“I understand. Exile or death.”
Jim shook his head. “No. You lead us straight to what you found or there won’t even be exile, just death. If you try to give us the slip, I’ll kill you. If I even start to think you’re yanking my chain, I’ll hang you in the jungle and leave you for the skuggiks or bugs, whichever get you first. Period. We’ve come here on your word when my ship’s needed elsewhere-when I’d rather be elsewhere. If I find out you’ve been saving your miserable ass just to lead us on a wild-goose chase… you’ll wish you were in hell for quite a while before you get there.”
Methodically, metronomically, almost mechanically, the oars dipped and rose. They were following a major inlet north, and more than once, Jim wished they’d moved the ship farther inland. They didn’t have a clue about depths, snags, or sandbars, though, and there was really nothing for it. Eventually the inlet, or river, or whatever it was, began to narrow. So far, they’d seen only the usual wild variety of lizard birds and an occasional crocodile. Once, something large and heavy exploded out of the water near shore and went thrashing into the jungle. No one saw what it looked like. The water eventually grew shallower and opened into a vast swamp filled with fallen trees and stumps. The jungle around it remained dense and apparently impenetrable, and high, misty volcanic peaks were visible in all directions. Jim had no idea if the old Java looked like this around here; he’d never been anywhere but Tjilatjap, but they were always discovering geographic differences here and there. Whatever had changed this world, whether subtle or momentous, was still slowly at work.
A herd or flock-he had no idea what to call it-of strange creatures marched sedately across the swamp some distance away. They looked kind of like giant, fat ducks through his binoculars, but they didn’t have wings at all, that he could see, and their very ducklike beaks were proportionately much longer. Their necks were longer too, like a swan’s, and their heads bobbed as they moved, swiveling in all directions. Finally, they must have collectively decided the boat was getting too close and they began moving away. Quicker and quicker they moved, with a kind of odd, rolling, waddling motion, and it seemed like the faster they moved, the more panicked they became. One suddenly slammed into an underwater obstruction, a tree or something, and heaved itself up to scamper over it.
“Holy shit, Mr. Ellis!” Isak exclaimed with as much surprise as his voice had ever carried.
The creature’s long, gangly, almost delicate-looking legs must have been ten or twelve feet long! Apparently they weren’t very strong either, because it was having a hard time clearing the tree. It just kept leaping up, scrabbling pathetically, and falling back to splash in the murky water. What happened next was almost too fast to register in their minds. All they got was an instant-long glimpse of a terrifying jaws clamping tight on the flailing legs and a swirl of some mighty tail. Whatever got the duck thing must have been under the tree, or maybe it came from nearby, drawn by the thrashing sound of distress.
“Holy shit!” Isak said again, as the ducklike creature practically capsized, the short, severed stumps of its long legs flailing madly. For an instant, the head popped back out of the water and it mooed piteously before the long jaws came again, clamped on the graceful neck, and pulled the head back under.
They kept rowing, a little quicker now, as the capsized corpse continued jerking and heaving as something fed on it from beneath.
“That was… a little spooky,” Ellis said, controlling his voice. Isak was suddenly peering intently over the side at the dark water, Krag in hand.
Rasik smiled. “A ‘spooky’ place. You see why I and my followers”-he spit the word-“did not linger here despite our discovery.”
“And just where is this ‘discovery,’ damn you?” Ellis demanded.
“You do not see it?”
“What do you mean? I swear I wasn’t fooling! I’ll pitch you over the side and let whatever got that big duck have you!”
“A little farther then. Perhaps just a bit to the left. You will see it soon.”
They did.
“Sweet Olongapo!” Isak exclaimed when Chack suddenly pointed at something nestled against the western shore of the swamp. “It’s a goddamn ship!”
Closer they rowed until it was clear for all to see. It was a ship, heavily corroded, daubed entirely with rust, and almost consumed by the vegetation along the shoreline. If she was one of theirs, she had to have been in pretty sad shape even before being abandoned here for more than a year and a half. She listed toward shore and was clearly a freighter of some kind, with cargo booms, a single funnel, and a straight up-and-down bow.
“Old,” said Ellis. “About six, seven thousand tons, by the look of her. How the hell did she get here?”
“Same way we did, I figger,” Isak muttered. “Captain, Mr. Bradford, and Spanky was all talkin’ about there maybe bein’ other stuff scattered around, got sucked here too. The Squall that got us woulda come through here first, maybe not as bad, maybe worse. Somebody said somethin’ about local intensity or somethin’.” Isak shrugged, but his expression was pensive. “She looks like a dead body that’s bobbed up.”
They steered closer until they passed under the dangling anchor. The water lapped gently against her rust-streaked side and Jim looked up at the raised-lettered name.
“ Santa Catalina,” he said. “Huh. Never heard of her. Never saw her. She sure wasn’t in Tjilatjap when we were.”
“She looks sorta like the Blackhawk,” said Isak in a strange tone, referring to their old Asiatic Fleet destroyer tenderly.
“Yeah. Same as a hundred other ships,” Ellis replied. “ Blackhawk was built as a freighter and bought by the Navy. I bet she’s thirty years old, though.”
“So,” interrupted Rasik. “Are you satisfied now?”
“So far. Don’t give me reason to change my mind. Did you go aboard?”
Rasik shook his head and pointed across the swamp to the east-northeast. “We saw it from there. It does not look like anyone is on it, and it would have been a march of many days to reach. The swampland extends far to the north and there are rivers besides.”
“So you don’t know what she carries? Taking a lot for granted, aren’t you?”
“There is much iron. That alone should be worth my life.”
Jim grunted. “Where it is, it might as well be on the moon. I can tell she’s beached, and probably flooded too.”
“Do you want me to kill him, Captain?” Chack asked. “I would enjoy the… honor.”
Jim shook his head. “No, a deal’s a deal. She’s worth something, even if it’s just a boatload of bolts. Let’s see if we can squirm through all that growth on her starboard side and try to get aboard.”
It took much hacking and chopping, but they finally maneuvered the boat between the ship and shore. She was beached, all right, and that just added to the mystery of her presence here. A number of trees had fallen across her from shore, but there was a stretch of water as well. Also, eerily, rotten cargo nets draped her starboard side, as if the crew had used them to escape.
“Do we trust them?” Jim asked himself aloud, referring to the nets. Without a word, Chack sprang across to the closest one and scampered up. He disappeared over the bulwark. “I guess so,” Jim said philosophically.
“You’re heavier than Chack,” Isak pointed out.
“Yeah, maybe a little. C’mon.” He looked at two of the Marines. “You stay here with the boat. Keep your eyes peeled. You others, come aboard-but keep your eyes peeled, too!”
“What about Rasik?” Chack called from above, peering over the side now.
“He comes too. Might as well let him see what bought his life. What’s up there?”
“Hard to say. There is much growth and many big boxes. Nobody seems at home. You can tell me what I see when you get here.”
The four detailed Marines, including Corporal Koratin, swiftly climbed the nets. Rasik followed with apparent reluctance. Jim went next, followed by a less than enthusiastic Isak Rueben. When he gained the deck, Jim looked around. The ship was an ungodly mess. Vines crawled over everything and debris was strewn about as if large animals had been tearing into things.