Wind whistled past the plane's small conical noseguard. Lying prone on the narrow platform, he hardly felt the breeze.
Tom wished he had just one more pillow. His elbows were getting chafed, and his neck was developing a crick. He had trimmed and retrimmed his list of supplies until he found himself choosing between one more psi-bomb to use at this destination and a water distiller to keep him alive when he got there. His compromise collection was taped to the platform beneath his cushion. The lumps made it almost impossible to find a comfortable position.
The journey was an unending monotony of sea and sky.
Twice he caught sight of swarms of flying creatures in the distance. It was his first inkling that any animals flew on Kithrup. Could they have evolved from jumping fish? He was a bit surprised to find flight on a world so barren of heights.
Of course, the creatures might have been molded by some ancient Galactic tenant of Kithrup, he thought. Where nature's variety fails, sophonts can meddle. I've seen weirder gene-crafted things than fliers on a water world.
Tom remembered a time when he and Gillian had accompanied old Jake Demwa to the Tymbrimi university-world of Cathrhennlin. Between meetings, he and Jill had toured a huge continental wilderness preserve, where they saw great herds of Clideu beasts grazing the grassy plains in precise and complex geometric patterns. The arrangements spontaneously changed, minute by minute, without any apparent communication among the individual animals — like the transient weavings of a moire pattern. The Tymbrimi explained that an ancient Galactic race that had dwelt on Cathrhennlin ages ago had programmed the patterns into the Clideu as a form of puzzle. No one in all time since had ever managed to decipher the riddle, if there actually was one.
Gillian suggested that the patterns might have been adapted by the Clideu for their own benefit. The puzzle loving Tymbrimi preferred to think otherwise.
Tom smiled as he recalled that trip, their first mission as a pair. Since then he and Gillian had seen more wonders than they could ever catalog.
He missed her already.
The local birds, or whatever, veered away from the growing bank of clouds. Orley watched them until they passed out of sight. There was no sign of land in the direction they flew.
The plane was making nearly two hundred knots. That should take him to the northeast chain of volcanic islands he sought in another two hours or so. Radio, satellite tracking, and radar were all forbidden luxuries. Tom had only the chart pinned to his windscreen to guide him.
He'd be able to do better on the return trip. Gillian' insisted he take an inertial recorder. It could guide him blindfolded back to within a few meters of Hikahi's island.
Should the opportunity arise.
The pursuing clouds grew slowly above and behind him. Kithrup's jet stream was really cooking. Tom admitted that he wouldn't mind finding a landing site before the storm reached him.
As the afternoon wore on he saw another swarm of flying creatures, and twice he caught a glimpse of motion in the water below, something huge and sinuous. Both times the thing vanished before he could get a better look.
Scattered among the swells below floated sparse patches of seaweed. Some clusters came together to form isolated mounds of vegetation. Perhaps the flying things perched on those, he thought idly.
Tom fought the tedium and developed a profound hatred for whatever lumpy object lay directly under his left kidney.
The glowering cloudbank was only a couple of miles behind him when he saw something on the northern horizon, a faint smudge against the graying sky.
He applied more power and banked toward the plume. Soon he could make out a dusky funnel. Curling and twisting to the northeast, it hung like a sooty banner across the sky.
Tom strove for altitude, even as the threatening clouds encroached on the late afternoon sun, casting shadow onto the solar collectors on his wing. Thunder grumbled, and flashes of lightning briefly illuminated the seascape.
When it began to rain, the ammeter swung far over to the red. The tiny engine began to labor.
Yes. There it was! An island! The mountain seemed a good way off yet. It was partly hidden by smoke.
He'd prefer to land on a companion isle, one that wasn't quite as active. Orley grinned at the presumption of anyone in his position making demands. He would land at sea, if need be. The small plane was equipped with pontoons.
The light was fading. In the growing dimness Tom noticed that the surface of the ocean had changed color. Something about its texture made him frown in puzzlement. It was hard to tell what the difference was.
Soon he had little time for speculation, as he fought his bucking craft, struggling for every foot of altitude.
Hoping it would remain light long enough to find a landing place, he drove his fragile ship through the pelting rain toward the smoldering volcano.
34 ::: Creideiki
He hadn't realized the ship looked this bad.
Creideiki had checked the status of every damaged engine and instrument. As repairs were made, he or Takkata-Jim had discreetly triple-checked. Most of the damage that could be fixed, had been.
But as ship's master, he was the one who also had to deal with the intangibles. Someone had to pay attention to aesthetics, no matter how low their priority. And however successful the functional repairs were, Streaker was no longer beautiful.
This was his first trip outside in person. He wore a breather and swam above the scarred hull, getting an overview.
The stasis flanges and the main gravity drives would work. He had Takkata-Jim's and Emerson D'Anite's word on that, and had checked himself. One rocketry impeller had been destroyed by an antimatter beam at Morgran. The remaining tube was serviceable.
But though the hull was secure and strong, it was not the delight to the eye it had once been. The outer skin was seared in two places, where beams had penetrated the shields to blister the skin.
Brookida had told him that there was even one small area where the metal had been changed from one alloy to another. The structural integrity of the ship was intact, but it meant that someone had come awfully close to them with a probability distorter. It was disturbing to think that that piece of Streaker had been swapped with another similar but slightly different ship, containing similar but slightly different fugitives, in some hypothetical parallel universe.
According to Library records, no one had ever learned to control cross-universe distorters well enough to use them as anything but weapons, though it was rumored that some of the ancient species that "outgrew" Galactic civilization from time to time discovered the secret, and used it to leave this reality by a side door.
The concept of endless parallel universes was one known by dolphins since long before humans learned fire. It was integral to the Whale Dream. The great cetaceans moaned complacently of a world that was endlessly mutable. In becoming tool users, amicus dolphins lost this grand indifference. Now they understood the whales' philosophy little better than did men.
A tame version of the probability distorter was one of the dozen ways the Galactics knew to cheat the speed of light, but cautious species avoided it. Ships disappeared using probability drives.
Creideiki imagined coming out of FTL to find a convention of "Streakers" — all from different universes, all captained by slightly altered versions of himself. The whales might be able to be philosophically complacent about a situation like that. He wasn't so sure of himself.
Besides, the whales, for all their philosophical genius, were imbeciles on levels dealing with spaceships and machines. They wouldn't recognize a fleet of ships any better than a dog knew its reflection in the water.