There were sounds of thunder, muttering, growling, sharp cracks like the sudden breaking of great tree limbs. After one such crack her ears told her the Cheevle was moving, racing, driven by the wind. She imagined the Gift also driven, wondering briefly if one of them preceded the other or whether the wind sent them on this journey side by side. After a time the violent rocking stopped. The rain continued to fall in a frenzy of sound. Lulled by the noise, by the dark, by her fear and the pain of her bruises, she fell asleep, still clinging to the lacing strings of the cover as though they held her hope of life.
Aboard the Gift, darkness fell like a curtain, rain-filled and horrid. Wind buffeted them. The old boat creaked and complained, tilting wildly on the waves. They had seen Medoor Babji crawl beneath the cover of the Cheevle. They had no time to worry about her after that. In breaks in the storm they managed to cover the forward ventilation shaft. The hammer and nails were caught between the shaft and the forward wall of the owner-house. Except for Thrasne, and for the steersmen, struggling mightily to keep them headed into the waves and wind under only a scrap of sail, the others went into the owner-house and cowered there, waiting for something to happen. Thrasne lashed himself to the rail and peered into blackness, seeing nothing, nothing at all, rain mixed with tears running down his face. He could feel the pain in the Gift, and he was awash with guilt for having brought her on this voyage.
After an endless time, the wind abated. The rain still fell in a solid curtain of wet. Men went below and came back to say there were leaks—none of them large, but still, water was seeping into the holds. They set up a bailing line, using scoops to clear the water, chinking the seep holes with bits of rope dipped in frag sap. Night wore on. The rain softened to a mere downpour, then to a spatter of wind-flung drops. Far to the west the clouds parted to show Abricor, just off full, descending beneath the River. In the east, the sky lightened to amber, then to rose.
Thrasne untied the knots that held him to the railing, coiled the rope in his hands, and staggered up to the steering deck to relieve the men there and give orders for repairs. He was half through with it, Obers-rom busy in the hold, Blange and a crew restacking the cargo to make room for caulking, when he chanced to look over the railing to the place the Cheevle swam along in their wake.
Should have swum. The rope that had tied it lay frayed on the deck, broken in the storm. Of the Cheevle itself, or of Medoor Babji, there was no sign.
To most of the crew on the Gift, it seemed that Thrasne owner had gone mad. He was determined to search for the Cheevle. No matter what they said, he would not hear them. “She’ll be downtide,” he said, again and again. “We have to look for her downtide.”
Taj Noteen had his own reasons for wanting the Cheevle found. He did not want to go to Queen Fibji and tell her the chosen heir had been lost upon the river, lost with no attempt made to find her. Still, looking about him at the measureless expanse of heaving water, searching seemed ridiculous and was made to seem more ridiculous still by the advice of the sailors, those men who had plied the island chains throughout much of their lives.
“Thrasne owner,” they begged. “Making great circles here in the midst of the water will do no good! The Cheevle was blown as we were blown. The tide moved it as it moved us. If it is not near us now, and if it cannot be seen from the top of the mast, anything we do may merely take us farther from it.”
Thrasne would not hear it. Why it meant so much to him, he did not bother to figure out. Why his eyes filled at the thought of Medoor Babji alone, possibly injured upon the deep, he did not wonder. Why his gut ached at the idea of her lost, he did not put into words. He spoke often of finding the Cheevle. What he really longed to find was Medoor Babji herself, though he never said her name to himself. The name he had attached for so long to this feeling was Pamra. He had not brought himself to replacing the name, though her image had been replaced by another in his imaginings. In his sexual fantasies he would have whispered Pamra’s name, though the woman in his mind would have been dark and fringe-haired, fire-eyed and silk-skinned as only Medoor Babji was. If he had realized this, he would have accounted this as being unfaithful to his dreams, his hopes, his vows, and therefore he did not admit to any change. If someone had asked him he would have said he loved Pamra Don as he always had, as Suspirra, as herself.