"Yup, something like the odd-bods fleet we have here," Jim said, squinting at the way the mainsail was filling with a wind that was more capricious than he liked for the beginning of this bizarre escort duty. "Long time back now, but one of those bright moments in human history when people rise to an almost impossible challenge."

"Oh?" Theo never found Jim Tillek boring, especially when he started yarning. She knew that he had sailed every sea on old Earth and some on the newer colony planets, as well, in between his interstellar voyages as the captain of a drone freighter. Over the past few days she'd had a chance to admire the qualities of a man she'd barely chatted with before. Now, keeping as watchful an eye on their convoy as he did, she listened with pleasure as he warmed to his tale.

"Half an army was pinned down on a beach, strafed by enemy aircraft, and likely all would have been killed there if the small-craft skippers of that era hadn't saved ‘em. Dunkirk, that was the name of the beach they were trapped on, with safety across a channel a mere thirty-four kilometers away."

"Thirty-four klicks?" Theo repeated in surprise, the dark thick arcs of her eyebrows rising. "Anyone could swim that."

Jim grinned at her. "Some athletes did, sort of a rite of passage trial or for the helluvit, but not three hundred thousand troops in full battle gear. And—" He waggled his finger at her. "—no dolphins."

"But dolphins have been around for yonks!"

"Not as we know them, Theo. Let's see, where was I?"

Theo scrunched down on the cockpit seat, grinning at the subtle reprimand. His face had a lot of sun wrinkles, which made him look older, but his body in the tank top and shorts was lean, fit, and tanned. As usual on board, his feet were bare, showing long, prehensile toes. Once or twice she'd seen him hold a line tight with just his toes.

"Ah, yes, the Germanics had three hundred thousand British troops pinned down on the sands of Dunkirk, which was on the European continent, and since the Brits had no wish to spend the rest of their lives in a prisoner-of-war camp, they needed to be evacuated across the channel to their homeland, England."

"How'd they get across the channel in the first place?"

Jim shrugged. He had broad, bony shoulders, and only a sprinkling of hair on his chest, which she preferred to the full pelt she'd seen on so many other men. "Troopships convoyed ‘em over when the hostilities broke out, but those ports were already in the hands of the Germanics. One crucial problem with Dunkirk was that the beach was very shallow for a good distance before it shelved off into deep water. No proper docking or wharves for the big-draft ships to tie up at. Only a long wooden pier, which the Germanics strafed with their warplanes. Men were so desperate that they waded out, swimming the last part to climb up nets put down the sides of the ships to help ‘em board. Then someone had the bright idea of getting all available craft from the island, especially pleasure craft with low drafts, so they could sail further in to the beach to pick up troops. Records have it that even sailing dinghies, no more than three meters long, made the passage successfully. And not just once but time and again until the crews succumbed to exhaustion. But the three hundred thousand men were evacuated. Quite a feat of seamanship and courage."

"It's no thirty-four klicks of a channel we have to navigate, Jim Tillek, but the coastline of half a world," Theo said with some acerbity.

"Yes, but we don't have a war going on around us," Jim said cheerfully.

"We don't?" Theo asked and gestured over her shoulder to the east, signifying the menace of Thread.

"You've got a point there," Jim admitted. "Though it's not a people-shooting war. But I believe in starting every journey with a high heart and in good spirits—and would you send Dart after that fool sloop with the spotted sail? Where do they think they're going? They're to tack right back into position."

He finished his remarks to empty air, for Theo had dived as neatly as her dolphin could over the safety rail and into the water, to be towed swiftly toward the miscreant vessel by Dart.

It was amazing what heights the human spirit could rise to, Jim thought as he did a visual check through his binoculars. Theo and Dart reached their destination, and he could almost hear the blistering reprimand she was issuing. She had her arms over the rim of the craft, gesticulating to leave no doubt in the young skipper's mind as to where he had erred. He watched as she trod water, one hand lightly on the dolphin's melon, while the little craft tacked back in line. When he saw her begin to swim back toward the Cross, Dart skipping alongside her, he put the binoculars down.

Squinting to the fore of the flotilla, he could see the pennon on the mast of the five-meter yawl that had been put at Ezra Keroon's disposal as convoy leader. Ezra hadn't much actual sea experience, but he was a superb navigator through any medium. Jim had himself done the sea charts on this coastline and knew the waters intimately. There were no reefs or unexpected dangers to cause problems for the inexperienced. As long as no ships ventured too far out where the Great Eastern Current could catch them, sea hazards were minimal. Once they got to Key Largo, every one of them would be seasoned enough for the open-water run across both the Great Currents to the safety of Fort.

The coast beyond Sadrid to Boca was not that well known to him, but he was counting on the fishermen at Malay and Sadrid, and on Ju Adjai Benden at Boca, to be familiar with local problems. The sailors at Key Largo Hold had also done a fair bit of charting in their coastal waters. Barring the weather, they should make it, no matter how slowly.

And the weather, he thought, leaning forward to tap the barometer, could be an acute problem. Volcanic eruptions played havoc with weather conditions. There had already been some freak winds, squalls, and higher-than-normal tides, but Kahrain Cove had sheltered them from the worst. They would probably arrive in the North just in time for the ash fallout that was already beginning to filter into the upper air currents to be pushed around the planet. He wondered if the volcanic activity would have any effect on Threadfall. If one had to find some good out of bad, that would be the option he'd pick—if he had one.

Two hours later he had to give the orders for the small craft to land and the bigger ships to hove to and anchor in a cove. Winds were picking up, erratic in direction, and therefore especially dangerous to novice sailors, and so full of ash and grit as to make visibility poor.

If he and Ezra were disappointed by the progress they had made that first day out of Kahrain Cove, they sloughed off queries with any number of logical explanations. No reason to deflate the good morale of the expedition. The early day did give them a chance to check all the cargoes and work on the problem of protecting the ships from Thread. Most of the forty pleasure boats were constructed of fiiberglass, with plastic masts and booms, so decks and hulls were Threadproof. But canvas sails and some varieties of sheets and line were not. Two of the colony's plastics experts had spent their first day afloat designing rigid plastic sail covers that were Threadproof, but they still had to solve the problem of how to protect the people on the smaller craft, some of which did not have enclosed cabin space in which to take shelter. There was also not a sufficient number of breathers to allow passengers to dive under their hulls and remain there during Threadfall.

So that evening, Ezra and Jim had more conferences on that problem, while all around them, the ill-assorted sailors of their convoy gathered around campfires to cook the fish they had caught during the day. But it had been a very busy day, and by nightfall, there were very few who hadn't rolled up early in their sleeping bags.