Adele felt enormous relief at the removal of the high-frequency tremble that had been a part of her existence for the day and a quarter of high-speed running. She’d become aware of the vibration only now that it stopped, but it had been present all the time—creating discomfort that she’d blamed on psychological factors.
“All right, let’s get this cargo off-loaded!” Woetjans ordered. “Port watch, haul them up from the bilge; starboard watch stay on guard.”
Adele put her computer away and unstrapped herself. Insects glittered silently in the air, sometimes lighting on her skin with a ghost touch. One brushed her eye; she grimaced and blinked rapidly in an attempt to wash it away.
Daniel came forward to join her. “Lovely, isn’t it?” he said. “A real paradise. Of course, I don’t suppose our prisoners are going to feel that way about it.”
“I’m on their side,” Adele said dryly. “Thus far it reminds me of the unsorted storage in the subbasement of the Academic Collections building, bugs and all. Mind, the lighting’s a lot better.”
She waved her hand in front of her to keep more of the minute insects from landing on her face. It was like trying to sweep back the tide.
Cinnabar crewmen were bringing the prisoners up from below. Ganser and his thugs looked sickly and gray. They’d remained trussed like hogs throughout the run with only minimal time on deck for sanitation.
“Of course,” Adele added, “some of them may be smart enough to remember what the alternative was. I doubt it. People like that prefer to invent realities in which they’re always in the right.”
“Not only people like that,” Daniel said with a smile.
Four sailors hopped to the sand. Four others on deck took the bound prisoners by the shoulders and ankles and tossed them over the side. Adele blinked in surprise. She’d wondered how the thugs would be landed, but she hadn’t expected anything so brutally efficient.
Although . . . it wasn’t actually brutal. The Cinnabars treated their captives like so many full duffelbags, but the sailors on the ground caught each flung body and lowered it to the sand brusquely but gently. Most of the sailors would have been willing to put Ganser and his killers over the side in deep water, but needless cruelty wasn’t a part of their character.
The sea moved in long swells, licking the shore of the island and surging against the reef. The water of the lagoon stood still and jewel-like, unmarred even by diving seabirds. It was dark blue in contrast to the pale green of the open ocean.
“Where do you want to go now?” Adele asked Daniel quietly. Most of the prisoners had been unloaded; Hogg walked among them with a pair of wire-cutters, snipping the bonds from their wrists and ankles. The Kostromans remained where they lay, perhaps unable as well as unwilling to rise while their captors grinned at them over gunsights.
“We’ll get over the horizon before I decide,” Daniel said. “Probably on a completely different course. I think we’re all right, but I don’t care to test our luck needlessly.”
Adele nodded. She’d set the base unit in the Elector’s Palace to search message traffic, Alliance and Kostroman alike, for any reference to Cinnabar, Daniel Leary, or Adele Mundy. She then used her personal data unit to scroll through the literally thousands of references to Cinnabar. Neither of the individual names had rated a mention.
And no reference to Cinnabar involved Daniel’s detachment. He and his companions, Adele included, had dropped out of existence so far as anyone else on this planet was concerned.
The captives were all freed. The sailors reboarded the Ahura, grabbing the chromed rail at the deck’s edge and hauling themselves up with a quick kick against the side of the hull. Dasi got a hand from his mate Barnes, but only Hogg bothered to use the ladder attached to the vessel’s side.
“Woetjans, toss them a carton of rations,” Daniel ordered. He faced the Kostroman thugs, his hands on his hips.
“I’m leaving you a little food,” he said. “After that, you’ll have to make do with what you find. There may not be fresh water here, but there’s fruit and several of these plant species excrete salt to store water in their trunks.”