Seas of Ernathe Page 5

  "Hey!" someone yelled. Seth whirled, and saw behind him a sea-man reaching high on the bulkhead and twisting the wheel of a pipeline valve. Seth lurched, half jumping and half falling—but he slammed with outstretched arms into the wall. The Nale'nid had vanished. Seth reached for the valve himself and twisted it back in the opposite direction. The pipe was trembling with rushing water, but the trembling slowed, and a crewman quickly joined him to wrench the valve closed.

  "That's a ballast inflow pipe," the man muttered. He stopped short, apparently with the same thought Seth had. The ship's list—could the Nale'nid have fouled the ship's ballasting system? If so, they could be in danger of foundering. For an instant, the engine room seemed silent, the air acrid with ozone and fear; no one moved, while the reality of what was happening flashed like a wave through the crew. A moan from an injured man broke the spell.

  "There's one!" another crewman cried, and someone lunged at a sea-man darting across the compartment. Moments later a Nale'nid was sighted at a circuit board, and two men had to rush to reset the circuitry to prevent massive overloads throughout the ship. The bridge was on the phone again, suddenly, and the news was shouted that the ship was flooding in several ballast compartments. "Skipper says give him power in at least one engine and in pumps, Chief!" the man on the phone yelled urgently.

  "Sure! Olson, check out that board and stay on it—I'll tell you when I want power on. Jeli, see to Coley. Seling, check the pumps and get Freda to ballast control—find out if we have to dump cargo and be ready to do it. You—" and his finger stabbed at Seth—"patrol this area and keep those bastards out of the works!"

  Seth unsteadily took up a watchdog position. The deck was shifting more perilously than ever; apparently the ship was rolling in the swells, and with each cycle it rolled more ponderously to starboard. Seth clung to a stanchion and crouched to look and be ready to act. The deck lurched again, and suddenly a sea-man raced by him, then was gone, then was visible farther down darting sideways out of sight. Seth pursued, his feet skidding treacherously. Amid the racket of pumps and hammers and wrenches, in the cavelike gloom of the emergency lights, he bounded like a man flying through a small hurricane. He halted where the Nale'nid had disappeared. There was no sign of him. A whisper at his ear—he whirled, and the same man or another was scampering back in the way he had just come, yanking an unidentified lever as he ran. Seth dashed after him and righted the lever, thinking, the bloody creature was smiling—and then looked in vain for another sight of him.

  "Get him away from that—"

  Seth heard the cry from astern and ran to assist, only to see another sea-man dance away and vanish in the gloom. How do they do that! he hissed in frustration. He was not the only one voicing that question.

  "Seling, get a dump on that cargo!" the Chief called. There was a whine of pumps, starting deep and climbing to an awesome wail, and after long, long minutes the slope of the deck began gradually to ease toward the level. Seth was holding his breath . . . and then he was gulping lungfuls of air, stale salty oily air, and he shivered in awe of his own fear, a fear he had kept bottled in his excitement, and which was now rising to overwhelm him. The air was thick, hot, and hammering noises rang through his skull. He stood mutely, watching the others working around him, and he marveled at the efficiency of their activity.

  "Come on, man! Did you hear me?" The Chief had his arm in a vise-grip and was shaking him. "I said I want you to get to the bridge—the phone is out!" Seth looked at him in amazement; his surroundings crystallized suddenly—and he blinked and nodded. "All right, tell the Captain we can give him power and port rudder now, and we'll have starboard rudder soon—we've found the missing part. Go!"

  Seth ducked from the room. They had found the missing part? The way he had found Racart—and where was Racart? He took the companionway at a run.

  The topdeck was ominous and gray, but salt spray stinging his face cleared his senses. The sea was ragged, covered with flying spume and rushing, gusting shreds of mist. The wind lashed coldly, and the deck was treacherous with spilling water. The ship wallowed in a sickening rolling motion, but a shudder from below indicated that power was being fed to at least one engine, and as he staggered along the rail he noted the bow beginning to turn back into the heaviest seas. Except for one or two men dashing forward of the bridge there was no one else on the deck, and Seth hurried, feeling uncomfortably alone.

  He was breathing heavily when the wheelhouse door slammed shut behind him, and he leaned against a bulkhead in relief. Captain Fenrose ignored him for a minute, then turned suddenly. "Your message arrived ahead of you," the Captain said. "The phones are back, and engine room says they're getting things calmed down. Those sea-griffs had us running, but it looks as though they've tired, now."

  Seth sighed agreement and took several minutes to regain his equilibrium, simply watching the bridge crew at work restabilizing the ship's vital systems. The heaving of the deck subsided as ballast was brought back under control; and it seemed the worst of the crisis had passed, though main power and steering capacity were still at a bare minimum. He started to relax, for the first time since the madness had begun.

  Fenrose turned to him again. "Your friend Bonhof still helping out down in the engine room?"

  Seth tensed. "Engine room? Last I saw, he was headed this way, when I was on my way down!"

  Fenrose scowled. "He didn't join you down there?"

  "Not that I saw. Things were awfully confused."

  The skipper nodded. He stood behind the bridge officers, studying the instruments, the sky, and the sea. He picked up the phone and issued a general broadcast for all stations to report systems and crew status. Then, while one of the officers handled those incoming calls, Fenrose rang the engine room. He hung up a moment later, with a worried expression on his face.

  The officer made his report: one serious injury, half a dozen moderately serious (of which Second Officer Coley was one), and countless minor ones; most ship systems were returning to normal. "And," he added soberly, "two deck crewmen unaccounted for. Both were last seen above decks. Possibly overboard." He glanced at Seth.

  The starpilot was stunned. "Is Racart—?"

  Fenrose cut him off. "Make an all-ship call for those two men, and also for Racart Bonhof." The officer turned back to the phone. "Helm! As soon as you have steerage, prepare to come about for search. Danjy, get on the radio and try to raise port." He stood grimly steady as the orders were carried out. Seth waited in silence, keeping a tight lid on his worry.

  There was a response to the general call—one of the men was safe on A-deck, Racart and the other were still unaccounted for. Fenrose ordered a station by station search. Danjy reported no success on the radio, which surprised no one; Ernathe radio transmission was usually limited to line of sight. The station-by-station search reported no success. Fenrose himself took the all-ship phone, and his voice blared like a klaxon: "All hands to search stations. All hands to search stations. Drone control make ready to launch."

  Seth was holding his breath. The Captain said bluntly, "For the moment, we'll have to assume the worst. If they aren't found on board soon, they have to be overboard."

  Seth met the Captain's eyes, then looked away. Racart overboard? Perhaps. But hopefully not. Where the Nale'nid were involved, he suspected that the simplest answer was not necessarily the correct one.

  He waited and watched. Beyond the glassed-in bridge the sea fumed white and gray, practically indistinguishable from the sky. Voices murmured about him, but he paid little heed, his attention on the sea and down on the deck. Crewmen were already at the railings to act as spotters, though the ship was only now regaining headway. Four flying drones lofted noisily from the fantail and dispersed over the water—four bits of metal vanishing, then glinting, then vanishing again in the confusion of sky and sea.

  Ardello came about under full power, finally, and began her own slow search.

  Chapter Five

  Drone-control was a ver
y small and very gloomy compartment in the after section of A-deck, lighted now only by the glow of video and scanner monitors. Several people were crowded inside the station, among them Mona Tremont. Seth made a small gesture of greeting and received only a biting glance. She flashed her eyes back to the screen without a word. Seth squeezed in beside her, into the only available space. Mona recoiled at his presence, making him acutely aware of her hostility, her body tense and hard beside him. She was the least of his worries, though; and, with an effort, he ignored her and kept his eyes fixed on the infrared video images from the drones.

  Chopped, frothy water, dark and empty. The search was in its third hour—well beyond the time that an unprotected man would be expected to survive in the sea—and there was an unspoken knowledge in the room, fairly permeating the air, that if no sign of the men was discovered soon the search would be curtailed.

  Another hour passed, with no talk in the compartment other than low-toned communications with the bridge.

  Seth became aware that his fingers and palms were painfully cramped, outstretched at his sides. They were involuntarily rigid, waiting to stab control plates that were not his to stab; he was no longer in Warmstorm's control pit. He pressed his hands to his stomach and kneaded them slowly, one against the other, the pain only a shadow across his dark thoughts of frustration and helplessness.

  The screens showed tossing sea, and nothing more.

  * * *

  "Damn you and your people!" Mona whispered, hissed, spitting like an enraged shrellcat. "Nothing like this happened before you came!" Her eyes were lances of fire, sweeping around and about Seth like the circling buzzing drones that had fallen grudgingly into the sea for recovery. Her eye-pupils dilated in despair, and then, as she seemed to regain control over her body if not her emotions, they shrank suddenly to hard daggers, riveted to his breast.

  Seth breathed with difficulty. The finding and the recovery of the deck crewman's body, five hours into the search, had been a grisly, shocking experience for everyone aboard the ship. Bad enough in itself, it had made Racart's fate seem only that much more obvious. If one man had fallen overboard, why not two? The final blow, after several more hours, had been the Captain's order to end the search and to turn the ship, cargoless, toward home. At first Mona had stood silent, unmoving, her face turned inward, not acknowledging the implicit pronouncement of Racart's death. When she did speak, it was to Seth, with blunt anger and hatred. And he had no answer to give, even if she were listening.

  "No—now he's gone, and someone else too—drowned—because people couldn't leave well enough alone!" She turned and stalked away down the corridor; but then she came back and faced him again, her fury unspent. There was defiance in her eyes, and the first hint of grief-tears. She shook her head painfully. "He called you a friend." Her headshake became violent, interfering with her words. "Two days—he knew—and now he's—gone." Her head stopped shaking; her eyes were blurry now with tears. Seth stared back helplessly, searching for words to express his own grief. Yes, they had been friends—friends for two days, actually four. What could he say, when his own sense of loss was numbing every nerve of his body?

  "We don't know for sure," he whispered, trying to speak it aloud.

  Mona stared at him contemptuously and turned away, to leave him standing alone and helpless in the middle of the corridor.

  Perhaps, he thought dimly, perhaps it's true. That we really don't know what happened. The thought seemed empty.

  He made a decision, and looked for a phone to call the Captain.

  * * *

  Sergei Fenrose worried his mouth around a piece of sojo candy and scrutinized Seth with a scowl. "How certain are you, now, of what you're saying?" His eyes were alert but traced with thin red veins of weariness. His desk was littered, the only disorderly thing in his cabin, and be hunched over it as he studied the starpilot.

  Seth answered slowly, "I'm certain that he was once taken—without warning—by several of the sea-people. And that he was returned unharmed." He choked a little on that last word, but decided that it was basically truthful. "That, when you get right down to it, is all that I am certain of. I have no reason to believe that it happened again, other than the fact that it happened once before." He shrugged.

  The Captain nodded, and sat back. "Well. If you're right, then there's probably nothing we can do. Except not give up hope. Or do you have any other suggestions?"

  The starpilot gestured helplessly. "No." He thought. "Captain—"

  "Mm."

  "Do you happen to know what Racart's relationship was—is—with Mona Tremont?"

  Fenrose looked surprised. "Why, it was my understanding that they were to be lifemated soon. Didn't they tell you themselves?"

  Seth shook his head, stunned. "No, they didn't." He rose awkwardly to leave. "Thank you, Captain." He turned back, halfway out the door, and repeated softly, thoughtfully, "Thank you."

  He wandered aimlessly about the decks for a time. Heading, eventually, for the crew quarters, he encountered Ferris Tarn, the young crewman. On an impulse, he stopped the man. "Ferris, have you seen Mona Tremont?"

  Tarn looked at him uncertainly. "No," he said. "Wait—yes—I saw her go into the women's quarters about an hour ago." He seemed puzzled, or perhaps embarrassed. "I've heard she said some pretty harsh things to you—she must be hit awfully hard by Racart's . . . death. I doubt she meant half of what she said." He shuffled, seemed to want to say more.

  Seth agreed. "She was hit hard. But she may have given up too soon." Seeing Tarn's startled look, he knew he should have kept silent. "Never mind, Ferris. Thanks." He hurried on, his blood pounding.

  A female crewmember met him at the entrance to the women's quarters, and hesitated when he asked if he might see Mona. After a moment, she said, "Okay—but I hope you know what you're doing." She let him pass.

  The woman spoke to Mona briefly, then left Seth alone with her. Mona's expression, fixed somewhere on the lower part of her bunk partition, made it plain that she did not wish for his company. Nevertheless, Seth settled on the edge of another bunk, not quite facing her. He ran his fingers lightly up and down his soiled trouser leg. Softly, he said, "Mona, there are many things Racart never had a chance to tell me. One of them was about you—and him." Her only reaction was a silent shiver. Seth hesitated, then continued. "He was my friend, for four days. And I haven't given up on him, and you shouldn't either. There's a chance—a good one, I think—that he's still alive."

  Still, she did not look at him or answer. He sighed, knotted his fists on his knees, and said loudly, "Mona, did he tell you what happened the other day—up on the coast—with the Nale'nid?

  "Mona!"

  She turned at last, slowly, her face devoid of any emotion he could name. "He started to," she said in a ragged voice. "He never finished. Does it matter?" She looked away.

  "It matters. If the same thing happened today, it matters for all the world. If. No promises." He blinked. Was it right for him to create hope—possibly false hope? But he had already told the Captain, and Fenrose seemed to believe it a reasonable possibility.

  He told the story, as much of it as he knew. "I never got to hear it all, either. But the Nale'nid took him—captured him, then released him. We can't be sure they didn't do it again today." Saying it, he bitterly wished he had learned the entirety of the story from Racart. Perhaps it would have supplied some clue. "That's all I can say, Mona—it's possible. Isn't that something, at least?"

  Mona stared at the deck, moving one foot forward and back. She somehow seemed younger, now, than he had previously thought; perhaps twenty. With obvious great effort, she said, "What about Panlon?"

  The other crewman. Seth choked silently. "Accidents happen at sea, don't they?" His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "We don't know that he and Racart were together. Something entirely different could have happened to Racart."

  Mona nodded. She looked at him again, finally. "I don't know whether or not to tell you t
o hope," Seth said. Yes. Damn it, yes, hope!

  She nodded again, attempted a smile and failed miserably. She started to weep and choked it off herself. "All right," she managed. She raised her eyes, then dropped them. "All right. I guess. Now please let me be, for a while."

  Seth left, wondering if he could believe it himself.

  * * *

  Ardello reached port the next day, and it was only a matter of hours before officials from Lernick, Lambrose, and the Warmstorm Mission were brought together in tense conference. Richel Mondreau of Warmstorm and Kenelee Savage, Manager of the Ernathe Colony, agreed in principle that a representative of the sea-people must be secured—presumably by capture, since no alternatives suggested themselves. The upshot of the meeting was that air, sea, and land search would be undertaken, simultaneously, to the maximum extent feasible by the joint personnel of Ernathe and Warmstorm. Stunning weapons would be issued to all parties, and it was intended that they be used. Any Nale'nid sighted would be a target for capture.

  Mondreau delivered general instructions to the Warmstorm complement and dismissed them to join their Ernathene counterparts for individual search party planning sessions. He called Seth inside. The starpilot eyed him wearily but respectfully; he had hardly slept, and he hoped that he was not about to be grilled. Still, among the Warmstorm personnel he was the only one—through accident or design—who had had repeated and fairly close contact with the Nale'nid, and he knew he was expected to offer useful information. At the moment, he could hardly even think.

  "Perland, you and your friend Bonhof had some things to tell us, before we hustled you off. Do you want to give us a rundown now?" Mondreau spoke briskly, not acknowledging Seth's obvious exhaustion. Captain Gorges listened on, a faint smile flickering across his broad face.

  Seth groaned inwardly, and swallowed. "I can't, I'm afraid. Racart never had the chance to tell me precisely what went on." He related what he knew, concluding with his belief that Racart might be alive in the hands of the sea-people. "I would hope that if it is true, the Nale'nid will make the fact known at some point."