Star Rigger's Way

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  Hyou bross heem, Caharleel! Cephean said accusingly, not specifying whether he meant Corneph or the koryf.

  Carlyle scrambled and shoved Cephean ahead of him. The koryf lumbered through the last shielding trees. The stench was terrible. Carlyle ran with Cephean until he had gained some distance from the beast and then sagged, gasping, with his back to a tree. Cephean snarled in the direction of the koryf, and turned to resume his complaint. His whiskers quivered with anger as he stared at Carlyle.

  Carlyle was saved from an inquisition by the sound of Janofer's voice. He had no choice, Cephean. Carlyle looked around in amazement; but Janofer was nowhere to be seen. He can only get so much help from us, Cephean—we are not so real as we might seem. But Cephean, you can help if you will only try. Do what he says now—you must, for all of us! Her voice was soft, as always, and urgent—and it stirred warmth in Carlyle, along with a trace of bitterness and humiliation. Could a cynthian sympathize with such weaknesses in a human?

  Cephean snorted and looked off into the woods—thinking, rubbing his tail against his ears, pawing at his whiskers. Finally he dipped his head around to face Carlyle. Whass h-we d-hoo?

  The koryf screamed as it discovered their location and began smashing its way toward them. Entire trees toppled before the creature, and the air was fouled with sulfurous gusts.

  Carlyle shouted instructions: You run to the right and I'll run to the left! We'll both try to keep its attention. Keep it confused, and keep track of me, too. Now GO!

  The nearest tree suddenly erupted from the ground, its roots dangling. The koryf shook the tree in its jaws, dirt flying in all directions, then dropped it with a crash and set to the attack. Carlyle and Cephean bolted in opposite directions. The koryf hesitated, infuriated—then lunged after Cephean. Carlyle turned, screaming: STOP! STOP!—but when the koryf gave no notice he took a deep, full breath and charged hard on the beast's tail.

  His first thought was to throw stones to distract the monster; but there were none lying in reach, so he scooped up a clod of earth in each hand and when he was near enough threw them both, with all his strength, at the koryf's head. He missed. But he found a broken branch on the ground, and—as the koryf snapped close to where Cephean crouched, hissing—hurled it straight on target. The branch glanced from the koryf's head—and that got its attention. The beast swung about in rage. Screaming, it set upon Carlyle.

  He ran in terror. He ran until his lungs ached for wind, and then he stopped and looked back. The koryf was following him; but stalking the koryf, at a safe distance, was Cephean. Good, so far. But the koryf was dangerously near, its acrid breath warm in Carlyle's face. Carlyle waited, ready to dash, and projected his thoughts in an effort to bait the koryf: Come to me, come to me!

  The beast spat hideously. Suddenly into Carlyle's mind came an image of red, dripping flesh. He stiffened with horror, thinking that it was the koryf's thoughts he had intercepted—but the koryf suddenly lumbered to a halt and looked back at Cephean, slavering. Carlyle realized then what the cynthian was doing, and he projected his own image of bloody meat, gruesome and (he hoped) appetizing. The koryf's eyes flashed back around, half a second faster than its head motion, and it fixed Carlyle with a raspy-breathed gaze. Before it could decide to attack, though, an image of a wounded, struggling animal appeared, and again the koryf turned with a thrashing of its wings toward Cephean. Carlyle backed off by a few steps, and projected the same image, larger.

  The koryf's confusion lasted about a minute; then it made its decision and charged full-bore after Cephean. Carlyle whooped after it, screaming and hurling branches and clods of soil. The creature ignored him, intent on its prey; but after Carlyle had struck its head with several chunks of wood, it finally turned, shrieking loathsomely, and advanced upon Carlyle. Backing away, Carlyle stared fearfully at the creature, thinking that Cephean would be too slow to save him; but the baiting images reappeared in his mind, and the koryf paused in its attack.

  This time they were able to hold the creature longer. Carlyle was so delighted by the sight of the koryf glowering with indecision that he shouted: We're doing it, Cephean!—and at once the spell was broken, and the koryf turned on him, teeth snapping. Carlyle ran, and he did not stop running until he was out of the trees and realized that he was dashing headlong across open meadow.

  Stupid! he thought. The koryf broke out of the woods directly behind him and began to close the distance between them. Carlyle cut to his left, reeling from the hot breath. The koryf was beating its wings for flight, for a swooping kill. Cephean! he cried—and at that moment the cynthian appeared at the forest's edge and literally screamed an image of a gutted, bleeding animal. Carlyle staggered—but so did the koryf. The creature hesitated. Carlyle echoed the cynthian's image; the koryf vacillated.

  Carlyle thought quickly and framed in his mind an image of a snoring mouse. He concentrated all his thought on that image: a tiny, weary, sleepy animal. Cephean reinforced the image at once. The koryf grew more confused, and suddenly seemed less vicious. Outside the forest cover, it appeared uglier and more gangling—still terrifying, but less mythical. Carlyle thought of sleep . . . peace . . . satiation. He envisioned himself after gluttonous eating: logy, muddleheaded, too sluggish to even think of moving. That image, too, was reinforced—a cynthian gorged on odomilk.

  The koryf folded its wings and settled down to observe from a more comfortable position. It seemed an oversized, large-jawed bag of bones. Its inclination to attack was failing. Lowering its weighty head to the ground, it seemed to decide that there was no point in making hasty judgments.

  Two minutes later, it was snoring loudly and vulgarly—and Cephean was studying Carlyle with flickering, astonished eyes.

  Carlyle caught his breath. Finally he grinned. There was Janofer at the edge of the forest now, smiling. And there Corneph appeared and hissed grudgingly, his smirk gone. That seemed to please Cephean.

  Carlyle wondered what the cynthian was thinking. But if Cephean had believed Janofer earlier, did any of the rest matter?

  * * *

  Carlyle lifted his eyes to peer across the dreampool. His neck ached, and it cracked painfully when he stretched. His arms and legs were sodden; he was drenched with sweat. The theater seemed incredibly hot. He gazed at Cephean. The cat was grumbling and sliding down from the ledge with something less than his usual poise.

  Carlyle stepped down also. He nodded to the cynthian, but that was all; and clearly Cephean felt no more like talking than he did.

  About an hour had passed in the dreampool theater.

  Chapter 4: Hurricane Flume

  The day before their arrival at the Flume, Carlyle found himself taken by a liking for the riffmar. He whiled away an hour playfully boxing with them; and later, as they sunned themselves under a lamp in the nutrient bed, he came back and squirted them with a water bottle. They giggled hoarsely and seemed to enjoy the attention. Cephean said nothing about all this, and Carlyle wondered whether it was really the riffmar with whom he played, or an amused cynthian. He did not ask; but he rather hoped that it was the riffmar themselves. Boldly, he assigned them names: Idi and Odi. Cephean refrained from commenting on that, as well.

  They had practiced several times in the net since the dreampool. The cynthian still seemed awkward but was cooperative, and Carlyle felt that he would gain nothing by pushing him harder. They were nearing the end of the Reld, and there was little time left for worrying; they would enter the Flume, and they would succeed or they would fail.

  And as for the future—well, if there was a future, he would consider it when it arrived.

  * * *

  Carlyle finished a last hot mug of brew and summoned Cephean from his quarters. The time had come. Even the riffmar moved solemnly as they went to the bridge. Without exchanging a word, they took their stations.

  The net was flushed with energy as a result of Carlyle's final retuning of the flux-pile. He flexed his spidery wings, trimming the excess energy. When the net
felt right, and when he felt right, he looked calmly and alertly about. The Reld Current was a river running fast, and grumbling as it accelerated toward its end.

  Ready? he asked. Hyiss, answered Cephean.

  The images and decisions that followed were mostly those of Carlyle, but not entirely so—and not all that weren't belonged to Cephean. Space itself, in continual flux, bore the pair in its own malleable but headstrong manner toward the approaching nexus.

  The Reld became a powdery, tumbled ski slope; and they sped downhill into an obscure evening mist. Carlyle folded the keel net into skis, and they thundered pleasantly, swiftly through the snow. The tremors of the skis moving against snow raced through his thighs and were carried by the rest of the net. Sedora bounced heavily through the banks and curves, but was riding well.

  There was no telling when the vision might change, or how. Was the cynthian viewing a compatible scene? Cephean, what do you see? How does it feel? Cephean homm-humm'd in reply, and Carlyle caught a stunning glimpse—a fleeting landscape, prismatic and crystalline, and dustily wet. And downhill speed, mounting. Carlyle was reassured.

  H-you wanss chahange, Caharleel? Cephean queried nervously.

  No, this is fine for now. The cynthian was uneasy, then—but he seemed alert and ready to assist. What more could be asked?

  Their speed increased, and the snow became hard and patchily icy. The skis rumbled, and began to shimmy and skitter on the run. Daylight over the snowscape was fading into twilight, which impaired visibility and made Carlyle nervous.

  Without warning, he slammed into a mogul and was thrown into the air, quivering. He kicked frantically against nothing, then crouched in midair, trembling, trying to guide himself back down to the snow; but the ship's mass took him off balance and twisted him sideways and off keel as he fell—and it was Cephean who brought them down safely, swinging his heavy tail outboard to counterbalance Carlyle's torque. They landed hard, skidding and swaying, and swooped onward down the trail.

  Good work! Thanks!

  Yiss.

  The air began turning to mist, and the snow softened under the runners. The image was disintegrating. The snow wilderness blurred into speeding, hazy clouds; and then the current shifted, dropped—and turbulence grabbed at them like a vacuum.

  They had been dumped into the Flume.

  Carlyle pulled his arms in close, held his breath, and tried not to become excited. Sedora plummeted in free fall, and he had no idea whether he should try to slow it or steer it or leave it alone. Ride it easy until something develops, he called finally, finding security in the sound of his command. Where a moment ago had been silence, there was now a rushing of wind.

  Whass haffenss? An urgent, frightened whisper.

  I'm not sure.

  Ahead (below), the turbulence was visible in the form of glowing streamers: chaotic, thundering, furiously clashing. Sedora dropped into the whirlwind and was swept up by one of the streamers. It rode the streamer through the maze, buffeted by turbulence until its entire frame shook alarmingly. Carlyle drew the net in harder and tighter. Sedora raced ahead along the streamer—and something was changing . . .

  Another vision, he called as he tried to decipher what was changing. It was a new noise, a change in tone. It was a deeper rushing sound, a rumble, a subdued but growing roar. At last, he perceived. Waterfall ahead! he bellowed. Ride it hard or it will break us apart! The streamer had transformed back to an image of water—a hurtling river swollen and fresh with the rush of a thousand mountain streams, melting glaciers and rainfall surging headlong to an approaching gorge.

  If the cynthian replied, his answer was lost in the hiss of the current. Carlyle dug his arms deep into the icy waters, and strained to stabilize the vessel against the roll and pitch. The water was dark and frigid and roiling, and to either side of the channel it smashed foaming against bulging rocks. The sky overhead was an eerie green with fast-moving clouds, and the banks edging the furious rapids were multicolored rock. Etched against the sky were orange- and blue-forested mountains, through which the river raced. Carlyle's thoughts drifted; if he could only stand on one of the banks and watch, the scene would surely overpower him with its queer beauty. But he could not; the current was heavy and turbulent, and Sedora jolted and bobbed like a balsa chip. Carlyle tightened his grip in the water and held his breath against the numbing cold. He turned his arms into tensile-steel rudders, hard and strong against the flow. The vessel steadied—and he knew that Cephean was holding his weight at the stern. He wondered if the cynthian was as scared as he was, with his stomach somewhere in his heart.

  The roar crescendoed steadily. Ahead, the channel narrowed and the water whitened. The chasm should be just beyond the neck formed by two huge sullen bluffs ahead. The far end of the narrows was filled with mist—rapids. This could be it ahead! he shouted to the cynthian. It could be the heart of the Flume, the confluence of the hurricane forces of this region.

  The net shimmered beneath the water, running just ahead of the speeding ship like a school of hysterical sea sprints, glittering and flashing against the ominous dark of the water. Carlyle prayed that the net could hold together in the Flume's fury, because the net was all that would hold the ship together. Hold, Cephean, hold tight! His scream was lost in the thunder.

  The ship accelerated; the banks edged closer on both sides. Carlyle's arms ached fearsomely from the strain and the chill, and he was sure he couldn't hold on even a moment longer. He looked frantically to the sides for a place, any place, that he could moor the ship to rest and recover. But the thought was absurd—the banks were speeding death to the ship, lined with shallows and blurred, treacherous boulders. There was no choice but to keep moving, not that they could have stopped if they'd tried, and he had to hold on, to cling desperately to the channel as it swung from side to side. His gaze sped along the water ahead of the ship, seeking the darker ribbon of the channel, and the ship fishtailed as he steered. He cried to Cephean: Tighter, tighter!—and the cynthian leaned harder still into the stern.

  The banks escalated abruptly to become two close sheer walls; and the water rocketed through the gorge. They could not guide; they could only cling and pray. Sedora thundered through black roiling water and silver foam and spray, dashed left and right amidst shining boulders, cleaved miraculously to the center of the current—and shot over the edge of the falls.

  The ship sailed, floating—but it was dropping like a cannonball. Mist and spray surrounded them, and the landscape flashed dizzily as they fell (skirting how many lightyears, Carlyle wondered ludicrously). The ship was falling outside the main body of the waterfall, and they had a few moments of calm; they seemed to be falling slowly, drifting rather than tumbling, but the cataract basin was incredibly far below them and growing fast. Carlyle's mind raced; the impact would utterly destroy them if they did not hit with their strongest point forward. Nose first! he cried. Be ready to bring the stern about! They would have to come about instantly under their own power or be churned to destruction by the whirlpool.

  The basin mushroomed. Carlyle steeled the net to its limit; he would lift the nose as Cephean kicked the stern . . .

  Sedora slammed into the basin like an ungodly pile-driver, an exploding jackhammer, and smashed his thoughts and teeth and steel neural arms, and blasted his soul into pinwheels of fire.

  He wrenched before blacking, and Cephean kicked—and the ship screamed through its skeleton and skin, caught by torrential waters, and it foundered and twisted in the whirlpool and refused to yield either to control or to the thundering currents; and then it bent like a maddened porpoise, hung poised for a breathless moment, an enormous and powerfully coiled spring shaking in the vortex—and it rocketed shrieking out of the maelstrom and coasted straight, shivering and, unbelievably, intact.

  Against a deadening weight, Carlyle forced himself to see again, and he was astonished to discover that the madness had passed. The thunder died away behind them and Sedora streaked straight along a sparklin
g smooth river, and the way ahead was open as far as he could see.

  We cleared it! he screamed.

  Hyiss yiss yiss yiss yiss! howled the cynthian, who was so joyous at finding himself alive that he cast open all his feelings for Carlyle to see. (Anxiety! Terror! Wonder! Relief! Intoxication! Anticipation!) H-where we gho?

  To the Banks, to Cunnilus Banks, you lunatic cat! shouted Carlyle gleefully. He was astounded at the relief in his own heart.

  But the relief lasted just moments, and then Sedora lurched and scooted sideways and dashed like a startled barracuda, and the two riggers jerked their attention back to the net. Their pathway led among scattered and shifting currents, where the aftermath of the Flume broke into upwellings and downwellings and dying threads of energy. They still had to locate a current that would take them upward to Cunnilus Banks and safety.

  The effort was grueling and tedious, and allowed no time for rest. The way was ambiguous, and shifted constantly. There were no charts for this highway; there was only vision and intuition. Carlyle found a wisp of a streamer and clung to it, an image of jetting atmospherics. The streamer carried them from one track to another, and he prayed that he was choosing the right way. The net strained between them when their visions strayed from one another; and more than once Carlyle shouted in anger, and Cephean slewed the ship threateningly. Carlyle cursed him, and received a bitter, hissing reply. But neither could have managed alone. They pooled their strengths and their guesses; when one's vision blurred with fatigue, they steered by the eyes of the other.