Zircon nodded. "That's sensible. The question is, how can we reconnoiter the island? Circling it in the boat again will only tell us what we already know."
"Only one way. We go look," Chahda pointed out.
Rick knew the Hindu boy was right. But getting ashore presented problems. If the MTB got within swimming distance, the pirates would see it. Of course they could row ashore by night in the rubber life raft the big boat carried. He suggested it to the others.
Chahda leaped at the idea. "Silent boat is good, Rick, but not rubber boat. You remember we still got vinta?"
"Of course!" Rick saw that Chahda had hit on the answer. They had left the captured vinta in a small cove on the shore of an uninhabited island a few miles to the north. "We can get it and tow it to easy sailing distance. The pirates won't think anything of a single vinta even if they see it. There must be boats coming and going all the time."
"That is what I think too." Chahda ran back to the helm.
"Won't they recognize the vinta?" Scotty asked, then answered his own question, "I guess not. I've seen a dozen sails like it, and the hull looks like all the rest."
"The plan might work," Zircon agreed. "We'll try it. First we get the vinta, then head south. By morning we'll be far out in the open sea. We can then make a wide circle and approach the island from the east. They won't expect us from that direction. Besides, only the western shore was guarded, so far as I could see."
Rick had a picture in his mind of the strip of isolated beach on the northern shore. If they could land there, no one would see them. Then they could climb over the stretch of lava between the beach and the land, or swim around to the point where the land began.
"I know the place," he volunteered, and told the others his idea, repeating it for Chahda's benefit as the boy reappeared at the cabin door.