I wonder if theres a bounty for finding them? The Governor doesnt like homesteaders ducking out of their settlement contract, it sets a bad example. Everyone would come and live in Durringham otherwise.
From what I hear, they want to find out what happened to them, not where they are.
Oh?
They just vanished. No sign of a fight. Left all their gear and animals behind.
Fine, well, Ill keep alert. He took a broad-rimmed hat out of the pack at his feet. It was yellow-green in colour, much stained. Are we sharing a bunk this trip, Roses?
No chance. She leant further over the rail to scan the foredeck for her four children, who along with two stokers were her only other crew. Ive got me a brand-new Ivet as my second stoker. Barry MacArple, hes nineteen, real talented mechanic on both sides of the sheets. I think it shocks my eldest boy. That is, when he actually stops boffing the colonists daughters himself.
Fine.
Vorix let out a plaintive whine, and dropped his head onto his forepaws.
When are you back in Schuster County next? Powel asked.
A couple of months, maybe three. Im taking a group up to Colane County on the Dibowa tributary next time out. After that Ill be up in your area. Want me to visit?
He settled the hat on his head, working out agendas and timescales in his mind. No, its too soon. This bunch wont have exhausted their gear by then. Make it nine or ten months, let them feel a little deprivation, well be able to flog them a bar of soap for fifty fuseodollars by then.
Thats a date.
They shook on it, and turned back to watch the quarrelling colonists below.
Swithland cast off more or less on time. Rosemarys eldest boy, Karl, a strapping fifteen-year-old, ran along the deck shouting orders to the colonists who were helping with the cables. A cheer went up from the passengers as the paddles started turning and they moved away from the quay.
Rosemary was in the bridge herself. The harbour didnt have much spare water anyway, and Swithland was sluggish with a hold full of logs for the furnace, the colonists, their gear, and enough food to last them three weeks. She steered past the end of the quay and out into the centre of the artificial lagoon. The furnace was burning furiously, twin stacks sending out a high plume of grey-blue smoke. Standing on the prow, Karl gave her a smiling thumbs-up. Hes going to break a lot of female hearts, that one, she thought proudly.
For once there wasnt a rain-cloud to be seen, and the forward-sweep mass-detector showed her a clean channel. Rosemary gave the horn a single toot, and pushed both paddle-control levers forward, moving out of the harbour and onto her beloved untamed river that stretched away into the unknown. How could life possibly be better than this?
For the first hundred kilometres the colonists of Group Seven could only agree with her. This was the oldest inhabited section of Amarisk outside Durringham, settled almost twenty-five years previously. The jungle had been cleared in great swaths, making way for fields, groves, and grazing land. As they stood on the side of the deck they could see herds of animals roaming free over the broad pastures, picking teams working the groves and plantations, their piles of wicker baskets full of fruit or nuts. Villages formed a continual chain along the southern bank, the rural idyll; sturdy, brightly painted wooden cottages set in the centre of large gardens that were alive with flowers, lines of tall, verdant trees providing a leafy shade. The lanes between the trunks were planted with thick grasses, shining a brilliant emerald in the intense sunlight. Out here, where people could spread without constraint, there wasnt the foot and wheel traffic to pound the damp soil into the kind of permanent repellent mud which made up Durringhams roads. Horses plodded along, pulling wains loaded with bounties of hay and barley. Windmills formed a row of regular pinnacles along the skyline, their sails turning lazily in the persistent wind. Long jetties struck out into the choppy ochre water of the Juliffe, two or three to each village. They had constant visitors in the form of small paddle-driven barges eager for the farms produce. Children sat on the end of the jetties dangling rods and lines into the water, waving at the eternal procession of boats speeding by. In the morning small sailing boats cast off to fish the river, and the Swithland would cruise sedately through the flotilla of canvas triangles thrumming in the fresh breeze.
In the evening, when the sky flared into deep orange around the western horizon, and the stars came out overhead, bonfires would be lit in the village greens. Leaning on the deck rail that first night as the fires appeared, Gerald Skibbow was reduced to an inarticulate longing. The black water reflected long tapers of orange light from the bonfires, and he could hear gusty snatches of songs as the villagers gathered round for their communal meal.
I never thought it could be this perfect, he told Loren.
She smiled as his arm circled her. It does look pretty, doesnt it. Something out of a fairy story.
It can be ours, this sort of life. Its waiting up there at the end of the river. In ten years time well be dancing round a bonfire while the boats go by.
And the new colonists will look at us and dream!
Well have our house built, like a palace made from wood. Thats what youll live in, Loren, a miniature palace that the King of Kulu himself will envy. And youll have a garden full of vegetables and flowers; and Ill be out in the grove, or tending the herds. Paula and Marie will live nearby, and the grandchildren will run both of us off our feet.
Loren hugged him tightly. He lifted his head and let out a bellow of joy. God, how could we have wasted so many years on Earth? This is where we all belong, all of us Loren. We should throw away our arcologies and our starships, and live like the Lord intended. We really should.
Ruth and Jay stood together beside the taffrail and watched the sun sink below the horizon, crowning the vast river with an aura of purple-gold light for one sublime magical minute.
Listen, Mummy, theyre singing, Jay said. Her face was a picture of serenity. The horrid corpse of yesterday was long forgotten; she had found utter contentment with the big beige-coloured horse hitched up to the port railing. Those huge black eyes were so soft and loving, and the feel of its wet nose on her palm when she fed it a sweet was ticklish and wonderful. She couldnt believe something so huge was so gentle. Mr Manani had already said he would let her walk it round the deck each morning for exercise and teach her how to groom it. The Swithland was paradise come early. What are they singing?
It sounds like a hymn, Ruth said. For the first time since they had landed she was beginning to feel as though shed made the right decision. The villages certainly looked attractive, and well organized. Knowing that it was possible to succeed was half the battle. It would be tougher further from the capital, but not impossible. I cant say I blame them.
The wind had died down, sending flames from the bonfires shooting straight up into the starry night, but the aroma of cooking food stole over the water to the Swithland and her two sister craft. The scent of freshly baked bread and thick spicy stews played hell with Quinns stomach. The Ivets had been given cold meat and a fruit that looked like an orange, except it had a purple-bluish coloured skin and tasted salty. All the colonists had eaten a hot meal. Bastards. But the Ivets were starting to turn to him, that was something. He sat on the deck at the front of the superstructure, looking out to the north, away from all those fucking medieval hovels the colonists were wetting themselves over. The north was dark, he liked that. Darkness had many forms, physical and mental, and it conquered all in the end. The sect had taught him that, darkness was strength, and those that embrace the dark will always triumph.