Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

Subtlety having failed, Hwang put the request directly. “Then surely you can see that we need your help.”

Realization dawned more slowly on Ethan. “Oh, no. I mean, we’ll be glad to help you with preparations and suggestions and advice, won’t we, Skua?”

September pointedly checked his chronometer. “That we will, young feller-me-lad, so long as they don’t take more than a few hours. A nova might have kept me off that shuttle. Nothing else will.”

Hwang turned to gaze earnestly at Ethan. “What about you, Mr. Fortune? Milliken tells us you’re going to be staying here anyway.”

Ethan shot an angry look in the schoolteacher’s direction. Williams didn’t turn away from the glare. Why be upset with Milliken anyway? Ethan asked himself. Truth was truth.

“Yeah, I’ll be based here for a while. But my responsibility is to the House of Malaika. I have to set up a formal trading station. Right now that consists of myself and a few cases of samples that are probably frozen solid in the warehouse. I have to arrange for construction or leasing of offices and storage space, hire an assistant from administration, and begin the search for suitable employees off-world. There are forms to be processed and filled out and filed, and I don’t know where to begin.”

“We can help you with that,” said another of the meteorologists. “We’ve been dealing with the local administration for years.”

“From a scientific standpoint, not a commercial one,” Ethan argued. “I also have to arrange quarters for myself.”

“We could find you a permanent apartment here.” Blanchard grinned. “Not entirely on the up and up, but we did lose a couple of geologists a few months back. You could have two apartments, one for yourself and another for a temporary office. Better than what administration would assign you.”

Ethan felt like a man climbing a ladder to escape a pack of carnivores. He was rapidly running out of rungs. “Look, I appreciate your offers and I sympathize with your situation, but I don’t have a minute to spare for myself, I’ve got a ton of work to do, and I just can’t disappear for weeks on end again. I just got back to civilization. If it’s an ice ship you want, I can make contacts for you in Arsudun Towne. You can hire transportation to Poyolavomaar. Once you’re there, I’m sure you’ll be able to hire a ship and crew to take you farther south.”

“Where we have to go is uncharted territory. It’s a long way from this Poyolavomaar you describe in your report. We don’t know the natives or their ways.”

“Why not just wait for your new satellite instrumentation? Then you can get all the answers you need from the safety and comfort of your offices.”

“It’s not our safety and comfort that concerns us at the moment,” Hwang told him. “It’s the safety of the natives, the Tran. You see, while we don’t share your unique experiences we do interact with the natives here in Brass Monkey. We know many of them by name and we’ve come, as you have, to like and admire them. We don’t want to see anything happen to them.”

“Now hold on a minute.” September looked confused. “We’ve been talking about an unexplained localized meteorological phenomenon affecting a part of the southern continent. Nobody’s said anything about a possible planet-wide disaster.”

“It’s difficult to speak in such terms without hard evidence,” said another of the scientists. “That’s why we’re so anxious to go and see what’s happening for ourselves. We hope no disaster is in the offing—planetary or even continental—but we need to go there and find out. And we need to do it as soon as possible. We can’t wait for answers on advanced imaging equipment that might or might not ever arrive. We’re probably overreacting, but we need to know what’s going on out there, Mr. September.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ethan fought to keep a grip on his emotions. “Unless you hire an ice ship to take you to Poyolavomaar and then try to proceed south from there you won’t find out. Because there’s no other way to reach the region you’re talking about. You just ran through all the options yourself. It’s too far for ice cycles and there’s no skimmer or aircraft available.”

“What of the remarkable ice ship you built?” Hwang asked him.

“We didn’t build anything,” Ethan told her, more sharply than he intended. “The Tran built every meter of it themselves.”

“Excuse me. The ice ship you designed. It’s far sturdier and faster than anything we’ve observed locally. And it’s a proven long-distance traveler. If we could…”

“Out of the question.” It struck him then that the main purpose of the meeting had been to obtain the use of the Slanderscree. He and Skua were incidentals. “The Slanderscree ’s going one way—and that’s west. Not east, southeast, or anywhere in that vicinity. It’s going to take a long time for it to get home because it’s going to have to tack into the wind.

“Its crew has been away from home for over a year. They may have membranes between their wrist and waist, they may have vertical pupils instead of round ones, but they’re people. They’ve been away from their families, their friends, and their lives for much too long, just because of us. They want to get back home as badly as Skua does.”

“We’re aware of their concerns.” Hwang made placating gestures as she spoke. “We sympathize with them just as we do with you and Mr. September. We’ve read everything you wrote about Sir Hunnar Redbeard and his people. But this matter concerns them more than it does us. This is their world that may be in danger. You must convince them to help us.”

Ethan shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter if we went to them stark naked and did tricks and somersaults until we froze in midair. Hunnar is now heir to the throne of Wannome. He has political as well as personal reasons for returning home. They’re our friends but we’re still aliens and they’re still Tran. They don’t owe us a thing. Quite the contrary—Skua and Milliken and I owe them for keeping us alive. No amount of talk on our part is going to convince them to put off their journey homeward for another six months or whatever in order to help you resolve a dispute about some variance in the weather hundreds of kilometers southeast of Arsudun.”

Hwang’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I understand. You must also understand that we had to ask. Milliken said it would be difficult.”

This is crazy, Ethan thought. Why do I stand here listening to this? What difference does it make what is causing the rise in temperature far to the south? They’ve already admitted it was probably due to volcanism.

But if it wasn’t due to volcanism, what was responsible?

It was none of his business. He was a trader, a man of commerce, not a scientist. It wasn’t his business to intercede with the Tran on behalf of Cheela Hwang and her associates. He had enough problems of his own to worry about.

She wasn’t finished. “We have neither the right nor the power to compel you. We know that you and Mr. September have endured a great deal these past months. We won’t impose on you any further. But we had to ask.” She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “We had to ask because we had no other choice.”

What a terrific way to begin his relationship with the rest of the outpost’s permanent staff, Ethan thought. Not that he was likely to ever need their help. If only they wouldn’t be so damn gracious in defeat! Why didn’t they yell a little and curse him? What the hell did they expect? Even if he did confess to temporary insanity and agree to go off with them, didn’t they understand there was just no way he could convince Hunnar and Captain Ta-hoding and the rest of the Slanderscree ’s crew to do likewise?