CHAPTER 24
The boat heeled over as the power of the bluefin hit the line. He quickly paid out, keeping tension on the line but not pulling the boat over.
He worked the line forward as the bluefin continued to fight and let it run with the boat.
“Nantucket sleigh ride,” Jason said, grinning as the bluefin pulled the boat into motion.
“Who do you think you are?” Jewel asked with a grin in her voice. “The old man and the sea?”
He had the line directly connected through the upper bulkhead of the boat. But keeping a hand on it he could feel the tingle of the tension, could feel the tuna, but didn’t have to maintain a hard grip on it.
“It’s not quite as difficult,” Jason said.
The school of anchovies had been on the north side of the bay but the tuna headed south. It pulled the boat down the bay as Jason managed the line, paying it out when the fish sounded—meaning when it dived deep—retracting when he could. The bay wasn’t very deep, so the tuna couldn’t sound as well as in the ocean.
The tuna suddenly took a turn to port, circling. The line had been to starboard, so Jason shifted it around to keep it from going under the boat.
“How are you going to land it?” Jewel asked.
“You said the bots could go supersonic, right?” Jason said. “When I get it up to the boat, I’ll bring in a Herman with some flex. It can probably lift it. If not, it can get us both back to shore and get it into a conex.”
“It’ll take a conex,” Jewel said. “Drone estimates it’s at least nine feet. Weight estimate is around a thousand to thirteen hundred pounds.”
“Damn,” Jason said, laughing. “That a record?”
“No,” Jewel said. “Sort of? The record is fifteen hundred on Earth. Nobody has caught one, yet, on Bellerophon, so it would be a Bellerophon record if it was tiny.”
“Got it,” Jason said, grinning. The weather wasn’t bad, the bay was alive with life and he had a massive bluefin on the line. Things could be worse.
After circling the bluefin turned north again. It had dragged the boat halfway down the length of Olzon Island, well into the bay, and now turned back. It was leaning to the island side, though.
Jason could retract the keel. Its main purpose had been for sailing. He was worried about going aground with the deep-sailing keel.
He brought up a console of flexmet and propped his phone on it.
“Bring up what we’ve got of the hydrography,” Jason said. “I don’t want to go running aground.”
He didn’t seem to be headed for any underwater obstructions. But the entire bay wasn’t mapped. There were blank spots since the sonar the boats had been using was only straight down.
“We need to get our hands on some side-scan sonar,” Jason said. It gave a much wider view of hydrography.
“None available for sale,” Jewel said. “People might have had a sonar set sitting around that they intended to install on a boat any day now. But apparently nobody just had a side-scan sonar sitting around. Silly humans.”
“Can we make them?” Jason asked.
“You can make practically anything you can dream up,” Jewel said. “As soon as we have facilities up and going to make it.”
The tuna was now headed for the northern pass and Jason wasn’t liking that one bit.
“It looks as if you’re going out to sea,” Jewel said uncomfortably. “Do you wish for me to call in a Herman? It can probably get it to the surface and finish this.”
“Nope,” Jason said. He opened up his personal case and extracted some wet-weather gear. Putting it on while ensuring the fish didn’t escape wasn’t easy but he’d done weirder things.
As they entered the pass the waves built up into mounds and water shipped over the side. Jason formed a rudder, again, and ensured the boat always headed into the waves, working the line at the same time. It was mental gymnastics but he accomplished it.
The strongly running tide combined with the massive waves of the Pallas as well as the bottom profile was creating short-period, steep, standing waves. Jason had to continuously let out on the line, giving the fish more slack, as the front of the boat was threatened with being pulled under.
After a near ditching, he reshaped the boat, creating a top deck that would cascade the water as well as making it longer and narrower, similar to a very large sea kayak. The narrowness made shipping water more likely but he was now in a cockpit with a shield in the front. The waves now cascaded over the bow, running down the top deck to the point the boat was more of a shallow submarine, then cascading over the sides and around the shield in front of Jason.
“This is officially an aqueous experience,” Jason said as salt water splashed his face. He had his feet braced and the shield went down deeper so that if he slid forward the flexmet deck wouldn’t cut into his chest. He was now pointed west, passing through the north pass and into the Beringia Sea. Not to his surprise he could see dark clouds building in the distance.
“Looks like rain, again,” Jason said.
“This is not safe, Jason,” Jewel pointed out. “There are a variety of ways that you could drown doing this. Not to mention the local water temperature is low enough there is a real possibility that if you end up in the water you could die of hypothermia before you were rescued.”
“Life isn’t about ‘safe,’ Jewel,” Jason said. “For some people it is. Sure. But life is about doing. About being and seeing. And when you’re me, life is about adventure. Worse comes to worse, I cut the fish loose, hoist a sail and sail back. Or bring in a Herman or an Alfred.”
He looked out at the rolling waves of the Beringia and shrugged.
“Or, what the hell, just keep sailing,” Jason said. “Though I’d need more supplies. Flying around on ships is cool. But to sail this in a sea kayak? That’s adventure.”
“Why’d I get the crazy one?” Jewel asked.
The fish was tiring and Jason brought in some line. As the bottom deepened the fish dove, coming back toward the boat. Jason kept tension on the line, bringing it in closer and using the rudder to adjust the boat to keep the fish from coming under the boat. That wasn’t enough and he realized he could simply move the line across the bottom of the boat.
Flex made everything too easy.
He continued to bring the fish in, slowly, pulling up ever so gently as it spiraled under the boat. It suddenly tugged, again, and he let it run. Then it started circling again. Lather, rinse, repeat. It would run then circle then run again. He counted five times. But it was clearly tiring.
They were bobbing in the Beringia for sure now, and Jason also kept one eye on the rocks to the east. They were uncomfortably close to the windward side of Olzon Island and that was one hazard he’d prefer to avoid. But adventure didn’t come from playing it safe.
The tuna turned and ran out to sea and Jason let it, narrowing the boat, and making it as hydrodynamic as possible. The further they were from the rocks the better in his estimation.
He continued to occasionally pull in on the line, bringing the fish closer and closer to the surface. He could see it through the clear water about thirty feet deep. The fish could also see the boat and made a sudden, short run. It was about played out.
“Okay,” Jason said. “Call in one of the Hermans. Subsonic if you please.”
The Herman showed up right on time as Jason was bringing the massive fish up to the boat. He’d returned it to the open longboat style since the fish was no longer causing him to ship water. The waves were high but not so high that they splashed over the bulwarks.
“What’s the best way for him to lift this?” Jason asked. “And how are we going to kill it?”
“He can pick it up with a tractor beam,” Jewel said. “A tractor beam to the head should kill it. And it’s the best way to lift it.”
“Okay,” Jason said, stepping back. “Tractor to the head, please.”
Herman applied a tractor beam to the head of the fish and it was still. Then he lifted it out of the water.
“Damn,” Jason said. “That’s a big fish.”
“Do you want Herman to help you get back?” Jewel asked hopefully. “He could pick up both you and the boat as well as the tuna.”
“I’ll sail back,” Jason said, bracing himself on the side of the rocking longboat. “Have him get that back to one of the conexes on Olzon. Then back to work.”
“All right,” Jewel said doubtfully.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Jason said, taking a seat and reshaping the boat.
He chose the deep-keel racing sailboat with the addition of a top deck. With the keel well down and a sail up, the rocking reduced and he caught the fair wind from the sea back toward the pass.
As he was entering the pass, still dealing with standing waves crashing over the bow and the tiny sailboat going from jumps in the air to burying itself in the waves, a squall hit with rain coming down in sheets and the wind kicked up to a gale.
“This!” Jason shouted as the wind and waves pounded the small craft and he trimmed the sails to keep from being entirely drowned. “This is what life’s all about!”
“Why did I have to draw the crazy one . . . ?”
* * *
Jason looked at the rock outcrop and rubbed his chin.
He’d been exploring Olzon Island on foot while the salmon camp was being built. Most of the game had, deliberately, been cleared off. If he needed to scratch the hunting urge, he could go to the mainland.
But he’d gotten interested in rock. If he was going to eventually build a house on the planet, and he intended to, he was going to need rock. There was at present no tile industry and rock had numerous uses.
There were also numerous types of rock. There was no limestone on the planet for all practical purposes, nor its metamorphic-child: marble. But there were other useful types of rock. And it turned out Olzon Island had a small outcrop of soapstone.
Soapstone was one of those construction stones people didn’t tend to notice. It just was a thing. But soapstone had been used for centuries for everything from decorative jewelry to building temples. It was solid but easy to carve and nonporous so it held water. Or shed it, as the case may be.
Very useful stuff.
The outcrop was more of a boulder, displaced from somewhere else. The area might have been subject to catastrophic floods or glaciation at one point; there were signs of what could be either. Whatever the case, it showed soapstone had formed on the planet. And that was good.
Jason cut off a chunk of the material with flex—it went through like butter—and put it in his backpack. He’d work with it when he got back to camp.
* * *
The soapstone was easy to work with flex. He wasn’t much of a carver but he worked, by evening carving it into what might kindly be described as a duck.
“It’s a . . . ” Jewel said politely. “Frog?”
“Duck,” Jason said, tossing the carving aside. “Carving is not my strong suit . . . ”
* * *
Jason picked at a duck he’d simply named Darn Good Duck for the taste and looked out over the water of Wilson Bay.
He’d spent two weeks fishing, hunting and exploring the area, using the sailboat to move around the bay. He hadn’t ventured back into the ocean again and had used the bots, primarily, to catch the tuna that continued to follow the anchovy run. That was falling off, though, as was the tuna run. There was still plenty to fish in the bay.
The tidal wave of migrating birds had also fallen off but the duck and geese hunting in the delta remained. Many of the birds made the delta their home. He’d started to sort them out and name the ones which remained unnamed.
A huge number of rock legends, and even obscure, were going to have names associated with wildfowl.
Duncan had figured out how to make a pump from flexmet. It wasn’t particularly hard as it turned out. Together with a heating element, Jason now had hot and cold running water for his kitchen and a shower and toilet.
Life was practically civilized. Seafood was moving on a daily basis from the bay. The main seafood being lifted was already salmon which were becoming much more frequent in the bay. It was a good sign there’d be a midsummer run. The salmon harvesting area was finished, the bots were back in the bay and, frankly, things were getting a bit boring.
“There are salmon moving up Jagger Creek,” Jewel said.
“Really?” Jason replied. He dropped the duck, wiped his hands off then grabbed his .30-06 and hat. Jagger Creek was the stream right beside the encampment.
He went through the seaside gate to the kraal then swung north to the stream. He and the bots had already cleared a path to it. It was raining and there was a fair amount of mud but the path was fairly clear.
When he got there, Jagger Creek was boiling with a mass of salmon swimming up the stream.
He walked up the hill, following them. There were several cataracts on the stream as it cascaded down the steep hills. Salmon were jumping in all of them. He followed them to the shallow upland streams where they were already beginning their mating rituals.
“That means there’s going to be a shit-ton of salmon going upriver,” Jason said, shaking his head. If this stream was this packed . . .
It was midafternoon. He’d just finished lunch when he left the camp. He looked up at the sky. More rain was forecast.
“Should we begin the salmon harvest?” Jewel asked.
“Not yet,” Jason said. “I want to be there.”
They’d been discussing theories of how to do it for most of the two weeks. But theory and empirical never exactly meshed.
“We’ll leave tomorrow morning, rain or shine,” Jason said, walking downstream to one of the cataracts. “Get me Tim if he’s available. Do the feed from the glasses.”
Tim came on a few seconds later.
“Check it out,” Jason said, grinning. “Salmon.”
“That’s a lot of salmon,” Tim admitted. “Just the stuff we’ve been getting from the bay is selling well. And that’s one stream?”
“The one by the camp,” Jason said. “The island camp. I haven’t checked the river yet.”
“View from the river,” Jewel said.
In the drone view it was apparent there were fish in the river, and all through the delta.
“I’m going to head up there tomorrow morning,” Jason said. “Rain or shine. But we need containers.”
“Maddie,” Tim said. “Based on this stream, all other things being equal . . . ”
“Depends on the length of the run,” Maddie said. “Based purely on Earth runs of Atlantic salmon . . . If the run lasts for two weeks, which is short, you’re going to need more than a thousand conexes filled with cases.”
“I’ll get with Larry,” Tim said. “There are only a couple of the thousand packs that have gotten past the problem with units. They’re also just sitting there so Larry said we could get a good rate . . . We’ll try to schedule a drop for tomorrow morning. Dawn work?”
“Dawn works,” Jason said.
“This is going to make serious bank,” Tim said, grinning. “The stuff from the bay is selling like hotcakes. We’re probably going to overwhelm the market.”
“Discuss how much of it to ship and how much to store later,” Jason said. “This is going to be fun.”
“Out here.”
“If he’s dropping at dawn tomorrow, you either have to go up there tonight or get up very early tomorrow,” Jewel said. “I suggest you go up there tonight.”
“No housing,” Jason said. It was not that he would miss his hot shower. It was just that there weren’t even conexes at the site yet. They’d added a few items, though.
A spiked kraal had been added around the entire facility. The bots and drones worked night and day, stopping only to recharge. Drones could lift the thin wood railings that were interwoven on the kraal and even the lighter of the spiked poles. That left the Alfreds with the task of digging the holes and setting the posts. An Alfred could carry fifty posts at a time and set each of them in seconds. It had only taken a day. Another job that was going to put a lot of humans out of business.
“There’s housing,” Jewel said. “Of a sort. You can sleep in the sawmill if nothing else. And Herman can take you up there in the air-car so you don’t have to get wet. You know you’re not a morning person.”
Jason hadn’t been up to the fish camp since it had started, relying on drone footage since it would require a bot to get up there. He really should check it out first.
“Okay,” Jason said. “Make it so. Get everything packed and ready to go while I pick my way down to the camp.”
It took him about forty-five minutes to make his way back to camp, by which time everything was packed and the “air-car” had been formed.
Someone had had a windshield for a 1960s Corvette Stingray sitting around in their “stuff.” Combine that with flexmet and either an Alfred or a Herman, a couple of car windows for a view out the side, and you had a flying car. One whose windshield was rated for up to 150 miles per hour.
He had the glass added to one of the regular drops that were occurring in the bay and now had transportation that could be used, comfortably, in the rain. No heat or A/C, but it was still the lap of luxury compared to walking or the air-bike in the rain.
Jason climbed into the air-car and gratefully set his soaked jacket to the side, along with the Savage, and tossed his battered hat onto the pile.
“I’m not even going to try to drive this thing,” Jason said. “Ferrell River salmon camp.”
The aerodynamic car lifted into the air and they set off across the bay. It was using one of the Alfreds for power and Herman had all the gear in a separate teardrop-shaped flexmet pod.
“How fast?” Jewel asked.
“Thousand feet AGL,” Jason said, referring to “Above Ground Level.” “One hundred miles per hour.”
The air-car pointed to the sky and accelerated, leveling off at a thousand feet, then screamed toward the salmon camp. The level off was slight negative G. Jason had automatically put in a safety harness so he stayed in his seat. And didn’t lose his gorge.
“Figure I can use the flexmet for a hammock,” Jason said thoughtfully. The terrain below was flying past and the car lifted, again, to pass over the range of interior hills.
“That . . . will work,” Jewel said, a note of amusement in her voice.
“What’s so funny?” Jason asked.
“You’ll see,” Jewel said.
As they neared the camp the car decelerated and swung around to the river, turned in a graceful bank, flew in slowly over the dock and the sawmill and settled gently on a wooden landing pad next to a small house on the hill overlooking the encampment.
And that was what it was. A small, wooden Bavarian-style house with a shake roof, doors, windows, shutters, chimneys, the whole thing. Some of it was elaborately carved.
Someone was being sneaky . . .