The Incredible Tide

by Alexander Key

  “Conan, get up! We’ve got to move!”

  He did not immediately catch the urgency in the old man’s voice, for another gray morning had come, and in the air was the tantalizing smell of fish being fried, and the soft beat of music. Fresh food, and music! It had been weeks since he’d eaten fresh food, and years since he’d heard such magic. A magic long vanished, played on instruments that probably no longer existed …

  It was a wonderful moment, and a terrible one. For all at once he realized that the music must be from a record being played aboard the trawler. The vessel couldn’t be more than a few hundred yards away. As soon as the mist lifted, which could happen any minute, they would be in plain sight of everyone aboard.

  Conan sprang to the beach and furiously began unloading the boats. Teacher got out and feebly tried to help. The old man had been badly beaten. His good eye was closed, his face was bruised and swollen, and every painful movement spoke of the blows his body had suffered. Conan raged silently at the stupidity and brutality of those whom Teacher had tried to help. And it had all been for nothing.

  “No,” said Teacher, reading his mind. “It was not for nothing—but there isn’t time to explain now. We—”

  “Let me carry the stuff! You’re not able—”

  “I must work—it will help me to recover. Take everything in yonder—to the right.”

  Even this close to it, the break in the cliff was hardly noticeable. At first glance it looked like countless other places where rocks had fallen and the sea had eroded the beginnings of a cavern. But it curved deceivingly and extended far back from the tiny beach. Had the tide been high they could have floated the two craft directly into the place and avoided the ordeal they were forced to undergo now.

  The boats were tubby fourteen-footers of unusually heavy construction. It took all Conan’s strength to drag them, empty, up over the rubble and into the break. As he caught up the last of their gear and hurriedly carried it to safety, he glimpsed the vague shape of the trawler through the rising mist. It had been a very near thing.

  A few minutes later he heard the throb of the trawler’s motor. He was vastly relieved when he peered out and saw it heading down the coast.

  The spring Teacher had spoken about still bubbled in the break, and sent a tiny stream flowing to the beach. The sight of it was reassuring, for there had not been time to fill more than a few of the water bottles the night they left. But when they sat down to eat a hasty breakfast before going to work, all Conan’s feeling of relief suddenly evaporated. Teacher was entirely too quiet for his peace of mind.

  The old man, still wrapped in his blanket, winced as he tried to make his bruised body more comfortable. “We have a fact or two to face,” he began, his voice deceptively mild. “For one thing, geology may give us a bit of trouble later. Do you happen to know what a tsunami is?”

  “A—a wave of some kind, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Various shocks can cause them. Later, we must be on the watch—” Teacher gave the faintest indication of a shrug. “But that isn’t our immediate worry. As soon as the work commissioner and his friends come to their senses, we’ll have a swarm of searchers out after us.”

  “I don’t understand. If they beat you—”

  “The beating proves a point. I expected punishment.”

  “You—you expected it?”

  “Of course. Isn’t violence the natural reaction of nonreason to reason, of power to truth?” Teacher chuckled weakly. “Oh, my battered bones! Can’t you see how furious I made them? There, right under their noses all the time, was the old rascal they’d spent so much effort trying to find. It was too much for them.”

  “But I didn’t think they believed you!”

  “Oh, they believed me. But how could they admit it? Briac Roa old Patch? Utterly ridiculous! Yet if they’d actually thought I was Patch, the crank at the boat shop whose mind had suddenly slipped, they would have laughed and thrown me out. Into the desert, probably. They can’t be bothered with incompetents. But they didn’t laugh. So my mission was successful.”

  Conan could only stare at him in astonishment.

  “And now,” Teacher added, “they are waking up to the fact that their prize bird has been snatched from the coop. When they don’t find us immediately—and I’m sure they think they will—this whole coast will be seething. So we don’t have the time I’d counted on to get our craft ready. I’d hoped to have at least a week.”

  “How long have we got?”

  “We ought to be out of here tonight.”

  “But—but that’s impossible,” Conan said faintly, thinking of the endless details that had to be done just right—the hull-joining, the sailmaking, the careful assembly of spars that had to be spliced from plastic pieces because there wasn’t any wood …

  “True,” the old man murmured. “So it will have to be tomorrow night instead. Even that seems impossible. But we must manage it somehow, whether we are ready or not. Now that they know who I am, another day will be too late. And I should warn you—if they fail to find us on the coast, they’ll carry the search to sea.”

  “They’ll never find us with that old trawler. All we need is a few hours’ start—”

  “I’m not concerned about the trawler. They have helicopters.”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Two of them. Monstrous old relics they used for heavy lifting. They’re more dangerous to us than a dozen boats.” Teacher shrugged. “But we’ll worry about them later. Let’s fasten those hulls together.”

  As he hurried to work, Conan wondered grimly just what their chances were. He tried not to think of Lanna.

  There had been no more deaths at High Harbor, and the danger of infection was now past. But Lanna was very much aware of the other danger. Every time she glanced down at the harbor and saw the trade ship, she was reminded of it. So far as she could learn, the secret meeting had been delayed indefinitely. But of course it was too soon after the sickness scare to start anything, and there were too many tales going around about what had happened. But that wretch of a commissioner was in no hurry. He had already got part of what he was after, and as soon as things quieted down …

  Lanna’s hand trembled as she whipped the shuttle of her loom back and forth. She had gotten up early to weave a few extra inches of material—getting it from the trade ship was now out of the question, and she would have scorned it had it been offered—but it was impossible to keep her mind on her work. Thoughts of Teacher and Conan kept intruding. How long had it been since Mazal had heard from Teacher? Four days? Five? With so many uncertainties it was hard to keep track of time, and it seemed like weeks.

  There was a small sound behind her, and she glanced quickly around and saw Mazal standing in the doorway. In the last few days Mazal’s gaunt face had thinned, and this morning there were dark circles around her eyes.

  Lanna said, “I’ll fix breakfast. Why don’t you go back and get some sleep?”

  “Who can sleep?” her aunt muttered.

  Lanna shook her head and tried to concentrate on keeping the shuttle going. Between them they were aware of two facts, and two facts only. One was that Conan and Teacher were alive, and the other was that some dreadful but unimaginable circumstance had placed them in peril. But at least they were alive. Being aware of it was like knowing that your own heart was still beating.

  Mazal came in and sank into a chair near the loom. “The last message I got from Teacher—” she began, then stopped, her eyes on the door.

  Lanna glanced around again. Shann was there. He entered slowly, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his robe. For a man who had been through so much lately, he seemed strangely wide awake.

  “Has Teacher escaped yet?” he asked.

  Mazal gasped, and Lanna dropped her shuttle.

  “Well?” said Shann, looking from one to the other.

  “Whoever said he was a prisoner?” Mazal asked weakly.

  “It all adds up,” Shann told her quietly. “I’ve
been suspecting for some time that he was a prisoner—and of course I can see why it was better that I wasn’t told, that no one knew. Now I think I should have the truth. Am I right about him?”

  “Yes,” Mazal whispered.

  “And Conan’s with him,” Lanna found herself saying.

  “What?” Shann had never looked so astonished.

  Mazal said, “Tell him about it, Lanna.”

  When she had explained the whole thing, he sat down, shaking his head. “Lord in heaven,” he breathed. “What a situation!” Then suddenly he swung to Mazal. “And you’ve no idea whether Teacher and Conan have managed to get away?”

  “That’s just the trouble,” Mazal wailed. “I can’t find out. Not a thing! If we only knew!”

  “Do you think the New Order may have discovered who Teacher is?”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Mazal told him.

  Shann frowned. “If they know it, maybe we ought to call an emergency meeting and tell everybody here. If all the young people are given the truth about Dyce and the New Order—”

  “But not till we hear from Teacher,” Lanna interrupted.

  “No, of course not,” he agreed. “It would never do to give his secret away, unless it’s already out. Dyce would get word back, and there’d be the biggest search on—” He shook his head again. “Honestly, I don’t know what to do. It’s a terrible situation.”

  They joined the two hulls that first morning, and started in immediately on the sail. It was a big triangle they had planned to make from the bolt of cloth taken on their raid; but now, pressed for time, they used the roll of gray plastic instead. It was seamed quickly over its bolt rope by the same cement used on the hulls, and even permanently fastened to its spar by a quick lacing and a few dabs of cement.

  “It will blow out in the first squall,” Teacher muttered. “But at least it will get us away from here—and save us three days.”

  Their only flashlight had been used to stop Tellit, but Teacher lighted the burner of a makeshift food warmer, and they managed by its feeble glow to work late into the night.

  They were toiling again at the first pale light of dawn, reinforcing the stubby mast and making rigging from the great coil of line that had been part of the stores at the boathouse.

  Late that second morning a helicopter approached and, dropping low, hovered for long and terrifying minutes directly over the break.

  Conan heard it coming in time to tug their craft into a corner, jerk the gray sail over it, and heave enough sand and gravel upon the plastic to form an effective camouflage. Their supplies, at Teacher’s insistence, had already been carefully piled to one side and covered. Even so, it was an unnerving interval before the machine moved on up the coast.

  When dark came again, bringing the creeping tide, there were a hundred small tasks undone. But the craft was roughly rigged, and its sail, however crude, seemed usable. Other things could wait.

  By the light of the burner they began swiftly stowing all they had brought with them aboard—the food supplies, the water bottles, the tool chest, the plastic bags with their blankets and spare clothing, the cloth, and the roll of line and the gear from the boat shop. Finally, for emergency repairs, they loaded the leftover cement and every scrap of plastic.

  When the vessel was afloat, Conan fastened the motor in its well and lashed the batteries near it so they would not come adrift in the seas ahead. He gave a last look around, then placed the burner on the floor near the compass so he could watch the needle if the night turned too dark to get his bearings.

  Teacher said, “Are we ready?”

  “I—I think so, sir.” A strange feeling was coming over him that would have been beyond his ability to describe.

  “Then we’d better pray,” said Teacher. “Far more depends on this voyage than the safety of two people.”

  There was a silence, then the old man said quietly, almost as if his Listener was standing beside him, “Please help us and guide us, for you know better than we what we face, and what it could mean if we fail.”

  For the first time Conan began to sense the frightening responsibility that Teacher carried on his none-too-sturdy shoulders. At that moment, like an icy shock, he was struck with the awful fact of his own responsibility. Without Teacher’s knowledge and his hand to guide the future, what would happen to the survivors of the Change?

  As he began tugging at their craft, straining and thrusting to float it out through the darkness of the break, he had a sudden vision of the long savage night of man’s past. Without Teacher, and all the things Teacher knew and believed in, wouldn’t man sink back into that primitive night? Or could he even manage to exist?

  This last thought brought another shock, for already he’d learned enough to know that, with things as they were, it wouldn’t take much to put an end to man forever. It numbed him for a second, and their craft chose that instant to become wedged in the break. Instead of two fourteen-footers, it was now a rigid twenty-eight feet, not counting the flimsy rudder at the stern, and it would not curve around projections.

  For several horrible minutes he struggled in the waist-deep tide, fighting to free it. When it slid out suddenly into the sea, the incident had indelibly impressed upon him the importance of the role he had been chosen to take. He wanted to cry out against it, but there wasn’t time. The breeze was thrusting the bow around, and he was forced to leap aboard and start the motor.

  A few minutes later Teacher lowered the false keel in its slot and raised the sail. The great triangle of plastic slatted and rattled alarmingly until he came aft and flattened the sheet. Then it snapped taut, and abruptly the vessel heeled, the bow lifted, and they surged forward under the wind’s thrust.

  It was the first time Conan had ever been in a sailing craft. But the quick thrill that went through him was almost instantly forgotten as he glanced back at the cliff. Against the night sky it was only a vague shape of darker dark, but somehow it was as threatening as a crouching beast.

  He shook his head and told himself he was being foolish. The cliff was no threat, now that they were leaving it. Their worry was the helicopters that would begin searching again in the morning.

  “We must not be where they search,” said Teacher, reading his mind. “Take the helm, son. Hold her just as she is, with the wind on your left ear. I’ll relieve you when you get tired.”

  “Is High Harbor in this direction?” he asked, as he slid over and grasped the tiller.

  “No, it’s on the other tack. But we’re not trying it tonight. The wind’s nor’west, and it’s taking us away from the search area.”

  “What about the motor?”

  “Keep it going. Full speed. It won’t drive us much faster, but every extra mile counts. We’ve got to be as far from this part of the coast as possible by dawn.”

  9

  CHASE

  IT MAY HAVE BEEN AN HOUR AFTER DAYBREAK WHEN Conan first became aware of the faint sound he had not wanted to hear. It was only a faraway bee drone, but it destroyed any hope that distance might have brought a measure of security. Land was well over the horizon behind them now, and the wind, which had driven them steadily for hours, seemed to be freshening. Under the lift of the great lateen sail the craft was almost planing.

  He had not had the heart to awaken Teacher. The old man, swaddled in blankets, was still curled up asleep on the starboard side of the motor. One glance at that drawn and badly bruised face and he decided not to disturb him unless the bee drone came much closer.

  He prayed for the sound to go away. For several intervals it did, but always it returned, louder, and he realized the helicopter must be flying a zigzag course, trying to cover a wide section of the sea. In the constant haze it remained invisible for a long time. Then suddenly he made it out, a moving dot that he might have taken for a bird but for the sound it made.

  He turned to call Teacher, and found the old man sitting up, listening intently.

  Suddenly Teacher ordered, “Heave to,
then cut off the motor. We’ve got to take in the sail and spread it over us.”

  They hastily lowered the long spar, and managed to spread the gray plastic over most of the vessel. Almost before they could lash it down securely, the helicopter was swinging past, only a few hundred yards off the port quarter.

  Conan could hardly believe his eyes when the machine continued on its way, paying not the slightest attention to them. “What’s wrong with them?” he asked, shaken. “Couldn’t they see us?”

  “No,” said Teacher. “Thanks to the gray plastic. It’s almost the same color as the water. And I think they’re looking for two boats—one towing the other. It hasn’t occurred to them that we may have turned into something different.”

  “But what are we going to do? They are ahead of us now, and if we use the sail, they may spot us later.”

  “Use the motor. If we keep going, we ought to run into some fog later. Then we can make sail.”

  Conan searched the hazy distance. “I think there’s a line of fog way off to the left—to port, I mean.”

  “Head for it. This is where your vision counts. I’m unable to make out anything—or sense it, I should say—more than a hundred feet beyond me.”

  Conan switched on the motor and started at full speed for the distant fogbank. They were quartering into the wind now, and without the sail they seemed to be barely creeping along. Momentarily he expected to hear the helicopter returning, but the morning was half gone before he heard the sound of it again, and by this time they were safely hidden by the fog.

  Wearily he helped raise the sail and turned the tiller over to Teacher. He fell asleep the moment he stretched out by the motor. It was the first rest he had had in more than twenty-four hours.

  When he awoke it was black dark, so dark that he could not even make out Teacher at the helm a few feet away. The motor was still going, and the craft was sliding easily along on the same tack she had been on earlier.

  He felt his way aft and took the tiller from Teacher, saying accusingly, “Why did you let me sleep so long?”

  The old man chuckled. “For the same reason you let me sleep so long last night. But I was about to call you. I must try to get in touch with Mazal.”