Island Girls 2 Read online

  CHAPTER NINETEEN:

  Building the second boat was much easier since it was essentially a duplicate of the first. Most of us already knew what to do, and the two additional workers helped as well. We had to be more creative with how to compartmentalize the supplies to keep them from moving around during transit. With the lack of spiderbot attacks we were low on pieces of metal to use as dividers. I nearly used up the remainder of the tape placing branches as needed. I avoided using nails on the plastic sections except at the very top for obvious reasons.

  "Will your people receive us with open arms?" Shira asked Jayla as we were working.

  "I think so," my new dark-skinned secret lover replied. I found myself thinking back to our encounter the night before very often. There was something about Jayla that really had me distracted. She was as beautiful as Lin, as likable as Nancy, and much more like the girls I used to date in my previous life. In fact, her personality very closely resembled a girl that I seriously tried to have a long-term relationship with recently. Well, it felt recent to me. The sex with Jayla was way better, but it was our first time. Could there possibly be another opportunity?

  "You don't sound very sure about it?" Nancy said, pulling me out of my daydream. "I'd hate to travel all the way there just to be turned away."

  "We've never had strangers arrive by boat before," Jayla explained. "I can't be sure, but I don't see why they wouldn't take you all in, especially since I'll be among you. I'll tell them how you rescued me. We had one extra house when I left. Some teenagers were hanging out there, but their parents will take them back to make room for you."

  "You say never by boat before," I joined the conversation. "Have humans arrived by other ways, like a shuttle?"

  "Yes, we received new people by shuttle, and they were all accepted. So, everything will be cool."

  "How long ago was that?" Delilah asked, probably already knowing the answer. She wasn't much of a laborer, but her freakishly thin fingers were good at tying knots. I tested each binding after she was done. Her skill in that regard was quite impressive.

  "Excuse me?" Jayla asked with distaste for the alien's interruption.

  Delilah recoiled from Jayla's tone and did not answer. I believed it to be a good question, though, so I repeated it. Of course, she took no offense when it came from me.

  "That was before I was born, but still..."

  "Your people have had no human arrivals in the last twenty years?" I asked.

  "No," Jayla answered reluctantly. "But like I said, I'll be with you when you arrive. They'll recognize me. And we are a good people, so there is nothing to worry about."

  I had a private conversation with my three besties after that exchange and we all agreed that it was still worth the risk. We would continue with the plan to take the boat and most of our possessions to Jayla's island. The problem was that Jayla had no idea how to find it. Her people did not have a map larger than a few miles around their home.

  "Until recently," Delilah informed us, "I had no official responsibilities involving this planet. However, I was a viewer of the recordings taken from here. Again, there were several shows for four different islands. When selecting the locations for our team habitats, we chose to distance ourselves from those pre-existing civilizations to avoid contact. From memory, I believe the three islands grouped together to be northeast, and Jayla's home to be roughly due east."

  That was all we had to go on. I kept track of the sun as it made its path through our sky during the course of the day. At noon, it was roughly ten to fifteen degrees to the north of directly above. I was confident that I could keep us on course during the day for the first few miles. After that, the tiniest variances could have us miss our target by enough that it wouldn’t be visible as we rowed by it. But what choice did we have?

  Delilah was not an astronomer by any means, or a cartographer. We would have to base our guesses on her guesses. The margin for error was huge. The best that we could do was to pack plenty of food and water in case the trip lasted longer than expected. As long as we didn’t get caught up in any currents, we would be able to change direction at will.

  We had an abundance of fruit and vegetables to take. We could also catch fish as we went. Cooking what we caught would be another story. So, once the boat was complete, Lin and Jayla helped me catch as many fish as we could. We would cook them all today and pack them for the trip.

  Drinking water was a bigger problem. We filled every container that we had, and I still figured it would last us two weeks at most. And that was with some strict rationing. Just enough to avoid dehydration. Twenty-seven of the bowling ball fruits would provide some juice to supplement our water supply as well.

  Nevenah was either a very quiet person, or it took her a while to warm up to new people. Eventually, the girls were able to get her talking about her life before she was put into the deep sleep. She came from Washington DC. Her father worked for the government in a capacity that was confidential. She assured us that he wasn't a spy or anything like that. There were just security issues due to the data that he handled on a daily basis. Her mother was a Senator's aide.

  Twenty-two years old, she was enrolled at Georgetown University studying journalism, though she had very little interest in starting a career in that field. She simply had to choose something when the time came, and that was the most appealing avenue at that point. Her story made her sound like a spoiled rich brat.

  Taken from the year two-thousand and thirty-seven, she knew a little about the future as it pertained to her city. Well, it was the past to her, the future to me. She filled me on how the local major sports team fared. Since I was living in Richmond Virginia, most of my friends were fans of the Washington teams. Arena football was the only major team that we had in my hometown. The most interesting bit of information was that the Redskins finally changed their name to something more politically correct.

  When Shira heard that, she made a face. It made me wonder if the timeline altered for any of us. Or, maybe we were taken from different planes of existence, different realities of the same world. I then laughed at myself for such at thought. Too many sci-fi movies, I reasoned.

  Nevenah was as far removed from being an outdoor person that someone could be, or even someone to handle simple chores. That made her almost useless to us until she was trained for particular tasks that she could tackle. She never even washed dishes in her entire life!

  She had not gotten to the point where the buttons on her arms came into play. The colors and configuration matched ours identically, so I explained the ones that we knew about. Of course, none of them had any effect here on the planet. They must have been tied to the ship somehow.

  Jayla was the only one of us that did not have the implants in her arms. Neither did any of her people have them. Delilah explained that they were designed for her shows only. No other program used such a system, as far as she knew. She did not know the technical details regarding their function but believed that we would have to be in designated sections aboard the station for them to work.

  Holding onto Nevenah's arm when I explained the use for the implants, I noticed how soft her skin was. It was also very pale, and a little flaky. Lotion was not something that had been provided for us. However, Lin and Shira had made use of some of the natural elements on our island to keep their skin hydrated. They showed Nevenah what to do, but I got the impression that she was used to having her skin in that condition. I was surprised that she wasn't scratching at it all the time, it looked so dry.

  Five guns we had, but only four people trusted or capable of using them. So, I held onto both rifles. That left Shira and Nevenah with only spears and knives at their disposal to protect themselves. Since we would all be together, that shouldn't be an issue until we find a sizable piece of land to spread out, or an army of opposition.

  I believed that Jayla's people were likely to take us in, just because it was human nature. Our weapons, however, were bound to be confiscated until we could be tr
usted. That might take a while. Since I was used to protecting myself and my women, I knew that I would have a hard time adjusting to being weaponless. But what could I do? Being a part of a larger community would be worth nearly any sacrifice. With my particular skill set, I expected to rise up through their ranks quickly. But there were often people in a position to delay that if you rubbed them the wrong way. We would surely be exchanging one set of problems for a new set. Hopefully, it will work out for the best.

  We weren't getting a whole lot of rain there on our island. When it did come down, it was often as a downpour. That could be a real hazard for a tiny boat on the open sea. None of use wanted to get soaking wet either. Fortunately, it turned out that the thin, comfortable blankets provided for us were also waterproof. We could use them as tarps. If we handled a heavy rain properly, we could even gain a substantial amount of drinking water.

  I tried to plan for every possibility that I could imagine. By dinner time I felt like I had everything figured out. We loaded as much as we could onto the boat and tested to see if we could move it easily. I ended up uncomfortable with the stress put on the construction by dragging it across the ground loaded up, so we removed almost half. We'd just have to add those things after we pulled the boat into shallow water the next morning.

  I had no intention of beginning our journey at night. It would be best if we could see where we were going for the first part of the trip. Getting a full night's sleep was also important. I decided to cut back to just one guard at a time to accomplish that. Worrying, though, kept my sleep from being very restful. I was not quite a hundred percent by the time we finished breakfast, but with my training and experience, it wouldn't be noticeable to the others.

  I balanced out the seating plan according to body weight and rowing/pole pushing strength. That put Lin opposite of Jayla, Nancy across from Shira, and Delilah matched with Nevenah. Everyone would have to contribute according to their ability. I placed myself in the back center. That enabled me to control navigation and steering more efficiently. I could always take turns swapping positions with the others to give them a rest.

  Launch went fairly smooth, even with the two smallest people sitting in the boat to keep from getting wet at all. That was okay, because we handed them the supplies and let them put them in place before the rest of us boarded.

  Water nearly got in on my end when my weight pushed the perimeter log below the surface. We had considerably more supplies this trip than last. Even with spreading our weight throughout the craft, we rode a couple inches lower in the sea than previously. As long as we didn't take in a significant amount of water, we should still be okay.

  We needed to sail right past the south eastern island to head the presumed direction of Jayla's people. As we were approaching, another spacecraft came down from the sky. That was absolutely terrible timing. If we had to get in another gunfight before we left the area, that could change everything. Of course, this vessel was a constructor unit instead. The eastern land mass was not yet prepared for human habitation. The Thesphilians in charge of the show were getting it ready. No new arrivals had come yet to replace the ones that we killed on the western island.

  I had considered adding an actual sail to our boat several times. That could dramatically increase our speed across the blue watery surface. There was a coolness factor, too. The problem with that idea would be mounting the mast securely. A strong wind could rip our boat apart if it was not done properly. Each time I thought about it, I decided that it wasn't worth the risk.

  It was fascinating to watch the constructor unit in action as we leisurely passed by. Just as Delilah had described it, the unit used pieces of itself to form the walls and roof of the building. A specialized robot began assembling items as another processed natural resources for the finishing touches. There were a lot of sections of the ship that would not go into the construction and would need to be buried. The newly erected walls were blocking much of our view of that activity.

  Based on what I had witnessed, I tried to figure out the rest of the process as we left the small island behind us. What I couldn't figure out was how the droids finished the wooden floors, then retreated below them as part of the storage. Maybe they didn't. If they did, were there two of those robots currently under our house? And if they didn’t, where did they go? Delilah had no idea, she claimed.

  In the first couple hours we passed three of the coral fortresses that housed the Aguiti. Instead of that being a translation into our language like Delilah originally claimed, it was a term coined by the people on Jayla's island. Delilah just wasn't ready to reveal the existence of other humans on this planet to us, so she lied.

  That was just one of many deceptions on her part. It wasn't until after Jayla's arrival that we learned the truth about the Gogi. Delilah claimed it to be an extremely healthy food for her people, and edible by ours. She even suggested that it tasted like chocolate, which it did not. Jayla later told us that the Thesphilians had been providing it as food for her people for years before they realized that it was making them mentally disposed for easy manipulation. It was essentially a brainwashing drug. The skinny bitch, as beautiful and majestic as she was, planned to influence us to follow a certain course of action for her show using the Gogi.

  When we threw all the gummy food out to sea, Delilah was obviously unhappy about it. She stuck to her story about needing its nutrients, but she barely touched the stuff before then. We had learned never to take anything that she said as fact until someone or something else could support it.

  That, however, had a huge bearing on our course. No one knew the way to Jayla's community. Delilah claimed that it was roughly due east, but we had no way of confirming that. The only reason that I followed her navigational input was that she was in the same boat as us, literally and figuratively. If we got lost and risked our lives, she would be in an identical situation.

  It wasn't until after lunch that the water got too deep for the poles. We had to convert to rowing instead, only testing for depth occasionally. The sea was still very clear despite the vibrant royal blue color. We were able to see the bottom, just not reach it. Something else we were able to observe was additional aquatic lifeforms. Bigger fish. Flat eels that were over a foot wide while only two inches deep, stretched as long as ten feet. They had faces and mouths more like manta rays from Earth.

  We were able to observe larger dark forms in the water at a distance, but none of those creatures approached our boat to give us a better look. I figured that was probably a good thing. My construction method would hold up against any waves that we were likely to encounter, but not anything resembling a Leviathan or Kraken.

  The sun was behind us by the time we finally spotted another piece of land, but we still had a couple hours of daylight left. I decided to veer to the right so we could examine it more closely. I would much rather spend the night on dry land if there weren't any predators. The sea at night had an eerie feeling to it, even when I just observed it from the shoreline.

  It was way too soon for this island to be one of the human occupations according to Delilah's claims. It also did not match Jayla's description of her town. I figured it would be just another lonely island, like ours before we arrived. It did rise higher out of the sea but didn't look to be much larger around from a distance.

  As we approached, I was surprised to see a small boat dock built on the far side, facing the northeast. The ground was rocky and lacked the thick vegetation of the land mass where we found Deliliah. That would be good for clearing it of threats before we decided to sleep there. The question was, who built the dock? And were they currently on the island?

  There was no other evidence of civilization until we had reached the far side of the island. There on the side of the hill, not fifty feet away from the dock was a building. The construction technique was very similar to our house. Our alien correspondent had no recollection of another endeavor on this planet, certainly not one so near her project. Even if she was lying, we w
ould have to venture onto the land to find out what it was about. No one was coming out of the house to greet us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY:

  The extra rope I had handy for emergency boat repairs enabled me to moor our raft to a couple posts on the dock. The wood was in decent condition, though it did not appear to be of recent construction. A blue slimy substance coated the surface in areas making it a little slick to walk on. I assumed that it had not been used in a while. Either the island was abandoned, or the occupants no longer went anywhere by boat. Or fished from it.

  The thin bladed grass was tall, tickling our legs as we ventured barefoot up the slight hill toward the structure. No wildlife, or civilized life for that matter, made its presence known. I led our small group forward. I only brought Jayla and Nancy with me, and left Lin to guard the boat. We would be within earshot if she had any trouble.

  Though I didn't know her quite as well, I figured Jayla would be an asset should we face any issues. I placed her second. Nancy nodded when I instructed her to bring up the rear, knowing that her first task was to keep an eye on Jayla since I wouldn't be able to with her on six. Taking precautions like that enabled me to stay focused on the house in front of me.