Somehow he managed to chop a couple of shallow holes in the ice. Then using both hands he pulled himself out until he was lying flat. It was a measure of his exhaustion that he lay like that for a long time without turning to acknowledge the congratulations of his companions. Water formed a crust of ice on the exterior of his suit, which gradually brought his body temperature back up to normal.
Though it appeared plenty thick where the energy weapon hadn’t touched it, September still crawled on his belly another three meters away from the water’s edge, until he was certain the surface underfoot would support his standing form. Keeping the end of the cable wrapped around his waist, he dug his feet into another crack in the ice and leaned backward.
With infinite slowness the drifting lifeboat began to move. Using his body like a pulley, September continued to drag the waterlogged craft and its anxious passengers toward him. Almost an hour passed before the bow nudged up against the shore.
“I’ll go first,” Williams said. “I’m the lightest.”
“Right. If you fall through, grab the rope and pull yourself toward Skua,” Ethan advised him.
Williams nodded, then gingerly stepped over the bow and put first one foot down, then the other. The ice held.
“Solid,” the teacher said with satisfaction. He walked over and joined September, adding his lesser but nonetheless welcome strength to the cable. Ethan was next, then Hunnar, Ta-hoding, and lastly Grurwelk, still gazing back at the lone survivor of the skimmer who continued to drift aimlessly on his ice floe.
Deprived of their weighty presence the lifeboat floated higher in the water. Under September’s direction they all strained on the rope, using their weight as well as their strength, until Ethan was certain his arms were pulling loose from their sockets. Once they got the bow up on the ice sheet it became easier. They didn’t let up, however, until they’d dragged the little craft a respectable distance from the open lake.
Ignoring the several centimeters of water that still sloshed beneath their feet they broke off the icicles that had formed along the sides and bottom of the boat. Hunnar and Ta-hoding struggled to reset the fallen mast while Williams straightened the sail.
Ethan frowned and walked over to where Grurwelk Seesfar was staring at the water. When he looked in the same direction he saw that there was no sign of the last Tran survivor from the ill-fated skimmer.
“Finally went under, huh?”
She nodded tersely, turned away. To his astonishment he saw tears in her eyes. It was extremely rare for a Tran to cry.
“I don’t understand,” he said, gaping at her. “He was one of those who tried to kill us.”
“I know. One of those who allied himself with scum like this Corfu and his snotty little would-be emperor. He was also my husband. I ask a favor of you. Tell not the others. It means nothing now. It would not do me good.”
Ethan swallowed hard. “I understand. I won’t say a thing.”
She managed the faintest of smiles. “I thank you for this small thing. It would seem that appearances and decency do not always go together.”
Ethan stared after her as he strode back to join the others in preparing the lifeboat for travel. He noted that she did not again look at the place of open water.
The mast held, the sails held. They were off for Poyolavomaar. Inside the small cabin, the three humans clustered around a stone Tran cookstove. Since the cabin had stayed above water, the stove had remained dry, along with its highly combustible contents. Now a small but intense fire crackled within, the smoke rising through a narrow pipe fashioned from a single bone from which the marrow had been removed. The blaze heated the stone walls of the stove which in turn radiated a luxurious warmth throughout the cabin. The heat would have driven the Tran to distraction, but for the three humans it was an echo of home.
September had stripped off his survival suit and laid it out to dry and recuperate. His naked form occupied one whole end of the cabin. A couple of thick furs lay draped over his legs and like his companions he held his palms out to the fire until the skin threatened to crisp. He was no longer shivering.
“Terrific things,” he said, nodding in the direction of his survival suit which hung from a hook like a discarded skin, “but they’re not omnipotent. There at the end I thought I’d lost it all because I couldn’t climb up on that damn ice. I could feel my legs starting to go numb, or is that a contradiction in terms?”
“If you hadn’t gone for that swim,” Williams told him, “we’d still be floating back there, waiting to sink.”
“Or be swallowed,” Ethan added. “You think they’ll send out the other skimmer to look for us?”
“I doubt it.” September pulled back his hands and shoved them beneath the furs, a blissful expression on his face. “There’s going to be a lot of shouting and yelling when that skimmer doesn’t return. It’ll be natural for Antal and his people to assume it might take a day or two to run us to ground. By the time they figure out their gunners aren’t coming back we’ll be too far out for them to find us. They can’t have long-range tracking equipment.”
“Why not?”
“No need for it, first of all. Even if they did they couldn’t use the stuff. Emissions would be picked up by the survey satellite or in Brass Monkey itself. All they can do is assume their people got us and then crashed or something on the way back.” He grinned at the thought. “Bamaputra’s not going to sleep real well for a while, wondering what really happened.” He stretched out on the combination bed and bench. “Now if you fellas don’t mind, I’m a mite fatigued.”
They were all exhausted, Ethan knew. No reason to worry with Ta-hoding guiding the boat. He lay down next to the exquisite fire and closed his eyes.
The last thing he saw out the rear cabin window just before he fell asleep was Grurwelk Seesfar, standing close by Ta-hoding and staring back the way they’d come.
Ethan could not penetrate the veil she drew over her emotions during the voyage to Poyolavomaar, but he was glad she’d come along. Whatever she was feeling inside she kept to herself and devoted all her energy to retracing the course they’d traveled on the journey south. When Ta-hoding’s navigational abilities failed and Hunnar’s instinctive sense of direction became confused she was ready and willing to choose a path based on her previous memories of travel in this region. Gradually the others came to treat her as a full-fledged member of their expedition and to rely on her knowledge. Ta-hoding accepted her boldness as a challenge and matched it with daring of his own.
An example of the captain’s courage came five days out as they were overtaken by a wyrsta. While not as violent as a rifs, it presented a more subtle threat since it was composed of swirling ice particles. These created a complete whiteout. Anyone sitting in the stern was unable to see beyond the central cabin.
A less confident skipper would immediately have turned the bow into the wind, set the ice anchors, and waited for the storm to pass. Not Ta-hoding. With Seesfar assuring him no obstacles lay between their present position and their goal he kept the sail up and maintained speed. Half a day’s travel found them through the storm, whereupon he was persuaded to surrender the wheel to Hunnar. Ice particles had collected in the captain’s frozen fur and beard until he resembled a feloursine version of Father Christmas.
Williams looked back at the storm. “I imagine that’s what a sandstorm must be like, only with ice substituting for sand.”
“I could stand a nice, hot sandstorm right now.” September leaned against the cabin while he perused the southern horizon. “Anything to get warm.”