And Medoor Babji had given him leave where Pamra had not. The thought fled, like a silver minnow through his mind, elusive and yet fascinating.
Still, when morning came, he gave in to Taj Noteen’s entreaties. The sailors turned the Gift toward the south, praying they would find water before many days had passed.
Despite his decision, Thrasne kept at the rail every hour of the light, or had himself hoisted to the top of the mast, or stood on the steering deck peering into the quivering glow of sun upon the waves for endless hours. He would resign himself to the need of the Noor to go south, he could not resign himself to the fact that she was gone. Something within him cried continuously that he would see the Cheevle dancing in the sun, beyond the next wave.
I remember when Blint first brought me aboard the Gift, sometimes at night I would wake from a dream of being lost upon the River. I was only twelve or thirteen, I suppose. Not a man yet, or anything near it. Perhaps they were a child’s dreams, just as children dream of falling or flying but grown-ups seldom do. At least, I suppose that is true. I used to dream of falling all the time but don’t anymore. I don’t dream of being lost on the River anymore, either, but sometimes I dream of swimming—as though I were one of the strangeys. …
From Thrasne’s book
Medoor Babji woke to the slup-slup-slup of wavelets on the side of the boat, to the heat of the sun on the canvas above her. The air was stifling. She lay in a puddle of wet blankets, cozied into them like a swig-bug into water weed. It took her some minutes to extricate herself and untangle the lacing strings from fingers that were stiff and sticklike. ”Blight,” she cursed at herself, attempting cheer. “My fingers have the blight.”
Her head came out of the Cheevle, bleary eyes staring around at the sparking wavelets on all sides, taking some notice of the clear amber of the sky and the high, seeking scream of some water bird before realizing, almost without surprise, that the Gift was gone. It was as though part of herself had been prepared for this eventuality—aware of it, perhaps, when the rope snapped, even during the fury of the storm—even as some other, less controlled persona prepared for panic.
“Now, now,” she encouraged herself, quelling a scream that had balled itself tight just below her breastbone and was pushing upward, seeking air. “It may not be the Gift’s gone. Maybe I’m gone. Separated, at any event. Oh, Doorie, now what?” Her insides were all melting liquid, full of confusion and outright fear, but the sound of her own voice brought a measure of control.
The persona in charge postponed answer of this question, postponed thought while she unlaced half the drum-tight covering of the Cheevle and folded it over the intact half. She wrung out the blankets as best she might and laid them over the loose canvas, seeing steam rise from them almost immediately. Her clothing followed. There was water in the bottom of the boat, though not much, and she sought the bailing scoops the sailors had carved, still tight on their brackets beneath the tiny bow deck. She postponed thought still further while bailing the boat dry, and further yet by turning and returning the blankets and clothing so that all were equally exposed to the drying rays of the sun.
And when all this was done, when she had dressed herself and taken a small drink of water from the River, brackish but potable—so Thrasne had told her, though one should drink very little at a time and not for long—there was no change in the circumstance at all. The Cheevle still bobbed on the wavelets, alone on the River, with no rock, no island, no floating flotsam in view.
“And no food,” she murmured to herself. “And no really good water.” The taste of the River on her tongue was mucky, a little salty. It had done little to reduce her thirst.
The mast lay in the bottom of the boat. She had slept between it and the sharp rib comers all night. Now she considered it with a kind of fatalistic resignation. She had paid some attention when the sailors had demonstrated how the mast was to be stepped. It had, as she recalled, taken two of them to get it up. Still. If she had the wind, she might go somewhere. If she went on bobbing here, like some little wooden toy, lost in immensity by a careless child, she might float forever.