Chapters (12)
The antenna was the second replacement of the voyage, roughed up (again) by surface wind. The flange that secured the ship’s low-altitude antenna was simply a poor design. Another would be procured in the event of a return trip. The siren sounded as the off-load ramp retracted. The Resurrected Mule had been under-the-table add-on freight to make the mission pay. He swam toward the filly’s side of the blowdown while the colt charged the waves on the other side. The filly saw the Mule now and pawed the sand, as a seal cow lowed behind her, blinking with her pup, then flopped to surf where the two submerged. Now the Mule waded through the surf along the blowdown and the filly turned circles, waiting. The whole world could smell her in the squirrelly crosswind, sure sign of a storm coming down the coast, and their nostrils flared with her musky scent. Seagulls flew over. Why not a gull census?
The yeoman was floating in the water now, paddling clumsily, and she never knew if she jumped or fell. Who would miss her on the ship? When the filly and the great Mule touched noses, the colt charged the blowdown in outrage, screamed and tried to crawl over it, but quickly caught one front hoof in the tangle. He yanked at his leg but hooves don’t operate the same in reverse, given their asymmetrical design, as with lobster traps in the time of lobsters. An antennaed monster floated in her mind and she thought she’d invented it.
The yeoman gulped salt as she floated and kicked toward shore. She’d never swum before but caught on quick. The New Mule was huge, thirty hands by the ancient measurement, and he approached the filly, who reached up to nuzzle necks. Epoch on epoch since the Great Mule Die-Off, but the idea of Mule lingered and the colt thrashed and the yeoman hooked elbows on a branch. The hatch clanged shut and the sun was dropping. The surf boiled around the ship’s lift-off vents, engines started, and viewers glanced out as they hurried through their departure checklists, though no one saw the swimmer in the jumpsuit as they rose to the clouds, the antenna turning on the wing. It was working fine now.