The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (100 page)

“No, but it is your life,” Elfa pointed out.

“Let us do this.” Ta-hoding spoke without looking at. them, already making preparations in his mind. “Everyone who is not a member of the sailing crew will disembark and cross the Bent Ocean on foot, to wait for us on the other side. That way if catastrophe strikes not all will be at risk.”

“Then you have decided,” Hunnar murmured.

“Boldness is not in me. I play only the dice that are given to me. Here we must roll as best we are able and hope for a twelve to show itself. If I cannot have confidence in my ship and my crew, what is left to me?”

“So it is to be tried.” Hunnar could not bring himself to show false confidence. “I wish there was another way. Were there, we would not be proceeding with this insanity.” He turned to Hwang. “My soldiers will work side by side with you to shape the ice. You will choose the angle of the ramp and instruct us accordingly.” He stood. “Now that we have determined our course of action let us move quickly. The sooner we begin, the sooner we will be finished.”

“And the harder we work,” Elfa added, “the less time we will have to think about what we are really going to attempt.”

Blue sky had given way to roiling blackness on the eastern horizon by the time the ramp was ready. Like questing scouts, the first gusts of wind from the advancing storm front slammed into the steady west wind, sending confused air swirling in all directions. Ice devils, miniature whirlwinds composed of ice particles, danced crazily across the flat surface of the frozen ocean. Occasionally one would stumble into the workers, forcing them to drop their tools and hug the ground. One caught Ethan with his visor up and brought tears to his eyes. It was like being battered by cold sand.

Jacalan and Blanchard shut down the two overworked drills and joined the rest of the refugees in slipping and sliding down the south flank of the pressure ridge. Ethan and September hung back, settling themselves in the shelter of a huge upturned ice block. Someone had to watch, Ethan told himself.

Like the approach to a giant’s castle a long, relatively smooth ramp had been hacked and melted out of the ridge’s north slope. The scientists and Hunnar’s soldiers had done their work well. How well there was no way of telling until the icerigger actually attempted its run.

Everyone knew that if the ramp collapsed while the
Slanderscree
was making its climb, the great ship would be imprisoned on the ridge. Then they would be well and truly trapped in this isolated region, far from human or Tran civilization. They’d built as solidly as possible, given the limited amount of time and equipment at their disposal. Semkin had supervised the work with the drills, making sure that all the gaps between the massive ice blocks had been filled and sealed.

At last there was nothing left to do but to do it.

A glance to his right showed figures standing and waiting on the southern ice sheet: the icerigger’s fighters and the members of the research team. Only Hunnar and Elfa had joined Ethan and September atop the ridge. With the wind whipping his fur Hunnar stood tall and straight as one of the icy spires surrounding them. He shaded his eyes with his right hand.

“I can barely see the ship.” Ethan squinted and looked northward but saw no sign of the
Slanderscree.
That would change shortly, he knew. “They are putting on sail. Ta-hoding has the spars turned into the wind. Ah, now they are being adjusted. The sails fill. She comes.”

They waited. A few minutes later both men could make out the sleek arrowhead shape of the icerigger racing toward the ridge at high speed. Ethan was startled to realize that this was the first time he’d actually seen the ship under full sail and from a distance. For a hybrid cobbled together from a schoolteacher’s memory it was quite beautiful. There was none of the ungainliness one might have expected, though the absence of a curving hull was disconcerting. The underside of the icerigger was perfectly flat, since there was no water for it to cut through.

“Wish Ta-hoding had given better than an even chance,” he muttered.

September had his visor up so it wouldn’t interfere with his view. “Hell, young feller-me-lad, that’s better odds than life gives most of us.”

Ethan turned his attention eastward. Lightning split clouds black as coal dust. “When will the rifs get here?”

Hunnar Redbeard looked down at him, then turned to face the oncoming storm. “Soon, but not so soon as it might. A bad storm, very bad, but I think it may be moving slightly to the northwest instead of due west. We have been gifted with a few precious additional hours of manageable weather. If it continues to turn, it is possible it might miss us entirely. A
havlak
full of irony there would be in that!”

“It might also not miss us,” Elfa put in. “And if we do not do this thing we will be no better than where we were before the storm was sighted. We must still cross the Bent Ocean. Now is not the time for hesitation.”

“I was not hesitating, my love. Ethan asked my thoughts.”

“Here she comes!” September roared, bending slightly and pointing. “I swear Ta-hoding’s got his clothes on the line trying to coax another tenth of a kph out of the west wind.”

Ethan found he had to lift his own visor in order to see properly. Cold stung his exposed skin, pins on his cheeks. The icerigger seemed to be accelerating with every extra meter of ice it crossed. Five rooster tails of ice particles flew from the base of each duralloy runner as it cut across the flat surface. When it was half a kilometer from the pressure ridge, Ethan guessed its velocity at between a hundred and fifty and a hundred seventy kilometers an hour. Sails billowed taut from the masts and rigging. The whole vessel appeared to be leaning forward, straining, struggling to gain every last possible ounce of speed. It was near enough now for Ethan to pick out Ta-hoding and his helmsman. They were leaning on the large wooden wheel, fighting to keep the flying
Slanderscree
on course.

The captain must have shouted a command because as they looked on the adjustable spars suddenly pivoted. Heeling over on both port runners like a skater fighting to maintain his balance, the great ship swung sharply southward. The maneuver might have cost her a little speed.

Old instincts made Ethan crouch in anticipation. If the icerigger hit the ramp at the wrong angle, it could fly off in any direction, including straight toward them. Hunnar and Elfa likewise sought shelter. Only September held his ground, looking like some misplaced sculpture in his silvery survival suit.

On board the
Slanderscree
those sailors who weren’t trimming the spars reached for something solid and gritted their teeth. Ta-hoding and his helmsman clung to the wheel. Driven by the full force of the west wind the icerigger reached the base of the ice ramp and came rocketing upward, looking for all the world like some alien version of the Flying Dutchman about to sail off into the sky against the wind.

As it ascended it slowed perceptibly. Ethan found himself urging it onward, trying to lift it the extra thirty, twenty, finally ten meters toward the top. His help was not required.

Still traveling at upward of a hundred kph, the
Slanderscree
shot off the top of the ramp and over the crest of the pressure ridge. For an instant it seemed to hang in the air, frozen as if by some cosmic artist. Then it began to descend in a slow, graceful curve.

Hunnar and Elfa rose, while down on the southern ice sheet soldiers and human scientists watched breathlessly as the icerigger came soaring toward them. For a brief moment it was a ship not of the ice but the air, a visitor from a long-forgotten legend. The beauty of those few seconds impressed itself strongly on all who witnessed it. None would forget it.

The beauty was replaced by a shattering reality as the huge ship smashed down onto the ice sheet.

Ethan winced as it struck. Most everyone did. The hull held as the icerigger bounced once, struck again, and slewed sideways. Sharp
ping
ing sounds rose above the wind as several spars as thick as a man’s leg were snapped off and went flying over the bow, carrying their sails with them. The loss actually helped to slow the ship.

Hunnar and Elfa were already chivaning down the far side of the ridge like a pair of champion skiers. The chivless humans followed more slowly, slipping and sliding in their boots.

The soldiers who’d been waiting on the ice were scrambling up the
Slanderscree
’s boarding ladders to assist the dazed sailors, many of whom had been knocked unconscious by the force of the ship’s touchdown. When Ethan stepped onto the deck, Hunnar’s troops were already working to bring order out of chaos.

Snapped rigging and torn sails littered the deck. The broken spars dangling forlornly from the bowsprit were a bigger problem, but the icerigger could sail without them. Thanks to the extra bracing and rigging Ta-hoding had laid on, the three mainmasts had held, though one swayed dangerously in its braces.

The captain greeted them with shining eyes. He held a thick cloth to his nostrils. It was stained red, but Ta-hoding didn’t seem to notice it. Nor did he mention a newly acquired limp.

“Is that what it is like to ride one of your sky ships, friend Ethan? A glorious experience, if painful. The ship”—and he looked around proudly as he spoke—“survived better than her crew.”

September looked on approvingly. “She seems to have taken the concussion very well.” Blood stained cabin walls and decking. A couple of sailors were going to need rest and repair, but most had suffered nothing more serious than bruises and contusions.

Third Mate Kilpit came running to join them. His left arm hung loosely at his side but he saluted briskly with the other. “Starboard bow runner is almost broken through at the bracing. Portside bow appears to be all right, as do the stern runners and the rudder. As you predicted, Captain, the front third of the ship took most of the impact.”

“How bad is the brace?”

“To fix it properly requires the services of a shipyard, but”—he hesitated—“if we use enough cable I think we can secure it temporarily. I would not advise trying any sharp maneuvers to starboard.”

“We won’t,” Ta-hoding assured him. “Gather a repair team and set to work.” He glanced back over the ridge and eastward, toward the oncoming storm. “We need to be moving again as soon as possible. The brace will hold. We are not preparing for a fight. There is nothing to battle here save our own injuries and the weather. When we are safely away southward we will talk and remember this moment, but not now.” The mate saluted again and jumped down to the main deck, gathering his work crew around him as he headed toward the bow.

“I thought when last I looked that the rifs was turning somewhat to the north,” Hunnar said.

“I noticed that also. It could as quickly turn south.” Ta-hoding’s gaze and his thoughts were roving the damaged foremast.

Everyone pitched in to help with the repairs, including Hwang’s group. They knew nothing about sailing craft but any extra hand was eagerly accepted for fetching and carrying, even if that hand was devoid of fur. The ship was under way again far sooner than anyone dared hope.

They didn’t escape the rifs entirely. Its southern edge caught them long after the pressure ridge had fallen out of sight astern. Somehow the damaged starboard bow runner held, wrapped in enough tough pika-pina rope to rig another whole ship. Bandaged and limping, they used the rifs kiss to increase their speed as they fled southward.

The rifs gale was exceeded only by the windiness of those sailors who had actually guided the
Slanderscree
up and over the Bent Ocean. The altitude it had reached and the distance it had traveled through the air increased with each retelling of the experience. For a few wondrous seconds they had flown just like the skypeople, and in a craft of their own manufacture. Ethan listened to the enthusiastic recitations and smiled. If their union continued to expand and solidify, someday soon these Tran would be permitted to fly skimmers of their own, then aircraft. Eventually they would find themselves traveling from their world to others aboard massive KK-drive starships. He wondered if it would mean an end to their enthusiasm. To be technologically advanced is to become jaded, he told himself.

Eventually they outran the rifs, though not the crew’s enthusiasm for reliving that glorious flight. The soldiers who had crossed the pressure ridge on foot began to grumble and a few fights broke out. No one took any notice of this. The Tran were a naturally combative lot. Betting on the outcome of various fights helped to pass the time.

Days became weeks. The change in the climate was almost imperceptible at first, but before long everyone was commenting on it. As they sailed steadily south from the equator it grew warmer instead of cooler. The hundred-meter high cliffs of the continental plateau were still out of range when the Tran began to divest themselves of their clothing.

Outer furs went first, followed by hessavar-hide armor, then rough pika-pina fabric vests and undergarments. Soon the
Slanderscree
sailed on manned by a crew of naked Tran, bare save for their short brown or gray fur. As the temperature continued to climb Ethan found himself wondering how long it would be before he and his companions joined them. Of course, while the climate had turned outrageously hot for the Tran the thermometers still sat below the freezing mark. Not yet shorts and bare chest weather. Yet as they continued due south the temperature gauges continued their inexorable climb toward zero.

By now the Tran were not merely uncomfortable, they were suffering visibly. There was talk of trimming fur as short as possible, an unheard of aberration made necessary by the soaring temperature. A hasty vote indicated that no one was bad off enough yet to suffer the indignity of being shaved.

The humans commiserated as best they could, but silently they were delighted. It was possible to move about inside the ship clad only in long undergarments, and to stand on deck with hoods retracted.

Once before, Ethan, Milliken, and September had encountered similar temperatures. In the land of the Golden Saia lived an isolated group of pre-ice age Tran whose bodies had never been forced to readapt to the onset of frigid weather. They clung to territory warmed by permanent hot springs. Perhaps they were sailing toward a similar region, he thought, since extensive volcanism was still the most credible explanation for the inexplicable climatological shift Hwang and her colleagues associated with this region.