The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (89 page)

“Just Ethan will do fine.” He stared at the wailful of whorls and swirls. The colors were bright, the outlines regular. “Infrared photographs, but of what?”

“The ground we’re standing in, young feller-me-lad.” September gestured at the wall. “That blob up there, that’s Arsudun. Those smaller spots represent the Landgrave’s town, Brass Monkey, and the like.”

“You have a fine eye for information.” Hwang sounded approving.

September shrugged. “I’ve had some experience identifying topographic features from above. Why the infrared? Why not just a straight satellite photo?”

One of Hwang’s colleagues spoke up, a touch of bitterness in his voice. “This is a minor outpost. We don’t rate a fully equipped survey satellite. No high-resolution cameras. Just straightforward instrumentation.”

Ethan wanted to ask his friend where he’d gained experience “identifying topographic features from above,” but Hwang was pressing on, using her remote’s built-in pointer to trace features on the wall as the image changed.

“Do you recognize this?” The center of the picture was an intense orange.

“Looks like Sofold,” Ethan ventured. “The home island of our Tran friends. The central volcano is unmistakable.”

“That is correct. And this?” The two men stared hard at the image and looked blank. “That’s not surprising,” Hwang told them. “There’s no way you could recognize it because you haven’t been there. No human has. It lies far to the southeast of Arsudun.” She ran the wall through a rapid sequence of similar images.

“This is an infrared mosaic of the large southern continent.” Her pointer moved over the images like a two-dimensional insect. “Notice these features here. These big clouds and”—she dipped the pointer—“this heat shadow on the ice ocean.”

“What about them?” Ethan asked.

“They shouldn’t be there.” This from Gerald Fraser, an assistant. “They’re all wrong. We’ve been studying Tran-ky-ky’s climate for quite a while now. We’ve done mapping for years and the climate’s been under intensive examination ever since the establishment of the outpost here. There haven’t been any big surprises. Everything involving the weather has been pretty predictable and very consistent. Then this.” He waved a hand at the wall. “It’s like finding a lump of coal in your ice cream.”

“Gerry’s right.” Hwang’s pointer moved. “These clouds and this shadow on the ice are all wrong. Right for Kansastan maybe, but not Tran-ky-ky.”

“So it’s wrong.” Ethan was getting interested. “What’s its significance? What’s it indicative of?”

“A change in the climate.”

Ethan and Skua exchanged a glance. “I don’t understand,” Ethan told her. “Less freezing or more freezing, what’s the difference?”

“It’s not freezing here.”

Ethan’s gaze narrowed. “I beg your pardon?” He stared at the infrared image anew, trying to see things that weren’t there. Meanwhile Hwang’s pointer continued to flutter over the wall.

“This small area exhibits a radical difference in temperature from its immediate surroundings. In addition to the inexplicable rise in temperature spectroscopic analysis also reveals a radical change in the composition of the atmosphere directly above this portion of the continental plateau.”

“Volcanism,” September said immediately. “Tran-ky-ky’s full of it. I don’t see what the problem is.”

Hwang smiled. “You’re full of surprises, Mr. September. Yes, there are many volcanoes on this world, and sufficient volcanism in this area could possibly be responsible for what we’re seeing, but we don’t think volcanism is the cause. Low-resolution or not, our satellite is capable of resolving fairly small details on the surface; there’s no evidence of cratering anywhere in the vicinity of the anomaly.”

“What about venting?” September asked her. Ethan looked at him in surprise and September smiled back. “Done some geology in my time, feller-me-lad.”

“We thought of that also. We’ve even considered purely speculative and fanciful rationales. None of them fits the magnitude of what we’re observing. If we had a really decent satellite, with high resolution cameras on board …” Her voice trailed off momentarily. “But we don’t. Our orbiter was designed to aid in measurements of the atmosphere and in making weather predictions. We have better equipment on order but you might imagine how difficult it is to obtain expensive instruments for use in studying these backward worlds.”

“Don’t let Hunnar Redbeard hear you call Tran-ky-ky backward,” Ethan told her. “The Tran may not be sophisticated or technologically mature but they’re not dumb either, and they’re proud as hell.”

“Don’t be so defensive,” said one of the other researchers. “We’re here to try and help these people, not insult them.”

“We suspect volcanism,” Hwang continued, “because we don’t have anything else to go on. We know the planet’s internal heat helps drive its weather in the absence of open bodies of water. We could write the whole thing off until new equipment arrives. But we’re worried.”

A tall geophysicist with the unlikely name of Orvil Blanchard waved at the wall with a lanky hand. “Keep in mind we can’t find any natural features that might explain what’s going on in this region. Despite that, the changes in the atmosphere are increasing steadily. Volcanic venting varies dramatically. It doesn’t increase at a steady, measurable rate the way this anomaly does. At least, not any volcanic vent I’ve ever encountered. It’s as if something’s thrown a switch inside the planet.”

Hwang shut off the concealed tridee projector. “We could put it down to volcanism anyway, but we want to be certain. Since our modest survey satellite is unable to resolve the problem to anyone’s satisfaction, all that’s left to us is an on-site inspection. Which presents us with a problem. Because of restrictions governing the deployment of advanced technology on a Class IVB world like Tran-ky-ky, we have no access here to aircraft or skimmers. It was assumed we could get all the information we required to continue with our research via the satellite. Normally that would suffice.

“Administration had a skimmer for emergency use, but that apparently was destroyed when the previous Commissioner ran afoul of some unfriendly natives. Or so your report—which everyone here has read by the way—indicated.”

“I’ve seen ice cycles around the outpost. What about using those?” Ethan asked her.

“Strictly short range,” said Blanchard. “We could pack extra fuel cells, maybe even enough to make the journey there and back, but we couldn’t carry sufficient additional supplies. And from what we know of the weather out on the ice ocean, something as small as a cycle might get blown two kilometers back for every one it advanced.”

“Besides that,” Hwang went on impatiently, “none of us has ventured any farther from Brass Monkey than the shore of this island. It was circumnavigated and mapped by geologists as the base here was being established. That’s about the extent of our long-range exploration. Everyone’s still new to a new world. That’s why we’ve devoured your official report. It’s been invaluable to every department. But we’ve no personal experience or knowledge of what it’s like out on the oceans. None of us here at the outpost, for example, has ever seen one of these extraordinary creatures the natives call stavanzers.

“We’d be traveling blind and ignorant and with no aircraft or skimmer to back us up. I think you’ll agree that it would be exceedingly risky, foolhardy even, for people like us without your kind of experience to undertake a journey to the southern continent.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” said September, blithely ignoring the hidden plea.

Subtlety having failed, Hwang put the request directly. “Then surely you can see that we need your help.”

Realization dawned more slowly on Ethan. “Oh, no. I mean, we’ll be glad to help you with preparations and suggestions and advice, won’t we, Skua?”

September pointedly checked his chronometer. “That we will, young feller-me-lad, so long as they don’t take more than a few hours. A nova
might
have kept me off that shuttle. Nothing else will.”

Hwang turned to gaze earnestly at Ethan. “What about you, Mr. Fortune? Milliken tells us you’re going to be staying here anyway.”

Ethan shot an angry look in the schoolteacher’s direction. Williams didn’t turn away from the glare. Why be upset with Milliken anyway? Ethan asked himself. Truth was truth.

“Yeah, I’ll be based here for a while. But my responsibility is to the House of Malaika. I have to set up a formal trading station. Right now that consists of myself and a few cases of samples that are probably frozen solid in the warehouse. I have to arrange for construction or leasing of offices and storage space, hire an assistant from administration, and begin the search for suitable employees off-world. There are forms to be processed and filled out and filed, and I don’t know where to begin.”

“We can help you with that,” said another of the meteorologists. “We’ve been dealing with the local administration for years.”

“From a scientific standpoint, not a commercial one,” Ethan argued. “I also have to arrange quarters for myself.”

“We could find you a permanent apartment here.” Blanchard grinned. “Not entirely on the up and up, but we did lose a couple of geologists a few months back. You could have two apartments, one for yourself and another for a temporary office. Better than what administration would assign you.”

Ethan felt like a man climbing a ladder to escape a pack of carnivores. He was rapidly running out of rungs. “Look, I appreciate your offers and I sympathize with your situation, but I don’t have a minute to spare for myself, I’ve got a ton of work to do, and I just can’t disappear for weeks on end again. I just got
back
to civilization. If it’s an ice ship you want, I can make contacts for you in Arsudun Towne. You can hire transportation to Poyolavomaar. Once you’re there, I’m sure you’ll be able to hire a ship and crew to take you farther south.”

“Where we have to go is uncharted territory. It’s a long way from this Poyolavomaar you describe in your report. We don’t know the natives or their ways.”

“Why not just wait for your new satellite instrumentation? Then you can get all the answers you need from the safety and comfort of your offices.”

“It’s not our safety and comfort that concerns us at the moment,” Hwang told him. “It’s the safety of the natives, the Tran. You see, while we don’t share your unique experiences we do interact with the natives here in Brass Monkey. We know many of them by name and we’ve come, as you have, to like and admire them. We don’t want to see anything happen to them.”

“Now hold on a minute.” September looked confused. “We’ve been talking about an unexplained localized meteorological phenomenon affecting a part of the southern continent. Nobody’s said anything about a possible planet-wide disaster.”

“It’s difficult to speak in such terms without hard evidence,” said another of the scientists. “That’s why we’re so anxious to go and see what’s happening for ourselves. We hope no disaster is in the offing—planetary or even continental—but we need to go there and find out. And we need to do it as soon as possible. We can’t wait for answers on advanced imaging equipment that might or might not ever arrive. We’re probably overreacting, but we need to know what’s going on out there, Mr. September.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ethan fought to keep a grip on his emotions. “Unless you hire an ice ship to take you to Poyolavomaar and then try to proceed south from there you won’t find out. Because there’s no other way to reach the region you’re talking about. You just ran through all the options yourself. It’s too far for ice cycles and there’s no skimmer or aircraft available.”

“What of the remarkable ice ship you built?” Hwang asked him.

“We didn’t build anything,” Ethan told her, more sharply than he intended. “The Tran built every meter of it themselves.”

“Excuse me. The ice ship you designed. It’s far sturdier and faster than anything we’ve observed locally. And it’s a proven long-distance traveler. If we could …”

“Out of the question.” It struck him then that the main purpose of the meeting had been to obtain the use of the
Slanderscree.
He and Skua were incidentals. “The
Slanderscree
’s going one way—and that’s west. Not east, southeast, or anywhere in that vicinity. It’s going to take a long time for it to get home because it’s going to have to tack into the wind.

“Its crew has been away from home for over a year. They may have membranes between their wrist and waist, they may have vertical pupils instead of round ones, but they’re people. They’ve been away from their families, their friends, and their lives for much too long, just because of us. They want to get back home as badly as Skua does.”

“We’re aware of their concerns.” Hwang made placating gestures as she spoke. “We sympathize with them just as we do with you and Mr. September. We’ve read everything you wrote about Sir Hunnar Redbeard and his people. But this matter concerns them more than it does us. This is their world that may be in danger. You must convince them to help us.”

Ethan shook his head. “It wouldn’t matter if we went to them stark naked and did tricks and somersaults until we froze in midair. Hunnar is now heir to the throne of Wannome. He has political as well as personal reasons for returning home. They’re our friends but we’re still aliens and they’re still Tran. They don’t owe us a thing. Quite the contrary—Skua and Milliken and I owe them for keeping us alive. No amount of talk on our part is going to convince them to put off their journey homeward for another six months or whatever in order to help you resolve a dispute about some variance in the weather hundreds of kilometers southeast of Arsudun.”

Hwang’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I understand. You must also understand that we had to ask. Milliken said it would be difficult.”

This is crazy, Ethan thought. Why do I stand here listening to this? What difference does it make what is causing the rise in temperature far to the south? They’ve already admitted it was probably due to volcanism.

But if it wasn’t due to volcanism, what was responsible?

It was none of his business. He was a trader, a man of commerce, not a scientist. It wasn’t his business to intercede with the Tran on behalf of Cheela Hwang and her associates. He had enough problems of his own to worry about.