took it from them, some Grik managed to escape from there as a cohesive force. They were not all ‘made prey,’ as they call it. They may have traveled as far as Raan-goon by now. With no other purpose, they might even attempt to return.”
“Right,” Alden agreed. “We know at least some didn’t break, and according to Okada and some other stuff we’ve seen, we know they aren’t ‘destroying’ all their troops that chicken out anymore.” He shook his head. “Still don’t know what to think of that. I wish we could’ve figured out a way to talk to those goofy Griks that Rasik was using for bodyguards.”
“Evidently we could talk to ’em. They just couldn’t talk to us,” Jim pointed out. He shrugged. “We sent ’em back to Baalkpan hoping Lawrence could figure out a way to communicate-but he’d already been swiped with the rest by that bastard Billingsley. I’m sure the pointy heads back home will keep working on it, but I don’t know that it’ll make any difference to us. They were just Uul warriors, and I doubt they were privy to the grand strategy of the
