To their right was the sea, spreading to the distant horizon beyond the point that guarded the bay. Behind them the beach was similar to that on which the ship lay, a gently sloping strip of sand dotted with the black, rope-branched vegetation that covered so much of Mesklin. Ahead of them, however, the growths vanished almost completely. Here the slope was even flatter and the belt of sand grew ever broader as the eye traveled along it. It was not completely bare, though even the deep-rooted plants were lacking; but scattered here and there on the wave-channeled expanse were dark, motionless relics of the recent storm.
Some, were vast, tangled masses of seaweed, or of growths which could claim that name with little strain on the imagination; others were the bodies of marine animals, and some of these were even vaster. Lackland was a trifle startled — not at the size of the creatures, since they presumably were supported in life by the liquid in which they floated, but at the distance they lay from the shore. One monstrous hulk was sprawled over half a mile inland; and the Earthman began to realize just what the winds of Mesklin could do even in this gravity when they had a sixty-mile sweep of open sea in which to build up waves. He would have liked to go to the point where the shore lacked even the protection of the outer peninsula, but that would have involved a further journey of over a hundred miles.
“What would have happened to your ship, Barlennan, if the waves that reached here had struck it?”
“That depends somewhat on the type of wave, and where we were. On the open sea, we would ride over it without trouble; beached as the Bree now is, there would have been nothing left. I did not realize just how high waves could get this close to the Rim, of course — now that I think of it, maybe even the biggest would be relatively harmless, because of its lack of weight.”
“I’m afraid it’s not the weight that counts most; your first impression was probably right.”
“I had some such idea in mind when I sheltered behind that point for the winter, of course. I admit I did not have any idea of the actual size the waves could reach here at the Rim. It is not too surprising that explorers tend to disappear with some frequency in these latitudes.”
“This is by no means the worst, either. You have that second point, which is rather mountainous if I recall the photos correctly, protecting this whole stretch.”
“Second point? I did not know about that. Do you mean that what I can see beyond the peninsula there is merely another bay?”
“That’s right. I forgot you usually stayed in sight of land. You coasted along to this point from the west, then, didn’t you?”
“Yes. These seas are almost completely unknown. This particular shore line extends about three thousand miles in a generally westerly direction, as you probably know — I’m just beginning to appreciate what looking at things from above can do for you — and then gradually bends south. It’s not too regular; there’s one place where you go east again for a couple of thousand miles, but I suppose the actual straight-line distance that would bring you opposite my home port is about sixteen thousand miles to the south — a good deal farther coasting, of course. Then about twelve hundred miles across open sea to the west would bring me home. The waters about there are very well known, of course, and any sailor can cross them without more than the usual risks of the sea.”