Star Rigger's Way by Jeffrey A. Carver

Author:Jeffrey A. Carver [Carver, Jeffrey A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: ERBAEN0040
Publisher: EReads
Published: 2009-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

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By the time Alyaca met him, he had become so edgy he found himself wishing that Cephean were here to complain and be temperamental.

She apologized for being late as she steered him into the restaurant for lunch. "That office is supposed to be just a front for vacationing, but there's always something coming up anyway. Did you get a good look around the place?"

"Uh-huh." He hesitated. "Do you know how to sail one of those kiteboats?"

"Sort of," she said. "Do you want to take one out?"

He shrugged. "Looks like it could be fun, if you know what you're doing."

"Oh, they're fun even if you don't."

"Does that mean—would you want to do it?"

She nodded with that grin playing at her lips again. Then she changed the subject and got him to order lunch, and they talked throughout the meal. Afterwards they went down to the boathouse and signed out a kiteboat.

The cockpit was just large enough for two people in fairly close quarters. In the vertical position they were riding about a meter and a half above water, with the feeling that nothing was holding them up. The keel-strut which bound them to the submerged tie-anchor unit was completely out of sight from inside the cockpit; and though in fact the keel-strut and tie-anchor held them down rather than up, that fact seemed like a lie when one watched other kiteboats gliding past. The levitators which actually held the boat in the air were mounted beneath the cockpit.

Alyaca got in first and took the front seat. "You can do the piloting," she said.

Carlyle looked up at the kite-sail buffeting over his head, freewheeling on the mast, and he picked up the lines which controlled the dump flaps at the top of the sail. The boat, he knew, was controlled primarily by shifting weight in the cockpit and changing the heel angle of the sail and strut, but the flaps presumably did something, too. He shook his head. "No." He handed the lines to Alyaca. "You drive. And show me how to do it." He couldn't help being embarrassed (a star pilot, afraid to handle a two-meter kiteboat?), but he was sure that he would only capsize them, and that would be a lot more embarrassing.

"All right," she said. "But we have to switch positions." They shifted, Carlyle tensing as she brushed close to him. "Cast us free," she said to the attendant. Before Carlyle had a chance to protest, they were drifting away from the dock. "Remember what I said," she cautioned, "I don't know exactly how to do this. So hang on."

That wasn't quite the way he remembered hearing her say it, but he kept his mouth shut and hung on. The wind shifted suddenly, and the boat pitched backward. "Lean forward!" Alyaca cried. He scrambled up on his seat and leaned out over the bow. Alyaca hunched forward and pulled the flaps, and slowly the boat leveled. The wind surged and pitched them forward, and they both

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