The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (120 page)

The energy from the overloaded installation had spent itself. Had Bamaputra truly believed he had one chance in ten of surviving the overload, or had he known all along the containment fields would fail under the strain? They would never know, just as they’d never known much of anything about that steely-minded, quietly megalomaniacal little man. His component parts were now mixed irrevocably with the minerals of the world he would have remade. He’d followed a private vision and now he was entombed with it.

Eventually they slowed to give the cubs a chance to rest. Sail was furled and the young and sick were allowed to come aboard the already crowded
Slanderscree.
There wasn’t nearly enough room for all, but Ta-hoding had no intention of crawling back to Poyolavomaar.

Long unbreakable cables of woven pika-pina were dropped over the stern. The citizens of Yingyapin took hold and relaxed all but their arms as the great ice ship towed them effortlessly across the frozen sea, like a living tail at the end of a kite.

Save for a vast field of man-made lava now rapidly cooling behind them, there was nothing to show that the installation had ever existed.

An appropriate uninhabited island was located and the population of now vanished Yingyapin established as comfortably as possible. The
Slanderscree
resumed its homeward trek, leaving with the displaced a promise to send back help as soon as it arrived at Poyolavomaar.

T’hosjer T’hos, Landgrave of that fine city-state, listened with interest to their tale and immediately dispatched half a dozen large ice ships groaning with supplies to assist the homeless wanderers of Yingyapin. In an earlier time he might have sent pillaging soldiers instead. The Union was already proving its worth.

On the long journey between Poyolavomaar and Arsudun, Colette du Kane proved to Ethan that fusion stations were not the only thing in this part of Tran-ky-ky that could generate prodigious amounts of heat.

Millicent Stanhope, Resident Commissioner of Tran-ky-ky, stood bundled in her survival suit and watched as the hundred or so prisoners from the installation at Yingyapin were herded into an empty above-ground warehouse. They would be kept separated from the rest of the outpost’s buildings in a heated structure, but with only minimal clothing. That would keep them from causing trouble for the outpost’s constabulary, which consisted of exactly five people.

Already that morning she’d requested a peaceforcer via the deep-space beam to come and pick up this awkward contingent of law-breakers. It was going to be awhile before even a very fast ship could traverse the emptiness between its base and distant Tran-ky-ky. Meantime the prisoners were going to have to be fed and cared for and watched over. Their arrival blew her carefully laid plans for her six-month tour of duty all to pieces. She turned to confront Ethan and Skua September.

“I thought I told you two I didn’t want to be bothered with anything out of the ordinary?”

“Well, I expect we could have let them go on destroying the planet,” September replied. “That would’ve kept things quiet.”

“Until after retirement. My retirement.” She sighed deeply. “You did the only thing you could do, of course. I
hope
there are no more surprises.”

“Just one,” Ethan said hesitantly. She glared at him. “Maybe this isn’t the right time or place, but I don’t see why it would have to be done in your office.”

“Why what would have to be done in my office, young man?”

Hunnar looked at Ethan, who nodded and moved aside. The knight took Elfa’s paw and the two of them approached solemnly. They towered over the Commissioner but she didn’t back away.

Elfa cleared her throat, an intimidating sound in itself, and recited the words Ethan and September had helped her prepare.

“As ranking representatives of the Union of Ice of Tran-ky-ky, we wish to hereby formally apply to you, the Resident Commissioner, on behalf of all our people for application to associate membership status in the government of peoples and systems known as the Commonwealth.”

Colette clapped politely when she finished, though her survival suit gloves muffled the sound. Behind his visor September grinned broadly.

“Well,” Stanhope said finally, “is there to be no end to the day’s surprises? You are aware what requirements you must meet? In order to qualify as a recognized planetary government you must be able to prove suzeranty over a substantial portion of the population.”

“With Wannome, Arsudun, Poyolavomaar, Moulokin, and many smaller city-states now united under the same articles of cooperation I believe we of Tran-ky-ky can now satisfy your regulations.”

“They qualify easy,” said September, “and by the time the sector government gets around to completing the paperwork this here Union will have doubled in size.”

“Can I be certain everything they tell me is true? After all, I’m still new here. I wouldn’t enjoy being fooled.”

“Milliken Williams knows Tran-ky-ky as well as Ethan or I. Why not appoint him your personal adviser for native affairs? He’ll be straight with you.”

Stanhope considered. “The schoolteacher? He’s not leaving with you?”

September and Ethan exchanged a grin. This time it was Ethan who replied. “Our friend and a member of the science staff here, a Cheela Hwang, have formed rather a strong attachment for one another. Don’t be surprised if you’re approached in the near future to perform a marriage. Resident Commissioners are qualified to do that, I believe.”

“Yes. Dear me!” She shook her head tiredly. “Will I never be permitted to rest? I will certainly make use of Mr. Williams’s unique body of knowledge. That’s an excellent suggestion, young man.” She turned her attention back to the patiently waiting Tran.

“As for your application, I will take it under advisement and pass it along to those specialists most familiar with your situation. If they approve, I’ll see to it that recommendation for approval is given to the sector council.” To Ethan’s surprise, she turned to wink at him.

At which point he realized that there were no specialists on Tran-ky-ky’s situation—except for three travelers named Fortune, September, and Williams. He winked back. She was asking them to approve their own request.

“We will need weapons,” said Elfa excitedly, “and sky boats, and wind-talkers and all the other wonderful devices we have seen and …”

“Easy, easy,” Stanhope admonished her. “First your request has to be drawn up and passed along. Then it has to be read and dissected, discussed and argued, voted upon—oh, lord, the paperwork, the forms!” She shook her head, already exhausted by the prospect of the work ahead. “And I thought this was going to be a simple, relaxing few months.”

“Consider though,” Colette told her. “Upon retirement you’ll be bringing a whole new world into the Commonwealth family, a new sentient race. That is an honor few diplomats even dream of supervising.”

“That’s true. Yes, that’s true.” Stanhope straightened perceptibly. “Instead of slipping silently into oblivion, I expect it will be my duty to go out in a blaze of glory. Well, one must make sacrifices, I suppose. I’ll just have to force myself to see this through.

“Now if that’s everything, I have much to do and I’d like to begin by getting out of this infernal wind.”

“Infernal wind?” September spread his arms wide. “Why, this is nothing but a light breeze on Tran-ky-ky.”

“You can have it. And so can my successor when my tour of duty is done.” Her voice dropped and she began muttering to herself. “Have to have the formal ceremonies celebrating Tran-ky-ky’s inclusion into the Commonwealth … before that, of course. Yes, a lot of paperwork to do.” She turned and headed for the nearest entrance to the administrative complex, a small but nonetheless impressive figure receding into the blowing ice. Ethan watched her knowing that the immediate future of Tran-ky-ky was in good and capable hands.

“Now we must see to our ship.” Hunnar put a paw on his shoulder. “Can you not come down to bid us farewell?”

Ethan looked up at the knight, seeing for the last time the membranous dan fluttering in the wind, the sharp teeth, the large feline eyes, and the dense red-brown fur. The Tran were going to cause quite a stir when their first representative appeared in council. Of course their appearance would be mitigated somewhat by the special suits they would be forced to wear to keep comfortable. Survival suits designed to cool instead of heat. Comfort was a very relative term between intelligent species.

“I’m afraid we can’t,” September told him. “Ethan and I, well, we’ve been away from the fleshpots too long as it is.”

Grurwelk Seesfar stared at him. She was returning with the Sofoldians to Wannome. She would eventually return to Poyolavomaar as their official inter-state representative. It would allow her to do a great deal of traveling, which she loved above all else.

“You practice cannibalism on your home world?”

September swallowed, coughed. Some terms just did not translate properly.

“Understand,” he told them, “we haven’t regretted a minute of our stay among you. Well, maybe a minute or two, but on the whole it’s been enlightening, yes, enlightening. Bless my soul if it hasn’t.”

“Ta-hoding will sorrow,” Elfa said, sounding none too in control of herself at the moment.

“Maybe we’ll come back for a visit someday,” Ethan told her. “When it’s a hot summer where we are. Or maybe we’ll run into you on another world.”

“Another world.” Elfa tilted her head back and stared out of wide yellow eyes at the perfect blue sky. “A strange thought.” Then she reached out and embraced him so hard he could feel her claws ripping into the back of his survival suit. First Elfa and then Colette du Kane. What was there about him that made him irresistible to amazons of two races?

Then there were no more farewells to give, no more good-byes to say. The Tran whirled and chivaned down an icepath leading to the harbor and the tall-masted icerigger that would, at last, carry them back home.

“If you cry with your visor up like that, young feller-me-lad,” September warned him, “you’ll get ice on your cheeks.”

Colette du Kane put a protective arm around her husband-to-be. “Let him cry. What are you, some kind of emotionless man?”

“Not emotionless,” he replied easily, “just some kind.” Together the three of them turned and headed for the warmth of the nearest sealed corridor.

Alan Dean Foster (b. 1946) is the bestselling author of more than one hundred science fiction and fantasy novels. His prolific output and accessible style have made him one of the nation’s foremost speculative fiction writers.

Born in New York City in 1946, Foster was raised in Los Angeles and attended ’filmmaking school at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the 1960s. There he befriended George Lucas, with whom he would later collaborate. Rather than trying to break into Hollywood, however, Foster took a job writing copy for an advertising firm in Studio City, California, where he remained for two years, honing the craft that he would soon put to use when writing novels.

His first break came when the
Arkham Collector
, a small horror magazine, bought a letter Foster had written in the style of suspense legend H. P. Lovecraft. Encouraged by this sale, Foster began work on his first novel,
The Tar-Aiym Krang
(1972), which introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, his most enduring creation. He went on to set more than twenty novels in the Humanx universe; of these,
Midworld
(1975) is among his most acclaimed works.

The Tar-Aiym Krang
was also the first of the Pip and Flinx series. The hero, Flinx, is an orphan thief whose telepathic powers hold the key to finding his parents and understanding his identity. Foster has chronicled the adventures of Flinx, and his acid-breathing sidekick Pip, in fourteen novels, and has explored their universe in fourteen other stand-alone works.

In 1983, Foster began the eight-book Spellsinger series, about a college student trapped in a magical dimension. He also wrote the Icerigger trilogy, published between 1974 and 1987. In 1990, his stand-alone novel
Cyber Way
received the Southwest Book Award for Fiction, making Foster the first science fiction writer to win this prize. Foster has also found success writing novelizations of Hollywood films, including the Alien trilogy,
Star Wars: A New Hope
(in which he expanded Lucas’s idea into an entire universe), and the 2009
Star Trek
movie.

In addition to creating imaginary planets, Foster travels extensively throughout our world. After finishing college, he spent a summer in the South Pacific, camping in French Polynesia and living with a family of Tahitian policemen. He has scuba dived on unexplored reefs, pan-fried piranha in the “green hell” of Peru’s jungle, and captured film footage of great white sharks’ feeding frenzies in Australia—which was used by a BBC documentary series. These and other adventures are the basis of his travel memoir
Predators I Have Known
(2011).

Foster is an avid athlete who hikes, bodysurfs, and once studied karate with Chuck Norris. Since taking up powerlifting—at the age sixty-one—he has won numerous world and regional titles. He and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, live in Prescott, Arizona, in a home built of brick salvaged from a turn-of-the-century miner’s brothel.