She wasn’t beside him. He sat up and banged his head on stone, groped for the knife he had left stuck in the sand. “Chip! Look!”—as he found it and threw himself over onto knees and one hand. She was a dark shape crouched at the cave’s blinding blue opening. He raised the knife, ready to slash whoever was coming.
“No, no,” she said, laughing. “Come look! Come on! You won’t believe it!”
Squinting at the brilliance of sky and sea, he crawled over to her. “Look,” she said happily, pointing up the beach.
A boat sat on the sand about fifty meters away, a small two-rotor launch, old, with a white hull and a red skirting. It sat just clear of the water, tipped slightly forward. There were white splatters on the skirting and the windscreen, part of which seemed to be missing.
“Let’s see if it’s good!” Lilac said. With her hand on Chip’s shoulder she started to rise from the cave; he dropped the knife, caught her arm, and pulled her back. “Wait a minute,” he said.
“What for?” She looked at him.
He rubbed his head where he had bumped it, and frowned at the boat—so white and red and empty and convenient in the bright morning haze-free sun. “It’s a trick of some kind,” he said. “A trap. It’s too convenient. We go to sleep and wake up and a boat’s been delivered for us. You’re right, I don’t believe it.”
“It wasn’t ‘delivered’ for us,” she said. “It’s been here for weeks. Look at the bird stuff on it, and how deep in the sand the front of it is.”
“Where did it come from?” he asked. “There are no islands nearby.”
“Maybe traders brought it from Majorca and got caught on shore,” she said. “Or maybe they left it behind on purpose, for members like us. You said there might be a rescue operation.”
“And nobody’s seen it and reported it in the time it’s been here?”
“Uni hasn’t let anyone onto this part of the beach.”
“Let’s wait,” he said. “Let’s just watch and wait a while.”
Reluctantly she said, “All right.”
“It’s too convenient,” he said.
“Why must everything be inconvenient?”
They stayed in the cave. They ate and rebundled the blankets, always watching the boat. They took turns crawling to the back of the cave, and buried their wastes in sand.
Wave edges slipped under the back of the boat’s skirting, then fell away toward low tide. Birds circled and landed on the windscreen and handrail, four that were sea gulls and two smaller brown ones.
“It’s getting filthier every minute,” Lilac said. “And what if it’s been reported and today’s the day it’s going to be taken away?”
“Whisper, will you?” Chip said. “Christ and Wei, I wish I’d brought a telescope.”
He tried to improvise one from the compass lens, a flashlight lens, and a rolled flap of the food carton, but he couldn’t make it work.
“How long are we going to wait?” she asked.
“Till after dark,” he said.
No one passed on the beach, and the only sounds were the waves’ lapping and the wingbeats and cries of the birds.
He went to the boat alone, slowly and cautiously. It was older than it had looked from the cave; the hull’s flaking white paint showed repair scars, and the skirting was dented and cracked. He walked around it without touching it, looking with his flashlight for signs—he didn’t know what form they would take—of deception, of danger. He didn’t see any; he saw only an old boat that had been inexplicably abandoned, its center seats gone, a third of its windscreen broken away, and all of it spattered with dried white birdwaste. He switched his light off and looked at the cliff—touched the boat’s handrail and waited for an alarm. The cliff stayed dark and deserted in pale moonlight
He stepped onto the skirting, climbed into the boat, and shone his light on its controls. They seemed simple enough: on-off switches for the propulsion rotors and the lift rotor, a speed-control knob calibrated to 100 KPH, a steering lever, a few gauges and indicators, and a switch marked Controlled and Independent that was set in the independent position. He found the battery housing on the floor between the front seats and unlatched its cover; the battery’s fade-out date was April 171, a year away.
He shone his light at the rotor housings. Twigs were piled in one of them. He brushed them out, picked them all out, and shone the light on the rotor within; it was new, shiny. The other rotor was old, its blades nicked and one missing.
He sat down at the controls and found the switch that lighted them. A miniature clock said 5:11 Fri 27 Aug 169. He switched on one propulsion rotor and then the other; they scraped but then hummed smoothly. He switched them off, looked at the gauges and indicators, and switched the control lights off.
The cliff was the same as before. No members had sprung from hiding. He turned to the sea behind him; it was empty and flat, silvered in a narrowing path that ended under the nearly full moon. No boats were flying toward him.
He sat in the boat for a few minutes, and then he climbed out of it and walked back to the cave.
Lilac was standing outside it. “Is it all right?” she asked.
“No, it’s not,” he said. “It wasn’t left by traders because there’s no message or anything in it. The clock stopped last year but it has a new rotor. I didn’t try the lift rotor because of the sand, but even if it works, the skirting is cracked in two places and it may just wallow and get nowhere. On the other hand it may take us directly into ’082—to a little seaside medicenter—even though it’s supposed to be off telecontrol.”
Lilac stood looking at him.
“We might as well try it though,” he said. “If traders didn’t leave it, they’re not going to come ashore while it’s sitting here. Maybe we’re just two very lucky members.” He gave the flashlight to her.
He got the carton and the blanket-bundle from the cave and held one under each arm. They started walking toward the boat. “What about the things to trade?” she said.
“We’ll have it,” he said. “A boat must be worth a hundred times more than cameras and first-aid kits.” He looked toward the cliff. “All right, doctors!” he called. “You can come out now!”
“Shh, don’t!” she said.
“We forgot the sandals,” he said.
“They’re in the carton.”
He put the carton and the bundle into the boat and they scraped the birdwaste from the broken windscreen with pieces of shell. They lifted the front of the boat and hauled it around toward the sea, then lifted the back and hauled again.
They kept lifting and hauling at either end and finally they had the boat down in the surf, bobbing and veering clumsily. Chip held it while Lilac climbed aboard, and then he pushed it farther out and climbed in with her.
He sat down at the controls and switched on their lights. She sat in the seat beside him, watching. He glanced at her—she looked anxiously at him—and he switched on the propulsion rotors and then the lift rotor. The boat shook violently, flinging them from side to side. Loud clankings banged from beneath it. He caught the steering lever, held it, and turned the speed-control knob. The boat splashed forward and the shaking and clanging lessened. He turned the speed higher, to twenty, twenty-five. The clanking stopped and the shaking subsided to a steady vibration. The boat scuffed along on the water’s surface.
“It’s not lifting,” he said.
“But it’s moving,” she said.
“For how long though? It’s not built to hit the water this way and the skirting’s cracked already.” He turned the speed higher and the boat splashed through the crests of swells. He tried the steering lever; the boat responded. He steered north, got out his compass, and compared its reading with the direction indicator’s. “It’s not taking us into ’082,” he said. “At least not yet.”