Escape from the Drowned Planet

by Helena Puumala

  “Captain Lomen did point out that the Raiders had luck on their side, too,” Kati protested.

  Mikal shook his head.

  “That wasn’t luck, Kati. That was Guzi and Dakra’s arrogance. They thought that they had nothing to fear from a bunch of backward Sickle Islanders. Not, when they had brought an off-world arsenal with them to Portobay. I’m the only person whom they feared at all, and that only because I’m a Federation agent, and the Star Federation is a powerful, highly technological entity. Yet, on the river to Delta, you, Jocan, and Loka defeated them with two stunners and a rifle. And The Seabird’s Raiders did the same here in Portobay. Both times what really did them in was their own arrogance.”

  Map Three – The Northern Continent Journey

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The voyage between Portobay and Oasis City turned out to be somewhat anticlimactic—at least according to the crew of The Seabird. The ship did wallow through a couple of storms, but, that was all. According to Captain Lomen, that was an “unbelievably lucky” circumstance on this portion of the trip at this time of the year.

  After all the excitement on Sickle Island, Kati found the long meander down the island chain that had once been the Low Continent an exercise in tedium. The Captain and the crew had informed her that this part of the journey had them crossing the planetary equator, but that fact had little meaning when the skies were grey and cloudy all the time, sometimes drizzling water onto the ship and the persons on its deck. Perhaps this was a lingering aspect of the greenhouse effect the world had experienced, or perhaps it was, as Kati preferred to assume within her private mind, that the planet was mourning all the people who had died, four hundred or so years before, under this very stretch of the ocean.

  She could have asked the crew what they thought of such a notion, since they were less busy than at any other time of the voyage. The ship dropped off nothing at the islands they passed, and only stopped to pick up fresh water, and fruit and vegetables, at a few prearranged locations. She hesitated to do so, however, after being rebuffed a time or two when she broached the subject; apparently no-one on board wanted to recount the stories of that aspect of The Disaster. Of course, she understood why not; the loss of a whole continent, and all it contained, had been such huge a catastrophe that possibly the only way a human mind could deal with it and stay sane, was to ignore it as much as possible.

  She talked a little about it with Mikal as the two of them huddled on the deck while the warm drizzle soaked them through. Wet as the deck was, at times it was preferable to the cramped guest quarters of The Seabird, with its small cabins and narrow passages. Sometimes the tendency of the locals to gossip stuck in Kati’s craw, although most of the time she found it amusing and, now and then, informative.

  “The Low Continent, I understand,” she said to Mikal one day, as they stared at the unrelenting grey around them, “was the most fertile and the most populated of this world’s landmasses. To have the whole of it inundated, leaving only a smattering of hills to form a chain of islands; what must have it been like for those who managed to cling to the higher ground and survived! Think of the ghosts that must wander the surface of this ocean, forever seeking for their lost homes!”

  “It wasn’t just the multitudes that died on the spot,” Mikal mused, staring at a darker blob in the grey sea and sky, an island that they were passing, presumably. “What about the people who managed to get away, on boats, ships, aircraft, whatever these people might have had? Suppose they made it to the other continents, which were going through their own hells? Did anyone welcome them, or were they seen as more mouths to feed and more bodies in need of shelter?”

  Even the two of them, interlopers on this world and therefore without an ancestral tie to The Disaster, could not contemplate the horror of it for too long. They escaped to the dubious safety of the below-deck environment, where the only one of the passengers who seemed to be consistently enjoying himself was Jocan, thanks to the attention that Rosine was once again paying him. Kati and Mikal had exhausted the possibilities to be found in the books that Kati had bought in Delta, and there were no others on board The Seabird; not even the Captain or the cargo master had anything like a library of any sort, although surely they must have been literate, if only to perform their jobs!

  Time did pass, however, and the ship sailed on. Eventually it left the cloudbanks that shrouded the lost continent, and the deck became almost intolerably hot during the sunny mid-days, chasing even the hardiest passengers into shade down below where every porthole was open to catch whatever breezes were wafting about.

  Kati started climbing up to the deck at night. It was cooler and breezier then, than in the daytime, and the brilliant, starry sky of this world was a source of wonder to her. She would quiz any crewmember who had the time to talk, about star-lore, and was amazed at how familiar it all sounded to her. Was she picking up on the granda’s memories from who knew how many previous existences, vaguely recalling stories that it had known at one time or another? Or was it simply that all sky-lore, everywhere, was in some ways similar? In any case, she heard a lot of interesting tales associated with the constellations visible in that (to her) astonishingly starry sky, and listening to them kept her entertained for hours, on many nights.

  It did not take long for Mikal to catch on to this past-time of hers, and he began to join her on the nightly excursions. She assumed that he, too, was having trouble sleeping, and probably could hear the opening and closing of her cabin door, when she slipped out into the narrow passageway which was dimly lighted with a few of the fungus-globes.

  Almost always on these clear nights, when they climbed up to the deck or came back down, they could hear the sounds of the sailors’, and a few of the passengers’, favourite pastime coming from the dining area. Card games, accompanied by rowdy conversations, went on into the night hours when there were no storms disturbing the peace. Mikal told Kati that he had gone into the galley to check them out on a few evenings, but he was not familiar with the card decks in use, and was not interested enough in gambling games to take the trouble to learn systems that were completely new to him.

  “There were a couple of tables of board games happening, too,” he told her. “The granda might be able to help you if you’re interested in trying your hand at either pastime.”

  Kati shook her head.

  “I have a sneaking suspicion that the old scoundrel has a gambling problem on top of its weapons obsession. I’m not taking any risks with our money stash, thank you very much.”

  *****

  “Maybe Lady Luck likes you off-planet folks,” Captain Lomen said to Mikal one morning when he and Kati had braved the windy weather on the deck right after breakfast. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a storm season trip as easy as this one. We’re making good time, too. The Oasis City will be in sight in a few days according to my calculations—or at least the outer islands surrounding it will be.”

  This was good news. Kati was of tired being cooped up in the ship, and even the nocturnal sky-watching had begun to pall. It seemed to her that they had been on The Seabird for pretty nearly forever, and, truth to tell, it had been a long trip, even if a good one by the Captain’s standards. The couple of storms that the ship had weathered, may have been piddling in the crew’s estimation of such events, and the Captain may have been contemptuous enough of them to not even request help from the passengers, but Kati had actually found them terrifying. The power of the elements that buffeted the vessel, a wood sliver among the wind and the waves, had frightened her more than she had anticipated. There had been a real sense of helplessness, being so much at the mercy of nature, and this reaction had not made it any easier to tolerate being ship-bound; on top of boredom, and the feeling of confinement, during the storms there had been the fear for dear life, too.

  Now all that was almost over; The Seabird was days from attaining harbour! Their quest would be continuing in a different manner soon, and the change truly would be welcome!<
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  Later in the day Mikal came to Kati’s cabin and asked her to bring to mind the globe of the world that Xeonsaur had passed on to her on Gorsh’s spacecraft, seemingly ages ago. The Kitfi Seer had later marked it with the locations of the beacons that the Kitfi gestalt had found for them, during the psychic search that they had made of the planet. One of the two the gestalt had found, had proved to have been a fake, a facsimile designed to draw the two of them back into Gorsh’s hands. Therefore, the other one, the one that they were now crossing the ocean to approach, had to be the one that Mikal could use to call for transport to Star Federation Space.

  It was time to start planning the best route from Oasis City to the mountain town that contained the temple which housed the beacon that they needed to reach.

  Kati closed her eyes and requested that the granda give her what help it could to image the Northern Continent in as much detail as it was possible to get with the Xeonsaur’s globe. The globe had a certain level of detail, but not nearly as much as Kati and Mikal might have wished: the Xeonsaur’s abilities were not without limit, and Kati knew that it had done its best for her. Just having the globe was a triumph in itself; the inhabitants of the world they were on had nothing like it. Even the psychic but blind Kitfi had needed Kati to pass the globe image to them, mind to mind, before they had been able to undertake their gestalt hunt that had found the beacons.

  “The granda has zeroed in on the Oasis City for me,” Kati told Mikal after a moment or two. “And since the Kitfi Seer marked the place of the beacon, it is possible for me to tell that...we have quite a journey still ahead of us.”

  “Can you pinpoint any possible routes?” Mikal asked.

  He was seated next to her on the bed and reached over to grasp her hand. With her eyes shut, he could not make eye contact.

  His hand was warm over hers, gentle, yet she sensed the strength in it. For a brief moment she revelled in that touch, precious, rare, fleeting.

  “Silly,” she admonished herself subvocally; then settled to concentrate on the business at hand.

  “I don’t have the detail for roads,” she said scanning the relevant portion of the map. “Settlements, if they are of any size, are clear, however. I guess I can assume that most of them are connected by runnerbeast tracks at the very least—unless they’re on navigable rivers, of course.”

  “Navigable rivers?

  “Now there’s a thought,” Mikal continued. “We’ll have to look into that, ask someone about such. Maybe we can boat our way up some river, to get closer to where we are going.”

  “That doesn’t look too promising,” responded Kati. “It looks from this like the Oasis City is just that, a city built in an oasis. There must be artesian wells under and around it; that strikes me as pretty odd for a coastal city. The desert comes darn close to the ocean, along that part of the coast; there’s only a strip of vegetation between it and the ocean. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but I’m not a geographer. I’m just telling you what I’m seeing on this map.”

  “Probably some result of the climate change that caused The Disaster,” Mikal mused. “What about elsewhere on the coast? Could we sail along the coast until we get somewhere where there is a river that flows from the interior, preferably from the direction in which we want to go?”

  “Hm. Looks like we would definitely have to give up the straight line option to do that. And no, the nearest rivers don’t take us very close to our destination; in fact it looks like we’d be crossing a lot of mountainous territory if we try that. And it doesn’t much matter which way along the coast we’d sail, it would be bad either way.”

  “So, it looks like there is no easier way, than to cross the desert?”

  “I’m afraid that's what it looks like from this map.” Kati sighed and opened her eyes. “We’ll have to ask around in Oasis City before we make a definite decision; see if someone has some information that will clinch the issue. But, according to the map, crossing the desert does seem to be the best option available, like it or not.”

  Mikal gave her hand a quick squeeze before he let it go.

  “We’ll do whatever we have to,” he said solemnly.

  “Yeah, we will,” agreed Kati, wrinkling her nose. “Even if it means sleeping in sand and going thirsty and dirty for weeks on end.”

  *****

  They disembarked in Oasis City on a beautiful afternoon.

  Surrounded by the other passengers, Mikal and Kati said goodbye to Captain Lomen and First Mate Simos, even while Rosine was clinging and hugging Jocan, and shedding a few tears. Susana, Mea and Evo looked ecstatic to be on a pier which was attached to land, sandy as it might be. Ren and Con looked like they were ready to take on their next adventure, whatever that might be, and even taciturn Voit had something resembling a grin on his face.

  “Our passengers are always so very glad to leave us,” Captain Lomen said jocularly as he watched the faces around him.

  “What? They’re happy to be off the ship!” laughed Simos. “Of course they are! If they were happy to stay on the ship we’d hire them on as sailors!”

  “I hope that you won’t mind too much if we pass up on that honour,” Kati said gaily. “I don’t know what sort of trees those are that I am looking at— “she indicated a clump of tall ones, “—but, they are trees. I want to go over and kiss them, and hug them.”

  “No, no you don’t,” protested Simos. “In Oasis City you have to be very careful as to who or what you hug or kiss. Around here, things can bite.”

  “Even trees?” asked Susana with a laugh.

  “If not the trees, then what’s on the trees,” replied Simos, undaunted. “The insect life in this part of the world is bloodthirsty.”

  “Dear me,” sighed Kati with comic despair, “and here I thought I had left behind the black flies, the sand flies, the mosquitoes, the wasps and the horseflies forever.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” Simos said, “but if they bite or sting you’ll be in familiar company on this continent.”

  “It’s not company I really want to keep,” Kati said, wincing. “But I learned to live with biting, stinging bugs once; I guess I can do it again.”

  “We all will,” Mikal added loyally. “After all, do we have an alternative?”

  Susana came over to Mikal and Kati.

  “You know, you and Jocan should talk with the relatives we have here in Oasis City,” she said. “They may well have some ideas as to how you might best continue on with your travels. It never hurts to put to use some local knowledge.”

  “That’s not a half-bad idea,” Kati agreed gratefully. “Although I imagine that the three of us better find ourselves some accommodation before we do anything else.”

  “The Captain mentioned The Six Palms Inn as a decent place to stay,” said Mikal. “He seemed to be right about The Seaview on Sickle Island, so I would suggest that we look it over.”

  They were slowly making their way towards land along the pier. Susana, Mea and Evo were accompanying them, as was Jocan, more slowly and reluctantly, waving to Rosine who had remained with The Seabird’s crew. Captain Lomen and First Mate Simos had engaged some port officials in a conversation which appeared to concern the unloading of the ship’s cargo.

  “I imagine that Gerrard would know The Six Palms,” Evo was saying. “And if you change your minds and decide to settle in elsewhere, you can always leave word at the Information Exchange of the Port. See, it’s that flagged kiosk over there.”

  Evo pointed out a stall decked out in colourful banners, where the harbour ended and the city streets began.

  “We’re going over there right now,” he added, “to see if there’s word of Gerrard. He may have been looking for us for days; on the other hand, The Seabird made such good time on this voyage that he may not be expecting us for weeks yet.”

  “You know, the people in the kiosk can probably point us in the direction of The Six Palms,” Mikal commented. “We might as well head there w
ith you. Always assuming that we can drag our love-sick boy along with us.”

  He turned to hail Jocan who was reluctantly following them at some distance.

  “Hey, Jocan,” he called. “The Seabird’s going to stay in port for a day or two at least. They have a cargo to unload and another one to stow on. If you come with us to get a place to stay, you’ll be able to let Rosine know where to find you, should she happen to want to spend a few more moments with you during her off hours.”

  The words had the desired effect of perking up the boy’s pace. He broke into a run and caught up to the rest of them very quickly.

  “Where are we going to be staying?” he immediately asked, to bursts of laughter from Susana and Mea.

  “Ah, young love,” said Susana, and tousled the youth’s red hair. “Lucky me, I have my girl respectably married and don’t have to worry about her mooning about lovers anymore.”

  “You just wait, Ma,” Mea giggled. “One of these days Evo and I will turn you into a grandmother and the cycle will start all over again.”

  “Ah, but my girl, it’ll be you doing the sleepless nights then,” Susana told her. “I’ll be the one speaking in homilies, such as: ‘Don’t worry about that boy, he’ll grow out of it soon enough!’”

  They were all laughing as they walked towards the Information Exchange booth. Once they reached it, however, Kati was reminded of all the talk about biting and stinging insects. The kiosk was surrounded by a screened porch. They had not seen anything of the promised biters and stingers, but the netting must have been there for a reason.

  That was the first question she put to the young woman behind the counter who offered them her assistance.