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Oar stood and began walking back to me. I clicked off the Bumbler's display
and pondered how long I should pretend to be unaware of her approach. Before I
was forced to decide, I was saved by the lapping of waves offshore the glass
coffin had reappeared, and was slipping in toward the beach. I watched it a
moment, then turned to Oar. "Your boat?"
"Yes. It comes when it is wanted." Her voice had a self-satisfied tone, as if
I should be impressed by the boat's "magical" response to her whim. The magic
was surely the radio signal she'd just sent... but perhaps Oar didn't know
that herself.
"It must be good to have a boat like that," I said. "Where did you get it?"
"I have always had it," she replied, as if my question was nonsense. "Would
you like to ride in it with me?"
"Both of us?" The boat's size was generous for a coffin, but getting two
people inside would be a squeeze. "It's a bit small," I said.
"Two can fit," she started to say... then she stopped, suddenly stiff and
distant. "You are right, Festina," she said in a voice that was meant to sound
casual. "The boat is very small."
Ouch,I thought; and I imagined Jelca and Oar enclosed there together, arms
and legs entwined, sailing impassioned through the lake's silent dark.
Half of me was sick with jealousy. The other half pictured myself in the same
position with Jelca; and that half was not sick at all.
The Last of Chee
Oar began to tell me her plan, and in a moment, I collected myself enough to
listen. She would board the boat and I would drape Chee's body over it. At
Oar's command, the boat would sail slowly out into the lake. When they were
far enough out, she would tell the boat to submerge and let the admiral slump
off into the water. I had a hunch the boat's glass was so slippery, Chee might
slide off sooner than expected. Still, if they only got a stone's throw from
shore, it would be better than I could do wading; so I nodded and complimented
Oar on the cleverness of her plan.
She smiled like a queen acknowledging the adoration of her subjects.
After Oar got into the coffin, I was left alone to heave Chee onto the lid.
The rocks made him damnably heavy... and he was beginning to stiffen as well.
Getting him into position took all my strength, plus leverage from sticks of
driftwood; but at last I spreadeagled him face down on the glass, his arms
dangling on either side of the coffin and his toes hooked over the forward
edge. I wanted to send him out feetfirst, hoping he would stay in place
longer headfirst, there would be nothing to stop him from sliding backward,
and the open collar of his suit would catch spray as the boat glided forward.
Oar could never be described as a patient woman. I had scarcely arranged
Chee's limbs when the boat pulled away, backing into the lake. This was the
first close view I'd had of the coffin while it was moving; I saw nothing that
looked like a propulsion system, nothing that told me how it pushed itself
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through the water. Whatever engines it had were completely silent. With no
exhaust, no bubbling of hidden propellers, the boat quietly withdrew and
glided off along the surface.
Soon I could see nothing but Chee's tightsuit glistening in the moonlight. He
lay quite still, his head toward me as he moved away. His thin white hair was
slick with lightly splashed water; and I thought of Oar inside the boat,
looking up through the glass at Chee's lifeless face. He was just a stranger
to her.... And yet, his death seemed to mean something profound to her.
The moon went behind a cloud and I lost sight of the body. Was that it? Was
Chee gone forever? But the cloud passed and the moonlight sparkled again on
white fabric far out on the water.
I raised my hand in the only heartfelt salute I ever gave an admiral, and
held it there till he was out of sight.
Part IX
ADAPTATION
Seamstress
I don't know how long I stood there; but I came to myself with a sudden
shake, realizing I had been slipping into a daze that could not be healthy.
Hypothermia is sly it creeps in so gradually, you may never realize you're
dying. "And wouldn't the other Explorers laugh?" I said. "Festina Ramos
getting Lost so tamely."
Then I added, "Wouldn't my face be red?"
Getting giddy definitely time for a campfire.
Tinder was easy to come by: brush from the bluffs, dead and dry as straw with
winter coming on. Much of the driftwood was dry, too; I chose sticks from high
up the beach, on the theory they'd arrived with the lake's spring peak and had
baked in the sun ever since. The hardest thing to find was my jar of matches.
They'd been in a pouch of my tightsuit... and since the suit lay in
hankie-sized pieces all over the sand, it took time to track down the right
hunk.
Five minutes later, I had a fire: warmth, light, salvation. I cuddled up to
it till I'd steamed off my immediate chill, then began to make short forays
out to retrieve more scraps of my tightsuit.
I had accumulated a pile of fabric beside the fire when I found the pouch I
was looking for, impaled on the thorns of a bush whose species I didn't
recognize. A brief struggle pulled the pouch loose, and I opened it
immediately. I counted six plastic vials inside, all still intact. "Thank
you," I said to the sky.
The Admiralty loved toys people in positions of undeserved power always do.
And since the Admiralty loved toys, the High Council allocated generous funds
to the development of Explorer equipment. Not that the council gave a damn
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about Explorers themselves; but the demands of Exploration raised fertile
engineering challenges that the research department found irresistible. As a
result, ECMs were truly equipped to handle almost anything... like trying to
put Humpty Dumpty back together again after an emergency evac blew him to
bits.
Three vials in the pouch contained solvents. The other three contained
fixative.
With work, I could glue the tightsuit patches into a usable garment not as
strong as the original, but better than spending the rest of my life in my
underwear. Creative tailoring might even give this new suit advantages over
the old; I could, for example, remodel the pants to make walking easier.
Blimp-shaped thighs might be best for maintaining positive pressure against
incoming germs, but now that I'd been exposed to Melaquin's air...
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