Cut Off (25 page)

Her breathing echoed down the cave. It was answered by the scuttle of rocks in the darkness.

16

Shards of metal spun to the beach, trailing smoke, others crashing into the sea with a hiss of boiling water. Sprite shouted and ran toward the jungle. From the corner of his eye, Ness saw Sebastian gesturing at him, but he only had eyes for the wreckage of the upended sub as the remainder of its tail burbled beneath the waves.

Sprite's feet pounded back down the sand. "We've got to go!"

"Where?" Ness said numbly.

"I suggest anywhere that isn't in the path of the mob!"

Ness turned to the jungle, where an unknowable number of people was presently thrashing through the brush. They seemed to be to all sides, metal pipes flashing in the moonlight. Ness grunted as he felt himself lifted bodily from his feet. At first he thought he'd been hit by another shock wave, then his perspective swung as Sebastian hauled him into the soft waves. The alien tucked him to one side, Sprite to the other, and took off swimming, tentacles twirling as fast as they could.

Rocks plunked into the ocean behind them. Slaves gathered on the shore, scared and angry, brandishing tent poles and branches. Further inland, screams continued to rise and fall, punctuated by the blue flash of lasers. A surprise wave struck Ness in the back of the head and he turned forward, leaving the people to their fate.

At present, they were motoring across the warm shallows surrounding the small island. Two miles of bay separated them from the main northern island. As they entered the choppier, deeper waters, and the mainland grew in size, Ness assessed his physical condition and determined it was fine. If Sebastian was hurt, it sure wasn't reflected in his swimming. Ness' sight was hampered by the spray of the sea and the forest of limbs between them, but Sprite appeared intact, and though he was doing a lot of babbling, at least he wasn't screaming. Once Ness had that much in place, his mind pretty much shut down.

They churned their way through the quiet sea. After a while, the blue flashes quit flashing. He didn't know whether that was because the lasers' owners had been exterminated, or they'd run out of targets. He didn't much care.

The breakers began to swell and hiss. They were approaching a sandy arm of land extending from the tree-encrusted main island. Sebastian powered through the surf and released his two charges. Ness flailed at the water, then found his footing and slogged up to the sand. Sprite high-stepped out of the waves, eyes goggling.

"What the hell was
that
?" he shouted, then looked around the beach to ensure they were as alone as it felt.

Ness shrugged. "Seems we lost our ride."

"I call the ship," Sebastian gestured. "It does not call back."

Ness presumed that was because its denizens had become the subjects of an impromptu clam bake, but he was too tired to voice as much. He signed, "I know."

There didn't seem to be anything else to do, so he plopped down in the dry sand and gazed at his aqua socks, dimly aware that, along with his laser, the contents of his bandolier, and his elastic black jockey shorts, they were presently the only things he owned. He supposed it was a good thing they were in the tropics.

"The sub's gone, right?" Sprite said, somewhat less hysterical.

"You think we swam over here to go sightseeing?" Ness said.

"Then..? I mean, you know? I mean, what do we
do
?"

"I guess you're free to go home."

Sprite laughed, his harsh cackle racketing down the beach. "How do you propose I do that? Start swimming? If I got started tomorrow, how long do you think it would take me to build a functioning speedboat?"

Ness shut his eyes. "Won't know until you quit bitching and try."

A damp, rubbery tentacle nudged his shoulder. Sebastian signed, "Morning soon."

"I know," Ness said. "Whatever the setback, the world's going to keep on turning."

"Yes and when it turns it becomes light and then I am exposed as the monster on the beach."

Relieved that it hadn't in fact been the start of an alien life lesson, Ness mustered his strength and stood. Sebastian had done all the hard work ferrying them across the bay, yet Ness was stiff and exhausted. If they didn't find a structure of some kind soon, he was apt to pass out on his feet. They walked up the sandy spit. The surf rustled on the beach. Ten billion bugs chirped from the trees. Beyond the spit, the land had been cleared, back in the days when there were people around to clear the space they needed for farming, housing, and being able to walk around without getting ambushed by wild animals, and they spotted a house just up the beach.

It was two stories, the stucco falling off the brick of the ground floor, the upper floor built of bamboo, capped with an orderly triangular roof that had so far weathered the tropical storms. Grass burst from the yard, interrupted by short palms beginning to retake the land. Ness opened the door and stepped back to listen. Hearing nothing, he crept inside. The room smelled musty; rain had entered through two broken windows. He made a quick pass of the house, startled once by a pack of rats, but it was otherwise clear, and the three of them moved upstairs where the mess and smell were lesser. Sebastian shined a light around and they managed to locate some reasonably clean (if stiff) linens in a closet. Ness and Sprite made themselves nests on the couches while Sebastian thumped off to the bedroom and spent five excruciating minutes shredding and rending fabric.

Ness squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the racket to cease. His hair and skin were itchy with salt. It was only moderately warm, objectively speaking, but he was dehydrated and felt as hot as the surface of a star. Somehow, he slept.

He woke to the sound of Sebastian doing his best to be furtive, but somehow the creature's soft taps and scuffles were more disruptive than if he'd been galloping heedlessly across the roof. Ness felt awful. His eyes were irritated. His head thumped. It was hot and there was little breeze. He was incredibly thirsty. He groped around for his bandolier, which he'd left on the floor beside the couch, and fetched one of his two water bottles. He tipped it back and drank it dry, then went back to sleep.

When he awoke again, it was afternoon and the house was empty. He had another gulp of water and wandered outside to pee. The house sat on a lump of firm land between the sea and a brackish marsh. The area had been farmed and had few residences, but the houses of a small town peeped through the trees a half mile up the beach. There was no sign of Sebastian or Sprite.

He wanted to go back to bed, but it was too hot inside the house. Outside, though, it was around eighty, with a steady wind. He sat against the trunk of a palm and stared out to sea, which was exhaustingly pretty.

After a while, Sprite showed up with a sack of bananas. Wordlessly, he held it out to Ness, who took three. They were green and underripe and tasted different than he was used to, but food was food. Sebastian rolled in a while after that, a bucket of water swaying from his front claws. Ness was skeptical—the aliens appeared to do fine with unfiltered or even diluted saltwater—but it looked reasonably clear and smelled fresh. He got one of his four purifying tablets from its waterproof pack in his bandolier and dropped it in.

"From a river," Sebastian signed. "Much water here. A good land."

"Sweet." Ness plunked back down beside the tree. "We couldn't have asked for a nicer home."

His claws twitched in puzzlement. "Home? Forever-home?"

"Of course not forever. I assume at some point we'll die."

"But your want is to stay?"

"What's want got to do with it? The boat's gone! Blown to hell! We're done."

"But we are still we," Sebastian said. "And the Way is still the Way."

"Seems to me the last time I tried to follow the Way, my 'inside star' got everyone killed."

"And so?"

Ness turned to gape at him. "So, because of me, all your gutbrothers are dead, we're stranded on a foreign island, and we'll never find out
what
the Swimmers are up to."

"And so? Truth remains truth. We must pursue."

"I don't think you understand. Then again, obviously neither do I. I
still
don't get why dirt needs to be dirt or why you don't believe in freedom or how six of us and a submarine were going to stop thousands of Swimmers from their nefarious deeds. Now, it's three of us on a beach. It's over, okay? That's all there is to it."

"You have guilt," Sebastian decided. "How can this be when you have followed the inside star?"

Ness' shoulders shook with something close to laughter. "You are so stupid sometimes."

Sebastian's tentacles retracted to his body. He stared a moment, then set down the bucket of water and walked off.

Ness tried to nap. When that failed, he got up and strolled around the beach to ensure they were alone. Other than their own footprints, he saw no evidence of recent human life. He stared at the sea some more and trained his binoculars on the island where everything had gone so wrong. Both were silent.

Late afternoon, with the air a touch cooler and the wind picking up, Sprite found him under the palms. "Want to try to find something edible besides bananas?"

"Not really," Ness said.

"I thought it would be a good idea to get together some food. Give us breathing room to figure out what to do next."

"Sounds smart."

Sprite was silent a moment. "And your idea is to sit there?"

"Guess so."

He waited again, then shook his head and wandered away. Ness closed his eyes. He wasn't too happy about sinking into this bog of self-pity, but then again, it did seem to be what he did best. Anyway, the facts were the facts. All that business about him finding the Way had been BS. Even if they wanted to go on, they had neither the knowledge of where to go next nor the means to get there. If they were to do anything, it ought to be moving away from sight and swimming distance of the small island. Finding that he didn't particularly care about being attacked by slaves or slavers, he didn't bring it up.

He napped and sat his way through several days. Both Sprite and Sebastian kept their distance. Instead, they began to speak to each other, first through writing, then through rudimentary signing. Seeing them gesturing back and forth, Ness felt a pang of resentment. He thought about trying to find some liquor or to move to a different house. Instead, he began going for walks, trudging around the saltwater marshes, watching big white birds stride around the shallows, rooting their slender bills into the muck.

Should he leave and go try to find Kristin? He knew that, if she were still alive, she'd have Volt with her, too. The thought of the cat made him smile briefly. But it had been five years since Hanford. Even if she had stuck around, which was a mighty big if, there was no chance she hadn't found someone else. She was young, pretty. She'd learned how to make beer, for God's sake. The line of suitors must have been a mile deep. She must have moved on long ago. He'd made that decision for her when he'd sailed away in the sub.

What a choice that had been. He'd thought he and Sebastian understood each other, but the whole thing was a farce. Half the time it felt like he was imposing his own translations on what was surely mere gibberish. Most of the time, two
people
could hardly understand each other. If that was true, then what chance did a hairless ape and a walking squid have?

He ate listlessly, bananas and coconuts and crabs and green onions, uncertain what the point was. That night, he used his last water tablet. In the morning, Sebastian rounded up a metal trash can and what appeared to be an ox cart. He strapped the cart to his long body and trundled off to the river. Sprite said something about going to gather wood for a fire to boil it. Before either of them could badger him about lending them a hand, Ness trotted away down the beach.

To his dismay, a vast mat of flies had appeared overnight, swarming the sand by the tens of thousand. With each step he took, they buzzed into a sickening black cloud, bumping moronically into his legs. Fearing they'd get snarled in the black hair on his shins, he moved down to the damp sand of the tideline.

There were far fewer flies, but squiggly black lines marked the sand, as if someone had been trailing a stick along behind them. He bent closer to the lines, saw tiny black legs and antennae not so different from the hairs on his legs. These, too, were flies, having hatched, mated, and died in a matter of days, casting the waste of their existence on the beach to be washed out by the sea, which didn't give two shits about them, and carried away to the crabs and the fish, who would turn them into actual shit. Pretty arrogant to think humanity or the Swimmers were up to anything more important than these swarms. And as for the Way...well, any fool could see life was nothing more than mobile piles of atoms that would sooner or later be consumed, rearranged, and incorporated into other piles of atoms. It was as simple and unsatisfying as that.

A gunshot crackled across the morning. Ness turned. Far away at the house, a thin rope of smoke uncoiled into the sky. At first he thought it was the house itself, but his binoculars showed it had been set in the grass fifty feet from the home. There, a nearly naked brown-skinned man stood apart from three fully naked brown-skinned men.

Ness lowered his binoculars and ran.

The three figures drew nearer, then stopped abruptly. The sound of a second shot reached Ness' ears. He dipped down a long dune and the house disappeared behind sand and trees. When he climbed up the next swell of sand, the yard was vacant, the small fire burning untended, white smoke tumbling into the wind.

He slowed to a walk, pistol in hand. The back door cracked open. Sprite ran into the yard, clenching a rifle.

"Holy
shit
!" he said. "Some of the guys from the prison camp were just here. They acted like they were asking for food, but when I went to get it, they pulled knives on me. If I hadn't found a gun the other day, I could have been killed!"