Chapter 15

“Would you, please, stay still during a mission?” asked the young lady.

She stepped out of the head as JW was just beginning to step through.

That stopped him.

“Why?”

“It’s too hard for the machinery to keep track. Oh, we know. It’s just fifteen minutes here ... but it’s days or weeks ... or even months there. The equipment is centuries old and it’s beginning to ‘forget.’” She said.

Then she started to look around.

Zoe had an idea and blocked her path back to the head. “Come see our boat,” she said.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” the girl replied. “They told me to come right back. Is that a rocker?” She was looking at Zo’s custom double-wide chair. “It looks comfortable.”

There was just a hint of longing in her voice.

Zoe gave her a little push towards the chair. “Have a seat. Try it on for size. You might like it.”

The girl, for that was what she was, not more than fifteen, said, “Oh could I? Just for a moment. I’ve been under instruction all night.” She sat ... relaxed ... and fell asleep.

“Shush,” Zo whispered. “JW. You’re not going today. Go get Mel and bring her here. Do not disturb Cyn.”

Following JW to the head, I saw an unknown girl asleep in Zo’s chair. Zoe held a silencing finger to her lips. Motioning to JW to ‘stay,’ Zo took me to the saloon.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“An emissary from Crossroads ... probably a Cassandran teen. Evidently disposable, there’s a good chance she’s an orphan,” Zoe said. Then she explained what the girl said, “The machines that run the portals are faulty. I think they don’t care if she gets lost in the woodwork.

“Let her sleep. Let me run down and have JW rock her gently so she doesn’t wake up.”

And that’s what we did.

She slept 18 hours. We had a decent quartering 15 knot breeze about a meter above the sea, the water was flat calm and stayed that way for four days. Never seen anything like it. We made 180 nautical miles before she woke up. That put us a more than halfway to Great Nicobar Island. The ‘Grand Denouement’ (the great reveal) put our passenger in a panic.

“But ... I’m not supposed to stay. Didn’t anybody come for me?”

“No ... but we’ve been moving ... perhaps they couldn’t find us.” JW said. “Were they supposed to come looking?”

“They said they would.”

“You can go with me on my next trip,” JW said. “That’ll get you back.”

We provisioned at Campbell Bay and headed for Diego Garcia. There were seventeen catamarans spread out over 16 square miles of Indian Ocean, all anticipating our rendezvous with an American destroyer, DDG-64. After they finished a training rotation, the ship would be returning to Rota, through the Suez Canal and thence to Spain. Somali pirates were at the height of their forays. Either we made the rendezvous on time or go around the Cape of Good Hope, an additional distance of several thousand miles. We were not the only voyagers hoping for escort. Several freighters, container-ships and a few medium tankers were supposed to be near the Red Sea. For the tankers the opportunity to save the miles around the Cape was too much to miss. Some of them were ‘private venture’ supplying oil to the Aegean islands and others were headed for the Adriatic.

A 90 foot catamaran has a huge foredeck. JW led katas and bo-staff Monday through Saturday for the crew, and Cassie, our kidnapee, was fascinated.

“You might as well join,” JW said.

“I wouldn’t be intruding?”

“Heck no. Anybody can join.” JW said, “Sometimes, if they’re close enough, people come over from the other boats.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Mel? Take the class. C’mere Cassie. Let me show you...” and he did.

“She is very good,” JW said, later. “Tell her once ... show her once ... and she has it.

“She talks,” he said. “You were right, Zo. She’s from an orphanage on Cassandra, left on the court house steps when she was two days old. They trained her. She’s good with what she knows and a quick learner, she’ll never be a beauty ... those unfortunate scars...”

“Wait,” Zo said, “Scars? What scars?”

“The ones on her back, it looks like someone beat her with barbed wire.”