by Speer, Flora
The woman, who came toward her first, was tall and slender, with short dark hair. She looked angry. Or perhaps she was just worried about Reid. Janina hurried toward her, stumbling over loose stones, forgetting in her excitement how cold and miserable she was.
“Where is Reid?” the woman demanded. “What have you done with him?”
Janina stopped short. After an instant of surprise at the rude greeting, she thought she understood. The woman looked remarkably like Reid.
“You must be Alla, his kinswoman,” Janina said, putting out her hand. “I am—”
“I know who you are,” the woman snapped. “Where is Reid?”
Janina glanced at the men with Alla to see if they were as angry as she seemed to be. The man nearest to her was slim, with sharp features, black hair, and deep blue eyes. He looked serious but kind. The second man was large-boned and tall, and wore a sour expression on his face. The third man, who was leaning on a walking stick, was blond and incredibly handsome. Janina could not believe her eyes.
“Osiyar?” she exclaimed. “Osiyar, where are your bracelets? Is Tamat with you? Is she well? We saw the volcanoes - Osiyar, tell me Tamat is well.”
“Tamat lives no more in this world,” Osiyar said, confirming Janina’s fears. “I will explain later. I will tell you everything you wish to know.”
A strong hand grabbed at her shoulder, pulling Janina around to face grey eyes blazing with anger.
“Answer me, you stupid little fool!” Alla raged, her face contorted with fury. “You are the cause of all my cousin’s trouble. You are the reason he was cast adrift, the reason his life has been in danger. And look at you - skin and bones and not even as tall as my shoulder. You thought you were a fit mate for Reid? I’ll see you torn in pieces first!”
“Alla, stop it.” The dark man came forward and took Alla by the wrist. He had not raised his voice, nor did he appear to exert much manual pressure, yet Alla dropped her hand from Janina’s shoulder at once. But he could not stop her tongue.
“Tarik, you know she is the reason Reid is missing. If she hadn’t worked her wiles on him, he wouldn’t have been set adrift.”
“I believe,” Osiyar said quietly, leaning heavily on his walking stick as he came forward, “that it was Reid who seduced Janina. But at Ruthlen it is – was - the custom to punish both parties on the rare occasion when a priestess is violated.”
“Violated!” Alla screeched. “Reid would never—”
“Shall we forget our differences and try to find Reid?” Tank suggested. “Janina, when did you last see him?”
“On the boat,” she replied promptly, eager to do anything that might help Reid. “There was a terrible storm. We were nearly driven upon the rocks. Reid was trying to keep the boat afloat. When it heeled over, I fell into the sea. I am afraid for him,” she ended on a choked sob.
“Where was that?” Tank asked.
“I’m not certain. It was night, and I had been asleep until Reid called me. He said something about a whirlpool, or an eddy, that made him lose control of the boat.”
“While you slept!” exclaimed Alla. “Not only did you cause all his problems, you were obviously no help to him, you useless piece of baggage.”
“Alla,” Tarik said in a quiet, deadly voice, “get into the shuttlecraft, take the navigator’s seat, and keep quiet.”
Alla looked rebellious at first, then shrugged and did as she had been told.
“She is worried about Reid,” Tarik explained to Janina. She saw the sympathy in his dark blue eyes and instinctively knew that while he would never say anything unkind about Alla, he would protect Janina against the woman’s unreasonable anger.
No, not unreasonable. Alla loved Reid, too, and if in her fear for him she needed someone to blame, then Janina could understand and would accept the temporary abuse because they both had the same goal - Reid’s safe return.
“This is Herne, our physician,” Tarik said, indicating the larger man. “I suspect he is growing concerned about you.”
“It’s about time you remembered I’m here,” Herne responded. “While we stand listening to Alla overrunning with undeserved anger toward her, this young woman is rapidly becoming a candidate for pneumonia and frostbite. Look at her. Her clothes, such as they are, are soaked, and she can’t stop shivering.”
“I will be all right as soon as we find Reid,” Janina assured him. “He isn’t there. I looked at those rocks, but I haven’t climbed the flat rock on the other side of the beach yet.”
“Do you mean you climbed all the way to the top, with the waves washing over you?” Herne asked. “Young woman - Janina, is it? - get into that shuttlecraft at once and let me examine you.”
“I suggest you do as he commands,” Osiyar told her. “Herne is a most determined man.”
“And you stay away from her,” Herne retorted. “She has enough to contend with. She doesn’t need you to invade her mind.”
“He can’t do that without my permission,” Janina told him.
“So you say,” Herne replied with a snort. Taking Janina’s elbow firmly in one hand, he began to steer her toward the shuttlecraft door. “But he doesn’t need permission to stop you in mid-motion and hold you there until he’s ready to release you.”
At that, Janina looked at Osiyar, just in time to see him exchange an amused glance with Tarik. She had never seen a light-hearted Osiyar before, yet now Osiyar looked almost happy and he seemed to be on friendly terms with Tarik.
Considering the exterior size of the shuttlecraft, the cabin inside was unexpectedly small. That, Herne informed her, was in order to leave space for cargo, or, if necessary, for stretcher-beds to transport injured people who could not sit. He made Janina stand in the narrow aisle while he waved a silver rod around all of her body from head to toe. Then he read off the information provided by an oblong grey metal box fitted with an amazing array of dials and winking lights. She did not mind the rather impersonal examination. In spite of his gruffness, she sensed that Herne wanted to take care of her. Besides, the shuttlecraft cabin was warm and well protected from the bitter wind. The worst of her shivering had stopped.
“She appears to be in good condition,” Herne said to Tarik, “except for some congestion in her lungs. That is probably from inhaling sea water. She has a low-grade infection of some kind, but no fever, so I won’t worry about the infection until I can perform a better examination at headquarters. I suggest we put her into dry clothes and let her sleep a while.”
“I can’t sleep,” Janina objected. “I have to help you find Reid.”
“If you are like most women, you’ll do whatever you want regardless of what I say,” Herne responded. “At least put on dry clothing.”
He found an extra orange suit for her and then turned his back, standing so his bulky frame blocked her from the view of anyone else in the cabin while she changed out of her sodden tunic and trousers. Janina was too uncomfortable in her wet clothes to worry about modesty, but she thanked Herne once she was dressed, and thanked him again when he helped her turn up the too-long sleeves and legs of her new suit.
“Better sit down,” Herne said, pushing her into a padded seat and fastening an elastic strap across her shoulders.
“No, I have to get out,” Janina objected. “We have to search for Reid.”
“We have a faster way to do that than by climbing over wet rocks,” Herne said, seating himself beside her and adjusting his own elastic strap. “Just watch the viewscreen.”
Janina saw that Osiyar had limped into the shuttlecraft to take the seat behind hers. Tarik and Alla were in the first pair of seats. Tarik was doing something to a wide panel in front of him that had more knobs and blinking lights than Herne’s grey box. When he pulled a lever, she felt vibrations shake the shuttlecraft, followed by the sensation that her body had been lifted into the air while her stomach remained on the ground.
“Watch there.” Herne indicated a large blank square set into the wall of the shuttlecra
ft just above the panel where Tarik was working. A moment later the square was blank no longer. Janina could see the beach where she had been, and the rocks she had climbed. The beach grew smaller. The ocean appeared, and the high rocks backing the beach. She saw the two large birds flying along with them. Then, suddenly, she could see a long stretch of coastline.
“How is that done?” Janina cried.
“With machinery, not with the mind,” came Osiyar’s dry, oddly humorous voice from the seat in back of her. “When I first saw it, I couldn’t believe it, either.”
“We can look for Reid this way,” said Herne. “With all of us watching the screen, there is little chance we’ll miss any sign of his presence. And the birds will help us, too. They directed us to you.”
“First we are going to search the shore near where we found you,” Tarik explained, speaking over his shoulder. “If he’s not there, we’ll try to find the whirlpool you mentioned.”
He adjusted a dial, and instantly Janina felt as though she had moved much closer to the land, but she understood that this was some trick of the machinery. She knew they were flying through the air, yet she was not afraid. In fact, she was exhilarated by this new experience. If only Reid were there to share it with her!
By watching the screen, she could see when Tarik turned the shuttlecraft away from the coast and moved it out to sea, with the birds still accompanying them. At first she saw nothing except heaving waves, but then she noticed the water swirling into a gigantic circle with a depression at its center. Off to one side of the whirlpool a long spur of rock reared upward, and flung onto the rock, broken into pieces…
“That’s it, that’s the boat!” Were it not for the safety harness, Janina would have been out of her seat. “Tarik, that’s our boat!” she repeated.
Tarik turned the knob he had used before and the rock appeared nearer. Another twist of the knob, a slight adjustment of focus. Janina held her breath. Below them, the birds circled the rock.
“There!” Alla cried. “There he is, next to the wreckage.”
“Reid?” Janina could hardly speak, could barely breathe. The figure she saw on the rock looked so small and broken - and so very still.
“I’ll go down,” Herne said to Tarik.
“I’m going, too.” Alla was out of her seat, reaching for a bulky, sleeveless garment. With a quick motion she pulled it over her treksuit and fastened it down the front. She tossed a similar garment to Herne.
“Let me go along,” Janina begged.
“You don’t belong there,” Alla told her rudely. “You’d be in the way.”
“Stay here, Janina,” Herne said more kindly. “You are weaker than you think, and that’s a dangerous descent to a slippery surface. We don’t want to have to rescue you a second time in one day. You can see everything that happens on the viewscreen, and you will be here waiting for Reid when we bring him up.”
Enthralled, she watched the viewscreen as Herne and Alla were lowered from the shuttlecraft on what looked like heavy ropes, while Tarik kept the craft steady high above the rocks.
“Ordinarily, when they reach ground level, they would disconnect themselves from the lines,” Tarik explained. “But not here. If they fall into the sea we want to be able to pull them back, and the vests they are wearing will keep them afloat until we do.”
Osiyar asked a few questions about the machinery used to lower Herne and Alla, but Janina wasn’t listening. All her attention was on the viewscreen. Alla had reached the rocks. Janina watched her fling herself onto Reid’s body.
It should be me down there, Janina thought, and felt a surge of jealousy, until Herne’s voice crackled through the shuttlecraft cabin.
“He’s still alive,” Herne reported. “Half drowned and badly injured, but alive.”
Janina leaned back in her seat, tears of relief overflowing.
“Janina, Osiyar, I will need your help,” Tarik said.
Janina wiped her cheeks. Osiyar had released his own safety harness and now helped Janina out of hers. Following Tarik’s directions, they went through the hatch into the cargo hold. Janina clutched at Osiyar, nearly upsetting his precarious, one-legged balance, for there in the floor before her yawned the open hatch through which Herne and Alla had been lowered. The ropes holding them descended from what looked like a heavy beam that ran from end to end of the shuttlecraft.
“Just step around the opening.” Osiyar showed her the row of handgrips in the wall to which she could cling as they made their way past the gaping hatch. They located a special mesh stretcher and the release for a third rope. At Tarik’s command, they attached the stretcher to the rope and sent both through the hatch and down to the rocks below. Watching the rope unreel, Janina saw that it was not the kind of plant-fiber rope she had always known, but was made of a combination of metal and some other flexible material.
Their next task was to unfold and set up a stretcher-bed, which they secured to the wall by special hooks, then added padding with a thick heating blanket. Janina began to appreciate how cleverly the shuttlecraft had been designed. In a way it reminded her of the broken boat on the rocks below. Like the boat, the shuttlecraft had a compartment or a holder for every object in it, so that while it was in motion, nothing could roll around and cause damage or injury.
Herne came up from the rocks first, followed by the unconscious Reid, who was tightly strapped into the stretcher. Alla arrived last, but by that time Janina was not watching the hatch any longer; she was helping Herne to secure the folding stretcher to the stretcher-bed. Herne refused to allow Reid to be moved any more than was absolutely necessary, so they cut off his saturated garments and covered him with another heating blanket.
“The one you put on the stretcher-bed will warm his back,” Herne explained, adjusting the temperature gauge, “and this one will warm the other side of him. He’s lost a lot of body heat. That sea water is too cold for a human to survive very long with the waves constantly washing over him.”
Janina heard the concern in Herne’s voice with a clutch at her heart. She knelt beside Reid, smoothing his hair back from his pale, cold face while Herne worked on him.
When Alla finally appeared through the hatch, it was Osiyar who reached out a hand to pull her over so she could stand, and Osiyar who pressed the button to close the hatch. Alla held on to him for just a moment, to steady herself. Then, with the hatch shut and latched, she removed her safety vest and went to Reid.
“Get away from him,” she said, pushing Janina aside so she could kneel at the stretcher-bed. “You’ve done enough harm already. Don’t do any more.”
“She is assisting me, and she has been very helpful,” Herne said in a loud voice. “You’ve had your moments alone with him, now it’s Janina’s turn.”
“Alla, come forward, please, and make your report.” That was Tarik’s voice, heard through a speaker near Osiyar’s head. Though she plainly did not want to leave Reid, Alla obeyed him, but not before sending a last angry look Janina’s way.
“Did you open the communicator?” Herne glanced up from his patient to Osiyar. When Osiyar nodded and pushed the communicator button to closed position again, Herne said, “Thank you. That woman is too possessive of her cousin. I’m glad Tarik heard her. She will obey him.”
“I think,” Osiyar said, “that Alla ought to be induced to change her mind about certain matters.”
“If you can make her change her mind about anything, the rest of us will be grateful to you. She’s a difficult woman at the best of times, but since Reid has been missing she’s been impossible.”
“She was worried about him. I, for one, can’t blame her for that.” Janina was still tenderly stroking Reid’s forehead while she closely watched everything Herne was doing. “Will he live?”
“I haven’t finished my examination yet,” Herne said, his voice rough. “Move away now, Janina, and give me more space. Go stand over there with Osiyar.”
Herne pulled the heat blanket back and waved the
silver instrument, which he had told Janina was a diagnostic rod, up and down over Reid’s legs and feet.
“Where did he get these welts on his left ankle and right knee? I’ve never seen anything exactly like them before. You have the same kind of welt on your left wrist. What caused it?”
“Two sea monsters attacked us,” Janina said, and heard Osiyar gasp. At Herne’s insistence, she went on to explain what the monsters looked like and how she and Reid had fought them and won.
“You will have to tell Alla about this,” Herne remarked absently, his attention mostly on the red marks on Reid’s legs. “She’s the specialist in interplanetary zoology. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she decides she wants to mount an expedition to capture one of your monsters so she can study it. Perhaps we ought to let her try.”
Momentarily diverted from her concern over Reid, Janina smothered a giggle at Herne’s dry tone of voice.
“No one,” Osiyar said with awe deepening his voice, “has ever won a battle with a sea monster before.”
“How could you know that?” Janina asked bitterly. “Except for my parents and one or two other unfortunates who were caught near the village, the only people who meet the monsters are those who are set adrift, and they are forbidden to return, aren’t they?”
Herne refolded the heat blanket over Reid’s legs and straightened, looking grim.
“Will he live?” Janina asked again, almost afraid to hear the answer to her question.
“I’m not sure,” Herne said, watching her face carefully. “Like yours, Reid’s lungs are congested with inhaled sea water, and I have no doubt he swallowed a lot of it, too. He’s suffering from severe exposure, his body temperature is well below normal, and he has several broken bones. He also has some kind of infection, though I don’t know yet exactly what it is. It could be some toxic substance contracted from the sea monster through the punctures in those welts. As soon as we reach headquarters, I want to re-examine you, Janina, to find out if the infection you are suffering from is the same as Reid’s.”