The day was quickly drawing to an end. For the last hour, I had been hiding in the bush by the fence of Greenspace’s hub and spitting like an angry camel because of the aftertaste of what I had had earlier in the day—I suspected it was a rat meat sandwich. Meanwhile, I watched a ship unloading on the nearby platform—Mountain Cougar. They had already started closing the facility when the vessel arrived, and, at first, I thought they would leave it for the next day, but they didn’t. The procedure was initiated, and shortly after that, another vessel appeared on the horizon. I could safely bet it was Southern Star.

By the way, the processing of containers was pretty expedient. The platform crane quickly took them off the ship’s deck and lined them up before the hub entrance. Marty Cork was personally supervising it. Then, Greenspace personnel walked to each of them with testing probes and checked the contents. The tanks were five—ten tons each—and they looked exactly like the ones I had seen transferred from Southern Star the previous night. They all had protective coverings, which I presumed were the asbestos jackets.

All the while, a small fuss was going on behind my back—on the fishing port. Some thirty guys—also Greenspace employees—were trying to drive away all the wretches. A significant number of “alchemists” hadn’t gone through the checks yet, and they were disappointed and nervous. It meant they had to return to Tutuila and set out back here in less than two hours. No one was allowed to leave his stuff on the island, although I really doubted anyone would’ve done it even if they had the chance. Everyone was simply afraid his mona might be stolen during the night.

Gradually, the tension escalated, but the guards eventually got their way. The wharf was emptying quickly, which put me in quite a tricky situation because I couldn’t leave with the mona-makers before Mountain Cougar had been processed. And Southern Star hadn’t even come yet! Earlier in the day, the guy who brought me here had left, too, and he didn’t even look around for me. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have paid him the entire sum of money, and I definitely should’ve known he would feel hurt after Greenspace’s refusal, and he wouldn’t care about me.

I spit on the ground in disgust again and looked back at the platform. Apparently, there was some problem now because Marty was talking on his cell phone frustratedly and vigorously waving his free hand at the same time. He seemed nervous. Meanwhile, the hub employees stood by the containers with testing probes in their hands, not knowing what to do. Something was obviously wrong.

A few minutes later, the situation became even more complicated. The guys suddenly vanished into the hub, but without closing the doors—probably trying to find a solution to the problem. Outside, instead of waiting for them or taking his containers back on the ship, Marty just got on board and made a brief gesture to Spit Master inside the bridge. What followed next simply left me flabbergasted. The engine of Mountain Cougar promptly started, and the boat jumped forward, ditching all of the stuff behind. Then she beat it into the sea as if thousands of devils were chasing after her.

At the bay mouth, the vessel met the other ship, which was just coming in, and when they passed by each other, Cork saluted someone on the deck of Southern Star. The bastard didn’t seem nervous or disappointed anymore—I even saw him smile through my portable binoculars. No more than five minutes later, Southern Star had already taken the place of Mountain Cougar, and when Greenspace’s personnel came back, they were shocked to see a different boat on the platform.

It all suddenly turned into a bigger problem than before: the wrong containers couldn’t be moved inside because they obviously didn’t meet the specifications, but they also couldn’t be removed because the ship that brought them here was missing. On the other hand, the captain of Southern Star refused to leave before his boat was processed, and there wasn’t enough space on the platform for rearranging the stuff—old and new. It was a complete mess!

Fifteen minutes passed without change, and everything eventually became a game of nerves. Even though the boat was clearly the same as the one in Bobby’s picture, the logo of Sengupta Carbides Limited was missing above the bridge now, but it didn’t matter because it might have been a fake name in the first place. I also noticed a familiar face on the deck. It was the second guy who stood on guard when Sengupta and Sharon kissed—the one with the terrible scar on his neck. He was idling in the stern with his hands in his pockets.

After a while, Greenspace’s employees simply had to give up because the captain of Southern Star was stubborn enough to turn the situation into a deadlock. One of the men made a few phone calls, and then the unloading started. The procedure from before was repeated, and five containers—absolutely the same as the previous—were lined up in front of the first. The usual testing followed, and this time, the contents were fine. The guys sealed and labeled the good stuff and marked the wrong for return, but they left everything outside the base because they couldn’t do anything until the first batch was removed. Then, they turned around and closed the hub, leaving the rest of the processing for tomorrow. Afterward, Southern Star was good to go, and she left.

I turned to look at the fishing port and check what was happening there. The place was empty now, and the guards had started returning. Soon they all passed by me, telling stupid jokes about whores to each other, and by then, the hub had emptied too. After ten more minutes, I was all alone in the area without the slightest idea what I would do. I was obviously stuck in the kingdom of Greenspace for the night, where every man was my enemy now.

I patiently waited until the sun went down and quietly withdrew toward the groves behind the base because I was afraid some stray dog that couldn’t sleep might reveal my hiding place in the shrubs. It would undoubtedly be the end of my stupid life if it happened. Then, I prepared for a long wait. I had to spend about ten hours here before the first “invaders” arrived with their buckets and probably another two hours before the first of them were turned away. It made it twelve in total. Since it was too much and I had to figure out how to pass the time, I decided to pay a second visit to Menelaus’ construction site on Olosega. The moment for this was perfect, and besides, under the cover of night, I could get nearer to the place and look around more thoroughly.

In theory, it was a good idea but extremely hard to fulfill. The problem was that Route 20 wound along the coast straight through the town of Ofu, but I couldn’t take the risk of repeating my morning walk now—not without a stealth strip on my head, at least! On the other hand, the other streets were just alleys, starting at the shore and coming to a dead end after climbing up the hill for about fifty meters. They simply didn’t need more roads here, and the one they had was quite enough. It left me with no option but to go through the bushes on the hill slope above the east end of the town. However, soon after I started my journey, I realized it would be devastating. It took me an eternity to bypass the capital!

Eventually, god knows how long after the darkness had fallen, I made it to the other side, but I felt like Robinson Crusoe, who had survived not one but one hundred and one shipwrecks! I had scratches everywhere, hundreds of thorns in my skin, and I almost lost an eye when I failed to see a tree branch sharply approaching my face. When I stepped on “Twenty” at last, I was dog-tired and slipped to the beach to wash my wounds in the water. Then, I climbed back up and looked around the area.

The road ahead was empty, and the full moon cast enough light to guide me. From here, it was about an hour of easy walking to the east coast, and the good news was I couldn’t get lost. I just had to be careful while passing by the airport because, although it had looked deserted earlier in the day, it still might have guards during the night. In fact, it wasn’t very likely because everybody knew each other here, but for safety’s sake, I couldn’t scratch that possibility entirely. In general, the eastern part of the island seemed wholly depopulated, and I guess the only purpose Route 20 had ever served was connecting Ofu and Olosega back when it made sense. With the barricade on the bridge now, the road was totally useless.

I started walking south and soon reached the airport. I met no one on my way, and for about fifteen minutes, I believed I was all alone in the area. The only sounds I heard were the nightbirds singing on my left and the ocean rippling on my right. Then, all of a sudden, a dull roar sharply echoed in the air, startling me. It came as if from everywhere, quickly growing louder, which made me turn around, desperately trying to determine the direction it was coming from. My confusion shaved valuable seconds off my reaction time, and when the headlights hit me a moment later, I could only spread my body in the gutter, covering my head with my hands and praying that nobody had seen me.

Three huge Jeeps zipped just thirty centimeters from my face without anyone inside noticing me. When they passed, I rose to my elbows and looked after them, spitting gravel and sand. The vehicles had nowhere to go from here but to the bridge. But why were they hurrying so badly? Wasn’t the construction site abandoned? I cautiously got to my feet and prepared to follow them, but it was only to jump back down the very next moment because another roar echoed in the night, sending unpleasant shivers up my spine. However, this time, it was low-pitched and thundering, and I could definitely tell the direction it was coming from—my back.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to break my legs hurrying to hide now. The sound advanced slowly toward me for almost five minutes, allowing me to stand up and climb into the woods above the road. Then I patiently followed with my eyes a long procession of heavy bulldozers passing by. There were eight, and right behind them, another Jeep trailed, and after that, a small van. When all the vehicles finally disappeared, I sneaked out of my hiding place, but I didn’t feel safe, and suddenly, the idea of visiting Olosega didn’t seem wise anymore. Clearly, a fucking war had just started, and I was heading straight for the battlefield!

Despite the risk, I decided to continue my little expedition since I needed to know what was happening. I moved on but nervously stopped every time I heard some noise, ready to hide, and it was quite an unpleasant game because, soon enough, it became too noisy in the area. I assumed they were destroying Menelaus’ construction site simply because it wasn’t plausible to believe they were rebuilding it. I was impatient to go there and confirm my assumption but also worried because I was an easy target walking on that road.

After almost an hour, I finally approached the roadblock and stopped about twenty meters away, tensely listening in the darkness. It seemed someone was there; I couldn’t see well, but I could hear muffled voices. Having nothing else to do, I just waited. The weird night war in Olosega went on for about an hour more, and soon after, a line of headlights started dancing up the road across the bay. They slowly reached the bridge, passed it, and then passed me. The procession was obviously heading back home, and I patiently counted the vehicles to see if anyone had stayed behind. No one was missing, though.

Eventually, after the noise from bulldozers died out up the road, on the “goose’s head,” everything returned to normal. I quietly stepped back on the road, looking at my cell phone. It was after midnight. The entire show I had witnessed had at least one plus side—it was a time killer! I quickly approached the bridge, and although I was sure no one was there now, I was nervous and ready to jump into the bay, swimming all the way to Greenland if I needed to. Fortunately, I heard nothing and went closer, undisturbed.

The wire fence was violently ripped apart and hung from both sides of the bridge. The pieces of scrap metal that blocked it earlier were in the water, and the passage to Olosega was clear. Nothing stopped me from walking across into the kingdom of the late Menelaus now.

I briskly moved to the other side, where the road unexpectedly split. One arm headed northeast while another took the southeast. I wanted to follow the southern arm, I guessed, and I did it. Soon, guided by the moonlight, I reached the construction site, slowing down a bit while entering the area. I cautiously looked around, but there was no need to be worried—the place was empty of people.

I saw a lot of abandoned machinery around me, as well as many tanks, pipes, and old buildings. The bulldozers had also run over the fence here, and a considerable part was missing. The site was actually the former town of Olosega, which Menelaus depopulated and transformed according to his new vision when he bought the island. I read that on the Internet, but looking at it now confirmed it—many buildings had obviously served public needs once. On the southern side, I found the tall structure whose purpose I had wondered about in the morning, but it was on the ground now, with half of its segments into the shallow bay and the rest on the road, blocking it.

I went closer to have a better look. Every part of it was a spiral tube, about twenty meters long and three meters in diameter, with assembling joints at both ends. There was no doubt it was going to be a docking station. The pieces were supposed to be connected into a flexible railway, on which spinning compositions of tank cars pushed by electromagnetic fields would shoot bulk goods into Earth’s orbit. While watching the wreckage, I just couldn’t stop wondering where DuPont had planned to obtain the electricity for this thing because the energy consumption would have been enormous.

I turned my head toward the hills, still uncertain. Climbing the mountain, a couple of massive pipelines went up for a hundred meters and then cut into the ground, continuing there. They were probably meant to conduct the heat from the sleeping volcano, which, along with the pumps on the shore, answered my question. Nevertheless, I still wasn’t sure this would be enough because such facilities were simply insatiable. They usually built nuclear plants to feed them!

I wandered there for about twenty minutes but gained nothing more from hanging in the area. The site clearly had been abandoned after Menelaus’ death, and it was utterly destroyed now. Whatever the guy had planned, he had taken the knowledge with him, and the remains of his project were destined to return to the wilderness soon. After a while, I turned around and started on my long way back to the hub, still thinking. I just couldn’t understand why DuPont would pick a place so close to Greenspace’s headquarters to build a docking station—it made no sense. There were probably thousands of islands in the Pacific to choose from, with about a hundred volcanoes on them, yet he had come to Chavez’s backyard. He must have had a good reason, but unfortunately, I couldn’t figure it out, and it was eating me.

After an eventless walk to Ofu for about an hour and twenty minutes, I still hadn’t come to any conclusion. When I reached the town’s outskirts, I stopped for a moment, hesitating which way to go. I couldn’t decide on my next adventure through the settlement, but at the same time, bypassing through the bushes horrified me even more. Since it was already close to three in the morning, and everyone was probably sound asleep, I eventually gathered myself together and quickly ran along Route 20. Ten minutes later, I was at the ammonia hub. Compared to almost an hour on the alternative path in complete darkness, it was nothing less than a lifesaving decision.

I cautiously sneaked back to the groves behind the base and prepared to take a short nap. I desperately needed to grab some sleep because it was my second night without any, and I felt utterly drained. Sadly, it turned out that romantic tropical nights in the movies were just a myth, and sleeping in nature wasn’t easy. There were too many noisy creatures all around, screaming, chirruping, rustling in the grass and trees, crawling in my clothes, biting me—it was literally hell. The possibility that some of them might be snakes freaked me out, but despite my fear, I dozed off at some point. And just then, only a few minutes later, an annoying pair of parrots above my head started fighting over something and woke me up. A whole cloud of leaves and feathers rained upon me, and it didn’t stop even when I tried to silence the damn birds.

Eventually, I had to stand up and move to the bushes near the fence because I feared someone might hear me shushing. There, I was alone at last, and after switching “bedrooms,” I finally managed to take a nap. It was a good thing because I was so tired that if I had stayed awake just a few more minutes, I would have probably lost consciousness or simply fallen asleep walking, and then who knows where and what I would have woken up to in the morning.

©2016 S.T. Fargo
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!
(www.stfargo.com)