This, then, was the craft which would carry two people into the lethal depths of the underMantle. In the dingy, dense Air of the City’s Harbor the thing looked sturdy enough, Dura supposed, but she doubted she’d feel so secure once they were underway.
There was a disturbance above her, a sound of hatches banging. Hork V, Chair of Parz City, resplendent in a glittering coverall, descended from the gloom above. He seemed to glow; his bearded face was split by a huge smile. Dura saw that Physician Muub and the engineer Seciv Trop followed him. “Good day, good day,” Hork called to Dura, and he clapped her meatily on the shoulder-blade. “Ready for the off?”
Dura, her head full of her regrets and fears, turned away without speaking.
Seciv Trop wafted down, coming to rest close to her. He touched her arm, gently; the many pockets of his coverall were crammed, as usual, with unidentifiable — and probably irrelevant — items. “Travel safely,” he said.
She turned, at first irritated; but there was genuine sympathy in his finely drawn face. “Thanks,” she said slowly.
He nodded. “I understand how you’re feeling. Does that surprise you? — crusty old Seciv, good for nothing without his styli and tables. But I’m human, just the same. You’re afraid of the journey ahead…”
“Terrified would be a better word.”
He grimaced. “Then at least you’re sane. You’re already missing your family and friends. And you probably don’t expect to make it back, ever.”
She felt a small surge of gratitude to Seciv; this was the first time anyone had actually voiced her most obvious fear. “No, frankly.”
“But you’re going anyway.” He smiled. “You put the safety of the world ahead of your own.”
“No,” she snapped. “I put my brother’s safety ahead of my own.”
“That’s more than sufficient.”
As she had suspected, the City men had insisted on one of the Human Beings taking this trip. Adda was ruled out because of age and injury. Farr’s omission — which came to his frustration — hadn’t been a foregone conclusion; his youth, in the eyes of those making the decisions, had barely outweighed his experience as a novice Fisherman. Dura had been forced to argue hard.
The second crewman had been a surprise: it was to be Hork, Chair of Parz, himself. Now Hork was moving around the bay, glad-handing the engineers. Dura watched his progress sourly. He must be subject to the same fears as herself, and — in recent months anyway — to enormous personal pressure — and yet he looked relaxed, at ease, utterly in command; he had a natural authority which made her feel small, weak.
“He wears his fear well,” she said sourly.
Seciv pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps. Or perhaps his fear of not taking the voyage, of remaining here, is the greater. He is gambling a great deal on this voyage, you know.”
This stunt… Yes, Dura did know; she’d become immersed enough in the politics of Parz to be able — with the help of Ito and Toba — to understand something of Hork’s situation. However unreasonable it might be, the citizens of Parz expected Hork to resolve their troubles — to lift food rationing, to restore the lumber convoys and get the place working again. To open the shops, damn it. That he’d manifestly failed to do so (but how could he have succeeded?) had put his position in doubt; there were factions in his Court and on the larger Committee who were gunning for him, with varying degrees of openness.
This ludicrous jaunt into the underMantle was Hork’s last gamble. All or nothing. If it succeeded then he, Hork, would return as the savior of the City and all the peoples of the Mantle. But if it failed — well, Dura thought uneasily, perhaps it would be better for Hork to die in a glorious instant, in the deep underMantle, than at the hands of an assassin here in the bright corridors of Parz.
The crew members had to climb into the ship through a hinged hatch set in the upper end of the cylinder. Hosch, the former Harbor supervisor, had been checking the craft’s simple systems; now Dura watched his thin, hunched shoulders emerge from the craft through the crew hatch. As Muub had expected, Hosch had turned out to be a good manager of the construction project, despite his sour personality; he’d been able effectively to draw out the mercurial expertise of the likes of Seciv Trop and to marry it to the practical skills of his Harbor engineers.
Hosch glanced up, saw that both Dura and Hork were ready. “It’s time,” he said.
Dura felt something within her recede. As if in a dream she watched her own hands and legs working as she clambered down toward the ship.
She climbed stiffly through the hatch and into the interior, squeezing past the row of bound, straining Air-pigs and the sleek turbine beside them. She experienced a mixture of gratified relief at being underway, and a tang of sheer, awful terror.
With bellowed good-byes to the engineers, to Muub, Seciv and the rest, Hork shook Hosch’s thin hand and clambered into the cabin, squeezing his sparkling bulk through the hatch. He seemed careless of the pollution of his gleaming suit by the dirt of the pigs. He dragged the hatch closed after him and dogged its wooden latches tight.
For a moment Hork and Dura hovered close to the hatch, alone in there for the first time. Their eyes met. Now, Dura thought, now the two of them were bound to each other, for good or ill. She could see a slow, appraising awareness of that in Hork’s expression. But there was little fear there; she read humor, enthusiasm.
By the blood of the Xeelee, she thought. He’s actually enjoying this.
Without speaking they descended into the craft.
The pigs were strapped in place close to the top of the cylinder. Dura climbed into her loose harness close to the pigs. The walls of the cabin were fat with Air-tanks, food stores, equipment lockers and a primitive latrine. Cooling fans hummed and wood-lamps, their green glow dim, studded the walls.
Toward the base of the ship Hork took his place at the craft’s simple control panel, a board placed before one of the broader windows and equipped with three levers and a series of switches. He rolled his sleeves back from his arms with every evidence of relish.
There was a pounding on the hull.
Hork thumped back enthusiastically, grinning through his beard. “So,” he said breathlessly, “so it begins!”
The craft jolted into motion. Dura heard a muffled cheer from the engineers in the Harbor, the creaking of the pulleys as they began to pay out cable.
After a few seconds the craft emerged from the Harbor. The golden brilliance of Polar Air-light swept the interior of the ship, filling Dura with a nostalgic, claustrophobic ache. The silhouetted forms of Waving people — some of them children — accompanied the craft as it began its descent from the City.
Hork was laughing. Dura looked down at him, disbelieving.
“Oh, come on,” Hork said briskly. “We’re off! Isn’t this a magnificent adventure? And what a relief it is to be doing something, to be going somewhere. Eh, Dura?”
Dura sniffed, letting her face settle into sourness. “Well, Hork, here I am going to hell in the belly of a wooden pig. It’s a bit hard to find much to smile about. With respect. And we do have work to do.”
Hork’s expression was hard, and she felt briefly uneasy — she’d been around him long enough now to witness several of his towering rages. But he merely laughed aloud once more. His noisy, exuberant presence was overwhelming in the cramped cabin; Dura felt herself shrink from it, as if escaping into herself. Hork said, “Quite right, captain! And isn’t it time you started working the pigs?”