‘There will be a time factor involved in the production of this.’
‘How long?’
‘I would estimate it at about half an hour.’
‘I’ll wait, but it better not be much longer.’
‘It’ll be as soon as possible, Miss Catto. Are there any other requirements?’
A.A. Catto smiled.
‘Only the usual ones.’
She cut the connection, and lay on the bed waiting. Would it be more fun to dress up? Make the Steward rip her clothes off? She decided she had had enough violence for one day. In addition, it was too much trouble, dressing only to undress again. It was, after all, only a Steward. She would just lie there naked and let him service her. When she’d had enough, she’d, dismiss him. There was no point in making elaborate arrangements for a Steward-1.
Twenty-five minutes later the door buzzer sounded again. A.A, Catto smiled and pushed the entry button. A young man with slicked-back, patent leather hair, dark, flashing eyes and cruel mouth strode into A.A. Catto’s bedroom.
‘I am here, Miss Catto.’
His appearance was perfect, he was just what A.A. Catto had ordered. She wondered, however, if his voice and gestures were a little too theatrical. She’d report the fact to the Steward service when she was through with him.
The young man posed at the end of her bed while A.A. Catto examined him. After a couple of minutes, he cleared his throat.
‘I was instructed to inform you that I am also programmed to do the tango.’
***
During his third turn with the paddle, Reave began to bitch. Apart from the strange apparition, nothing had appeared that gave any indication of land. Billy looked up from where he was dozing in the bow of the canoe.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘I’m hungry, and I’m tired. I’m sick of this fucking lake, and I’m sick of not getting anywhere.’
Billy yawned.
‘Too bad.’
Reave glared.
‘What do you mean, too bad? If something doesn’t turn up soon we’re going to die out here.’
‘What am I supposed to do? Get excited or something? Before you start handing me the you-got-me-into-this line, just remember that it was me that wanted to stay in Dropville.’
‘You would have died in Dropville.’
‘I’m going to die here, according to you. It strikes me that I’d have been better off dying in Dropville.’
Reave scowled.
‘Is that what you really think?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah?’
There was a moment of tension, and then the two of them realized the absurdity of attempting to fight in the small canoe and relaxed.
‘There’s no point in getting on each other’s back. We’re stuck here and there’s nothing we can do about it.’
Reave went on paddling for some time, and then Billy took over. Their changing places was the only thing that gave them any idea of the passage of time. Nothing else changed. There was only the still water and the unchanging sky. Hunger gnawed at their stomachs, and the boredom of their surroundings provided nothing to distract them. Billy felt that his world was totally composed of paddling, sleeping, and waiting for starvation to creep slowly up on them.
Reave was sitting in the bow staring into space, and Billy was mechanically paddling, when Reave suddenly stiffened.
‘There’s something out there.’
Billy looked up.
‘You sure you’re not seeing things?’
Reave pointed.
‘Look for yourself.’
Billy pushed up his dark glasses and shaded his eyes with his hand. He could just about make out a dark smudge on the horizon.
‘Seems like there’s something out there.’
Billy paddled harder and the dark object came nearer.
‘It looks like an island of some sort.’
‘It’s kind of small for an island.’
They paddled nearer. The island turned out to be a floating reed bed, a mat of tangled vegetation that lay sluggishly on the surface of the lake. Billy prodded it with his paddle and oily water oozed up between the fibrous plants. Reave stared at it morosely.
‘This ain’t much use to us.’
‘Maybe not. It could be a sign that we’re getting nearer land. Have you noticed anything about the air?’
Reave looked puzzled.
‘Don’t think so.’
‘There’s a smell. Fish, and, I don’t know, maybe plants, or dead leaves.’
Reave sniffed the air.
‘You could be right. Let’s keep going. At least it’s a sign of something.’
He crawled towards Billy.
‘Here. Give me the paddle. If there’s land out there, let’s get to it.’
Reave paddled with renewed vigour. They passed more of the floating vegetation. The tangled beds became more numerous, and here and there they linked up to form huge areas of matted plant life. Billy and Reave were soon paddling along channels that separated the now vast reed beds. The air was filled with the swamp smell of decaying plant life, and the water became black and stagnant. Mosquitoes and brightly coloured dragonflies danced over the surface of the water, and pale flowers struggled to hold their own among the crawling dark green plants.
The reed beds grew thicker, and Billy and Reave found that they had to force the boat through increasingly narrow spaces, and even hack their way with the paddle through the thinner parts of the beds.
Billy peered down into the black water. It seemed to be getting more shallow. The boat occasionally scraped some hard object and Billy thought he could make out shapes under the water. They looked like the ruins of something man-made.
The canoe stuck fast and wouldn’t move. Billy took off his belt, slipped over the side, and sank up to his waist in the swamp before he found a footing. He put a shoulder to the stern of the boat and heaved. At first nothing happened, then there was a grating, ripping sound and Reave let out a yell.
‘There’s a hole in the fucking boat. Water’s coming in.’
The canoe began to list badly and Reave splashed into the black water beside Billy.
‘We’ve had the canoe.’
‘My porta-pac and gun are still inside.’
Reave leaned over the side of the settling canoe and fished them out. Billy looped them over his shoulder.
‘I guess we better foot it until we reach some firmer ground.’
‘Nothing else we can do.’
They found that each time they moved their feet, sluggish bubbles of foul-smelling gas rose to the surface and burst. Small black insects darted about, and mosquitoes laughed at them. They stumbled and fell often. As Billy had thought, under the layer of liquid mud there were heaps of some kind of jagged rubble on which they stubbed their toes and twisted their ankles. The going was almost impossible, and although they were soaked from the waist down, sweat poured down their faces. Billy stopped, with swamp water up to his knees.
‘Listen, I just had an idea. If we were to turn on our porta-pacs the extra buoyancy might make it easier.’
‘If they still work after the number of times we’ve dropped them in the mud.’
Billy held his up, shook it, and pressed the on button. There was a ripple as the field came on. It proved to be a good deal easier to move. They covered another three hundred yards, and Billy found that here and there patches of dry land covered in coarse spiky grass rose above the level of lie swamp. Billy and Reave staggered up on to one of the dry hummocks and flopped down.
‘Jesus, I’m exhausted.’
‘At least we seem to be getting somewhere. There seems to be more firm ground as you go on.’
The ground beyond them was more solid. There were wide areas of the spiky grass. Further on a few short twisted trees struggled to survive. In the distance they could just see a line of low hills.