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Jenise Rorvik pointed down at the scummy water. "You want to go through that!"
Tregare shrugged. "No more than you do. But we have to." Before she could
answer, he added, "There'll be more like this. We might as well start learning
how to handle it."
Lisele poked a long stick into the water; even at the edge it was over her
head. She could swim some, sure-but a kilo!
Then Tregare began opening a pack, and talking; she listened.
"We inflate these flotation rigs, they'll carry the travoises with buoyancy to
spare. We'll hang on, using safety lines, and propel them as best we can. I
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don't know how high things will ride; we can't guarantee to keep it all dry.
So we better look at our loads and see what needs waterproofing." He squinted
up toward the sun. "Lucky we've got more than half the afternoon to do that."
Lisele had a question, but Hagen Trent beat her to it. "How about the
leeches-like the one that got Lisele, or even a big one?"
Rissa smiled. "We shall all smell very badly, but I do not think any life form
will consider us edible."
She looked from pack to pack, rummaging, and brought out a spray container.
"This repellant was developed on Earth. I understand that among other things
it is effective against sharks, Alaskan mosquitoes, piranha and the tsetse
fly."
There wasn't enough brush at hand to make a decent stockade, so at nightfall
Tregare set one-hour watches. "Me, Trent, Rissa, Jenise, Stonzai, Sevshen,
then repeat." Lisele scowled-Tregare should know she was big enough to stay
awake when she had to, and he did know she wasn't afraid to use a gun-but he
didn't notice, so she picked a place and lay down to sleep.
Near to dawn, Rissa woke her. Everyone ate last night's leftovers, cold. Rissa
and Trent rigged flotation units to the travoises and Tregare inflated them.
Then Rissa had everybody strip, and spread the clothes on the ground, and she
sprayed them. "As advertised," Tregare said while he dressed, "we don't stink
pretty, at all." Fumes from her blouse stung Lisele's eyes, and she saw why
Rissa wanted the clothes off when she sprayed them.
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Then they got into the water, gear and all, and began the longest day Lisele
had ever lived. Behind a travois she kicked, swimming style, until her legs
ached-and then, because she had to, kept doing it.
Breathing so near the surface, the swamp stench knotted her stomach. She kept
her breakfast down,
though, because she was pretty sure she was going to need it.
They must have been moving nearly an hour before there was any sign that other
life shared the water with them. Then something moved, ahead, and made the
surface swirl. Tregare signaled for everyone to hang quiet, and they waited.
The thing, whatever it was, came to within about five meters-
still under water, only a shadow there, but a big one-then turned, throwing a
wave of water, and went away. Tregare whistled. "Your stuff works, Rissa!"
After that, once in a while they'd see some disturbance in the water, but
nothing came very close and they just kept moving.
Lisele began to wish they wouldn't be quite so brave; to keep going at all,
she had to hold her mind on the time when she could rest. The least-loaded
travois was buoyant enough to let a person lie on it.
One out of seven, and by Tregare's schedule, soon it would be Lisele's turn.
When that turn came, she opened her mind to relaxation. She wasn't certain
whether she slept, but when Jenise nudged her to slip back into the water, for
a while her legs were strong again.
More than Tregare's guess of a kilo, the distance had to be. But by sun's noon
the land ahead was nearer than that behind, so Lisele could rid herself of the
notion that this hell would never end.
Especially when they paused to sip broth and water from plastic bags.
Past mid-afternoon she wasn't so sure. The water went shallow-still too deep
for her to find footing on the muddy bottom, but shallow enough that water
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plants entangled her feet and made her leg movements futile. Tregare, Hagen,
and of course the two Shrakken, were tall enough to stand up and push. Tregare
told the others-except Jenise, who was having her turn at rest--just to hang
on and let their legs dangle. Eyes closed, Lisele hung limp.
When her trailing feet dragged bottom, she looked to see Tregare in water not
much above his knees. Now she stood up. Everybody else was bending over,
pushing a travois. So she did, too.
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Even more shallow, the water got, and the less of it to balance against, the
easier it was to slip and fall, and get smeared with sticky, itchy mud. When
the water deepened again, they paused and tried to scrub that mud off each
other. But without much luck, and Tregare said, "Hell with it; let's go. We
don't want to be caught out here when it gets dark." So, back to the
swim-kicking. Lisele was getting hungry; dawn was a long time ago, with no
food but broth. Rissa had figured a way to eat, even in the middle of wet
swamp. But then she'd shaken her head. "No. We cannot risk exposing anything
that smells edible." They could sip from the bags, only.
Lisele knew the afternoon couldn't really be longer than the morning, but it
sure felt like it. She quit paying attention to anything; she put her head on
her arms that held onto the travels, and she knew her legs still kicked
because she could hear the splashes.
When her feet began hitting bottom, and Tregare yelled, "We're here! We made
it!" at first she thought she was dreaming.
On the shore, away from the mud, she sat with head down and arms hanging.
Tregare and others deflated the buoyancy units and dragged the travoises up to
safety. She knew she should help, but couldn't make herself move, or even keep
her eyes open. When she smelled food cooking, at first she didn't care.
Until Rissa came with two trays, and sat beside her. "Lisele! You did well
today. I would have come to you sooner, but you were resting, and there was so
much to do. Here; eat." And once she'd forced the first bites down, Lisele
found she did have an appetite, after all.
Halfway done with her tray, she began to feel she could do things again. She
looked over to Rissa.
"How hard was it, for you? Today, I mean."
Her mother gave her a quick, one-armed hug. "Damned peacerwisting hard, your
father would say.
And I am sorry I found no time to see to your own well-being, during that
ordeal. But-"
Swallowing a lump of meat that could have used more chewing, Lisele said, "You
had your own job to do." She thought back, to things Tregare had said. "If I
can't pull my weight, what good am I?"
Arms squeezed her, hard. Rissa's cheek touched hers, and she knew the tears
she felt were not her own.
"Much good, my
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dear. To pull weight, as you say, takes time. We must give you the chance to
learn how."
Then through growing dark they walked over to where the rest of the group sat,
well back from the cooking fire that lit the area. "Watch-schedules again
tonight, I'm afraid," Tregare said. "Start from where we left off last night,
and same rotation. All right?"
"No." Lisele hadn't known she was going to speak. "How about me?"
Looking not quite angry, Tregare said, "What you mean, princess?"
She took a moment, to think. "You say people should pull their weight; I want
to pull mine. You know
I can shoot." She paused. "First watch; okay?"
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His look puzzled her; then he smiled. "Good enough. Here's my gun; you start
on the hour." He looked around. "Everybody else goes in the same order as
before."
The energy gun was heavy; in practicing, she was more used to the lighter
needle weapons. But when [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]