Pagina creata il 16 Novembre 1997
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It may have been an hour after daybreak when Conan first became aware of the faint sound he had not wanted to hear. It was only a faraway bee drone, but it destroyed any hope that distance might have brought a measure of security. Land was well over the horizon behind them now, and the wind, which had driven them steadily for hours, seemed to be freshening. Under the lift of the great lateen sail the craft was almost planing.
He had not had the heart to awaken Teacher. The old man, swaddled in blankets, was still curled up asleep on the starboard side of the motor. One glance at that drawn and badly bruised face and he decided not to disturb him unless the bee drone came much closer.
He prayed for the sound to go away. For several intervals it did, but always it returned, louder, and he realized the helicopter must be flying a zigzag course, trying to cover a wide section of the sea. In the constant haze it remained invisible for a long time. Then suddenly he made it out, a moving dot that he might have taken for a bird but for the sound it made.
He turned to call Teacher, and found the old man sitting up, listening intently.
Suddenly Teacher ordered, "Heave to, then cut off the motor. We’ve got to take in the sail and spread it over us."
They hastily lowered the long spar, and managed to spread the gray plastic over most of the vessel. Almost before they could lash it down securely, the helicopter was swinging past, only a few hundred yards off the port quarter.
Conan could hardly believe his eyes when the machine continued on its way, paying not the slightest attention to them. "What’s wrong with them?" he asked, shaken. "Couldn’t they see us?"
"No," said Teacher. "Thanks to the gray plastic. It’s almost the same color as the water. And I think they’re looking for two boats—one towing the other. It hasn’t occurred to them that we may have turned into something different."
"But what are we going to do? They are ahead of us now, and if we use the sail, they may spot us later."
"Use the motor. If we keep going, we ought to run into some fog later. Then we can make sail."
Conan searched the hazy distance. "I think there’s a line of fog way off to the left—to port, I mean."
"Head for it. This is where your vision counts. I’m unable to make out anything—or sense it, I should say —more than a hundred feet beyond me."
Conan switched on the motor and started at full speed for the distant fogbank. They were quartering into thc wind now, and without the sail they seemed to be barely creeping along. Momentarily he expected to hear the helicopter returning, but the morning was half gone before he heard the sound of it again, and by this time they were safely hidden by the fog.
Wearily he helped raise the sail and turned the tiller over to Teacher. He fell asleep the moment he stretched out by the motor. It was the first rest he had had in more than twenty-four hours.
When he awoke it was black dark, so dark that he could not even make out Teacher at the helm a few feet away. The motor was still going, and the craft was sliding easily along on the same tack she had been on earlier.
He felt his way aft and took the tiller from Teacher, saying accusingly, "Why did you let me sleep so long?"
The old man chuckled. "For the same reason you let me sleep so long last night. But I was about to call you. I must try to get in touch with Mazal."
"Oh. I guess it’s been impossible lately."
"Yes, and she’s frantic. I can always pick up her messages, even bits she doesn’t want me to know. But she still has trouble getting mine. The last she got was that we were planning to escape—but she doesn’t know what’s happened. Tonight I’ve got to get through to her and warn her."
"Warn her? About what?"
"They’re having trouble at High Harbor. Our getting away is going to make it worse—it may bring it all to a head. But I’ll explain it later."
Teacher moved forward into the blackness. Conan, suddenly disturbed, clung grimly to the tiller and tried to find reason in what he’d just been told. But it made no sense. Finally, aware of hunger, he fumbled in the food locker under the triangular afterdeck, took sandwiches from an opened package, and ate them without enjoyment. He was thinking a little wistfully of raw fish and kelp when Teacher returned.
"Thank heaven," the old man murmured. "I managed to get through to her this time."
"What’s going on there? Why, just because we escaped—"
"Conan, do you remember a boy named Orlo?"
"Yes, sir. He was the one I had a fight with the night everybody was waiting to be flown to High Harbor, There wasn’t much point to it, except that he wanted to run things. Anyhow, he had the reach on me, and I couldn’t handle him."
"Well, it seems he still has the reach on everyone, and still wants to run things. He’d like to take over High Harbor. And he may—with the help of the New Order. "
"That doesn’t sound good. But how—?"
"I’m just looking ahead, Conan. First, let me tell you something. We’ve already been spotted."
"No! "
"It happened this morning, soon after you went to sleep. That helicopter came back."
"I heard it coming. But with all the fog I thought we were safe!"
"So did I. But we ran into a rift just as the fellow came by. We were out of it and back into the fog in seconds, but it was all the time he needed to circle and take a good look at us. So now they know what we’re like and where we’re headed."
"But aren’t we headed straight for High Harbor?"
"No. Not in the shape we’re in now. There’s a dangerous sea to cross, and there are no charts to help us, We’d never make it. We need a better sail, a stronger hull, a more efficient rudder, a proper centerboard..."
They needed, Conan learned, a dozen improvements to make their flimsy craft more seaworthy. He’d thought of it as strong, but now he discovered that without extra bracings the hull could easily break apart, and that even their slotted keel was a danger. It was thrust straight down, rigid in its slot, and if it struck anything submerged it could tear the bottom out of the boat.
"So we must find an island," said Teacher. "Fast. And fix our vessel and get under way again before they discover us. For they’ll come searching. My guess is that they’ll call the survey ship back right away."
"What about their other boat? Not the trawler—"
"You mean the trade ship—the one Dyce has at High Harbor? They’ll leave it there, of course. Can’t you see?"
Conan scowled into the night. "As a sort of ace in the hole, you mean?"
"Exactly. That’s why I’m so concerned. If we get away, if we escape them entirely and reach High Harbor, their one chance of getting me will be through Dyce. But Dyce must first gain control of the place. He can’t do it alone. He has only a few men, and he doesn’t dare start anything new."
"New? You mean he’s been pulling some tricks?"
"Yes, but that was before he could have learned anything about our escape. I’m sure he’s been told by now. So his next move is to get Orlo’s help, and try to organize all those discontented young people who are growing up half wild. Now do you understand?"
Conan whistled. "What a mess! How long will it take us to sail to High Harbor?"
The old man sighed. "There’s no answer to that question, son. If we were entirely seaworthy at this moment, and had a fair wind all the way, it would take us three weeks. But the wind is never fair all the time, and we’re not seaworthy. So pray that we sight an island in the morning...."
All through the next day Conan watched hopefully for a smudge of darker gray in the constant haze ahead that would indicate land. Land was out here somewhere, dozens of little spots of it. He had lived on one tiny spot for a while, and Teacher had lived on another, and after his capture he had glimpsed more in the distance from the deck of the patrol vessel. Those bits of land, so far as he had been able to learn, were scattered for hundreds of miles around the sea’s upper perimeter.
Why couldn’t they find one now?
But twilight came before they had sighted anything, even a wandering seabird. Soon afterward the battery, which had driven the motor so much longer than Conan would have dreamed, died abruptly. He heaved it over the side and connected one of the two remaining batteries.
"Better save the power," Teacher advised. "We may need it later. We should be somewhere close to the island chain now, if not beyond it."
To remain within sight of the chain, they changed course to a more westerly direction and sailed close-hauled through the night. With the first light of morning Conan began looking hopefully again for a gray smudge in the haze.
This was their third day at sea. With the ever-thickening haze, the darkening water, and the occasional long, drifting fingers of mist, Conan was aware of the changing latitude. It was beginning to have a familiar feel. And familiar, too, was that gradually deepening tone spreading through the northwest sky. He had seen it many times in the past five years, and it always brought bad weather.
All through the morning he managed to hold back his uneasiness with the belief that islands were near and that they would surely sight one soon. But that endless day wore on to another evening, and still they had sighted nothing. By now the wind had died to a whisper. They were losing headway, and their craft was beginning to pitch uncomfortably in a rising swell.
Then Conan saw Teacher raise his white head and sit up stiffly in an attitude of listening.
"What is it?" he asked. But before Teacher could answer, he saw the distant smudge far off their starboard bow. For an instant, hope rose with the thought that he had sighted an island. With a shock he realized the smudge had movement.
"It’s the survey ship," said the old man, whose hearing Conan had long ago accepted as phenomenal. "I know the sound of her." He started the motor, and added quickly, "We’ll have to come about and run for it. It’s our only chance."
On the new tack, motor-driven, they raced down the long sea slopes with hardly enough wind to belly the sail. Conan glanced back at the survey ship. There was a moment when he saw it with frightening clearness against the lowering sky behind it, and there was no question but that it had sighted them. Already it was changing course and swinging toward them. Then he lost it in the swift dark of obliterating storm that was spreading across the world.
Suddenly he heard the wind. He and Teacher leaped for the sail at the same time, trying frantically to lower it and gather it in before it was torn away from them. They managed it, barely, and lashed it down and secured the yard while the vessel yawed and plunged madly.
The wind’s voice became a scream. A breaking sea smashed against them, and water coaming. A violent gust seemed to lift them. Before it hurled them down, Conan heard a sharp sound he could not identify. But when he grabbed for the support of the yard, which had been secured to the after. deck, he could not find it. Either wind or sea had torn it away, and taken the sail with it.
Faintly above the wind he heard Teacher shout hoarsely, "Conan, we can’t stay afloat in this! Get one of the bags—lash it to you!"
In his torment over the failure of all their hopes, he did not immediately understand what Teacher was saying. But as he vainly fought to keep the vessel headed downwind, it came to him that Teacher meant the plastic bags in which they’d stowed their blankets and clothing.
He began groping for one. Astern, a searchlight swept the blackness, passed over them, and returned to pin them for a moment in its glare. The ship was so close that it seemed to Conan it was bound to run them down. But it slid past in the darkness like a phantom, and he did not see the searchlight again.
His free hand touched one of the bags. He tried to grip it while he fought the tiller with his other hand. He had it, then suddenly he didn’t, for at that instant they struck. They struck something with such force that he could feel the vessel break apart where it had been joined, and he was catapulted out of the stern sheets and into the welter of flying spume and crashing seas.
He tried to cry out to Teacher, but water closed over him. It tugged him down and pounded him against the bottom, and for an eternity he became only a battered plaything of the surf.