Conspirator

“We shall be moving on the report of a blip in Baiji’s search, nadi-ji, as fast as we can. It may be nothing. But we are going there. Keep your pattern.”

“Yes,” was Jago’s terse answer, and he wished Jago’s night-sight was out there in the darkc but Jago needed to be at Brighter Days’radio. Probably Barb was out on deck, at that post.

He didn’t want to worry about that. He simply throttled up and veered onto the new heading.

Lightning split the sky, far out from the cloud, and it had gotten darker and darker.

Cloud was much, much taller than it had been. It covered three quarters of the sky and it was still coming.

“Sleep,” Cajeiri said to Antaro and Jegari. “Sleep if you can. It will be hard to do once the storm comes. I am pulling us as close to the land as I can without losing the wind. All we can do is what we are doing. When that storm hits, the wind may carry us ashore.”

Before it sinks us, he thought, but he did not say it.

They tried to sleep. He sat and thought, and thought, and it seemed to him somewhere in the books he had read there was something about a sea anchor one used in storms on wooden ships.

Well, theirs was a wooden ship. And they had a bit of rope, not much of it, just what one might use for tying up. But he thought about it, and he thought if the wind started pushing them and the waves dashed them around, having something large and soppy trailing them on a string would possibly keep them from rocking so much and maybe keep them aimed better. Truth, he had no clear memory what it was really supposed to do for a ship. But they had their rope, and they had three coats, and if they sacrificed one and just heaved it out, it might help.

They just had to stay upright and not have a wave go over them. Then, maybe since storms went to shore, the wind could drive them there.

His mind raced, trying to think of things they could do.

He thought about ripping up the benches and seeing if they could use those for oars. But they were very solid. He was not sure they could get them free. And it might weaken the boat.

The cloud flashed with lightning, and thunder boomed right over them, rousing his companions.

Cajeiri grabbed up Jegari’s coat, which they never had been able to get dry.

“Get the tie rope,” he said. It was all the free rope they had. The wind, like a rowdy child, might roll them right over if they kept wallowing about like this. The waves when they hit the boat tended to slosh right into it. And that was getting scary.

They got the rope. He tied Jegari’s once very good coat into a bundle and threw it overboard, and tied the other end to the boat.

Lightning showed two worried faces.

“We shall come through,” he said to them, and the thunder boomed, and about then a gust of wind hit the boat. He made a desperate try with the tiller, but so far their sea anchor did nothing, and water slapped the boat and rocked it in a moment of following lull.

But slowly, slowly they did slew about a bit—the tiller still not working, but the sail starting to fill. He dared not lose that little boom rope. He took a double and triple tie on its end to be sure that the boom stayed within limits.

“Sit in the bottom together!” he cried. “Link arms and keep out of the way of the boom. It will be rough!” It might be a stupid idea, but it was better than no idea, and the waves were ruffling up and the wind was like a hammer, making the ropes start to sing as the sail strained and the dragging sea anchor lagged behind them. He had no reference point to tell where they were going. But the wind was coming more or less at their backs, and spray came up, mingled with rain as, all of a sudden and with a rush of wind and a crash of lightning, the heavens opened up and let loose on them. Water sloshed in. He kept one hand on the little rope, one on the tiller, and now with that one wave, the bottom of the boat was awash.

“The little bucket!” he shouted out. “Use the bucket!”

Antaro leaned back to get it from behind his feet, and got back again, and they did, one of them and then the other; and meanwhile the rigging screamed, and the rope burned his hand when the boom jerked outward. He hauled as hard as he could, thinking—if the little rope broke, if that little twist of rope let go or something came untied, or he even made a mistake and lost his grip and let the force of the wind hit that knot he had made, they were all going to die.

They bailed and bailed. Jegari was trying to do something in the interval. Lightning flashes showed him trying to link his belt to Antaro’sc Antaro the one of them with no life preserver.

Antaro suddenly paused bailing, pointed out into the dark ahead and a little to the right. “I see a light!” she cried.

He could not see it. He thought it wishful thinking.

And then he did see it, a faint, faint glow. They had no light to signal back. Water hit him in the face, salt water, that stung. He could no longer feel the tiller under his arm, his face was numb.

But the light reappeared as he blinked clear, a faint glimmer. “The light isthere!” he cried. It went out again, lost in the murk, and then reappeared. It might be a house on the shore, he thought, and hugged the tiller and feathered the rope as the boat tipped and rocked alarmingly in the gusts. “ ’Gari-ji, if we fall in, keep hold of Antaro, hear me? Do notboth of you try to reach me! I shall float and reach you. That is an order! Hold to each other!”

“We shall come back there, perhaps! I have linked belts with Antaro! She will be all right! We should stay close!”

“You shall not! You will tip the boat over! Stay where you are and hold on to each other! I order you! We have a light! We are going there!”

His voice cracked when he shouted. He hoped they heard. More, he hoped they would do what he told them to do. He had had experience of humans, who did notgroup to their leader as desperately. He understood in his own body—it was hard for them all not to rush together. It was terribly hard; but he had to be here and they had to be there in the middle and balanced to keep the boat afloat in this heaving water, and he was sure of his instruction.

Water hit him in the back. Worse, it crashed past him into the boat, a whole bathtub full.

And when he blinked the stinging flood from his eyes and swiped them with a sodden sleeve, he saw a brilliant light, a blazing white light.

So did his associates, who pointed at it and shouted, and dangerously tried to get up to wave.

“Stay down!” Cajeiri cried, and waved his own hand, hoping to be seen. The light swept away from them, and swept back again, casting the waves into relief against the dark, showing the shapes of his companions ahead of him. “Yell!” he shouted across the wind.“ Help!”

The light left them, swept back again, glared down on them like a single wide eye, unblinking and turning the water to green glass. “Hold still!” he cried as Jegari started again to try to stand. “Sit down, ’Gari-ji!”

Jegari plumped back down, and that light eclipsed behind a wash of water and then came back again, flaring above them and then on them and then below as the sea heaved. Cajeiri clung fast to the tiller and tried to steer, such as the boat would, toward that light. It was no good. There was no steering.

But the distance between them and that light grew less. Cajeiri heard a steady thumping, that at first sounded like a deep, powerful heartbeat, and then he knew it was an engine, and it was surely nand’ Bren or nand’ Toby come after them. It was up to them simply not to sink until they could meet up with that boat.

He could see a hull now, a white hull with a blue line, the only color in the world beside the glass-green of the heaving water, The glaring light proved to be a spotlight on a swivel, and some dark-uniformed man worked the light, which the boat kept continually centered on them as it came close.