Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

That’s why I went over the side to port. When I hit the water, my immediate purpose was to get clear; my next purpose was to see if Mary followed me in. I did not really expect her to because (I’ve noticed!) most people, human people, don’t make up their minds that fast.

I saw her, still aboard; she was staring at me. Then the second explosion took place and it was too late. I felt a brief burst of sorrow-in hen own rutty, slightly dishonest way Many was a good sort-then I wiped her out of my mind; I had other problems.

My first problem was not to be hit by debris; I surface-dived and stayed under. I can hold my breath and exercise almost ten mm-

utes, although I don’t like it at all. This time I stretched it almost to bursting before surfacing.

Long enough: It was dark but I seemed to be clear of floating debris.

Perhaps there were survivors in the water but I did not hear any and did not feel impelled to try to find any (other than Mary and no way to find her) as I was not well equipped to rescue anyone, even myself.

I looked around, spotted what was left of the loom of sunset, swam toward it. After a while I lost it, turned over on my back, searched the sky. Broken clouds and no moon. I spotted Arcturus, then both the Bears and Polaris, and I had north. I then corrected my course so that I was swimming west. I stayed on my back because, if you take it easy, you can swim forever and two years past, on your back. Never any problem to breathe and if you get a touch weary, you can just hold still and twiddle your fingers a trifle until you are rested. I wasn’t in any hurry; I just wanted to reach the Impenium on the Arkansas side.

But of crash-priority importance I did not want to drift back down into Texas.

Problem: to navigate correctly at night with no map on a river a couple of kilometers wide, when your object is to reach a west bank you can’t see . . . without giving any southing as you go.

Impossible?-the way the Mississippi winds around, like a snake with a broken back? But “impossible” is not a word one should use concerning the Mississippi River. There is one place where it is possible to make three short pontages totaling less than ninety meters, float down the river in two bights totaling about thirty kilometers

and end up more than one hundred kilometers up the river.

No map, no sight of my destination-I knew only that I must go west and that I must not go south. So that is what I did. I stayed on my back and kept checking the stars to hold course west. I had no way of telling how much I might be losing to the south through the current, save for the certainty that, if and when the river turned south, my own progress west through the water would fetch me up on the bank on the Arkansas side.

And it did. An hour later-two hours later?-a lot of water later

and Vega was high in the east but still far short of meridian, I realized that the bank was looming over me on my left side. I checked and corrected course west and kept on swimming. Shoftly I bumped my head on a snag, reached behind me and grabbed it, pulled myself up, then pulled my way through endless snags to the bank.

Scrambling up on the bank was no problem as it was only half a meter high, about, at that point. The only hazard was that the mud was thick and loose underfoot. I managed it, stopped, and took stock.

Still inky-black all around with stars the only light. I could tell the smooth black of the water from the thick black of the brush behind me only by the faint glint of starlight on the water. Directions? Polaris was now blocked by cloud but the Big Dipper told me where it had to be and this was confirmed by Spica blazing in the south and Antares in the southeast.