A comet’s tail.
28
Day at the Beach B.C
The astrolabe measured the angle of the sun and gave them an approximation of Greenwich Mean Time. Dwayne stuck a stick in the sand and took a picture of the shadow it made in the morning light. He time-stamped the image taken of the stick and added it to the repeating message back to the Raj somewhere out there on the water in the centuries ahead. Still no word back.
“We have to be out of range,” Jimbo said. “Unless they moved the ship,” Dwayne said. “Why would they do that?”
“Looking for us.”
“They wouldn’t know about the storm. They wouldn’t know we were blown off-course.”
“Needle in a haystack,” Dwayne said.
“Needle in a haystack, and you don’t know where the haystack is,” Jimbo said.
They explored the beach immediately before them. There was not a sign anywhere that there was anyone else alive on the planet. The sand was torn up by the storm the day before. Lots of debris littered the beach. Sea birds picked among it in flocks that rose and resettled as Dwayne and Jimbo approached.
The debris was all shells and seaweed. No evidence of anything manmade. They walked up a trail to a hump of land that rose to the north of the beach. Dwayne glassed the scenery with a pair of binoculars.
Jimbo used the 30x scope on his Winchester Model 70. From where they stood, they could see that the island was forested with pines over most of its surface. The forest rose to a high point to the north. There was no smoke from cook fires. The sea showed no sign of any kind of craft.
“Maybe we went back too far,” Jimbo said.
“The world was less populated then,” Dwayne said. “You said that last time,” Jimbo said.
They decided that they’d row the raft around the island to reach the high point they saw. The Rangers policed the area so as not to leave any artifacts behind. Their meal containers were all soy-based so they could be just covered with a layer of sand. Once the campsite was clean, they dragged the Zodiac to the surf and pushed into the deeper water.
The wind and current were on their side for once. The only needed to paddle enough to keep them on the northerly course around the island. They stayed close to shore in case they saw a sail on the horizon. It took most of the day, but they drew up into a cove close to the foot of the rise. The cove was nestled in a wide sheltered beach where the shoreline curved sharply eastward before continuing north again.
The Rangers put in and concealed the raft in a copse of trees and risked a campfire to warm up beanie wienies with crackers crushed into them. They lay back on sand still warm from the sun as night stole over the sky.
The comet was more pronounced against the moonless night. It hung motionless above them, though it was traveling through space at sixty miles a second.
“You know, as fucked up as this is, it’s pretty cool,” Jimbo said.
“You going native, on me again, Cochise?” Dwayne said.
“Yeah, you’d be liking it more if someone else was here instead of me.”
“Maybe we’ll find an ancient little hottie for you while we’re here.”
Jimbo farted long and loud in answer to that.
They climbed to the top of the high point the next day. It was only a few hundred feet to the peak, and the trees gave way to rocky ground. From there they could see the entire island. The curve to the north that formed the cove they’d camped in was actually the base of a long peninsula that led away northward. A spine of rocky outcroppings delineated the narrow strip of land.
Jimbo’s feet were bare since his sneakers had been sucked off when he hit the water on insertion. He didn’t even own a pair of shoes until he was twelve, and his soles were hard from running around the reservation growing up. Even so, he got a cut on his heel from a sharp edge of volcanic rock. He sat down to apply antiseptic and a patch of moleskin from the bag he wore on his hip.
“We’ll have to get you some sandals,” Dwayne said. “You can go Roman.”
“And a toga to match like Caroline wanted us to wear.”
Dwayne shielded his eyes and looked north over the sea. The sunlight bounced off the wavetops in copper hues.
“Shit,” Dwayne said with a grin.
“What?” Jimbo said.
“This doesn’t look familiar to you?”
“Why should it?”
“Picture it if the sea levels were higher.”
Jimbo took in all the island he could see from their vantage point. The curving peninsula. The half-moon cove. The shoreline to the north visible from where they stood.
“It’s Nisos Anaxos,” Jimbo said.
“Yeah. Those rocks on the peninsula are the islands we saw a few days ago. This high point is the place we picked for our OP,” Dwayne said.
“The hill eroded away, leaving the rocks. The water level is lower now.”
“Or volcanic activity changed the ocean floor since then. Since now, I mean. We did something right for once.”
“That means the Raj is anchored right out there. Or going to be anchored someday.” Jimbo pointed to the deep blue water off the cove.
The following day the Rangers improved their situation. They made a better job of securing and concealing the Zodiac. They tied it down under a shelf of rock and covered the opening with dry brush. Then they humped their gear up to the top of the peak. They strung a camo net tarp for shade and cover. It was in dappled gray shades and would blend with the surrounding rocks. Jimbo used a camp saw to take down the tops of any pines around them that obscured their view. They set up a solar panel for recharging their electronics.
When the hide was done, they
