Oh!”
“What?”
“One of them was saying-you were captured in Hemenway in a room with a lot of plants and things?”
“Yes.”
“You smashed some of the planters?”
“I threw one at people who were throwing spears at me.”
“Why did you pick that one?”
“It was nearest.”
“I hope you can convince them. I gather it was a culture of whatever they are planning to change the air back-something that will reduce nitrates very fast. I don’t know what it uses for energy. That fellow was sure you’d tried to destroy it on purpose.” She thought for some seconds. “I still can’t come up with anything better. Can you?”
“No,” admitted Bones. “In any case, we should start your trip to Copper. I suggest you go to tellthose people what you can. I will make another boat, of the sort I carried the children on; it will save much time in the long run. I’ll be back with it shortly. If they’ll let you come with me, fine; if not, we’ll have to think of something else. If necessary, I will go back and bring the children here; they would be safer, I suppose, even with these other people around.”
“I’m afraid so. We’ll try this, though.” Kahvi got dressed and slid through the hatchway. Bones followed, watched her for a moment as she stood up and began to wade toward the group on the shore, and then dolphined at top speed toward the north and the supply of Newell tissue.
Half an hour later the slab of solid foam came bobbing back into view of the jail area. Kahvi, rather to Bones’ surprise, was waiting in waist-deep water; she clambered onto the crudely streamlined float, and the native promptly headed eastward again.
She looked back several times, but had to give most of her attention to holding on; the board literally bounced from wave to wave at times. She wondered how the children had managed — surely Bones hadn’t travelled this fast with them! No worry; there had been no mention of losing any, and Bones had said that they — plura1, definitely — were safe at Copper.
But there were worries at both ends of the trip. Had the youngsters done anything dangerous?
She could trust her own daughter, but didn’t know the others very well. And what was happening to Earrin, in the hands of the Delinquents? She gave another look aft, and gasped.
Smoke was rising from the jail area — it seemed to be the jail area — her eyes and her mask window wouldn’t let her be certain. It had to be smoke; the sky was cloudless, and it was rising visibly. What had happened? Was Earrin safe? She strained her eyes, but could make out nothing more, and was drawing away from the scene as the seconds passed. Should she go back? What would happen to the children if she did? Maybe Bones could see better, and tell her what was going on.
She jerked repeatedly on the tow harness, but the water was far too choppy to let the Observer tell one tug on the rope from another, and she was swimming entirely under water. The Canton shore and the smoke slowly faded astern, and finally disappeared around the Blue Hills peninsula. Kahvi settled for looking ahead.
The children were safe. After a single glance had made this clear, Kahvi frantically passed the new information to the native. Bones was about to plunge back into the water to go back to Canton; she barely stopped the dive.
“What do you want?” asked the Observer. “I can get back much more quickly alone, and bring I word back to you.”
“But you wouldn’t know what has happened to Earrin! Those young monsters said they’d kill him if anything went wrong, and obviously something’s wrong! They might blame him, or me, for whatever made the smoke.”
“Do you wish to come back and leave these young ones?”
“Yes! — No-I don’t know-the children could still-”
“Your husband can probably take care of himself without you better than they can.
“I suppose he can-but I’m not-I don’t know-look,” Kahvi took command of herself with an effort, “I can ride this other boat you made. The kids can come with us. We can get back pretty quickly; it’s only a few kilos.”
Bones thought of several objections, but curiosity about human psychology won out. Ten minutes later the woman, the three children, and a supply of cartridges and food pods were on the larger boat, and the group was moving as fast as the native could drag it back toward the west.
Kahvi was explaining everything to the children, and all were looking eagerly or anxiously ahead for the moment when Canton would be visible around the big peninsula.
When it was, the sight was not encouraging. The smoke was still rising. Danna whimpered in terror, and the older children were little better off, their own parents were there too. Kahvi would have liked to be encouraging, but there was nothing very helpful that her conscience would let her say. They could only watch and hope as the meters flowed backward and the scene grew clearer.
It was obvious before they neared the raft that the new building was gone. Smoke was still funneling up from where it had been. The raft appeared intact, however, and it seemed unlikely that any of theprisoners would have been in the lab. Danna looked anxiously at the source of the smoke, but her mother was more interested in the crowd of people. This was far larger than it had been. When she had left, a scant hour before, the forty or fifty adolescents and their captives had been near the jail and along the shore. Now there were at least two hundred, she was sure, though they milled about to o much to make counting possible. Were there really this many rebels against common sense and order?
No. She could see now that most of those in sight were barefoot, which was a very good sign. They must be conventional Hillers. What had brought them? And what had happened to the hostages? Kahvi strained to identify faces and forms as the boat drew near, but had not found any she wanted when the slab of foamy tissue slowed and bumped into the suddenly erect form of Bones, a few meters from the beach.
The crowd had seen them coming, and most of its members had turned from the dying fire and spread along the water’s edge. Kahvi slowly got off the boat and stood hip-deep, still looking for her husband. He definitely wasn’t there. Convinced of this, she turned to Bones and signaled briefly, “The children will stay on the boat. Please keep them out of reach of these people until I say it’s all right.” She repeated the essence of these instructions aloud to the children themselves, and then rather hesitantly began to wade toward the crowd.
Suddenly she saw Viah and Jonathan jostling their way from behind the others, and called to them.
“Your boy is all right. So are the others. Where’s Earrin?” The two looked at each other, and Viah finally answered.
“He’s hurt, I’m afraid. Some of the delinquents tried to spear him when the rest of the people showed up. They decided you had sneaked over the Hill and told about them. I think he’ll be all right, but he has some pretty bad cuts and lost a lot of blood.” Kahvi reached the shore as Viah finished speaking.
“Where is he?”
“In the jail. The air is still rather high — the young devils got the cartridge tissue out and the new spores aren’t anywhere near taking over. It seemed better to give him stronger air when he had so much blood gone.” Kahvi frowned, influenced for a moment by her normal prejudices, but said nothing. She had to grant the force of the reasoning.