The Time Of The Transferance

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Not to me.” The nimble-fingered vervet secured a package of supplies to the inside of the boat.

  In an hour they were done. In addition to receiving the mast, the zodiac had been stocked to overflowing with provisions. Jon-Tom brought out his purse and turned to pay the first mate. The sloth raised both massive paws.

  “The captain says that the company will absorb the difference.” He nodded toward the zodiac, winked through sleepy-lidded eyes that were nevertheless quite alert. “He’s putting it in the manifest as part of the cargo that was taken by the brigands. If you should find them and rescue the otter’s lady and by chance manage to cut a few throats in the process, he says to tell you that will be repayment enough.”

  Still he hesitated until Mudge tugged insistently at his arm. “Wot are you waitin’ for, mate? Didn’t you ‘ear the bleedin’ sailor? Don’t look a gift badger in the mouth.”

  The money might come in handy elsewhere, Jon-Tom told himself. “Give Captain Magriff our thanks and tell him we’ll thank him in person when we get to Orangel.”

  “If you ever get to Orangel, which all of us doubt most sincerely. We wish you all our luck.” He hesitated, then said in a slightly different tone, “The otter keeps saying to everyone that you’re a true spellsinger.” Jon-Tom nodded. “Good. Magic’s the only thing that might get you away from where you’re heading alive. Don’t see how it can help you track those ruffians, though.”

  “But it can.” He had one leg over the railing preparatory to climbing down the sea ladder into the bobbing zodiac. “We’ll just ask the locals which way they went.”

  “The locals?” Another sailor indicated the open ocean. “What locals?”

  “The local yokels, o’ course,” shouted Mudge as he helped cast off.

  Crew members crowded the railing as the zodiac fell behind the catamaran. A few waved farewell. The expressions they wore were not reassuring. It took three tries before the engine caught. Then Jon-Tom swung it sharply to the right and the zodiac leaped into the night like a flying fish breaking foam.

  The catamaran’s running lights were swallowed up all too rapidly by the open sea. It was very empty out on the ocean. Fortunately the sea was calm, though they felt the swells more strongly in the much smaller boat. Jon-Tom hadn’t really considered how they might cope with a real storm. He prayed they wouldn’t have to.

  Mudge was relaxing in the bow. “Which way, master mariner?”

  “East, I guess. Until we can find some help.”

  “No time like the present,” the otter said pointedly.

  Jon-Tom sighed resignedly. “Here.” As they switched places he showed Mudge how to keep the zodiac on course. Then he settled himself in the bow and slid the suar into playing position.

  The zodiac boasted a built-in compass. All they needed now was a proper heading. But which way in the darkness besides east? Once while sailing to distant Snarken they had encountered the only intelligent inhabitants of the open sea. Now he would have to try again, knowing that even a successful effort might be doomed to failure. Porpoises were notoriously uncooperative. They tended to spend all their time telling anyone they could get to listen to them the most excruciatingly bad jokes.

  He had to try, because they could help. If they could identify the pirate ship and provide directions, he and Mudge might actually have a chance to save Weegee. But what to sing? He leaned back against the inflated wall, reflecting that if nothing else the zodiac was a comfortable boat to ride, and began to murmur a gentle seasong. His voice would not carry far, but porpoises had exquisitely sharp hearing. Perhaps they’d be lucky.

  It seemed it was not to be. The sun was rising and he was nearly sung out when a surge almost lifted them out of the water. Jon-Tom’s expectations were dashed when he saw that they had been dumped not by porpoises but by a vast school of far smaller swimmers.

  Doffing his clothes, Mudge went over the side, as at home in the water as he was on land. Jon-Tom was beginning to get anxious when the otter finally reappeared, licking his whiskers and holding up two small fish from which the heads had been neatly removed.

  “Sardines. Tasty, but they ain’t much for givin’ directions.” Climbing back aboard, he set the rest of his snack aside as he shook himself off and picked up a towel.

  “Sing like that, mate, an’ we’ll never starve, but we won’t find wot we’re looking for either.”

  The surface of the sea was silver with schools of the tiny fish. “Suar works all right,” Mudge continued, “ but don’t seem to ‘ave the power of a regular duar. You sing for a big boat, you get this floatin’ mattress. You sing for porpoises, you get sardines. Proportional magic, I expect.”

  “What’s proportional magic?” a new voice squawked quite unexpectedly, nearly causing Jon-Tom to jump out of the zodiac. The slick grinning head had emerged right behind him. It was joined by a second, then a third, like so many toofs lining up at the feeding trough.

  “It did work,” Jon-Tom said triumphantly to Mudge, who nodded grudging assent.

  “What worked?” one of the porpoises inquired.

  “My spellsinging. My music. I used it to call you up, and here you are.”

  “Call us up?” They looked at one another, then back at Jon-Tom. “You didn’t call us up, man. We came for the fish. Never have seen so many in this part of the world.” Two of them dropped back beneath the surface.

  “Well, it worked, anyway,” Jon-Tom mumbled. “I called up sardines instead of porpoises, but the porpoises came after the fish.”

  “You don’t need to draw pictures for me, lad.” The otter was slipping back into his shorts. “Main thing is they’re ‘ere an’ we’ve made contact of a sorts.”

  “Contact,” squeaked the remaining porpoise. “Speaking of contact, have you heard the one about... ?”

  Jon-Tom put an arm around their visitor and patted it affectionately on top of its head. It was rather like slapping a bulging hot water bottle. The sound was sharp and hollow, the porpoise’s skin smooth and solid as an off-road tire.

  Thus greeted, the porpoise glanced over at Mudge. “Tell me, citizen of both worlds, is the man always like this?”

  ‘ ‘E’s just a friendly soul, ‘e is.”

  “My turn first,” Jon-Tom said, having decided on his line of attack earlier. “This story concerns the shipmaster and the eel.”

  “Wait, whoa!” The porpoise let out several short high-pitched squeals that sounded like miniature train whistles. In seconds the zodiac was surrounded by bobbing heads wearing attentive expressions.

  “Better make it funny, mate,” Mudge whispered wamingly.

  “Don’t worry.”

  He spent the next half hour repeating every old Richard Pryor and Woody Allen joke he could remember, adding cetaceanic gags whenever possible. His audience roared at every one.

  There was only one drawback. Every time he told a joke he was compelled to listen to one from his audience. These were invariably as bad as they were filthy and risque. Whether they understood them or not, Jon-Tom and Mudge laughed uproariously at all of them.

  The steady supply of fresh food and jokes combined to put the notoriously mercurial porpoises in a convivial mood. Finally convinced he’d gained their confidence sufficiently to- talk as well as joke with them, Jon-Tom made the request. It was batted around from one cetacean to the next and a reply was not long in forthcoming.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen the landwiller craft you describe.” The speaker was a small bottlenose leaning over the starboard side of the boat. “What about it?”

  “Could you tell us which way they went?”

  “Easy. Follow me and I’ll see you set on the right track.” He then proceeded to taildance a compass heading, repeating it several times until Jon-Tom was positive he had it down pat.

  “You’re not leaving?” asked another, a big yellowside. “You haven’t heard all our new jokes yet.”

  “We’re in a desperate rush. Besides, we don’t want to hear them al
l at once. Let’s save some for next time.”

  “Why the hurry?” It was the bottlenose who’d provided the heading. “Ordinarily none of us would give a damn, but for a landwiller you’ve been awfully accommodating.” A chorus of agreement came from his companions.

  While Mudge railed silently at the loss of precious time, Jon-Tom told their seagong friends the story of the pirate attack and kidnapping. This last produced a chorus of outrage among the members of the school, for porpoises are quite family oriented.

  “Nothing for us to do, though,” said the bottlenose, sounding regretful. “We never involve ourselves in the affairs of landwillers or the details of their shallow, meaningless lives. But we will convoy you for a while to make sure you keep to the proper course.”

  “We appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome,” sounded the high-pitched, squeaky choir.

  Jon-Tom pointed at the engine. “Don’t let this frighten you. It’s only a bit of otherworldly magic. It’s going to make a lot of noise. There are blades attached to the bottom that will cut if you get too close, so I suggest you back off a ways.” The porpoises complied.

  A couple of stabs on the ignition brought the engine to vibrant life. It coughed several times—and died. Jon-Tom’s fears were confirmed by the position of the needle in the little gauge atop the engine.

  “Magic’s gone out of it, eh, mate?”

  “The gasoline has. Same thing.”

  “Then we’ll just have to raise sail and hope we don’t fall too far behind ‘em.”

  As they struggled to set the jury-rigged mast in place, the bottlenose swam over and plopped his head on the side of the zodiac. “It didn’t frighten us, man. When does it get loud?”

  “I’m afraid it’s dead,” Jon-Tom told the porpoise. The spell’s run out.”

  “Too bad.” He hesitated, bobbing lightly in the water, and then dropped clear. Jon-Tom could hear him whistling to his companions. The call was taken up by others. Soon squeaks and querulous squirps and squeals filled the air around the boat. The bottlenose reappeared.

  “Landwillers often carry interesting toys they call ‘rope’ with them. Do you have any ropes?”

  Jon-Tom looked puzzled, then began hunting through their overstock of supplies. There were several strong coils of hemp in addition to the rigging Mudge was unpacking. As it turned out, they found a much better use for the rigging. The sail became superfluous.

  The bottlenose shouted to the two landwillers when all preparations had been completed. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” said Jon-Tom, bracing himself.

  “Then hold on, man!”

  They began to move through the water. Slowly at first, then more rapidly as the porpoises gained confidence in the makeshift harness. In a couple of minutes the zodiac was rocketing across the swells twenty miles an hour faster than the engine could have driven it. In fact, the empty engine was acting as a drag. With the wind blowing his long hair back into his face, Jon-Tom unbolted the outboard and dumped it over the stern. Then he leaned back against the padded hull of the zodiac and watched the four dozen porpoises rising and falling in unison as they pulled the little craft through the water. Other members of the school paralleled those pulling, shouting encouragement while awaiting their turns.

  Not only would they not fall behind the pirate ketch, they might overtake it by morning. Sometimes a good joke was the best magic.

  VI

  As morning dawned the fleeing ketch still had not put in an appearance. The porpoises pulled tirelessly, laughing and giggling among themselves, competing to see who could pull the hardest or make the grossest joke. Once Jon-Tom was nearly thrown overboard as the porpoises on the right gave an especially hard surge. Mudge caught him just in time, and a good thing, too. So self-centered were their voluntary steeds they might have continued swimming eastward, arguing about punch lines and forgetting their lost passenger until it was too late.

  Morning gave way to midday and still no sign of their quarry. The shore of the eastern continent dominated the horizon, a fringe of bright sand backed by tall greenery. The zodiac slowed to a stop and the porpoises began slipping out of their harness. A familiar bottlenosed face peered apologetically over the gunwale.

  “We have to leave you here. The water is growing shallow and there is a lot of fresh mixing with the salt. Fresh water makes us itch. If not for that we would take you onto the beach.”

  “That’s all right.” Jon-Tom was helping Mudge raise the sail. “You’ve done more than enough already. I just wish we could’ve located the ketch.”

  “We followed its course true. It must be somewhere close. Perhaps those you track made a last minute change of course to enter a hidden anchorage. Seek carefully and we’re sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

  We’d better, Jon-Tom reflected as he surveyed the inhospitable shoreline. The last thing he wanted was to spend endless days cruising aimlessly up and down the coast. By that time the pirates might be long gone via some overland route, and Weegee with them.

  A few kest excruciatingly bad quips were exchanged. The school turned and raced back toward the open ocean. They were something to see, Jon-Tom reflected, leaping clear of the water and swapping jokes and laughter like ar chorus of kids who’d been inhaling helium.

  It grew downright steamy as he and Mudge sailed the zodiac along the beach, searching for possible landfalls.

  “Doesn’t look very promising,” he murmured. The swampy, humid terrain was a nightmarish tangle of cypress and morgel roots. Giant fither vines let down long air roots. They could maneuver beneath much of this cellulose mesh but couldn’t penetrate far into it.

  “There has to be a channel or an inlet somewhere.”

  “That’s for damn sure, lad. No way could the best sailor in the world slip a big boat like that ketch into this mess. Which way, then?”

  “South, I guess.”

  “Any special reason?”

  “Just a hunch. Besides, home lies northward and sailing in that direction feels too much like retreating.”

  The otter nodded and swung the sail around to catch as much of the hot breeze as possible. Obediently the zodiac turned southward.

  “We can’t be too far off.” Jon-Tom made this appraisal as evening neared. “The porpoises were sure they followed the right course.”

  “I wouldn’t bet a tin coin on anything that lot o’ seagoin’ sardine strainers said.” The otter was lying on his back on the starboard hull, legs crossed and staring lazily at the sky. -”Pleasant enough country, though a smidgen on the damp side.”

  “We’ll find a place to anchor tonight,” Jon-Tom said grimly, “and continue on south tomorrow. If we don’t find them by then we’ll turn about and try farther north. I can’t believe the porpoises were deliberately leading us on.”

  “Why not? ‘Ow can you take seriously anyone wot don’t ‘ave no ‘ands?”

  Jon-Tom followed the coast as it curved slightly to the east. They were preparing to tie up to the buttress roots of a huge morgel when Mudge suddenly dropped the line he was holding.

  “You ‘ear that, mate?”

  Jon-Tom straightened, stared into the swamp. Small insects were beginning to emerge from the trees. The hisses and hoots of flying lizards reverberated in the evening air.

  “I don’t hear a thing, Mudge.”

  “Well I sure as ‘ell do!” The otter dumped the rope back into the zodiac and pointed. “That way.” Reaching up, he began pulling them into the trees.

  “Mudge,” Jon-Tom said warily, “if we go in there at night we’re liable to find ourselves good and lost by morning.”

  “Don’t worry, mate. It ain’t far.”

  “What ain’t—what isn’t far?”

  “Why, the music, o’ course. Sounds like celebratin’. Mebbe ‘tis our friends, ‘avin’ themselves a high drunken old time. Mebbee drunk enough so’s they won’t know we’re about and we can sneak right up on ‘em before they know where their
bleedin’ pants are an’ steal sweet Weege away.”

  “I still don’t hear any music.”

  “Trust me, mate. Well, trust me ears, anyways.”

  Jon-Tom sighed, adjusted the sail. “All right, but just the ears.”

  As the vines and tangled branches closed in over them he grew steadily more apprehensive. Bogart had a hell of a time getting the African Queen out of country like this and he wasn’t Bogart. At last he was able to draw some relief from the knowledge that Mudge hadn’t been affected by the heat. The otter was no crazier than usual.

  There was definitely music coming from up ahead.

  Mudge stood in the bow, sniffing nervously at the air, his small round ears cocked sharply forward. The tangle of roots and branches began to thin until they found themselves sailing up a slow-moving river whose banks were festooned with low-hanging vegetation. It was almost night now, but the otter’s eyes saw clearly in the dark.

  “Over there.” Squinting, Jon-Tom was just able to make out not one but several small boats of unfamiliar design. The big pirate ketch was not in sight. “Anchored somewhere else,” the otter muttered. “Mebbee still out at sea. They ‘ave to use them smaller craft to make it through the swamp.”

  A large bonfire lirthe woods behind the beached boats, which were drawn up on the first bit of solid land they’d encountered since leaving Yarrowl. Something small and leathery landed on Jon-Tom’s forearm. He let out a muffled yelp of pain and slapped at it, watched as it fell, twitching and stunned, into the bottom of the zodiac. The half-inch long reptile had thin, membranous wings, a narrow, pointed muzzle. His forearm was starting to redden and swell where the invader had bitten him.

  Mudge turned from his lookout position near the bow and picked it up. After a cursory inspection, he tossed it over the side. “Bloodsucker. Bet there are plenty in this country. Foulness with wings, wot?”

  “I don’t see anyone guarding the boats.”

  “Who’d they ‘ave to guard ‘em from? Anyways, sounds like they’re ‘avin’ too much fun. Crikey, that looks like a row o’ bloomin’ ‘ouses. Mighty domestic, this lot.”