Return to Fanglith

TWO

The floater didn't have an infrascanner-it wasn't intended for anything more than family-type use-but the stars give more than enough light to see Lizard Island when you're right above it at 200 feet. It appeared to be about two hundred yards long and half as wide, but it wasn't really, because part of what looked like island was a fringe of mangrove trees that stood in the water around its edges.

"It's little, isn't it," Jenoor said.

"Small enough that no one pays any attention to it," I answered. "Small and out of the way. It's one of the biggest in a string of low islands like this, and they're a navigation hazard-the high points of a long shoal-so ships stay well away."

"How do we land?" asked Tarel.

"Carefully and by daylight. There's no clearing, so we'll have to slip down between trees."

I could feel that Tarel and Jenoor had more questions but were holding off, hoping someone else would ask them. Questions like, how do we live down there? Deneen knew, of course. Our family had been here once before, not long after we'd gotten back from Fanglith, establishing a refuge in case we ever needed one. We'd stayed for several days, getting a feel for what it would take to live there.

We definitely hadn't set up a vacation home or anything like that, but we'd hidden a plastite chest with a shovel, hammocks, fishing Sines, hooks and spears, a pair of books on edible fish and plants of the Entrih'as region, a little water still and a good-sized pail, a couple of insect repellent-field generators, a pint-size geogravitic power tap (very expensive), and Rigidite plastic sheeting that was highly flexible to start with but would get semi-stiff once it was wetted. There was also a small beam saw.

Nearby we'd buried a lightweight skiff about eight feet long and three feet wide, for fishing.

Meanwhile we had an hour or so before dawn-longer than that before it would be light enough to land-so I got in back to catch a nap. I hadn't been sleepy, so I'd stood pilot watch most of the way. I still didn't feel sleepy, but I was willing to bet I'd go to sleep, once I lay down.

I was right. I lay down and closed my eyes, and it seemed like only a minute later when I woke up. We were moving, settling downward. It was already light, almost sunup, and Deneen was at the controls. Tree-tops were rising past the windows. A couple of light thumps and brushing sounds marked our passage through their branches; then there was one last little bump and we were on the ground. Everyone else piled out, but I closed my eyes again, "just for a few minutes." When I opened them next time, the chest had been uncovered and the shelter built. I got out of the floater all sleepy-eyed, and Deneen looked at me.

"Well, brother mine," she said, and handed me the shovel. "You're just in time to dig up the boat for us."

After I'd dug the boat up, I took the beam saw and cut a little canal through the mangrove prop roots so she could be floated out to open water. The beam saw wouldn't cut under more than a quarter inch of water, so Piet and Tarel and I had to use our heavy survival knives for a lot of it. It was slow hard work, and I was disgusted before we were even close to finished. Then Deneen and Piet went fishing. Fishing was going to be very important. The only food we'd brought with us was the remains of the burrow pig, and all we'd find on the island, I knew, was a little fruit, a lot of little lizards, and insects that were mostly too small for food.

With Piet and Deneen off in the boat, that left me to finish setting up camp with Tarel and Jenoor. Deneen had done well as far as she'd gone. The shelter was a large lean-to, and she'd laid a pole on its sloping roof to form a sort of groove before splashing water on the Rigidite to harden it. This would gather the rain, which would run into the plastite chest-our cistern-which we could cover when it wasn't raining, to keep out the bugs. If it rained. By the looks of things, this was the dry season.

Meanwhile, if dad and mom arrived, they'd never be able to bring the cutter down through the tiny gap Deneen had coaxed the floater through. Correction, I told myself-not if, when. When they arrived. I might as well cultivate a positive attitude, But it didn't feel very real to me. When, if, whatever, I thought. Be prepared. I needed to fell a couple or three trees, but not where they could fall on the shelter or where the debris would be a problem. Or where our camp could be spotted through the little hole they'd leave.

It wasn't as if I had any reason to expect someone to scrutinize this tiny islet in the middle of the Entrilias, but time was one thing it looked like we had lots of, and it made no sense to skip simple precautions.

So with the beam saw I lopped off a couple of stout saplings and sharpened an end on each, for pushing with. Then I picked trees to cut down-three of them in a row that would leave a thin, inconspicuous gap long enough for the cutter. The forest was thick enough that a tree cut from the stump would tend to hang up in other trees instead of falling, so I had had to shop around a little for one that looked as if it would go all the way down. After seeing which way it leaned, I had Tarel and Jenoor put their push poles against it on the