"Not unless we stay too long," replied Tom. "But a quick visitation should prove no problem for the Helios or for ourselves. Now I should bend my attention to the ship, for we must beat against the solar wind, and I need to trim the sails."
Arthur and Suzy watched for more than an hour as Tom turned the wheel this way and that. He occasionally pulled or pushed upon one of the levers that were mounted against the wall ahead of the wheel or tapped the glass of an oscillating gauge to steady it. The sun grew larger and larger, until it filled all the portholes. There was nothing else to see but blazing white light.
Arthur was very grateful for the shining metal of the sunship hull and the blue portholes. He knew that without them his whole body would have been burnt to ash many millions of miles out from the sun. He was grateful for his star-hood too, for saving him from instant blindness.
Tom spun the wheel a half-turn in anticipation of a shift of the solar winds and pointed to a circular ring on the floor near his foot.
"Arthur, you see that ring?"
"Yes? I mean, aye, aye, Captain."
"Take hold of it. When I say 'heave,' pull it up and out as far as you can. Then when I say 'let go,' release it."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
Arthur hurried over, knelt down, and gripped the ring. He looked up at Tom, who was staring intently through the portholes and moving the wheel in quarter turns, continually to the right.
"Heave!"
Arthur wrenched back on the ring. It came clear of the floor, and a brilliantly sparkling chain that seemed to be made of crystals or perhaps even diamonds came rattling out behind it. Arthur staggered backwards, pulling on the ring. Yards and yards of the glittering chain emerged, spreading all over the deck.
"Mind you don't get caught up!" Tom shouted.
Arthur had already realized that, but it was easier said than done. There was chain spreading everywhere, at least a hundred yards of it, and Arthur had to go down the gangway to avoid it, while still pulling on the ring. Suzy retreated to one corner, eyeing the chain with suspicion.
"Hold there, Arthur!" Tom called out. He suddenly stepped away from the wheel, looped the chain around the register on the floor, sprang back to the wheel, and shouted, "Let go!"
Arthur let go. The ring shot away from his hand, and the chain rebounded back to wherever it had come from. The loop around the register tightened. For a few seconds, the chain stopped, and the register stayed stuck to the deck. Then as Arthur leaped back up the gangway, he saw the register screech across the floor, deep scratches in the floor testifying to how hard it was fighting the pull.
"It won't go through there!" Arthur shouted, pointing at the saucer-sized chainhole. But when the large bronze-bound book reached the hole, it did go through, though not without a final, earsplitting scream that sent Arthur tumbling down the gangway again, his hands pressed against his ears.
A moment later the ship ran into something. There was a thud and a groan from the hull. The deck rocked from side to side.
Arthur dragged himself up to the bridge, shaking his head from side to side, his ears ringing.
"It had to be a surprise," Tom was saying to Suzy. "The register would have defended itself better if it knew I was going to wrap it in the anchor chain. I trust you were not too disturbed?"
Suzy looked up at him, tapped her ears, and shook her head.
"Good!" declared Tom, not realizing that Suzy was shaking her head to try to clear her ears. "We've docked, in a manner of speaking. We'll swing on the chain a little and should be able to see -"
The white light in the porthole changed. Arthur stared as he saw lush green trees drift into view. Trees hung with vines and dense green leaves, interspersed with bright white flowers.
"It looks like a jungle!" he cried out, surprised.
"It is, of sorts," replied Tom. "A tropical island, preserved in a bubble of Immaterial Glass, here in the heart of the sun."
"How do we get across?" Suzy asked, much too loudly. Her hearing hadn't fully come back.
"We're beached on her sandy shore, broadside on through the Immaterial Wall," said Tom. "So we can wade in. But we need to wait a moment, to make sure the anchor has taken bite. It wouldn't do to drift back into the sun's embrace before we're back aboard."
"What are we going to wade through?" Arthur asked.
"A patch of sea, caught with the island," Tom replied. "The Immaterial Glass that encloses this place knows to let the Helios impinge. Any other vessel would just bounce off."
He bent down and gave the anchor ring a few heaves. A few yards of chain came out, but then snagged. Tom gave a few more steady heaves, then let the ring go.
"She's fast," he declared, "unless a storm comes up. But now - let's go ashore!"
Chapter Sixteen
Arthur half-shut his eyes and pulled his hands up into the sleeves of his brightcoat as Tom opened the portside hatch. But as Tom had promised, the hatch opened onto clear blue water, with a sandy beach only yards away, with the jungle verge beyond. A small surf of one- to two-foot waves swept around the sunship's hull and crashed onto the beach.
Even though he'd seen it through the porthole, this was not what Arthur had expected. He'd thought there'd be some indication they were in the heart of a sun. Brighter light for example, or a ring of fire in the distance.
There was normal sunshine overhead and the air was warm and humid. Arthur poked his head out the hatch and saw ocean stretching out to the horizon, broken a mile or so out by a long line of what must be coral reefs.
All in all, it looked good enough to become a postcard from an unspoiled tropical holiday destination.
"Where do the waves come from?" Arthur asked Tom as they jumped down. The sea was warm, but the waves were bigger than they looked from the ship, and as the beach shelved away steeply, the water was deeper. Arthur had to jump up to keep his head out of a passing wave in order to hear Tom's reply.
"It is unlike the other bottles, in that this place is both here and there, in a manner of speaking," said Tom. He grabbed Arthur and Suzy by their coat collars and lifted them up as an even larger wave swept past. "But the only way for us to get to it is here. If we went to where it is on the old Earth, we wouldn't see it and would turn away - or, in unlucky circumstances, we would wreck and drown some way off. You should be able to wade now."
"Thanks," muttered Arthur as Tom dropped them in the wash and strode up the beach. The boy picked himself up clumsily, his lame leg stuck in the wet sand for a moment.
"Hey, I'm dry!" exclaimed Suzy after one step up the beach. She'd been sodden and dripping a moment before.
"So am I!" said Arthur, patting his coat. There was some steam rising off it, but otherwise the coat and everything else he was wearing had dried the instant he left the sea.
"This is a great coat," said Suzy. "I hope I can keep it. And these shoes keep the sand out and they'll be great for kicking Nithlings. Immaterial Boots are proof against everything you know, even Nothing. For a while, anyway."
"You're cheerful," Arthur observed wryly. But he felt much better himself. The clean air and the sunshine were very heartening, and with Tom's help he felt sure they would soon find the Will. Once they had Part Two, then it could sort out Grim Tuesday and all would be well.
This moment of optimism was slightly spoiled as he stumbled in the sand, his shortened leg betraying him once more. He kept trying to walk like he always had, but he couldn't. He had to learn to take different steps and think ahead to where he'd put his left foot.
Tom had already gone into the jungle, following a rivulet of fresh water. The trees and undergrowth thinned out a bit on either side of this narrow stream, making it the next best thing to a path.