by C. Litka
02
Ten rounds of those endless skies had slipped astern after the Temtres ships were left behind, without seeing any sign of islands ahead. We weren't desperate, yet. It was true that we were burning the empty black-cake hampers to supplement our dwindling supply of black-cake, but we had dozens of rounds of food left and our sails intact so that we could sail on the wind for many rounds more. Still, by my calculations of the serrata wind that carried us to Blade Island, we should have reached the far side islands by now, which made me rather nervous. Not desperate, but nervous. The empty skies seemed cruelly indifferent to my calculations. There was, however, no alternative plan, so we sailed on, the bright spot squarely astern. We'd reach something, sooner or later. In theory.
I woke up with a hand on my shoulder on the eleventh round. I brushed some feathers off my face - Siss up to her old tricks again.
Naylea was standing beside me. She didn't say anything, but handing me the glasses, pointed ahead.
I twisted about in the hammock and shoved Siss off; she growled without bothering to wake up. I slipped my feet to the deck and standing, raised the glasses to my eyes. There wasn't much to see - just a faint smear of paleness in the bright brassy blue green sky that surrounded us. I stared hard. It wasn't my imagination.
I nodded and smiled. 'Definitely a cloud which should mean an island. I was beginning to get a bit nervous...'
'You'd better hope there's an island in that cloud, Litang. We had voted you to be the first to be eaten,' she replied. 'It was unanimous.'
'I don't recall voting.'
'You may've been asleep. Still, four to one, it wouldn't have mattered how you voted.'
'An asteroid dodged.' I turned to Py at the helm and nodded.
'Shift our course for it?' he asked.
'Seeing that I'm the first item on the menu, I'd say yes. Let's see what's behind that cloud.'