Дэймон Найт - Orbit 4

And the Tarulle fleet was not alone on the main. Svir could pick out three cargo barges at various distances. The Chainpearls lay along one of the busiest trade routes in the world.

For all their cultural importance, the publishing lines accounted for only a small fraction of total ocean tonnage. Most publishing enterprises were operated landside, and contracted with freighting companies to serve other islands. Relatively rare nowadays were the huge publishing barges, like Tarulle, which toured the entire world and printed a variety of books and magazines.

“Hey, Svir!” Tatja’s voice came clearly over the wind. He turned to see her striding toward him. Her hair was caught in a soft reddish swirl tied with a clip to the front of her tunic. Even so the wind blew it back and forth to caress the side of her face. She seemed small and delicate even in her baggy work coveralls, but when she came near, her eyes were level with his. Her smile sent a long shiver down his spine.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t get together earlier in the morning,” she continued, “but things are really moving around here. This Chainpearl run is always the busiest of the circuit, and when we have Monsoon winds, every printer is running at the breaking-point.”

“Uh, that’s all right—I’ve had plenty to see,” he replied. As a matter of fact, the wake period had been something of a bore so far. The crew was distinctly hostile toward nonessential personnel. Since lunch he had wandered about the decks. His ears still burned from insults received when he walked in a door marked TRIPULATION ONLY. The people weren’t really stranger-haters, though. They just didn’t want nonprofessionals messing up their work.

Svir and Tatja started toward a nearby stairway. Grimm looked at the dorfox. “Say, I’m glad you brought Ancho. He looks fine. Can I carry him? We’ll have to be real careful: some of the areas I’ll show you could affect him. But I want to see how hardy he is.”

Svir handed the dorfox over. Ordinarily the little animal didn’t enjoy being fondled by others, but he had taken a liking to Grimm. Ancho had recovered from his initial fear of sailing, though even now he clutched at Tatja’s shoulders tightly. Dorfoxes came from a single island far around the world. They were long-lived and relatively infertile. Most dorfoxes became mortally seasick when taken aboard a ship. Ancho was an exception. Betrog Hedrigs, the great Continental explorer and Svir’s grandfather, had brought the animal to Krirsarque forty years before. Ancho was probably the only dorfox in the Chainpearls. Pehaps it was just as well though, for if dorfoxes had been common, they would have turned society upside down. Their strange abilities would give criminals almost supernatural powers.

Svir and Tatja descended two flights to the vat holds. It was a different world, a claustrophobe’s nightmare. The wind was no longer audible, but there was an ominous creaking from the hull of the barge platform. Dim orange light filtered from half-dead algae pots. Worst of all was the smell. Svir had been raised near the ocean, and so was virtually unaware of any special odor associated with the seas. But here, in these vats, the essence of those smells was being distilled.

Some of the workers actually smiled at them: Tatja’s presence was safe conduct.

Tatja pointed to where the ocean water came in through the bowform. “The whole paper-making operation runs at just the speed that water can flow through these hulls. We’re at tire input now. If we walk to the stern, we’ll see every stage of the processing.”

The seawater flowed through the underpart of the Barge like a subterranean river. Narrow catwalks hung inches above the dark water. Every forty feet, they had to climb a short flight of steps and then down again, as they moved from the hull of one barge platform to the next. They walked about two hundred feet through the gloom. Hedrigs admired the graceful way Tatja moved along the catwalk, and cursed his own fearful, halting pace. Below them the liquid had thickened and now flowed slowly past grinding wheels. Beyond this, it was divided into several streams, depending on which reagents were to be added to the conglomeration of sargasso, algae, and animalcules that composed the slimy mass. They followed the stream of sludge that was destined to become paper.

All the way, Tatja gave a running account of what was going on. She also kept a close eye on Ancho for any signs of nausea or disorientation. But the dorfox seemed quite calm. It was a different story for Svir. The stench was beginning to get to him. Finally he asked, “How can the hull take these chemicals? I should think it would rot in a matter of months.”

“That’s a good question,” the Science Editor responded. “The processing seems to have just the opposite effect. The carbonates and silicates in this sludge replace the wood fiber on a microscopic level. Over the years the hull has actually become stronger. And what we discharge beneath the hull is so concentrated, it kills any parasites that might otherwise nest there. Oops!”

She slipped on the walk. Svir’s arm reached out and grabbed her waist as Ancho caught at his collar. The three of them teetered precariously for a moment. Then Tatja laughed nervously. “Thanks.”

Svir felt obscurely proud. He might move more slowly than she, but when it came to a test, his caution paid off. He didn’t remove his arm from her waist.

At last they reached the stem. Here the remaining water was pressed from the bleached mass, and the paper was actually formed. The fine sheets hung for several days before they were wound on drums and taken up to Printing.

They walked up to the next deck, where tons of newly printed magazines were stored. Here too the light was dim, but there was only a faint musty smell. Thank God the final product didn’t smell like seaweed, thought Svir.

Tatja hung close on his arm and became more talkative. The Tarulle Company put out five different magazines every sixteen days. Fantasie and a couple of girlie magazines accounted for four hundred thousand copies per issue, and provided the bulk of the Tarulle income. Since it was necessary to stock copies for as long as two years before they were sold, the Barge normally carried eight tons of magazines. Over the centuries it had been a race to keep up with world population increase. The Barge was now more than ten times as large as its first platform. All the latest machinery was employed. But even with increased landside printing and the prospect of writing machines to replace hand type-setting, they were still falling behind.

It suddenly came to Hedrigs that he was being chased. It was subtle, but this girl was falling all over herself to please. She gave forth with a continuous stream of highly animated speech, and at the same time took every opportunity to draw him out. Hedrigs felt himself warm even more to the miracle at his side.

They came to one of the loading ports. The sound of the wind came strong, and beyond that huge hole in the hull was a panorama of sky and sea. Less than twenty feet away floated one of the fifty-ton hydrofoils that did most of the delivery work for die Barge. Its sails were reefed and its boom masts were in the vertical position, permitting it to move close to the larger vessel. A fifteenton load of magazines was being hoisted onto the hydrofoil by one of the Barge’s cranes.

They watched the scene for several minutes. Finally the operation was complete, and the boat pushed away from the Barge. Its booms were lowered and the sails— like sheets on a clothesline—were hung out. As it moved out of the Barge’s wind shadow, it gathered speed, and the outermost studding sails tilted queerly into the wind. The whole affair lifted up on the slender stilts of its foils, and the boat moved away at nearly forty miles an hour. Then the Barge’s crewmen closed the loading port and everything was dim again.