01
We slowly limped around the twisted and scattered remains of the dragon boat, nursing our aches and bruises, congratulating ourselves on our luck - such as it was. The flocks of birds the crash had stirred up settled down and Hissi had set out to acquire the skill of flying in gravity by fruitlessly chasing beetles and butterflies.
I found myself merely banged up and limping a bit, after digging myself out of the debris. KaRaya had survived largely intact as well. Had this been any sort of real world, with real gravity, we'd not have been so fortunate.
'As disasters go, I've survived worse,' said KaRaya, 'Why, if we could've just gotten over the trees with the propeller intact we could've made this valley intact, landed, stripped the boat down to a platform and the engine, made a proper kite-sail and continued on our way?' She shook her head and added, 'We only missed that by a long pace or two. I think, seeing that it was your propeller that failed us, Captain Wilitang, we'll record this as your wreck. I already have one to my credit. Share and share alike.'
'That's Chief Engineer Wilitang, Captain KaRaya,' I corrected her gravely. 'I was at my station performing my duties faultlessly. You had the helm. And while I'm sure you did the best you could - well, here we are.'
'Still, it was your propeller's malfunction that precipitated the crash.'
'Come now, Captain, I know the duties of the bridge officer as well you do. One needs to steer the ship over trees,' I illustrated that with a hand gesture - I was dealing with a bridge officer, after all, and needed to keep explanations simple. 'Rather than through them, as you evidently opted to do. I'm responsible for my machinery. You are responsible for navigation of the ship. I would've thought that forests are best avoided with a boat, but I'm willing to ascribe the wreck to your talent for disaster rather than your lack of talent as a sailor.'
She sighed. 'Fine. What's one more wreck, anyway? Now I have a matching set. Besides, it is said that any landing you can walk away from is considered good enough.'
'Well, Captain, I'll cut you enough slack to admit that.'
'Well, Chief,' she sneered back, 'how soon can you get your engine back in operation. We don't need even half of this ship, now, just something to skim over the trees. Those stubs of a propeller might do.'
'As an engineer, I'll not admit to ever being incapable of repairing my machinery. However, given the shape of the boiler, even on a casual inspection, I have to say that we'd likely die of old age before I could get it to hold enough steam to drive the engine, once I got around to fixing the engine. How far do you think we'll have to walk before we can find some sort of civilization?'
She glanced at the ridge line behind us. 'Hard to say. But if we started now, we'd likely reach it before we died of old age.'
'Are we agreed that is our best option?'
'It appears to be our only option.'
We didn't start right away. For all her claims of being too carefree, KaRaya was meticulous in her duties. We spent two rounds alongside the wreck, collecting all the food and supplies worth carrying with us. The simple, rustic life had been a dream of mine, but I must confess, I'd never actually gotten around to acquiring any skills or experience in it. I know that if left to my own devices, I'd have gone off very ill-prepared. KaRaya, however, took her time and salvaged everything we might need before setting out.
'Your task, Chief, is to construct a sled to haul our supplies. I'll start stitching backpacks and sleeping bags from the sail cloth. I don't know how far or long we'll be able to drag all our supplies.'
We determined that all we needed was a simple sled consisting of two long poles as handles lashed to a platform made from a small section of the boat's surviving cage. The boat's former owners had a primitive set of tools aboard which allowed me to drill holes and use salvaged dowels, and together, with leather straps, I built the sled, lashing the section of cage to the saplings we cut. I then lashed a pair of meter long legs to saplings, angled back, in lieu of wheels to keep the gear clear of the ground while being pulled. Leather loops at the tips of the poles, as harnesses for KaRaya and me, completed the rig. She kept busy cutting and stitching the sail into two large backpacks to store our most critical supplies in the event we came upon a dense forest and had to abandon our sled. The rest of the sail she made into a cover for our gear, and a tent that used the sled to sleep under plus, two canvas sleeping bags.
'Why do you say you're too careless? You've been anything but careless, as far as I can see.' I asked, as we stood, inspecting our packed sled, our supplies secured in a neat pile under canvas. Hissi was guarding them by napping on top of the canvas. Our plan was to follow the river downstream, which KaRaya was confident would lead us, eventually, to civilization - or what passed for it on the Marches of the Margins, the edge of the Shadow Lands.
'It's people I'm too careless of. I'm just too trusting, too innocent,' this with a leering look, 'and I can't seem to distinguish trustworthy males from rakes and rogues. And as a result, I generally end up on the beach, broke and in disgrace. By the Inferno Island, here I am again, stranded with an outlandish liar, staring at a wreck, lost in the margin lands of some unknown island, and I've not seen the end of it yet. See what I mean? I never learn.'
I grinned. 'And you're having the time of your life.'
She grinned back, 'Yes, though it'll likely be the death of me.'
'You've forgotten how lucky we are.'
She made a show of looking slowly around, the wilderness, the jumble of the wreck, the makeshift sled, and then said, 'On the whole, I think I could do with a little less of our luck. Let's be on our way.'
We slipped into the harnesses, and grabbing a pole to keep it from upsetting or overturning, we set out at an easy pace down the meadow toward the river bank. It took an effort to get the loaded sled moving, even in the low gravity, but once it was, we quickly settled into an easy, long, low loping stride that covered great distances rapidly. Once in motion, every bounce sent the sled flying into the air, where it mostly stayed, touching down only occasionally, which made pulling it easy. Stopping took some work, however.
'We should've equipped it with wings and made it into a kite,' I said, glancing back at it soaring behind us.
'I considered doing it, but we're bound to come to forests that we can't avoid. Still, we have canvas left, and I can cut some saplings, so we can try it, if we feel like it.'
The river wound its way through a string of valleys - one or two of the smaller ones were forests down to the river's edge, but the river was wide and shallow so we just took to the river. The slippery rocks kept our pace down, but did not stop us. The valleys usually ended in a narrow gorge, often in a series of slow rapids - water flows very leisurely in low grav. Despite the slippery boulders, we managed to drag or float the sled down these rapids, so we found no insurmountable barriers. Hissi traveled on the sled, no doubt imagining herself being drawn by two human slaves. She had continued to grow a'pace during our passage, and was now, nose to tail's tip, nearly as long as I was tall, so that her days of riding on my shoulder had pretty much come to an end, especially now that she weighed something.