01 Island in the Sea of Time by S. M. Stirling

Author:S. M. Stirling [Stirling, S. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780451456755
Publisher: Roc
Published: 1998-02-28T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

October, Year 1 A.E.

The natives are restless," Alston said, listening to the drums as they echoed under the sound of the engines. Beside her Swindapa nodded gravely. Lieutenant Hendriksson cast a quick uncertain glance her way, then smiled wryly. Somebody farther back in the boat snickered.

Good for morale, Alston thought. Let her people see that the skipper wasn't oppressed by the alien weirdness of the surroundings. Much, she added to herself in blunt honesty. Besides, it had come to her spontaneously.

The boats from the Eagle were advanced up the twisting river in a broad wedge, with the motor launches to the fore acting as scouts. Behind them came the twoscore big inflatable lifeboats; their powerful outboard engines let some of them tow long whaleboats brought along for this voyage. On either side the jungle reared, a medley of greens and great gaudy slashes of flowers, flights of birds like living jewels with their long tails dangling behind them in streaming banners of blue and turquoise, showers of rainbow-hued butterflies. Birdcalls echoed, raucous or sweet. Now and then an alligator, now and then a cluster of tapirs on the bank snorting away in crashing, noisy panic. Once the unmistakable scream of a jaguar. Always the muggy, clinging heat; always the faraway stutter of the drums.

Sweat trickled down into the padding under her armor; a certain percentage were wearing theirs, the others keeping it near to hand, and the sets switching over at two-hour intervals. Practice and sound design meant that they could scramble into it in short order, even in the cramped quarters of the boats. Wearing it courted heat exhaustion, though; and anyone who went overside in forty pounds of steel… well, it was a long wet walk along the bottom to the edge. She blinked at the huge red disk of the sun, sinking ahead of them. Not always directly ahead; the river wound considerably.

What really worries me is how vulnerable these rubber boats are to flung weapons, she thought. And they were laden enough that the outboard engines gave them only a little edge of speed against a well-crewed canoe.

A buzzing came from the radio. "GHU, this is Eagle, over."

"Eagle, the village is just around the next bend in the river," Toffler said. His ultralight was circling at the edge of vision, perhaps a mile and a half ahead. "The sunken hulk is definitely the Bentley. Burned at her moorings, looks like."

"Sure they've cleared out, GHU?"

"Ma'am, they ran like hell. Over."

"Rendezvous there, then. Over and out."

For a moment the craziness of it struck her. An aerial scout, a flotilla of inflated boats of complex synthetics driven by engines, the whole coordinated by radio, and each boat filled with Nintendo-generation warriors in steel armor armed with swords, spears, and crossbows. And the real irony is that this medieval metalwork is almost as far-future compared to the locals as the solid-state electronics in this radio. That reminded her to make yet another mental note to be careful with that equipment.

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