The volcano had begun smoking about two months after their arrival. It had trailed wisps of white vapor for a week, then began putting up a steady column of dark smoke along with an occasional plume of ash. Every once in a while it would shoot out boulders the size of automobiles. Sheila watched them splash into the sea. Their island was in no danger at the moment, but the volcano was too close for comfort. Trent said that the presence of birds meant there had to be mainland near, or at least a bigger island, and they would have to reach it to be really safe.
So every day, Trent would go down to the lagoon — the “shipyards,” as he called it — and work on the raft. Sheila spent most of her time now braiding rope. The raft needed lots of it to hold its heavy logs together. Trent said that he would have built an outrigger canoe, had there been more time. But the raft would be seaworthy, of that he was sure. A square-rigged sail would have been ideal, if there had been any fabric to make a sail out of. As it was, they would have to trust in God (and the gods, in Trent’s case) and hope for a good current.
But Trent kept thinking about a sail.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a government research grant, usually. You’ll have to fish today while I go up the mountain and see if I can find anything.”
“I’ll dig up some shellfish and make chowder,” Sheila said. “You go do your research.”
“I knew you were a Democrat.”
When Sheila wasn’t braiding, she would work on magic, as did Trent when he wasn’t shipbuilding. They called it “Research and Development,” and although no breakthroughs had happened since Trent’s tentative levitation of a neo-coconut, Sheila felt that one was possible. There was some obstacle that she couldn’t quite see her way around. It was a difficult problem, and she needed more time.
Unfortunately the volcano’s output steadily increased, its smoke column turning black and ugly. There might not be any time at all. Trent said that an eruption was inevitable. It was just a matter of when and how bad.
R&D’s chief technological spin-off to date was fire. Their was no flint or chert to be had on the island, but a primitive spell made sparks fly when you rubbed two ordinary stones together. The grilled fish was delicious, but Sheila wouldn’t eat the lizard, even though Trent said it tasted exactly like chicken. She couldn’t bring herself to eat something that was green and looked like a miniature dinosaur.
But she was getting tired of seafood. Maybe eventually, when she got a real craving for meat …
Meanwhile, they led an idyllic life, swimming every morning in the bright surf and in the warm tides at evening. They made love on the beach every night, and afterward lay together beneath a night canopy of brilliant stars and smoky, spiral nebulae.
Sheila had asked Trent what they were.
“Galaxies,” he’d said. “This planet seems to be in the thick of a galactic cluster.”
“Why can’t you see any of those from Earth?”
“You can, you just need field glasses or a telescope.”
“They’re so beautiful.”
“They are. And so are you, my darling.”
“Thank you. But you do need glasses.”
“You keep throwing my compliments back at me. Don’t you know you’re a good-looking woman?”
“I guess not. I’m glad to hear it. Oh, I’m sorry, Trent. Really. I guess I can’t take a compliment, not even from you.”
“That’s sad.”
“Now you’re making me feel rotten.”
“Sorry.” He kissed her. “I want to make you feel good.”
“You have. You don’t know how much. After my marriage —”
“Tell me about it. About him.”
“He was a jerk. Oh, my God, was he a jerk.”
“Did he beat you?”
“No. I would have killed him, the rat. No, he just screwed around on me, drank like a fish, and peed away all our money. So I tell him to get out, and he gets ticked off. Refuses. Finally I pack up all his clothes and put them in his car, and he gets the idea. But when the process server gives him the paper, what does he do? He breaks into the house and trashes it from top to bottom, after he takes the stereo and the VCR and all his stuff out. Breaks up all the furniture, smashes windows. Does ten thousand dollars in damage.”
“Did you have the blackguard thrown in the clink?”
“No. What good would it have done? My lawyer filed a judgment on him for the damage, but I haven’t seen a penny. Meanwhile, I’m paying the mortgage on one salary.”
“On behalf of my sex, let me tender our sincerest apologies.”
“Don’t apologize for your sex. Your sex is fine with me. Even when it’s tender.”
“Oh. You mean that sex.”
“I love you, Trent.”
“And I you, beloved.”
“The way you talk sometimes, in that language. It’s so beautiful. And I understand it, too, somehow.”
“Of course. It’s Haplan, an ancient tongue. You hear it all the time in the castle. The servants speak it. It’s a great language for expressing poetic intimacy.”
“Is it ever. Say more.”
“Let me speak with another tongue.”
She drew a long breath.
Days passed, and the volcano spewed more ash, a fine gray film of it dusting the palms, the grass, and the rocks.
They put a crash raft-building program into action. After a day and a half of frantic preparation, the craft still wasn’t entirely ready, but Trent said that they would leave regardless on the morning tide.
“She’s not as big as I wanted, and the sail will never hold up in a high wind, but —”
“It’s a wonderful ship. How in the world did you do it with only stone tools?”
What Trent had constructed was a cross between a raft and a catamaran. It was little more than a deck of long thin logs lashed to a pair of larger, tapered tree trunks which formed a twin “hull.” These latter were solid; the wood of these particular trees was lighter than balsa, but stronger. They made ideal pontoons, and with a crude stone ax, Trent had sculpted their prows into something that would cut water.
The sail was a technological wonder, a quilt of thin woven mats coated with a tree resin that resembled latex. This technique made for a sail that was small, clumsy, and inordinately heavy, but it worked. Trent made a test run late in the evening. To his amazement, the makeshift rigging held and the sail actually caught wind.
“Trent, do you think we’ll make it in this thing?”
“Depends. Depends on how far we have to go. As to a heading and course, we’ll just be guessing. I’ve never had time to do much watching, but wouldn’t you say that the birds come and go in a generally easterly direction?”
“You’re right. I see them against the morning sun all the time.”
“Then that’s our heading, east, away from the volcano. Good.”
They gathered as much food as they could. Neo-coconut shells made excellent canteens, and they loaded up with fresh water. There wasn’t time, though, to finish the matting for the sunscreen.
“Do we need it?” Sheila asked.
“Definitely.”
“Why? We’ll just lie out and get tanned.”
“We’ll get good and burned. Neither of us has a shirt and that grass skirt of yours is some protection for your legs, but not much. No, we need a little cabin, crude as it is. Besides, we have to keep the fresh food out of the sun, too.”
“Okay, but we’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Palm leaves will have to do. It’s either that or give up the sail.”
“Palm leaves it is. Up that tree, Tarzan.”
At last, they were ready.
The volcano wasn’t on the same schedule. Late that night, Sheila awoke and looked out the hut’s lone window. It took her a disoriented second or two to realize that what she was seeing wasn’t snow covering the ground, but an inch-deep layer of volcanic ash. The sky was a hell of dark clouds outlined in red light.