South Coast (Shaman's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper Book 1)

by Nathan Lowell

  Rachel, Richard, and Otto stayed for a time. Richard needed to be there to accept the accolades and thanks from all the skippers whose boats he’d blessed. Otto stayed back out of the way, while one after another, the skippers came and shook Richard’s hand, thanking him. When they’d eaten a bit of the chicken, and the last of the skippers had thanked Richard, the three of them headed back to the cottage.

  When they arrived, Otto said, “I’m going to take a walk on Sandy Long, if that’s okay?”

  Rachel said, “Of course, hon. Be home in time for supper. Don’t forget. Tomorrow you’ll be fixing dinner for us.”

  “I won’t forget.” He smiled and headed for the trail across the headland.

  Richard and Rachel stood and watched him go.

  “Is he going to be all right?” Rachel asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Does he have the gift?”

  “I don’t know if it’s the gift or just puberty, but he’s certainly getting to be a strange one.”

  “Are we doing the wrong thing to leave him here alone while we fish?”

  “We can’t know except in hindsight, and by then, it’s too late.” His mouth was twisted in a wry smile as he said it.

  She smiled back at him and took him by the hand. “We’ve got the house to ourselves for at least two hours. I think I know what we should do.” She towed him into the house.

  Afterwards, she lay cradling her husband’s head on her chest, and stroking his smooth scalp, but thinking about the eldritch creature that her son was becoming. “Were you that weird?” she asked.

  “Wha—?”

  She chuckled briefly and patted his head. “Never mind. Sleep.”

  He did, although she lay there for quite some time before extracting herself from his embrace and, dressing warmly, went out to the kitchen to put on tea, start dinner, and review what the ’Net might have caught for her. Richard rose shortly after and, kissing her once on the top of the head, shrugged into his jacket to go to work in the shop.

  Otto returned before the meal was ready, and came directly to the house to help set the table and serve the simple meal of fish, potatoes, onions, and carrots. After an uneventful meal, they spent a quiet evening, clearing up the kitchen and preparing for an early departure.

  Richard and Rachel rose quietly in the morning and, after a brief breakfast of tea and muffins, left for the village to get their boats underway. It was still dark and very cold, and they walked close together, bound by the glow of the previous afternoon and their shared body heat. They never noticed that Otto rose as well. They were far enough from the cottage when he left the kitchen, taking his staff and walking down to the end of Bentley’s Head by the light of the stars. In his pocket he had twenty three stones and the pocket knife that had belonged to his grandfather.

  The sea slapped the edges of the stones as he stepped out onto the end of the point. His staff tapped the rock and gave a hollow thunk sound while the icy wind rattled the shells and scales. He jammed the butt of it into a crack in the rock and stood there, seemingly unaffected by cold, waiting, listening. Before long, he heard the sound of the first boat chugging up the channel. He took the knife out of his pocket, opened the blade, and held it up to glint in the starlight. It flashed once, and the fleshy part of his left hand dripped blood. He folded the knife and slipped it carefully back into his pocket while the boat continued down the channel toward his position.

  As the boat passed in front of him, he slipped a pebble from his pocket, smeared it with the hot blood from his hand, and accompanied by the wind-driven chime of shells and scales, cast it into the dark ocean as a prayer for safe and successful return. Twenty-two more times, as each boat churned the sea in front of him, each heading out to harvest the bounty of the sea, he slipped a pebble from his pocket, smeared it with blood and cast it into the water. When the last boat had gone, he reached out with his hand, and making a fist, squeezed a few drops of his blood directly into the sea. Sighing with satisfaction, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped his hand, knotting it awkwardly with one hand and teeth. He pulled his staff from the crack in the rock and walked slowly back to the cottage.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Aram’s Inlet

  March 4, 2305

  Casey was waiting for him aboard when Jimmy managed to drag himself down to the dock. They’d been fishing a week and the accumulated exhaustion had not yet been supplanted by the automatic systems in his brain. The stresses of trying to figure out what was going on with the company, what he was going to do about it, and how he might stop it, on top of fishing twelve and fourteen hour days, were beginning to stack up on him.

  Casey grinned at him. “We keepin’ you up?”

  No, just grumpy ’cause I haven’t had my coffee.”

  She reached down behind the rail and pulled a hot cup of coffee as if from a top hat, complete with cutesy curtsey and free-hand flourish. “Ta-da!”

  Tired and groggy as he was, Jimmy chuckled. “How we doin’?” He stepped aboard and took the cup with a nod of thanks. He settled his haunches on the gunwale to listen to her answer.

  “Good, The landings have been good for early in the season, that last bag yesterday was a monster.”

  He nodded and snorted in appreciation. “That was a lot of fish.”

  “Overall, it was close to the landing quota for the day,” Casey said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s early in the season and the stocks are higher in the spring. The schools haven’t been broken up by fishing yet.”

  “True, and in raw numbers, the landing quotas aren’t that much higher than last year.”

  “But in most years we get landings in the bank. Above average early, and tapering off as the season goes on. We’re still short by three percent on the day and five on the week.”

  Jimmy sighed. “With the end of the quarter coming at the end of the month and only one month’s landings in, it’s gonna be hell on the financial markets.”

  Out along the pier, boats started firing up their engines. A few of them already chugged down the bay. The stench of burned hydrazine floated on the predawn breeze. Jimmy heaved himself up from the gunwale. “I suppose we should at least get her warmed up While we wait for Tony.” He headed back to the wheelhouse and Casey followed.

  Reaching in, he checked the telegraph and made sure the boat wasn’t in gear before he pressed the igniters, and the engine coughed into life. They spluttered a couple times then fell into an easy idle. “If Tony would get here, we could get this underway.”

  Movement up on Quayside caught Jimmy’s attention, and he looked in time to see Tony come shambling up pier.

  “Is he drunk?” Casey asked.

  Jimmy shrugged and went out to help his friend aboard.

  “No, damn you, ’m not drunk, I’m exhausted. I was up almost all night tracking through financials. Coffee?”

  Jimmy caught Tony’s arm to keep him from falling between the dock and the boat. He took a good whiff, but as nearly as he could tell, Tony was telling the truth. He looked a lot worse than exhausted but Jimmy just shrugged. “Go lay down, Tony. We got a few hours before we need you on deck.”

  Tony nodded. “Figgered. Thanks.” He shambled off to the forecastle and practically fell down the ladder.

  Casey looked at Jimmy.

  Jimmy shrugged. “Beats me. I’m exhausted, too, but I haven’t been staying up nights trying to unravel this.” He sighed. “Let’s get underway. I’ve a mind to try the eastern end of the Ole Man’s Bank today.”

  She smiled. “That’ll give him a little extra sleep.”

  “This end doesn’t get fished much early in the season, and it sometimes pays to make three shorter haul-backs out there.”

  “We’ll be late getting back.”

  “You got a hot date?”

  She snickered. “Nothing a fresh set of batteries can’t fix. Let’s go fishing.”

  He chuckled all the way back to
the wheelhouse while she singled up and prepared to cast off. In just a couple of ticks, the Sea Horse cruised past the inner harbor markers and into the main channel. Casey took their cups down and refilled them in the galley while he was getting lined up.

  “How’s he doing?” Jimmy asked when she came back.

  “Never twitched. He’s drugged, drunk, or just totally played.”

  “I’ve seen him drunk. He’s not drunk. He could be exhausted if he hasn’t been sleeping.”

  “You didn’t rule out drugged,” Casey said, settling on her stool and sipping her coffee.

  “No, I didn’t. It’s not like him, and I’ve known him for stanyers,”

  “Looks like stim crash to me.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  Stim was a readily available drug that some people took to keep going. It worked fine, with relatively few damaging side effects, until it wore off. Stim users tend to crash hard.

  The wheelhouse was warm, and they slipped gently through the icy cold water of the channel. Casey fired up the electronics and left them on standby for a few ticks before bringing them fully online. About the time they cleared the outer marker, they were ready for the course plot, and Jimmy leaned into the navplotter to point out a particular point on the display.

  “There?” Casey asked.

  “You been there?”

  She shook her head. “No, but that’s just a spike. Can we get onto the top of that?”

  “It’s bigger than it looks, and the deep water all around it is in the Nanking Upwelling.”

  She blinked.

  “Yup. It brings up all the nutrients from deep down, which nourishes all the little fish, which feeds all the bigger fish.”

  “How’d you learn that?”

  “It’s the Ole Man’s Bank.”

  “Yeah, I know the name, but you say that like it’s significant.”

  “It’s named after the Ole Man.”

  “Your Ole Man?”

  “Well, yeah. He opened up this whole area here. Collected the first soundings and used the satellites to find and map the fishing grounds from down by Cheapskate all the way past Callum’s Cove.”

  “I just thought it was some generic ole man. I didn’t realize that it was a particular one.”

  “He was quite a character in his day. I’m surprised he doesn’t have more named for him.”

  “How long has he been gone?” She punched in the course and corrections.

  “Oh, gods, I think, it’s been close to twenty stanyers now. But he’s coming back.”

  “Coming back? How can you say that?”

  “I got a message from him.”

  Casey stopped and looked long and hard at Jimmy.

  “You got a message from him?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “Yeah, why not? Don’t you get messages from your father?”

  She shook her head. “Uh uh. You’re joking right?”

  “No, why? I get messages from my father three or four times a year.”

  “Not me,” Casey said.

  “Why not? Don’t you get along?”

  “Jimmy? My father’s dead.”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry, Casey. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “He’s been gone awhile now. Not as long as yours, but long enough.”

  Jimmy finally realized why the conversation was going a little off course. “Casey? My father’s not dead.”

  She burst out laughing. “Oh, thank the gods.”

  Jimmy started laughing, too. “When I said ‘gone’ it was since he left St. Cloud.”

  “The way you were talkin’ about him, I thought he’d passed away, and they’d named the bank after him. You have no idea how glad I am to hear that he’s still with us.”

  “I can imagine that’s a lot better than me getting messages from the great beyond.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have no idea.”

  They rode along through the cold dark night. Every so often, one or the other would chuckle.

  Finally Jimmy said. “He is coming back.”

  “The Ole Man?” Casey asked

  “Yeah,” Jimmy said.

  Her laugh was infectious and Jimmy laughed along with her.

  They approached the spike just after sunrise. It wasn’t really a spike. In comparison to the other submarine mounts, it was much smaller and on the large scale views, it looked like nothing but a point on the screen. In actuality it was close to five kilometers long and three wide. At the dead slow speed of the trawl, there was plenty of room for a boat or two to work the top of the underwater peak.

  “You wanna wake up Tony?” Jimmy asked.

  Casey wrinkled her nose while she thought about it. “No, let him sleep. I can get the net over the side by myself, I think.”

  Jimmy nodded and Casey went out to release the safeties and tie downs. Jimmy stepped out of the wheelhouse to unlatch the aft gantry himself then notched the throttles up to get a little steerage way on the boat. Casey’s delicate touch on the winch soon had the heavy net up and over the side and Jimmy picked up the throttle a bit more while she let the cable spool out.

  “How much?” she asked.

  He checked the bottom finder. “Three hundred.”

  She waved her understanding and went back to reading her cable gauge, keeping the lines snug, but still paying out smoothly. Jimmy kept the boat curling on a wide turn at a steady pace, until finally she slapped the cable locks closed to stop the big drum from spinning, and locked down the safeties before hooking the forward cable over the aft gantry so both lines rode high and clear of the heavy prop spinning under the stern. The heavy cables disappeared under the water about twenty meters back from the stern.

  Jimmy straightened out his course and began dragging the net along the top of the plateau underneath them. He was careful to turn in large arcs to keep the net over the relative shallow of the sea mount, even when the boat itself was out over much deeper water.

  Casey came back to the wheelhouse, dusting her work gloves together and stepped in out of the cold wind.

  “Nicely done,” Jimmy said.

  “Piece of cake.”

  “You want some coffee, Skip? After that I could use a hot drink.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Be right back, then.” She practically danced across the deck and disappeared into the forecastle.

  Five ticks later she was back with steaming mugs and they settled down to drag. Outside, the wind was calm enough and the sun was out, but the air was still very cold, barely above freezing. They dragged quietly and sipped coffee. Every so often, Jimmy looked over and saw Casey swaying on the chair, the sun beating in on her, warming her and making her very drowsy with the steady drone of the engine beneath their feet.

  “Why don’t you take a nap, Casey?”

  “Oh, I’d like to, but I don’t want to disturb Tony. He’s sprawled everywhere down there.”

  Nodding at the unspoken message, Jimmy nodded back over his shoulder to the chartroom behind the wheelhouse. “There’s bunk in there. Go lay down for a bit. Close the door, if you like.”

  A yawn caught her sideways and she laughed at herself. “You talked me into it.”

  She slipped back into the chartroom, slid her boots off and curled up on the bunk in her parka. In moments, she was asleep, and Jimmy felt a peacefulness settle across the boat. He turned to the fish finder and adjusted his course. They were running through some very big schools and he figured they’d do well with three short hauls. He checked the chrono and marked the time he wanted to haul back, then settled into his own chair and slipped into his own fishing trance–watching the water, listening to the engine, and keeping an eye on the fish finder and satellite scans.

  He woke Casey about ten ticks before he wanted to start his haul back. That gave her time to wake up, get her boots back on, and use the head before waking Tony for the work that was to come. From then on, the day was going to get a lot harder for everybody.

  When To
ny clambered on deck, he looked like the normal Tony and gave Jimmy a smile and a wave as he made his way to his station by the forward gantry. Casey gave the high-sign and Jimmy knocked the throttles back as she took up the slack with the winches. Slowly and steadily the heavy net surged up from the deep until it was alongside the boat, and Jimmy took the engine out of gear so it wouldn’t spin the propeller and suck the loose net back under the boat.

  Casey and Tony locked the doors to the gantries and began to hoist the heavy net up, but the net didn’t lift right away, and the boat began to heal over as the winches tightened up the lines running up and over the hoist boom. Tony got an alarmed look on his face, but Casey had a fierce grin and spoke some calming words that Jimmy couldn’t catch. Tony stepped back a bit just as the delicate balance between net and boat shifted to the boat’s side and the bag of fish swung ponderously up, over the side, and onto the deck. Casey didn’t try to get a lot of finesse in the crane work, just released the bag to flop a bit and shouted for Tony to release the binding line at the bottom of the bag. When he did, he was nearly knocked down by the wave of fish that slathered across the deck, some of them still flipping and slapping. Even in the wheelhouse, and over the engines, Jimmy heard Casey’s whoop of celebration as she lifted the bag up with the hoist to make sure all the fish fell out. She shuffled through the catch to help Tony secure the release line once more. When it was set, they tossed the empty net back over the side. In moments, it was trailing out, the heavy doors splashing into the sea, and the whole thing sinking behind the boat once more.

  It took them a while to find the bunker covers under all the fish. They had to be careful to push enough of the catch back to be able to open the covers without having everything drain into the hold willy-nilly. Eventually, they did and the silvery mass started flowing into the darkness of the hold. The catch was so large that Jimmy figured they’d just about get it sorted and stowed by the time it was ready to haul back again. He grinned and was looking back over his shoulder when he heard Casey shout and a kind of yip that had to have been Tony. He snapped his head back around in time to see Tony falling backwards into the fish with something purplish attached to the back of his glove. Casey dove across the catch, her own gloved hand outstretched, and batted the purple thing away. Jimmy’s heart stopped beating. Or maybe it was time that stopped as the innocuous looking purple fish flipped end over end through the air and over the side.