“Okay, Julie,” he said. “Lift.”
The after section rose first and a couple more went into the river. He didn’t have it quite right. But it was close enough. Most of the passengers hung on, although they were whimpering and sobbing.
Julie didn’t actually lift the flatboat out of the water. In fact, she couldn’t have even had she wished. The boat was far too heavy. But she was able to keep it afloat. Some of those in the water were picked up by the outrigger. But a few were swept downriver.
Gradually, with Digger hanging on to one side, the flatboat got across to the northern shore. Several of the survivors declared it a miracle.
DIGGER’S SURPRISE AT his own heroism was dampened by the knowledge that some of the refugees had been lost. But when he got back inside the lander, Julie insisted on delivering a passionate smooch, commenting that she knew Kellie wouldn’t mind, and Whit shook his hand with obvious respect. It might have been the first time in his life that Digger had earned that kind of reaction from someone of Whitlock’s stature. He began to feel he could do anything.
The winds were getting stronger. “Time to recall the landers,” said Julie. Put everything back on Mt. Alpha and tie it down. And get back into the AV3. Put some heavy metal between themselves and the coming storm. They should, she said, take off and head west. Safety for the next twenty hours or so lay in daylight.
They returned the landers to Mt. Alpha and spent the rest of the morning securing them as best they could. Another thunderstorm rolled past at lower altitudes, and by noon they had boarded the AV3 and were ready to clear out.
Digger wondered about Macao, where she was, what she was thinking, and hoped she was okay. He would go back eventually, at least to assure himself that she’d survived. And maybe, if things had worked out reasonably well, he’d say hello.
Challa, Macao.
“We’re forgetting something,” Whit said, as they strapped in and prepared for flight.
“What’s that?” asked Digger.
Whit heaved a long sigh. Bad news coming. “The round-the-world mission.”
Digger hadn’t really forgotten. He’d been aware of it, in some remote corner of his mind, but he’d been telling himself the three ships were already as safe as anything he could arrange. They were in deep water, and all they’d have to do was trim their sails, or take them down, or whatever it was you did in one of those things when the wind started to blow. And ride it out.
Julie brought the AI up. “Bill,” she said, “what do we have on the round-the-world mission? Where are they?”
“Last sighting is twenty hours old,” he said. “At that time they were doing well. They have reached the coast of the eastern continent and are now sailing north, looking for a passage.”
Should be as safe as anybody could reasonably expect, thought Digger. At least they’re not standing on an island.
THE GOOMPAHS, WHIT predicted, would later tell their children that Lykonda was everywhere on this night. She directed traffic in each of the eleven cities, assisted those who had fallen, used a torch to show the way around a flooded valley outside Kulnar, held a bridge in place until several hundred had crossed safely, lifted several who’d been stranded on a rapidly disappearing island, taking them into her hands and transporting them to safe ground. She will have found a lost child in the rising waters outside Avapol; provided light to those struggling along a narrow mountain ledge; returned to Sakmarung to help those who had refused to leave until the floodwaters came.
“The legend will grow,” he said.
“It’s the way religion is,” said Digger.
“I suppose. But I prefer to think of it as the way human nature is. It’s a great story. On the night when they most needed her, Lykonda came. It tells me that they are a lot more like us than would make some folks comfortable.”
“I suppose,” said Digger. “All in all, we’ve gotten a lot of use from her tonight.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“How do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s hard to be sure who’s using whom.”
BILL WAS PICKING up bits and pieces of transmissions from the omega monitors, and also from satellites placed in orbit by the Jenkins.
The cloud was such an amorphous object that it was impossible to say precisely when it made contact with Lookout. But what was clear was that, by midday on the Intigo, the planet was in its embrace. Rain and high winds swept across the Goompah cities.
The Jenkins stayed in contact. Giant storms, they said. Some loose rock that had been traveling with the cloud was coming down. The ocean surged from the west and, as they’d expected, submerged wide parcels of land. The river that flowed out of T’Mingletep overwhelmed its banks and spread out in all directions. The city on the island went underwater.
They were getting ready to depart Mt. Alpha when Bill reported an earthquake on the floor of the eastern ocean. “ Tsunamis coming.”
“How bad?”
“They look relatively small. I can’t be certain at the moment because they’re in deep water. But they’re approaching an island chain, and I can let you know then. Just a few minutes.”
“When are they going to get here?”
“Hour and a half.”
He relayed satellite pictures of the islands. The weather seemed quiet. In fact, the sun was out and the beaches were gleaming. Long-legged birds strutted on the sand, which was bordered by forest. “This where the tsunami’s headed?” Digger asked.
“Yes, Digger.”
The picture broke up, came back, broke up again.
“There’s a lot of interference,” said Bill. “The wave should be imminent,” he added.
They saw the sea beginning to rise. A large wave became a wall of water and kept getting bigger. It raced across the surf. The birds scattered, and the ocean spilled onto the beach, submerged the trees, and crashed against a series of ridges.
“About twelve meters,” Bill said.
Marge’s voice broke in: “It’ll be about the same when it gets to the Intigo.”
Digger breathed a sigh of relief. It was high, and it would raise hell with the cities, but most of the refugees should be out of reach.
“There are at least three follow-on waves,” Marge continued. “All appear to be less of a threat.”
“What about the other direction?” asked Whit.
“How do you mean?” asked Julie.
“The round-the-world mission. Are they still cruising the coastline?”
“Skies are heavy in the region.” said Bill. “And we don’t have a satellite in the area.”
“They’d have to be,” said Digger. “Is that a problem?”
“Pretty much,” said Marge. “They need to be in deep water.”
Avery Whitlock’s Notebooks
I cannot help wondering what has been, for the Goompahs, the more terrifying aspect of this business: The threat posed by the omega, or the appearance of the goddess?
— December 15
chapter 47
On board the Regunto on the eastern ocean.
Ninety-fifth day of the voyage.
TELIO HAD BEEN hardly a week at sea when he was ready to turn and go back home. That reaction had surprised him, because he’d spent much of his adult life as a sailor and fisherman, moving up and down the coast of the Intigo. He’d even been on an exploratory mission ten years earlier, when they’d pushed into the regions where the sun was in the middle of the sky and the air became hot beyond what one could bear. It was the longest foray in modern history, made under Hagli Kopp, as fine a captain as ever sailed. He wished the current captain, who commanded all three vessels, were of his quality.
Not that he wasn’t competent. But Mogul Krolley lacked the fire and presence of Kopp, whose sailors would have followed him anywhere. In the stifling heat, Kopp had called them together. Scholars maintained that the boiling air did not go on forever, he said, that if one could break through the barrier, the seas would become cool again. The captain did not know for certain what conditions were like farther on. He suspected the scholars were correct, but he told the crew candidly they had reached a point from which going ahead would, in his view, be foolhardy. He did not wish to risk their lives. Or, he admitted with a chuckle, his own.
And so they had turned around and, as the first mate put it, lived to go home.
There were no natural barriers to an east—west voyage, no heat in one direction or ice in the other. But there was the haunting possibility that they were sailing on an endless sea. Or that there was an abrupt edge of things, as some warned. The notion that they could proceed east and eventually would come upon their own west coast had seemed plausible, and even likely, back in the cafés and sloshen. But out here, on the broad sea, it approached absurdity.
They had indeed found a continent, and they’d spent sixteen days examining its harbors and rivers, looking for Saniusar or Mandigol or T’Mingletep. But this was Korbi Incognita. Unknown country.
Should the occasion arise, Telio did not think Krolley would have the self-assurance to admit failure, to recognize reality and accept defeat. It was more likely that he would press on, that if this wasn’t the Intigo, he’d look for a way to pass through it, a river, a series of lakes, whatever was needed. He was rumored to have considered the possibility of abandoning the ships, if necessary, to travel overland, and build new vessels when they found the sea again on the far side. If indeed there was a far side.
That had led to talk that the world might not be constructed in the form of an infinite sea with scattered landmasses, that Korbs only thought that because they lived near ocean. But it could well be that it was land that went on forever, with occasional stretches of water. Who knew? Telio was certain only that he was ready to concede failure and go home. He thought of himself as being as courageous as the next person, but he also knew that, when the evidence was in, it was prudent to draw the proper conclusions and react accordingly. There was no point being an idiot. The way was blocked.