Ambassador 5: Blue Diamond Sky (Ambassador: Space Opera Thriller Series) Read online

  The engine roared.

  Veyada aimed his gun, but didn’t fire.

  A moment later, Robert’s boat had disappeared in the mist and pouring rain.

  What the hell? I burst out, “What’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you shoot him? You had a hundred opportunities to do it.”

  Both Veyada and Thayu looked at me. Thayu said, “Because the president told you to bring him alive.”

  And it would never do for them to get me into trouble with the president.

  Shit. That was how loyal Coldi were, and I still managed to forget it. And yes, Margarethe had said that, and I had assumed that this was for a very different reason: because if Robert died on this illegal holiday, there would be trouble for her, because Fiona Davidson was an innocent victim. As it turned out, the trouble was way more complicated than she had been able to divulge over the open link of the Exchange. She wanted Robert Davidson alive, so that he could be questioned and convicted.

  And I assumed that, given the choice, even she had rather that he died than that he escaped our clutches. I had simply forgotten to update my orders last night.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “He won’t get far,” Veyada said. “His boat will be full of water long before he reaches the city.”

  But this man was smart and dangerous, and had already been responsible for the deaths of a number of people. Where, for example, were all of Melissa’s crew?

  I left the shelter of the trees since there was no point staying either for safety or against the rain. I was soaked. Deyu and Nicha were just coming back with Reida, who was completely covered in foam.

  I ran to check Telaris who was still with Melissa. He had rolled her onto her side and had bandaged up her right shoulder and upper body.

  “Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have hit anything too damaging,” he said. “The projectile is still inside. I’m not game to touch it, but I’ve given her a sedative to keep her quiet. She should be taken to the hospital as soon as possible.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I was shivering. Water was running through my underwear. The sky was deep grey. I couldn’t even see the plane at the other side of the beach, let alone imagine that someone would fly it.

  Thayu said, “The transmitter charge is completely flat. We need sunlight to charge it. We probably need to go back to the other beach to put the charger back in the right position.”

  “Do we have enough charge in the plane to do that?”

  “Yeah. But I’m not going to fly in this weather.”

  Fair enough.

  “Where are our boats? We should warn them that Robert has escaped.”

  “They’re not going to want to come into the bay in this weather.”

  True, too.

  “At least let’s get Melissa out of the rain.”

  Telaris had already shoved the camouflage netting under her. He and Thayu picked up both ends, forming it into a hammock, and carried Melissa up the beach.

  In the shelter, it wasn’t much drier than on the beach, so Thayu and Telaris continued into the cave. The back half of the oiled cloth had blown loose. In the mess of pots and jars and cooking and other survival debris, I found a travel bag with a luggage tag.

  I turned the tag over. In neat letters was written an address in Jakarta.

  Shit. That would have belonged to the missing Indonesian businessman Gusamo Sahardjo. I thought of the body we’d seen the beisili throw around.

  Had Robert shot his co-traveller, too?

  What was going on inside this guy’s sick head?

  I scratched my head, staring at the bag.

  “What’s that?” Thayu asked.

  I showed her and told her about the other person on the surfing trip. “Have you seen any other survivors?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t get what his game is and why someone would do this. This is up to you to explain. I’m out of my depth.”

  “I don’t understand it either. He’s flipped, or something. How is Melissa?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Where is Robert going to go?”

  “In this weather, most likely the Thousand Islands tribe,” Telaris said, coming up behind Thayu. “Or that is where I would go.”

  Well, damn it, this Robert Davidson was one slippery character.

  “Was he the only one here? No accomplices?”

  “He had two helpers, but we dealt with them in the cave.”

  Nicha came into the shelter with Reida, who was pale, covered in disgusting foam and soaked to the bone. But his eyes shone.

  “He got away, but did you see me ride a beisili?”

  Thayu said, “I saw a beisili trying very hard to throw someone off its back.”

  He grinned.

  “You know what Pengali do, right?” Veyada said. “To stop the beisili diving, they stick seeds in its nostrils so it can’t close them and it can’t dive. The problem is steering them because the beisili just heads to the nearest beach to rub the seeds out of its face.”

  “I didn’t happen to have any seeds on me,” Reida said.

  “I’m bitterly disappointed,” Veyada said.

  Reida grinned. Veyada gave him a bone-shattering clap on the shoulder.

  “What are we going to do now?” Sheydu said.

  I asked, “Is there anything we can do besides wait for this weather to stop?”

  No one made any suggestions.

  So we investigated everything in the shelter, in the burned-out remains of what looked like a well-appointed field station at the mouth of the cave. Someone had evened the floor and made tables out of driftwood, on which stood flat trays, some filled with dirt. The next cavern contained drums with water, a solar power generator—off—a supply of light pearls—all flat—and a portable charger. There were a couple of guns, including some Asto-made ones. A pile of empty cans and jars stood against the wall, some still with bits of food in the bottom.

  “It looks like he’s been holding out here for a while.”

  Telaris and Thayu put Melissa down on a clean sheet on one of the mattresses against the back wall.

  She was breathing, although shallowly.

  “Any medicines?” I asked.

  “I haven’t found any yet,” Telaris said.

  “Is there a lot more to this cave system?”

  “There is another room next door,” Sheydu said.

  “The main cave is quite amazing,” Evi said.

  “If you discount the bodies on the floor,” Deyu said.

  We left Melissa in peace and went further into the cave. At the end of the passage shards of metal had peeled back from what had been the metal door.

  I looked inside.

  Evi was right; the cave was nice. Being formed out of granite, there were no stalactites or other rock formations, but salt had leaked through cracks in the rock and had formed great encrustations of coloured crystals on the walls.

  Three bodies lay on the ground, one half in the pool. Two were Pengali, both well dressed in leather and resin armour. I’d never seen that type before. The gear hadn’t been sufficient to save their lives. Both were female. The third person was a keihu youth, dressed in the traditional khaki tunic made from seagrass felt. Damn, there would be trouble over this. He looked like a youth from one of the major families.

  A shaft of pale light pierced the roof of the cave. That was where we had come through. Water trickled into the pond somewhere out of view of the glow of our light.

  Deyu told me how they had let themselves drop through the hole, and had found these three people waiting for them at the bottom. Being Pengali, they had much better vision in the dark.

  “We didn’t want to shoot them, but there was no choice. They would have killed us.” That was Veyada’s training coming through. He was always about never using weapons unless there was no other option.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I understand.”

  “Then we found that the guy had just slammed the door on us, shutting us in with his ass
istants.” She sounded horrified. A Coldi association leader would never do that. Coldi found displays of selfishness like this profoundly disturbing, especially by people who were leaders of small teams.

  “I wonder what happened to any of the people who came with Melissa? Was there anyone here except her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She was not in a condition to tell me,” Telaris said.

  On the other hand, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know.

  “I’ve seen no one else,” Deyu said. “Reida might know.”

  But Reida was standing outside, under the run-off from the rock, trying to wash the foaming beisili sperm off him.

  Opposite the room with the tables where Melissa lay was another room. It was dark, but Deyu flipped up the switch. When my eyes had become used to the greenish light, I saw tubes and metal parts of a machine inside a glass case.

  Thayu went over to it. The case was taller than her. A single piece of apparatus took up most of the space inside, together with some control screens and panels.

  “What is it for?” I asked.

  The central part of machine had a clamp to hold something, which sat at the end of a hydraulic arm. The case had a door that I presume you needed to open to put something in the clamp.

  “It’s a . . . well . . . I don’t know.” She frowned. “It looks like you put something in this part, and then it . . . probably grinds something with those disks.”

  I hadn’t noticed the disks yet. They sat neatly tucked away in a recess along the side.

  I wondered . . . I looked around the room. There was a table against the wall. On it stood a couple of velvet-covered trays in which of lay a handful of glittering, faceted jewels. Some stones were the size of the nail on my pinky, but a couple were wider than my thumb. Blue diamonds. Sky stones.

  This place was where they produced the stones like the one I had seen that Robert was taking home for his wife.

  Either the stones were found on the island or brought here by Pengali. This was Clovis’ business. But what had happened? Had he tried to recruit Robert as an accomplice, because of Robert’s work experience? Or Robert had tried to steal diamonds, knowing how much they were worth? Or . . .

  I didn’t really know. It was very strange.

  CHAPTER 19

  * * *

  A GREAT PEAL of thunder rumbled outside.

  We went back to the cave entrance where we found the rest of the team taking shelter. The beach and the bay had vanished in a curtain of rain. Water tumbled off the rock above us, over the cave entrance in between the rock wall and the soggy remains of the canvas shelter.

  We had nothing to eat, but Evi found some dried fish and a couple of cans. Thayu and Nicha weren’t sure of the coding of the contents—which turned out to be Mirani beans. Those were really bland, but better than nothing. We found a water heater that still had a bit of charge and made something that resembled soup from the dried fish and beans. It tasted terrible, but it was warm and filling.

  Deyu and Veyada walked out to the point in an attempt to get the Pengali to come in with our boats, but it was raining too much and the boats were too far out for them to be visible from the shore. Deyu and Veyada came back by the time it was getting dark, soaked to the bone, cranky and arguing about whether the Pengali would or would not have been able to see their lights from the boats. If even Veyada started arguing, you knew things were very bad.

  It got dark. We took it in turns to sit with Melissa. Telaris clicked a new ampule of sedatives in the band around her arm because he was afraid she would move too much and damage the wound.

  It was still extremely humid and, when the storm had passed, still and airless.

  I finally slept some after going out to the shelter, where the sand made for a softer bed than the rock in the cave, even if it wasn’t entirely out of the rain.

  I was wakened, when it started to get light, by a honking sound.

  The rain had stopped, the sky had lifted and it was again possible to see all of the beach and the bay, and what a sight it was.

  Thick rafts of pink foam covered the entire beach and adjacent water. Big globs of it also floated on the waves, turning the water oily.

  I couldn’t see any beisili, but I could hear them honking. Here and there, the water rippled with their presence.

  Thayu was out on the beach, inspecting the plane. I strolled across. If I hadn’t been hungry and feeling filthy, it would have been a perfect morning. Well, except for the foam, which was beginning to smell bad.

  “Any damage?” I asked her.

  “What from? It’s seen a lot worse weather than this.”

  True, although mostly the planes would be brought inside during storms.

  “Do you think you could take Melissa to the city?”

  “I think so. Charge is fine, structure is fine.”

  “But?” I sensed hesitation in her voice.

  “I very much doubt Robert has gone. He’ll be back, and he might bring supporters from the tribe. I want to be out of here as soon as possible.”

  She might be right about that. If the Thousand Islands people had some sort of trade going with Clovis or Robert, they might not be impressed if we came to disrupt it.

  There was a noise behind us.

  Thayu turned around and gasped.

  A beisili was really close to the shore. It was a young female, judging by the colour and size. She hobbled into the surf, using her flippers in the same way a seal did, and lay down, flat on the sand, surrounded by foam. She didn’t move, didn’t even lick at the foam, but regarded us with a baleful eye.

  “I had no idea that they came out of the water,” I said.

  “Wow, she looks exhausted,” Thayu said.

  “It’s probably from that male chasing her all day for the past two days.”

  “Do you think it’s the same female?”

  “I don’t know, but—”

  Another head broke the surface and a second animal came out of the surf—definitely the very dark male that I had seen before. He hobbled up to her like a sea lion. It was a strange sight to see such a large animal move so clumsily. How much did these adult beisili weigh?

  He nudged the female with his head. She didn’t react.

  He pushed his nose into the side of her neck and attempted to lift it.

  She did nothing.

  He bent over and grabbed her gently by the skin of the neck.

  “Do you think he’s . . . going to force himself on her? Rape her?” Thayu sounded revolted.

  “If she doesn’t move, probably.”

  “I can shoot him.” Thayu clicked her gun out of its bracket.

  “You can, but I don’t think that’s going to kill him, only make him angry.”

  She let the gun sink.

  The male shuffled half on top of the female. His weight pushed her into the sand.

  “He’s going to suffocate her,” Thayu said. She raised her gun again.

  “Thay’ . . .” I warned.

  “What? I only want to scare him off.”

  “They don’t do things the same as we do. He might not—”

  The female sprang up, scattering water and globs of foam. The male fell off her back. She grabbed him by the neck and clamped her jaws until he squealed. They rolled through the surf, getting coated in foam. When they stopped rolling, the female sat on top, pushing the male’s head under the water.

  “She’s going to suffocate him.”

  He struggled on his back, flippers threshing. A red knob protruded from the soft flesh of his underside. She slid over him, using her weight to hold him down, and then . . . stopped. The soft parts in her stomach did a weird pulsing thing. She arched her neck and honked. It lasted only a short time, and then she slid back to the sand. Red bloomed on the male’s lower stomach.

  She jumped back into deeper water, staining the foam with blood-coloured sperm.

  Thayu and I looked at each other. Then we both burst into laughter.
/>   “I would like to think that we are a little bit more graceful and less noisy about our reproductive activities,” I said.

  “Definitely less messy.” Thayu looked over the foam-covered bay.

  The male scrambled up from the undignified experience and followed his mate into deeper water. His head was covered in foam.

  Veyada walked down the beach in our direction.

  “I think we should be able to get the boat out later today,” Veyada said.

  “We’ll take Melissa to the hospital as soon as I pick up the chargers and panels from the other beach,” Thayu said.

  “Do you want me to come?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  We shook the water off the solar sails on top of the wings. Veyada helped us drag the plane to the far end of the beach, from where it was a short slide down to the water before taking off. We flew in an arc over the point at the southern end of the island.

  “Can you see the three boats?” Thayu asked.

  “Nope. I don’t see them at all.” I scanned the silvery calm water.

  “Damn it. I never liked having those Pengali along. So many of them are just plain unreliable. Yeah, before you say anything, I know it’s a culture thing and they have different priorities, but I think that since we’re paying them, they should learn our priorities and not demand that we fit their schedule instead of them fitting ours.”

  “Thay’—”

  “What? I’ve been saying this all the time. I’ve been going along with their weird fishing trips and disgusting diets. You know, I can live with that, if they meet us halfway and show some loyalty towards us. But I’m fed up with them.”

  “Just land the plane. All right?”

  “How are we going to get back without the boats?”

  “The boats are on the other beach. See? There they are.”

  They lay lined up under the trees. Only there was no sign of the three Pengali. Neither was there any sign of the solar charger.

  “Oh, fuck it.” I rarely heard Thayu swear. “You know what those things cost?”

  I did. And I wasn’t prepared to say anything else until we were on the ground and could see what the situation was, but to be honest, part of me was as unimpressed as she was. If the Pengali needed to have sought safe anchorage during the storm, they could have let us know. The transmitter was still working when the storm hit.