The idea occurs to you that the cave may have some kind of significance, and this is why the Wobans are here — perhaps they are guarding it. This piques your curiosity. Of course, all of this is just a theory and you have no real idea who those Wobans are or what their purpose is, but with no maps to follow — and with a personal taste for adventure that is about a mile wide — you feel compelled to explore the cave.

The irony is that if the Wobans are here to guard the cave, they're doing a poor job of it. The cave's entrance is turned slightly away from the clearing, so they cannot even see it from where they are playing their little game of tiddlywinks or whatever. A growth of grass and small brushy plants provides just enough cover for you to crouch low and step softly between your boulder and the clear-water stream flowing out of the cave.

"He aha kela kani?" says one of the Wobans to his companions.

"‘O kau e lohe nei, ‘o wau ke lanakila nei i keia pa‘ani. E kiola i kou pohaku a pani i kou waha," someone responds.

"Aole. Lohe wau i kekahi mea e ne‘e ana."

"He mea li‘ili‘i paha kahi holoholona e ‘uwu ana i ka mau‘u. Pono ‘oe e pa‘ani i ka pa‘ani a ha‘alele i ke kama‘ilio ‘ana."

The mouth of the cave is wide, and you can feel its coolness before you even step inside. Immediately you are glad you came here, as you are now surrounded by moisture and hidden from the harsh sun — the exact opposite conditions from where you just were. You pause for a moment as your eyes adjust to the dim light, and then you continue on; you may have just snuck past the Woban guards successfully, but you would still prefer to put some distance between you.

You quickly realize that this cave is a lava tube — a tunnel-like passage carved through the hillside during an ancient eruption. It angles gently upward, with the stream fanning out across the rock floor. Up ahead is nothing but darkness, so just before you lose sight of the little bit of daylight coming in through the entrance, you stop to fish out Captain Mark's palm-sized plastic flashlight from the backpack.

Except for the uphill grade, following the lava tube is like exploring an abandoned subway. The arched ceiling maintains almost consistent dimensions as the passageway snakes its way through the rocky core of the island, giving it a man-made appearance. But where is it leading? You have no idea how good the batteries are in the flashlight, and you'd hate to be stranded here in the dark. Excitement propels you forward; anxiety has you hoping an exit appears soon.

What you do find is a fork, with passages branching to the left and right. So now what? Both are equally dark, and your first impression is that there is no difference between them, other than direction. You step into the space between the twin tunnels, lick your fingertip, and stick it into the air. Although it's subtle, there is a draft of air coming from the left tunnel, and heat coming from the right — would that be heat from outdoors, maybe? The stream that you have been following has dwindled to just a trickle, but you can see now that it flows from the left-hand tunnel.

This is all very interesting, but in a moment of sobriety you realize that Walter Berringer didn't send you here to go spelunking. Maybe you should go back the way you came, hoping that the Wobans have left so that you can resume your hike along the trail.

__________________________________________________
> You go back.
Convinced that you have been wasting your time, and having found no other exits out of the lava tube, you decide that the sensible thing to do is backtrack down to the entrance. If the Wobans are still there when you get back, then you'll just have to wait for them to leave.

Therefore you turn to follow the little stream back down the angled cave, feeling a little bit like you are walking down an overgrown waterslide in an amusement park. The flow is little more than a trickle at first, but as you pass through the tunnel a second time you notice small seeps at various spots along the wall where additional rivulets are adding to the volume of the stream. In places, the running water fans out into an apron of moisture running down the slanted floor of the lava tube.

What you fail to appreciate is that some of this wet rock can be slippery, especially when you are walking downhill. On one patch of smooth rock, your Vibram soles fail you, sending you on a wild butt-slide down for a distance of about twenty feet. The flashlight flies out of your hands as you try unsuccessfully to stop yourself, but there is nothing you can grab onto. You come to an inelegant stop in the gravel bar at the bottom, unharmed except for a few scrapes on your legs and the palm of your hands, as well as a wet behind.

The plastic flashlight has come to rest in a pool of water, its light gone out. But you are not in the dark. You look up and see someone is standing over you, the light of their headlamp illuminating the scene of your embarrassing fall.

"You look lost," the person says — a woman, her familiar voice distorted by the reverberation off the rock walls. "I would have expected someone with your reputation to be more sure-footed."

The headlamp is blinding you, and the echoes are distracting, but you would recognize Meredith's voice anywhere.

"What the hell are you doing here?" you say. "And why did you take my stuff?"

Instead of responding to you directly, Meredith extends her hand to help you up. When you are standing beside her, she says, "Oh, right, the headlamp." She takes it off and holds it in her hand so that you can see her without being blinded by the light. Yet again she has changed her wardrobe; instead of a dress suit or a bikini, she is now clad in a khaki shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, with a white pith helmet to top it all off. The air about her is heavy with the smell of a scented bug spray. She looks like a model from an old Banana Republic catalog, before that chain went downhill.

"I've been looking for you," she says. "I knew you'd be the only person who'd understand!"

You notice she's wearing your brand-new backpack, holding your brand-new headlamp in one hand and your brand-new trekking poles in the other.

"Funny, Berringer asked me to keep an eye out for you, too. He even gave me a gun to use in case I found you."

Her eyes widen in alarm at the news. "You don't plan to shoot me and take me back to Walter, do you?"

"We'll have to see," you say. No, you don't plan to shoot her, but she's not exactly someone towards whom you feel much warmth at the moment, though.

"The last thing I want to be is one of his trophies. You saw the way he treated me, right? You know I had to get away from him."

Meredith is trying to play on your sympathies. You remember well the remark that Berringer made back on the yacht last night, when he boasted that he had "acquired" her and that she was too dumb to realize it. So she may have a point. Still, something doesn't add up; why bail on Berringer here, when she could have slipped away at any time she wanted back in Boston?

"So why were following me up this lava tube?" you say. "You got yourself off the boat, you could go anywhere you want. What do you need me for?"

"Because you're probably the only two-eyed person on this island who knows what they're doing. I stand a better chance getting out of here alive with you than I do on my own."

"I usually work alone. And besides, I'm not overly fond of people who steal my stuff right out of my cabin while I'm sleeping."

"Ah, yes, your stuff. Well, I won't insult you with an apology; you know as well as I do that the rules of our little game don't reward morality. But I'll make you a deal: you can have your 'stuff' back if you let me come with you."

"And if I don't?"

"I hardly see how that would even be a valid option," Meredith says. "Would you really just leave me here alone on an island full of cannibals, just because your pride was wounded? I mean, come on here. Let's be adults."

__________________________________________________
> You let Meredith come with you.
This is one of those moments where you feel like closing your eyes and silently counting to ten. But you know that even if you did, when you reopened them Meredith Nowitki will still be standing in front of you. Arguing with her will be pointless, and it just so happens she possesses something that you really do need right now: that headlamp. With the watery demise of Captain Mark's cheap flashlight, it is now the only source of light in the cave.

"All right, fine," you say. "You can come with me. Now just give me back my pack."

Meredith shrugs off the green backpack you bought at REI and plops it down on a rock beside the stream. "This thing is effing heavy," she says. "How do you move so fast carrying all this weight?"

You take off Captain Mark's black book bag and give it to her. "Here, you can have this. It's not much lighter, though. All of my stuff better still be here."

"Don't worry, I didn't touch a thing," she says. "All I took were a couple of those Clif Bar things and some water."

Judging by the feel of the pack, she's probably right. This is no place to conduct a thorough inventory, though, so you hoist the pack onto your shoulders. Actually, the weight isn't that bad at all, maybe about thirty pounds or so. But Meredith can't weigh more than 100 pounds soaking wet, and nothing about her prior life chasing Walter Berringer around Fenway Park would have prepared her for this kind of physical effort. So yeah, she probably would think a thirty-pound backpack was the heaviest thing ever.

"I'm going to need that headlamp, too," you say.

"But how am I supposed to see without it?"

"Just don't get too far behind. It's the only light we have."

The only item you let her keep — for the moment — is one of the two trekking poles. Considering how you just slipped and fell down the wet rocks, you know life will go more smoothly if she gets to use one of the poles for balance.

"So why are you going back down this tunnel?" she asks a few minutes later.

"I didn't think this lava tube was going anywhere. I got to a point where it started to branch, and I just didn't feel like getting lost in a maze. Now you tell me something: when you jumped ship this morning, where exactly did you think you were going to go?"

"To find the Stone of Vul-Kar, of course. Why else does one come to Woban Island — for the piña coladas?"

"So in other words your plan was to get the stone before I did and collect the reward? And now you want me to help?"

"Settle down," Meredith says. "Walter was going to pay you a million dollars, right? Well I know someone willing to pay two million."

"Who?"

"Another Boston collector. One of Walter's rivals, actually."

"And what makes you think you can find the stone?" you ask.

"Let's just say I know something about it no one else knows," she says.

"And what would that be?"

"I have reason to believe that the Stone of Vul-Kar is not where everybody thinks it is."

"And how could you of all people possibly know that?" If nothing else, Meredith's company as you descend the lava tube is proving to be entertaining.

"Remember how Walter previously hired Beatriz Paya-Vallejo to find the gem? What he didn't know was that I helped her out with a particular dilemma she had. Bea was confident she could find the stone, but what worried her was that it would make her a target for the Wobans once she took it from the temple. So I tracked down a large geode with a purple crystal inside, and then had a guy chip away the outer layer of rock so that she would have a decoy to leave behind when she ran off with the true Stone of Vul-Kar."

"Did it work?"

"I have no idea," Meredith says. "All we know was that she called us on the satellite phone and said she had found the gem. But she was having difficulty of some kind and needed to find an alternate route off the mountain. So Walter moved the Big Papi to the far side of the island, but we never heard another word. I think she found the stone and made the swap, but that something happened to her anyway."

"That is interesting," you say. "So who is this other collector, anyway — the one willing to pay two million dollars?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Her story is rather… complicated. But if I'm not mistaken, she sent someone to try and make contact with you on your flight to Boston."

"By any chance, does he own a plaid suit?"

"Dozens of them, unfortunately."

You admit to yourself that you are thoroughly confused. This tale Meredith just told was fascinating, but is any of it believable? And how can it possibly be to your advantage to pal around with someone dressed like a movie extra from Gunga Din? Where does one find an actual pith helmet these days, anyway?

"Well, our first challenge will be getting out of this cave unseen," you say. "Hopefully those three Wobans standing guard near the entrance have moved on to other pursuits, or else—"

"Oh, those guys won't be giving anybody any problems," Meredith says.

"Why do you say that?"

"I shot them. Yeah, I know that's not your thing, but what else was I going to do?"

She delivers this bit of news just as you are a minute from the entrance. Light from outside is now reaching your position, so you switch off the headlamp and tuck it away. Quietly, you step closer to the mouth of the cave, worried about what you might find outside. You never use guns in your work because your M.O. is to move stealthily, drawing as little attention to yourself as possible. But if your new "partner" fired off at least three shots to kill those Wobans you snuck past earlier, who knows who else was drawn to the scene by the sound of the gunshots?

Indeed, you can tell right away that the small clearing is now crawling with three-eyed natives. Keeping to the shadows as much as possible, you inch toward the opening. The brush that concealed you earlier prevents you from seeing everything, but you can see Wobans scouring the surrounding jungle, as if investigating the killing of the three guards.

"E ‘imi i ka po‘e lapuwale i hana ia hana!" a voice booms.

Meredith creeps up behind you. "Ugh, not more of these goons." She intends this as a whisper, but some people simply aren't that good at keeping their voice low. Adding the fact that you are in what amounts to an echo chamber, she might just as well be speaking into a megaphone.

A young Woban turns toward the cave. "Eia lakou, e ka haku!" he shouts, pointing to you.

Within moments you are captured by the Wobans.

__________________________________________________
> Next page.
You curse the name of Meredith Nowitki as the two of you are marched up the trail as prisoners of the Wobans. Your hands are not bound, and your captors have even let you keep your packs for the moment. But with three spears each pointed at the two of you, you estimate your odds of escaping are pretty much zero.

At a junction of trails about half a mile past the cave entrance, the Wobans turn left and descend a long hill back toward the shoreline. They are in a celebratory mood, singing boisterously like Boy Scouts marching to summer camp:

Hele mai na mea hele waho no ka pohaku o Vul-Kar

Aka ‘a‘ole makou e ‘ae ia lakou

Malama makou i ka pohaku a pale maika‘i

Ma makou e ‘ai ai i na ‘aihue e hele mai e ‘aihue!

It's a primitive form of music to be sure, lacking the civilized innovations of both meter and rhyme. But boy, do they sure seem pleased with themselves singing it!

"Why are we putting up with this? Didn't you say Walter gave you a g—nnh!" Meredith starts to say, but the Woban behind her shoves her to shut her up. You decide it's best not to respond. Whatever your captors have in store for the two of you, you doubt it will be anything good.

You are led to a small village of thatched huts, with about two dozen dwellings. One larger structure stands atop a mound of earth, making it elevated about five feet above the rest of the settlement. Your guards march you through the center of town, and then stop you at the foot of the mound.

The leader of your guards is a fierce-looking young man with a painted face and a tattooed body. He steps forward and shouts: "E ke ali‘i nui a mahalo ‘ia, e hele mai e ‘ike i ka mea a makou e lawe nei ia ‘oe!"

A grizzled old giant emerges from the elevated hut, with wild locks of graying hair and what looks like claw marks just above his middle eye. His face is painted with bold stripes of white, black, and yellow, and despite his obvious advanced age the tattoos that adorn his entire torso are still sharply defined.

Beside the chief stands a woman who appears much younger than he is, with long black hair and a necklace adorned with seashells... and a shrunken head. All three of her eyebrows are furled in an obvious expression of scorn as she regards you and Meredith from her elevated position; by contrast, the doll-sized head dangling at her chest only has two eyes forever set in a blank, horrified gaze. You try not to stare too closely, but you're curious whether the head belongs to anybody you know.

Looking around at the inhabitants of this village as they emerge from their daily routines, you can see now that grass skirts are the only garments worn by any of the island's natives, male or female. And this answers another question you never knew you wanted to ask until just now:

Eyes are the only anatomical features that Wobans possess in threes.

"‘O ka‘u Manu-‘opio-i-hana-me-ka-Pohaku, he aha kau e lawe mai nei i mua o ko ‘oukou ali‘i i keia la?" the chief says. His hair may be gray, but his voice is still forceful.

"Lawe makou ia ‘oe i ‘elua mau ‘aihue, e ka Haku!" barks the captain of the guards. "‘Elua mau holoholona i hele i ka makou ‘aina e hana i ka ‘aihue a me ka pepehi kanaka."

"He aha ka mea a lakou i ‘aihue ai? He aha na kanaka a lakou i pepehi ai?" the woman says. Is she the chief's wife? His daughter? You can't tell.

"Pepehi lakou i ka makou mau kia‘i ‘ekolu me ka lakou la‘au ahi," the guardsman says, "a laila laila holo i like me na daimonio weliweli i loko o ke ana!"

"A laila ua na‘auao ‘oe i lawe mai i keia mau daimonio i ‘ane‘i," the chief says, descending from the mound. "E ‘ai makou i ko lakou ‘i‘o a luku i ko lakou ‘uhane ‘ino."

"‘Ae, ‘o ia ka makou ala," the woman says, joining the chief.

"I don't get it, what is this about?" Meredith says to you.

"E noho malie ka mea pio!" the chief spits in her face.

"‘O kela holoholona ka mea like ‘ole na iwi!" the woman says, looking Meredith up and down. "‘Oiai ‘a‘ole keiki e lilo i momona ma ka ‘aina i kona ‘i‘o."

"No laila he mea maika‘i ka‘u i ho‘iho‘i ai i ‘elua mau holoholona," the guard says, gesturing to you.

"‘O ke ‘ano keia, e loa‘a no na holoholona ‘ekolu no ka makou ‘aha‘aina," the woman says, "e helu ana i ka mea a He-kanaka-ho‘omake-i-na-Manoke i lawe mai nei ia makou i nehinei."

She points to your right, and reflexively you look in that direction even though you have no idea what she's talking about. There, tied to a tree, is a young man — a two-eyed outsider like yourselves — who looks not only terrified, but also gaunt, as if the Wobans have been saving him for something special.

The chief returns to the top of the mound, with the woman close behind. He turns and decrees, "E lawe mai i keia mau daimonio i na kanaka o ke kauhale. ‘Ae i kela me keia kanaka e koho i kahi o na ‘apana a kana ‘ohana e ‘ai ai."

Then something strange happens. Your packs are removed, and you and Meredith are each grabbed by the shoulders by one of your Woban guards. Your shirts are ripped off, and you are forcibly walked to the entrance of each hut in the village. There, one member of the household makes a mark on your bodies with a piece of charcoal, often making a show of licking his or her lips right in front of you. You can't help but notice that you are getting more interest than Meredith. It is only towards the end, when your body has been all marked up, that the last of the Woban families reluctantly place their marks on your diminutive companion.

When this ordeal is completed, the two of you are brought to where the other foreigner is tied up. You see that his body has been marked in a similar way.

Bound with your hands behind a tree of your own, you watch as the Wobans rummage through the backpack — the same backpack you bought just days ago, and which Meredith stole, and which you've barely had the opportunity to use. The three-eyed villagers toss about packages of freeze-dried meals, extra clothes, your stove and your cook set, the water filter, and so forth. The down sleeping bag explodes into a cloud of goose feathers when one unappreciative fellow digs his long fingernails into it. None of these items mean anything to these primitive people, and probably confirm their belief that you are evil spirits of some kind.

"They're going to eat us, you know," the young man says, his voice frail.

"How do you know for sure?" you say. "Can you understand that language of theirs?"

"A little, I think," he says. "My mother was a linguist, and so am I. They speak a dialect that is not unlike others in this region. The more they talk, the more I understand, I fear."

Meredith has clearly been traumatized by the ordeal of being shown around the village, and she is now slumping against her bonds. You need to keep your mind clear so you can figure a way out of this. Therefore you talk.

"A linguist, huh? That's interesting. What brings you to Woban Island, then? Studying the natives, hoping they'll help you find the Stone of Vul-Kar?"

"Heavens no, not Vul-Kar," the man says. He makes a spitting motion, but you see no saliva come out. "That's what my mother came here for, Dr. Cynthia Bolt. Just up and left one day, decided that's what she wanted to do. We never heard from her again. I came here to look for her."

You are struggling against the leather thong that binds your wrist, trying to reach your hip pocket. "Did you find her?"

"I only just arrived a few days ago. I thought if I just approached the Wobans and showed them my friendly intentions, they would help me. So that's what I did, and here I am."

Almost there! you think to yourself, trying to ignore the burning pain as your wrist strains against the leather. "You must be Dr. Brian Bolt, then."

"I am. I feel like I should be flattered you know my name, although I doubt that my academic career has made me a famous person. Or that you are here to come to my rescue."

Your fingertips can just touch the metal item in your pocket. "Before I landed on the island this morning, I received some intel on who else might be present. Your name came up."

"I will let myself feel flattered anyway," he says, but without much enthusiasm. Everything about Dr. Bolt seems defeated: his forlorn posture, his reedy voice. He is convinced he is about to die, and all your presence has done is assure him it won't be a lonely death.

"So when is the big dinner?" you say. You're finding that the trick to grasping the item in your pocket might be to jerk your right hip upward to meet your fingers halfway, thus extending the reach of your hand.

"Big dinn— Oh, you mean us," Dr. Bolt says. "I don't know how you can be so flippant about such a horrific act."

"I don't mean to be flippant, I just—"

"My family has never been very lucky," Bolt says. "My Great Uncle Ben died when he fell into a sinkhole in Florida. Aunt Lydia got run over by a cement truck crossing the road to her mailbox. But I think getting eaten by cannibals will be the most gruesome death in my family's history."

Success — the jackknife is now in your hands! If you don't manage to cut your own wrists in the process, you now have the means to free yourself from your bonds. You feel grateful that those grass skirts the Wobans wear have no pockets, and that it therefore never occurred to them to check your pockets for contraband.

But you may have another situation on your hands: Bolt's pessimism is starting to feed Meredith's anxiety.

"No, no no no no no! This can't be happening! This can't be happening!" she says.

"I'm afraid so," Bolt says. "Do you know what those marks on our bodies mean? Each household gets to claim their cut of meat."

"Oh this is so insane, I never should've come to this effing place, I just wanted to do something for myself for a change, now I'm just going to get eaten by a bunch of effing cannibals—"

"Meredith!" you say softly, trying to get her attention without attracting the Wobans. You have just finished slicing through the strip of leather at your wrists, and are now free to make your escape. But you remain in place, pretending to still be tied while you make up your mind what to do.

"—but no I had to follow this idiot, and look where it's gotten me—"

"Meredith!"

"What the eff do you want?" she finally says, as if she is about to burst into all-out rage any moment now.

"Your gun. Where is it?"

"Now all of a sudden you care about that? It's in a side pocket of that little book bag you gave me, not that it's going to do us any good way over there."

Both backpacks are about fifty feet away. You watched carefully when the Wobans were emptying your pack, but they never found the pouch on the hip strap where you stuffed Berringer's pistol while you were back inside the lava tube — nor did they even touch Meredith's bag. This means both weapons are right where you stowed them, just a short sprint away.

But now you have a quick choice to make: do you free your companions, race to retrieve the two guns, and then hope you and Meredith can shoot your way out of this pickle? Or would you be better off fleeing into the jungle on your own? Sure, yes, the moral thing to do is to free both of your fellow prisoners, but Meredith looks like she is on the verge of an outburst; the Wobans haven't been paying close attention to you since they tied you up, but if she freaks out before you can get away, then the show will be over.

At least if one of you gets away, it would be better than if all three of you became the main entrées at tonight's dinner.

__________________________________________________
> You free the others and make a run for the guns.
"Meredith," you say, "if I get the guns, do you think the two of us can manage to shoot our way out of this?"

"What, are you mad?" she says. "Do you think those beasts are gonna just—"

For the first time you remove your hands from behind the tree, the remains of the leather thong dropping to the ground, the jackknife in your hand.

"Oh my god, you had a knife!" she says, demonstrating her inability to whisper. "Why didn't—"

You slice through the leather strap looped around her wrists. "Just shut up, or you'll get us all killed. Here, take the knife and free Dr. Bolt. I'll get the guns. Wait for me in the woods."

There is no time to see how well she executes your instructions, as you calculate you'll have just a matter of seconds to reach the packs before your captors inevitably notice their meals are getting away. You sprint as fast as you can, going to your pack first since you know exactly where you stuffed Berringer's gun. How ironic that you're about to use it to save Meredith, when he gave it to you with the opposite intentions.

The hitch, however, comes when you try and find Meredith's gun. She said it was in a side pocket, but the little black book bag given to you by Captain Mark has multiple pockets on the outside. Some industrial designer's obsession with organization might be your undoing if you have to stop and open each pouch, so instead you grope the pack frantically until you feel the gun inside a long zippered pocket running down the right side.

"Pakele ka mea ‘ai! Pono kekahi e hopu ia lakou!" You don't look to see what the Wobans are doing, but you recognize the voice of the woman with the shrunken head on her necklace — and you're reasonably certain she's noticed you're no longer tied up.

With both guns now in hand, you turn back to where you left Meredith and Dr. Bolt. They are no longer there, so you run as fast as you can into the jungle beyond. As you pass the three trees where you had been bound, a seven-foot-long spear lands with a quiver in the tree that a moment ago held you in place. In the corner of your eye, it looks like a giant pub dart landing just to the left of the bullseye.

"This way!" You hear Meredith, but you don't see her until she grabs at your arm from behind a bush. Dr. Bolt looks somewhat dazed behind her, like he is still trying to process all that is happening.

"Did you get them?" she says.

"Here," you say, handing her gun over.

"No bullets?" she says, her hand still out like she's expecting you to give her something else.

"Bullets? I was lucky I found anything at all."

"Well I only have two shots left then, so let's not get ourselves into a shootout."

"In that case, we need to get out of here," you say. "I think our gracious hosts are upset their meals are running away."

And so you flee into the deep jungle, with Meredith and Dr. Bolt following you as if you know where you're going. You haven't really had that much time to think that far ahead, though. Probably the best place you could be is back in that runabout you hid on the shore, speeding away back to the Big Papi. So you head downhill, assuming that is the direction back to the shoreline.

But if the world is a big playing field, just like Berringer told you that day back in Fenway, then the three of you clearly do not have the home field advantage. You are all running as if your lives depend on it, but you can hear the Woban hunters gaining on you quickly. One doesn't need to be a math whiz to figure out a seven-foot Woban can outrun a mere human without even trying very hard.

"Why are you stopping?" Meredith says as you examine a small clearing in the forest you have just stumbled across.

"They're gaining on us too quickly," you say.

"Yes, we are no match for the Wobans, I'm afraid," Dr. Bolt says.

"We'll hide in the bushes, and when they enter this clearing we'll open fire," you say.

"It was a valiant effort, and I appreciate your thinking of me, but I knew that escape was impossible," Bolt says.

"If there's more than two of them, I can't help you," Meredith says, taking your lead in ignoring your defeatist companion.

"I should have a full chamber," you say.

"Then that gives us eight," she says. "Let's not miss."

The Wobans are just seconds away from bursting into the clearing, so you gesture to your two companions to back into the nearest patch of tall grass. It's the best cover you can find in the time that you have.

Two of your pursuers enter the meadow, apparently clueless that you are lying in wait. They are sprinting straight ahead, as if intending to continue the chase back into the jungle. But in so doing, they are coming directly at you.

Meredith fires right, you shoot left, and with grim economy the two of you eliminate these Wobans from the chase. The twin shots ring out across the evening air, though, lingering like a peal of thunder that hangs over the jungle and fades away much too slowly. It might as well be a neon sign pointing out your location.

"Run?" Meredith says.

"Wait," you say, but there is no need to wait for long. The two Wobans that you just killed were just the advance scouts; the shouting that erupts from the jungle makes it sound as though the entire population of the village is coming to avenge their deaths.

"Yes, run," you agree, but even as you say the words you know your situation is hopeless. You have bought yourselves a few seconds perhaps, but you remain at a disadvantage: the Wobans are still so much faster than you, the shore is still miles away, and now you have only six shots with which to defend yourselves. It is hard to picture any way in which this will end well.

Dr. Bolt gives you a look of dismay, as if you have just proposed the most pointless action ever. You'll never admit it, but you know he's right.

THE END


You curse the name of Meredith Nowitki as the two of you are marched up the trail as prisoners of the Wobans. Your hands are not bound, and your captors have even let you keep your packs for the moment. But with three spears each pointed at the two of you, you estimate your odds of escaping are pretty much zero.

At a junction of trails about half a mile past the cave entrance, the Wobans turn left and descend a long hill back toward the shoreline. They are in a celebratory mood, singing boisterously like Boy Scouts marching to summer camp:

Hele mai na mea hele waho no ka pohaku o Vul-Kar

Aka ‘a‘ole makou e ‘ae ia lakou

Malama makou i ka pohaku a pale maika‘i

Ma makou e ‘ai ai i na ‘aihue e hele mai e ‘aihue!

It's a primitive form of music to be sure, lacking the civilized innovations of both meter and rhyme. But boy, do they sure seem pleased with themselves singing it!

"Why are we putting up with this? Didn't you say Walter gave you a g—nnh!" Meredith starts to say, but the Woban behind her shoves her to shut her up. You decide it's best not to respond. Whatever your captors have in store for the two of you, you doubt it will be anything good.

You are led to a small village of thatched huts, with about two dozen dwellings. One larger structure stands atop a mound of earth, making it elevated about five feet above the rest of the settlement. Your guards march you through the center of town, and then stop you at the foot of the mound.

The leader of your guards is a fierce-looking young man with a painted face and a tattooed body. He steps forward and shouts: "E ke ali‘i nui a mahalo ‘ia, e hele mai e ‘ike i ka mea a makou e lawe nei ia ‘oe!"

A grizzled old giant emerges from the elevated hut, with wild locks of graying hair and what looks like claw marks just above his middle eye. His face is painted with bold stripes of white, black, and yellow, and despite his obvious advanced age the tattoos that adorn his entire torso are still sharply defined.

Beside the chief stands a woman who appears much younger than he is, with long black hair and a necklace adorned with seashells... and a shrunken head. All three of her eyebrows are furled in an obvious expression of scorn as she regards you and Meredith from her elevated position; by contrast, the doll-sized head dangling at her chest only has two eyes forever set in a blank, horrified gaze. You try not to stare too closely, but you're curious whether the head belongs to anybody you know.

Looking around at the inhabitants of this village as they emerge from their daily routines, you can see now that grass skirts are the only garments worn by any of the island's natives, male or female. And this answers another question you never knew you wanted to ask until just now:

Eyes are the only anatomical features that Wobans possess in threes.

"‘O ka‘u Manu-‘opio-i-hana-me-ka-Pohaku, he aha kau e lawe mai nei i mua o ko ‘oukou ali‘i i keia la?" the chief says. His hair may be gray, but his voice is still forceful.

"Lawe makou ia ‘oe i ‘elua mau ‘aihue, e ka Haku!" barks the captain of the guards. "‘Elua mau holoholona i hele i ka makou ‘aina e hana i ka ‘aihue a me ka pepehi kanaka."

"He aha ka mea a lakou i ‘aihue ai? He aha na kanaka a lakou i pepehi ai?" the woman says. Is she the chief's wife? His daughter? You can't tell.

"Pepehi lakou i ka makou mau kia‘i ‘ekolu me ka lakou la‘au ahi," the guardsman says, "a laila laila holo i like me na daimonio weliweli i loko o ke ana!"

"A laila ua na‘auao ‘oe i lawe mai i keia mau daimonio i ‘ane‘i," the chief says, descending from the mound. "E ‘ai makou i ko lakou ‘i‘o a luku i ko lakou ‘uhane ‘ino."

"‘Ae, ‘o ia ka makou ala," the woman says, joining the chief.

"I don't get it, what is this about?" Meredith says to you.

"E noho malie ka mea pio!" the chief spits in her face.

"‘O kela holoholona ka mea like ‘ole na iwi!" the woman says, looking Meredith up and down. "‘Oiai ‘a‘ole keiki e lilo i momona ma ka ‘aina i kona ‘i‘o."

"No laila he mea maika‘i ka‘u i ho‘iho‘i ai i ‘elua mau holoholona," the guard says, gesturing to you.

"‘O ke ‘ano keia, e loa‘a no na holoholona ‘ekolu no ka makou ‘aha‘aina," the woman says, "e helu ana i ka mea a He-kanaka-ho‘omake-i-na-Manoke i lawe mai nei ia makou i nehinei."

She points to your right, and reflexively you look in that direction even though you have no idea what she's talking about. There, tied to a tree, is a young man — a two-eyed outsider like yourselves — who looks not only terrified, but also gaunt, as if the Wobans have been saving him for something special.

The chief returns to the top of the mound, with the woman close behind. He turns and decrees, "E lawe mai i keia mau daimonio i na kanaka o ke kauhale. ‘Ae i kela me keia kanaka e koho i kahi o na ‘apana a kana ‘ohana e ‘ai ai."

Then something strange happens. Your packs are removed, and you and Meredith are each grabbed by the shoulders by one of your Woban guards. Your shirts are ripped off, and you are forcibly walked to the entrance of each hut in the village. There, one member of the household makes a mark on your bodies with a piece of charcoal, often making a show of licking his or her lips right in front of you. You can't help but notice that you are getting more interest than Meredith. It is only towards the end, when your body has been all marked up, that the last of the Woban families reluctantly place their marks on your diminutive companion.

When this ordeal is completed, the two of you are brought to where the other foreigner is tied up. You see that his body has been marked in a similar way.

Bound with your hands behind a tree of your own, you watch as the Wobans rummage through the backpack — the same backpack you bought just days ago, and which Meredith stole, and which you've barely had the opportunity to use. The three-eyed villagers toss about packages of freeze-dried meals, extra clothes, your stove and your cook set, the water filter, and so forth. The down sleeping bag explodes into a cloud of goose feathers when one unappreciative fellow digs his long fingernails into it. None of these items mean anything to these primitive people, and probably confirm their belief that you are evil spirits of some kind.

"They're going to eat us, you know," the young man says, his voice frail.

"How do you know for sure?" you say. "Can you understand that language of theirs?"

"A little, I think," he says. "My mother was a linguist, and so am I. They speak a dialect that is not unlike others in this region. The more they talk, the more I understand, I fear."

Meredith has clearly been traumatized by the ordeal of being shown around the village, and she is now slumping against her bonds. You need to keep your mind clear so you can figure a way out of this. Therefore you talk.

"A linguist, huh? That's interesting. What brings you to Woban Island, then? Studying the natives, hoping they'll help you find the Stone of Vul-Kar?"

"Heavens no, not Vul-Kar," the man says. He makes a spitting motion, but you see no saliva come out. "That's what my mother came here for, Dr. Cynthia Bolt. Just up and left one day, decided that's what she wanted to do. We never heard from her again. I came here to look for her."

You are struggling against the leather thong that binds your wrist, trying to reach your hip pocket. "Did you find her?"

"I only just arrived a few days ago. I thought if I just approached the Wobans and showed them my friendly intentions, they would help me. So that's what I did, and here I am."

Almost there! you think to yourself, trying to ignore the burning pain as your wrist strains against the leather. "You must be Dr. Brian Bolt, then."

"I am. I feel like I should be flattered you know my name, although I doubt that my academic career has made me a famous person. Or that you are here to come to my rescue."

Your fingertips can just touch the metal item in your pocket. "Before I landed on the island this morning, I received some intel on who else might be present. Your name came up."

"I will let myself feel flattered anyway," he says, but without much enthusiasm. Everything about Dr. Bolt seems defeated: his forlorn posture, his reedy voice. He is convinced he is about to die, and all your presence has done is assure him it won't be a lonely death.

"So when is the big dinner?" you say. You're finding that the trick to grasping the item in your pocket might be to jerk your right hip upward to meet your fingers halfway, thus extending the reach of your hand.

"Big dinn— Oh, you mean us," Dr. Bolt says. "I don't know how you can be so flippant about such a horrific act."

"I don't mean to be flippant, I just—"

"My family has never been very lucky," Bolt says. "My Great Uncle Ben died when he fell into a sinkhole in Florida. Aunt Lydia got run over by a cement truck crossing the road to her mailbox. But I think getting eaten by cannibals will be the most gruesome death in my family's history."

Success — the jackknife is now in your hands! If you don't manage to cut your own wrists in the process, you now have the means to free yourself from your bonds. You feel grateful that those grass skirts the Wobans wear have no pockets, and that it therefore never occurred to them to check your pockets for contraband.

But you may have another situation on your hands: Bolt's pessimism is starting to feed Meredith's anxiety.

"No, no no no no no! This can't be happening! This can't be happening!" she says.

"I'm afraid so," Bolt says. "Do you know what those marks on our bodies mean? Each household gets to claim their cut of meat."

"Oh this is so insane, I never should've come to this effing place, I just wanted to do something for myself for a change, now I'm just going to get eaten by a bunch of effing cannibals—"

"Meredith!" you say softly, trying to get her attention without attracting the Wobans. You have just finished slicing through the strip of leather at your wrists, and are now free to make your escape. But you remain in place, pretending to still be tied while you make up your mind what to do.

"—but no I had to follow this idiot, and look where it's gotten me—"

"Meredith!"

"What the eff do you want?" she finally says, as if she is about to burst into all-out rage any moment now.

"Your gun. Where is it?"

"Now all of a sudden you care about that? It's in a side pocket of that little book bag you gave me, not that it's going to do us any good way over there."

Both backpacks are about fifty feet away. You watched carefully when the Wobans were emptying your pack, but they never found the pouch on the hip strap where you stuffed Berringer's pistol while you were back inside the lava tube — nor did they even touch Meredith's bag. This means both weapons are right where you stowed them, just a short sprint away.

But now you have a quick choice to make: do you free your companions, race to retrieve the two guns, and then hope you and Meredith can shoot your way out of this pickle? Or would you be better off fleeing into the jungle on your own? Sure, yes, the moral thing to do is to free both of your fellow prisoners, but Meredith looks like she is on the verge of an outburst; the Wobans haven't been paying close attention to you since they tied you up, but if she freaks out before you can get away, then the show will be over.

At least if one of you gets away, it would be better than if all three of you became the main entrées at tonight's dinner.

__________________________________________________
> You forget the others and run for your life.
It's a cold and calculated decision you have to make, but these two companions you've inherited are liabilities. One is practically dead already, and the other is in the angry-denial phase of dealing with her situation. Together, their attitudes and their antics are sure to get you killed. You know you are the only one with a real chance of escape, and there is no point squandering the opportunity in an act of charity. Get out alone, or don't get out at all — those are your only real choices.

But how should you go about it? The only sure path to safety lies in the dense jungle that begins just a short distance behind you. There are two perfectly good weapons in the opposite direction — unguarded since your captors have no idea they exist — but the act of retrieving them would merely alert the Wobans to the fact that you have freed yourself from your bonds. If you rouse their attention, you might as well not even bother trying to escape. For this reason, you decide to dispense with the guns.

"Really, I don't know what Walter saw in you," Meredith goes on. "You haven't even been here a full day yet and look where you've gotten us. Last night we were eating swordfish, tonight we're the ones about to get eaten…."

Whatever else she says, you don't linger long enough to hear. She and Dr. Bolt are bound tightly to their trees, forced to keep their gaze focused on the Woban village ahead of them; neither can see you too well without awkwardly turning their heads. With your wrists free of the leather thong that bound them, you merely walk away from the tree to which you had been tied and walk silently into the jungle. Meredith and Bolt never see you leave.

All of your gear and provisions are behind you, though, strewn about the ground on the edge of the Woban village. Other than the jackknife that freed you, as well as the clothes that you wear, there is nothing in your possession that will help you out of your predicament. Your only asset is your desire to live.

Your exit from the village is as uneventful as you could ever want it to be. You walk into the forest as casually and inconspicuously as somebody stepping away from a noisy party for a moment of fresh air. You can hear Meredith sputtering on behind you, until finally her voice grows faint with distance. When you can no longer hear her at all, you can't tell if it makes you feel relieved or guilty. Is it possible to be both at the same time?

Perhaps you have freed yourself from your predicament, but you know the hunt for the Stone of Vul-Kar has been tabled indefinitely — and with it, your hopes of a lucrative payout from Walter Berringer. The best you can do now is make it back to the shoreline and hope that the runabout is right where you left it. Then you'll get off this hell hole and back to… well, it's difficult to think that far ahead at the moment. One step at a time.

You have no idea where exactly you are on the island, so you try and mentally retrace your progress throughout the day: landing on the east shore, climbing the ridge, going up the lava tube but then coming right back down, getting captured by the Wobans, and then heading down a short hill to their village. You deduce that you are therefore still deep in the hilly interior of the island, meaning the coast is somewhere below you, probably several miles away. If you are correct, then your way off the island begins by heading downhill, hoping there are no more cannibal outposts in your way.

It was late afternoon when you escaped, and soon the tropical twilight begins sneaking up on you. At these latitudes, darkness sets in less than half an hour after the sun sinks below the horizon. During the bit of daylight that you have left, you'd like to put as much distance as you can between you and the village. You bushwhack your way through the thick jungle underbrush, stumble across another trail, and then follow that downstream alongside a brook with brown water. As before, you find the walking to be easier along the trail, but after all that has happened today you feel as skittish as a rabbit. Every rustling of the leaves, every creaking of a tree swaying in the sultry breeze could be a Woban sneaking up behind you, and therefore even in your freedom you are never at ease.

Twilight comes and goes with no sign that you are nearing the ocean. And if hiking through the jungle in the daylight wasn't unsettling enough, being stranded alone in the dark proves to be nearly unbearable. But what else can you do? Hungry and alone, you step off the trail and find a secluded spot at the base of a tree where you hope to pass the night unseen.

It is not a quiet night, however. Behind you, back in the hills from which you have been fleeing, the Wobans seem to be putting on quite the party. There is a glow in the night sky from what must be a massive bonfire, and you can hear the distant voices singing gleefully to the rhythmic banging of a leather drum. For a second you think you hear a woman's scream, but the sound is cut off before you can fully make sense of it. It might have just been a bird.

So you have gotten way from harm's reach, and in the morning you can complete your journey to the shore and search for the runabout. But the glow in the sky and the sound of the cheerful natives makes you feel small. Never have you felt so inadequate to meet the challenges of a mission. And now that you think about it, never have you ever had to save your own hide by abandoning someone else to a tribe of cannibals. Of all the places you've been, of all the perils you've faced, none have left you feeling so defeated, so diminished, as Woban Island.

You slink back against the base of the tree, alive and physically well, but with the sense that your role in the world will never again be what it once was. It is going to be a long and sleepless time before dawn arrives.

THE END


Convinced that you have been wasting your time, and having found no other exits out of the lava tube, you decide that the sensible thing to do is backtrack down to the entrance. If the Wobans are still there when you get back, then you'll just have to wait for them to leave.

Therefore you turn to follow the little stream back down the angled cave, feeling a little bit like you are walking down an overgrown waterslide in an amusement park. The flow is little more than a trickle at first, but as you pass through the tunnel a second time you notice small seeps at various spots along the wall where additional rivulets are adding to the volume of the stream. In places, the running water fans out into an apron of moisture running down the slanted floor of the lava tube.

What you fail to appreciate is that some of this wet rock can be slippery, especially when you are walking downhill. On one patch of smooth rock, your Vibram soles fail you, sending you on a wild butt-slide down for a distance of about twenty feet. The flashlight flies out of your hands as you try unsuccessfully to stop yourself, but there is nothing you can grab onto. You come to an inelegant stop in the gravel bar at the bottom, unharmed except for a few scrapes on your legs and the palm of your hands, as well as a wet behind.

The plastic flashlight has come to rest in a pool of water, its light gone out. But you are not in the dark. You look up and see someone is standing over you, the light of their headlamp illuminating the scene of your embarrassing fall.

"You look lost," the person says — a woman, her familiar voice distorted by the reverberation off the rock walls. "I would have expected someone with your reputation to be more sure-footed."

The headlamp is blinding you, and the echoes are distracting, but you would recognize Meredith's voice anywhere.

"What the hell are you doing here?" you say. "And why did you take my stuff?"

Instead of responding to you directly, Meredith extends her hand to help you up. When you are standing beside her, she says, "Oh, right, the headlamp." She takes it off and holds it in her hand so that you can see her without being blinded by the light. Yet again she has changed her wardrobe; instead of a dress suit or a bikini, she is now clad in a khaki shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, with a white pith helmet to top it all off. The air about her is heavy with the smell of a scented bug spray. She looks like a model from an old Banana Republic catalog, before that chain went downhill.

"I've been looking for you," she says. "I knew you'd be the only person who'd understand!"

You notice she's wearing your brand-new backpack, holding your brand-new headlamp in one hand and your brand-new trekking poles in the other.

"Funny, Berringer asked me to keep an eye out for you, too. He even gave me a gun to use in case I found you."

Her eyes widen in alarm at the news. "You don't plan to shoot me and take me back to Walter, do you?"

"We'll have to see," you say. No, you don't plan to shoot her, but she's not exactly someone towards whom you feel much warmth at the moment, though.

"The last thing I want to be is one of his trophies. You saw the way he treated me, right? You know I had to get away from him."

Meredith is trying to play on your sympathies. You remember well the remark that Berringer made back on the yacht last night, when he boasted that he had "acquired" her and that she was too dumb to realize it. So she may have a point. Still, something doesn't add up; why bail on Berringer here, when she could have slipped away at any time she wanted back in Boston?

"So why were following me up this lava tube?" you say. "You got yourself off the boat, you could go anywhere you want. What do you need me for?"

"Because you're probably the only two-eyed person on this island who knows what they're doing. I stand a better chance getting out of here alive with you than I do on my own."

"I usually work alone. And besides, I'm not overly fond of people who steal my stuff right out of my cabin while I'm sleeping."

"Ah, yes, your stuff. Well, I won't insult you with an apology; you know as well as I do that the rules of our little game don't reward morality. But I'll make you a deal: you can have your 'stuff' back if you let me come with you."

"And if I don't?"

"I hardly see how that would even be a valid option," Meredith says. "Would you really just leave me here alone on an island full of cannibals, just because your pride was wounded? I mean, come on here. Let's be adults."

__________________________________________________
> You leave her.
"Just watch me," you say. "With the money I plan to make off this gig, I can afford to replace everything you stole twenty times over."

Meredith genuinely looks hurt. "Is that the way you really feel about it?"

"I'm afraid so. I've been cursing your name all day long, and now that you're here, my blood is boiling."

"I guess I was so eager to get off that effing yacht that I never stopped to think who I was hurting," she says. "You are a skilled survivor; I figured you'd get by with some parachute cord and a roll of duct tape. I had nothing. That was how I rationalized it when I snuck into your cabin this morning."

"Well you can keep the pack," you say. "Don't say I never gave you anything."

You push past Meredith so that you can continue the trek down the lava tube on your own. Berringer will be upset that you're just letting her go, but he must know that you're neither an assassin nor a bounty hunter. You'll find the Stone of Vul-Kar for him, but he'll have to hire somebody else to be his avenger.

"Wait! Let me at least give you this!"

Her voice sounds wounded, so you turn back towards her so that you can at least have the satisfaction of seeing her hurt expression. But what you see instead takes you by complete surprise: a woman with grim determination, pointing a gun straight at you.

"Meredith, wh—" you start to say as the gun flashes and the shot echoes a hundredfold off the cavern walls. Her aim is true. You collapse to the ground, sitting stunned on the floor of the lava tube. You know a mortal wound when you see one.

Your murderer steps around behind you. "Let me see what else you've got," she says as she unzips the backpack that Captain Mark loaned you and rifles through the contents.

"Hmm, looks like I got all the good stuff already." She stands up, removes the pith helmet, and puts the headlamp back on her forehead. "Well, you did say you like to work alone. Let me know how that works out for you."

And then Meredith Nowitki sets off down the lava tube, leaving you to bleed to death in the dark.

THE END


Two weeks later, you are on Walter Berringer's private yacht in the South Pacific. It is now early November; when you left New England there were hints of oncoming snow in the air, but here, out on the open sea, the weather is sunny and almost uncomfortably warm. Meredith seems perfectly pleased with the setting, however; she is lounging in a deck chair soaking up the sunlight like a lizard, her dress suit replaced with a pastel bikini. There is a colorful cocktail of some kind beside her, on a stand right next to her ever-present notepad.

You can see her through the window as you peruse the maps that Berringer has provided you. They are sprawled out across a table inside the yacht's main salon — four large sheets, each covering a different quadrant of Woban Island. You had been under the impression that such things didn't exist, but nevertheless here they are.

The yacht is just hours away from Woban Island, and you are starting to feel the excitement of the moment. By this time tomorrow you should be in the field, bushwhacking your way up some previously unknown mountain, stealthily evading the native population while seeking the stone that will ultimately make you a millionaire.

It has been quite the interesting journey getting to this point. It began with a trip to an REI store located just a few blocks away from Fenway, where you stocked up on gear and provisions for your expedition. With a quarter-million dollars in your bank account, you decided to upgrade all of your gear: a new backpack, moisture-wicking clothing, solar-powered lamp, trekking poles, new boots, gaiters in case the island is muddy, and most importantly, a new tent. They also had a lightweight folding rocking chair set up as a display model, weighing only a couple pounds; it was tempting, but silly considering the nature of your trip, and so you passed on that one. You also looked at a top-of-the-line GPS, but that turned out to be rather pointless since it had no maps of your destination.

Then, a few days later, you boarded a plane for Honolulu — business class this time, with Berringer and Meredith as traveling companions. While your employer prepared his luxurious yacht, the Big Papi, for the voyage south of Hawaii toward Woban and Auri islands, you enjoyed some downtime exploring Oahu, particularly the various forest reserves on the island's north shore, where you sought to immerse yourself in the type of environment you expect to find on Woban. One day after returning from one of your hikes, Berringer presented you with the maps you are examining now. "I had a contact at Hickam Field print these off for me," he explained.

Now the Big Papi is sailing toward a spot just off Woban Island's northeast coast, where you plan to take an inflatable runabout to shore. You and Berringer selected the landing location after perusing the maps, deciding that this part of the island seemed to provide the best landing area and the most direct route to the island's main summit, where the Stone of Vul-Kar is supposed to be. Always a sucker for a good topographic map, you have been scrutinizing these for most of the time you have been at sea.

"If you keep this up, you'll have those maps memorized by the time you make landfall." It's Berringer, strolling into the salon in a silk robe, his customary empty glass in hand. He has been resting in his stateroom, but is now heading to the liquor cabinet to pour himself another bourbon. Now that you are nearing the islands, you've noticed that he has stopped offering to pour you a drink as well — best not to dull your edge.

"Good afternoon, sir," you say. "Yeah, according to this northeastern quad the route looks so easy. I don't see what all the trouble is. Drop me off in the morning, let me do my thing, and make sure you have dinner ready for me when I return that evening."

"Ha, if only it would be that simple." He takes a seat to your right at the table, whiskey glass in hand. "This whole part of the island is crawling with Wobans, and this part down here is rugged wilderness. According to the intel I picked up back at port, you're going to have company in those hills: people like you, hired by people like me, all with one objective in mind. You can be certain some of those people will be dangerous."

"Do you know exactly who I might encounter out there?"

"Just rumors, I'm afraid, but reliable ones. Here, I wrote them down."

He pulls a piece of paper out of his breast pocket and hands it to you. Unfolding it, you see a list of three names jotted down in Berringer's scratchy brand of penmanship:

Gary Gaffney

Dr. Brian Bolt

Martian Pop

"Do these names mean anything to you?" he asks.

"No," you say, "but are you sure about this last one? Martian Pop?"

"I thought you might like that one," Berringer says. "Yeah, that's a real name. He's Romanian, so my guess is it's not actually pronounced 'Martian Pop' in Romania. Pay close attention to this Gary Gaffney fellow. He might be working for a rival of mine back in Boston, and he's already been on the island for a few days. I'd be very unhappy if he got the Stone of Vul-Kar first."

"The way you're describing it, it's a crowded field on which we're about to play," you say. After all of this time with Berringer, you've started to speak in terms of sports metaphors, too.

"There may be others as well — rogue players that nobody knows. There were some vague reports last week of some young couple running around trying to steal a boat. And there is also a research team from the University of Chicago camped out on the southwestern shore of the island."

"Sounds like it will be quite the party if all of us get together at the same time."

"I'm trying to make it sound dangerous," Berringer says. "We've only known about this place for less than three years, and already people have gone missing. You're good, but this job isn't going to be like digging up caribou antler carvings from the thawing permafrost outside Nome. This place is going to try and kill you. Now let's talk about the Wobans themselves—"

"Walter, I'm hungry. What do you got around here to eat?" It's Meredith, entering the salon from the aft deck where she has been sunning herself, notebook in hand. She reeks of coconut-scented sunscreen.

"You're too late for lunch, too early for dinner," Berringer says rather gruffly. "Why don't you go to the galley and see what Cookie can scrounge up for you."

Meredith has been quiet for much of the voyage, nursing a grudge over some unknown grievance. She glowers at Berringer for a second, but he's not looking and doesn't see it. Then she sullenly leave the room.

"So what's the story with her, anyway?" you ask. "Three years is an awfully long time to be writing a newspaper article."

"You noticed that too, huh?" he says. "The truth is she reminds me of someone I used to have a crush on in high school. As you know, I acquire things. The key to acquiring people is to let the person you're acquiring feel at all times as if they're exercising free will. It tickles me, though, that her last name is Nowitki. She really does strike me as being witless sometimes."

That evening, as the three of you are in the dining room enjoying a swordfish dinner, the captain of the Big Papi makes an announcement over the intercom. "Sir, we are about to move into position five nautical miles to the northeast of Woban Island, just as you directed."

"You must be eager to see the place," Berringer says to you.

"Actually, yes," you say. "But it can wait until after dinner."

"Nonsense. I'm curious myself. Let's head up to the Skylounge Deck and take a look."

The three of you take your drinks — coffee in your case — up to the observation deck just below the bridge. Woban island is just ahead, a dark landmass occupying much of the horizon. Your first impression is that it is much bigger than you expected; a landmass that evaded detection for centuries should be little more than a speck of dirt, you had thought. But this is several miles in breadth, with a range of mountains rising darkly into the sky. From here, it is unclear which of them is the main summit atop which the jewel is located.

"My, my. It looks like we have some company." Berringer is not looking toward the island, but off to starboard. There is indeed a small speck of red on the ocean waves, moving in a straight line toward the Big Papi. "Meredith, honey, go and get my binoculars. They're in my stateroom, desk drawer on the right."

Meredith looks at him for a moment with silent resentment, but turns to obey the request when she determines that no "please" or "thank you" will be forthcoming.

"Who do you think it is?" you say.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Berringer says. "I wasn't expecting any company. I assume you weren't, either."

You're about to say something about a Woban coast guard, but decide against it; all of the evidence seems to suggest that Walter Berringer possesses an underdeveloped sense of humor.

A moment later Meredith returns with the binoculars, handing them over to Berringer without saying a word. He lifts them to his eyes.

"It looks like a runabout," he says. "Two people. I don't see the mother ship, though."

He hands the binoculars over to you. It takes you a moment to find the incoming craft through the lenses, but when you do you see a small inflatable boat, much like the one at the rear of the Big Papi awaiting your use in the morning. This one is red instead of white, however. It is too small to have traveled very far on its own, and you agree with Berringer that there should be another yacht or something somewhere out in that direction, but you see nothing.

"Could just be someone marooned here, looking for a ride home," he says.

"It could be the competition, coming to scope us out," you say.

"Well if that's the case, then at least we know they don't have the stone yet."

"They could still be dangerous, though," you say. "I doubt they'd just be making a social call."

"If they're in trouble, then we need to help!" Meredith says, breaking her silence.

"What do you think?" Berringer says. "You're the one with the keen instincts for this kind of situation, right? Should we stay and see if they need our help, or are they up to no good? I can have the captain move us further away."

__________________________________________________
> You stay and offer assistance.
"I guess there's no harm in seeing what they want," you say. "You and Meredith are right; this could just be somebody who needs assistance."

"All right, then." Berringer pulls what looks like a cordless phone out of his pocket. "Mark, slow her down," he says to the yacht's captain. "We have people approaching from starboard, and we want to see what they're about."

Within seconds you feel the Big Papi begin to slow. The giant wake the boat had been cutting across the ocean seems to catch up with the bow as you come to a full stop.

The incoming boat is so far off, though, that it takes quite a while to reach you. Berringer lets you keep the binoculars so you can study the two people as they get closer.

"Anybody we know?" he asks.

You see what appears to be a young couple in a red Zodiac; the woman is steering the boat while the man is peering back at you through a set of binoculars of his own.

"I've never seen these people before in my life," you say.

The three of you move to the stern, where the Sun Deck with its pool and array of empty lounge chairs sits a little closer to the water. A quarter of an hour passes, however, before the little red boat comes close enough that you are able to make voice contact with its passengers. The blond woman steering the red Zodiac cuts the outboard engine as the inflatable boat continues to drift closer to the Big Papi.

"That's an impressive little canoe you guys are riding!" the man says, eyeing Berringer's yacht from stem to stern. He sports a well-trimmed set of mutton chops and a gray flat cap, as if he were ready for a night out at his favorite downtown pub. "Are you here to fish?"

"We have some business to transact on Woban Island," Berringer says. "Is there something we can do for you?"

"Honey, they must be here for the Stone of Vul-Kar too!" the woman says to her companion. "Why don't you ask if we can help."

"But Charlei, look at the boat they're on!" he says to her. "I thought it was a cruise ship at first. We're in the presence of the One Percent! How could we possibly be of use to them?"

There is a certain passive-aggressiveness in the way they are speaking to each other that makes you uneasy — their private remarks about you are something they clearly want you to hear. The Zodiac they are riding has now bumped up against the stern of the Big Papi. Captain Mark and one of his crewmen have come down from the bridge to see what is going on, perhaps worried that these newcomers might be scuffing up the hull.

Berringer is starting to look annoyed. "Again, is there something we can do to assist?"

"Not really," the man says. "We just saw this magnificent craft sailing toward Woban Island, and we just had to come in for a closer look. Do you mind if I ask how long she is? What kind of engines you got? You must have quite the crew to run her!"

You and Berringer both look at each other. Didn't he mention rumors earlier about a young couple who had been observed on Woban Island trying to steal a boat?

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> Next page.
"Mark, why don't you fire up the engines again and get us out of here," Berringer says.

"Aye, sir," Captain Mark says, and then steps aside to give orders to his crew over a wireless headset.

"I don't think they want to talk with us, Gordy," the woman says. "Maybe we don't move in the same social circles. Maybe we aren't good enough."

"That's funny," her companion replies. "I would have expected life on the open ocean to be more egalitarian, but even here we are followed by fat kings and lean beggars."

The woman chuckles, but then stands up in the boat, seemingly unconcerned about the rocking of the waves. "'Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that's the end.'"

"'Alas, alas!'" the mutton-chopped man says. "'A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.'"

She feigns alarm. "'What dost thou mean by this?'"

"'Nothing but to show you how a king may go a-progress through the guts of a beggar!'"

The purpose of this little drama escapes you, but the performance in the Zodiac is clearly outside the bounds of normal behavior. Are these people unhinged? Have they been marooned out here for so long with nothing but that little motorized raft that they've lost their mind?

Berringer looks disgusted. "They've been wasting my time. Make sure they don't try and get on the boat." And then he turns to go up the stairs to the main salon.

But the couple seems to have no intentions of storming the Big Papi. They have already pushed off from the yacht, and the woman is trying to start the outboard. "Honey, can you give me a hand with this?"

The guy gets up as his girlfriend slinks back out of the way. "'The bark is ready, and the wind at help, the associates tend, and every thing is bent... for England!'" With one good yank on the pull cord, the Yamaha engine fires up.

"'For England!'" the woman says. "'Good!'"

"'So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes," the man says, and the boat speeds away without either of them turning to look back.

"Are we done with those twits?" Berringer says, looking down at you from the upper deck.

"It looks that way, Walter," Meredith says, forgetting for the moment all of her sullen moping. "I can't believe they came all the way out here to put on a performance of Hamlet for us."

"Is that what that was?"

"I'm pretty sure, yes. Maybe if we're lucky, they'll treat us to a few scenes from King Lear tomorrow night."

"Well, I see it cured you of your pouting, so I guess it wasn't all bad."

Meredith rolls her eyes and sighs, but takes the cocktail glass she's been holding all this time and heads upstairs to join him.

You are left down below with the binoculars, with a sense of dread that you can't entirely explain. Nothing of what just happened seemed right. Who were those two people, and what were they up to? You raise the binoculars to your eyes and watch them speed away, back in the same direction from which they came. But then the Zodiac stops and turns, maybe a mile away. The couple is sitting and leaning against each other shoulder-to-shoulder, looking back in your direction as if they were about to share a romantic moment watching the sun set.

The yacht's engines are starting to rev up, and the boat is slowly moving forward again. But before you have a chance to pick up speed, there is a flash of light emanating from the point where the Zodiac had briefly brushed against the hull. You are blown backward and slammed against the nearest bulkhead by the force of the explosion, which rips the back end of the Big Papi apart. It spreads debris over the ocean and causes the rest of the ship to start taking on water; what wasn't destroyed in the blast will be sitting on the ocean floor within minutes.

It's a performance that delights the two people who are watching from afar in the Zodiac.

THE END