Day 20
As the floating island continued to drift lazily toward the South Pole on magnetic, core-induced winds, the crisp arctic air grew warmer with each passing day. This day was the warmest one yet.
As the Awumpai rode their ostrich mounts alongside the caravan, Harry saw that the woolly giants’ tongues hung low out of their gaping maws and their fur glistened with sweat. Hu-Nan, in particular, was shedding enough hair from his winter coat to make an entirely new Awumpai.
Asha and Harry rode in the lead ore cart, which had poked along a bumpy dirt road that spanned a barren sea of tundra wasteland for the last three days.
Lifting his tired gaze, Harry finally saw the end of the road. Up ahead, just visible on the horizon, he saw a little frontier town.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing on instinct with his right hand and feeling silly for waving a stump around.
“That? That is the town of Millwood,” Princess Asha said. “It means ‘city between many crossroads.’ According to my studies with Ba-Tu, it was once home to an immense forest, thick with many trees, which extended as far as the eye could see.”
Harry looked at the barren wasteland around them. “What happened?”
“About one hundred years ago, the gods came and took all the trees with them. Now it is just a crossroads in the middle of nowhere.”
“Well, then why are we going there?” Harry asked grumpily.
“We need to obtain passage to Joppa-Cal,” Asha explained. Her eyes were wide with wonder, and she was clearly delighted by the imminent change of scenery.
“Passage?” Harry asked. “Isn’t this Joppa-Cal?”
The princess giggled. “No, Harry. This is only Millwood Junction.”
#
The caravan stopped just outside the tundra town near the intersection of five roads that pointed in as many directions. Captain Reed examined the signs that accompanied each road. While he guessed that the inscription on the sign pointing toward town read ‘Millwood’, he was unable to read the wedge-shaped writing on the other signs.
Harry was surprised that only Ode, the Mook master, exited the ore wagon. Generally, all the Mooks scrambled out at once when the caravan stopped. Harry saw Fu-Mar give Ode a brown sack of currency.
“The Mooks, aren’t they coming with us?” Harry asked.
“No. This is as far as they go. Besides Mooks can’t go on the ship,” Asha said.
“Ship? What ship?” Harry asked. He hadn’t seen anything larger than ponds filled with glacier run off, let alone anything to sail a boat onto.
The princess smiled at him and leaped nimbly off the ore cart.
Asha ran toward a wooden promenade deck about thirty yards off the main road. When Harry didn’t immediately follow, she turned back and yelled, “C’mon, Harry!”
Harry stepped off the cart as fast as his sore, trail-worn muscles would allow and walked off the dirt road after her. When he caught up with her, she was standing on the deck, which overlooked open air.
She pointed downward.
Harry knew that their caravan had been running parallel to the island bluffs for the past day or so. Once during their journey they had passed over a swaying bridge where he had seen a ten-thousand-foot drop on either side. Partially prepared for what he would see, he carefully peered over the windy side.
Far below a lush green mainland was just floating into view.
“That’s Joppa-Cal?” Harry asked. He pointed, left handed this time, at the vast jungles below that contrasted sharply with the arctic tundra through which they had been traveling for weeks.
“No, but we must go down there to get to Joppa-Cal.”
“Well, how the heck are we gonna do that?”
As if in answer, an enormous vessel suddenly hovered into view. It came up from below the balcony on which they stood and silently rose above them. Then it turned sharply to its port side and proceeded toward the town. The ship passed so near to them that it startled the young princess and sent her into Harry’s arms. Harry instinctively hugged her and shielded her from the wind with his back.
“That’s how,” she said. Her voice was muffled by his chest.
“What is it?” Harry shouted to be heard above the torrents of wind. He gazed at the ship’s carved stone underbelly and deduced that it was made of the planet’s floating ore.
“It’s an ore ship,” she said happily. She braved the winds to look up at him but still didn’t let go.
Harry hoped that the Awumpai knew that he wasn’t hurting the Dan-Sai. He wanted to live so he could ride in one of those magnificent hovering ore ships.
#
Shortly thereafter, the Mooks turned their oxen around and headed back the way they had come. Aside from a few supplies, the Mooks took everything in the caravan with them, even the Awumpai’s ostrich mounts. Asha, Harry, and the three Awumpai were to continue on alone.
Harry hiked his rucksack onto his shoulder, and they headed toward the town. He checked his sidearm, which was set up cross-draw fashion in a holster on his right hip. Much to the Awumpai’s displeasure, he had done a little target practice on the trail one day and found that he was rusty as hell with his offhand but his early years on the range training with both hands hadn’t faded entirely through disuse. At least he wouldn’t be completely useless in a fight. The revelation made him happier than he’d felt in days. With one magazine loaded, two clips in the magazine pouch on his belt, and another three clips in his rucksack, Harry had a total of sixty rounds of ammunition. He would’ve liked to continue with his practice but he knew better than to waste those bullets. All in all, until he had something worth shooting, it was as good as it was going to get.
As they approached the town, Harry saw that Millwood Junction was little more than two rows of buildings with a paved dirt road between them. Covered plank walkways ran along both sides of the street and reminded Harry of photos he had seen of frontier gold-rush towns in Alaska.
What made this town unique, however, was the enormous building at the far end of the main street. The large, heavily lumbered building dominated all the other buildings in town. It was crowned with numerous wooden stairways and platforms that seemed to branch out from the huge building in no particular order. The individual platforms varied in size but most were large enough to receive the enormous ore ships. Seeing all the marvelous wood construction, it was little wonder that the forests were all but gone.
As Harry looked at the structure, he saw the ore-ship that had flown over them earlier pull up to one of the station’s platforms. Lines were tossed to waiting Mook longshoremen, and after the ship was tendered, gangways were lowered, and passengers and crew began to disembark.
This wasn’t the only ship docked at the busy hub. Harry saw a variety of ships, in many different styles, embarking and disembarking. One large ore ship circled the docks, waiting for an open tender.
The ore ships were basic in their design and resembled old sailing ships. As a pilot, Harry was curious about how the ore ships’ pilots controlled the vessels’ yaw and pitch. Once they were on board, he vowed to speak with the pilot, or the equivalent, and see for himself.
#
Entering the town, Harry was surprised to see other humans. Elated, he ran up behind a short fellow dressed in a tunic, leather pants, and knee-high boots. Harry tapped on the man’s shoulder and said, “Hi, I can’t believe it! I thought I was the only human on this miserable …” Harry stopped short when a half-human/half-alien hybrid turned to face him. He pulled back in revulsion at the sight of the alien’s bulbous head and black, soulless eyes and fought the urge to draw his pistol.
The creature blinked at him a few times and shrugged its shoulders before spinning on its heel and walking away.
Looking at the other citizens on the streets around him, Harry saw that the town was comprised primarily of Mook slaves and human/alien hybrids. Some of the hybrids looked more human than others, but the black eyes were a dominant trait. Harry remembered the touch of long blue fingers, and the memory nauseated him.
“Friend of yours, Harry?” Asha caught up to him and hung on his elbow.
Harry’s face had turned grim. “No, Asha. That thing will never be a friend of mine.”
Asha frowned. She searched out his eyes, staring him squarely in the face. Suddenly Harry had a quick review of all his memories regarding his abduction.
She’s reliving my memories.
The flash of memories was over in seconds and Asha patted him on the arm in understanding.
“Harry, you should never judge the many by the actions of the few.”
Harry glanced away, feeling suddenly foolish.
They watched the hybrid townsperson duck into what Harry guessed was the equivalent of a general store. Harry saw what looked like farm tools, feed, and coarse woven bags amongst other miscellaneous goods for sale inside.
He identified other buildings, too, and was amazed at how similar this frontier town was to ones back home. He saw a hybrid sheriff standing out in front of a building that had bars on it, which he assumed was the local jail. The sheriff was a bit larger than most of the other hybrids, and he cradled a large rifle that resembled a musket. A thick but short deputy, who wore a bandolier loaded with enormous shells, stood nearby.
Directly across the street, music and laughter emanated from a large open-air building, which he figured to be some sort of saloon. Harry gave the saloon a wide berth; he had seen too many western Bs. The last thing he wanted to do was get into a bar fight — not that it would be much of a fight with the three Awumpai in tow.
Before they reached the ore-ship station, they stopped at what served as a post office, so Asha could send word to her father.
The post office in no way resembled the mail-carrier hubs with which Harry was familiar. First, the structure had no back wall. Second, instead of counters, the building had individual booths, like those in a shooting range. A colorful three-foot tall bird sat on a perch in each booth.
A hybrid clerk sat near one of the sidewalls, and Asha carried a sack of coins to him. Harry noticed that the patrons stood before the birds and talked. Once done, the patrons fed the birds morsels of food they got from slots in the booths’ walls — slots that the birds couldn’t get into with their talons. The birds then recited the patrons’ messages back to them while mimicking their voices perfectly.
After having paid the ‘postage’, Asha took Harry by the arm and led him to a cherry-red bird that had flames of orange on the backs of its wings.
“Now you have to be quiet while I do this, or it may confuse the poor thing,” she said.
“Okay, but what is it?” Harry asked.
The princess made a face at Harry’s ignorance. “It’s a messenger bird. Don’t they have them on your planet?”
“No.” Harry shook his head. “Well, not really.”
“Then how do you communicate with one another?”
“Huh? Oh, the telephone and sometimes the telegraph.” Realizing that she didn’t know the meaning of such words, he added, “We send our voices over wires strung over vast distances.”
Asha shook her head. “And you find my world strange?” She lifted the soft velvet blind that covered the messenger bird’s eyes and began singing a message to her father.
Her voice was too lovely for words.
The other patrons in the busy mail office must have thought so, too, for they stopped reciting their own messages just to listen.