Stress Pattern by Neal Barrett Jr

Author:Neal Barrett, Jr. [Neal, Barrett Jr.,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2012-12-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I couldn't have been more delighted.

It was a light, easy rain like a spring shower on Earth. Just enough to bring a clean smell to the air and a quiet drumming on the roof. The mat Sterzet had given me was reinforced with bamboo thatching, and I listened to the drops rustle dry leaves until the sound lulled me back to sleep.

When I woke again it was still an hour before dawn. The rain was coming down harder and there was a steady rumble of thunder in the distance. Occasionally, sheet lightning lit the grove.

The temperature had dropped several degrees, and I recalled days at the university when a good storm would coincide with weekends at home. I pictured my fireplace crackling, thunder shaking the windows. Flames would send yellow shadows across the high bookcases that lined the walls, and there would be good music on the tapes, and a drink in hand. And if it was a particularly fine weekend, there would be a pleasant companion on hand to share the rain, the music, and whatever other joys we might devise.

Now, though, there was none of that. And no prospect of such delights. The rain only served as a wet reminder.

A cold jet of water jolted me abruptly back to this particular world. I moved aside, groped about trying to fix whatever had gone wrong, and worsened the matter considerably. The jet was now a stream. In moments, the stream was a deluge, and it was wetter inside the hut than out.

I jerked my spare matting off the floor before it soaked up any more water and wrapped it over my head and hunched out of the hut. There was nothing left for me there. My home was a disaster area.

The full force of the rain nearly beat me to the ground. This was no longer a spring shower, or anything of the sort. I stood there inanely, holding my wet mat over my head, and wondered where in the hell I thought I was going. Drop by the neighbors? A friendly tavern?

Still, a man does not simply stand in the rain. He runs away from where he has been and toward something else. A flash of lightning gave me direction. I lowered my head and followed the path I'd worn to the edge of the grove. I huddled there and squinted out at the flatlands.

Quick flashes told me there was a shallow sea beyond the grove. The rain was pelting the earth with such force that a solid veil of whiteness rose from the ground. I wondered how the Ghroals were enjoying the weather.

My feet were slowly numbing and I looked down and saw the water was just past my ankles. For a while, I raised one foot out of the water, lowered it, and raised the other—then realized this idiocy would not keep me dry.

It was a first-class storm, and there was nothing else for it. But—should the water be rising that fast? It hadn't been raining all that long, really.

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