KORDA

Chapter Eight

"It's all down to you, Tegan," I said. "You must tell me exactly what Nyssa said she was going to do. Was she just cycling eastward until she got to the coast or was she coming specifically here to Sabu or…?"

We were on foot, the sidecar back on the scooter but the whole thing in the back of the van, which was parked in the bungalow's weedy back garden. ("One of these days," Selena had sighed, "but I've been so busy!")

"She said she would look for you up and down the coast by following the beach, until she got to Sabu. Then she would check the station and go back station by station, local, until she found you, if she hadn't already."

"When we left," I told her, "Sabu station had no express or local service to or from Ingram. That may or may not have changed. If Nyssa got here fast enough she may have found the station useless."

"It was for us, too," Selena reminded me. "We walked."

"And walked and walked and walked! Yes, I have not forgotten."

Tegan said, "She wouldn't have to walk. She has a bicycle."

"Well, we're here," said Selena. "Wait here. They know me." She left us across the track, more or less where I had first seen her, only a few days ago. It seemed like a lifetime. Selena was back in less than 10 minutes with the news that trolley service in Sabu was back to normal, someone had been looking for a man stolen from her but she had gone off on foot with a woman who said she'd seen that man; they appeared to be heading down to the dock. No one had recognized either woman or seen them again. This was less than half an hour ago.

In some alarm and four sinking hearts among the three of us, we turned and headed down to the docks. I led the way, because (I think) I was the most unsettled by the prospect of going anywhere near them, and I had no intention of showing my trepidation, especially after freaking out over tiny, innocent maggots. There was no liner in the harbor but there were several small boats nearby. One looked a lot like a vaporetto. I stopped in my tracks when I saw it. Tegan and Selena almost tripped over me, so abruptly had I halted. "I have an idea," I said.

We counted to three and then, at the top of our lungs, in unison, we called out "Nyssa! Nyssa!"

Our voices seemed to bounce around among the little boats, and they must have bounced just right, because an answer came bouncing back: Nyssa's voice crying "Help! Help me!" We raced toward her voice, which emanated from the vaporetto. The boat was rocking rather violently. We boarded and immediately encountered a groaning man with a full head of hair, lying on his back, recognizable as one of my abductors even with his black eye and bloody nose; a whimpering woman crouching on a seat with her arms wrapped defensively around her head; our trolley driver/-jacker trying to run away and instead running right into us; and the vaporetto pilot being sat on by Nyssa, who continued to call for help until she looked up and saw us. "Tegan! Help me! I can't sit on her forever!"

Tegan pushed the trolley driver down to the pilot's end of the vaporetto and threw her down onto the pilot, so Nyssa could get up. I grabbed the man by his arms, jerked him to his feet and threw him on the heap. That left only Selena at the other end but she was able to prevent the woman who had been crouching on the seat but now was trying to escape from getting past her. The woman quietly allowed Selena to lead her to us, and rather than being thrown, she sat down on the floor and further immobilized her partners in crime by embracing them.

"I've only got the one pair," said Tegan, producing the handcuffs she had recently worn. I helped her secure the driver and the woman on top of the heap by one wrist each, not only to each other but to the base of one of the seats. The man was still on top of the pilot but struggling to get up, so Tegan sat on him. Suddenly Nyssa actually looked at me long enough to recognize me, and, to my chagrin, laughed, then cried angrily,

"Doctor! They're monsters! They told me they'd drowned you!"

Selena said, "I will go up to the station and ask them to send for the citizen's brigade. It may be dangerous for you to wait here, Doctor. Only so far, right?"

"I'm not leaving my friends alone with these people."

"All right, I'll be right back."

As soon as Selena had gone, the man threw Tegan off of him, grabbed a tenderizer from under a nearby seat and aimed it first at Nyssa, then quickly at me. My friends froze. "Sit down," he said, so I sat down on the nearest seat. He pushed Nyssa onto my lap and squeezed past us, turning to keep the weapon aimed at us, slowly backing down the aisle toward the dock end of the boat. Nyssa moved as far off of me as she could without being noticed; in half a minute she was mostly on the seat next to me, or, as we were facing the escaping man, behind me, but she still had one leg over me. "Be still," he ordered her and she froze again, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Tegan reaching up to the boat's controls. Just before the man reached the end of the aisle, the boat lurched off and the man lost his balance and fell hard against one of the seats. I was on him in an instant, struggling for the tenderizer. He spat at me. Neither of us let go. Nyssa couldn't reach him; I was in the way. The man tried to push the weapon hard into my chest but I pushed it even harder into his and he let go with one hand; with that unexpectedly free hand he grabbed my wig and shoved it in my face. I couldn't see and got a mouthful of hair, choked and felt the weapon ripped from my grasp. He hit me in the face with it but the wig prevented direct contact. The impact was enough to knock me backwards but I didn't fall. I tore the wig away from my face and then fell to the side, as Nyssa pushed me out of the way, tore the tenderizer out of the man's hands and gave him a good smack with it, and then another; he was out. The backswing would have got me had she not knocked me down. She reached down to help me up but changed her mind. I followed her sightline and saw that the pilot, now on her feet, was using Tegan as a shield and screaming for Nyssa to drop the tenderizer.

Nyssa stepped over me and walked to the front of the boat. "I mean it!" screamed the pilot, her right arm against Tegan's throat and the other pinning Tegan's left arm. Tegan used her right to elbow her in the gut and broke free.

"You're not very good at this," said Nyssa to the unarmed and now doubled over pilot. "You should find other employment."