The Lost Star's Sea

by C. Litka

  06

  Over the next few rounds we made good progress getting the gig ready to sail. And yet, at the same time, we felt we were falling more and more behind - for every step we took forward, two more appeared ahead. For example; I'd found steering rockets to be very clumsy in the atmosphere (and we only had two, to begin with), so I wanted to steer the gig using wing flaps and a rudder. They would have to be mounted on the hull and controllable, but where would they be most efficient, and how should I mount them? We had spare electric motors to move them, but axles and gears needed to be designed and printed and the motors had to be installed in some sort of protected housing on the outside the hull. Then, once installed, we'd need to reprogram levers on the control console to control their movement. And even then, we'd still need the two damaged rocket engines for steering once we left the atmosphere - and they needed to rotate - since we only had two to steer in four directions. All this meant that I was spending a lot of time designing and printing out samples of wings, fixtures, and mounting brackets, which was a slow, iffy lift since I was not an engineer by trade and often had to resort to trial and error to see what worked and what didn't.

  The twelfth day came and we began sending out a distress signal with as much power as we could harness to the transmitter. I'd no hope and so wasn't disappointed when we got no reply.

  It must have been around day 14. I was welding the last of the engine mounts onto the engine compartment bulkhead when Cin, who was on the opposite side of the ship cutting away the last of the tangled wreckage of the engine room said, 'Is it my imagination, or is it getting darker? And rather quiet?'

  Looking around, it wasn't her imagination. I glanced up through the thin cover of vines overhead - it looked almost like night through the chinks in the leaves. And yes, the usual background sound of buzzing beetles, calling birds and screeching lizards were entirely missing. 'I don't like the look - or sound - of this. I think we should...'

  Cin, however, was already swinging up through the maze of new growth vines to see what was going on, which wasn't what I was about to suggest. Reluctantly, I followed her.

  'I don't think this is wise,' I muttered as I pulled myself up beside her on reaching the surface of our island.

  'Looks to be some sort of storm,' she said.

  An understatement. I saw a black, violently boiling wall of clouds stained half the sky. Even as I starred at it, the eerie silence began to fill with a subtle, but rising keening, a sound between a shriek and a roar. The vines stirred and their leaves fluttered uneasily as the wind began to rise.

  Siss swam into view from the far edge of the island, uttering a loud warning hiss as she frantically undulated towards us.

  'I think...' I began to say before I was drowned out by a rising high pitched scream that swiftly swelled to the sound of a dozen rockets lifting off. The wall of blackness raced towards us, bringing with it that rarest of things in the Pela - night. Its darkness carried debris, from leaves, to branches, to entire shattered trees.

  The wind-driven wall of debris and rain smashed into the island, ripping through the newly grown vines, stripping them of their leaves and sending the vines streaming. The little island swayed violently in the impact as I clung to one of the new, young vine, partially sheltered within the old impact crater. Even so, the wind and rain swirled around me, whipping me wildly about. I caught just a glimpse of Cin clinging to a vine on the other side of the crater wall, but did not see Siss. An eddy flung my vine upwards, lifting me into the full brunt of flying leaves, twigs, and torn up plants. I feared I'd be carried entirely off the island, but the next gust brushed me back down and against the old crater wall where I managed to hook my legs around an old, thick vine. In a little lull I dared to switch my hold to the thick old vine that wasn't going anywhere at the moment. Glancing back, I saw Cin too had secured a hold on the crater wall opposite me and was starting to clamber down. Though the main force of the driven debris and pelting rain was roaring overhead, eddies of rain knifed their way down into the crater, stinging my face and making drawing a breath without drowning a struggle. I had to bury my face in the vines to find some air to breath, and then started down the wall of vines as fast as I dared, holding tight whenever a wild eddy tried to tear me free.

  I looked down. The smooth hull of the gig was only two meters below in the swirling rain. The access hatch was open, but there was a four-meter expanse of wet metal to cross to reach it. A very iffy expanse - the magnetic soles of my boots had not been designed to hold in a hurricane, and the claw attachments were useless. Still, what choice did I have?

  I was about to continue down when I heard a keening bark overhead. Looking up through the stinging swirls of debris, I spied Siss clinging to a tangle of weaving vines near the rim of the crater, looking quite drowned in the rain and wind. She gave another croaking appeal when she saw she had my attention. I was surprised and embarrassed to see her - I had completely forgotten about her in the chaos. As the wind roared around me, clawing at me, I realized that even if she could climb down the wall of wind-whipped vines, she'd have no chance of crossing the smooth hull to the hatch. Her only option was to climb out on one of the whirling vines and hope that it would carry her near enough to the hatch to make a grab for it without smashing her against the boat. Unless I did something.

  My chances weren't all that great, but they were better than hers, so I started back up for her. She was a shipmate, and I knew she would've done the same, roles reversed. She met me half way, her wet feathers waving wildly in the wind. We met, nose to nose. She barked, '?'

  'Climb on to my back and hold on tight,' I yelled. 'Maybe together we can stretch out enough to reach the hatch.'

  She hissed, and swinging about carefully detached her claws, one by one from the vines to dig them into the folds of my jumpsuit and then encircled my torso with her four limbs, her snout next to my head.

  'Ready?'

  A tentative hiss.

  'Hold on tight,' I said, and started back down. Siss's extra weight and bulk, made holding on even harder than before as the wind and rain swirled around us.

  I dropped down as fast I dared, one secure hold after another while the wind tugged at us, trying to tear us off. It nearly did once, when one of the vines my boot claws had a hold of gave way and sent us flying out like a flag. Luckily, the next gust crashed us back against the crater wall, where I was able wrap a leg around another vine.

  Siss scolded me with a bark next to my ear.

  'You want to switch places?' I yelled back. 'You've got more claws than I do.'

  She declined with a hiss.

  After what seemed like an eternity in the black fury of wind and sound, my leg in contact with the hull of the gig in the whirlwind. I stopped and carefully shifted my hold around so that I was facing the gig. The open hatch was just four meters of bare metal away, but between the wind and Siss, I had no confidence that my boots could keep a grip on the slick hull.

  Beyond the gig, I caught a vague glimpse of Cin in the darkness, through the rain swirling leaves on the other side of the gig. She had about two meters of hull to cross to reach the hatch. With a well-timed lunge and some luck, she should be able to grab the edge of the hatch and pull herself in. We'd have to make some sort of running break for it to reach the hatch. The safest course of action would be to wait for the whirlwind to die down. You'd think it would have to, sooner or later. However, it showed no signs of doing so, and indeed, the vine island seemed in real danger of being torn apart. And if not torn apart, it still was entirely possible that the gig would work itself free of the vines that secured it to the island and be carried away. We'd have to act, but how? Perhaps if I send Siss ahead, holding on to her back legs or tail, she could grab the hatch and pull us in...

  Next to my ear, she hissed a doubtful hiss, even though I hadn't said a thing.

  Cin, as usual, acted with dispatch, snagging one of the waving vines from our side, and using it as a safety line to steady hers
elf, made a lunging dash for the hatch. She no more started when the wind ripped her off the hull, and then slammed her back down flat against it. Undeterred, she was up immediately and hauled herself to the hatch. She dove in and then popped back up still holding the vine. The roaring of the wind too loud to yell over, but she indicated that Siss and I should use this vine as a safety line as well. With her holding it on that end, it was our best option, so I cautiously edged over to where I could grasp the vine. With it in hand, I planted my boots on the hull and crouching low I started off, pulled myself hand over hand for the hatch while shuffling my boots along the smooth hull, careful to keep both boots on the hull for maximum holding power. Cin's hold kept the vine stiff as a rod, but between Siss and my weight, the tumbling of the island, and the wind, it snapped just beyond Cin's grip when we were halfway across. I lunged flat out, landing on my chest, just managing to grasp the edge of the hatch and cling to it as the wind whipped us around until I got the tips of my boots anchored on the hull again. I pulled myself and Siss close enough for Siss to grasp Cin's out stretched arm and then the edge of the hatch to drag herself through the hatch, leaving me clinging to the edge of the hatch. With Siss off my back I pulled myself forward and dived into the dim lit shelter of the gig, joining the leaves and rain that swirled around the compartment. Cin, standing on the pile of salvaged parts that filled most of the forward compartment slid the hatch closed.

  It was suddenly very quiet in the gig, save for Siss's excited hissing as she darted around us, no doubt feeling that rush of exhilaration at having dodged death. I was far from certain we had actually dodged death, so I just swung about and planted my boots on the narrow strip of swaying deck as the island and gig tumbled in the hurricane catching my breath and calming the pounding in my chest.

  'Are you alright, Siss?' cooed Cin. 'He didn't hurt you when he tripped, did he? The clumsy lug - I thought he'd crushed them flat.'

  Siss barked her laughter, wagging her tail and darted nose to nose with me, her black eyes twinkling, and her thin tongue darted out and licked my nose.

  'Oh, cut that out, Siss,' I muttered.

  'It's okay to bite off his nose, Siss, if you want. He shouldn't have tripped,' Cin assured her. 'Serves him right. Besides, the med-unit can grow it back for him if he misses it.'

  I said nothing, I didn't have the breath. I just clung, dripping, to the rattling pile of landing jets and pipes and scrap metal to keep from being tossed about as the swirl of leaves and dust slowly settled into a quiet haze.

  'I think it might be best if we get out of these wet clothes and ride out the storm in a hammock,' I said after they had their fun. 'There's no telling how long this'll last.'

  'Why Litang!' Cin mocked brightly, arching her eyebrows. 'Whatever do you have in mind?'

  'Nothing more daring than avoiding hypothermia. I'm going to change into something dry in the control compartment, unless you have any other ideas on how to avoid hypothermia. I will, however, be a gentleman, and let you have Siss to keep you warm,' I replied just as brightly as I made my way to my hammock, now enjoying that exhilaration of avoiding death yet again. Stripping and changing into a dry jumpsuit in the tumbling ship was a pain, but I managed, and crawled into my swinging hammock.

  Cin shoved a reluctant, growling Siss into the sanitation unit and ran its air dry cycle to dry Siss's feathers. After a short period of yelping alarm, Siss suddenly decided she liked being blasted with warm air and holding herself in the tumbling unit refused to leave it until long after her feathers were dry.

  Having dried Siss, Cin changed into dry clothes. In the control compartment. It was too dim to see her eyes, so I stayed in my hammock. I didn't think things had changed all that much, despite our time together.

  With the island tumbling in the storm, we could do little more than swing in our hammocks, so we swung, girls on one side, boys on the other, and passed the time, in small talk and silence.

  At one point one or both of the damaged bow and stern sections parted company with us, for there were several loud ringing bangs on the gig's hull, and then nothing.

  After several hours the tumbling ceased.

  'Has the storm passed?' I wondered aloud, and slipped out of the hammock to go forward and slide the access hatch open a little. I got a face full of wind driven leaves for my efforts. The roaring of the wind outside filled the compartment.

  'Guess not,' laughed Cin from the companionway.

  'Not yet, but it may be dying down. Either that, or it has blown all the vines downwind, creating a tail that's keeping the island semi-steady. Still, anything can happen.'

  We returned to our hammocks and swung quietly for a time.

  'You know, Cin, it's going to be rather cozy aboard the gig once we actually get under way and have to remain aboard the boat,' I remarked glancing across at her. 'What with only two small compartments to knock about in.'

  'Oh, I'm planning to do something about our overcrowding problem when the time comes.'

  Siss barked her laugh and pounded her tail on Cin's chest.

  'I'm serious, Siss,' snapped Cin.

  Upon which Siss instantly turned her head to me, bared her many teeth and gave me her most ferocious growl, which broke me up, and instantly had Siss barking in laughter as well. Cin may've been forced to smile in spite of herself.

  'How can a sentry-serpent from a small isolated island be so attuned to human thought patterns that she shares our sense of humor?' I asked out loud after some thought on the subject.

  'Your sense of humor,' corrected Cin.

  'I'm certain she can telepathically read our emotions, but that doesn't necessarily explain how she can be so attuned to the subtleties of our thoughts that she can respond so intelligently and so wittily.'

  'I'm not so sure she's all that intelligent. She doesn't seem to realize that I wasn't joking.'

  Siss gave a low growl, disputing that remark.

  'But that said, you seem to forget that she wasn't alone on Redoubt Island. She was sharing it with over three hundred sleeping counter-revolutionaries. And who knows how old she is. She likely has spent her entire life observing the dreams of humans, so perhaps it's not all that surprising after all.'

  'Ah, true. But do we dream in stasis?' I muttered, half to myself. 'Well, I suppose you must. I once met a ghost in wyrm weather who was dreaming in stasis.'

  'A ghost?'

  'Oh, I've met several. You were the last one, back there on the deck of the flagship. But this particular one, Glen Colin, was a real ghost,' I said, and spun her my tale of encountering Glen Colin during the Lost Star's passage through wyrm weather in route to Zilantre.

  We drifted into silence after I'd finished my yarn in the dim lit compartment.

  'You really don't take my hints seriously, do you?' asked Cin, after a while.

  'Siss didn't.'

  'Which goes to show her limitations.'

  'I doubt it. I tend to trust her on this. She can see into your mind.'

  'You know I would've killed you on Lontria and on Despar too, but for that lug of a legionnaire getting in the way as the hatch closed. Why do you not take my intention seriously?'

  'Because you've make it plain you don't want to do it,' I said, looking across the cabin, 'with all your warnings and hints about jumping ship. I believe that our shared affinity, whatever misgivings we both may harbor, will, in the end, prevail. We simply have too much in common for anything too unpleasant to come between us.' The love conquers all theory. The love part was pretty iffy.

  'We have nothing in common.'

  'Says the girl sharing a small cabin with me.'

  She ignored that. 'You don't know me, or my position. You seem to see only one facet of me, my Unity Standardness, and then you make the assumption that I'm like you.'

  'Huh? Your Unity Standardness? I seemed to have missed that.'

  'I didn't operate within the Azminn system for fifteen years without adopting something of the Unity outlook. It was necess
ary for my work. Plus, my mother is an outsider - a native of Barvene in the Amdia System, so that I suppose I may still have some Unity character traits in my makeup from her as well. But I'm a Cin, and trust me, Litang, we Cins are not pleasant people. We're known for our ruthlessness and vindictiveness, among other traits. I've no love for the masters of St Bleyth, but I will ruthlessly fulfill my duty at any cost. I will use you, and then,' she paused to give me a hard look. (And Siss a low warning hiss.) 'Even if you manage to talk me into believing that you now fall outside my official duty to eliminate you, you will pay the price for your part in my family's final extinction within the Order. As I said, we're very vindictive.'

  Which should've scared me. A lot. But didn't. I guess my 500 generations of St Bleyth ancestors are a pretty tough, ruthless lot, too. And discovering that she was half Unity, made me bold. I knew firsthand how complicated and powerful a mixed Unity-St Bleyth heritage could be. Though I consider myself very Unity Standard, I know that my St Bleyth instincts made me more ruthless than I'd have been without that heritage. I had to believe that the reverse would work in Cin's case as well. Indeed, I could make a case that I was alive today because she was only half St Bleyth, no matter how ruthless and vindictive that half might be. So I said, 'Vindictive or not, you're no fool. But we'll settle that another day. Why not tell me about your family, and it's fall? Better yet, about yourself. No matter whose vision of our future turns out to be written, we're beyond worrying about secrets.'

  Chapter 05 Cin's Tale (Part 2)