Island of the Sequined Love Nun

If we have it, the Sky Priestess calls the chosen."
    "Don't the people have to be the same race?"
    "It helps, but it seems that the people of Alualu have a very similar genetic pattern to the Japanese."
    "They don't look Japanese. How do you know this?"
    "Actually, it was figured out by an anthropologist who came to the island long before I did. He was studying the language and genetics of the islanders to determine where they migrated from. Turns out there are both linguistic and genetic links to Japan. They've been diluted by interbreeding with natives from New Guinea, but it's still very close."
    "So you guys opened up Kidneys 'R' Us and started making a mint."
    "Except for the scar, their lives don't change, Tucker. We've never lost a patient to a botched operation or infection."
    But bullets, Tuck thought, are another matter. Still, there was nothing he could do to stop them, and if he had to do nothing, a great salary and his own jet were pretty good compensation. He'd spent most of his life not doing anything. Was it so bad to be paid for what you're good at?
    He said, "So it doesn't hurt them? In the long run, I mean."
    "Their other kidney steps up production and they never notice the difference."
    "I still don't get the Sky Priestess thing."
    She sighed. "Control the religion and you control the people. Sebastian tried to bring Christianity to the Shark People-and the Catholics before him-but you can't compete with a god people have actually seen. The answer? Become that god."
    "But I thought Vincent was the god."
    "He is, but he will bring wonderful cargo in the Sky Priestess. Besides, it breaks the boredom. Boredom can be a lethal thing on a small island. You know about that already."
    Tuck nodded. It wasn't so bad now. The fear of being murdered had gone a long way toward breaking his boredom.
    Beth Curtis leaned over and kissed him lightly on the temple. "You and I can fight the boredom together. That's one of the reasons I chose you."
    " You chose me?" In spite of himself, he was thinking about her naked body grinding away above him.
    "Of course I chose you. I'm the Sky Priestess, aren't I?"
    "I'm not so sure it was you," Tuck said, thinking about the ghost pilot.
    She pushed away and looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

49 – The Bedside Manner of
    Cannibals
    Tuck slept through most of the day, then woke up with a pot of coffee over a spy novel. He looked at the words and his eyes moved down the pages for half an hour, but when he put it down he had no idea what he had read. His mind was tom by the thought of Beth Curtis showing up at his door. Whenever a guard crunched across the gravel compound, Tuck would go to the window to see if it was her. She wouldn't come here during the day, would she?
    He had promised Kimi that he would check on Sepie and meet him at the drinking circle, but now he was already a day late on the promise. What would happen if Beth Curtis came to his bungalow while he was out? She couldn't tell the doc, could she? What would her excuse be for coming here? Still, Tuck was beginning to think that the doc wasn't really the one running the show. He was merely skilled labor, and so, probably, was Tucker himself.
    Tuck looked at the pages of the spy novel, watched a little Malaysian television (today they were throwing spears at coconuts on top of a pole while the Asian stock market's tickers scrolled at the bottom of the screen in thin-colored bands), and waited for nightfall. When he could no longer see the guard's face across the compound, he made a great show of yawning and stretching in front of the window, then turned out the lights, built the dummy in his bed, and slipped out through the bottom of the shower.
    He took his usual path behind the clinic, then inched his way up on the far side and peeked around the front. Not ten feet away a guard stood by the door. He ducked quickly around the comer. There was no way into the clinic tonight. He could wait or even try to intimidate the guard, now that he knew they were afraid to shoot him. Of course, he wasn't sure they knew they were afraid to shoot him. What if Mato was the only one?
    He slid back down the side of the building and through the coconut grove to the beach. The swim had become like walking to the mailbox, and he was past the minefield in less than five minutes. As he rounded the curve of the beach, he saw a light and figures moving around it. The Shark men had brought a kerosene lamp to the drinking circle.