'What good are keys?' Var demanded. 'We have no house.'
'They belong to a powerboat,' she said, reading the paper.
There were sea-charts aboard the craft, and numerious tanks of gasoline and fresh water and canned goods. How Mines had arranged this they could not guess, but the boat had obviously been ready long before the two of them had entered the picture. Perhaps he had intended to escape himself, but had given up the notion because of his biological urgencies. 'Or maybe he was less a slave to the temple than he had admitted. He could have many luxurious boats tucked away....
From the maps they learned that they were far south of where they had supposed. The tunnel to China-actually, to Siberia-left from farther along. They had taken the Aleutian series, that led nowhere. However, with this stout craft it should be possible to make the crossing, following the island chain to the Kamchatka peninsula. From there they could either trek overland north and west and south around the Sea of Okhotsk, or continue island hopping directly southwest toward Japan.
Var's head spun with the unfamiliar names Soli pieced out. This weird map was like the Master's books: it predated the Blast, and so contained much nonsense. Some of the islands might not be there any more.
Somehow neither person suggested that they go back- back past the amazon hive, on to Alaska, north to the true crossing. Or even back to America. China had become a fixed objective, for no good reason now. Obviously they were not going to be satisfied with anyone's culture but their own. And if the Master were still on their trail, he should have caught up by this time.
They could go home and soli could rejoin whichever father she chose, and Var could be a warrior again, and their relationship would be over. They would never need to see each other again. Yet they continued, west, nonsensically.
A storm blew up and they hastily docked the boat on the shore of a deserted islet. Then fair weather, and they moved through deep water at top speed, letting the fine engine do the work. -
They did not discuss the implications of what they had done to escape Minos, and after a time it became as though it had not happened. Indeed, the entire New Crete residence of two years tended to exist itself as a thing apart, an unreal memory. Soli was the child again, Var the ugly warrior.
But with a difference. Hide it as they might, Soli was nubile and Var male. They could no longer embrace with complete innocence and candor, for now an embrace implied an adult relationship and inspired adult reactions that neither cared to admit. Nor could they talk quite so frankly, for the frankest subject of all was sex.
They were not ready for love. For a moment it had been forced upon them, emotionally and physically, but that moment had faded like the storm tide, and they were left to their unfridged isolation. Two people united by a common purpose and an unspoken affection.
This was, at any rate, the way Var saw it, though he did not work it out neatly or consciously. More than once he observed Soli staring at his bracelet. Perhaps she was remembering the way she had preserved it for him, at the near sacrifice of her own life. He was sorry that he had told her this was foolish, for that must have hurt her feelings-but it was true. Had the bracelet been sold, they need never have suffered those two years on New Crete.
That reminded him circularly of another point, the one Minos had made. Could the Master be Soli's natural father? Now this seemed less reasonable than it had in the cave, and Var could not bring himself to present the notion openly. How would Soli react, having the paternity of Sol questioned? She loved Sol dearly, and hardly knew the Master. And if it were true, how would the Master react, knowing that Var had lied to him, making him believe his daughter had been slain? And when he learned what had happened on New Crete, what Soli had been set up for, how she bad been reprieved....
The wide expanse of the sea went on and on, hypnotic, beautiful, boring. The sparse islands were barren, and did not conform exactly to the indications of the map. They took turns steering, following a marking on the compass- a dial that always pointed north. The sun and the stars also sewed, and whenever they encountered a feature recognizable on the map, they corrected course accordingly.
And a few days after they thought the ocean would never end, they sighted the mainland of Asia.
And the people spoke incomprehensibly.
'Yes, of course,' Soi said in response to his bewilderment. 'They speak Chinese. Or they will, when we reach China. The map says' it's-well, see, we have a long way 'to go yet.'
Two thousand miles or more, it seemed to Var. Months of travel.
They were sick of the ocean, but the
