She needed a place to dock the boat, but nothing looked promising. The rocky coast was close enough that she could see several buildings on the cliffs, and cascades of vegetation hanging over the bluffs.
The sonar continued to beep, and Magnolia scanned the waves, looking for a dorsal fin or a boat, but saw nothing.
“Go find out if they see anything out there,” she said to Rodger.
He grabbed his rifle and left the command center in a hurry, leaving Magnolia with her favorite Cazador. The general stroked his long beard and muttered in Spanish as his eyes combed the water.
She couldn’t help but wonder what those dark eyes had seen over the years, and what those callused hands had done. The man next to her was a murderer, and she had no doubt that if not for her people, he would have kidnapped, and perhaps eaten, the very people they were here to save.
How could someone like that ever change? It was a question she had pondered for months, all the while hoping the Cazadores had left their most barbaric traditions behind.
But one thing was certain: she could never fully trust him.
He suddenly raised his arm and pointed at the coast to her left. She followed the finger toward what looked like some sort of peninsula. Whether man-made or natural, it was better than anything she had seen yet.
She spun the wheel and piloted the boat toward the spit of land.
The sonar continued beeping, but a glance at the screen showed the unknown mass heading in the opposite direction now.
She put her other hand back on the wheel. If Santiago tried anything, she would just have to beat his old ass into submission.
Waves splashed the jagged eastern shore of the peninsula ahead. Magnolia eased off the throttle and switched to the twin battery-powered engines and began the curve around to the western shoreline.
A light flashed on the distant cliffs. Santiago saw it too, and pointed.
The white beam faded almost as quickly as it had appeared—just a flicker, like a signal.
It wasn’t mutant plants.
She kept her gaze on the spot, but the flash did not recur.
The peninsula was coming up fast, and she had to focus on getting them around the rocky spit. Jagged rocks stuck out like spears from a fortress battlement.
The hatch to the command center opened, and Rodger stepped inside, dripping wet.
“Nothing out there,” he reported.
Alejo joined him inside and closed the hatch. Both men shed their helmets.
“I think I found a spot to tie up the boat,” Alejo said. He bent down beside Magnolia and pointed at the peninsula.
“On the other side,” he said.
She turned the craft, giving a wide berth to any ripples or patches of sea foam that might indicate rocks below the surface. The depth finder showed twenty feet clear, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
Curving around to the other side of the spiky landform, she saw what Alejo had spotted from the top deck.
A metal platform extended from the peninsula, anchored by two poles.
Maybe humans had been here after all.
“Well?” Alejo said. “Does this look good enough for you?”
Magnolia studied the terrain. The narrow peninsula led right to the cliffs, but she didn’t see a way up. Worse, there were also plenty of likely spots for an ambush, with the defectors owning the high ground.
Not to mention that this was a lousy place to leave their boat. Even with its dark hulls, it would be easy to spot, but it was their best option so far.
“Tell your men to tie us up,” Magnolia said. “We’ll leave two sentries here to guard the boat.”
She reversed the engine and, after lining up with the platform, maneuvered the boat carefully toward the docking platform.
Rodger stood right beside her, making her nervous.
“Give me some space, Rodgeman,” she said.
He moved away, nearly bumping into General Santiago.
They were almost to the platform when a Cazador jumped off the deck above them, making Magnolia flinch. Another man on the upper deck tossed the mooring lines.
The soldier onshore grabbed the side of the boat and pulled them over to the dock, then tied the bow and stern lines to the metal poles.
She turned off the engine, unslung her rifle, and followed the men up onto the weather deck. Two Cazadores remained on the mounted weapons, the harpoon gun pointed at the water, the machine gun at the cliffs in the distance.
“Tell them to stay here and watch the boat,” she said to Alejo.
He gave the order and then went to monitor two other soldiers carrying a wood plank, which they laid over the razor-wire-festooned rail.
Magnolia looked at the bluffs stretching in both directions. A low haze flowed like a ghostly smoke over the edges.
The Cazadores all turned toward Magnolia and Rodger. She unsheathed one of her curved blades and pointed it at the rocky ledges.
None of the soldiers moved. She then realized that they weren’t looking at her and Rodger; they were looking at General Santiago.
“Tell them that treasure awaits,” she said to Alejo.
The lieutenant translated her words to the other warriors, who raised their weapons but refrained from voicing their enthusiasm.
She resheathed her blade and raised the laser rifle, ready to meet whatever dwelled in the haze of this mysterious wasteland. And ready to fight by her side were soldiers who only months ago had been her enemies and captors.
Dinner was always the busiest time at the trading-post rig. In the moonlight, hundreds of Cazadores swarmed the five levels of shops like locusts. All of them played a role in the economy.
The farmers carried baskets of fresh fruit, picked from their rigs earlier in the day. Artisans carried handcrafted items to barter with those who ran shops on the rig’s five shadowy levels.
Rhino climbed to the top level. When he got there, he spotted motion in the distance, where X was training the greenhorn Hell Divers. Canopies sailed down in the moonlight as the king guided the divers to the decks of several vessels. The warrior never seemed to rest, and for his sake, Rhino couldn’t either.
He turned his attention to the bustling open floors below. People traded every imaginable thing: eggs, jars of pickled fish, jewelry, medicines, fishing poles, fabric, knives, hats, and a thousand other things.
Every square yard of floor space was occupied. Even the sky people had booths now. Rhino spotted Cole and Bernie Mintel’s watch shop, where they also sold wood carvings, chairs, and tables.
But not everyone was here to shop.
Some came just for the entertainment. The music of flutes and stringed instruments provided a backdrop for the early evening, rising above the babel of different languages that had survived over time.
Some people were here for other pleasures. Off the selling floors and away from the hawkers’ cries, in the darker corners of the rig, were tents and booths where a man—or a woman, for that matter—could fulfill almost any desire in the sex trade.
And still others had come here to buy a different type of resource: people. The third floor held cages of indentured servants to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Rhino hated this place.
The rig was a cesspool of grifters, prostitutes, and food of questionable origins. But the man he was here to see loved the rig. The former Cazador warrior known as Mac had made his home here after retiring from the army.
Rhino finally spotted him in the throng below. Of the hundreds of Cazadores and sky people packed in the open area, it was not hard to pick out the one man missing both a leg and an arm. He walked with the support of a cane and had two metal prosthetic limbs.