They took up the paddles again, and despite their tired muscles, drove the trough forward with the enthusiasm only found among those who didn’t realize how the odds were stacked against them, or didn’t care.
All was going well until Jay gave a little scream. Something had snatched the paddle blade from the end of her stave. Fortunately she managed to hold onto the precious stave itself, but the look of fear on her face only served to reinforce the new problem they were now going to be faced with.
Only a limited number of spare paddles were available, and no material to replace them with, and this clearly worried the otherwise unshakeable Moss.
‘From now on, we will only use two paddles at a time, one on each side of the bot. As we put them into the water, we must look out for anything which might try to take them, and withdraw them at once if we see anything.’
‘What if the creature stays around waiting for us to offer the paddle again?’ asked Kel, always ready with another question.
‘Then we’ll stab it with a bladed stave, the non paddler can have that job.’ Moss replied, hoping against hope that it would not come to that.
By the time that the Greater Sun had sunk to the horizon, lighting the sky up in a brilliant display of red and yellow streaks, the crew were well and truly spent.
It was decided to take as long a rest as they thought they needed, sleeping in the bottom of the trough, while one stood guard, against what they were not sure, but Moss insisted that they take it in turns to watch out for the unexpected.
During his watch, Kel was sick twice over the side of the trough, the random rocking motion when not doing anything active, proving too much for his senses.
It was a sorry crew which greeted the dawn. Tired, disillusioned and far from everything they knew, they set to tidying up their stores, which had been redistributed by the rocking motion of the trough during the night.
They ate their first meal of the day with little enthusiasm, washed down with a small amount of their precious water supply, and after Moss had checked that the Direction Pointer was still indicating the correct direction, took up the paddles and hoped for the best.
The Greater Sun had only climbed one quarter the way up to its highest point, when Kel gave a cry of alarm.
‘Oh no, look over there.’
Several long grey shapes were cleaving the water, keeping pace with the slowly moving trough.
‘There are some on this side too.’ Moss called out, a touch of ill concealed panic in his voice.
‘Now what do we do? We can’t stab that lot with the staves, and they’re so big, at least ten times as long as we are tall.’
‘They are much bigger than you see,’ Jay added, ‘some of them is still under the water.’
‘Stop paddling for a while, perhaps they’ll go away.’ called Moss, as this was the only thing he could think of.
But the huge creatures didn’t.
They all sat in the bottom of the trough, peering over the side as the huge grey creatures came ever closer.
One of the giant grey shapes left the main pack and glided over to the trough, giving it a nudge with its long snout, rocking the trough alarmingly.
Moss reached for his stave, but Jay called out,
‘No, they mean no harm, they friends.’
‘How can you tell that?’ Moss still had the stave held at the ready, in case the huge creature tried to hit the trough again.
‘They say they help us. They like us. They know where we go.’ Jay was almost hysterical in her efforts to stop Moss attacking the long streamlined shape which was now gently gliding alongside the trough.
Tears began to stream down Jay’s face as she saw how things could go so terribly wrong, and pleaded with Moss,
‘They tell me they help us. They want to help. They like us.’ She didn’t know how to tell the others how she knew.
‘I’ve not heard a word from them, so how can you?’ asked Kel, trying not to sound too unkind.
‘With some creatures I can do this, they tell me in pictures, I see them in my head, I tell them in pictures too. They are our friends.’ Jay was beside herself in her efforts to explain the unexplainable. She knew what she meant, but didn’t have the words to express it.
‘All right,’ said a somewhat disbelieving Moss, ‘how can they help us?’
‘I find out.’ replied Jay, leaning over the side of the trough and sliding her hand along the flank of the huge sea creature.
It seemed to respond to her gentle touch, arching it’s smooth back up and down sensually, and then with a flick of it’s tail, turned away to join the others who had moved in a little closer.
Jay looked a little hesitant for a moment, not wishing to be too clever, then plucking up what courage she had left, said ‘We make a loop on two of our vine lengths and tie them onto the front of the bot, they take the loop and pull us to where we want to go.’
‘I don’t believe this.’ said Moss, the first touch of sarcasm showing in his voice.
‘We don’t have anything to lose,’ Kel exclaimed, ‘if they wanted to hurt us, we would all be filling their stomachs by now, let’s give it a try.’
Two vines were made ready, a large loop being formed on the end of each, and the other end made fast to the front of the trough.
‘Now what?’ asked a still somewhat sceptical Moss.
‘Throw them over the front of the bot, and see what happens.’ replied Jay, her voice having returned to its normal gentle tone.
As the two vines hit the water, two dolphins left the pack and ran their
