Poul Anderson - The Boat of a Million Years

The trick will be to stay alive till then. Exposure is the enemy. This water isn’t too cold, it’s a warm current from the south. However, a few degrees below skin temperature will suck the heat out in time. I remember— But that was on another voyage, and besides, the men are dead. I also know some ancient Asian ways of controlling blood flow; at dire need, I can call up my ultimate reserves, while they last.

Swim. Save your strength, but do not let yourself be rolled about and smothered. Find the rhythms. Who was it, what goddess, who lived at the bottom of the sea and spread her nets for sailormen? Oh, yes, Ran of the Norse. Shall we dance, my lady Ran?

Wind screamed, seas crashed. How long had this gone on? No telling. A minute could amount to an hour, reverse time dilation, the cosmos flying away from a man. He’d been mistaken about the blow. It wasn’t any quick squall. Though rain had thinned, the wind raved wilder. Unforeseen, unforeseeable, as ignorant as men and, yes, their smug machines still were. The universe held as many surprises as it did stars. No, more. That was its glory. But someday one of them was bound to kill you.

Thunder ahead. Hanno rose onto a crest. He saw black teeth, the rocks and skerries, the Forbidden Ground. Water seethed, geysered, exploded. The current had swept him to this. Flashingly, he hoped Ariadne remained free, for her people to recover. He readied himself.

It was hard to do. A sense of warmth hi hands and feet crept treacherously toward his breast. He knew that consciousness was dimming; he couldn’t tell which lights had by now gone out.

A comber took him along.

He smashed into the white.

White. ... He lay on stone. Weed wrapped him, yellow-brown ropes. Waves roiled and roared under a low, flying sky. Oftener and oftener, water rushed over the roughness beneath him. He would inhale it, choke, cough, reach for air.

He scarcely noticed. Cold, pain, struggle were of the world, the storm. Impersonal, he watched them, like a man drowsy at his hearthside watching flames. The rising tide would claim him, but he would not be here. He would be— where? What? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

So this is how it ends. Not too bad a way for an old sailor-man. I do wish I could lie remembering. But memory slips from me, wishing does, being does. Farewell, farewell, you ghosts. Fare always well.

A whickering whine through wind and surf, a shadow, a shape, a jolt that awakens awareness.

You fool! he raged dimly. Go back! You could lose your life!

The aircraft bucked and rocked, fell, climbed, did battle. From its teardrop snaked a tine. The cord passed half a meter above Hanno. His hand tried to reach and grab it, but couldn’t. It whirled on past. Again. Again.

It withdrew. The engine overhead snarled louder. The line descended afresh. A loop was at the end, for the feet of a clinging man.

Tu Shan hit the reef. He took the impact in his muscles, got his foothold, stood while a surge ran ankle-deep around him. With his left hand he kept hold of the tine; and he advanced step by gripping step.

The strongest among us, thought Hanno bewilderedly. But I’ve been all this time with his woman.

Tu Shan’s right arm wept under his shoulders, raised him, held him fast. The aircraft winched the line in. They swung like a bell clapper. “Proclaim Liberty throughout the world—”

They were aboard. Svoboda gained altitude and made for snore. Tu Shan laid Hanno out in the aisle, which shivered and banged. He examined him with rough skill. “Slight concussion, I think,” he growled. “Maybe a broken rib or two. Mainly a bad chill, uh, hypothermia. He’ll live.”

He administered initial treatment. Blood quickened. Svoboda brought the aircraft slanting down. “How did you know?” Hanno mumbled.

“Yukiko called the Alloi,” Svoboda said from the controls. Rain dashed across the viewscreen before her. “They couldn’t enter atmosphere themselves. Even their robots have trouble in bad weather. But they sent a spaceboat on low trajectory. Its detectors registered an infrared anomaly in the rocks. That was where you might well be.”

“You shouldn’t have, you shouldn’t—”

She made a near-vertical descent. Contact jarred the machine. She snapped off her harness and came to kneel beside him. “Did you think we’d want to be without you?” she asked. “Did we ever?”

Seldom was a day this brilliant. Sunlight spilled from a sky in which clouds were blue-shadowed white, tike enormous snowbanks. It gleamed off wings cruising aloft; glimpses of river and sea shone molten. The eight seated around a plank table were thinly clad. From the top of their knoll vision ranged between Hestia, at its distance a toy box, westward to where Mount Pytheas rose pure beyond the hills.

Twice before have we met this way, in open air, remembered Hanno. Do we have some unknown need? Yes, the reasons are practical, be undistracted, leave the children in care of the robots for these few hours, and hope that fresh surroundings will freshen our thinking. But do our souls be-tieve that when we most want wisdom, we must seek it from earth and heaven?

They are not ours, even now. This close-knit turf that is not grass, yonder squat trees and serpentine bushes, somber lues of everything that grows, sharp fragrances, the very taste of spring water, none came from the womb of Gaia. Nor can any of it ever truly become hers, nor should it.

The looks upon him were expectant. He cleared his throat and sat straighten The motion hurt, his injuries were not yet entirely healed, but he ignored that. “I won’t ask for a vote today,” he said. “We have years ahead before we must commit ourselves. But my news may change some minds,”

Unless that had already happened. Certainly it had done so as regarded him. He didn’t know whether his near death had been necessary to snuff out the last rancor. Maybe that would have faded away in time; but maybe it would have smoldered on and on, eating hearts hollow. No matter. The fellowship was whole again. Little had been spoken outright; everything had been felt. He had an intuition, moreover, that in typical irrational human fashion, this was in turn catalyzing another oneness.

We’ll see, he thought. All of us.

“As you know,” he went on, “Yukiko and I have been communicating a lot with the AUoi these past few days. They’ve reached a decision of their own.”

He raised a hand against anxiety. “Nothing radical, except in what it can mean for the long haul. They will stay on till the new ship arrives, and for several years afterward. There’ll be an unforeknowably great deal of information to exchange and, well, rapport to build and enjoy. In due course, though, the Alloi are going elsewhere.

“What’s new is—if we, at that time, leave for Phaeacia, they will come with us.”

He and his partner smiled into the amazement, savored it. “In God’s name, why?” exclaimed Patulcius. “What have they to gam there?”

“Knowledge, to start with,” Hanno answered. “A whole different set of planets.”

“But planetary systems are common enough,” Wanderer said. “I thought that what interests them most is intelligent life.”

“True,” Yukiko told them. “At Phaeacia, that will be us; and for us, they will be.”

“They want to know us better,” Hanno said. “They see tremendous potential in our race. Far more than in the Ithagene, much though they’ve gotten from them in the way of scientific discovery and artistic inspiration. We are spacefarers too. The odds are, the Ithagene never will be, none of diem; at best, in the remote future.”

“But the Alloi need only stay here, and they can observe both races, and interact with that other set of travelers to boot,” Patulcius argued.