A battered old model but operational communicator.
Their hearts leapt when the village elder informed them of its existence. Its range was extremely limited, they were informed, and it could not talk to one of the Commonwealth speakers in the high sky. But it would reach to Tavumacia, the next nearest village. Tavumacia had a more powerful communicator and could talk to not one but a dozen additional villages. Eventually, contact could be made with Taulau Town. If the village’s own cranky apparatus was in the mood to function.
The visitors spent several anxious moments hovering over the device until it was clear that it would. The message was sent. The village’s friends in Tavumacia readily agreed to pass it along. In return, they were told of the Sakuntala uprising.
Then there was nothing to do but wait.
“How long do you think it will take, good sir?”
“What, for us to be extracted from this Sakuntala landfill?” Following a (by Sakuntala village standards) decent meal, Hasa’s habitual ire had returned full force. But then, Masurathoo reflected, it had never really left. “Lemme think. Message has to get to Taulau. Once there, it has to be passed to the proper department. Someone has to decide it’s legitimate and validate a report. Then the lazy bastards have to organize a rescue. At least they’ve got the coordinates of the communicator here.”
Swinging slowly back and forth in the suspension chair of their host’s home, he pondered the motionless debris-stained water of the Viisiiviisii shimmering a few meters below the carefully constructed porch. Here no advanced charged fields protected them from anything inimical that might be waiting just beneath the surface. No automatic weaponry rested ready and armed to blast whatever might emerge. They didn’t care. For the first time in many days, the three of them reposed with full bellies, if not satisfied palates. Masurathoo in particular had had a difficult time keeping down the simple village food.