Svoboda shook her head. A blond lock tossed on her temple. “That has changed. Nobody is indispensable any longer. We’ll accept whatever leader we may need, if we judge that person will serve us well.” She paused. “Somebody will call tomorrow, when we’ve conferred, and make proper arrangements.” With a smile: “Yukiko, this isn’t your fault. Everybody knows that. Goodnight.” The screen blanked.
Hanno sat staring into it.
Yukiko went to stand behind him, a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take this hard,” she said. “She was simply short on sleep, therefore short on temper. After she has rested, she will shrug it off.”
He shook his head. “No, it goes deeper than that. I hadn’t realized—we’ve been away too much—down underneath, they carry their resentment yet.”
“No. I swear not. No more. You did bring them, us to something far more wonderful and meaningful than we had dared hope for. It is true, you are not vitally necessary now. Your captaincy is not unquestioned. And you did act thoughtlessly. But the wound is nothing, it will heal by morning.”
“Some things never heal.” He rose. “Well, no use brooding.” A crooked grin. “What about that cup of tea?”
She regarded him in silence before she said, most quietly, “You two can still hurt one another, can you not?”
His voice went brusque. “How often do you miss Tu Shan?” He drew her to him. “Regardless, these have been good years for me. Thank you.”
She laid her cheek against his breast. “And for me.”
He forced a chuckle. “I repeat, what became of the tea?”
First light grayed the east, made dull silver of the stream. Heights westward hulked black and haze dimmed a sinking huge moon. The waterfall rushed loud down its cuff into the river, which clucked and purled. Coolness blew, laden with silty odors.
Hanno and Wanderer stood on the dock. Then- tongues felt awkward. “Well,” said Wanderer, “have fun.”
“You too,” Hanno replied. “Uh, how long did you say you’d be gone?”
“Don’t know for sure. Three, four days. But you come home this evening, hear me?”
“Of course. We Phoenicians never spent a night at sea if we could help it.”
Wanderer’s shadowed countenance darkened further. “I wish you wouldn’t go at all. Especially alone.”
“I heard you before. You’re going alone yourself, and not even taking a communicator along.”
“That’s different. I know those woods. But none of us really know the waters. We’ve just puttered around a little in our boats or taken passage with natives, and that was to study the crew, not the seamanship.”
“Look, Peregrino, I know perfectly well the conditions aren’t identical with Earth. I’ve tried them out, remember? Please remember, too, that I was sailing, in flimsier vessels than I like thinking about, two thousand years before you were born. Always the second law of the sea is ‘Take care.’ ”
“What’s the first?”
“ ‘It’s in the bilge!’ ”
They laughed together a bit. “Okay, okay,” Wanderer said. “So we both need to go walkabout, in our different ways. I suspect the same’s true for Corinne. She didn’t really have to confer with the Triune at this exact time.” He left unspoken: Escape, relief, slack off the tension that has built up in us through these past days of wrangling. Shall we abide here, shall we accompany the Ailoi when they leave, or what? Seek within ourselves for our true desires. We have years yet in which to decide, but the divisions between us have festered longer than that, ranker than we knew.
“Thanks for your help,” said Hanno.
“De nada, amigo.” They shook hands. It was the heartiest clasp Hanno had ever felt, or given, in Hestia. He couldn’t ask outright, but he believed Wanderer had altogether forgiven him. Well, whatever rift had occurred was not over something fundamental to the man’s life, as for some others; and from Wanderer’s viewpoint, events had fairly well vindicated his old friend. At these latest con-daves of the eight, they had argued side by side.
It wasn’t the same with Macandal, Patulcius, Aliyat, Tu Sfaan, Svoboda—Svoboda— Oh, she was perfectly gracious; after all, in principle she too favored exploring. But by tacit agreement, she and Yukiko stayed abed when their men got up to carry the gear down to the boat.
Wanderer turned. His stride whispered over the dock, bis tall form strode up the path and disappeared hi remnant darknesses. Hanno boarded. Quickly he uncovered and unfurled the mainsail, took the jib from its bag, raised them, cleated the sheets, cast off. Hie fabric stood ghost-white athwart strengthening dawn, slatted, caught wind and filled. Ariadne listed over and slipped downstream.
She was a sweet little craft, a six-meter sloop that on Earth would once have been an ocean racer (who there went sailing any more?), built at odd moments by Tu Shan with robot help according to plans in the database. Mainly, he had wanted to make something beautiful as well as purposeful. It turned out that nobody found time to use her much, finally not at all. The Ithagene were intrigued, but the layout was wrong for them. Hanno patted the deck beside the cockpit. “Poor girl,” he said. “Did you cry sometimes at night, lying always alone? We’ll take a real run today, we will.” Surprised, he noticed he had spoken hi Punic. When had he last?
The estuary broadened. Unhindered, the land breeze blew harder. He had it, the current, and the tide to bear him. Ebb should end just about when he reached the sea; stack water for the transition was desirable. Waves, rips, every kind of turbulence went faster, more forcefully, less foreseeably on Xenogaia, under its gravity, than on Earth. The sun rose ahead, blurred and reddened by overcast, not so far to starboard as it would have been on Earth at this latitude and time of year. Though the planet rotated somewhat faster, the axial tilt promised him a long, long summer day. Cloud banks towered murky in the south. He hoped they wouldn’t move northward and rain on him. The wettest season had passed, but you never knew. Xenogaian meteorology was still largely guesswork. The parameters were unfamiliar; the humans and their computers had too much else, too much more interesting, to consider. Also, it seemed the weather was highly unstable. Chaos, in the physics sense of the word, took over early in any sequence. Well, this was a sturdy, forgiving boat; he and Wanderer had carried down an outboard for her; if he got in bad trou- ble, he could call, and an aircraft would come take him off. He scowled at the thought.
Think about pleasanter things, then. Faring out again among the stars— No, that cut too near. That was what divided the house of the Survivors against itself.
You couldn’t blame those who wanted to stay. They’d toiled, suffered, wrought mightily; this had become home for them, it was the cosmos for their children. As for those who wanted to quest, why, Minoa with its multitudinous realms was only one continent on an entire world. For those who would liefest dwell near nonhumans, a whole new race of them was coming. What more dared you wish?
Dismiss it for now. Lose yourself in this day.
The sea opened before Ariadne, eunmetal whitecaps, surge and brawl, wind abruptly southeast and stiff. She leaped, leaned, ran happily lee rail under. It throbbed in deck and tiller. The wind sang. Spindrift blew salt kisses. Hanno closed his jacket and drew up its hood against the chill. Fingers brushed the gas cartridge that would at need inflate it. Tricky sailing, and nis muscles not yet fully retrained to bear his weight. He couldn’t have singlehanded -were it not for the servos and computer. At that, he must pay constant heed. Good. So did be wish it to be.
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