[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
from side to side. Then it steadied, rolled the last few yards, and plunged
out into empty air. Blade held his breath until the sound of the splash
floated up from below. The maps showed water a hundred feet deep at the foot
of the cliff. Their trail would be safely broken, and Piedar Goron would have
a tomb safe from disturbance by the Red Flames.
When the last sounds of the splash died away, Blade walked down to where Rilla
sat on a boulder and helped her to her feet. "It's time we went to find
Page 66
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
ourselves a boat," he said.
She nodded. "Will you tell me where the island is, and how the submarine will
pick me up?"
"I thought you couldn't handle a boat?"
"Perhaps not. But fear is not a bad teacher, and my luck might last even if
yours does not."
"And if yours doesn't last either?" said Blade quietly.
"Then I will find a clean death and a clean grave in the sea, like Piedar
Goron's, not what the Red
Flames will give me if they catch me."
Blade took her hand, and side by side they walked down the hill. As they
walked, the fog again grew thick around them.
It was still thick at dawn, but by that time they were twenty miles out to
sea.
Rilla's advice helped Blade choose a boat. In the first village, he would have
chosen a heavily timbered cruiser with a full rig to supplement the engine.
Rilla shook her head at that.
"I think that no one but a Red Flame or a collaborator would have such a boat
here. If it is stolen, the owner will make a great cry. The local police and
the Russland patrols will have to listen to him.
"If we steal a fishing boat, it will be different. The fisherman will not be
happy, but he will think his boat was stolen by another fisherman, by the Red
Flames, or by the underground.
"He will try to find and kill the fisherman himself. He will know that it is
useless to complain when the
Red Flames take his property. If the underground has taken the boat, then he
will be happy to have aided them with no real danger to himself. So if we take
a fishing boat I do not think we will be pursued."
"Let's look for a fishing boat, then," he said. As long as the boat would get
them safely to Englor if necessary, he didn't much care what kind it was.
They found their boat in the second village, a forty-foot ketch with the masts
set unusually far apart and a rusty one-cylinder gasoline engine. Blade hoped
they wouldn't have to use the engine much-it looked more useful for anchoring
the boat than for moving it. But the rigging and sails were in good condition.
Working silently in the darkness Blade set the mainsail, and the boat crept
slowly out across the little harbor and into the channel to the sea. It seemed
to take forever to tack down the channel, with Blade at the helm and Rilla
keeping a lookout forward.
Once they were clear of the channel Blade turned to the engine. Rather to his
surprise, it started. It also made a pounding roar like a badly tuned racing
car running without a muffler. Blade wasn't sure he shouldn't turn it right
off again before it brought every fisherman for ten miles up and down the
coast out on their trail. But it was either the engine or wait until the
breeze rose. Blade chose the engine.
He also sent Rilla below to get some sleep in the tiny cabin aft. He
practically had to push her, although she was reeling with fatigue. Before she
went, she threw her arms around him and kissed him three times-once on each
cheek, once on the lips. Under the warmth of those kisses Blade sensed Rilla's
relief and gratitude, and also unmistakable desire. It was a desire kept
carefully under control for the moment-Rilla was a woman who would know when
to think of love and when to think only of survival.
But when the right moment came, that control would crumble. Blade knew that
the right moment would come before they said good-bye, and he was glad of
that. There was much more he wanted to know about this woman, and the pleasure
and excitement of that superb body of hers was part of it.
Meanwhile, there was a sea voyage to take-a hundred miles to the island of
Page 67
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
