There were perhaps six hundred coracles in the flotilla, each carrying from four to eight persons, with as much gear, household equipment and tools as possible, together with sacks of food and water.
Late in the afternoon they noted a few medium-sized floats to the north, but made no attempt to land- King Kragen was yet too near at hand.
The late afternoon breeze arose. Rude sails were rigged and the oarsmen rested. At dusk Sklar Hast ordered all the coracles connected by lines to minimize the risk of separation. When the breeze died and seas reflected the dazzling stars, the sails were brought down and alt slept.
The following day was like the first, and also the day after.
On the morning of the fourth day a line of splendid floats appeared ahead, easily as large and as rich of foliage as those they had left. Sklar Hast would have preferred to sail on another week, but the folk among the coracles were fervent in their rejoicing, and he clearly would have encountered nearunanimous opposition. So the flotilla landed upon three closely adjoining floats, drove stakes into the pad surface, tethered the coracles.
Sklar Hast called an informal convocation. "In a year or two," he said, "we can live lives as comfortable as those we left behind us- But this is not enough. We left our homes because of King Kragen. who is now our deadly enemy. We shall never rest secure until we find a means to make ourselves supreme over all the kragen- To this purpose we must live different lives ihan we did in the old days-until King Kragen is killed. How to kill King Kragen? I wish 1 knew.
He is a monster, impregnable to any weapon we now can use against him. So this must be our primary goaclass="underline" weapons against King Kragen." Sklar Hast paused, looked around the somber group. "This is my personal feeling. I have no authority over any of you, beyond that of the immediate circumstances, which are transient. You have a right to discredit me, to think differently-in which case I will muster those who feel as I do, and sail on to still another float, where we can dedicate ourselves to the killing of King Kragen. If we are all agreed, that our souls are not our own until King Kragen is dead, then we must formalize this feeling. Authority must be given to some person or group of persons.
Responsibilities must be delegated; work must be organized.
As you see I envision a life different to the old. It will be harder in some respects, easier in others. First of all, we need not feed King Kragen…"
A committee of seven members was chosen, to serve as a temporary governing body until the needs of the new community required a more elaborate system. As a matter of course Sklar Hast was named to the committee, as well as Phyral Berwick, who became the first chairman, and also Mem Cagno the Scrivener. The captured Intercessors sat aside in a sullen group and took no part in the proceedings.
The committee met for an hour, and as its first measure, ordained a census, that each man's caste and craft might be noted.
After the meeting Meth Cagno took Sklar Hast aside.
"When you captured Barquan Blasdel, you brought his books."
"True."
"I have been examining these books. They are a set of me Ancient Dicta."
"So I understand."
"This is a source of great satisfaction to me. No one except the Scrivener reads tile Dicta nowadays, though everyone professes familiarity. As the generations proceed, the lives of our ancestors and the fantastic environment from which they came seem more like myth than reality."
"I suppose this is true enough- I am a Hoodwink by trade and only know Hoodwink configurations. The Dicta are written in ancient calligraph, which puzzles me."
"It is difficult to read, that I grant," said Cagno. "However, a patient examination of the Dicta can be profitable.
Each volume represents the knowledge of one of our ancestors, to the extent that he was able to organize it. There is also a great deal of repetition and dullness; our ancestors, whatever their talents, had a few literary skills. Some are vainglorious and devote pages to self-encomium. Others are anxious to explain in voluminous detail the vicissitudes which led to their presence on the Ship of Space. They seem to have been a very mixed group, from various levels of society.
There are hints here and there which I, for one. do not understand. Some describe the Home World as a place of maniacs. Others seem to have held respected places in this society until, as they explain it, the persons in authority turned on them and instituted a savage persecution, ending, as we know. in our ancestors seizing control of the Ship of Space and fleeing to this planet."
"It is all very confusing," said Sklar Hast, "and none of it seems to have much contemporary application. For instance, they do not tell us how they boiled varnish on the Home World, or how they propelled their coracles. Do creatures like the kragen infest the Home World? If so, how do the Home Folk deal with them? Do they kill them or feed them sponges? Our ancestors are silent on these points."
Meth Cagno shrugged. "Evidently they were not overly concerned, or they would have dealt with these matters at length. But I agree that there is much they fail to make clear.
As in our own case, the various castes seemed trained to explicit trades. Especially interesting are the memoirs of James Brunei. His caste, that of Counterfeiter, is now extinct among us. Most of his Dicta are rather conventional exhortations to virtue, but toward the middle of the book he says this."
Here Cagno opened a book and read: *' 'To those who follow us, to our children and grandchil174 Jack Vtince dren, we can leave no tangible objects of value. We brought nothing to the world but ourselves and the wreckage of our lives. We will undoubtedly die here-a fate probably preferable to New Ossining, but by no means the destiny any of us had planned for ourselves. There is no way to escape. Of the entire group I alone have a technical education, most of which i have forgotten. And to what end could 1 turn it? This is a soft world. It consists of ocean and seaweed. There is land nowhere. To escape-even if we had the craft to build a new ship, which we do not-we need metal and metal there is none. Even to broadcast a radio signal we need metal.
None… No clay to make pottery, no silica for glass, no limestone for concrete, no ore from which to smelt metal.
Presumably the ocean carries various salts, but how to extract the metal without electricity? There is iron in our blood: how to extract it? A strange helpless sensation to live on this world where tfie hardest substance is our own bone! We have, during our lives, taken so many things for granted, and now it seems that no one can evoke something from nothing…
This is a problem on which I must think. An ingenious man can work wonders, and I, a successful counterfeiter-or, rather, almost successful-am certainly ingenious.' "
Meth Cagno paused in his reading. "This is the end of the chapter."
"He seems to be a man of no great force," mused Sklar Hast. "It is true mat metal can be found nowhere." He took the bit of metal from his pocket which had once graced the workroom of Barquan Blasdel. "This is obdurate stuff indeed, and perhaps it is what we need to kill King Kragen."
Meth Cagno returned to the book. "He writes his next chapter after a lapse of months:
" 'I have considered the matter at length. But before 1 proceed I must provide as best I can a picture of the way the universe works, for it is clear that none of my colleagues are in any position to do so, excellent fellows though they are.
Please do not suspect me of whimsy: our personalities and social worth undoubtedly vary with the context in which we live.' "
Here Cagno looked up. "I don't completely understand his THE KRAGEfrf 175 meaning here. But I suppose that the matter is unimportant."
He turned the pages. "He now goes into an elaborate set of theorizations regarding the nature of the world, which, I confess, I don't understand. There is small consistency to his beliefs. Either he knows nothing, or is confused, or the world essentially is inconsistent. He claims that all matter is composed of less than a hundred 'elements,' joined together in 'compounds,' The elements are constructed of smaller entities: 'electrons,' 'protons,' 'neutrons,' which are not necessarily matter, but forces, depending on your point of view.