local birds, or whatever, veered away from the growing bank of clouds. Orley watched them until they passed out of sight. There was no sign of land in the direction they flew.
The plane was making nearly two hundred knots. That should take him to the northeast chain of volcanic islands he sought in another two hours or so. Radio, satellite tracking, and radar were all forbidden luxuries. Tom had only the chart pinned to his windscreen to guide him.
He’d be able to do better on the return trip. Gillian insisted he take an inertial recorder. It could guide him blindfolded back to within a few meters of Hikahi’s island.
Should the opportunity arise.
The pursuing clouds grew slowly above and behind him. Kithrup’s jet stream was really cooking. Tom admitted that he wouldn’t mind finding a landing site before the storm reached him.
As the afternoon wore on he saw another swarm of flying creatures, and twice he caught a glimpse of motion in the water below, something huge and sinuous. Both times the thing vanished before he could get a better look.
Scattered among the swells below floated sparse patches of seaweed. Some clusters came together to form isolated mounds of vegetation. Perhaps the flying things perched on those, he thought idly.
Tom fought the tedium and developed a profound hatred for whatever lumpy object lay directly under his left kidney.
The glowering cloudbank was only a couple of miles behind him when he saw something on the northern horizon, a faint smudge against the graying sky.
He applied more power and banked toward the plume. Soon he could make out a dusky funnel. Curling and twisting to the northeast, it hung like a sooty banner across the sky.
Tom strove for altitude, even as threatening clouds encroached on the late afternoon sun, casting shadow onto the solar collectors on his wing. Thunder grumbled, and flashes of lightning briefly illuminated the seascape.
When it began to rain, the ammeter swung far over to the red. The tiny engine began to labor.
Yes. There it was! An island! The mountain seemed a good way off yet. It was partly hidden by smoke.
He’d prefer to land on a companion isle, one that wasn’t quite as active. Orley grinned at the presumption of anyone in his position making demands. He would land at sea, if need be. The small plane was equipped with pontoons.
The light was fading. In the growing dimness Tom noticed that the surface of the ocean had changed color. Something about its texture made him frown in puzzlement. It was hard to tell what the difference was.
Soon he had little time for speculation, as he fought his bucking craft, struggling for every foot of altitude.
Hoping it would remain light long enough to find a landing place, he drove his fragile ship through pelting rain toward the smoldering volcano.
34
Creideiki
He hadn’t realized the ship looked this bad.
Creideiki had checked the status of every damaged engine and instrument. As repairs were made, he or Takkata-Jim had discreetly triple-checked. Most of the damage that could be fixed, had been.
But as ship’s master, he was the one who also had to deal with intangibles. Someone had to pay attention to aesthetics, no matter how low their priority. And however successful the functional repairs were, Streaker was no longer beautiful.
This was his first trip outside in person. He wore a breather and swam above the scarred hull, getting an overview.
The stasis flanges and the main gravity drives would work. He had Takkata-Jim’s and Emerson D’Anite’s word on that, and had checked himself. One rocketry impeller had been destroyed by an antimatter beam at Morgran. The remaining tube was serviceable.
But though the hull was secure and strong, it was not the delight to the eye it had once been. The outer layer was seared in two places, where beams had penetrated the shields to blister the skin.
Brookida had told him that there was even one small area where the metal had been changed from one alloy to another. The structural integrity of the ship was intact, but it meant that someone had come awfully close to them with a probability distorter. It was disturbing to think that that piece of Streaker had been swapped with another similar but slightly different ship, containing similar but slightly different fugitives, in some hypothetical parallel universe.
According to Library records, no one had ever learned to control cross-universe distorters well enough to use them as anything but weapons, though it was rumored that some of the ancient species that “outgrew” Galactic