Hwang strapped on his filter mask and followed W’th’vaathi beneath the canopy of a particularly large cone tree. A boat, its stepped mast affixed to the deck with some form of elbow joint, was hidden under what looked like a cross between cobwebs and Spanish moss. Several of the fibrous “boxes” that they had first encountered on Adumbratus were stacked next to it. “Equipment and provisions,” W’th’vaathi explained as she set about removing the covering from the boat.
Gaspard looked at the slim hull, hands on hips. “You are sure we shall be safe, now?”
W’th’vaathi’s neck oscillated. “Captain Riordan’s plan did not merely allow us to escape, but should have convinced the attackers that we are dead. They did destroy the first boat which we were towing, and did not seek further along the river.”
Hwang worked his pinky into a waterlogged and sound-deadened ear. Although they had towed the first boat almost two hundred meters behind them, the concussive and audial aftershocks had been painful, had staggered the water-strider beneath them. “We were underwater. How do we know they did not search further?”
“There are no alert or distress spores in this area, Benjamin Hwang. Had there been an intrusion by an unmarked foreign object, biological or otherwise, the sign would be thick around us.” She waved two dismissive tendrils up beyond the canopy. “The local biota is unperturbed.”
Gaspard still stood motionless. W’th’vaathi stopped unfastening the lashings which held the mast down. “You are disturbed, Ambassador.”
Gaspard’s fine jaw worked. “Can your spores, or any of your biota, tell you what happened further upriver?”
W’th’vaathi’s tendrils wilted. “I have no way to ascertain the fate of your friends. Or of my people. I may only hope for the best.”
“And what of the ship we heard overhead? You say your spores perceived it as marked, so it must have been our corvette. Is there any way to project its fate, based on its speed, or angle of descent?”
“Sadly, our spores do not register such information. Now: we must ready our boat.”
* * *
Karam Tsaami glanced at the engineering board: a solid bank of red glared back at him. Not unexpected, but still depressing.
He looked out the canopy: the blue line on the horizon had become a white-flecked azure band, widening with every passing second.
Melissa Sleeman must have been watching his eyes. “Will we make it?”
“To the water? I think so, but that’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to slow this bucket enough to make a safe—”
“Karam, this is Tina. The reaction preheating chamber is going to go any second.”
But, without any gauges left—? “How do you know?”
“It’s starting to glow dull red.”
Oh. “All right. Then here’s what you and Phil are going to do with the severed coolant line. You’ve got to snug it into the engine trusses so that it’s aiming straight at the chamber, and it’s got to be secure enough to hold that position under pressure.”
Tina’s question arrived as a screech. “Under pressure from what?”
Phil Friel evidently saw where Karam was headed. “From coolant flow. Karam is going to open the registers again.”
Tina did not become less shrill. “And flood the whole chamber with the remaining coolant?”
Karam didn’t bother to keep his tone civil. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Seal your suits; it’s going to be pretty unpleasant”—well, lethal—“in there. Let me know when you’ve got it rigged.”
“Harebrained scheme if I ever heard one,” Tina grumbled as she worked.
“Might be,” Karam admitted. “But we’ve got to cool that chamber down for just another minute, enough so that we can maintain thrust and not explode. You done yet?”
“Working.”
“Damn, you two are slow.”
“Shut up. There: we’re finished.”
“Good. Get in the equipment locker.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you in the compartment when I uncork the remaining coolant on that line. The steam could melt straight through your gear.”
“Okay, we’re in the closet. Sort of.”
“Tight fit,” Phil agreed.
“Well, you two lovebirds make the most of it.” Karam was gratified by what he presumed was their embarrassed silence. “Releasing the coolant in three, two, one; now—”
There was a slight tremor on the bridge. Evidently, the effect was much more noticeable back in the drive room. “Holy shit!” screamed Tina. “Sounds like a tornado out there.”
“Banshees on steroids,” Phil agreed. “But it’s dying down already. Figure it will be safe to reenter in about four or five seconds?”
“Make it ten. But we’ll reach the coast, now. Just strap in and stay handy.”
“To do what?” Tina asked.
“Can’t say just yet,” Karam lied. Because hopefully I won’t have to ask one of you to take an even more insane risk before this is over.
Sleeman breathed a sigh of relief as Puller cleared the coast-hugging foliage at one hundred meters altitude — then gasped as she was thrown forward against her straps. “What the hell—?”
“Just shifted one third of our thrust to our VTOL fans,” Karam grunted. “They’re in forward attitude to brake us. With any luck—”
But the onrushing blue horizon revealed that their luck had run out. Undetectable from their prior angle, the initial drop-off of the tidal shallows reversed itself, climbed up again to give birth to spray-wreathed rocks and a few small islands. Dragons teeth waiting to tear Puller apart. “Shit,” announced Karam calmly.
Lymbery had seen it. “P-pivot on your fans,” he stammered.
Damn it, the guy has good ideas when he’s too busy to be scared. “Pivoting,” Karam confirmed, reaching down and cutting the starboard fans back to ten percent. Puller groaned, lost altitude crookedly, but heeled starboard as she continued forward at a widening angle, her nose swinging away from the rocks. “Great idea, Morgan. We just might—”
“Critical overheat,” Phil Friel’s voice shouted at him. First time the calm Irishman had ever shouted, so Karam accepted his report as gospeclass="underline" he shut the engines down.
“We’re going in,” he announced in as calm a voice as he could manage. “Strap in. Stay calm.” The mandatory platitudes common to all imminent crashes.
Karam snapped on the bow’s emergency attitude control thrusters — compressed gas canisters usually used spaceside when the main engines were off-line — and blew what little was left in them in one long, concentrated burst. That brought Puller’s nose up a bit, which gave her a little more glide, a little more time to dump airspeed.
The blue beneath them began lightening: shallows. That was good for getting out of Puller safely, but not good for putting her down in one piece: if they hit the bottom with any appreciable force—“Call out our final descent, Ms. Sleeman. Tongues away from your teeth, folks.”
“Four meters, three, two—”
Melissa never got to “one,” but Karam had expected that. With Puller’s nose still slightly raised, her stern hit first, creating a momentary sense of drag, as if someone had half depressed the emergency brake. Then a stomach jarring slam as the tortured ship’s belly swung down flat against the water. Come on, thought Karam, rise up—