He became aware of the other's waiting stare, turned to face the worried n.o.ble who attended on him.

They were alone in the Landgrave's private quarters. This was necessary. The words they exchanged now were too dangerous to be overheard even by the most trusted members of his court. Hence he chose to receive Obel Kasin here and not in the chamber of formal au-dience.

He knew his continued silence was increasing Kasin's nervousness. Still he did not speak, but watched the slim n.o.ble, noting the bandage across the side of his neck, the ragged tear badly patched in the membrane of his left dan, the bare places on his body where fur had been cut away.

"Be at your ease, n.o.ble Kasin. You did the best you could."

"I am not," the n.o.ble asked unsteadily, "to be pun-ished for my failure?"

"I so promise." Using both hands to help himself rise, RoVijar then walked to stand next to the window. The gla.s.salloy pane stretched from floor to ceiling and framed him unintentionally. It was larger than any other single piece of gla.s.s either made or imported in-to Arsudun. It was larger than any piece of gla.s.s Calonnin had ever heard of or imagined. Yet it was here, in _his_ castle, come down to him from the heav-ens in one of the humans' skyships. And he had been told and had come to believe that though it was no thicker than his smallest claw, it was stronger than the walls that bordered it.

"As you said," he finally continued, "we cannot fight with swords and shields against the sky people's light knives." He looked back over a shoulder.

"But for all that, we will have that ship, Obel Kasin of Arsudun. One day our flag will fly from its stern and masts and it will stand at the front of the Arsudun fleet." He did not add that some day in the future even the _Slanderscree_ could be dispensed with. There were dreams he could as yet share with no one.

"We will have to use caution, and time this next attempt better. I will now take charge of this enterprise myself, n.o.ble Kasin. On your way out tell my Minister of Appointments-third door on your left, second level -to ready the _Rinstaster_. That is our best ship. I my-self will pick her crew. We will dog the stern of this monster craft until the right opportunity presents itself, whereupon I will take it for Arsudun's glory!"

"Yes, your lordship. May you go with the wind." Genuflecting properly, he departed the room.

Calonnin considered the n.o.ble's absence. Kasin had tried hard. His wounds proved his loyalty. There was nothing to be gained by punishing the n.o.ble. He knew better than anyone the superiority of the humans' technology. Had he known the three on the great icerigger possessed energy weapons, he would not have ordered the attack.

Excused and commended, Kasin would be twice as trustable now. RoVijar would undertake the task of capturing the icerigger and killing her crew and the humans allied with them because he could not trust anyone else to do it. No one else had his reason or fervor.

Until now he had kept himself hidden in this mat-ter. He could do so no longer.

Dreaming, he pictured the huge ice boat, saw again its humanmetal runners which did not wear out or crack on the ice as did stone and bone and wood, saw once more the well made pikapina sails and rigging. He imagined it as he'd described it to Kasin, sails full of wind, pennants and insignia of Arsudun flying from her high places.

And if his plans came to fruition, some day that great ship would be but a toy to sneer at. For a while, however, it would be good to possess her.

Though he could not hope to overtake the craft, it must eventually stop someplace. That would be the time for capture.

Distasteful as it would be, he had first to talk to the human Landgrave before he departed.

Jobius Trell received the Landgrave of Arsudun in his office. As the temperature inside was adjusted for human norm, the near-naked Landgrave suffered in brutally hot temperatures.

Trell had altered his midday schedule to receive RoVijar. He wore a light orange service tunic open to the waist, light braid at waist, sleeves, and ankles. He greeted RoVijar alone.

The Landgrave had likewise left his personal body-guard outside the human's building. Both men felt more comfortable that way. It gave them privacy and confidence, since each felt himself more than a fighting match for the other.

RoVijar chose a couch rather than one of the nar-row human chairs. Sitting straight despite the invitingly curved back, he ignored the tremendous heat that suf-fused the office as he regarded his human counter-partner. This was a little game they played. Whenever Trell came to visit RoVijar in his castle, the Land-grave took particular delight in opening all the storm-shutters and windows so that the freezing winds of Tran-ky-ky could pour through whatever room they were in. Since Trell had to lift the mask of his survival suit indoors in order to keep custom unblemished by showing his face to his host, RoVijar could enjoy the human's discomfort as his skin reddened from the chill-though Trell pretended to be as relaxed and at ease as RoVijar did now.

It was a fair exchange of favors. Trell had one slight advantage in detecting discomfort, however.

Having no sweat glands, the Tran did not perspire. So Trell could tell that the Landgrave was feeling especially un-comfortable whenever he covered his mouth with a paw, in an attempt to conceal his lolling tongue and his heat-shedding panting. If he tried to go an en-tire visit without panting, his overheated body would cause him to black out. Very undignified.

"So they got away," Trell was saying, getting down to business after the exchange of pleasantries had been concluded. "That's unfortunate."

"Worry not, friend Jobius," Calonnin said rea.s.sur-ingly. "They have accomplished nothing, nor will they. I myself will follow with a crew of my best and most trusted soldiers. They will have to tie up that great hulk-ing ship of theirs sometime to spread their vicious trea-sons. When they do, I will let circ.u.mstances determine my method. Whatever I eventually choose, it will be quite final and efficient."

Trell was nodding. "Good, good."

"The n.o.ble I placed in charge of this first attempt did what he could. He was defeated by the hand wea-pons of the three humans on the ship." Settling himself into the disgustingly soft couch back, he forced him-self to appear monumentally indifferent to Trell's re-sponse to his next question.

"If you could provide me with at least a couple of similar devices and instruct myself and my knights in their use, the success of our journey would be a.s.sured."

Trell shook his head, smiled paternally. "Friend Calonnin, you know I can't do that. Commonwealth and Church declarations strictly prohibit the distribu-tion of modern weaponry to non-Commonwealth peoples. Even those races that have attained a.s.sociate membership cannot obtain energy weapons except under special circ.u.mstances. Ownership is restricted to full Commonwealth members. This is not a rule of my making, but it is one I can't risk breaking.

Trell hoped his friend understood his refusal.

"Until some future date you'll have to make do with the weapons of your own civilization. In your skilled hands, I'm sure they'll prove more than adequate."

"I did not mean to imply they would not," the Land-grave a.s.sured him. "Your light knives would make this business simpler and much quicker, though."

Trell wagged a finger at him. "Patience is another modern weapon which you can obtain for yourself, RoVijar. But when this obstacle to our future plans is re-moved, who knows what arrangements we might work out? Arrangements whereby even extreme edicts can be bypa.s.sed. But not this time, not today."

"I understand, friend Trell." RoVijar stood, panting like an overworked hessavar. "I am leaving my cousin, Sir Das Kooliatin, as ruler of Arsudun during my ab-sence. You may deal as candidly with him as you see fit. He is unimaginative and harbors no delusions about replacing me on the throne-a trusted relative." This last was mentioned not to compliment the absent Kooliatin, but simply to forestall any idea, however faint, which the human Commissioner might enter-tain about dealing with someone other than Calonnin.

"Let's not delay your pursuit any longer, then." Trell pulled himself up, walked to stand next to the Landgrave. Round pupils met vertical ones. "The sooner this unfortunate business is concluded, the more easily I'll rest."

"I also, friend Trell." Reaching out, he wrapped one huge paw around the Commissioner's hand. Then Trell leaned forward, placed both his palms on the Landgrave's shoulders and exhaled into his face.

"My breath is your warmth. Go with the wind, friend Calonnin."

RoVijar exited, exerting monumental effort to keep from breaking into a run to escape the hothouse h.e.l.l of Trell's office for the cool breezes outside.

The Commissioner waited until the Landgrave had left the outer offices. Then he resumed his seat.

Touch-ing several switches brought out tapes and the rest of the days work. As always, he allowed himself the pleas-ure of checking several private molecular files and smil-ing at the hidden bank accounts there. They were listed under numerous names and companies, but the credit was all his. This delightful activity concluded, he pa.s.sed on to the more prosaic work of Resident Commissioner.

Calonnin would succeed in his mission. The Landgrave was a resourceful and dedicated individual, at least as greedy as Trell. He had great confidence in the native leader, in his imagination and enterprise.

But Calonnin RoVijar was entirely too imagina-tive and enterprising to be trusted with anything as lethal as modern energy weapons. Nothing like a needier to give a primitive mind delusions of grandeur.

No, RoVijar would remain far more manageable, though never exactly docile, if his methods of violent argument were restricted to lance, arrow and sword.

That was important to Trell's blueprint for the future development of Tran-ky-ky. Keep temptations from RoVijar's hands and he'd be less likely to conjure up awkward ideas. He touched a control which auto-matically imprinted his signature of approval on a re-quest for certain materials for quartermaster division, then went on to the next tape.

Trell was perfectly correct in his overall a.s.sessment of Calonnin RoVijar's qualities, but he was wrong on one crucial point. The Landgrave did not need pos-session of modern weapons to inspire grandiose delu-sions. He had plenty of those already.

As he chivaned toward the harbor and his waiting craft, RoVijar considered the details of his recent interview with the human Commissioner. If Trell would not provide him with light knives, he would obtain them somewhere else. Were there not three of the ir-resistible weapons on the persons of the humans he was going to kill? Once that disagreeable task was con-cluded, he could easily fabricate some clever story for Trell's ears to explain the disappearance of the hu-man's weapons. Trell might be suspicious, but what could he prove?

If a cub could trip over a slithering _megorph_, could not a human trip over the future? These purveyors of wealth from the sky might be rich and wise. They were not omnipotent.

*VII*

The object of Calonnin RoVijar's avaricious thoughts was at that moment nearing the equator of Tran-ky-ky. It was near noon. Ethan was studying the ice sliding past below.

No matter where they pa.s.sed, the sun always seemed to bring out hidden patterns in the ice ocean's surface. But what Ethan noticed now startled him more than any fanciful face or half-concealed monster thrown back from subsurface cracks and discolorations.

In places, a thin layer of water lay on the ice. Widely scattered puddles formed unexpected mirrors.

Once, the _Slanderscree_ shot through a depression filled with enough water to send spray flying rail-high.

Several hours later, the temperature had dropped enough for the isolated pools to freeze solid again, but the mere sight of freestanding liquid water on Tran-ky-ky was a considerable shock.

It had a much more deleterious effect on the crew. They were used to seeing running water only in their homes, after ice or snow had been melted down for drinking. Their reaction would be comparable to a human watching the ground beneath his feet begin to dissolve. It was overwhelming to learn that one's world was not indestructible.

Williams and EerMeesach moved among the jit-tery sailors, a.s.suring them that their cataclysmic spec-ulations were groundless, that there was no danger of the ice ocean melting more than a few centimeters in this one exceptionally warm place on the planetary sur-face. Regardless, Williams told them, the _Slanderscree_ would surely float.

It took him a while to explain the concept of floating.

As soon as the sun dropped a few degrees and the surface water refroze, however, even the most super-st.i.tious sailors were convinced they had nothing to fear.

Several warning cries sounded that afternoon from the lookout baskets attached to the top of each mast. Ethan rushed to the helmdeck, the nerve center of the great icerigger, to learn what was happening.

He found Tahoding yelling commands to his mates, directing the reefing of several sails. Pikapina sheets began to shrink in the forest of rigging and spars. Ethan forbore interrupting the captain when he was obviously so busy and was soon able to make out the cause of their slowing for himself.

A green thread lying across the fore horizon grew to become a ribbon, then a deep, verdant band. It stretched as far as a man could see from left to right across the ice sea. The band became a broad swatch and soon they were sliding over an ocean of green instead of white.

The ma.s.sive duralloy runners of the _Slanderscree_ left parallel grooves in the emerald-rust carpet of their wake. Sir Hunnar moved to stand alongside Ethan.

" 'Tis one of the largest fields of pikapina I have ever seen, friend Ethan. 'Twould be a good place to live, were there any high land about."

Ethan knew the adaptable, prolific plant could live anywhere it could sink its traveling roots into nutrient rich soil. The islands hereabouts might be only a centi-meter or two above the surface. Or perhaps the fields' taproots went deep through the ice to penetrate subsurface mountaintops.

In places the thick, triangular stalks tended to a deep, rich green, in others the color turned almost red or brown. Hunnar talked on about the agricultural wealth of this unexploited, icebound prairie.

He didn't use a complex collection of consonants, but instead referred to the growth by its most simple, colloquial name, for the benefit of speechpoor humans. Occasionally the pa.s.sage of the icerigger would stir up clouds of batwinged b.u.t.terfiy-like creatures, little knots of black, purple, and gray fur supported by wings seemingly too delicate to cope with Tran-ky-ky's fer-ocious winds.

Larger arboreals would then rise to pursue. These had long thin snouts, almost half the length of their bodies, which were filled to crowding with curved, pinthin teeth. Flapping membranous wings, they would swoop in among the batb.u.t.terflies, mouths moving like scythes as they snapped at their agile but tightly packed prey. Pincushion jaws nearly always emerged from the colorful moving clouds with one or two punctured prizes.

Hunnar's attention wandered to EerMeesach's more learned explanations directed at the school teacher Williams. Though diminutive and wizened by adult Tran standards, the aged native wizard still towered over his human counterpart, his white-gray fur contrasting electrically with Williams' satin black beneath his face mask.

"So we see that the pikapina's regenerative powers are so great that though it is cut today, it will have grown in behind us by this time on the morrow." The wizard gestured with a shaky paw at the tracks in the path of the ship.

"If it can regenerate so fast," asked Williams, "why doesn't it spread until it covers every square meter of ice on the planet?"

"It is not that simple, friend Williams." And EerMeesach repeated the method of pikapina growth which Ethan had come to know and marvel at.

Long burrowing roots laboriously melted or wedged their way through the ice just beneath the surface until they located a cavity, usually an ancient air bubble trapped by freezing. The root would expand there to form a thick nodule. Nutrients concentrated in such nodules-which the Tran hungered after-were difficult to locate and hard to excavate. When the nodule was rich and large enough, it would send out four, five or more new roots in quest of other cavities, while the nodule's supply of nutrients was constantly replenished from other nodules and eventually from some distant landma.s.s.

"Thus," the wizard continued, "with many nodules nearby, the pikapina can quickly reestablish it-self behind our ship, since rootpaths have already been cut through the ice here. But to expand further into new territory, it must dig new pathways for itself through the resisting ice. This is why?"

A yell from the mainmast interrupted the lecture. Ethan looked forward, to where the field of green was becoming a wall.

"Pikapedan," he murmured to himself.

Tahoding was already studying the forest through a crude but serviceable Tran telescope. "It appears to extend," he told Ethan, in response to the other's ques-tion, "as far to east and west as its tiny cousin."

He put down the gla.s.s, looked worried.

Pikapedan was the giant relative of the smaller pikapina, rising to heights of as much as ten meters.

Hunnar appeared on deck, folded his dan and skid-ded to a stop. "Weather and ice are your concern, Captain. Do what you believe best."

"Poyolavomaar is through this," Tahoding pointed out. "We do not know the extent of the field to east and west. My directions do not take detouring into account. If we try to go around, we could become hopelessly lost and never reach our destination.

"Therefore, we must try to go through." He moved forward, to the front railing of the helmdeck.

"h.e.l.lo the deck!" Acknowledgement sounded instantly from waiting mates.

Tahoding ordered additional sail put on. There was good-natured grumbling from the sailors on spar duty as the sheets they'd just recently taken in were let out again, billowing taut in the steady wind.

The _Slanderscree_ was once again traveling under full sail. She picked up speed steadily, ma.s.sively.

"What would you have ordered, good friend Ethan?"

Startled, he turned to see Elfa staring at him. He hadn't seen her come up on the helmdeck. Great search-light eyes shone down at him, competing with the sun.

"We have to go through, of course." He tried to sound as positive as Tahoding had.

"The bolder decision, but typical of you." She fa-vored him with a searing Trannish smile, then moved away to ask a question of EerMeesach before Ethan could explain that he was only agreeing with Tahoding's decision.

Ethan turned, caught Hunnar glaring morosely at him. As soon as the knight saw that his stare had been noticed he turned away, chivaning down the ramp to the main deck.

Ethan considered following him, to explain, and then decided not to. Apparently repeated protests had done nothing to mollify Hunnar's absurd jealousies. Repet.i.tion of his innocence would have no more effect than before.

A subtle jar shook the ship, forcing him to clutch at the nearest support. It felt as if the _Slanderscree_ had rammed a gigantic sponge. The sweeping panorama of green fields and blue sky had been obliterated by the columnar emerald wall now sliding past on both sides of the ship. Moving at over ninety kilometers per hour, the icerigger had struck the pikapedan forest and was grinding smoothly through it.

A glance astern showed a lengthening highway un-rolling like a ribbon, the pikapedan stalks cut off four meters above the ice by the speeding ma.s.s of the ship. Flat-sided green logs lay strewn across the stumps, fragments from the broom of a chlorophyllic colossus.

Without distant landmarks to measure by, it was difficult to estimate their speed. Ethan guessed the ship had slowed some since impact, but was still trav-eling steadily ahead at a respectable velocity.

Water and pulp spattered his survival suit, and he had to turn away to keep his vision clear. Up by the bowsprit, he knew the situation must be far worse.

It seemed incredible that the dense vegetation would give way so easily before the ship. But while the pikapedan looked more solid and treelike than its miniature relative, it was equally mushy inside, consisting mostly of water-soaked soft fibres which snapped instantly under the weight of the _Slanderscree_.