Ambassador 5: Blue Diamond Sky (Ambassador: Space Opera Thriller Series) Page 17

  Margarethe said that she wanted him returned to Earth, but was the reason that he was a wanted criminal? But if so, she could have told me that, couldn’t she?

  I didn’t know. I wish I had a better idea.

  Thayu said, “Whoever it is, I am reasonably sure that there are not many people involved. The problem is, as we’ve already established, accessibility. The easiest, dare I say the only, route of access to the camp is via the bay, where this person can see us coming from a long way off.”

  “And which is infested with violently amorous creatures,” Sheydu added, her voice dark. She was looking at the water lapping at the sides of the boat as if it were poison.

  “That, too. If we use the plane, we can make a very quick approach, but I still suspect the beach is the only point of entry. We can use it only once, because once he knows we have a plane, we’ve lost the element of surprise. He—or whoever it is—has dug into an exceptionally defendable spot. We are likely a majority, but we’re not sure, and we don’t know what weapons he has.”

  I said, “What about Melissa?”

  “No idea. Her boat is here, that’s all I can say.”

  I shivered at the thought of the macabre sight of the beisili tossing a body around. “What I mean is that if anyone is being kept prisoner in that hut, then the sight of us might well propel the captives into doing something.”

  “Yes. But we don’t know. And ‘doing something’ could hinder us as well as help us.”

  True.

  The fact remained that we knew nothing.

  It was decided that we would try to see what the other beach was like. The island was tiny and as soon as daylight came, we would pull up the anchors and go around the other way. If the beach there was more promising, we would set up camp there.

  Maray suggested waiting a few days so that they might think we’d gone, but that would never work. Whoever had shot at us would know who we were and would know that we were there for Melissa and wouldn’t leave until we had her.

  The light was starting to attract various winged creatures that flapped and fluttered around, annoying Sheydu in particular. When a big ringgit-like creature fluttered around with a frrrrrrrtt and landed on the light, we decided enough was enough. Della grabbed the thing by the wings and whacked it against the side of the boat. Its body was almost longer than her hand. Thayu switched the light off.

  We stumbled around in the dark to find our mats. I took off my pants because it was too hot and airless under the low canopy of the oiled cloth, but either imagined or real insects kept crawling over my skin, so I had to put my pants back on, disgusting as they were.

  The water was calm, but not entirely still. With each ripple, I imagined beisili lurking underneath us, ready to resurface for another display of mating rituals.

  But I was tired, having slept poorly the previous night, so I dozed off for a good proportion of the night.

  I woke up when the palest of pale glimmers of daylight coloured the eastern sky. Something splashed in the water nearby.

  It was Langga pulling in his fishing line and throwing the catch—jumping and flopping—onto the bottom of the boat.

  Maray said something in Pengali in the other boat. She came over, silhouetted against the lightening sky, holding something large and spiky. Langga laughed his snorting Pengali laugh. This was followed by a snap-snap-snap sound of something breaking.

  By the time everyone was awake, and the sky in the east had turned pink, the three Pengali were cooking breakfast on the solar heater, using seawater and something from a small bottle. I had a look in the pot, and it was filled with froth. The raw fish yesterday had been good, but I wasn’t sure about this.

  Neither, by the look of things, was Sheydu.

  Reida wanted to know what was in the pot, and Langga fished out a—well, whatever it was. A big, brown thing with a lumpy surface and a couple of stumps where I figured he must have snapped off the creature’s legs. He took his knife out of his belt. He cut the lumpy, rubbery shell, peeled it open and scooped the white greasy-looking contents into the pot, and tossed the skin overboard.

  Ew. It looked like I’d be sticking to a vegetarian diet today.

  He declared breakfast ready.

  Maray and Della had been hovering around and attacked straight away. Langga offered some to us—a white soup in a bowl, with bits of froth still floating on top.

  The look of revulsion on Deyu’s face made everyone laugh, but only Reida was game to try some. He pulled an ‘eh’ face, but finished all of it. Langga clapped him on the shoulder. It struck me that Reida was the only one of us who had any kind of relationship with these people. They even seemed to find it hard to tell the difference between the Coldi, saying “him” when they meant Thayu or “her” when talking about Veyada.

  The Pengali polished off the rest of the soup while we ate the by-now slightly stale nut bread.

  Then it was time to go. We untied the boats, pulled up the anchors and set off in a northerly direction. The sheer cliffs continued on the other side of the “beach” that wasn’t. We drifted past the granite walls with their patterns of algae. The island was utterly hostile, uninhabited and inaccessible.

  Langga had been right about the ocean side being more exposed. The wind picked up and the waves got choppy, casting sprays of salt into our faces.

  We rounded a rocky point to the bay in question, and there was a white beach—and big pounding waves breaking on the sand. Our boats were far too low and cumbersome to handle surf. We’d be smashed against the rocks if we came too close.

  Crap.

  But it was better than the other side.

  We threw out anchors and Thayu, Reida and I used the tops of the benches—that we had removed to make room to sleep last night—as surfboards, and paddled ashore. Thayu trailed a waterproof box with all our weapons.

  The water wasn’t deep, the bottom was firm and I suspected that once the tide went out, we’d be able to pull the boats in from the shore.

  We dragged our makeshift surfboards onto the beach, where Thayu handed out the weapons and equipment.

  The beach was fairly wide and ended abruptly at a thick wall of forest.

  At the boundary between the beach and the forest, we found the remains of a camp. A pile of ash from a camp fire—because you could make fires away from the areas where megon trees grew—a couple of fish skeletons, and a jar.

  Just like the one we had found on the beach at the sand bar.

  Shit.

  I looked at the sea where the boats lay anchored.

  “What is it?” Thayu asked.

  “Look at this.” I showed her the jar.

  “The same as we found.”

  “Yes. Someone camped here. Is there a current here that would take floating things to the mainland?”

  “Maybe. We can ask. The wind would carry anything that floats to the spit.”

  I nodded, still looking at the makeshift camp as we continued into the forest.

  The vegetation grew incredibly dense. Reida used his knife to cut a path for us, going uphill.

  In the claustrophobic greenery, it was humid and hot. I was helping Reida pull aside vines and other vegetation, and the sweat was soon rolling off me.

  Then we got to the bottom of a giant rounded boulder. Reida climbed up like a goat, but I couldn’t manage it until Thayu leaned a tree trunk against the rock to use as a stepping stone.

  Whoa, the sun beat down here.

  We climbed the rough granite surface. Behind us was the bay and the ocean, with our boats bobbing at the point. I could even see someone moving. Of course, the Pengali were fishing again.

  At the top, the rounded surface fell away suddenly, as if the giant boulder had split when falling from the sky. One half had sunk into the depths and the other made up most of this island. It was exposed and windy here.

  We dropped to our bellies and crawled the last bit until we could see over the other side, down a sheer cliff, over the bay, the beach and
the forest.

  A man walked on the beach directly below us, carrying a net with several of the brown lumpy, bristly things that Langga had caught for breakfast this morning. He carried a gun slung over his shoulder. He wore shorts and a shirt. His skin was pale, his hair brown. He had a beard.

  Robert Davidson.

  He turned around and yelled at someone in the shade of the trees out of our vision. It was impossible to hear what he said. I was also pretty sure that he hadn’t seen us, and he wasn’t looking in our direction. He disappeared underneath the trees at the bottom of the cliff.

  So we could see the beach from up here, but there didn’t seem to be an easy way down. Bugger. That meant we would have to use the plane. Maybe the plane and the boats, coming from different directions at the same time. He had at least one accomplice.

  I let myself slide back down the rock. Thayu and Reida followed.

  “So it was him,” Thayu said. “What is his game? If he wants to be rescued, then why shoot at us?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  But we had to do something quickly, because I really didn’t want to have to spend another night here.

  We walked down the giant boulder, the last bit of it sliding on our backsides, used the tree trunk to climb back to the forest and followed the path we had made. Thayu went first, Reida next and I came last.

  And all of a sudden, Reida gave a surprised squeak and disappeared into the moss-covered ground. A dark hole had opened up in the path where the soil had given way.

  I yelled into the hole, “Reida! Are you down there?”

  There was no reply.

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  SHIT.

  I fell to my knees and clawed at the ground, pulling rocks out of the opening.

  It was deep and dark and sounded hollow.

  Did I hear splashing? Had he fallen in the water and was he now unconscious and drowning in an underground pool?

  “Reida!”

  My voice echoed in there, and I realised immediately that I’d made a mistake and might have given away our position.

  Crap. But I had to go after him.

  “Give me the rope.”

  I yanked it off Thayu’s shoulder, tied it to a tree, then around my waist and let myself sink into the hole. The entrance was narrow and little avalanches of dirt trickled into my face and down my neck.

  The ground crumbled away under my feet.

  In a moment of panic, I fell a short distance until the rope yanked taut—ouch—and dangled in nothingness.

  Shit. How far down was it?

  I pulled the gun from the arm bracket and used the infrared sight. There was a lighter patch to my right—if only I stopped spinning around—but no sign of a person. The patch bubbled and swirled. Possibly a warm spring. How deep was it? It was hard to tell.

  “You’re OK?” Thayu called above me.

  “Yeah. There’s a big cave down here. I think there’s water at the bottom. I can’t see a sign of him. I can’t go any further. The rope is too short.”

  “I’ll pull you up.”

  “Wait.”

  My eyes were starting to become used to the ink darkness. There was a glimmer of light in the bottom right corner: an exit to the beach? Which beach?

  “All right?” Thayu called.

  “Yeah.”

  The rope shuddered and I went up. Then someone down in the depth of the cave yelled, “Hey, keep your hands off me. I’ll go and do what you say, just point that thing somewhere else, all right?” That was Reida.

  A man replied. Robert, perhaps. It was definitely not a Coldi voice.

  I entered the narrow hole in the ceiling of the cave, and Thayu helped me clamber out.

  “There is an exit to the beach on the other side,” I said. “Reida fell down there and Robert has him. There is water in the cave. He must have been dazed and his gun wet.”

  What a bugger of a thing to have happen to him, and us. Now Robert knew we were here, and he’d be expecting us. Well, to be honest, he probably expected us already.

  “We need to talk to the others,” I said. “See what we can do.”

  “Better hurry up. We don’t have much time left in the day.”

  We started walking down the path that we had made on the way up. The beach was already bathed in rich afternoon sunlight. Beniz and Yaza had long passed their midday zenith, but were still bright enough to appear as one spot of light. They were close at this time of the month, and the double edges on the shadows almost invisible.

  We dragged the makeshift surfboards into the water. I stacked Reida’s onto mine, and we paddled back out to the boats, where Veyada and Telaris helped us board. Deyu looked on with wide eyes.

  “Where is Reida?” she exclaimed.

  We told them about what happened.

  Deyu’s eyes widened even further. “We have to get him!”

  “Yes, but we couldn’t do that with just the two of us. We came back to get you. It’s time to move. We don’t have a lot of supplies to stay out here. There is fresh water in the cave, but we don’t have any here. We’ll move this afternoon.”

  “We can attack from two sides,” Veyada said. “We should use the plane to fly into the bay, the boats can follow us and the main party can go through the cave.”

  Langga pulled a face.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “Beisili. A big group of them went around the point while you were out there.”

  “They didn’t harm us yesterday,” Veyada said.

  “That was only the beginning of their mating time. It was a little game.”

  Sheydu said, “A game? They nearly flipped us over.”

  Maray nodded, her face grave. “That area around the corner is a mating bay. They will all come together there and have a big mating orgy and the beach will turn foul with foam. I don’t like taking the boats in there today. I’ll refuse to go in tomorrow.”

  “Can we land the plane on the beach?” Veyada asked.

  Thayu thought for a bit. “It’s a bit short, and there is not much of an approach, but yeah, probably. It would be rough.”

  “Let’s do that, then.”

  We agreed that the Pengali would take the boats further out to the point, throw out the anchor and wait in case of an emergency. Thayu said she would set up the satellite communication for them.

  The people who were good at hand-to-hand fighting would go through the cave. This included Evi and Telaris, Sheydu and Deyu. We took all of the heavy weaponry out of the boat for them, as well as armour, ropes and temperature suits, since their task might involve waiting in a damp and cold cave.

  This was the heavy-duty group. Robert would expect an attack from that direction.

  Thayu, Veyada, Nicha and I would take the plane to land on the beach and provide a surprise.

  I said, “You’re sure you don’t want me to go with the other group? I’m not a sharpshooter like you.” Although I would probably get in the way of the others. Maybe they were sparing me because of my recent stay in hospital.

  “Normally, you’re not a sharpshooter,” Veyada said. “Except when someone holds a gun to your head. In that case, you develop into the best sharpshooter ever. That’s a valuable ability, to deliver under extreme pressure. You can teach that, but it’s much easier when it’s inborn.”

  “Well . . .” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. That was a very high expectation to have resting on your shoulders: this guy is our secret weapon in an emergency. I think I was happier with the “too weak” and “gets in the way of good fights” tags, because you know, that thing where I’d accidentally hit my target in an emergency, I wasn’t sure how replicable that was.

  We went to work to put the plane together. The tide was going out and the waves had become small enough for us to drag the boats onto the beach.

  Thayu set up a whole bunch of solar chargers and transmitters on the sand. While she bustled around, contacting people and sending reports, we pulled the cover
off the plane, and lifted the frame out of the boat. We inserted the struts for the wings, pulled the cloth over the top, attached the solar sails. Then we put the seats in. Thayu wanted the ski-like undercarriage. We put that together, set it on the sand and lifted the plane on and tightened all the bolts.

  Then we pulled it to the high tide line, facing the slope of the beach. The skis were wide and slid easily over the sand. Thayu seemed happy.

  “Just leave it at the top there, and we’ll be able to slide right into the water.”

  Then we helped the other group get their combat gear out of the boats. It made a compact but very heavy pile on the sand.

  We distributed the heavy items over the number of packs that were small enough for cave-crawling. Sheydu had to leave the solar charger. She was not happy about that.

  She stated, “There are two things that you can never have enough of in a fight: energy and weapons.”

  I agreed, but we were also faced with a distinct lack of space and a limit on what everyone could carry and still have enough freedom of movement for a fight.

  Finally Sheydu was satisfied. She had put on her temperature-retaining suit, which others had done, too, except Evi and Telaris. Armour went over the top. Not the civilian grade which I wore, and still found much too hot, but military grade. She shouldered the pack and others did, too. The gun brackets went on both arms. Her belt with pouches containing explosives went around her waist. Deyu shouldered the ropes while Telaris carried two mounted guns and their mounts and a camouflage net, which was a very nifty thing that, when turned on, produced a light-bending field the same way the surface of most Asto-produced aircraft did.

  Sheydu then clasped Veyada’s arm and clapped his back, one of the few times that I’d seen them display any sign that they were mother and son.

  Then they set off into the forest. The last thing I saw was the bobbing coils of rope on Deyu’s back.

  Next, we took our weapons from the boat: the mounted gun for Veyada, Thayu’s arsenal of secret weapons. She gave me a knife with a belt to wear under my shirt, and a handful of her marvellous emergency blasters to go in my pockets. “Keep these ones handy. They will work when they’re wet.”