1980 Illustrations by Janet Aulisio

An ACE Book First Ace Printing: September 1980

First Mass Market Edition: October 1981

The golden brown sky was losing some of its uniformity with patches of darker scud starting to show to the west. There was still no wind, and the water was merely choppy, but Kahvi and Earrih were getting more and more uneasy about the kilometer which still separated them from the Canton shore.Milton Island was closer behind, but the cove on its south side would offer little protection if the wind really rose. The rafts, even with their present load, could not be sunk — Newell tissue was far too buoyant — but they could lose the cargo which had taken weeks to collect. The shelter between the Canton shore and the Sayre islets was looking more and more inviting.

“You were right, Kahv. We should have worked around the shore; we could have spared another day or so.” Some of Earrin’s words were spoken aloud, but since his breathing mask muffled the more subtle phoneme distinctions, hand gestures conveyed much of the thought.

His wife answered with a single, silent nod, not taking her eyes from the shore ahead for longer than was needed to read his signals. She got no particular thrill out of having been right; she had, after all, conceded the weight of the man’s arguments and had agreed to try the short cut. Risks always had to be taken; it was merely a question of which ones at any particular time. Spending more time out of reach of an air reserve could also have been dangerous.

This time the raft assembly was much larger than usual and correspondingly harder to maneuver. The Hillers had been emphatic about wanting the very largest supply of metal and glass that could be obtained in two months. There had been no way to increase the rate at which the copper came in from the sea, but Bones had found enough glass on the harbor bottom to load not only the floats usually devoted to cargo but a dozen square meters of extra deck space. It was these new, rather hastily fashioned floats which were the main worry.