"Now, bring your feet around under you one at a time," he said. "That's it. Now grab your oar and stand up. Next time, keep your mind on where you put your feet!"
"Master Snyol!" came an offended voice. "Though you have rescued me from peril dire, no license does that grant you to address me as if I were some kitchen drab!"
"I'll address you worse than that if you don't obey orders! Come on."
She sank into silence. Barnevelt felt a little contrite over his outburst, but not to the point of apologizing. After all, he told himself, with these Qiribo dames you had to get the bulge on them at the start or, accustomed as they were to commanding, they'd walk all over you.
At that, it was probably the first time in Zei's life that any mere male had addressed her so roughly. It must have been quite a shock, he thought with a trace of malicious relish. He wondered why he felt that way, and presently realized that neither had he ever so spoken to a woman before. His pleasure must come from a subconscious satisfaction at asserting his masculinity against the female sex. He cautioned himself not to take his burgeoning aggressiveness out on poor Zei, who was not responsible for his upbringing.
He cast a look at her as she splashed beside him. With her gauzy tunic soaked and the light of the three moons upon her, she might almost as well have had no clothes on. Metaphors of goddesses rising from the sea crossed his mind…
Off to eastward, perhaps a hundred meters away, the surface suddenly heaved. Something dark and shiny—a head or flipper?—showed in the moonlight and then vanished with a loud splash.
"I think," he said, "we'd better both be careful about falling into holes… Wonder how Zakkomir's making out? I like the young fellow and can't understand why he seems so anxious to get himself killed."
"You came, did you not?"
Barnevelt paused before answering. "Ye-es, but then… Is there an—uh—understanding between you and him?" (He had already asked Zakkomir a similar question, but confirmation would be desirable.)
"Not at all," she replied. "As a loyal subject and familiar of the royal family he's naturally happy to risk his life for the crown."
Well, thought Barnevelt, such feelings no doubt existed among people brought up in a monarchy, even though he, as a native of a planet where the democratic republic had become the standard governmental form, found it hard to imagine.
They continued their plod and presently came to the bow of the up-ended derelict. Holding the rail, they pulled themselves up the steep deck to a hatch to rest.
Barnevelt looked north but was still not sure he could see the sail of the rendezvous raft. However, he had a good idea of its direction, and thought he could find it by frequent back-sighting. The settlement of the Morya Sunqaruma was now a dark irregular outline on the southerly horizon. Barnevelt picked out the storeship, which he could still discern, as a mark to sight on.
"How are your feet?" he asked.
"Though this be no ballroom floor, yet they will abide."
"Okay, let's go."
They took off across the vine again. The clustered moons now hung low, and Barnevelt thought he saw a faint light in the East, reaching up from the horizon in a great wedge. After a while it faded; this must be the poets' "phantom of false morning." He continued to back-sight on the half-sunk hulk and the storeship.
The moons sank lower, and the pallor of the eastern sky this time looked like the real thing. The smaller stars of the unfamiliar constellations went out, and the sail of the rendezvous raft came into plain sight.
As they neared their goal, Barnevelt lengthened his stride in his eagerness to get aboard and take off his footgear. He drew ahead of Zei who, finding herself towed behind him, called: "Not quite so fast, pray!"
Barnevelt turned his head to answer, and at that instant his skis pitched forward. The water came up and closed over his head with a gurgle.
Before he came to the surface, something struck him a sharp blow in the back, and then he was tangled with human limbs. He knew what had happened: Being behind him, instead of to one side of him, Zei had not been able to resist the pull of the rope as he went into the hole but had been towed right in after him.
He finally got his head clear, broke a length of terpahla that had wrapped itself around his neck, and began to climb out. It was harder than he expected, for the skis got fouled in the vine and made normal movements impossible. When he finally got his legs under him and recovered his oar, he sidled away from the hole and helped Zei out by pulling on the rope.
When she had coughed up half the Banjao Sea and recovered her breath, she said: "I trust, my lord, you'll not deem it impertinent if I advocate that you, too, watch where you place your feet?"
He grinned shamefacedly. "Turn abqut's fair play, as we say in Nyamadze. We're nearly there, thank the gods."
As the light waxed he saw why he had fallen in. They were nearing the edge of the solid part of the Sunqar, and there were many gaps in the vine. Ahead, beyond the raft, the ^Wne was not solid at all, but drifting in yellow-brown patches of all sizes.
At last they clattered on to the raft and sank down on its moldering timbers with a simulataneous sigh of exhaustion. Barnevelt untied his ski lashings and turned his attention to those of his companion. She winced at his touch, and when he got.the rope and the canvas wrappings off he saw that her feet had been chafed raw in several places.
"Great Qondyor!" he said. "These must have hurt! Why didn't you tell me?"
"To what end? You could not have borne me across this insubstantial floor of floating weed, and my plaint would only have distracted you from your proper task."
"You've got guts," he said, pulling off his boots and socks and wringing out the latter.
"I thank you." Then she laughed. "Look at your legs!"
In the increasing light he saw his legs were streaked with blue where the dye of the expressman's uniform had run.
A pre-dawn breeze sprang up, making Barnevelt shiver.
"Brr!" said Zei. "And I had but just got dry from the previous ducking! Here, doff that wet apparel and suffer me to wring it out. Otherwise 'twill not dry for hours in this dank."
Suiting the action to the word she slid out of her own flimsy garb and wrung it over the side. Dirk's Chautauqua County past rose up and covered him with a blush as rosy as the dawn, while Zei, with no more self-consciousness than a one-year-old, hung her clothes on the raft's remaining mast stay and said: "What holds my lord from action? Are you maimed in your members?"
Barnevelt mutely obeyed.
As he took off his jacket, Sheafase's letter fell out. He crumpled it and threw it away. It would serve no useful purpose now and might cause trouble if it incited Queen Alvandi's curiosity as to why the Morya Sunqaruma were so interested in her friends from Nyamadze.
He said: "One good dose of sunburn on those sore feet would cripple you for fair. Maybe I could cut down this old sail to cover us—but no, I'd better leave it up for the time being so Chask can find us."
"And if your ship comes not?"
"I've been wondering. Maybe I could sneak back to the settlement at night to steal food and stores for re-rigging this raft or building a new one. Doesn't sound practical, though."
"Oh, so versatile a hero as yourself will overcome all obstacles. Meanwhile, how about sustenance? For I do hunger with a monstrous appetite."
"Now where would I find anything to eat out here?"
"But one of your proven resource and aptitude can surely devise some ingenious expedient…"
"Thanks for the compliments, darling, but even I have limitations. And don't look at me with that famished expression. It reminds me of that beastly custom of your nation."
"Nay, twit me no longer on that subject! The custom was not of my instigation. And fear not that towards you I entertain plans anthropophagous, for like a shomal bred for racing you'd prove all bone and gristle."