O’Malley regarded the boy, started to say something but decided on a prosaic: “I’d better check the instruments.” They were still in the wreck and, though boxed, might have been soaked through rents in the fuselage.
He climbed up a sort of ladder he had made, a section of young treetrunk with lopped-off branches leaned against a door which gaped among the lower boughs. Foliage hid just what happened. Danny thought later that besides making things slippery, the torrent had by sheer force loosened them in their places. He heard a yell, saw the ladder twist and topple, saw O’Malley crash to the ground under the full power of weight upon Rustum.
Night deepened. The upper clouds had not yet returned; stars and small hurtling Sohrab glimmered yonder, less sharply than on High America but all the more remote-looking and incomprehensible. The tent was hot, and O’Malley wanted breezes on his sweating skin. So he lay outside in his bag, half propped against a backpack. Light from a pair of lanterns glared upon him, picked out leaves, boles, glimmer of metal, and vanished down the throat of croaking darkness.
“Yes.” Though his voice came hoarse, it had regained a measure of strength. “Let me rest till dawn, and I can hike to the bus.” He glanced down at his left arm, splinted, swathed, and slung. Fortune had guarded him. The fracture was a clean one, and his only serious injury; the rest were bruises and shock. Danny had done well in the paramedical training which was part of every education on Rustum, and surgical supplies went in every traveling kit.
“Are you sure?” the boy fretted. “If we called for help—a couple of stretcher bearers—”
“No, I tell you! Their work is needed elsewhere. It was harder for Phil Herskowitz to walk with those ribs of his, than it’ll be for me.” Pride as well as conscience stiffened O’Malley’s tone. Bitterness followed: “Bad enough that we’ve failed here.”
“Have we, sir? I can come back with somebody else and finish the job.”
“Sorry.” The man set his teeth against more than pain. “I didn’t mean you, my son. I’ve failed.” He turned his face away. “Lower me, will you? I’d like to try to sleep some more.”
“Sure.” Suddenly awkward, Danny hunkered down to help his chief. “Uh, please, what should I do? I can push our roadway further.”
“If you want. Do what you like.” O’Malley closed his eyes.
Danny rose. For a long while he gazed down at the stubbled, pale, exhausted countenance. Before, O’Malley could take off his helmet temporarily to wash, shave, comb his hair. Danny hadn’t dared allow that extra stress on the body. Dried perspiration made runnels across furrows which agony had plowed. It was terrible to see this big, genial, powerful man so beaten.
Was he asleep already, or hiding from his shame under a pretense of it?
What was disgraceful, anyway, about a run of bad luck?
Danny scuffed boot in dirt and groped after understanding. Jack O’Malley, admired surveyor-explorer, had finally miscalculated and crashed in an aircar. He could make up for that—it could have happened to anybody, after all—by arranging to recover the most important things. But first it turned out that there was no way to haul back the motor, the heart of the vehicle. And then, maybe because he had actually continued to be a little careless, he fell and got disabled. … All right His pride, or vanity or whatever, is suffering. Why should it—this much? He’s not a petty man. What’s wrong with another person completing his project? Certainly not a mere chunk of salvage money. He’s well off.
It must be pretty crucial to him, this. But why?
Danny looked around, to the stars which were relentlessly blinking out as vapors rose from sea and soil, to the shadowiness which hemmed him in. Trees stood half-seen like trolls. They mumbled in the slow, booming wind, and clawed the air. Across the years, his fear and aloneness rushed toward him.
But I can beat that! he cried, almost aloud. I’m doing it!
O’Malley groaned. His eyelids fluttered, then squeezed shut again. He threw hale arm across helmet as if to shield off the night.
Realization came like a blow: He’s been afraid too. It’s that alien down here, that threatening. More than it ever can be to me. … He won his victory over himself, long ago. But a single bad defeat can undo it inside him—
Jack O’Malley, alone and mortal as any small boy?
Danny shook his fist at the forest. You won’t beat him! I won’t let you!
A minute later he thought how melodramatic that had been. His ears smoldered. Yet, blast, blast, blast, there had to be a way! The wagon was built. The few remaining kilometers of brush could be cleared in some hours. True, no one person could manhandle the thing, loaded, the whole way to the bus; and O’Malley lacked strength to help on that uphill drag. …
“Do what you like,” the man had whispered in his crushed state, his breaking more of soul than bones.
Uphill?
Danny yelled.
O’Malley started, opened his eyes, fumbled after his pistol. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Danny chattered. “Nothing, sir. Go back to sleep.” Nothing—or everything!
Roadmaking was a good deal easier between camp and sea than in the opposite direction. Besides the ground sloping downward, salt intrusions made it less fertile. Still, there was ample brush to lay on muddy spots where wheels might otherwise get stuck. By the brilliance of a lantern harnessed on his shoulders, Danny got the path done before he must likewise sleep.
“You’re the busy bee, aren’t you?” O’Malley said drowsily on one of his companion’s returns to see him. “What’re you up to?”
“Working, sir,” Danny answered correctly, if evasively. O’Malley didn’t pursue the question. He soon dropped again into the slumber, half natural, half drugged, whereby his body was starting to heal itself.
Later, Danny took the wagon to the shore. It went easily, aside from his occasional need for the brake. Unladen, it was light enough for him to bring back alone. But it would require more freeboard—he grinned—especially if it was to bear a heavier burden than planned. With power tools he quickly made ribs, to which he secured sheet metal torched out of the wreck. Rigging would be difficult. Well—tent and bags could be slashed for their fabric.
He labored on the far side of the site, beyond view of the hurt man. Toward morning, O’Malley regained the alertness to insist on knowing what was afoot. When Danny told him, he exclaimed, “No! Have you gone kilters?”
“We can try, sir,” the boy pleaded. “Look, I’ll make several practice runs, empty, get the feel of it, learn the way, make what changes I find we need before I stow her full. And you, you can pilot the bus one-handed, can’t you? I mean, what can we lose?”
“Your fool life, if nothing else.”
“Sir, I’m an expert swimmer, and—”
Shamelessly, Danny used his vigor to wear O’Malley down.
Preparation took another pair of days. This included interruptions when Danny had to go hunting. He found O’Malley’s advice about that easy to follow, game being plentiful and unafraid. Though he didn’t actually enjoy the shooting, it didn’t weigh on his conscience; and the ranging around became relaxation and finally a joy.
Once a giant spearfowl passed within reach of his rifle. He got the creature in his sights and followed it till it was gone. Only then did he understand that he had not killed it because he no longer needed to. How majestic it was!
O’Malley managed camp, in spite of the clumsiness and the occasional need for pain-killer forced on him by his broken arm. With renewed cockiness, he refused to return to High America for medical attention, or even talk to a doctor on the radio. “I’m coming along okay. You did a first-class job on me. If it turns out my flipper isn’t set quite right, why, they can soon repair that at the hospital. Meanwhile, if I did call in, some officious idiot would be sure to come bustling out. If he didn’t order us home, he’d cram his alleged help onto us, so he could claim a share in the salvage money—your money.”
“You really will go thr
ough with it, then, sir?”
“Yes. I’m doubtless as crazy as you are. No. Crazier, because at my age I should know better. But if the two of us can lick this country—Say, my name is Jack.”
Filled with aircraft motor and all, the wagon moved more sluggishly than on its trial trips … at first. Then the downgrade steepened, the brake began to smoke, and for a time Danny was terrified that his load would run out of control and smash to ruin. But he tethered it safely above high-water mark. Thereafter he had to keep watch while O’Malley walked back to the bus carrying the data tapes, which must not be risked. Danny could have done this faster, but the man said it was best if he spent the time studying the waters and how they behaved.
He also found chances to get to know the plants better, and the beasts, odors and winds and well-springs, the whole forest wonderland.
Wavelets lapped further and still further above the place to which he had let the wheels roll. He felt a rocking and knew they were upborne. Into the portable transceiver he said: “I’m afloat.”
“Let’s go, then.” O’Malley’s was the voice drawn more taut.
Not that excitement didn’t leap within Danny. He recalled a remark of his comrade’s—“You’re too young to know you can fail, you can die”—but the words felt distant, unreal. Reality was raising the sail, securing the lift, taking sheet and tiller in hand, catching the breeze and standing out into the bay.
No matter how many modifications and rehearsals had gone in advance, the cart-turned-boat was cranky. It could not be otherwise. Danny knew sailing craft too well to imagine he would ever have taken something as jerry-built as this out upon Lake Olympus. The cat rig was an aerodynamic farce; the hull was fragile, ill-balanced, and overloaded; instead of a proper keel were merely leeboards and what lateral resistance the wheels provided.
Yet this was not High America. The set of mind which had decided, automatically, that here was water too hazardous for aircar or motorboat, had failed to see that a windjammer—built on the spot, involving no investment of machinery—possessed capabilities which would not exist in the uplands.
Here air masses thrust powerfully but slowly, too ponderous for high speed or sudden flaws, gusts, squalls. Here tide at its peak raised a hull above every rock and shoal except the highest-reaching; and, the period of Raksh being what it was, that tide would not change fast. An enormous steadiness surrounded the boat, enfolded it and bore it outward.
Not that there were no dangers! Regardless of how firm a control he had, it took a sailor who was better than good to work his way past reefs, fight clear of eddies and riptides, beat around regions against which the hovering man warned him.
Heaven was not leaden, it was silver. Lively little weather clouds caught the light of a half-hidden sun in flashes which gleamed off steel and violet hues beneath. The land that fell away aft was a many-colored lavishness of life; over the forest passed uncountable wings and a wander-song to answer the drumbeat of breakers ahead. The air blew full of salt and strength, it lulled, it whistled, it frolicked and kissed. To sail was to dance with the world.
Now came the barrier. Surf spouted blinding white. Its roar shook the bones. “Bear right!” O’Malley’s voice screamed from the transceiver. “You’ll miss the channel—bear right!” Starboard, Danny grinned, and put his helm down. He could see the passage, clear and inviting ahead. It was good to have counsel from above, but not really needed, in this place that was his.
He passed through, out onto the Gulf of Ardashir, which gives on the Uranian Ocean and thence on a world. Waves ran easily. The boat swayed in the long swell of them. So did the airbus, after O’Malley settled it down onto its pontoons. Still, this could be the trickiest part of the whole business, laying alongside and transferring freight. Danny gave himself the challenge.
When both vessels were linked, the man leaned out of his open cargo hatch and cried in glory, “We’ve done it!” After a moment, with no less joy; “I’m sorry. You have.”
“We have, Jack,” Danny said. “Now let me give you the instruments first. The motor’s going to be the very devil to shift across. We could lose it.”
“I think not. Once the chains are made fast, this winch can snatch along three times that load. But sure, let’s start with the lesser-weight items.”
Danny braced feet against the rolling and began to pass boxes over. O’Malley received them with some difficulty. Nevertheless, he received them. Once he remarked through wind and wave noise: “What a shame we can’t also take that remarkable boat back.”
Danny gazed at this work of his hands, then landward, and answered softly, “That’s all right. We’ll be back—here.”
PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN
After three hours of troubled sleep, Dan Coffin awoke to the same knowing: They haven’t called in.
Or, have they? his mind asked, and answered: Unlikely. I gave strict orders I be told whenever word came, whatever it was.
So Mary’s voice has not reached us since dusk. She’s lost, in danger. He forced himself to add: Or she’s dead.
Forever stilled, that joyousness that ran from the radio to him especially? “Remember, Dan, we’ve got a date exacty three tendays from now. ’Bye till then. I’ll be waiting.” No!
Understanding it was useless, and thinking that he ought to get more rest, he left his bunk. The rug, a cerothere hide, felt scratchy under his bare feet, and the clay floor beyond was cold. The air did surround him with warmth and sound—trillings, croakings, the lapping of waves, and once from the woods a carnivore’s scream—but he hardly noticed. Paleness filled the windows. Otherwise his cabin was dark. He didn’t turn on a light to help him dress. When you spend a lot of time in the wilderness, you learn how to do things after sunset without a fluoropanel over your head.
Weariness ached in him, as if his very bones felt the drag of a fourth again Earth’s gravity. But that’s nonsense, he thought. His entire life had been spent on Rustum. No part of him had ever known Earth—except his chromosomes and the memories they bore of billionfold years of another evolution—I’m simply wont out from worrying.
When he trod outside, a breeze ruffled his hair (as Mary’s fingers had done) and its coolness seemed to renew his strength. Or maybe that came from the odors it brought, fragrances of soil and water and hastening growth. He filled his lungs, leaned back against the rough solidity of walls, and tried to inhale serenity from this, his homeland. A few thousand human beings, isolated on a world that had not bred their race, must needs be wary. Yet did they sometimes make such a habit of it that there could be no peace for them ever?
The two dozen buildings of the station, not only the log shelters like his own but the newer metal-and-plastic prefabs, seemed a part of the landscape, unless they were simply lost in its immensity. Behind them, pastures and grainfields reached wanly to a towering black wall of forest. Before them, Lake Moondance murmured and sheened to a half-seen horizon; and above that world-edge soared mountains, climbing and climbing until their tiers were lost in the cloud deck.
The middle of heaven was clear, though, as often happened on summer nights. Both satellites were aloft there. Raksh was nearly at maximum distance, a tiny copper sickle, while Sohrab never showed much more than a spark. The light thus came chiefly from natural sky-glow and stars. Those last were more sharp and multitudinous than was usual when you looked up through the thick lowland air. Dan could even pick out Sol among them. Two sister planets glowed bright enough to cast glades on the lake, and Sohrab’s image skipped upon it as swiftly as the moonlet flew.
It’s almost like a night on High America, Dan thought. The memory of walking beneath upland skies, Mary Lochaber at his side, stabbed him. He hurried toward the radio shack.
No one ordinarily stood watch there, but whoever was on patrol—against catlings, genghis ants, or less foreseeable emergency makers—checked it from time to time to see if any messages had come in. Dan stared at the register dial. Yes! Half an hour ago! His finger stabbed the pl
ayback button. “Weather Center calling,” said a voice from Anchor. “Hello, Moondance. Look, we’ve got indications of a storm front building off the Uranian coast, but we need to check a wider area. Can you take some local readings for us?” He didn’t hear the rest. Sickness rose in his throat.
A footfall pulled him back to here and now. He whirled rather than turned. Startled, Eva Spain stepped from the threshold. For a moment, in the dim illumination of its interior, they confronted each other.
“Oh!” She tried to laugh. “I’m not an urso hunting his dinner, Dan. Honest, I’m not.”
“What are you after, then?” he snapped.
If that were Mary, tall and slim, hair like sunlight, standing against the darkness in the door—It was only Eva. In the same coarse coveralls as him, with the same knife and pistol—tools—at her belt, she likewise needed no reduction helmet on her red-tressed, snub-nosed, freckle-faced head. Also like him, she was of stocky build, though she lacked the share of Oriental genes that made his locks dark, cheekbones high, skin tawny. And she had a few years less than he did, whereas Mary was of his age. That didn’t matter; they were all young. What mattered was that this was not Mary.
Now don’t blame Eva for that, Dan told himself. She’s good people. He recalled that for a long while, practically since they met, everybody seemed to take for granted that in due course they would marry. He couldn’t ask for a better wife, from a practical viewpoint.
Practicality be damned.
Her eyes, large and green, blinked; he saw light reflected off tears. Yet she answered him stiffly: “I could inquire the same of you. Except I’d be more polite about it.”
Dan swallowed. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.”
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