Wandering Spark - Part 5
Father understood everything at once. He ran his eyes through the headman's scribble, glanced at the rainbow glow emanating from the opened letter, and made an awkward bow.
"Let it be as you wish, Gorni. We will raise you with an ordinary cargo screw, please don’t be angry at us. Prepare yourself..."
And he said to Varan with a low, businesslike tone:
"Half load. Soldiers ordered three bags of fish... Hence, six barrels of water minus three bags of fish and minus additional passager – we will take four barrels, get moving."
Varan was happy to finally leave the annoying Gorni. In the niche of the table, he found glasses -two smoked glasses in a rough metal frame. He tightened his jacket tightly and, without saying goodbye, jumped out of the house.
Morning fish swam here, in the stone pool, still alive. Using a net, Varan filled and weighed three sacks. The rain started to fall harder and washed away fish smell from him before the bags were delivered to the helical platform.
The screw's spring, twisted by half, seemed unusually thin. To the hooks on the basket were already brought two wineskins with water; Varan loaded the fish and then, barely controlling himself with the wooden cart, carried four small barrels with water in the basket. He had time to rest and chew same sweet tar before near him appeared Gorni’s head. He was pale and exhausted. Of courіe, Varan thought, not without malice. A hundred steps up the rock - and he is already fainting...
"I have nothing to breathe…" groaned the Gorni and sat directly on a wet stone. After the Gorni, Varan's father climbed up to the platform - he was twice as old as the noble guest, but carrying a wooden chest on one shoulder, and on the otherб a mailbag for the upper ones and his breathing did not even change form normal.
"Very well," said the father, looking at the screw and assessing the work done by. "Get loaded."
Varan climbed into the basket first and settled himself near the sacks with still alive, trembling fish. Varan’s father walked around for a long time, checking the fasteners, ligaments, stroking the spring, muttering the prayer and occasionally spitting over his shoulder. He gave Varan a berth with a triple hook at the end:
"Who's on duty today?"
"Lusik."
"Say hello from me and check that he accurately recorded everything: fish, water, mail... And..." The father glanced at Gorni "And give him Gorni from hands to hands ... All. Praise the Emperor. Fly, son."
Quickly patting Varan’s shoulder, his father went to the lever. He called the stranger with a completely different, colorless voice:
"Gorni, please get in the basket."
Varan did not give his hand to the guest. Sneezing and slipping, he hardly climbed into the basket, looked for a free space and with a suffering face sat down on his trunk again. And he grabbed the edge of the basket:
"We won’t overturn?"
"With go with a half power," Varan said, unable to restrain himself. "Of course we can overturn if we are lucky enough. Shuu is not asleep," and winked to his father.
"Close your mouth," he said sternly, taking lever in hands. "With the Emperor... One, two, three!"
The mechanism squealed, freeing the spring.
The spring blankly and fiercely like a deep sea creature tore the chain to itself.
The chain started to unwind from the reel. Above the heads of Varan and Gorni, a flower blossomed - a beautiful flower of a growing propeller; It was visible only for a few seconds, and then it disappeared, turning into a gray, smeared wheel in motion. An invisible force pushed Varan into tight bags with playing fish, and the ground sank down, the tiny figure of his father flashed and disappeared, the wind roared in his ears, which can be never seen under the clouds during the off-season...
A second later, Varan could see nothing, even sitting next to his Gorni. The air turned gray and wet, like a jellyfish. Varan held his breath.
"These are clouds" shouted Gorni, and Varan guessed his words rather than heard them. The road through the clouds was for him the most unpleasant part of the journey upward. It was considered that clouds from the inside resemble the kingdom of Shuu, and Varan was ready to agree with this. Viscous, sticky, and impenetrable space...
Gray fog has torn apart. I could see the blue above my head; the clouds suddenly flashed white and Varan, squinting, took his glasses out from the jacket.
Gorni again shouted something inarticulate, choking with joy. The clouds were sparkling, white, soft, festively safe, and dry. Now above their heads was only blue sky, in the middle of which stood a large white sun. Varan tried not to turn his head in his direction.
The sound of the propeller has changed. The screw was losing its speed.
"Hey, where's the pier?" Gorni asked nervously. "How I am bored with you," thought Varan.
Large and small propellers one above the other changed their shape. The basket rose even higher and almost froze; a white stone wall loomed a little away, thin slides of berths stretched from the wall like beams, entangled in gear as if old hands with veins. Varan put his belly on the lever, changing the slope of the main propeller; the basket slipped lower, coming close to the pier, and then Varan swung and threw a triple hook onto the berth.
"Where are they, have they fallen asleep?"
A man in a white shirt ran from the rock, yelling and waving with his arms, seemed ready to fall into the abyss. The propeller still held its turnovers, but the basket fell lower than it should be. Scolding and cursing Shuu, half-power and damned pier watchers, Varan tried to make the propeller work on its maximum.
"Hey! Hold on there! Now we can turn over!" Varan shouted gaily to the passenger; a little man with an egg-bald head at the last moment managed to reach the basket, throw a brace and fix the basket above the festive-white clouds illuminated by the sunshine below.
