Dipping a hand into the water again, Doc jerked as he felt a brief contact with something rough, and knew he had just brushed against a shark. Gasping for breath, he waited for his heart to slow to normal again. The creature was still tracking them after two days! Its dorsal fin and body had several bullet holes from their blasters, but the creature had suffered no deleterious effects from the sudden infusion of subsonic lead. Mildred said the creatures had been on the endangered species list in her time. The scholar had absolutely no idea how the adamantine killers could be in danger from anybody.
Her bearskin coat made into a tent with his sword-stick, Krysty muttered something and rolled over just as Doc caught a whiff of living plants in the wind.
Shading his face, he looked about and saw an island on the horizon coming ever closer. A huge waterfall was visible even from this distance, falling from the slopes of cool misty mountains that rose majestically over the jungle landscape. Formidable cliffs rose straight from the ocean, but to the north side there seemed to be a beach. Then the sharp greasy aroma of frying fish arrived.
He tried to speak, but could only croak. Grabbing a canteen, he unscrewed the top and drank deeply of the tepid water for the first time in days.
“Land ho!” Doc shouted. “Land!”
Everybody shook themselves awake and struggled out from their impromptu shelters to blink at the blinding daylight.
“Trouble?” Ryan demanded, holding back a yawn, but with a blaster at the ready.
“On your left,” Doc said, gesturing, keeping a hold of the tiller. “Behold an island as green as Walden Pond!”
“Smell fish,” Jak said, rubbing his tousled hair.
Holstering his piece, Ryan checked his lapel. The rad counter was silent. “Clean,” he announced.
“Same here,” J.B. agreed, doffing his fedora. “Dry land, at last!”
“Is that it?” Krysty asked, her red hair flexing in anticipation. “Is that Cold Harbor?”
“Yes,” Abagail answered, exhaling in relief. “We’re home.”
In the second lifeboat, Jones smiled widely, causing his dry lips to crack. “Beautiful!” he croaked, then shouted. “Ahoy, Cold Harbor!” His words disappeared over the surface, and there was no response from the distant ville.
“Too far,” he grunted, then spit on his hands and flexed the palms. “Okay, slip to port! We gotta break out of the river or head straight for Chang Island and Butcher Ratak!”
“Heave to, ya swabs!” a sailor ordered, taking an oar. “Put your backs into it, unless ya wanna visit the cannie baron!”
Taking a seat with the other companions, Ryan and Mildred held their oars still, as Doc leaned hard into the tiller and the rest stroked deep and fast. The skiff sluggishly fought free from the underwater river once more and slowed as it reached calm sea.
Doggedly the shark left the warm currents of the river and followed after the boats, its fin cutting the water as it circled eagerly, searching for more of the soft red food to fall into its massive jaws.
An hour passed of steady rowing, the sun draining their strength and blistering exposed skin. A westerly breeze made the waves crest toward the skiffs so that it seemed as if the boats were traveling backward. But the green island came ever closer, and soon Ryan could see the defensive wall around the ville. Ten or more feet high, made of red brick, with several holes in the side. Probably for cannons. A lot of them.
The smells of food and green plants soon masked the tang of the salty sea, and now they could see people moving on the shore and docks, sec men running along the top of the wall. There were several dugout canoes and a battered trawler at the dock, but Ryan was pleased to observe that there was nothing like the Constellation or the Delta Blue.
The choppy water became suddenly smooth as they neared the island, and Ryan noted they were passing over an undersea reef of bright pink coral, with natural breakers. The boats shot through without any trouble, but the persistent shark skirted away from the deadly sharp coral, swimming ruthlessly back and forth on the other side. Waiting, ever waiting.