Antaro suddenly paused bailing, pointed out into the dark ahead and a little to the right. “I see a light!” she cried.
He could not see it. He thought it wishful thinking.
And then he did see it, a faint, faint glow. They had no light to signal back. Water hit him in the face, salt water, that stung. He could no longer feel the tiller under his arm, his face was numb.
But the light reappeared as he blinked clear, a faint glimmer. “The light isthere!” he cried. It went out again, lost in the murk, and then reappeared. It might be a house on the shore, he thought, and hugged the tiller and feathered the rope as the boat tipped and rocked alarmingly in the gusts. “ ’Gari-ji, if we fall in, keep hold of Antaro, hear me? Do notboth of you try to reach me! I shall float and reach you. That is an order! Hold to each other!”
“We shall come back there, perhaps! I have linked belts with Antaro! She will be all right! We should stay close!”
“You shall not! You will tip the boat over! Stay where you are and hold on to each other! I order you! We have a light! We are going there!”
His voice cracked when he shouted. He hoped they heard. More, he hoped they would do what he told them to do. He had had experience of humans, who did notgroup to their leader as desperately. He understood in his own body—it was hard for them all not to rush together. It was terribly hard; but he had to be here and they had to be there in the middle and balanced to keep the boat afloat in this heaving water, and he was sure of his instruction.
Water hit him in the back. Worse, it crashed past him into the boat, a whole bathtub full.
And when he blinked the stinging flood from his eyes and swiped them with a sodden sleeve, he saw a brilliant light, a blazing white light.
So did his associates, who pointed at it and shouted, and dangerously tried to get up to wave.
“Stay down!” Cajeiri cried, and waved his own hand, hoping to be seen. The light swept away from them, and swept back again, casting the waves into relief against the dark, showing the shapes of his companions ahead of him. “Yell!” he shouted across the wind.“ Help!”
The light left them, swept back again, glared down on them like a single wide eye, unblinking and turning the water to green glass. “Hold still!” he cried as Jegari started again to try to stand. “Sit down, ’Gari-ji!”
Jegari plumped back down, and that light eclipsed behind a wash of water and then came back again, flaring above them and then on them and then below as the sea heaved. Cajeiri clung fast to the tiller and tried to steer, such as the boat would, toward that light. It was no good. There was no steering.
But the distance between them and that light grew less. Cajeiri heard a steady thumping, that at first sounded like a deep, powerful heartbeat, and then he knew it was an engine, and it was surely nand’ Bren or nand’ Toby come after them. It was up to them simply not to sink until they could meet up with that boat.
He could see a hull now, a white hull with a blue line, the only color in the world beside the glass-green of the heaving water, The glaring light proved to be a spotlight on a swivel, and some dark-uniformed man worked the light, which the boat kept continually centered on them as it came close.
The boat came right by their bow, towering over them with a loud racket of the engine, and fought to stay there. Their boat bumped into that pristine white hull and turned and grated against it.
Two men then. One flung out a rope with a weight on the end of it, and shouted, “Make that fast!”
Jegari and Antaro scrambled to do that, wrapping it about the middle seat, that being what they could reach. Another weighted line came down to them, and Cajeiri let go the tiller and grabbed it.
Smack! They ran into the side of the big boat. He fell off his seat, and held to the rope, and scrambled in freezing water to tie the rope somewhere, anywhere, which turned out to be the bar across the tiller opening.
“Are you attached?” a big voice shouted. It was Banichi. Surely it was Banichi; and he shouted, “Yes, nadi-ji! Both lines now!”
“Who has no vest?” he heard, above, and then saw, in the wandering and bobbing of the spotlight, another rope come down to them. “Tie that around you!”
“Antaro, go!” Cajeiri yelled out. “Now! Hurry! Get loose and clear the way!”
Antaro unbuckled her belt, then got on her knees and, steadied by her brother, grabbed the line, wrapped it about herself several times. It went taut and hauled her up.
“You next, nandi!” Jegari called out. “Go!”
That was reasonable. He and Jegari both had floatation vests. He lurched upright, grabbed Jegari and the rope came down again, and he wrapped it around and around himself and held onto the rope’s end.
Immediately, he was yanked up like a fish on a line, dragged painfully over a small steel rail and dumped onto the deck.
“Rope!” Banichi’s voice shouted next, and another man— it must be Algini—raked the rope off him and threw it down again, all the while the boats grated together and thumped and banged. Cajeiri clawed after the railing and clung to it trying to see, with the rain coming down and the spotlight bouncing up and down.
In the next moment a hand seized him unceremoniously by the back of his life vest and jerked him up, hauled him around.
“Banichi-ji!” he protested, but Banichi shoved him against the railing and shouted, “Hang on with both hands, young gentleman!”
Hang on he did. He grabbed the rail and hung on with both arms, this time. He was cold as ice, and beginning to shiver, and sick at his stomach all at the same moment. He was aware of Antaro holding on beside him, and he had a good view as Jegari came over the rail, likewise hauled in like a fish and dumped on the deck.
Last, Tano shouted up at the others and Banichi and Algini together hauled him up to his feet, dripping wetc Cajeiri had the reflected light off the superstructure to show him their faces, all desperate, all dripping and drowned in the rain, and immediately Banichi seized him around the ribs and just carried him, so tightly he was close to throwing up, he was so cold and so clenched up.
He saw the doorway from his sideways vantage, the lighted white door. The lighted wooden floor—amazingly real—came up at him and righted itself as Banichi heaved him somewhat upright. The world had been all lightning-shot black, and now it had wonderful things like polished wood, and railings to hold to, and warmth.
He saw nand’ Bren at the wheel, very relieved and very worried at once. “Is that all of you?” he asked, “is that everybody with you?”
“Yes, nandi,” Cajeiri managed to say, teeth chattering. “We are all aboard.”
“We are too close to shore,” Bren said. “Cast the tender free, ’Nichi-ji!”
“Yes,” Banichi said, and was off, and the door shut again.
Cajeiri saw a bench and got up and sank down on it, dripping wet. The big boat was so much more stable. The air was almost thick, it was so warm, compared to outside.
He saw Bren turn the wheel furiously, and heard the boat’s engines labor as the deck pitched.
They could not wreck nand’ Bren’s boat on the shore. They must not. Between Antaro and Jegari, Cajeiri clamped his teeth on his lip and clenched the edge of the white-painted bench, just holding on as Bren jammed the power on.
Something scraped all down the hull of the boat, and was gone, and then the boat righted itself and the engine sounded different, freer, more powerfuclass="underline" buffets from the waves came at the bow of the boat, and these came faster and faster as the boat took another turn, increasing power.
Then nand’ Bren looked easier, too, easing his grip on the wheel, concentrating on the view out the windows, and occasionally down at something Cajeiri could see lighted on the counter.
“One is extremely sorry, nand’ Bren,” Cajeiri offered. “One is very extremely sorry.”