The captain must have shouted a command because as they looked on the adjustable spars suddenly pivoted. Heeling over on both port runners like a skater fighting to maintain his balance, the great ship swung sharply southward. The maneuver might have cost her a little speed.
Old instincts made Ethan crouch in anticipation. If the icerigger hit the ramp at the wrong angle, it could fly off in any direction, including straight toward them. Hunnar and Elfa likewise sought shelter. Only September held his ground, looking like some misplaced sculpture in his silvery survival suit.
On board the Slanderscree those sailors who weren’t trimming the spars reached for something solid and gritted their teeth. Ta-hoding and his helmsman clung to the wheel. Driven by the full force of the west wind the icerigger reached the base of the ice ramp and came rocketing upward, looking for all the world like some alien version of the Flying Dutchman about to sail off into the sky against the wind.
As it ascended it slowed perceptibly. Ethan found himself urging it onward, trying to lift it the extra thirty, twenty, finally ten meters toward the top. His help was not required.
Still traveling at upward of a hundred kph, the Slanderscree shot off the top of the ramp and over the crest of the pressure ridge. For an instant it seemed to hang in the air, frozen as if by some cosmic artist. Then it began to descend in a slow, graceful curve.
Hunnar and Elfa rose, while down on the southern ice sheet soldiers and human scientists watched breathlessly as the icerigger came soaring toward them. For a brief moment it was a ship not of the ice but the air, a visitor from a long-forgotten legend. The beauty of those few seconds impressed itself strongly on all who witnessed it. None would forget it.
The beauty was replaced by a shattering reality as the huge ship smashed down onto the ice sheet.
Ethan winced as it struck. Most everyone did. The hull held as the icerigger bounced once, struck again, and slewed sideways. Sharp pinging sounds rose above the wind as several spars as thick as a man’s leg were snapped off and went flying over the bow, carrying their sails with them. The loss actually helped to slow the ship.
Hunnar and Elfa were already chivaning down the far side of the ridge like a pair of champion skiers. The chivless humans followed more slowly, slipping and sliding in their boots.
The soldiers who’d been waiting on the ice were scrambling up the Slanderscree’s boarding ladders to assist the dazed sailors, many of whom had been knocked unconscious by the force of the ship’s touchdown. When Ethan stepped onto the deck, Hunnar’s troops were already working to bring order out of chaos.
Snapped rigging and torn sails littered the deck. The broken spars dangling forlornly from the bowsprit were a bigger problem, but the icerigger could sail without them. Thanks to the extra bracing and rigging Ta-hoding had laid on, the three mainmasts had held, though one swayed dangerously in its braces.
The captain greeted them with shining eyes. He held a thick cloth to his nostrils. It was stained red, but Ta-hoding didn’t seem to notice it. Nor did he mention a newly acquired limp.
“Is that what it is like to ride one of your sky ships, friend Ethan? A glorious experience, if painful. The ship”—and he looked around proudly as he spoke—“survived better than her crew.”
September looked on approvingly. “She seems to have taken the concussion very well.” Blood stained cabin walls and decking. A couple of sailors were going to need rest and repair, but most had suffered nothing more serious than bruises and contusions.
Third Mate Kilpit came running to join them. His left arm hung loosely at his side but he saluted briskly with the other. “Starboard bow runner is almost broken through at the bracing. Portside bow appears to be all right, as do the stern runners and the rudder. As you predicted, Captain, the front third of the ship took most of the impact.”
“How bad is the brace?”
“To fix it properly requires the services of a shipyard, but”—he hesitated—“if we use enough cable I think we can secure it temporarily. I would not advise trying any sharp maneuvers to starboard.”
“We won’t,” Ta-hoding assured him. “Gather a repair team and set to work.” He glanced back over the ridge and eastward, toward the oncoming storm. “We need to be moving again as soon as possible. The brace will hold. We are not preparing for a fight. There is nothing to battle here save our own injuries and the weather. When we are safely away southward we will talk and remember this moment, but not now.” The mate saluted again and jumped down to the main deck, gathering his work crew around him as he headed toward the bow.
“I thought when last I looked that the rifs was turning somewhat to the north,” Hunnar said.
“I noticed that also. It could as quickly turn south.” Ta-hoding’s gaze and his thoughts were roving the damaged foremast.
Everyone pitched in to help with the repairs, including Hwang’s group. They knew nothing about sailing craft but any extra hand was eagerly accepted for fetching and carrying, even if that hand was devoid of fur. The ship was under way again far sooner than anyone dared hope.
They didn’t escape the rifs entirely. Its southern edge caught them long after the pressure ridge had fallen out of sight astern. Somehow the damaged starboard bow runner held, wrapped in enough tough pika-pina rope to rig another whole ship. Bandaged and limping, they used the rifs kiss to increase their speed as they fled southward.
The rifs gale was exceeded only by the windiness of those sailors who had actually guided the Slanderscree up and over the Bent Ocean. The altitude it had reached and the distance it had traveled through the air increased with each retelling of the experience. For a few wondrous seconds they had flown just like the skypeople, and in a craft of their own manufacture. Ethan listened to the enthusiastic recitations and smiled. If their union continued to expand and solidify, someday soon these Tran would be permitted to fly skimmers of their own, then aircraft. Eventually they would find themselves traveling from their world to others aboard massive KK-drive starships. He wondered if it would mean an end to their enthusiasm. To be technologically advanced is to become jaded, he told himself.
Eventually they outran the rifs, though not the crew’s enthusiasm for reliving that glorious flight. The soldiers who had crossed the pressure ridge on foot began to grumble and a few fights broke out. No one took any notice of this. The Tran were a naturally combative lot. Betting on the outcome of various fights helped to pass the time.
Days became weeks. The change in the climate was almost imperceptible at first, but before long everyone was commenting on it. As they sailed steadily south from the equator it grew warmer instead of cooler. The hundred-meter high cliffs of the continental plateau were still out of range when the Tran began to divest themselves of their clothing.
Outer furs went first, followed by hessavar-hide armor, then rough pika-pina fabric vests and undergarments. Soon the Slanderscree sailed on manned by a crew of naked Tran, bare save for their short brown or gray fur. As the temperature continued to climb Ethan found himself wondering how long it would be before he and his companions joined them. Of course, while the climate had turned outrageously hot for the Tran the thermometers still sat below the freezing mark. Not yet shorts and bare chest weather. Yet as they continued due south the temperature gauges continued their inexorable climb toward zero.