Strata

think they will make it,’ she said quietly.
    ‘That is so,’ said Silver. ‘See how the current swings them round.’
    ‘It may be a test,’ said Kin. ‘I mean, the very day we’re here and all.’
    Silver sniffed. ‘My nose says not.’
    They looked at each other. Kin certainly was not going to argue with 350 million smell cells. She could see the men in the boat clearly. There was one, a small, bearded man, racing betweenthe bent rowers and urging them on. At best the boat was standing still.
    ‘Ahem,’ suggested Silver.
    Kin squinted up at the sun.
    ‘You recall that Line we’re using to tow the spare suit?’ she said. ‘How long is it?’
    ‘Standard monofilament length, fifteen hundred metres,’ said Silver, adding, ‘It could tether a world.’
    ‘Of course, we could be making a big mistake,’ said Kin, starting to run down the slope. Silver lumbered after her.
    ‘The stomach says not,’ she said. Kin smiled. Shandi had different ideas about the seat of the emotions.
    She flew out in a suit lift belt shorn of the bubble suit, dragging one end of the cable by a wide loop.
    ‘I consider this foolhardy in the extreme,’ said Marco’s voice in her earpiece.
    ‘Maybe,’ said Kin. ‘Just remember it was me that went out to the crashed boat.’
    There was a pause, with just the hissing of the wind in one ear and the carrier wave in the other. Finally Marco said, ‘Point your belt camera at the boat.’
    The rowers had seen her. Most of them were hanging transfixed on their oars.
    The boat was perhaps twenty-five metres long, built like a pod. Silver had been too critical. Whoever had built it had a keen knowledge ofhydrodynamics. There was one mast, amidships, with a furled sail. What space there was among the rowers appeared to be filled with jars and bundles.
    Kin aimed at the red-haired man in the prow and dived, skimmed the wavetops and braked on a level with his astonished face, dropping the cable loop over the ornate prow and yelling to Silver. Spray drenched her as the cable sprang out of the water.
    ‘Get them rowing,’ said Kin, making desperate arm movements. ‘To the island,’ she insisted, pointing dramatically.
    Redhair stared at her, at the island, at the taut cable and the curving wake of the ship as Silver took the strain. Then he vaulted down the length of the boat, screaming at the bewildered men. One stood up and started to argue. Redhair picked up a spar from the deck and hit him hard, then hauled him from his place and took his oar.
    Kin barrelled skyward, looking down on a ship that was already leaving a wake like a powerboat. Then she levelled out and headed back to the island.
    Its wooded shores passed far below her and she began searching in the misty blue sky beyond the falls.
    She found what she was looking for. There was a tiny white speck, drifting outwards. She swooped, hearing the slight whump as the belt’s field took up a new protective shape around her.
    Silver’s belt motor was whining. Suit belts could lift their owners against ten gravities, and Silver probably weighed 500 pounds. It added up to a lot of pulling power at the end of the cable.
    As Kin waved and turned back for the disc, Silver’s voice grunted in her ear. ‘There have been several jerks on the cable.’
    Kin looked down. There was a swathe of felled timber across the island. The tree they’d used as an anchor hadn’t been tough enough after all. Now the cable was bent round the crag itself.
    ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said. ‘We’ve got the edge on the current. The cable cut through some trees, that’s all.’
    The boat was broadside on to the falls, but bouncing across the already whitening water.
    ‘Fine, Silver,’ she said. ‘Fine. Marco wanted to meet the natives and he’s going to get a basinful in a minute. Steady. Steady. Stop. Stop !’
    The boat crunched on to the beach and bounded up into the trees, oars snapping. Several men fell overboard.
    ‘We’ve beached it!’ said Kin, dropping towards the wood.
    ‘If they’ve got any imagination they’re kissing that ground,’ said Silver.
    ‘Right. Let’s hope Marco has the sense to stay out of sight.’
    Her earpiece crackled. ‘I heard that. I wishto disassociate myself from this entire undertaking …’
    Kin swooped. She remembered being told that, ultimately, and whatever the science-fiction blats may say, no one ever learned a language by eavesdropping on a culture’s communications.
    It always