Shadowplay

Chapter 16. How come we're still alive?

Shadith woke in a chill, rolling, yawing darkness.

Fighting back the vomit that rose in her throat, she groped about; by accident or the planning of the designer, one hand bumped a button and a light came on behind her head, pale, whitish gray. She was in a narrow tube with rounded ends like a gel capsule. The uncomfortable hardness pressing on her legs was her harpcase, the lump that prevented her knees from straightening was her travelpouch.-She squeezed her eyes shut.

Memory came in fragments: Kikun shaking her out of a sodden, dream-ridden sleep, at first it seemed just more nightmare when he told her they were about to die… Kikun dancing… Rohant diving toward her, scooping her up, throwing her into… aid an escape capsule, her head banging on something, hard… That's it. Out lights and slide. Escape capsule?

She fumbled around, found a tube marked WATER, pulled it from its clip and sucked in a mouthful of stale, lukewarm liquid. Her throat felt better immediately, but her stomach cramped and she had to swallow fast to keep her dinner down. Ginny! Must have decided we were too much trouble for whatever benefit he got from us. Sent Puk to erase the mistake, sar! the Lute must have enjoyed that. He's wanted to do me since the first time he laid. hands on me. So why am I still alive? Only one answer to that. Kikun. Clowndancer god. He saves us one more time and I'm going to join his congregation. Did he get out, too? Rohant? The cats? Well, don't lay about biting your nails, Shadow, have a look and see.

After another cautious sip at the watertube, she closed her eyes and reached.

Seabird. Like those she watched in Atehana Bay. Out past his usual round. He was gliding in wide circles, shifting from thermal to thermal, the joy of flight permeating mind and body. She settled in him, enjoyed the flight for a few moments, then took hard control of his brain and scanned the water. Her capsule was a bright yellow pill riding on the glittering blue swells. Alone. Being blown along by a strong wind away from the faint line of red that marked the horizon. Blown west. Dawn at my back. Don't see land either way. Just a bunch of clouds. How far out are we?

She sent the seabird spiraling higher, then drove it toward the dawnline.

Two capsules bobbed close together. When the bird flew over them, Shadith tasted at them. The Cats, mad as hell, both of them, I'd hate to be the one opens those capsules. Hmm, means I'm heading the right way. I think.

The bird was growing restive. She tightened her hold and sent him on. Still no sign of land. Long way to swim. Ah! That's a relief.

Two more capsules floated between adjacent swells. She tasted at the nearest and smiled. Kikun. Unmistakable. In good health, as far as she could judge. She blinked. And Sassa. He's got Sassa in there with him, poor damn bird, must be going woowoo shut up like that. No. Ah well, I suppose that's Kikun, too. Rohant in the next. Irritated and bored. Aren't we all. Are not we all. First thing. Get together. All right, fishbreath, go where you want and don't I wish I was you.

She lay back and closed her eyes; her throat was still a disaster, her head was throbbing and her energy level was so low even dying was too much of an effort to contemplate at that moment. I suppose I should eat something. These things are bound to have emergency rations. Tubes of glop. Gah.

After a few minutes of poking around, she found a cache of hipropaste, tubes labeled in interlingue, part of the stores the locals acquired when they bought the flit from some freetrader, gods only knew when.

She squirted the grayish paste into her mouth, hastily washed it down with gulps of water; it was worse than anything anyone had told her. Maybe it was the sensory equipment of this body that made the stuff so foul, maybe the gunk was turning rancid. Whichever was the case, though, it did its work, settled her stomach (more than a little improbably) and cleared her head. She shuddered, gulped some more water and started searching for a seabeast large enough and with the necessary conformation to act as a pushboat. Sar! this is getting to be booorrrring. Get 'em up, ride 'em ow, cowboy, or should I say cowgirl? Get your nose up, whale, and SHOVE! Funny looking whale. A double dozen legs and a grin like a buzzsaw. Slither's big brother and I do mean BIG. Nudge me along. Not like that, dammit! The way Pm collecting bruises I could set up as the tattooed lady any fair. Ease off. Ease off. That's it. Almost there. Easy now, eeeeasy… ouch! Damn. Blessings be, nothing's broke, not even me. Poor old Nagafog, he's in a mood to chew nails. Can't say I blame him, knocked about like this all the time and shut in some subrate cousin to a tin can. Now how do I work this? Line up the pills… hey, the thing's smarter than I thought. And it likes this game. That's right, baby, pit-a-pat us along. Eeeeasy, these pills got breakable innards. That's right, one two three,-straight ahead, that's a lovely little sea monster. Pit-a-pat, gently gently and on we go. Sing a song of silliness, pocket full of peas, four and twenty tentacles awhippin up the seas… heyyyy, baby, talk about whipping along, we're smoking it up. Making the algae cry uncle. Gods! I'm getting seasick. This is NO way to work off a hangover. Why oh why did I drink all that amtapishka squeezing? Uh-oh, we're getting close. What do I want to do now? This is working fine… thing is, can the toothfarm out there handle five? These capsules must be putting out some kind of beep. We could sit and wait for someone to pick us up. I don't want to sit about waiting, I'm tired of playing clever and looking so hard ten steps ahead I don't see the hole in front of me. Let's do it. There's some kind of land straight west, if we go far enough. All right, my little motive power, line up the pretty yellow pills and shove.

It was not a comfortable ride; the seabeast played with the capsules as he pushed them along, tapping and turning them until Shadith felt like a pea in a rattle. At times she thought of calling it off before the lot of them were battered into mush, but she didn't. The sea was shallowing. The land HAD to be getting closer. What's that? Beastie's getting nervous. What?

There was a dull throb growing louder and louder, a pulsing in the water she heard through the Swimmer's ear patches, a noise that made the beast twitch all over. Surf? Reefs? Hold on, li'l monster. A bit farther and maybe we can break out and swim to shore…

The beast screamed suddenly, she felt the swell and scrape of the shout in her own throat; he fought her hold and because she'd been driving him lightly, just a touch now and then to keep him moving, he broke free and began swimming frantically for deeper water.

Shadith let him go. She didn't understand his panic, but she felt its power through the link that joined them and knew she'd better look round for what touched it off.

When she reached, she found sweeping spirals of seabirds filling the skies. That many birds, they wouldn't be more than a kilometer or two offshore, would they? Ahlahlah, I wish I knew more about the sea…

She slid into one of the larger birds and scanned the water around the capsules. Tsoukbaraiml Not surf. Steamer? Something's pumping smoke out that funnel. A warship of some kind. Bow could slice onions and look at those cannons! Coming like its tail's on fire. Sari Might as well be yelling Get out of my way, I'll stomp you if you don't. No wonder old toothface split. And what you bet it's coming for us? Yeh. It's slowing. Stopping. Didn't know you could stop in the middle of the ocean like that.

The capsule split around her.

Hands were reaching in, pulling her out, pulling out the harpcase and her travelpouch. The wind was very cold and the sudden brightness of the morning sun was like broken glass. Her legs were shaky and her knees kept threatening to unhinge so she was grateful for the arms that held her up,.though she didn't much like the avid curiosity in the faces of the young navas pressing about her. She blinked and pushed away-and saw they were about to open Nagafog's capsule. Even without trying she could feel his rage and bloody intent. "Wait," she cried, or thought she did. The word was a croak and dropped like a stone. Impatiently she pushed at the hands that reached for her again and half-ran, half-fell across the short stretch of deck to the capsule that was already beginning to crack open. She wasn't worried about the navas, he might bloody one or two of them, but she knew only too well he'd be shot before he had a chance to get a good massacre started and she couldn't see any reason for wasting a creature only doing what his nature demanded. Besides, she was a lot fonder of him than she was of this world or its people. Hoping they'd hesitate to shoot a girlchild, she flung herself in front of the big cat and froze him as he shoved his head and forelegs through the gap.

"Don't open any more of them until I have him calm," she screamed; this time she was loud enough to be heard.

As she worked with Nagafog, rubbing at his head, stroking under his chin, touching all his peacepoints, she heard the shouted order to keep away (from someone with a loud voice and the arrogance of command), then she heard muted mutters, the scrape of feet on the metal deck. "That's a good li'l ki-cat," she murmured, "goood baby. I know, I know, stuck in the dark and banged around like that, goooood cat, pretty cat, looove the cat, Nagaaa Fogeee, Nagee, goood cat, let those little muscles go loose, thaat's it, goooood cat…" She laughed as she felt the tension flow out of him and heard a basso purr break loose. "All right, baby, you sit there and enjoy and I'll unpack Magi for you."

She got, to her feet, looked calmly around until she spotted the Pihtatipli (Captain of a Steamship) leaning over rails about a platform of sorts that was the flat roof of a flit cradle; she smiled at him, knowing he thought he was safe up there from her and the cats. Fool. Nagafog can jump twice that from a standing start and will if you give me cause.

She turned her back on him and located Magimeez. Pointing to the capsule, she said, "That one next, open it and give me room to work. Then you can open the others, there's no problem with them."

Sassa stood on the deck, shaking himself, flexing his wings, then he screamed his anger and delight and launched himself into the wind, cold wet wind that fought him until he won control of it and soared free.

Kikun leaned against Shadith, shrunken and shivering, his skin a nubbly green-gray rag hanging lank on his bones; once again he'd half destroyed himself to save them, this time from Puk's malice and his missiles. Magimeez and Nagafog were stretched out on the deck beside the Ciocan, making their muscles ripple and switching their tails, pleased with the attention they were getting. Rohant was ignoring everyone with gloomy intensity, working the knots out of his muscles and his temper.

They were surrounded by AWE, battered by AWE. Rohant might pretend to ignore it, but he felt it. Kikun fed on it, used it to plump himself out again-which disturbed Shadith despite her fondness for the little man and all she owed him. She fought the smother and heard, dimly, the Pihtatipli yelling orders to his men. After this is over I'd better get Lee to show me how to block inflow or I'm going to burn out. This Reading thing keeps getting stronger on me.

She rubbed at her eyes, shivered, moved closer to Rohant, using him and the cats to shield her from the emotional battering.

Watching the Three every spare moment, the navas shut down the beepers and dropped the capsules over-side, cracked open so they'd sink to the bottom and stay there.

Shadith watched them go with considerable satisfaction. Puk thought they were dead or he wouldn't have gone off and left them. If he ashed the EYEs, maybe even Ginny thought they were dead. She sighed. Unfortunately, that wouldn't last long. The Pihtatipli's ambition was skunk strong; the minute he hit shore, half the world would know what he fished from the sea. Aina'iril. Seems like we've spent a year trying to get there, and now I'd rather not go. Wonder if Arel got off all right? Should I tell the others about him? No. He's the Jack up my sleeve, my Wildcard. Definitely we should go for the skipcom, best to have two shots, make sure one gets through.

"Hunter." The Pihtatipli was leaning over the rail again, looking eager.

The Ciocan stared back. "What?"

"Will you come below? You will be more comfortable." Shadith sniffed, pulled her mouth down. Almost wagging his tail, and so he should, how he's planning to use us. Come on, Ro, give him an answer, I'm freezing my ass off out here.

As soon as the Three were settled in the Tipli's Quar ters (the Pihtatipli hovering hospitably, leaving the running of the ship to his Second), the engines were brought up and the destroyer began racing for the harbor at Aina'iril.