Pastwatch- The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus - By Orson Scott Card Page 0,45

saved the boy's life, and now he had to get about the business of saving his own.

What he finally found, as he swam toward the invisible shore, was a floating oar. It wasn't a raft and couldn't lift him entirely out of the water, but by straddling the handle and keeping the blade of the oar flat under his chest and face he was able to get some respite when his arms grew weary. Soon he left the smoke of the fires behind him, and then the sound of screaming men, though whether he ceased hearing that awful noise because he had swum so far or because all had drowned, he could not guess. He did not look back; he did not see the burning hulks finally slip down under the water. Already the ships were forgotten, and his commercial mission. All he thought of now was moving his arms and legs, struggling through the heaving waters of the Atlantic toward the ever-receding shore.

Sometimes Cristoforo was sure that there was a current running away from shore, that he was caught in it and would be carried away no matter what he did. He ached, his arms and legs were exhausted and could move no more, and yet he kept them moving, however weakly now, and at last, at last he could see that he was indeed much closer to shore than before. It gave him hope enough to keep going, though the pain in his joints made him feel as though the sea were tearing his limbs off.

He could hear the crashing of waves against the shore. He could see scruffy-looking trees on low bluffs. And then a wave broke around him, and he could see the beach. He swam farther, then tried to stand. He could not. Instead he collapsed back into the water, only now he had lost the oar and for a moment he went under the water, and it occurred to him that it would be such a foolish thing for him to swim so far only to drown on the beach because his legs were too weary to hold him.

Cristoforo decided not to do anything so foolish as to die here and now, though the idea of giving up and resting did have a momentary appeal. Instead he pushed against the bottom with his legs, and because the water was, after all, not deep, his head rose above the surface and he breathed again. Half swimming, half walking, he forced his way to shore and then crept across the wet until he reached dry sand. Nor did he stop then -- some small rational part of his mind told him that he must get above the high tide, marked by the line of dried-up sticks and seaweed many yards beyond him. He crawled, crept, finally dragged himself to that line and beyond it; then he collapsed into the sand, unconscious at once.

It was the high tide that woke him, as several of the highest reaching waves cast thin riffs of water up to the old high-tide line, tickling his feet and then his thighs. He woke up with a powerful thirst, and when he tried to move he found that all his muscles were on fire with pain. Had he somehow broken his legs and arms? No, he quickly realized. He had simply drawn from them more work than they had been designed to give, and he was paying for it now with pain.

Pain, though, was not going to make him stay on the beach to die. He got up onto all fours and crawled ahead until he reached the first tufts of shoregrass. Then he looked about for some sign of water he could drink. This close to shore it was almost too much to hope for, but how could he regain his strength without something to drink? The sun was setting. Soon it would be too dark to see, and while the night would cool him, it might as easily chill him, and weak as he was, it might kill him.

"Oh God," he whispered through parched lips. "Water."
* * *

Diko stopped the playback. "You all know what happens here, yes?"

"A woman from the village of Lagos comes and finds him," said Kemal. "They nurse him back to health and then he leaves for Lisbon."

"We've seen this in the Tempoview a thousand times," said Hassan. "Or at least thousands of people have seen it at least once."

"That's exactly right," said Diko. "You've seen it