Free Sun Dance by Iain R. Thomson

galleys that came to Sandray in the stories he’d told.
    She was all he wanted of a boat, sleek and beautiful, truly a maid of the sea,
    In memory of the girl they’d lost, he called her ‘Hilda’.

    The light was failing, yet its dimness drew radiance from the sea. The luminous gleam of the sun remained a dying presence beneath the surface of the glowing sheet of water. The air, the atmosphere, every particle of existence became tinged in a delicate suffusion of the palest lemon.
    Time’s passage slowed to a total fixation. As the changing light told me of a turning world, so my life was turning beyond recognition. Nothing mattered but to watch the transforming glimmer, its reflection on the sea, the land, a clock spire of worship oblivious to the puniness of an earth that spun in obedience to the dancing waves of space; a revolving, trivial dot in the mysterious grip of the sun’s gravity, a planet at the mercy of the Sun God, radiation.
    The boat turned gradually, its mast a silhouette against the horizon. She epitomised all I needed. A boat, instantly determined, I needed a boat, a journey, follow the elements. Sail by the wind, taste the sea. Shaking with excitement, I tried to rise. A coughing bout raked through me. I bent, hand on the bollard, a rope tripped my foot and I stumbled.
    Somebody caught me.
    “Steady, steady, too late for a swim tonight.” Hard hands lifted me to my feet. I stood swaying. The man remained holding me firmly. The coughing subsided, and turning, “Thanks, thanks,” I managed to say.
    “You’re not too well boy,” the deep ring of his voice startled me. I looked up. My head spun, thoughts twisted, I grasped at memory. Where before, where had I seen this face, those eyes?
    After the pause, “Yes, I ..er.. I was.. my lungs were damaged by an explosion.”
    Minutes elapsed. We looked at each other, no fleeting glance but a searching intensity. His eyes shone, clear as the horizon. A strange bonding. Without ceremony he shook my hand.
    “Sit there just now,” a quiet command. Seated again on the bollard I watched as he rowed a tiny dingy out to the boat. An outboard engine broke the silence of the bay, the ripple of his boat its calm waters. She came alongside. The man climbed the short iron ladder and made fast.
    “Now,” the voice brooked no dissention, “I’ll go aboard. You’ll come down, step by step.”
    He caught me on the last rung, “Sit at the mast, a’bhalaich, I’ll get your case.” Too exhausted to protest or enquire, I said nothing. Casting off, sure footed at every move, he sat in the stern. A man, strong faced, old and white haired.
    The engine rattled into life. We swung away from the pier. An island beyond the bay tapered into the darkness, slim and faint, beyond comprehension.
    Was I touching this boat? I looked into the night, was I touching the boat which drugged my thoughts with both sadness and a longing?
    Had she risen out of that dream which creeps without warning into dimensions of fantasy and desire? Had I descended into a sleep which had opened the portals of fate, where all tomorrow is a refection yesterday’s hope and tragedy?
    At the first roll of the swell she rose gently and dipped gracefully.
    I held her mast. My head reeled.
    Was I at sea, aboard the ‘Hilda?’

CHAPTER TEN
Shadows on the Sun
    “Josh, how splendid to see you,” the P.M. turned from studying papers on a large leather topped desk and rose to a cordial handshake with his Chief Scientific Advisor. “Do sit down. My jove you’re looking so well. Been on holiday?” he queried, smiling warmly.
    Sir Joshua Goldberg, tanned and urbane, sat heavily on one of the three armchairs, “Well yes, I have as a matter of fact, no, not quite a holiday, I nipped over to Geneva for a few days but as it happened, the weather was magnificent.” His eye flitted over to the brightly lit operations panel which covered the end wall. Large scale, Middle East, he noted, Israel to Iran.
    The