Free Teranesia by Greg Egan

he dragged the motorboat out of the storage hut, Madhusree seemed finally to accept that they were leaving.
    ‘Ambon!’ she shouted.
    ‘No, not Ambon. The ferry’s not running. We’re going south, all by ourselves.’
    The boat and its outboard motor were both made of ultralight carbon-fibre composites. Normally his father carried the motor
     in his arms, to and from the beach, while his mother carried the hull over her head. Prabir had planned to push the hull all
     the way to the beach, fully loaded, but his first exploratory shove was enough to convince him that he’d never succeed. He’d
     have to make at least four trips: the hull, the motor, fuel and water, then food, clothing and everything else.
    ‘Shit!’ He’d almost forgotten. He went back into the storage hut and pulled down the two smaller life jackets from their hooks
     on the wall. He stared uncomprehendingly at the two larger ones remaining, then he turned and walked out.
    He couldn’t put Madhusree back in her cot; even if she didn’t start screaming, he wasn’t willing to leave her alone again.
     So he carried the hull to the beach with Madhusree following him on foot. The hull was incredibly light, but since his arms
     couldn’t quite stretch between the sides of the upturned boat at its centre of gravity, he either had to hold itnearer to the bow, where the sides were closer together – in which case he had to fight the unbalanced weight – or walk with
     his arms straight up and his palms supporting the floor of the boat, which was almost as awkward and tiring. He ended up alternating
     between the two methods, but he still had to stop and rest after ever-shorter stretches. This did have one advantage: Madhusree
     had no trouble keeping up with him.
    He rested on the beach for a few minutes, then carried Madhusree back to the kampung and started out with the motor. A third
     of the way to the beach she sat down on the path and refused to walk any further. Prabir knelt down and coaxed her into putting
     her arms around his neck and clinging to his back with her legs. He usually hooked his arms under her legs when he carried
     her this way, reinforcing her grip and taking some of her weight, but the motor made that impossible. As her legs grew tired,
     she ended up virtually hanging on to him by her arms alone, and though Prabir leaned forward to try to shift some of her weight
     on to his back, by the time they reached the beach she was crying from exhaustion.
    For a moment he was tempted to leave her on the beach –
what harm could come to her, sleeping beneath a palm tree?
– but then he wrapped her in his arms and trudged back to the kampung. He managed to hang the three bags of clothes and food
     from his neck and shoulders, leaving his arms free.
    Down to the beach, back to the kampung. Two cans of fuel and two cans of water remained – each weighing about ten kilograms.
     He’d been fooling himself: even without Madhusree, he’d never have been able to move them all in one trip. Cradling her in
     his right arm, holding her against his side the way his mother did, he carried the cans to the beach one by one.
    By the time he dropped the last can of fuel on to the sand beside the boat, it was almost three o’clock. Prabir dug his notepad
     out of one of the bags: it was fully charged, whichmeant eight hours’ normal operation, but the battery drained three times faster when the screen had to be electronically illuminated.
     Still, even if they were at sea in darkness he wouldn’t need the map constantly visible.
    Madhusree had grown resentful; she’d never been dragged back and forth like this for the sake of a boat trip before. She sat
     in the shade at the edge of the beach, calling for Ma every minute or two. Prabir replied soothingly, but equally mechanically,
     ‘We’re going to Ma.’
    The notepad’s GPS software included a respectable world map, but Teranesia wasn’t on it; as far as the software was concerned
     they