A Ruby Beam of Light

by Tom DeMarco

That wiped the grins off their silly faces. He paused, savoring the effect. It was too bad that he now had to give them an excuse to start grinning all over again. “I was quite prepared to send one of you off with the Kiruna, to serve as a lookout, while the other would be assigned to the radar and communication station on Yunque. That was, in fact, my intention.” He looked over at Loren, seated on a tall stool by the chart table. Loren was doing his best to keep a straight face, but not succeeding too well. “Yes. However, as it happens, Miss Kelly Corsayer has intervened on your behalf with a most unusual suggestion. Which suggestion, we, that is, I have decided to accept. Loren, would you like to fill them in on the details of Kelly’s idea?”

  “Thank you Mr. Proctor.” He gestured for Keesha and Adjouan to gather around the chart table. Keesha took the remaining stool, while Adjouan draped his long frame over the open window sill by Loren’s side. “You’re aware of what’s going to happen sometime in the very near future. I know the idea of an attack is no stranger to you, because I have had a chance to talk to each of you about it before.” They nodded soberly.

  He moved his hands to the chart to the area just north of the Inagua Islands. “We’re pretty confident they’ll be coming down the Bahama Channel to turn south around Little Inagua and head for the Passage. So we now have three lookout boats on station at this end of the Channel. They’re out about one hundred twenty miles from Baracoa. And their radar gives them an additional twenty-five miles of vision. So they might conceivably spot an attacking fleet far away enough to give us thirty hours of notice. It would take the enemy fleet thirty hours to reach us, but we don’t want to meet them directly off Baracoa. With the wind blowing from the east, we’d rather take them on here.” He pointed to a spot on the chart due east of Great Inagua Island. “If we can position ourselves here, just in front of the Caicos islands, we will be solidly upwind of the enemy. And there would be no risk of gas that they might release during the battle blowing over us or back over Baracoa. Well, you can see the problem. To get to this position, we have to beat upwind all this distance. That’s more than a hundred miles, probably sixteen hours of sailing with the prevailing winds.

  “So we need a lot more warning. That means we have to push our detection point much further north…to here.” His finger came down on Crooked Island, nearly half way up the channel. “We can’t keep replenishing a sea-based lookout at that distance, so we need someone on the island itself, a party of dependable lookouts. And they have to be able to keep themselves sane, alone together for perhaps weeks. Kelly suggested you two.”

  Keesha had seen it coming, but when he finally said the words, she had difficulty holding in her laughter. “This is to be our punishment for setting a naughty example? It sounds more like a honeymoon.”

  Loren ignored her. “We have a small generator that Mr. Pease has rigged with a bicycle drive. If you work at it for an hour a day, it will keep your batteries charged. And he has attached an audible alarm to the radar so you don’t have to watch it full time. You can take one of the catamarans that Dr. Chan brought back from Guantanamo. It’s small enough to hide on the beach, but large enough to transport all your gear and supplies. You should be able to make the trip to Crooked Island in less than a day. We’ll have other lookouts stationed here and here.” He indicated a site to the south of the Channel and one below the Dominican Republic. “…in case the invasion fleet should approach from the east. But yours is the prime detection point.”

  Adjouan stood up. He addressed Proctor Pinkham, rather formally. “Mr. Proctor, I am ready to do my part for the defense. And, as has been noted, I am very fond of Miss Keesha. With your permission, however, I suggest that we give her some time apart to consider if this is what she really wants to do. To go off alone, I mean, to a tropical island with such a delinquent fellow.”

  The three males present soberly agreed. Keesha only looked amused.

  In spite of the Proctor’s suspicions, there had been, as yet, no actual n. between Keesha and Adjouan. But there soon would be. It was going to happen on the “honeymoon” island, not too long after their arrival. They had not spoken a word about this, but both knew it was going to happen. It was a source of pleasure, of almost physical satisfaction, all the way north in their small catamaran. During that trip they talked of everything else. But they thought of only that one thing.

  They landed on the north side of Crooked Island. There was a town on the opposite coast, occupied, one supposed. They knew that from the chart. But there was no sign of habitation here. Adjouan pulled the little boat forward through the shallows. He lodged it firmly in the sand, then stepped back to help Keesha out. She was dressed in her red one-piece swim suit. Keesha was a big young woman, weighing one forty five or more without fat. She had the muscular body of an athlete. But she was light as a feather to Adjouan. He lifted her easily into the air, straightening his arms and looking up at her. Her laughter was almost as deep as his own. It was no little tee-hee kind of laugh. She threw her head back and let it out. Her throat was long, regal. He carried her to the beach.

  With one pull, he heaved the bow of the cat up onto dry land and into the bushes. He turned his attention back to Keesha. She was smiling broadly. Then he got to hear the sound of her laughter again as he edged the straps of her bathing suit down over her shoulders. He lowered the top gently, and stood back to look. She put her hands on her hips, watching him take in his first glimpse of her uncovered bosom. Adjouan took his time. She twisted her upper body for him, keeping her feet in place, to let him see the profile. Then, enjoying his pleasure, she twisted unhurriedly in the opposite sense to show him the other side. She still had her hands on her hips, still the smile. He stepped forward to stand very close to her, looking down into her eyes. She felt his hands moving down her sides, pushing the suit all the way down her body. She kicked it aside. Then she was nude but for two silver bangle earrings and a hair ribbon. He stepped back again. His gaze played over her like a stream of warm water. Then he lifted her in his arms. There was lush grass at the top of the beach, underneath the palms. He carried her toward it.

  “Do you remember birth control pills, Adjouan?” She was grinning.

  “Oh yes,” he said happily. “They are the symbol of our freedom.”

  “Well, forget it.”

  He stopped. “Forget birth control pills?”

  “Forget them. No one has them anymore. You see, we didn’t bring enough on the trip. None of the women on the Stella Linda thought the trip was going to last so long. And so, we have no more birth control pills. None at all. And nothing else. And there are none to be found in Baracoa. We have been looking.”

  “Oh.” He had lost his grin.

  “And so, my dear Adjouan, you have to know this: The decision to make love to a young lady in this new world is the decision to make her pregnant.”

  “Oh, may I?” The grin was back.

  “May you what?”

  “May I make you pregnant? May I please?”

  “Well, I must say, no one has ever asked me that before.”

  “I am asking.”

  Her arms were around his neck. She cuddled closer in his arms. His lips brushed against her chest. He was waiting on the sand for her answer. She could see her grassy bridal bed, just ahead. “I am asking for your hand in pregnancy. First for the acceptance of your mind and then of your body. To place a baby Keesha or Adjouan inside your belly.”

  “Yes, you may.”

  “You are making me a very happy man.”

  In the afterglow of their lovemaking, Keesha sang to him. She was on her back at his side. Her song was wordless, very soft and high. As she finished, he reached down to lift her two legs just beneath the knees with one hand. He pulled them gently upward, bending her knees. Then he continued until he had rolled her lower body on top of her so that her knees were pressed all the way up against her shoulders.

  “What is this?”

  “To aid the little swimmers I have set free inside of you.
This is the pregnancy position, I read it in a book. In this position they swim most comfortably to their destination for best conceiving a baby. Do you like it?”

  “You have pushed my bottom up into the air, my dear, so that my modesty is fiercely compromised.”

  He shifted to place his shoulder under her knees, to hold her in the position. This freed his huge right hand which he used to cover her bottom.

  “Better?”

  “Oh yes.” She wiggled her bottom into his hand. “Much better.”

  They set up the radar on the top of Colonel Hill. It gave them a good view to the North. The small radar dish could be dismounted quickly so that approaching vessels would see nothing of their lookout. The set up their tent and a cook fire and the bicycle generator. Edward’s contraption to sound a low buzzer when anything appeared in the scope was quickly proved to work. There were fishing boats in the channel several times in the next week. Most of the time though there was nothing.

  A boat that set off the alarm could be as much as forty miles away. That meant it would be five hours or more before it was even visible. There was no need on this relaxed schedule to stay by the scope. As long as they checked it every few hours, their vigilance was adequate. So there was time for a swim whenever they liked, or for a hike along the beach. The north and east of the island were unoccupied. So far they had not met anyone. They could catch their dinner by setting up a fish trap that Keesha had contrived from some netting found on the beach. There was a lot of time left over for lovemaking.

  “Today, young man, there is to be no sexual favor for you, none at all, until you have done my bidding perfectly for perhaps hours.”

  “Yes, Keesha. As you say.”

  “Though I shall remain dressed chastely in my blues, you must be quite totally naked.” She began to undo the belt of his shorts. She pushed them down over his hips. “Quite naked.” Adjouan submitted meekly. “You will do all the chores today, and I nothing. I will only watch your body, putting my eyes wherever I like.”

  “Yes, Keesha.”

  Keesha’s strength of will was Adjouan’s delight. He loved it when she took command; he loved to let her have her way. It made it all the more pleasurable when, on other occasions, he mastered her. Then she would submit to him as a compliant slavegirl. These were not games, they were simply roles that were amusing to them both. Adjouan was her absolute master at times, he felt it, he knew it to be true. At such a moment, there could be no thought of reversal; he was a demi-god, taking his pleasure of a lovely human woman, who could not lift a finger to resist his whim. Sometimes his whims were shocking to her. She would blush darkly. Then, when she was the willful goddess and he the helpless and unresisting human, her own whims were indulged, and it was his turn to be shocked.

  It had never occurred to him before that he wanted to submit as well as to master, nor had it occurred to her how pleasurable both of the roles would be. It barely occurred to them now. But over the time on Crooked Island, there descended on them a peacefulness that had been undreamed of before. Each had been tormented before by need for something, they knew not exactly what. And now the need was served. They felt a deep sexual satisfaction take control, not only of their bodies but of their very souls.

  The early evening, before preparing their meal, was a time for their most thoughtful lovemaking. Other encounters during the day might be casual, quick, perhaps even incomplete. But in the evening they took their time.

  “Do you know what I am thinking now?” asked Adjouan. Their pleasure had just washed over both of them. He was still inside her, feeling the pressure of her inner grip on him.

  “No, what are you thinking?”

  “I am thinking of all that I have read and heard about being at war. War stories.”

  “Why are you thinking that?”

  “Because we are at war. That is why we are here, camped on this hill with our radar. Because of war.”

  “So this is war.”

  One morning, on the return from their bathe, they found the radar unit buzzer on. They would have to watch now for the next few hours to see what came. The most likely outcome, they knew, was that this would be just another fishing boat coming down the channel, another false alarm. But it wasn’t. This time it was the real thing.

  23

  CHEWING ON C.U.D.D.

  The more time that passed without sign of the enemy, the more Loren began to doubt his assessment of where the attack would come from. He had repeated with utter confidence that they would come past Little Inagua. That had become an article of faith. But now he had his doubts. So far, he had expressed them only to Kelly. She had come by the beach shack just the evening before with, of all things, ice cream. Ice cream, she said, was the symbol of re-emergent civilization. After the treat, he had unloaded on her.

  “Suppose they come from the south, Kelly?”

  “Is that a real possibility? They would have to sail all the way around the Dominican Republic.” She peered over at the chart. “That would add an extra two thousand miles to the trip.”

  “Yes. Maybe fifteen extra days of sailing.”

  “Why would they bother?”

  “I’ve been looking back at my own concern about meeting the other fleet without some sort of an advantage. Before we hit upon the idea of utilizing SHIELA, it would have been knives and arrows, toe-to-toe fighting. I felt we just had to have something to give us the edge. SHIELA is that for us. We are quite sure, now that we’ve reestablished contact with SHIELA that she is ours alone. We have effectively locked out everyone else by re-programming the interface, even if they could get a data link running again.”

  “All the better for us.”

  “Yes. But someone on the other side is looking at the same chess board. And having the same thoughts. Maybe he is as unwilling to fight without some sort of an advantage as I would be.” He used the unspecific “he,” but he knew who was plotting for the other side. It was Rupert Paule. Or perhaps Paule plus the mysterious figure Armitage had noted at the last Washington meeting, the Reverend Nolan Gallant.

  “So what option has he got?”

  “He could sail down outside the Dominican Republic and approach us from the southeast with the wind at his back.”

  “A tiny advantage compared to what we have got.”

  “It isn’t tiny. Being up-wind could make their one technological superiority work for them in the battle. They could release their gas and have it float down on our fleet.”

  “Yuk.”

  “Right, yuk.”

  “But you have a plan for that, right?” She looked at him confidently.

  “Yes. Only it’s not perfect. We have a lookout on Saona Island, right where they would have to make their turn as they pass east of Hispaniola. And we have our sloop Dejah Thoris on station to the south of Santo Domingo. Warning from either of them would give us enough time to sail up into the Gulf of Haiti. We hide there and let them sail past us to the south. Then we come out from behind them.” He moved his hands over the chart to show the positioning of the two fleets.

  “So again, we have the advantage. They are down wind, so they can’t release on our fleet. And we have SHIELA.”

  “Right. But it’s not the clean-cut advantage we would have to the north. Because we are no longer between them and their objective. If we’re a little late coming out to meet them, they might simply sail away from us to their release positions. There would be no catching them. Our use of SHIELA depends on us getting close enough to spot their positions fairly precisely. So if they sail away, we lose our advantage. And if we come out too early, some of them might conceivably get up-wind of us.”

  She seemed bored with his self-doubt. “Don’t worry so much, Loren. You’re doing fine. You’ve planned for their every possible move. And each of your plans is a good one. You’re a fine general.”

  “I am a physicist!”

  “You haven’t been a physicist for ages, dear. You’re a general, and a very good one. When this is al
l over, we will each one of us know that you have saved our lives. You will have saved my life. And Curtis’s life. And Sonia’s, and Edward’s, and Homer’s, and Maria’s and Claymore’s. And your own. You will have saved the life of every person I love on the face of the earth.”

  It was all very well to say that he had a counter for each of the invasion plans the other side might be considering. But the counter against invasion from the south was inferior. And invasion from the south, he now knew, was the plan that he would have selected had he been plotting strategy for the other side. The right way to counter that approach would be to move some of his force all the way to the east of Hispaniola, to catch the invaders as they came through the Mona Passage. He could split the fleet, half at Baracoa to meet the invaders in front of the Caicos, and half on station in the Mona Passage, east of Hispaniola. With the addition of Armitage’s laptop computer, they would have two SHIELA terminals working, why not send one out to guard the Mona Passage? But splitting the fleet ran against his every instinct. Who knew how many vessels Rupert Paule might be able to put together? He hated the thought of split contingents of his own pitifully little fleet facing the massed vessels of a major nation at war.

  Outside the beach shack on this perfect morning he could see children playing on the beach. He could see Sonia in her black bathing suit, surrounded, as she always was these days, by her brood of worshipful fifth and sixth graders. Danny McCree and Homer were chatting down on the dock, just a hundred feet away. Everyone else on the island, it seemed, had the good sense to be outdoors, enjoying the tropical loveliness.

  A crackle of static from the overhead speaker made him sit bolt upright. The light wave radios had no static, so it could only be communication from one of the outstations, beyond light-wave range. They were using scramblers over an AM frequency that he hoped would not be monitored by any attackers. The outstations usually checked in each night after sunset. There had never before been a communication at this hour. The static died out, leaving a long silence. Then static again along with the deliberate well rounded vowels he had come to associate with the Crooked Island outpost.