The speckles can was as big as a five-month-old baby. There was no color like it on Destiny, barring murals in the Spiral Town Civic Hall. It couldn't be opened. The caravan considered it unstealable, and Tim felt they were right.
He shook speckles over a pot of beans. In a spare moment he oversprinkled a bowl of beans and ate it fast, wincing at what the excess did to the flavor. Merchants used a lot more speckles than Spiral Town did, or anyone else they'd found along the Road. That bowlful would keep him healthy for a while.
The fishers had brought in a clamshell the size of a grown man, armed with siphon/tentacles each the size of Tim's arm, that had curved teeth in the ends. Sub clam. Tim sliced it into strips, ate one (Wow! Delicious!) and carried the rest among the benches. He set the empty platter aside and walked over the hump.
Quicksilver had set a quarter-hour before the sun. Mere traces of red still lit the west, and the hump blocked that. Yutzes dumped their loads at the midden. Tim walked a distance away from them before he did his private business. Then he kept strolling toward the autumn caravan.
The sea was black and empty. He couldn't guess which way the current flowed.
Tim had dropped his pack over the back side of Hearst wagon instead of stowing it. Here it was. Tim donned it, crawled under the wagon, and, with nobody about, walked toward the water. If anyone saw him, he'd be fifty meters away and running hard.
Nobody saw. He slid down the smooth lava slope and entered the bay without much of a splash. The water was warm after the first instant; warmer than the wind on his ears. Taking his time, he put his shoes in his pack, then began to swim.
If he stayed right up against the Road, nobody could see him without walking right up to the edge. But how would he explain himself then? He chose to swim well out into the bay before he turned southeast.
It seemed to take forever to swim past the barbecue. Had he been missed? Fires were the only light, and they were almost gone. Tents were up. If he was seen, he'd be taken for a wind riffle or an Otterfolk.
The rim of the Neck was unclimbable. Tim would have to swim all the way to the Tail Town beaches, and so would anyone who came in after him. Tim hadn't seen anyone swim, merchant or yutz, since he'd left Twerdahl Town.
He'd have felt quite safe but for the Otterfolk.
Otterfolk were a mystery. He'd been led to believe that they were fanatical about their privacy. Now a creature had invaded their home. Drowning him would not be much trouble at all.
But their heads had kept popping up to watch the caravan.
It wasn't as if he had a choice. He swam.
A current was helping him along. There was still no sign of pursuit when he crawled onto a pebbly beach in a line of boats. He was shuddering with cold.
He'd planned it out, this part. He crawled among the boats and began to examine one, as he hadn't been allowed to do in Baytown. In the shadows of boats under a starless sky, he was quite blind. He explored with his hands.
The flat piece with the handle, the tiller, would fit here in notches at the tail end of the boat.
The other flat piece would fit here in the middle of the underside. It slid in from the pointed end.
If he put them on now and tried to get out into the water, they'd break off against the sand. The tiller, he could slide it in after he was afloat. The other? That would have to be inserted from underwater.
He saw that taking a boat would leave a gap in the line. The boat in the shed? No, it was probably in there for repairs! So- A heave uprighted the last boat in line. No gap. He set the tiller and the centerpiece in the bottom.
It was a heavy son of a bitch. Four handles on the bottom meant four men could lift it. Could one man drag it?
He could if he was desperate. The boat moved in surges. He dragged it down the sand until it floated, then pushed it out hard and swam after it. Clambering in was harder than he'd expected, but he made it.
He'd thought of swimming around Tail Town and then ashore. He'd still have to do that if he couldn't control the boat. The boat would be easier travel. Now he felt very conspicuous, one lone stolen boat on this great flat expanse. Get the sail up and get going!
But he needed the tiller to aim the boat.
So: mount the tiller in the dark, using the mountings he'd felt out so carefully, in the dark.
The sail was bound against that horizontal beam. He hadn't spent enough time feeling the lines out, and it cost him. This line would raise it after he untied these. Then tie it down. Where?
He got it up.
The boat had turned under him to face the wind. The sail hung slack. He felt conspicuous as hell. He moved the tiller. It wasn't steering anything.
He lowered himself off the stern and kicked until the bow came around, reached up and swung the tiller hard over.
The sail billowed as sails did at Baytown, and he heaved himself into the boat as it flew back toward shore. He turned the boat into the wind, kept the tiller turned when the boat wanted to just stop and drift, and now he was flying back toward Loria and Twerdahl Town.
Yes! But how on Earth did fishers do this?
Okay, it took four men, one on the tiller while three raised the sails....
Most of Tail Town was quite dark. Torches still burned in the larger buildings. Tim searched the water for Otterfolk, but there were none in sight. Did they sleep?
As dawn showed above the Crest, boats were putting out from the beach beyond Tail Town. Tim had sailed past Tail Town in the night. He watched them, having little better to do.
Sails came up. Five, six boats took to the water, raised sail, then foreshortened, turning toward his position. It looked choreographed.
Merchants armed with guns might be aboard, but Tim didn't believe that. Fishers would be dangerous enough. He was a thief. If they caught him, the least he could expect was to be turned over to the caravan.
The autumn caravan would know him by daylight: Jemmy Bloocher.
A row of dark heads appeared ahead.
Their eyes glittered black, facing forward at water level. As they neared he saw that their heads were as big as his own, capped with a shell that dropped to form the upper part of a beak, like a chug's head. Their beaks were cable-cutter traps, more like a lungshark's mouth than a chug's, but they were clearly related to both species.
He watched for a bit. They did nothing. He waved; nothing.
'I'm-' He hesitated, then shouted, 'I'm Jemmy Bloocher. That's one small step for a man-'
They were waiting for something.
He was about to sail past.
He couldn't see it, but he felt how the boat slid sideways across the water, losing forward momentum. Those fishers would catch him unless he could get the centerboard down.
He was tired of banging his shins on it.
He swung the boat into the wind and saw the sail go slack. The Otterfolk flicked into motion and were with him again. He picked up the centerboard and slid it into the water, hanging on to it until he felt hands take it from him.
Then it was a matter of waiting. He watched more boats take sea room and turn toward him. The floor of the boat thumped and bumped.
The boat began to turn by itself.
The Otterfolk knew how this worked. Tim twisted the tiller to help them put the wind in the sails. The boat took off, but sluggishly. He looked down to see what he'd expected: four Otterfolk, their short, thick forearms wrapped around the handholds at water level.
Damn, he could reach down and touch them.
He didn't. But he leaned far over to look, his arm far back to hold the tiller in place.
He'd half-expected to see smiles. Their beaked faces were immobile, yet it was clear they were having fun.
They were smaller than he was, but he'd known grown men as big as the Otterfolk. Sixty kilograms, he judged, and very alike except for their shells.
