Purple began to laugh.
Shoogar had gotten the idea and was helping me empty the bags of water overboard. It wasn’t enough. The windbags tugged upward on the boat frame, but they couldn’t lift it. They could only keep it from sinking into the uneasy swells. Shoogar searched around for some more ballast bags, ducking under the feeling around with his hands. The dumping of ballast did not help noticeably. The rim of the boat frame continued to show only as an outline in the water.
Purple had been clinging to the rigging and chortling helplessly while we worked. It seemed a singularly rude act. Now he found his voice and said, “Stop. Please stop. You’re only emptying water out of water.”
“But it’s ballast,” said Shoogar.
“But it’s water too — it just replaces itself as fast as you bail it.” He swam over to us. “Put the plug in first then bail.”
I looked at the plug in my hand and shrugged. Why not? — I ducked into the water and felt around for the hole. There was no pressure to fight this time, and the plug slipped in easily. I surfaced with a gasp.
“Is it in?” asked Purple. I nodded. He dove under to check it himself. He came up beside me. “All right, it’s firm enough.” He gave Shoogar and me a look. “You two start bailing while I finish refilling the balloons. Wilville, Orbur, keep pedaling.”
“We have to,” they called back, “Otherwise we’ll sink.”
Grumbling, Purple splashed aft. Shoogar and I grabbed buckets and set to work. We bailed fast and furiously. By the time Purple had two more balloons refilled, we had the water level down to our thighs. “You know,” I mused, “this might be a good way to keep boats from sinking — hang them from windbags.”
Purple only glared at me.
I went back to my bailing.
The red sun seeped down behind the horizon, leaving only a festering glow across the western edge of the world. We worked in shivering darkness. The water splashed coldly about our knees.
After a while I became aware that we were rocking more noticeably. “Purple,” I called, “we’re riding higher m the water.”
He looked up from his battery device, peered over the edge. “So we are.” He tied off the neck of the balloon — the tenth to be filled and slogged forward to where we stood. “One more balloon and we should be out of the water altogether.”
“How is your battery holding up?”
“Better than I had hoped,” He tugged at the rigging, pulled down another nozzle. “It’s getting awfully cold, isn’t it, Lant? Why don’t you break out the blankets?”
“You threw them overboard,” I said. “All except for three — and those are soaking wet.”
“Everything is soaking wet,” grumbled Shoogar.
“Oh,” said Purple. He sloshed aft for his battery. There was nothing more to say.
Shoogar and I paused in our bailing to hang the sodden blankets across the rigging, hoping to dry them out. I imagined that tiny icicles were forming on the ends of my body fur.
“Our food supplies are a mess too,” said Shoogar, sniffing at a package. “The hardbread isn’t.” He tossed it soggily over the side.
“You should have said a ballast blessing over it,” I said, but it was a cheerless joke.
He didn’t appreciate it anyway — this was no time for joking. Purple was just filling the twelfth balloon, and we were miserable and cold.
“Shoogar,” I said.
He looked at me from where he was huddling in his damp robe. “What?”
“Feel! We’re not rocking anymore! We’re out of the water!”
“Huh?” He turned to the railing and looked. I joined him.
In the last fading glow of red sunset, we could just make out the black water skimming effortlessly below.
There was no doubting it — and every moment we rose higher and higher. The twelfth balloon was bulging taut overhead. “Purple,” I called, “we’re in the air!”
“I know,” he called back. “Wilville! Orbur!” he shouted to the outriggers. “How high are we?”
“At least a manheight. The airpushers are just out of the : waves —”
Purple unclipped his flashlight from his belt and aimed it at the balloons above. Only four still hung limp, the rest were swollen with the familiar and friendly bulge of hydrogen gas. He stepped to the side of the boat and aimed the light over the side. The water gleamed five manheights below.
“I will pull the plug,” I said. “It must be safe to drain the rest of this water now.” I splashed toward it; the water was I still knee-high in the boat.
“No!” shouted Purple and Shoogar together. Wilville and Orbur too. “Don’t touch that plug.”
“Huh?” I stopped, my hand on the bone cylinder.
“Don’t do it, Lant! Don’t touch the plug unless I tell you to!”
“But we’re so high above the water. Surely there’s no danger now.”
“I still have four balloons to refill. Where will I get the water I need if you will pull the plug?”
“Oh,” I said. I let go of it quickly.
“Wait a minute,” Shoogar said suddenly, “You can’t use that water for your hydrogen gas. That’s ballast water. It makes us go down, not up.”
“Shoogar, it’s water. Just water,” Purple said patiently.
“But it’s symbological nonsense to think that the same water can make us go in two directions!” And then Shoogar could only make gulping sounds. For Purple had casually dipped up a double handful of water from the bottom of the boat, and was drinking it. Drinking the ballast!
Shoogar choked m impotent rage; he tottered off.
“Why don’t you go sit down too?” Purple suggested to me. “Let me worry about the boat.”
“All right,” I shrugged and sat down on a bench. it was cold and wet like everything else on the Cathawk. From the stern came the sounds of damp rigging being pulled and stretched. Purple was just starting to fill another windbag.
We sailed on through the dark, shivering and miserable. Wilville and Orbur pumped and chanted. Purple filled the balloons. Shoogar and I froze.
A wind came up then and started pushing us north. Any Other time we might have appreciated it. In this sodden darkness though, it only set our teeth to chattering. Wilville and Orbur gave up on their pedaling then — it was too cold to continue. They huddled at the wet bottom of the boat with the rest of us. After a while even Purple joined us. Being wrapped with cold soaking blankets was still better than being exposed to the biting upper air.
Or should have been. My fingers were so numb, I could not even pull the icy cloth tighter about myself.
Sleep was impossible. I muttered constantly. “There’s no such thing as warm, Lant. It’s all your imagination. you’ll never be warm again. You’d better get used to freezing, Lant —”
When Ouells — bright blue and tiny — snapped up over the eastern horizon an hour later, we were still damp with chill, and there was a thin layer of frost on everything in the boat.
The morning was crisp, but rapidly warming.
The sea was a plate of restless blue far below. We seemed higher than we’d ever been in the airship. The edge of the world was almost curved.
Purple said that was an optical illusion. We were much too low to see any real curvature. Gibberish again.
We stretched the blankets across the rigging to dry them in the sun. Our togas as well. Even Purple shed his impact suit and stretched out against the bright morning.
The wind continued to blow steadily north, and Wilville and Orbur were resting on their outrigger cots.
I splashed around in the front of the boat, looking for any foodstuffs that either Purple or the water had missed. I found a half of a sour melon and glumly split it with Shoo-gar. None of the rest wanted any.