Chapter 46

Porta asked me, "Husband, you call me 'wife'. I'm past time that I started to have a child."

"What does Jonna say about this?"

"It's my turn."

I could detect a little prevarication and asked, "What exactly does Jonna say about this?"

"I'm getting old, Husband. We all may die at any moment. If you die I have nothing."

"I love you, Porta. We will have our child at the right time. This has to be decided by the family. Timing is important. We are still in the middle of a war."

"We will always be at war."

"No, we won't. Women can normally have children until they are forty or even fifty and some have gone to a doctor and had them at seventy. I want you to enjoy your youth a bit more."

"What about Fislu and Selna? They are not much older than me."

"They have a conniving mother is all I can say."

Caiti crawled across the bed and sat astride my body. She moved her pelvis back and forth on my skin as if by accident and said, "I'm seven now. I want mine too. Lots of girls are married by my age."

I held her hands and said, "I'm trying to stop that. I want a girl to wait to get married until she is at least fourteen."

Porta said, "You can't do that. I'm your wife."

"Yes, you are, Honey. The law has to come into effect slowly and I have to see if I can sway customs so others want to follow them."

Camsa said, "What about me? Am I your wife too?"

"Yes, you are. We are a family but some people have to wait for a while before they can get what they want."

Moltatas and Addas didn't sleep in our room but they had no trouble finding a berth. The next morning I saw that they were their usual cheerful selves when nobody was trying to kill us.

We picked up speed by pulling the hull partially out of the water. The trip to Santorini Island should be completed in daylight so we could do a bit of research to find the nexus. We could not manage a straight line course because of all the islands in our path.

At two hours from the island, the helicopter left with Caiti and a portal. The shield now worked or at least we hoped. This was going to be a test flight in a manner of speaking. They headed north east of the island looking for the nexus. The pilot had to skim the waves so we would be as close to the source as possible. When the site was not found, a concentric search pattern was set up. By the time we got to the area, the copter need to be refuelled and the nexus had not been found.

We avoided going into port. We were not the usual cruise ship and our civilian cloak would soon be discovered for what it was. Patrolling with a frigate would raise eyebrows so we continued with the helicopter and just rotated the pilot and the person monitoring the screen.

The Andis managed to go through the area to complete some of the search pattern when the copter was being refuelled and only the portal had to be transferred. When nothing was found, the entire search was done over again with finer increments. It was three in the morning when a tired Camsa reported to me, "We found it but its too deep or something's wrong with it. We only get a slight reading and only in an area about thirty metres across."

The Andis was closer and it found the position. It was very near where it was reported in the Duchovny papers. We tried lowering the portal with the key attached but even on the bottom we could not get the chain gates to function. I did a lot of thinking and wondered if this was the Church's doing or perhaps it was an interference from Sadieea but we had ported here ok. The only thing I could attribute this to was the earthquakes in this area. Somehow the structural integrity of the silver deposit must have been lost. What was done to the silver was still a complete mystery.

Dimitri said, "What are your orders now, Sir?"

"We could have possibly flown the ships to the site outside Senaki, Georgia. I'm afraid that is out now. We could do the same thing to Glasgow, Scotland or the one to the north that even the seals avoid. Another possibility is to go to the site in the Bahamas and port all of the ships through."

"Do we escort the refuelling ship coming through the Suez?"

"We can but perhaps we shouldn't. There should be nobody taking an interest in that ship. We can sail the distance easily especially if we levitate."

"I have an idea, Sir, that you may like."

"What is it, Dimitri?"

"We have experimented with a hydrofoil ship. The ship is very fast. It had troubles, though, and others were not built. We could construct some hydrofoils that appear to work. As long as we use our props and the jet engines, we could go at top speed openly."

I had to smile. "Vasiliy is sneaky, too, and I like your idea. Let's go to port and arrange to get the hydrofoil made in Italy or France. We can install it ourselves. All it has to do is look strong."

We sailed toward Crete and worked on the design. The next day we landed on the island with the copter. Customs didn't bother us. People that flew a copter from their ship to shore deserved better treatment. I purchased local cell phones and used one to talk to Reynolds on one of his safe numbers.

"I need a hydrofoil made as quickly as possible. If the unit is installed in France or Spain, it gives whoever is making it more chance to respond."

"You sound nervous, Sir. Is there something I should know?"

"The authorities didn't want my property released. They are actively looking for us. I have a difficulty at home that's not going away. And then I have to shift seven ships to the new route."

"The one I visited?"

"That one." I talked about the size of the frigate and the patrol ship for a while. The wing-like structures of the hydrofoil had to be retractable or the device could be damaged in shallow water. It had to look strong enough to support a ship and since the frigate was over 2,000 tonnes they had to appear to be very strong.

Reynolds said, "I have some drawings of an old system the United States navy used. I could scale them up for you."

"All I need is a vertical wing in the water. As long as a diver doesn't take a peek I'll be ok."

"That would be much easier to make but the refit time would be at least a month."

"That shoots down that idea then. Maybe I can get it made and put it on later."

"That sounds best, Sir. Our ship is ready and waiting your orders, Sir."

"I'm afraid I don't know when we will make the shift. What you can do is place a framework on the stern and mount a jet engine to it. I suggest you mount the engine to the finished frame then only mount the frame. This will not bother the authorities as much. The last ride you had worked well but now we can go much faster."

"Any particular engine, Sir?"

"Whatever you can pick up cheap."

"What about the two tankers being refitted?"

"You'll have to tie in with them too. There's one more to make three. We'll be well set for fuel for a while."

Bakhtin was next but I had to wait for him to call me. He would be watched just as much as I was.

Bakhtin said to me, "I have had some difficulties here. The CSIS has questioned me at length three times. I can do very little to help you, Sir. They even impede my own businesses."

"I will make it up to you later."

"There's no need, Sir. I can weather this storm like all the others."

"This one is going to be a lot stronger in a while. Tell me where the ships are give me a way of contacting them."

Bakhtin gave me the details and even some code words to use to indicate that I was entitled to give orders. The container ship was in Lisbon, Portugal. It was faking engine trouble but actually waiting to travel across the Atlantic.

The oiler was plodding along and just finished tanking up in Oman at the refinery near the capital, Muscat.

The two tankers were at American ports waiting for orders. I got a verbal list of what was in the containers. Bakhtin and his people had been very busy on my behalf.

Dimitri said, "I would like to send this CD off to a friend of mine. It contains photographs of portions of Admiral Slava's diary and a listing of what we found."

"If you want to send it then do so. I warn you, though, that there will be far more trouble caused by our disappearance than by what your admiral was up to."

"The CD will be dropped off anonymously and have no fingerprints."

"Then go for it."

"Thank you, Sir. My country needs to be cleaned up and I have a chance to do only a bit at a time."

I just nodded. "Your hydrofoil idea will take too long to install even if it's a fake. We'll have to try this on another trip."

"You want more ships?"

"I have a world to patrol, not a country, Dimitri."

More phone calls were made and I got the various ship moving so they would be near West Palm Beach when we would get there. I had to set up the chain gate to handle the ships but also the crews of each of the ships.

We left soon after. Shipping usually just missed the southern edge of Sicily. We had to go further south to avoid the major shipping lanes. Once it looked fairly safe, we levitated and went at full speed. The Andis was able to hit three hundred and fifteen klicks because of her lower cross section.

We had to travel 2,700 kilometres to get to the Atlantic. This would take us nine hours. We flew during the dark and let people think we had a hydrofoil or we were a plane flying low. During the next daylight period, we reverted to just plodding along.

There were a lot of aircraft around and I asked Dimitri, "Do you think those planes are searching for us?"

"They would not expect us here just yet. Perhaps what happened to Admiral Slava has shaken the military to believe that anything can happen. For sure, everything going through Strait of Gibraltar will be scrutinised."

"We go overland?"

"That sounds like a good idea, but I have no idea where any radar stations are. We would have to stay low. The Atlas Mountains may give us problems."

"How?"

"They're fairly high. I advise taking a longer route that stays within the rift between ranges."

"How long of a trip is that?"

"I'm afraid it is nearly 700 kilometres."

"Why take such a long route? Isn't there a shorter route that will do as well?"

"There are large cities with airports, Sir."

It was well after dark that our two ships sailed casually into the waters separating Morocco from Algeria. Since we were near the national limits, there was nothing said. We were coming up on a Spanish military base so we pulled into a small town. The radio came alive. Dimitri had a crew member that spoke French come on and claim to be a fisherman. The Andis claimed to be a Spanish fishing boat going the same place we were.

The rigging had come down that converted us to a yacht yesterday so we were hard to see. We could pinpoint the radar easily. An inflatable boat hurried to shore with Porta and four men. One of the men turned around and came back to us while the rest continued.

We were trying a new strategy. We could cut the power to the radar but our people might not be able to sneak past the authorities. A taxi was hired to take the group inland. Porta spoke English to the sailors who answered with "Yes," or "no," to the girl's voice.

It was a nerve wracking hour and a half until Camsa opened a gate to the group. The crew surged forward with poles and the large chain designed to pass a ship. This took an hour to set up because the chain was heavy with all the boxes on it.

Caiti floated the ship as the men that were inland pulled on a rope. The Andis popped free of the water and moved over farmland. The Ronnas took longer and we used poles from the deck to push up the chain so we could pass beneath it.

The frame and gate was disassembled and stowed. The jet engines though were only idling. We would be in a built up area for a while yet.

We built up speed when we could but had to reduce it to take advantage of the topology of the land. The land always went up far more than it went down. Dimitri was using the radar to find the best passage. Our charts didn't go far inland and we were almost flying blind.

Most of the time we were flying over rock and sand. The mountain passes showed just more of the latter. We had been over land for two hours when we detected strong radar. Dimitri ordered the engines to stop and the ships to ground.

The plane flew by not fifteen kilometres away. What was odd was that it was flying so low. The conversation was in code so this was an exercise or they had an inkling of what we could do. Again I wished for a shield for the ships

We only got another kilometre before we had to stop again. More planes came our way but also all over the place. Dimitri said to me, "I think we better stay put for a while. We are in a good hiding place and there are not many of them when our ship is as long as ours is."

"If you think that is what we should do then do it. You're the Captain."

"Yes, a Captain sailing his ship over the land and then through a mountain range. Quite an accomplishment."

"Especially without a tsunami to help you along."

We monitored the radio and radar detectors all night. The crew looked for a snug harbour and then pulled the ship with a handline to get it into a good spot. Caiti and Porta removed boulders to make the area under the ship more or less level.

We could have flown the helicopter and set up more portals but the winds were too treacherous in this mountainous area. We could make it to the Atlantic with two more jumps but we had to wait for the other ships to reach where the gate would be set up.

When I got up for breakfast, Dimitri said, "Good morning, Sir. It appears the search has slackened off but not stopped."

"I'm happy to spend some time here. Perhaps we can work on the ship."

"If you wish. Being a soldier, I like to remain unobtrusive."

"Then how about doing some shopping in Marrakech?"

"Can you transport that far?"

"It's not that far from here."

"Helicopters coming out of the mountains are not good to see."

"Then we hitchhike or find a road and flag down a bus."

The crew was kicked off the ship and told to investigate the mountains. They grumbled like sailors but they actually had nothing to do. My family and security had to go with them but only Moltatas and Addas grouched. The two were happy. They had a lot of male friends that kept them satisfied when they were not on duty.

An hour later, Porta told me mentally, "We found a village."

"Any danger?"

"None."

"Can we visit?"

"If you want. Get a pack and take one or more of the men. Pretend that you are just hiking through the mountains."

I felt a mental kiss and she said, "Thank you, Husband."

Dimitri and Vasiliy were not happy with mixing with the natives. Porta solved it by taking Vasiliy as one of the three men that would visit the village.

It was an hour later that Vasiliy came on a young goatherder. He could not understand anything but Porta had a translating device. She answered the young boy's questions with gestures as if she were mute.

Camsa and Caiti greeted the boy too. They even greeted some of the goats. They walked another few kilometres with a radio blaring out music as a way of telling everybody that there were strangers about.

An old man came out of a hut then hurried back in to get his rifle but he didn't point it at anybody. He seemed to relax more when he saw that the men were unarmed. More people came out to meet the strangers and Porta answered what she could with gestures.

The family was invited to eat so Porta reached into her pack. The rim had a silver chain on it so I handed her what she wanted. She gave out some clothing to a girl her size and the girl hurried away to try it on. It was juffa and the style was not that much different from what the villagers wore.

They ate rice and goat meat which wasn't too much different from some dishes in Bejek. With some semi-spare time, I put a headband on Dimitri and got him to find coins. The men that didn't want to explore got the other headbands to do the same thing. They had experimented on the trip but now was a relaxed time to work on this.

Our pastime was only fun until I used the coin to find flaws in the welds of the ship and then it turned into a worthwhile activity.

I practised at using the least powerful setting of my lightning gun. I had hopes of welding and precision cutting with it but I could not get the unit to use a lower setting even when I pulsed the weapon.

Porta told me, "Husband, there is a road three klicks east of here that leads to a highway. This road runs to a town that has bus service to Marrakech."

"Do they have a time frame, Honey?"

In a moment she said, "They figure the bus will come when it's ready."

"No cars or trucks?"

"They have a motorbike."

"Can we rent it?"

"I'll see." She came back in a few minutes and said, "They think it's made of solid copper. I can wave some money at them."

Porta reached into her pack and brought out three one hundred dollar American bills. This was understood but they figured she had a lot more in the pack. Porta had learned how to shop in the market in Bejek and was not taken in. When she asked to have the bike started the owner talked about price until Porta put away her money and closed her pack. We both figured the bike was not usable.

Porta put on her headband and checked the bike. I worked through her mind and saw how the piston was scored and there was no oil in the case. I went back to my own studies and let the others have their fun. Two ladies I knew were having a lot of that with some members of the crew.

Around four in the afternoon, the group left the village and headed further away. An hour later they were back on the ship after I opened a gate for them.

"Did you have a nice time?"

"It was fun. There was some sick people and I took some time to heal them."

"That's nice. Anything else?"

"When Caiti and I were healing, Camsa was playing hide the weenie with one of the boys."

This was what Camsa was like and I accepted it. He was forever horny but so were the girls. My girls had each other to relieve their tensions. Camsa preferred me but he accepted the rest of the family. He was pragmatist enough to know that he should use any port in a storm. He had numerous chances to be with boys but he never chose any of the older ones. I could feel that he didn't want to disappoint me. I loved him all the more for it.

Camsa said in his own defence, "There were not that many in the village. I counted only nineteen. I did find something out though,"

Porta exasperatedly said, "What?"

"I got the carpet to fly."

"So, you did that before."

"But I got it to fly forward."

"Show me."

Camsa went to our room and brought back a simple mat and sat on it with a fulcrum. The mat rose with him but it didn't have the usual piece of plywood under it. The front tilted down just a bit. The mat and Camsa went forward.

I could not see how this worked and said, "Tell me how you found this out."

The boy turned a little red then said, "We were using the mat so our knees wouldn't get hurt. There were lots of rocks so I levitated a centimetre. When I pushed into my friend the mat went forward. He didn't notice so I had to control the lift and I had to pull back when I pushed forward. Before too long I found that we moved quite a way. When it was his turn I did the same thing."

"Did the boy notice?"

"Not really, he was busy. It was good for me because I lasted a lot longer when I was thinking of this."

"Let's go try it outside."

Camsa smiled and took off his pants. I had to laugh at him and said, "To try flying the carpet."

"Can we do both tonight?"

"I never get enough sleep."

Camsa still left his pants off. He wore little clothing when on Bejek. We hurried outside and sat on the deck. In a moment he rose above the stanchions and drifted off of the ship. He had to go forward to the bow to find some room to manoeuvre

Dimitri came beside me to watch the boy fly back and forth. "He couldn't do that before."

"He found a friend in the village and while pushing the friend's backside, he found that the carpet he was on went forward."

"That's one for the books. How fast can he go?"

"We're finding that out now."

Camsa experimented in lots of different positions until he laid on his back. This seemed to work the best. When he came back to us he looked at me and started to grow erect. Caiti quickly reached over and grabbed the antenna sticking up.

Camsa said verbally, "Caiti, I'm tired."

"Not too tired to get hard."

Camsa didn't say anything as Caiti pulled him gently by the prong to our room.

Dimitri held his laugh in until the two entered a hatch. He said, "You have a very beautiful family with no worries about sex. They're so free, even to walking around naked much of the time. I admire you."

"Are the men bothered by this?"

"Not really, your two associates are free with their love and the men have learned to share the two of them."

"There's a whole planet full but we have to make the gate."

Porta and I tried the carpet too. We did even better when I found I used the headband, an amplifier and two fulcrums. My top speed was only twenty klicks until I got Porta on with me and we went up to thirty.

When it started to get dark Porta and I took off our clothes and put them into a sack which was tied to a large carpet. The carpet was on the deck at the bow and the two of us sailed off into the night. At the first opportunity we landed and I got Porta on her back. We both elevated the carpet and moved it in the direction of Marrakech.

Later Porta orgasmed and we lost altitude but we recovered in time. Now it was my time to lay on the carpet like Camsa and Porta had a chance to be the pilot and navigator. We lost altitude lots of times and had to get partially dressed to keep warm. Two hours after starting, Camsa opened a gate to us and we came home after dropping a coin. Porta and I had not ridden the Marrakech Express but our method of travel was much better.

Moltatas and Addas took two dozen men to the market the next morning. She had a large pack that never seemed to get heavy no matter what she put in it. A half hour later another dozen men left on a tour of the city. Each one had a coin in his shoe and some American money to spend. They had Russian notes but we wanted this to be low profile.

My family went later to buy a family sized carpet capable of having the whole family propelling it or just having fun.

That night, the four of us flew the deluxe model back up to the hills rather than take the gate. We didn't get any extra speed but all of us were happy with each other. When Porta screamed her pleasure, more than one shepherd in the area must have heard her. We were even high enough to be seen by some.

The next day the rest of the men got a chance for shore leave. I held Porta and said, "I want to try again to put a shield around Andis."

"If you wish, Husband. Last night relaxed us."

"And it did the same for me."

Camsa and Caiti came to help. There was a lot of talk about what we had to do and why. Nothing was much different than before except the size and the fact that we had to protect the jet engines.

We donned the headbands and wore the wristbands. This time we sat in a ring and held the amplifiers to link us to the next person. This worked better but it wasn't until Camsa said, "Touch the one in your right hand to your headband."

We did as he suggested and I found that contemplating about the shield was not as hard. I didn't take the lead because I had not really made a shield around a vehicle yet. I just watched and helped.

There were a lot of details to monitor. Like the helicopter, we had to allow for the propeller shafts, air intakes and exhausts. Unlike the helicopter we had to put a grill over each of the jet engines and another one over the exhaust that would not let a shell in. In our case a heat seeking missile would go up the old poop chute.

We were tired and took a break to get something to eat.

Dimitri said, "What were you trying to do?"

"Put a complete shield around the Andis. Something like the copter."

"Could you manipulate the shape of the shield?"

"A little, Why?"

"The jet engines would work better if more air came in. The ships would go faster if we were more aerodynamic."

"Well, the second part may make our job easier. We were sticking to the shape of the ship and its complicated. What would help is the removal of the radar and the masts."

"We need them high to see over the horizon."

"You're right, but on Bejek you might be in the air more than on the sea."

"What about the air supply for the engines?"

"I can see a fine grating along the sides of the ship that duct the air toward the engines. A finer one yet has to cover our exhaust."

"Our propellers are vulnerable and produce a lot of drag."

"Dimitri, I'm having trouble forming a shield at all. The more details I put in the harder it is. The shape of a missile may be the best. That shape would enclose the propellers but I don't know about the jet engines."

Vasiliy was interested and soon both crews were contributing ideas. The family got into the discussion but I knew the designs were much too complicated for our minds to grasp.

We tried two more times that day but we were not able to erect a shield though we could do a simple one that enclosed all of the ship.

The next night we moved out but this time we used Camsa's way of propelling us as a test. There was no noise. Dimitri was with me at the bow looking forward. He said, "This is even more magical somehow. The jet engines remind me of technology. When they're quiet, I think I'm in some magical land. The only time it is quiet like this is when we are at anchor. Even then there is the slap of the waves on the hull."

"We can't continue this way. It's too far to the ocean and we're not even doing eighteen klicks an hour."

"I know, but its nice this way and it's not even using any fuel."

"I think we are using a lot of mossa even if we are not aware of it."

The engines were started and we roared down the mountainside and across the plain. When we were near habitations, we cut back on our speed and noise. We had to climb a bit then descend to another plain. We hit the ocean south of Essaouira and continued out for twenty minutes before heading north.

At our best speed we came to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. We used the helicopter this time to land. Vasiliy and another man went through customs. The man stayed with the copter while Vasiliy took a cab to the airport. A moment later a few more of us came through a gate to meet him.

In a simple raid on some local fuel tanks we replenished all the fuel we had used for the ship, the jet engines and the copter.

I left a simple note as to how much I took and settled up in cash with a bonus for the men who were in charge. The fact that I put the money in safes might keep them humble and hopefully honest.

Dimitri searched out and found data on the various planes and actually filed a flight plan for his 'seaplane'. An hour later Dimitri called the airport from closer to the harbour and told them of his position. In moments the two ships were gaining altitude and flying west at three kilometres altitude.

Dimitri said, "Do you really think this will work?"

"They're looking for a ship or one that can go a few metres in the air, not an aeroplane."

We flew long enough to get to the Azores. This was 1300 kilometres closer to our goal and a logical place for a flight controller to have us land. We had no transponder and we had radar absorbing coating on both ships. The tower in the Azores knew we put down on the water to observe marine life so we didn't have to report in because we didn't come ashore.

We sailed west until we could not be detected by radar and became flying ships once more. At noon the next day we met the container ship, Astrakhan. I talked to the captain and gave the code words. He was leery since both of our ships looked like Russian warships.

Three Russians along with Moltatas and Addas came with me in a small boat. Captain Arsov was at the head of the ladder when we came aboard. After he accepted our story, we went looking for transponders. The captain had not counted on this happening and was beginning to worry.

I talked to him in his quarters with one of the men that came over with me. He happened to speak English but not as well as the last man I had before. It was not long after that I got to see the rest of the officers, then the crew. It took only thirty men to operate this ship but most were only used when in port.

The family came over and we assisted in looking for devices that would be used to track us. Dimitri and Vasiliy knew how sneaky the FSB was and used everything at their disposal to find the bugs.