On Blue's waters

“Maybe. Or maybe just a big island it is. Wijzer, not smart enough you to tell he is. An island, maybe, but big it is. This coast? Better well out you stand.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Two or three towns.” He sketched them in, adding their names in a careful script. “What down for you I put, what I them call it is. Maybe something else you say. Maybe something else they do. Here the big river runs.” Meticulously he blacked it in. “It you got to see, so sharp you got to look. What too big not to see is, what nobody sees it is.”

I told him that I had been thinking the same thing not long before.

“A wise saying it is. Everyplace wise fellows the same things say. This you know?”

“I suppose that they must, although I’d never thought about it.”

“Wise always the same it is. About men, women, children. About boats, food, horses, dogs, everything. Always the same. No birds in the old nest, wise fellows say, and the good cock out of the old bag. A thief, the thief s tracks sees. The meat from the gods it is, the cooks from devils. All those things in towns all over they say. You young fellows laugh, but us old fellows know. The look-out, the little thing always he sees. Almost always, because to see it sharp he must look. The big thing, too big to look out sharp for it is, and nobody it sees.

Dipping his quill for what might have been the tenth time, he divided the river. “The big stream to starboard it is. Yes? Little to port. The little one fast it runs. Hard to sail up. Yes? Just the same, the way you go it is.” He drew an arrow upon the unknown land beside it, and began to sketch in trees beside it.

After a moment I nodded and said, “Yes. I will.”

Wijzer stopped drawing trees and divided the smaller stream. “Same here, the little one you take. A little boat you got?”

“Much smaller than yours,” I told him. “It’s small enough for me to handle alone easily.”

“That’s good. Good! For a good, strong blow you must wait. You see? Then up here you can sail. Close to the shore, you got to stay. Careful always you must be, and the legend not forget. A good watch keep. Here sometimes Pajarocu is.” He added a dot of ink and began lettering the word beside it: PAJAROCU.

“Did you say it was there only sometimes?” I asked.

Wijzer shrugged. “Not a town like this town of yours it is. You will see, if there you get. Sometimes here it is, sometimes over there. If I tell, you would not me believe. That you coming are they know, maybe it they move. Or another reason. Or no reason. Not like my Dorp, Pajarocu is.” He pointed to Dorp, a cluster of tiny houses on his map. “Not like any other town Pajarocu is.”

Marrow was leaning far over the table to look at it. “That river is practically due west of here.”

Wijzer’s face lost all expression, and he laid aside his quill.

“Couldn’t Horn save time by sailing west from here?”

“That some fellows do, maybe,” Wijzer told him. “Sometimes all right they go. Sometimes not. What here I draw, what Wijzer does it is.”

“But you want to trade from town to town,” Marrow objected. “Horn won’t be doing that.”

I said, “If I were to do as you suggest, sailing due west from here) I would eventually strike the coast of this big island or second continent that Wijzer has very kindly mapped for us. But when I did, I wouldn’t know whether to turn south or north, unless the river mouth was in view.”

Reluctantly, Marrow nodded.

“With the greatest respect to Captain Wijzer, a map like this one, drawn freehand, could easily be in error by, oh, fifty leagues or more. Suppose that I decided it was accurate, and sailed north. It might easily take me a week to sail fifty leagues, tacking up the coast. Suppose that at the end of that week I turned back to search south. And that the river mouth was five leagues beyond the point at which I turned back. How long would it take me to locate it?”

Wijzer smiled; and Marrow said reluctantly, “I see what you mean. It’s just that they’re going to leave as soon as their lander’s ready, and it’s nearly ready now. You read that letter. Anybody who hasn’t arrived before they go will be left behind.”

“I realize that there’s no time to waste,” I told him, “but sometimes it’s best to make haste slowly.” Privately I reflected that I might have the best of both plans by sailing north for a hundred leagues or so, then turning west well south of the place where Wijzer had advised me to.

And I resolved to do it.

- 5- THE THING ON THE GREEN PLAIN

How long ago it seems! So much has happened since then, although at times I almost feel that it happened to someone else.

Yet I remember Wijzer clearly. What if he were to walk into court tomorrow? He would ask whether I ever reached Pajarocu, and what could I say? “Yes, but…”