“It’ll save time if I cut and you hoist the sail,” I told him and taking the knife, crept forward. My hands seemed strengthless as I sawed away at the heavy anchor line, thankful it wasn’t chain. I heard Harlan heaving at the sail and it seemed like noise enough to rouse the dead. It did rouse the men on the beach. I sawed faster.
“Hurry, Sara,” I heard Harlan call and wondered why he still kept his voice low if the men had heard the creak of the sail.
I felt the line and there was only one strand still uncut. Frantically, I hacked away and, just as I felt the pull of the ship against the wind in its sail, the anchor line parted.
“Grab the tiller and head for the sea,” Harlan cried, still struggling to lift the cumbersome sail. I guess in the dim light it was difficult to see what he was doing. And he was tired, but he made heavy work with the sheet.
Tripping over deck-stored gear, I scrambled astern and found the unfamiliar tiller handle.
If for only this one adventure, my tomboy days paid rich dividends. I had run with Harlan, swum with him and now I was able to crew for him. And, undoubtedly I cautioned myself with the memory of sour disappointments, when the Yacht Club Dance on this world came round, it wouldn’t be Sara who was waltzed by the ship’s captain.
Harlan was cursing as he tried to make fast the sheet. I caught at the trailing line as the boom threatened to knock him overboard. I trimmed sail and steered for the open sea.
The men on shore now had realized what had happened and were shouting threats across the water as Harlan joined me.
“It’s another miracle that you can sail,” he muttered to me. “I can’t.”
“You can’t?” I gasped, appalled at the situation. “Why not?” I demanded, as the responsibility now resting on me became apparent to my tired brain. He couldn’t possibly imagine that I could sail this bloody boat on an unknown sea to a port I’d never seen.
“Too busy,” he grinned. “You’re doing all right.”
That explained his ambiguous comments and his awkwardness with the sail.
“Now, yes,” I practically screamed at him, “but if you knew you couldn’t sail, why in heaven’s name did you steal the boat?”
“I’d’ve figured it out, but I’m glad you already know how,” he repeated complacently.
The volume of his audacity was frightening.
“That’s comforting to know,” I said acidly. “Sailing an open sea is easy even for an idiot Regent. And I imagine you probably would have figured it out before you piled up on a beach or reefs. At least you have the advantage, I assume, of some familiarity with the coastline of this world. I don’t. I don’t know your goddamned world!”
“My what world?” he asked as I had interjected an English cussword.
“What do you want me to do now?” I cried, tears of fear, frustration and fatigue starting down my face.
“Steer for the open sea,” he said blandly.
“And then what? I don’t even know how big your seas are, what the tides are like! You’ve got two bloody moons to complicate that minor detail of sailing. How do you expect me to . . .”
He put his arm around me, settling down beside me. His very presence and magnificent self-confidence helped calm my hysteria.
“The Finger Sea on which we sail,” he began calmly, “is deep, no reefs or shoals except along the eastern edge. We will sail due east across it toward Astolla. It will probably take all night, so we would face the reefs in daylight when nothing is as overwhelming as it is at night. I do know navigation, Sara. And since you can handle the mechanics of sailing, we’ll be all right. My purpose in heading east is to reach the home of an old friend of mine.” He chuckled to himself. “We fought so the last time we met, I’m sure no one will think to check at Gartly’s for me.”
“If you fought, why would he welcome you?” I demanded, worrying not so much about what happened when we arrived as to how we would manage to arrive in the first place.
“Gartly is part of my loyal opposition, that’s all. He has no love for Gorlot at all or any of that cave. None at all,” and Harlan mused on some private memories, his face sober.
The wind freshened and the ship moved at a willing clip. The wind was also cold and I began to shiver.
“First, there must be some food aboard. I could eat a brant,” Harlan said. “And there had better be more clothing, too.”
He found both. The coarse bread and strong cheese filled my stomach and with rough cloth pants to keep me warm, my fearfulness dissipated. The ship was simple to handle, even for one person, the lines being winched astern so a lone steersman could handle the sheets from the cockpit on a long haul.
“How long a sail is it?” I asked Harlan when he settled down beside me again after another thorough prowl about the ship.
He shrugged.
“I have only a spaceman’s idea of distance. A mere half hour or so by planecar.”
I groaned. “I wish you really knew what you had let us in for,” I said, depression overwhelming me.
“I do what I must,” he said sternly. “And I must get to Gartly.”
No apologies was I ever to get from Harlan. And naturally I found myself accepting his inexorable logic that we would get where we wanted to go, novices though we were, because we had to.
The sheer audacity of his idea was what saved us, I think, from discovery. For we sailed all that night with a good stiff following breeze. Harlan insisted on taking a trick to allow me to rest although I was reluctant to leave a complete tyro in charge of the ship. He assured me that if the wind would change—my one worry because sailing with a good following wind is child’s play—he would wake me. He kept his word, waking me at dawn when the breeze dropped off. He also pointed with smug complacency at the distant outline of mountains on the horizon.
He had used a hand line and caught us breakfast. Once I had mastered the cooking stove, we ate hot food until we were stuffed. With land at least in sight and a full stomach for only the second time in several weeks, my depression disappeared.
“We were farther up the coast than I thought,” he remarked. “Let’s get close enough so I can figure out where we are.”
I shook my head over his blithe unconcern. He laughed at me and then peered at the rising sun.
“That is,” he amended, “if we get any wind.”
“That’ll be a long paddle,” I remarked, trying not to be too sour.
“Pessimist,” he teased. “Yesterday at this time, we were securely locked up in Gleto’s amusing retreat with not a chance in a hundred of getting out. You make the most of the opportunities the gods grant and you’ll win out,” Harlan said with fine good humor. “Did I not have you as a nurse? Did you not have the wit to understand what was being done to me? Can you say that we have not succeeded in escaping?”
“Those men had all night to get somewhere to report their ship stolen,” I reminded him.
“True enough,” he replied, unruffled. “But they don’t know who stole. One man? Several? There are plenty of bandsmen prowling. Nor, if they were simple fishermen, are they likely to give wind of it to Gorlot’s people. I had meant to take the smallboat which they might easily believe had been improperly tied. But . . .” and he shrugged. “But this gets me closer quicker to help. Then, too, how long will it take Gleto to summon up enough courage to inform Gorlot I’m missing?” he chuckled nastily.
“He’ll delay as long as he can,” I replied, feeling a little reassured by that one fact.
“And, as it is known I have never sailed, the last place anyone will look for Harlan is on the sea.”
“It’s going to be a long row,” I repeated, looking anxiously at the limp sail and the glassy water.
“We can while the time away,” he suggested in such an altered tone of voice I glanced around sharply at him.
Before I had realized what he had in mind, he had pulled me into his arms. Startled and completely surprised, I clutched involuntarily at his shoulders for balance and wa
s being kissed expertly and thoroughly. What thoughts my emotions gave room for were chaotic. I was as split into the various facets of my personality as if I had been literally blown apart.
The girl with the beaknose had never been kissed except as a party joke or absentmindedly by departing brothers. The unwanted girl who had stolen longing looks at shamelessly necking couples in Central Park had no firsthand experience with returning a kiss. His forceful invasion of my lips met neither resistance nor response. The stranger, by some crazy agency dumped on a strange planet, could and did not want to antagonize her one friend. And the sister who had overheard her brothers’ candid comments on girls was all too certain the direction such beginnings would take. And I, all of me, didn’t want him to stop kissing because of the way my heart pounded and my body ached for the feeling of his hands. Yet I didn’t know what to do.
I could sense the change almost as soon as it began. Harlan lifted his head and looked at me slightly puzzled.
“And what’s wrong with me?” he asked.
I realized he was asking me if he were the cause of my inability to respond.
“Nothing, it’s just . . .”
“Don’t they kiss on your planet?” he asked with a boyish incredulity.
“Yes, but I never did,” I said inanely, my hand going to my nose.
That did it. I could see his face change again, that closing-out look I hated. Although I was still in his arms, against his chest, he had withdrawn.
“Please, Harlan, don’t go away from me like that,” I pleaded.
His look softened and he took my hand, his thumb absently rubbing my wrist.
“Then you are untouched?” he asked kindly, as if this were not exactly a privileged state on his world.
I could only nod, knowing I must be blushing at his frankness. I was torn with a horrifyingly unmaidenlike desire to encourage him, even if I didn’t know how to go about it at all.
He chuckled at some inner thought and hugged me with affection but no passion, kissing me gently on the eyes.
“Then, my dear Sara, this is neither the time nor the place if such beginnings are to be auspicious. We both smell to the high heaven and . . .”
A sudden flapping, creaking, caught both our attentions and we hastily disengaged to duck as the untended boom, moved by the rising wind, missed knocking us overboard by a hair’s breadth.
“Yes, this is neither the time nor the place,” Harlan repeated, laughing boyishly as he lunged for the trailing line and I grabbed the swinging tiller.
Again I was torn by opposing desires: relief that I had been saved rude wakenings, and frustration because I had been aroused. I wanted Harlan. And when again would I be in a position alone with him when there was opportunity and time?
“Damn the wind,” I muttered to myself as I eased the ship about.
The purple smudge on the horizon deepened into the green of treed slopes, fringed with boiling surf. I pointed out the inhospitable coastline.
“We can’t land in that, Harlan,” I protested.
“Let’s sail southerly. The land breaks into the delta of the Astolla River past this range. Only we want to land before we get to Astolla itself.” He squinted at the mountains. “Gartly lives above Astolla and that will be the hardest past of the trip.”
He didn’t qualify his comment, so I didn’t realize then he meant that the danger of being encountered by someone who would recognize him was greater. I took him to mean the mountains and I groaned.
He turned to me, laughing. “All uphill, Sara, all uphill. Only,” he noticed my feet, bruised and raw, “we’ll have to do something about them.”
“And this,” I added, distastefully indicating my overlong sweater.
He rummaged in the cabin and came up with additional ill-smelling garments. Finding a bucket and a line, he heaved it overboard and to my amused astonishment, he started to sluice the clothing up and down in the clean seawater. He wrung them out neatly and spread them to dry on the deck.
“Our hosts were probably good fishermen but incredibly dirty,” he commented when he had finished. “They’ll dry quickly. Shall I take a turn?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him and then I still was, what with the recent sleep and enough food and his approval.
He went forward and I saw him heave the bucket overboard again. This time it was himself he washed. I tried to keep the sail between me and glimpses of his strong golden body. It had been one thing to tend him as a moron, another to consider him as a lover.
I should not presume on his friendship later, I promised myself. He was of too much consequence for someone like me and I’d be more than a fool to think I meant anything to him.
We sailed on for a long while, well into the sunny morning, until I was lethargic with the sun, hungry again and very tired. I was mesmerized by the masthead and the jibsprit which I kept pointed toward the ever nearing shore line. I was lost in fatigue and musings when suddenly Harlan’s hand dropped to my shoulder.
Startled, I gasped and flinched as though I’d been struck.
“Is my touch offensive?” he asked, frowning.
“No, no,” I hastily assured him. “I was worlds away.”
He knelt down beside me and I noticed his bare chest was red with sun.
“You’ve got a burn.”
“So have you,” he retorted and I saw he had put on clean dry pants. He thrust a handful of dry clothing toward me. “These were the smallest and may fit better. Go on forward and wash some of the mud off, Sara.”
I hesitated as I rose, as much from weariness and being in one position so long, as from the knowledge the sail did not conceal much from a determined watcher.
“If I look, I won’t tell,” he taunted, grinning wickedly.
Grabbing the clothes from him, I turned on my heel with as much dignity as I could and made my way to the bow. The pail was there and some soft, linenlike sheeting that he must have used as toweling. Traces remained of mud stains that hadn’t come out with just a seawater rinsing.
It was very heartening to remove that filthy old sweater. And better still to get the rest of the mud off my body. My face stung in the salt bath, but when I was clean and dressed again, I did feel better. With decided pleasure I kicked the rags of my asylum tunic overboard and watched them sink below the surface.
“Now,” said Harlan as I returned to the cockpit, “we must give you a plausible account of your existence in case you meet some awkward questioning. Gartly was my second-in-command and is an honorable man, but you, my dear Searcher,” and his phrase puzzled me, “require some explanation, even to the most loyal comrade.”
“Why not the truth?”
“Sara,” and he turned my face so I looked at him fully, “you have no idea how you got to this planet?” When I shook my head negatively, he continued, “Then until I do find out, or you remember, the mere fact that you are not of this planet is very dangerous. As soon as I can, I shall start some adroit inquiries, but for you to come out and admit to an extraplanetary origin would mean your death without further explanation to you or from you.”
“It’d be much easier to tell the truth. Then it wouldn’t matter how many things I didn’t know,” I said plaintively.
His look silenced me. “I have taken that into consideration. I’d prefer to be able to send you up to my estates in North Lothar, but I may not be able to do that right away. Of course, the less you have to say about your past the better, but Gartly’s of the Old Beliefs, and clan and cavesite mean much to him. Now listen. Jurasse is the next largest city to Lothara. It’s northwest of the Finger Sea, deep in the mountains. Your father . . . what was your father’s name? Steven? No, make him Stane, a better Lotharan name. Your father Stane was a mining engineer. I’ll put you on a professional level, my dear lady,” and he grinned at me, “and as there are several hundred thousand miners and engineers in and out of Jurasse, there’s scant way of checking.”
“But he must have gone to college or university,
” I said.
“Un-i-ver-sity?” Harlan asked, puzzled.
“Advanced schooling, training in his specialty,” I qualified.
Harlan shook his head quickly. “No. One learns on the job here. Stane is a fairly common name and we’ll make you of Estril clan and Odern cavesite.”
“What is the significance of clans and cavesites?” I asked grimly.
Harlan exhaled his breath and looked at me. Then he covered my hands with his big strong one. “I’ll explain all that later. In the meantime, it is only important for you to know a clan name; the Estrils are conservative but known for their intense loyalty to their leaders, and the Odern is such an enormous old cave, hundreds of clans could refuge here.”
“All right. Estril and Odern. Jurasse, next largest city, mining, northwest.”
“Good girl. Your father died in a mine accident that happened just . . . well, I don’t know how long ago now, but it happened in the Tenth Month of the Single Eclipse. Just memorize it, Sara, no explanations. The same earth fault destroyed blocks of apartment buildings. So you can have lived at the sign of the Horns and no one will be able to run an accurate or quick check. Your important relative is your mother. What was your mother’s name?”
“I wish you’d stop saying ‘was.’ For all I know, they are very much alive,” I snapped.
“Not as far as you’re concerned on Lothar,” Harlan said with patient firmness.
“Maria.”
“Make it Mara of the Thort clan, that’s a South Cant group. Farmlands had some bad plague about thirty years ago, . . . how old are you, Sara?”
“Twenty-four.”
He smiled and started to say something, changing his subject even as he opened his mouth to speak. “Fine. Then all but your mother died in that plague, so you have no maternal family to worry about. This happens often enough and as the Clan Head may always be approached, no one is ever really orphaned. Between Jurasse and South Cant your accent can be accounted for. South Cant slurs and Jurasse is throaty.”
“Mara of the Thorts from South Cant. No cavesite?”
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