Gotlon looked uncomfortable. “I hadn’t realised. So that’s why he has been so crabbed of late.”
“Yes. And if he were to be left here alone on the ship, and chanced to die, what would become of the rest of us?”
“I didn’t say goodbye to him. I was resentful.”
“He won’t be concerned about that. The best thing you can do for Zavotle is to make sure that his logbook is returned safely to Overland. There is much in there that will be invaluable to future space travellers, including all that he has learned from Sondeweere, and I am charging you with the personal responsibility for · ensuring that it is delivered into King Chakkell’s hands.”
“I’ll do my utmost to…” Gotlon paused and looked at Toller with eyes which had become strangely aware. “Sir, the mission… Are you in any doubt about the outcome?”
“No doubt at all,” Toller said, smiling. He gripped Gotlon’s shoulder for a second, then drew himself back to the ladder and went down it, controlling his bulk with difficulty in the confined space because of the weightless conditions.
When he got outside the ship, into the boundless sky, movement became effortless. The others were already at work, separating the skyship section from the main body of the Kolcorron, and Farland was an enormous, mind-stunning convex backdrop to their activities.
A white polar cap was visible on the planet, which had more cloud than Land or Overland, giving it a reflective power which enveloped the floating figures in a storm of brilliance. The sky in the lower half of the sphere of visibility had returned to the dark blue coloration with which Toller was familiar, but above him it shaded into a near-blackness in which the stars and spirals shone with unusual clarity.
He took a deep breath as he relished every aspect of the unearthly scene, feeling privileged, savouring the fact that he had been born into unique circumstances which had directed his life to this unparalleled moment.
Ahead of him was a new experience, a new world to ravish his senses, a new enemy to conquer; within him was the kind of fevered joy he had first known when riding down on Red One to engage a Lander fleet.
But there was something else there—an undertow of panic and despair. The worm at the core of his life had chosen that very instant to resume its coiling and uncoiling, reminding him that after Farland there was nowhere else to go. Perhaps, the now familiar thought came stealing, my grave is down there on that alien globe. And perhaps that is where I want it to be…
“We need those muscles of yours, Toller,” Zavotle called out.
Toller jetted down to the aft section of the ship. The criss-cross ropes which bound the section to the main hull had already been slackened off the lashing pins, but the mastic was exerting an obstinate cohesive force which preserved the unity of the structure. Toller helped drive in wedges, work which was irksomely difficult because of the need to cling to the ship with one hand and contain the reaction of the hammer within his own frame. Levers were quite useless for the same reason, and in the end separation was only achieved by the group working their toes and fingers into the partial gap at one side and using their combined muscle power to rip the skyship clear of the mother craft.
It tilted away, wallowing gently, exposing the exhaust cone of the engine which would take the main ship back to Overland. Dakan Wraker had disconnected the control extensions in advance, and his task now was to rejoin the various rods to both engines and to check that they were functioning properly.
“We should have had jacks,” Zavotle commented, his face pale and gleaming with sweat. “And have you noticed that it isn’t cold here? We’re farther from the sun and yet the air is warmer than in our own weightless zone. Nature delights in confounding us. Toller.”
“There’s no time to fret about it now.” Toller flew to the skyship and took part in pushing it sideways, clear of the Kolcorron, with the combined thrust of five personal jets. The crew then began drawing the folded balloon out of the gondola, straightening it out and connecting the load lines. The acceleration struts, which had been sectionised to fit into the ship, were tricky to assemble, but the routine had been practised before the start of the voyage and was completed in good time. Wraker finished his work on the mother ship and within a few minutes of returning to the gondola had fettled its engine in readiness for inflation of the balloon. The operation was facilitated by the fact that the whole assemblage was slowly falling, creating a drift of unheated air into the balloon and helping prepare it for the influx of hot gas.
Toller, as the most experienced skyship pilot, took the responsibility for starting the engine in the burner mode and inflating the balloon with no heat damage to the lower panels. As soon as the insubstantial giant, with all its geometrical traceries, had been conjured into being above the gondola he turned the pilot’s seat over to Berise and went to the side.
The Kolcorron was now falling slightly faster than the skyship, its varnished timbers gradually slipping downwards past those who watched from the gondola’s rail. Gotlon appeared at the open midsection door and waved briefly before closing it and sealing the ship.
A minute later the main engine began to roar. The spaceship stopped sinking, hovered for a fleeting moment and started to climb. Its engine seemed to grow louder as it moved above the skyship and Toller felt the hot miglign gas blasting out of the exhaust, disturbing the equilibrium of the balloon and gondola. He watched the larger ship until it passed out of sight behind the curving horizon of the balloon, and suddenly he felt in awe of Gotlon, an ordinary young man who nevertheless had the courage to fly off into the void alone, trusting a woman he had never met to guide him into orbit with ethereal commands.
Not for the first time, it came to Toller just how foolhardy he had been in setting out to cross interplanetary space with scarcely an inkling of the dangers ahead. Such hubris surely merited disaster. For himself and Zavotle the ordained penalty was perhaps acceptable, but he had to do all that was in his power to ensure that his youthful companions were not drawn into the maelstrom of his own destiny.
The same thought was to recur to him many times during the six days that it took to descend to the surface of Farland.
Associating with the young fighter pilots, especially Berise, had shown him how much they resented any attempt at what they saw as wet nursing. He had to respect their feelings, but was in a dilemma because he knew their outlook was tinged with overconfidence, the unconsciously arrogant belief that they could triumph over any adversary, survive any danger. The exhilaration of riding jet fighters through the central blue had persuaded them that recklessness was a viable philosophy of life.
His own career hardly gave him the right to take a different standpoint, but he was haunted by the knowledge that from the start he had been woefully unfit to lead an expedition to Farland. Even Zavotle had not understood that in space a moving ship can continue at the same speed for ever with its engine shut down, and that the effects of any extra thrusts were cumulative. They would all have died on entering Farland’s atmosphere had it not been for Sondeweere’s intervention—and she had been right to condemn him for another crass oversight. He had not even considered the idea that Farland might be populated with ordinary beings, let alone talented super-creatures with powers far beyond his understanding. Sondeweere had assured him that landing on the planet would mean death for the astronauts, and as the descent continued he found it harder and harder to erect barriers of disbelief against her prediction.