The Bright Black Sea (114 page)

04

As promised, a day's sailing inward carried us into a
stratum of reefs, sparse at first, but growing denser the deeper we
went in.

I was standing lookout, highlighting the rocks for
Molaye to avoid when Min and Vinden came up to stand behind us.
Glen Colin was dozing in the shadows – his directions had been
vague, as in
hold this course
, before going back to sleep.
In fairness, he was on duty around the clock.

'Now my dear, we're getting close enough for you to
begin to get a glimpse of your true home,' Vinden said, and
pointing to the viewscreen, added, 'Pull a visual on that large
white rock off to starboard.'

I zoomed in on it as Vinden continued, 'The whiteness
you see is frost. Frozen water. And if Litang will bring up the
full sensor readings we'll likely find traces of nitrogen, and
oxygen in the nebula's gas. In a few hours, we'll be entering a
stratum where they replace the hydrogen of this stratum.We'll be
sailing in an increasingly breathable atmosphere.'

They were standing behind me, so I couldn't see Min's
expression, but she put her hands on the back of my chair and
leaned over my shoulder. 'A livable stratum?' she asked, and
looking closer at the frost covered rock exclaimed, 'Why there are
some sort of trees on that rock.'

'Aye, this rock – or this island as we think of them
– originated within the nitrogen/oxygen stratum, where the
atmosphere was warm enough to support life. Some fickle current or
a collision sent it drifting into this uninhabitable region. The
livable nitrogen/oxygen stratum is known as the Archipelago of the
Tenth Star. It is your true home. Our home. Our heritage.

'Imagine, my dear, a vast shell of warm, breathable
atmosphere that is almost 200,000 kilometers thick, about 11/12th
of an astronomical unit out from the center of the star and thickly
populated with lush islands from the size of boulders to that of
planets – uncounted billions of them – and all of them teaming with
life, plants and animals, native and introduced. And peoples, in
uncounted millions of tribes, nations, and civilizations. I am
certain you'll find that what you've given up pales in comparison
to the life of the Pela, as we call it,' exclaimed Vinden.

'And I'm to rule...'

'Oh, only a tiny speck of it, my dear,' laughed
Vinden. 'But as far as we know, it is the most advanced
civilization in the Pela and the only one that is in contact with
the outside Nebula, so it alone has access to Neb technology. Our
home world of Cimmadar is a small planet, but it rules seven moons
– think of them as continents, if you will, and perhaps ten
thousand free floating islands ranging from a kilometer across to
several thousand. It is a mere drop in this ocean of life that
surrounds the core of the Tenth Star, but is still the most
powerful empire we've discovered. We know of thirty other societies
with varying degrees of technology, a dozen nomadic barbarian
hordes and thousands of barbaric tribes. Still, we've only explored
a tiny fraction of the Pela, so nothing we can say about it can be
said with absolutely certainly. The Pela contains more inhabitable
surfaces by many orders of magnitude than the five hundred worlds
of the Nine Star Nebula and their moons combined. And when you
consider that within the Pela, the fastest flyer can only travel a
1,000 kilometers in an hour, and most only a sixth of that, you can
see how impossible it is to know much more about the Pela than we
do. Oh, you can hop from place to place, if you have space ships
like we do, but once you get within the Pela proper, the density of
the atmosphere and islands preclude speeds above the 1000 kph rate,
making even extended exploration mostly just sampling
expeditions.

'Our destination is still more than a day's journey
in, and Cimmadar would be decades away if we had to sail directly
through the Archipelago to reach it. However, with our hybrid
ships, we can travel through these outer reaches at spaceship
speeds before plunging into the Pela proper, so you'll be on the
Cloud Throne of Cimmadar within four or five months – if all goes
well.'

'That seems like a dream, Uncle,' said Min softly. I
had to agree, but I kept my mouth shut. I was the hired hand these
days.

'Aye. I'll leave you just to take it all in, before
we talk again. However, I want to leave you with this thought,'
replied Vinden.

'As you know we've kept our secrets, sometimes, I
fear, at great cost. This is the reason we've kept them so close.
We of the Pela, no matter what side of the conflict we're on, agree
that this vast and wonderful realm must remain forever hidden from
the rest of the Nebula. While it is almost unimaginably vast and
populous, it is also fragile. Its people are, for the most part,
very primitive – true savages – not your make-believe throwbacks on
the Unity moons or some drift worlds. Most are very fierce and
warlike, but given their primitive weapons, they'd be unable to
resist a mass migration of outsiders into the Pela.

'Imagine if the existence of the Archipelago became
known. You haven't seen it yet in its full glory, but from what
I've described already, who in the drifts would not give up their
cold rocks and flock here, to live, mine, and build empires in the
warm embrace of the Tenth Star? It's not hard to imagine the savage
wars that would ensue and the savage exploitation of the people and
resources of the Pela if they came. And given the absolute size of
the Pela, and the limits of even a sophisticated ship to travel
through it, you can see how impossible it would be to police the
Pela or to keep would-be settlers, slavers and empire builders out,
once it is known. Oh, it would take many thousands years for
outsiders to spread through the Pela, but they would, and our
paradise would be lost. We, who know of the outside worlds, are one
in our determination to keep the Pela secret.

'I trust, Litang, he added turning to me, 'that
you'll respect our wishes and impress upon your crew the absolute
necessity of keeping this vast wonder the property of its ancient
owners. The Unity would be powerless to prevent the wholesale
slaughter of men and beasts, which I'm sure you'd not care to
shoulder the blame for.'

'Aye, I can see the necessity, if it is all that you
say it is,' I said. 'It would be best, however, if all of my crew
were given a chance to experience this for themselves. Hopefully
the full experience will seal their lips and unite them in keeping
it secret.'

'I agree completely. By all means, see that everyone
has a chance to come along on one of the runs in. They've come a
long way and deserve the experience. It'll be something they'll
never forget, even if they can never tell anyone about it,' replied
Vinden. 'Those who know the Pela are quite selfish and protective
of it.'

Min stayed on in the bridge, as others stopped up to
view our approach to the Pela. Hours later we crossed into the
nitrogen/oxygen stratum and began to see moss and lichen covered
rocks and floating islands – with snow in their crevasses. The
density of the atmosphere, the number of small islands and rocks,
and the fact that the
Raven
was a space ship, not a flier,
made navigating under these conditions constant work once more,
even at only seven or eight hundred kilometer an hour. By the time
I decided to take a nap, we were seeing flocks of birds streaming
between the islands ranging from small, multi-colored birds, singly
and in vast flocks, to an occasional large white bird with a
wingspan of almost ten meters. And not all of them looked like
birds. Some had four wings.

05

We were deep in the Pela, dodging lush green islands,
large and small. I had the
Raven
's helm. Glen Colin was
slouched on my left, nodding in sleep and drink. Vikei, one of
Vinden's crew, was the lookout, busy highlighting the rocks on the
radar display that she hoped I'd avoid. Even traveling 500
kilometers an hour, there were plenty to note and avoid.

The big islands now had forests of tall,
straight-trunked trees topped with feathery, fern-like crowns,
sticking out at all angles with a lower level of thick, intricately
gnarled trees with willowy branches and shimmering leaves whose
branches spread out like wide umbrellas between the fern-topped
tree trunks. Flowering vines draped the trees, meandered over
meadows and trailed the islands like windblown hair. There were
also meadows with drifts of flowers and reedy grass, peaty plains,
lichen and moss streaked cliffs and rocky peaks like fists and
fingers. Only the very largest of them, the ones stretching for
hundreds of kilometers, had any pretense of gravity – and , only a
pretense. Vines could be found on islands of all sizes, – small
ones, like tumbling weeds, drifted between the large islands, which
often had vines a kilometer long waving in the air currents behind
them. All of the islands showed scars of collisions – fresh and old
– and many islands seemed collections of smaller ones woven
together by their entangled vines.

There was an abundance of animal life as well, but I
was too focused on navigation to pay more than passing attention to
it, when Glen Colin pointed to the Pela versions of bears, tigers,
lions, snakes and dragons that inhabited the islands and the air
about them, often just catching a glimpse of them before they
disappeared under the cover of the forest or dove into rocky
nooks.

'What's this coming up?' I asked Vikei, pointing to a
squiggly line on the radar plot before us. I'd been seeing flocks
of birds show up in long lines, but this seemed too solid to be a
flock of birds.

'Beats me,' she replied. 'But we should clear it by a
kilometer.'

Glen Colin must have been awake, since he chuckled.
'Call up a visual on that one, Cap'n.'

I nodded to Vikei, who brought it up on the forward
screen and into focus.

It appeared at first as a long shadow against the
hazy brightness of the pale bluish green sky, lazily altering its
shape, almost like an eel swimming. It was, however, very big –
nearly twenty-five meters long.

'Damn, is that a snake with fins? Or are those
feathers?' she exclaimed –as its details began to come into focus
as we closed in on it. It had a thick, undulating snake-like body
with intricately patterned feathers in reds and yellows, and a
large head head with a wide, crocodile mouth that showed plenty of
teeth when it opened it to challenge us as we approached. It flew
using four short wings, which, on closer inspection, proved to be
webbed limbs with wicked looking claws.

'A snake with feathers and legs,' I muttered. 'But ,
I suppose it's not a snake.'

'It's what we call a
serpent dragon
. A cathay
serpent, if I'm not mistaken,' he paused to peer blearily at the
screen. He'd been on duty for two days now, dozing when he could
and drunk the whole time. It was beginning to take its toll. But
only beginning. 'Aye, a lesser cathay, I think. It's been a while
since I've been home.'

'A lesser one? How big o the greater ones grow?' I
asked.

'Well, lad, the biggest serpent dragons can be twice
as large. There are feathered snakes as well. They can grow to
twenty meters. We also have
lizard dragons
. They don't grow
quite so long, nose to tail – only thirty to forty meters – but
they're much fuller bodied – sort'a like the aquatic dinosaurs of
old Terra, but with longer, claw tipped limbs.'

'Neb, how common are they?' asked Vikei.

'They ain't rare. We'll be seeing many more of 'em
the deeper in we get into the Pela and the air gets warmer. Still,
you might go a day or two without seeing one.'

'What's with the feathers? They're certainly not
birds.'

'Well, feathers is the rule in the Pela. Don't know
why. The only creatures with hair you'll cross orbits with have
been brought in from the Neb. But they've grown wild as well. This
ain't the Unity or even a drift world where every animal is
essentially harmless. Here, you're going to have to learn to keep a
constant eye out for all sorts of danger.'

'I'm not sure I'm going to like this...' I muttered.
Actually, I was sure I wasn't going to like it.

'Well, Cap'n, the careful ones get by. The beasties
feed on the careless and the unlucky. You'll need to develop some
very careful habits very quickly,' he replied with a grin.
'Everyone goes about armed and keeps an eye on the sky at all
times. It helps to keep a dense forest close at hand for cover
should one of the larger dragons come along. You see how all the
beasties dodge into it when we go by. But you also have to keep an
eye on the dense forests as well, for the talon-tigers and
feather-armored bears and such hide in 'em to avoid the dragons.
And just remember, a dragon can see you when they're just a dot in
the sky, and the beasties can smell and hear you a kilometer away,
so you have to be on guard all the time. You ain't in the Unity
anymore.' He paused to take a long sip of his fuel.

'And, just to complete my sermon on being careful,'
he continued, 'Most of the folk you'll cross orbits with in the
islands are every bit as savage as the beasties. Some will eat you
as readily as a dragon. And even if they've no appetite for you,
many'll cut your throat on the standing principle that a dead
stranger is the best stranger. Mind you, the people of Cimmadar are
a lot more civilized than the islanders, so you shouldn't have to
worry too much about people once we're back in the Empire. But even
on Cimmadar itself, you need to keep an eye to the sky, and not
only for dragons, but for raiders and slavers and the like. There
are no defendable frontiers in the Pela so you have to look after
yourself all the time. As I said, you go about well armed in the
Pela.'

'Vinden seemed to have skipped over those parts,' I
said giving a steering rocket a little thrust to keep us clear of a
rock in our course a dozen kilometers ahead. 'What else didn't he
share with us?'