“They’ll make it,” he murmured. “We’ll wait here for Hunnar and Elfa and the rest.” He favored Antal with a look of disgust. “What are you worried about? You’re safe. A skimmer’s as stable traveling over water as over a solid surface. Meanwhile I’m sure we can find a portable recorder or two. Why don’t you tell your story? For the records?”
The foreman hesitated, licked his lips.
“Or maybe,” Colette said sweetly, “you’d prefer to walk?”
“Or swim, as the case may be.” September was looking at him hard. “Come on, man, the only way you’ve a chance of surviving your former employer’s wrath is in protective custody. Tell it all now without coercion and you might even escape mindwipe.”
Antal looked at him, then nodded to Ethan. Iriole provided recording materials, a guard, and privacy belowdecks.
“People will do anything for money.” Colette du Kane’s jaw was set as she leaned over the railing. “I know. My father was like that. But he was lucky. He grew out of it before he died.” She gestured toward the city as another violent rumble came from inside the mountain. “Hunnar and his people better get back here fast. They can skate like hell, but I doubt there’s one among them who can swim.”
Organizing a mass evacuation in a matter of minutes isn’t easy under the best of circumstances. Fortunately the panicky flight of Antal and his crew helped Hunnar and Elfa to convince the citizens of Yingyapin that for the moment at least safety lay in abandoning their homes and striking out across the ice. Once persuaded, the townspeople moved swiftly. Yingyapin was so poor there was little in the way of goods to remove anyway.
Once a few of the more prominent families stepped out onto the ice the rest followed in a rush. Males and females supported their cubs between them. They formed a long, broad column chivaning toward the mouth of the harbor.
Last to leave was a repentant third mate, Kilpit Vyo-Aqar. “If there is any danger, it should fall upon me,” he told Elfa. “I have no excuse for what Mousokka and I did except to say we were driven by the twin demons of homesickness and loneliness.”
“You don’t mutiny because you are homesick,” she shot back as they raced across the ice sheet to catch up with the Slanderscree. “If so much as one citizen is left behind, I will hold your life forfeit. Later we may find a means to forget your treachery.”
“Yes, princess.” The joy and relief in the mate’s face was overwhelming.
Rumbling continued to sound from inside the mountain as the icerigger and skimmer led the entire population of Yingyapin out to sea.
“We’ll have to find an island or secondary inlet somewhere along the coast to settle them temporarily,” Hunnar declared. “They can sleep and talk and wait for aid from Poyolavomaar.”
“We can ferry supplies,” Colette told him via her translator. “Portable shelters, food, medicine, that sort of thing. Later we can—”
She was interrupted not by an explosion but by a titanic blast of superheated steam from the side of the mountain facing the ocean. The pressure hurled rocks and debris a kilometer into the sky. Boulders as big as the skimmer were scattered like pebbles. Ta-hoding tried to find another place to hang more sail.
The initial eruption was followed by a second which punched a hole in the cliff that delineated the edge of the continental shelf. The powerful storm started to dissipate as rapidly as it had formed. Rain ceased.
“See,” Hunnar murmured as he reboarded the skimmer, “the earth bleeds.”
It looked as if half the mountain was glowing pale crimson from the heat within. The periodic rumbling had been replaced by a steady whisper from deep within the rock.
They were far out on the ice now, the Slanderscree steadily accelerating under full sail but with Ta-hoding moderating their speed so the population of Yingyapin could keep pace. City and harbor had fallen out of sight astern, though they could still see the line of cliffs that marked the rim of the continental plateau. As they stared, it began to collapse. Together he and Colette waited for the final explosion that never came.
The plateau imploded slowly, collapsing in on itself like a fallen cake as the tremendous freed heat of the three fusion plants spread out like a wave from the incinerated installation. As it melted, the rock absorbed the heat.
Grurwelk Seesfar continued to prove her name was not casually given. From the mainmast lookout bin she called down to the deck.
“The ice melts! Its corpse comes marching!”
“Waves,” Ethan murmured. There was no word for “wave” in the entire Tran language.
A loud cracking sound precipitated a rush to the railings on both the skimmer and much larger icerigger. Small at first, the crack appeared beneath the Slanderscree’s right fore runner. It gave birth to several smaller cracks while it continued to widen. Dark water bubbled up from eons-old depths.
Screams and fear calls rose from the chivaning citizens of Yingyapin. No solid deck lay between them and the horror sweeping out of the continent. It was far more frightening than an earthquake.
The oceans of Tran-ky-ky were trying to make a comeback.
But the Slanderscree did not tumble down into the liquid center of the world, nor did the terrified evacuees. The melange of water and broken ice that initially appeared in their wake grew and then stopped. Even as he observed it through one of the skimmer’s monoculars Ethan saw it beginning to refreeze. Gradually the spreading cracks receded behind them. The icerigger lurched once to port, leveled off, and stayed on top of the surface.
The energy from the overloaded installation had spent itself. Had Bamaputra truly believed he had one chance in ten of surviving the overload, or had he known all along the containment fields would fail under the strain? They would never know, just as they’d never known much of anything about that steely-minded, quietly megalomaniacal little man. His component parts were now mixed irrevocably with the minerals of the world he would have remade. He’d followed a private vision and now he was entombed with it.
Eventually they slowed to give the cubs a chance to rest. Sail was furled and the young and sick were allowed to come aboard the already crowded Slanderscree. There wasn’t nearly enough room for all, but Ta-hoding had no intention of crawling back to Poyolavomaar.
Long unbreakable cables of woven pika-pina were dropped over the stern. The citizens of Yingyapin took hold and relaxed all but their arms as the great ice ship towed them effortlessly across the frozen sea, like a living tail at the end of a kite.
Save for a vast field of man-made lava now rapidly cooling behind them, there was nothing to show that the installation had ever existed.
An appropriate uninhabited island was located and the population of now vanished Yingyapin established as comfortably as possible. The Slanderscree resumed its homeward trek, leaving with the displaced a promise to send back help as soon as it arrived at Poyolavomaar.
T’hosjer T’hos, Landgrave of that fine city-state, listened with interest to their tale and immediately dispatched half a dozen large ice ships groaning with supplies to assist the homeless wanderers of Yingyapin. In an earlier time he might have sent pillaging soldiers instead. The Union was already proving its worth.
On the long journey between Poyolavomaar and Arsudun, Colette du Kane proved to Ethan that fusion stations were not the only thing in this part of Tran-ky-ky that could generate prodigious amounts of heat.
Millicent Stanhope, Resident Commissioner of Tran-ky-ky, stood bundled in her survival suit and watched as the hundred or so prisoners from the installation at Yingyapin were herded into an empty above-ground warehouse. They would be kept separated from the rest of the outpost’s buildings in a heated structure, but with only minimal clothing. That would keep them from causing trouble for the outpost’s constabulary, which consisted of exactly five people.
Already that morning she’d requested a peaceforcer via the deep-space beam to come and pick up this awkward contingent of law-breakers. It was going to be awhile before even a very fast ship
could traverse the emptiness between its base and distant Tran-ky-ky. Meantime the prisoners were going to have to be fed and cared for and watched over. Their arrival blew her carefully laid plans for her six-month tour of duty all to pieces. She turned to confront Ethan and Skua September.
“I thought I told you two I didn’t want to be bothered with anything out of the ordinary?”
“Well, I expect we could have let them go on destroying the planet,” September replied. “That would’ve kept things quiet.”
“Until after retirement. My retirement.” She sighed deeply. “You did the only thing you could do, of course. I hope there are no more surprises.”
“Just one,” Ethan said hesitantly. She glared at him. “Maybe this isn’t the right time or place, but I don’t see why it would have to be done in your office.”
“Why what would have to be done in my office, young man?”
Hunnar looked at Ethan, who nodded and moved aside. The knight took Elfa’s paw and the two of them approached solemnly. They towered over the Commissioner but she didn’t back away.
Elfa cleared her throat, an intimidating sound in itself, and recited the words Ethan and September had helped her prepare.
“As ranking representatives of the Union of Ice of Tran-ky-ky, we wish to hereby formally apply to you, the Resident Commissioner, on behalf of all our people for application to associate membership status in the government of peoples and systems known as the Commonwealth.”
Colette clapped politely when she finished, though her survival suit gloves muffled the sound. Behind his visor September grinned broadly.
“Well,” Stanhope said finally, “is there to be no end to the day’s surprises? You are aware what requirements you must meet? In order to qualify as a recognized planetary government you must be able to prove suzeranty over a substantial portion of the population.”
“With Wannome, Arsudun, Poyolavomaar, Moulokin, and many smaller city-states now united under the same articles of cooperation I believe we of Tran-ky-ky can now satisfy your regulations.”
“They qualify easy,” said September, “and by the time the sector government gets around to completing the paperwork this here Union will have doubled in size.”
“Can I be certain everything they tell me is true? After all, I’m still new here. I wouldn’t enjoy being fooled.”
“Milliken Williams knows Tran-ky-ky as well as Ethan or I. Why not appoint him your personal adviser for native affairs? He’ll be straight with you.”
Stanhope considered. “The schoolteacher? He’s not leaving with you?”
September and Ethan exchanged a grin. This time it was Ethan who replied. “Our friend and a member of the science staff here, a Cheela Hwang, have formed rather a strong attachment for one another. Don’t be surprised if you’re approached in the near future to perform a marriage. Resident Commissioners are qualified to do that, I believe.”
“Yes. Dear me!” She shook her head tiredly. “Will I never be permitted to rest? I will certainly make use of Mr. Williams’s unique body of knowledge. That’s an excellent suggestion, young man.” She turned her attention back to the patiently waiting Tran.
“As for your application, I will take it under advisement and pass it along to those specialists most familiar with your situation. If they approve, I’ll see to it that recommendation for approval is given to the sector council.” To Ethan’s surprise, she turned to wink at him.
At which point he realized that there were no specialists on Tran-ky-ky’s situation—except for three travelers named Fortune, September, and Williams. He winked back. She was asking them to approve their own request.
“We will need weapons,” said Elfa excitedly, “and sky boats, and wind-talkers and all the other wonderful devices we have seen and…”
“Easy, easy,” Stanhope admonished her. “First your request has to be drawn up and passed along. Then it has to be read and dissected, discussed and argued, voted upon—oh, lord, the paperwork, the forms!” She shook her head, already exhausted by the prospect of the work ahead. “And I thought this was going to be a simple, relaxing few months.”
“Consider though,” Colette told her. “Upon retirement you’ll be bringing a whole new world into the Commonwealth family, a new sentient race. That is an honor few diplomats even dream of supervising.”
“That’s true. Yes, that’s true.” Stanhope straightened perceptibly. “Instead of slipping silently into oblivion, I expect it will be my duty to go out in a blaze of glory. Well, one must make sacrifices, I suppose. I’ll just have to force myself to see this through.
“Now if that’s everything, I have much to do and I’d like to begin by getting out of this infernal wind.”
“Infernal wind?” September spread his arms wide. “Why, this is nothing but a light breeze on Tran-ky-ky.”
“You can have it. And so can my successor when my tour of duty is done.” Her voice dropped and she began muttering to herself. “Have to have the formal ceremonies celebrating Tran-ky-ky’s inclusion into the Commonwealth… before that, of course. Yes, a lot of paperwork to do.” She turned and headed for the nearest entrance to the administrative complex, a small but nonetheless impressive figure receding into the blowing ice. Ethan watched her knowing that the immediate future of Tran-ky-ky was in good and capable hands.
“Now we must see to our ship.” Hunnar put a paw on his shoulder. “Can you not come down to bid us farewell?”
Ethan looked up at the knight, seeing for the last time the membranous dan fluttering in the wind, the sharp teeth, the large feline eyes, and the dense red-brown fur. The Tran were going to cause quite a stir when their first representative appeared in council. Of course their appearance would be mitigated somewhat by the special suits they would be forced to wear to keep comfortable. Survival suits designed to cool instead of heat. Comfort was a very relative term between intelligent species.
“I’m afraid we can’t,” September told him. “Ethan and I, well, we’ve been away from the fleshpots too long as it is.”
Grurwelk Seesfar stared at him. She was returning with the Sofoldians to Wannome. She would eventually return to Poyolavomaar as their official inter-state representative. It would allow her to do a great deal of traveling, which she loved above all else.
“You practice cannibalism on your home world?”
September swallowed, coughed. Some terms just did not translate properly.
“Understand,” he told them, “we haven’t regretted a minute of our stay among you. Well, maybe a minute or two, but on the whole it’s been enlightening, yes, enlightening. Bless my soul if it hasn’t.”
“Ta-hoding will sorrow,” Elfa said, sounding none too in control of herself at the moment.
“Maybe we’ll come back for a visit someday,” Ethan told her. “When it’s a hot summer where we are. Or maybe we’ll run into you on another world.”
“Another world.” Elfa tilted her head back and stared out of wide yellow eyes at the perfect blue sky. “A strange thought.” Then she reached out and embraced him so hard he could feel her claws ripping into the back of his survival suit. First Elfa and then Colette du Kane. What was there about him that made him irresistible to amazons of two races?
Then there were no more farewells to give, no more good-byes to say. The Tran whirled and chivaned down an icepath leading to the harbor and the tall-masted icerigger that would, at last, carry them back home.
“If you cry with your visor up like that, young feller-me-lad,” September warned him, “you’ll get ice on your cheeks.”
Colette du Kane put a protective arm around her husband-to-be. “Let him cry. What are you, some kind of emotionless man?”
“Not emotionless,” he replied easily, “just some kind.” Together the three of them turned and headed for the warmth of the nearest sealed corridor.
A Biography of Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster (b. 1946) is the bestselling author of more than one hundred scien
ce fiction and fantasy novels. His prolific output and accessible style have made him one of the nation’s foremost speculative fiction writers.
Born in New York City in 1946, Foster was raised in Los Angeles and attended ’filmmaking school at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the 1960s. There he befriended George Lucas, with whom he would later collaborate. Rather than trying to break into Hollywood, however, Foster took a job writing copy for an advertising firm in Studio City, California, where he remained for two years, honing the craft that he would soon put to use when writing novels.
His first break came when the Arkham Collector, a small horror magazine, bought a letter Foster had written in the style of suspense legend H. P. Lovecraft. Encouraged by this sale, Foster began work on his first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang (1972), which introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, his most enduring creation. He went on to set more than twenty novels in the Humanx universe; of these, Midworld (1975) is among his most acclaimed works.
The Tar-Aiym Krang was also the first of the Pip and Flinx series. The hero, Flinx, is an orphan thief whose telepathic powers hold the key to finding his parents and understanding his identity. Foster has chronicled the adventures of Flinx, and his acid-breathing sidekick Pip, in fourteen novels, and has explored their universe in fourteen other stand-alone works.
In 1983, Foster began the eight-book Spellsinger series, about a college student trapped in a magical dimension. He also wrote the Icerigger trilogy, published between 1974 and 1987. In 1990, his stand-alone novel Cyber Way received the Southwest Book Award for Fiction, making Foster the first science fiction writer to win this prize. Foster has also found success writing novelizations of Hollywood films, including the Alien trilogy, Star Wars: A New Hope (in which he expanded Lucas’s idea into an entire universe), and the 2009 Star Trek movie.
The Icerigger Trilogy Page 94
