Time of the Great Freeze (13 page)

"Then came the ice," Garold was chanting. "Covering all, covering field and covering city, covering the world." He sang of how people fled, how some dug holes in the ground in which to hide, how others headed southward, how the world's life died as the advancing snow and ice devoured everything.

Then, Garold said, the snow stopped falling. The Gods relented, and the worst was past. First to return to the old lands were the Sea People, the Jerseys and the Ninglanders and the Carolinas. These, Jim guessed, were small tribes who lived on the frozen ocean, where food was relatively abundant, fish and walrus to be caught in the places where the water was open.

And then other survivors of the great freeze returned to live on top of the glaciers. This part of the story was hard to follow, almost incoherent, but there was no mistaking the contempt in the old man's voice for the "inlanders." He seemed to distinguish between those tribes that lived along the slope, the eastern edge of what had been North America, and those who lived high on the glacier itself. The slope people-the Dooneys and others like them-were rough and uncouth, and could not be trusted, but at least they still spoke what Garold called "the language of men," and understood civilized ways even though they did not abide by them. The real inlanders, though, were nothing but wild men, savages who spoke in animallike grunts, beast-men who had cast off every trace of the old civilization.

The farther from the sea, the more difficult were the living conditions. Inland, food was scarce, and civilization itself crumbled under the need simply to stay alive. The Sea People had maintained an elaborate civilization, with ceremony and history and a language not very much changed over the years. The people of the slope, living in a somewhat harsher environment, had slipped backward toward savagery, but not as far as the inlanders whose every effort had to go toward mere survival.

It was probably accurate, Jim thought, comparing the hostile Dooneys to the first tribe of nomads they had met, the moose hunters. The primitive inlanders, though they had been hostile at first, had easily been awed by Carl's display of medical skill, and had ended by kneeling in homage to him. The semicivilized Dooneys, just as unfriendly at first, had also been awed, by the display of the power torch's destructive ability, but they had claimed a life, all the same, and they knew enough English to demand a toll of strangers. Of the two, Jim thought, he preferred the simpler folk, though he was hardly delighted by the way they had been ready to leave their injured comrade to die.

Garold went on. The epic turned to the future now, and became prophetic. The sun would shine, he said, and the ice would melt, and the world would turn warm. Life would become easy and gentle, and the Jerseys would dwell in a paradise on Earth.

"And the people of the cities will come up out of the ground," Garold said. "In their hundreds of hundreds they will arise, and bring wonders to us, and live with us in friendship."

The Jerseys looked a trifle surprised at those lines. Jim realized that Garold must have departed from the script here, adding a few passages of his own to the familiar story. Speaking more slowly, as if he were improvising, Garold told of how seven strangers had come out of the west, riding in wonderful sleighs, and how they had eaten at the fireside of the Jersey folk, and how they had described the wonders of their city of New York. The narration ended at that point, the old man sinking back tiredly while the tribe-and then the visitors, in imitation-hammered their hands palm down on the ice in applause.

Dr. Barnes turned to Jim and said quietly, "We're famous now. We probably will have a permanent place in their saga."

Jim grinned. "I'd love to hear it twenty years from now, after they've had some time to embellish it a little. They'll have the sleds flying through the air before they're through."

Then his expression clouded. "It's too bad Dom couldn't have been here to listen to that saga, though," Jim said quietly. "He'd have been fascinated by the language these people use."

The feast was clearly over, now. The Jerseys were getting up, heading back to their individual igloos, not without staring intently at the strangers before they departed. Kennart said, "You will come to my father's dwelling before you sleep?"

The New Yorkers followed Kennart and Lorin into the chief's igloo. A fresh fire was lit, and then the chief fixed his keen eyes on Dr. Barnes and said, "Tell us, friends, of this city of London that you journey toward. Is it near?"

"No," Dr. Barnes said. "It lies on the other side of the sea. It is… it is thirty hundreds of miles from here."

Lorin frowned. "So far? You will go so far, across the sea? But do your sleighs travel over open water?"

"No," Dr. Barnes said.

"Then you cannot reach this city of London. It is impossible. It cannot be done!"

There was a long moment of silence in the igloo. Then Dr. Barnes said slowly, "The great sea-it is not frozen all the way across?"

"No," Lorin said. "There is open water. One cannot see to the other side. One cannot get across."

Jim's heart sank. This far, only to be stopped?

Dr. Barnes said, "Has anyone ever tried to cross? A boat of ice, maybe-"

Kennart looked up. "There are those who cross the sea," he said with a glance at his father. "They cross in boats of wood."

"
Wood
?"

"They are seafarers. They fashion their boats in the southland, where it is warm, where wood can be had. They rove the open water to hunt the great fish. But they are not friendly. There are like the inlanders-savages."

"We could hire them," Dr. Barnes said. "Pay them to take us across."

"They will not do it," Lorin said flatly. "They will kill you. They kill all strangers."

"The Dooney folk didn't kill us," Dr. Barnes said. "The inlanders didn't kill us."

"The seafarers are savage men," Lorin insisted.

Dr. Barnes crossed his legs, gripped his knees tensely. "If we reached them, spoke to them, perhaps-"

The chief shook his head. "You will not even reach them," he declared. "You will die on the way. The ice is not strong. You will not know the way to travel, and you will fall into the sea and be lost."

The New Yorkers looked at each other in distress. Seafaring savages they could handle, perhaps, but this other menace-the weakness of the ice-was a far greater one.

"There are paths to the sea," Lorin went on. "We who live on the ice know those paths. But you-strangers, out of the Earth itself-how can you know them?"

Silence fell again. Then, unexpectedly, Kennart said, "I can show them the paths to the sea, father!"

Lorin looked startled. "You?"

"I will guide them over the ice to the place where the seafarers come," Kennart said. "From then on they must fend for themselves, but I can help them at least so far."

Garold and the other old man tugged at the chiefs robe, whispered urgently to him. Lorin nodded, closed his eyes a moment, then said, "You are the leader of our people, Kennart. You will be chief one day. If you die in the emptiness, what will become of us? I have no other sons."

A muscle flickered in Kennart's cheek. "These men are our guests, father," he said simply. "They have eaten our food and shared our fire."

"But…"

"There are other men who can be chief," Kennart declared. "Here are strangers who need help. Am I to hide here like a woman and let them go to their deaths?"

The argument told. Lorin bowed his head. The two wise men chattered and prodded him, but the chief brushed them off as though they were irritating insects. After a long pause Lorin looked at his guests, his pale blue eyes glittering by the light of the dim oil lamps.

He said, "It is done. I give you my son Kennart as a guide to the sea."

Dr. Barnes, looking drawn and strained, said, "I would not take the chiefs son from the tribe. Perhaps another could go with us-"

"No!" Kennart whirled, his eyes blazing with anger. "I will go! It is my right! You are my guests! I brought you here, and I will take you away!"

Lorin nodded. "It is right, city men. He will go with you, and you may not refuse. He will take you to the sea. After that you must go your own way."

They left in the morning, after a sound night's sleep. Kennart rode in the lead sled, along with Dr. Barnes, Jim, and Carl. Dave Ellis moved over to join Ted Callison, Chet, and Roy Veeder in the other sled.

Kennart had brought provisions with him: bundles of dried meat, of the sort that had been served at the banquet. It was not that he had any prejudice against the food the New Yorkers would serve him; he simply preferred his own.

Kennart seemed fascinated by the sled. He asked Jim to lift the engine hood, and he sat crouched in the rear of the sled for more than an hour, staring with gleaming eyes at the whirling turbines. But not once did he ask how the sled worked. He inspected it till he had had enough, and then he nodded and turned away, obviously so completely bewildered by it that he did not even care to begin asking questions.

It was a bright day, and they made good time. With Kennart guiding them, there was no slackening of the pace. By midmorning, when they halted for lunch, they were forty miles from the Jersey encampment. The broad ice field glinted in the sun; there seemed to be no end to it in any direction, nor did a sign of life break the bleakness of the scene anywhere, except for a few birds, now appearing this close to open water. Jim stared at the winged creatures in awe and delight.

Kennart ate silently, chewing on his dried meat with gusto. The toughness of the stuff gave him no trouble at all. Jim, after he had eaten, walked over to the fair-haired man, who promptly held forth some of his food.

Jim began to refuse. But it struck him that Kennart might be insulted, so he swallowed his words, smiled gratefully, and accepted a very small chunk of the meat. Eating the stony stuff was a chore.

Finally Jim said, "Tell me: how many days' journey is it to the open sea?"

Kennart pondered it. "As we have traveled this day? A seven days' journey or less."

"And as the Jerseys travel, how long would it take?"

Kennart shrugged. "Perhaps thirty days. Perhaps a little more."

"So much as that! We had no idea of that when we let you come with us."

"What does it matter to you?" Kennart asked.

Jim said, "Your tribe needs you. How will you get back, after you have brought us to the open water?"

"Let me worry about that."

"A thirty day trip… alone… over the ice…?"

"It will be no hardship," Kennart said. "I have food enough to last me. When I grow weary, there will be other tribes to make me a guest. Hospitality is sacred among us, friend Jim. I will not starve."

"Suppose you get lost? Suppose there's a storm?"

Kennart looked untroubled. Grinning, he said, "Among our people, when a boy passes fifteen years of age, he becomes a man. He must then take his manhood-journey. He goes off by himself for twelve moons and must not return to the tribe on pain of death. He must hunt and fish to stay alive, and can speak to no other human being. If he returns safely, he is given a man's rights. It is an experience that leaves him ready to face any kind of danger in after life."

Jim shivered at the quiet phrase, "
If
he returns safely." The thought of boys of fifteen roaming the ice alone for a year left him shaken.

He said, "Are there many who-who don't return?"

"A few each year," Kennart said. "We forget their names as though they never existed." Getting to his feet, he stretched mightily and measured the height of the sun with a quick glance. "Are your sleighs ready to leave?" he asked. "We can make good distance yet today."

As they continued eastward, Jim considered Kennart's words. Small wonder that a month-long journey over the ice held no terrors for him if as a boy he had lasted a full year in the wasteland! Jim understood now why the Jerseys were so insistent upon giving hospitality; hospitality was a way of life here, where men might wander far from their tribes. And he understood, too, why the men of the Jersey tribe seemed so robust, so capable of withstanding any hardship. The weaklings, the unfit, were culled out in their teens. "We forget their names as though they never existed," Kennart had said. A cruel system? Perhaps-but necessary for a tribe that lived on the ice, where every bit of food counted, and where the weak would drag down the strong.

For three days they journeyed, and the trip became almost routine. The cold, the eye-dazzling glare of sun on ice, the nights of discomfort huddled on the floor of the tent-these things scarcely were noticed any longer. Kennart led them, traveling in wide zigzagging patterns to take them away from areas of thin ice. There were no landmarks out here, nor did Kennart use any kind of compass or other direction-finding instrument. How he operated was sheer mystery. He would stare at the ice field ahead, whisper to himself for a moment, then point off at a 50° angle from their line of travel. They would change course, and later in the day some gap in the ice would become dimly visible in the distance along their old course. Did Kennart have some intuitive sense of danger, Jim wondered? Or were his senses sharper? Could he somehow
feel
a gathering weakness in the ice, and turn away from it? There was no fathoming his method.

On the fourth day from the Jersey encampment, Kennart announced suddenly, "From here it becomes very dangerous. The ice is unfriendly. We must go carefully."

There was no mistaking the tension in his eyes. They had come to a part of the frozen sea where even Kennart was worried, and that was cause for alarm. Up till now, Kennart's presence among them had lulled them into nearly forgetting that they were traveling across a crust of ice of uncertain thickness, beneath which lay water so cold that a man would die in it within minutes. For three days, they had had the illusion that all was solid beneath the runners of the sleds, as solid as the mile-thick glacier across which they had earlier come. Now, it was as though the ice might split and engulf them at any moment.