Barrington Bayley - Star Winds

“From Earth?” the officer echoed. He looked suspiciously at Zhorga, and seemed puzzled. “The sunward planet? I would hardly have thought your vessel fit for such a journey. I was sure you were Martians, trying some stupid attack on the Bucentaur .”

He sauntered past Zhorga, suddenly noticing the bottles, chests and bales that were scattered over the ground. He kicked at a cask. He raised his eyebrows.

“Trade goods,” he remarked on a note of surprise.

Zhorga was silent The officer returned to him. “Well, I suppose anything is possible. At any rate, we’ll soon get the truth out of you. I’m taking you all up to the Bucentaur . Baron Matello’s ship,” he added, seeing Zhorga’s frown.

Bruge, his temple discolored and swollen by a massive bruise, moved closer to Zhorga. “Tell these murderers to get lost, Captain. All we want is to be left to go about our business.”

The officer bristled. Zhorga, nervously aware of the bell-muzzled weapons he faced, coughed ostentatiously. “I have many dead and badly hurt,” he complained.

“All the more reason to cooperate with me,” the officer said briskly. “On the Bucentaur your injured will be attended by the baron’s excellent physicians.” Suddenly he became impatient. “Come now, Captain—you are hundreds of miles from any settlement. Just what do you think you are going to do? Mars is not a hospitable place, I assure you.”

Zhorga, in fact, was attracted by the prospect of seeing the fabulous starship at close quarters. “What about my trade goods?” he demanded.

The officer laughed. “We are not in the shipping business, Captain. The baron will decide what will become of you. Now—”

Zhorga hurriedly deliberated, then nodded, trying to give the proceedings an air of negotiation. “We’ll come with you,” he said.

The star officer regarded himself as a gentleman. Without argument he allowed time to bury the dead, which was done in shallow graves, heaped over with the crumbly Martian soil.

Litters for the badly injured were improvised from bits of planking. Of more than forty who had set out with Zhorga from Olam, twenty-six men limped or were carried into the hold of the dragonfly. On entering the craft, Zhorga realized that it was actually an armed lighter for ferrying men or goods between the starship and the ground, for the hold was more roomy than he would have guessed from outside. He peered up a ladder that led to the foremost of the two transparent domes, and was surprised to see that the coxswain was seated, and worked an elaborate arrangement of wheels, levers and pedals.

Could one man alone really fly a craft of this size, he wondered? Where would he find the strength to warp all the sails and hold them against the ether?

A star soldier nudged him along. Captors and captured alike hunkered down with backs braced against the walls, gripping handholds set into the floor while the injured were strapped down to similar holds. Almost before they had settled themselves the ramp was closed and the floor lifted under them, subjecting them to the ear-piercing shriek of the ether (though it was somewhat less shrill, Zhorga noticed, than it would have been on Earth) before they shot aloft and streaked spaceward.

Why, this vessel was practically crewless, Zhorga told himself; How was it done? Presumably with the help of very ingenious mechanical devices, he deduced. Reduction gears and multiple pulleys, ratchets, escapements and slip-levers. The running rigging was probably controlled by mechanisms as complicated as the inside of a clock.

After a while the rush of air against the hull ceased. They were in space. Perhaps half an hour later there was a series of thuds and shocks that told Zhorga the lighter was docking.

They were aboard the Bucentaur .

Baron Goth Matello, Margrave of the Marsh Worlds, Protector of the Castarpos Moons, and a loyal subject of his liege-lord, His Most Majestic King Lutheron by whose leave he held all his titles, raised a gold goblet to his lips. Ingeniously designed for free-fall, the goblet was capped by a gold cupola punctured with scores of tiny holes like a pepper-pot. The cover prevented the sharp-tasting wine from floating away as a liquid sphere; the wine’s own surface tension, on the other hand, prevented it from seeping through the perforations.

The sucking action of drinking, however, easily overcame this weak restraint Baron Matello sucked, drained the goblet, and tossed it to the serving maid who had handed it to him.

He turned to Captain Veautrin. “Have they been down in interrogation?”

“Yes sir,” Veautrin replied. “They all tell the same tale, right down to the details. The inquisitor is satisfied that their story is true. They really did sail from the third planet.”

“All right, let’s see this captain of theirs. Things are so boring around here that anything is a diversion.”

Veautrin walked to the door in cling-slippers. He opened it, and beckoned. A burly, bearded man entered, moving awkwardly in the cling-slippers he also now wore (like everyone else aboard the Bucentaur for as long as she remained in orbit). On his head was a battered cap displaying a tarnished badge of rank; he stood chewing his beard, gazing uncertainly at the baron, who reclined against a high-backed chair, legs carelessly out-spread.

Zhorga saw a man some ten years younger than himself, with a broad face framed by a close-clipped fringe beard. The baron bore that direct look of someone used to exercising authority. But there was also a certain ruffianly quality about him—it was a fighter’s face.

His eyes were brooding and restless, brown in color but with a luminous orange tint Zhorga had never seen on Earth. He avoided meeting those eyes directly. This was a man one did not trifle with—indeed the whole power and massiveness of the interstellar ship, its unabashed grandeur, was such that Zhorga felt overawed. He knew that he must tread carefully with the baron. It was true that he and his men had been received civilly enough so far—ten men, in fact, were currently in the ship’s sick bay. But on the either side of the coin Zhorga recalled his recent interrogation. The interview had been entirely verbal, but the instruments of persuasion—ready in case his words lacked the ring of truth—had been clearly on view.

“Well, Earthman,” the baron said in a loud voice, “what do you call yourself?”

Zhorga cleared his throat. “Captain Zebandar Zhorga, sir—at your service.”

“You are an air captain, I believe.”

“In the main, that is true,” Zhorga nodded. “I can now, however, claim some experience in space.”

“Yes—I am curious about this exploit of yours.” The baron smiled patronizingly. “Something of a pioneering flight, I gather.”

Zhorga saw no reason to hide his pride in the fact. “The first space voyage from Earth in nearly two generations!” he boasted.

“I can believe it,” said Matello dryly. He signaled to the nearby serving girl, holding up two fingers. She did something with a peculiarly fashioned carafe that rested on a magnetic tray, and approached with two full goblets. Matello took them both and tossed one through the air to Zhorga.

Zhorga caught it and stared at it in puzzlement.

“Drink—it’s a goblet of wine,” Matello said patiently. He demonstrated the use of the cupola, as though explaining something to a savage. Zhorga followed suit, then as he got the hang of it swallowed the wine greedily, emptying the goblet with gusto. The baron signaled the girl to refill it for him, then relaxed, sipping at his own.

“How did you drink in space on your own ship?” he asked.

“Oh, we just stuck a tube in a water cask. We had a bit of weight most of the time, anyway.”