“Actually,” murmured the woman, “they’re not.”
“No? Well, they look like insects. But I’m quite sure that the open coastline was their idea. I suspect that the Hkh’Rkh would have been quite happy to let every human on Java die.”
“So, getting to Java. How close do you approach the outlying islands, the pulaus?”
“We have a no-approach zone of eight kilometers, Ms. Smith. The exosapients are very strict in the enforcement of that limit and of maintaining speed. If we slow to less than eight knots, they scramble VTOLs and board the ship. If a ship slows to less than five knots, they often sink her. Rail gun rounds from orbit, usually.”
“But if you drop something in the water, and leave it behind, what then?”
“If we are seen dropping anything, even trash, over the side once we come within the fifty-kilometer limit, we will be boarded or sunk.”
“They monitor your trash? Really?”
“I know of two captains who ignored that restriction. They are both dead, their ships at the bottom.”
“I see. But what if something was in the water already, and was being towed behind you?”
“I’m quite sure they’d see it, unless it was very small, smaller than a life raft. Some people tried that the first week of the blockade. They’re now keeping company with the two captains I mentioned.”
“What if the towed object was small enough to remain concealed in your wake?”
Ong stared at the woman and decided that she was not only quite clever, but quite insane. “Ms. Smith, the wake of even this ship is extremely—”
“I am aware of its punishing force, Captain. My question is, could you rig a rope system that would allow me to remain in the wake, reliably?”
“Well, if we maintain the lowest allowed speed—”
“Which seems advisable for my health.”
“—then yes, I suppose so. But even if we pass within eight kilometers of one of the pulau, how do you plan to get to it? That is a very long swim, and I remain unconvinced of the effectiveness of the shark repellent we have been given.”
“Oh, once I’m in the water, and you’re going slowly enough, my friend can get me safely to land.”
“Your—friend?” Ong asked, looking about.
Ms. Smith only smiled and crooked a finger as she began walking forward. Ong followed.
She stopped at the midship hold, which was loosely covered. Probably no catch in there. Indeed, this part of the ship smelled unusually clean. Ong looked around. “Is your friend joining us here?”
“No. We just joined her.” She pulled back the cover.
Ong looked down. Set snug within the stained gray bulkheads of the ship was a large tank, at least four meters long by three wide by two deep. And in it was a sleek dolphin of medium size. Ong stared, speechless.
“Necessity is the mother of invention, Captain,” Ms. Smith explained. “Mariel here is one of a few score of trained cetaceans that were being used by tourist-trap sea-life exhibits all throughout Southeast Asia. I’m sure you’re familiar with the attraction: ‘swim with the dolphins.’ Most of the marine parks offering that experience were in Thailand and Malaysia, a few in Vietnam and one or two in exclusive resorts in the Celebes.”
“And so you plan—?”
“To have you tow me over the fifty-kilometer limit in the wake of your ship, with Mariel already in the water with me. When we reach your closest approach to the western islands on the way in to Jakarta, I’ll cut loose and she’ll tow me in. She’s quite good at following general signals, and we get along well. When I’ve gone ashore, she’ll start back to her home port.”
“In Singapore?”
“Borneo, now.”
“Then how did you get the dolph—?”
“Long story, and I can’t tell you all of it. Now, can you think of any reason why this plan won’t work?”
The scheme sounded outré, but… “No,” he heard himself say. “I cannot foresee any particular reason it would fail.”
“Very good, then, Captain Ong. I have a letter of authorization from the Singaporean authorities, and a printout and bank-stamped receipt of the handsome deposit that has been made into your account back home. Now, if you’d be so kind, Mariel and I would like to come aboard. The accommodation stairs will be fine for me, but I think Mariel’s tank is going to require your biggest winch.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Despite the spatter of the gushing cataracts spilling over the edges of the corner restaurant’s awnings, Caine heard a softer, steady blipt blipt blipt close by. He looked down, searching for the source of the dripping.
It was him, or rather his clothes, draining unhurriedly into a puddle alongside the leg of the table at which he was sitting. He looked up at the restaurant’s owner, who was wiping glasses behind the worn bar. Who looked at the puddle and then back up at him.
“Maafkan saya,” Caine apologized.
“Tidak apa-apa,”[5] the man responded. Someone called him from the back. He disappeared behind a cloth hanging that separated the ten peeling-chrome tables from the compact kitchen at the rear.
To Caine’s immediate right, the rain was a thrashing gray curtain, spattering hard and straight against the still-hot street. Each drop’s murderous impact shattered it into a hundred microdrops, most of which rebounded to knee height, the rest vaporizing into a thin, pervasive mist. The locals refused to label it a monsoon—yet. But during the past two days—first on the wharf in Sedari, then on the bus to Pataruman, and finally in the overcrowded train to Jakarta, Riordan had heard the word used more and more, and uttered less dismissively with each passing hour. And with each passing hour, there were more sirens, more sounds of gunshots, more distant columns of black smoke beating against the downward torrent, like curled fists trying to break through to the blue sky above. There were more smiles, too, but not the open, friendly kind reserved for bules who, like himself, could almost get by in mangled bahasa. These new smiles were fierce and furtive, exchanged between the locals like secret messages slipped back and forth in a prison cafeteria. Daily, they were drawing more of their warders’ blood.
The sharp upswing in insurgent activity was logical. Cloud cover and precipitation eroded orbital imaging and ruined ground-level visibility. For tactical scopes or goggles, the humidity and superheated mist was a poor backdrop against which to pick out thermal silhouettes at longer ranges and the incessant drumming of the rain swallowed up any but the sharpest and loudest sounds. The rapidly growing resistance was able to initiate ambushes at closer range, plant control-detonated mines unobserved, and emerge from and fade back into the narrow streets and tangled jungles with the flawless ease that comes from a lifetime of experience.
The proprietor reappeared, carrying a bowl, a fork, a small napkin, and two bottles of different kinds of sauce—all in one hand. He placed the bowl in front of Caine: nasi goreng, Indonesian fried rice. Caine detected the faint scent of peanut sauce, and spied a few strips of what might be chicken, but—given recent conditions—were more likely dog. He smiled. “Maafkan saya,” he apologized, pointing at the meat and shaking his head.
The owner smiled. “’S okay, bro’. I speak English.”
Caine nodded. “Thanks. I just ordered the nasi goreng.”