Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

“It is the heat which makes such growth possible,” the teacher explained to the elderly Tran.

“So you have insisted. Tell me more about this pollination. You still have not fully explained what is a bee?”

As he spoke, the wizard removed his last vestige of clothing. Nakedness had become the norm on board, a general divesture of attire to which crewmembers male and female ascribed without comment. It had become not a question of modesty, but of survival.

In fact, the temperature had now risen to a point where the three humans could move about without their survival suits, which were given a much overdue airing-out. Moving about in underclothing was a pleasure for Ethan and his companions, but the heat was becoming a matter of concern for the crew.

Some of Ta-hoding’s sailors began experiencing an affliction with which they were completely unfamiliar: heat prostration. Ta-hoding himself ceased his cooling panting only when he had to speak, and then he kept his orders to a minimum. As one sailor after another had to reduce his work time, schedules were juggled until the Slanderscree was operating with a dangerously small crew. If they did not enter a region of cooler weather soon, the time might come when they would not have enough active bodies to control the ship properly.

When the weak cry sounded forward, Ta-hoding and everyone else at first ignored it, thinking it only the frustrated shout of another overheated crewmember. But the second yell: “Ahoy the helmdeck!” was insistent. It was definitely not just the voice of a fractious, heat-logy crewman.

A midshipmate, tongue lolling, relayed the message. Dehydration could not keep the amazement from his voice. “Captain, bowsprit lookout reports there are people to port.”

Ta-hoding ordered all sails furled; Grumbling sailors aloft struggled drunkenly to comply. Ethan had heard the report, too. Soon a modest crowd had assembled above the first axle, just above the portside wheel.

Standing on the ground below and gazing up with casual interest at the gaping faces lining the ship’s rail were three of the Golden Saia. Ethan stared at them without thought of politeness. He was no less fascinated than Ta-hoding, Hunnar, or any of the other Tran.

It put him in mind of their first meeting with Hunnar and his scouting party, after the lifeboat had crashed on Tran-ky-ky. Hunnar had believed Ethan and his fellow humans to be some peculiar, hairless variant of the Tran norm. And here, where they had no right to exist, were those very variants Hunnar had speculated upon.

For while the three bipeds below resembled the standard Tran in most respects, the differences were significant and striking.

All were males, built much as any member of the Slanderscree ’s crew. But instead of the longer, steel-gray fur sported by Hunnar and his brethren, the Saia were cloaked in short, thin fur sparse enough to let bare skin show through in places. The lighter coats were buttery-yellow instead of gray, with isolated spottings of brown and amber.

When one raised a spear and then leaned on it for support, there was a simultaneous exhalation from the Tran lining the rail. These creatures had no dan! The wind-catching membrane all other Tran sported between lower hip and wrist was totally absent. Such a shock made the next discovery seem almost anti-climactic. The Saia stood on sandaled feet. That was an impossibility for normal Tran because of their extended chiv. Instead of the long, powerful skate-claws, the three natives below showed claws on their feet no longer than those on their hands.

Yellow and black cat eyes were identical, as were the pointed, nervously shifting ears atop the head. But the absence of chiv and dan coupled with the short, light-colored fur seemed to suggest a variety of Tran as different from the average as a Neanderthal from Cro-Magnon man.

“Quite astonishing, friend Ethan.” The salesman looked uncertainly at the teacher standing next to him. Williams thought a moment, then looked embarrassed; He’d spoken in Trannish, out of habit, and in so doing had used the formal familiar honorific in referring to Ethan.

“They appear to be a specialized variant of uncertain age,” he hurried on, “adapted specifically to existing in this hot, thermal region. This may be the only tribe so modified on all of Tran-ky-ky.”

Conversation on board was stilled as one of the three below said, loudly but not clearly, “Greetings.” The accent was radically different from any Ethan had yet heard, so much so that the word verged on incomprehensibility. It was less guttural, closer to Terranglo than to Symbospeech, than was usual Trannish.

The Moulokinese had not exaggerated the special qualities of the Saia, he mused, as he prepared to climb down a boarding ladder to confront the triumvirate waiting patiently below. Mentally, he scoffed at the suggestion that they might possess mystic powers or knowledge. They were less hairy and less mobile, but that was all.

Even so, Ethan felt better when he touched ground and could turn to face them. Sir Hunnar and Elfa, who followed behind, were less comfortable, though it was the solid ground and not the presence of the Saia that was responsible.

Hunnar walked toward the three, moving like a clumsy newborn on the springy grass. It smashed and ran beneath his sharp chiv, staining them with green juice and giving him a crawly feeling he was hard pressed not to show. When the three offered nothing at his approach, he turned and looked expectantly at Ethan.

Speaking slowly so as to be understood, Ethan ventured the traditional Tran greeting. “Our breath is your warmth.” This struck the three onlookers as amusing. They murmured among themselves like people at a party sharing a private joke.

“We come from a far place,” Ethan continued firmly, ignoring the local levity he had produced. “We come with the blessings of the Moulokinese, our good friends. They say that you are their friends, and hope you will extend this friendship to us.”

All three Saia stared quietly at Ethan out of black pupils that seemed somewhat narrower than those of normal Tran, though it was probably only Ethan’s imagination that made them appear so.

Eventually the one in the middle turned to his right-hand companion and said audibly, “What a strange being that one is. So small, and with less hair even than ourselves.”

“Yes, and there are two others.” The second speaker pointed in the direction of Williams and September, who were among those clustered along the ship’s railing. “And how different they are! That one,” and he had to be indicating September, “is of proper size, but equally hairless. The other is even smaller than the one who speaks to us, yet his covering is dark brown instead of gold or gray.”

It was the last of three who stepped forward. “We welcome you as friends of our friends in Moulokin,” he said to Ethan and Hunnar, then glanced disapprovingly back at his companions. “Have you no manners?” He placed both golden-furred paws on Ethan’s shoulders, but did not breathe into his face as was customary.

“In many ways,” he said, dropping his paws and studying Ethan curiously, “this one resembles us more than our cold brothers.”

With a start, Ethan realized the truth of the other’s words. Lacking dan and chiv, and with a coloring closer to gold than gray, he and September did look much like the Saia. At first glance, a new observer might take Saia and humans as relatives rather than Saia and Tran. Not that the Saia were anything but a hothouse version of the inhabitants of this world. The duplication of eyes and ears, of body and extremities, proved that.

“We come,” Ethan began easily, launching into a by-now familiar tale, “from a world other than this one.” The loquacious Saia’s immediate response was anything but familiar.