“Oh, hett is deep and hell is wide, Oh, hell is deep and hell is wide, Oh, hell is deep and hell is wide, Ain’t got no bottom, ain’t got no side. All my sins are taken away.”
Hanno showed the wind his teeth. Odysseus went there and won back. If the stars held no New America, they offered what was infinitely more.
The noise rammed him. It was a monstrous rush and boom, pierced by a risen screech. To port the cloud wall had vanished behind a whiteness that overran waves and kilometers.
“Strike sail!” he bawled. That was not merely a gale, that was a line squall come from behind sight and bound for him. Weather on Xenogaia heeded no law of Grecian Aeolus. Wind speeds were commonly low, but when they did go high, they bore twice the weight of violent air. His left hand took the switch that lowered the outboard. Point bows into seas and hold them fast!
Trie fist smote. Rain flayed and blinded. Waves topped the rails. Ariadne climbed, swayed amidst cataracting foam, plunged into troughs. Hanno clung.
Something snatched him.
He was down in roaring black. He whirled and tumbled. At the middle of it rested a cold steadiness, his mind. I’m overboard, he knew. Inflate the jacket. Don’t breathe water or you’re done.
He broke surface, gasped air full of rain and salt foam, threshed limbs against heaviness that tore. The hood swelled into a pillowlike collar, upbearing his head as the rest of the garment floated his body. He squinted about. Where was the boat? No sign of her. He didn’t think she’d gone under, not that staunch little lady, but wind and waves must have borne her from him, maybe not very far as yet— far enough, though, when he could see only the billows savaging him.
What had happened? His brain cleared, shook off shock, became a computer programmed to calculate survival. Wind might have caught the unfurled loose mainsail, swung the hull around, shoved it so low that a broaching sea swept him out. Well, if he kept alert, he’d drift free till rescue came.
That should be soon after this flaw of weather had passed. Yukiko was probably trying right now to call him. An aircraft— Those carried aboard Pytheas were designed for Phaeacia. They flew on Xenogaia, but it was rather precarious; given conditions at all unusual, you needed a human pilot as well as the machine. Maybe the Hestia folk should have ordered modifications, but the job was big, they had so much else on hand, they could stay aground when in doubt.
Pilots. Wanderer’s the best, I think that’s generally agreed. He’s out of touch today. Otherwise Svoboda; and she’s got her kid to think about. The colony is tiny, a beachhead on a shore not made for our kind. She has no right to risk herself needlessly. Of course, she will take off the moment it looks practical, which should be when this gust is over. High winds aren’t an unacceptable hazard in themselves, if they’re reasonably steady.
The trick will be to stay alive till then. Exposure is the enemy. This water isn’t too cold, it’s a warm current from the south. However, a few degrees below skin temperature will suck the heat out in time. I remember— But that was on another voyage, and besides, the men are dead. I also know some ancient Asian ways of controlling blood flow; at dire need, I can call up my ultimate reserves, while they last.
Swim. Save your strength, but do not let yourself be rolled about and smothered. Find the rhythms. Who was it, what goddess, who lived at the bottom of the sea and spread her nets for sailormen? Oh, yes, Ran of the Norse. Shall we dance, my lady Ran?
Wind screamed, seas crashed. How long had this gone on? No telling. A minute could amount to an hour, reverse time dilation, the cosmos flying away from a man. He’d been mistaken about the blow. It wasn’t any quick squall. Though rain had thinned, the wind raved wilder. Unforeseen, unforeseeable, as ignorant as men and, yes, their smug machines still were. The universe held as many surprises as it did stars. No, more. That was its glory. But someday one of them was bound to kill you.
Thunder ahead. Hanno rose onto a crest. He saw black teeth, the rocks and skerries, the Forbidden Ground. Water seethed, geysered, exploded. The current had swept him to this. Flashingly, he hoped Ariadne remained free, for her people to recover. He readied himself.
It was hard to do. A sense of warmth hi hands and feet crept treacherously toward his breast. He knew that consciousness was dimming; he couldn’t tell which lights had by now gone out.
A comber took him along.
He smashed into the white.
White. ... He lay on stone. Weed wrapped him, yellow-brown ropes. Waves roiled and roared under a low, flying sky. Oftener and oftener, water rushed over the roughness beneath him. He would inhale it, choke, cough, reach for air.
He scarcely noticed. Cold, pain, struggle were of the world, the storm. Impersonal, he watched them, like a man drowsy at his hearthside watching flames. The rising tide would claim him, but he would not be here. He would be— where? What? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
So this is how it ends. Not too bad a way for an old sailor-man. I do wish I could lie remembering. But memory slips from me, wishing does, being does. Farewell, farewell, you ghosts. Fare always well.
A whickering whine through wind and surf, a shadow, a shape, a jolt that awakens awareness.
You fool! he raged dimly. Go back! You could lose your life!
The aircraft bucked and rocked, fell, climbed, did battle. From its teardrop snaked a tine. The cord passed half a meter above Hanno. His hand tried to reach and grab it, but couldn’t. It whirled on past. Again. Again.
It withdrew. The engine overhead snarled louder. The line descended afresh. A loop was at the end, for the feet of a clinging man.
Tu Shan hit the reef. He took the impact in his muscles, got his foothold, stood while a surge ran ankle-deep around him. With his left hand he kept hold of the tine; and he advanced step by gripping step.
The strongest among us, thought Hanno bewilderedly. But I’ve been all this time with his woman.
Tu Shan’s right arm wept under his shoulders, raised him, held him fast. The aircraft winched the line in. They swung like a bell clapper. “Proclaim Liberty throughout the world—”
They were aboard. Svoboda gained altitude and made for snore. Tu Shan laid Hanno out in the aisle, which shivered and banged. He examined him with rough skill. “Slight concussion, I think,” he growled. “Maybe a broken rib or two. Mainly a bad chill, uh, hypothermia. He’ll live.”
He administered initial treatment. Blood quickened. Svoboda brought the aircraft slanting down. “How did you know?” Hanno mumbled.
“Yukiko called the Alloi,” Svoboda said from the controls. Rain dashed across the viewscreen before her. “They couldn’t enter atmosphere themselves. Even their robots have trouble in bad weather. But they sent a spaceboat on low trajectory. Its detectors registered an infrared anomaly in the rocks. That was where you might well be.”
“You shouldn’t have, you shouldn’t—”
She made a near-vertical descent. Contact jarred the machine. She snapped off her harness and came to kneel beside him. “Did you think we’d want to be without you?” she asked. “Did we ever?”
33
Seldom was a day this brilliant. Sunlight spilled from a sky in which clouds were blue-shadowed white, tike enormous snowbanks. It gleamed off wings cruising aloft; glimpses of river and sea shone molten. The eight seated around a plank table were thinly clad. From the top of their knoll vision ranged between Hestia, at its distance a toy box, westward to where Mount Pytheas rose pure beyond the hills.
Twice before have we met this way, in open air, remembered Hanno. Do we have some unknown need? Yes, the reasons are practical, be undistracted, leave the children in care of the robots for these few hours, and hope that fresh surroundings will freshen our thinking. But do our souls be-tieve that when we most want wisdom, we must seek it from earth and heaven?