Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

First, while he was sure he was sitting up straight, he seemed to be leaning at an angle. He was sure the fault was with the universe and not him. As his eyes grew used to the darkness he was positive of it. He fumbled a bit, lit an oil lamp. Yes, the deck was canted to the left at an unnatural angle.

A respectable rumble of trannish curses drifted in to him from the main hold. Terranglo related semantic species came from September’s cabin, next to his. Cries of uncertainty and anxious questioning were already beginning to supplant the first howls of outrage. He opened his door.

Someone had already lit the lamp in the hall and lights were beginning to go on down in the main hold. If there was a sailor or soldier who hadn’t been dumped from his bunk, Ethan didn’t see him.

Fighting with his jacket and survival suit every centimeter of the way, he walked to the end of the hall. Tran were struggling to their feet, trying to straighten bunks and sort bedding, repeating the same inane, unanswerable questions to each other over and over. A single moan of pain came from somewhere far forward, but otherwise everyone seemed more shaken mentally than physically. He walked back and rapped on the door of the cabin across from his own.

A concerned Sir Hunnar confronted him almost immediately. The bedraggled knight was trying to banish the sleep from his own eyes and buckle on his sword at the same time.

“We’re stopped!” Ethan blurted.

Hunnar shook his great red mane. “Tis assured you can find the sum of some things, Sir Ethan. Most definitely, we are.”

Ethan glanced past the massive torso and saw General Balavere struggling with his own garb. September joined him a moment later and the three started up the passageway.

They nearly collided with Ta-hoding. The expression on the plump captain’s face was not reassuring.

Hellespont du Kane stuck his head out of the door of his cabin and shouted across to them, “What has happened, gentlemen?”

“We’re going to find out, du Kane,” Ethan yelled back at him. “Soon as we do, I’ll let you know.” The financier nodded and vanished back into his rooms.

Ta-hoding led them up the steps, grumbling over his shoulder. “It seems we may have run aground. That in itself is no insignificant worry, noble sirs, but I am more concerned about the damage. Tis almost a certainty one or more of our runners has collapsed. By the angle the raft lies at, I should guess one. I only hope ’tis the bolting to the hull and not the runner itself.”

“That’s duralloy we’re riding on, captain,” reminded September. “Reworked or not, it won’t crumple. I think you’re probably right about the bolts.”

Ta-hoding shoved at the hatchdoor. As always, the two humans braced themselves for the expected blast of groping, heat-sucking air.

The Rifs had degenerated into a mere gale. By morning the storm would pass them completely. Carefully shielded from the wind, lanterns threw dancing tendrils of light onto the deck. Ta-hoding was met by the waiting night-duty helmsman. Then another sailor came over, breathing unevenly, to stammer out a long string of information.

Hunnar and September walked to the railing while the conference continued. Ethan listened briefly, then joined them.

“We’re aground, all right,” suggested September.

“Can we pull free?” Ethan asked.

Hunnar pondered the question. “This southeast wind will die by first light. Then we’ll have the normal westwind in our faces. That should enable us to pull off with little trouble.”

Ta-hoding rejoined them. “Well, noble sirs, it seems I was woefully wrong. We have not run aground. Not exactly, anyway.”

“I don’t follow you,” said Ethan, squinting ahead into the darkness. “Certainly looks like an island up forward.”

“It does,” the captain agreed. “Again the world lies. Come.”

They followed him toward the bow. As they approached the sharp prow of the ship, Ethan noticed something shining in the moonlight off to the right. A big, cream-colored pillar. It looked oddly familiar.

They had to step carefully to avoid the fallen rigging and shattered spars that had been knocked down. The upper half of the foremast had snapped in the middle and the huge log had crashed to the deck, bringing rigging and furled sail down with it. Only a stub of the bowsprit was visible, and the left railing near the bow was crumpled, though the hull seemed sound.

To their left, sailors with lanterns threw rope ladders over the side and started down to the ice.

The stavanzer was quite dead. Extending into the dark to port and starboard, the uneven crusted back loomed over the prow. By terran standards it was a colossus. Compared to the only other member of its species Ethan had seen, this one was small, even tiny.

Ta-hoding scrambled awkwardly over a broken topspar, reached the bow and leaned forward.

“A young one, very young indeed. I wonder how it happens to be here alone.”

“Probably it was separated from its herd in the storm,” Hunnar guessed. “And sought the shelter of an island.” He stared at the wide, arching back, at the two flaccid air jets. “It must have been very weak and perhaps also asleep when we struck. I think it must have died instantly. See? We’ve hit just behind the head.”

Indeed, the sharp prow of the fast-moving raft had impacted just behind the huge closed eye. The long, tapered bowsprit had plunged mortally deep into the great animal, wreaking havoc with that endless nervous system.

“We’re damn fortunate it’s not an adult,” September observed.

“Fortunate indeed,” agreed Hunnar.

“Here, captain!” The cry came from their left, up from the ice. They followed Ta-hoding over.

Budjir had been on night-watch. Now he reached for the paws that dipped to help him back over the shattered rail.

“We struck the thunder-eater at an angle, sirs. The front port runner has broken completely loose from its mounting and now lies alone on the ice. The fore starboard runner is bent sharply, but the bolting held.”

“Vunier!” muttered Hunnar. “Well, we have spare fastenings. The mast will be no trouble, but the other…” He sighed. “We will have to make the repairs. Another delay, my friends.”

“Don’t fret,” said Ethan cheerily. “It won’t make any difference.”

At least the weather proved predictable. The receding storm held a little longer than the tran had expected, but by mid-morning the same familiar westwind gale had regained sway.

Ethan chatted with Budjir as the squire helped raise a fresh case of crude nails from the hold.

“Quite a storm we had, wasn’t it? How often does it get that bad?”

“Oh, that was a very light storm, sir,” the squire replied, his open peasant face devoid of duplicity. “Tis but bad luck we were caught out on the ice. Soon the real storms will begin.” He walked forward with the case, leaving Ethan thinking cold thoughts.

With the prow of the raft buried in the dead stavanzer and the rear runners holding firm, the Slanderscree was high enough off the ice at the bow for men to work underneath. Nevertheless, timbers and blocks were cut and placed to further reinforce the bow and assure that it would not collapse on the men working below at a sudden shift in the wind. Soon sounds of hammering and sawing, pounding and scraping rose above the gale.

Ta-hoding leaned over the side and grunted his pleasure. “At this rate we may be on our way before another day has passed. That is wondrous metal that your strange skyboat was made of, Sir Ethan. Even steel would have broken and twisted on that impact.”

“There are ways you might obtain more of it, you know,” said Ethan thoughtfully, beginning to enjoy himself. Shop talk! “Also ways to make it into things you need, easily and quickly. You have some things of manufacture that might do well in trade… nothing extraordinary of course… among my people. Your fine woodwork, for example. And such as this coat of hessavar. And other things.”