Ocean of Dust (29 page)

It was too late. The boat rolled sideways,
and the spiked rock stabbed through the gunwale, narrowly missing
her leg. There was the horrific sound of tearing wood. The boat
pulled free and dust flowed into it like her mother pouring flour
into a bowl.

"Row for the beach," the captain shouted.
"Give it all you've got."

"We ain't gonna make it," Sawall said. "We're
sinking."

It was incredible how fast the dust filled
the boat, smothering their supplies. She grabbed one of the sacks
and tried to wedge it into the hole.

"Good thinking, girl," Grad said, huffing and
yanking his oars repeatedly. "You and Coy, start bailing."

Using both hands, she scooped as fast as she
could, but didn't dare dump their meager supplies to free up a
container. Much of the dust trickled through her fingers, but at
least she could help while the men rowed for their lives. They
pulled the oars so hard she wondered how they didn't snap.

An almighty smash jarred the boat, knocking
her out of her seat. Her head cracked against the side and she slid
into the dust-filled bottom, unconscious.

* * *

Lissa lay stretched out with warmth at her
back.

"She'll be all right. Just a bump and not
much blood." It sounded like Grad.

"Good," the captain said. "I think we'd be
adrift and dead without her. How's the boat?"

"Useless, but at least we got it ashore.
Thanks to the girl, we saved the food and water. The flux vanes are
bent and broken. How in Totey's name did she get us here? I've
never seen anything like it."

She heard crunching footsteps, as if in
sand.

"This place has little of use," Sawall said.
"Abandoned Sunturns ago. Looks like they'd started making a boat
but never finished. There's some flux vanes and whatnot behind the
other building."

"Other castaways perhaps," the captain said.
"Maybe they were rescued."

She heard Sawall sit. "'Fraid not. I found
three skeletons just inside the jungle."

She opened her eyes to the orange glow of a
campfire, the flickering flames sending shadows scurrying across
stone walls. Stars blazed in the sky above. She lay on red sand,
much coarser than the grey dust. Sitting up, she looked around the
empty shell of a building in which they sat, with crumbled walls
and no roof or door. Rubble and timber lay strewn about. Out back
of the building stood the sinister, black shapes of trees, the
firelight playing tricks of the light on their gnarled bark.

The men huddled around the fire, conferring
in quiet voices interrupted by the cracking and spitting of the
burning wood, and a cacophony of squawks and hoots, tapping noises
and other cries from deep in the jungle. She scanned the tree line,
convinced creatures watched her from the bushes, creeping nearer.
She shivered despite the fire.

"Supper's up," Coy announced. He spooned a
steaming mixture of oodspal and beans into empty pwam-fruit husks,
handing them out with hunks of stale bread.

She took hers last, tired of their diet of
half-cooked oodspal and beans. She didn't want to eat them ever
again, but her growling stomach changed her mind.

"I'm sorry I didn't cook," she said. "You
should've woken me."

Coy grinned. "You were flat out exhausted.
Feeling better?"

Her headache was gone. "Much better. Thank
you." She tore into the bread, using it to scoop up the bean
slop.

After everyone else had eaten seconds, the
captain cleared his throat. He held up an opaque wine flask,
removed the seal and sniffed carefully. He took a sip, choked and
then grimaced.

"Drinkable," he said in a pained voice, and
raised it toward Grad. "Good find. Two bottles. Unless you've
hidden the rest for yourself? And if you have, the Gods help your
stomach."

The men guffawed, and she gave a weak smile.
Aboard ship, the captain had been aloof and commanding, and it
surprised her to witness his banter with his crew. She glanced from
one face to the next. They clearly showed him great affection and
respect.

He raised the bottle once more.

"To my crew, tiny though it is." Another
ripple of laughter. "You have performed your duties admirably under
the harshest of conditions."

He drank again, and coughed. He turned to
Lissa and his brown eyes flared orange in the firelight. She
tensed.

"And you, girl. You didn't abuse my trust. We
owe you our lives." He handed the bottle around while the men
cheered.

Jancid offered her the bottle but she waved
her hand.

"Try it. Make ya' beard grow." More
laughter.

She wiped the bottle with her sleeve and took
the tiniest of sips, remembering the hossiw at the festival. The
wine had a soft, buttery taste, which wasn't unpleasant until she
swallowed and it set fire to her throat. She coughed, hacked, and
spluttered, handing the bottle back, and then she nibbled some
bread to soak up the alcohol.

"All right, lads," the captain said, and the
men fell silent. "We're not out of danger yet. We've less than two
days of water, so that's our first job tomorrow, to find more. Food
will be easier. Then we need a plan to get us off this island.
We've plenty of materials and even flux vanes. Drink up, and then
get some sleep."

Lissa nestled into the warm sand, molding a
heap into a pillow. The skeletons that Sawall had mentioned played
in her mind, jangling and dancing with the shadows along the walls.
Had those people died from lack of water, or had something terrible
crept out of the jungle? Glad she wasn't the closest to the trees,
she closed her eyes.

* * *

She jerked awake in the pre-dawn grey, her
body clock used to the shipboard routine. The embers in the fire
still glowed. She stretched her stiff muscles, got up and stoked
the fire with fresh sticks. Grunts and snores surrounded her so she
worked quietly. Sawall sat on a collapsed wall at the rear of the
ruined building. He faced the forest, but his head lay in his
folded arms. She woke him with a gentle shake. His eyes focused on
her and then he glanced toward the captain.

"They're all asleep," she whispered.

He scratched his bald head and stretched his
neck and arms. "Thanks."

She gathered the pwam-fruit bowls from the
night before, but after scrutinizing their meager stash of water,
she cleaned them using the sand as an abrasive. She imagined she
looked a frightful mess. Her unwashed hair was matted and full of
sand, and her shirt and skirt were filthy with dried sweat and
vomit. When they found water, she intended to have a long bath.

Sawall woke the others, and she served a
simple breakfast. Blisters and flaky skin covered the men's lips,
and probably hurt as much as hers. They ate in a solemn silence,
the revelry from the night before long gone. When the first rays of
suns-rise blazed across the beach, the captain cleared his
throat.

"We must find water today. Ours will be gone
by tomorrow. This island isn't a hydro-mountain but the vegetation
is thick, so there must be surface water, perhaps a spring or a
stream."

The physiker had told her about vast
underground lakes that formed when water sank to the bottom of the
dust, rising back to the surface under land.

"We should stick together," Grad said.
"There'll be wild animals."

"Ordinarily, yes," the captain replied, "but
we need to cover ground quickly. We'll split into pairs. Take a
bucket and a knife. Meet back here as soon as you find water, or at
suns-set."

"And if we don't find any?" Jancid asked.

The captain looked at the old sailor long and
hard. "Take Coy and head along the beach that way. Sawall, you and
Grad try the forest. Girl, you come with me."

He selected a knife with a serrated edge,
handed her a bucket, and started along the beach. She scampered
after him, her feet sinking deep into the heavy, red sand, chilling
her toes.

Inside the forest, a myriad of insects buzzed
from tree to tree, weaving and diving. Bizarre creatures that
resembled floating balls moved among them. They drifted aimlessly,
with slender tendrils dangling below their bloated bodies. Then,
without reason they spun, whirling the tendrils around them, and
soared up into the branches. The captain pointed out a pair of
slit-eyed creatures watching them from a high branch, their noses
in constant motion and their long black and red tails
twitching.

At the end of the beach, they scrambled
across an outcrop of rock into the next bay, which looked identical
to the last, except that there were no signs of habitation. She
struggled to keep up with his long strides.

"Captain, sir," she panted. "What creatures
live in the dust ocean? Apart from the Klynaks."

"How did you learn their name? The men refer
to them as monsters of the deep."

"Oban told me."

He scowled. "On first names with the
navigator, I see. I'm told you spent considerable time with
him."

Her cheeks burned. "I was copying a book for
him. I ruined his original."

"He taught you to navigate?"

How much should she admit?

"Sort of, yes. I read a lot too." Was that a
dangerous thing to have said? Maybe girls weren't supposed to read
or learn. She didn't want to talk about Mampalo, and it wasn't as
if Oban could call her a liar.

"So am I to understand you learned navigation
from a book?"

"Mostly."

"But not entirely," he said. "How else
then?"

Stooping to inspect a tiny animal skeleton
half buried in the sand, she fought with her conscious, compelled
to tell him the truth. She looked around the deserted island. How
much more trouble could she get into now?

"It sort of came to me naturally. I don't
know how, but I sense the flux. I can't describe it. I can't tell
you how. I know I'm just a girl, and I didn't mean to meddle or
anything, but I couldn't help it. I-"

He stopped and faced her. "It's good that you
choose to be honest with me. Doing otherwise would not engender me
to trust you."

She blinked several times.

He removed a folded page from a pocket in his
tunic and handed it to her. She recognized it as the one that Sam
had delivered on their last day aboard ship. She opened her mouth
to speak, but his attention had turned to the rock outcrop ahead of
them.

"Read it," he said.

Captain P.,

My detention at the hands of F. frustrates
and angers me. You know my loyalties lie only with you. We can
trust the messenger bearing this note to respect the privacy of my
words.

Your lives are in grave danger. Flee if you
can. I cannot stay the hand of F. for much longer.

Take that annoying girl with you. I'm forced
to admit she has the gift. I don't know how. Watch her carefully,
since I'm not sure she understands what is happening to her. She is
untrained and chaotic. Tell her she was right and I was mistaken
with reference to her note. I'll grudgingly give her that.

May Totalamon keep you safe. Always your
friend and loyal officer,

O.

She crumpled to her knees in the sand, mouth
agape and hands trembling. After taking a deep breath, she read the
note a second time. He must have discovered his calculations were
wrong. That had to be it. She let out a whoop, then hastily clapped
one hand to her mouth, glancing at the captain. He made a half
smile. She'd known she was right the moment they had spotted the
island. So the navigator hadn't discarded her note, as she had
feared. She was right! He had said she had the gift. She clutched
the paper to her chest. Even his grudging praise meant the
world.

"Keep it if you wish," the captain said
quietly. He walked on, so she jumped up, brushed her knees and
raced after him.

They had scaled a steeper rocky promontory
and descended onto a wide beach littered with smooth pebbles, when
he said, "You know, girl... Lydia, isn't it?"

"Lissa, sir."

"Farq labeled you a troublemaker. I disagree
with his assessment. I want you to know that."

"Thank you." She felt she ought to say
something further, but nothing came to mind. The morning was filled
with incredible revelations.

"I'm told you can remember everything," he
said.

"Not everything," she replied, "but most
things, especially numbers, books and maps."

They picked their way across the stones that
clicked and shifted underfoot.

"Have you memorized all of the navigator’s
charts?"

"All the ones I've seen. I love maps."

"Enough to help us return to Us-imyan or
reach another port?"

Her shoulders slumped. So that’s what he was
after. She couldn't do it. She'd never make it through the endless
days of pain and nausea. It was too much. He seemed tense, standing
before her, his face somehow sad. He knew what he was asking of
her. If she didn't do it, she would fail; fail herself, the captain
and the others. She stood straighter.

"I think I can get us to Patraj. I'm willing
to try."

"That's all I ask. We'll help you." He put
his hand lightly on her shoulder. "I trust you, and I know Oban
enough to know that he trusts you more than he would admit."

She looked into his weathered face, now
covered with several days of ragged beard growth. His brown eyes
held hers. She had never felt so needed in all her life, and it
gave her a new strength.

They trudged wearily back into camp after
both suns had set. Her legs and feet ached with the effort of
walking what had to have been several leagues through the deep
sand. The little water they had carried had run out early in the
afternoon, and she could barely swallow. Her exposed skin burned
and her clothes had rubbed against it, creating a painful rash and
sores.

She dumped the bundle of fruit she had
collected, and then collapsed to the sand with a huge sigh. It felt
so good to lie there and gently stretch and relax all her muscles.
When Coy handed her the near-empty water bucket, she wanted so
guzzle it all, but settled for a few sips, barely moistening her
mouth.