Aseb

Chapter 13 of Microcosmia

Microcosmia

Chapter Thirteen

Aseb

The night was uncomfortably warm; even the slight breeze created by the ship’s motion was a blessed relief. The little wedge of rowboat became a chip, became a spot, became a speck surrounded by converging outboards. While Mudhead barked Vane’s instructions over the major’s megaphone, lights on board were extinguished one by one, leaving only a wry yellow slat from the wheelhouse. All forty-eight captured soldiers were spaced against the rail on their rears, hands clasping ankles. Each of Vane’s men sat facing three prisoners apiece, a confiscated rifle across his knees.

The lights on the water dispersed, then slowly reformed as an arrowhead. The white tip of this arrowhead ate into Scheherazade’s wake, creating the impression of a lace-embroidered black fan with a dozen silvery ribs. The sirens grew fainter and fainter still, until there was only the rumble of the screws and the silence of immensity.

Mudhead drifted out of the wheelhouse, his face passing from deepest black to imperceptible as he moved beyond that one slice of light. The white teeth showed dully. “Twelve knot.”

Vane shook his head. “Tell him faster. It’s going on two hundred miles to Djibouti. My math isn’t so hot, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see we won’t be outrunning anybody. And pretty soon the big guns’ll be showing up.” Almost before the words were out of his mouth a pair of lights appeared in the blackness above Port Massawa.

“Those’ll be choppers!” Vane called. He drew the minaret-spyglass to his eye and pulled it open. “Despite what Franco said about ‘intelligent weapons,’ there can’t be anything modern around here on short order.” Squinting into the eyepiece, he noted the positioning of body lights and placement of rotors, then checked and double-checked his sightings against the Russian manual under Mudhead’s flashlight.

“Apaches! Good old American Apaches! Viet Nam vintage. Black market purchases. Got to be; America wouldn’t be selling to Eritrea. We’ve still got strong ties with Ethiopia and Djibouti.” He browsed the diagram with a forefinger, muttering along while Mudhead deciphered the Arabic, “They’ll be armed: four rockets apiece, thirty-millimeter turrets.” Vane raised his spyglass again. “There’s only those two showing. Tell What’s-His-Face to kill the engines. I want him sending a distress call.” He paced neurotically, braked mid-stride, threw his arms in the air. “I’ve got it! Damn, I’m good! Here’s his message: the captured soldiers, in an attempt to take back the ship, have disabled all engines. Their guys and ours are engaged in close combat below. The ship’s on fire and in danger of going down. At last report our guys were all cornered amidships--how on Earth do I do it? Now listen, Mudhead, you’ve got to rehearse with him. Go over the message, go over and over and over it--until he gets it straight! But whatever you do, don’t let him make the call until I give you the word.”

Mudhead’s eyes rolled in the dark. Vane saw him raise and flick his hand--more a tossing of forehead-sweat than a proper salute--before wearily making his way into the wheelhouse. Half a minute later the screws locked.

He returned to find Vane perilously giving directions by sign language; he’d reduced the guard by half, and the dismissed men were staring back fiercely, not certain which way to point their rifles. “Order them,” he said, smiling unpleasantly, “to pick their four fastest.” Mudhead did so.

There was much arguing, much shoving, much slapping of faces. Finally four were pushed out of the group; three youngsters and a lean old man.

Vane placed his hands on his hips. “I want these four to go through this ship, grabbing anything expendable that’ll burn. That means packaging, pallets, and crates--tell them to stuff it all in these pipes and to send it to blazes with flares.” He paced impatiently while Mudhead translated.

The selected four exchanged looks. Without a word, they sprinted noiselessly through the piles and drifts. Vane halted imperiously and rocked on his toes. “Ask the rest of these idiots if they can handle stingers.” At Mudhead’s translation their heads snapped up. The eyes burned with eagerness.

Vane led his crew to the stocked lifeboat, a battered old forty-footer now suspended against the rail by winch cables. The men rooted through the piles like naughty children, each emerging with a stinger and an assortment of handguns. Vane’s smile was strained. He swung his flashlight across the shining faces, saw the eyes glinting redly in the passing beam. “Tell them to put the extra weapons down. I don’t want any nonsense. No cowboys.”

Mudhead translated with exaggerated deference. A gnarly old man cut him off. The entire group rose. Mudhead muttered from the corner of his mouth, “Massawaman want rest pay now. Not like outlook.”

Vane’s whole face contorted. “I knew it! A pirate is a pirate to the quick. Say no and mean it. The deal was half up front and half when this is over. It’s a long way from over.”

A handgun was cocked.

Vane smiled broadly, and spoke through his teeth. “Okey-dokey. Pay the scurvy Third-world b******s. But first tell them we’ll need to divvy it up in private.”

In an alley created by a splintered cabin wall and leaning crates, Vane flicked on his flashlight, doffed Mudhead’s cap for him, and removed a flattened stack of bills. Once he’d switched off the light they grew aware of a low red glow; the runners were lighting scrap doused with diesel fuel. He thumbed off a wad. “Go hit our touchy little skipper and the runners.”

Vane settled with his men, grabbed a rifle with infrared scope, and found a box of shells on the lifeboat’s floor. He led them around the deck, seeking access to the ship’s highest level. Stairways and ladders were backed to the roof with miscellaneous cargo, all tied down with cables, ropes, rags, and bungee cords. The men leaped heap to heap in the jerking beam of Vane’s flashlight.

The islands’ roofs were vast badlands of split and leaning cargo. Vane stood looking over the dark dreamy sea. The wide fan of following lights appeared motionless. The helicopters were still a long way off. The night was brilliant with stars, the sea air running cool and lean beneath the night’s heaving heat. Just to port, a dirty dark cloud was leaving a low puffy tail. Vane turned to his men with his heart in his throat, his magnificent silk robes billowing. He pounded his flare gun against his chest and shook his head dramatically, indicating that no one was to fire unless he gave the signal. This order was not well-received. Several figures pointed their weapons straight at his fat turbaned head. One squatting shape hawked and spat right between the rich boy’s authentic knee-high goatskin moccasins. They turned and filtered into places of concealment like cockroaches. Vane trembled all the way down to the deck, but by the time he’d reached the wheelhouse he was back in command.

“Mr. Mudahid, we’re dealing with a bunch of damned Barbary dickheads! Order their little poster boy to make that call.”

Now smoke was pouring to port, in long black plumes. Cherry sparks flashed in lazy arcs, occasional prominences lit up heaving piles of trash. Mudhead rejoined Vane at the rail. They stood side by side, watching the Apaches slowly close the gap. In the darkness the men were reverse images; the African a headless ghost of white robes, cap, and sardonic suspended eyes, the American a floating pasty white face propped and cropped by black silk. Mudhead gave Vane the scoop:

The helm’s distress call, through argument, displays of incompetence, and panicky outbursts, was gradually taking effect. Scheherazade’s pursuers were now half-convinced the pilot was entirely incapable of handling the crisis, and interested solely in rescue. This was excellent news. Vane leaned against a wheelhouse doorjamb and peered in, nodding gratefully while rubbing together his thumb and adjacent fingers in the universal gesture for money. The bearded steersman returned the nod and continued transmitting, but his patter seemed directed more toward invective than entreaty. At length a calm, familiar voice could be heard, carefully iterating “Va’en” at the middle and end of the transmission. Vane, leaning inside, pointed at his own head with one hand and made the throat-slitting gesture with the other, indicating he wished to be reported dead. The pilot nodded and smiled, his eyes gleaming with sweet anticipation. He went on muttering into the transmitter.

Vane walked Mudhead to the rail. “So what do you think?”

“Wait time.” Mudhead looked Vane dead-on. After a minute he appended in a whisper, “Mudahid counsel patience,” and stared out to sea. “Walk soft.”

Vane winked cannily. “But with a big stick.”

The ivory eyes rolled back, annoyed. “No stick! Walk soft.”

Vane lasted all of thirty seconds. “Wait, hell! This is taking forever. I’m gonna go check on my property. If you see any movement up there, just sing out and I’ll come running.” He stared into the darkness for a space, then gently pried off his turban and handed it over. “Watch Sophie for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I don’t trust these guys or anything.”

He picked his way around the deck cautiously, expecting the worst--knowing the worst. But he wasn’t about to surrender to the obvious that easily; he had to sift through vibes and vestiges, had to see for himself. A pile of molding flour, peppered with rotten apples, onions, and pears, removed all but the most stubborn remnants of his denial. Little or no care had gone into basic preservation. Perishables were scattered about in heaps and clumps, piled in crevices amid strange hulking machinery, or stuffed unprotected between perilously stacked boxes. Individual items had been left to roll around the deck, eventually catching on greasy parts and broken parcels. And in one cul-de-sac, at the end of a haphazard passageway created by opposing cliffs of teetering crates, Vane noticed a particularly nauseating odor. His anger escalated as he approached, his curiosity overtaken, step by step, by a single black realization: Franco had simply stored; he’d just dumped--the son of a b***h hadn’t even used refrigeration! In a blind rage Vane began smashing at a greasy wooden panel with his jile. The stench intensified. With tears in his eyes he went berserk on the panel, at last hacking out a football-sized hole that spewed forth a stinking swarm of flies. He dropped his jile and threw his hands over his face, retching, even as the whole section of floor gave way and sent him plunging into pitch.

It was a short fall, only two or three feet. All he knew was that he was on his back, half-buried in putrefied meat, flies buzzing around his waving arms, flying into his mouth, crawling over his face. Frantic, he struggled to sit upright, pushing with his elbows and heels, yelling and coughing while he slipped and slid. Vane squirmed onto his hands and knees, alternately plopping his hands in and out of the slime as he fought to keep his balance while reflexively backing away. His skin was crawling, and not only with horror--every inch of exposed flesh was covered with maggots! Vane screamed hysterically, swatting his face and body. But he only buried himself deeper. His little panting screams became one continuous shriek that didn’t end until a pair of black hands, popping down through the jagged aperture like God Almighty, slipped under his arms and hauled him out into the sweet night air. Mudhead couldn’t contain him; Vane was freaking out of his mind, rolling side to side like a man on fire, slapping himself silly. At last he jumped to his feet and ran. If he hadn’t been suddenly tackled from the side and rear, he would certainly have leaped the rail into the cleansing sea fifty feet below. The little helmsman, snapping in Arabic, tossed a bucket’s worth of gasoline on him, immediately followed by a bucket of fresh water from Mudhead. Then water was hitting him from all sides. Vane lurched to his feet. Coughing and sputtering, he staggered to the rail, dropped to his knees, and puked his guts out. He hung there for the longest while, his hair and robes drying in the breeze. Finally a snootful of acrid smoke snapped back his head. He raised himself by the elbows.

“Wait time over, Bossman.” Vane felt his turban set squarely on his head. When he reached his feet Mudhead handed him the jile and bowed. “Big stick.”

He looked himself up and down. There wasn’t a trace of fumes or vermin. “Gas?” he coughed. “On silk?”

Mudhead fingered the material. “No problem, Bossman. Plenty water, plenty fast.”

Vane sagged against the rail until he was roused by his twitching nose. Black smoke had all but obscured the port horizon. He ordered Mudhead to have the captain kill the radio. “I just want those damned helicopters off our tail, man! This has to be a rescue job, not a military operation!” Inspiration hit him. “What are the odds of getting one of these soldiers to transmit that the situation’s under control? Maybe some of our boys would temporarily donate a few bills to persuade him.” He licked his lips. “I’m plumb out of cash.”

“Odd zero both way.”

“So you’re saying Eritrean commanders aren’t particularly fond of renegade soldiers?”

Mudhead’s expression was fixed. “Wrong, Bossman.” He carefully placed his hurt hand’s thumb on the rail and used his other hand to mimic the turning of a thumbscrew. “Officer like bad soldier very much.” He looked up meaningfully. “Officer crazy about Americaman.”

The sky lights shifted.

“Okay,” said Vane. “Show time. Tell those boys to stoke the flames with whatever they can get their hands on. I want way more smoke in the air.” Mudhead loped off. Vane scraped about until he found a piece of plywood large enough to lean against the wheelhouse doorway, cutting the escape of light to a sliver. He knelt at the rail and peered through his rifle’s night scope. The thing was beautiful: when focused away from the helicopter’s running lights, he could make out details of the lead Apache’s undercarriage while it was still over half a mile distant.

The helicopters initiated their searchlights, and the dead wedge of outboards shot to life. Just like that, the copters were right on top of Scheherazade, splitting wide, passing to either side--one a hundred feet overhead, the other low on the water, trying to penetrate the heaving black smoke with their beacons.

Vane kept the high bird in his glass as it hovered overhead and slightly to starboard, while trying to keep his other eye on the low copter’s back. It was impossible to hold a bead long enough for a clean hit, but there was one crazy moment when the pilot’s goggles and helmet were right in the palm of his hand. The low copter’s second circuit drew a concussion and tracer from the roof. Immediately the overhead chopper laid its turret into the spot, ripping a trail across the heaped cargo and taking out one whole side of a cabin. There were screams amidst the billowing debris, followed by a shot from a second stinger that took out the low Apache’s tail rotor and sent the copter spinning into the water. The other chopper, veering hard, was promptly blown out of the sky by a furious volley.

A chorus of cheers was quickly drowned by a hail of machine gun fire off the water. The ship’s screws bit into the sea. Vane, crouching behind a mound of salt water-hardened Portland cement, took careful aim at a hunched soldier wrestling a hurtling outboard’s wheel. He’d never fired a weapon in his life, and for thirty seconds was stone-paralyzed as he watched that intense black face bumping in and out of his sight. Vane caught his breath and squeezed the trigger. He needn’t have worried; he was a lousy shot. The soldier didn’t even blink.

A snap-and-squeal was repeated twice. In horrifying slow motion, one of the heated pipes swung out over the side and began rocking with the ship, the rhythmic scream of metal on metal growing more pronounced as the arc widened. A zipper-like roll of snapping cables, and the pipe went straight down, followed by seven others. They hit the sea like bombs. As the ship lurched side-to-side, the loose pipes on deck smashed into cabins, rolled back, and took out the guardrail. Four more went over, sending up great resounding founts that capsized three outboards. The rest of the boats came on with a vengeance, veering wide, racing and weaving, their occupants shooting all they had. But Scheherazade was impervious to small fire, and her pursuers fell back into the old pattern one by one.

Eventually an amplified voice commenced hailing the ship in Arabic. Vane carefully studied a flag-bearing inboard at the arrowhead’s tip. The speaker’s face was hidden behind a bullhorn. Ignoring the monotonous calls, Vane urged Mudhead to get more knots out of the helm. Sooner or later reinforcements would arrive. And this time they’d be coming to take the ship out.

Yet the passing hours brought no sign of Vane’s predicted lion. The boats maintained their flotilla-like aspect while that patient voice droned on and on, gradually driving everybody crazy. Now and then a bored pirate took a potshot with a stinger, but the man with the horn never missed a beat.

By three a.m. Scheherazade had passed over a hundred miles of coastline without a sign of retaliation by air or sea. Other than the occasional wink of a lighthouse, the world was black; other than that damnable droning voice, the night breathtakingly still. The outboards stuck behind the big ship with their lights killed, never once breaking formation.

But when the false dawn made a ghost of the Saudi peninsula, with Djibouti less than sixty miles away, the little flotilla came alive. The outboards circled furiously, taking shots at anything moving. Vane ordered his men to remain in the shadows, so as to frustrate the pestiferous pursuers with a formidable show of indifference. And in time the boats fell back. Mudhead translated as the lifeless monologue resumed: Scheherazade’s situation was hopeless. Eritrean law was merciful. “Wrong both count,” he concluded.

Yemen’s coast grew more distinct in the east. Not far ahead to starboard, the port of Aseb was winking in a red stream of sunlight. They were nearly out of hostile waters; Aseb’s military base was now the sole hurdle between Vane’s wares and Djibouti. He searched the coast for the inevitable jets until his scope eye was burning and bleary. But all Aseb produced was a battered gray PT boat, popping into sight long after they’d passed the base. When it finally drew near, the smaller boats ignored the cargo ship and gathered round like whelps.

Vane stared and stared through his spyglass. “Damn it! They’re priming the mounted machine guns. There’s crates of ammunition up the yin-yang. My guess is they plan on just shooting the deck to pieces.” He saw an officer on the patrol boat accept the bullhorn from the previous handler. The message that came across the water was all Greek to Vane, but it raised a chant of defiance from Scheherazade’s mangled roof. The next thing he knew, the patrol boat had kicked and was tearing their way.

Bullets shredded the deck and cabin walls, zinged into space, ricocheted off the steel pipes. The lifeboat, bursting into flames as its onboard ammunition detonated, hung burning for a few seconds before shrieking down the side. The ceaseless barrage minced every pirate on the roof’s edge and fifteen feet beyond. Vane and Mudhead were completely buried by an avalanche of debris. Above the lustily revving patrol boat, the Arabic voice calmly repeated its commands.

Vane dug himself free. “Get ’em up!” He threw his arms wildly. “Get ’em up!”

The closest defenders looked his way and nodded. Each man banged his rifle’s butt on the deck to get attention down the line. The pirates one by one prodded their prisoners, whispering nastily. The Eritreans got to their feet nervously and stood facing the water, hands clasped behind their necks. Thus shielded, Vane’s men rose at their backs, kicking their captives’ legs wide apart.

It was nearly full daylight now; bright enough to catch the expressions of the pursuers as they stared up in wonder. For the longest time no one made a move. Then the little torpedo boat, no more than a hundred yards to port, rocked back and forth, champing at the bit. The rush was on. With complete disregard for their countrymen, the gunners opened up on the deck. The captured soldiers went straight down. But when the storm of bullets had passed they lurched to their feet, wailed to Allah in unison, and leaped into space. Vane could hear their breaking ankles smack the water far below.

A single outboard pulled forward cautiously while the PT moved back. The receding amplified message seemed directed at the ship in general, and from the tone Vane had to assume it was a truce call for the sake of rescuing the dozens of soldiers flailing below. He dug about until he found a dirty towel to wave overhead as a white flag. The remaining men on the roof, watching curiously, scooted back out of sight. Vane turned to face the approaching enemy and waved both arms generously, his black silk robes billowing and retracting like the animated cartoon wings of a crime-fighting crusader. The outboard motored right up to Schererazade’s hull. Vane, leaning clean over the rail, did his awkward best to direct the rescuers to bobbing and drowning bodies. When the outboard was stuffed he clutched the mangled rail with relief, blessed the Fates, and waved the little boat away to safety. A moment later it had been pulverized by a quartet of stingers. Vane staggered from the rail in horror, sickened by the spray of blood and debris. He turned to the roof, waving his arms side to side, shaking his head frantically. The next thing he knew bullets were zipping all around him. He scrambled between heaps and listened to the laughter on the roof.

Now the amplified voice was in butchered English. It was obvious the speaker was repeating, word for word, what came over his radio’s receiver.

“Krees-chun Vah-een! Krees-chun Vah-een! Puhleez turneenk auf engeenz now. No moer warneenkz. No moer…no moer--” There was one fragment of a clipped exchange. “No moer…gam-eez! Teez American Pee Tee bot eez ar-med weet tree torPeedoz weet woerhedz kapapa…kapaboo…kapa…bull! auv seenkeenk yoer vessehull. Yoo well hav gain-eed nahteenk. Yoo well hav loss-ed evrateenk!” A short snarl of Arabic, and the voice came back, “An puhleez lit me upAllahjiz foer teez eegnuh-runt harf-weetuhd babbaboohun hoo eez speekeenk foer me now. Heez stoopeeduhtee eez troolee minah boggleenk.”

Not needing a translation, Gold Eye got right up in Mudhead’s face. At last Mudhead nodded dispassionately and turned. “Massawaman say torpedo plenty serious business. Say Bossman best make deal fast.”

Vane, wracked by all the death and indifference, cried, “Or what? We’ll have us a good old-fashioned mutiny?”

Caught in the middle, the African slowly raised his hands above his head. “Mudahid only messageman.”

“Then give him a frigging message! Tell him he can change sides any time he wants. The idiot’s useless now anyway.” He stormed into the wheelhouse and began wrestling with the radio, still refusing to believe he’d lost all control. The little pilot glared, slammed the ON lever into play, and smacked the ignorant American’s hand back and forth while indicating switches.

Vane hardly noticed him. “Um…” he said into the phone. “Um, Mayday, man. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Or…is that only aeronautical?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and forced himself to speak slowly and coherently. “This ship is under attack and I need to know what to do. I am an American. I am not supposed to be at war with anybody. A whole lot of people just died who didn’t really have to. If someone else in this part of the world speaks solid English, please let me know. I am maybe half an hour out of Djibouti, in Eritrean waters. A number of motorboats have been dogging us all the way from Massawa, plus there’s this PT out of Aseb.” Vane shook the phone in frustration. Nothing but dead air. “They…are…threatening this ship!” He hammered the phone on the console. “Is anybody picking up on this? Talk to me, man. We’re a cargo vessel, with no real means of defense. Now look, I’m gonna need some kind of super-relevant advice here. Okay? The guy at the wheel is a total cartoon. Hello, Djibouti! Hello, Djibouti! I need an English-speaking operator.” He punched knobs and switches until the little captain jumped all over him in Arabic. Vane shoved him back with a forearm. “Is this on?” he screamed. “Do you have the slightest freaking idea what I’m trying to do here, creep? We’re going down. Distress call. Djibouti. Not far little country no bad soldier.” He tried broad hand gestures. “You free in Djibouti. Free! No more be nasty little pirate. Big bonus from shouting American. Oh…please. Would you just help me with the goddamned distress call!”

The helmsman reached up and slapped Vane flat across the face. He then repeatedly stabbed his finger at a blinking red light on the console. For a moment Vane was stupefied. When the crimson veil lifted, he found himself staring down insanely at that filthy little gnome. Unaware of his actions, he grabbed his spyglass and raised his arm to strike.

The captain didn’t flinch. With his eyes welded to Vane’s, he slipped a hand under his robes, extracted a Walther P-38, and placed the tip of the pistol’s barrel squarely on the tip of the American’s pink peeling nose.

“I paid for that,” Vane gasped. “It’s mine. Now you just put it down or give it back.”

The man literally steered Vane by the nose, marched him backward through the doorway and out onto deck. His black eyes blazing in the morning sun, he used the gun’s barrel to forcefully thrust Vane onto his rear. Staring down venomously, he propped the plywood sheet against the jambs and hopped back inside.

“Vah-een!” came the exasperated voice. Vane, scrambling to his feet, was knocked right back down as the captain threw all engines into the red.

“Vah…een!”

Vane raised his spyglass, saw a rail-thin Algerian officer staring back through binoculars. The man was having a tough time keeping his balance. At last he set down the bullhorn and pointed his left arm toward Yemen. Vane followed the arm with his glass until he came upon a blurry white blister. He adjusted focus.

The object was a bound cluster of disabled boats. He swung back, saw the PT kick, and clearly made out the turmoil of launch. Vane followed the torpedo’s telltale wake of air bubbles for a ways, then returned to the drifting white blister. Suddenly his spyglass became a kaleidoscope. He had to back off on the focus to make out the descending plume of water and debris. The blister had been excised. He swung the glass back to the officer, who was watching him with two fingers held high, indicating two torpedoes remaining.

“Totally unnecessary,” Vane called across the water. “I think we’ve got the picture.” He ran a hand back and forth under his turban as he paced. “I wish we had something to intercept torpedoes. Then those guys would wimp out and we’d be home free.” He drew his jile and stabbed a few crates. “Any one of those steel pipes, dumped over the side at the right time, could absorb a warhead…but Jesus, man, that would just turn the pipe into a battering ram!”

“Vah-een!”

He waved an arm for silence. “Or would the torpedo home on the greater mass of the ship? Are they triggered magnetically or on impact?”

“Vah-een!”

Vane glared in the direction of the voice. He didn’t need his spyglass to get the picture. The PT kicked, flashing her sleek belly as the long gray tube leaped from its rack. It was amazing how time actually seemed to halt. Every man on deck froze in every particular but one, mesmerized by the arrow on its silent underwater flight. Son of a gun, Vane’s mind chattered, it’s radio-controlled. No! It’s attracted by the motion of the screws! The gray streak disappeared.

And all aboard were flat on their backs, listening to the concussion singing through the hull while the ship pitched like a rocking horse. A geyser showed to stern and vanished.

Vane shook Mudhead off. “See if we’re taking on water!” He ran into the wheelhouse, where he found himself looking straight down the Walther’s barrel. “Peace,” he tried. “Allah be Akbar.” Vane turned nonchalantly. The console showed three propellers out of operation, leaving a single screw to limp Scheherazade along.

The little pilot, after expectorating a particularly jangling mouthful of Arabic, aimed the Walther at the ceiling and fired twice. The pair of concussions was much louder than Vane had expected. Cannon fire. He pushed out his palms instinctively and very slowly raised his hands. The captain raved and reiterated, jabbed the gun at Vane’s belly and face, threw back his head and howled. He shook the radio’s phone menacingly, then thrust it and the pistol in Vane’s face.

“I already called!” Vane shouted, tears in his eyes. He gradually lowered his arms until he could indicate the captain with one hand and the phone with the other. “You call. Me no speak Arab. You talk Djibouti. Say S.O.S. You comprende S.O.S.?” He drew the letters in the air with his nose. “Ess. Oh! Ess!”

The captain veered the pistol a hair and fired, nearly taking off Vane’s head. Vane went down, rolled, and kept right on rolling; across the cabin’s floor, through the doorway, and out onto deck. He came up running for his life, quickly disappearing behind a dung-capped mountain of bleached flour. His right ear was ringing wildly, but the other picked up a scuttling to his left. In that ear he heard Mudhead yell, “Hull okay, Bossman! Propeller history.”

“Vah-een!”

Spitting out every four-letter word he could think of, Vane fumbled his spyglass from his robes and stared long and hard. The grinning officer was standing rock-steady, watching right back.

“Enough!” Vane cried, and motioned Mudhead into a huddle. The African, after listening incredulously for a few seconds, stalked off and returned with the night-scoped rifle. Without taking his eye off the officer, Vane laid the barrel on the rail and pointed it straight at the final torpedo’s head. The skinny officer’s grin collapsed. He spoke rapidly and, still watching, handed the bullhorn to one of his men in exchange for what looked like a Mauser. Squaring himself, he aimed right at the hot blue sapphire in the fat black turban.

“Jesus!” Vane swore. He very carefully waved the barrel to the side a few times, motioning the officer away from the torpedo. Keeping his weapon trained, the man just as carefully shook his head. Now the sweat was trickling out from under Vane’s turban. In a dream, he dropped the spyglass and transferred his vision to the scope. There was some unseen puppeteer in charge of his actions, causing him to very slowly, very gently arc his rifle upward until his sights were fixed precisely between the binoculars’ absolutely motionless lenses.

Not until the actual sound arrived did Vane realize a bullet had just ripped into his upper left chest. He was amazed to find himself lolling on his back in Mudhead’s arms, in shock, watching his black robes run red. In no time he was growing cold. His consciousness began to drift. He rolled his head until he was looking back into Mudhead’s eyes. “Glass,” he dribbled. Mudhead, in an otherwise unthinkable act of compassion, tore off his snow-white tarboosh and pressed it against his master’s wound. His other hand found the spyglass and held it to Vane’s right eye.

The officer was still grinning. Without pulling away his binoculars, he took a step to his left to tenderly pat the final torpedo, itching in its rack. When he raised the hand he was showing only the forefinger, indicating this was the one. With the last of his strength, Vane raised his right hand in response, exhibiting an erect middle finger. The officer threw down his binoculars.

Vane’s arm dropped like a stone, but he never felt it hit the deck. He was already so far gone he’d become detached, and had begun watching the world as a cinematic event. Colors were sharply defined. All action was taking place in slow motion. And nothing, but nothing, made a lick of rational sense. For instance, the Red Sea shouldn’t be parting: that hallucination was straight out of DeMille. Also, the little PT boat, in complete control of the situation, shouldn’t be rearing and turning about, and the fan of outboards shouldn’t be breaking formation to hightail it back to Aseb. That dramatic and gratifying image would be the final tease of a dying man’s ego. And, sure as shooting, a huge gray whale shouldn’t be surfacing midway between Scheherazade and her fading pursuers. That was pure Disney. The whole scene seemed flaky, and kind of funny to Vane, but it also struck him as totally nick-of-time cool. In his gathering delirium he actually hallucinated the surfacing gray whale magically morphing into a surfacing gray submarine. His jaw fell while he watched a billion diamonds cascade off the illusion’s broad smooth hull. None of these events produced sound: it was a silent movie. But there was a synced soundtrack issuing from a speaker just behind him, featuring what sounded like a for-once very human Mudhead, mumbling gratefully in Somali over a broad background of jabbering pirates.

The submarine was the most beautiful thing Vane had ever seen; both deadly and protective, her impenetrable armor and subtle contours suggestive of an elegant, wonderfully composed sea serpent. While he watched, hypnotized, wavy crimson tracers began arcing around her, spiking and sinking rhythmically with his pulse, narrowing at the middle, showering at the peak. The outline of this strange disturbance became humanlike, and then quite feminine; its flanks now extending, now bending to fold about him in a cosmic embrace. A pair of bright level eyes grew amid the electric tresses, and beneath these a wide pouting mouth. It was the saddest mouth Vane had ever imagined. The eyes were only for him.

He was paralyzed by all that beauty; couldn’t lift a finger or wiggle a toe, couldn’t feel Mudhead holding him up or hear him speaking in his ear. Vane knew it was fundamentally wrong to meet his mother like this, at the close of his life; it was cruel and unfair--as cruel and unfair as the icy numbness weighing his limbs, as wrong and as alien as the very un-California sea. And then, as the horizon was swept up in a great fireball of pomegranate-colored light, he realized the world was anything but cruel. Only a benign nature would produce something so lovely.