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Prostitution, drinking, and gambling were the biggest past-time at Viva, which
was notorious for its high cost of living. Sailors boated down from their ships and made
straight for the entertainment shacks constructed on stilts on the island of Viva. There,
beautiful women clad in little or nothing flaunted their bodies invitingly at the sailors
who had been at sea for weeks or months and were hungry for sin and pleasure. Crime
rate was high, but the underground police that operated in Viva was notorious for its ill
tolerance for criminals. Thieves and rapists were liable to get thrown into the lagoon to
feed the fishes. Most people were drunk most of the time, and tempers were often on the
edge. You could get killed for saying the wrong thing to a drunk thug eking a living off
the lagoons of Viva.
At night, Doudu crawled out of his make-shift bed, but left Olympus behind, as he
made a closer survey of the ships and boats docking off Viva. He knew he had to take
risks to find out any details, so he swam into the lagoon, slowly approaching a cluster of
boats anchored about one hundred meters from the swamp. When he got close enough,
he stopped to sniff the air for people lurking around the boats. Nobody was in the vicinity
of the boats, so he swam to them and inspected them. They were all in a bad shape.
When he looked around, he saw a canoe about ten yards from the boat. The canoe was
fine, so he took the canoe and paddled into the middle of the sea, nearer the ships.
He saw that the galleys were anchored about three to five miles inland. He paddled
toward them, ready to drop into the sea and swim away if anyone spotted him or came
after him. But it was a dark and moonless night that painted the sky and the sea a pitch-
black color. If you looked carefully and long, you would see a few stars in the sky, but at
first you would think that the entire sky was an empty black canvas.
The giant galleys sat like mountains in the sea. Some of them were returning from