“There is no inconvenience,” said Binichi, and bubbled in his throat. The envoy neither moved nor answered.
“This raft,” said Chuck, “has food aboard it for me, but nothing, I think, that either one of you could use. There’s water, of course. Otherwise, I imagine Binichi can make out with the sea all around him, the way it is; and I’m afraid there’s not much to be done for you, Envoy, until we reach land. Then you’ll be in Binichi’s position of being able to forage for yourself.”
The envoy still did not answer. There was no way of knowing what he was thinking. Sitting facing the two of them, Chuck tried to imagine what it must be like for the Tomah, forced into a position inches away from his most deadly traditional enemy. And with the private preserves of that enemy, the deep-gulfed sea, source of all his culture’s legends and terrors, surrounding him. True, the envoy was the pick of his people, a learned and intelligent being—but possibly there could be such a situation here that would try his self-control too far.
Chuck had no illusion about his ability to cope, barehanded, with either one of his fellow passengers—let alone come between them if they decided on combat. At the same time he knew that if it came to that, he would have to try. There could be no other choice; for the sake of humanity’s future here on this world, all three races would hold him responsible.
The raft plodded on toward the horizon. Neither the Tomah nor Binichi had moved. They seemed to be waiting.
They traveled all through the afternoon, and the night that followed. When the sun came up the following morning they seemed not to have moved at all. The sea was all around them as before and unchanging. Binichi now lay half-curled upon the yielding bottom of the raft, his eyes all but closed. The envoy appeared not to have moved an inch. He stood tensely in his corner, claw at half-cock, like a statue carved from his native rock.
With the rising sun, the wind began to freshen. The gray rolling furrows of the sea’s eternal surface deepened and widened. The raft tilted, sliding up one heavy slope and down another.
“Binichi!” said Chuck.
The Lugh opened his near eye lazily.
“Is it going to storm?”
“There will be wind,” said Binichi.
“Much wind?” asked Chuck—and then realized that his question was too general. “How high will the waves be?”
“About my height,” said Binichi. “It will be calmer in the afternoon.”
It began to grow dark rapidly after that. By ten o’clock on Chuck’s chronometer it was as murky as twilight. Then the rain came suddenly, and a solid sheet of water blotted out the rest of the raft from his eyes.
Chuck clung to the thrust unit for something to hang onto. In the obscurity, the motion of the storm was eerie. The raft seemed to plunge forward, mounting a slope that stretched endlessly, until with a sudden twist and dip, it adopted a down-slant to forward—and then it seemed to fly backward in that position with increasing rapidity until its angle was as suddenly reversed again. It was like being on a monstrous seesaw that, even as it went up and down, was sliding back and forth on greased rollers.
At some indeterminate time later, Chuck began to worry about their being washed out of the raft. There were lines in the locker attached midway to the left-hand side of the raft. He crawled forward on hands and knees and found the box. It opened to his cold fingers, and he clawed out the coiled lines.
It struck him then, for the first time, that on this small, circumscribed raft, he should have bumped into Binichi or the envoy in making his way to the box. He lifted his face to the wind and the rain and darkness, but it told him nothing. And then he felt something nudge his elbow.
“He is gone,” said the voice of the envoy’s translator, in Chuck’s ear.
“Gone?” yelled Chuck above the storm.
“He went over the side a little while ago.”
Chuck clung to the box as the raft suddenly reversed its angle.
“How do you know?”
“I saw him,” said the envoy.
“You—” Chuck yelled, “you can see in this?”
There was a slight pause.
“Of course,” said the envoy. “Can’t you?”
“No.” Chuck unwound the lines. “We better tie ourselves into the raft,” he shouted. “Keep from being washed overboard.”
The envoy did not answer. Taking silence for assent, Chuck reached for him in the obscurity and passed one of the lines about the chitinous body. He secured the line tightly to the ring-handgrips fastened to the inner side of the raft’s edge. Then he tied himself securely with a line around his waist to a handgrip further back by the thrust unit.
They continued to ride the pitching ocean. After some time, the brutal beating of the rain slackened off; and a little light began to filter through. The storm cleared then, as suddenly as it had commenced. Within minutes the raft heaved upon a metal-gray sea under thinning clouds in a sky from which the rain had ceased falling.
Teeth chattering, Chuck crawled forward to his single remaining passenger and untied the rope around him. The envoy was crouched down in his corner, his great claw hugging his back, as if he huddled for warmth. When Chuck untied him, he remained so motionless that Chuck was struck with the sudden throat-tightening fear that he was dead.
“Are you all right?” asked Chuck.
“Thank you,” said the envoy; “I am in perfect health.”
Chuck turned away to contemplate the otherwise empty raft. He was, he told himself, doing marvelously. Already, one of his charges had taken off… and then, before he could complete the thought, the raft rocked suddenly and the Lugh slithered aboard over one high side.
He and Chuck looked at each other. Binichi bubbled comfortably.
“Looks like the storm’s over,” said Chuck.
“It is blowing to the south of us now,” said the Lugh.
“How far are we from land, now?”
“We should come to it,” said Binichi, “in the morning.”
Chuck blinked a little in surprise. This was better time than he had planned. And then he realized that the wind was blowing at their backs, and had been doing so all through the storm. He looked up at the sky. The sun was past its zenith, and a glance at his watch, which was corrected for local time, showed the hands at ten minutes to three. Chuck turned his attention back to Binichi, revolving the phraseology of his next question in his mind.
“Did you get washed overboard?” he asked, at last.
“Washed overboard?” Binichi bubbled. “I went into the water. It was more pleasant.”
“Oh,” said Chuck.
They settled down once more to their traveling.
A little over an hour later the raft jarred suddenly and rocked as if, without warning, it had found a rock beneath it, here in the middle of the ocean. For a second Chuck entertained the wild idea that it had. But such a notion was preposterous. There were undersea mountains all through this area, but the closest any came to the surface was a good forty fathoms down. At the same time the envoy’s claw suddenly shot up and gaped above him, as he recoiled toward the center of the boat; and, looking overboard, Chuck came into view of the explanation for both occurrences.
A gray back as large around as an oil drum and ten to twelve feet in length was sliding by about a fathom and a half below them. At a little distance off Chuck could make out a couple more. As he watched, they turned slowly and came back toward the raft again.