Orson Card - Treason

I was weary to the bone when I reached the promontory of Israel overlooking the Funnel, the narrow strait between Anderson and the continent. The waves of the sea were frozen, of course, in the middle of their furious rush northward into the slightly lower Quaking Sea. The crests of the waves reached nearly to the level of the promontory where I stood, like hills rising from a cataclysm of the earth.

There were few things I hadn't done in quicktime, but swimming in a realtime sea was one of them. In Ku Kuei, when I swam in quicktime I was always with someone whose timeflow was I strong enough to carry a portion of the lake, not to mention me along with it.

I gingerly stepped into the water. While air caused me no resistance at all in quicktime, the water was sluggish and bore my weight much better than it did in realtime. In fact, my passage across the Funnel was not properly swimming at all. I crawled, after a fashion, up the slope of a wave as if it were a muddy hill after a rainstorm. Then I slid easily down the other side. After a while it became exhilarating, if exhausting. It was still afternoon when I reached the other side and scrambled out of the sea onto the rocky shore of Anderson Island.

Once out of the reach of the giant seas, I looked around. The land was grassy, strewn with boulders, and sheep grazed here and there-- it was settled land. But it was also hot and dry and bleak. The grass was not thick, and each sheep that was moving at all had a small cloud of dust around it, which from my point of view seemed to hang in the air.

I walked along the crest of the slope leading down to the rocky coast, wondering how I would now go about discovering if this were indeed the home of the illuders. I couldn't very well go up to someone and say, "Good afternoon, is this where the bastards who are trying to take over the world hail from?" I had to have some plausible reason for being there. Remembering the sea I had just crossed, shipwreck seemed a likely possibility. All I had to do was make sure to struggle ashore conveniently near some shepherd's house. From there I could, I hoped, play it by ear.

When I came to a house only a few meters from the beginning of the rocky littoral, I scrambled back down the rocks to the sea. Recognizing how high the waves really were and how violent they must be in realtime, I prudently climbed to the crest of the first wave away from the shore. And then I slipped back into realtime.

I should have stood on a rock and let the spray get me wet.

The wave didn't wait around for anything. I was immediately dropped sickeningly toward the rocks of the coast as a new wave came after and slammed down on top of me. I met the rock with a sickening crunch of bone and then was lifted again to be slammed down again.

The pain of my shattered right leg was excruciating, which distracted me, and my body refused to let me use it in my I swimming. For the first time in quite a while I had met up with a force of nature I couldn't cope with, and I feared for my life. My father had died by breaking his spine in water. As I sank rapidly toward the rocks a second time, my urge for survival took over and I scrabbled through the water toward the shore and caught at a rock. But the wave that hit me tore loose my grasp and pulled me out again.

The third time I was able to keep my hold and drag myself farther from the waves. I was still soaked by spray every time a wave came to shore-- which seemed to be every second or two-but I was relatively safe. I waited for several minutes for my leg to begin to heal enough that, if necessary, I could walk on it. When I was satisfied that it could bear my weight, I began calling out.

"Help!" I bellowed. It was hopeless-- I couldn't possibly be heard above the din of the waves. I had to get closer to the hut and farther from the sea. I clambered less than nimbly among the rocks. It was then that I saw her, a girl who couldn't have been older than twenty, dressed in a simple garment that didn't come to her knees. She was winsomely beautiful, and the light breeze tossed her black hair. This was hardly the moment to feel amorous, but I was immediately attracted to her. Seriously attracted to a woman for the first time since leaving Saranna in Ku Kuei.

I called out again and she came delicately down among the rocks until she reached me. She smiled; I smiled back, but let the pain I still felt show clearly in my face. I stumbled often-- not hard to manage as she helped me up to the plateau. While she led me to her house I burbled out a story of getting caught in the current heading up the Funnel, my father and I in a fishing boat; how I was sure he had been drowned since the mast when it broke struck him in the head. She, in turn, told me how the sea had snatched her old father from the rocks not three years ago, and she was struggling to keep a flock of sheep and retain her independence.

"Surely you don't lack for marriage offers," I said.

"No," she answered shyly. "But I'm waiting."

"For what?" I asked.

"The right one, of course," she said playfully, and then led me to her cottage.

From a distance, when I had first seen her house, I hadn't noticed the flowers growing around the walls. They made a pleasant contrast in this land of desolation, and I found myself liking her. She offered me food, showing me a cold stew that she could soon heat up.

Before I could say anything the earth began to shake and I was thrown to the floor. I knew enough about earthquakes to know that indoors was not a good place to be during one-- I scrambled on all fours to the door and watched as the earth visibly heaved and a crevice opened in the ground not ten meters off. It was wide, and the earth groaned as it opened and closed again.

Then the quake was over. I got up, sheepishly, and dusted off my clothes. They were still wet from the sea-mud clung to them. I remembered to limp, though my leg was nearly healed now.

"I'm sorry," she said, and I realized she seemed more vexed than terrified by the quake. "We have such inconvenient weather here, between the earth, the sky, and the sea." As if to prove her point, the sky, which up to a moment ago had been cloudless, suddenly began to pour down rain as clouds roiled from one horizon to the other.

The flowers were quickly drenched-- but they seemed to stand a little straighter.

"Your clothes," she said. "I can wash out that mud, if you want to take them off. And the salt from the sea, too."

I trust my blush was convincing-- I was convmced, anyway. She seemed so innocent that it was impossible not to be shy with her.

"I'm not wearing anything under these," I admitted.

"Then go into the back room-- I have two rooms-- and pass them to me through the curtain."

I didn't have to be urged. I stripped off the trousers and shirt, reminders of Glain and Vran and Humping, and handed them to her, then lay on the bed, which was surprisingly soft-- luxury like Mueller, here in sheep country! I sank into the bed, naked, spread-eagled, to dry out and relax. It felt good, after a month of relentless travel and a grueling few hours with the sea.

I slept.

What woke me, I'm not sure. I couldn't have slept long-- the sky was virtually unchanged, still dark with clouds but not with night. The smell of the stew was strong in the house. Then the door opened. She stood in the doorway, naked. Her body was young; it reminded me achingly of Saranna's body when we were children in our teens, before I left Mueller too many years ago. I was still in my teens, wasn't I? But it felt too long ago for me to believe it. I wanted the girl. Or perhaps I wanted my youth again. Whatever my own motive, from her nakedness, from her smile, it was plain she wanted me to want her.

Wanted me to want her. Was this the shy woman who made me blush?