Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs by Mike Resnick, Robert T. Garcia Read Free Book Online Page A

could hold the tiller while he slept, which of course I could and did, and he fell down with the others, pulling the canvas of the sail over the lot of them to shelter them a bit from the rain.
    Mirina crept out from belowdecks. She was soaked, of course, from the times when she had opened the hatch, but she did not appear to feel the cold. She had brought me a great piece of fin, all meat and fat, which I devoured and did me much good.
    Do you know where we are? she asked me.
    “Not in the least,” I answered aloud. “But this ship has that compass thing fastened in that box on the prow.” I pointed with my chin, not wanting to let go of the tiller. “The prow would have to crack off before we lost it, and if that happened, we would be in such straits that losing the compass would be the least of our worries.”
    My home is there,— she said, and pointed up and to our stern. I can feel it. So if we go that way, we will come to the Shadow and all will be well with you.
    Well! That was useful. I knew, of course, that every human and most Sagoth, when on land, knows exactly where the land of his birth is—and also any land he has visited in person. It is something born in us, but we lose it on the water. The natives of the islands can tell you each where his own island is as well, though they are lost on the land. But it seemed this child of the air was not lost, neither on land, nor on water. And she was right. If we followed where she pointed, we would come to the Shadow of her world and be home. Thus it would not matter even if we lost the compass.
    I confess that I was much cheered by this, and restored by the food and this knowledge, I held course through the rain and thunder until at last the storm died and the men awoke. Then I imparted what Mirina had told me to Dek.
    By now we could see we were deep among the islands. The moon was not visible; it must have been hidden behind one or more of them. These islands towered around us, looking like what Innes and Perry had told us they were, the tops of submerged mountains. We recognized none of them, and reckoned ourselves lucky that caution on my part had caused me to insist that we had sailed with water belowdecks enough for many sleeps. Food we could catch with our harpoon, and by fishing, but water . . .
    Before I slept myself, I helped Dek haul in the sea-anchor and stow it, helped the men to rig the sail, and got the boat turned about and pointed in the direction Mirina wished us to go—which agreed with the compass .
    We knew we were not out of peril yet. There are many strange races living on the islands. Some are peaceful and friendly. Some are wary and hostile.
    And some are deadly.
    Also, there were the great beasts of the sea.
    No, we were by no means celebrating, except in that we celebrated going down the throat of the storm and coming out alive.
    I flung myself down on the deck and slept, as Dek and the others made for home.
    It was Dek kicking me in the ribs that woke me. A quick glance at the hurried preparations for combat told me why.
    “Astern,” Dek said, briefly, and took the tiller.
    Now, the good thing about being a sailing ship with only four rowers is that most of the time the rowers do not need to work; the wind does it all for you. The bad thing about being a sailing ship with only four rowers is that when you are being overtaken by a dozen islander canoes of the sort with the pods on the side, and the wind is scarcely a breeze, then you know that the canoes are going to win this race. We Thurians did not know many folk with that sort of canoes—only one of our island allies had such, and these were too far to be our allies.
    I glanced up. Mirina was hanging quiver after quiver full of arrows on the top of the mast at her usual perch. Good. She would be able to stay out of reach, at least until they swarmed us. What would happen to her then . . .
    I got my sword and my club, and a tiny shield I fastened on my wrist. I was of little use