I know what you are, and what’s causing you, Cavendish said silently to the dancing lights. That’s enough. I won’t get to meet you in person, but that’s all right. I’ve had enough for one lifetime.
The ocean surged at his feet, alive, breathing.
Cavendish smiled sadly into the dark waters. “Sophocles long ago heard it,” he quoted. “And it brought into his mind the turbid ebb and flow of human misery.”
There were strong currents in that remorseless ocean, currents that would sweep a man away from land, currents that harbored the planet’s most efficient carnivores.
Cavendish stood at the water’s edge for only a moment. No thought of his past life paraded through his mind. He thought only of the future, a bleak, grim future of pain and slavery to unknown, unknowable masters.
With a crooked smile he muttered, “But while I have the strength, I can end all that.”
He waded into the sea, into the warm engulfing amniotic fluid that would erase his pain forever. Straight into the waves he walked, up to his knees, up to his hips, his shoulders, oblivious to what waited out there hungrily, oblivious to the lights in the sky that made the night brilliant with eerie glowing fire. Sure enough, the current seized him and soon he disappeared from the land.
Air/Sea Unit 504
Even through his acoustically insulated helmet, the pilot was getting a headache from the helicopter’s rattling, roaring engine. Below him was nothing but empty gray ocean. At his side, the crewman scanned the choppy sea with binoculars.
“How th’ fuck they expect us to find a guy in th’ fuckin’ water without a fuckin’ dye marker?” the pilot hollered over the chopper’s cacophony.
The crewman put the binoculars in his lap and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Orders,” he yelled back.
“Fuck! The dumb sonofabitch went out swimmin’ at night and got pulled under. He’s fuckin’ shark food by now.”
“I know that,” the crewman hollered, “and you know that, and even the commander knows that. But the regs say we gotta put out a search.”
“Fuckin’ regulations. Waste of fuckin’ time.”
But when the precise second came for his radio check-in, the pilot’s harsh voice changed to a smoothly professional, “J-five-oh-four to Kwajalein control. Position six-niner-alpha. No joy.”
He clicked off the radio and resumed, “Another three fuckin’ hours we gotta spend fuckin’ around up here! Fuckin’ dumb Englishman.”
Chapter 34
Stoner sat stiffly in the uncomfortable wooden chair in Tuttle’s small office. Every part of his body ached horribly. His head buzzed from the hours of questioning. And the rattling drone of the air conditioner in the lieutenant commander’s one window was giving Stoner a headache.
Two other officers sat facing Stoner, while Tuttle leaned back in his swivel chair, behind his metal desk. The other two were from Base Security: a young black lieutenant junior grade and a grizzled, ruddy-faced guy who looked much too old to be merely a full lieutenant.
“But why did he attack you?” the j.g. asked for the hundredth time.
Stoner started to shake his head, but the pain made him wince instead. “I told you before,” he replied, “I don’t know.”
“He said something about it being your fault,” the older officer chimed in. “What was he talking about?”
Around the same bush again, Stoner thought, giving them the same answers he had given dozens of times already: I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
But in his mind he saw again Schmidt’s crazed face, felt the insane inhuman strength of the man, the total mindlessness of his attack. And Stoner realized, It wasn’t an accident. It couldn’t have been just blind chance. He was out to get me. He wanted to kill me.
“Where could he have gotten the drugs?” asked the lieutenant.
His black junior said, “We got the report on what he was on: PCP. Angel dust. Enough to stoke a regiment.”
“Where could he have gotten that?” Tuttle asked, his round face a picture of concern.
Stoner laughed. “You guys aren’t serious, are you? This island’s a floating junk paradise. Take a walk down the street any night, there’s enough pot in the air to fly you home.”
“Angel dust is a lot more serious than marijuana,” the older lieutenant said sternly.
“There’s a lot of pill popping going on around here,” Stoner said. “You guys must be aware of that.”
“But not angel dust,” the black lieutenant said.
Stoner shrugged and lapsed into silence.
“What reason would Schmidt have for attacking you?” Tuttle asked.
“None that I know of,” said Stoner.
“You’d never argued over anything before?”
“We’d hardly ever talked to each other before,” Stoner said.
Their questions continued and Stoner continued to fend them off with ignorance, but inwardly he began to realize: Schmidt came after me for a reason, and not just because he was bombed out of his skull. He wanted me. He wanted to put me out of the way. Why? Because somebody told him that’s the surest way to end this project and get everybody sent home again.
Tuttle called in an aide and had sandwiches brought in. The questioning continued as they ate.
Finally Stoner stood up. “Look…we’ve been over the same ground now dozens of times. I’ve told you everything I know—which isn’t much, I admit. But I’ve got work to do and I don’t see any point in going on with these questions.”
Tuttle said, “This is a serious matter, you know.”
Feeling every muscle in his body groaning, Stoner answered, “I know. I’m the guy that got jumped on. But if you people put some effort into finding out where Schmidt got the drugs, you might get somewhere. I’ve told you everything I know.”
He turned and went to the door. No one stopped him, so he left the office, went outside into the painfully bright sunlight and walked toward the building that housed the Swamp.
Then he remembered that his office had been moved to the computer building. Head still buzzing, his insides churning, Stoner went to his new office.
He was sliding cardboard boxes full of photographs into the empty bookshelves of the new office when Markov rapped once on the open door and came into the room, grinning, hands behind his back.
“You are coming up in the world, Comrade Stoner. Congratulations.”
Wiping sweat from his forehead, Stoner said, “Thanks. It is more luxurious than the Swamp.”
“Do you think this new office is a reward for your intellectual abilities,” Markov asked, “or for your prowess as a fighter?”
Stoner’s insides went cold. “That’s not funny, Kirill. I might have killed that kid.”
“Yes, I know.” Markov’s own face was somber. “But I am glad that it’s him in the hospital today, and not you.”
“How is he? Have you heard…?”
“He’ll be all right. He is young and healthy. His bones will knit quickly.”
Stoner dropped down into his desk chair. “They woke me up at eight this morning and brought me down to Tuttle’s office. I’ve been answering questions all goddamned day.”
Markov remained standing, hands still behind his back, nodding sympathetically.
“What’re you hiding behind your back?” Stoner finally asked.
“Oh.” Markov suddenly looked almost embarrassed. “It’s nothing. A gift of sorts. For your new office.”
“A gift?”
“A symbol, really. Emblematic of the problem that has brought us together and led to our friendship. A symbol that is truly representative of where we are and what we are faced with.”