The Islanders (26 page)

He glanced towards the sky: it was clear of clouds, but because of tropical atmospheric haze a pale orange wash from the sun, which was now below the horizon, was faintly visible against the stars. The air was warm, but both Lorna and Bradd had put on lightweight shirts. The breeze was steady.

Lorna continued to watch the patrol launch through the glasses. After a few minutes it began to sail away. The movement was also picked up by the navigation gear in the boat. The launch travelled fast along the coast of Tremm, and soon it was difficult to make out the shape of it against the dark rocky cliffs, even with the night-sight boost. Not long afterwards, Bradd’s onboard navigation equipment made a different sound, signalling that the target the radar had picked up was now out of range.

Bradd continued to sail calmly, then as the darkness on the sea became more or less complete, he swung the wheel and the boat headed directly towards Tremm.

‘Are you still intending to land?’ Lorna said.

‘Not this time. That launch is not the only line of patrol.’

Since Tomak, since his visit in the night, Lorna’s inner determination to find out what was happening on Tremm had dwindled. Tomak had at least succeeded in that. It remained a deep impulse in her to find out where he was and what had happened to him, but it was an impulse she found easier to resist with every day that passed. The hurt he caused had stiffened into a defensive anger, now more or less under control, but that remained harder to put behind her than the sense of loss.

Soon after they left the shelter of the cove Lorna went aft to sit beside Bradd in the tiny cockpit, because of the boat’s movements in the waves. The night was hot, making her feel breathless. She leaned back against the coaming, feeling the wind in her hair and the occasional splash of droplets – both cooled her deliciously, while the mild plunging and yawing of the yacht gave her an inner feeling of physical suspense. Her muscles were constantly tensed against the rocking. In spite of her earlier reservations she was succumbing to the sensual nature of this venture. Bradd was close beside her, often pressing up against her as he manoeuvred the boat. She was tingling with awareness of his body, and whereas only two or three weeks earlier she would never have admitted to herself any such response, she was relishing the feeling that somehow she was yielding to him, giving herself up. But it was free of persuasion and without conscious decision.

Here she was, here he was. She could smell the dried salt on his strong forearms.

The lights of Meequa Town had been in view for some time, but as a pale blur against the darkness of the inland hills. Tremm was much closer to them and the immense size of the central range made a dark block against the stars. There were hardly any lights visible on that shore.

‘Something’s moving!’ she suddenly cried as she saw a light sliding low over the sea. It had appeared quickly from behind the bulk of the island. She realized she was tensed against discovery by the patrol boats. Bradd stared across, reaching down into the well of the boat to find the binoculars.

But before he switched them on he said, ‘You know what that is! It’s one of our drones.’

Lorna took the glasses from him but then laid them down. She stood up, balancing herself against the swaying of the boat. The steady, low movement of the aircraft was of course completely familiar, but never before had she been so close to one as it passed across the sea. It traversed their course ahead of the boat, vanishing into the night as the beam from its LED moved away from them.

Soon more drones appeared, heading towards Tremm from all distant directions. The first sight of them was as pinpoints of light, easiest seen when they were grouped together. At first Lorna tried to count them, as she had often done in the past, but was soon unable to keep up. Because of their proximity buffers, the drones always weaved around each other, like strands of wool in an unravelling skein. Before long the first group of them was passing close by their yacht, low and steady over the waves, the multi-coloured LEDs glittering. Lorna was thrilled to see them.

Bradd stood beside her, balancing on the deck over the cabin. The boat was rocking and Lorna held his arm.

He had brought the map of Tremm and now he turned on his torch and held the map so they could both see it.

‘I just took a fix on our position,’ he said. ‘We’re more or less here, still outside Tremm’s waters.’

He indicated the shallow bay on the western side of the island. They were right at the edge of the map. Even though it was dark and much of the island was unlighted, Lorna could pick out the major features – in particular the steep crags of the mountains. The tallest of these, which was the one furthest to the south, was where Yo had carried out many of her test drills. Bradd pointed the torch at that part of the map, where there were the marks of dozens of Yo cavities clustered on the side of the mountain facing towards them.

The first wave of drones passed towards Meequa, some of them flying directly over their boat. Lorna gazed up at them. Their hyaline wings glimmered as they passed beneath the stars. The hush of their motors could barely be detected because of the sounds of the sea. She watched the drones as they wove away from her towards the main island.

‘There are more coming,’ Bradd said, pointing to the south.

Towards the horizon they saw another group of the pinpoints of light, turning in towards Tremm and Meequa. At this distance the lights of the LEDs all looked white, but as they gradually came nearer Lorna was able to see the many different colours. At first they were manoeuvring no differently from the first wave – they all steered around the landmass of Tremm, following the line of the coast, staying low above the waves – but without warning the leading group banked sharply away from the island and began to gain altitude, heading out to sea. Some of them appeared to be flying towards the yacht.

One by one the drones banked again, turning back towards the bulk of Tremm, then circled, continuing to gain altitude. Behind them, the other waves of the drones were beginning the same manoeuvre. For a minute or so the sky above the yacht was a mass of different lights, circling around, gaining height.

Lorna and Bradd stood together on the gently swaying deck, their heads craned back to watch the swarming planes.

At some unexplained signal, every LED on the drones was suddenly extinguished. A transparent darkness soared above them.

Bradd jumped down to the cockpit, retrieved the binoculars and tried to locate the now invisible drones. After a few attempts he passed the glasses across to Lorna, who also tried and failed to see any of the drones.

They could sense the machines were still circling around above them. The warm sea air seemed to hum with the light pressure of their passage.

As her eyes adjusted, Lorna realized she could just pick out a faint disturbance of the starlight, as wings of the drones passed high overhead. She pointed this out to Bradd and they stood together, faces turned skywards, seeing the stars shimmering through the drones’ wings. When Bradd’s hand slipped into hers, Lorna did not resist him.

The first explosion came while they were still trying to spot the drones above them. They heard a low, deep thud, then a rumble, but by the time they had turned towards the source of the sound all that could be seen was the residue of flames and fire-glowing smoke on the upper slope of the most southerly Tremm mountain. While they were still looking, there was a second explosion, and this time they saw the flash before the sound reached them.

‘It must be the drones!’

Another explosion occurred before Lorna could reply. This was lower down the mountainside, almost at sea level.

‘Are they crashing?’ Lorna cried.

‘There’s nothing on board a drone to make it explode like that. It’s just a motor, a guidance system and the scanning equipment.’

But now the explosions were occurring with such frequency that the side of the mountain was half-lit by the flames that had already erupted. Lorna grabbed the binoculars and focused on the mountainside where it was most brightly illuminated. The swaying of the boat, and the fact that she was having to balance, made it almost impossible to keep the glasses trained on any one spot, but she soon found that it was easier with the night-sighting switch turned off.

Bradd took the glasses from her for a minute or so, during which something like twenty more big explosions occurred, then he handed them back to her.

‘Point them close to that high shoulder on the right,’ he said. ‘You can see the drones flying straight into the tunnels!’

Because of the high magnification, and her unsteady hold, Lorna was not able to spot any of the drones in the constantly jerking image. But in the light from the flames she could see that where the drones were crashing in was the area of many of Yo’s tunnels. Lorna repeatedly glimpsed the dark apertures, oddly, precisely shaped: round, square, triangular, asymmetric, tall rectangles, wide rectangles, long ovals.

One bulged with devastating fire as she managed to keep the glasses steady. Something deep within the mountain was exploding or discharging when the drones went in.

The explosions did not continue for long. There was a sudden eruption along the lower flanks of the mountain, like the final flourish of a fireworks display, and then the mountain was quiet once again.

They became aware at the same moment that the navigation gear in the cockpit was emitting a steady warning signal. Bradd turned sharply, looked towards the south.

‘The binoculars . . . quickly!’

She handed them over, flicking on the night-sight as she did so.

‘Climb down to the cockpit, Lorna! That patrol ship is coming for us.’

In the dark it was impossible to see unaided anything on the surface of the sea, but as soon as she scrambled down into the cockpit Lorna saw the radar display. A continuous signal revealed something large approaching them at sea-level, and at high speed. There was no doubt what it was.

Bradd crashed down into the cockpit from the deck, brushing hard against her. He grabbed the wheel, spun it about. The boat responded at once, turning away from Tremm, heading north towards Meequa.

‘We’ll never outrun them,’ Bradd said. ‘But this takes us further away into international waters.’

Lorna took the binoculars into the cabin and placed them somewhere out of sight. She returned to the cockpit.

When she looked back the patrol boat was so close it was possible to see the dark shape of it unaided. It was speeding towards them, throwing up a huge white bow-wave.

‘They’re going to ram us!’ Lorna cried.

‘I hope not!’

They were both shouting. Terrified, Lorna put her arm around Bradd’s waist and held close to him. The patrol boat was on them in a few more seconds, veering away at the last moment, but passing so close that the bow-wave drenched them and flooded into the cockpit. There was no engine noise audible from the launch, just the rushing of the water.

The little yacht yawed and rolled violently in the immense wake of the larger boat, shipping more water. Lorna and Bradd fell away from the wheel, soaked by the deluge of seawater that flooded into the cockpit. Lorna landed face-down and Bradd fell violently on top of her, his uncontrolled weight forcing her face down into the water. After a struggle to regain equilibrium he managed to lever himself away. He helped her back to her feet, while she spluttered and tried to breathe again.

The patrol boat was already turning for a second run at them. All they could do was brace themselves with the cockpit rail and press against the coaming. When the launch passed this time it was even closer than before and it made a sudden turn, whacking their tiny boat with its grey hull just as the bow-wave lifted it. Bradd and Lorna screamed and shouted in terror as the yacht flew upwards, then side-slipped into the sea in a flurry of spray and a rush of incoming seawater. They were both thrown from the cockpit into the sea, floundering in the dark night and the turbulent water. They were thrust under the surface several times by the strength of the wake and the turbulence of the churning water. Lorna, still gasping for breath after being crushed in the cockpit, was terrified she would lose contact with Bradd, or whatever remained of the yacht, but as the rough waters subsided Bradd’s head broke the surface. She swam to him and they held on, trying to reassure each other.

They found the wrecked yacht not far away. It was lying on its side, almost completely submerged but still afloat.

Bradd yelled, ‘So long as I can get on board . . . we’ll be OK. The boat will right itself. Help me round to the keel.’

They swam to the side of the boat where the hull was showing above the surface. Bradd showed Lorna how to hold on to the gunwales, then he clambered over to the submerged cockpit. She waited in the dark, shivering with fright and the shock of being in the sea. After a while she could feel the boat moving as Bradd did something inside. There was a sudden grind of a motor and almost at once Lorna felt the hull sliding down towards the sea, as the vessel tried to right itself. She struggled to pull herself over the gunwales, but her strength was failing.

Bradd appeared, reached down to her, pulled her up. She slithered, half-fell, into the flooded cockpit. They huddled there together while water splashed around them. She felt chilled through, by fear, by the sudden immersion, by suffering the brutal and ruthless actions of whoever had been steering the launch.