Chapter Four: Black Mass — Part 3

The ship has oar grips set at four points, though nobody had ever anticipated the need for the oars to be locked into those grips. Each person works quickly to tie their oars tightly in place, and each oar is then twisted and pushed, so that on the upswing, the long, fan fin is vertical, and then, when pushed down, the fin is level with the deck. The ship is already drifting about with the current of the water, and now, the push of the oars has it moving toward the dancing waves above. The waves move in slow motion across the surface, driven by the weakest of waves, the water itself bent and distorted from within like a flexible lens.

The ship begins to move, slowly up. It isn’t the steady movement of a tuna, flexing its entire body with the water, but more the slow movement of a puffer fish, oars moving quickly like fins to create a steady force. The ship is caught in a strange drift, the flow of water pushing in a stream right through the heart of the water mass, but nobody can work to correct the drift. As they push up, heading toward the surface, gravity starts to slowly shift, and though it is only one tenth that of Earth standard, it is enough to cause the boat to lurch upward and outward, pushed to the surface, where in slow motion, the water breaks off of the Edgewind leaving a viscous coating in its wake. Somehow, Heath has figured out how to bucket the water out the hatch door faster than it can fall in, though her efforts seem comical as she throws buckets of water nearly five feet into the air.

By the time the crew has no need for their jury-rigged breathers, they are starting to assess their location. Land is all around them, and currently about fifty feet from their location on top of a massive crush sphere of water. Bucket in hand, sopped and shaking, Heath looks over the railing, finds the water draining off slowly toward a pond that must at some point give way and flow toward the sea. But not now, because it is a new pond, and in so being, it will soon be stagnant and infested with insects, drawing in the frogs from the trees. Heath sees something in the distance, and finds herself lost in wonder. She points in the distance where another arch, writhing cloud, has caught her attention.

Heath need not have pointed, everybody can see it, an arch bending to the West, whose physics twisting behavior is only about half a mile away. Heath hears the twang of a crossbow, followed by a second twang. Each one is followed by a distant thunk as sharp points set themselves into trees. Daria moves by her, grumbling either a curse, prayer, or apology to the trees, (Heath cannot tell which), and then sends a metal washer along the dual strands of fish line between the ship and the trees to see if it dips heavy anywhere along the line. About half way out it comes to a stop, but does not seem to increase in weight. Daria pulls her two strings hard and fast away from each other, and the washer shoots straight up to the notch of the arrow. Satisfied, Daria does the same thing on the other side, confirms her suspicion, and nods to ChoCho.

Heath is startled to see both of them take a running jump in opposite directions off the railing of the boat, and fully expects them to drop to their deaths. Heath hasn’t considered that the trees are only about three hundred feet away, and that the glob of water they are propped awkwardly on is only ten feet short of the new forest’s edge. As she watches, Daria’s body does start to drop, and she arches her back to spread her arms, gliding somewhat like a squirrel toward her destination. Slowly she turns and puts her feet toward her target, crashing into the leafy branches. Heath stares at Joe and Blake, both of whom tie fresh dry rope from the stores to the fish lines so Daria and ChoCho can pull the ropes out in opposite directions, shoring the wet boat effectively in place.

Soon Daria is pulling herself back up the rope, ChoCho doing the same on the other side. Joe is surprised to see her actually wearing clothes, since, unlike Paige, who had been modest enough to wear a swimsuit, Daria never seemed to enter the water with anything more than a snorkel. She had paused to put a uniform on once the ship had drained of water, and now, she is helping Jynx to get to the treeline, when she will get the girl settled to the ground. By this point, Jynx has to be carried, and she looks pale and feverish.

The trio drop slowly down the tree to the ground, where Daria and ChoCho coordinate a push, drifting toward full gravity. The arch has a short perimeter at ground level, ChoCho and Daria are worried, but it is Paige and Heath who stay with her. Heath puts her head to Jynx, and the girl feels hot. She immediately takes out a wet rag and pats down Jynx’s forehead. Jynx, for her part, drifts in and out, her eyes flicking open and closed, while the crew brings down a tent, and starts readying a warm dry bed for Jynx. Before she knows it, Jynx is in a mummy sack, laying on a cot, propped on her side, her nose throbbing. She can hear the beeps of communications in the distance, over the cry of frogs. Heath and Paige stay with her, fearing for her life, while Jynx shakes and moans, in battle with death.