James Axler: Dectra Chain

The fog was finally showing a willingness to clear away. Visibility improved, and the sun broke through above their heads in a vapid glow. Ryan twice spotted the great dorsal fins of the mutie carnivores as they skimmed toward the shore. The bodies of the chilled seamen from the Salvation had obviously attracted several of the whale-sharks, and the noise of the oars in the water had brought them in close to hand.

"I can see it!" Krysty called. "Bit to the right. There's a channel between rocks. Looks like it leads to a beach."

Now they could all see land, the rowers squinting over their shoulders. There were cliffs above a strip of glistening shingle, and on either side of the boat they could make out numerous tiny islands, mostly peaks of rock sticking above the calm sea.

"Recognize it?" Ryan asked J.B.

"No. Once we get ashore I'll use the sextant to get a bearing. Deacon knows this coast and figured we were close to the redoubt. Fortress was what he called it. Got to be same place."

"Take it slow and easy," Krysty warned. "Lots of stuff just below the surface."

The narrowing channel twined between the fragments of the old reef. Ryan remembered now the state of the redoubt, with its sunken corridors and tidal damage from the old nukings — and wondered how easy they'd find it to get back inside and reach the gateway.

The final few yards to the shingle were between jaws of rocks less than a dozen feet across. Beyond them was a last stretch of water where tiny waves tumbled ceaselessly, one upon another, whispering to the smooth pebbles. Under the keel, Ryan could see through clearer water, to the bottom, perhaps twenty feet below. Even as he glanced over the side of the boat he saw the sinuous form of one of the lethal whale-sharks, white-bellied, move past them, teeth bared in its eternal smile.

"Put the oars in," he ordered. "Too narrow. Sea'll carry us in from here."

They floated in, silently, all of them staring up at the lowering cliffs, their shining flanks streaked with bright splashes of emerald moss. The last remnants of the mist still clung to the rock walls, like ghostly webs.

"Let me come in the bow," Ryan said, changing places with Krysty. He held his automatic rifle in his right hand. As he moved, his boots slipped on the long whaling spears that were tucked in near the bow, their hafts ready for the hand of the harpooneer. For a moment his mind flicked back to Donfil, and he thought how he'd miss the tall Apache.

As he'd missed so many good companions over the years.

"Hurry up, boat," Lori said crossly, shuffling on her seat.

Gradually, riding three feet forward and then two back, the boat came in closer. The rocks loomed on both sides of them, seamed with narrow caves and shadowed inlets. But their attention was on the beach, where the keel eventually grounded.

Ryan stood, ready to leap onto the shingle to haul them up higher when the familiar rasping voice froze him in place.

"Not a blink of an eye, cully, or it's fins over for everyone."

"Blasters at your feet. Slow, slow and very slow."

Ryan lowered the Heckler & Koch, putting it on the thwart of the boat, seeing from the corner of his eye that the others were doing the same. Only Jak, in the stern, wasn't moving. The boy's mouth was set in a tight, etched line, and his fingers moved toward the butt of his Magnum.

"Snow-hair's about to meet his Maker," Pyra Quadde cackled. "Does he bleed white as a mutie or red as the roses?"

"Let it alone, Jak," Ryan snapped. "She'll chill you! Put the blaster down."

Reluctantly the boy did as he was told.

Moving like a scout through a trembler mine field, Ryan turned to face the woman, knowing that life and death were now a breath apart for all of them in the whaleboat.

She stood in the bow of the dory. He guessed that she must have heard their approach and chosen the tiny cove to hide. The boat was pulled in so that it could only be seen when one was past it. She wore the long dress, with seaboots beneath it, and the Spanish pistol was held steady in her hand. She was smiling.

Just behind her and a little to the side was Cyrus Ogg, holding his own blaster aimed at the six friends. They were only about twenty feet apart.

"Well, now, here's a thing, isn't it, Mr. Ogg?" Pyra Quadde sneered.

"Indeed, ma'am, here's a thing, indeed. As thou sayest, Captain Quadde, here's a thing indeed," he agreed.

"Rowing all this blighted way through fog and sharks to meet up again like the best of friends, wouldn't thou say, Mr. Ogg?"

"I would say that, ma'am. Indeed, I would surely say that."

"Now, easy to pick off as stabbing a legless roach in a tin basin, Mr. Ogg?"

"Even easier, Captain. Even easier than that, I'd say."

Ryan had rarely seen two people looking so smugly pleased with themselves.

Something moved near the edge of the rocks, darting toward the water with a fast, skittering gait. It caught everyone's eye, but neither Pyra Quadde nor Cyrus Ogg relaxed their vigilance, or let the muzzles of their blasters wander away from the whaleboat.

Ryan watched the creature, which looked like a cross between a small rabbit and a large rat, but with a skin that glistened in the dawning as if it were covered in scales. It ignored the two dories and paddled across the cove, quickly reaching deeper water. It passed only a few feet in front of Ryan, head held back, little eyes twinkling like polished buttons, whiskers perkily aloft, paws twitching up spray. Its teeth were bared with the effort of its exertions.

There was a swirl and a flash of dull white sandpaper skin, and teeth, row upon serrated row, as the shark rolled belly-up in its attack. The little animal vanished, and the water cleared once more. It was as though nothing had happened.

One single bubble of dark maroon blood came plopping to the surface and burst, the color spreading and dissipating.

"Not a good place for swimming, Mr. Ogg."

"Not a good place at all, Captain."

"Fucking get on!" Jak shouted.

"Language, laddie!" the woman reproved. "Mebbe thou should wash out thy mouth with good salt water. Ample under thy feet, cully."

"It's only me, you sick bitch! Let the others go."

"That an order to the captain, Outlander Deadman?" Ogg grinned at Ryan. "Well named, art thou not? Deadman. Outlander Deadman."

Ryan was trying to work out the odds. There wasn't much doubt that the first volley from the mate and the woman would put at least two and probably three of them over the side. And that meant death with the sharks cruising by, jaws gaping. One of the friends might snatch up a blaster and chill them both, but all the pointers were for a lot of dying.

A triangular fin broke the water near their boat, causing a wave to rock them from side to side.

Another appeared in the entrance from the open sea, and then a third. At a guess Ryan figured there were now at least a half dozen of the mutie monsters in the constricted waters of the narrow cove.

Their ceaseless swirling was raising a swell, water lapping at the jagged walls of the mollusk-covered rocks.

Ryan's boat, grounded in the shingle, only moved a little from the waves. The blasters rattled and jostled in the bottom. Near Ryan's hand, where he steadied himself on the thwart, was the shaft of one of the long killing harpoons, its curved end glittering in the dawn.

"Bastard belly-rippers," Pyra Quadde said. "Canst thou not make 'em hold still or go out into the open Lantic, Mr. Ogg?"

"Do better," he said, firing three spaced rounds at the nearest shark.

The weaving killer that Ogg had fired at disappeared for several seconds. Allowing for the deflection effect of the clear water, it wasn't likely that the first mate had harmed it.