As the afternoon faded in the last rays of day Peter and Maggie pulled the chest outside into the remaining light. Butterflies dipped and soared then flapped around, tossed in the cooling trade wind.

Peter took the instruments from the chest. ‘What we need is a compass, I thought I saw something… and if this was Earth..’

‘Eoth…’ Maggie said.

‘If Eoth is the same as Earth then it will have a magnetic field too. And there will be a magnetic north…’

‘And south…’ said Maggie.

‘Sure. Somehow the atmosphere needs it.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Radiation,’ said Peter. ‘The Earth’s magnetic field keeps out the harmful particles in the solar wind, and cosmic rays from stars, that would blast the air away. That’s what happened to Mars. No magnetic field.’

‘The science genius from the future strikes again.’

‘Yeah, well. It’s true. And…’ Peter laughed as he reached into the chest. ‘This might be the thing…’

He held a round box and flipped open the lid. Inside a big red arrow spun for a moment. Divisions on a card under the arrow had been marked off in quarters, and eighths, and sixteenths.’

‘A compass. Got to be,’ Peter said. ‘Look. Almost the same as ours… almost. Except for the names and letters are all messed up.’

‘It’s broken though,’ Maggie said. ‘That’s a shame.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well that big arrow is pointing wrong. The sun is setting there in the west, but the arrow is aimed away over to the right. It should point north. There. Where the midday sun would be.’

Peter rotated the compass box, and watched as the card turned. The arrow kept pointing in the same direction. Then he laughed. Maggie glared at him, but her brain worked as well as his for she soon joined in.

‘Okay smarty pants,’ said Maggie joining his laughter. ‘I get it. If we were in the northern hemisphere on Earth the north arrow would point away from the sun… except here we’re in the south. So why…’

‘Yeah, we’re used to the north arrow pointing to north where the sun is in New Zealand.’

‘So it’s convention. The arrow might be pointing anywhere.’

‘I think it’s pointing east. We’re in the southern hemisphere with the sun going anti-clockwise… so if the sun is in the west now, opposite to the sun is…’

‘East. Okay. I think I’m… orientated now.’ And Maggie laughed.

It was Peter’s turn to look confused.

‘Orient, the east… perhaps if they use east as the main direction then…’

‘Hmmm. Okay… oriented…’ Peter shrugged. Something teased at the back of his mind a moment but he brushed it away.

They studied the chart and the passage to Zenska. Peter aligned the compass rose so it matched the compass box. The two raised their gaze to each other and whooped. The little bit of shoreline they could see on the chart matched their part of the lagoon.

‘We know the way,’ said Maggie.

‘We just need to get sailing now,’ said Peter.

Qhawana grunted even as Breeze got infected with their excitement and leapt up a coconut palm.

‘Know… The… Way,’ chanted Breeze, his warbles and chortles seemed like a song of laughter he set flying on the wind. ‘We know the way.’

‘Bicycle wheels. I think they work with a mix of balance as well as the spinning stabilization.’ Peter tried to explain how he thought the glowing disk worked as Maggie watched the sun set.

After their meal Peter had worked to complete a second rudder before the light failed. He had modified the Starling’s old centerboard and lashed the top to some wooden rods whittled from dry ironwood sticks. Now he finished off fixing of his old sailboat’s polyester hiking strap webbing and the stainless steel brackets to the canoe’s stern. The strong fabric would be an effective hinge while the stainless steel held it tight to the hull. He tested the swing and then lashed the two tillers together so they worked at the same angle when he turned one.

Now he lay back to stretch and watch the almost familiar stars appear. He held the compass box on his chest but could not see much now as darkness gathered. Breeze gnawed on a corn cob. He made contented noises as he made headway in his demolition job.

‘They… wheels I mean…’ Peter said. ‘Should be the same here too… so if the wheel-keel is just a gyroscope, it will steady the boat some… but we will still have to work to stop capsizing…’

‘With us all leaning… hiking out…’ Maggie said with a frown. ‘Why did you ruin those strap things.’

‘With the outriggers I don’t need so much. That material had been left over from when I fixed the hiking straps to the platform mesh.’

‘But you’re guessing that it will all be enough. The hiking straps, and the gyroscope wheel-thing…’

Peter shrugged, studied the sky, absentmindedly checked for coconut trees that might bomb them with falling nuts. ‘We hadn’t got to that part of science at school.’

‘So you’re not some science genius from the future then?’

Peter laughed. ‘Alright. You got me…’ He sat up and leaned on his knees. ’I guess we need to experiment… see what works.’

‘Exactly. I know how science works too. At least that’s not changed between our times. You observe some phenomenon… develop an idea of how and why that is so. You test the idea again. Make a predictions and adjust the idea until theory matches your observations. And then you can make more predictions on what might happen if things change a bit.’

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

‘You go girl — science the heck out of it Maggs.’

‘Don’t be so patronizing.’

‘Hey, no… I’m hitting you with memes… not put-downs.’ Peter laughed. ‘Sorry… even the idea of memes is a meme… sort of.’

Maggie glared at him. An intimidating effect with her face just centimeters away. He could almost feel the fire in her eyes.

‘Um… It’s a quote… from a totally cool movie… set on Mars… and…’

‘Sometimes I want to hit you…’ she said.

‘We don’t do that in my time.’ He held his hands up in surrender.

‘So you say,’ Maggie laughed then too. ‘So instead I’ll… I’ll…’ and she dived at him, tackled him to the sand. Then tickled him.

‘Stop, stop…’

‘So they’ve banned tickling too then?’ Maggie said laughing. And then Breeze was with them and the three tumbled and turned in a heap until Breeze had them both on the ground poking and prodding them, and warbling in his version of laughter.

‘The worst of it is you’re teaching the imp terrible habits.’ Qhawana surprised them with his return to the beach fire. ‘If you’re not going to drive it away then I’m beginning to think he should leave with you.’

They sobered up, even Breeze. Maggie stood and dusted herself off. ‘All three of us?…’ Breeze lounged against her leg and grasped her hand. ‘Yes… all four of us should go,’ Maggie said.

Qhawana shook his head, turned from them, and wandered along the beach. ‘How you can think of sailing anywhere when your craft is not working? It’s not is it? So don’t try.’

‘But we have to,’ said Peter. ‘We can’t stay here.’

‘Isn’t this is a nice enough place?’ Qhawana said. He stopped and gestured at the beach, the lagoon, and the fruit trees filled with insects and birds calling as they settled at the end of day.

‘For a holiday maybe. But not to live,’ said Maggie. ‘We need to find out if there is a way back home for us. To Earth.’

‘Berg said you would help us,’ said Peter. ‘Was he wrong?’

‘And Berg… left to rescue someone,’ said Maggie. ‘The talisman message Peter got. That was a plea for help wasn’t it? Don’t you owe it…?’

‘I don’t owe anyone anything,’ Qhawana turned away again and began to walk up the path leading back to the stone house. ‘Even less now…’

‘Perhaps,’ said Peter. He followed the old man up the beach a ways. He was not happy with the idea of having anyone else on his boat. Maggie, maybe. Perhaps Breeze since it would be impossible to stop him. ‘You stay then. We don’t need you.’ He opened the compass box and saw a subtle glow from the card. Almost enough to read it.

‘But Qhawana,’ Maggie said from behind Peter. ‘Don’t you want to be part of something bigger?’

‘Bah-humbug,’ harrumphed Qhawana.

Peter snorted and turned to Maggie. ‘Did he just say what I think he said…’

‘It’s this mad translation-effect-thing.’ Maggie joined Peter. ‘Qhawana? You do know what that phrase means to us right? Bah-humbug?’ She stared at him as if willing him to turn, to understand.

‘Well.’ Qhawana stopped. And he did turn then, his face white against the dark of the trees. ‘I am an old-ungrateful-man-who wants-nothing-to-do-with-the-world. And that’s how I like it.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ said Maggie.

‘No?’ Qhawana shook his head and turned to leave. ‘Well I don’t suppose you will ever understand.’

‘Maybe not. But you’re wrong anyway,’ said Maggie. ‘No one should live like that.’

‘You don’t know what I want.’

‘I didn’t say that. I meant you’re wrong to stay… and you know it.’ Maggie’s voice quavered a little.

‘I still half think this has to be all a dream.’ Maggie sat next to the fire on the beach. Together they stared over the azure blue lagoon.

‘Apart from our resident humbug Qhawana,’ said Peter under his breath.

‘It’s so… dreamlike. Perfect weather. This fire under the stars. I’ve never imagined a place so beautiful.’

She had made Peter practice morse code again. He had almost got the hang of it. But now they just relaxed on the beach next to a fire, and he was glad the flashing lights, and clapping of hands was over for the evening.

‘Dreaming… or that you’re going crazy.’ Peter grinned remembering a song his mother used to like.

‘Oh, I’m going mad, that’s definite,’ Maggie stretched her arms out over her head. The red logo of the Comsat Angel’s on her T-Shirt seemed extra red in the fire glow. ‘The crazy thing is that I’m enjoying this dream. It can go on for a while longer I think.’

Peter laughed. ‘Enjoying being marooned on a desert island with two strangers and a psycho-crazy dog-bat-chicken-monkey creature?’

‘Breeze is not a chicken… or a bat.’

‘He is sort of. But whatever he is… for sure he’s…’

‘Crazy.’ They said together.

‘Yeah. But in a good way,’ Peter said more sure the mind reading thing had done that — connexion. He wondered then how much of the morse code he thought he had learned had been real and how much he had guessed from the mind-reading effect.

Breeze chased something far along the beach, forever full of energy. ‘There was a song my mother used to play a lot when things were a little hard at home,’ Peter said. ‘When things had not gone right… and sometimes when they had but… almost… there seemed no rational reason for it all to continue. Almost like she worried the good luck would end… and…’

‘Well then…’ Maggie interrupted. ‘How does it go?’ She turned her gaze on him and he felt self-conscious under her regard as the firelight shifted shadows over her face. ‘Go on. There’s just me… and I think your singing is bad already so I’ve no expectations.’

He hummed the tune.

‘Sing it,’ she said. ‘Loud and proud.’ She got to her feet as Breeze dashed up. They started to dance around him to music he couldn’t hear. Breeze leapt and gamboled in excitement. His head did not bounce as much as his body, and the strange sight of the motionless head and gyrating body set Peter and Maggie laughing.

Peter put his head back, and began to sing the refrain — ‘We’re all a little crazy… together it’s all insane… yeah… that’s how we get by-eee…’ he faltered.

‘My kind of song. Is there more?’

Peter stood up and began to stomp, Breeze bounced with even more excitement, while Maggie swayed back and forth not quite knowing how to move to the strange rhythm of Peter’s thumping steps.

He sang loud now as all care fled…

‘We're all a little crazy,

It’s what makes life sublime,

The embrace of maybe, maybe

maybe gets us through bad times

We're all a little crazy,

And together it’s all insane.

That's how we get by-eee,

Oh yeah,

Through sunshine and the rain.’

Peter stomped around faster, bopping and hooting… all to Breeze’s delight.

‘You, are crazy,’ said Maggie but she joined in as Peter repeated the words again.

Exhausted they fell to the sand next to each other, Breeze plumped down across them.

‘Crazy.’ Maggie said once she had caught her breath back. ‘It’s such a useful word isn’t it?’ And she started ditting and dahing the letters in morse code…

‘Yeah. You know that’s not a bad beat is it?’ Peter laughed once he recognized most of the letters. ‘My Mum loved that song. It was her excuse… for not being normal. She reckoned the only truly crazy people were the ones that thought they were normal. So she went out of her way to be bonkers.’

‘Sounds like fun.’ Maggie turned away from him.

Peter lay back on the sand and stared at the stars. ‘Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. But sometimes a little normal would have been fine.’

‘Sound like you need to write some more words,’ Maggie said her wistful tone held a hint of concern.

‘Yeah. Less crazy. I like a little normal sometimes.’

‘I’ll try to remember that. But you will have to excuse me if we postpone normal for the duration of our stay here.’ Maggie lay on her back again too and pointed to the stars as if counting them.

‘But you know.’ Peter rolled over to watch her. ‘If this is a dream… it’s not a bad dream… is it? At least not right now, this moment.’

‘No. That what makes it all seem so… dreamlike.’

They watched the stars wink and flicker in the heat from the fire, and Peter searched the western horizon for the dots of orbiting satellites until he remembered where he was.

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t…’

‘Shh. Listen.’

All three of them fell quiet. A distant regular thump overlaid the rumble of the reef.

Then they moved almost as one. Breeze and Peter threw sand on the fire and Maggie joined them as the light disappeared in a hiss like a memory.

‘What is it?’ said Maggie.

‘Blackbirders. It's the slavers’ drums on a long canoe.’

Peter ran like he had never before. Qhawana needed to know. Maggie ran beside him sobbing with effort.

The world had come for them again.