Ah Sin and the Balinese Beaux Arts Ball

This is the mutual Don Lee broadcasting system. Time is now 8.30. Following program was transcribed earlier. Bar Gentry, the catch Scarlet Queen, Philip Carney Master. Position 6 degrees 42 minutes south, 116 degrees 6 minutes east.

Wind light sky fair. Remarks, departed port of Bully Long Ballet after trouble over stores. Reason for trouble? Our sin and the Balinese Bose Art Ball. For three days out of Makassa we rode the long swells that rolled out of the Java Sea before the winds of the Northwest monsoon.

And on the morning of the fourth we raised the peak of Gunang Agung with its guardian formation of cumulus clouds, streaming eastward in the brigand sky, and shadowing the island of Bali spread out below.

Kang's orders for the port of Bully Long was some of the most important we'd received on the voyage. We were to take on stores, not ordinary stores but salvage gear, diving gear, heavy jury anchors. All equipment to be used at the end of our quest for Kang's ten million dollar treasure of Chinese relics. To be

used to lift it from hiding and place it in the cargo holds of the Scarlet Queen. By two o'clock that afternoon we'd fought the treacherous currents that Swirl in and out of the shallow indentation that is Bullylong Harbor.

And by sunset we'd found a birth at a small public key. After we were secure my chief mate Gallagher and I headed up into town to find our contact. A man named DeGroote, the owner of the Bunkar Ship Chantlers.

The building was easy to find. The first premonition I had that anything was wrong was the blast of jasmine perfume that swept over me as we walked in. But I couldn't make myself believe it until I saw the brocade wrapped mountain of flesh and the child-like features lost in the billowing fat.