The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (31 page)

“The biggest problem is one for pure sweat. Since we can’t bring the heat to the metal, we’ll have to bring the metal to the heat. That means hauling the whole wreck up into the mountains to the foundry. Surprisingly, the Landgrave didn’t object to the cost of that one, even though it may take every vol on the island. I don’t think he wants all that nice indestructable metal sitting in the harbor where a few imaginative visiting captains could tow it away.”

“They wouldn’t get very far,” said Ethan. “Not pulling that mass across the ice.”

“Probably not,” the big man conceded, “but try and convince the Landgrave of that. So as soon as we can round up the men and animals, that gets first priority after starting the forge.”

Ethan ran a finger over part of the drawing. “You
really
think this thing will stay upright in a high wind?”

“Not until we try it out in one, we won’t be.” Williams nodded agreement.

“The base weight should keep it steady,” said the schoolmaster. “Also, note the airfoils front and rear. Something McKay did not have to worry about. With so much sail area on a raft that size, I’m more worried about the possibility of her becoming airborne than tipping over. These”—and he tapped the two foils on the sketch—“should eliminate any chance of that.”

Ethan stared at the hybrid of nineteenth-century terran and modern tran technology and shook his head admiringly. “Congratulations, Milliken. It’s quite a project.” He extended a hand and the schoolmaster shook it shyly. “I only hope the damn thing works.”

“What an enterprise!” Eer-Meesach began. “Nothing like it has ere been seen in Sofold or her neighbors. We shall call it
‘Slanderscree’
after the dark flight of dawn-birds which precede the souls of the departed!”

“Encouraging appellation,” commented Ethan drily.

The wizard didn’t understand him. “Bards will sing of its sailing for a hundred times a hundred years. We will be all in song and verse immortalized, sirs. The greatness of our quest shall …” September gave Ethan a gentle nudge.

“I think you’ve heard everything you have to, lad.”

“I think so, too, Skua.”

They excused themselves. Malmeevyn was so engrossed in enumerating the magnificence of his anticipated immortality that he barely noticed them depart.

Out in the cool quiet of the hallway, Ethan couldn’t resist a last question.

“Assuming this monstrosity actually gets built, Skua—”

“It will, lad.”

“Yes, well, I’ll believe it when the first sail fills. And when it isn’t torn to splinters in the first honest breeze. Assuming that—can we make it? Can we get to the settlement? And how long will it take?”

“I’ve got confidence in the boat, lad. Williams may be a bit of a secret romantic, deep down, but the design is sound. We’ve got compasses. Now that we know we’ve got a landmark close by the island, this volcano … what do they call it?”

“The Place-Where-The-Earth’s-Blood-Burns,” reminded Ethan helpfully.

“Yeah … from there it should be easy enough to find the town. Let’s see … given the speed that thing should be able to make, allowing time for the locals to get used to the different rigging, plus the fact that we’ll be moving against the wind at times … I’d guess we should be able to do it inside of a couple of months. Depending on the weather, of course.”

“What do you think of our captain? He didn’t awe me the first time we traveled with him.”

September grinned. “Ta-hoding? Looks and sounds like a fat whiner, doesn’t he? Probably because he
is
a fat whiner. But he also impressed me as a being who knows his seamanship … icemanship, rather. I’d prefer to have him at the helm and wide awake as opposed to some smooth-talking arrogant braggart who can’t tell a snow squall from a dust cloud. Give me a captain who’s concerned first for his own precious skin above a gallant idiot any time.

“I’m going to be tied up with that forge and shaping the raft runners. Williams will be busy with Eer-Meesach grinding out crude blueprints and plans. But someone has to oversee the actual construction. By the Black Hole in Cygnus, you know who volunteered when he found out about it?”

“Do tell,” said Ethan.

“Old du Kane, that’s who! Actually asked if he could. Said something to the effect that he wasn’t especially adept at decapitating belligerent obstructionists or getting drunk in comradely fashion with the local soldiery, but that he could manage large groups of people and materials. He’s learned enough of the local lingo to get by, so I told him to go ahead.”

Ethan didn’t share the big man’s confidence in the financier. “You think he’ll handle things properly? He’s not the most diplomatic type in the Arm.”

“Don’t confuse performance with personality,” admonished September, scratching at a fur-hidden ear. “I’m not fanatically in love with the old pirate myself, nor any of his ilk. But we’re not in the position of choosing from an unlimited workforce. Besides, I can guess how much credit every day he spends out of contact with his empire is costing him. He’ll get that raft built as fast as possible, all right.”

“I suppose so,” Ethan conceded uncertainly. “I can’t keep from wondering what happened to Walther.”

September grunted at the mention of the vanished kidnapper.

“Probably a frozen smear on the ice by now, what? Or resting comfortably in the belly of a Droom or some other charming member of the local fauna.”

“I suppose so.”

Ethan broke away to make for his own room and a roaring fire.

T
HE BUILDING OF THE
Slanderscree
proceeded as rapidly as anyone dared hope, despite Landgrave Torsk Kurdagh-Vlata’s royal howls of agony over the unending list of expenses. His moaning ran the unceasing wind a good vocal second.

September singed an arm when the first jumpspark was fired from the makeshift forge. After an hour’s steady work and cursing, however, the recalcitrant hunk of machinery worked perfectly. Overawed, no doubt, at recognizing an elemental force greater than itself.

With the big man sweating at the foundry, Williams and Eer-Meesach running from mountain to harbor to village with drawings and corrections in the dozens, and du Kane supervising the actual construction, Ethan was left with the thankless job of handling the thousands of minute, attendant details.

He couldn’t believe that building a primitive, crude raft could involve so many little decisions and questions, all made and answered on the spot. Surely an interstellar freighter could be no more complicated.

Brown-green sailcloth was matched to design specifications. Meters of pika-pina cable were measured and trimmed. New crates of fresh-forged bolts and fittings had to be shepherded down to the ice-dock.

Put together with equal parts sweat and invective, the
Slanderscree
began to take shape.

Something else was taking shape, too, and Ethan liked it a lot less than the a-building raft. This was Elfa’s continuing attempt to become something other than a casual acquaintance.

One day, despite the offense it might cause the Landgrave and the damage it could do to their cause, he erupted at her. To his surprise, she took it rather calmly—almost as though she’d been waiting for it. After that she didn’t bother him again. He was puzzled but decided not to press for the facts. He was ahead on points. Better leave it that way.

Despite delays and the inevitable confusion arising from problems in translation, despite a temporary failure of the electrodyne forge, despite endless hours of frustrating explanation from Williams on how the complex rigging was to be installed, there came a day and hour when the
Slanderscree
was finished, stocked, and ready to depart—though Ethan had a hard time convincing himself that it would ever move.

It sat there at the end of the Landgrave’s dock, dwarfing the commercial rafts that skimmed its flanks like waterbugs. Nearly two hundred meters long, with three towering masts, bowsprit, and dozens of tightly furled sails, it radiated enormous power held in check. The tran arrowhead design had been slimmed down to needle-like proportions. Only the two big airfoils marred the raft’s rakish lines.

There was nothing unusual about the morning set for their departure. A typical trannish day—sunny, windy, freezing to the core. Last-minute supplies and spare parts were being taken on. A considerable crowd had taken time from the unending drudgery of making a living to see them off—or preside at an entertaining crack-up. They lined the shore and-spilled out onto the ice. Cubs ignored mothers and darted in and out around the great duralloy runners.

Sir Hunnar came on board as nominal commander of their military compliment. But General Balavere was making the journey, too. When he was a cub he’d experienced a rain of ash and hot stone from the Place-Where-The-Earth’s-Blood-Burns. It had darkened the sky over Wannome for four days. Surely it was a holy place—and the general had reached an age when such things took on increasing importance. He was going to see that legendary mountain.

Old Eer-Meesach, of course, couldn’t have been kept away by a herd of famished krokim.

The raft had nothing like the carefully arranged chain of responsibility that existed on board a spatial liner. Nor did Williams’ arcane knowledge yield any counterpart for the ancient terran clippers, beyond the rank of captain. So Hunnar’s squires, Suaxus and Budjir, came along as his seconds. Ta-hoding retained much of his own raft crew and worked through them.

Another side of Hunnar was reflected in his choice of squires. Neither was a type Ethan would choose: Suaxus always dour and suspicious, Budjir laconic to the point of apparent idiocy. However, both were almost severely competent.

The crew and passengers trooped on board to the accompaniment of tremendous cheers and shouts of encouragement, a few good-naturedly obscene, from the assembled townsfolk. Some had come from as far away as Ritsfasen at the far western tip of Sofold Isle for the departure.

The Landgrave stood at the dock surrounded by his important nobles and knights. When all were on the raft and the boarding plank had been pulled back, he raised his staff. A respectful silence settled on the crowd.

“You have come from a strange place and you go to a strange place,” he intoned solemnly. “In the short time between you have done deeds that will be remembered forever by the people of Sofold and myself. You have also said that the universe is a vast place, vaster than we could ever imagine, with thousands of being as different from us as we are different from you living in it.

“Should these worlds and beings extend to infinity and you were to go among each and every one, you will always find a home and fire for you and your children’s children here, in Wannome.

“Go now, and go with the wind.”

“
WITH THE WIND
,” echoed the crowd somberly. Then someone made a rude noise and they broke into wild yelling and cheering.

“A predictable sentiment,” commented Hellespont du Kane flatly.

“Yes? They might be cheering for us, or because their exalted ruler kept his speech admirably short,” September theorized, turning away. But had that been a hint of moisture at the corner of the big man’s eyes? Or was it only distortion from the scratched and battered snow goggles.

“All right, Ta-hoding!” he bellowed aft. “Let’s see if this firetrap will make it out of the harbor!”

The strange new commands were issued in modified Trannish sailing terminology, relayed across the deck and up into the rigging to the sailors stationed aloft.

Just watching the huge natives scramble up the rigging into the shrouds in the continual gale gave Ethan the jitters. And it would be much worse once they left the sheltering bulk of the island. But those powerful muscles and clawed hands and feet held them steady as, one by one, the rust-green sails began to drop and dig wind.

Slowly, smoothly, the
Slanderscree
began to slide away from the dock, while the shouts from on shore grew louder and louder. Eyes on the sailors above, September walked over and gave Ethan a sly pat on the back.

“By-the-by, young feller-me-lad, did you ever manage to get that business of the Landgrave’s offspring straightened out?”

“It was never out of line,” Ethan riposted. “I thought I did, but she wasn’t exactly in the forefront of the crowd, waving tearfully as we departed. Perhaps not.”

“I didn’t see her either. Though I notice you’ve warmed up to du Kane’s daughter.” The lady in question had vanished belowdecks the moment she’d come on board in order to get out of the wind. Raft or boat or castle, that was next to impossible on this world.

“Glassfeathers,” Ethan countered, leaning over the rail to watch the ice slide past. “She’s human, too. She just had to have someone to talk to, finally. I don’t wonder that she doesn’t chat much with her father. Certainly you and Williams aren’t exactly the most charming conversationalists around.”

“Sorry, young feller, but when I see her it’s without that fur and survival suit, figuratively speaking. That kind of crimps my inclination to easy banter.” He patted Ethan again in fatherly fashion and sauntered off forward, whistling.

The
Slanderscree
was moving out of the lee of the mountains. She picked up speed rapidly as the quickly maturing crew put on more and more sail. Even the moonraker was out by the time they reached the main gate—completely repaired once again. By then they were moving at a respectable 30 kph. But they’d be lucky to hold that, moving to the westward. Moving east, with the wind, however, the
Slanderscree
’s speed was limited only by the strength of her sails and masts and her ability to keep from becoming airborne.

The last cheers they heard came from the guards at the gate and the operators of the Great Chain as they shot between the towers. Once free of the harbor’s confining walls, Ta-hoding, praying all the while, swung her in a wide curve designed to bring her back to the southwest and on course.

Ethan held his breath as the raft came around. No one could predict how the radical new mast-and-sail configuration would respond on a craft and world far different from long-dead Donald McKay’s wildest imaginings.