But dared the three spill out of their boat, trust to their swimming ability and that of the dolphins, and invade the Foanna sea gate so? Could they use the coming Rover attack as a cover for their own invasion of the hold? Ross considered that the odds in their favor were beginning to look better.
He whispered his idea and began to prepare their gear. The boat was still headed for the shore the three could not see. But they could hear sounds out of the white cotton wall which told them how completely they were boxed in by the raiders; creaks, whispers, noises Ross could not readily identify, carried across the waves.
Before leaving the cave and beginning this voyage they had introduced Loketh to the use of the gill-pack, made him practice in the depths of the cave pool with one of the extras drawn through the gate among the supplies. Now all three were equipped with the water aid, and they could be gone in the sea before the trap closed.
“The supply net—” Ross warned Karara. A moment or two later there was a small bump against the skiff at his left hand. He cautiously raised the collection of containers and eased the burden into the water, knowing that one of the dolphins would take charge of it.
However, he was not prepared for what happened next. Under him the boat lurched first one way and then the other in sharp jerks as if the dolphins were trying to spill them into the sea. Ross heard Karara call out, her voice thin and frightened:
“Taua! Tino-rau! They have gone mad! They will not listen!”
The boat raced in a zigzag path. Loketh clutched at Ross, striving to steady him, to keep the boat on an even keel.
“The Foanna—!” Just as Loketh cried out, Karara plunged over the prow of the boat, whether by design or chance Ross did not know.
And then the craft whirled about, smashed side against side with a dark bulk looming out of the fog. Above, Ross heard cries, knew that they had crashed against one of the raiders. He fought to retain his balance, but he had been knocked to the bottom of the boat against Loketh and they struggled together, unable to move during a precious second or two.
Out of the air over their heads dropped a mass of waving strands which enveloped both of them. The stuff was adhesive, slimy. Ross let out a choked cry as the lines tightened about his arms and body, pinioning him.
Those tightened, wove a net. Now he was being drawn up out of the plunging skiff, a helpless captive. His flailing legs, still free of the slimy cords, struck against the side of the larger ship. Then he swung in, over the well of the deck, thudded down on that surface with bruising force, unable to understand anything except that he had been taken prisoner by a very effective device.
Loketh dropped beside him. But Karara was not brought in, and Ross held to that small bit of hope. Had she made it to freedom by dropping into the water before the Rovers netted them? He could see men gathering about him, masked and distorted in the fog. Then he was rolled across the deck, boosted over the edge of a hatch and knew an instant of terror as he fell into the depth below.
How long was he unconscious? It could not have been very long, Ross decided, as he opened his eyes on dark, heard the small sounds of the ship. He lay very still, trying to remember, to gather his wits before he tried to flex his arms. They were held tight to his sides by strands which no longer seemed slimy, but were wrinkling as they dried. There was an odor from them which gagged him. But there was no loosening of those loops despite his struggles, which grew more intense as his strength returned. And at last he lay panting, knowing there was no easy way of escape from here.
9: Battle Test
Babble of speech, cries, sounded muffled to Ross, made a mounting clamor on the deck. Had the raiders’ ship been boarded? Was it now under attack? He strove to hear and think through the pain in his head, the bewilderment.
“Loketh?” He was certain that the Hawaikan had been dumped into the same hold.
The only answer was a low moan, a mutter from the dark. Ross began to inch his way in that direction. He was no seaman, but during that worm’s progress he realized that the ship itself had changed. The vibration which had carried through the planks on which he lay was stilled. Some engine shut off; one portion of his mind put that into familiar terms. Now the vessel rocked with the waves, did not bore through them.
Ross brought up against another body.
“Loketh!”
“Ahhhhh . . . the fire . . . the fire—!” The half-intelligible answer held no meaning for the human. “It burns in my head . . . the fire—”
The rocking of the ship rolled Ross away from his fellow prisoner toward the opposite side of the hold. There was a roar of voice, bull strong above the noise on deck, then the sound of feet back and forth there.
“The fire . . . ahhh—” Loketh’s voice rose to a scream.
Ross was now wedged between two abutments he could not see and from which his best efforts could not free him. The pitching of the ship was more pronounced. Remembering the two vessels he had seen pounded to bits on the reef, Ross wondered if the same doom loomed for this one. But that disaster had occurred during a storm. And, save for the fog, this had been a calm night, the sea untroubled.
Unless—maybe the shaking his body had received during the past few moments had sharpened his thinking—unless the Foanna had their own means of protection at the sea gate and this was the result. The dolphins . . . What had made Tino-rau and Taua react as they did? And if the Rover ship was out of control, it would be a good time to attempt escape.
“Loketh!” Ross dared to call louder. “Loketh!” He struggled against the drying strands which bound him from shoulder to mid thigh. There was no give in them.
More sounds from the upper deck. Now the ship was answering to direction again. Ross heard sounds he could not identify, and the ship no longer rocked so violently. Loketh moaned.
As far as Ross could judge, they were heading out to sea.
“Loketh!” He wanted information; he must have it! To be so ignorant of what was going on was unbearable frustration. If they were now prisoners in a ship leaving the island behind . . . The threat of that was enough to set Ross struggling with his bonds until he lay panting with exhaustion.
“Rossss?” Only a Hawaikan could make that name a hiss.
“Here! Loketh?” But of course it was Loketh.
“I am here.” The other’s voice sounded oddly weak as if it issued from a man drained by a long illness.
“What happened to you?” Ross demanded.
“The fire . . . the fire in my head—eating . . . eating . . .” Loketh’s reply came with long pauses between the words.
The human was puzzled. What fire? Loketh had certainly reacted to something beyond the unceremonious handling they had received as captives. This whole ship had reacted. And the dolphins . . . But what fire was Loketh talking about?
“I did not feel anything,” he stated to himself as well as to the Hawaikan.
“Nothing burning in your head? So you could not think—”
“No.”
“It must have been the Foanna magic. Fire eating so that a man is nothing, only that which fire feeds upon!”
Karara! Ross’s thoughts flashed back to those few seconds when the dolphins had seemed to go crazy. Karara had then called out something about the Foanna. So the dolphins must have felt this, and Karara, and Loketh. Whatever it was. But why not Ross Murdock?
Karara possessed an extra, undefinable sense which gave her contact with the dolphins. Loketh had a mind which those could read in turn. But such communication was closed to Ross.
At first that realization carried with it a feeling of shame and loss. That he did not have what these others possessed, a subtle power beyond the body, a part of mind, was humbling. Just as he had felt shut out and crippled when he had been forced to use the analyzer instead of the sense the others had, so did he suffer now.
Then Ross laughed shortly. All right, sometimes insensitivity could be a defense as it had at the sea gate. Suppose his lack could also be a weapon? He had not been knocked out as the others appeared to be. But for the bad luck of having been captured before the raiders had succumbed, Ross could, perhaps, have been master of this ship by now. He did not laugh now; he smiled sardonically at his own grandiose reaction. No use thinking about what might have been, just file this fact for future reference.