This time Bren prayed the Taibeni overruled the young gentleman.
“The dowager has landed, nandi,” the estate called to report.
“Do as she asks in all particulars,” he said, knowing there wasn’t much his estate could do more than they had done. They had both boats out, every fisherman was out, Lord Geigi’s people were out, and there was nothing Ilisidi could do, except deploy her young men out along the roads where village folk were already searching, and look with whatever high-tech gear her bodyguard had brought with them—that was one hope she brought with her—that, and the fact that the aiji now knew, and would be deploying his own people, a presence that did not announce itself.
But now the light was fading fast, and lightning flickered in the clouds to the west, which loomed up taller and taller. The wind had not changed—yet. But that front was rolling in fast. Radar, they had, but the sailboat had no reflector, and radar thus far picked up nothing—because the boat was so low and so small—
That, or because the boat was not there to be found. But he refusedto think that.
Out on deck, Banichi and Tano and Algini relied on their night vision, having requested the running lights be cut off. Theycould see in the murk, and Bren cut even the chart light most of the time, relying on the slight glow that lit the compass. He was using the locator; he had told Banichi and the other two that if they saw three rocks ahead or looked to be getting closer to the shore, that they should run and warn him. He had laid a course to miss the Sisters; but they were a hazard, one the sailboat could run right over, but the Jeishancouldn’t. Even with the locator, it wasn’t an area to try to search in the gathering dark.
Ilisidi had not called: that was for security reasons, but he talked to the house, off and on, reporting indirectly about the “lost child.” If the aiji’s enemies could not put two and two together, with the aiji-dowager having landed at the local airport, they were asleep tonight. But things were as they were.
More lightning, this time with the rumble of thunder, and Bren cast a routine glance at the fuel gauge, thinking that the same wind blew both bad and good—both saved them fuel and made the location of the little boat an even chancier guess.
Big bolt, that split the sky end to end of the windshield, and threw the bow railing of the boat and his bodyguard into stark contrast to the darkening water.
Then a beep from the radio alerted him to a call, and he fumbled the headset up, keeping one hand on the wheel. “This is the paidhi-aiji. Go ahead.”
“This is Baiji out of Kajiminda, nand’ paidhi. Radar has picked up one brief anomaly.”
“Bearing?” he asked, white-knuckled on the wheel, and he absorbed it to memory and signed off abruptly, having no hand to spare to write it down in grease pencil on the chart until he had dropped the headset. He steered blind for a moment, trying to figure that location on the chart relative to Jeishan.
Baiji could only be approximate in location: it might have been a piece of flotsam. If he left the search pattern, it left a gap in their net, maybe a critical one.
But it was the first hope they had had.
He snatched up the headset again. Called Toby’s boat. Jago answered.
“We shall be moving on the report of a blip in Baiji’s search, nadi-ji, as fast as we can. It may be nothing. But we are going there. Keep your pattern.”
“Yes,” was Jago’s terse answer, and he wished Jago’s night-sight was out there in the darkc but Jago needed to be at Brighter Days’radio. Probably Barb was out on deck, at that post.
He didn’t want to worry about that. He simply throttled up and veered onto the new heading.
Lightning split the sky, far out from the cloud, and it had gotten darker and darker.
Cloud was much, much taller than it had been. It covered three quarters of the sky and it was still coming.
“Sleep,” Cajeiri said to Antaro and Jegari. “Sleep if you can. It will be hard to do once the storm comes. I am pulling us as close to the land as I can without losing the wind. All we can do is what we are doing. When that storm hits, the wind may carry us ashore.”
Before it sinks us, he thought, but he did not say it.
They tried to sleep. He sat and thought, and thought, and it seemed to him somewhere in the books he had read there was something about a sea anchor one used in storms on wooden ships.
Well, theirs was a wooden ship. And they had a bit of rope, not much of it, just what one might use for tying up. But he thought about it, and he thought if the wind started pushing them and the waves dashed them around, having something large and soppy trailing them on a string would possibly keep them from rocking so much and maybe keep them aimed better. Truth, he had no clear memory what it was really supposed to do for a ship. But they had their rope, and they had three coats, and if they sacrificed one and just heaved it out, it might help.
They just had to stay upright and not have a wave go over them. Then, maybe since storms went to shore, the wind could drive them there.
His mind raced, trying to think of things they could do.
He thought about ripping up the benches and seeing if they could use those for oars. But they were very solid. He was not sure they could get them free. And it might weaken the boat.
The cloud flashed with lightning, and thunder boomed right over them, rousing his companions.
Cajeiri grabbed up Jegari’s coat, which they never had been able to get dry.
“Get the tie rope,” he said. It was all the free rope they had. The wind, like a rowdy child, might roll them right over if they kept wallowing about like this. The waves when they hit the boat tended to slosh right into it. And that was getting scary.
They got the rope. He tied Jegari’s once very good coat into a bundle and threw it overboard, and tied the other end to the boat.
Lightning showed two worried faces.
“We shall come through,” he said to them, and the thunder boomed, and about then a gust of wind hit the boat. He made a desperate try with the tiller, but so far their sea anchor did nothing, and water slapped the boat and rocked it in a moment of following lull.
But slowly, slowly they did slew about a bit—the tiller still not working, but the sail starting to fill. He dared not lose that little boom rope. He took a double and triple tie on its end to be sure that the boom stayed within limits.
“Sit in the bottom together!” he cried. “Link arms and keep out of the way of the boom. It will be rough!” It might be a stupid idea, but it was better than no idea, and the waves were ruffling up and the wind was like a hammer, making the ropes start to sing as the sail strained and the dragging sea anchor lagged behind them. He had no reference point to tell where they were going. But the wind was coming more or less at their backs, and spray came up, mingled with rain as, all of a sudden and with a rush of wind and a crash of lightning, the heavens opened up and let loose on them. Water sloshed in. He kept one hand on the little rope, one on the tiller, and now with that one wave, the bottom of the boat was awash.
“The little bucket!” he shouted out. “Use the bucket!”
Antaro leaned back to get it from behind his feet, and got back again, and they did, one of them and then the other; and meanwhile the rigging screamed, and the rope burned his hand when the boom jerked outward. He hauled as hard as he could, thinking—if the little rope broke, if that little twist of rope let go or something came untied, or he even made a mistake and lost his grip and let the force of the wind hit that knot he had made, they were all going to die.
They bailed and bailed. Jegari was trying to do something in the interval. Lightning flashes showed him trying to link his belt to Antaro’sc Antaro the one of them with no life preserver.