Part 20 (1/2)
”A siege would be long Coftundi.” The soldier-craftsman smiled, showing pearly fangs. ”There mayhap be better hides to cure, sir.”
”A pleasant thought.” K'ferr returned the panther-grin. ”Wait outside, Cortundi.” The soldier turned and left.
”My fault, 'tis on me alone.” Ethan heard the dis-consolate whimper, turned to see its source-a down-cast Teeliam standing back against the wall. Torch-light turned the fur on her head and shoulders to singed silver.
”I should not have come with you when I helped you to escape,” she continued. ”I ought fair to have killed myself cleanly then and prevented this. Rakossa is mad.”
”He is mad indeed,” said K'ferr, ”to think he can take Moulokin. He cannot reach the city, nay, cannot breach the first wall. Truly he is driven not by common sense but by insanity.” Ethan forebore from mention-ing that some of Terra's greatest generals, ancient and modern, had been thought quite mad.
” Tis me alone he seeks out,” Teeliam went on sadly. ”He cannot stand the thought I may finally have escaped him. I would kill myself here save that he would be more furious still at being deprived of the pleasures he doubtless has spent these past days plan-ning.” Fur rippled nervously as muscles tensed.
”Come what will, in fairness I must go back to him.” Her gaze rose, traveled from human eyes to Tran. ”If I do this, he may depart.”
”I do not understand,” said K'ferr slowly, gaining more knowledge from something behind Teeliam's eyes than from her words. ”It was said that Rakossa demands also crew and s.h.i.+p of you.”
”Yes, he desires them, but will be satisfied with me.”
”He may be,” Ethan admitted, sounding more heartless than he intended, ”but Calonnin RoVijar will not.” He tossed a brief explanation over his shoul-der to the staring Mirmib and K'ferr. ”RoVijar is Landgrave of distant Arsudun, an ally of Rakossa's in spirit if not material.”
”It is not right that an entire city risk war for one person.” Teeliam sounded resigned. ”I will suffer whatever Rakossa has concocted for me.” She made the Tran equivalent of a resigned shrug. ”It cannot be worse than what I have endured before.”
”We will not,” Hunnar said tensely, ”turn you over to the madman. Sofold does not sacrifice the innocent for the sake of expediency. Besides, as Ethan says, doing so may not sate Rakossa anyway. Of course,” and he turned to face the throne, ” 'tis not properly our decision to make.”
K'ferr had left the throne and was pacing once again. Almost absently she said, ”This business of turn-ing over your companion to Rakossa is a waste of time. We would never consider such a thing, nor permit you to do it even should that be your wish. There are more important matters to discuss.” She looked to her minister.
”So the Poyos would challenge us here, at our own door, in our canyon, on our ice. Further proof of this Rakossa's insanity. Arrogance dilutes sense as _vouli_ thins strong drink. If they are in truth foolish enough to attack the gate, we will give them a welcome they will not outlive.”
”If you're determined to fight, we'd better ready our own people,” Ethan said. ”With your permission, and our deepest thanks, my Lady, we'll return to our raft.”
”Do we permit them to enter the first gate and trap them between, or stop them at the first with arrows and spears?” The compa.s.sionate Landgrave was deep in discussion of lifeshortening methods with her minister. Mirmib had presence enough to dismiss the visitors.
Ethan rose from his place at the long table in the _Slanderscree's_ galley-c.u.m-conference room. ”We can't let them have Teeliam, and it doesn't seem right to let the Moulokinese fight and die over something they've had nothing to do with.” Teeliam was not pres-ent to object to the first part of his statement, having been excluded from the meeting over her protests. She was too biased to render objective suggestions, Hunnar had informed her, a bias which even extended to condemning herself to death.
”Me, I'd rather welcome a chance to dally with this Rakossa and his pack.” September leaned back in his Transized chair. Not designed for his greater weight, it creaked alarmingly beneath him. He rubbed his pin-nacle of a proboscis.
”I know you would, Skua. Sometimes you act more Tran than human.”
September grinned, moving the hand from nose crest to white mane, and scratched. ”Lad, when you've seen as much of the galaxy as I, you'll know there's nothin' especially flattering about laying claim to being part of mankind.”
”No, friend Skua.” September looked with surprise at Elfa. The Landgrave's daughter had seemed any-thing but pacific. Now was an odd time for appeasing att.i.tudes to surface.
Appeas.e.m.e.nt was not what Elfa had in mind, how-ever. ”Ethan is correct when he says this is not the Moulokinese fight. We cannot ask them to die for us.”
”But didn't you see the way that K'ferr cat was actin'?” September argued. ”She's spoilin' for a confron-tation and bloodshed.”
”Surely, my lady,” said a disbelieving Hunnar, ”you cannot be thinking of turning Teeliam over to the monster?”
”Quite so, n.o.ble knight. I cannot be.” Elfa's eyes swept over the table. ”But suppose Rakossa and Calonnin knew the _Slanderscree_ was not here?”
”Not wis.h.i.+n' to appear condescendin', gal, but you heard what that soldier said back in the throne room.” September's nails were mere stubs compared to Tran claws, but he etched a shallow groove in the hardwood table nonetheless. ”No s.h.i.+p could make the chiv marks in the ice outside the canyon that the _Slanderscree_ could.”
”No known s.h.i.+p,” admitted Elfa. ”Yet there are many regions of this world that the Poyos, much as ourselves until recently, know nothing of. This would be true also of distant Arsudun. How could they be certain our tracks are not those of another s.h.i.+p, say a great towed barge long since dismantled for its wood by the Moulokinese?”
”Not impossible, my lady,” put in Tahoding. ”But how could we convince the attackers of this?”
Elfa looked embarra.s.sed. ”I had not considered that far. Could we not hide our craft while representatives of the Poyolavomaar fleet inspect Moulokin's harbor?”
”Hide this vessel?” Hunnar executed a high Trannish laugh.
”No, let's think this through, Hunnar.” September appeared thoughtful. ”The lady, she has a point.”
”What if,” Ethan said after a moment of introspec-tive silence, ”we took the s.h.i.+p apart. Yeah, took it apart and put the sections up on the plateau. The Poyo representatives would never think of looking up there.”
”And with good reason.” Hunnar tried hard not to sneer. ” 'Tis a most marvelous proposal, friend Ethan, save that it would take the whole population of the city in addition to our own crew working several weeks to accomplish such a task, even if the Moulokinese have heavy engines enough to raise the large timbers and masts. We have but four days.”
”No, wait a minute, now.” September leaned for-ward, speaking with controlled excitement. ”What the lad suggests makes sense, but in a different way. We need to get the rigger up on the plateau, and a really fair distance inland in case the Poyos _do_ insist on lookin' there, something this Rakossa is likely to try. Since we can't do it in sections, we need to move her intact.”
Murmurs of polite astonishment came from several of the Tran seated around the table.
”Suppose we sail her to the upper end of the main canyon, Captain.” His attention was directed at the intent Tahoding. ”I'm kind o' curious to meet these Golden Saia folks myself.” Ethan threw him a ques-tioning glance. Had Skua, despite his initial disclaim-ers, been as intrigued by the mysterious Saia as Ethan and Milliken Williams?
”Now with all the forces actin' on the land there, it's a fair a.s.sumption that the land of these Saias slopes fairly gently inland.”
”Given that it does, friend September, and I intend no disrespect, but-what of this?” Hunnar waited to be convinced of he knew not what.
”I was on a world once,” the giant said reminiscently, ”similar to this one. Only the oceans were covered with gra.s.s-sort of an anemic pikapina, Hunnar, like they say grows inland here-and there were sailin'
s.h.i.+ps akin to the _Slanderscree_. They sailed easy over those green oceans, on wheels instead of skates.”
”What,” inquired Hunnar blankly, ”is a wheel?”
Ethan sat stunned. The Tran had achieved such a high level of civilization that he'd taken an invention as basic as the wheel for granted. Now that he thought back on it, nowhere in Sofold could he recall seeing a wheeled vehicle; not a cart, not a wagon, nothing. Everything traveled on chiv, or skates. Dry land trans-port was by means of sledges, used as little as possible. And they had no need for wheels, after all, in a land where icepaths were easily constructed and frozen seas surrounded every citystate.
He finally found an example to serve as ill.u.s.tration. ”Like the millstones, Hunnar, you use for making meal from dried pikapina and juice from its pulp. Like the,” and he had to use the Tran term for steering control to refer to the _Slanderscree's_ own great s.h.i.+p's wheel. ”You place them apart like so, with a supporting beam between like those that connect our s.h.i.+p's skates and they carry you smoothly across unfrozen lands.”
”This is surely an awkward way of traveling,” Hun-nar admitted, brows contorting in confusion, ”yet if you say the thing works, it must be so.”
”It's a proven method,” replied Ethan without smil-ing. At least Hunnar and the other Tran had the idea now.
”We will need,” Williams began, already drawing designs and measuring stresses in his head, ”additional axles to place beneath the s.h.i.+p. While the five duralloy skates now positioned beneath us are sufficient to sup-port the icerigger's ma.s.s, I have less confidence in stone or wooden wheels, and that is the best the Moulokinese could construct. They have good quality timber. Perhaps they can be metal-reinforced, if the work of these Saia is as fine as they claim.”
”Why not just make metal wheels?” wondered one s.h.i.+p's mate.
”a.s.suming these Saia are indeed not G.o.ds, they would do extraordinarily well to manufacture one wheel of such size in only four days,” Tahoding pointed out gruffly. Gentle of demeanor when speaking to his superiors or the three humans, the icerigger's captain could be harsh whenever he thought one of his own crew guilty of stupidity.
”With stone or wooden wheels then,” the teacher continued, calculating all the while, ”we'd need addi-tional axles for additional wheels.”
”Plenty of trees big enough,” September agreed. ”They'll be a lot easier to cut and attach than takin'