When Stockwell found his voice, he spoke directly to Kangar. "What is the meaning of this outrage?" he demanded. "Are you mad?"
The guide faced Stockwell, smiling, while he kept his bolo pressed against the tall Brit's throat. "Some of us," he replied in English notably improved, "are surely mad, but it is no great handicap. As for the meaning of this outrage, you are needed, Doctor."
"Needed?"
"For Nagaq."
Professor Stockwell failed to catch his drift. "Of course," he said. "It's what we've wanted all along. We chose you as the man to help us find Nagaq."
"That's where you are mistaken, Doctor. I chose you," Kuching Kangar replied. "And you will not be searching for Nagaq. We have arranged for him to visit you."
"So much the better," Stockwell said, but he was frowning as he spoke. There was an undercurrent to the guide's voice, he belatedly decided, that did not bode well for the surviving members of his party. "I hope we can conclude our business promptly, then," he said.
"Your business is concluded, Doctor," said the Malay guide. "You have a very different role to play in what must happen next."
"You bloody wogs won't get away with this," Pike Chalmers snarled.
"And who will stop us, sir?" Kangar was grinning as he spoke, the sharp blade of his bolo drawing blood from Chalmers as he pressed it close against the tall Brit's flesh.
"I must inform you," Sibu Sandakan announced, "that I am here to represent the government. It will go badly for you if you harm us."
Kangar flashed him a mocking grin. "Punishment, you mean?"
"Of course."
"Who will punish us? Not you, I think."
"The government has troops—"
"And you were told to signal them," the guide told Sandakan, interrupting him. He reached into a pocket of his trousers with his free hand and withdrew a smallish plastic box. "With this device, perhaps?"
"Where did you get that?" Sandakan demanded.
"Why, from you, of course." The guide's smile stretched almost from ear to ear. "You won't be needing it."
That said, he cocked his arm and pitched the small black box into the forest, out of sight.
Professor Stockwell didn't hear it fall. "You were prepared to summon troops?" he asked, now facing Sibu Sandakan.
"In the event of an emergency," the deputy replied. "We're in the middle of the wilderness, for heaven's sake. It was a simple safeguard—"
"Which has failed to save us, after all," said Stockwell, interrupting him. He turned back to their former guide and asked, "What do you want from us?"
"I've answered that. You have been chosen for Nagaq."
"And what does that mean, if you don't mind telling me?"
"In good time, Doctor. We have miles to travel yet, before you meet the object of your heart's desire. It will not be an easy march, but that cannot be helped. We should arrive by nightfall if you do not slow us down too much."
"I'll do my best," said Stockwell, not without a hint of sarcasm.
"I'm sure you will," Kangar replied. "But if you lag along the way, my brothers will encourage you."
The Malay snapped his fingers as he spoke, and two of his compatriots—a grinning cyclops and a dwarf with six toes on each foot—stepped forward, prodding Stockwell with their spears.
"That won't be necessary," the professor said.
"In that case," said the little Malay, "shall we go?"
Pike Chalmers offered no resistance as the mud-smeared natives stripped him of the Weatherby, his Colt and hunting knife. They didn't frisk him like policemen, but it made no difference; he was effectively disarmed.
But that was not the same as being helpless. No, indeed.
From under lowered eyebrows, Chalmers counted twenty adversaries, with their erstwhile guide, but most of those were what the bloody PC crowd back home called "challenged": stunted limbs and missing digits, crooked spines, misshapen skulls. One bugger seemed to have no lips to speak of, while another's nose was nothing but a perforated pimple in the middle of his face. It was a blessing, Chalmers thought, that they had sense enough to cover up their genitals with loincloths.
He imagined running wild among them, swinging left and right with massive, angry fists. One stiff poke in the eye would blind the frigging cyclops, and the dwarfs would be no problem; he could boot them down the trail like flabby soccer balls. Six normal-looking men could be a problem, true enough, but if Pike could grab the bolo knife—or better yet, one of the spears…
On second thought, however, there was something that he didn't like about the bowmen. They were small and stupid looking, Chalmers granted, but they also held their bows as proper archers might, with arrows nocked and ready, pointed in the general direction of their targets. Long, sharp arrows, he couldn't help noting, with the tips discolored, as by some vile potion used to make them twice as deadly in the flesh.
The more he considered things, the less he liked those six-foot lances, either. That was no way for a man to die, with spears stuck through him till he looked like some damned insect on a bug collector's mounting board. And from Kuching Kangar's expression, he would only be too happy for a chance to use his bolo on a proper Englishman. The bloody wogs were all that way, ungrateful bastards to the bitter end.
So he would bide his time, thought Chalmers. Find out where the freaks were taking him—and his companions, too, of course—before he tried to break away. He didn't follow all this rot about Nagaq, but what could anyone expect from savages whose normal microintellect was cooked in a genetic soup that obviously left much to be desired?
He would find out where they were going, keep a close eye on the local landmarks so that he could make his way back out again. If there was profit to be taken at the end of their forced march, he would do everything within his power to secure the lion's share of it—and failing that, he would by God remember the location of his captors' sanctuary, come back later with a solid team of men who knew what they were doing, men who took life seriously, not a gang of bloody scientists who couldn't tell a pistol from a piss pot when the chips were down.
The world would never miss a tribe of freaks like this, he reckoned. It would be a public service to the gene pool, wiping this abomination off the map. If anyone found out and thought about complaining, it would be a clear-cut case of self-defense. There would be weapons to support Pike's claim… and maybe the remains of several recent victims, too.
The more he thought about it, slogging down the trail and sweating like a pig, the more Chalmers came to realize that he should make his break alone, when it was time. He didn't give a damn for Sibu Sandakan, the bloody wog, and Dr. Stockwell was an old man who would slow him down, most likely get him killed if Chalmers tried to pack him out with natives howling on their heels. Looked at another way, the old bone doctor made a perfect sacrifice. His death at savage hands would raise a bloody hue and cry from K.L. to the States, and anything Pike Chalmers did to pay his killers back would likely get a rubber-stamp approval from the powers that be.
All right, then.
By the time the first mile was behind them, Chalmers had his mind made up. He would be careful, watch and await his chance.
A small black plastic box came sailing at him through the trees, and Remo snatched it from the air, examined it and dropped it in his pocket. It was obviously a device for signaling. The brief exchange between their guide and Sibu Sandakan suggested it would summon army troops if Remo pressed the button, but he didn't want a mob of reinforcements rushing in.