tom turkey. All protests of “Eat!” ceased in the branches above, and triumphantly, the little creature strutted warningly back down the falls. Finally, hopping the distance to its dead cousin, it clutched the corpse and tore away a feathery gobbet. “Eat!” it chirped contentedly. “Goddamn!”
“Goddamn!” echoed Dennis Silva approvingly. “Little guy’s got the basics down!”
“Look,” breathed Sister Audry, pointing at the brightening world around them.
Sandra gasped. For nearly the last week, while they swayed between the tree trunks, living a miserable, virtually seagoing existence with all the attendant hardships and inconveniences (particularly on the ladies), Yap Island had worked with shiksaks. It had been almost like watching maggots in meat, except these maggots were nearly as voracious toward one another as they were intent on their primary goal. Mating pairs coupled everywhere, briefly and violently, and the act ended, as often as not, with the death of at least one of the participants. Abel speculated the fighting was the natural outcome of cramming so many highly territorial carnivores together in one place for any reason, but it seemed utterly senseless and unnatural to everyone else. Males died, females died, shiksaks of both sexes died fighting over the carcasses of the slain. When a clutch of eggs was laid, almost as casually as defecating, they were often eaten or crushed by their own mothers. Despite Abel’s speculation, he was at a loss to explain this aspect of their behavior, this utter disregard for their offspring.
Apparently, once laid and forgotten, the eggs were safe unless a creature just happened upon them, so maybe they exuded no attractive scent or maybe, as they’d speculated before, shiksaks just didn’t have a welldefined sense of smell out of the water. There was no telling. Abel and Brassey had calculated that despite this apparently self-destructive behavior, there would still be a net increase in the ultimate number of shiksaks. Even given the inevitable infant mortality, this annual smorgasbord/ orgy might be the only way the creatures had to keep their numbers at a sustainable level. At sea, they had no (known) natural enemies except mountain fish and one another. Sandra was surprised that even Sister Audry allowed that, sickening as it was, God may have allowed shiksaks to sort this hideous arrangement out for themselves, since she was incapable of believing he’d designed it thus. Secretly, Sandra reflected that Courtney Bradford would have felt somewhat vindicated after Audry had so violently attacked his faith in a partnership between creation and natural selection. She was glad he wasn’t here to crow about it.
That morning, however, when the day began to break upon the virtually denuded, devastated… battlefield… that Yap now resembled, all that remained of the great infestation was the destruction left in its wake-and the wake of something else that had happened in the night they still didn’t understand. Bloated, festering carcasses lay scattered among fallen trees and sandy, almost rippled soil. The whole place looked like reels Sandra had seen of Poland after the Nazis bombed whole areas into desolation, except that instead of dead livestock, dead shiksaks were littered about. She was fascinated to see green kudzu shoots already bursting forth from some of the dead, and wondered if those that had eaten of them had been infected as well. In all her view, there remained only a single, badly wounded shiksak, and it was determinedly dragging itself toward the sea.
“They’re gone,” she murmured in wonder.
“Gone,” Rajendra agreed. Until last night, he’d still maintained that Silva’s scheme of “riding things out” had been a mistake. Now he seemed as relieved as anyone else.
“Gone and washed away, by the look of things.” Silva said. “I would’ve expected even more bodies… and look, there’s puddles all over the place, with junk all tangled up like after a flood.” Silva looked at Sandra. “Say, what did happen last night? I musta been… preoccupied.”
“You were drunk,” Sandra said scornfully. “Not really your fault, I suppose. I should’ve stopped you, but I had no idea…”
“A surge of seawater, like a tidal wave, came in shortly after midnight,” Abel said seriously. “Several surges, in fact. All were relatively gentle in a sense-no monstrous, crashing waves-but for a while, seawater surged right beneath the boat at the base of the trees. It gave us some concern,” he added as an understatement. They’d been very concerned that their trees might be undermined and fall, as a matter of fact.
“So it wasn’t all a dream,” Silva muttered. “Did Rajendra really squeak?”
“I wouldn’t have heard it over your yodeling!” Sandra said in an accusatory tone. She rubbed her brow. “Chorus after chorus of ‘In the Jailhouse Now,’ for God’s sake!”
Dennis looked at her blankly. “I cain’t yodel,” he said.
“No,” Sandra agreed, “you can’t. Never do it again. That’s an order.”
Silva arched his eyebrows and looked at Lawrence. “Ever seen anything like this before? A tide high enough to cover an island like Yap?”
“Yes, ’ut only when the ground shakes. Large tides cross Tagran then. Tagranesi feel earth shake, go to high grounds.” He looked worried. “Tide cross here, it cross Tagran too. Ground not shake, late at night, Tagranesi ’ight not go to high grounds…”
“The surge came from the southwest. Perhaps it didn’t reach as far as Tagran,” Brassey said, trying to reassure Lawrence.
“Let’s get down and out of here,” Rajendra urged angrily. His carpenter agreed.
“Not so fast,” Sandra replied. “Captain Lelaa?”
“The surge, or whatever it was, has completely subsided now. We should be able to cross the breakers with the tide around midday,” Lelaa replied, glancing at the moon beginning to rise. “We have sufficient time to observe a while longer, to make sure the infestation is indeed over. All I see is that one injured creature, but it is possible more will arrive. We should not wait too long, though, if we want to leave today.”
With the full sun, there were no more shiksaks, and the stench of rotting corpses and vegetation became overpowering. Sandra was convinced they needed to leave regardless. Thank God they still had sufficient rum-dosed fresh water. She doubted that any uncontaminated water would be found on the island for some time. Carefully, they lowered the boat to the damp, mushy ground. Abel could help a little this time, and all others were sent down by rope before they made the attempt, both for safety and to decrease the weight.
Silva was annoyed to see how far Rebecca’s new pet had chewed through one of the ropes. Another few minutes might have done for them. “Stupid shit,” he muttered accusingly at the creature, which seemed perfectly content to remain with them.
“Stupidshit!” the parrot lizard agreed enthusiastically. Uncharacteristically, Silva was at a loss to come up with a clever name for the thing, and that left him a little morose. He’d always thought he had a talent for names. His perpetual fallback, calling it “Spanky,” fell on deaf ears as usual. (Nobody knew why he always suggested naming anything ridiculous or inconvenient after Walker ’s engineering officer, but he apparently had a reason.)
“Stupidshit Eat?” The thing demanded hopefully after the boat touched the ground.
“Hey!” said Dennis, inspired. “Let’s call him ‘Stupidshit’!”
“Absolutely not!” Rebecca decreed, coaxing the creature out of the boat and onto the ground.
“Stu’idshit sounds good to ’e,” Lawrence agreed.
“No.”
“Hmm,” said Silva, coiling and stowing the falls after Lelaa brought them down. Rajendra and his men were positioning the rollers. All were alert, but in spite of everything, a festive mood prevailed. “Let’s see. Eat-Pete! We can call him Pete!”
“I think General Alden might take some offense at that,” Sandra observed dryly.
“Well… let’s call him ‘Petey’ then! That’s a fine, upstandin’ American pet name!”
Sandra giggled. “What, make him a member of ‘Our Gang’?” Of course, the reference was lost on everyone else.
“Petey!” shrieked the gluttonous tree-leaper. “Petey Eat?”
“I guess that’s settled,” Silva quipped in the face of Rebecca’s glare. “C’mon, let’s get a move on. I’ve seen enough o’ this dump. Time to get back in the Navy.”
CHAPTER 23
Mid Eastern Sea
U SS Walker was steaming at twenty knots-her best, most economical speed-almost due east through
