“What’s this about Mars, Captain? There’s no truth in it, is there? If so you can count me out. That goes for the others too, I reckon.”
Zhorga clamped a huge iron-like fist on the smaller man’s shoulder and leaned close to him, intimidating him with his bulk.
“Don’t think of running out on me, Clabert,” he said in a low, confidential tone. “If I decide to take you to Mars that’s where we’re all going, see? We’ll sail into the sun if I say so.”
He shoved the man away from him and took himself through the main door. Hunch-shouldered, he went striding away beneath the star-canopied sky, importunately followed by a loping, hopeful Rachad Caban.
****
“All right,” Zhorga said, “let’s get to the business.”
He sat uneasily in Gebeth’s living room, a big rough man who felt incongruous in such cozy, enclosed quarters. His ham-fists rested on the table, at which also sat Rachad and the alchemist.
“First we must settle terms,” said Gebeth mildly. “I will prepare your sailing instructions and give any other assistance I can. There will be no fee. Instead I make two conditions. Rachad here must accompany you, and you must make your Mars landing at the city of Kars, staying there until his business is done.”
This Rachad and Gebeth had already decided, speaking privately in the laboratory while Zhorga waited in the other room. Gebeth had been astonished at the tale told by the two, and made no light matter of the dangers involved in the enterprise. But, seeing Rachad’s keenness, and recognizing that the boy was a born adventurer, he had eventually consented to the deal which he now put before Zhorga.
Zhorga, however, demurred, hunching his shoulders and eyeing Rachad. “This pup has caused me enough annoyance already tonight, following me around and touting for business on your behalf. He is no sailor. There’s no room on this trip for passengers.”
“I’ll be no passenger!” Rachad protested indignantly. “I’ll work for my passage. I’ll learn to work in the rigging, even.”
“Well, it’s no go. State your fee in money, alchemist.”
“I’m afraid I look on this as a joint venture. I have stated my terms and they cannot be negotiated.”
“Then I’ll find another astrologer.”
“If you wish, though I know of none in Olam as proficient as I claim to be.” Gebeth smiled sourly. “There was a time when any captain worth his salt could do for himself what you need me to do for you.”
Zhorga chewed at his beard, showing some annoyance. “It is not my fault. No airfarer knows much of astrology any more. There’s no need to follow the celestial bodies, not really. One merely has to take note of the sun and the moon.” He looked at Gebeth askance. “What possible business could you have in Kars.”
“While we would prefer to keep that confidential, I suppose it is reasonable that you should want to know,” Gebeth told him. “Briefly, we are students of alchemical works. There are texts in Kars we wish to obtain.”
Understanding showed like a gleam of slyness in Zhorga’s eyes. His gaze flitted round Gebeth’s library.
“Gold! You think you can find the secret of making gold!” Forgetting his manners, he allowed himself to laugh lustily as if at a joke. “Dreams, ridiculous dreams.”
“You do not believe in the Philosopher’s Stone?” inquired Rachad.
“I believe the way to make wealth is not by messing about with crucibles and whatnot. The silk I shall bring back from Mars is gold for me, real silver and gold, more than you’ll ever find in your dusty books.” He scratched his side, looking at Rachad again. “All right, I’ll take him. Half my lousy crew will probably desert anyway, so I might be shorthanded.”
Glee came to Rachad’s features. “We are as good as there!”
“Don’t run ahead of yourselves,” Gebeth said soberly. “Even Captain Zhorga may change, his mind when he learns of the hazards ahead.
The alchemist puttered about the room taking down books and large dusty rolls of paper, all of which he dumped on the table.
“Before even planning the expedition you must satisfy yourself that you can actually manage your ship in space,” he told Zhorga. “Remember that there will be no air or wind on which to keel your galleon or to use in opposition to contrary ether currents. There is only the ether. Therefore there is no question of steering in the same way you do on Earth, though to some extent there is a force that can be used in interplay with the ether, and that is the attractive force of the various celestial bodies. Hence the direction in which one launches oneself to begin with is of vital importance, since subsequent maneuvers take a considerable time to effect.”
“I’m not that much of a dunderhead,” Zhorga said. “I know the rules of travel in space: the longer you keep your sails out, the faster you go; don’t try to tack against the ether wind—it can’t be done, or hardly ever; find a current that’s flowing roughly your way, toward the same half of the compass anyway, and tack across it to get where you want to go.”
“That, in essence, is the procedure. Danger presents itself in the vicinity of the destination, for then one must lose the velocity one has accumulated during transit. This is done by making use of the eddies surrounding a planet, and is a tricky operation to say the least.”
Clearing a space, he spread a large chart upon the table.
“I will make you a copy of this for general reference, though you must be guided mainly by the specific horoscopes I will prepare.”
The chart was a map of the inner part of the solar family of planets extending as far as the Girdle of Demeter, as the region of rocks and planetoids beyond Mars was called. Marked on the map in a whirl of fine lines engulfing everything was the centrifugal vortex of ether that radiated out from the sun. It formed an intricate force field, streaming back into the sun at certain places, breaking up into eddies and whirlpools here and there, creating complicated flurries and rapids where interrupted by large bodies like moons and planets, but for the most part sweeping out and out like an expanding spinning top.
Zhorga pored over the chart, putting his face almost to within inches of it and examining it with intense concentration. Quaint illustrations were dotted here and there, accompanied by legends such as “Here run rapids,” “This vortex will claim any ship,” and “Here lie monsters.”
“What’s this?” he demanded, putting his finger on the last. “This, I assume, is not to be taken seriously.”
“Hmm.” Gebeth looked uncertain. “The chart is supposed to be factual. I would not ignore it.”
“Pah!” Zhorga made an expansive gesture. “Many of these old mapmakers had fanciful imaginations. How many charts have I seen showing monsters in the sea, monsters in the air? Where are these monsters? They don’t exist.”
“Then you must use your own discretion.” Gebeth laid the chart on one side and, taking an ephemeris, began to construct a geocentric horoscope.
“The day and hour of departure must be chosen with care. How soon will your vessel be ready?”
Zhorga stuck out his lower lip. “Three weeks, perhaps? Maybe longer.”
“Let us see if we can find a suitable day…” Consulting the tables, the alchemist marked his chart with planetary signs. He studied it briefly, then laid it aside and set to work yet again. This time he constructed, on transparent paper, a heliocentric horoscope, using a second set of tables. This he laid over the big main chart and began to trace various features from it, skillfully drawing curved lines to indicate the course of the ether winds, and so forth.
Rachad noticed that this horoscope differed from the chart in many respects. “You seem to be marking those vortices in the wrong places,” he remarked. “Why is that?”