Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [127]
“In all fairness, the AI did a fine job. She extracted the trapped leg, got us righted, managed to keep us from smashing up on the rocks, and eventually slowed us right down. Voconia got badly scraped below the waterline, of course, but she didn’t spring a leak. None of the legs actually broke, although a couple suffered the same problem you did—mercifully, I don’t have to stand waist-deep in the water to put the joints back into their sockets, because they’re self-righting.
“All in all, we’re a bit bruised, but we’re all in one piece—including Voconia. Until the next time.”
“The next time?” Matthew queried, blearily.
“There’s one more steep-and-shallow stretch to go. We should get there late this afternoon, if we’re on schedule. After that, it should be easy going all the way to the cataract. That’s when the real work will begin. Hopefully, your arm should be a lot better by then.”
“Should it?” Matthew retorted, skeptically. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”
“It’s okay,” Dulcie assured him. “It’s back in place. The ligaments are a little bit torn but they’ll heal. What you can feel is mostly just soreness. Your IT will take care of everything if you sit still and give it a chance.”
“Not before tomorrow it won’t,” he assured her.
“That’s okay, Matthew,” Lynn said, soothingly. “There’s a motor on the winch. You can press the switches. We’ll do the loading and unloading. The boat fabric’s light and it practically disassembles and reassembles itself—it’s only the cargo that needs much brute strength to move it about. Putting the winch mechanism together is my job anyhow. Do you want to spend the day sulking in bed or sitting on deck?”
“The problem with IT,” Matthew growled, “is that it’s brought about a drastic decline in the scope of human sympathy. I’ve just suffered a fractured skull, a dislocated shoulder, and a knee in the balls, and everyone’s looking at me as if I were some kind of wimp.”
“Your skull isn’t fractured,” Dulcie Gherardesca assured him. “I went through your monitor readings carefully. No cracks, no clots. It’s just an ache.”
“And I’m sorry I tripped over you,” Lynn added. “Personally, I’d take the deck. I wouldn’t want to be in bed when we hit the second stretch of whitewater, just in case Voconia’s limbs haven’t reset as well as yours.”
“But you can have the lower bunk if you want it,” Ike offered.
Matthew gritted his teeth, determined to make it to the deck under his own steam. Mercifully, his legs had only suffered minor bruising. He could walk quite adequately provided that he didn’t let the full weight of his right arm hang down from the shoulder. As soon as he was back on deck, the tide of his troubles began to ebb. Once the smartsuit’s conjunctiva-overlay had taken the edge of the sun’s brightness the light and warmth became comforting, and he found that if he sat sufficiently still his shoulder wasn’t too bothersome. The fact that his IT was still working hard was evident in the disconnected feeling of which Maryanne Hyder had complained, but that was a far cry from the trippy confusion it had visited upon him immediately after his fall.
From the seating tacked on to the side of the cabin Matthew couldn’t look down into the water as he had been enthusiastic to do the day before, nor could he appreciate the details of the vegetation lining both banks, but staring at a blurred purple wall had its compensations. His mind was too fuzzy to allow him to flick his eyes back and forth in search of hidden animals, so he was content to let the foreground fade from consciousness as he looked beyond into the forest through which the river ran.
The boat was traveling swiftly—perhaps a little too swiftly for comfort, given what had happened the night before—so it was easier to focus on