88 The Coming of Cruz (1/2)

Susanto was sitting on the beach and watching the sun set when he saw the boats.

At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks. He stood up for a better view: boats! There could be no mistake, two boats, each outfitted with a mast and a sail. Who could that be? It couldn't be Cruz. He would return in a ship, hopefully a proper vessel outfitted with a shower and with plenty of hot water.

That fucking rash on the inside of his thighs was spreading. He was beginning to suspect it heralded a serious disease. History has recorded many instances of people offering a kingdom for a horse. Susanto didn't exactly own a kingdom, but he would have gladly paid a thousand - no, ten thousand! - dollars for a long, hot shower.

He watched the boats draw near with growing apprehension. It was very likely they contained a new bunch of castaways. Henderson Island wasn't exactly the land of milk and honey; an extra dozen hungry mouths would put a strain on resources.

Susanto turned away from the boats and trotted back to the campsite for his binoculars. He didn't get there. Halfway through, he heard a muted bang in the distance. He stopped and turned just in time to see a yellow flare explode in the sky. He remembered Cruz taking a flare gun! He remembered him taking multi-colored flares! Cruz?

Yes, it was Cruz. He couldn't make out faces at this distance, but he recognized the garish splash of Cruz's Hawaiian shirt. He resumed walking back to the camp: he wanted to check on things before Cruz showed up.

As he drew near, he saw that his fellow castaways had noticed the boats, too; several pairs of binoculars were being passed around, and there was a lot of hand-pointing. James stood to the side of the excited group, his face sour. He brightened when he saw Susanto approaching, just like a dog spotting its master. As soon as Susanto halted next to him, James said:

”Sir, those boats - it looks like we might have company. You've appointed me the quartermaster, so I feel it's my duty to tell you our food supplies won't last long with this crowd. There must be at least ten of them. I have to tell you the women are already failing to meet the quota, they've brought in just over a hundred coconuts yesterday. All of them! They were supposed to gather a hundred each.”

”Forget about all that,” Susanto told him. ”It's mister Cruz. He's brought help.”

”Mister Cruz!? Really, sir?”

”Yes. Make sure everyone looks decent, and behaves. I'm going down the beach to greet mister Cruz.”

This he did. As he waited for the boats to come in, he made a final decision: he wouldn't be giving Cruz all the timon rights in exchange for a monopoly on the love fruit.

Susanto had made two more excursions into the New World looking for love fruit. Both expeditions were launched from new locations, from the westernmost and southernmost points of Henderson Island. The first time around, Susanto found himself in something resembling a mangrove swamp. He was afraid to move lest he might drown. James had woken him up in the nick of time: an anaconda-like snake had appeared in the vicinity, and was eyeing the trembling Susanto with much interest.

The second expedition, launched from the cliffs lining the southern shore, started very promisingly. Susanto found himself atop a hill, so far inland that he couldn't see the ocean. The landscape reminded him of a savannah, and when he climbed a tree he saw a bunch of dinosaurs in the distance, enormous fuckers that almost made him piss himself. But the lizard cows showed no interest in him. They were grazing.

Susanto had noticed a couple of cone-shaped bushes that resembled the love fruit shrubs. But they were too far away for him to be sure, and getting closer would have meant getting a lot closer to the grazing dinosaurs. They looked peaceful, but they were just too fucking big for comfort. And so Susanto was still sitting astride a bough in the New World, straining his eyes, when James woke him up.

What if the love fruit was an anomaly that could be found just on that single clifftop, and nowhere else? What if the plant-eating dinosaurs devoured every single shrub the moment it bore fruit? That was a distinct possibility. It seemed that setting up a love fruit operation could be quite complex after all. What was needed was more exploration of the New World. And in the meantime, it was best to say nothing about the whole business to Cruz.

”Hey! Rafi!”

Susanto smiled and waved. The boatmen cheered, and set about lowering the sails. Within a minute, the first boat was close enough for Cruz to jump off - the water reached halfway up his thighs. He walked through it towards Susanto, swinging from side to side with each step.

”Gabriel!” said Susanto as soon as Cruz got out of the water. He spread his arms, but Cruz stopped short of his embrace. He wrinkled his nose and said:

”Good God, Rafi. When was the last time you had a bath? There is a whole ocean available, in case you haven't noticed.”

”I can't do that,” Susanto told him. ””I've got this rash... Fuck that. Who are those people? What happened? You've come to take us away, or to stay? Couldn't you get hold of a proper ship?”

Cruz sighed, and Susanto was instantly apprehensive. It had been a sad sigh.

”There's a lot I have to tell you, Rafi,” said Cruz. ”A hell of a lot. Those guys, they are from Pitcairn. The boats belong to them. There wasn't a proper ship available on Pitcairn. Most likely, there isn't a single proper ship available in the world.”

”What?”

”We need to have a long talk. But in a nutshell, the world as we know it is gone. It just doesn't exist any more.”

”What - Gabriel, start making sense. What doesn't exist any more?”

”Independent countries, for a start. There is a single global government. They're in New York. And all the money you have, all the money I have is worthless. There's a new global currency based on metal coins. Basically, everything and everyone has gone medieval. We're back in the Middle Ages, Rafi. All the computers are screwed.”

Susanto stared at Cruz. Then he said slowly: