“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.
Hands tugged at the side of his mask. His head was pounding. Then someone had shoved what must be a whole new cylinder in, and air started getting to him.
“It’s all right, kid,” a woman’s voice said. “Just keep that mask on tight. We’ll get you back.”
The woman got him halfway up the slope. A man showed up and lifted, and he finally got his feet under him.
He walked, his legs hurting. He hung on one and the other of his rescuers for the hard parts, and drew larger and larger breaths, his head throbbing from the strain he’d put on his body.
They got him down to a trail, and then someone had a litter and they carried him. He lay on it feeling alternately that he was going to tumble off and that he was turning over backwards, while Great Sun was a sullen glow through gray clouds and the rain that sheeted his mask. It was hard going and his rescuers didn’t talk to him. Breathing was hard enough, and he figured they’d have nothing pleasant to say.
By evening they’d reached the Base trail and he realized muzzily he must have been asleep, because he didn’t remember all of the trip or the turn toward the Base.
Somebody waked him up now and again to see that he was breathing all right, and he had two cylinders, now, both functioning, so breathing was a great deal easier, better than he’d been able to rely on for the days he’d been out.
Satin didn’t want him. Melody didn’t want him…
The bottom dropped out of the universe. He was falling. Falling into the water. He fought it.
Second pitch. It was V -dump. He wasn’t on Old River’s banks. He wasn’t suffocating. He was on a ship, a million—million klicks from any world, even from any respectable star.
His ship was slowing down, way down, to match up with a target star. They were all right.
No enemies. They’d have heard if there’d been enemies.
Finity’s End was solidly back in the universe again, moving with the stars and their substance.
He opened his eyes. Lay there, fumbled open a nutri-pack and sucked it down, aware of Jeremy rummaging after one.
“You all right?” he asked Jeremy.
“Yeah, fine.”
He saw Jeremy had gotten his own packet open. The intercom gave an all-clear and told them their schedule. They had two hours to clean up, eat, and get back underway.
He lay there, thinking of the gray sky spinning slowly around above the treetops. Of rain on the mask. Of the irreproducible sound of thunder on the hills.
The room smelled like somebody’s old shoes. And two nutri-packs down, he found the energy to unbelt and sit up.
“Shower,” he said to the kid, as Jeremy stirred out of his bunk. “Or I get it.”
“You can have it if you want,” Jeremy said.
“No, priority to you.” His stomach hadn’t quite caught up. He had an ache in his shoulders. Another in his heart. “Three hours at this jump-point. We’ll both make it.”
“Yeah, we’re going to make it,” Jeremy said, and hauled his skinny body out of the bunk. “No stinking Mazianni at the point, we’re going to get to Esperance and the Old Man’s going to be happy and we’ll be fine .”