the morning skeletons were found in the beds of men who had gone to sleep with all their flesh. Whether Kittlesticks lay upon ancient Indian burial grounds or whether the sea had washed unclean spirits under the extensive docks in the harbor, no one could say. When half the town's population had died in this mysterious manner, the rest picked up their belongings and moved down the coast, where they founded the town of Last Resort, which had thrived as a Hadaspuri Sea marketplace for many centuries after.
They came out on the docks, where a hundred boats still lay, half rotten and sunken, others of metal and in relatively good repair.
Perhaps, 'pathed Chaney, the thing cannot follow us across water.
I fear that's an empty hole' Tedesco said.
By this time the women were staying close to their men, and the men continually cast wary glances over their shoulders. All of them were heavy-eyed and fuzzy-minded from lack of sleep.
We've nothing to lose by trying it, Melopina 'pathed.
She's right — Jask.
And by taking a ship, we would save days and days of marching around the shore of Hadaspuri — Kiera.
The water slapped at the docks.
The dead and dying ships caught pieces of the morning sun and shone in brief remembrance of their youth.
I've never sailed — Tedesco.
I have — Chaney.
You think you could teach us to man the rig of a ship like that one? Tedesco pointed at what appeared to be a sound, yellow alloy ship, which still rode high in the water after so many years and which contained three masts, all empty of sailcloth.
I could, I think — Chaney.
Jask? — Tedesco.
I'm for it.
Please! Let's try it! — Melopina.
They boarded the yellow ship, which was chained at the far end of the dock, and they found that she was in excellent condition. Her sealed engines, which had been placed in her hull during the Last War, were still functioning, monuments to the great technology of that age. Of its twenty robot tenders, twelve still rolled about the gleaming ship, polishing and repairing, scouring away the gradual erosions of time.
We could forget the sails, Jask said. The engines will carry us across the Hadaspuri.
Chaney stood on the bridge of the vessel, staring at the complex controls, his hairy fingers working them cautiously, his mouth twisted in concentration. Lights popped on; buzzers sounded; gauges registered levels of liquids and of power in the batteries. He looked away from all this for a moment and said to Jask, That's a bad idea.
We'd save a week or more if we didn't bother with sails.
Chaney smiled knowingly, returned to the controls. Then again, the engines might cut out on us when we're in the middle of all that damned water, leave us stranded there until our food and fresh water were gone. Maybe we could boil up a drinkable brew from seawater and survive a bit longer. In the end, though, we'd starve to death.
But those engines have been working for thousands of years, Chaney! Why should they suddenly quit on us when we need them?
And why should they not quit on us? Chaney asked.
Jask decided there was something to be desired in having a skipper who was at least a little pessimistic.
In all of Kittlesticks there was no cloth to be had — just tattered, mildewed, mold-covered, rotting lumps of stuff that could never be fashioned to fit their needs. Finally, though, in a dockside nautical shop they found a great length of lightweight metallic sailcloth whose metal fibers had withstood the gnawing of the years.
This material proved difficult to cut and sew, and they remained in Kittlesticks five days, working up three serviceable sails. They saw no Indians during the night, though their unearthly companion remained, haunting their sleep and forcing its mental aura into their esp perceptions all the time they were awake.
At last, in the early morning, with only a suggestion of the sun in the sky, they carried the three sails down to the ship.
Mist drifted in from the sea, oddly sweet scented.
They mounted the sails on the electrically controlled yard-arms, drew them up for testing, then rolled them down again and bound them fast until they might be needed. The noise of their labor echoed across the flat waters like footfalls in a tomb.
That afternoon, on the edge of town, they gathered wild fruit of many kinds, and packed it all into baskets and sacks. They killed a large animal that had descended from pure cattle but which was now a nine-horned, broader-shouldered, taller and meaner creature than its ancestors had been. They skinned and butchered this brute and salted several large pieces of meat. These stores were loaded in the galley of the ship, below the waterline, where they might be kept cool.
The espers dreamed at night; a living city, rooms of flesh, streets of pulsing tissue…
Before dawn of the seventh day they boarded the yellow ship, which they had christened Hadaspuri Maiden, half in fun and half in hopes that after being accorded such an honor the sea would look with favor upon their journey. The engines were brought up to full power, and the ship was taken from the dock at Kittlesticks. They had still seen no Indians.
The Hadaspuri was amber near the coast but grew a dirty green and then a rich blue color as they moved out onto it and it grew deeper beneath them.
As they passed the last of the atolls twenty kilometers from shore, rainbow-colored flying fish danced before their bow. Their wings were as much as four feet across, spreading gloriously as they arced from the sea and folding sleekly as they plummeted back in.
Standing by the rail on the deck of the open bridge door, looking at the heaving sea, through which the Maiden sliced like a knife, Tedesco 'pathed to Chaney, What do you know of the Hadaspuri?
It's six hundred kilometers from west to east, eight hundred from Kittlesticks on the south to any point on the north shore.
Is it inhabited?
The sea? Chaney 'pathed, perplexed.
Yes.
By fish.
How big are the fish?
Chaney grinned. So far as I know, the Hadaspuri contains no beasts. It is not, after all, a Wildlands sea.
Let's hope you're right.
If anything attacks our little ship, Chaney promised, I'll skin it, butcher it, and store it below.
No need. I hate fish.
The sunny sky grew overcast as they thrust deeper into the heart of the Hadaspuri. The clouds were light gray, riding high, bothersome but not threatening a storm.
Before long the air smelled only of the sea, without a single trace of land in it.
They ate a light lunch of fruit, a dinner of roasted beef basted in the juice of apples and pears.
The unseen creature remained with them.
It nagged at the periphery of their extrasensory perception, its voice a wail, its note that of endless suffering, its effect stronger than ever on the five espers.
Later, when Kiera took the first watch on the bridge, before the wheel and instruments, the others went below to sleep in the two main cabins, aft. Despite the fact that they were separated by the metal bulkheads, they all dreamed, simultaneously, of the living city. The dream swiftly graduated into a full-fledged nightmare and grew rapidly worse than that. No one could get any rest at all.
On deck again Tedesco 'pathed, Something will break soon.
Let's hope! — Jask said.
If I could see it, Chaney 'pathed, I could get these claws into it and take a good bite in its neck with these
