Shuvoff, mì luvs! Fred Ridmun cried, and under a bigwatt screen the prow of the Ham pedalo flattened a stand of blisterweed, grated on shingle, then hit the water, sending up a plume of emerald spray. The dads pushed the stern of the craft, their bare, moto-oiled feet slithering on the mat of vegetation, while the lads splashed thigh-deep in the wavelets, yanking on the prow. In the effort of their final push was a dread anticipation — but then came the mysterious moment when the dead weight of the beached pedalo was transformed into the live motion of being afloat. There was a clamour of shouting and more bellowed instructions from the Guvnor as the dads and lads unshipped the long pedals and took their places. The mummies came out from their gaffs and commenced an eerie ululating. The motos had been led down from their wallows especially to participate in the leave-taking — and they sent up a frightful bellowing.
Then there came a shout from the bow, Reef up! There was the swish of seaweed and the patter of Daveworks against the hull. Ship pedals! the Guvnor cried, and they all waited, frozen in their frail shell, as the screen wheeled around them and the reef grated beneath them. Then they were over, the pedals dipped to the water, and the pedalo sped offshore.
Seated in the bows with the other lads, Carl turned back and saw the green wall of the island stretch into a band, then a ribbon, and eventually shrink until it was but a green cap set on the massive furrowed brow of the sea. The Hamsters on the shore were reduced to an agitation of waving arms, while some way apart from them, in front of his semi, Carl could make out the Driver, a black stroke on the ledger of the land. Even from this distance Carl could sense that the Driver's savage gaze was upon him, doubtless willing him to mistime his leap on to the stack, to fall and release his final flying breaths as bubbles in the briny.
Carl grabbed Fred Funch's belt and leaned forward over the gnarled stempost. Fred let his head dangle down so that the bow wave tangled with his hair. Using both hands, he picked out the Daveworks that had lodged in the seams of the boat's timbers as they ran over the reef. Dragging him back up, Carl sat, tense and expectant, as Fred sorted the plastic shards into the appropriate categories: reel, toyist, reel, toyist, reel, toyist… The others amplified these words into a chant with which to punctuate the rhythm of their pedalling. The pedalo, slewing in the current, shook itself like a leviathan breaching for air and picked up speed. Carl picked up one of the Daveworks, biggish, bone-white and the size of his own middle finger. The way its two smooth sides met at a sharp right angle recalled to him the corners of Luvvie Joolee's whitewashed room. It was the stillest place Carl had ever been in: stiller than the Shelter, the doors of which were always open to the breeze; stiller than the blackened interiors of the Hamsters' gaffs, which were ever eddying with smoke, milling with people and motos; stiller even than the deepest thicket in Norfend, where a leaf fragment spun or a scuttlebug trundled.
Carl fingered the broken jagged top of the Davework and looked back towards the island, now wholly encompassed by the ragged edge of the sea. How small it was, and how vast were the waters; if they chose to — if they could will such a thing — they might simply stretch a little and swamp it for ever. The Davework was reaclass="underline" it had a single, enigmatic figure 7 incised in it. Carl recalled the one moving thing in Luvvie Joolee's chamber besides its inhabitant's grooved lips. As she had droned on about the PCO, her husband's sectaries, the politicking of the Guilds — matters of which Carl could not even begin to frame a comprehension — he had watched the dial of the meter. A black stick was pegged to its centre, and when the Exile began the stick was aimed at a 6; when she finished at 7.
The Sentrul Stac mounted from the waves as the Hamstermen's pedalo drew closer. While from the island it gleamed in the foglight, near to it had a dark and impenetrable appearance. The shaggy, shit-spattered greenery merged with glossy seaweed at the point where the swell washed its flanks. The mephitic fumes of the birdshit enveloped them. There were also strange hanks and even coils of a nacreous substance Carl couldn't identify encrusting the base.
— Wossvose? he asked his stepdad, who had shipped his pedal and come forward.
— Vem? Fred laughed. Vemiz oystahs, mì sun, oystahs. Gúd eatin, yeah, we av em on fowlin trips, but we nevah taykem bak oam.
— Y nó?
— Coz vey iz lyttul creetchus an U gotta suckemup alyve, innit.
— Vare 2 taystë 4 ve mummies Bsydes, put in Fukka Funch, an vay lookabit lyke cunt, wooden wannem gettin ennë Ideers!
There was a shout of laughter from the other dads. The separation from Ham was having a paradoxical effect on them: they were all craven in the face of the mighty sea and the sweeping wind, yet dävine and pagan alike felt the dead weight of the Driver's hand lift from them, and this led to ribaldry and defiance. That psychic melding that had occurred a generation before on the voyage to Chil half happened again, and the Hamstermen experienced a complete accord with one another, sniggering and jibing, slapping and teasing the lads.
Fred Ridmun brought them to order, and they pedalled the vessel in below Blakk Stac, which stood about half a click from the Sentrul Stac. Here, in a patch of dead water, they could wait out the hours until darkness, when it would be time for Carl to make the leap.
— Vat Dryva, said Sid Brudi, chewing meditatively on a piece of curried moto as the pedalo rocked gently on the swell, ee stopsus wurkin awl ve tyme, ven sez ee wansus 2 B maw produktiv.
— Yeah, his brother Dave chimed in, maw produktiv but ee wansus 2 getridov ve motos. Iss nó rí.
Carl looked from one thin, green-eyed Brudi to the other. He thought of Salli, and unbidden a memory came to him, of the two of them assisting motos to mate. Salli smearing Gorj's folds with moto oil, while he, crouching beneath Runti's great sagging tank, guided his tiny cock in.
— Wotevah U fink abaht ve Dryva, said Fred Ridmun, breaking in on Carl's reverie, ee az ve faredar, ee nose ve runs an ve poynts. U ló ardlee no nuffink. Nuffink. We ad bettah caul sumovah nah 4 Daves lukk, yeah?
This appeal to the Hamstermen's religious instincts had the desired result: they put aside their takeaway and, gathering themselves into two cabs — one at the stern, one in the bow — they began to call over. Carl was joined by Fred and four other dads. Äteen! cried Bill Edduns, and Fukka Funch — who had the knowledge of this one — commenced: Leev on leff Marryleebo, leff alsop playce, leff baykastree, forrad pormanskware … The arcane words drifted over the waves, and some inquisitive oilgulls came spiralling down from their nests on the Blakk Stac. The fowl floated alongside the pedalo and called over their own rasping Knowledge.