The Incredible Tide (12 page)

There was a small sound behind her, and she glanced quickly around and saw Mazal standing in the doorway. In the last few days Mazal's gaunt face had thinned, and this morning there were dark circles around her eyes.

Lanna said, “I'll fix breakfast. Why don't you go back and get some sleep?”

“Who can sleep?” her aunt muttered.

Lanna shook her head and tried to concentrate on keeping the shuttle going. Between them they were aware of two facts, and two facts only. One was that Conan and Teacher were alive, and the other was that some dreadful but unimaginable circumstance had placed them in peril. But at least they were alive. Being aware of it was like knowing that your own heart was still beating.

Mazal came in and sank into a chair near the loom. “The last message I got from Teacher—” she began, then stopped, her eyes on the door.

Lanna glanced around again. Shann was there. He entered slowly, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his robe. For a man who had been through so much lately, he seemed strangely wide awake.

“Has Teacher escaped yet?” he asked.

Mazal gasped, and Lanna dropped her shuttle.

“Well?” said Shann, looking from one to the other.

“Whoever said he was a prisoner?” Mazal asked weakly.

“It all adds up,” Shann told her quietly. “I've been suspecting for some time that he was a prisoner—and of course I can see why it was better that I wasn't told, that no one knew. Now I think I should have the truth. Am I right about him?”

“Yes,” Mazal whispered.

“And Conan's with him,” Lanna found herself saying.

“
What?
” Shann had never looked so astonished.

Mazal said, “Tell him about it, Lanna.”

When she had explained the whole thing, he sat down, shaking his head. “Lord in heaven,” he breathed. “What a situation!” Then suddenly he swung to Mazal. “And you've no idea whether Teacher and Conan have managed to get away?”

“That's just the trouble,” Mazal wailed. “I can't find out. Not a thing! If we only knew!”

“Do you think the New Order may have discovered who Teacher is?”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” Mazal told him.

Shann frowned. “If they know it, maybe we ought to call an emergency meeting and tell everybody here. If all the young people are given the truth about Dyce and the New Order—”

“But not till we hear from Teacher,” Lanna interrupted.

“No, of course not,” he agreed. “It would never do to give his secret away, unless it's already out. Dyce would get word back, and there'd be the biggest search on—” He shook his head again. “Honestly, I don't know what to do. It's a terrible situation.”

They joined the two hulls that first morning, and started in immediately on the sail. It was a big triangle they had planned to make from the bolt of cloth taken on their raid; but now, pressed for time, they used the roll of gray plastic instead. It was seamed quickly over its bolt rope by the same cement used on the hulls, and even permanently fastened to its spar by a quick lacing and a few dabs of cement.

“It will blow out in the first squall,” Teacher muttered. “But at least it will get us away from here—and save us three days.”

Their only flashlight had been used to stop Tellit, but Teacher lighted the burner of a makeshift food warmer, and they managed by its feeble glow to work late into the night.

They were toiling again at the first pale light of dawn, reinforcing the stubby mast and making rigging from the great coil of line that had been part of the stores at the boathouse.

Late that second morning a helicopter approached and, dropping low, hovered for long and terrifying minutes directly over the break.

Conan heard it coming in time to tug their craft into a corner, jerk the gray sail over it, and heave enough sand and gravel upon the plastic to form an effective camouflage. Their supplies, at Teacher's insistence, had already been carefully piled to one side and covered. Even so, it was an unnerving interval before the machine moved on up the coast.

When dark came again, bringing the creeping tide, there were a hundred small tasks undone. But the craft was roughly rigged, and its sail, however crude, seemed usable. Other things could wait.

By the light of the burner they began swiftly stowing all they had brought with them aboard—the food supplies, the water bottles, the tool chest, the plastic bags with their blankets and spare clothing, the cloth, and the roll of line and the gear from the boat shop. Finally, for emergency repairs, they loaded the leftover cement and every scrap of plastic.

When the vessel was afloat, Conan fastened the motor in its well and lashed the batteries near it so they would not come adrift in the seas ahead. He gave a last look around, then placed the burner on the floor near the compass so he could watch the needle if the night turned too dark to get his bearings.

Teacher said, “Are we ready?”

“I—I think so, sir.” A strange feeling was coming over him that would have been beyond his ability to describe.

“Then we'd better pray,” said Teacher. “Far more depends on this voyage than the safety of two people.”

There was a silence, then the old man said quietly, almost as if his Listener was standing beside him, “Please help us and guide us, for you know better than we what we face, and what it could mean if we fail.”

For the first time Conan began to sense the frightening responsibility that Teacher carried on his none-too-sturdy shoulders. At that moment, like an icy shock, he was struck with the awful fact of his own responsibility. Without Teacher's knowledge and his hand to guide the future, what would happen to the survivors of the Change?

As he began tugging at their craft, straining and thrusting to float it out through the darkness of the break, he had a sudden vision of the long savage night of man's past. Without Teacher, and all the things Teacher knew and believed in, wouldn't man sink back into that primitive night? Or could he even manage to exist?

This last thought brought another shock, for already he'd learned enough to know that, with things as they were, it wouldn't take much to put an end to man forever. It numbed him for a second, and their craft chose that instant to become wedged in the break. Instead of two fourteen-footers, it was now a rigid twenty-eight feet, not counting the flimsy rudder at the stern, and it would not curve around projections.

For several horrible minutes he struggled in the waist-deep tide, fighting to free it. When it slid out suddenly into the sea, the incident had indelibly impressed upon him the importance of the role he had been chosen to take. He wanted to cry out against it, but there wasn't time. The breeze was thrusting the bow around, and he was forced to leap aboard and start the motor.

A few minutes later Teacher lowered the false keel in its slot and raised the sail. The great triangle of plastic slatted and rattled alarmingly until he came aft and flattened the sheet. Then it snapped taut, and abruptly the vessel heeled, the bow lifted, and they surged forward under the wind's thrust.

It was the first time Conan had ever been in a sailing craft. But the quick thrill that went through him was almost instantly forgotten as he glanced back at the cliff. Against the night sky it was only a vague shape of darker dark, but somehow it was as threatening as a crouching beast.

He shook his head and told himself he was being foolish. The cliff was no threat, now that they were leaving it. Their worry was the helicopters that would begin searching again in the morning.

“We must not be where they search,” said Teacher, reading his mind. “Take the helm, son. Hold her just as she is, with the wind on your left ear. I'll relieve you when you get tired.”

“Is High Harbor in this direction?” he asked, as he slid over and grasped the tiller.

“No, it's on the other tack. But we're not trying it tonight. The wind's nor'west, and it's taking us away from the search area.”

“What about the motor?”

“Keep it going. Full speed. It won't drive us much faster, but every extra mile counts. We've got to be as far from this part of the coast as possible by dawn.”

9

CHASE

I
T MAY HAVE BEEN AN HOUR AFTER DAYBREAK WHEN
Conan first became aware of the faint sound he had not wanted to hear. It was only a faraway bee drone, but it destroyed any hope that distance might have brought a measure of security. Land was well over the horizon behind them now, and the wind, which had driven them steadily for hours, seemed to be freshening. Under the lift of the great lateen sail the craft was almost planing.

He had not had the heart to awaken Teacher. The old man, swaddled in blankets, was still curled up asleep on the starboard side of the motor. One glance at that drawn and badly bruised face and he decided not to disturb him unless the bee drone came much closer.

He prayed for the sound to go away. For several intervals it did, but always it returned, louder, and he realized the helicopter must be flying a zigzag course, trying to cover a wide section of the sea. In the constant haze it remained invisible for a long time. Then suddenly he made it out, a moving dot that he might have taken for a bird but for the sound it made.

He turned to call Teacher, and found the old man sitting up, listening intently.

Suddenly Teacher ordered, “Heave to, then cut off the motor. We've got to take in the sail and spread it over us.”

They hastily lowered the long spar, and managed to spread the gray plastic over most of the vessel. Almost before they could lash it down securely, the helicopter was swinging past, only a few hundred yards off the port quarter.

Conan could hardly believe his eyes when the machine continued on its way, paying not the slightest attention to them. “What's wrong with them?” he asked, shaken. “Couldn't they
see
us?”

“No,” said Teacher. “Thanks to the gray plastic. It's almost the same color as the water. And I think they're looking for two boats—one towing the other. It hasn't occurred to them that we may have turned into something different.”

“But what are we going to do? They are ahead of us now, and if we use the sail, they may spot us later.”

“Use the motor. If we keep going, we ought to run into some fog later. Then we can make sail.”

Conan searched the hazy distance. “I think there's a line of fog way off to the left—to port, I mean.”

“Head for it. This is where your vision counts. I'm unable to make out anything—or sense it, I should say—more than a hundred feet beyond me.”

Conan switched on the motor and started at full speed for the distant fogbank. They were quartering into the wind now, and without the sail they seemed to be barely creeping along. Momentarily he expected to hear the helicopter returning, but the morning was half gone before he heard the sound of it again, and by this time they were safely hidden by the fog.

Wearily he helped raise the sail and turned the tiller over to Teacher. He fell asleep the moment he stretched out by the motor. It was the first rest he had had in more than twenty-four hours.

When he awoke it was black dark, so dark that he could not even make out Teacher at the helm a few feet away. The motor was still going, and the craft was sliding easily along on the same tack she had been on earlier.

He felt his way aft and took the tiller from Teacher, saying accusingly, “Why did you let me sleep so long?”

The old man chuckled. “For the same reason you let me sleep so long last night. But I was about to call you. I must try to get in touch with Mazal.”

“Oh. I guess it's been impossible lately.”

“Yes, and she's frantic. I can always pick up her messages, even bits she doesn't want me to know. But she still has trouble getting mine. The last she got was that we were planning to escape—but she doesn't know what's happened. Tonight I've got to get through to her and warn her.”

“Warn her? About what?”

“They're having trouble at High Harbor. Our getting away is going to make it worse—it may bring it all to a head. But I'll explain it later.”

Teacher moved forward into the blackness. Conan, suddenly disturbed, clung grimly to the tiller and tried to find reason in what he'd just been told. But it made no sense. Finally, aware of hunger, he fumbled in the food locker under the triangular afterdeck, took sandwiches from an opened package, and ate them without enjoyment. He was thinking a little wistfully of raw fish and kelp when Teacher returned.

“Thank heaven,” the old man murmured. “I managed to get through to her this time.”

“What's going on there? Why, just because we escaped—”

“Conan, do you remember a boy named Orlo?”

“Yes, sir. He was the one I had a fight with the night everybody was waiting to be flown to High Harbor. There wasn't much point to it, except that he wanted to run things. Anyhow, he had the reach on me, and I couldn't handle him.”

“Well, it seems he still has the reach on everyone, and still wants to run things. He'd like to take over High Harbor. And he may—with the help of the New Order.”

“That doesn't sound good. But how—?”

“I'm just looking ahead, Conan. First, let me tell you something. We've already been spotted.”

“No!”

“It happened this morning, soon after you went to sleep. That helicopter came back.”

“I heard it coming. But with all the fog I thought we were safe!”

“So did I. But we ran into a rift just as the fellow came by. We were out of it and back into the fog in seconds, but it was all the time he needed to circle and take a good look at us. So now they know what we're like and where we're headed.”

“But aren't we headed straight for High Harbor?”

“No. Not in the shape we're in now. There's a dangerous sea to cross, and there are no charts to help us. We'd never make it. We need a better sail, a stronger hull, a more efficient rudder, a proper centerboard …”