The wind backed into the east in late morning. They could not make much headway and the land was still a dark strip on the horizon. Warren broke off a big piece of wood at the raft corner. He hacked at it with the knife. A Swarmer surfaced nearby and Rosa started her screeching. He hit her and watched the Swarmer, but he never stopped whittling at the wood in his lap. The Swarmer circled once and then turned and swam away to the south.

He finished with the wood. He made a housing for it with the rest of the bark strips. It sat badly at the end of the raft but the broad part dug into the water and by leaning against the top of it he could hold the angle. He got Rosa to hold two blocks of wood against the shaft for leverage and that way the thing worked something like a rudder. The raft turned to the south, toward the land.

Noon passed. Warren fought the wind and the rudder and tried to estimate the distance and the time left. If dark came before they reached the land the current would take them past it and they would never be able to beat back against the wind to find it again. He had been so long away from firm ground that he felt a need for it that was worse than his hunger. The pitch of the deck took the energy out of you day and night, you could not sleep for holding onto the deck when the sea got high, and you would do anything for something solid under you, for just—

Solid.

The message had said solid. Did that mean land?

Gefahrlich gross something something solid.

Gefahrlich had some kind of feel to it, something about bad or dangerous, he thought. Gross was big. Dangerous big blank blank land? Then some Japanese and other things and then scatter portline zero. Scatter. Make to go away?

Warren sweated and thought. Rosa brought him an old piece of Swarmer but he could not eat it. He thought about the words and saw there was some key to them, some beauty in them.

The rudder creaked against the wooden chocks. The land was a speck of brown now and he was pretty sure it was an island. The wind picked up. It was coming on to late afternoon.

Rosa moved around the raft when he did not need her, humming to herself, the Swarmers forgotten, eating from the pieces of meat still left. He did not try to stop her. She was eating out of turn but he needed all his thought now for the problem.

They were coming in on the northern shore. He would bring them in at a graze, to have a look before beaching. The current fought against them, but the plywood was enough to sweep them to the south.

South? What was there about …

WSW. West southwest?

UNS B WSW.

Uns was we in German, he was pretty sure of that. We be WSW? On the WSW part of the land? The island? Or WSW of the island? We—the Skimmers.

He noticed Rosa squatting in the bow of the raft, eager, her weight dipping the boards with the blue-green swell and bringing hissing foam over the planks. It slowed them but she did not seem to see that. He opened his mouth to yell at her and then closed it. If they went slow, he would have more time.

The Skimmers were all he had out here and they had tried to tell him …

Portline. Port was left. A line to the left?

They were coming in from the northeast as near as he could judge. Veering left would take them around and to the southwest. Or WSW.

The island seemed to grow fast now as the sun set behind it. Warren squinted against the glare on the waves. There was something between them and the island. At the top of a wave he strained to see and could make out a darker line against pale sand. White rolls of surf broke on it.

A reef. The island was going to be harder to reach. He would have to bring the raft in easy and search for a passage. Either that or smash up on it and swim the lagoon, if there was no way through the circle of coral around—

Circle stein nongo. He did not know what stein was, something to drink out of or something, but the rest might say don’t go in the circle.

Warren slammed the tiller over full. It groaned and the collar nearly buckled but he held it, throwing his shoulder into it.

Rosa grunted and glared at him. The raft tacked to port. He pulled the twine and brought the plywood farther into the wind.

Small youth schlect uns. The Swarmers were bigger than the Skimmers, but they might mean smaller in some other way. Smaller development? Smaller brain? Schlect uns. Something about us and the Swarmers. If they were younger than the Skimmers, maybe their development was still to come. Something told him that schlect was a word like gefahrlich, but what the difference was he did not know. Swarmers dangerous us? There was nothing in the words to show action, to show who us was. Did us include Warren?

Rosa stumbled toward him. The swell was coming abaft now and she clutched at him for support. “Wha’? Land! Go!”

He rubbed his eyes and focused on her face but it looked different in the waning light. He saw that in all the days they had been together he had never known her. The face was just a face. There had never been enough words between them to make the face into something else. He …

The wind shifted and he shrugged away the distraction and worked the twine. He studied the dark green mass ahead. It was thickly wooded and there were bare patches and a beach. The white curves of breaking surf were clear now. The thick brown reef—

Things moved on the beach.

At first he thought they were driftwood, logs swept in by a storm. Then he saw one move and then another and they were green bodies in the sand. They crawled inland. A few had made it to the line of trees.

Small youth. Young ones who were still developing.

He numbly watched the island draw near. Dimly he felt Rosa pounding on his chest and shoulder. “Steer us in! You hear me? Make this thing—”

“Wha—what?”

“You afraid of the rocks, that it?” She spit out something in Spanish or Portuguese, something angry and full of scorn. Her eyes bulged unnaturally. “No man would—”

“Shut up.” His lips felt thick. They were rushing by the island now, drawn by the fast currents.

“You fool, we’re going to miss.”

“Look … look at it. The Skimmers, they’re telling us not to go there. You’ll see. …”

“See what?”

“The things. On the beach.”

She followed his pointing. She peered at it, shook her head, and said fiercely, “So? Nothing there but logs.”

Warren squinted and saw logs covered with green moss. The surf broke over some of them and they rolled in the swell, looking like they were crawling.

“I … I don’t …” he began.

Rosa shook her head impatiently. “Huh!” She bent down and found a large board that was working loose. Grunting, she pried it up. Warren peered at the beach and saw stubs on the logs, stubs where there had once been fins. They began to work against the sand again. The logs stirred.

“You can stay here and die,” Rosa said clearly. “Me, no.” The reef swept by only meters away. Waves slapped and muttered against its flanks. The gray shelves of coral dipped beneath the water. Its shadowy mass below thinned and a clear sandy spot appeared. A passage. Shallow, but maybe enough …

“Wait …” Warren looked toward the beach again. If he was wrong … The logs had fleshy stubs now that pushed at the sand, crawling up the beach. What he had seen as knotholes were something else. Sores? He strained to see—

Rosa dived into the break in the reef. She hit cleanly and wallowed onto the board. Resolutely she stroked through the water, battling the swells of waves refracted into the opening.

“Wait! I think the Swarmers are—” She could not hear him over the slopping of waves on the reef.