April 2: Down to Earth (53 page)

"Sit down. You make me feel like I have to answer you quickly, standing there bouncing on your feet. You aren't going anywhere," he pointed out, his hand indicating the surrounding ocean. "Are you unhappy with the aid I am rendering so far?" he asked, reasonably.

"Not at all! I'm sorry I dragged you this deeply into it. Nobody ordered you to help me like Gunny. I'm just a friend of Adzusa and now your house was threatened and you can't go back to it. We are skulking around out in the middle of the ocean. I owe you a world of debt, even if you never do another thing for me."

"It was my pleasure," he said with a dismissive wave. "However, this contacting old associates, such stirring of the pot would have consequences. It would imply I am involving myself again in political affairs. It might alarm people, who would feel compelled to act when they feel threatened. A great many people right now will be very happy, if they don't hear a thing from me. They may appear stupid, but the lesson will not be lost that an attack on my home cost many lives and billions of dollars in assets, yet I'm still out there somewhere and nobody can be certain whom I blame. The Chinese as a nation did not attack my home. One particular official took it upon himself to do so and they know I understand that is how things really work. So I doubt anyone is going to claim such a failed operation for his own. Right now I'd rather let them sweat. The less they hear the better in that regard. You understand?"

"Yeah, the way you work wouldn't be a missile back, it would be more surgical. Some Party guy would forget and foolishly step near a window, or he'd find half way through his Grouper dinner, that it was poorly trimmed Puffer fish and he couldn't breathe anymore."

"Crudely put, but that is the essence of it. If it comes to that, I'd rather it be a complete surprise too," he smiled and it wasn't a pretty smile.

"I'm going to take a nap," Gunny declared. "Li is going to give me some instruction on boat handling later and I should be rested."

"Would you get me up too? I'll stay out of the way, but I'd like to listen."

"Sure. You're going to get some sleep too then?"

"If I can stop thinking," she admitted. He nodded and went down the companionway.

Chapter 43

Heather was cuddled against her on one side and Jeff on the other side had a warm hand on her shoulder, comforting her. Why was he shaking it? She reached up and the hand was far too large and coarse. The dream came apart in tatters and she opened her eyes to Gunny, giving her shoulder a little shake again. Her stateroom had barely enough light to find the door safely.

Gunny put his index across his lips, in a shushing gesture. That made sense, everybody else must be sleeping. April sat up and nodded, he went back out in the passageway and turned left to the stairs, what had they called them? So many weird names to remember.

April used the tiny head in her room and washed her face with a cloth. It didn't seem any cooler than when she went to sleep. There was a low murmur of ventilation fans, but if there was cooling they weren't using it. She sat on the bed and put her shoes back on and followed Gunny up to the place they steered the ship, the cockpit. It was sunken from the deck, with a full stout rail, but there was also an arch that went across, which shaded it in the day.

There were adjustable awnings that extended the shaded area, even if the sun was low in the sky and there were clamshell doors with big rectangular ports that sealed all four corners of the arch and turned it into a wheel house if there was need. There was lots of open deck to the rear, where the fighting chair pedestals went in the deck and the fish cleaning station folded over the side that the clamshells wouldn't enclose.

Gunny clipped a line on her although it wasn't rough. In fact they were going noticeably slower than in the daytime, when she was fishing. The moon was low, near setting and there were scattered clouds occasionally obscuring it. It was muggy and she momentarily thought about getting her chilled moon suit but dismissed it.

She listened carefully as Li showed Gunny the controls. The sails were put away by hand but moved about and deployed by electric motors instead of by hand once they were free. There was an autopilot, that had to be disengaged to demonstrate the manual controls. The passive sensors and GPS made sense.

Their present rate of progress was lower, not only from less wind, but from the heading where the wind was coming from. Gunny seemed to understand how that worked better than her. She thought it had to do with the keel, but she couldn't picture the vectors in her mind. She'd ask Gunny to explain it latter.

After the moon went down the night was really dark. She thought they were running without lights, but it looked like there was a light on in the rear. She leaned out over the transom trying to see.

"What are you looking for? You worry me hanging over the rail like that."

"I see a light on the water behind us. I thought we were running blacked out. Did somebody flip the wrong switch and turn a light on the rear, uh, stern?"

Li giggled and in the light from the instruments she could see him grinning at her.

"No Missy, there are little creatures in the water. When we pass through and roil the water they glow. Each one is not very bright, but there are
lots
of them. I don't know why they do that, but sometimes they light up the waves on the beach too. Pretty isn't it?"

"Yes, prettier for knowing how strange it is," she agreed, fascinated.

They sailed along for several hours, a few soft words passing between Gunny and Li, but no more real instruction. The peace punctuated by something hurling past her head far too close and a solid thump inboard.

"Incoming!" April warned them, but Gunny hit the deck even before she did. Li hadn't wavered from his duty. She waited but there weren't any more. Li spoke softly and handed Gunny something and he went forward into the dark corner of the cockpit. When he turned the small flashlight on, there was a fish in the corner, dead or knocked senseless, as it wasn't moving.

A few more soft words of instruction and Gunny took it by the tail, smacking its head solidly over the rail. No doubt it wasn't waking up now. Gunny took the wheel for the first time alone and Li disappeared briefly to return with a cooler. He showed her the fish, before it disappeared whole into the ice. It was as long as her forearm, with exaggerated fins.

"It is
Tobiuo,
" he explained. "The same name as the ship. "You would say in English, a flying fish. They are very good eating." He had no sooner explained than there was another muffled thud, but this one was thrashing on the deck instead of stunned.

"Watch me Missy," he took his flashlight back and climbed up on deck. April watched him step on the fish to pin it down, but he obviously didn't put his full weight on it. A small blade nipped its spine behind the head and it joined the other in the chest.

"You get next one, OK?" he asked her, handing her the little flashlight.

"Right, she agreed," If she was less than enthusiastic he didn't notice. With a little luck there wouldn't be anymore. Luck held for a long time and then there were three all together. One smacking Gunny in the ear, hard enough to make him swear. April scrambled to get the first two and turned to find Gunny had finished off his assailant and silently handed it to her by the tail. By the time she was too tired to keep her eyes open and went to her stateroom, they had seven in the cooler.

In the morning there was no wind at all. She woke up to an odd noise and came up on deck to see what it was. The sails was hanging limp and every once in awhile a swirl of air would flap them about and make the mast and rigging ring a bit, but it never kept it up enough to get the ship under way in one direction. The clouds were low and you could see the turbulence working in the bottom and it was oppressively hot and humid. She sat on one of the side benches and stuck her public eye where it could watch the whole boat, from the corner of the transom.

"When we are far offshore and in these latitudes we run a French boat," Papa-san informed his new passengers. If you want to go nude, feel free. If we make port we cover up. I'm putting out a hose here and forward on the deck if you want to spray down, but it's sea water not fresh. I keep a spray bottle full of fresh for my face and hair."

Despite his declaration, Papa-san was still in trunks and baseball cap. Gunny was in big baggy floral trunks and a perfect white Panama.  Li and Taro were nude and what surprised her more, was both had run clippers over their heads for a  very close crew cut. Li had thick longish black hair before, no more. Neither had much body hair and were slight in build, which made them seem childish. Mama-san was not nude, she had on a big brimmed hat and sneakers, beside the safety line. Li and Taro, she noticed, handled the sails with no safety lines on them.

As she was looking at the clouds, they seemed darker in the distance, one of the flying fish left the water sailed clear across the stern of the boat chest high between Papa-san and Gunny. It didn't hit water on the other side for a good twenty meters. April shouted a big whoop of delight, thoroughly impressed. They hadn't really been visible in the night.

"Heh, they go three or four times that far," Papa-san assured her. "Neat huh?"

"I thought maybe you'd slap him down as he went past," she told Gunny.

"It just never occurred to me," he admitted. "I was looking more to duck, if he was going to hit me. We got two more last night after you went to bed. I think we have enough of them for right now anyway."

"Will you run the engines if there is no wind?" April wondered.

"Perhaps, no hurry." He worked with Taro to drop the big sail and reduced the area the ones forward presented. He gave the dark clouds approaching not a worried look, but appraising.

"Is that a problem, the dark stuff?"

"It could have winds or not. You don't want a big wind to catch you with too much sail out. We can always add more, but it can bust stuff faster than you can take it down. I'm going to sneak a quick peek on radar," he decided.

"I don't see any hail or anything," he declared in a few minutes. "It looks like a good heavy rain though. We'll catch some of it on a sail for our tanks, if it is steady."

The deck was textured in the cockpit, but Mama-san warned them she was going to make it slick. She squirted liquid soap on it and a bit of seawater. She scrubbed thoroughly with a soft brush that had a long handle like a mop. When the rain hit the soapy water was gone down the scuppers in a moment. The young men rigged a big tarp, sloped to the cockpit and a surprising stream of water poured off that too. After a few minutes they stuck plugs in the scuppers and pulled out flush plugs in the rear corners April hadn't known were drains.

"It's clean enough to drink?" April asked.

"At this latitude, far from land? I'd drink it without any concerns," Papa-san told her. "But our drinking water is filtered in any case. I'm more worried about water we buy in port. It might be ground water, or rain water collected off a surface that isn't clean. We'll get several hundred gallons the way this isn't letting up. Water costs quite a bit in most ports out here, so free is nice."

The rain was warm, almost like a shower and April decided to go with the French boat drill and took off her already soaked clothing. It felt weird to think she'd be drinking the water running off her.

A late breakfast buffet was laid out and people wondered in and took what they wanted one by one. It was too hot to eat much. When the rain finally stopped it was as dead as before. Papa-san fired up one of the two Diesels and steered southwest. He explained when they got wind it would probably take them more east than they wanted. The engine was barely off idle, a low rumble that he explained was the most efficient speed.

"I can get you a fusion power plant if you want," April offered. "A couple liters of heavy water should last you years and all the auxiliary power you could want."

"And how big is this power plant," Papa-san asked, skeptical.

"About like yea," April said defining less than a half cubic meter with her hands.

"The whole thing? Enough to push this boat?"

"Yeah, four of them will push my ship at nine g and power to spare," she said.

"Hell yeah, we'll gladly take one of those."

"You might put a laser up on the mast while you are at it. You got all that power. It would give you something to argue with, if somebody gets too frisky with you out here."

"This area is pretty safe," Papa-san assured her. We have an old .50 caliber over there in a locker, if we do run into a problem. But it's true there are places in the Caribbean and around Africa, especially up toward the Middle East I'd rather not go. Over around Indonesia, South East Asia, I wouldn't go unless I owned a frigate. They have some serious pirates and some of the heavily armed government boats aren’t above a little piracy on the side."

The rain passed, but the wind didn't pick up. There were high scattered clouds, that frustrated them by scuttling along, but the wind on the surface stayed calm. The GPS showed them making a jog to the west while they stayed on the same heading so Papa-san backtracked a little and found a current carrying them southwest at a bit over four knots. They eased out of it after a couple hours and fired up the engine and found it again. The next time they made a big circle they had lost it, so they headed south again under power.

Mid-afternoon a breeze came up strong enough to spin the long cylindrical wind turbine, mounted in front of the main mast. Papa-san didn't get excited. It had spun before from a brief gust. After it kept going several minutes, he trusted it enough to let out the triangular sail all the way forward. He cut the engine and added a bit more sail, Taro helping out on the deck to let them loose. It took about a half hour to get all of them up and adjusted. They weren't going as fast as yesterday, but better than they had with the Diesel.

Supper was cold stuff, brought out to the cockpit on a plate to eat. Nobody wanted to stay inside. The wind eased off at dusk, but didn't die entirely. April took a shower and before she could get all sweaty again she donned the moon suit and slept in it, cool and comfortable.