«Mike had a little present with him,» said Harry with a grin.
«It's not a present,» said the visitor, seriously. «It isn't even a loan. One of the things I was doing on my vacation was finding places to plant energy caches. We're seeding the coastal plains with power sources to recharge suit units that get caught behind the lines. When I was on Diess it was a pain in the ass trying to find power. So I came down with three antimatter generators. They've got a finite amount of power, but it's enough to run a small city for a year, so . . .» He shrugged and smiled again.
«Damn,» said the boat captain, tossing him another tub. «Thanks.»
«Well, the priority is any unit that needs it,» Mike said severely. «And, technically, you're not supposed to tie into it. But since you don't have a power grid, it's not like the whole Keys are going to be hooked up to it.» He shrugged again and frowned. «As screwed up as it is down here, it seems the least I could do for you. Just don't overuse it. It's like a really big battery and once it's gone, it's gone.»
«Well, thanks anyway,» said Harry, stacking the last tub on the dock. The three hands were already loading up dollies to carry the fish to the icehouse for cleaning. «This means we don't have to waste fuel for generation so the boats can stay out longer. Hell, we've got a satellite dish, so we can hook up a TV in the pub and even get real news.»
«Getting news again will be great,» said Bob, with a smile. «Hell, before you know it we might even have telephones again!» He laughed. «And then it's faxes . . .»
« . . . and cell phones . . .» laughed Harry. The electronic impedimentia they had all grown up with was as distant as buggy whips these days.
«Well, enjoy it as long as you can,» said Mike grimly. «The first serious invasion will hammer the satellites. And there goes your reception again.»
«Yeah,» said Bob, «that's true. But it's a hell of a long time since we got any news but radio. I got a question to ask on that, if you don't mind.»
«Shoot,» said Mike, but there was a hint of wariness.
«You said you were on Diess, right?»
«Right.»
«There was this guy that won the Medal. They said he got blown up in a nuclear explosion and lived. What really happened?»
* * *
Sharon squealed and spun around in the water as Herman goosed her.
Karen laughed in return and slapped the dolphin on the flank as it went by. «You have to watch that one. There's a reason we named him Herman Hesse.»
The three of them had been dragged off to a tidal pool by the dolphins. Here, on the Florida Bay side of the island, they had been swimming with the big cetaceans most of the day. Cally had stayed firmly attached to Shirlie, who at less than five hundred pounds was the lightest of the four. The other three were males: Herman, who had more or less attached himself to Sharon, Charlie Brown and Ted. Ted had left for a few hours in the midafternoon, but the others had stuck with them.
The day had not been for pure fun. The pool was home to a vast collection of the sorts of rare marine organisms that could be traded for luxury goods. Seven species of anemones, several more types of urchins, two types of lobster and various other items had been gathered. Sharon watched Cally as she rode the small dolphin to the bottom of the pool. There, in about fifteen feet of water, the eight-year-old let go and began plucking at the reef. A sponge, a spider crab and an anemone found their way into her mesh bag before she began to claw for the surface and air.
«This has been great,» said Sharon, finning slightly and spinning in place to keep Herman in sight, «but I'm getting worn out.»
Karen smiled. «A little different than what you usually do, huh?»
«A bit,» Sharon admitted. She could see the dolphin trying to get into position behind her.
«What do you do?» Karen asked. Most of the conversation of the day had been taken up by the tasks that they had been learning.
Karen had prepared well. The dolphins had taken turns toting the three humans and an inflatable boat full of the necessities of the expedition. She had packed a light lunch of cold lobster salad and some cut fruits along with plenty of fresh water. Sharon had been careful to wear a T-shirt and to insist that Cally wear one as well. The hot South Florida sun would still have burned their legs badly, but Sharon kept Cally well covered with sunscreen. In Sharon's case, the same nannites that scoured Fleet bodies for radiation damage would make short work of the sunburn.
Sharon watched Cally line up for another run at the bottom. She was too worn out to even think about making another try, but the energetic youngster seemed as fresh as when they started. «I'm an XO on a frigate,» she answered, watching the quick hands snag a passing shovel-nose lobster. Although they were less plentiful than the more common spiny lobsters, they were prized by the oriental community as an aphrodisiac and fetched a high price among the free traders.
«What's that mean? I mean, what do you do?» asked Karen, interested. She had never met a person who had been off-planet.
Sharon suddenly found herself unable to explain. How could she explain the constant strain of wondering which critical system would fail next? When the hull would suddenly breach? How the ship, and herself, would perform when they were finally in combat?
She paused a moment and smiled faintly. «Mostly I wait for the air to run out.»
Karen was a kind and empathetic woman. And she recognized that not only was the answer correct, it was also as much as she could expect to get for the time being. She nodded in agreement instead. «We ought to be getting back.» She suited action to words, tossing her nearly full mesh bag into the cooler in the inflatable. She pulled a harness out and winked. «If you waggle your hips do you think you can lure Herman over?»
* * *
Mike took another pull on the bottle of beer and a puff from the cigar. The sky was slowly darkening, the famous purple of the Caribbean drifting up from the east as they kept watch over the westward opening. The girls had been gone most of the day and it was about time they turned back up.
«If this isn't paradise,» he opined to the trader, «it's within the limits of tolerance.»
«It is close,» Honest John admitted. «In a lot of ways, life's gotten better. Slower at least.»
«Down here,» Mike pointed out. «It hasn't been slow for me.»
John nodded in agreement. «The margin sure as hell has gotten thinner, though. It used to be there was, I dunno, flex in the system. These days it's sink or swim. Sometimes literally.»
«So, how is the Coast Guard these days?» Mike asked with a laugh.
John laughed in return. «Not bad. They keep the pirates in check, at least. But a lot of them have gotten transferred to 'more vital' tasks. So, SAR is spotty.» He pronounced the acronym for Search and Rescue «Sahr.» It was a military way of phrasing it that caused Mike to cock his head.
«Have you lost many boats?» Mike asked.
«A few. There's two problems. Some of the boats have gone to pirates. Or that's the way it looks. Boats just disappear in calm seas. And the free traders are in a constant low-grade war with the Mariellitos bastards who think they control the trade down here.» The trader frowned and looked over towards his ship as if to ensure it was still intact.
«Have you been having much trouble?» Mike asked.
The trader snorted, gave a grim smile and shook his head. «Not . . . anymore.» He seemed disinclined to explain the reference.
«The other problem is a lot of the boats, their GPS and Loran is giving out; they're at sea more than the systems are designed to handle. And most of the traders aren't real sailors, guys who know how to navigate by the wind and the stars. So if they lose their GPS, they get lost: really lost. There was one was just making the crossing from Los Pinos to Key West. The crossing's maybe two hundred miles. Stupid fucker ended up near Bermuda. Dismasted, out of water, half mad. How in the hell anyone could completely miss the Bahamas I'll never know.» The tall captain took another toke on the joint he held. «Nobody could get that stoned. Hell of it is, he wants to go back to sea.»