Titans of Chaos

Beneath a midnight sky, in our various flying forms, we circled the island once and twice beforelanding. Victor said loudly through the night wind that he detected no electrical signals of motors,telephones, radios. Vanity (who was riding my back again) said she sensed no one looking. I gavethe order to land.

Descending, I smelled green, growing things and heard the dry rustling of broad leaves. Funny,the leaves sounded different here than they do in Wales: like huge fans whispering.

But, ah! The warmth of the tropics! Why in the world would anyone live anywhere else? The landof endless summertime.

Victor had levitated down nearby. I heard him trampling through hissing grass blades toward me,and saw the dull blue beam from his metallic third eye. Against the stars and palm trees, hissilhouette looked like that of a miniature lighthouse.

"Any idea where we are, Mr. Triumph?" I said, setting Vanity on her feet and refolding myselfinto human form. I felt sand and soil under my shoes, and long grass or ferns tickling my knees.

"About four hundred British nautical miles northwest of Tahiti, Leader," he said. "That is a roughguess based on star positions. I will need time to correlate and make adjustments to my internalinstrumentation before I can interpret global positioning satellite signals correctly." A wry notecrept into his voice. "My paradigm does not allow me to invent new sense impressions withoutknowing how they work."

Quentin spoke in the gloom, making me jump. I had not heard him walk up. "Leader, my friendstell me there are houses or huts, some place that lacked a lares or a lemur, not far from here."

I felt a sense of disappointment. No matter how far I traveled, I was still in the middle of the map,not at the edge. Always someone here before me. I said, "Vanity, I thought this island wasdeserted?"

Vanity said crossly, "Leaderwoman, you asked Silver to find a deserted island, not anundiscovered one. There is no one here now"

I was irked. "Are you sure your boat knows what she is doing?"

To answer, Vanity suddenly emitted a shrill, bloodcurdling scream.