“Well, we beat them off, Sir. How are our casualties?”
“There might be more, but we seem to have lost only one man and have few enough wounded. Again the wizard’s magic has served well.”
“That, and perhaps another,” said Ta-hoding. Their captain had spent the battle huddled alongside Hunnar, jabbing occasionally with his sword while expending most of his energy in imprecating his ancestors for getting him into this trouble. As a result, only his ego was scratched.
Now he was standing at the rail, staring at the northern horizon. “Tis long til night, yet darkness comes. Have you noticed, sirs?” Ethan hadn’t. Frankly, he couldn’t see much difference in the light even now.
But Hunnar apparently saw, as had Ta-hoding. “You are right, captain.”
September came over. “What’s all this about, now? Another attack? Good thing those beasties aren’t very bright. They could have picked us off neatly with a little thought.”
“I don’t know, Skua,” Ethan confessed. “Ta-hoding and Hunnar seem concerned about something in the light.”
“Not the light, noble sirs,” said Ta-hoding. “Look there, to the west a little more.” The two humans did so. “There, the Rifs!”
Now Ethan saw. A great dark cloud was just barely beginning to crawl over the stark horizon. Its front sparkled and flashed like the visible pulse of some huge animal. And the sky did seem to dim slightly.
“It comes early,” intoned Hunnar. “I wondered at seeing gutorrbyn come out of the north. Usually they move with the wind or into it. Clearly our flock was driven south.”
“Meaning we didn’t beat them off, then?” asked September.
“No, Sir Skua. I suspect they fought as long as they did only out of strong hunger. They’ve probably been running before that for some time. Now they are forced to try and cross to the west before the Rifs reaches them.”
Above, sails snapped and buffeted the masts, flailed uncertainly against spars in the unfamiliar cross-winds.
“We’ll have to turn further south and run before it as much as we can,” said Hunnar. “If we can stay well enough west it might even be a help … if everything holds together.”
“Good sir,” began Ta-hoding nervously, “I would recommend instead—”
“And we’ll reef in as much sail as you deem wise, good captain …”
Ta-hoding relaxed slightly.
“… less ten percent additional which I will order on, for I suspect you may value your hide above the swiftest completion of our journey.”
“You do me a terrible disrespect, noble sir, for in truth I would gladly sacrifice my poor self to insure that the honored and glorious friends of—”
“Enough, enough!” said Hunnar disgustedly, but without malice. “See to your sails and not platitudes, captain, and quickly!”
Ethan looked back at the cloud. It had doubled in size and was rapidly dominating the entire horizon, swallowing light and blue sky at a furious rate. He started forward.
“Going below, young feller-me-lad?”
“No!” Ethan was shocked at the vehemence of his response. But the big man’s words had been just a mite patronizing. Maybe he wasn’t ready for dancing atop the mainmast, but by Rothschild, he could damn well stay topside and take a little storm!
Hellespont du Kane surveyed the deck, left the hatchway, and strolled over. Ethan didn’t much feel like talking to the financier, but courtesy was part of his character. Besides, he might have a chance to make use of his famous acquaintance one day—if he ever thawed out.
Du Kane nudged one of the dragon-corpses that hadn’t yet been reached by the clean-up crew. Probably estimating its potential price per kilo on the interstellar marketplace, thought Ethan drily.
“Is it over, then, Mr. Fortune?”
“That much of it is,” Ethan replied, trying hard not to be brusque. “However, it appears that we are in for a mild blow. I suggest you go below and tie down anything you don’t want banged about.”
“Only my daughter, and she can take care of herself.” Was that line for real, or was du Kane playing straight? The perpetual poker face gave no clue. “The Rifs, then.”
“You know about them?” said Ethan, a little surprised.
“Oh yes, I shall remain on deck to absorb the experience. If you’ve no objection?”
“I? Object?” He’d enjoy seeing this stuffed shirt scramble for safety when the first strong gust struck. “Be glad of your company.”
Hellespont du Kane looked at him squarely. “There is no need to play irony, Mr. Fortune. I know what you think of me.
“Just a second, now, du Kane,” said Ethan, turning from the rail. He’d been caught badly off-balance. “What makes you think—”
“Never mind, never mind.” The financier waved a hand negligently. “It does not matter. Some of us, Mr. Fortune, are not born to the comradely, easygoing, instant-intimate manner. I have friends, but they are relationships based on mutual respect and, in some cases, mutual fear. I should like to be more … more …”
“Human?” supplied Ethan, and instantly regretted it. Du Kane looked his age, then. The glance he gave Ethan was almost—almost but not quite—pitiable.
“I would not venture to express it quite so strongly, Mr. Fortune, but we cannot help the way we are, can we?”
“I don’t know, Hellespont.” He clutched a strand of the rigging to steady himself in the rising wind. Sailors were beginning to string safety lines across the deck. “Is that a question or a declaration?”
Ethan stood at the stern. Ta-hoding manned one side of the huge wheel and his helmsman the other. “It will take two of us to manage her—for the first hour, at least,” he’d explained. All but a few of the top sails had been taken in. The raft skimmed smoothly toward the northwest. Ta-hoding was trying to make as much distance that way before the front struck and forced him to swing south with the wind.
By now the stygian nimbus blotted out most of the northern sky. Lightning crackled like a mad composer’s composition on three sides of the ship.
“Soon,” moaned Ta-hoding. “Soon. I can smell it coming.”
“Hold fast, friends,” warned Hunnar. “The first moments are the worst. Tis a live thing.” He moved off forward to double-check the safety lines.
“According to the captain,” said September, having to shout to make himself heard over the wind, “it’s kind of like an atmospheric tidal bore. You know what a tidal bore is?”
No one did. Before the big man had a chance to explain, the Rifs struck.
Ethan was prepared for anything, and that’s exactly what happened. He was knocked free of the rail and blown several meters across the deck before he rolled up against the feet of a sailor. The tran iceman was hugging one of the safety lines like a mistress. Somehow he maintained his hold, reached down a massive hairy paw, and grabbed Ethan by the scruff of his jacket. Ethan practically climbed his leg until he could get a grip of his own on the line.
The concussion from that first hammer-like gust had gifted him with a bruised cheek and a cut lip—worse than he’d suffered in the gutorrbyn assault. Slowly, carefully, he dragged his way back toward the rail.
Somehow, Ta-hoding and his helmsman were holding the ship on course. Hunnar had suggested lashing the wheel, and it had been a surprise when the captain refused.
“A rope has no brains, noble sir, and the Rifs is an angry great cub. You cannot trust it with a lashed wheel.” But he’d agreed to have the two alien airfoils locked in position.
The Slanderscree suddenly tilted and Ethan made a dive for the rail. Up and over the wind heeled the flying raft, until she was hurtling along on her port runners alone. Than Ta-hoding slammed the wheel over; she turned south, and crunched back to the horizontal with a violent crash. But she continued to run easily and nothing appeared to have broken or buckled.
September pulled himself up to where Ethan clung. “Held her heading a little long, there. Got plenty of guts, our fat captain. You
okay?”
Ethan carefully extended a gloved hand and moved another step closer. “One of these days I’m going to tell you I’m dying, just for the hell of it,” he shouted back.
The wind flailed at them, intent on smashing the unyielding raft to kindling. Now that they were in the storm proper and moving with it, the raft ran easier. Fury pushed them but the initial insanity was gone south.
“How fast do you reckon we’re going, young feller?” Ethan didn’t have the damndest idea, but a barely audible voice from behind him apparently did.
“I should estimate the initial front at well over 150 kph. Now I perceive we are riding a wind of slightly more than a hundred. Invigorating, is it not?”
Moving hand over hand on the safety lines, Hellespont du Kane pulled himself to where Ta-hoding and his helmsman fought with the wheel.
“Old man or not,” began September, blatantly disregarding the fact that he was no swaddling babe himself, “I’m going to put a fist in that smug puss one of these days.”
“I don’t think it’s smugness so much,” replied Ethan, wondering that the aged industrialist was still on deck at all. “It’s just that whether it’s a million credits or the proper setting of silver at the table that’s in question, du Kane is very matter-of-fact about things.”
“Probably react to a fist in the snoot that way, too,” the big man grunted.
Ethan blinked beneath his goggles. The ice was gray under the streaking storm clouds, which raced the ship like an endless herd of galloping hippos. Lightning threw geysers of ice-chips when it struck the ice.
Several times the iron rods at the tips of the three masts drew million-volt white scimitars, but without damage to the raft. If you ignored the pain in your arms from gripping the rail, or the way your goggles dug circles around your eyes, why then, Ethan admitted, it had a wild and wonderful kind of beauty.
In fact, it was magnificent.
“I’m going below for something warm. Coming, young feller?”
“I’ll … I’ll be along in a minute,” Ethan murmured. Lightning jumped in a gargantuan triple arc from one tiny island to another. “You go on.”
September grunted, then paused, swaying in the gale. “Did you ever hear of the Analava System?”
A part of Ethan’s mind managed to drag itself away from the meteorological asylum. “Sure, vaguely. Weren’t those the two planets in the Vandy sector that went to war despite intervention of a Commonwealth peace team and a Church edict … oh, some twenty years ago?”
“Twenty-two. I told you I was wanted. Well, you want to know what I’m wanted for? I think, young feller-me-lad, I may just tell you.”
That drew Ethan’s attention away from the howling weather. September faced him broadside, clinging to the railing with one hand and a safety line with another, fighting the wind.
“Hundred twenty million people died in that war. Lasted a whole week. There are one or two people who think I’m responsible for it. That’s why they want me.” Then he turned, put both hands on the safety line, and started to make his way to the nearest hatch.
Ethan was too shocked to try and keep him from going, too stunned to frame any questions. The Analava War was one of the great horrors of modern times, a blot on the history of the Commonwealth, a running sore on the record of mature homo sapiens, and a throwback to the Dark Ages. His personal recollections of it were of the faintest—he’d been only eight or nine at the time. Details he’d learned later, in maturation. But the shock and terror it had on the adults around him were memories he retained from childhood.
September was crazy, of course. No one man could possibly be held responsible for the deaths of 120 million human beings.
Lightning cut and ripped at the gray ice. He looked out and saw none of it.
A giant hand picked him up and threw him out of his bunk. He didn’t think the joke was a bit funny and said so at length as he flailed angrily at his blankets in the dark room. Sleep evaporated from his curtained brain as he untangled himself and absorbed several facts at once.
First, while he was sure he was sitting up straight, he seemed to be leaning at an angle. He was sure the fault was with the universe and not him. As his eyes grew used to the darkness he was positive of it. He fumbled a bit, lit an oil lamp. Yes, the deck was canted to the left at an unnatural angle.
A respectable rumble of trannish curses drifted in to him from the main hold. Terranglo related semantic species came from September’s cabin, next to his. Cries of uncertainty and anxious questioning were already beginning to supplant the first howls of outrage. He opened his door.
Someone had already lit the lamp in the hall and lights were beginning to go on down in the main hold. If there was a sailor or soldier who hadn’t been dumped from his bunk, Ethan didn’t see him.
Fighting with his jacket and survival suit every centimeter of the way, he walked to the end of the hall. Tran were struggling to their feet, trying to straighten bunks and sort bedding, repeating the same inane, unanswerable questions to each other over and over. A single moan of pain came from somewhere far forward, but otherwise everyone seemed more shaken mentally than physically. He walked back and rapped on the door of the cabin across from his own.
A concerned Sir Hunnar confronted him almost immediately. The bedraggled knight was trying to banish the sleep from his own eyes and buckle on his sword at the same time.
“We’re stopped!” Ethan blurted.
Hunnar shook his great red mane. “Tis assured you can find the sum of some things, Sir Ethan. Most definitely, we are.”
Ethan glanced past the massive torso and saw General Balavere struggling with his own garb. September joined him a moment later and the three started up the passageway.
They nearly collided with Ta-hoding. The expression on the plump captain’s face was not reassuring.
Hellespont du Kane stuck his head out of the door of his cabin and shouted across to them, “What has happened, gentlemen?”
“We’re going to find out, du Kane,” Ethan yelled back at him. “Soon as we do, I’ll let you know.” The financier nodded and vanished back into his rooms.
Ta-hoding led them up the steps, grumbling over his shoulder. “It seems we may have run aground. That in itself is no insignificant worry, noble sirs, but I am more concerned about the damage. Tis almost a certainty one or more of our runners has collapsed. By the angle the raft lies at, I should guess one. I only hope ’tis the bolting to the hull and not the runner itself.”
“That’s duralloy we’re riding on, captain,” reminded September. “Reworked or not, it won’t crumple. I think you’re probably right about the bolts.”
Ta-hoding shoved at the hatchdoor. As always, the two humans braced themselves for the expected blast of groping, heat-sucking air.
The Rifs had degenerated into a mere gale. By morning the storm would pass them completely. Carefully shielded from the wind, lanterns threw dancing tendrils of light onto the deck. Ta-hoding was met by the waiting night-duty helmsman. Then another sailor came over, breathing unevenly, to stammer out a long string of information.
Hunnar and September walked to the railing while the conference continued. Ethan listened briefly, then joined them.
“We’re aground, all right,” suggested September.
“Can we pull free?” Ethan asked.
Hunnar pondered the question. “This southeast wind will die by first light. Then we’ll have the normal westwind in our faces. That should enable us to pull off with little trouble.”
Ta-hoding rejoined them. “Well, noble sirs, it seems I was woefully wrong. We have not run aground. Not exactly, anyway.”
“I don’t follow you,” said Ethan, squinting ahead into the darkness. “Certainly looks like an island up forward.”
“It does,” the captain agreed. “Again the world lies. Come.”
They followed him toward the bow. As they approached the sharp prow of the ship, Ethan noticed something shining in the moonlight of
f to the right. A big, cream-colored pillar. It looked oddly familiar.
They had to step carefully to avoid the fallen rigging and shattered spars that had been knocked down. The upper half of the foremast had snapped in the middle and the huge log had crashed to the deck, bringing rigging and furled sail down with it. Only a stub of the bowsprit was visible, and the left railing near the bow was crumpled, though the hull seemed sound.
To their left, sailors with lanterns threw rope ladders over the side and started down to the ice.
The stavanzer was quite dead. Extending into the dark to port and starboard, the uneven crusted back loomed over the prow. By terran standards it was a colossus. Compared to the only other member of its species Ethan had seen, this one was small, even tiny.
Ta-hoding scrambled awkwardly over a broken topspar, reached the bow and leaned forward.
“A young one, very young indeed. I wonder how it happens to be here alone.”
“Probably it was separated from its herd in the storm,” Hunnar guessed. “And sought the shelter of an island.” He stared at the wide, arching back, at the two flaccid air jets. “It must have been very weak and perhaps also asleep when we struck. I think it must have died instantly. See? We’ve hit just behind the head.”
Indeed, the sharp prow of the fast-moving raft had impacted just behind the huge closed eye. The long, tapered bowsprit had plunged mortally deep into the great animal, wreaking havoc with that endless nervous system.
“We’re damn fortunate it’s not an adult,” September observed.
“Fortunate indeed,” agreed Hunnar.
“Here, captain!” The cry came from their left, up from the ice. They followed Ta-hoding over.
Budjir had been on night-watch. Now he reached for the paws that dipped to help him back over the shattered rail.
“We struck the thunder-eater at an angle, sirs. The front port runner has broken completely loose from its mounting and now lies alone on the ice. The fore starboard runner is bent sharply, but the bolting held.”
“Vunier!” muttered Hunnar. “Well, we have spare fastenings. The mast will be no trouble, but the other …” He sighed. “We will have to make the repairs. Another delay, my friends.”