Getting the ship up was a heart-breaking job. The mud sucked at it and underwater roots caught on the vanes. Divers plunged time and again into the brown water to cut them free. Progress was incredibly slow, but the work never stopped. Jason’s brain was working even slower. The ship would be hauled up eventually—what would he do then? He had to have a new plan by that time, but thinking was impossible work. His thoughts corkscrewed and he had to fight down the rising feeling of panic.
The sun was low when the ship’s nose finally appeared above the water. A ragged cheer broke out at first sight of that battered cone of metal and they went ahead with new energy.
Jason was the first one who noticed the dorym weaving towards them. The dogs saw it, of course, and ran out and sniffed. The rider shouted to the dogs and kicked angrily at the sides of his mount. Even at this distance Jason could see the beast’s heaving sides and yellow foam-flecked hide. It was barely able to stagger now and the man jumped down, running ahead on foot. He was shouting something as he ran that couldn’t be heard above the noise.
There was a single moment when the sounds slacked a bit and the running man’s voice could be heard. He was calling the same word over and over again. It sounded like wait, but Jason couldn’t be sure. Others had heard him though, and the result was instantaneous. They stopped, unmoving, where they were. Many of those holding the ropes let go of them. Only the quick action of the anchor men kept the ship from sliding back under, dragging the harnessed doryms with it. A wave of silence washed across the swamp in the wake of the running man’s shouts. They could be heard clearly now.
“Quake! Quake on the way! South—only safe way is south!”
One by one the ropes dropped back into the water and the Pyrrans turned to wade to solid land. Before they were well started Rhes’ voice cracked out.
“Stay at work! Get the ship up, it’s our only hope now. I’ll talk to Hananas, find out how much time we have.”
These solitary people were unused to orders. They stopped and milled about, reason fighting with the urgent desire to run. One by one they stepped back to the ropes as they worked out the sense of Rhes’ words. As soon as it was clear the work would continue he turned away.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Jason called to him as he ran by.
“It’s Hananas,” Rhes said, stopping by the litter, waiting for the newcomer to reach him. “He’s a quakeman. They know when quakes are coming, before they happen.”
Hananas ran up, panting and tired. He was a short man, built like a barrel on stubby legs, a great white beard covering his neck and the top of his chest. Another time Jason might have laughed at his incongruous waddle, but not now. There was a charged difference in the air since the little man had arrived.
“Why didn’t ... you have somebody near a plate? I called all over this area without an answer. Finally ... had to come myself—”
“How much time do we have?” Rhes cut in. “We have to get that ship up before we pull out.”
“Time! Who knows about time!” the graybeard cursed. “Get out or you’re dead.”
“Calm down, Han,” Rhes said in a quieter voice, taking the oldster’s arms in both his hands. “You know what we’re doing here—and how much depends on getting the ship up. Now how does it feel? This going to be a fast one or a slow one?”
“Fast. Faster than anything I felt in a long time. She’s starting far away though, if you had a plate here I bet Mach or someone else up near the firelands would be reporting new eruptions. It’s on the way and, if we don’t get out soon, we’re not getting out t’all.”
*
There was a burble of water as the ship was hauled out a bit farther. No one talked now and there was a fierce urgency in their movements. Jason still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened.
“Don’t shoot me for a foreigner,” he said, “but just what is wrong? Are you expecting earthquakes here, are you sure?”
“Sure!” Hananas screeched. “Of course I’m sure. If I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t be a quakeman. It’s on the way.”
“There’s no doubt of that,” Rhes added. “I don’t know how you can tell on your planet when quakes or vulcanism are going to start, machines maybe. We have nothing like that. But quakemen, like Hananas here, always know about them before they happen. If the word can be passed fast enough, we get away. The quake is coming all right, the only thing in doubt is how much time we have.”
The work went on and there was a good chance they would die long before it was finished. All for nothing. The only way Jason could get them to stop would be to admit the ship was useless. He would be killed then and the grubber chances would die with him. He chewed his lip as the sun set and the work continued by torchlight.
Hananas paced around, grumbling under his breath, halting only to glance at the northern horizon. The people felt his restlessness and transmitted it to the animals. Dogfights broke out and the doryms pulled reluctantly at their harnesses. With each passing second their chances grew slimmer and Jason searched desperately for a way out of the trap of his own constructing.
“Look—” someone said, and they all turned. The sky to the north was lit with a red light. There was a rumble in the ground that was felt more than heard. The surface of the water blurred, then broke into patterns of tiny waves. Jason turned away from the light, looking at the water and the ship. It was higher now, the top of the stern exposed. There was a gaping hole here, blasted through the metal by the spaceship’s guns.
“Rhes,” he called, his words jammed together in the rush to get them out. “Look at the ship, at the hole blasted in her stern. I landed on the rockets and didn’t know how badly she was hit. But the guns hit the star drive!”
Rhes gaped at him unbelievingly as he went on. Improvising, playing by ear, trying to manufacture lies that rang of the truth.
“I watched them install the drive—it’s an auxiliary to the other engines. It was bolted to the hull right there. It’s gone now, blown up. The boat will never leave this planet, much less go to another star.”
He couldn’t look Rhes in the eyes after that. He sank back into the furs that had been propped behind him, feeling the weakness even more. Rhes was silent and Jason couldn’t tell if his story had been believed. Only when the Pyrran bent and slashed the nearest rope did he know he had won.
The word passed from man to man and the ropes were cut silently. Behind them the ship they had labored so hard over, sank back into the water. None of them watched. Each was locked in his own world of thought as they formed up to leave. As soon as the doryms were saddled and packed they started out, Hananas leading the way. Within minutes they were all moving, a single file that vanished into the darkness.
Jason’s litter had to be left behind, it would have been smashed to pieces in the night march. Rhes pulled him up into the saddle before him, locking his body into place with a steel-hard arm. The trek continued.
When they left the swamp they changed directions sharply. A little later Jason knew why, when the southern sky exploded. Flames lit the scene brightly, ashes sifted down and hot lumps of rock crashed into the trees. They steamed when they hit, and if it hadn’t been for the earlier rain they would have been faced with a forest fire as well.
Something large loomed up next to the line of march, and when they crossed an open space Jason looked at it in the reflected light from the sky.
“Rhes—” he choked, pointing. Rhes looked at the great beast moving next to them, shaggy body and twisted horns as high as their shoulders, then looked away. He wasn’t frightened or apparently interested. Jason looked around then and began to understand.
All of the fleeing