“Sir,” said Woetjans as she stepped out of the undergrowth beside him. “I wish—”
“I’m the best swimmer in the detachment,” Daniel said. “If there’s a problem, Cafoldi’s my backup. but you have to get a strike force to the Kostromans tonight. Now, go back to your duties.”
At this moment Daniel wanted only to get on with the task, but he didn’t let his nervous fury cause him to lash out at the petty officer. Woetjans was just as worried at being left in charge of a situation without clear orders as Daniel was at swimming the strait separating the islands. It ought to work out for both of them, but only a fool wouldn’t wonder.
“Yessir,” Woetjans said. She saluted and vanished into the jungle.
Daniel entered the water. It felt warmer than the night air on his naked skin. He began a leisurely breast stroke toward the distant shore, giving the wrecked yacht a wide berth.
Sundown was less than an hour past, but the night was so black that only by the pinpricks of starlight could Daniel separate the sky from the land and sea. Both Kostroma’s tiny moons were up but they were scarcely more than bright planets even when full.
The tide was rising and currents flowed strongly through the reef from the ocean beyond. Daniel drifted farther into the lagoon; he changed his angle, stroking at a slant against the current in order to hold his intended landfall.
In a perfect world Daniel would have been making this swim between tides when the water was still; though now that he thought about it, in a perfect world there wouldn’t be any need for him to swim at all. At least he didn’t have to do it when the tide was going out and the rip pulled him toward the fanged reef closing the interval between islands.
Daniel still would have tried. The task was necessary, and the likelihood that it would be fatal wouldn’t make it optional.
Something bumped him. He lost a stroke in frozen surprise. More things nudged him and slid off with rubbery persistence.
Unblinking eyes humped the water. Forms squirmed past Daniel into the lagoon like a bubble slick. The contacts were mindless, harmless; mere collisions in the night. An enormous shoal of soft-bodied creatures was entering the lagoon with the tide and darkness to feed.
All Daniel could see were the eyes. He couldn’t guess the creatures’ body shape from their boneless touch, but the largest were at least the length of his forearm.
Daniel continued to stroke, hindered by the creatures’ presence. More serious were the jerks and tugs from behind as the shoal snagged the fishline as well. If the line broke, he’d have to do this all over again.
So be it. He’d take the process one stroke at a time, as he always did. At least he’d learned how the sweep had been able to feed itself to such monstrous size.
He swam with his head out of water so that he could see the shore at all times. There was nothing to see, and no likelihood that Daniel would be able to tell in this darkness if Ganser’s whole band was waiting to spear him like a fish caught in the shallows.
His thigh muscles were hurting very badly. He felt an incipient cramp as he bunched for another frog kick; instantly he relaxed and lay in a dead man’s float while he prayed that he’d been in time.
He had. The big muscles of his right thigh didn’t wind themselves into a furious knot as they’d been on the verge of doing, but Daniel didn’t dare risk them further tonight.
He swam on, using only arm strokes. His legs dangled behind him like those of a broken-backed dog.
Daniel had overstressed his thighs when he clung to the impeller mount, and he was out of shape. No point in lying to himself: Daniel Leary wasn’t as fit as an RCN officer needed to be. If anything happened to the ratings he commanded, it was his fault in all truth as well as by regulation.
Daniel’s shoulders weren’t in any better condition than his thighs, but the back muscles were less likely to cramp from an inability to dispose of waste products. He was losing strength, though. He needed to reach land soon or he was going to find himself with no option but to float until somebody noticed him at daybreak.