Hegira (9 page)

They found Barthel wandering by the wharves, where all the moored boats knocked idle and empty against die pier buffers. They rejoined silently and walked along the lengthy quays, smelling the sea — which smelled no differently — and listening to the cat-cries of the seabirds. The birds sounded the same.

A five-masted steamer had docked at the end of a pier, three stacks poking jauntily above the steel hull. Gangs of sailors and stevedores hauled cargo from the holds amidships and scurried down planks, to a warehouse at the side of the pier. Cranes and winches lifted the heavier crates onto dollies. It was the only ship so occupied, and it wasn't Lucifan. They had never seen its flag before nor heard the tongue die men were speaking. Bar-Woten motioned for them to follow. They boarded unnoticed, or ignored, and watched the proceedings with interest.

Bar-Woten spotted a man who stood out from the clamor, walking with deliberate speed along the dock to the gangway. Khaki pantaloons ballooned from his legs, and he wore a tight blue waistcoat over a white linen shirt. He boarded as if he were long familiar with the swaying rope bridge and made his way to the forecastle, striding past the three where they leaned on the starboard railing. Bar-Woten stepped forward and addressed him in Lucifan.

“I'm busy,” the man said. “What're you bothering me for?”

“We're looking for work and passage.”

“Talk later.” He hurried off. The Ibisian raised his eyebrow and winked at his companions. That was some sort of encouragement — not an offhand dismissal.

They inspected the ship in the meanwhile. Kuril counted their monies speculatively. “Look, with the cash from selling the horses — that and what we've earned — we can last four, five more days. Not much time.”

“I know nothing about ships,” Bar-Woten said, making it seem of small importance to his judgment. “Nor I,” Barthel concurred hopefully.

“We'll have to eat. I'm tired of a sandy bed. Tired of carrying everything I own on my back.”

“We've got a long way to go, friend. There'll be a lot more of that ahead.”

“We should take any chance we get to board a ship, though,” Kiril pursued. Barthel looked at him with dismay.

“No argument,” Bar-Woten said. “What do you think we've been planning? You're the one who's been reluctant.”

“I, too,” Barthel said. “The sea is an unpleasant bed, Bey.”

“But I mean to say that I'd rather go to sea than live a vagrant.”

“You're inconsistent. You were a vagrant on your pilgrimage. I found you in an alley. You have a sudden taste for comfort?”

“Then let's not discuss it,” Kiril said, growing angry.

“Certainly.”

They waited until late afternoon. By then, the ship was unloaded, and the sailors and dockworkers had gone to ship's mess and homes on the land, respectively.

“The captain will take a walk after his meal,” Bar-Woten predicted. “We'll talk to him again when he does.”

The man reappeared just before dusk. The deck was deserted except for the three and a sailor standing watch on the stern. The captain walked over and looked at them sharply. “You want passage?” he asked. They nodded. “What ships have you sailed on?”

“None,” Bar-Woten said.

“You think this is University of the Sea, eh?”

“I think we can learn fast enough not to stumble.”

“You been to sea before, for a long time? A year or two?”

The Ibisian shook his head.

“Then what can I use you for? Mops? Who told you I needed hands?”

No one did.

“Then what makes you think I do?”

They weren't sure he did.

“Dammit, I have to take my stock where I can! Don't think that I like your faces because I say yes. Take it that the sky spoke and no one wants to sign on! They all believe the seas will swallow them when the world ends.”

“It's not going to end,” Bar-Woten said.

“Of course not. But sailors are bastards for a pretty story of ginnunga-gaps,” the captain said. “You'll report to the quartermaster tomorrow morning. We sail with the second bell. I am Captain Prekari. Conditions are board and thirty standard dialers a month, your positions and rank to be determined according to merit and ability. Accepted?”

They nodded. The captain looked them over again and marched off muttering. Kiril turned around and looked into the filthy water lapping against the ship's side.

“Where do we spend the night?” he asked.

“On the beach. Say farewell to your sand fleas.”

The ship was called Trident and came from a land just south of the Pale Seas. Her crew was a quiet, strong breed with few quarrels and steady loyalty. Such emotions sustained a ship over the distances she had to travel — discontent could only sink her.

Bar-Woten studiously set to learning the language they spoke, which to Kiril sounded Germanic. He had never spent much time learning the Germanic texts of the Obelisk — so far as the Mediwevans had read, they consisted of incomprehensible treatises on mechanics and a few scattered fairy tales mixed with heavy philosophy — but he knew enough to get along. Barthel had a harder time.

The Trident took her cargo of fiber, dried fish, and machine parts aboard a day after the three reported to the quartermaster. By the next morning they were at sea. They traveled along the coast eastward for several days, passing four inlets surrounded by cliffs several kilometers tall. Huge birds nested there, the sailors told them — albatrosses with webbed feet that could match a man's arm span. The exaggeration wasn't enough to make Bar-Woten think they were lying. Besides, now and then dark flying shapes could actually be seen, and at that distance they had to be impressively large to be spotted at all. No one lived in the fjords. Few people ever went there.

At a port called Trincoma they put off a cargo of dried fish and copra and took aboard more hemp as well as a number of unlabeled boxes. Kiril thought they might be drugs — Bar-Woten thought otherwise. “Spices,” he ventured. “Did you smell the crates?” Barthel confirmed the Bey's guess by announcing they smelled like saffron — and there were several tons of it aboard.

The dark inhabitants of Mur-es-Werd had given way in Trincoma to light brown peoples with broad noses, thick lips, tall, noble foreheads and eyes white as bone. Kiril compared his own pale skin and regular features and found himself wanting. Each day he grew more dissatisfied with himself. But he was learning the duties of a sailor rapidly enough and received few complaints.

They began their first push far from land by the end of the week. On Skeitag, the day after Geistag and the day before Duvetag in the language of the Trident's crew, the ship set her sails and brought her boilers to full steam. Her triple screws churned the water below the iron stern until she was outracing the gentle wind. Sails were pulled in, and Kiril was taught the art of maintaining the methane supply in the ship.

Tanks were kept on each side of the forecastle deck that gathered rainwater when possible or served as storage for seawater desalinated by the sun in plastic tarp-slings rigged between the masts. Into this water were placed quantities of dried seaweed and dormant infusion. The tanks were capped, and man-operated pumps began to collect and store the resulting gases in a few days. The stink that sometimes escaped was regrettable — but it kept the boilers going when the wind was low and provided electricity at all times. Small chugging cylinders operated two generators for the ship's current.

Bar-Woten took instruction in ship's mechanics. He enjoyed the challenge of the engines more than he thought he would — more than he let on he did — and soon was apprenticed to the boiler-tender and his thirty helpers.

Barthel, least literate of the three as far as the Teutans were concerned, was given standard mast-monkey duties and was contented with such exertions. Though he frequently had to crawl out on a yardarm over open, churning water, his fear of the sea diminished to a healthy respect. His skin became even more bronzed. His muscles developed into flexible and agile bulges, which he thought he might put to good advantage in other places besides the rigging. The crew of the Trident was integrated, male and female.

Kiril sighed at this eventuality and resigned himself to quiet regret. Bar-Woten began his inevitable romancing. For the first few weeks, however, the voyage went smoothly enough.

The work of the day was over for their watches when Kiril and Bar-Woten met on the quarterdeck to talk and relax before the evening meal. The ship would soon be midway between Obelisks, where the ocean air would be cooler and the weather less predictable. Thus far the Trident had avoided the seasonal storms that plagued parts of the coast south of them. They talked about rough storms and what they must be like as they leaned over the brass railings, looking into the water. The hazy horizon was interrupted by shadows of distant coastline.

“I sometimes think we'll forget what we're really after,” Kiril said. “Or you will, at least. It isn't as immediate a goal for you.”

“It's a goal,” Bar-Woten said. “No need to worry about that.”

“I can't even remember her face,” Kiril admitted. His throat caught suddenly. “I hardly remember what it was like to hold her.”

“Then tell me about her. Maybe that will help.”

But Kiril found words difficult, especially before the burly Ibisian. “She was at least as tall as Barthel, perhaps a centimeter or two taller,” he began. “Blonde hair as long as her waist when it wasn't tied in a bun, with a tail down to her shoulder bkdes. She had . . . has a soft voice. Can I still say she has?”

“I don't know,” Bar-Woten said.

“Small feet. She seems so far away now. I'm not even sure I'm the same man who loved her.”

“Men have gone off on more foolish journeys for less certain reasons.”

“You know, hm?” Kiril said, not intending to gibe.

Bar-Woten didn't take offense. “I know,” he agreed. “What was her family like?”

“They didn't like me much. I suppose no family likes a suitor — they bring too many changes. But I didn't fit in with their activities. She never accused me of that, or minded, but her family was very clannish, played games and sports together all the time — she had a huge family, twelve brothers and sisters. Her father was a quiet man. He managed a business in a small town called Torres de Cristobal. He owned a small ranch and raised cattle. I was a scrittori — not a very reliable occupation, not much better than being a student or a theologian. But I was doing well enough that they couldn't fault me my choice of lifetimes.”

“Choice of lifetimes?”

“Of course. A man chooses when he is to be born, to carry out a certain task on Hegira. If he chooses wrongly, then he comes at an inopportune tune, and he can only turn out bad or useless. I was doing well enough not to be useless.”

“What was her name?” Bar-Woten asked.

“Elena,” he said.

Barthel began taking lessons in navigation from three deck officers. He was getting better with the language, and two of his teachers could speak passable Lucifan. In turn for his lessons he offered them lessons in Arbuck, which some of the western coastal countries spoke and which had always been a mystery to the crew of the Trident.

Navigation on Hegira, they explained, was entirely different from navigation as described by the Obelisk texts. There were different objects to be sighted and different problems to be dealt with. The meteorology of Hegira was radically different from old Earth, and there were no stars or sun or moon to use as guides. Instead the paths of certain fire doves were charted, and each fire dove was given a name according to its peculiar qualities. In all there were at least five hundred different fire doves, two dozen of which were easily discernible. They could be identified by color and brightness, not unlike the methods used by the First-born to distinguish stars, but the fire doves were obviously not stars. They were not fixed — they wandered in relation to each other according to complex orbits, all of which appeared to be centered on Hegira. Not all the orbits had been calculated, however. Only ten especially bright fire doves were used for most navigational problems.

One of the major problems of navigation was knowing when a fire dove would be illuminated. Each had its own cycle of light and dark, which ranged from seven hours to six months. It was considered bad form to be tracking a fire dove and have it unexpectedly go out on you.

During the day prevailing winds — which seldom shifted — were used to indicate direction, according to how the ship ran with them. Some ocean currents were also used as guides. When weather permitted, the Obelisks were referred to, and these fixed points were the most reliable. The four points of the compass weren't used in their normal sense by Hegirans. Magnetized needles didn't point any particular direction, though it was rumored that lodestone poles did exist to the very far northwest. The side of an Obelisk that began with the invocation text was called the north side. Left of it was west, right east, and opposite, south. Beyond that one traveled by original orientation, using Obelisks and fire doves as references.

The Trident would soon lose sight of the Obelisk Tara in Mediweva, and of the Obelisk Onmassee east of it in the central highlands of Fedderland. Trincoma was the westernmost port of Fedderland, and while the Obelisk Onmassee was not visible from that city, a kilometer out to sea brought it into plain view.

Barthel studied the books and charts given to him. They obviously did not come from Obelisk texts. Therefore the crew of the Trident, though they came from a land that had access to an Obelisk, didn't share the prejudices of the Mediwevans. He read voraciously.

One of his teachers was a deck officer named Avra, a woman at least twice Bar-Woten's age, with thick black hair and a thin, stern face. Her eyes were the same green as the phantom lights that formed rings in the waves at night. She spoke in a small, precise voice and carried her shoulders with an arrogant squareness belying her personality, which was pleasant and gracious. She was a widow. Her husband had been a methane-tender, and they had sailed on the Trident for twenty years together in more foreign ports and strange seas than anyone else aboard, even the captain, who had joined the ship four years before. At age fifteen she had hired on as a cook, and all her training and schooling had been aboard the Trident. She was an excellent teacher, and she found the Khemite an eager pupil.