Piers Anthony - Rings of Ice

“Get them together!” Thatch shouted. “Otherwise the craft will spin about.”

But Zena could not manage her oar, let alone coordinate it with anyone else’s.

“No, no, it’s all wrong!” Thatch cried.

“Come in here and take my oar,” Gus called. “ I’ll show you how to organize.”

Thatch swam up and climbed in the window, while Gordon bailed some more. There was a constant inflow of water from somewhere, despite the patching and caulking, and the rug was covered an inch deep. The two men changed places. Then Gus strode down the hall and perched on the rear couch with his feet clear of the water. He faced forward between the two girls.

“Take your places,” he cried. “Now everybody push down.” His voice carried better than Thatch’s and had a greater imperative. Zena found herself responding with extra effort despite her resentment. Trust Gus to land the softest spot!

“Karen, get your hands on it, not your chest,” Gus continued. “Gordon, don’t move it yet—just hold it in place. You’re stronger than the girls, so you’ll have to hold back a little. Now, when I call ‘Forward,’ I want you all to push your oars toward me, together—but keep those handles down! Okay—now forward!”

They shoved their unwieldy handles forward. Under his direction they let the handles rise, so that the paddle ends dropped more or less neatly into the water outside. No splash was audible through the steady noise of the rain, but Zena felt the change in balance. “Now, pull back, hard!”

They pulled together, and the bus lurched free of its encumbrance. It tilted and wallowed alarmingly, then steadied. Zena hoped she would not be seasick.

“Now we’re on the high seas,” Gus said, unperturbed. “Keep those oars moving! Down—forward—up pull!”

Zena obeyed almost mindlessly, and felt the bus begin to move. They were doing it—they were rowing it across the water!

And it was idle Gus who had accomplished that final unified action, not Thatch or anyone else. Gus had after all emerged as the leader when it counted. Thatch had tried, but failed: he had neither the voice nor the talent to organize people. In performance, Thatch was a loner.

The rowing became easier as they got the hang of it, though it was cruelly tiring. Zena’s arms were soon numb with fatigue, but Gus kept the cadence going and she didn’t dare be the first to stop.

Then Karen collapsed over her oar. “Halt!” Gus bawled. “Gordon, start bailing before we sink! The rest of you rest in place, catch your breath. We’re nearing land; one more drive will do it.”

Thank God, Zena thought. For the rest and for the sight of the end. She had never before labored so hard.

Then they resumed, and it was as bad as before. Karen had recovered enough to pull her oar, but Zena could tell they were not making the progress they had been. The current of the water and the sheer weight of the bus were too much.

Suddenly the engine cover burst its latches. Water gushed in, carrying away the box and flooding the interior. The bus began to sink.

“Keep paddling!” Gus cried.

Then they ran aground. The vehicle seemed to bounce slightly as the wheels touched bottom. The water continued to climb inside, but Zena knew they would not drown.

“Keep rowing!” Gus yelled. “I’ll steer!” He got down and waded up the hall to the driver’s seat.

However, the rowing was now ineffective. Gus set the brakes and they relaxed, dead-armed. They had made it, after a fashion.

Now the rain seemed extra loud, though it had never abated. Zena wondered why. Perhaps this was because she had been out in it so long, and then had had to struggle with the oar. For the first time since daybreak, she had nothing to do but listen.

“Is there any sugar?” Karen asked. No one answered.

What a deluge this was! If only they had listened to her, those paramilitary experts of the space station. All this could so readily have been avoided…

“Let’s go with the pulleys!” Gus said, sloshing back down the aisle. “The water’ll drain once we get out.”

Zena sighed. At least he had gotten his feet wet. That was progress of a kind. “Gus, we’re worn out!”

“You’ll be drowned if we don’t get on out of here before the deep flooding starts,” he responded. “This thing won’t float so well next time, now that it’s waterlogged. It was sinking the whole time we were paddling.”

“We were paddling,” Zena muttered ironically.

“You can rest once we’re driving again.”

Wearily they got up and clambered out the front window. Gordon got the pulley apparatus down from the roof-rack while Thatch and Zena surveyed for anchorages. They were in luck: There were several illegal billboards with firm grounding posts. Many things, Zena thought bitterly, were not made the way they used to be, not made to last. Billboards were.

The hauling took an interminable time, even though Karen was there to help. But long before it was done, she weakened and had to go back to the bus. “That’s the trouble with drug dependency,” Zena muttered. “The high gives out, and you’re worse off than before.”

“Drug addiction!” Gordon exclaimed.

“Yes, I saw her take a shot last night. I don’t know what kind.”

“That doesn’t necessarily make her an addict.”

“Why would she hide it, then?”

Gordon didn’t answer. The three of them continued hauling.

At last they made it out of the water. They blocked the wheels and trekked around to the door and inside.

Gus and Karen were just rising from what had obviously been an intimate liaison. While the three dead-tired people had labored outside, the two rested ones had indulged in the most basic of entertainments.

“All right, get the motor started!” Gus said, covering up in more ways than one. “Long drive ahead!”

Wearily, Gordon worked on the motor, while Thatch saw to the draining and cleaning of the refrigerator, range and other conveniences. A layer of thin mud was over everything that the water had touched. Zena checked the lashings on the oars, which were now mounted on the roof, and made sure the ropes and pulleys were secure. She was not only worn out, she was sick.

She stood against the back of the bus, face shielded from the rain, and sorted it out. What, specifically, was bothering her? Was it the inequity of allowing three hard workers to carry the load for two shirkers? No, not exactly; Karen had manned an oar and helped for a while with the hauling. She really had been about to drop. Gus had performed a necessary service by calling the cadence for rowing; otherwise they’d be floating yet—perhaps right out to sea. Or worse, they’d be sunk because of that burst engine cover—in twenty feet of dirty water, with one of their number unable to swim. How many of the rest could have bucked the current and made it the long distance to shore?

Was it that Gus had taken advantage, forcing his attentions on a woman too tired to resist? No, Gus was lazy, and self-interested, but hardly that forceful about sex; Karen could have rebuffed him with a word, or failing that, a scream, had she chosen to. Certainly she had made a miraculous recovery of energy! Another shot of her drug?

Was it, then, that Karen was married? That was disturbing—yet really it was her own business. Certainly a married woman knew what it was all about, and could make her own decisions.

What, then? Why should Zena herself be so upset about a matter that was hardly her affair? She had problems enough of her own to worry about!

Her stomach heaved, but she managed to hold her gorge down. The last thing she wanted to do was waste precious food! Probably she was merely reacting to the strain of overwork and the mind-deadening smash of rain, on and on.