The Incredible Tide (11 page)

When he began his return trip to the basin, he left the second boat with most of the supplies moored by the rock. Overhead shone a moon that, ever since the Change, had been partially obscured by stratospheric mists. The glow of it, and later the lights of the food factories, were enough to help him locate the channel.

Once in the channel he had no trouble, and his only concern was not to approach the basin so closely that his boat could be spotted from shore.

As soon as he could make out the edge of the basin he stopped, eased the anchor over, and stripped off his clothes. From the tool chest he took the small wrecking bar and tied it about his waist with a piece of line. He was about to slip into the water when he thought of the flashlight. What if the night turned dark before he could locate Teacher?

With the flashlight held aloft in one hand, he swam across the basin to the broken edge of the concrete, then cautiously stood up in the half tide while he examined the waterfront. The black silhouettes of the boat shop and the surrounding buildings cut off all light from the food factories, and the area before him could be made out only dimly by the vague glow of the moon. At the moment he seemed to have the waterfront to himself.

He crawled out, and began moving warily along the water's edge, ready to immerse himself instantly if he heard anyone coming. His destination was the administration building. For surely, he reasoned, anyone as important as Teacher would be kept in a convenient place where the officials could meet and talk to him.

As he neared the corner of the projecting building where the waterfront curved, he stopped abruptly. On the other side a light had flashed briefly. Now he heard laughter.

He crept to the corner and peered carefully around it. Fifty feet away he could just make out the shape of the tiny prison where he had spent his first ten days here. In front of it, barely discernible, were two figures with bicycles. Were they the same pair who had brought him his water allowance?

Again a light flashed. There was a cackling laugh, and a woman said jeeringly, “Look at the old fraud! Why, he doesn't know himself who he really is! Ha!”

“Patch,” said the other. “Don't you know who you are? Come on, Patchy, what's wrong with you?”

“I'll tell you what's wrong with him,” came the jeering voice of the first. “He's flipped. I always said he'd flip and burn out his bearings. Now didn't I? Sure I did. If Headquarters had only listened to me in the first place…”

Conan ground his teeth in a sudden fury. Why had Teacher been locked up here? Didn't anyone in Industria have the sense to believe him?

Then, realizing he could easily be discovered where he was, he retreated quickly to the edge of the paving and crawled into the water. Presently he heard the clatter of the plastic bicycles and glimpsed the light moving in the direction of the boat shop. The moment it had vanished he leaped from his hiding place and ran to the cell.

“Teacher, it's me—Conan,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”

The faintness of the reply frightened him, and he attacked the door in a frenzy, hardly needing the wrecking bar to rip it from its hinges. Inside, he found the old man collapsed in a corner, unable to rise and almost unable to speak.

“Son, don't—don't bother with me.… If they catch you … they'll surely kill …”

Conan snatched up Teacher in both arms, backed out of the place, and began running for the boat basin. He had forgotten the wrecking bar, but the flashlight was still clutched in his left hand.

He was almost at the basin when a light swept over him from the shop.

“Hey, you!” someone called. “What's going on here?” The voice belonged to Tellit.

Conan froze, then gently set his burden down on the broken paving. He did not have to ask himself the reason for Tellit's presence here. The little man had undoubtedly taken instant advantage of yesterday's situation and been put in charge of the shop. And he would be just as eager to profit by what he saw now. It might even bring him citizenship.

Somehow, and very quickly, Tellit had to be dealt with.

The fellow had rushed from the shop, but he stopped abruptly as recognition came. “It's
you!
” he gasped. “And you come back for
him
, did you? Well, I'll be—”

“Tellit, listen to me! If you want to save your neck, you'd better come with us—”

“Don't hand me any of your crazy gab! You think I'm a fool? What'd you do with the boats? Where are they?”

Tellit's probing beam swept out over the basin, and instantly Conan heaved the flashlight he had been carrying. It only dazed the man, but it was enough to prevent the outcry that would have followed. In the next instant Conan was on him. He tore off the man's tunic, ripped it apart and hurriedly tied him with it, and stuffed a piece of it in his mouth. Then he whirled and caught up Teacher and carried him into the basin.

It may not have taken more than three minutes to swim the basin with Teacher, towing him by the collar of his tunic, but it seemed ten times as long. Momentarily he expected to hear an alarm from shore, followed by the stab of lights and fire from weapons. They had weapons here, he knew, and surely the night patrols must carry them.

There was no alarm until he had struggled down the channel and fought the tide to the boat. He was gasping and nearly exhausted now, and it was all he could do to keep Teacher's head above water while he crawled aboard. He pulled Teacher in after him, then became aware of Tellit's cries in the distance.

But there was no immediate response to Tellit. By the time the first beam from a searchlight began sweeping the water, he was more than a mile beyond the drowned area and racing for the rock.

8

SAIL

C
ONAN PAUSED ONLY LONG ENOUGH AT THE ROCK TO
make Teacher more comfortable by stripping off his wet clothes and wrapping him in blankets. Then, with the other boat on its line astern, he started up the coast as fast as the battery-powered motor could drive them. Without a light it was impossible to make out the compass needle, but for a while the dim outline of the cliff on his right was all the guide he needed.

As long as he could see the cliff he kept well out in deep water. Presently, however, the cliff began to fade in the mist drifting in from seaward, and he was forced to slow and go ever nearer the beach. At last the cliff faded entirely. Now he could only creep along, guided by the soft rush and slap of wavelets against the rocks.

Though the mist was an enemy, he was almost thankful for it as the slow miles passed. The trawler he had seen this morning had not returned. Unless it had gone out to sea, it must be up here somewhere.

Gradually he lost all sense of time, and in his growing weariness he even forgot the trawler. For several days and nights he had had little rest, and in his concern for Teacher he had hardly bothered with food. Now it became a constant battle against sleep, and he was always waking suddenly to nightmare moments of not knowing what he was doing here or where he was bound.

At one such time he awoke and found the boat fast upon a sandbar. While he was struggling to get it off, he heard Teacher say faintly, “Just a little farther—we're almost there.…”

Then, the next time Teacher spoke, they were there. In the misty blackness he could see nothing, not even Teacher. But gratefully he ran the boat ashore, shut off the motor, and dropped the anchor on the pebbly beach.

He had no memory of crawling back into the boat and going to sleep. It seemed that only seconds had passed when he became aware of Teacher's bony hand on his shoulder.

“Conan, get up! We've got to move!”

He did not immediately catch the urgency in the old man's voice, for another gray morning had come, and in the air was the tantalizing smell of fish being fried, and the soft beat of music. Fresh food, and
music!
It had been weeks since he'd eaten fresh food, and years since he'd heard such magic. A magic long vanished, played on instruments that probably no longer existed …

It was a wonderful moment, and a terrible one. For all at once he realized that the music must be from a record being played aboard the trawler. The vessel couldn't be more than a few hundred yards away. As soon as the mist lifted, which could happen any minute, they would be in plain sight of everyone aboard.

Conan sprang to the beach and furiously began unloading the boats. Teacher got out and feebly tried to help. The old man had been badly beaten. His good eye was closed, his face was bruised and swollen, and every painful movement spoke of the blows his body had suffered. Conan raged silently at the stupidity and brutality of those whom Teacher had tried to help. And it had all been for nothing.

“No,” said Teacher, reading his mind. “It was not for nothing—but there isn't time to explain now. We—”

“Let me carry the stuff! You're not able—”

“I must work—it will help me to recover. Take everything in yonder—to the right.”

Even this close to it, the break in the cliff was hardly noticeable. At first glance it looked like countless other places where rocks had fallen and the sea had eroded the beginnings of a cavern. But it curved deceivingly and extended far back from the tiny beach. Had the tide been high they could have floated the two craft directly into the place and avoided the ordeal they were forced to undergo now.

The boats were tubby fourteen-footers of unusually heavy construction. It took all Conan's strength to drag them, empty, up over the rubble and into the break. As he caught up the last of their gear and hurriedly carried it to safety, he glimpsed the vague shape of the trawler through the rising mist. It had been a very near thing.

A few minutes later he heard the throb of the trawler's motor. He was vastly relieved when he peered out and saw it heading down the coast.

The spring Teacher had spoken about still bubbled in the break, and sent a tiny stream flowing to the beach. The sight of it was reassuring, for there had not been time to fill more than a few of the water bottles the night they left. But when they sat down to eat a hasty breakfast before going to work, all Conan's feeling of relief suddenly evaporated. Teacher was entirely too quiet for his peace of mind.

The old man, still wrapped in his blanket, winced as he tried to make his bruised body more comfortable. “We have a fact or two to face,” he began, his voice deceptively mild. “For one thing, geology may give us a bit of trouble later. Do you happen to know what a tsunami is?”

“A—a wave of some kind, isn't it?”

“Yes. Various shocks can cause them. Later, we must be on the watch—” Teacher gave the faintest indication of a shrug. “But that isn't our immediate worry. As soon as the work commissioner and his friends come to their senses, we'll have a swarm of searchers out after us.”

“I don't understand. If they beat you—”

“The beating proves a point. I expected punishment.”

“You—you
expected
it?”

“Of course. Isn't violence the natural reaction of nonreason to reason, of power to truth?” Teacher chuckled weakly. “Oh, my battered bones! Can't you see how furious I made them? There, right under their noses all the time, was the old rascal they'd spent so much effort trying to find. It was too much for them.”

“But I didn't think they believed you!”

“Oh, they believed me. But how could they admit it? Briac Roa old Patch? Utterly ridiculous! Yet if they'd actually thought I was Patch, the crank at the boat shop whose mind had suddenly slipped, they would have laughed and thrown me out. Into the desert, probably. They can't be bothered with incompetents. But they didn't laugh. So my mission was successful.”

Conan could only stare at him in astonishment.

“And now,” Teacher added, “they are waking up to the fact that their prize bird has been snatched from the coop. When they don't find us immediately—and I'm sure they think they will—this whole coast will be seething. So we don't have the time I'd counted on to get our craft ready. I'd hoped to have at least a week.”

“How long have we got?”

“We ought to be out of here tonight.”

“But—but that's impossible,” Conan said faintly, thinking of the endless details that had to be done just right—the hull-joining, the sailmaking, the careful assembly of spars that had to be spliced from plastic pieces because there wasn't any wood …

“True,” the old man murmured. “So it will have to be tomorrow night instead. Even that seems impossible. But we must manage it somehow, whether we are ready or not. Now that they know who I am, another day will be too late. And I should warn you—if they fail to find us on the coast, they'll carry the search to sea.”

“They'll never find us with that old trawler. All we need is a few hours' start—”

“I'm not concerned about the trawler. They have helicopters.”

“No!”

“Yes. Two of them. Monstrous old relics they used for heavy lifting. They're more dangerous to us than a dozen boats.” Teacher shrugged. “But we'll worry about them later. Let's fasten those hulls together.”

As he hurried to work, Conan wondered grimly just what their chances were. He tried not to think of Lanna.

There had been no more deaths at High Harbor, and the danger of infection was now past. But Lanna was very much aware of the other danger. Every time she glanced down at the harbor and saw the trade ship, she was reminded of it. So far as she could learn, the secret meeting had been delayed indefinitely. But of course it was too soon after the sickness scare to start anything, and there were too many tales going around about what had happened. But that wretch of a commissioner was in no hurry. He had already got part of what he was after, and as soon as things quieted down …

Lanna's hand trembled as she whipped the shuttle of her loom back and forth. She had gotten up early to weave a few extra inches of material—getting it from the trade ship was now out of the question, and she would have scorned it had it been offered—but it was impossible to keep her mind on her work. Thoughts of Teacher and Conan kept intruding. How long had it been since Mazal had heard from Teacher? Four days? Five? With so many uncertainties it was hard to keep track of time, and it seemed like weeks.