The Mantooth

  And when the smoking mists cleared and the chaos died away, as the tractbroadened and the waters smoothed again just as swiftly, their craftremained, unbroken and undaunted. Kalus gave a cry and shook his fistat the sky, while the girl wept. Another obstacle had failed to defeatthem.

  But Kalus was given no time for celebration, and he knew it. Soon theywould enter the delta, and the meeting with the more voluminous NorthRiver. Immediately he threw down the paddle and took up the longer,stouter steering oar. The sail was heavy and wet, bunched unevenlyalong the yard; but with supreme, unyielding effort he tried to anglethe craft into the wind, which to his dismay now turned nearly straightfrom the North.

  The mast gave a troubled groan; the right hull and stern sank dangerously low in the water. But that was all. He could change the direction of the prow but not their course. The hulls' edges simply would not bite and drive them forward. For all his cursing the craft barely held center. And soon the North River would be upon them. Sylviana raised her dripping face, her chest heaving both with oxygen and emotion. And for all her trauma, she felt a swift and stark moment of recognition. Creeping feelers of memory had been pushing at her consciousness for weeks, since they came to the cove and she caught her first glimpse of the Island in the distance. Now their message hammered through.

  The island that lay before them, broad and flat across the muddy watersof the delta. . .was the ruin of once proud New York City. The river tothe north was the Hudson.

  She gazed at it in a stupor of disbelief. Not a single scraper touchedthe skies of Manhattan, only mangled upheavals of stone and steel. TheCity had been stripped to a foundation of jagged, broken teeth, thenleft to endure ten thousand years of weathering.

  NEW YORK! All this time, feeling at the ends of the earth, she had beenless than twenty miles from the place of her birth. It was tooincredible to accept, too unlikely to be anything but the truth. Herspirit swooned at the sight of it.

  But whatever the Christian name of the river they now encountered, toKalus it might as well have been the Finger of Satan. The two currentsmerged into an uneasy bay, lapping slowly but steadily south-eastward.He redoubled his efforts with both sail and paddle, striking furiouslyat the water till the veins of his forehead seemed ready to burst. Buthe could not fight the devilish pull.

  Away! It carried them away! With all Sylviana's help, he could drawno closer to the Island. The SEA lay beyond, nothing but the sea! DearGod, it was slow, certain death that awaited them! In the final measurehe had failed, miserably and utterly. He tore down the Judas sail andfell forward and surrendered to despair.

  They were lost.

  Chapter 36

  But in his despair and hopeless fear of it, Kalus had forgotten (ornever knew) that the Sea could also be benevolent. The Sea, which hasways and currents of its own, and to whom the incoming waters werehardly a ripple of sand in the Sahara. The fresh water currentssubsided, and the waves of the Atlantic took over. Subtler, moreprofound, at worst they would have cast them back upon the mainland.But by a distance no greater than the trunk of a fallen tree, he had settheir craft far enough east to be held by the confines of a far greaterstream. Sweeping northward along the whole coast of America, washingeven the pebbles of Nova Scotia before turning eastward toward Britainand the European main: the subtly altered, and miraculous Gulf Stream.

  For a long time it seemed the boat moved not at all. And lost in sorrowand dark reverie, none of its passengers stirred. Only the cub seemedalive, whimpering in the wet bottom of the shell until the woman untiedher. At length Kalus rose, to apologize with broken heart for killingthem all.

  But the words were never spoken. Somehow the boat had turned about, andno longer faced southward. For a time he wasn't sure, afraid of sometrick..... Yes! If the vessel moved at all it was north and a littleeast. They had missed the southwest facet of the Island, but if theypaddled with strength and good hope, perhaps they might still affect alanding on its more easterly shores. He was no sailor: he had neitherthe skill nor the vessel for sailing. But strength still lived in hisarms, and fires still burned in his heart. He turned to Sylviana.

  'Have you any strength left?' he asked her. 'The current nolonger bears us ill, but I think we must still approach the Island onour own.'

  'I'm exhausted, Kalus. I feel half drowned..... Can I rest awhile first?'

  'Yes. If you can steer just a little, I will try to row for both ofus.' The woman-child set her paddle listlessly in the water, steeringwith it as best she could, until pride and returning stamina enjoinedher to paddle on her own.

  They continued on in this way for several hours, resting at intervals,gradually, so gradually drawing nearer the rocky shoals of the greatisland. Kalus now began to search for a less dangerous strip of beach,confident that if such could be found, by hook or by crook they wouldreach it, and effect some kind of landing.

  So engrossed was he in searching the coast. . .that for a long while hedid not notice the great fin that had risen to starboard, and began toparallel their course at a distance neither great nor small, cunningwith the patience of a predator. It was not until it turned and beganto bore in on them, as the girl caught her breath and froze in terror,that he saw it.

  But once seen there was no forgetting. Black and straight as an ebonkeel, it cut through the swells with effortless grace, a torpedoing,half-defined shadow beneath it. No small, Child-bearing female this,but a magnificent bull fully thirty feet long, its knifing dorsal astall as a man.

  And then the blackened knife, like a periscope, sank beneath the levelof the waves, and did not reappear. Kalus unfastened his spear, movedforward and stood up in the bow---awed, but fiercely determined todefend his own. All was quiet and still.

  Then suddenly (or so it seemed, for the motion was not performed inhaste) a great head appeared in front of them, rising perpendicular outof the water, lightly touched by the lapping swells. Above patches ofwhite, dark eyes studied them darkly. The orca seemed to be askinghimself, almost casually, were they worth the trouble? Aboard thesuddenly diminished craft, the cub set loose a peal of frightenedbarking, while Kalus showed the whale clearly the point of his spear.

  Without haste the creature returned to a swimming posture, and with arough spout somewhere between laughter and a sneer, began a last,intimidating circle---though whether it intended to attack was notclear, since it drew no closer.

  Then to the bewilderment of the company another, smaller fin appeared,as if to join in the kill. But it was not so. Coming between the bulland the tiny ship, the female nudged him almost angrily, then butted himoutright in the side. The male at last relented. The two swam off,leaving behind them a riddle that only seemed complicated, because ofits simplicity.

  Perhaps nowhere else in Nature was the difference between male andfemale more pronounced, or more in harmony with their world. They werea mated pair: the bull nearly twice her size, aggressive andindomitable. And the female: more subtle, more compassionate (if thatis the right word), strong and sure enough to act on both convictions.Either one alone could be powerful and self-sufficient. Together,nothing could withstand them, true champions of the Sea.

  It was Sylviana who spoke first, feeling more acutely the need to talkthat comes after tension and danger. Kalus, conversely, remained withhis jaw set, trembling and pale, but with the spear clasped firmly inhis hand. He did not at first seem to hear her.

  'I was never so scared in my life,' she said. No reply.'Kalus?'

  He turned to her, not seeming to know who she was, then answered withhalf his attention, perhaps a bit coldly. 'Not even before the giantspider?'

  .. 'No. Not really. Then I didn't believe what washappening..... Are you all right?' At last his eyes and mindfocused, and he too felt the need.

  'I have been better. How many shocks am I supposed to be able toface in one day? I feel I've lived a year in just the
se fewhours.' He released a sigh, almost a groan, laying aside for a timehis resolve to keep an emotional distance from her. . .until shedecided. 'I'm sorry for what I said about the spider. It wasthoughtless.'

  'It's all right. You're allowed to be human, you know.'

  >From the tone more than her words, Kalus knew that he had stung her, and that she did not quite forgive him. Again he felt that she was holding him responsible for the harshness of his world, as if it were somehow his fault. Again the chasm opened between them, and now he was too tired to fight it. Imperceptibly he shook his head, breathed out, and returned his attention to the shoreline.

  *

  They were now less than a mile out, and the half-forgotten, ruinouslandscape once more absorbed them.

  All was flat on a large scale, and crumpled on a small: hard, bitterrock like cubes set on edge, careening madly this way and that. Withinits valleys were patches of earth, green with grass and weeds, puncturedever and again by corroded girders and iron masonry-bars, to which clungbits of ornamental stone and naked, crumbling concrete. Trees werescarce and never large, their greatest numbers clustered in isolatedpatches a short distance from the coast, which seemed to have receivedthe largest deposits of earth.

  Sylviana easily saw what she had always known, that the skyline ofManhattan had been built upon solid bedrock. For this reason alone hadthe Island survived at all, blasted as it must have been by successivenuclear explosions. And with this she realized suddenly where thedeposits of earth had come from. Besides the fact that the continentalcoast had been ravaged..... Long Island was gone! Just GONE. Nothingbut ocean stretched eastward as far as the eye could see.

  And this made her see, vividly, what she had hitherto thought of andimagined as little as possible. While her father had whisked her awayand put her to sleep, like an enchanted princess, in the CanadianRockies, an entire world had been pounded and burned to death. And theremote, less habited places of the globe had been no better off, theirchildren, both man and animal alike, left to die and distort in theslower ravages of radiation poisoning. She did not even know how herfather had protected her from the fallout, or indeed, if he had beenable. Horrible thought! Would she one day die of cancer, too?

  The only comfort, and it wasn't much, was that it had all happened solong ago: that the hurts had long since been healed. But what was Time,really? Had the Island forgotten? The grim hunks of marble, were theynot tombstones, the remains of a pillaged graveyard? Were the gnarledtrees not alive with the ghosts of the past? She could not elude thepain, or the bludgeoning sense of complicit guilt.

  Had he wanted to, Kalus could have torn her apart in those momentsmerely by pointing, as if to say. 'Is this the humanity you mock mewith? Is this the world and way of life I should mourn?' But he saidnothing because he, too, seeing her spirit crushed so completely, feltthrough her the reality and pain of the score of books she had read tohim, and realized that every book ever written was but a grain of sandin the vast desert of human struggles and emotions. Six billionintelligent beings at once sharing the globe. . .and then this. Hewanted to wrap her in his arms, and shield her forever from the horror.But he could not. 'I wish this day would end,' was the best hecould manage.

  But the day would not end. For good or ill, there remained yet one morescene for them to witness. And this, a vision of the inextinguishablenature of life, was in that hour both a joy and an indescribable sadnessto behold. As the boat rounded a high promontory, a hidden inlet wasrevealed to them. Sylviana gasped, and Kalus lifted his spear in alarm.But there was no danger. No physical danger at least.

  Thirty-three naked human forms sat, or stood, or lay placidly like sealsamong the rocks and mossy earth of a steep embankment, with the ruins ofthe United Nations building standing in broken silhouette behind them.And before them, in the deep and still waters of the inlet, a dozen finsand sleek backs rested peacefully while others moved, as if on guard,among the waters farther out. It was impossible that the whales, atleast, should be unaware of their slowly logging craft; but apparentlysome understanding had been reached. The guards came no closer, and theChildren showed no fear.

  And children they truly were: none exceeded the age of sixteen. Theirbodies had no hair, only the scruffy heads and thick eyebrows, thestraggle of mane down neck and spine---all curly blond and brown. Theircream-colored skin was smooth and tough, and the eyes of all resembledmore closely the eyes of a statue than any human's. Indeed, theirvery placidness was almost cold, animal in its indifference. Uponcloser inspection an abnormality of the hands and feet could be seen.The fingers were long, bony and webbed, like the sea-creatures theywere, the feet slightly longer and similarly arrayed.

  But in the face of all contradictory evidence, Sylviana clung withsudden conviction to the belief (perhaps unfounded) that inside themremained some spark of humanity, and a soul that might somehow bewakened.

  But who would wake it? They had tarried here in their winter home longenough, and must soon return to the seal rich waters of the North.Perhaps they would return again in autumn; perhaps they would moveon. Though she could not have known this, Sylviana hung her head inunknown harmony.

  *

  At last as the day wore thin, they reached a tenable stretch of beach,and in the failing light safely landed the water-soaked craft. Thesmallish waves could not overturn its heavy bulk, which now served them.They dragged it as far ashore as they could, which wasn't far, andlit a fire to replace the sunken sun. There in the lee of a group ofrocks they huddled together and slept in the sand, unable yet to thinkof tomorrow.

  They slept, and dreamed, in sorrow.

  Chapter 37

  The next day brought unexpected hope. As the sun rose, dazzling, acrossthe vast Atlantic, one of its urchins stood up among the wave-ends andstepped cautiously ashore.

  Alerted by the sixth sense that every hill-man must possess, Kalusopened his eyes and remained perfectly still. There in the clear lightof morning, he witnessed a scene that recalled to him the simple act ofkindness that had changed his life forever. Quietly he woke the girl,knowing that she needed this sight as much as he. Silently, togetherthey watched, touched by the eternal resilience of life, where nothingis new under the sun, and every sunrise is the first for some newborncreature.

  A small boy, perhaps four, stood close to the water's edge, holdingsomething in his hand. The cub, having woken before them, remained inher alert, quizzical posture, a short distance from him up the sandyincline. As the boy took a few steps nearer she stood up, but did notbark or growl. Perhaps it was because they were of a kind, andunderstood each other without the dimness of fear. Or perhaps becausethey felt the simple affinity which all young creatures share, not yethardened and made cruel by their elders and their world.

  The Child continued to advance, glancing sidelong at the others: awareof their presence, but intent upon his mission. At last only a few feetseparated boy and wolf. Squatting, he put the partly eaten fish in thesand in front of her, and took a step back. The pup came closer,sniffed at it briefly, then began to eat. Her tail wagged in childishcontentment.

  And then the miracle occurred. The Child laughed, throwing his arms upto the sky. If he had known the word ?hooray', he would certainlyhave used it.

  Such sweet music! Sylviana thought her heart would break for it, andKalus remembered for the first time without bitterness, the smile andtrust of young Shama.

  The girl sat up; she couldn't help herself. At once the childsprinted back to the sea, diving into the waters as naturally as a newlyhatched sea turtle, thinking no more of the ensuing swim than a birdthinks of flight. A short distance out an impatient, affectionate orcarose between his waiting legs, and carried him home on her back.Sylviana watched in weary peace, with dreamy eyes thinking how sweet itmight be to one day have a child of her own. Until something in theemptiness of the beach arrested her.

  'Kalus, the boat. It's gone!'

  And so it was. He rose beside her
, and pointed to a spot on thenortheast horizon. There, riding ever lower in the waves, floated thecraft he had so agonizingly constructed. She was appalled by hisapparent calmness.

  'You've got to DO something. You've got to swim out and getit.' But he only shook his head, clearing his eyes with the back ofhis wrist.

  'Would you have me drowned for a piece of wood?'

  'But how can you be so indifferent?'

  'I am not indifferent, if only for the pains it cost me. But I havenot yet given up hope that the boat will return to us. The tide took itout, perhaps the waves will bring it back farther north. And if it islost, I think I can now construct a better one, more worthy of ourtrust.'

  'But you worked so hard to bring us here.'

  'Yes,' he said. 'I raged at both the sea and wind, cursingthem and calling them demons. Then, when I surrendered in despair,something pulled us through, and gave us another chance. We are far outon this limb, Sylviana. We must believe in something. I will trust inthe Tao that I have found, and which in all my life, has never fullybetrayed me.'

  But now he drew back. His eyes grew hazy, and far less confident. Hepaused as if in fear, for all his resolve, at the words he must now sayto her.