Less than that. They had drifted for two days since the storm had ended, but food wasn't the major problem. Thirst would kill them long before they could starve.
Dumarest spread the flotation container he had cut open, set it with others and glanced at Bochner.
"Finished yet?"
"Almost." The hunter, too, had a knife, a heavy bladed instrument with a serrated back which could saw through bone. With it, he had cut thin metal into strips and had rolled them into a spiral tube. Plastic cut from a sheet had sealed the joins. "Here."
Taking it, Dumarest set one end into a water-filled container set within the ring of curved metal plates. The other end he sealed within a plastic bag, which he suspended in the sea.
"Some distillery." Dilys shook her head as she studied it. "Where did you get the idea of using focused sunlight to heat the boiler?"
"From you."
"You did?" She blinked, not remembering. "Well, even if it works, the output will be low."
But better than nothing, and it gave them something to do. Egulus and Gale could attend it while Threnond busied himself with his radio. And Dilys, as engineer, had been put in charge of the raft itself.
Now, looking over the ocean, she said, "How long can we last, Earl? I mean really last. I can take the truth even if others can't."
By the movement of her eyes, he knew she meant the other woman.
"We can last as long as we want to."
"On hope?"
"On work. On resolve. You know what keeps people alive? The desire to live. The determination. Too many give up too quickly. They defeat themselves. They wait for help and when none arrives, they give up." Dumarest pointed at the sea. "Look at it. A place full of water and food."
"Food?"
"Fish, girl. Fish."
"If we can catch them. But water?"
"In the fish." He smiled at her blank expression. "Didnt you know that? A fish is full of drinkable water. All you need to do is catch one, cut it open, scrape it to a pulp and eat it."
"Is that all?" She remembered the thing which had almost killed him and which had killed Charl Zeda. "And if it has other ideas?"
"We change its mind." He dropped his hand on her shoulder. "Make me a line and hooks-you'll have to use wire and what metal is available. And something for bait. Bright rag, or something shiny might do to snare our first catch. After that, we can use the body for bait."
Bochner shook his head as he came close. Then, at Dumarest's side, he said softly, "Spacers-what do they know about basic survival? And if you think catching fish is so easy, why all the work on the distillery?"
"You tell me."
"Insurance. You alone, or with one other, could survive with comparative ease. But six of us? No, Earl, not while we're all cramped on this raft. Small fish won't have enough water content to satisfy us all, and if we attract larger specimens, then it will be us, not they, who will provide the repast." Bochner glanced at the sun. "Hot," he mused. "We're going to sweat. A matter of days, I think. Even with fish, a matter of days. Then the trouble will start."
The quarrels, the stealing, the fighting, the apathy and, perhaps, the murders. Certainly the deaths. Who would be the first to go? Threnond was old, but his frame was tough, and in his time he had lived hard. Bochner glanced to where he sat in one of the caskets, busy with his radio. Egulus? Also tough, but with a different form of hardness. Space weakened a man for survival in the wild. Dilys? She was big and so would lose more water because of her larger surface area, but she would have a good reserve of fat and Dumarest would certainly help her all he could. Gale Andrei? Small, compact, light-boned but with scant fat, and accustomed to civilized ease. Already, she had begun to complain. She would be the first to die.
They would all die unless they reached shore soon, or help arrived, and to hope for that was to believe in miracles. Caradoc was on Mucianus, waiting for the Entil to arrive. Trusting in the traps and snares, the arranged cargoes which were to have guided it there, himself to see that Dumarest was on it when it did. A good plan negated by a fool. How long would the cyber wait? Not long, Bochner knew, then Caradoc would go hunting. With luck, he would discover the emergency signals from the Entil. With his trained skill, he might even be able to determine which world they had reached.
And then?
Bochner smiled and stretched his legs and watched Dumarest at his work. The quarry, tracked and now ready at hand, the stalk over and the sport ended before it had really begun. A disappointment. But a question remained: Why did the Cyclan want Dumarest so badly? What did he know or possess which made him so valuable?
To discover that would be to engage in a hunt of another kind and the reward, once the kill was made, could be incredible.
It was taking too long.
Death should not come on slow, creeping feet, but be mercifully swift so that, at the end, there was no pain, not even the anticipation of hurt but a sudden, devastating extinction. There shouldn't be endless days in which the sun burned like a furnace in a mottled sky, and heat radiated from the water, the caskets, the sail itself as it flapped against the mast. Only the nights were kind, the heavens blazing with a luminous splendor reflected in the ocean, the image broken, at times, by leaping shapes, ripples spreading to reach to infinity.
Gale Andrei looked at it, her back against the mast, salt crusting her hair from where she had plunged her head into the sea. Salt which stung her lips and eyes, creating tears which added to the illusion.
Light, winking and shimmering, forming patterns which changed, turning sea and sky into a mirrored image, an intricate chiaroscuro of silver and black which swelled to embrace her, to engulf her, to swallow her in its insatiable mouth. Death wore beauty as a garment. But death came accompanied by pain. Thirst consumed her, a fire which could not be quenched. Her lips were cracked, her throat constricted, every cell and fiber yearning for water. Pools, baths, rivers into which she could plunge. Waterfalls and cascades of icy coldness. Long drinks in dew-adorned glasses, tart and heavy with the chill of ice.
She needed to drink. She had to drink-and if death followed, then it was worth the price.
Lying on the casket, stripped, body glistening with perspiration, Bochner saw her move and said nothing. On another, Dilys, restless, lifted herself on one elbow; a near-naked shape occluding the stars. Wakened by her movement, Dumarest whispered, "Dilys?"
"It's Gale. She-" Her voice rose to a shout. "No, you fool! No!"
Dumarest heard the splash as he rose. Like the others, he was naked but for shorts, hard white flesh gleaming in the starlight, silver droplets lifting as he plunged after the girl who now floated in the sea. Bochner caught him as he reached the edge of the raft. "No!"
"The girl-"
"She's mad. Thirst-crazed. Gulping down sea water even as she bathes in it." He grunted as Dumarest pushed him aside. "No, you fool! The predators-"
They had followed for days, eager for the prey they sensed would inevitably be theirs. Long shapes which glided, breaking water at times, never coming too close to risk capture, ignoring the baited hooks which had only caught their natural prey sheltering under the raft. Now, as the girl thrashed in wild abandon, they closed in.
Dumarest saw them as he stood, knife in hand, eyes calculating time and distance. A moment, then he dived, hitting the water in a shallow curve, reaching the girl to grab her by the hair, to drag back her face, to slam his knife-weighted fist hard against her jaw. As he headed back to the edge of the raft, the first predator struck.