Robert Charles Wilson - Darwinia: A Novel of a Very Different Twentieth Century

Robert Charles Wilson, 1998

Guilford did not wholly trust the boats.

Preston Finch had commissioned and named them: the Perspicacity , the Orinoco , the Camille (after Finchs late wife), and the Ararat . The motors were prototypes, small but powerful, screws protected from rocks by the skags and the engine compartments from high water by a series of canvas shields. The boats would do well enough, Guilford thought, if the Rhine remained relatively placid as far as Lake Constance. But they would be worse than useless against white water. And their advantage in weight was offset by the need to pack jerricans of gasoline, a stiff load to portage and a waste of potentially useful space.

But the boats would be cached at the Bodensee and would function more than adequately on the return trip, stripped of motors and absent gasoline, with the river Current to carry them. And they worked satisfactorily the first day out, though the noise of the engines was deafening and the stink of exhaust obnoxious. Guilford enjoyed being close to the water rather than riding above it to be a part of the river, resisted by its flow and rocked by its eddies, a small thing in a large land. The rain passed, the day brightened, and the gorge walls were gaudy with vine-like growths and capped with gnarled pagoda trees. Surely we have outpaced Erasmus and his snakes , Guilford thought, and Erasmus might be the only other human being within a hundred square miles, barring a few vagrant Partisans. The land owns us now , Guilford thought. The land, the water, the air.

Camp where a nameless creek enters the Rhine. Pool of calm water, Keck fishing for thorn and blue maddies. Miniature sage-pine among the rocks, foliage almost turquoise, dwarfed by winds & a rocky soil.

Postscriptum. The fish are abundant & will make a palatable evening meal, though Diggs proclaims his martyrdom as he cleans them. Offal goes into the river billyflies chase it downstream. (The billyflies will bite if provoked; we sleep under mosquito netting tonight. Other insects not especially common or venomous, although a crablike creature made off with one of Kecks fish nabbed it from a wetrock & scuttled into the water with it! Claws like a lobster, Keck says cheerfully. Count your toes, gentlemen!)

The next day they were forced to portage a rocky rapids, a grim task without pack animals. The boats were muscled ashore and the route surveyed; fortunately the pebbled river margin remained fairly broad and there was a ready supply of driftwood dry, hollow flute logs that had been tumbled against the gorge wall by spring floods to serve as makeshift rollers. But the portage exhausted everyone and wasted a day; by sundown Guilford was only just able to drag his aching bones under the mosquito netting and sleep.

In the morning he loaded and helped launch the Perspicacity , alongside Sullivan, Gillvany, and Tom Compton. Perspicacity was last in the water; by the time they reached mid-river the lead boat, Finchs Ararat , was already out of sight beyond the next bend. The river ran fast and shallow here and Guilford sat foremost watching for rocks, ready with an oar to steer the keel away from obstacles.

They were making steady progress against the current when the motor coughed and died.

The sudden silence startled Guilford. He was able to hear the drone of the Camille , a hundred yards ahead, and the lapping of water, and Sullivan swearing quietly as he pulled back the canvas shield and opened the motor compartment.

Without an engine the Perspicacity slowed at once, balanced between momentum and river current. The Rhine gorge was suddenly static. Only water moved. No one spoke.

Then Tom Compton said, Loose the other oars, Mr. Gillvany. We need to turn and make for shore.

Only a little water in the compartment, Sullivan said. I can restart the motor. I think.

But Tom Gillvany, who did not much care for river travel, nodded uneasily and unhooked the oars.

Guilford used his own oar to bring the boat around. He took a moment to wave at Camille , signaling the problem, and Keck waved back acknowledgment and began to turn. But the Camille was already alarmingly far away. And now the shore had begun to reverse, to slip away. The Rhine had taken control of Perspicacity .

The pebbled beach from which they had launched swept past. Oh, Jesus, Gillvany moaned, paddling hectically. Sullivan, white-faced, abandoned the engine and took up an oar. Make a steady pace, Tom Compton said, his low voice not unlike the rumble of the water. When were close enough Ill snub the boat. Here, give me the bow line.

Guilford thought of the rapids. He supposed everyone in the boat had begun to think of the rapids. He could see them now, a line of white into which the river vanished. The shore seemed no closer.

Steady! the frontiersman barked. Dammit, Gillvany, youre flapping like a fuckin bird! Dig the water!

Gillvany was a small man and chastened by the outburst. He bit his lip and pushed his oar into the river. Guilford worked in silence, arms straining. Sweat drenched his face, a tang of salt when he licked his lips. The day was no longer cool. Darwinian shore birds, like coal-black sparrows, swooped blithely overhead.

The river bottom was jagged now, shark-fin rocks trailing white wakes as Perspicacity neared shore. There was a quick hollow crack from the aft of the boat: Lost a skag, Sullivan said breathlessly. Pull!

The next snap was the screw, Guilford guessed; it sent a grinding shudder through the boat. Gillvany gasped, but no one spoke. The roar of the water was loud.

The shore became a tumble of boulders, close but forbidding, rushing past perilously quickly. Tom Compton swore and grabbed the bow rope, stood and leaped from the boat. He landed crushingly hard on a slick flat-topped rock, rope unwinding like an angry snake beside him as Guilford paddled vainly against the current. The frontiersman righted himself hastily and snubbed the rope around a granite spur just as Perspicacity drew it taut. The rope sang and whipped from the water. Guilford braced himself as the boat bucked and twisted wildly toward the rocks. Sullivan fell against the motor block. Gillvany, unprepared, rolled over the starboard side into the wash.

Guilford threw a coil of rope into the water where Gillvany had disappeared, but the entomologist was gone vanished into the quick green water and away, no wake or eddy to mark his passage.

Then Perspicacity struck the rocks and heeled up under the fierce pressure of the Rhine, Guilford clinging to an oarlock with all the strength that was left in him.

Above the unnamed rapids, stranded for two days now. Perspicacity under repair. Skag and screw can be replaced from spares.

Tom Gillvany cannot.

Postscriptum. I did not know Tom Gillvany well. He was a quiet, studious man. According to Dr. Sullivan, a scholar respected in his field. Lost to the river. We searched downstream but could not recover his body. I will remember his shy smile, his sobriety, and his unashamed fascination with the New Continent.

We all mourn his passing. The mood is grim.

A hollow where the Rhine gorge is rocky and steep, a sort of natural cavern, shallow but tall as a church: Cathedral Cavern, Preston Finch has named it. Cairn of stone to honor Dr. Gillvany. Driftwood marker with legend inscribed by Keck with a rock hammer, In Memory of Dr. Thomas Markland Gillvany, and the date.

Postscriptum. Silent as we are, there is not much to hear: the river, the wind (rain has closed us in once more), Diggs humming Rock of Ages as he stokes the fire.

We have been bloodied by this land.

Tomorrow, if all goes well, we launch again. And onward. I miss my wife and child.

Because he could not sleep, Guilford left his tent after midnight and navigated past the embers of the fire to the mouth of the cave, outlined in steely moonlight, where Sullivan sat with a small brass telescope, peering into the night sky. The rain had passed. Mares-tail clouds laced the moon. Most of the sky above the Rhine gorge was bright with stars. Guilford cleared his throat and made a space for himself amidst the rock and sand.