“Can you make out how many there are?”
“Two Tran for certain,” said Hunnar evenly. “At least two of your kind. One steering and another seated behind the big light weapon.”
“Taking no chances,” September rumbled. “So what are they waiting for? Why don’t they finish us?”
“Maybe they’re having trouble with the gun,” Ethan said hopefully. “Plenty of battles have been decided by weapons that didn’t work properly at the critical moment.”
“Taking a head count, more likely.”
The delay did not last long, nor was there anything wrong with the laser cannon. An intense burst of amplified energy momentarily flared brighter than the sun as the weapon fired. It struck not the lifeboat but the ice in front and around.
Runners slid over nothing and the craft slewed sideways, the mast collapsing on top of them, as the ice gave way under the intense heat. They lurched wildly to port. Hunnar inhaled sharply and clutched at the steering column. Grurwelk cursed as she rolled over Ethan while Ta-hoding intoned a hurried prayer.
They did not sink. The ice sheet had been shattered all around them but it didn’t melt completely. The lifeboat was partially supported by a large floe that remained beneath the starboard runner. As they listed to port water began to trickle in through the closely set decking. It pooled up around Ethan’s feet as he struggled erect. The survival suit kept it from his skin.
“What the hell are they doing?” Even as he finished asking the question another bolt from the cannon blasted the ice off to their right. September had ducked below the railing. Now he raised his head to peer back at their assailants.
“Game time,” he muttered tightly. Another flare melted more ice in front of them. “They’re going to pin us in open water and wait till we sink.”
“What happens if we don’t?”
“I’m sure they’ll find a way to accelerate the process. Blow away the stern or something.”
Ethan pulled out his beamer. “We’ve got to take a shot at them. We can’t just sit here!”
September put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Maybe that’s what they’re trying to do, find out if we’ve got the pistols or if they’re back on the good old Slanderscree. Save the charge. They’re still out of range. If we don’t fire, maybe they’ll figure we don’t have them and move a little nearer.” He licked his lips. “They’re pretty close now. Come on, boys, we’re just as helpless as can be down here. Come on in and have a nice close look.”
By this time they were drifting in the middle of a patch of open water the size of a small lake. Wavelets rocked the lifeboat, which refused to sink. Williams found a couple of pots in the central cabin and soon he and Ta-hoding were bailing like mad. No doubt those on the skimmer found this essentially futile activity very amusing.
Then all of them were thrown backward as the water heaved beneath them.
It must have been a fish. Ethan didn’t know what else to call it because he didn’t get a very good look at it. Williams had a better view and thought it surely the biggest Holothuroidea in existence. It had a mottled, leathery skin from which tentaclelike purple and red eruptions projected and it slurped down the hovering skimmer as easily as a trout would take a fly. It hung frozen against the sky, a streak of color shattering the pure blue, the aft section of the skimmer dangling from horny lips. As it slid back beneath the surface the two Tran seated in the rear of the craft jumped clear.
The wave created by its descent split more of the ice and rocked the floating lifeboat wildly. Only once before had Ethan and his companions encountered one of the monstrous lifeforms that lived beneath the ice in the dark depths of Tran-ky-ky’s still liquid oceans. Undoubtedly the apparition which had inadvertently if momentarily saved them also had a warm-weather state, just as did the Tran and every other inhabitant of this frozen world. Perhaps in that state it had eyes. Ethan had seen none. In the cold lightless depths other senses came to the fore. Probably the swimming leviathan had sensed the skimmer’s motion.
What would it make of the drifting lifeboat?
He forced himself to stay calm. In shape and movement their craft was little different from the ice floes drifting all around it. He climbed to his knees and peered over the side, his legs immersed in icy water. There was no sign of the skimmer. One minute it had been hanging in the clear air, tormenting them. Now it was gone, along with its advanced weaponry, communications equipment, and crew.
Well, not all its crew. As Ethan stared, one of the two Tran who had jumped clear at the last instant vanished beneath the roiling surface. The other clung to a small ice floe and somehow managed to pull himself out of the water. He lay there, breathing hard and soaking wet and terrified, staring at the ice corpse surrounding him. Ethan wondered how long he’d last. The Tran could tolerate extreme cold, but dampness was something their systems were not accustomed to.
Ta-hoding clung to the steering oar. “It will come for us next. We are finished, doomed.”
“We’re still afloat,” September snapped, “and keep your voice down. That thing may have ears as big as its mouth.”
So they waited, bobbing in the slush and water, expecting at any moment to be engulfed from below. They were not. Not in five minutes, not in ten. Half an hour later they were still drifting aimlessly.
September rose and whispered. “Anybody else see any eyes?” A soft chorus of nos greeted his query. “Then it doesn’t see, or if it does, not well. Probably relies on high-pitched sound, or the pressure produced by other creatures moving through the water, or just movement. Maybe the vibrations the skimmer’s engine generated brought it up. Maybe it doesn’t even know we’re here.”
“It might be kilometers away by now,” Williams suggested hopefully.
“Yeah, and it might be able to get back here real quicklike. So let’s keep it quiet and slow.”
“A legend,” Hunnar muttered. “A creature from hell itself.” He peered cautiously over the side, unable to see more than a meter into the dark water. “Something from the depths of memory. I hope it stays there. If that is the sort of creature we will have to deal with when our world warms and the ice melts, then I hope the seas stay frozen forever.”
“What are we to do now?” Ta-hoding wondered. “Why do we not sink to the middle of the world?”
“We float.” Hunnar had trouble with the little-used word. “The way a small pouch of chiaf floats in a cup of soup.” He was studying their surroundings intently. “Somehow we must get back out onto the ice.”
“What about that one?” Williams pointed to the exhausted sole survivor of the skimmer, lying on his ice floe.
“What about him?” Hunnar sneered. “Let him freeze; let him starve. He is already dead.” He turned away, heading toward the bow. Grurwelk lingered in the stern, staring:
“We could paddle,” Ethan suggested, “except we don’t have anything to paddle with.”
“And we don’t want to make any vibrations in the water,” September reminded him. He started hunting through the storage lockers until he found what he wanted. As they looked on he secured one end of the pika-pina cable to a serpentine hook in the bow. At first Ethan thought he was fooling with the ice anchor, but the anchor remained in its holder nearby.
“What do you have in mind, Skua?”
September grinned at him. “Been more than a year since I’ve been able to go for a swim. Expect I still remember how.”
Ethan eyed him in disbelief. “You get in that water you’ll freeze. A survival suit’s not a spacesuit. It’s designed to operate in air. Besides, you don’t know what’s swimming around down there.”
“Reckon we’re fixing to find out. One thing’s for sure: We can’t just sit here. In a little while this wood’s going to get waterlogged. Then we’ll all be swimming.” He wrapped the loose end of the rope around his waist, then pointed to the left of the bow.
“There’s a lot of big chunks over that way. If I can get some traction I can make it to the ic
e sheet, then try to pull the boat over. With all of us pulling on the cable we might be able to haul this thing out of the water. Remember, there’s no hull. It’s just araft with runners and a mast. Not nearly as heavy as a regular boat.” Slipping one leg over the side, he put a foot into the water.
“Your suit system’s going to be overwhelmed,” Williams was telling him. “The water will press it flat against your body. You’ll lose the insulating layer of air. There’ll be nothing between you and the material for it to heat. And if you get any water down your neck …”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. If the ice water got inside the suit, it would ruin the material’s ability to distinguish inside from out. The confused thermosensors would interpret the water temperature as body temperature and adjust accordingly. Heating would effectively cease, and in the water beneath the lifeboat an unprotected human body would perish of hypothermia in a few minutes.
“Don’t worry, young feller-me-lad. I’ve always been pretty good about keeping my head above water.” He dropped the other leg over the side and slipped into the sea, still holding onto the rail. Now he was submerged up to his chest.
“How is it?” Ethan asked anxiously.
September smiled back up at him but you could see it was forced. “Afraid it’s starting to get a mite cool. We’ll see.” The rest of the pika-pina cable was coiled over his right shoulder. It was light and strong but there was still enough of it to weigh him down.
Taking a deep breath, he let go of the rail and dropped the rest of the way into the water, pivoted and began breast stroking toward the solid ice a dozen meters in front of the lifeboat.
Silently those on board urged him on, dividing their attention between his swimming form and the dark water surrounding him. Would the sudden presence of light attract curious dwellers from below? September continued to make progress, swimming silently and strongly without a single wasted motion. He reached the edge of the ice sheet without anything arising from the depths.
Whereupon the next problem manifested itself. September was no seal, able to accelerate in the water sufficiently to leap out onto the ice. The edge of the sheet offered precious little in the way of a handhold.
He tried several times but kept slipping back into the water. Paradoxically Hunnar, who could not swim, could have climbed out easily by digging his long powerful claws into the ice. September didn’t even have long fingernails, which in any case were enclosed by the suit’s gloves.
As they looked on worriedly he reached down into the water and picked up a drifting chunk of ice. Using this he began hammering away at a crack in the surface of the ice sheet, holding himself partway out of the water by leaning his left arm and shoulder on the sheet while simultaneously treading water.
Somehow he managed to chop a couple of shallow holes in the ice. Then using both hands he pulled himself out until he was lying flat. It was a measure of his exhaustion that he lay like that for a long time without turning to acknowledge the congratulations of his companions. Water formed a crust of ice on the exterior of his suit, which gradually brought his body temperature back up to normal.
Though it appeared plenty thick where the energy weapon hadn’t touched it, September still crawled on his belly another three meters away from the water’s edge, until he was certain the surface underfoot would support his standing form. Keeping the end of the cable wrapped around his waist, he dug his feet into another crack in the ice and leaned backward.
With infinite slowness the drifting lifeboat began to move. Using his body like a pulley, September continued to drag the waterlogged craft and its anxious passengers toward him. Almost an hour passed before the bow nudged up against the shore.
“I’ll go first,” Williams said. “I’m the lightest.”
“Right. If you fall through, grab the rope and pull yourself toward Skua,” Ethan advised him.
Williams nodded, then gingerly stepped over the bow and put first one foot down, then the other. The ice held.
“Solid,” the teacher said with satisfaction. He walked over and joined September, adding his lesser but nonetheless welcome strength to the cable. Ethan was next, then Hunnar, Ta-hoding, and lastly Grurwelk, still gazing back at the lone survivor of the skimmer who continued to drift aimlessly on his ice floe.
Deprived of their weighty presence the lifeboat floated higher in the water. Under September’s direction they all strained on the rope, using their weight as well as their strength, until Ethan was certain his arms were pulling loose from their sockets. Once they got the bow up on the ice sheet it became easier. They didn’t let up, however, until they’d dragged the little craft a respectable distance from the open lake.
Ignoring the several centimeters of water that still sloshed beneath their feet they broke off the icicles that had formed along the sides and bottom of the boat. Hunnar and Ta-hoding struggled to reset the fallen mast while Williams straightened the sail.
Ethan frowned and walked over to where Grurwelk Seesfar was staring at the water. When he looked in the same direction he saw that there was no sign of the last Tran survivor from the ill-fated skimmer.
“Finally went under, huh?”
She nodded tersely, turned away. To his astonishment he saw tears in her eyes. It was extremely rare for a Tran to cry.
“I don’t understand,” he said, gaping at her. “He was one of those who tried to kill us.”
“I know. One of those who allied himself with scum like this Corfu and his snotty little would-be emperor. He was also my husband. I ask a favor of you. Tell not the others. It means nothing now. It would not do me good.”
Ethan swallowed hard. “I understand. I won’t say a thing.”
She managed the faintest of smiles. “I thank you for this small thing. It would seem that appearances and decency do not always go together.”
Ethan stared after her as he strode back to join the others in preparing the lifeboat for travel. He noted that she did not again look at the place of open water.
The mast held, the sails held. They were off for Poyolavomaar. Inside the small cabin, the three humans clustered around a stone Tran cookstove. Since the cabin had stayed above water, the stove had remained dry, along with its highly combustible contents. Now a small but intense fire crackled within, the smoke rising through a narrow pipe fashioned from a single bone from which the marrow had been removed. The blaze heated the stone walls of the stove which in turn radiated a luxurious warmth throughout the cabin. The heat would have driven the Tran to distraction, but for the three humans it was an echo of home.
September had stripped off his survival suit and laid it out to dry and recuperate. His naked form occupied one whole end of the cabin. A couple of thick furs lay draped over his legs and like his companions he held his palms out to the fire until the skin threatened to crisp. He was no longer shivering.
“Terrific things,” he said, nodding in the direction of his survival suit which hung from a hook like a discarded skin, “but they’re not omnipotent. There at the end I thought I’d lost it all because I couldn’t climb up on that damn ice. I could feel my legs starting to go numb, or is that a contradiction in terms?”
“If you hadn’t gone for that swim,” Williams told him, “we’d still be floating back there, waiting to sink.”
“Or be swallowed,” Ethan added. “You think they’ll send out the other skimmer to look for us?”
“I doubt it.” September pulled back his hands and shoved them beneath the furs, a blissful expression on his face. “There’s going to be a lot of shouting and yelling when that skimmer doesn’t return. It’ll be natural for Antal and his people to assume it might take a day or two to run us to ground. By the time they figure out their gunners aren’t coming back we’ll be too far out for them to find us. They can’t have long-range tracking equipment.”
“Why not?”
“No need for it, first of all. Even if they did they couldn’t use the stuff. Emissions would be picked up by
the survey satellite or in Brass Monkey itself. All they can do is assume their people got us and then crashed or something on the way back.” He grinned at the thought. “Bamaputra’s not going to sleep real well for a while, wondering what really happened.” He stretched out on the combination bed and bench. “Now if you fellas don’t mind, I’m a mite fatigued.”
They were all exhausted, Ethan knew. No reason to worry with Ta-hoding guiding the boat. He lay down next to the exquisite fire and closed his eyes.
The last thing he saw out the rear cabin window just before he fell asleep was Grurwelk Seesfar, standing close by Ta-hoding and staring back the way they’d come.
Ethan could not penetrate the veil she drew over her emotions during the voyage to Poyolavomaar, but he was glad she’d come along. Whatever she was feeling inside she kept to herself and devoted all her energy to retracing the course they’d traveled on the journey south. When Ta-hoding’s navigational abilities failed and Hunnar’s instinctive sense of direction became confused she was ready and willing to choose a path based on her previous memories of travel in this region. Gradually the others came to treat her as a full-fledged member of their expedition and to rely on her knowledge. Ta-hoding accepted her boldness as a challenge and matched it with daring of his own.
An example of the captain’s courage came five days out as they were overtaken by a wyrsta. While not as violent as a rifs, it presented a more subtle threat since it was composed of swirling ice particles. These created a complete whiteout. Anyone sitting in the stern was unable to see beyond the central cabin.
A less confident skipper would immediately have turned the bow into the wind, set the ice anchors, and waited for the storm to pass. Not Ta-hoding. With Seesfar assuring him no obstacles lay between their present position and their goal he kept the sail up and maintained speed. Half a day’s travel found them through the storm, whereupon he was persuaded to surrender the wheel to Hunnar. Ice particles had collected in the captain’s frozen fur and beard until he resembled a feloursine version of Father Christmas.