The lash of anger numbed Remasritlfeer’s mind, but he saw and remembered what happened next: The mob surged in like some monstrous wave, five and ten Tines deep. They came in from all directions, the open space vanishing in less than two seconds. Somewhere under the mob was the trade basket. Myriad voices screamed. The frenzy lasted almost a minute, so that for a time the attackers were piling up on themselves. Finally the mob retreated, leaving something like the agreed-upon open space. By some miracle, the Sea Breeze’s tiedown line remained in place, but the trade basket was reduced to splinters.
“What happened? Where are they now? What happened?” came the voices of the rest of the cuttlefish in their bannerwood kettle.
“I … I’m sorry, guys.” The trading space was almost restored, those who remained in the space were limping back toward their fellows. He could see no signs of cuttlefish in the churned-up mud.
Chitiratifor gave out a satisfied laugh. “An excellent test. It’s exactly as I predicted. Okay, fellow. It’s time to drop the tiedown line and get ourselves back to sanity.”
Four hours later, Remasritlfeer, the surviving cuttlefish, and Chitiratifor were safely back on Tycoon’s steamship. Three of those hours had been spent fighting through the worst afternoon storm Remasritlfeer had seen so far. Even now, the wind was lashing across the deck of the Pack of Packs, making the balloon recovery job almost impossible. Hell, the landing crew had better cut it loose before the lightning finally set its remaining lift gas afire.
Remasritlfeer had his heads down, pushing the bannerwood kettle across the deck toward shelter. The rain had long ago soaked him; it was amazing he could think at all.
The cuttlefish were still complaining: “Why-why-why didn’t you let us try again? again?”
“You shut up!” Remasritlfeer hissed back. Multiple tries had been part of Tycoon’s orders. Before the storm came up, at least four of Remasritlfeer would have sacrificed the rest of these suicidal maniacs; the fifth of him had some weird maternal sympathy for the cuttlefish. Between that and the storm and Chitiratifor, they had not done quite all Tycoon planned. Leaving early had probably saved all their lives.
He tied down the kettle and sprinkled the water with fish food. Behind him, he could see most of Chitiratifor clustered at the railing, barfing into the sea. Far beyond the railing the swamplands of the coast were a dark shadow behind the rain. These last few tendays, Remasritlfeer had accomplished more than any explorer in the history of the Tropics, but now he knew he would never stand on the ground there. No pack would, not and live to tell the tale.
Remasritlfeer shook himself. Now to get cleaned up, dried off. There remained the toughest job of the day—to convince Tycoon that no matter how big the market, no matter how great the desire, there were some dreams that were just not going to come true.
Chapter 05
Woodcarver’s Domain stretched along the continent’s northwest coast. The Domain’s northern part, the lands around Starship Hill, had been taken in the conquest of Flenser’s empire. That was two hundred kilometers north of the arctic circle. Tines World was a mellow and beautiful place, very much what Old Earth had been for humankind’s first civilization. Of course “mellow and beautiful” were relative terms. The arctic winters, even on the coast with its warming ocean stream, were frightful things. The islands were lost in the ice, the snow piled deep, and night was unending, usually so stormy that you couldn’t even see the stars.
The summers, however … Ravna Bergsndot had not imagined there could be such contrast in a natural place. The snow mostly went away, or hid in the higher hills and the glaciers above them. This year there had been plenty of spring rain, and bright green spread across the forests and heather and farmers’ fields, across all the world below the tree line. And today, today was beautiful beyond that. The rains had ended, and the sky was clean, with only a few chunky white clouds hanging beyond the seaward islands. Here, on a clear day in summer, the sun was above the horizon for the dayaround. At noon, it climbed almost halfway up the sky and the rest of the day was like an endless afternoon.
It was warm! It was even hot!
More by luck than anything else, Ravna and Johanna chose this day for a visit to the markets on the South End of Hidden Island. They’d taken the funicular down from Starship Hill and then the ferry across the fifteen-hundred-meter inner channel that separated Flenser’s old capital from the mainland. Now they were walking down wide, cobbled streets, just enjoying the sun and the light and the warmth.
Most of the town packs had taken off their jackets and leggings. A work gang of three packs was in a line along one side of the street, digging up the gutter drainage. On a task as simple as ditch digging, the three packs could work with a kind of superpack coordination, the dirt being hoisted from ground to shovel, into buckets and then away, in perfect synchrony.
These weren’t the slaves of the time of Flenser and Steel. When Ravna and Johanna came strolling along, the super-pack seemed to notice and for a moment resumed its three coherent identities, shouting greetings with human voices. Ravna recognized the one in the middle as Flenser-Tyrathect’s city planner.
Johanna chatted with the two who didn’t speak very good Samnorsk. Ravna had a few words with the city planner, learning what these repairs were all about, answering the pack’s question about the tools that had been promised for more than a year. “It’s the power supplies we’re having trouble with, of course. But you’ll see them in time to help with the snow.”
And then the two humans continued on, toward Hidden Island’s very own high street. “Johanna, I think this may be the most beautiful day we’ve ever had.” Beyond low roof lines, the inland hills stood tall. The New Castle on Starship Hill might have been something out of a fairy tale, and downslope from the castle, the hull of Oobii sparkled greenfly bright.
The younger woman was smiling. “It’s a winner, all right.”
Packs walked past them in both directions, avoiding each other as much as they could. Wagons and kherhog traffic were banned in this part of town, leaving just enough room for the packs. There were even a few humans up ahead, the oldest of the refugee children, now adults and working in local businesses. For a moment, Ravna could almost imagine … “It’s almost like something back in civilization.”
Johanna was still smiling, but now her look was puzzled. “The High Lab was nothing like this.” From what Ravna knew, the High Lab had been a grid of barracks on the airless planet of a red dwarf star. “And before that,” Johanna continued, “well, we were mostly on Straum. That was cities and parks. This? I’m more used to it now than anywhere else, but how does it remind you of civilization?”
Ravna had her own opinion of Straumer civilization; she’d had ten years of practice in keeping that opinion to herself. So all she said was, “Some are little things, some are big. There are both humans and aliens here; outside of civilization, that can rarely happen. The streets are clean and quaintly wide. I know the packs need the extra space, but … this place looks almost like some historical city park on a multi-settled world. I can pretend the technology is just hidden away, perhaps in those little shops we’re visiting today. This could be at Sjandra Kei, kind of a happy tourist trap.”