3
On reaching Tracy Island, Scott headed to the infirmary, where Brains had set up to treat four raging cases of radiation sickness. John, Virgil and Gordon were to follow directly, as soon as Thunderbird 2 had rumbled back into her hangar. Scott had insisted on delaying his own arrival, deliberately cutting his airspeed to escort the big cargo lifter, and his younger brothers, home. They'd already lost Thunderbird 5, and would have lost 2, as well, but for a hefty portion of luck. Scott wasn't taking any chances with what he had left. Only when the bigger bird was in, and his brothers safely home, did their field commander land and seek out treatment.
John followed almost immediately, too sick to accomplish anything further in Thunderbird 2. Gordon saw him out of the hangar and halfway to the infirmary, meaning, genuinely intending, to follow orders and get treated, himself. Only... something happened.
The closer they got to the lab, the tighter and icier the feeling in his chest got, and the louder the buzzing in his head. Everything went sort of blank, and the next thing he knew, he was at the shore, knee deep in warm, surging seawater. Still in uniform, which he vaguely recalled hearing John say something about disposing of... but holding a pair of damp swim trunks. Not his own. He never wore the baggy, drawstring sort.
He looked blankly down at the neon, shark-print shorts, then back up at the mansion. How...?
'Must've snagged them off the drying rack on my way down...' He though worriedly, 'but how could I do all that and not know it?'
Just tired, maybe; figuratively asleep at the wheel. It had been a long two days.
'Ought to get back up there, but...' He supposed the pills and prodding could wait a bit, until he'd had a bracing swim, at least.
That decided, Gordon pulled his belt and wet boots off, tossing them onto the strand. The shirt and tee-shirt followed shortly, but he waded out far enough not to shock anyone but the fish to remove the rest, then changed into Alan's over-loud swim trunks.
Moments later, clothing, weapons, boots and belt were neatly stacked on the black sand beach, out of harm's way, and he was free to go. Gordon plunged into the relatively gentle surf and swam out to the sea wall, beyond which the ocean was a good deal wilder.
Made of immense blocks of lava rock, with the odd bit of construction junk and coral thrown in, the wall spanned most of the distance between the island's twin, jutting promontories. An opening, just wide enough to admit a modest yacht, and deep enough to permit the secret movements of a small sub, was currently blocked up with a great net of linked chains. Always wise to prepare for company, he supposed.
There were holes in the rusty-black lava blocks; former gas bubbles. Someone had placed things in many of the most sheltered. Bright shells and bits of colored beach glass; that sort of thing. There was even a gold religious medal. Saint Christopher. Rather nice, Gordon reflected, clinging to the wall with one hand. Bit strange, though. Why would someone go to all that trouble?
None of the objects would be visible from the top of the seawall, had someone walked along it... nor from the shore, either. Too far.
Only from the water, lifted and dropped as he was now by one gentle swell after another, could the small treasures be seen. A lot of work for something so private, but maybe that was exactly the point. Maybe it wasn't meant to be shared, or explained, or even finished (though he thought the far side of the opening looked a bit austere), just worked on; forever, if necessary.
As seabirds wheeled and called overhead, and the sun traced his silent arc across the sky, Gordon moved a few of the objects around. Then he began diving for more, daring beyond the chains, even, to the wild, swirling waters beyond.
It was the headache that drove him ashore, finally, where someone was waiting.
