Seas of Ernathe (7 page)

* * *

"Damn you and your people!" Mona whispered, hissed, spitting like an enraged shrellcat. "Nothing like this happened before you came!" Her eyes were lances of fire, sweeping around and about Seth like the circling buzzing drones that had fallen grudgingly into the sea for recovery. Her eye-pupils dilated in despair, and then, as she seemed to regain control over her body if not her emotions, they shrank suddenly to hard daggers, riveted to his breast.

Seth breathed with difficulty. The finding and the recovery of the deck crewman's body, five hours into the search, had been a grisly, shocking experience for everyone aboard the ship. Bad enough in itself, it had made Racart's fate seem only that much more obvious. If one man had fallen overboard, why not two? The final blow, after several more hours, had been the Captain's order to end the search and to turn the ship, cargoless, toward home. At first Mona had stood silent, unmoving, her face turned inward, not acknowledging the implicit pronouncement of Racart's death. When she did speak, it was to Seth, with blunt anger and hatred. And he had no answer to give, even if she were listening.

"No—now he's gone, and someone else too—drowned—because people couldn't leave well enough alone!" She turned and stalked away down the corridor; but then she came back and faced him again, her fury unspent. There was defiance in her eyes, and the first hint of grief-tears. She shook her head painfully. "He called you a friend." Her headshake became violent, interfering with her words. "Two days—he knew—and now he's—gone." Her head stopped shaking; her eyes were blurry now with tears. Seth stared back helplessly, searching for words to express his own grief. Yes, they had been friends—friends for two days, actually four. What could he say, when his own sense of loss was numbing every nerve of his body?

"We don't know for sure," he whispered, trying to speak it aloud.

Mona stared at him contemptuously and turned away, to leave him standing alone and helpless in the middle of the corridor.

Perhaps,
he thought dimly,
perhaps it's true. That we really don't know what happened.
The thought seemed empty.

He made a decision, and looked for a phone to call the Captain.

* * *

Sergei Fenrose worried his mouth around a piece of
sojo
candy and scrutinized Seth with a scowl. "How certain are you, now, of what you're saying?" His eyes were alert but traced with thin red veins of weariness. His desk was littered, the only disorderly thing in his cabin, and be hunched over it as he studied the starpilot.

Seth answered slowly, "I'm certain that he was once taken—without warning—by several of the sea-people. And that he was returned unharmed." He choked a little on that last word, but decided that it was basically truthful. "That, when you get right down to it, is all that I am certain of. I have no
reason
to believe that it happened again, other than the fact that it happened once before." He shrugged.

The Captain nodded, and sat back. "Well. If you're right, then there's probably nothing we can do. Except not give up hope. Or do you have any other suggestions?"

The starpilot gestured helplessly. "No." He thought. "Captain—"

"Mm."

"Do you happen to know what Racart's relationship was—
is
—with Mona Tremont?"

Fenrose looked surprised. "Why, it was my understanding that they were to be lifemated soon. Didn't they tell you themselves?"

Seth shook his head, stunned. "No, they didn't." He rose awkwardly to leave. "Thank you, Captain." He turned back, halfway out the door, and repeated softly, thoughtfully, "Thank you."

He wandered aimlessly about the decks for a time. Heading, eventually, for the crew quarters, he encountered Ferris Tarn, the young crewman. On an impulse, he stopped the man. "Ferris, have you seen Mona Tremont?"

Tarn looked at him uncertainly. "No," he said. "Wait—yes—I saw her go into the women's quarters about an hour ago." He seemed puzzled, or perhaps embarrassed. "I've heard she said some pretty harsh things to you—she must be hit awfully hard by Racart's . . . death. I doubt she meant half of what she said." He shuffled, seemed to want to say more.

Seth agreed. "She was hit hard. But she may have given up too soon." Seeing Tarn's startled look, he knew he should have kept silent. "Never mind, Ferris. Thanks." He hurried on, his blood pounding.

A female crewmember met him at the entrance to the women's quarters, and hesitated when he asked if he might see Mona. After a moment, she said, "Okay—but I hope you know what you're doing." She let him pass.

The woman spoke to Mona briefly, then left Seth alone with her. Mona's expression, fixed somewhere on the lower part of her bunk partition, made it plain that she did not wish for his company. Nevertheless, Seth settled on the edge of another bunk, not quite facing her. He ran his fingers lightly up and down his soiled trouser leg. Softly, he said, "Mona, there are many things Racart never had a chance to tell me. One of them was about you—and him." Her only reaction was a silent shiver. Seth hesitated, then continued. "He
was
my friend, for four days. And I haven't given up on him, and you shouldn't either. There's a chance—a good one, I think—that he's still alive."

Still, she did not look at him or answer. He sighed, knotted his fists on his knees, and said loudly, "Mona, did he tell you what happened the other day—up on the coast—with the Nale'nid?

"Mona!"

She turned at last, slowly, her face devoid of any emotion he could name. "He started to," she said in a ragged voice. "He never finished. Does it matter?" She looked away.

"It matters. If the same thing happened today, it matters for all the world.
If.
No promises." He blinked. Was it right for him to create hope—possibly false hope? But he had already told the Captain, and Fenrose seemed to believe it a reasonable possibility.

He told the story, as much of it as he knew. "I never got to hear it all, either. But the Nale'nid took him—captured him, then released him. We can't be sure they didn't do it again today." Saying it, he bitterly wished he had learned the entirety of the story from Racart. Perhaps it would have supplied some clue. "That's all I can say, Mona—it's possible. Isn't that something, at least?"

Mona stared at the deck, moving one foot forward and back. She somehow seemed younger, now, than he had previously thought; perhaps twenty. With obvious great effort, she said, "What about Panlon?"

The other crewman. Seth choked silently. "Accidents happen at sea, don't they?" His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "We don't know that he and Racart were together. Something entirely different could have happened to Racart."

Mona nodded. She looked at him again, finally. "I don't know whether or not to tell you to hope," Seth said.
Yes. Damn it, yes, hope!

She nodded again, attempted a smile and failed miserably. She started to weep and choked it off herself. "All right," she managed. She raised her eyes, then dropped them. "All right. I guess. Now please let me be, for a while."

Seth left, wondering if he could believe it himself.

* * *

Ardello
reached port the next day, and it was only a matter of hours before officials from Lernick, Lambrose, and the
Warmstorm
Mission were brought together in tense conference. Richel Mondreau of
Warmstorm
and Kenelee Savage, Manager of the Ernathe Colony, agreed in principle that a representative of the sea-people must be secured—presumably by capture, since no alternatives suggested themselves. The upshot of the meeting was that air, sea, and land search would be undertaken, simultaneously, to the maximum extent feasible by the joint personnel of Ernathe and
Warmstorm
. Stunning weapons would be issued to all parties, and it was intended that they be used. Any Nale'nid sighted would be a target for capture.

Mondreau delivered general instructions to the
Warmstorm
complement and dismissed them to join their Ernathene counterparts for individual search party planning sessions. He called Seth inside. The starpilot eyed him wearily but respectfully; he had hardly slept, and he hoped that he was not about to be grilled. Still, among the
Warmstorm
personnel he was the only one—through accident or design—who had had repeated and fairly close contact with the Nale'nid, and he knew he was expected to offer useful information. At the moment, he could hardly even think.

"Perland, you and your friend Bonhof had some things to tell us, before we hustled you off. Do you want to give us a rundown now?" Mondreau spoke briskly, not acknowledging Seth's obvious exhaustion. Captain Gorges listened on, a faint smile flickering across his broad face.

Seth groaned inwardly, and swallowed. "I can't, I'm afraid. Racart never had the chance to tell
me
precisely what went on." He related what he knew, concluding with his belief that Racart might be alive in the hands of the sea-people. "I would hope that if it
is
true, the Nale'nid will make the fact known at some point."

Mondreau considered that, and conferred with Gorges. He turned back to Seth. "Well, since you seem to have an unusual facility for attracting these people, we're going to send you along on one of the land parties. Maybe you can help us net an emissary."

"Very well," Seth replied. He was repelled by the man's glibness on the subject of the Nale'nid, but he had no real objections to the plan. Perhaps if he were not so tired—

"I know," Mondreau cautioned, "that you will be tempted to turn this into a search for your friend. Remember, please, that you're going out to find and bring back a sea-person or persons. And that is your only responsibility."

Seth shrugged. "I wouldn't know how to go about searching for Racart if you wanted me to. Sir."

Mondreau looked at him sharply, but dismissed him without comment. Seth returned to the
Warmstorm
crew's quarters and went to sleep without speaking to another soul.

* * *

Seth's party assembled two days later, the last of the expeditions to set out. As the seven men gathered and sorted their equipment for the last time, the bad weather of the previous day subsided. The leader, Marq Senrith, paid particular attention to Seth and the other
Warmstorm
representative, Andol Holme (
chosen to keep an eye on me?
Seth had wondered, though not unhappily), making sure that they had their gear packed and secured properly, and repeating the cautions he had given several times already—primarily,
don't get separated from the group.
Seth thought mutely of Racart's experience and nodded assent.

One of the Ernathenes, Coleman, was from Lernick; he had not previously been acquainted with the Lambrosians, but he joined with them in harboring reservations, not completely disguised, about the starmen's capacities for a lengthy trek on foot. Coleman was slightly paler than the Lambrosians; and like Damon, Reese, and Lanka, the other three, he was small by the standards of most worlds Seth knew, but lean, muscular, and weathered. Andol Holme was actually the largest of the group, rising slightly over Marq Senrith.

"Ready for another round of this?" he asked Seth, who was still feeling rather bedraggled. He received a squint in reply and laughed. "You look like a scurv-otter who's gotten washed over a waterfall and left in the sun to dry. And that's a compliment."

"Wrong planet," said Seth. "That is, I think so. But then, who knows? Around here, they just
might
have scurv-otters. Strange, isn't it, how little wildlife there is?"

"The wildlife probably just avoids humans like the black Querlin death." Holme slung his pack and hiked it into a comfortable position on his back, then helped Seth. "Ready to go, looks like." The other five men were taking position, and Seth and Holme fell into line just ahead of Lanka, who was bringing up the rear. When Senrith was satisfied that the party was in order, he led them out of town, to the north—the same direction Seth had traveled with Racart.

Lambern was out, pouring its morning light around the broken bits of cloud drifting eastward in the sky. The bay flashed and sparkled to their left, passing in and out of view as they marched out of town along a path which, from the outset, was torturous. Seth was overly warm almost immediately, and he loosened the front of his windbreaker to let a cool breeze fan across his chest. His thoughts went back to Mona; she had departed last night on another cruise aboard
Ardello
, and before leaving she had visited Seth to apologize for her earlier unpleasantness. She had sat, awkwardly, knowing she was interrupting Seth's preparations but looking desperately as though she wanted to give him encouraging words of her own. In the end, she had found none and had simply forced a farewell smile, touched his hand gently, and left to board
Ardello
. How would she feel if Racart did
not
return, Seth wondered, on this cruise or at all? And what was he, Seth, likely to accomplish gamboling about in the wilderness with six other equally helpless men?

He picked up his pace to keep up with Holme and the rest. They were cutting inland now, from the shore route—or what Seth thought of as the shore—to take a path along a series of lagoons and channels, a twisty terrain, which to his eyes was impenetrable. After only a few hours travel, he gave up trying to maintain any sense of bearing with respect to Lambrose and the sea. In fact, sea-mist was beginning to move thickly enough across the landscape to give an impression of the land itself being in constant flux. "This is worse than a nest of serpents," Holme grumbled, waving Seth ahead of him over a narrow ledge, which broke off on one side to a treacherous-looking stream. "I've been through some mightily rugged terrain on Bargosi and Kormante, but nothing that seemed so endlessly
chaotic
. And so biologically wasteful."

"That's at least partly due to the radiation cycle of Lambern," Lanka answered, trudging behind Holme. "Massive increases in the solar radiation—irregular, but averaging every couple hundred years or so—that has something to do with the influences of the heavy planets and the nearest stars. That's probably killed off many evolutionary lines before they could really much get started."