Cut Off (16 page)

"First off, I'm the only foreigner who'll be involved in this. We'll leave the crabs belowdecks. Second, yeah, it could be dangerous. That's what you signed up for. So you can get up there and do what needs doing, or you can stay down here crying to yourself about the kind of man you could have been."

Sprite laughed in disbelief. "Where did
that
come from? Is your ancestor the noted thespian R. Lee Ermey?"

"My older brother liked to think as much."

"I could just walk away."

"You sure could."

"Then what are you doing calling my manhood into question?"

Ness snorted. "I've been away from you people for so long that 'manhood' sounds pretty silly. Right now, you get to discover what kind of person you are."

"That's even worse!" He reached for the tub of banana chips. "If that elderly couple kills me, I'm going to sue the submarine off you."

Ness leaned against the counter. Sprite picked at the dried fruit and fish, but was too nervous to eat more than a few pieces. A few minutes later, Sebastian loomed from the darkness.

His tentacles twitched. "They agree. We follow."

From there, there was nothing to do but wait to catch up to the boat. This took much longer than it ought to, given the sub's capabilities; Ness figured the Collective must have been allowing Mom and Pop to put some distance between themselves and Hong Kong before exposing the sub. He was on the verge of going to the lower level to complain about the delay when Sebastian lurched upright.

"It is time."

"You heard the man," Ness said out loud. He led the way to the ramps to the tower.

"They will be scared," Sebastian signed once they reached its base. "Guide them rightly."

"Course," Ness replied. "I can't get any answers out of them if they're dead."

He climbed the damp, rubbery ramp to the top. He had his laser. Sprite was unarmed. Sebastian brought up the rear and planned to remain inside the tower as a reserve.

"I assume they're gonna open by yelling at us," Ness said to Sprite. "Make it clear we're not here to hurt them. If you think it'll help, tell 'em we're from the government or whatever."

"Ah, the Chinese government," Sprite said. "Everyone's favorite authority to cooperate with."

Ness flung open the hatch. Warm wind spilled over his head, bringing the scent of the sea, always a pleasant change from the stagnant, brackish smell below. The boat was dead ahead, skimming through the water. Ness shielded his eyes against the mist cast in its wake. It was thirty feet long, an old diesel-powered trawler bastardized with a square-sailed mast. It had a closed cabin and he couldn't see either the man or the woman. Foot by foot, the sub advanced on it. Its back end sported a metal ladder and a string of tires in various states of disintegration. As the sub neared, Ness understood the aliens' plan: they intended him to jump across to it.

Well, it wasn't the craziest thing he'd ever done. He moved to the edge of the tower. They were now so close he could almost reach out and grab the ladder at the back of the boat.

"No
way
!" Sprite stage-whispered from beside him. "We cannot do this."

"It's the only way this gets done," Ness said. "Now let's find out if it's possible."

He bent his knees, waited for the trawler to dip down a swell, and launched himself forward. Water skimmed beneath him. He thumped into the tires and scrabbled for a hold. His right foot dipped into the water, tugging hard. He pulled free, grabbed tight to the ladder with one hand, and extended the other back toward Sprite, who was shaking his head relentlessly. Sprite tipped back his head and mouthed something at the sky, then sprung forward.

He hit the back of the boat, dangling from the tires. The water swallowed his legs to the knee, fighting to yank his grip from the tires. Ness clamped on to Sprite's elbow and pulled up, straining his lean body. Sprite got a foot onto a tire. He hung there, catching his breath, then followed Ness up over the back rail.

Behind them, the sub tower sank below the surface. For a moment, Ness imagined this entire venture had been a scheme of the Collective to get rid of him. Sheer paranoia; they were getting out of the way of the boat, that was all. Minor miracle there hadn't been a collision while he and Sprite were boarding.

Ness moved to the rear of the cabin and edged his eye up to the window. The man and woman stood with their backs to him, the woman's hand on the wheel, the man pointing ahead. Ness moved to the door and clicked open the latch. The cabin smelled of fresh fish meat and old sweat. The man glanced over his shoulder, then did a double take. Ness pulled Sprite inside.

"Talk," he said.

The couple backed away, shouting. Sprite held up his hands and spoke rapidly in Chinese. The man shook his head and yelled. He was bald, with thin strands of hair combed back across his head, and though he was older, his body showed the strength of a man who makes his living from the sea.

"He wants us off the boat," Sprite said. "Now."

As if to punctuate this, the man went for a black club hanging beside the wheel. Ness drew his pistol. The man flinched, his wife moving in front of his shoulder.

"Ask him how he thinks we got on this boat," Ness said.

Sprite translated. The man narrowed his eyes. Sprite said, "He doesn't know."

"By using a submarine. A military one. If he refuses to answer my questions, or tries anything funny, it'll blow him out of the water." Ness raised his brows. "Or he can chat nicely with me and then go on about his business, as un-torpedoed as ever."

Sprite turned back to the man and exchanged several sentences. After they'd chatted and gestured at each other, he gave Ness a wry look. "He's confused. He would like to know why you threaten him when he's done everything you ask?"

"What's he talking about?"

Again, Sprite relayed that to the man, who tried and visibly failed to explain. His wife tossed up her hands, exclaimed "Ai-yah," and spoke for several seconds, jabbing her finger at the ground with each point.

"She says they just made our delivery," Sprite said. "They picked it up exactly when they were supposed to and delivered it at once. She would also prefer if you lowered your gun."

Ness did so. "Are they ready to answer my questions?"

"First, I have a question for you," the woman said. She chose her words carefully, working around a thick accent, but Ness had no problem understanding her. "What is a gwailo who speaks no Chinese doing working for the Chinese government?"

Ness blinked. "A lot's different than it used to be."

"I don't think so. I don't think there is a submarine at all. I think you stowed away on my ship." She said something quickly to her husband, whose eyes widened.

Ness pointed at Sprite. "His pants are sopping wet! How do you suppose that happened?"

"Maybe he pissed himself." The woman laughed. She was thinner than her husband but looked no less tough. "If there had been a submarine, I think we would have noticed."

"This is garbage. Come on outside."

She frowned. So did her husband. Ness looked up to the heavens for help, pocketed his pistol, and exited the cabin. After a moment, so did the couple, followed by Sprite. Ness got out a small metal disk and pressed a button on its side. He headed toward the front of the boat, checking the waves.

The woman stepped beside him and raised one brow. "Ocean. Very nice."

"Give me a dang minute." He clicked the disk again.

The man glanced up at the sails, which were beginning to flap. He said something to his wife, then swung his head to the left, gawked, and spat something that was obviously a curse. Beside the boat, the sub's tower penetrated from the waves. After a moment, its body cleared them, too, a long tube of dark metal.

"What is it you want to know?" the woman said with sudden unctuousness.

"Am I to understand you're also working for the government?" Ness said.

"If
you
are, shouldn't you know that already?"

"Work with me here. We had a hard time keeping track of ourselves even when we had phones."

Her shoulders heaved with a sigh. "Some time ago, a man from the government came to us because we had a boat and were trusted by all. He asked us to pick up cargo from Neilingding and bring it to Hong Kong. At first we were unsure, because it sounded like smuggling. But when we found out it was food for the hungry, we said okay."

"You talked to him since?"

She conferred with her husband. "Once. Mostly, we are given notes with precise times to arrive at Neilingding."

"What are you given in return?"

"Some food. Sometimes some coffee or tea. Mostly, we do it to help."

"Has it ever been anything besides food?" Sprite interjected.

Ness glared at him. The old woman spoke to her husband again, then shook her head. "When they unload it on the dock, it is always food. Rice, coconut, mangos, coffee, pineapple, bananas and so forth."

"Know where it comes from?" Ness said.

"Inland?" She frowned and conversed with the man some more. "Come here." She brought Ness back into the cabin and showed him to a rough wooden bench along one wall. "We made that from one of the crates. It is stamped with the same thing they all are."

She pointed to the corner of the bench. Ness leaned in, perplexed, then saw why she couldn't read the words stamped into one of the boards. "Is that Portuguese? Sprite, what's it say?"

Sprite edged him aside, peering at the crate. "Beats me."

"I thought you could speak that stuff."

"Sure. But that's not Portuguese—it's Spanish."

"Huh?" Ness turned to the woman. "You got a pen?"

She clicked opened a drawer to the left of the wheel and got out pen and paper. Ness copied the words on the crate and handed her back the pen.

"Now you can tell me what this is about?" she said.

"I don't rightly know," Ness said. "Nobody's in trouble, I can tell you that much. Listen, you've been very helpful." He turned to walk from the cabin.

Sprite grabbed his arm. "Isn't there something you'd like to tell them?"

"Thanks for your time?"

"Something
else
?" He bulged his eyes. "Like the fact that their suppliers may be...foreign?"

Ness eyed him. Whatever lead they were tailing, he wasn't about to blow it by casually dropping the fact the couple was actually doing business with a bunch of Swimmers. Yet something tugged in his chest. His inside star? If so, it wasn't the most articulate astral messenger. The feelings were a grunt and he hardly had time to sit down and suss them out. The couple and their boat, they weren't his problem. If the Swimmers were up to something nasty, the world as a whole would be better off if Ness told them nothing.

But the tug persisted.

"Be very careful," he said. "Your man from the government may not be who he says he is. Even if he's legit, his boss is questionable. Keep your eyes open."

The woman snorted. "We're working with the government. Our eyes have been open from the start."

Ness smiled crookedly, clicked a signal into his metal disk, and moved to the back of the boat. As he waited, he tucked the scrap of paper copied from the crate into the gallon bag he kept on him for situations like this. Forty feet away, the sub broke the surface with its tower. Ness nodded at Sprite and cannon-balled into the South China Sea. He popped up, confirmed Sprite had followed, and swam over.

Inside, Sebastian was waiting with towels and dry clothes. Ness stripped and dried off. Sprite mumbled something and stepped into the ramp-well to change.

"Tell me the history of your trip," Sebastian signed.

"Well," Ness said, "many years ago, before I was born, my mom and my dad met at—"

Sebastian angled what passed for his brows, attempting to glower at him. "Make jokes later. Such as when I am not around."

"One minute," Ness gestured. "Have to speak with my friend."

After a moment, Sprite emerged from the ramp-well, toweling his black hair. "You guys really need to put a shower in here."

"I'll show you it in a minute," Ness said. "Right now, check me if I'm missing anything. They're shipping food. Much of which sounds tropical. Which points to Vietnam or Thailand or something, right? Except the crates point to...I dunno, Colombia or Costa Rica or some shit."

Sprite shook his head, somber. "The Philippines, dude. They speak Spanish and I bet they grow all that stuff. But it's like five hundred miles from here. Kind of a long jet ride just to drop off a few hundred pounds of food."

Ness slapped an orange wall. "These things run on water, for the most part. If someone ever duplicates their engines, we'll have to thank the damn things for invading."

"So is that our next trip? The Philippines?"

"You want to come with? Twenty minutes ago, you didn't want to step foot from the sub."

"That was
before
we jumped onto the back of a moving boat," Sprite said. "And discovered a wife and her husband are unwittingly doing the bidding of aliens who seem like they've gone all Mother Teresa on us. Can't blame a dude for feeling invigorated."

"So I should let the bugs know you're in?"

"Absolutely, man."

Ness signed to Sebastian, relaying everything they'd learned and Sprite's take on things.

"This matches," Sebastian said once Ness wrapped up. "We lost the jet. Before, it headed southeast."

"Then it sounds like the Philippines is our best bet."

Sebastian skittered off to speak to the Collective. Five minutes later, he returned, looking pleased. "We agree. Philippines. However, there is one question. Come with me."

He headed down to the lower level and into the control room that seemed to be Number Five's permanent place of residence. Five's main screen showed a glob of islands strung out across hundreds of miles of the sea.

"Seven thousand islands plus more," Sebastian signed. "Five asks, Which one?"

11

The decision left Tristan rejuvenated. Though it was an hour after dark, and not long from when they normally went to sleep, she hiked on through the mountains, meaning to put more miles between them and the alien patrols along the coast.