And why should they not quit on us? Chaney asked.
Jask decided there was something to be desired in having a skipper who was at least a little pessimistic.
In all of Kittlesticks there was no cloth to be had — just tattered, mildewed, mold-covered, rotting lumps of stuff that could never be fashioned to fit their needs. Finally, though, in a dockside nautical shop they found a great length of lightweight metallic sailcloth whose metal fibers had withstood the gnawing of the years.
This material proved difficult to cut and sew, and they remained in Kittlesticks five days, working up three serviceable sails. They saw no Indians during the night, though their unearthly companion remained, haunting their sleep and forcing its mental aura into their esp perceptions all the time they were awake.
At last, in the early morning, with only a suggestion of the sun in the sky, they carried the three sails down to the ship.
Mist drifted in from the sea, oddly sweet scented.
They mounted the sails on the electrically controlled yard-arms, drew them up for testing, then rolled them down again and bound them fast until they might be needed. The noise of their labor echoed across the flat waters like footfalls in a tomb.
That afternoon, on the edge of town, they gathered wild fruit of many kinds, and packed it all into baskets and sacks. They killed a large animal that had descended from pure cattle but which was now a nine-horned, broader-shouldered, taller and meaner creature than its ancestors had been. They skinned and butchered this brute and salted several large pieces of meat. These stores were loaded in the galley of the ship, below the waterline, where they might be kept cool.
The espers dreamed at night; a living city, rooms of flesh, streets of pulsing tissue…
Before dawn of the seventh day they boarded the yellow ship, which they had christened Hadaspuri Maiden, half in fun and half in hopes that after being accorded such an honor the sea would look with favor upon their journey. The engines were brought up to full power, and the ship was taken from the dock at Kittlesticks. They had still seen no Indians.
The Hadaspuri was amber near the coast but grew a dirty green and then a rich blue color as they moved out onto it and it grew deeper beneath them.
As they passed the last of the atolls twenty kilometers from shore, rainbow-colored flying fish danced before their bow. Their wings were as much as four feet across, spreading gloriously as they arced from the sea and folding sleekly as they plummeted back in.
Standing by the rail on the deck of the open bridge door, looking at the heaving sea, through which the Maiden sliced like a knife, Tedesco 'pathed to Chaney, What do you know of the Hadaspuri?
It's six hundred kilometers from west to east, eight hundred from Kittlesticks on the south to any point on the north shore.
Is it inhabited?
The sea? Chaney 'pathed, perplexed.
Yes.
By fish.
How big are the fish?
Chaney grinned. So far as I know, the Hadaspuri contains no beasts. It is not, after all, a Wildlands sea.
Let's hope you're right.
If anything attacks our little ship, Chaney promised, I'll skin it, butcher it, and store it below.
No need. I hate fish.
The sunny sky grew overcast as they thrust deeper into the heart of the Hadaspuri. The clouds were light gray, riding high, bothersome but not threatening a storm.
Before long the air smelled only of the sea, without a single trace of land in it.
They ate a light lunch of fruit, a dinner of roasted beef basted in the juice of apples and pears.
The unseen creature remained with them.
It nagged at the periphery of their extrasensory perception, its voice a wail, its note that of endless suffering, its effect stronger than ever on the five espers.
Later, when Kiera took the first watch on the bridge, before the wheel and instruments, the others went below to sleep in the two main cabins, aft. Despite the fact that they were separated by the metal bulkheads, they all dreamed, simultaneously, of the living city. The dream swiftly graduated into a full-fledged nightmare and grew rapidly worse than that. No one could get any rest at all.
On deck again Tedesco 'pathed, Something will break soon.
Let's hope! — Jask said.
If I could see it, Chaney 'pathed, I could get these claws into it and take a good bite in its neck with these teeth. He held up his unsheathed claws and showed them his wicked teeth so that they would know he was not making an idle boast.
Melopina sat against the deck railing, her head hung down, her shoulders bent, exhausted, her pretty blue-green neck membranes hanging limp like sails without wind, and she did not say anything at all.
Something must break, Tedesco continued. Either this creature will get weary of us and go away, back to wherever it sprang from — or it will make itself fully understood, impart this compulsive information and deplete its energies of anguish.
And if it does neither? — Jask inquired.
Tedesco grunted. Then you will learn that a man can die from lack of sleep as easily as he can from lack of food or water.
The Hadaspuri Maiden knifed on through the sea as darkness became complete and the stars popped out through holes in the gray clouds.
28
Two days later the five passengers on the Hadaspuri Maiden moved sluggishly about their duties, not like real men but like zombies who had only a minimal charge of life donated them by sorcerers. They spoke hardly at all, either vocally or telepathically, because the amount of thought necessary to keep up a sensible conversation required energy they no longer possessed. Their eyes were swollen and teary. Their limbs felt as if they had been cast from lead; each step became a major journey, each tiny deed a Herculean effort.
Soon they were forced to keep two watchmen at the wheel instead of one, in order not to be accidentally taken off their course for the northern shore of the inland sea. Once, after Tedesco's watch, they found themselves twenty degrees off course, though the bruin, in his state of near-collapse, did not recall altering any of the controls. After Melopina's watch it was found that she had somehow turned them completely about and that they were driving hard for Kittlesticks, from which they had come only days ago. Melopina had no recollection of turning the ship about, though she had often fallen asleep over the wheel, to be awakened by the awful nightmares. Clearly she had not turned them around on purpose; therefore, the double watch was immediately established.
Though they had not originally been affected by the pitching waves through which the Maiden drove, they now found every tilt of the decks more than they could cope with. They zigzagged from place to place, staggering like drunkards, gripping safety rails and wondering when one of them might be pitched overboard.
Their appetites dwindled, became almost nonexistent. They wanted sleep, not food, and they ate what little they could only because they knew they dared not forego food altogether. They tasted nothing they consumed, but they got indigestion from all of it.
Out of desperation and the agony of her total exhaustion and her continuing inability to sleep properly, Melopina came up with the idea that was to save them. It did not seem like much; it had only a small chance of success; but it was, when all was said and done, their only hope of salvation.
The idea came to her during one of her duties at the wheel. She turned to Jask, who was her watchmate, and she 'pathed, Do you think that if we worked together, the five of us could combine our esp powers and create a single psychic probe stronger than any of our individual powers?
Jask did not want to have to respond. His eyes were nearly swollen shut, and his mouth was as dry as a handful of sand. Finally he said, I never thought much about it. I don't know.