Chapter 6

The wind died. Huge gray thunderheads piled up in the sky to the southeast, their tops lost in the upper atmosphere, their black anvil bottoms pressing the hot still air upon the island. The sun had lost its fiery glare. Cherry-red, it slid listlessly toward the flat sea.

High overhead, a single bird of paradise circled, just out of rifle range. It had gone up ten minutes after Recetich had shot the first one down.

Monty Byrnes stood on the edge of the cleared area, his rifle ready. He had drawn the first guard shift. The rest of the men were eating a hasty dinner inside the copra shed. Sorensen and Drake were outside, looking over the situation.

Drake said, “By nightfall we’ll have to pull everybody back into the shed. Can’t take a chance on being exposed to the Quedak in the dark.”

Sorensen nodded. He seemed to have aged ten years in a day’s time.

“In the morning,” Drake said, “we’ll be able to work something out We’ll ... What’s wrong, Bill?”

“Do you really think we have a chance?” Sorensen asked.

“Sure we do. We’ve got a damned good chance.”

“Be realistic,” Sorensen said. “The longer this goes on, the more animals the Quedak can throw against us. What can we do about it?”

“Hunt him out and kill him.”

“The damned thing is about the size of your thumb,” Sorensen said irritably. “How can we hunt him?”

“We’ll figure out something,” Drake said. He was beginning to get worried about Sorensen. The morale among the men was low enough without Sorensen pushing it down further.

“I wish someone would shoot that damned bird,” Sorensen said, glancing overhead.

About every fifteen minutes, the bird of paradise came darting down for a closer look at the camp. Then, before the guard had a chance to fire, he swept back up to a safe altitude.

“It’s getting on my nerves, too,” Drake said. “Maybe that’s what it’s supposed to do. One of these times we’ll--”

He stopped abruptly. From the copra shed he could hear the loud hum of a radio. And he heard Al Cable saying, “Hello, hello, this is Vuanu calling. We need help.”

Drake and Sorensen went into the shed. Cable was sitting in front of the transmitter, saying into the microphone, “Emergency, emergency, Vuanu calling, we need--”

“What in hell do you think you’re doing?” Drake snapped.

Cable turned and looked at him, his pudgy pink body streaked with sweat. “I’m radioing for help, that’s what I’m doing. I think I’ve picked up somebody. But they haven’t answered me yet.”

He readjusted the tuning. Over the receiver, they could hear a bored British voice saying, “Pawn to Queen four, eh? Why don’t you ever try a different opening?”

There was a sharp burst of static. “Just move,” a deep bass voice answered. “Just shut up and move.”

“Sure,” said the British voice. “Knight to king bishop three.”

Drake recognized the voices. They were ham radio operators. One of them owned a plantation on Bougainville; the other was a shopkeeper in Rabaul. They came on the air for an hour of chess and argument every evening.

Cable tapped the microphone impatiently. “Hello,” he said, “this is Vuanu calling, emergency call--”

Drake walked over and took the microphone out of Cable’s hand. He put it down carefully.

“We can’t call for help,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” Cable cried. “We have to!”

Drake felt very tired. “Look, if we send out a distress call, somebody’s going to come sailing right in--but they won’t be prepared for this kind of trouble. The Quedak will take them over and then use them against us.”

“We can explain what the trouble is,” Cable said.

“Explain? Explain what? That a bug is taking over the island? They’d think we were crazy with fever. They’d send in a doctor on the inter-island schooner.”

“Dan’s right,” Sorensen said. “Nobody would believe this without seeing it for himself.”

“And by then,” Drake said, “it’d be too late. Eakins figured it out before the Quedak got him. That’s why he told us not to send any messages.”

Cable looked dubious. “But why did he want us to take the transmitter?”

“So that he couldn’t send any messages after the bug got him,” Drake said. “The more people trampling around, the easier it would be for the Quedak. If he had possession of the transmitter, he’d be calling for help right now.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Cable said unhappily. “But, damn it, we can’t handle this alone.”

“We have to. If the Quedak ever gets us and then gets off the island, that’s it for Earth. Period. There won’t be any big war, no hydrogen bombs or fallout, no heroic little resistance groups. Everybody will become part of the Quedak Cooperation.”

“We ought to get help somehow,” Cable said stubbornly. “We’re alone, isolated. Suppose we ask for a ship to stand offshore--”

“It won’t work,” Drake said. “Besides, we couldn’t ask for help even if we wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“Because the transmitter’s not working,” Drake said. “You’ve been talking into a dead mike.”

“It’s receiving OK,” Cable said.

Drake checked to see if all the switches were on. “Nothing wrong with the receiver. But we must have joggled something taking the transmitter out of the ship. It isn’t working.”