“Is their weaponry so much superior to ours?” Toller said, trying to visualise the aerial encounter.
“The symbonite ship carries no weapons as such, but in flight it is surrounded by a field—call it an aura—which is inimical to life. The underlying concept cannot be explained to you, but be assured that a meeting with the symbonite ship would have resulted in all our deaths. Whether the symbonites wanted it that way or not—we would have died.”
A silence descended on the group of fliers while each assimilated Sondeweere’s message. The breeze suddenly freshened, spanging the mute figures with chilling drops of rain which easily penetrated their light shirts and breeches, and clouds slid across the stars like prison doors closing. Farland exults, Toller thought, trying to repress a shiver.
Berise was the first to speak, and when she did so her voice carried an unmistakable note of anger. “It seems to me that you were somewhat high-handed in tampering with our ship,” she said to Sondeweere. “Had you told us the full story when you came on board, we could have dropped you off again and returned to Overland unmolested.”
“But would you have done so?” Sondeweere gave them a wan smile. “Would any of you have chosen to be so… logical?”
“I can’t speak for the others, but I certainly would,” Berise said, and all at once Toller intuited that the challenge to Sondeweere had less to do with the ship and the outcome of the expedition than with rivalry for Bartan’s affections. He found time, in spite of the extremeness of their plight, to be once again awed by the female mind and to become slightly afraid of Berise. She was another Gesalla. Now that he thought of it, all women seemed to be Gesallas to one extent or another, and a man was no match for them in their chosen arena.
“The skyship has not been harmed beyond repair,” Sondeweere pointed out. “I purposely brought you to a remote area where you are unlikely to be discovered by Farlanders, so there is ample time for the work to be carried out.”
Then what was the point of collapsing the balloon? Toller thought. The woman has more to tell us…
Bartan took a step towards Sondeweere. “The others may leave if they wish—I will stay here with you.”
“No, Bartan! Have you forgotten why I was brought here in the first place? The symbonites would slay me rather than permit me to associate with a functional male of my own race.”
Toller, with his soldier’s interest in tactics, was locked into the problem he had set himself. The reason Sondeweere collapsed the balloon had to be that she intended the ship never to fly again. In which case…
“There is an alternative course open to all of you,” Sondeweere said. “I will describe it for you, but you must make the decision for yourselves. If you decide against it, I will help repair your ship and will undertake to guide you back to Overland, while I remain here. If you decide in favour of it, you must be apprised of all the dangers and…”
“We decide in favour,” Toller cut in. “How far is the symbonite spaceship from here? And how well is it guarded?”
Sondeweere turned to face him. “I am surprised by you, Toller Maraquine.”
“There is no need,” Toller said. “I am not a clever man, but I have learned that there are some issues which—no matter how wise and learned the disputants—can be settled in only one way. It is a way I understand.”
“The killing way.”
“The way of justifiable force, of blocking an enemy sword with a sword of my own.”
“Say no more, Toller—I am in no position to make moral judgments. It was my idea to take the ship, because it offers my only hope of escape from this drear and unfulfilled existence, but there are many dangers.”
“We are prepared to face danger,” Toller said. He glanced around his companions, associating them with the statement.
“But why should any of you be prepared to risk death on my behalf?”
“We all had our own good reasons for taking part in this expedition.”
Sondeweere moved closer to Toller, all the while gazing into his face, and for the first time since their meeting he sensed she was employing her extraordinary powers of mind.
“Yours was not a good reason,” she said sadly.
“How long must we stand around in this freezing quagmire?” he demanded, stamping his feet on the squelching ground. “We are likely to die of the ague unless we stir our bones. How far from here is the ship?”
“A good ninety miles.” Sondeweere spoke with a new briskness, apparently having accepted that an irrevocable decision had been reached. “But I have a transporter which can take us there.”
“A wagon?”
“A kind of wagon.”
“Good—this is no country for a forced march.” Relieved at having been spared any further deliberation, Toller ran with the others to the gondola for the unloading of weapons and food supplies. He took one of the five muskets for his own use, but without much enthusiasm. The net of pressure spheres which accompanied it was likely to be an encumbrance in close combat, and the time it took to lock on a new sphere before each shot detracted seriously from the weapon’s efficacy.
“Look what I have found.” Zavotle, who was shivering violently, extended an unsteady hand in which he was holding a brakka shaft around which was rolled the blue-and-grey flag of Kolcorron.
Toller took it and hurled it into the ground like a spear. “That’s our obligation to Chakkell taken care of—from now on we go about our own business.”
He descended from the gondola and was placing his supplies with the others when it occurred to him that Sondeweere was no longer with the company. He scanned the darkness and in that instant heard a strange sound, one which was made up of other sounds—the hissing of a giant snake, the snorting of a bluehorn, the creaking and rattling of a wagon. A moment later he discerned the squarish outline of a vehicle which was slowly approaching the ship. Curious as to what kind of draught animal was responsible for such a cacophony, he went forward to meet Sondeweere, and halted—confounded—as it became apparent that the lurching vehicle was moving under its own power.
The rear of it resembled a traditional wagon covered with canvas supported on stretchers, but in front was a fat cylinder from which ascended a tube belching white vapours into the murky air. Sondeweere was visible as a pale blur behind the glass screen of a cabin-like structure which formed the forepart of the vehicle’s main body. It drew to a halt on wide, black-rimmed wheels, the noise from it decreased to a ruminative snuffling and Sondeweere leapt down from the cabin.
“The wagon propels itself by harnessing the power of steam,” she said, forestalling a barrage of questions. “I sometimes use it as a caravan when I’m travelling long distances, and it is well suited for our purposes.”
The journey across that region of Farland was one of the most singular Toller had ever undertaken.
Part of the strangeness sprang from the unique governing circumstances and the ambience. In spite of the protection offered by the transporter’s canvas top, the five astronauts were oppressed by a clammy coldness unlike anything in their previous experience. Dawn came, not as a fountaining of golden light and heat as on Overland, but as a stealthy change in the colour of the environment, from black to a leaden grey. Even the air within the vehicle became tinged with grey, a mix of exhaled breath and dank mist seeping in from outside which seemed to curdle around the passengers and chill their blood. Only Sondeweere, clad in substantial tunic and trews, was unaffected by the penetrating cold.