The Stars Are Legion(70)

Das Muni points away from the beach. “Up there!”

I see a crumpled shadow on higher ground. I run after Das Muni. We crouch under a long shelf. I can’t tell what it is or what it’s made of in the dark, but it provides cover from the rain of snake-lizards.

They scurry up toward us, trying to take over our shelter. Das Muni kicks at them, and I help her. I don’t know if they’re venomous, but I don’t like them.

As the rain subsides, we huddle up under the overhang and wait. I feel something behind me shift as I lean back.

“What is this?” I say. There’s no light, but my eyes are adjusting to the dim. The object behind me has a long nose and a low, flat bottom. It’s a little spongy, like everything seems to be, but it seems to be repelling water instead of absorbing it. The surface is slick with dewy moisture. It’s warm under my hands and shifts beneath my fingers.

I jerk away.

“What is it?” Das Muni says.

“Something alive,” I say.

“Oh, no,” she says. “That’s just a boat, I think.”

Her eyes are enormous in the dim, and I remember that she can see far better than I can.

We haul the boat down to the shore. It’s even stranger than I thought back in the cave. Its middle is fat, and it pulses as if it’s breathing. The sides are curved up and out, expanding the breadth of the boat enough that I think we can all get in. Most peculiar are the eight fins that flop at its side.

Das Muni and I wait down on the beach for Arankadash and Casamir to return. Das Muni curls up next to the animal-boat and whispers a little song to it, so low that I cannot make out the words. I scan the water. More creatures wait there, I know. Stranger things.

I hear Arankadash and Casamir before I see them. They are arguing about what it was that fell from the sky, and why.

I stand and wave. “I found a boat. Or something like a boat?”

“Yes, that’s it,” Arankadash says.

We work together to get the slippery thing into the water. “Will it swim away?” I ask.

“Hold tight,” Arankadash says, “and jump in quickly.”

When the boat reaches the edge of the water, the fins start flapping. It shivers, as if in anticipation.

“How are we going to control this thing?” I ask.

“It knows the way,” Arankadash says.

I gaze out at the hazy blue light of the creatures bobbing just below the surface of the sea. “That’s not very comforting,” I say.

“It’s not meant to comfort,” she says. “It’s truth.”

Casamir and Das Muni get into the craft, and Arankadash and I push it into the sea. The boat begins paddling its arms immediately, and I have to scramble to get myself inside. The viscous, watery sludge that makes up the sea clings to my trousers and soaks me through. I roll into the craft as Casamir tugs at my arms.

Arankadash is already in. She’s positioned herself at the head of the craft as we glug out into the sea.

I catch my breath and peer back over the edge of the thing at the bobbing lights.

Das Muni squirms up beside me. “Do you think they’ll see us?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Let’s just . . . be quiet.”

Arankadash glances back at us. “I have been this way half a dozen times,” she says. “We have never had trouble crossing.”

“You couldn’t even find the boat this time,” Casamir says.

Arankadash sniffs. “That’s not my fault. Someone who came before did not put it back where it’s supposed to be. That’s all.”

“Who last used it?” I ask.

“I did not see a sign on it,” Arankadash says. “Did you?”

“Sarcasm,” I say. “Soon you’ll be telling jokes.”

The craft moves slowly across the sea. It’s like paddling through a heavy stew. I perch on the back of the craft and watch the shoreline recede. After an hour, I cannot see the rim of the shoreline anymore, and I look ahead into the darkness. Great stalactites make an upside-down forest ahead of us, clawing down toward the sea with their thorny fingers.

We stand up and push against them when we come too close; it’s the only way we have to steer the craft. And still the thing paddles onward.

I can see no shore, even after several hours on the flat sea.

“How much longer?” I ask Arankadash.

She is mending one of her weapon harnesses. “We will arrive when we arrive,” she says.

“It’s so still out here,” Casamir says. She pokes her hand into the water.

“Stop that,” I say. “You’ll get it bitten off.”

I continue to watch the lights of the creatures bobbing just below the surface.

“They probably don’t eat things as big as us,” Casamir says.

“You don’t know that,” I say. “There could be anything living in here.”

Casamir dips her hand into the water again and comes up with a handful of the sludge. Sniffs it. “Rotten-smelling, isn’t it? Think you could eat it?”

“Maybe you could eat it,” I say. I can’t fault any of them for trying to eat everything that grows out of this dark place.

Casamir leans far forward, and I turn away to look for the shore again. I’m not as patient as Arankadash.