Islands in the Sky

6.13

Sema waited, kneeling against the ship’s rail, looking at the woodcutters for no particular reason. Looking, while thinking about choices and decisions and what was soon going happen.

She was looking at the woodcutters, and lost in her thoughts. She was looking, but not really seeing them, half-watching as they got ready to fight.

They were getting ready to fight, just as she was, and Sema was glad they were. Everyone needed to fight. She needed to fight. She understood that now.

They were all going to fight, but Sema was going to fight first. The woodcutters were too far away. They were halfway down the ship, getting ready in the wrong place.

Sema suddenly wondered if they realized that.

She wasn’t sure they did.

The woodcutters were in the wrong place. At least, Sema thought they were in the wrong place. She wasn’t completely sure, but she thought they were.

She thought about it carefully, trying to decide.

She thought she was right. While kneeling there, she had been glancing over the rail every so often, keeping an eye on the island-ship’s course, and keeping track of the woodcutting ship’s too, watching both with some care.

She had been watching because she was still thinking of both ships’ courses being imaginary lines in the sky, because by doing so, she could think about where each ship was, and also where it was soon going to be. She could look backwards, and remember where each ship had been, and how long ago, and then use that memory to work out how far and fast each ship was moving forwards, and where it would go in the next little while.

Thinking about it that way, as two ships sailing along imaginary lines, she could see that both lines, both courses, were mostly side-by-side, but that both lines were growing closer, little by little.

Soon, the lines would meet, which made her fairly sure the two ships would soon collide.

She wasn’t certain. She didn’t know for sure. Each ship shifted in its course a little, shifting back and forth gently on its imaginary line. Each swayed as it caught the wind, and then swayed back again as tillers were moved as the sailors corrected their steering. Each ship’s captain probably had a plan, too, and tricks to use, which they would use when they were ready. All of that made it complicated to guess what would happen for certain, so Sema wasn’t completely sure, but it looked to her as if the two ships would collide soon, in the next few minutes, and that when they did the island-ship would be every so slightly ahead.

The island-ship would be ahead, and so the woodcutting ship would run headfirst into the island-ship’s side, meaning the woodcutting ship would hit with its front.

Its front, where Sema was waiting.

Where Sema was waiting on her own, with only a knife to protect herself, and where ten people with spears and swords from the island-ship would then try to get on board.