Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

“Yes, I know, I know.” Trell sighed, exasperated by the childish obsessions of these ignorant primitives. “Calonnin explained to me about the concubine. Your desires are as limited as your vision, Rakossa.”

“You think us beneath you, offworlder. Our vision,” he said in a way which started a funny prickling at the back of Trell’s neck, “may not be so limited as you think.”

“Meaning what?”

“We attempt to foresee all,” Rakossa explained obtusely. “That is how we have been able to survive as long as we have in a court filled with intrigues and crafty enemies all about us. They too think we are foolish and mad, that we are blinded by silly desires. But obsession is not blindness, and we are not so obsessed that we cannot see possible futures. Cannot see all possibilities.”

Trell’s right hand began sliding cautiously toward the pocket in his survival suit, opening the interior heat seal to admit the hand into the coveralls beneath.

“First you said you care only for today. Now you claim to look into the future. You’re inconsistent if not truly mad, Rakossa.”

“’Tis our way of protecting our desires of today, offworlder.”

Trell had a sudden thought. Hand still moving, he turned a stunned gaze on Ro-Vijar, Who had moved to stand against a far wall. “Calonnin, what is…!”

The first arrow struck the Resident Commissioner just above his pushed-back ice goggles. It glanced off the skull and so failed to kill him outright. Subsequent arrows did not.

Both Ro-Vijar and Rakossa had ducked from the line of fire, Ro-Vijar out the door he’d ambled so casually toward, Rakossa behind the table and into shadows. Trell had just enough foresight to get off a shot. His beamer pierced only the cabin roof.

As soon as their task was completed, the sailors who’d been hidden in the rafters above and outside the doors and windows returned to their usual tasks. All save a few who were directed by Rakossa.

The bodies of the three dead humans, for the peaceforcers had fallen as well, were rendered almost unrecognizable by the profusion of arrows sticking from them.

“Were so many necessary?” inquired Ro-Vijar, eying the corpses a mite uncomfortably.

“’Twas yourself, Landgrave of Arsudun, who told us you could be not certain of the location of their vital organs. We do not take chances. Wait!”

The procession halted, their grisly cargo staining the clean wood of the deck. Rakossa walked to stand next to Trell’s limp form. Reaching through a small forest of arrows he lifted the vacant-eyed head by its hair, stared into it with blazing black and yellow eyes.

“Think you still so much smarter than us, Trell of the offworlders?” He grinned a bloodthirsty grin at Ro-Vijar. “Odd. He does not answer. Perhaps we have changed his mind for him.” He let the skull fall with a loose-jointed hobbling, a rotting apple in a stream. The sailors carried the bodies from view.

“Are you certain you can operate the offworlder’s great weapon?” he asked Calonnin.

“I tried in many ways most subtle on our journey here to induce Trell to show me, but he was too clever for that. However, when we confronted the humans before the wall, I watched intently as the female prepared the machine. I am sure she was ready to protect Trell, so the weapon should have been ready to fire. I memorized the procedure required as best I could.”

“Excellent. What will happen now that we have slain the offworlders’ leader?”

“He is but the leader of the single small town they maintain on our world,” Ro-Vijar explained thoughtfully, scratching at one ear where a persistent mite had been troubling him for days. “If you or I were to die, the knights and nobles would rise our offspring or one of their own to the throne. I suspect it is much the same with the skypeople. They will choose one among them to replace Trell until a new leader can be sent from beyond the sky to take his position.

“Whoever they send will know naught of what transpired here. Those in their outpost who know me will believe me, will believe my account of his death and that of his companions, as there is naught else for them to believe.”

“And you will remain secure as the only go-between twixt skypeople and Tran.”

“’Tis truth, friend, Rakossa.” Ro-Vijar has sloughed off a slight feeling of apprehension. He knew to a certain extent the powers the offworlders possessed. But what of powers he knew nothing about?

Trell had bled and died as readily as any Tran when the arrows transfixed him. No offworlder had arrived to save him or revenge him. It seemed likely none would. He was feeling much, much better now.

“I will control all the trade. As promised, you will receive your recompense for this day’s work.”

“And the raft. Do not forget the raft.”

“Yes, the great iceraft shall be yours also.” Ro-Vijar conceded the ownership of the icerigger easily. And why not? There was the skypeople’s skimmer which needed no runners to travel across ice or land faster than any ice ship. There were doubtless other devices he could purchase or steal from the human traders. He could blame any such thefts on others. The Poyos, for example. All knew of their ruthless treacheries. What need had he of an iceship, no matter its size?

“We will still strive to persuade the three offworlders in the city to surrender,” he told Rakossa. “They have the small light weapons.”

“Do we not have three of our own now, in addition to the great one in the sky raft?”

“True, friend Rakossa. But we are not experienced in their use. Best to avoid trouble if possible.”

“If they surrender, we will have six instead of three. They will inquire about Trell. Then they must die.”

“That is obvious,” agreed Ro-Vijar calmly. “’Tis good that we agree.”

Ethan leaned against the wall. He was watching several Moulokinese soldiers play a game familiar in a thousand manifestations throughout the galaxy. On ancient Terra it had been known as sunka, kalaha, and in a dozen other incarnations. One soldier had just collected seven of his opponent’s pebbles when the horribly familiar sound of paper tearing was heard.

Across the gate from his present position a gap had appeared in the top of the wall. It was roughly three meters long and three and a half deep, almost perfectly circular save for the jagged edges of a few stones sticking into it. Within that circle everything: stone, soldiers and weapons, had vanished. Or more properly, had become either part of the molten debris lying at the bottom of the cut or of the ashy vapor drifting downcanyon. Mist formed above it as the cold air of Tran-ky-ky contacted the superheated rock.

He hadn’t seen the bolt from the cannon, not that he had to. A frantic look over the wall showed the skimmer still floating in place in front of the nearest Poyo raft. September put a hand on his shoulder, stared alongside him.

“Feller-me-lad, that’s no man at the controls.”

As the skimmer started toward them, moving awkwardly in fits and jerks, Ethan was able to confirm the giant’s observation. The skimmer held several Tran, but no survival-suited humans.

“I recognize Ro-Vijar. He’s the one operating the gun.”

The skimmer halted just out of hand beamer range. The Landgrave of Arsudun rose behind the weapon. “I do not form phrases so pretty as offworlders. You will all surrender: now. Or I vow every man, woman and cub in Moulokin will die.”

Ethan shouted across the ice. “Where’s the human Jobius Trell?”

“Trell has traveled the path destined for all traitors, offworld or otherwise. He cannot help you now.”

Several Tran chivaned forward. They carried between them three feathered bodies, which they unceremoniously dumped on the ice. The corpses were not so far away that Ethan and the others on the wall couldn’t distinguish the limp forms of the former Resident Commissioner of Tran-ky-ky and his two attendant peace-forcers.