Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

One day, despite the offense it might cause the Landgrave and the damage it could do to their cause, he erupted at her. To his surprise, she took it rather calmly—almost as though she’d been waiting for it. After that she didn’t bother him again. He was puzzled but decided not to press for the facts. He was ahead on points. Better leave it that way.

Despite delays and the inevitable confusion arising from problems in translation, despite a temporary failure of the electrodyne forge, despite endless hours of frustrating explanation from Williams on how the complex rigging was to be installed, there came a day and hour when the Slanderscree was finished, stocked, and ready to depart—though Ethan had a hard time convincing himself that it would ever move.

It sat there at the end of the Landgrave’s dock, dwarfing the commercial rafts that skimmed its flanks like waterbugs. Nearly two hundred meters long, with three towering masts, bowsprit, and dozens of tightly furled sails, it radiated enormous power held in check. The tran arrowhead design had been slimmed down to needle-like proportions. Only the two big airfoils marred the raft’s rakish lines.

There was nothing unusual about the morning set for their departure. A typical trannish day—sunny, windy, freezing to the core. Last-minute supplies and spare parts were being taken on. A considerable crowd had taken time from the unending drudgery of making a living to see them off—or preside at an entertaining crack-up. They lined the shore and-spilled out onto the ice. Cubs ignored mothers and darted in and out around the great duralloy runners.

Sir Hunnar came on board as nominal commander of their military compliment. But General Balavere was making the journey, too. When he was a cub he’d experienced a rain of ash and hot stone from the Place-Where-The-Earth’s-Blood-Burns. It had darkened the sky over Wannome for four days. Surely it was a holy place—and the general had reached an age when such things took on increasing importance. He was going to see that legendary mountain.

Old Eer-Meesach, of course, couldn’t have been kept away by a herd of famished krokim.

The raft had nothing like the carefully arranged chain of responsibility that existed on board a spatial liner. Nor did Williams’ arcane knowledge yield any counterpart for the ancient terran clippers, beyond the rank of captain. So Hunnar’s squires, Suaxus and Budjir, came along as his seconds. Ta-hoding retained much of his own raft crew and worked through them.

Another side of Hunnar was reflected in his choice of squires. Neither was a type Ethan would choose: Suaxus always dour and suspicious, Budjir laconic to the point of apparent idiocy. However, both were almost severely competent.

The crew and passengers trooped on board to the accompaniment of tremendous cheers and shouts of encouragement, a few good-naturedly obscene, from the assembled townsfolk. Some had come from as far away as Ritsfasen at the far western tip of Sofold Isle for the departure.

The Landgrave stood at the dock surrounded by his important nobles and knights. When all were on the raft and the boarding plank had been pulled back, he raised his staff. A respectful silence settled on the crowd.

“You have come from a strange place and you go to a strange place,” he intoned solemnly. “In the short time between you have done deeds that will be remembered forever by the people of Sofold and myself. You have also said that the universe is a vast place, vaster than we could ever imagine, with thousands of being as different from us as we are different from you living in it.

“Should these worlds and beings extend to infinity and you were to go among each and every one, you will always find a home and fire for you and your children’s children here, in Wannome.

“Go now, and go with the wind.”

“WITH THE WIND,” echoed the crowd somberly. Then someone made a rude noise and they broke into wild yelling and cheering.

“A predictable sentiment,” commented Hellespont du Kane flatly.

“Yes? They might be cheering for us, or because their exalted ruler kept his speech admirably short,” September theorized, turning away. But had that been a hint of moisture at the corner of the big man’s eyes? Or was it only distortion from the scratched and battered snow goggles.

“All right, Ta-hoding!” he bellowed aft. “Let’s see if this firetrap will make it out of the harbor!”

The strange new commands were issued in modified Trannish sailing terminology, relayed across the deck and up into the rigging to the sailors stationed aloft.

Just watching the huge natives scramble up the rigging into the shrouds in the continual gale gave Ethan the jitters. And it would be much worse once they left the sheltering bulk of the island. But those powerful muscles and clawed hands and feet held them steady as, one by one, the rust-green sails began to drop and dig wind.

Slowly, smoothly, the Slanderscree began to slide away from the dock, while the shouts from on shore grew louder and louder. Eyes on the sailors above, September walked over and gave Ethan a sly pat on the back.

“By-the-by, young feller-me-lad, did you ever manage to get that business of the Landgrave’s offspring straightened out?”

“It was never out of line,” Ethan riposted. “I thought I did, but she wasn’t exactly in the forefront of the crowd, waving tearfully as we departed. Perhaps not.”

“I didn’t see her either. Though I notice you’ve warmed up to du Kane’s daughter.” The lady in question had vanished belowdecks the moment she’d come on board in order to get out of the wind. Raft or boat or castle, that was next to impossible on this world.

“Glassfeathers,” Ethan countered, leaning over the rail to watch the ice slide past. “She’s human, too. She just had to have someone to talk to, finally. I don’t wonder that she doesn’t chat much with her father. Certainly you and Williams aren’t exactly the most charming conversationalists around.”

“Sorry, young feller, but when I see her it’s without that fur and survival suit, figuratively speaking. That kind of crimps my inclination to easy banter.” He patted Ethan again in fatherly fashion and sauntered off forward, whistling.

The Slanderscree was moving out of the lee of the mountains. She picked up speed rapidly as the quickly maturing crew put on more and more sail. Even the moonraker was out by the time they reached the main gate—completely repaired once again. By then they were moving at a respectable 30 kph. But they’d be lucky to hold that, moving to the westward. Moving east, with the wind, however, the Slanderscree ’s speed was limited only by the strength of her sails and masts and her ability to keep from becoming airborne.

The last cheers they heard came from the guards at the gate and the operators of the Great Chain as they shot between the towers. Once free of the harbor’s confining walls, Ta-hoding, praying all the while, swung her in a wide curve designed to bring her back to the southwest and on course.

Ethan held his breath as the raft came around. No one could predict how the radical new mast-and-sail configuration would respond on a craft and world far different from long-dead Donald McKay’s wildest imaginings.

The sails cracked like Williams’ crude gunpowder, the masts creaked, but the raft came about neatly. Everything held together as they slammed across the wind. They’d follow a zig-zag course, plodding for thousands of kilometers. Even so, the Slanderscree would make good time whenever she turned southward, building up to a nice 60 kph or so before she’d have to turn west into the wind.

He turned and scanned the deck in search of September but failed to locate him. The big man had probably gone below to get out of the wind himself for a while. Ethan saw no reason why he shouldn’t do likewise.