"I'll miss the sound of your heartbeat." Her skin lost some of its usual glow.
"I wish we could say a proper good-bye."
"I know, and I agree. Discipline. It'll be lonely without you."
"You have your grandfather. The Caribbean, this ship."
"And you have your duty. We're both married, in a way, to both of them."
He lowered his voice. "It was a wonderful time, Malia."
"You'll always be a part of me, David."
Discipline or no, he kissed her, long and hard. It was agonizing to let her go, knowing that his lips might never meet hers again.
"Forgive me," he said, stepping away.
* * *
A full day passed, and no one from the shore tried to make contact with the Thunderbolt. A few idlers gathered to watch the sailors on the Thunderbolt go about their daily duties, but no one requested permission to come on board, and the men who went in groups off the ship claimed no one spoke to them but bar touts.
"I'll have to go inland after all," Valentine decided at the end of the second day. Carrasca looked at him from beneath her black brows, pulling a wet bang out of her eye to do so. They both were plastered with sweat. Even with the windows wide open, the bridge was stifling in the windless harbor. The afternoon rain had succeeded only in dampening the heat.
"Have the Chief send some people in to look for a critical part," Valentine said. "Claim we have a breakdown. Maybe that won't incite too much comment. I don't like the idea of her sitting here, tied up to a dock, with the cargo on board. The people on shore have got to be wondering why the ship looks like a topiary."
"You're not leaving tonight."
"I have to. I've got a better chance moving at night."
"Alone? Can you pass as a native? From what Torres says, they don't like strangers poking around here. You don't want to be strung up in a tree by your own allies."
"They're only allies in the 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' sense. Southern Command never had any luck getting Texas guerrillas to work with us, except right on the borderlands, where we could arm them-and shelter them if they had to run. Not that a Texan ever called it running."
She nodded. "Any orders while you're gone?"
"I hope to be back, or at least send word, in a couple days. If you don't hear from me in five, go back to Jamaica, plant the trees, and wait for the next Southern Command agent to head south."
"Somehow I don't think there are too many David Valentines to be found. Some woman needs to make more."
Valentine squeezed her arm as he passed out of the bridge and went to his cabin. He smelled the musty odor of wet
Grog and found Ahn-Kha waiting, cleaning out his pointed ears with a delicate wooden implement that was part spoon and part chopstick.
"I needed a wash," Ahn-Kha said. "I've put out your things."
Valentine looked at his bunk. His dyed-to-black fatigue pants lay spread on the bed with matching moccasin boots (he'd made them last month of Jamaican calfskin) and topped by his combat vest and pistol. A canvas knapsack was already loaded with food and water flasks. A felt-brimmed hat with a beadwork band stood atop the pile.
"I don't wear hats," Valentine said. "Unless it's winter, and even then I like the stocking kind, or a coonskin."
"Start, my David. You'll blend in better. You want your drum-gun?"
"No, I'm going to travel light and fast."
"Then I cannot accompany you?"
"Sorry, old horse. I will take one of those pike-points though. Just in case."
Valentine went down the gangway with a group of sailors going to one of the wharf-side cantinas. He wore a rain poncho to conceal his lack of uniform, a borrowed gold earring pinching his ear and the hat rolled up in a pocket.