The Eyepatch Stories 4
The four were disembarking from the ship on the desert island, ready for their first assignment. Baralai walked close to Nooj, seeming to watch him for signs of waning seasickness. Paine was struggling to find the best way to carry her recorder’s pack, and Gippal was looking around at their surroundings. He had a suspicious expression on his face.
Suddenly, one of the other recruits, an angry looking man about Nooj’s age, grabbed Gippal by the shoulder. “You’ll die fast out here,” he said to Gippal, staring him down.
Gippal made a noise of disgust. “You’ll die faster.” He seemed a bit distracted by the surroundings.
“What, you think you can shoot anything missing an eye?”
Gippal stopped and turned. “Who says I’m missing an eye?”
The man pointed to Gippal’s eyepatch. “You stupid or something?”
“Maybe,” Gippal said, shrugging casually, “or maybe I have to wear this to even out the playing field.”
The challenger laughed, a hacking sound that grated on listening ears. “You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with only one eye.”
“Won’t need to,” Gippal replied. “Just the fiends.”
Several feet away, Nooj was sitting in the sand, with Paine and Baralai around him. The unnamed recruit stared at Nooj for a moment and laughed. “Your squad member barely survived the ride. Do you really think-“
Gippal’s gun was out of its holster and against the other recruit’s chest before he could finish his sentence. “Can’t miss from this distance,” he warned. “Now go away.”
The recruit took a moment to spit on the sand in front of Gippal before turning and walking back to the rest of the crowd.
Paine looked up. “What was that all about?”
Gippal turned, putting his gun back in its holster. "Some guy being a dick. How's Noojster?"
The tall man pushed himself to his feet, leaning more heavily than usual upon his cane. "I'm better. Seasickness is both exhausting and humiliating. It would have been more comfortable to train on the continent and avoid this voyage and I confess I'm not looking forward to the journey back. But enough about my weaknesses. Did I observe you defending the honour of the team just now?"
Baralai and Paine exchanged a questioning glance. How much had Nooj heard? As soon as they had time, Paine thought they must get together and talk about what Gippal had told the other cadet. Was he boasting just to keep the attention off the ailing Nooj or what? She knew that Gippal had told her a completely different story about losing his eye than he had confided in Baralai. Just what was the Al Bhed up to anyway?
Shrugging, Gippal replied, "Just putting him in his place. He thought he had some right to talk about my ability."
"And Nooj's seasickness," Baralai added, glancing back at Paine.
Gippal turned and folded his arms. "Yeah, well, some people need a gun to the lungs to know when to shut up."
Nooj watched Gippal for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s set up camp here near the grasses. The location is both above the tide and still out of the desert.”
“I have a feeling we’ll get very tired of the desert,” Baralai murmured so only Paine could hear.
-x-
When they had finished making camp near the beach that evening, Paine approached Nooj as he washed up for the meal Gippal was concocting.
"Well. What do you think now? That's the third story we've heard from that liar." She folded her arms and glared.
"Not now, Paine." He was brusque and commanding. "I'm too tired to deal with your doubts about the boy right now. It may be that he's found a way to keep prying minds out of his business. We don't have to know what happened to his eye. I'll find our soon enough if he's trustworthy and a good soldier. He's certainly cocky enough. And quick enough with his weapon."
"You're as curious as the rest of us and you know it," she teased with a curled lip.
"I do not permit myself to be curious about the private lives of my troops. It is not befitting an officer."
"You and your rules. You're curious about my life."
"You're more than my ..." He stumbled over just exactly what she was and changed the subject. "Come on, the food is ready and we need to rest. Go ahead and ask Gippal for the truth if you want to. You're your own woman and I don't rule you in your personal behavior."
"Like hell you don't. When I let you do it," she muttered too softly for him to hear, although she did catch a cynical smile twisting his lips. They wandered out to the waiting supper.
Gippal was finishing his meal preparations, muttering to himself in Al Bhed -- a fast string of consonants with the occasional vowel -- as he peeled the charred skin and seaweed from the fellant. Occasionally he would burn his fingers, pulling them back protectively from the steaming flesh of the rodent. With a small curved knife, he cut the meat into four pieces. "Afraid we're eating with our hands tonight," he teased as Nooj and Paine approached.
Baralai was dragging a sizable piece of driftwood, big enough for two people to sit on, near the fire. He dropped it next to a large rock -- another improvised seat, but someone would be sitting in the sand.
Having accomplished this, Baralai sat on the edge of his log next to where Gippal was crouched in the sand. "Don't look so pale, Lai," Gippal said as he offered Baralai a chunk of the meat. "You'll probably eat worse things out in the desert."
Baralai swallowed and took the meat gingerly, holding it with two fingers and examining it.
Nooj looked at the steaming food but did not touch it. "What is this meat?"
"Fellant," Paine responded. "It's a sort of large rat."
"Well, I've eaten stranger but I don't feel very hungry after that voyage. I still have a touch of nausea. Divide my share among the rest of you." Nooj carefully turned away from the feast. "Do you plan to grill the chef?" he asked softly.
"If that's a joke, it's not your main talent. I don't know; I have to check with Baralai." Paine took a large greasy bite of the hind leg of the entree.
Gippal’s noisy eating apparently disturbed Baralai, and he slid down to the other end of log near where Nooj and Paine were. After watching Paine take a bite, he seemed to decide that he could be brave and try it too.
After chewing carefully, he announced, "Hey, this isn't bad."
Gippal either didn't hear him or didn't care enough to respond.
In spite of the misgivings about the food, the bones of the animal were sucked clean by the time they were finished. They spent most of the meal in silence, listening to the waves and the shouts of the other recruits from far down the beach. Afterwards, Paine and Baralai took the clean up duty, scrubbing the utensils with a combination of sand and sea water. As they worked, Paine thought how to begin her investigation. Finally she broke the silence.
"Baralai, did you hear what Gippal said to that cadet?"
"Yes." The white haired boy was still, his lips firmly closed.
"I should tell you Nooj and I heard the story he told you about how he lost his eye. He told me a completely different one. I want to ask him what the truth is. Are you with me?"
Baralai paused, then looked up at Paine. "You... heard that? But what did he tell you?" He looked worried, seeming to forget all about the skewer he was cleaning.
"That's not important right now. Do you think we should face him with all the different stories he's telling and demand to know what the truth is?” Paine snarled at the other, beginning to realize that no one would take the lead in questioning Gippal. "Don't you care that he's been lying to all of us?"
Baralai shrugged. "Who am I to say? I really think that if he were going to betray us, stab us in the back... he would have done it by now." He looked over his shoulder toward the fire where Gippal was tending to the coals. "And you saw him earlier, defending Nooj. Why...?"
Paine felt like stamping her feet in fury. “Why do all you men persist in missing the point? That’s the real question. What I want to know is - will you join me in demanding that Gippal explain why he is telling each of us a different story about his eye? If he doesn’t want to talk about it, all he had to do was say so. He doesn’t have to lie.”
Baralai cast one last look at Gippal, then turned back around. "No," he said to Paine. "I won't join you -- yet. I want to try something else first." His lips spread in a small, wicked smile.
"So what do you have in mind?" She was skeptical.
"You know as well as I do what kinds of secrets men give up when they're suffering from a sexual haze," Baralai said simply. "Gippal will fall easily, and there will be no need for confrontation."
She continued to look at him dubiously. "Well, OK, but you will report back to me?" With that she marched into the tent she shared with Nooj before she could say something she might regret.
She found Nooj scribbling in the little thick notebook he had begun filling with some sort of data. For some reason the very sight of him absorbed in his own affairs and not helping her with her mission aroused her usually controlled temper.
“Damn it! Why didn’t you order Baralai to help me put Gippal through the wringer? He’s got some dumb ideas about teasing out the truth in pillow talk. Is that all you men ever think about? Sex! Sex! Sex!” She threw down the pan she had not realized she was still carrying.
Nooj looked up at her, surprised by her vehemence. Then he slowly grinned. “Speaking of sex...” He nodded toward the waiting bedding and decisively closed the book, marking his place with his stylus.
Down on the beach, their privacy assured by the steady roar of the sea, the other two relished being alone after the enforced crowding of the ship. Baralai finished putting away their cleaned utensils before returning to sit next to Gippal at the fire. They sat in silence for a few moments as Gippal used a slightly charred stick to prod an outlying piece of driftwood back into the fire.
Baralai leaned his head against Gippal's. He wished at times like this that Gippal would grow another few inches so such sexual advances wouldn't be so awkward.
Gippal patted Baralai on the back of his head. "You want something," he pointed out.
Baralai shrugged slightly. "So do you."
"You think I'm lying to you," Gippal added.
Baralai wondered if everyone in the rest of the squad had some sort of extraordinary hearing - they all seemed to be able to overhear everything he talked about. "Are you?" he asked simply, not wanting to push too hard.
"Not to you," Gippal said.
Baralai allowed his body to relax - the real question would come later. "Then I am going to go clean off while I still can."
"You do that, city boy. Watch out, some filthy Al Bhed might join you," Gippal teased as Baralai stood up and went to the small coastal pool that their squad had appropriated. As Gippal heard the tell-tale sounds of splashing and scrubbing, he pulled out his small mechanical recording device and unfolded its keyboard onto his knees.
He smiled to himself as he typed a single sentence, "I wonder how long I can keep them guessing." He read it twice, then erased it.