Parents hustled their children towards the prow. A hushed murmur swept round the adults. Three men were helping Barry clear
the hatchway. Karl lifted off a couple of the pods himself. Then he heard the noise again, but it was distant this time, not
from the
Swithland
’s hull.
“What the hell—” He looked up to see the
Hycel
a hundred metres astern.
“Karl, what’s happening?” Rosemary’s voice demanded from the handset.
He raised the unit to his mouth. “It’s the
Hycel
, Mum. They’ve hit it as well.”
“Bloody hell. What about our hull?”
“Tell you in a minute.”
The last of the pods were cleared away, revealing a two-metre-square hatch. Karl bent down to unclip the latches.
That was when the second sound rang out, a water-muffled THUNK of something heavy and immensely powerful slamming into the
keel.
Swithland
gave a small jolt, riding up several centimetres. Some of the more loosely stacked cases and pods tumbled over. The colonists
shouted in panic and dismay, and there was a general surge for the prow. One of the horses reared up, forelegs scraping the
air.
Karl ripped the hatch open.
THUNK
Ripples rolled away from the
Swithland
as it wallowed about.
“Karl!” the handset squawked.
He looked down into the hull. The log-feed mechanism took up most of the space below the hatch, a primitive-looking clump
of motors, pulley loops, and pistons. Two grab belts ran away to the port and starboard log holds. The black mayope planks
of the hull itself were just visible. Water was welling out of cracks between them.
THUNK
Karl stared down in stupefaction as the planks bowed inward. That was mayope wood, nothing could dint mayope.
THUNK
Splinters appeared, long dagger fingers levering apart.
THUNK
Water poured in through the widening gaps. An area over a metre wide was being slowly hammered upwards.
THUNK
THUNK
Swithland
was rocking up and down. Equipment and pods rolled about across the half-abandoned afterdeck. Men and women were clinging
to the rail, others were spread-eagled on the decking, clawing for a handhold.
“It’s trying to punch its way in!” Karl bellowed into the handset.
“What? What?” his mother shouted back.
“There’s something below us, something alive. For Christ’s sake, get us underway, get us to the shore. The shore, Mum. Go!
Go!”
THUNK
The water was foaming up now, covering the hull planks completely. “Get this shut,” Karl called. He was terribly afraid of
what would come through once the hole was big enough. Together, he and Barry MacArple slammed the hatch back down, dogging
the latches.
THUNK
Swithland
’s hull broke. Karl could hear a long dreadful tearing sound as the iron-hard wood was wrenched apart. Water seethed in, gurgling
and slurping. It ripped the log feeder from its mountings, crashing it against the decking above. The hatch quaked violently.
A gloriously welcome whine from the paddle engines sounded. The familiar slow thrashing of the paddles started up.
Swithland
turned ponderously for the unbroken rampart of jungle eighty metres away.
Karl realized people were sobbing and shouting out. A lot of them must have made it forward, the boat was riding at a downward
incline.
THUNK
This time it was the afterdeck planks. Karl, lying prone next to the hatch, yelled in shock as his feet left the deck from
the impact. He twisted round immediately, rolling over three times to get clear. Pods bounced and pirouetted chaotically.
The horses were going berserk. One of them broke its harness, and plunged over the side. Another was kicking wildly. A blood-soaked
body lay beside it.
THUNK
The planks beside the hatch lifted in unison, snapping back as if they were elastic. Water started to seep out.
Barry MacArple was scrambling on all fours along the deck, his face engorged with desperation. Karl held out his hand to the
Ivet, willing him on.
THUNK
The planks directly below Barry were smashed asunder. They ruptured upwards, jagged edges puncturing the Ivet’s belly and
chest, then ripping his torso apart like a giant claw. A metre-wide geyser of water slammed upwards out of the gap, buffeting
the corpse with it.
Karl turned to follow the water rising, fear stunned out of him by the incredible, impossible sight. The geyser roared ferociously,
shaking Karl’s bones and obliterating the impassioned shouts from the colonists. It rose a full thirty metres above the decking,
its crown blossoming out like a flower. Water, silt, and fragments of mayope plank splattered down.
Clinging for dear life to one of the cable drums as the
Swithland
bucked about like a wounded brownspine, Karl watched the geyser chewing away at the ragged sides of the hole it had bored.
It was creeping forward towards the superstructure. The bilges must be full already. Slowly and surely more and more wood
was eroded by the terrific force of the water. In another minute it would reach the furnace room. He thought of what would
happen when the water struck all fifteen tonnes of the searingly hot furnace, and whimpered.
Rosemary Lambourne had a hard struggle to stay upright as the
Swithland
tossed about. Only by clinging to the wheel could she even stay on her feet. It was the sheer fright in Karl’s voice which
had spurred her into action. He wasn’tafraid of anything on the river, he had been born on the
Swithland
.
That deadly battering noise was knocking into her heart as much as the hull. The strength behind anything that could thump
the boat about like this was awesome.
How much of the
Swithland
is going to be left after this? God damn Colin Rexrew, his laxness and stupidity. The Ivets would never dare to revolt with
a firm, competent governor in charge.
A roar like a continual explosion made her jump, almost sending her feet from under her. It was suddenly raining on the
Swithland
alone. The entire superstructure was trembling. What was happening back there?
She checked the little holoscreen which displayed the boat’s engineering schematics. They were losing power rapidly from the
furnace. Reserve electron-matrix crystals cut in, maintaining the full current to the engines.
“Rosemary,” the radio called.
She couldn’t spare the time to answer.
Swithland
’s prow was pointing directly at the bank sixty-five metres away, and they were picking up speed again. Pods and cases were
scattered in the boat’s wake, jouncing about in the water. She saw a couple of people splashing among them. More people went
falling from the foredeck; it was as tightly packed as a rugby scrum down there. And there wasn’t a thing she could do, except
get them to the shore.
Off on the port side,
Nassier
was floundering about, paddles spinning intermittently. Rosemary saw a giant fountain of water smash through the middle of
its superstructure, debris whirling away into the sky. What the fuck could do that? Some kind of water monster skulking around
the riverbed? Even as the fantasy germinated in her mind she knew that wasn’t the real answer. But she did know what the roaring
noise behind her was now. The knowledge sucked at the last of her strength. If it hit the furnace…
Nassier
’s prow lifted into the air, shoving the afterdeck below the water. The superstructure crumpled up, large chunks being flung
aside by the tremendous jet of water.Dozens of people were swept into the river, arms and legs twirling frantically. In her
mind she could hear the screams.
There were just too many people on board the paddle-boats. Rexrew had already increased the numbers of colonists they were
made to carry, refusing to listen to the warning from the captains’ delegation. Then he dumped this posse on them as well.
If I ever get back to Durringham, you’re dead, Rexrew, she promised herself. You haven’t just failed us, you’ve condemned
us.
Then the
Nassier
began to capsize, rolling ever faster onto her starboard side. The jet of water died away as the keel flipped up. Rosemary
saw a huge hole in the planks amidships as it reached the vertical. That was when the water must have rushed in on the furnace.
A massive blast of white steam devoured the rear of the boat, rolling out across the surface of the river. Mercifully, it
shielded the final act in the
Nassier
’s convulsive death.
Swithland
’s prow was fifteen metres from the trees and creepers which were strangling the bank. Rosemary could hear the sound of their
own bedevilling geyser reducing. She fought the wheel to keep the boat lined up straight on the bank. The bottom was shelving
up rapidly, the forward-sweep mass-detector emitting a frantic howl in warning. Five metres deep. Four. Three. They struck
mud eight metres from the long flower-heavy vines trailing in the water. The big boat’s awesome inertia propelled them along,
slithering and sliding through the thick black alluvial muck. Bubbles of foul-smelling sulphurous gas churned around the sides
of the hull. The geyser had died completely. There was a moment of pure dreamy silence before they hit the bank.
Rosemary saw a huge qualtook tree dead ahead; one of its thick boughs was the same height as the bridge. She ducked—
The impact threw Yuri Wilken back onto his belly just as he was starting to get up again. His nose slammed painfully against
the deck. He tasted warm blood. The boat was making hideous crunching sounds as it ploughed into the frill of vegetation along
the bank. Long vine strands lashed through the air with the brutality of bullwhips. He tried to bury himself into the hard
decking as they slashed centimetres above his head.
Swithland
’s blunt prow rammed the low bank, jolting upwards to ride a good ten metres across the dark-red sandy earth. The paddle-boat
finally came to a bruising halt with its forward deck badly mangled, and the qualtook tree embedded in the front of the superstructure.
Screams and wailing gave way to moans and shrill cries for help. Yuri risked glancing about, seeing the way in which the jungle
had shrink-wrapped itself around the forward half of the boat. The superstructure looked dangerously unstable, it was leaning
over sharply, with tonnes of vegetation pressing against the front and side.
His limbs were shaking uncontrollably. He wanted to be home in Durringham, taking Randolf for walks or playing football with
his mates. He didn’t belong here in the jungle.
“Are you all right, son?” Mansing asked.
Sheriff Mansing was the one who had signed him on for the expedition. He was a lot more approachable than some of the sheriffs,
keeping a fatherly eye out for him.
“I think so.” He dabbed at his nose experimentally, sniffing hard. There was blood on his hand.
“You’ll live,” Mansing said. “Where’s Randolf?”
“I don’t know.” He climbed shakily to his feet. They were standing at the front corner of the superstructure. People were
lying about all around, slowly picking themselves up, asking for help, wearing a numb, frightened expression. Two bodies had
been trapped between the qualtook trunk and the superstructure; one was a small girl aged about eight. Yuri could only tell
because she was wearing a dress. He turned away, gagging.
“Call for him,” Mansing said. “We’re going to need all the help we can get pretty soon.”
“Sir?”
“You think this was an accident?”
Yuri hadn’t thought it was anything. The notion sent a tremble down his spine. He put his lips together, and managed a feeble
whistle.
“Twelve years I’ve been sailing up and down this river,” Mansing said grimly. “I’ve never seen anything like that geyser before.
What the hell can shoot water about like that? And there was more than one of them.”
Randolf came lumbering up over the gunwale, his sleek black hide covered in smelly mud. The sayce had lost all of his usual
aggressive arrogance, slinking straight over to Yuri and pressing against his master’s legs. “Waaterrr baddd,” he growled.
“He’s not far wrong there,” Mansing agreed cheerlessly.
It took quarter of an hour to establish any kind of order around the wrecked paddle-boat. The sheriffs organized parties to
tend to the wounded and set up a makeshift camp. By general consensus they moved fifty metres inland, away from the river
and whatever prowled below the water.
Several survivors from the
Nassier
managed to swim to the stern of the
Swithland
which was half submerged; the boat formed a useful bridge over the stinking quagmire which lined the bank. The
Hycel
had managed to reach the Zamjan’s far bank; it had been spared the destructive geyser, but its hull had taken a dreadful
pounding. Radio contact was established and both groups decided to stay where they were rather than attempt to cross the river
and join forces.
Sheriff Mansing located an unbroken communication block amongst the remnants of the posse’s gear, and patched a call through
the LDC’s single geostationary satellite to Candace Elford. The shocked chief sheriff agreed to divert the two BK133s to the
Swithland
and fly the seriously injured back to Durringham straight away. What she never mentioned was the possibility of reinforcing
the forsaken boats. But Sheriff Mansing was above all a pragmatic man, he really hadn’t expected any.
After making three trips to the camp, carrying pods of gear from the paddle-boat, Yuri was included into a small scout party
of three sheriffs and nine deputies. He suspected they only included him because of Randolf. But that was OK, the other detail
of deputies was now removing bodies from the
Swithland
. He preferred to take his chances with the jungle.
When Yuri and the scouts marched away, colonists with fission-blade saws were felling trees on one side of the camp’s glade
so the VTOL aircraft could land. A fire was burning in the centre.