Island of the Sequined Love Nun

he would fall six feet and land face-first in the coral gravel, but he was learning to take things as they came and figured he would deal with that on the way down.
    "I hear someone," Kimi said. On the apex of his arc, he grabbed for Tuck's rope, missed, and accidentally raked the knife across the pilot's scalp.
    "Ouch! Shit, Kimi. Watch what you're doing." Tuck braced himself for the next attack, which never came. He looked up to see that Kimi's arc had been stopped in mid-swing. A rotund gray-haired native had caught the navigator around the waist and was prying the knife out of his hand.
    Tuck felt the hope drain out of him. The leathery old cannibal stood amid a group of twenty men. All of them seemed to be waiting for the fat guy to say something. It was time for a last-ditch effort.
    "Look, you motherfuckers, people are expecting me. I'm supposed to be flying medical supplies for a big-time doctor, so if you fuck with me you're all going to die of the tropical creeping crud and I won't give you so much as a fucking aspirin."
    The native released Kimi into the hands of two younger men and regarded Tuck. "You pilot?" he said in English.
    "Damn right I am. And I'm sick and infected and stuff, so if you eat me you're going to die like a gut-shot dog-and in addition I would like to add that I don't taste anything like Spam." Tuck was breathless from the diatribe and he was starting to black out from trying to hold his head back.
    The native said something in his own language, which Tuck took to be "Cut him down," because a second later he found himself falling into the arms of four strong islanders who lowered him to the ground.
    Tucker's arms and legs burned as the blood rushed back into them. Above him he saw a circle of moonlit brown faces. He managed to grab enough breath to squeak, "Soon as I'm on my feet, your asses are mine. You all might as well just go practice falling down for a while so you'll be used to it. Just order the body bags now 'cause when I'm done, you're going to look like piles of chocolate pudding. They'll be cleaning you up with shovels-you…" Tuck's breath caught in his throat and he passed out.
    Malink looked at his old friend Favo and smiled. "Excellent threat," he said.
    "Most excellent threat," Favo said.
    Sarapul pushed his way through the kneeling men. "He's dead. Let's eat him."
    "He no like that," Kimi said. "Not even for free."

    The Sorcerer heard the lab door open and turned from his microscope just in time to catch her as she ran into his arms.
    "Did you see, 'Bastian? Was I great or what?"
    He held her for a second, smelling the perfume in her hair. "You were great," he said. When he released her, there were two pink spots on his lab coat from the rouge she had rubbed on her nipples.
    She skipped around the lab like a little girl. "Malink was shaking in his shoes," she said. "Well, not in his shoes, but you know what I mean." She stopped and looked into the microscope. "What's this?"
    He watched a delicate line of muscle run down the back of her thigh and postulated what kind of genetics went into preserving a body like that on Chee-tos and vodka. He thought a lot about genetics lately. "I'm doing the last of the tissue typing. I should be finished in a couple of days."
    She said, "Did you like 'String of Pearls' better than 'In the Mood'?"
    High Priestess of the nonsequitur, Sebastian thought. "It was perfect. You were perfect."
    She moved away from the microscope and paced around the table, frowning now, as if she was working on an equation in her head. "I've been thinking about 'Pennsylvania 6-5000,' putting the ninjas in top hats and tails in kind of a chorus line. You know, they could carry me across the runway and pause and shout the chorus. There's no singing on the recording; they would just have to shout. I mean, if we have to have them around, they might as well do something." She stopped pacing and turned to him. "What do you think?"
    It took Sebastian a second to realize that she was serious. "I'm not sure that would be a good idea. The Shark People are suspicious of the nin-, the guards. I wish Akiro would have listened to me and found some nonJapanese. This business with Malink's dream is a sign that our credibility is slipping."
    "That's what I'm saying. If we show that they're under the control of the Sky Priestess -"
    "I don't think it's a good idea, Beth."
    She dismissed the thought with a wave. "Fine. We can talk about it later."
    Sebastian wanted to stop