by John Brunner
No, the outcome would have been disastrous. He knew little of the web of intrigue in which the peers held Ripar like a catch of squirmers in a fish-hunter's basket, but he had the clear impression that mastering its complexities must be like trying to weave a net out of live yarworms. Had he uttered his heretical notions in such august company, means would have been found to replace him prematurely. Radicals, revolutionaries, had no place in the deliberations of the Order.
Yockerbow felt caged and frustrated. What he had expected to flow from the acceptance of his pumps, he could not have said. Certainly, though, it had not been anything like this sense of impotence and bafflement. In a word, he was indescribably disappointed by the reaction of his fellow citizens.
Suddenly he found he was looking forward as keenly as Arranth to the arrival of Barratong. Maybe someone who had traveled half the globe would be more open to new ideas than those who sat here smug behind the defenses he had contrived but paid scant attention to the inventor's other views.
IV
First there was a pale line of phosphorescence on the pre-dawn horizon, so faint only the keenest-eyed could detect it. Then it resolved into individual points of light, each signifying the presence of a junq festooned as lavishly with glowvines as any palace in Ripar. And at last, just as the sun cleared the horizon, the entire Fleet came into sight of land, and the city's breath seemed to stop collectively.
The Fleet was huge! Records indicated it had never exceeded four score junqs; now there were seven score, and another score of younglings followed behind, secured with hawsers made of spuder-web until they were safely broken. Each of the adults carried an enormous haodah beset with edible funqi and other useful secondary plants, and each haodah was as warm with people, from those so old their mantles were shrunken with age down to children who could not yet stand upright, and nonetheless clambered with infinite confidence from pole to creeper to outlying float.
"It looks more like a mobile city than a Fleet!" marveled Yockerbow, and he was not alone.
And the resemblance was magnified a scorefold when, responding to a perfectly drilled system of signals issued by gongs and banners, the junqs closed on the place allotted for their mooring and came to rest, prow against stern, so that one might walk dry-padded from each to the next and finally, by way of the leading junq, to shore.
"That must be Barratong!" Arranth exclaimed, surveying the wondrous spectacle through a borrowed spyglass.
"Where?" Yockerbow demanded. Passing the glass to him, she pointed out a tall, burly fellow at the prow of the lead junq.
"I think not," Yockerbow said after a pause.
"What? Oh, you're always contradicting me!" She stamped her pad.
"He doesn't match the descriptions," was his mild reply. "The person directly behind him does."
"Are you sure? He looks so—so ordinary!"
And it was true. Apart from combining northern shortness with a southerner's pale mantle, he looked in no way exceptional, but he wore crossed baldrics from which depended the ancient symbols of his rank, a spyglass and an old-style steersman's goad, and his companions deferred to him even in their posture.
The Doq and the eight peers were waiting for him, surrounded by their entire retinue, and moved to greet him the moment he climbed down from the junq. After that he was invisible from where Yockerbow and Arranth stood, and the group moved off towards the Doqal Hall where a grand reception had been prepared.
"We should be going with them!" Arranth said accusingly. "If you'd asked Iddromane like I suggested, I'm sure he—"
Yockerbow fixed her with a rock-hard glare.
"No! Am I to wait on him, like a humble underling? Has it not occurred to you, my dear, that he is coming to see me?"
Her eye widened enormously. After a moment she began to laugh.
"Oh, my clever spouse! Of course you're right! It's much more remarkable like that! It's going to make us famous!"
As if we weren't already ... But it didn't matter. He had made his point, and there was work to do.
It was not long before the mood of excitement generated by the Fleet's arrival started to give way to annoyance. This was not because the visitors were discourteous or rapacious; they traded honestly for what they found on offer, and conducted themselves with tolerable good manners albeit some of them, especially those who hailed from the distant south, had very different customs.
More, it was that they seemed somewhat patronizing about even the best that Ripar had to show, and in this they took after the admiral himself. Blunt, plain-spoken, he refused to be as impressed as the peers expected by anything about the city, including its alleged antiquity, for— as he declared in tones that brooked no denial—his Fleet could trace its origins back to within a score-score years of the inception of the Freeze, when briq-commanders from the west were storm-driven into what was for them a new ocean and found not wild briqs but wild junqs, which none before them had thought to try and tame, yet which proved far superior: more intelligent and more docile, not requiring to be pithed. He even had the audacity to hint that Ripar had probably been a settlement planted by the early seafarers, and that contradicted all the city's legends.
He compounded his offense when, having enjoyed the greatest honor they could bestow on him and been inducted to the Order of the Jingfired, he made it unmistakably plain that that too was delaying fulfillment of his chief purpose in calling here: inspection of Yockerbow's pumping-system.
The peers seethed. That anyone should find the work of a commoner, a mere artisan, of greater concern than their most ancient rituals...!
They yielded perforce, thinking what the Fleet might do were its commander to lose his temper, and sent urgent messages to Yockerbow to meet them on the outer harbor bank.
To the intense annoyance of Yockerbow, but the huge amusement of a crowd of bystanders who had come here to catch a glimpse of the famous admiral, Arranth was rushing up and down in a tizzy of excitement, like a girl waiting to greet her first lover. Not until the procession of the peers and their attendants actually stepped on the high bank did she suddenly realize how unbefitting her behavior was. Speech—fortunately—failed her long enough for Barratong to pace ahead of his companions and confront Yockerbow person-to-person.
"So you're the celebrated inventor, are you?" he said, gazing up at the Riparian who had clean forgotten that, according to normal rules of politeness, he should have reduced his pressure so as not to overtop the distinguished visitor. "I like you on sight. You don't pretend to be what you are not—a stumpy little fellow like myself!" He added in a lower, private tone: "That Doq of yours must be aching in all his tubules by this time! Serve him right!"
At which point, while Yockerbow was still overcome with astonishment, Arranth recovered her self-possession and advanced with all the dazzling charm at her disposal. From somewhere she had obtained thick, fine strands of sparkleweed and draped them about her body in rough imitation of the admiral's baldrics; this, she hoped, would not only be taken as a compliment but maybe start a trend among fashionable circles.
"Admiral, what an honor you've bestowed on us by coming here! I so much crave the chance to talk with you! You know, when I was a girl I used to dream the Fleet might call here so I might beg the chance to make a trip with it and see the stars of the far southern skies for myself— astronomy, you see, is my own particular interest!"
"Then you should talk to Ulgrim, my chief navigator," said Barratong, and deliberately turned his back. "Now, Master Yockerbow, explain your pumps! I came here specially to see them, because—as you can probably imagine—every now and then the Fleet at sea runs into the kind of waves we can't rely on riding, and often our junqs are weighed down by water which we have to bale out with our own claws before they can swim at full speed again. In the wild state, as I'm sure you know, they never experience such swamping, because their flotation bladders always bear them up, so they have no reflexes of their own to cope with such a situation. Still, we've taught th
em to endure and indeed nourish all sorts of parasitic plants, so maybe we can add something more. Do we go this way?"
He made for the nearest working pump, and Yockerbow hastened to keep pace with him. Nervously he said, "I believe I should congratulate you, shouldn't I?"
"What for, in particular?"
"Were you not just inducted into the Order of the Jingfired?"
"Oh, that!"—with casual contempt. "Sure I was. But I gather its teaching is supposed to be secret, and I can't for the life of me see why. If it's true, then the more people who know about it, the better, and if it isn't, then it's high time it was exposed to ridicule and correction."
The peers who had remained within earshot stiffened in horror at the prospect of this rough intruder revealing their most sacred secrets. Barratong paid no attention. His aroma had the tang of one accustomed to bellowing orders into the mandibles of a gale, and his self-confidence was infectious. Yockerbow found he was able to relax at last.
"Now here you see a pump actually working," he said. "The tide being on the turn, there's relatively little water left beyond this bank. If you want to inspect a dismounted pump, we have one available..."
Barratong's ceaseless questioning continued all day and long past sunset, while Arranth hovered sullenly nearby and kept trying to interrupt. At last she managed to make him angry, and he rounded on her.
"If you're so well grounded in star-lore, you can tell me the interval between conjunctions of Swiftyouth and Steadyman!"
"It depends on our world's position in its orbit! The year of Swiftyouth is 940 days, that of Steadyman is 1,900, and our own—as you may perhaps know!—is 550." Clenching her claws, she positively spat the words.
Softening a little, Barratong gave a nod. "Very good! Though I still say Ulgrim is the person you ought to be talking to, not me, a common mariner."
"The most uncommon mariner I ever met!" blurted Yockerbow.
Pleased, Barratong gave a low chuckle. "I could honestly match the compliment," he said. "For such a big city, it has precious few people in it worth meeting. I was introduced, though, to some folk called Chimple and Verayze, who do at least base what they say about the history of Ripar on solid evidence."
"We found it for them!" Arranth exclaimed, then amended hastily, "Well, it turned up in the mud the pumps sucked..."
"Yes, of course: they told me so." Barratong shook himself and seemed to return to reality from far away. "As it happens, I'm engaged to dine with those two, and it's dark now. You come with me. I find you, as I just said, interesting."
Neglected, insulted, the peers had long ago departed in high dudgeon. There was no one else on the sea-bank except a few dogged onlookers and a couple of Barratong's aides.
"It will be an honor," Yockerbow said solemnly, and could not resist whispering to Arranth as they followed in the admiral's brisk pad-marks, "Isn't this better than being on the outer fringes of some banquet in the Doqal Hall?"
Her answer—and how it carried him back to their time of courting!— was to squeeze his mantle delicately with her claw.
They met with Chimple and Verayze at Iddromane's bower on the south side of the city, where the plashing of waves mingled with music from a flower-decked arbor. It was blessed with the most luscious-scented food-plants Yockerbow had ever encountered, many being carefully nurtured imports. Even the chowtrees had an unfamiliar flavor.
Yet the admiral paid scant attention to the fare his host offered, and at first the latter was inclined to be offended. Yockerbow too began by thinking it was because, after voyaging to so many fabulous countries, Barratong had grown blase. In a little, though, the truth dawned on him. The signs, once recognized, were unmistakable.
Barratong was in the grip of a vision budded of his vivid imagination, yet founded securely upon fact—a vision of a kind it was given to few to endure without slipping into fatal dreamness. Yockerbow trembled and lost his appetite. Now he understood how Barratong had attained his present eminence.
Musing aloud, the admiral captivated everyone in hearing with words that in themselves were such as anybody might have used, yet summed to an awe-inspiring total greater than the rest of them would dare to utter.
"The ocean rises," he said first. "It follows that the Freeze is ending. If it began, it can just as well end, correct? So what will follow? We've tried to find out. The Fleet has put scouts ashore at bay after cove after inlet and found traces of the higher water-levels of the past. How much of the ocean is lucked up in the polar caps we shall discover when the continued warming of the sun releases it. You here at Ripar, despite your wealth and cleverness—despite your pumps!—will have to drag your pads inland and quarrel for possession of high ground with the folk who already live there. You!"—this to Iddromane—"with all your ancient lore, in your famous Order, why did you not speak of this when you inducted me?"
Iddromane's notorious composure strained almost, but not quite, to the bursting point. He answered, "Truth is truth, regardless of when it was established."
"I don't agree. Truth is to be found out by slow degrees, and the world changes in order to instruct us about truth, to save us from assuming that what was so in the past is necessarily bound to be the case tomorrow, too. I'm sure our friends who study relics of the past will support me, won't you?" This with a meaningful glare.
Chimple and Verayze exchanged glances, then indicated polite assent.
"And how say you, Master Inventor?"
Yockerbow hesitated, seeking a way to offend neither Iddromane nor Barratong, and eventually said, "Perhaps there is more than one kind of truth. Perhaps there is the kind we have always known, truth about ourselves and our relations with each other, and then maybe there's the kind which is only gradually revealed to us because we actively seek it out by exploration and experiment."
"Most diplomatically spoken!" said the admiral, and exploded into a roar of laughter. "But what's your view of the origin of the universe? In Grench they hold that once all the stars were gathered right here, in the same world as ourselves, and the advent of unrighteousness caused them to retreat to the furthest heaven in shame at our behavior. In Clophical they say the departure of the stars was a natural and inevitable phenomenon, but that that was the cause of the Northern Freeze, and hence, if the ice is melting again, the stars must be drawing closer once more!"
"If only we could tell one way or the other!" sighed Arranth. "But though it's suspected that the stars move, as well as the planets—if not so visibly—our astronomers have so far failed to demonstrate the fact. Am I not correct, Master Iddromane?"
"Not entirely," was the judicious answer. "Careful observation does indicate that certain stars must be closer to us than others. As the world progresses around the sun, a minute difference in position—relative position, that is, of course—can be detected in a few cases. They are so few, however, that we are unable to decide whether the shift is solely due to a change of perspective, or whether part is motion proper to the stars themselves. The distances involved are so great, you know, Admiral, that if your Fleet could swim through the sky it would take a score-of-score-of-score years to pass the outermost planet Sluggard, and twenty times as long again to reach the star we have established to be nearest."
"Hah! If means were given me, I'd do it! I'd spin a rope of spuder-web and catch the moon, and swarm up it to see what's going on out there! But since we can't, I must be content with my current project. You see, although you may view the rise in water-level as an unmitigated disaster, I say we shall be amply repaid by the recovery of some of our ancient lands. Already at the fringe of melting glaciers we have found frozen seeds, wingets, animal-hides and mandibles, even tools belonging to our remote ancestors. This year I purpose to venture further north than anyone since the Freeze began. It's an ideal time. So far this season we haven't seen a single berg in these latitudes. What's more, there have been many fewer storms than formerly—to my surprise, I might add, because if the sun is heating up I'd expect the air to
roil like water meeting hot rock ... Yockerbow, I detect a hint of wistful envy."
Yockerbow gave an embarrassed shrug. It was true he had been dreaming for a moment, picturing to himself the new lands Barratong described.
"Come with me, then," the admiral said. "The Fleet has the ancient right to select a hostage from among the people of Ripar, exchanged against one of our own as a gage of amity. This time I choose you. And we already know your spouse fancies a sea-voyage; she may come also."
"But—!" Iddromane burst out.
"But what?"
"But he is our most notable inventor!"
"That's exactly why I picked him; he has the sort of open mind which permits him to see what happens, not what one might expect to happen. If you refuse, it will be a breach of our long-standing treaty, and you need not count on us when the tune comes—it will, I promise you!—when your folk find you can neither stay here nor flee inland, and require my Fleet to help in your removal to safe high ground! But in any case it will be only for this season, unless Yockerbow decides to opt for a life at sea. It has been known for people to make such a choice ... Well, Yockerbow?"
There was one sole answer he could give. All his life he had been led to believe that sea-commanders were no more than traders, glorified counterparts of the subtle, greedy folk who thronged the Ripar docks, Barratong, though, was none such. He was a visionary, who shared the passion that drove Yockerbow himself, the lure of speculation, the hunger for proof, the delight to be found in creating something from imagined principles which never was before on land or sea.
How much of this came logically to him, and how much was due to Barratong's odor of dominance, he could not tell. He knew only that his weather-sense predicted storms if he did not accede.
"Arranth and I," he declared boldly, "would count it a privilege to travel with you."
There was a dead pause during which Arranth looked as though she was regretting this fulfillment of her juvenile ambition, but pride forbade her to say so.
