Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

Cheela Hwang, Blanchard, and the four other scientists who’d been nominated to go on the expedition were busy checking over their gear. Besides Hwang and the geophysicist there was another meteorologist, a glaciologist, a geologist, and a xenologist. Moware, the last of the half dozen, had been included not for the help he might provide in determining the cause of the climatological anomaly but because the chance of a long trip away from already over-studied Arsudun was too valuable to pass up. He’d already expressed his intention to do photos and in-person studies of everyone they met during the course of the journey.

“Just don’t study them too close up,” September advised him. “You never can tell about the Tran. Why, they can be chatting with you friendly as can be one minute and slip a knife across your throat the next. There’s them that would spill your guts just for the metal in your belt kit.”

Ethan overheard and sidled over to stand next to his tall friend. “Come on, Skua, you know that isn’t true.”

“Do I now? Are we already experts on the Tran? Just because we’ve spent some months among them doesn’t mean we really know them. We know their language, the habits and culture of a few, the attitudes of several more, but we don’t know them. For all their cheery hellos and how-do-you-dos they’re still an alien people. They’re not human. They’re not even anthropoid.” He turned and stalked away.

Moware was the oldest member of the scientific team. He had the visor of his survival suit flipped back, as did all the humans, and he regarded September’s retreating back with interest. “I don’t know your big friend very well, but I think he carries a considerable mental burden with him wherever he goes. He jokes with his words but not his eyes.” He looked over at Ethan. “You’re good friends, though.”

“Very good—I think.” Ethan searched for September, but the giant had already disappeared. “He’s right, though. We don’t really know the Tran.”

And I don’t really know you, do I, Skua September?

He strolled over to where Hunnar and Elfa were bidding a final farewell to those members of the crew who were staying behind.

“In Wannome we will meet soon and drink and sup by the great fire in the Hall of the Landgraves.” Hunnar clasped the old warrior by both shoulders and Balavere Longax returned the gesture. Then Longax was embraced by Elfa.

“May the good spirits stay with you, princess, and carry you safely back to us. Your father will be disappointed to find you not among us.”

“My father will grumble and return to his business,” she replied with a smile. “You’ll still have stories to tell him when we finally enter Wannome harbor, for we’ll be back before your voice and imagination run dry.”

Then it was Ethan’s turn. When the ceremonials had concluded, Longax searched the busy crowd behind them. “Will not the great September come to bid us farewell?”

“He’s sulking,” Ethan explained. “Making a big show of how upset he is at coming with us.”

Longax made a gesture of understanding. “The September is much like a small meat-eater called the toupek. It is solitary, hunts by itself, joins with others of its kind only to mate, and roars like thunder, but it is only this big.” He held his paws a foot apart.

“I don’t know. Skua talks about us not knowing you. Sometimes I think I know you and Hunnar and Elfa better than I know him.”

“A strange one, your large friend,” Longax agreed solemnly, “even for a human being. I think he prefers to sail against the wind.”

“Why should that bother him?” It took Ethan a moment to realize he’d just made a joke that only another Tran could understand. Translated, it would have meant nothing to someone like Cheela Hwang. He’d been here a long time for sure.

Longax’s party left the icerigger and lined up on the stone dock. A blast of subzero cold slapped Ethan in the face and he snapped shut the visor of his survival suit. Through the polarized glass he watched while Longax and his companions bowed somberly toward the ship.

Ta-hoding took up a stance behind the ship’s wheel and bellowed commands. The wind which had stung Ethan bothered the captain not at all. Tran mounted the rigging and adjustable spars. Sails woven from pika-pina fabric began to unfurl.

Quite a crowd had gathered to watch the icerigger’s departure. There were a number of humans from the research station, running their recorders while murmuring notes into the aural pickups. A three-masted, arrowhead-shaped ice ship mounted on five huge skates fashioned of metal salvaged from the ruined shuttle craft which had originally brought Ethan and Skua and Milliken Williams to this world, the Slanderscree was a wonderment to all who set eyes on her, Tran and human alike. There was nothing to compare to her anywhere on the planet. Her ancestors had once carried tea and porcelain and passengers across the two great oceans of Earth. Milliken Williams had adapted those designs to the necessities of Tran-ky-ky and its frozen oceans.

Using the wind as skillfully as a flutist, Ta-hoding backed the huge vessel away from the dock. The watching humans were too busy with their recording and note taking to cheer, while the Tran observing the departure had no reason to do so. Formal farewells had been concluded. As far as Balavere Longax and his companions were concerned, their friends and shipmates were already out of sight.

Under Ta-hoding’s direction the icerigger pivoted neatly around its fifth skate, the stern rudder which was used to steer the ship. Wind filled the sails as the spars were adjusted. Picking up speed, the Slanderscree headed up the narrow ice-filled fjord that formed Brass Monkey’s harbor.

On our way again, Ethan mused as he watched the frozen terrain slide by. Outward bound and still not for home.

He expected that Hwang and her people would keep to their cabins; the deck of the Slanderscree under full sail was not a relaxing place to be. But he was wrong. Having been confined to a single island for their tours on Tran-ky-ky, the researchers were delighted to finally find themselves out on the great ice sheet itself. They embarked on a nonstop round of activity and experimentation, to the point where nighttime measurement taking began to interfere with normal shipboard routine.

“I was sleeping soundly, Captain,” Second Mate Mousokka explained to Ta-hoding while Ethan and Hunnar looked on, “having seen to the setting of the anchors for the night, when suddenly I hear the sound of many feet on the deck above. Too many for the night watch and in the wrong place. So I arise from a warm hammock and steal onto the deck to espy what’s happening. I am thinking perhaps we have been attacked and the night watch has already had their throats cut.

“But all I see are the furless beings—no offense, Sir Ethan—prowling about the deck setting up strange metal tubes. They stare through these and I look in the same direction, but all there is to see is the ice.”

“They were studying the phosphorescent algae that grows on the ice,” Ethan explained uncomfortably, having familiarized himself with that particular experiment. The second mate and the captain looked puzzled while Hunnar was merely amused. “ Eorvin ,” he told them, finding the proper Tran name.

Mousokka squinted at him. “They were looking at eorvin? In the middle of the night? In the cold dark?” Ethan nodded, a gesture that meant the same among the Tran as it did among humans.

The second mate thought this over before replying. “I will tell the others that they must watch your friends carefully, lest in their single-minded staring they fall beneath the ship or out of the rigging.”