Part 7 (2/2)

The island we picked was beautiful-sandy beaches, old volcanic mountains green with forest, and narrow valleys that ran down to the ocean. From the air, there was no sign of people at all, or of large animals that might be dangerous.

The day was as beautiful, and as peaceful, as the island.

We landed where a small stream ran into a little inlet, and Deneen got out and walked on the solid surface of a planet for the first time since that night on Evdash when she'd run up the ramp in a fury of gunfire some sixty days earlier. The sky was a towering blue vault, and there were none of the bad smells of Ma.r.s.eille. Nor any threat-at least nothing evident and immediate. A volcano could erupt, of course, or a comet could strike the planet, but the odds were minute. There were no swordsmen or bowmen around, and no reason to expect, say, an Imperial corvette.

We did find the remains of a small stone hut, not a hundred feet from where we'd landed, its walls so tumbled that we didn't recognize it until we almost stumbled over it. A large and ancient tree had grown up within the square of fallen walls, hiding it from the air. Even so, after an initial walk on the sh.o.r.e of the inlet, we set a watch schedule. One of us would stay in the s.h.i.+p. The radio monitor was set to detect any traffic on communication bands, and it would trigger the honker if it picked up anything.

I started out by insisting that the s.h.i.+p be kept closed, in case there was something dangerous we'd missed on our overflight scans. But Bubba hadn't picked up anything telepathically, either, so I backed down on that. We could even have activated an energy s.h.i.+eld around the scout, but it would have been a needless drain on the fuel slugs.

I a.s.signed myself the first watch, and after a half hour on the learning program, spent the time reading a long article in one of dad's library cubes, about naval tactics on primitive field worlds. None of the worlds discussed had been as primitive as Fanglith, but it was something interesting to do.

Then Tarel replaced me on watch. They'd hiked inland, so Deneen and I went for a walk on the beach, Bubba was hunting. He preferred his dinner fresh-caught. It was beautiful, with a light surf breaking, was.h.i.+ng up on the sand, the forest l.u.s.trous green in the sun, the sky a deeper blue than I seemed to remember over the Entrilias Sea and Lizard Island.

We didn't talk much for a while, just walked. I should have been enjoying it, but walking on the beach made me think of Jenoor. I let myself slide into a silent swamp of ”if only,” and ”we should have ...”.

I was aware enough, though, to know that Deneen had something on her mind, too. But I'm not much for asking personal questions unless I've got a good reason to, and besides, I was busy feeling sorry for myself. After a little bit it was Deneen who broke the silence.

”A seething for your thoughts,” she said.

I shook my head. ”No point in both of us being depressed.”

She nodded, and we kept walking, right about where the larger waves reached. The biggest washed over our feet and wiped out our tracks behind us. ”You know what?” she asked after a while.

”No. What?”

”Tarel told me he loves me and wants to marry me.”

”When was that!?”

”Today. While we were hiking up the stream.”

”What did you tell him?”

”I told him maybe someday. I do like Tarel, a lot, but I definitely don't love him. And even if I did, the level of medical services on Fanglith has got to be near zero, we aren't set up to take care of babies on the Jav, and we don't have any anti-conception drugs.”

I nodded. That was my little sister look at the angles and avoid regrets. What would we have done if Jenoor had gotten pregnant? But we hadn't planned then to go to a planet as primitive as Fanglith. We'd expected to be on Grinder, wherever that was.

”How'd he take it?”

”He said he'd already seen the problems, but thought I ought to know what was going on with him.”

I walked along a little troubled. It wasn't surprising that Tarel was interested in Deneen, and he was a good guy. I hoped this wouldn't get to be a problem for anyone. We definitely didn't need complications on a planet like Fanglith.

She broke that train of thoughts, too. ”Do you know what's going on with Bubba?” she asked.

”No. What?”

”I don't know either. But something is. Now and then he gets absolutely glum, and that's not like him.”

”I figured the lousy food's been getting to him,” I said. ”It had to be tougher on a carnivore than on us.

He ought to be getting over it now.”

”It's more than the food. He's got something on his mind.”

”He's worried about Lady,” I suggested. ”And the pups.”

”No, we talked about that, he and I. He feels they'll do okay wherever they are. And you know Bubba; he just files things like that. If you can't do something about something, don't worry about it, and he's the kind that can really make that work. ”

Why are you bringing up these things? I wondered. I just want to enjoy this place for a couple of days .

But I knew that wasn't fair. I hadn't been enjoying it; I'd been wallowing around feeling pathetic. I was the captain now, I reminded myself. Everyone's problems were mine, at least to a degree, and I needed to take responsibility for my crew and how they were doing.

We didn't talk any more about Tarel's proposal, if you could call it that. He didn't seem inclined to make a problem out of it. But she'd opened my eyes a bit by telling me. Tarel had been attentive to Deneen, helping when it was her turn to fix meals or wash dishes. He really was a good guy, had been ever since we'd known him. Courteous and considerate, aware and intelligent .. . Even reasonably good-looking. And as I said before, surprisingly strong-one of those people who seems to have been born strong. I couldn't help but wonder what Deneen might have said if he wasn't so darned serious about things. He just very seldom laughed or even smiled very widely.

As for Bubba, we didn't see much of him till just before we were ready to leave. He seemed cheerful enough when he got back, but he was different from the way he'd been at home on Evdash. There wasn't the sense of openness I'd always felt from him before. It was as if he was withholding himself a little, as if there was something he was keeping to himself. Sometimes it was really noticeable, particularly now that I was paying attention.

Our vacation lasted three days and two nights. The third night we spent parked above Ma.r.s.eille again.

At dawn of the fourth day, a raw, breezy, overcast morning, I was waiting at the town gate.

Two hours later I was on one of Isaac ben Abraham's s.h.i.+ps, heading east through a choppy sea, a following wind pus.h.i.+ng us along. And briskly, considering how small our triangular sail was, and how blunt the s.h.i.+p's broad bow.

Somehow, I felt glummer than Bubba at his glummest, as serious as Tarel. And a little seasick from the s.h.i.+p's pitch and roll, although I got over that pretty quickly. Tomorrow maybe it'll clear up, I thought, and we'll have suns.h.i.+ne. Maybe I'll feel better then.

THIRTEEN.

The s.h.i.+p had been one of the larger in Ma.r.s.eille, all of sixty feet long. Loaded as she was, her gunwales amids.h.i.+ps were only about four feet above the water. The full length was decked. Below deck there were dozens of bales of what they call ”wool” on Fanglith- the curly and remarkably thick hair of an animal called ”sheep.” One of the other pa.s.sengers told me the fur is cut off the sheep's entire body, right down to the skin, and grows back to be recut the next year. The hairs are so tangled together that when they cut them off, they hang together in a mat.

Below deck were also thousands of ingots of copper, silver, and lead especially lead-which were mainly what made the s.h.i.+p ride so low in the water. Besides the cargo of wool and ingots, there were nine pa.s.sengers, all men. We slept on the bales of wool below deck and ate the same food as the s.h.i.+p's crew.

Before long I was sharing my clothes again with minute biting insects, called lice and fleas, that seem to be ever-present pests on Fanglith.

The next day was nicer-clear, though still chilly- the wind continuing from the west. For a while, a school of very large fish swam alongside us, more or less in formation. Their smooth-looking gray bodies moved along in a series of arcs, curving clear of the water and then back in. The sailors called them porpoises.

In late afternoon we saw a headland to the southeast, a high ridge. One of the pa.s.sengers told me it was the north end of a large island named Corsica, which the Saracens had once held but had been driven from years before. Before dark we'd rounded it and were heading south, more slowly now, with the wind and the island on our right. With the wind from the side we not only went slower, we also roiled heavily, and for a while I felt a little seasick again.

At dawn the next day we were out of sight of land once more. The wind had eased quite a lot, but was still from the west, and our progress was slower yet. I spent a lot of the day asking questions of the other pa.s.sengers, secretly recording our talks, but I got tired of that after a while and went below deck to kill time napping.

I was wakened by loud, excited talk. A pirate s.h.i.+p had been spotted, and I followed other pa.s.sengers up onto the deck to see what it looked like. Head on, I couldn't see how long it was, but even seeing it from a distance it seemed to be more slender, and probably rode less deeply in the water. It had a sail, triangular like ours, and I thought I could make out oars hurrying it along. Our captain had turned us to run ahead of the light wind, but after watching for a while it was obvious that the pirate s.h.i.+p was gaining on us.

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