Poul Anderson: New America

What was disgraceful, anyway, about a run of bad luck?

Danny scuffed boot in dirt and groped after understanding. Jack O’Malley, admired surveyor-explorer, had finally miscalculated and crashed in an aircar. He could make up for that—it could have happened to anybody, after all—by arranging to recover the most important things. But first it turned out that there was no way to haul back the motor, the heart of the vehicle. And then, maybe because he had actually continued to be a little careless, he fell and got disabled…. All right His pride, or vanity or whatever, is suffering. Why should it—this much? He’s not a petty man. What’s wrong with another person completing his project? Certainly not a mere chunk of salvage money. He’s well off.

It must be pretty crucial to him, this. But why?

Danny looked around, to the stars which were relentlessly blinking out as vapors rose from sea and soil, to the shadowiness which hemmed him in. Trees stood half-seen like trolls. They mumbled in the slow, booming wind, and clawed the air. Across the years, his fear and aloneness rushed toward him.

But I can beat that! he cried, almost aloud. I’m doing it!

O’Malley groaned. His eyelids fluttered, then squeezed shut again. He threw hale arm across helmet as if to shield off the night.

Realization came like a blow: He’s been afraid too. It’s that alien down here, that threatening. More than it ever can be to me.… He won his victory over himself, long ago. But a single bad defeat can undo it inside him—

Jack O’Malley, alone and mortal as any small boy?

Danny shook his fist at the forest. You won’t beat him! I won’t let you!

A minute later he thought how melodramatic that had been. His ears smoldered. Yet, blast, blast, blast, there had to be a way! The wagon was built. The few remaining kilometers of brush could be cleared in some hours. True, no one person could manhandle the thing, loaded, the whole way to the bus; and O’Malley lacked strength to help on that uphill drag….

“Do what you like,” the man had whispered in his crushed state, his breaking more of soul than bones. Uphill?

Danny yelled.

O’Malley started, opened his eyes, fumbled after his pistol. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Danny chattered. “Nothing, sir. Go back to sleep.” Nothing—or everything!

Roadmaking was a good deal easier between camp and sea than in the opposite direction. Besides the ground sloping downward, salt intrusions made it less fertile. Still, there was ample brush to lay on muddy spots where wheels might otherwise get stuck. By the brilliance of a lantern harnessed on his shoulders, Danny got the path done before he must likewise sleep.

“You’re the busy bee, aren’t you?” O’Malley said drowsily on one of his companion’s returns to see him. “What’re you up to?”

“Working, sir,” Danny answered correctly, if evasively. O’Malley didn’t pursue the question. He soon dropped again into the slumber, half natural, half drugged, whereby his body was starting to heal itself.

Later, Danny took the wagon to the shore. It went easily, aside from his occasional need for the brake. Unladen, it was light enough for him to bring back alone. But it would require more freeboard—he grinned—especially if it was to bear a heavier burden than planned. With power tools he quickly made ribs, to which he secured sheet metal torched out of the wreck. Rigging would be difficult. Well—tent and bags could be slashed for their fabric.

He labored on the far side of the site, beyond view of the hurt man. Toward morning, O’Malley regained the alertness to insist on knowing what was afoot. When Danny told him, he exclaimed, “No! Have you gone kilters?”

“We can try, sir,” the boy pleaded. “Look, I’ll make several practice runs, empty, get the feel of it, learn the way, make what changes I find we need before I stow her full. And you, you can pilot the bus one-handed, can’t you? I mean, what can we lose?”

“Your fool life, if nothing else.”

“Sir, I’m an expert swimmer, and—”

Shamelessly, Danny used his vigor to wear O’Malley down.

Preparation took another pair of days. This included interruptions when Danny had to go hunting. He found O’Malley’s advice about that easy to follow, game being plentiful and unafraid. Though he didn’t actually enjoy the shooting, it didn’t weigh on his conscience; and the ranging around became relaxation and finally a joy.

Once a giant spearfowl passed within reach of his rifle. He got the creature in his sights and followed it till it was gone. Only then did he understand that he had not killed it because he no longer needed to. How majestic it was!

O’Malley managed camp, in spite of the clumsiness and the occasional need for pain-killer forced on him by his broken arm. With renewed cockiness, he refused to return to High America for medical attention, or even talk to a doctor on the radio. “I’m coming along okay. You did a first-class job on me. If it turns out my flipper isn’t set quite right, why, they can soon repair that at the hospital. Meanwhile, if I did call in, some officious idiot would be sure to come bustling out. If he didn’t order us home, he’d cram his alleged help onto us, so he could claim a share in the salvage money—your money.”

“You really will go through with it, then, sir?”

“Yes. I’m doubtless as crazy as you are. No. Crazier, because at my age I should know better. But if the two of us can lick this country—Say, my name is Jack.”

Filled with aircraft motor and all, the wagon moved more sluggishly than on its trial trips… at first. Then the downgrade steepened, the brake began to smoke, and for a time Danny was terrified that his load would run out of control and smash to ruin. But he tethered it safely above high-water mark. Thereafter he had to keep watch while O’Malley walked back to the bus carrying the data tapes, which must not be risked. Danny could have done this faster, but the man said it was best if he spent the time studying the waters and how they behaved.

He also found chances to get to know the plants better, and the beasts, odors and winds and well-springs, the whole forest wonderland.

Wavelets lapped further and still further above the place to which he had let the wheels roll. He felt a rocking and knew they were upborne. Into the portable transceiver he said: “I’m afloat.”

“Let’s go, then.” O’Malley’s was the voice drawn more taut.

Not that excitement didn’t leap within Danny. He recalled a remark of his comrade’s—”You’re too young to know you can fail, you can die”—but the words felt distant, unreal. Reality was raising the sail, securing the lift, taking sheet and tiller in hand, catching the breeze and standing out into the bay.

No matter how many modifications and rehearsals had gone in advance, the cart-turned-boat was cranky. It could not be otherwise. Danny knew sailing craft too well to imagine he would ever have taken something as jerry-built as this out upon Lake Olympus. The cat rig was an aerodynamic farce; the hull was fragile, ill-balanced, and overloaded; instead of a proper keel were merely leeboards and what lateral resistance the wheels provided.

Yet this was not High America. The set of mind which had decided, automatically, that here was water too hazardous for aircar or motorboat, had failed to see that a windjammer—built on the spot, involving no investment of machinery—possessed capabilities which would not exist in the uplands.

Here air masses thrust powerfully but slowly, too ponderous for high speed or sudden flaws, gusts, squalls. Here tide at its peak raised a hull above every rock and shoal except the highest-reaching; and, the period of Raksh being what it was, that tide would not change fast. An enormous steadiness surrounded the boat, enfolded it and bore it outward.