Escape from the Drowned Planet

by Helena Puumala

  “Nah,” Dorn said with a shake of his head as they tied up at the docks. “The folks that named it, they were hoping. Looking to the future. You see, they were the remnant left of the people who lived in another city called Delta, which actually was built on a delta, about twenty kilometres further out. Under the water, now, been underwater for about four hundred years.”

  Kati eyed the vista of the city, a jumble of wooden, brick and stone buildings that climbed upwards from the docks, along the hills which rose away from the wide river on both sides.

  “So this was all built since then?” she asked.

  “Pretty much,” Dorn replied. “I understand that there was a village here before The Disaster, but it was mostly destroyed by the floodwaters.”

  “Twenty kilometres,” Kati muttered. “That’s a lot of land to lose.”

  “It is,” Dorn agreed. “This continent is much smaller than what it was once. What they used to call the Low Continent is now nothing but a string of islands. You’ll be seeing a few of those if you’re serious about the sea voyage business. The Northern Continent fared the best; its landmass, I understand, is generally higher up than that of ours, except that we have the highest mountain range, and therefore had a much bigger glacier melt than they did.”

  “Dorn, where did you say that the money-changer’s place was?” Jocan interrupted Dorn’s flow of words, much more interested in getting his gold coin exchanged into more useful silver and copper than in the history of his world.

  “Is it safe for Jocan to go traipsing on his own?” Mikal asked before Dorn could give Jocan the desired directions.

  Jocan groaned at this delay. Dorn shrugged, noncommittally.

  “Delta’s not too bad when it comes to strangers. A lot better than River City, actually. It’s bigger, and a port, so it gets a lot more people travelling to it and through it. Folks are used to strangers; besides, they don’t get the stream of unpleasant off-worlders like we do, back home. There’s some crime, of course, but people who make their living off port traffic can’t afford to consider non-residents fair game for scamming. There’s some law enforcement; not much, but it does exist and it does help to keep the criminals that do operate here, out of sight.”

  So Jocan received his directions, and instructions to return to the Portside Inn, which was the establishment that Dorn and Loka patronized whenever their business brought them to Delta. It was a comfortable place, Loka had explained, and not overly expensive. Kati and Mikal had agreed that it would be a suitable lodging place for them, being as its name implied, almost on the quay, and therefore near to where they would be looking for their next means of transport.

  The four adults made their way to the Inn where Dorn and Loka were effusively greeted by the proprietress, as valued repeat customers who, every now and then, also brought custom from the people whom they ferried to Delta. Mistress Ana gave Dorn and Loka what she termed “their usual room”, and, since the Inn was not particularly busy, Kati, Mikal and Jocan were able to take rooms on the same floor and even the same end of the building, where there was a good view of the harbour. Kati and Mikal engaged two rooms: one for Kati, and another with two beds for Mikal and Jocan. They left a description of Jocan with Mistress Ana, asking her to send him up to their rooms when he came in.

  It was mid-afternoon, but after seven days on a small boat, restricted to its inadequate sanitation facilities, Kati was keen to check out the Inn’s bathing facilities. Mistress Ana had proudly described the communal washing rooms that apparently took up much of the first floor of the building. There was one for the women and another for the men, each of them equipped with showers, swimming pools and what the proprietress called a “hot bath”, and which from her description Kati guessed to be a sauna of sorts. Loka said that she was very ready for a bath, too, and the two women decided to head to the facilities first, while Dorn and Mikal waited for Jocan in the rooms. Once Jocan had returned from the money-changer’s and the women had had their wash, the males would have the opportunity to take the measure of the men’s washing facilities.

  In the middle of the afternoon, at a quiet time of the year, Kati and Loka were the only customers in the women’s bathing area. They took full advantage of this circumstance. They showered, they saunaed, and they swam, and then they showered again. Kati was delighted to have clean hair again; her hair was growing, but was not yet long enough to braid or tie back properly, and she intensely disliked having greasy curls on her face and on her neck. She had to use a whole handful of the powder that Loka told her was for hair-washing, before her hair finally felt clean enough to rinse and wrap in a towel. Loka was luckier there: her hair was cut very short and was easy to care for.

  “This is why,” she said to Kati as she towel-dried her hair and then left it, “I had my niece cut it so short. Dorn and I are on the boat a lot, and as you saw, any wash-up there involves basins and water heated in the galley. In a pinch I can manage a hair wash aboard our vessel.”

  Kati, meanwhile, was combing tangles out of her unruly hair.

  “I’d do the same in your place,” she said, attacking a particularly stubborn knot of hair. “Unfortunately, if I still have to use the role of the Lady Katerina during our travels, I can’t be seen with a boy cut. I have a feeling that a woman with the word ‘Lady’ in front of her name is expected to have lots of hair, no matter what corner of the universe she hails from.”

  “Oh yes, you want to keep the Lady Katerina available,” Loka laughed. “I doubt that you’ll need her here in Delta, but there will be places where she’ll be invaluable.”

  They dressed in the clean shifts provided for that purpose, rolled up their dirty clothes and climbed the stairs back to the third floor where their rooms were. Beside the door of each room there was a basket, and they tossed their dirty clothes into those, on top of the ones they had already dropped in them. The maids would come around each evening, Loka and Dorn had explained, to check these and collect whatever was in them. By the next evening they would bring back the clothes, washed and ironed, ready to be worn again.

  “Best of all,” Loka had said, “The extra charge Mistress Ana adds to your room rate for this service is very reasonable.”

  The women found the fellows ensconced in Mikal and Jocan’s room, Jocan having arrived while they were gone.

  “I had no trouble finding the money-changer,” Jocan said to Kati, cheerfully, as soon as he saw her.

  “This is a really interesting place,” he added, before she had time to comment. “I walked around a bit; you can’t get lost around the port. All you do is walk downhill until you come to the port and reorient yourself from there.

  “There are a lot of inns, shops and kitchens. I think you can find just about anything you might want in this place.”

  “You’ll have to learn to call the kitchens ‘restaurants’, Jocan,” Dorn laughed. “Or ‘eateries’. Using the word ‘kitchen’ in the sense that we use it in River City will mark you as a country bumpkin around here. Kitchen is where a restaurant or an eatery staff prepare the food; the establishment as a whole is a restaurant.”

  “That’s useful knowledge for all three of us,” Kati told Dorn. “I’m afraid Jocan is not the only country bumpkin here.”

  “I think the males of the species, country bumpkins or not,” broke in Loka, “ought to go and wash up. We’ll be wanting to sample the food in one or another of those restaurants soon enough. I’m definitely looking forward to some food that has been prepared by the staff of a kitchen not mine.”

  “I’m with Loka on that,” Kati laughed, heading to her own room to dress in the one outfit that she had left that was still almost clean.

  *****

  When Mikal and Jocan knocked on her door somewhat later, they looked as refreshed as she felt. The stubble that had been getting noticeable on Mikal’s neck was gone, and his hair was clean and damp. Jocan’s red hair shone with highlights Kati had not seen before, and it was evident that being in the sun on a bo
at had freckled his pale skin.

  “Hey, Jocan,” Kati said to him, “you clean up quite nicely. Do we have to start worrying about you breaking the hearts of the Delta girls?”

  Jocan’s face turned red—almost as red as his hair was.

  “Well,” he answered a little uneasily. “I saw some awfully pretty girls during my walk.”

  Dorn, who had just come out of the room that he and Loka shared, and Mikal, looked at one another and started laughing. Kati eyed each of them in turn, thoughtfully. They seemed to have developed some sort of an adult male bond between them during the time that they had all spent on the boat, after Mikal’s awakening. Both of them also related very well to Jocan. What with Loka having her marriage bond with Dorn, there had been times in the past days when she had felt like the odd person out, aboard the boat.

  “All right, then,” she said, to mask her uneasy sense of not belonging. “Shall we find us an eatery? Or would the fellows rather go to an Alehouse and drink beer?”

  “If they call it an Alehouse here?” Jocan threw in. “Maybe they have a different name for that, too.”

  “Oh, you can talk of an Alehouse,” Dorn turned to explain. “You can also say ‘a tavern’, if you wish. Pretty much the same thing, although a local once told me that a tavern actually has more of a variety of beverages than an alehouse. So if a place is referred to as an ‘Alehouse’, beer is pretty much what they sell, but if they call themselves a ‘Tavern’ then they also carry distilled alcohol and, when they have them, wines from one or more of the Low Islands.”

  Loka suggested that they go to a nearby restaurant which was under the same roof as a Tavern popular with the local folk.

  “At least the last time Dorn and I were in Delta they had excellent food,” she said. “And if we want beer or wine with our meals, they’ll bring it to us from the Tavern. Personally, I’d like a glass of Sickle Island Red with my food, if no-one minds.”

  “On the contrary, Loka, I think I’ll join you in a glass of wine,” Kati remarked, grinning. “I’m curious about your Sickle Island Red. Is it a sweet wine? Or a tart one?”

  “You’ll have to try it,” laughed Loka. “I don’t really know much about wines. One time we were here a waiter recommended Sickle Island Red; I liked it and have been drinking it ever since.”

  *****

  The restaurant was not a large one but it appeared to be well-run. The half-dozen tables each could seat six people, more with extra chairs. They were covered with clean white cloths, and there was a centrepiece of candles at every table. Half the tables were in use when the five of them entered, and the woman who welcomed them, greeted Loka and Dorn as old friends whom she was delighted to see again. Perhaps she really meant it, at least they were directed to a table with a view of the harbour, considered the best scenery in the city. The place was quiet; this was a bit of a surprise considering that the tavern was across the hall, and the glimpse Kati had had of it as they passed its entrance, had told her that it was the establishment’s money-maker. A big room filled with patrons, and noise; it was a spot very different from the restaurant.

  Kati was somewhat surprised to discover that the food did not come up to the standards set by Mistress Sye’s sister, although there was nothing wrong with it. The Sickle Island Red, however, turned out to be a delightful wine, a touch on the dry side but very drinkable.

  “Oh, Maya’s cooking is famous all along the river,” Dorn commented, when Kati ventured to voice her opinion about the meal they were eating, in comparison with what they had eaten at Mistress Sye’s Inn. “I doubt that there’s a restaurant in Delta that can beat her kitchen.”

  “You’re spoiled for the rest of your trip,” Loka laughed. “You’ll be comparing every meal you eat to Maya’s cooking, and they’ll all come up short.”

  “Your choice of wine is very decent, though,” Mikal said to Loka, sipping on his glass of the Sickle Island Red.

  He had chosen to have wine with his meal while Dorn and Jocan had opted for tankards of ale. Kati was a little uneasy with Jocan consuming alcoholic beverages but it seemed that in the society they were in, a teenager having a drink was accepted behaviour. Jocan had gone with Mikal to the Alehouse at Mistress Sye’s Inn, and the tavern across the hall from the restaurant they were in had been filled with patrons of all ages, including teenagers and parents with small children. She reminded herself that at least so far she had not seen any idiotic drunkenness; perhaps the folk on this world were either better at holding their liquor, or at leaving a bar while still reasonably sober, than she remembered some of her own people having been.

  It was none of her business, anyway, she reminded herself. Jocan was responsible for his own comings and goings and had managed fine on his own for a couple of years at least, already, and under difficult circumstances. He had been pulling his weight on this trip; in fact, she could not have managed without him while Mikal had been in a coma.

  “Stop being a priss,” she subvocalized to herself.

  “Indeed, Kati, stop being a priss,” the granda responded to her comment. “Jocan is fine and he’ll be fine. Worry about things that are worth worrying about, like how the heck are you three going to find a ship going to the Northern Continent when the harbour of this burg is completely empty of ocean-going vessels?”

  The granda’s question set her mind into motion.

  “Is there a reason why the shipping seems slow in Delta right now?” she asked, directing the question to Dorn and Loka.

  “We’re pretty much into winter right now, and the ocean can be pretty stormy,” Dorn answered. “The ocean-going vessels that are out there, are going to be traveling the route along the Low Islands. That’s the safest way to cross the water between the Southern and the Northern Continents in this season.”

  “So we may have trouble finding passage any time soon, is that it?” Mikal asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Dorn shrugged. “There are always those shippers who take advantage of the fact that not all ship captains are among the brave. Take that wine you’re sipping, for example. By now some peoples’ stores of it will be low, so any ship that anchors at Delta with a load of Sickle Island wine will get more money for it than do the ships that ferry it when the seas are quiet.”

  “What kind of trade is there between the two continents?” Kati queried.

  “This one is the colder continent,” answered Dorn, “so we import a certain amount of tropical fruit and vegetables from the Northern. Dried fruit of different kinds, tubers, and other items that don’t rot during the voyage. And, of course, there’s the cloth from Oasis City. Oasis City weavers are famous for the cloth that they produce. Also, the Northern Continent has a large desert between the southern coastal lands and the north, so it is easier for them to get their wood from our forests rather than their own. We have more of a variety of trees anyway; we send over building wood, furniture wood, wood of all kinds.”

  “If the islands export wine to this continent, surely they ship some to the Northern Continent as well. Perhaps it’s possible to get passage to, say, Sickle Island, and then travel the rest of the distance on a ship transporting wine in that direction.” This musing came from Mikal.

  Dorn nodded.

  “That might work,” he conceded. “Although you might have to wait a while before getting passage from the island to the Northern Continent. There are a lot more people living in the coastal areas of that continent than there are here, but there are a lot of odd religions there too. Some of them forbid pleasures like the consuming of alcoholic beverages. Therefore there is actually less wine trade between the islands and that continent than between the islands and us.”

  “We’ll have to consider it if no better option turns up,” Mikal said. “We can’t wait for a ship too long, can’t be too picky. I’m pretty certain that our pursuers will stay on our trail no matter what; sooner or later they will reach Delta. I want us to be gone when that happens.”

  “I’ve meant to ask.”
This was Jocan. “Can the two of them, Guzi and that woman, use the lifeboat to come down the river?”

  “Only at the speed of the current,” Mikal replied with a grin. “When the power pack was used up, that was it for fast travel; those packs are not rechargeable. If it had been rechargeable, I would have sabotaged it. Of course if they got some oars, or a sail....”

  Kati and Jocan started to laugh at the image of Guzi and Dakra trying to row the raft, or attempting to raise sail.

  “I’d love to see that,” Kati said. “Or the two of them poling that raft.”

  “Nah,” Jocan said with a shake of his head. “Won’t happen. If they’re coming in that boat, they’re coming with the current.”

  “And they don’t have much to buy passage with,” commented Dorn with a chuckle, “since you guys picked their pockets before sending them up the river.”

  *****

  Dorn and Loka left on their return trip to River City two days after their arrival.

  They spent the day in between, scouring the Delta markets for items that they believed that they could sell at profit in their home town. They did take the time, however, to show Kati and Mikal the offices of the Port Control, and introduce them to the clerk, Maric, who kept a list of ships which were taking on passengers, and the ports to which they were headed. At the moment, all vessels listed were going to one or another of the coastal cities on the nearest corner of the Southern Continent; there were none even of those that ranged further along the home continent’s perimeter.

  It was somewhat depressing information, but as Dorn pointed out, this was only day one. Southern hemisphere winter was not dead time, he claimed, only the slow season. If they were patient, a ship to suit their purposes would certainly turn up. All they had to do was keep an eye on the harbour, maybe walk its length once or twice a day, and if they spotted a large vessel, check it out at the Port Control Office.

  “Kati, do you need me to show you the location of the money-changer’s premises?” Jocan asked as the group finished eating the midday meal that day.