“And what if I don’t want to go to New York? What then?” Snow said, though she did want to go, even if it was only fake New York.
“You said you wanted to go to New York—”
“That was before I found out it wasn’t really New York. I’ve seen the North, what if I want to go to the South now?”
“You haven’t seen the North. The North is south of here. And though New York is south of the North, we would need to go well south of New York to get to the South,” Max said.
She eyed him suspiciously. Despite how it sounded, he did not appear to be joking. “Well I suppose I could agree to go to New York then. Since it is the only option,” she said.
“It’s not the only option,” Max said. “There’s lots of places you could go.”
“But you think New York best,” she said, “Why?”
“I mean… I think they have to follow the rules there…”
“You think they have to follow the rules there…” Snow said.
Max looked uncertain and paused to gather his thoughts.
“New York’s an amazing place,” he said, “Huge buildings, some as tall as twenty stories and nearly as wide. It has a great night life. And it is usually the first place you will see anything new. Technology, art, other. The Yorkies are great too. Open and friendly. But the ones that were born there, they don’t think much of the rest of the world, the Regions. They don’t say it outright of course, but it comes out. Sideways. In the expressions or jokes they make. They see the rest of the world as backwards and lawless, though maybe not those of us new-New Yorkies. And HOSaS is like that too. They rate New York second only to Tawnee, but the Regions? Natural born Yorkies will find it easy to believe stories of murder in the Regions. Even if people knew who you were, the blame would fall on the peoples of the Regions, for failing to protect you. And for that same reason, they won’t be eager to kill us once we get to New York.”
Chapter 11
The first two days, sailing south with the wind, were a dream when compared to Max’s original trip north, traveling into that same steady wind. The wind was predictable within the inside passage, hedged between the long tight string of mountainous islands and the taller mountains of the coast. As it was, the wind was sufficient to overcome the steady tidal current that flowed into the passage working against them.
The passage, its narrowest at the start of the journey, expanded with the incoming tide during the first two days of the natural six-day tidal cycle, part of Mega’s apparent twelve-day journey around Grailliyn. Mega traveled fully around Grailliyn every day of course. In fact, it completed a full orbit in about fifty-five hours, five hours faster than the sixty hours Grailliyn took to complete a rotation which marked a day, which was why Mega seemed to slowly crawl across the sky, taking twelve days to come full circle.
Max had expected to personally sail the boat the whole way down the coast. But Snow learned quickly. She watched Max and soon, with the addition of a few specific lessons from him, she was piloting the boat well enough that Max could sleep without their needing to first lay anchor.
When he woke up after his first nap however, he found that the boat was no longer in the main passage. Instead they were winding their way through a sea-filled mountain inlet. Snow had grown bored of the standard route and had wondered what might be “around that corner.” She wondered the same about the next corner after that. And the next after that, and the next after that.
Max pointed her attention to the steep mountain side ahead. There were large white shapes on the snowy cliffs above. One of them broke camouflage, stretching its huge bright wings wide. It dropped from the cliff edge where it had sat and caught the wind. Gliding across the pass it continued up the channel and disappeared around yet another of the inlet’s twists and turns which had drawn Snow onward till now. Max didn’t know, and details were difficult to make out at that distance, but the creature left him with the impression that it might be a bit bitey.
Snow’s pale cheeks turned slightly pink.
“Do they eat people?” she asked, a bit less frightened than Max had expected. And certainly, less than was prudent.
Max shrugged. “You can never be too careful. If they’re hungry enough they might try adding something new to the menu.”
Snow crinkled her nose.
It was some time before they’d sailed out using the light wind available in Snow’s Channel. But in the end, they were still slightly ahead of the old schedule, the one that involved anchoring to sleep. And no one had been carried off or eaten. Max took it as a win.
The sun was setting when they arrived back in the main channel of the inside passage and Mega’s return was still days away. However, they were able to continue sailing, despite the pitch-ness of the dark, thanks to the glowing waters of the passage. Max was unsure what caused the beautiful luminescence, he had seen it for the first time on his original trip north. He wondered if the glow had anything to do with the new BioLogical computer screens that started appearing in the north over the last year.
There was a dramatic change of climate, four days later, when they left the relative shelter of the passage and rode the ebbing current out to the open sea. Ice and snow, that had alone covered the mountains of the passage, were relegated to the peaks on the coast, the lower slopes were now covered in forests of purple and red and green. Birds and other fliers fluttered and swooped and called out from the trees. The sea too was suddenly full of life. Filter feeders big and small flocked to the area to feed on tiny critters that filled the nutrient rich water flowing from the passage. Small fish ate tiny fish. Bigger fish ate the small fish. So on and so on, up the food chain to Doozer, who tried to eat everything, but whose long legs were still too short to reach all the way down to the water from the boat’s rounded deck. Armored predators of all sizes prowled the water. One large and impressive group, the leader of which was twice the length of their shell boat, cruised past the bow propelled by wide flat tail fins. Their armor-plated dorsal fins sliced through the water and air like the sails of some wind-powered submersible ship.
“Careful.” Snow, grinning like a maniac, gripped Max by the shoulders and shook him as he was tightening lines. “Don’t fall in!”
Doozer chittered nervously and scuttled between his boss and his new best friend, attempting to push them apart and break up the ‘fight’. After a couple days of acclimatizing to Snow’s scent and behavior, the little crab had latched right onto her, sometimes literally. He followed her around when she was on deck and slept in the crook of her arm or on her pillow.
Snow released Max from her grip and scooped up Doozer. “Are you hungry you fuzzy little nug?”
She rapped her knuckles on his carapace which predictably set him into a chitter purr. She put him back on deck and grabbed the pole net.
“Let’s see if we can’t rustle up some grub for you,” she said.
“Speaking of hungry…” Max said, “It’s time to eat.”
“Hooray,” Snow said, losing her enthusiasm.
While she fought to scoop organisms from the sea, Max cooked a slice of the bacterial mat from the digester. He held it on a stick over the flame of the oil stove, preparing it for Snow to eat. When, days ago, he first offered her the food, she looked at him like maybe he was trying to kill her after all. She’d opened her mouth, poked her finger at the opening and gagged, miming what she thought of the food. Then, in case that wasn’t clear, she said, “Barf.”
Wearing Max’s oversized clothing with rolled up sleeves and legs, she stood gazing out the small porthole in the port side of the ship, transfixed by the world outside.
“Holy jumpin’, that one is HUGE!” she said excitedly, pointing out the tiny window, as she still did whenever she saw some new large creature or another. “If that was the one that was trying to eat you, I’d have just let him.”
Max spared a moment to view the crab out the portal. It was huge. Possibly the largest crab Max had ever seen, larger even than those monstrous wagon haul
ers that propelled the wagon trains between SoChar and NaChar. It stood upon thick stocky legs with a massive carapace and was quickly dredging a large hole in the sandy shore.
“It would never fit inside the boat,” he said.
“It would eat the boat.”
Max said nothing.
Snow gave him a penetrating gaze, seemingly aware of the something behind the nothing that he’d said.
“Dinner is served,” he said, using his best butler impersonation and changing the topic.
He handed Snow the cooked mat on a purple plastic plate with a napkin and purple plastic utensils.
“Hooray. Broiled bacteria,” Snow said with mock enthusiasm. She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “It’s not so bad, salted and crisped up a bit. Remember that time you tried to convince me that people ate it raw and slimy? You’re such a kidder.”
Max picked up a long slice of bac-mat and dangled it above his open mouth. Holding it from one end he jiggled it a bit before lowering it into his mouth and swallowing it whole.
Snow’s face crinkled in disgust. “I have to give you credit. When you commit. You commit.”
When they’d finished eating, they cleaned up by washing the plates and utensils in a bucket of sea water.
“Tomorrow we have to sail quite close to shore. The water gets very deep, so we’ll have to pay close attention,” Max said.
“Why?” asked Snow, narrowing one eye in suspicion.
Max took a moment to pick his words before answering. “Deep water is dangerous,” he said.
“You mean something is going to eat us. Something that lives in deep water is going to eat us. It’s okay,” she said, smiling and patting his shoulder reassuringly, “you can say ‘something is going to eat us’.”
“Something is going to eat us,” he said.
“What?”
“No, I mean something could eat the boat.”
“We’re in the boat.”
“It’s fine. We’re fine… if we stay in the shallows, by the shore,” he said, “This is why I didn’t say anything.”
“So, we were just going to go sailing into boat eating monster waters and you weren’t going to tell me about it?”
“I was going to tell you. After we got through.”
“After?”
“There is no decision, we have no other options,” Max said, confident in the fact.
Snow laughed. “Well, we could walk, couldn’t we? I’m sure it’s a long way but—” Snow said, with an implied ‘duh’.
“No,” Max said.
“No?” She gave him a look that said, ‘You are being obstinate.’
“No really, even if we could climb those cliffs and make it to the forest… we don’t go into the forest. Better to be eaten whole by a sea monster,” he paused. “If there was a decision to be made, I would have told you, really, but there isn’t.”
Snow looked into him. She was using her magic powers again, to read his mind, plucking information one bit at a time from his head, directly into hers. She might just be good at reading people, but Max hadn’t yet ruled out Magic.
“Okay, fine. We can’t walk. I’m just saying, next time there is a sea monster, I want to know there is a sea monster. I mean what if it swims by and I miss my chance to see it?” she said.
“I—”
“You think the other boat is looking for a sea monster too?”
“Other boat?” Max said, a note of alarm in his voice.
“I saw it when I was getting water. Is that bad?” she said. “It’s bad.”
Max said nothing. He retrieved his binoculars, then they both went up on deck. Snow found the boat and pointed it out.
“Your eyes are better than mine,” he said.
He examined the other boat with the binos. It too was small, being only slightly bigger than his own boat. No one was visible on deck, though it was too far off to be sure.
“It’s the assassin,” Max said.
“What makes you so sure?” Snow asked.
“There’s no reason for anyone else to be out here in such a small boat…”
“It’s bigger than this one,” Snow said, slapping the side of the hull to remove any doubt as to which boat she was referring to.
“It’s not a huge candy shipping cargo hauler is all I mean. In any case we have a bigger problem, look,” he said and pointed to the horizon further out to sea and the distant storm clouds that hung above it.
“Barf.”
He handed the binoculars to Snow. “Take a look and let me know if you see anything else.”
He busied himself, checking the sails, lines, and pulleys. He could adjust almost everything from within the sealed cabin, but only if everything was in proper working order to begin with. A tangled line or folded sail would bunch up the works forcing them to go out on the deck in the storm to fix it.
“That other boat, it’s not like this one. It’s hard to make out, but it looks like it’s made from logs?” Snow said.
Max nodded and said, “Good. When that storm hits, he will be worse off than we are. Look all around. Do you see anything else in the water?”
Snow panned around slowly, “Anything in particular I’m looking for?”
“Sort of white blobs, at or just below the surface.”
“No, I don’t see anything like that.”
“Good,” Max said.
“We’re going out there aren’t we,” Snow said and she pointed out to sea.
“Yep. We’ll wait until the storm gets closer, then we head out to the deep.”
A short while later, they made their dash. Strong winds built up quickly and Max took advantage of them to move rapidly into deep water to avoid the rocky shore during the coming storm. The hull was strong enough to take a pounding, even against said rocky shore. But the hull wasn’t the problem. If the boat rolled against the shore, the mast and rigging would soon be ripped away, and they were still a long, long way from civilization. With no sail or ability to control the vessel they would be open to all manner of dangers. Not the least of which was being pushed out to sea, never to be seen again. He thought that would be a particularly terrible end for Snow White. To wake from centuries of sleep, only to be lost at sea? Not on his watch.
They reefed the sails, heaved to, and went below to wait out the storm.
With the weather left to deal with the presumed assassin and with no need to navigate, they found themselves with freedom they hadn’t yet experienced on their flight from the True North. There had been plenty of time for talking before now though little else as one or the other was always piloting.
Even now, days after waking, Snow said she still could not remember anything. Max had an idea to try and shake some memories loose.
“Let’s play a game,” he said.
“Ooooo. What kind of game? Balancing game?” She looked around at the cabin, which was tilting and swaying, and waggled an eyebrow at Max.
“Ha! No. Not a balancing game. It’s more like—”
“A spelling game? I feel like I would be a good speller.”
“No. Not a spelling game. A—”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She covered her mouth and looked concerned, as though she had offended him. “Caveman not spell!” she said.
She scratched her head and crinkled her brow in what must have been her cave man impersonation.
“Ooh, ooh, ahh, aah!” she said, then quickly pulled her arms back and huddled into her blankets.
The humidity was up, and the temperature outside had dropped considerably with the coming of the storm. In addition, Max had to seal the stove tight against the threat of rolling in the storm. All of this meant blankets were back in vogue.
“We cavemen can spell just fine,” Max said, pursing his lips and refusing to smile.
Snow dropped all expression from her face then raised one eyebrow. “I’m not playing a trivia game.”
“It’s not really a trivia game, but good idea.” Max paused and waited for more inte
rruptions. There were none and he continued, “I shall call it the ‘normal or strange’ game. I point to a thing and you tell me if it’s normal or strange. Like…” he grabbed a plastic fork from the sink, held it up and pointed to it.
Snow nodded her head, “Normal,” she said. “Do I get a point?”
“Sure,” Max said and pointed to a plastic plate.
“Also, normal,” she said.
“Another point then,” replied Max and he pointed to the stone axe.
“Weird!” she said. “Wait. Do I still get a point?”
“Yes.”
“I approve of these rules. Next!”
Max pointed at the digester.
“Ugg,” Snow said. “So weird.”
They played for a while, Max pointing to various items on the boat and Snow answering, Normal or, Strange, weird, barf, or other Snowisms. Eventually Max pointed at the pod.
“Normal I guess,” she said, “but like… not for me.”
Hours passed as they weathered the storm on the boat. They mostly stayed huddled in their blankets, rising on occasion to look out the windscreen. After the excitement of the first big wave, and though she had only squealed and not complained, Max assured Snow that the boat would not sink. They might roll over. And if they did not hold on tight, they might bash their heads or impale themselves on something. But the boat would not sink, that was the important part.
The boat did not sink. It didn’t roll over either. Though there were times it seemed like it might do one or both.
They talked to pass the time and to distract each other from their churning bellies. In turn they made up their own origin stories, this time about Snow White. A sacrifice to some god or another was the plot they shared in common.
In Snow’s story, the sacrifice was to the Hokala, the great crab of the north, who would accept as sacrifice, only the most powerful, intelligent, and ferocious warrior of the land!
Max’s story differed mostly in that the people wanted to rid themselves of the picky-eating-pigmentless one.
Snow punched him in the shoulder. “I’m not picky,” she said, still laughing at his story. “Your food is very, very weird.”
Starship Relic (Lost Colony Uprising Book 1) Page 6