VIII

 

 

The past can communicate with us …

Echoes of Arranth’s repeated argument kept ringing through Yockerbow’s mind as he and Barratong, and the senior Fleet sub-commanders, gathered to hear the result of her and Ulgrim’s researches. In spite of aurorae and shooting stars they had been pursued through every dark-time until now, when their weather-sense warned of an approaching storm and indeed clouds could be seen gathering at the southern horizon. Every junq had been ransacked for writing-materials, and meticulous sketches were piled before Arranth, each adjacent to one of the pre-Freeze maps. Yockerbow shivered when he thought of their tremendous age. Yet they had been perfectly preserved in their airtight container.

Delighted to be the center of attention, Arranth could not resist preening a little, but when Barratong invited her to present her report, she spoke in a clear and businesslike manner.

“With only a single telescope and what crude instruments we could improvise, Ulgrim and I have not been able to make the sort of exact measurements that could be performed at a proper observatory. However, that is paradoxically fortunate. Whoever compiled these ancient maps can have had access to a telescope barely better than our own, if at all, so we have an excellent basis for comparison. In other words, we can be reasonably sure that the stars we see and those depicted on the old maps correspond. Thoughtfully enough, the map-maker indicated which stars were visible to the unaided eye, and which only with the aid of a glass. We have therefore been able to establish the following facts.

“First: the stars do change position—very slowly, but unmistakably—and some have certainly grown brighter.

“Second: there are not just a few but many stars now discernible which were not known to the map-maker, and all of them have something most disconcerting in common. They are all deep red, and they all lie in the same general area of the sky. Which leads me to the third point.

“What we have been accustomed to call the Smoke of the New Star can be nothing of the sort. We have traced the site of the New Star, which in the days when these old maps were prepared was still clearly visible, though now it takes a strong glass to detect it. Indeed, one does not so much see the star itself, as a faint and wispy cloud of glowing gas with a dot at its center. But this is not the large, widespread cloud we normally think of. It’s too far away—several degrees distant. On the other claw, within it there are some genuinely new stars, which must be far newer than that fabled one which burst out without warning and became brighter than the sun, as the old legends claim—though, strangely, no reference is made to heat from it.

“Within the Smoke, as I was saying, we have counted no fewer than ten stars of which there is no sign on the old maps. Moreover, what reference is made to the Smoke is cursory and vague, and no outline is indicated for it, though we can see one fairly clearly. All these ten new stars, what’s more, are reddish, even darker than the Smoke, as though they only recently lighted their fires. They are barely bright enough to make the surrounding cloud shine by reflection, and much too far away to account for the ending of the Freeze.

“And even that is not the most astonishing news.”

Having helped as best they could with the observations, Yockerbow and Barratong were primed for the final revelation, and glanced covertly around to see what impact it would have on the unforewarned.

Using an image which Barratong himself had supplied, Arranth said, “Imagine the Great Fleet keeping station on a calm sea, and yourselves aboard a solitary junq making haste towards it. Would you not see the nearest of the Fleet diverge to either side as you drew close, while the furthest remained at roughly the same angle?”

Puzzled at being reminded of something that everybody knew, her listeners signified comprehension.

“What disturbs and even frightens me,” concluded Arranth, “is that scores of stars whose positions we can check against the old maps appear to have diverged outward from a common center, and that center is located in or near the Smoke. Either we, with the sun and all its planets, are hurtling in that direction, or the Smoke and its associated stars are rushing towards us. It makes no difference which way you look at it; the outcome is the same. And if, as certain astronomers believe, stars begin because they accumulate surrounding matter, be it whole wandering planets or mere dust like what comes to us as meteorites and comets, then there must be incredible quantities of it in any zone where ten new stars have started to burn since these maps were drawn!”

As though to emphasize her words, a meteor brilliant enough to shine through the daytime sky slashed across the zenith, and immediately thereafter Barratong cried, “Get those maps under cover! The storm will be upon us any moment!”

An echo of thunder confirmed his warning, and they scattered, the sub-commanders to their respective junqs, Arranth, Ulgrim, Yockerbow and Barratong to huddle beneath the shelter offered by their own’s haodah.

Tucking the precious maps carefully into the tube again, Arranth said, “Do you think they understood?”

“Most of my fellow-navigators,” Ulgrim grunted, “have never thought about stars except to figure out what use they are in guiding us, and most of our lives that hasn’t been much, you know. The admiral’s right: a real change is working in the world. This is more the sort of weather I’d have expected here in the far north, not the clear bright kind we’ve had since our arrival.”

The first assault of rain rattled the canopy of interwoven reeds that formed the haodah’s upper deck, and the junq stirred restlessly as the air-pressure changed.

“Will the fine weather return?” asked Arranth.

Her question was mainly addressed to Ulgrim, but before he could answer Barratong cut in.

“It’s over-soon to guess, but either way we must get these maps to where they’ll be most useful. To begin with, I shall arrange to have them copied with the utmost care. I know who among the Fleet are most skillful at writing and drawing. Of course, I don’t know whether we have enough writing-material left. But we’ll do what we can, although we have to kill and flay one of the junqlings to make writing-sheets. Beyond that, though, there’s the question of what we should do with the originals.”

“Why, we take them back to Ripar, obviously!” Arranth burst out.

“It may seem obvious to you; it’s not to me. They should go to the finest of modern observatories, and that’s not at Ripar. Besides, Ripar is due to be flooded. Not all your spouse’s pumps can save it—can they, Yockerbow?”

He made sober reply. “From the bluff where we’ve installed the telescope, we’ve seen ice stretching to the skyline. I wouldn’t dare to calculate how far the level of the oceans will rise when it melts, but if it’s going to be the same as before the Freeze, nothing can save Ripar or any other coastal city.”

“Agreed. We should therefore present them to the observatory at Huzertol, inland from Grench and in a zone of clear skies.” The admiral spoke in a tone of finality, not expecting to be contradicted.

“Won’t do,” said Ulgrim instantly.

“What?”

“Won’t do,” the navigator repeated. “Huzertol may have the best astronomers in the world, the best instruments—it doesn’t matter. That far south, they can scarcely see the Smoke, and some of the other important stars nearby never clear its horizon.”

Barratong gave a dry laugh. “You know something, old friend? Next year I think we ought to circumnavigate the globe, if only to impress on your admiral’s awareness that we do live on a spherical planet! You’re right, of course. We must find a northerly observatory.”

“Or found one,” said Yockerbow.

“Hmm! Go on!”

“Well, if there isn’t any place in the northern hemisphere to outdo Huzertol, there ought to be. Ripar is wealthy, and Ripar is doomed. What better memorial than to create a city dedicated to learning and science on some suitable upland site, to which we could transfer—?”

But Barratong wasn’t listening. Of a sudden, he was paying attention to the junq. Her back was rippling in a rhythmic pattern.

“The water’s growing warmer,” he said positively.

To Yockerbow, that seemed unsurprising, since the heavy rain must be raising its temperature. That, though, seemed not to be what the admiral meant.

A gong-signal boomed across the water. A pattern of banners, rain-limp but comprehensible, appeared at the prow of the junq lying furthest to the eastern side of the bay.

Barratong rose to his normal height as he stepped out from the haodah’s protection. He said to Arranth, “Give me the map-tube!”

“What? I—”

“Give it to me! Bring cord to make a lashing and a bladder to wrap round it! There’s no time to make a new wax seal!”

Ulgrim recognized the scent of authority before the rest of them, and scrambled to comply. While the others stared in astonishment, Barratong folded the tube with its maps inside a skin bag, and tied it tight with all his strength to the thickest of the haodah’s multiple crossbars.

“Thus does the legend say Skilluck preserved his spyglass,” he muttered, while the gong-signals multiplied and grew more frantic, and the junqs began to fret and buck. “And for the sake of imitating him, I’m risking the greatest fleet that ever was …”

The job was done. He turned back to them, claws clenched.

“Now, Ulgrim, give the signal! Open sea!”

And the Fleet incontinently turned and fled.

 

The order came in time, but only just. Wide though the bay-mouth was, the junqs jostled and tossed in their mad retreat, and the first huge slabs of the ice-wall were already sliding down as they escaped and their commanders regained control.

“Scatter!” Barratong yelled, and pounded the banner junq’s gong. It could not be heard above the scraping, grinding, splashing noise from astern, and the rushing, pounding, battering racket of the new-budded waves that were smashing floes against the rocks. All of a sudden the world rocked and twisted and great hills of water erupted in their path, and sometimes the junqs ascended them at a giddying angle and came close to capsizing and sometimes they crashed into them prow-foremost so they broke and doused the crews and filled the back-wells, soaking the stored food. There was no need to order scattering; the alternative did not exist.

Out from the bay rushed bergs as keen as new-cut fangs, and the junqs panicked in their attempt to dodge. The haodah lashings creaked and the junqs screamed for pain, and some of the youngest sought to escape their burdens by rolling over, but their flotation bladders obliged them to right themselves, and if any riders were lost they were children and old folk too weak to cling on. Primeval reflexes bound the adults to whatever they could grasp, folding their mantles around to reinforce their claws and pressurizing the edges until they were stiff as stone.

In a moment of lucidity Yockerbow thought: Just so must Skilq, or Skilluck, or whoever, have endured that legendary storm …

Yet it was not the storm which had caused this. It went on pelting down, but it was trifling. No storm could make the ocean heave and seethe this way! Louder than thunder the noise of shattered ice conveyed the truth.

That warming of the water which Barratong had detected must have presaged the undermining of the high ice-wall. Once it collapsed, whatever was pent up behind it was turned loose, and the Fleet was washed away across the world as randomly as those vaned flying seeds …