Gene Wolfe - On Blue's waters

I cleared my throat. “I’ve been thinking. I want to propose a plan to both of you.”

Sinew held up his knife, inspecting its blade by the last light of the day that was now past. “You nicked the edge,” he said, and inspected the place with a thumbnail.

“I know. I’ve been cutting wood with it. I had to.” I expected him to enlarge upon his complaint; but he did not.

Seawrack had been studying his face. “You don’t look very much like your father.”

“Everybody says I do.”

She shook her head, and he smiled.

I asked them, “May I tell you what I propose? The plan I mentioned?”

“Sure.” Sinew sheathed his knife.

“As you said, we’ll need this boat when the lander returns. As you also said, it’s not well suited to river travel. Seawrack and I have seen that for ourselves. So has Krait.”

I waited for his agreement, and got it.

“Seawrack and I haven’t talked very much about the hazards involved in flying back to the Whorl on a lander jury-rigged by somebody in Pajarocu. Neither did you and I before I left, and I don’t like to talk about it even now. I don’t enjoy sounding as if I were boasting about the dangers I’ll face. I don’t even like to think about them, and I’d gladly make them less-if I could.”

“It looks pretty good, that lander,” Sinew assured me. “I’ve seen it.”

I nodded. “I’m very glad to hear that. But before I continue, I ought to ask you something. What happened to our old boat, the one you set out in?”

He shrugged. “I traded it for the one I’ve got now and some other stuff.”

“May I ask what the other stuff was?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s gone now.”

“What was it?”

“I said it doesn’t matter!”

“He’s hungry,” Seawrack interposed. “Would you like a piece of smoked meat, Sinew?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

This time I waited until he was chewing it. “I have to go on that lander. I promised I would, and I intend to. Krait wants to go, too. He’s told me why, and he has an excellent reason; but he made me promise not to reveal it. Neither of you have any reason at all.”

They objected, but I silenced them. “As I said, it will be very dangerous. It’s quite possible that the lander will explode, or catch fire, or crash when it tries to take off. Even if it flies away safely and crosses the abyss between the whorls, landing in the Whorl is liable to be very difficult. Krait’s been concerned about you, Seawrack. I doubt that he’s told you, but he has been.”

She shook her head.

“He’d been assuming that you’d come with us if there was a place for you on it. He mentioned it to me not long ago, and I said just what I’m saying now, that it’s too dangerous to subject you to. I told him that I intended to leave you in Pajarocu until I came back.”

Seawrack shook her head again, this time violently, and Sinew said, “Me, too? I won’t.”

“Krait had objections as well. He pointed out that she would be an attractive young woman alone and friendless in a strange town. I had to admit that he was right.” I rilled my lungs with air, conscious of what failure to persuade them now would mean.

“So here’s the new plan I would like to propose. When Krait returns in the morning, we’ll go back to Wichote. We’ll be sailing with the current then, and it shouldn’t take more than two or three days.”

Sinew’s nod was guarded.

“When we get there, Krait and I will trade for another little boat like the one you have. He and I will take those two boats to Pajarocu. You and Seawrack will wait for us in Wichote, on this one.”

“No.” Seawrack sounded as firm as I was ever to hear her, and that was very firm indeed.

“You won’t be alone there, either of you. Furthermore, you’ll have this boat to live on, together. And if I’m not back within a month or so…” I shrugged.

In so low a tone that I scarcely heard him, Sinew said, “I knew you didn’t want me as soon as I saw you. Only I didn’t think you’d give her up to get rid of me.”

“I’m not trying to get rid of you. Can’t you get it through your head that I may never come back? That I may die? I’d like to arrange things so that neither of you dies with me.” It was so dark by that time that it was difficult for me to see their faces; I looked from one to the other, hoping for support.

Seawrack said, “Sinew’s been to Pajarocu. He can take us to it.”

Sinew nodded.

I said, “If you found it, so can Krait and I.”

There was a long silence after that. Sinew took advantage of it to get himself another strip of smoked meat, and I am going to take advantage of it now to get a little sleep before Jahlee and Evensong come.

Heavy rain from midnight on, which gave us good cover. I did not go out or even get up this morning, although my wound seems better-breakfast in bed from a tray, and so forth. Hari Mau talked with me as I lay in bed, stamping up and down the room and more than ready to fall upon the Hannese that very moment. He had ridden half the morning with a rain-soaked, bloodstained bandage where his white headcloth ought to be, and is planning a major attack as soon as the rainy season ends. Our enemies are weaker than they look, he says, and I pray to the Outsider and any other god who may read this that he is correct. He swears diat if I could talk with his new prisoners I would agree.

He has gone now, and I have gotten up to write this in my nightclothes, more than half ashamed.

We could have built a fire in the box or lit the lantern that night on the sloop, but we did not. The darkness and the overpowering presences of the forest and the swiftly sinister river created an atmosphere that I cannot possibly convey with ink on paper. The people of Shadelow believe that each of their rivers has a minor god of its own who lives in and under it and governs it, a god whose essence it is. Also that the forests hold minor gods and goddesses as numerous as their animals, gods and goddesses for the most part malign and unappeasable. When Seawrack spoke to Sinew and me that night in the dark, it almost seemed to me that we had one with us on the sloop. What it must have seemed to Sinew, who did not know her as I did, is far beyond my ability to express.

“You said it was good that I can’t drown,” she began. “Do you remember that?”

I did.

“I said I wished I could.” There was an odd, rough sound, loud in the silence; after a moment I realized that she was scratching Babbie’s ears. “You thought it was foolish of me, wanting to drown. But I don’t want to drown. I’ve seen a lot more drowned people than you have, probably. I’ve seen what die sea does to them, and watched Mother eat them, and eaten them myself.”

For the space of a score of breaths no voices were heard but die wind’s and the river’s.

“What I’d like is to be able to, because you can. You think I can wait for you in that town where the river comes to the sea. Do you think Babbie will wait, too? Do you think he can live in the forest until you come back, and then come back to you?”

“No, I don’t,” I said, “although Babbie has surprised me before.”

“You don’t think he’s a real person. To you he’s just like Krait, and Krait’s not a real person either.”

I tried to say that I did not think Babbie a person at all, that Babbie was not a human being like Krait and the three of us. I cannot be certain now precisely how I may have put it, although I am quite sure I put it badly. Whatever lies I may have told, and however I phrased diem, I made Seawrack angry.

“That’s not what I said! That’s not what I said at all! You’re twisting all the words around. You do it once or twice every day, and I’d do anything, if only I could make you stop it.”