He stepped up onto the rocks of the shoreline and set down the box of fish chunks. He put some in his backpack, and others he laid out on the rock. He then pulled out his own sidearm and said out loud, “Maybe I could hit the thing if it comes here. I will certainly try. Better that it come here, than that it attack Gretchen and Brinley.”
With one hand holding the weapon, he used the other hand to toss the first dried fish chunk out into the sea. It fell among the raindrops making a larger splash. He waited a few moments, remembering his throw of the monkey’s paw, and then tossed another fish chunk out.
“What if that thing was a huge lobster?” Paul wondered out loud as he tossed another chunk into the sea. “Those things have big clampers. Could there be giant ones? A lobster the size of a poitevin? Maybe the small things I have been catching are the baby lobsters? Could I have been stealing something’s babies and now it is mad?”
He tossed another chunk and considered the possibilities. “Just what did I see?” His eyes scanned the sea for any sign of anything. He fully expected to see something rise up and grab at the fish chunks which were now bobbing about in the surf. He had been unsure if they would float or sink. At least by floating, he could tell if something did come and grab it. He set his mind to open fire with his weapon at the first sign of anything coming out of the sea.
He tossed another chunk in. Then another was thrown in.
Paul was staring at the water when it happened.
Something sticky fell onto the side of his face. It was thicker and heavier than the raindrops. He was startled. He took his eyes off the water and looked up as he wiped his face.
Several of the large black and white birds were circling over his head. His hand was covered in the droppings from one of those birds. He glanced back at the water, and saw several other birds had found the floating field of fish chunks. One bird was flying over and then folded its wings and plunged down into the water. Paul wondered if it was dead or what had happened to it. It came up a moment later with a chunk in its mouth, and then spat it out. The bird flapped its wings and looked like it was running across the water as it took off.
“Great, even those birds reject the dried fish!” Paul scowled. He wiped his hand on the wet sand, and then washed his face off as best he could. “At least it is not that thing I saw.”
He looked at the box and realized there was only one left in it. He threw it as hard as he could and it soared out and plopped into the sea. It was then he heard the whine of the airboat. He threw the box up onto the beach away from the shoreline.
“Paul? We are on our way. No signs of trouble,” Gretchen said through the communication link.
“Good. I have seen nothing but those big white and black birds. With the rain will you be able to navigate that boat?” Paul asked.
“Not a problem,” Brinley replied. “The motor has plenty of power stored. I can still make out the general direction of the sky tube, so will we head sideways. I know the two towns are located on opposite sides of the habitat, so we will encounter one of them.”
The sound of the airboat increased and Paul watched as it rode across the sea toward him. The rowboat was upside down and now lashed across the front of the airboat. Brinley expertly maneuvered the airboat to very close to the rocks.
“Jump in Paulie. Be careful on the rocks, they might be slippery.”
“I would not have thought of that,” Paul barked back.
The airboat could have held about a dozen people, but with the rowboat stored, there were only two rows of seats as well as the pilot’s chair.
“We have nearly a full charge of power,” Brinley said. “So even though it is rain day, we should have no problem getting to where we are headed.”
“I have a fusion pack if we need more power,” Gretchen reminded her.
“Me too,” Paul said.
“I keep forgetting the gadgets you two have. I look for thruster fuel and battery power, you carry all you need with you. I wonder when we get to a Fabrication and Reproduction facility if it can make duplicates of the fusion packs, medical kits, weapons, and data sticks?”
“The data sticks do not work, right?” Paul asked as she sat down next to Gretchen. Gretchen had the pistol in her hand.
“I made some progress on the data sticks and Tennard is continuing to work on it.” Brinley looked up at the dull glow of the sky tube which was visible through the rain and the clouds. It stretched in both directions. “So do we head that way?” she pointed in a direction perpendicular to the dull glow. “Or do we circle around the island and head the opposite direction. I think the children are likely to have come from that way, but I will leave it up to you two to decide. In the end we might have to go both ways to continue the search.”
Paul motioned to Gretchen indicating that he had no preference.
“Go the way you think they came,” Gretchen answered. “You have not steered us wrong before.”
“Hang on, and keep your eyes open. We do not want to hit something in the water, or encounter whatever Paul saw.” Brinley then moved the levers in her hand and the airboat turned and sped away across the sea.
8 Kimry
The airboat soon was far away from Inaccessible Island. The rain had changed into a light drizzle, and the clouds were less dense. The moisture pattern was following the same schedule as it did on every other rain day.
“How far can we go?” Paul asked.
“As far as we need to go, Paulie. The habitat is only so wide, and about five times as long as it is wide. We are traveling side to side, so it should not be far before we run into the side of the habitat. My understanding is that there is land all around the edge of this biological habitat.”
“From Inaccessible Island you could not see anything but water, and you said you have not been here,” Paul stated.
“Not inside, but I have orbited around this cylinder a few times in a shuttle. There are routes that I memorized for places on each cylinder. The inside will not be bigger than the outside, right?” Brinley replied.
Paul was about to respond when several gray colored fish, about the same size as he, leaped up in the water and back down again. They were swimming parallel to the airboat, but a good distance away.
Gretchen was instantly ready with the pistol, and kept it aimed at the place where the water animals had landed.
“If they get closer, should I shoot them?” Gretchen asked.
“Wait! I am not sure what those are. They do not seem to be attacking the airboat, not even coming toward it. It is more like they are racing with it,” Brinley said. “I have seen dogs run after a wagon like that. They do not look like a threat to me.”
The animals jumped again through the wake made by the airboat. They were long and tubular, with a sharply pointed nose, no visible teeth in their mouths, and two small handless, flat, arms off their belly. They had a third type of appendage on their backs which was a bit longer than the bottom ones and stuck straight up. Their tails were tapered to a sideways and flat triangle.
“Those fish are very sleek,” Gretchen said. “Paul? Was that what attacked those children?” Her eyes were focused down the sights of the pistol as she tracked the position of the water animals.
“Well, I am not sure. No. I do not think so. What I saw was more bluish or purplish. Those fish look more like the fish I try to dry out, except their tails are sideways to the little ones,” Paul replied. “They do not have big mouths either, so I just do not know.”
One of the gray fish jumped higher than the others and actually did a rotating flip and landed in the water again. There was a hole of sorts, about the size of its eye, on the top of the animal’s head which was seen as it spun in the air. Their actions seemed playful and almost frolicking. Paul was dubious that these things were responsible for what he had seen. Gretchen kept the pistol trained on the water, but shifted back and forth between the various sea animals as they leaped and jumped. She estimated that there were at least four separate indivi
dual animals swimming by them.
“There is the land,” Brinley said and pointed ahead.
A small and short band of green was seen on the edge of the sea’s water. Gretchen looked back and could see Inaccessible Island sticking up from the sea like a pillar. It was far taller than the land she was seeing ahead of her. It was not surprising the land was not visible from the plateau. There was a haze hovering over the coastline and that coast did not rise much above the water’s surface.
As Brinley maneuvered the airboat close to the shore, the gray swimming fish raced away, their top fin the only mark of their departure. Gretchen relaxed her grip on the pistol, but did not holster it.
“So where is the town?” Paul asked.
The shore was covered with vegetation and dense foliage, even though land was not much higher than the sea. There were trees and various plants, some with large blooming flowers. There was a gentle slope upward to the end of the habitat which was in the distance, but no signs of human habitation.
“I guess we follow the edge until we get to the town, or the long end of the habitat. Unless you think we should try to walk through that?” Brinley pointed at the thick growth. Something rustled in the plants, but was not visible.
“There are animals in there,” Paul said. “Go that way.”
Brinley turned the airboat and they followed the coastline which was jagged and convoluted with rocks, sandbars, and reefs of diverse shapes and sizes. The airboat easily moved around those obstacles under Brinley’s directions, but the speed of transit was slower than they had used in crossing the sea. After a while the drizzle completely stopped and the clouds faded out as the sky tube resumed its usual daily brightness.
They came around one bend in the shoreline where there was an especially large, and taller than the others, thicket of trees. A boat of similar style was sitting idly in the cove of water that was revealed. Brinley had to slow the airboat significantly to avoid a collision.
“Hey! That is Bertrand’s airboat!” Yelled a voice from the other airboat. “No one else stows a rowboat like that.”
There were three large men in that other airboat, and they all had wide brimmed hats which were a light creamy color. They were staring in wonder at Brinley, Paul, and Gretchen. The men were all obviously older people.
“Greetings!” Brinley called out. “We recovered this airboat and are seeking to return it to the rightful owner.”
“I should hope you want to return that airboat to Bertrand. He has one nasty temper and…” the first man began.
“Now Gavin, it is not proper to talk that way about our neighbor, even though you do speak the truth. These people obviously are from Murom and need our hospitality. Please forgive my friend Gavin here. I am Peyton and this is Jansha. So you crossed the entire sea to return a lost boat?”
“Yes, but we were unsure how to reach Kimry,” Brinley said. She had her Free Ranger dealing attitude on, and Paul and Gretchen sat back and watched.
“Well, you are not far and are heading the right direction. But may I ask why you did not have Constable Herric intervene?” Peyton asked.
At the name Herric, Jansha snorted loudly.
“Jansha, pay respect to these people. They live in the town where our Constable Herric has his own personal office, am I correct?” Peyton asked.
The look on Jansha’s face did not change much at his friend’s rebuke.
“Say, how did these folks find Bertrand’s airboat?” Gavin asked.
Brinley knew when to tell the truth and when to obfuscate, so she said, “I fear there is a terrible accident to report.”
The three men watched her with their full attention.
“I think it best to inform Bertrand himself, first, then we can…” Brinley started.
“Some children died. They drowned.” Paul interrupted. “There was nothing we could do.”
Brinley glared at Paul.
“Oh dear,” Peyton said. The other men looked shocked. “How many sweet children were lost?”
“I am sorry,” Brinley tried to sooth their feelings. “My associate here spoke abruptly and out of sorrow. We grieve your loss, and wish to inform the proper people. Can you assist us? Perhaps by leading us to Bertrand?”
“Those who mourn are often foolish of speech. It is understandable,” Peyton said in gentleness. “Of course we will take you to Bertrand. Will you please follow us?”
The old men’s airboat roared to life and then spun about. It proceeded away at a slow speed.
Brinley waited a bit and then turned to Paul. “You cannot just blurt out things like that. We are here searching for Klara, and we need to interact with these people to get information, not annoy them or get them to call the authorities. Please let me do the talking.”
Paul just looked down at the bottom of the airboat and did not respond.
“They did not seem any too happy about the Constable here. It reminds me of what we heard about Constable Larissa,” Gretchen said. “It sounds like the Constable is in that other town.”
“That will mean Governor Svoboda is in the town. That is the way it works, the Governor in one town, Constable in the other. At least we know we did come the right way.” Brinley maneuvered the airboat to follow the old men.
The coast continued to be convoluted, and the two airboats moved steadily along until the vegetation on the land they were passing changed from dense and overgrown to cultivated fields, farms, and small pastures.
“At least some of those animals I recognize,” Paul said. “There are goats, sheep, and some cattle things.”
“They are different from the poitevin, yaks, deer, and other animals we have seen though,” Gretchen added.
“Each habitat has its own unique animals, and Free Rangers trade, or we used to trade, the products of each from habitat to habitat,” Brinley said as she piloted the airboat.
Kimry became visible as they rounded another promontory. The town sat along a bay which was nearly a complete half circle. The first impression of the town was that it was shoddy and ramshackle. The buildings had been uniformly made; all were very similar in size and style. They were two story buildings with a living section on each level. Made from gray permalloy, they had domed roofs, and round windows. Both the upper level and the ground level had large doors at the ends of the homes. There were exterior stairs leading to the top floor. They had not been similarly maintained. About half of them were obviously unoccupied, with doors hanging ajar, and windows missing. Some had writing on them which was hand scrawled. ‘Infected’ was a common word, but others seen were ‘DEAD’ and ‘Closed by order of Constable.’ A few of the houses were kept in good repair, but they stood out among the others. The majority were somewhere between being neat and tidy, and being abandoned. Goats, chickens, and dogs ran loose in the street. A few people were seen in the windows or walking about. Those that saw them, ducked away quickly, or hurried off.
The older men’s airboat pulled up to a dock. The dock was made from permalloy, which was undamaged, but there were several structures made from some other materials, perhaps some tree product, which were rotting and fallen over. On one end of the dock was a disassembled airboat. A few fishing nets were hanging unused in various places.
Brinley pulled the airboat in next to the older men’s.
“Welcome to Kimry,” Peyton said from the pilot’s chair of his airboat. He waved his arm toward the town. “It is not like it was when I was your age. Not at all.”
Jansha and Gavin had scrambled up onto the dock and tied their own airboat in place. They moved with a slow deliberateness which demonstrated they had done this frequently.
Paul stepped out of the airboat as soon as it was close enough to the dock. He fumbled around with a rope and finally got it tied off at the bow. Gavin was watching him and then walked over.
“Peyton? Can you believe an adult man does not know how to secure a boat?” Gavin pushed past Paul and undid the tie he had made. With a few moves of his old hands
, the rope was made secure with a well fashioned knot.
Gretchen had discretely holstered her pistol, and pulled her shirt down over it to cover it up. She tossed a backpack to Paul who slung it on.
Gavin was staring at Paul. After a minute he walked to the stern of the airboat, took a long rod with a hook on its end, and pulled the stern of the boat against the dock. He then took a rope from it and secured that end as well. “I guess I have to do all the work for those too lazy, or too ignorant to know the proper way to be. I am an old man, what do I care what happens to me at this stage of my life.”
Paul was about to say something when he caught Brinley’s eyes. She was glaring at him, and he held his words in.
“Thank you!” Brinley said to Gavin as he walked away down the dock. He flipped his hand up without looking back. The gesture was both recognition he had heard her and a rude dismissal of Brinley thanks.
The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle Page 73