“Truce,” he said, and, leaving the pillow with Jeremy, got back down into his bunk without breaking anything, a little out of breath.
“You all right?” Jeremy asked.
“Sure I’m all right. You’re the one that cheats on the V-dumps! You’re worried?”
“I don’t want you to break your neck.”
“Good. Suppose you stay in your bunk after jump, why don’t you?”
“If you don’t get up again.”
“Deal.”
He thought maybe Jeremy hadn’t expected to get snagged into that. There was silence for a while.
“Jeremy?”
“Yeah.”
“You all right up there?”
“Yeah, sure.”
There was more silence.
An uncomfortable silence. Fletcher couldn’t say why he was worried by it. He figured Jeremy was reading or listening to his music.
“So you say Esperance is supposed to be pretty good,” he said finally, looking for response out of the upper bunk. “Maybe they’ll give us some time there.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “That’d be better. That’d be a lot better than Voyager. My toes still hurt.”
“You put salve on them?”
“Yeah, but they still hurt.”
“I don’t think I want to work cargo.”
“Me, either. Freeze your posterity off.”
“Yeah,” he said. The atmosphere was better then. “You got that Mariner Aquarium book?”
“I lent it.” He was disappointed. He was in a sudden mood to review station amenities. “Linda and her fish tape.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. There was a sudden shift from the bunk above. An upside down head, hair hanging. “You know she can’t eat fish now?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Says she sees them looking at her. I’m not sure I like fishcakes, either.”
“Downers eat them, with no trouble. Eat them raw.”
“Ugh,” Jeremy said. “Ugh. You’re kidding.”
“I thought about trying it.”
“Ugh,” was Jeremy’s judgment. The head popped back out of sight “That’s disgusting.”
The engines reached shut-down. Supper arrived fairly shortly. Bucklin brought it, and it was more than sandwiches.
It was hot. There was fruit pie.
“Shh,” Bucklin said, “Bridge crew suppers. Don’t tell anybody.”
“So why the lockdown?” Jeremy wanted to know.
But Bucklin left without a word, except to ask if they were set. And Fletcher didn’t feel inclined to borrow trouble.
They finished the dinners, tucked the containers into their bag into the under-counter pneumatic, and began their prep for the long run up to jump, music, tapes, comfortable clothing, trank, nutri-packs and preservable fruit bars.
“We’re supposed to eat lots,” Jeremy said, “if we get strung jumps.”
“You mean one after another.”
“Yessir,” Jeremy said, pulling on a fleece shirt. He still seemed nervous. Maybe, Fletcher thought, there was good reason. But they kept each others’ spirits up. He didn’t want to be scared in front of Jeremy; Jeremy didn’t want to act scared in front of him.
They tucked down for the night, let the lights dim.
In time the engines cut in, slowly swinging their bunks toward the horizontal configuration.
“Night,” Jeremy said to him.
Fletcher was conscious of night, unequivocal night, all around a ship very small against that scale.
“Behave,” he said, the way his mother had used to say it to him. “We’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “You think Esperance’ll be like Mariner?”
“Might be. It’s pretty rich, what I hear.”
“That’s good,” Jeremy said. “That’s real good”
Then Jeremy was quiet, and to his own surprise the strong hand of acceleration was a sleep aid. There was nothing else to do. He waked with the jump warning sounding, and the bunk swinging to the inertial position.
“You got it?” Jeremy asked. “You got it?”
“No problem,” he said, reaching for the trank in the dark. Jeremy brightened the lights and he winced against the glare. He found the packet.
Count began. Bridge wanted acknowledgement and Jeremy gave it for both of them.
All accounted for.
On their way to a lonely lump of rock halfway between Voyager and the most remote station in the Alliance.
Almost in Union territory. He’d heard that…
Rain beat on the leaves, ran in small streams off the forested hills. Cylinders were failing, but Fletcher nursed them along to the last before he changed out. Hadn’t spoiled any. Hadn’t any to spare. He kept a steady pace, tracing Old River by his roar above the storm.
You get lost, he’d heard Melody say, Old River he talk loud, loud. You hear he long, long way.
And it was true. He wouldn’t have known his way without remembering that. The Base was upriver, always upriver.
Foot slipped. He went down a slope, got to his knee at the bottom. Suit was torn. He kept walking, listening to River, walking in the dark as well.
Waked lethargic in the morning, realizing he’d slept without changing out; and his fingers were numb and leaden as he tried to feel his way through the procedure. He’d not dropped a cylinder yet, or spoiled one, even with numb fingers. But he was down to combining the almost-spent with the still moderately good, and it took a while of shaking hands and short oxygen and grayed-out vision before he could get back to his feet again and walk.
He changed out three more, much sooner than he’d thought, and knew his decisions weren’t as good as before. He sat down without intending to, and took the spirit stick from his suit where he’d stashed it, and held it, looking at it while he caught his breath.
Melody and Patch were on their way by now. Feathers bound to the stick were getting wet in the rain that heralded the hisa spring, and rain was good. Spring was good, they’d go, and have a baby that wouldn’t be him.
Terrible burden he’d put on them, a child that stayed a child a lot longer than hisa infants. The child who wouldn’t grow.
He’d had to be told, Turn loose, let go, fend for yourself, Melody child.
Satin said, Go. Go walk with Great Sun.
That part he didn’t want. He wanted, like a child, his way; and that way was to stay in the world he’d prepared for.
But Satin said go. And among downers Satin was the chief, the foremost, the one who’d been out there and up there and walked with Great Sun, too.
He almost couldn’t get his feet under him. He thought, I’ve been really stupid, and now I’ve really done it and Melody can’t help. I’ll die here, on this muddy bank.
And then it seemed there was something he had to do… couldn’t remember what it was, but he had to get up. He had to get up, as long as he could keep doing that.
He went down again.
Won’t ever find me, he thought, distressed with himself. It must be the twentieth time he’d fallen. This time he’d slid down a bank of wet leaves.
He tried to get up.
But just then a strange sound came to his ears.
A human voice, changed by a breather mask, was saying, “Hey, kid! Kid!”
Not anymore, he thought. Not a kid anymore.
And he held onto the stick in one hand and worked on getting to his feet one more time.
He didn’t make it—or did, but the ground gave way. He went reeling down the bank, seeing brown, swirling water ahead of him.
“God!” A body turned up in his path, rocked him back, flung them both down as the impact knocked the breath out of him. But strong hands caught him under the arms, saving him from the water. There was a dark spot in his time-sense, and someone sounded an electric horn, a signal, he thought, like the storm-signal.
Was a worse storm coming? He couldn’t imagine.