“Don’t delay,” I whispered urgently. “What are you looking for?”
“Something bulletproof to go over this,” he said.
I hurried him out of the door. He dashed back and got his grip.
I pushed him to an upper deck. I whispered in his ear, “No matter what happens, stand here.”
The rain was coming down.
Like a lethal cat, the machine gun ready, I mounted the bridge ladder.
There was no one there!
I heard voices above me.
The signal bridge!
I crept up the next ladder.
Captain Bitts and two sailors in oilskins were standing at the foot of a signal mast. They were trying to hoist lights up to its yardarm.
Signals! They had suspected I was trying to escape! Some lanterns were strung at intervals on a line going up. They were going to signal the shore!
“The god (bleep) block is jammed,” said Bitts to a sailor. “See if you can free the other halyard. We can’t flop around here all night dead in the water with no drifting lights.” To the other one, he said, “Are you sure you told the electrician what panel was blown?”
“He said it’s a short from the rain. He don’t wanna go up there until morning.”
“Then help free this god (bleeped) halyard!” said Bitts.
I spoiled their little game right there. I leveled the machine gun. “Hold it!” I said. “Stand right where you are or I’ll blow you to pieces!”
“Jesus Christ!” said Bitts, staring at me.
“You got a right to be surprised,” I said in a deadly voice. “You didn’t know who you were dealing with! Get a speedboat in the water at once or get a bellyful of lead. You’re going to land me, and right now!” I pointed toward where I had seen the dark bulk of shore.
He was standing there with the two sailors. Their hands were on the halyard. The lanterns suspended above them cast eerie pools of colored light around them. Bitts seemed to come awake. “NO!” he said. “It may seem flat calm here but a speedboat couldn’t live in that surf over there! You’d drown!”
He thought he had me. He thought he could trap me aboard. But I had picked up a lot of knowledge strolling around this ship. “That won’t work,” I grated. “You’ve got rowing inflatables forward that can live in any surf. Throw one in the water and drop a ladder to it!”
“Listen . . .” said Bitts.
“Shut up! No arguing! One more word and I shoot!” I cocked the machine gun.
“Wait,” said Bitts. “I think you ought to know . . .”
I lifted the muzzle of the machine gun to point over their heads.
I pressed the trigger.
The black powder of the .22s sprayed a fan of orange blaze! The deck flared with the light.
The staccato spits of the silenced weapon were hardly heard above the falling rain.
SNAP!
CRASH!
The bullets, fired high, had severed the lantern halyard!
The heavy-glassed lights came smashing down upon the men.
One hit Captain Bitts!
Even as he fell, a second and a third lamp hit from aloft. One burst into flame!
The two sailors, skidding on the deck, had leaped aside.
I knew they would flee and alert the ship.
“Freeze!” I cried, leveling the gun at them.
They froze, staring at me white-eyed, bathed in the oil fire’s light.
A torrent of rain struck through the tableau.
The running rivulets of fire went out.
“Get an inflatable over the side!” I barked at them. “Move, or I’ll fill you full of lead.”
They moved but one hesitated over Bitts. He bent down. I knew he was looking for a gun.
I fired a second burst! The orange flame-fan arced above their heads.
They sped to the forward ladder and started down. I followed them. One was unwinding a pilot ladder from the gutter and dropping it over the side of the hull. The other one got a rowing inflatable out of a locker.
I looked anxiously through the rain. Was that craft coming back? I saw nothing but rain.
The sailor put a line on the inflatable.
“You can’t fool me,” I said in a deadly voice. “Put the oars in it.”
“Don’t you want the motor?” he said blankly.
I knew right then the motor wouldn’t run. They were trying to trap me. And even if it did run they could follow the sound. “Oars!” I barked.
“They’re strapped inside it,” he said. He threw it over the rail. It was a long way down to the water.
The other sailor had a flashlight. I snatched it from him and shined it down. The inflatable had struck and the water had triggered its gas bottles. It opened out with a sizzle barely audible in the hiss of rain.
I had not realized there was any sea at all. The stabilizers were holding the yacht steady. The inflatable was bobbing up and down in surging waves.
I must be brave. I was about to go over the rail when I remembered Madison again. He was right there. I sent him down first.
Carrying his wrapped suitcase, he descended. With a foot, he got the inflatable against the hull. It was surging up and down. He got in and held it to the ship. I tossed the flashlight to Madison.
I menaced the two sailors with the machine gun.
I backed down the ladder.
The inflatable seemed to be leaping up and down, rising five feet up and then falling away.
I took my life in my hands.
I jumped.
I landed in a clutter in the bottom of the craft.
The sailor on the deck gave his rope a toss.
We rebounded off the hull and bobbed outward from the ship. A gust of rain washed over us, carrying us further away.
I looked back.
The ship was a misty, light-sparked shape in the night.
I had escaped!
Now I only had to get ashore in Greece!
PART FIFTY-EIGHT
Chapter 7
The sea was black, the rain was black, the sky was black. I felt that I was being drowned in a hurricane of ink!
Gone was all sense of direction, gone was any stability, and, a couple of minutes after I had gotten into the boat, gone was anything I had eaten in three days!
It is a nauseating fact that I was very seasick.
“Row!” I cried between retches.
“Row where?” said Madison.
“Row anyplace, but for Gods’ sakes, get me ashore. I’m dying!”
The only advantage in being in all this was that the rain was so heavy it was washing my face clean. I felt I had the whole Aegean for a bathtub and the sky as well.
“You better bail,” said Madison. “The water is up around my knees.”
Maybe it would be far better to just drown and get this over with. I felt like I was in an automatic washing machine with the lights off. I might as well pull the plug and go down the drain.
A vague haze of moonlight came through a temporary rift of cloud. Madison was trying to do something with the oars.
The water, smashing around in the craft, was up to my chest. That was because I was lying in it.
“Bail!” said Madison urgently.
There was no bailing can. I only had my straw hat. I used it. As fast as I threw water out it rained back in.
“There’s a fast current running here,” said Madison above the hiss of the downpour. “Did you see how fast we sped away from the ship? Or maybe it’s the wind. No, there isn’t any wind. Yes, I think there is some wind. . . .” He was holding up a finger to test it. A wave knocked his hand down. “No, there isn’t any wind. It’s the waves. Yes, I think it is the wind. . . .”
“Oh, Gods, make up your mind!” I yelled, trying to bail with my straw hat.
“I’m much better with a typewriter,” said Madison. “Give me a nonbouncing desk and I could handle this. Eighteen-point quote STORM unquote 20-point quote STORM SUBSIDES unquote 22-point quote MADISO
N SAVED. . . .”
I thought the inflatable was going to sail up into the air, flip like a pancake and come down. Then it slid and slithered from one mountainous crest to the next and then, for variety, tried to be a pancake again.
“Wait,” said Madison. “I think I hear surf.”
I stopped bailing. It was all running out of the holes in the hat anyway. I took time out to retch.
The faint haze of light, cast by the moon far above this holocaust, grew stronger for a moment.
“There’s land over there!” said Madison.
He promptly put his back to it and even though he caught crabs now and then and even though we spun entirely about occasionally, we seemed to be making progress.
To my right I heard a snarl. I knew what it was at once. The monster who had been waiting for days had decided to attack full force and swallow me at last.
I saw a faint but nearby glimmer of white. It could be nothing but teeth.
“Hold on!” cried Madison. “I’ll try to surfboard in!”
Up we rose. Down went the bow of our craft. And suddenly we were going at sixty miles an hour! Through white-frothed blackness!
Then we tripped.
With a roaring ferocity, the surf devoured us!
Down I went in the churning maelstrom.
Abruptly I realized that the life jacket was not a life jacket anymore. It was a death jacket. Full of magazines, it was taking me straight to the bottom!
I tried to get rid of it. The machine gun across my back was holding it on!
I felt myself surging forward in the depths.
Now something was strangling me!
I struck something on the bottom. A rock?
Something was towing me!
Oh, Gods, the sea had decided to take me off to its cave where it could eat me at leisure.
It was too much for me. I passed out.
A bit later, I opened my eyes. There was a roaring in my ears.
Something was over me, outlined against the luminous sky. This was where the sea would boil me alive and have me bit by bit for snacks.
“Goodness,” said a voice. “I’m glad you’re still alive.”
The sea doesn’t talk English and it wants to see everybody dead. I was reassured.
I raised my head. The roaring wasn’t in my ears. I could see the waves in the faintly luminous glow. They were roaring and thundering away but I was at least ten feet up the beach from the water.
Something was still strangling me. I tried to pry it off. The boat painter! It had gotten wrapped around my neck. When I pulled at it impatiently, the boat nearby gave a jerk.
“Thank heavens I didn’t have to go diving for you,” said Madison. “When I pulled the boat further up out of the water to get my suitcase, you were tied to it. You’re lucky.”
“Don’t talk to me of luck!” I said. I got myself untangled. Then I became aware of the firmness of the ground. It was only moving a little bit under me. I felt it again. It was moving less. I put both my hands against it and pushed. It wasn’t moving at all. Maybe I was lucky.
“I don’t know if they followed us,” said Madison.
That brought me around very swiftly. At the moment the clouds were thinner but there was still rain. I couldn’t see the yacht or any lights but then, actually, I didn’t know where to look except out into the sea. We might even have come around some point.
I looked behind us. A hill loomed.
“Come!” I said. “We’ve got to find cover! If they send anyone after us, we must not get caught in the open.”
I got up and took a step forward. Ouch! I was barefoot! The scuba shoes must have come off.
Nevertheless, I must walk!
Stumbling and stubbing, I led the way up the hill through underbrush. We climbed and climbed. At last I came limpingly onto a flat area. At first I thought it was a road, for it seemed to be paved. The luminescence from above the rain brightened the scene for a moment. It wasn’t a road. It seemed to be a wide floor, half an acre at least.
Aha! A ruined city or the fragments thereof. Greece abounds with them. I thought I knew where we must be now. There is an ancient excavated city from the Bronze Age at the southeast end of Chios and it is on the side of the island which faces away from Turkey. Emboriós, I think its name was. I felt encouraged. I was sure that I had landed on the island where Homer had written his famous poems. The odyssey I was engaged upon might not satisfy Ulysses but it certainly contained a lot more horror than I was comfortable with.
I went further up the hill, Madison trudging after me. I came to a rocky prominence. In spite of rain, I caught a whiff of goats. Perhaps there was some shelter here along the face of these cliffs.
I took the flashlight Madison had retained in his pocket and played it cautiously ahead of me. I found a faint path. It ended in a shallow cave.
It was very low and it was very plain that goats used it, but it was shelter from the rain. I crawled in and Madison followed.
I turned the flashlight on my feet. Blood! I knew I could not walk any further: I had no shoes.
I glanced apprehensively down through the dark where the sea must be, far below. They would be after us, I had no doubt. Black Jowl had meant business. Kidnapping from Greek soil with no witnesses around would not cause him a second thought.
I gloomed. Maybe I was not safe after all!
PART FIFTY-NINE
Chapter 1
Lying in the stinking cave, licked now and then with gusts of rain, I wondered what the future held for me. Something awful, I had no doubt. I was right.
Music!
Home, home on the range,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day!
Jesus! On the Greek island of Chios, drenched in rain, with the ghost of Homer haunting around, how could a western ballad get in here?
It was Madison. He had taken a small portable radio out of his suitcase and had it on Radio Luxembourg.
“Turn that thing off!” I wailed.
“I was just trying to liven things up,” he said. “It’s kind of dull.”
“As soon as it gets daylight,” I snarled, “you won’t find it dull. I’m going to have to sell our lives as dearly as possible!”
“Maybe I can find some blues,” he said. “But I do think country western is a more suitable soundtrack if you’re going to start shooting.”
The radio said, “We now have a request from our armed forces in Turkey, ‘Join the Big Round Up in the Sky.’”
“Oh, Gods, turn it off,” I begged.
He did.
Wait a minute. Radio! I was suddenly hit by a brilliant idea!
I untied the sack from my belt and spilled its contents out on the floor. I picked up the two-way-response radio.
Oh, thank Gods! Raht answered!
In rapid military Voltarian, I said, “Listen and get this straight. Put a message through to the base. Order Captain Stabb to take off in the tug and pick me up quick!” Hope was surging in me. That flat space back there might serve as a landing place. Stabb could whisk me to the depths of Africa or someplace safer than here.
Raht said, “Got the message. But where are you?”
“I think I’m on the southeast end of the Greek island of Chios.”
“You think,” said Raht. “If a spaceship is going to pick you up, you better be sure where you are and right down to a pinpoint. They’re not going to wander all over the place trying to locate you. They’d have to kill any inhabitants they ran into if they made a mistake. You’re risking a Code break.”
“Look,” I said, “I have not got much time. They are running a race with dawn. Pinpoint me with that radio.”
Mission Earth Volume 7: Voyage of Vengeance Page 27
