Heaven was not leaden, it was silver. Lively little weather clouds caught the light of a half-hidden sun in flashes which gleamed off steel and violet hues beneath. The land that fell away aft was a many-colored lavishness of life; over the forest passed uncountable wings and a wander-song to answer the drumbeat of breakers ahead. The air blew full of salt and strength, it lulled, it whistled, it frolicked and kissed. To sail was to dance with the world.
Now came the barrier. Surf spouted blinding white. Its roar shook the bones. “Bear right!” O’Malley’s voice screamed from the transceiver. “You’ll miss the channel—bear right!” Starboard, Danny grinned, and put his helm down. He could see the passage, clear and inviting ahead. It was good to have counsel from above, but not really needed, in this place that was his.
He passed through, out onto the Gulf of Ardashir, which gives on the Uranian Ocean and thence on a world. Waves ran easily. The boat swayed in the long swell of them. So did the airbus, after O’Malley settled it down onto its pontoons. Still, this could be the trickiest part of the whole business, laying alongside and transferring freight. Danny gave himself the challenge.
When both vessels were linked, the man leaned out of his open cargo hatch and cried in glory, “We’ve done it!” After a moment, with no less joy; “I’m sorry. You have.”
“We have, Jack,” Danny said. “Now let me give you the instruments first. The motor’s going to be the very devil to shift across. We could lose it.”
“I think not. Once the chains are made fast, this winch can snatch along three times that load. But sure, let’s start with the lesser-weight items.”
Danny braced feet against the rolling and began to pass boxes over. O’Malley received them with some difficulty. Nevertheless, he received them. Once he remarked through wind and wave noise: “What a shame we can’t also take that remarkable boat back.”
Danny gazed at this work of his hands, then landward, and answered softly, “That’s all right. We’ll be back—here.”
PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMEN
After three hours of troubled sleep, Dan Coffin awoke to the same knowing: They haven’t called in.
Or, have they? his mind asked, and answered: Unlikely. I gave strict orders I be told whenever word came, whatever it was.
So Mary’s voice has not reached us since dusk. She’s lost, in danger. He forced himself to add: Or she’s dead.
Forever stilled, that joyousness that ran from the radio to him especially? “Remember, Dan, we’ve got a date exactly three tendays from now. ‘Bye till then. I’ll be waiting.” No!
Understanding it was useless, and thinking that he ought to get more rest, he left his bunk. The rug, a cerothere hide, felt scratchy under his bare feet, and the clay floor beyond was cold. The air did surround him with warmth and sound —trillings, croakings, the lapping of waves, and once from the woods a carnivore’s scream —but he hardly noticed. Paleness filled the windows. Otherwise his cabin was dark. He didn’t turn on a light to help him dress. When you spend a lot of time in the wilderness, you learn how to do things after sunset without a fluoropanel over your head.
Weariness ached in him, as if his very bones felt the drag of a fourth again Earth’s gravity. But that’s nonsense, he thought. His entire life had been spent on Rustum. No part of him had ever known Earth—except his chromosomes and the memories they bore of billionfold years of another evolution—I’m simply worn out from worrying,.
When he trod outside, a breeze ruffled his hair (as Mary’s fingers had done) and its coolness seemed to renew his strength. Or maybe that came from the odors it brought, fragrances of soil and water and hastening growth. He filled his lungs, leaned back against the rough solidity of walls, and tried to inhale serenity from this, his homeland. A few thousand human beings, isolated on a world that had not bred their race, must needs be wary. Yet did they sometimes make such a habit of it that there could be no peace for them ever?
The two dozen buildings of the station, not only the log shelters like his own but the newer metal-and-plastic prefabs, seemed a part of the landscape, unless they were simply lost in its immensity. Behind them, pastures and grainfields reached wanly to a towering black wall of forest. Before them, Lake Moondance murmured and sheened to a half-seen horizon; and above that world-edge soared mountains, climbing and climbing until their tiers were lost in the cloud deck.
The middle of heaven was clear, though, as often happened on summer nights. Both satellites were aloft there. Raksh was nearly at maximum distance, a tiny copper sickle, while Sohrab never showed much more than a spark. The light thus came chiefly from natural sky-glow and stars. Those last were more sharp and multitudinous than was usual when you looked up through the thick lowland air. Dan could even pick out Sol among them. Two sister planets glowed bright enough to cast glades on the lake, and Sohrab’s image skipped upon it as swiftly as the moonlet flew.
It’s almost like a night on High America, Dan thought. The memory of walking beneath upland skies, Mary Lochaber at his side, stabbed him. He hurried toward the radio shack.
No one ordinarily stood watch there, but whoever was on patrol—against catlings, genghis ants, or less foreseeable emergency makers —checked it from time to time to see if any messages had come in. Dan stared at the register dial. Yes! Half an hour ago! His finger stabbed the playback button. “Weather Center calling/’ said a voice from Anchor. “Hello, Moondance. Look, we’ve got indications of a storm front building off the Uranian coast, but we need to check a wider area. Can you take some local readings for us?” He didn’t hear the rest. Sickness rose in his throat.
A footfall pulled him back to here and now. He whirled rather than turned. Startled, Eva Spain stepped from the threshold. For a moment, in the dim illumination of its interior, they confronted each other.
“Oh!” She tried to laugh. “I’m not an urso hunting his dinner, Dan. Honest, I’m not.”
“What are you after, then?” he snapped.
If that were Mary, tall and slim, hair like sunlight, standing against the darkness in the door—It was only Eva. In the same coarse coveralls as him, with the same knife and pistol—tools—at her belt, she likewise needed no reduction helmet on her red-tressed, snub-nosed, freckle-faced head. Also like him, she was of stocky build, though she lacked the share of Oriental genes that made his locks dark, cheekbones high, skin tawny. And she had a few years less than he did, whereas Mary was of his age. That didn’t matter; they were all young. What mattered was that this was not Mary.
Now don’t blame Eva for that, Dan told himself. She’s good people. He recalled that for a long while, practically since they met, everybody seemed to take for granted that in due course they would marry. He couldn’t ask for a better wife, from a practical viewpoint.
Practicality be damned.
Her eyes, large and green, blinked; he saw light reflected off tears. Yet she answered him stiffly: “I could inquire the same of you. Except I’d be more polite about it.”
Dan swallowed. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.”
She eased a little, stepped close and patted his hand. Her palm was not as hard as his; she was a biologist, not an explorer who had lately begun farming on the side. Nevertheless he felt callouses left by the gear and animal harness that every low-lander must use.