Icerigger

  "I'm no engineer," said Ethan bluntly, "but it just looks to me as if in a good blow, with all that sail, she'd turn over."

  "The base will be carefully counterbalanced with just such a possibility in mind," the teacher replied. "But I think the dou­ble runners will give it a good deal of stability."

  "And who's going to pay for it?" Ethan was on familiar ground now.

  September grinned. "Despite all those glory holy-hosannas the Landgrave ladled on us, lad, he hemmed and hawed like a penniless beggar when we put an estimate to him. Went on and -on about how repairs to the fortifications in the harbor and reparations to debilitated families were leaving the treas­ury empty as the inside of his promises. You'd have thought we were going to take his gold-inlaid shirt, too.

  "Hunnar and Balavere were there. They listened quietly to the whole thing, real dignified and proper. When his majesty was finished they gave him a tongue-lashing that must have flayed his ancestors forty generations back! Then I pointed out to him that the moment we were delivered safe, healthy, and relatively unfrozen to Arsudun Island, the ship would be­come property of the Sofoldian navy. He'd managed to ne­glect that little item in his tale of woe.

  "The raft's captain-to-be, Ta-hoding ... you remember him?" Ethan nodded. "Ta-hoding enumerated the tremendous commercial advantages such a vessel would have over all competitors, especially with the forever sharp duralloy runners, and-"

  "Wait a minute," Ethan interrupted. "I thought they couldn't work the metal."

  "They couldn't," replied the big man with a trace of pride. "All last week I've been puttering around with Vlad-Volling­stad, the foundry boss. Ripped out the whole board on the lifeboat, emergency repair supplies, controls everything. An electrodyne forge isn't too complicated. With the unlimited heat supply they have, I think I can get one going. I'm afraid they won't be turning out any suspension housing, but they'll be able to cut and bend until the lifeboat's completely re­worked. We need a lot less than that for a few big runners. Might even be able to get away with just slicing off a few sections of hull and sharpening them.

  "The biggest problem is one for pure sweat. Since we can't bring the heat to the metal, we'll have to bring the metal to the heat. That means hauling the whole wreck up into the mountains to the foundry. Surprisingly, the Landgrave didn't object to the cost of that one, even though it may take every vol on the island. I don't think he wants all that nice inde­structable metal sitting in the harbor where a few imaginative visiting captains could tow it away."

  "They wouldn't get very far," said Ethan. "Not pulling that mass across the ice."

  "Probably not," the big man conceded, "but try and con­vince the Landgrave of that. So as soon as we can round up the men and animals, that gets first priority after starting the forge."

  Ethan ran a finger over part of the drawing. "You really think this thing will stay upright in a high wind?"

  "Not until we try it out in one, we won't be." Williams nodded agreement.

  "The base weight should keep it steady," said the school­master. "Also, note the airfoils front and rear. Something McKay did not have to worry about. With so much sail area on a raft that size, I'm more worried about the possibility of her becoming airborne than tipping over. These"-and he tapped the two foils on the sketch-"should eliminate any chance of that."

  Ethan stared at the hybrid of nineteenth-century terran and modern tran technology and shook his head admiringly. "Congratulations, Milliken. It's quite a project." Lie extended a hand and the schoolmaster shook it shyly. "I only hope the damn thing works."

  "What an enterprise!" Eer-Meesach began. "Nothing like it has ere been seen in Sofold or her neighbors. We shall call it `_Slanderscree_' after the dark flight of dawn-birds which precede the souls of the departed!"

  "Encouraging appellation," commented Ethan drily.

  The wizard didn't understand him. "Bards will sing of its sailing for a hundred times a hundred years. We will be all in song and verse immortalized, sirs. The greatness of our quest shall ... " September gave Ethan a gentle nudge.

  "I think you've heard everything you have to, lad."

  "I think so, too, Skua."

  They excused themselves. Yvlalmeevyn was so engrossed in enumerating the magnificence of his anticipated immortality that he barely noticed them depart.

  Out in the cool quiet of the hallway, Ethan couldn't resist a last question.

  "Assuming this monstrosity actually gets built, Skua-"

  "It will, lad."

  "Yes, well, I'll believe it when the first sail fills. And when it isn't torn to splinters in the first honest breeze. Assuming that- can we make it? Can we get to the settlement? And how long will it take?"

  "I've got confidence in the boat, lad. Williams may be a bit of a secret romantic, deep down, but the design is sound. We've got compasses. Now that we know we've got a land­mark close by the island, this volcano ... what do they call it?"

  "The Place-Where-The-Earth's-Blood-Burns," reminded Ethan helpfully.

  "Yeah . . from there it should be easy enough to find the town. Let's see ... given the speed that thing should be able to make, allowing time for the locals to get used to the different rigging, plus the fact that we'll be moving against the wind at times ... I'd guess we should be able to do it inside of a couple of months. Depending on the weather, of course."

  "What do you think of our captain? He didn't awe me the first time we traveled with him."

  September grinned. "Ta-holing? Looks and sounds like a fat whiner, doesn't he? Probably because he is a fat whiner. But he also impressed me as a being who knows his seaman­ship ... icemanship, rather. I'd prefer to have him at the helm and wide awake as opposed to some smooth-talking arrogant braggart who can't tell a snow squall from a dust cloud. Give me a captain who's concerned first for his oven precious skin above a gallant idiot any tie.

  "I'm going to be tied up with that forge and shaping the raft runners. Williams will be busy with Eer-Meesach grinding out crude blueprints and plans. But someone has to oversee the actual construction. By the black bole in Cygnus. you know who volunteered when he found out about it?"

  "Do tell," said than.

  "Old du Kane, that's who! actually asked if he could. Said something to the effect that he wasn't especially adept at decapitating belligerent obstructionists or getting drunk in comradely fashion with the local soldiery, but that he could manage large groups of people and materials. He's learned enough of the local lingo to get by, so I told him to go ahead."

  Ethan didn't snare the big man's confidence in the financier. "You think he'll handle things properly? He's not the most diplomatic type in the Arm."

  "Don't confuse performance with personality," admonished September, scratching at a far-hidden ear. "I'm not fanatically in love with the old pirate myself, nor any of his ilk. But we're not in the position of choosing from an unlimited workforce. Besides, I can guess how much credit every day he spends out of contact with his empire is costing him. He'll get that raft built as fast as possible, all right."

  "I suppose so," Ethan conceded uncertainly. "I can't keep from wondering what happened to Walther."

  September grunted at the mention of the vanished kid­napper.

  "Probably a frozen smear on the ice by now, what? Or resting comfortably in the belly of a broom or soma other charming member of the local fauna."

  "I suppose so."

  Ethan broke away to make for his own room and a soaring fire.

  Chapter Eleven

  The building of the _Slanderscree_ proceeded as rapidly as anyone dared hope, despite Landgrave Torsk Kurdagh-Vlata's royal howls of agony over the unending list of expenses. His moaning ran the unceasing wind a good vocal second.

  September singed an arm when the first jumpspark was fired from the makeshift forge. After an hour's steady work and cursing, however, the recalcitrant hunk of machinery worked perfectly. Overawed, no doubt, at recognizing an elemental force greater than itself.


  With the big man sweating at the foundry, Williams and Eer-Meesach running from mountain to harbor to village with drawings and corrections in the dozens, and du Kane supervising the actual construction, Ethan was left with the thankless job of handling the thousands of minute, attendant details.

  He couldn't believe that building a primitive, crude raft could involve so many little decisions and questions, all made and answered on the spot. Surely an interstellar freighter could be no more complicated.

  Brown-green sailcloth vas matched to design specifications. Meters of pike-pine cable were measured and trimmed. New crates of fresh-forged bolts and fittings had to be shepherded down to the ice-dock.

  Put together with squeal parts surest and invective, the _Slanderscree_ began to take shape.

  Something else was taking shape, too, and Ethan liked it a lot less than the a-building raft. This was Elfa's continuing attempt to become something other than a casual acquaint­ance.

  One day, despite the offense it might cause the Landgrave and the damage it could do to their cause, he erupted at her.

  To his surprise, she took it rather calmly-almost as though she'd been waiting for it. After that she didn't bother him again. He was puzzled but decided not to press for the gads. He was ahead on points. Better leave it that way.

  Despite delays and the inevitable confusion arising from problems in translation, despite a temporary failure of the electrodyne forge, despite endless hours of frustrating explanation from Williams on how the complex rigging was to be installed, there came a day and hour when the _Slanderscree_ was finished, stocked, and ready to depart-though Ethan had a hard time convincing himself that it would ever move.

  It sat there at the end of the Landgrave's dock, dwarfing the commercial rafts that skimmed its flanks like waterbugs. Nearly two hundred meters long, with three towering masts, bowsprit, and dozens of tightly furled sails, it radiated enor­mous power held in check. The tran arrowhead design had been slimmed down to needle-like proportions. Only the two big airfoils marred the raft's rakish lines.

  There was nothing unusual about the morning set for their departure. A typical trannish day sunny, windy, freezing to the core. Last-minute supplies and spare parts were being taken on. A considerable crowd had taken time froze the un­ending drudgery of making a living to see them off-or pre­side at an entertaining crack-up. They lined the shore and spilled out onto the ice. Cubs ignored mothers and darted in and out around the great duralloy runners.

  Sir Hunnar came on board as nominal commander of their military compliment. But General Balavere was making the journey, too. When he was a cub he'd experienced a rain of ash and hot stone from the Place-Where-The-Earth's­Blood-Burns. It had darkened the sky over Wannome for four days. Surely it was a holy place-arid the general had reached an age when such things took or increasing impor­tance. He was going to see that legendary mountain.

  Old Eer-Meesach, of course, couldn't have been kept away by a herd of famished krokim.

  The raft had nothing like the carefully arranged chain of responsibility that existed on board a spatial liner. Nor did Williams' arcane knowledge yield any counterpart for the ancient terran clippers, beyond the rank of captain. So Hunnar's squires, Suaxus and Budjir, came along as his seconds. Ta-hoding retained much of his own raft crew and worked through them.

  Another side of Hunnar was reflected in his choice of squires. Neither was a type Ethan would choose: Suaxus always dour and suspicious, Budjir laconic to the point of ap­parent idiocy. However, both were almost severely competent.

  The crew and passengers trooped on board to the accom­paniment of tremendous cheers and shouts of encouragement, a few good-naturedly obscene, from the assembled townsfolk. Some had come from as far away as Ritsfasen at the far western tip of Sofold Isle for the departure.

  The Landgrave stood at the dock surrounded by his im­portant nobles and knights. When all were on the raft and the boarding plank had been pulled back, he raised his staff. A respectful silence settled on the crowd.

  "You have come from a strange place and you go to a strange place," he intoned solemnly. "In the short time between you have done deeds that will be remembered forever by the people of Sofold and myself. You have also said that the universe is a vast place, vaster than we could ever im­agine, with thousands of being as different from us as we are different from you living in it.

  "Should these worlds and beings extend to infinity and you were to go among each and every one, you will always find a hone and fire for you and your children's children here, in Wannome.

  "Go now, and go with the wind."

  "WITH THE WIND," echoed the crowd somberly. 'then someone made a rude noise and they broke into wild yelling and cheering.

  "A predictable sentiment," commented Hellespont du Kane flatly.

  "Yes? They might be cheering for us, or because their exalted ruler kept his speech. admirably short," September theorized, turning away. But had that been a hint of moisture at the corner of the big man's eyes? Or was it only distortion from the scratched and battered snow goggles.

  "All right, Ta-hoding" he bellowed aft. "Let's see if this firetrap will make it out of the harbor!"

  The strange new commands were issued in modified Tran­nish sailing terminology, relayed across the deck and up into the rigging to the sailors stationed aloft.

  Just watching the huge natives scramble up the rigging into the shrouds in the continual gale gave Ethan the jitters. And it would be much worse once they left the sheltering bulk of the island. But those powerful muscles and clawed hands and feet held them steady as, one by one, the rust-green sails be­gan to drop and dig wind.

  Slowly, smoothly, the _Slanderscree_ began to slide away from the dock, while the shouts from on shore grew louder and louder. Eyes on the sailors above, September walked over and gave Ethan a sly pat on the back.

  "By-the-by, young feller-me-lad, did you ever manage to get that business of the Landgrave's offspring straightened out?"

  "It was never out of line," Ethan riposted. "I thought I did, but she wasn't exactly in the forefront of the crowd, waving tearfully as we departed. perhaps not."

  "I didn't see her either. Though g notice you've warmed up to du Kane's daughter." The lady in question had vanished belowdecks the moment she'd come on board in order to get out of the wind. Raft or boat or castle, that was next to im­possible on this world.

  "Glassfeathers," Ethan countered, leaning over the rail to watch the ice slide past. "She's human, too. She just had to have someone to tail to, finally. I don't wonder that she doesn't chat much with her father. Certainly you and Williams aren't exactly the most charming conversationalists around."

  "Sorry, young feller, but when I see hex it's without that fur and survival suit, figuratively speaking. That kind of crimps my inclination to easy banter." He patted Ethan again in fatherly fashion and sauntered off forward, whistling.

  The _Slanderscree_ was moving out of tip lee of the moun­tains. She picked up speed rapidly as the quickly maturing crew put on more and more sail. Even the moonraker was out by the time they reached the main gate- completely repaired once again. y then they were moving at a respect­able 30 kph. But they'd be lucky to hold that, moving to the westward. Moving east, with the wind, however, the _Slanderscree's_ seed was limited only by the strength of her eels and masts and her ability to keep from becoming airborne.

  The last cheers they heard carne from the guards at the gate and the operators of the great chain as they shot between the towers. Once free of the harbor's confining walls, 'Ta-hoding, praying all the while, swung her in a wide curve designed to bring her back to the southwest and on course.

  Ethan held his breath as the raft came around. No one could predict how the radical new mast-and-sail configuration would respond on a craft and world far different from long­ dead Donald McKay's wildest imaginings.

  The sails cracked like Williams' crude gunpowder, the masts creaked, but tire raft carne about neatly. Everyth
ing held together as they slammed across the wind. They'd fol­low a gig-gag course, plodding for thousands of kilometers. Even so, the _Slanderscree_ would make good time whenever she turned southward, building up to a nice 60 kph or so before she'd have to turn west into the wind.

  He turned and scanned the deck in search of September but failed to locate hire. The big man had probably gone below to get out of the wined himself for a while. Ethan saw no reason why he shouldn't do likewise.

  He'd reached the hatch when the sounds of yelling and hooting reached hire. It was several seconds before he thought to loot skyward.

  There, perched outside of the wicker observation cage at the top of the main-mast, was Skua September, gripping the top of the windswept pole with his legs, waving his arms and braying like a hairy jackass.

  Ethan remained rooted to the deck until the big man finally tired and climbed down. He held his breath all the way, expecting at any minute to see the big man slip or lose his grip and be torn away by the clawing hurricane like the last leaf of autumn.

  But he reached the deck easily enough. He walked over to Ethan, tiny particles of ice coating his snow goggles. A gloved hand brushed absently at them. He was panting heavily.

  "Quite a view, lad, quite a view! A blood-racing experience, what? How about giving it a go?"

  "As you should know by now, I'm not the reckless explorer type, Skua."

  "All right, lad, all right," the other sighed. "You're the feckless metropolitan type. Shame. It's an exalting experience."

  "I don't doubt it, but I'm quite cold enough right here without having to add fatal exposure and bodily danger to it. I prefer the deck. I'll prefer my cabin even more." He turned and opened the sliding hatch door.

  To find a familiar and totally unexpected figure blocking his way.

  "Good morrow, Sir Ethan," said Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata co­quettishly. "It is less cold belowdecks."