Return to Fanglith

THREE

I was right about the monotony, but somehow it wasn't that unpleasant. Two of us would go out in the skiff each day to fish, and stay out till we had enough. It could take most of the day, or only a few minutes, but commonly it took less than an hour. A couple of times, early on, we got nothing, but as we learned the fishes' feeding habits, it went a lot better.

Besides fishing, there were just two other jobs: Every hour or two, someone had to fetch a pail of sea water and pour it in the still. Yes, this was the dry season, The other job was gathering what fruit there was. Most of the time, there was nothing that needed doing.

The food was the worst part, and even that we got used to. We ate our fish raw to get the maximum vitamins from them, because there wasn't much edible fruit in the dry season. Most of the plants timed their fruiting to take advantage of the rains. Bubba at least got a little variety by eating lizards. The rest of us left the lizards alone. They were too small and bony, and too hard to skin, to be worth it for humans. Bubba, on the other hand, ate skin and all. I suppose his stomach acid dissolved the bones.

Somehow or other, it wasn't as bad as it sounds-not the boredom or the food.

To pass time, we drilled hand-foot art-both the combat and gymnastic parts of it. Piet wasn't willing to be the drill instructor-he said Deneen should be, that her technique was amazingly good, I'd known she was good, I just hadn't realized how good. We'd been trained in it since we were little kids, one reason we're both such good all-round athletes.

Tarel and Jenoor had never heard of hand-foot art till they'd come to live with us. It's been illegal, and pretty much a secret practice, most of the time for a thousand years or more. As a result, on most worlds, people didn't know there was such a thing, Jenoor had picked it up fast; like Deneen, she was a natural athlete. Tarel was slower at learning things that took coordination, and the necessary flexibility had come slowly for him too. Now, though, with more time to work on it, he was starting to get good enough to really feel some mastery, and with confidence, his movements became surprisingly quick. Combine that with his strength, and he was turning into someone you'd do best not to fight with. He was actually getting lean, too, partly from the food.

He was still very mild-mannered. I wasn't sure what it would take to make him violent, but there was bound to be something.

You couldn't practice hand-foot art all day, of course; it was too strenuous. Two sessions a day, about an hour each, was plenty, so the first month was about the longest, slowest one I'd ever experienced till then. The closest thing to it had been traveling to Fanglith two years earlier. That had been fifty-seven days of reading and sleeping. Here we didn't dare use the floater's computer for recreational reading because we needed to conserve the fuel cell. For some reason known only to Consolidated Floaters Corporation, computer operation required that the whole system be on-at least on idle. And, of course, floaters don't have the kind of fuel slugs that cutters do.

We got so we slept a lot.

I thought about Jenoor more than I should have. Not that I got fixated on her or anything, but I couldn't help thinking, now and then. We fished together a lot, we were always around one another, and no one wore much in the way of clothes. It was generally hot, and a great chance to get a tan. A couple of times I was pretty close to making a pass at her, but managed not to.

Partly, I was afraid she'd say yes. And if we got something going, no way could we keep it secret, which Tarel might resent, and maybe Deneen-just what we didn't need in exile on a tiny little island. And I was going on nineteen, with responsibility to more than my own druthers.

But partly, maybe I was afraid she'd say no. From what I'd read about Tris Gebleu in social geography, people there took a lot of things more seriously than we did, including sex, and I didn't want her to think I was some kind of horny creep.

Anyway I kept it cool.

It helped that she'd told me once I was like an older brother to her. She and I had gotten along really well from the time they'd come to live with us; I'd always enjoyed having her in the family.

Generally the five of us would sit around in the evening and talk while it was getting dark. One of the topics was what we'd do when dad and mom arrived and we left Evdash. That was always the stated situation-when mom and dad arrived. But beneath it was the unspoken if-if they arrived.

We'd all listened in on discussions between mom and dad and Piet about what they might do when, someday, the Empire started taking over the colony worlds. They would check out the more remote of the so-called "lost" colonies, in what was referred to as "the deep outback" -worlds scattered thinly around the fringes of known space. The idea was to find the best ones to establish hidden rebel bases on. And there was always the implication that the rest of us would be part of it if we wanted to.

One of the problems would be to get the lost-world locals interested. Generally they wanted nothing to do with off-worlders, beyond maybe getting replacements or parts for some equipment they couldn't make locally. In the deep outback, people were self-reliant and not much interested in off-world problems-Until maybe those problems became theirs, too.

They were referred to as "lost" colonies because ships seldom went there, and mostly they had no ships of their own. Some of them may not have been visited more than once a generation. They were so poor economically, and so far from civilization and trade routes, that the Federation had been no more interested in them than they were in the Federation.

So they'd have little to contribute to the Imperial treasury or trade, and hopefully the Empire would decide to ignore them. Or some of them, anyway. The cost/benefit ratio of taking them over and controlling them would be high, and the Empire was bound to have troubles closer to home.

Of course, we couldn't be sure that that's how the Empire would look at it.

On Lizard Island, about the first thing we did each evening was listen to a newscast on the floater radio- the only time we turned it on. It was always in Standard. After a couple of weeks, a local announcer was used-we could tell by his accent. Apparently, the occupation administration was phasing in Evdashians they felt they could trust. By the end of a month, judging by the news, things had settled into a new routine on Evdash. The mass trials were over, the public executions had taken place, and thousands of political prisoners had been shipped off-world to forced-labor camps on mining planets and the like.

We didn't hear Klentis and Aven kel Deroop mentioned among the names of people executed or arrested. They'd been prominent in the old days, in the resistance back on Morn Gebleu, and we agreed that they'd be mentioned if captured.

So for things had gone about the way we'd expect, with the Glondis Party in charge. Their idea was to make everyone too scared to resist. But you could pretty much depend on it that a majority now hated them, and in time the Empire would explode-as soon as anyone got a good strong revolt rolling somewhere.

Of course, that might take a long time to happen.

We all agreed that our function would be either to help brew the revoit inside the Empire, or build a base outside-in one way or another to help bring it down. The only alternative acceptable to any of us was that the Empire might somehow evolve into a decent place to live. History said it wouldn't, especially under something like the Glondis Party. We'd see what happened, and meanwhile we'd prepare for the revolution.

After six weeks I began to fret about my parents. Not many of the things I could think of that might be keeping them were very cheering, given how things were now on Evdash. So I brought it up one evening while we digested our raw fish. Actually, the way I put it was: "Piet, how long do you think it'll be before dad and room show up?"

His eyes turned to me without telling me anything. "How long do you think?" he answered. I should have known he'd say that.

"Things take as long as they take," I said. "But knowing mom and dad, they won't take any longer than they have to. I guess what I was really asking was, how long should we wait before we leave without them?"

"Leave for where?" Deneen asked. "This isn't my favorite place, but I can stay here a year if I need to. Or anyway as long as the floater's fuel cells have power enough to take us where we decide to go."

"Right," I answered. "But if dad and mom don't show, we'll have to make some kind of move on our own, sooner or later."

I glanced around at the others. Piet was interested in what I'd do with the subject. Tarel looked solemn, his eyes shadowed in the dusk. Jenoor looked serious and neutral. Neither of the two had ever shown any tendency to get involved in decisions. They were young, though no younger than Deneen, and in a sense "outsiders" because they were latecomers in our family.

"Have you got any thoughts about this, Tarel?" I asked.

I hadn't really expected a positive answer, but he surprised me. "Unless your parents get here," he said, "the only way we'll get a space cutler is to steal one-a naval cutter of some kind. The occupation forces probably confiscated all the private cutters they could find out about."

"There might still be some private cutters around," Jenoor put in, "belonging to Evdashians who are part of the Imperial spy network. And private cutters ought to be easier to steal than, say, a patrol scout on the ground for servicing."

I couldn't feel optimistic about the prospects. It was one thing to talk about going out and establishing rebel bases, but doing it, or even getting out there, would be something else. I looked at Piet, who'd been sitting there listening and saying nothing. "What do you think?" I asked him. I could swear he laughed behind those quiet eyes.

"You're doing fine," he said. "Keep talking. I wouldn't be surprised if you came up with something."

I didn't, though-that night or any other. I didn't know what Piet might have in mind of course, but none of the rest of us came up with anything.

I was fishing with Jenoor a few weeks later when the end of the dry season arrived. We found out the hard way. Fortunately, we were fairly close to the island, on the west side, usually the upwind side when there was any wind. We seldom went more than a couple of hundred yards from it, for safety's sake, and the water two hundred yards from the island was only four feet deep or so, green in the tropical sunlight. It was shallow enough that we used spears occasionally, when a fish came near enough to that strange object floating on the surface.

We could have gotten out and waded, but we wouldn't of course, because one of the fish species around there- the javelin fish, which was sometimes five or more feet long-was known to attack swimmers. The idea was for us to eat fish, not vice versa.

It was early afternoon, a better time for spotting fish than when the sun was lower. Usually we would see fish from time to time-more often than not, the fish we caught were ones we saw feeding. We'd cast a little way in front of them and let them come up on the lure.

This day we were seeing none at all; it was as if they'd all moved somewhere else.

We'd noticed occasional thunderheads for several days, building far to the west in the afternoons, but none had come near. We'd have welcomed a good rain, just for the change.

Jenoor and I were both facing east to reduce the glare effect on our eyes, and hadn't noticed how near the storm had gotten until we heard the thunder, Jenoor had just hooked our first fish after two hours of nothing. We both turned; the thunderhead wasn't much more than a mile away, with a thick dark wall of rain coming down from it to the sea.

We weren't smart enough to be worried, and returned our attention to the fish. As she played it, perhaps forcing it more than usual because of the rainstorm coming, swells started to raise and lower the skiff. I'd already reeled in my own lure, to keep my line out of her way as she worked her fish. Now I picked up a paddle. The storm was approaching faster than I'd expected, and I felt my first misgiving.

"Horse him in," I told her tersely. "If the line breaks, it breaks. I think we'd beiter get to shore before that thing hits."

She nodded, raising her rod tip and cranking harder. That lasted about ten seconds before the wind hit. It was colder than I would have thought, and almost too hard to be air. With the water as shallow as it was, the sea responded quickly; within seconds the swells became waves that threatened to swamp us.

"Break the line and let's get out of here," I yelled, Jenoor yanked, and the line and rod went slack. Gripping the paddle, I began to dig for the island with it. That's when the first big wave hit, and we turned over.

The water seemed deeper than usual. The wind was piling it up, and it was up to my shoulders. I knew Jenoor didn't swim very well, and my first thought was to find and get hold of her, but I couldn't see her. She's on the other side of the boat, I thought, or under it. Somehow I'd come up on its upwind side. The next thing I knew, she surfaced a few feet in front of me, swimming clumsily, as the boat righted itself. It was full of water.

I struck out for it, and that's when I discovered that the big wave hadn't been big at all. The next one was the big one, and steep because the water was so shallow. It lifted us both, but we went up and down almost in place, because it wasn't breaking yet. The skiff, on the other hand, got carried thirty feet farther from me. The next wave was close behind and bigger still, and it was breaking. I just had time to grab Jenoor when it crashed over us, carrying us tumbling and confused in the general direction of the island. I was scared to death I'd lose hold of her.

I wasn't even sure the waves would take us to the island, because we'd been on the windward side, but off toward the south end. With my free arm, I tried to swim to my left. The next breaker caught us and drove us forward again, sprawling and out of control, and then we were in waist-deep water. My arm was around Jenoor. I lurched to my feet, helping her up. We were inside the breaker line now, not more than a couple of hundred feet from the mangroves, about even with the island's tip. I could see the skiff, awash but still upright, sideways and seventy or eighty feet ahead of us. The wind and waves were pushing it a lot faster than we could wade or swim, and unless we were luckier than I had any right to expect, it was going to miss the island and go out to sea.

Let it, I thought, and kept wading toward the island with my hand clamped around Jenoor's wrist. There were, after all, priorities, and I could always make a raft.

The rain hit then like a wall, and the wind slammed our backs, knocking us off our feet for a moment, while a rip current tried to take us past the island. But the water was shallow enough that once our feet found the bottom again, the rip couldn't sweep us away. In a minute or two, whipped by hard-blowing rain, we were clambering through and over the prop roots at the edge of the mangroves. We didn't stop until we were on solid land, scrambling as if something was after us.

Then we just lay on the ground for a minute, holding on to one another. The rain fell on us as if there weren't any treetops overhead, and we didn't get up until I realized I was starting to feel a lot more than just protective of Jenoor.

The wind hardly penetrated the forest, but it sure whipped the treetops. They were all bending southeast. The rain was incredible. When we got to camp, our cistern, the plastite chest, was already full and running over. All five of us crouched inside the shelter, no one speaking for a while. Finally Deneen said two words: "The boat?"

"Gone," I said. "We're lucky we didn't go with it."

She nodded and reached over, squeezing my hand.

After a few minutes though, we stopped feeling awed by the storm. Or maybe the word is intimidated. "No boat," Deneen said. "Maybe it is time to think about leaving this place. We could get pretty hungry trying to live on lizard."

"We could make a raft," I said. "But maybe this storm is just the first of a season of them." Again I turned to Piet. "What do you think?"

"We've been waiting ten weeks," he said, "almost eleven. And I've got a contact or two who might have a lead on a cutter."

I knew when he said it that he wasn't feeling optimistic.

"But let's give Klentis and Aven another five days, at least," he finished. "If they don't get here by then, we'll try our luck."