Virus by S. D. Perry Read Free Book Online

breathe, the corpses of his family and friends hovering beneath the waves and beckoning to him with pale arms . . .
    He held the wahaika in his hands, drawing strength from the smooth, heavy stone that had belonged to another Hiko, nine generations before. It was strange, that the club felt so powerful to him; he was proud to be a Maori, proud to bear the moko on his face and body—but he was also a grown man of the late twentieth century. A lot of people saw the Maori markings and assumed that he ran around naked and howling when the moon was full, beating on drums and performing heathen rituals to make the rain fall or the sun shine; ridiculous. Being proud of his heritage didn’t make him an idiot.
    That made it all the stranger, that he was here at all. He’d worked as an arc welder with a construction company for years, helped put his little sister through college and had a comfortable apartment not far from his grandparents’ pa~. He had been happy, or at least content.
    When his grandmother had died last year of a stroke, the nightmares of his youth had returned with a vengeance; it had gotten so bad that he had started drinking heavily, just to get to sleep at night. His work had suffered, he’d lost weight—and his grandfather had suggested that he face his fears, not from Maori tradition but from a talk show he’d watched about phobias.
    Hiko smiled, thinking about his family, his whanau. Kukupa had told him he was crazy to go out on the water; she said his night terrors would be better handled by a shrink, that the idea was so much macho bullshit. She was a smart cookie, his tuahine, and he’d felt like an idiot explaining his decision to her. Looking out at the eye wall of the terrible a~wha~, he almost wished he had taken her advice.
    And yet . . .
    The dreams had stopped when he’d signed up for his first run as a deckhand, nine months ago. He was still afraid of the water, but he could sleep again and he’d given up drinking; he’d made plans to return home, having faced his fear successfully. Just one last run, on a small tug that was headed for Aotearoa, to a port not far from where he’d grown up. He’d taken the job on the Sea Star rather than fly, a final proof of his personal victory . . .
    Can’t get any more final than this, can it?
    Hiko watched the waters lapping at the deck, definitely higher than they had been only a few hours before, and wondered at the irony of it. And he wondered at the very strangest thing, the thing that had led him to sit here and think about fear and death and what his life had been about.
    In spite of the seeming futility of the Sea Star’s current situation, when he held the wahaika, he honestly felt that he wouldn’t drown—that he couldn’t, that the spirit of his namesake watched over him and would keep him safe. The club felt right in his hands, it felt like taonga— more than just an heirloom, it held a spiritual power for him that he couldn’t deny. Maybe it was primitive to believe in such things, but right now it was all he had.
    So is it real or do I just want it to be?
    He didn’t know the answer to that, but he suspected he was going to find out very soon. And he was afraid, but he would put a warrior’s face on because he was Maori, and strength of character was as important to him as knowing the names of his ancestors. He realized now that he had not faced his fears and won; he had only stopped the nightmares, and pretended that it was over.
    The true test was almost here. Hiko stared out at the waters and wondered who the victor would be.

• 6 •
    “M ayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is MV Sea Star Uniform Foxtrot Juliet India, latitude twenty-nine degrees forty minutes south, longitude one seventy-nine degrees fifteen minutes east. Taking on water in heavy seas . . .”
    Foster clicked to receive, and Steve held his breath, hoping desperately to hear something, anything— but there was only static, the same as for the last half hour. The