فصل 16

16

The Elder

Enele’s boats pulled out of the Vaitupu harbor precisely as he had planned at four a.m. He had no information about the Elgen, and he wasn’t taking any chances that they might have more of a force than he realized. He got less than three hours of sleep before going up to the Regulator’s bridge to coordinate his army’s departure. The boats sailed close together except the Neutron, which held so much explosive capability that an accident near the rest of the fleet could possibly sink all the ships.

The distance between Nui and Vaitupu was a little more than one hundred and seventy kilometers. Because they were sailing as a convoy, they matched their speed to the slowest of the ships, the ES Proton, an older produce cargo vessel that sailed between seventeen and eighteen knots, so it took the armada nearly six hours to reach their destination, the southernmost isle of Fenua Tapu.

All the boats except the Regulator anchored a mile out from the island, far from the reef’s rocky, coral wall. The Regulator moved into the small Nui harbor usually reserved for the Volta, the Elgen’s science ship, which, at Hatch’s orders, had sailed to Funafuti only a day earlier.

Nui was only slightly larger than Hades but very different in appearance and geography. Like Vaitupu, it was not an island but an atoll, so it was far more water than land and was sparsely populated, with more than twenty isles. The atoll was first discovered in 1568 by Spanish navigator Alvaro de Mendana. He named the island Isla de Jesús, Spanish for “Island of Jesus.” The island was not visited by Europeans again until nearly three hundred years later, when a Dutch expedition came upon the island. They named it Dutch Island, but, curiously, it was also called Egg.

On Hatch’s overthrow of the nation, in keeping with his renaming of the islands after Greek gods, he had renamed the island Athena, for the goddess of wisdom, craft, and war. It was dedicated to scientific research and was where the Volta, and her seventy-six scientists, was primarily based.

Prior to the Elgen’s arrival, the Nui atoll had had a population of 521 natives. That number had since dropped significantly as, under the stress of foreign occupation, many of the older natives had died, and most of the men and half the women had been sent to other islands to work. By the time Enele arrived, there were only 172 natives—153 of whom were female.

Hatch had dedicated the island to research, and science and experiments were conducted on GPs with the MEI and new weaponry. Occasionally the Elgen guard would bring in one of the island residents if they were out of GPs, but that was rare, as the GPs were usually brought in from Hades, and the scientists were uncomfortable experimenting on natives they might know by name or might have seen in the marketplace. As one of the scientists crudely said, “You should never name a hog if you plan on slaughtering it.” * * *

“Where is the elder?” Adam asked, looking out over the waves breaking on the island’s reef.

“He is on Piliaieve. It is one of the smallest of the islets. He won’t be hard to find.”

The Regulator docked around noon. Because Enele had no idea if there were any armed Elgen guards on the island, he sent out two of their women with baskets of fish, to walk around and observe. They encountered no Elgen, and when they felt bold enough to speak to one of the residents—a fisherman on the beach who was mending his nets—they were told that the only Elgen guard on Nui were assigned to the Elgen’s large boat (the Volta) and only occasionally came to town looking for kava or women or both. But just a week before, for reasons he didn’t know, the Elgen guards suddenly left the island, leaving only a few to guard the Volta. With the departure of the Volta, all traces of Elgen were gone. When the women asked the fisherman about Elder Malakai, the man turned away and refused to speak anymore.

After receiving the women’s report, Enele, Adam, Nazil, Zeel, and a force of six armed men—two of them in Elgen uniform—left the Regulator a little after three in the afternoon. As the isles of Nui were not all connected, they took one of the ship’s tenders and sailed north along the eastern side of the reef until they came to the fourth isle, Piliaieve.

They pulled their boat onto shore and stepped off onto a white sandy beach. There was no one around. While still a way from the island, Enele, using binoculars, had spotted a young boy near the isle’s shoreline, but he had gotten up and run off when he’d spotted their approaching craft.

“Where is everyone?” Adam asked.

Enele looked at him. “Perhaps bringing men dressed as Elgen guards was not such a good idea.”

They made their way off the beach to a line of palm trees and a dirt road.

“The good news,” Adam said, “is that it’s a small island. It won’t take long to search all the houses and find him.” Enele stood silently with his arms crossed, a cross wind blowing back his hair. “I don’t think that will be necessary.” In the distance an elderly man rode a bicycle toward them. The bicycle’s line was erratic, and several times the men thought the man, who looked too old to be riding a bicycle, might fall over. Enele’s men gathered around him to watch the cyclist.

“Who is that?” asked one.

“I’ll wager two coins that he’ll fall,” said another.

“He won’t fall,” Enele said.

When the old man reached them, he stopped the bicycle and got off. He wiped his brow, smiled at the men with a row of yellowed teeth, and then turned to Enele.

“My dear, dear friend. How you have grown. I am very glad you made it. I have been expecting you.”