Blood Harvest

Doc smiled wryly. “Well, they do not build them like they used to.”

Vava plucked at Ryan’s sleeve and spoke rapidly, first pointing at the church and then pointing out to sea. Ago nodded and appeared to agree with everything she was saying.

Ryan sighed inwardly. “What’s she saying, Doc?”

“I’m not sure. Something about Pai Joao and danger.”

“Pai Gao?” Ryan scratched his chin. “That’s a card game. They got a gambling house in the ville we need to avoid?”

Doc smiled tolerantly. “No, I believe Pai in Portuguese means ‘Father,’ as in Father Joao, a priest. I believe we are being warned against him.”

Ryan stared at the forbidding structure of the church and what appeared to be statues of winged muties standing guard over the eaves. In the Deathlands everything was a survival situation, and most things were negotiable through barter, jack or the threat of violence. But Ryan had seen book pounders with motivated congregations who could convince themselves of anything, and once they made up their minds about right and wrong the only thing that got through their skulls was lead. “We’ll keep an eye out for Father Joao.” Ryan did a little sign language of his own. He pointed at Ago and Vava, pointed at the church and shrugged. Ago and Vava both nodded and pulled out little hand-carved wooden crosses from beneath their tunics. Ryan refrained from rolling his eye. “They’re book pounders, Doc.”

“I believe they are illiterate, but I take your meaning. However, I would point out that they seem to be book pounders who are afraid of their priest,” Doc countered, “and willing to help strangers not of their faith.”

“Yeah, there’s that.” Ryan unslung his longblaster and slowly began to circle the base of the hill. He found a little cottage nestled up against the back of the church. Unlike the villager huts, the cottage was of plank and beam construction with a shingled roof and glass windows. No smoke came from the chimney and the windows were dark. Ryan approached the cottage from the side and peered in one of the windows. It consisted of a single, sparsely furnished room. A cross hung over a simple rope bed in one corner and a small desk, an armoire and the fireplace filled the others. He beckoned, and Doc and the two islanders followed. Ryan rounded the cottage and came to a shed. There was no lock on it and inside were some axes, hatches, shovels, coils of rope, hand tools and several buckets of different size nails.

“Doc, ask them where Father Joao is.”

Doc asked and Ago and Vava pointed toward the sea and the bigger island out in the distance. Doc pondered. “Well, by my reckoning today is Tuesday. If the priest ministers to these people but prefers to live on the main island, and they are on the same calendar as us, and still practicing Catholicism, then he may not be back until Friday for Mass.”

Ryan nodded to himself. With Captain Roque’s boat lost at sea with all hands and Father Joao not expected back until Friday, they had a little time. He looked at the Gothic building and the two islanders. “You think they’re going to get angry at us if we go in?”

“I suspect not,” Doc replied.

Ryan went to the front of the church and unlatched the gate. He kept his eye on the stone muties over the lintel and pushed open the high, narrow double doors. The inside was dim and shot through with shafts of light coming from the high narrow windows. It smelled vaguely of incense and beeswax. Two rows of benches led to the altar. On the wall above it was a crucifix and below it the painting of a man. The man sat back in an ornate chair. He was as chill pale as Roque and his crew, with aristocratic features, his long black hair shot through with silver, and he was dressed all in black clothing. He had the same kind of black eyes as a shark or a stickie, and they seemed to follow you wherever you went in the room.

Doc pointed at the painting. Ago, Vava and Boo hovered in the doorway. Vava nodded and said, “Barat.”

Doc grunted unhappily. “I believe I detect something of a theocracy going on in these islands.”

Ryan swept the rest of the church. There were a couple of antechambers. One was full of barrels and sacks of supplies. The other led to an empty cell with iron bars and chains on the wall. Ryan came back and stepped past Ago and Vava. “Wait here.”

Ryan went to the shed and ladened himself with axes, hatches, saws, rope and hammer and nails. He came back and handed a hatchet to Doc. Doc looked at the implement. “And what is this for?”

“The skiff is useless.” Ryan surveyed the church. “But barrels and benches would make a decent raft.”

Doc sighed as he glanced around the ancient Gothic architecture and the antique appurtenances. “Yes.”

“We don’t have time to go chopping down trees.” Ryan’s eye narrowed. “You got a problem with busting up a church, Doc?”

“Well, I was taught men’s highest spiritual goal was to establish truth, righteousness and love in the world.” Doc smiled wryly. “Nevertheless, I believe I can say without fear of contradiction that few things would have pleased several of my Oxford companions more than to observe their learned colleague taking an ax to a Papist establishment.” Doc hefted his hatchet. “Lay on, Macduff.”

“We need bench seats, four of them to make a square. We nail them together and then lash a barrel beneath each one. We’ll take the oars from the skiff and chop them down to paddles.”

“As sensible a plan as any,” Doc agreed. “I will take the saw and try to carve us a rudder.”

Ago and Vava gasped as Ryan’s first ax stroke kneecapped the closest pew, but they made no move to stop them or to run away. Ryan and Doc worked throughout the day. They nailed together four lengths of pew and bound them with rope. One of the barrels in the storeroom was filled with water, one with wine and two with oil that Doc said came from a whale. The wine was thin and sour, but they emptied it last and Doc dosed himself liberally from it as they worked. The wine and the exertion brought color to his cheeks and he worked with a will. Vava left and came back with dried meat and an earthen pot of goat curds. Ago watched almost unblinkingly as the hours passed and the grand construction came together. Ryan and Doc lashed the last barrel in place and surveyed their handiwork. They had a four-foot by four-foot square supported by barrels at each corner and had nailed a pair of planks across the square to sit on while they paddled. Doc had sawn out a bench back into a rough fin that they roped in place to form a rudder.

Ryan wiped his brow on his forearm. “Doc, tell Vava to go get the oars from the skiff. Tell Ago we’re going to sail for the big island at sunset and that we need four men to help us carry down the raft and launch it.”

Doc went through some complicated hand signals.

Ago suddenly seized Ryan’s wrist and shook his head as he spoke in rapid-fire Portuguese. Only the desperate earnestness in the young man’s face kept Ryan from snapping Ago’s arm at the elbow. “Doc?” Ryan said quietly. “Tell Ago to let go.”

Doc spoke a few words and pointed at Ryan’s wrist. Ago reddened in sudden shame and stepped back, looking at his feet. Ryan took pity on the young man and clapped him on the shoulder with his left hand. “Tell him it’s all right. Ask him what’s wrong.”

Doc and Ago had a very long conversation that didn’t seem to go anywhere fast. Ago was trying to get something complicated across, and hand gestures and common verb roots weren’t enough. Ryan sighed. “Doc you get anything out of all that?”

“Only a few basic concepts,” Doc admitted.

“Such as?”

“There is danger on the big island.”

“Figured that.” Ryan nodded. “Anything else?”

Doc frowned unhappily. “It is possible I am misinterpreting.”

“Best guess, Doc.”

“Ago wants us to go to the big island during the day.”

Ryan shook his head. “They’ll see us coming.”

“I tried to explain that to him. But when he learned our plan was to make landfall at night? That was when he grabbed your arm.”

Ryan was fairly sure Ago had their best interests at heart, but he was loathe to give up the element of surprise. “Can you figure out why?”

“He has been trying to tell me, but he is using words that have no classical Latin base to tell me.” Doc shook his head in failure. “I am sorry to say that Latin is a dead language. Ago’s Portuguese on the other hand is a living, breathing entity that has continued to grow and evolve to this day. The two languages were far apart in my time and have only grown further in the intervening centuries. There is danger on the big island, but the day is safer, of that I am fairly sure. The nature of this danger I cannot determine, though it is clear Baron Barat and Father Joao are to be feared regardless.”

Ryan gave Doc a long hard look. The scholar had been more lucid for the past couple of days than Ryan could remember. Maybe the sea air was doing him good, or being more useful than usual was helping him focus, as well. “What do you think?”

Doc shrugged. “These people have shown us nothing but kindness and hospitality. They were also clearly willing to hide us, quite possibly at risk to themselves. Ago is adamant, we must not go to the island at night.”

“Fireblast.” Ryan wanted to go now. He had a very grim feeling that time wasn’t on their side. But he could tell that Doc needed rest. Ryan felt the ache of his own wounds. If they left now there wouldn’t be much left of them to meet whatever awaited on the big isle. “Fine, we leave at first light, but under one condition.”

Doc blinked. “What would that be?”

The die was cast. “You’re a baron until I tell you different.”

J.B.’S HEAD SHOT UP as the comp in the control room chimed. He was sitting guard duty while the rest of the party slept and almost didn’t hear it over the moans, coos and shrieks of the stickies as they pressed themselves against the door and reached for him. He’d chilled two of the muties with head shots as they had tried the contortionist routine; but luckily full-body dislocation didn’t appear to be a universal stickie skill set, at least not yet. He perked an ear and realized the comp was no longer peeping. “Jak!” J.B. called. “Watch the door.”

Jak was awake, on-station with Colt Python drawn in an eyeblink.

Krysty and Mildred roused themselves wearily as J.B. examined the comp screen. Mildred pushed at her face sleepily. “What’s up?”

“The mat-trans.” Data no longer scrolled down the screen. J.B. checked his chron and then the comp screen again. “It’s been seventy-two hours. I’m pretty sure to the second. I’m thinking the mat-trans is enabled again.”