Chapter 28

“DEAD?”

“For all intents and purposes you are missing and presumed dead on Sol 3, or will be when they find the boat,” she said. “Where you are? Not so much.”

“Where we are now? Where Are we now?” I asked.

“Well ... that’s an inhabited tropical island ahead ... this whole island chain looks an awful lot like the Bahamas,” Seven said. “It’s not ... but you can call it that ... the locals won’t mind.”

“Why here?”

“You need a vacation,” Seven said. She discombobulated. “We do too.”

The seven in one looked like they did in Australia ... like they had spent weeks on the nude beaches of Perth ... tan, fit and ready to party.

“Listen to that,” said Two.

Faint and wind borne, fading in and out with the breeze, was the summer music of Jamaica ... reggae.

“Oh, good lord,” I said. “I love reggae. That sounds like UB 40. Who is that?”

“Some local group,” Seven said. “We don’t have any other ‘specials’ here right now.”

The others began reporting in. It didn’t look like anyone was as bad off as I had been. Before I could say anything, Seven pointed at Cassie.

“Your people want you back.”

“I don’t want to go,” she said. Scurrying behind me, she peeked out of my armpit and said, “Don’t let them take me, Surprise!”

“Why?” asked Four.

“These people treat me like I’m important ... and they have the best ride,” Cassie said.

Seven looked confused. “Best ride?”

Still hiding behind me, Cassie said, “If it’s foggy or when the boats in the convoy needed counted, they hoisted me up the mast ... oh ... the thrill ... best ride ever. If there’s a swell?” She grinned.

“You sent her up the mast in bad weather?” Six said. “Surprise? I’m ashamed of you.”

“She didn’t send me, I wanted to go, I’ve been up before.”

“She used to ask me if I needed the convoy counted, especially in the mornings. The cats tend to wander in the night.”

Seven asked, “Just how far could she see up there?” She looked at the tip of the mast.

“13 miles... 564 square miles,” I said. “After the rest of the convoy joined it got extremely complicated.”

That’s when Cassie blew it, “I didn’t see the murder boat,” she said. “It was on the destroyers’s side of the convoy.”

“Gee ... thanks Cassie,” I muttered.

Seven flickered in and out several times.

“Tortured, branded and beheaded!” she exclaimed, “Cassie saw that?” Surprise?!? What the fuck?”

She flickered a few more times.

“Lost FOUR boats to pirates...”

“They wouldn’t stay with the convoy...” I interrupted ... and got interrupted my own self.

“Dropped the bodies off at Eilat?”

“Nobody else would take them,” I said.

“Cassie...” Seven started.

“It was interesting and since I’m going to go to Chaos with JW...”

“You are not!”

“She is,” JW said.