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we get to Annohne and have to hunt for the beacon?" She looked at Peep.
"It is a potentially serious problem," said Peep, looking worried. He
brightened suddenly. "But as you say, it is merely a matter of giving them the
slip, which we can do by being less easily identified as a group. Now, suppose
you went aboard this boat the Kakkol by yourselves, and then after you were
aboard I quietly swam out tsk!" said Peep, interrupting himself crossly.
"What's the matter?" asked Curt.
"I entirely forgot," said Peep, "on this low gravity world the impure hydrogen
dioxide of which the ocean is constituted as on your Earth, young friends is
entirely too light for one of my mass to swim in. I would sink like a stone.
In fact, like a nugget of gold, the relative weight of which my mass more
nearly resembles. I have it!" he cried happily, beaming at them.
"Pretend you're gold?" asked Jim, skeptically.
"Why not?" said Peep, excitedly. "Simply find a chest and a couple of stout
Walats to carry me aboard the ship. To play safe I will even remain in the
chest throughout the voyage."
Jim argued. It was too elaborate a scheme, he thought. Also, he did not think
that merely keeping Peep out of sight would throw their Maureg watchers off
the trail. However, the other three were all in favor and when Ellen pointed
out that he himself had said that he wanted to avoid a possible Walat
challenge to combat, he finally agreed.
Hie next morning dawned dark and stormy. They located a cabinetmaker, bought
an empty chest, and carried it to a conveniently deserted alleyway, where Peep
climbed in. Then Curt went out, scouted up a couple of Walat porters, and with
the porters carrying the chest, they proceeded down to the quay and on board
the Kakkol.
They had just halted on board the Kakkol, when the two porters dropped the
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chest in relief and with a thump upon the deck planks of the ship. -
"Skevamp!" snapped the chest, on a note of irritation. The porters, who were
standing facing them, stared at everyone and every place except at the chest.
"What was that?*' asked one porter suspiciously. Jim had a sudden inspiration.
"Oh, just our pet bundii in the box, here," he said.
The porters stared at him, and then broke into coughing laughter.
"Pet bundii!" sputtered one. "Pet pigs of iron! Break my head if I ever agree
to carry a bundii that heavy again for such a small fee!"
The hint was obvious. Curt got busy paying off the porters.
As Ellen had said, the ship was larger than Llalal's. The passengers had been
given a single large deck cabin, rather than the screen-partitioned areas they
had aboard Llalal's ship. From the open window of that cabin it was evidently
the Quebahrian equivalent of a ship's lounge they watched as the Kakkol was
hand-towed by dock workers down to the end of the quay, and then floated away
on the outgoing tide, while her sails filled, toward the sea.
Joffo was built on the inner curve of a sheltered bay. The bay waters
themselves were only slightly choppy. But when they cleared the mouth of the
bay and found themselves in open water, the boat began to roll violently. Soon
Curt was extremely seasick, Ellen was anything but comfortable, and even Jim
felt a little queasy.
Peep, however, when Jim lifted the chest lid in the privacy of the cabin to
check on the Atakit, proved to be completely unaffected by the motion of the
ship. He lay comfortably on his back with his legs tucked up and his forearms
crossed on his chest to fit into the small space inside the chest.
"Perhaps," he suggested to Jim, "we Atakits are not capable of becoming
seasick. Come to think of it, I have never heard of the malady affecting one
of my race. In any case, this is a golden opportunity for me to try and
approach an actual trance state of meditation, as your Earthly mystics do in
their Eastern lands. This too, to my knowledge, has never been accomplished by
an Atakit before. But, who knows? At the moment I am concentrating on
education, which like responsibility, is one of the wellsprings of
nonviolence."
"Well, if you're all right," said Jim.
"I am eminently all right," replied Peep. "In fact, I am confidently expecting
a revelation at any minute. So, if you will close the lid of the chest, young
friend.... Call me, of course, if you need me for Anything."
*Good luck," said Jim, and closed the lid. Seeing Ellen was in no mood to be
sociable, and Curt had gone on deck, where he was leaning unhappily on the
rail of the ship's side, Jim went out on deck to see if the air would help his
queasiness. Eventually his stomach did settle down and even Curt recovered, so
they returned to the cabin.
Ellen was standing over the chest.
"Jim," said Ellen, in English. "I can't seem to rouse Peep. Is he asleep, or
what?"
Jim waited for the roll of the ship to help him, and then staggered to the
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