Caine’s stomach seemed to sag down into his intestines. “I’ve got to get out of Indonesia.” He stopped before adding because the invaders were following me, somehow. Hearing that, the clones might shoot him and toss him overboard without pause. But on the other hand—
Caine turned and looked back at the Indonesians huddled in the shade; a few tentative smiles answered his glance. The black marketeers who’d smuggled him aboard in Pakis had told him he was shipping out on a fishing boat, not a blockade dodger. The kind of ship that weaved in and out of the pulaus that straddled the fifty-kilometer maritime limit. They hauled those few people and objects that got smuggled into or out of Java, and now, some of those smuggled people were in danger because of him. The clone was right: he did have to go over the side.
“Listen, Dentist,” the clone emphasized, “you—and we—might not live long if we don’t get you into the water. Now.”
Caine nodded, headed toward the gunwale, looking for life jackets.
“Not that way,” the clone muttered. He turned and shouted toward the pilot house. “’Ranto, get him some gear. Syarwan, come about to due west, best speed.” Back to Caine. “You can’t get over the limit, not if they’re looking for you. And obviously they are. So you’re going to have to sneak back, hide out if you can.”
Caine found the courage to nod at his own death warrant. “Better than having all of us blown out of the water here.”
The clone smiled. “Okay. Now, do you know where you are, where you need to go?”
Caine looked at the sun, glanced toward the small islands scattered in a one-hundred-twenty-degree arc from southwest to northwest. “We’re about fifteen klicks east of the northern extents of the Pulau Seribu—the Thousand Islands.”
“Good. You studied a map. That’s probably going to save your life.” The ship had come about, vomiting black gouts of exhaust. The clone pointed over the starboard bow. “Look between twenty-five and thirty degrees: you see that little island?”
“Yes.”
“Pulau Ringit. Closest to us, relatively easy approach. There’s an islet before you get there. No dangerous shoals, smooth sea bed. Rest there.”
“Got it.”
“It’s only a few hundred meters between the islet and Pulau Ringit, but don’t cross until dark.” ’Ranto emerged from the pilot house, slid down the rails, handed a heavy canvas duffle to the captain. “And try to stay underwater.”
“Well, I can hold my breath as well as the next person, but—”
The clone started producing equipment out of the canvas duffle: a pony tank, regulator, mask, fins. “You know how to use these?”
“Everything except the regulator, I’ve snorkeled, but never—”
“Then learn. Fast.”
As Caine started fitting the mask, the captain checked his watch and the horizon. “Once you’re on Ringit, just blend in.”
“Blend in?”
“Sure. Lots of bules there, stranded when the Arat Kur hit. With their credit cards cut off, they’re running out of money and have to scrabble like the rest of us. Pretty amusing. You’ll fit right in. Although you’ll want to get some clothes. You can pass yourself off as a dive enthusiast—unless you’re talking to a real diver.”
“Are the islands occupied?”
“By the Roaches or Sloths? No. They don’t like to isolate themselves in small numbers. They’ve sent a few government troops out to keep watch, but half of them will look the other way for a few rupiahs and the other half would desert if they could. If the invaders really have to settle problems in the islands, they do it with orbital surveillance and interdiction, drones, aerial patrols and counterinsurgency drops.”
“Okay, but our forces, the commandoes who are arriving in-country. They must be swimming in across the line all the time. How do they do it without getting caught, wiped out?”
The clone grinned. “There’s a lot going on out here. More than I know, and a whole lot more than the invaders know. But right now, that doesn’t matter. This does. After you reach Pulau Ringit, you won’t need to do any more diving. Just book a ship to Java. But not directly to Jakarta. The Hkh’Rkh are aggressive about their search-and-detainment checks of the ships that put in there. Get a little packet into a Barat coastal kempang, like Sedari. Then go overland to Jakarta. Lots of bules there, so you won’t stand out. Use trains or buses, you’ll attract less attention. And use bahasa whenever you can. You want to sound like you’ve been here a few months.”
Caine nodded. “Thanks for the advice. And the help.” He shouldered the pony-tank, tested the regulator: fine.
The clone returned his nod. “Last bit of advice. We’re less than seven klicks from Ringit, so you’ve got a swim ahead of you. But don’t keep the regulator in your mouth. You’ll forget you’re using up air breathing. Swim as long as you can without becoming tired, exhale, put in the regulator, take a long, slow breath, start again. You’ll go farther and last longer with the air you’ve got. And don’t go deep or you could get the bends.”
No depth gauge, so I’d better err to the side of caution. Caine heard a thin rumble to the north, looked up. Three black specks were on the horizon. They grew noticeably larger as he watched.
The clone had noticed them, too. “Talk time is over. They must have seen us rendezvous with another smuggler, earlier this afternoon.”
“But you didn’t violate the limit.”
“No, but once we’re outside of the coastal buoy line, no hull is allowed to approach another closer than three kilometers. If one tries, we are supposed to report it and open fire if we can’t warn them away.”
“The invaders’ orbital surveillance must be extraordinary.”
“A lot of what they’ve got is pretty extraordinary. Like whatever they’ve got that allows them to follow you. Which may be the real reason they’re coming back. So get going.”
The enemy aircraft had resolved into discernible shapes; it was the same three that had buzzed them earlier. They were approaching in an inverted delta formation. Caine watched as Pak Sumadi smiled his shattered smile and reached under a tarp for a stock-rotted AK-47. Beyond it, Caine saw the distinctive cubist-coke-bottle shape of an RPG-7 warhead.
The clone followed his eyes, shook his head. “No, you’re not even going to think about staying here. If they didn’t see us rendezvous with the other boat, then we’ll be fine as long as you’re not on board. But if you are, and they’re looking for you, then you’re dead and so are we. And if they did see us link up with the other boat, then they’re coming to attack us. So either way, you need to be on your way.”
Caine couldn’t be sure how much was the bravado of the valorous damned, and how much was just good common sense. He snugged his mask, sat on the gunwale, took a bearing on Pulau Ringit. Leisurely pace or not, seven kilometers was still one hell of a long swim. He turned back: Pak Sumadi had his right hand raised in farewell. “Hati-hati,” he said.
“Hati-hati,” Caine answered. He turned to the clone. “Sampai jumpa.”[4]
“Probably not. Go. Now.”
Caine didn’t stop to think. He pushed off, holding his mask. As soon as he hit the water—harder than he expected because of the speed of the boat—he swam away. After ten seconds, he jackknifed forward at the waist, straightened his legs toward the sky behind him and kicked hard.
He went down quickly, saw the light dim around him. He straightened out. Other than the small, shimmering disk of the sun and the wake of the ship, he could imagine himself trapped in a green glass paperweight: his surroundings were silent, still, identical in all directions. He looked up at the dappled path of the wake, calculated the course of the ship, turned twenty-five degrees to the right of it. Yes, that matched his estimate of the heading for Ringit. He took a breath from the regulator, stowed it, began swimming, felt a spasm of pain in his left forearm. Not the Mars wound again, not now.