Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

“Look,” breathed the cub, “it’s the great lords from the sky!”

“Not great lords,” Ethan corrected him.

The pair scrambled to their feet. “It is as we were told. You are as modest as a great lord, sir.”

On the edge of puberty, Ethan decided as he studied them. Cute as could be. As he looked on they both bent double and rested their paws on the deck.

“We are honored,” they said in unison.

“Charming little buggers,” September commented. He glanced at Ta-hoding. “You sure they’d be in the way, Captain?”

That worthy looked uncomfortable but he stuck to his guns. “If you were a scout or a pilot, Sir Skua, you would know how out of place cubs are on a warship.”

“Warship?” Seesfar seized on the claim immediately. “I see no preparations for war. Only for travel and exploration.”

“We go not to fight but we must be prepared to. We have had to do so in the past.”

“You speak of my offspring as being in the way. What do you call these foolish humans who dash back and forth and run into each other much as my children?”

“Scholars. Scholars are often absent-minded because they are constantly thinking on scholarly things. This is something that is the same among the skypeople as it is among us.”

“What better place for a pair of cubs, then, but among a host of scholars? Think of what they could learn.”

Ta-hoding flashed his dan at her. “I will not sail this ship out of this harbor with those infants aboard!”

Eyes locked. Sailors pretended to continue their work. When the end came it was a surprise to everyone.

Seesfar nodded, just once. “This is your ship. While I am on it, I will abide by your decisions.”

Ta-hoding relaxed uncertainly. “Well, I—that is right of you. Very right. It is decided, then.”

“Yes. Decided.” She put her dan protectively around both cubs. “Come, sons of Seesfar. My body will go but my heart will stay still upon the ice.” As everyone stared she led them down the ramp and off the ship.

“See?” Ethan said smugly. “She’s perfectly responsive.”

September was following the departing guide with his eyes. “Or perfectly subtle.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Any Tran who’s ever sailed a ship knows that cubs aren’t wanted aboard.” He nodded toward the dock. “She knew that when she brought them aboard. She was also aware of our worries about her. What if she brought them on just so we could see how docile she could be when push came to shove? What if the whole confrontation was a sham, staged so she’d have a chance to demonstrate how ‘cooperative’ she could be? To allay our lingering concerns?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve been out of sales for too long.” Ethan considered, finally said, “Maybe we should try to keep her off even at the risk of insulting T’hos?”

September shook his head. “Too late for that. Besides, anybody that clever—if she is that clever and I’m not reading motives into her actions that weren’t there—could be a definite asset on a trip like this. I just can’t escape the feeling she was smiling inside all the while she was arguing with Ta-hoding.”

Exasperation colored Ethan’s response. “Skua, make up your mind! Do you want her off the ship or not?”

“I really don’t know, young feller-me-lad, and that’s the truth. Hard enough to know what to make of an enigma when it’s human.”

Ethan walked off, shaking his head in frustration. September continued to stare into the crowd until what really troubled him finally struck home.

Feloursine or not, he was startled to realize; Grurwelk Seesfar was a lot like him.

As the Slanderscree departed Poyolavomaar and turned south toward the equator, Ethan saw little of Grurwelk Seesfar. When not counseling Ta-hoding about ice conditions and weather, she remained below in her hammock, quiet and unobtrusive. It would be easy, he mused, to forget she was aboard, so little did she show herself on deck. Perhaps that was what she wanted.

The great ice sheet slipped beneath the Slanderscree ’s runners. Uninhabited islands poked their heads through the white pavement off to starboard while great fields of pika-pedan, pike-pina’s giant relative, dominated the western horizon. Though stories of iceships becoming trapped in such fields were a staple of sailor lore, such tragedies were rare in reality. That didn’t keep Ta-hoding from giving the forest of towering succulents a wide berth wherever possible.

Four-legged furry crunilites scurried the length of the growths, nibbling at the soft sides, while a pair of Oroes drifted from the crown of one stalk to another, the sacs on their backs fully inflated.

It was instructive to view the fauna of the pika-pedan forest—from a distance. He hadn’t forgotten, never would forget, the day when he’d nearly been dragged beneath the ice and consumed by a kossief during their journey to distant Moulokin. The ice sheet was home to all manner of creatures in addition to the far-ranging root system of the pika-pina and pika-pedan.

Each night Ta-hoding would park the icerigger with its stern facing into the west wind, the ice anchors would be set out, and all but the night watch would settle into a deep, unbroken sleep. Cheela Hwang and her companions slept as soundly as the Slanderscree ’s crew. The cold itself was exhausting.

Ethan didn’t know what woke him. His breath was a distinct, pale cloud in the moonlit air of the cabin. Here near Tran-ky-ky’s equator the nighttime temperature fell no farther than a mere forty or fifty below. He looked around in the dark and tried to remember what had disturbed his sleep. His survival suit lay nearby. Some of the scientists chose to sleep in their suits, but he and September had long since abandoned the practice. They slept instead beneath small mountains of thick furs. Besides being more comfortable, it gave the suits a chance to air out.

As a precaution he reached out and touched a contact on the suit’s sleeve to prewarm the interior. At the same time the sensation was repeated: movement. There shouldn’t be any movement. Multiple ice anchors locked the icerigger in place and if anything it was unusually calm outside. Sudden gales were not unknown at night, but this was different. He had experience of wind-induced motion and this wasn’t it.

A third time and he was sure. Not movement to port or starboard, bow or stern. More like a settling sensation.

“Skua? Skua, wake up.”

Across from his bed a massive form stirred beneath an avalanche of blankets. “Hy—what?”

“We’re moving, Skua. The ship has moved. Several times.”

“So what? Everything on this world moves. The wind sees to that.”

“No, this is different. It’s more like—” The Slanderscree shuddered again. A moment of uncertainty until the motion ceased, then September rolled over to peer across at his companion. White hair gleamed in the moonlight.

“Now that did not feel proper, feller-me-lad. Damn if I don’t think you’re right, but something else ain’t.”

“I don’t understand. If something’s wrong, the night watch should have sounded a warning by how.”

“If it still can.” September reached out to flip the prewarm on his own survival suit. Meanwhile Ethan took a deep breath and slid out from beneath the mass of furs. The cold stung his naked body and then he was secure inside his suit. He snapped down the visor and sealed it to the collar. The suit’s thermostat immediately began to raise the temperature inside the garment to a comfortable level.

The two men quickly discovered that Ethan was neither the first nor the only one who’d been awakened by the peculiar motion. The corridor outside their cabin was packed with crewmembers, recruits from Poyolavomaar, and others. He watched Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata moving toward the gangway while struggling to don a hessavar-hide vest. Even here near the equator the nighttime temperatures were still a bit brisk for an acclimated Tran.