But at the last minute before sunset the red ball of the sun had slipped under the clouds and now exploded over the mountainous horizon in a last warming burst of affection.
He knew it was out there. You had to be patient, that was all, and meet the vast open spaces on their own terms. Even so, they might play you false all day, all month, all year, forever . . . but eventually, if you were patient and played straight with them and bided your time, they'd come through.
And then he saw it—sensed it, rather—a ripple on the horizon coming toward him fast and strong, and he saw that he'd been right to stay with it, right to wait while all the others gave up and left.
Been right to go out far, farther than any of them, farther than all the waves broke, and then it was humping up like the back of a gray whale, sliding up out of the ocean toward him, stretching from point to land's end. It was a little wider at the crest now as it heaved up behind him, but it wasn't going to break early—it was going to be a good wave, a great wave.
A perfect wave.
He got to his knees on the board and bent forward and then, just at the right moment, he clawed furiously at the water. He was in such good position that he only had to paddle once. Then he felt himself being lifted up, up, in the palm of a green-gray-black God.
Up . . . and then he was on his feet, knees bent, arms outstretched for balance, sliding down the crest, hearing the thunder-wall behind him, hearing the shriek of air as the curl—big as a subway tunnel, it was!—overtook him and he settled in under the roiling foam.
He braced himself hard against it so the wind howling out of that cavern wouldn't blow him off the board, stayed upright despite the fact that it tore and screamed at him, a friction generating a heat he could almost feel through his wetsuit. A charring, raging, surging heat as he bent his knees and slid into the atmosphere.
Beginning to glow . . . seeing the ladder beginning to glow beneath his feet and his suit glowing too, in spite of the water turning a cherry red, and the air wave was upon him, suffocating him, tearing at him. But it didn't tear him down, even though he saw he wasn't going to make it—wasn't going to get out of the curl.
And even, finally, when his face plate cracked from the heat, his smile didn't because the wave was lifting him up, up toward the blue sky, toward the planet, up and over and down and under into the star-flecked, foam-speckled blackness.
Wipeout . . .
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
DARK STAR
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Alan Dean Foster, Dark Star
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