Another group of mechanics was busy fastening to the shaft a chain that lowered from a winch on a platform above them.
“Look here.” One of the mechanics on the platform with Daenek crooked a finger at him. “This here is one of the auxiliaries,” the mechanic said, tapping a much smaller shaft that ran alongside their heads. “It’s got to be loosened so that the main shaft can be re-splined. Think you can hold it up at this end while we work the other?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He started to ask how heavy it was, then stopped himself. Putting his hands in position underneath it, he waited until the other mechanics finished unbolting the shaft’s flanged end from its connections, then carefully eased its weight onto his shoulder.
“Got it?” Without waiting for an answer from him, the other mechanics headed single-file down a narrow suspended catwalk towards another platform further on beneath the caravan.
The shaft soon grew heavy upon his shoulder. His palms began to sweat, the skin itching against the rough-cast metal surface. He could feel the vibrations travelling to him from where the other mechanics were working on the shaft’s other end.
“You sure look stupid holding that thing.”
Daenek strained to get a glimpse over his shoulder of whomever had spoken. It was Rennie, with an expression of amused contempt on her face.
“What are you doing here?” He lifted the shaft a little off his shoulder, bearing the- weight in his hands for a moment.
“Couldn’t sleep after all. Too quiet.” She stood on the edge of the metal platform with her back to him, gazing out at the other scattered groups of mechanics working. Sliding her hands into her hip pockets, she rocked back nonchalantly on her heels.
“Thought I’d come down here and see what was going on.”
“You want to give me a hand with this?”
She turned her head around and cooly eyed Daenek and the shaft. “Not particularly,” she said.
Daenek was about to say something in reply when he heard a distant voice, one of the mechanics, yelling something at them.
At the same moment the shaft lurched heavily out of his grasp.
The end he was holding jerked up into the air as the far end came loose from the other men and fell towards the ground.
“Look out!” he heard one of the men yell again.
The shaft’s end stopped and then gracefully, as though the air had thickened and slowed its motion, fell to the platform. It sped into a blur and struck between Daenek and Rennie, the vibration from the blow knocking them from their feet. Daenek held himself upright by grabbing one of the metal struts by which the platform hung, but he saw Rennie land jarringly upon her knees and hands. With a small noise, two of the struts opposite Daenek gave way and the platform tilted beneath his feet. He held on to the one strut but both Rennie and the shaft end slid away and fell out of sight.
Leaning out over the uptilted edge of the platform, he spotted her below. She had fallen only a few meters on her back in the crevice between two of the massive tractor tread plates. The impact had dazed her momentarily—her hands pushed feebly at the metal surfaces pressing against her on either side.
Then Daenek saw the shaft. It hadn’t fallen to the ground—the one end had landed against the tread plates as well. But now the shaft was sliding diagonally across the vertical ends of the plates, pivotting on the other end that had plunged into the roadway, as it continued its fall to the ground below. As the shaft’s speed increased, it would smash right into Rennie’s head, dangling into air from the crevice between the plates.
Daenek hesitated only a second before swinging himself over the edge of the swaying metal platform. He lowered himself by his hands into space and then dropped the rest of the way onto the tread plates. His legs went out from under him when he landed on the smooth metal surface. He regained his footing just as he saw the shaft, moving very fast now, slide across the end of the last tread plate before the space where Rennie was outstretched. Diving full-length onto his side, he caught the shaft in his hands, slowing it for a moment. Rennie, only semi-conscious, moaned beneath him as he bridged the span over her torso.
The shaft’s weight began to push him backwards. There was nothing on the tread plate’s wide surface for him to catch onto.
He tried to get his hands between the shaft and the end of the plate on the other side of Rennie, with the idea of pushing it away and out into the open space below the caravan. Instead, his fingers were caught painfully, the skin tearing against the plate’s sharp edge as he struggled vainly to push at the shaft without leverage. Another few inches of the shaft’s downward travel and the slight drag caused by his hands would be lost as it swung through the empty space between the treads and into Rennie’s skull. His eyelids squeezed tight with the pain grating across his fingers.
Suddenly he heard feet running across the plates. The pressure on his hands lifted. Other hands caught him below the arms and lifted him away from the space between the plates. The shaft fell in a blurring arc to the ground as another pair of mechanics pulled Rennie’s limp, but intact, form out of the crevice.
“You all right?” asked the mechanic who had pulled Daenek upright. “You’d better get those bandaged.”
Daenek nodded, looking dumbly at the torn skin of his fingers.
“Get your hands off me!” It was Rennie’s voice, raised in petulant anger. “There’s nothing wrong with me!”
Turning his head, Daenek saw her shaking off the two mechanics who had pulled her from between the tread plates.
Her face flushed with annoyance, she stalked away from them, heading for one of the metal ladders that led up into the caravan.
“Here,” said one of the mechanics, handing Daenek a rag with only a few grease spots. “Wrap your hands in this until you get to the infirmary.” He turned back to the others. “Come on, let’s get going. We’ve got more work now than before.”
The orderly who bandaged his hands was the one who had been the first person Daenek had ever seen aboard the caravan.
When he was done, Daenek headed back to his sleeping quarters.
Can’t do any work like this, anyway, he reasoned, examining the wrappings on his fingers.
Rennie was waiting for him inside the room. She still looked irritated as she sat on the edge of the bed. “That was a dumb thing to do,” she snapped.
“What was?” asked Daenek, closing the door behind himself.
“Rescuing me. Like you were some big hero. If you’d played it smart and done nothing, you’d have been rid of the only person who knew you weren’t really what you said.”
Daenek laid down on his bed. “Sorry,” he said, feeling increasingly tired. “Just lost my head, I guess.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “God, I hate it when people do stuff like that without any good reasons. It gives me the creeps. I just can’t figure it out.”
“If you’d get knocked off,” said Daenek drowsily, “I’d have never found out what it is you’re planning to do for me. Going to the busker village and all.”
“That’s not smart enough.” She reached behind herself to the switch on the wall and flicked off the room light.
He held his bandaged hands up to his face in the darkness.
Sometimes, he told himself, I’ve just got to laugh at all this—
Chapter XII
It felt good to be walking on the land again, after the weeks on board the caravan. The mertzer village was far behind Daenek and Rennie. The men had been too busy greeting their wives and children, including the babies born during their absence, to take much notice of their two newest members heading out into the open countryside beyond the village.