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Perhaps it was just as well that I couldn't see his face.
Pleiadessank. Carlos shifted his legs a little, then he carefully laid my head back in his lap. The thing
... catwhale, if you want to call it that ... broke it in half. Chris and Kuniko got off in time, and we
managed to cut it loose before it dragged downOrion .
The last thing I... A memory of fighting the undertow, swimming for my life as the air boiled out of my
lungs. I had an impulse to tell the others of my narrow escape, but now wasn't the time. Chris, what
happened to your arm?
Chris didn't reply. Broke it when the mast came down on him, Carlos said quietly. Chris muttered
something I didn't catch, yet Carlos apparently did; he turned his head away.
We thought we'd lost you, Kuniko said. We couldn't find you for a couple of minutes. Then you came
out of the water, and... She let out her breath, and now there were tears in her eyes. Thank God!
Perhaps I should have thanked God, too. Just then, though, I was more appreciative to my late father,
who'd taught me how to swim when I was still a toddler. He may have been a lousy dad, but on that one
point he'd done pretty well by his daughter. Yeah, okay ... so where are we?
Halfway to shore. At least that's what we think ... we've lost the compass, along with everything else
that was on thePleiades . Maybe another ten, fifteen miles to go.
We've lost...?
Shh. Take it easy. Kuniko returned her attention to the rudder. Don't worry. We'll be home soon
enough.
* * *
She was only half-right. We made it to shore about a couple of hours after sundown ... but we were still
a long way from home.
Although we still had the map, without a compass to give us an accurate bearing, we had no real idea of
where we were. Somewhere west of the Alabama River, yet still many miles from the mouth of the West
Channel, or at least that was our best guess. The shallow coastline lay ghostly white beneath the light of
Bear as Kuniko and Barry paddled the last few hundred yards to shore; when they heard the soft crunch
of sand beneath the keel, Carlos and Barry stepped off into the cold surf breaking against the beach and
hauled the canoe ashore.
It felt strange to set up camp again, and not only because it was the first time we'd walked on dry land in
eight days. Half of our supplies had been aboard thePleiades, including one of the tents and most of what
little food we had left; we pitched the remaining tent, then tied one of the tarps from the low bough of a
short, palmetto-like tree as a sort of lean-to shelter. Yet it took awhile for anyone to remember to gather
wood for a fire; that had always been David's job, and somehow I think we were all expecting him to
emerge from the darkness, his arms laden with kindling, complaining about having to always do this
himself.
Once a fire was started, though, no one wanted to gather around it. It wasn't just the fact that we were
exhausted or that we had precious little to eat; we just couldn't bear to look at each other any more.
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Barry was filthy and unshaven, and for the first time he'd become irritable, unable to communicate except
in short, terse monosyllables. Chris's eyes were unfocused, and he refused to speak to anyone. Kuniko's
hair was matted, her shoulders slumped as if she'd been carrying our collective weight for thousands of
miles. Carlos's face was haunted.
Lost, hungry, and sick to the bottom of our souls, we went to bed almost as soon as the fire was going
and the tent was erect. There was no room in the tent for all five of us, and so I offered my place in the
tent to Chris, telling him that I'd sleep in the tarp tonight with Barry. He stared at Carlos, and for a
moment I thought he'd refuse, but then Carlos dully announced that he'd take first watch; without high
bluffs to protect us from any boids who might happen to spot our fire, someone had to stay awake. Barry
volunteered for second watch and so Chris crawled into the tent with Kuniko while Barry and I spread
out my bedroll under the tarp and huddled together beneath its blanket. The last thing I saw was Carlos
silhouetted against the fire, squatting on a crooked piece of driftwood with the remaining rifle at his side.
I didn't sleep well, if at all. Whenever I shut my eyes, I saw the catwhale rising above us in that moment [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]