"What's the matter?" cried Green.
"On the horizon! A sail! It's shaped like a Ving sail!"
Others saw it too. The ship rang with shouts. A trumpeter blew battle
stations; Miran's voice rose above those of others as he bellowed
through a megaphone; chaos dissolved into order and purpose as
everybody went to his appointed place. The animals, children and
pregnant women were marshaled into the hold. The gun crews began
unloading barrels of powder with a crane from a hatch. Musketmen
swarmed up the rigging. The entire topmast crew tumbled aloft and
took their places. As Green was already in his, he had some leisure to
observe the whole outlay of preparations for fight. He watched Amra
hurriedly give her children a kiss, make sure they'd all gone below,
then begin tearing strips of cloth for bandages and of wadding for the
muskets. Once she looked up and waved at him before turning back to her
task. He waved back and got a severe reprimand from the top-captain for
breaking discipline.
"An extra watch for you, Green, after this is over!"
The Earthman groaned and wished that the martinet would fall off and
break every bone in his body. If he lost any more sleep...!
The day wore on as the strange ship came closer. Another sail appeared
behind it, and the crew grew even tenser. From all appearances, they
were being pursued by Vings. Vings usually went in pairs. Then there
was the shape of the sails, which were narrower at bottom than at top.
And there was the long, low, streamlined hull and the over-large wheels.
Nevertheless discipline was somewhat relaxed for a time. The pets and
children were allowed to come up, and meals were prepared by the women.
Even when the swifter craft came close enough so that the color of
the sails was seen to be scarlet, thereby confirming their suspicions
of the strangers' identity, battle stations weren't recalled. Miran
estimated that by the time the Vings were within cannon range night
would fall.
"That is what they hate and what we love," he said, pacing back and
forth, fingering his nose ring and blinking nervously his one good
eye. "It'll be an hour before the big moon comes up. Not only that, it
looks as though clouds may arise. See!" he cried to the first mate. "By
Mennirox, is that not a wisp I detect in the northeast quarter?"
"By all the gods, I believe it is!" said the mate, peering upward,
seeing nothing but clear sky, but hoping that wishing would make the
clouds come true.
"Ah, Mennirox is good to his favorite worshiper!" said Miran. "_He that
loves thee shall profit_, Book of the True Gods, Chapter Ten, Verse
Eight. And Mennirox knows I love him with compound interest!"
"Yes, that he does," said the mate. "But what is your plan?"
"As soon as the last glow of the sun disappears completely from the
horizon, so our silhouette won't be revealed, we'll swing and cut
across their direct path of advance. We know that they'll be traveling
fairly close together, hoping to catch up with us and blast us with
cross-fire. Well, we'll give them a chance, but we'll be gone before
they can seize it. We'll go right between them in the dark and fire on
both. By the time they're ready to reply we'll have slipped on by.
"And then," he whooped, slapping his fat thigh, "they'll probably
cannonade each other to flinders, each thinking the other is us! Hoo,
hoo, hoo!"
"Mennirox had better be with us," said the mate, paling. "It'll take
damn tight calculating and more than a bit of luck. We'll be going by
dead reckoning; not until we're almost on them will we see them; and if
we're headed straight at them it'll be too late to avoid a collision.
Wharoom! Smash! Boom! We're done for!"
"That's very true, but we're done for if we don't pull some trick like
that. They'll have caught us by dawn--they can outmaneuver us--and
they've more combined gunfire. And though we'll fight like grass cats
we'll go down, and you know what'll happen then. The Vings don't take
prisoners unless they're at the end of a cruise and going into port."
"We should have accepted the Duke's offer of a convoy of frigates,"
muttered the mate. "Even one would have been enough to make the odds
favor us."
"What? And lose half the profits of this voyage because we have to pay
that robber Duke for the use of his warships? Have you lost your mind,
mate?"
"If I have I'm not the only one," said the mate, turning into the wind
so his words were lost. But the helmsmen heard him and reported the
conversation later. In five minutes it was all over the ship.
"Sure, he's Greedyguts himself," the crew said. "But then, we're his
relatives; we know the value of a penny. And isn't the fat old darling
the daring one, though? Who but a captain of the Clan Effenycan would
think of such a trick, and carry it through, too? And if he's such a
money-grabber, why, then; wouldn't he be afraid to risk his vessel and
cargo, not to mention his own precious blood, not to mention the even
more precious blood of his relatives? No, Miran may be one-eyed and
big-bellied and short of temper and wind, but he's the man to hold down
the foredeck. Brother, dip me another glass from that barrel and let's
toast again the cool courage and hot avariciousness of Captain Miran,
Master Merchant."
Grazoot, the plump little harpist with the effeminate manners, took his
harp and began singing the song the Clan loved most, the story of how
they, a hill tribe, had come down to the plains a generation ago. And
how there they had crept into the windbreak of the city of Chutlzaj
and stolen a great windroller. And how they had ever since been men
of the grassy seas, of the vast flat Xurdimur, and had sailed their
stolen craft until it was destroyed in a great battle with a whole
Krinkansprunger fleet. And how they had boarded a ship of the fleet and
slain all the men and taken the women prisoners and sailed off with
the ship right through the astounded fleet. And how they had taken the
women as slaves and bred children and how the Effenycan blood was now
half Krinkansprunger and that was where they got their blue eyes. And
how the Clan now owned three big merchant ships--or had until two years
ago when the other two rolled over the green horizon during the Month
of the Oak and were never heard of again, but they'd come back some day
with strange tales and a hold brimming with jewels. And how the Clan
now sailed under that mighty, grasping, shrewd, lucky, religious man,
Miran.
Whatever else you could say about Grazoot, you could not deny that
he had a fine baritone. Green, listening to his voice rise from the
deck far below, could vision the rise and fall and rise again of these
people and could appreciate why they were so arrogant and close-fisted
and suspicious and brave. Indeed, if he had been born on this planet,
he could have wanted no finer, more romantic, gypsyish life than that
of a sailor on a windroller. Provided, that is, that he could get
plenty of sleep.
The boom of a cannon disturbed his reverie. He looked up just in time
to see the ball appear at the end of its arc and flash by him. It was
not enough to scare him, but watching it plow into the ground about
twenty feet away from the starboard steering wheel made him realize
what damage one lucky shot could do.
However, the Ving did not try again. He was a canny pirate who knew
better than to throw away ammunition. Doubtless he was hoping to panic
the merchantman into a frenzy of replies, powder-wasting and useless.
Useless because the sun set just then and in a few minutes dusk was
gone and darkness was all around them. Miran didn't even bother to
tell his men to hold their fire, since they wouldn't have dreamed of
touching off the cannon until he gave the word. Instead he repeated
that no light should be shown and that the children must go below decks
and must be kept quiet. No one was to make a noise.
Then, casting one last glance at the positions of the pursuing craft,
now rapidly dissolving into the night, he estimated the direction and
strength of the wind. It was as it had been the day they set sail, an
east wind dead astern, a good wind, pushing them along at eighteen
miles an hour.
Miran spoke in a soft voice to the first mate and the other officers,
and they disappeared into the darkness shrouding the decks. They were
giving prearranged orders, not by the customary bellowing through a
megaphone but by low voices and touches. While they directed the crew,
Miran stood with bare feet upon the foredeck. He held a half-crouching
posture, and acted as if he were detecting the moves of the invisible
sailors by the vibrations of their activities running through the wood
of the decks and the spars and the masts and up to his feet. Miran was
a fat nerve center that gathered in all the unspoken messages scattered
everywhere through the body of the _Bird_. He seemed to know exactly
what he was doing, and if he hesitated or doubted because of the solid
blackness around him, he gave the helmsmen no sign. His voice was firm.
"Hold it steady."
"... six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Now! Swing her hard aport! Hold her,
hold her!"
To Green, high up on the topmost spar of the foremast, the turning
about seemed an awful and unnatural deed. He could _feel_ the hull, and
with it his mast, of course, leaning over and over, until his senses
told him that they must inevitably capsize and send him crashing to
the ground. But his senses lied, for though he seemed to fall forever,
the time came when the journey back toward an upright position began.
Then he was sure he would keep falling the other way, forever.
Suddenly the sails fluttered. The vessel had come into the dead spot
where there was no wind acting upon her canvas. Then, as her original
impetus kept her going, the canvas boomed, seeming to his straining and
oversensitive ears like cannon firing. This time the wind was catching
her from what was for her a completely unnatural direction, from dead
ahead. As a result, the sails filled out backwards, and their middle
portions pressed against the masts.
The 'roller came almost to a stop at once. The rigging groaned, and
the masts themselves creaked loudly. Then they were bending backwards,
while the sailors clinging to them in the darkness swore under their
breaths and clamped down desperately on their handholds.
"Gods!" said Green. "What _is_ he doing?"
"Quiet!" said a nearby man, the foretop-captain. "Miran is going to run
her backwards."
Green gasped. But he made no further comment, trying to visualize what
a strange sight the _Bird of Fortune_ must be, and wishing it were
daylight so he could see her. He sympathized with the helmsmen, who
had to act against their entire training. It was a bad enough strain
for them to try to sail blindly between two vessels. But to roll in
reverse! They would have to put the helm to port when their reflexes
cried out to them to put it to starboard, and vice versa! And no doubt
Miran was aware of this and was warning them about it every few seconds.
Green began to see what was happening. By now the _Bird_ was rolling on
her former course, but at a reduced rate because the sails, bellying
against their masts, would not offer as much surface to the wind.
Therefore, the Ving vessels would by now be almost upon them, since the
merchant ship had also lost much ground in her maneuver. In one or two
minutes the Ving would overtake them, would for a short while ride side
by side with them, then would pass.
Provided, of course, that Miran had estimated correctly his speed and
rate of curve in turning. Otherwise they might even now expect a crash
from the foredeck as the bow of the Ving caught them.
"Oh, Booxotr," prayed the foretop-captain. "Steer us right, else you
lose your most devout worshiper, Miran."
Booxotr, Green recalled, was the God of Madness.
Suddenly a hand gripped Green's shoulder. It was the captain of the
foretop.
"Don't you see them!" he said softly. "They're a blacker black than the
night."
Green strained his eyes. Was it his imagination, or did he actually see
something moving to his right? And another something, the hint of a
hint, moving to his left?
Whatever it was, 'roller or illusion, Miran must have seen it also.
His voice shattered the night into a thousand pieces, and it was never
again the same.
"Cannoneers, fire!"
Suddenly it was as if fireflies had been in hiding and had swarmed out
at his command. All along the rails little lights appeared. Green was
startled, even though he knew that the punks had been concealed beneath
baskets so that the Vings would have no warning at all.
Then the fireflies became long glowing worms, as the fuses took flame.
There was a great roar, and the ship rocked. Iron demons belched flame.
No sooner done than musketry broke out like a hot rash all over the
ship. Green himself was part of this, blazing away at the vessel
momentarily and dimly revealed by the light of the cannon fire.
Darkness fell, but silence was gone. The men cheered; the decks
trembled as the big wooden trains holding the cannon were run back to
the ports from which they'd recoiled. As for the pirates, there was no
answering fire. Not at first They must have been taken completely by
surprise.
Miran shouted again; again the big guns roared.
Green, reloading his musket, found that he was bracing himself against
a tendency to lean to the right. It was a few seconds before he could
comprehend that the _Bird_ was turning in that direction even though it
was still going backwards.
"Why is he doing that?" he shouted.
"Fool, we can't roll up the sails, stop, then set sail again. We'd be
right where we started, sailing backwards. We have to turn while we
have momentum, and how better to do that than reverse our maneuver?
We'll swing around until we're headed in our original direction."
Green understood now. The Vings had passed them, therefore they were in
no danger of collision with them. And they couldn't continue sailing
backwards all night. The thing to do now would be to cut off at an
angle so that at daybreak they'd be far from the pirates.
At that moment cannonfire broke out to their left. The men aboard the
_Bird_ refrained from cheering only because of Miran's threats to
maroon them on the plain if they did anything to reveal their position.
Nevertheless they all bared their teeth in silent laughter. Crafty old
Miran had sprung his best trap. As he'd hoped, the two pirates, unaware
that their attacker was now behind them, were shooting each other.
"Let them bang away until they blow each other sky-high," chortled
the foretop-master. "Ah, Miran, what a tale we'll have to tell in the
taverns when we get to port."
14
For five minutes the intermittent flashes and bellows told that the
Vings were still hammering away. Then the dark took hold again.
Apparently the two had either recognized each other or else had decided
that night fighting was a bad business and had steered away from each
other. If this last was true, then they wouldn't be much to fear, for
one Ving wouldn't attack the merchant by itself.
The clouds broke, and the big and the little moons spread brightness
everywhere. The pirate vessels were not in sight. Nor were they seen
when dawn broke. There was sail half a mile away, but this alarmed no
one, except the untutored Green, because they recognized its shape as a
sister. It was a merchant from the nearby city of Dem, of the Dukedom
of Potzihili.
Green was glad. They could sail with it. Safety in numbers.
But no. Miran, after hailing it and finding that it also was going to
Estorya, ordered every bit of canvas crowded on in an effort to race
away from it.
"Is he crazy?" groaned Green to a sailor.
"Like a _zilmar_," replied the sailor, referring to a foxlike animal
that dwelt in the hills. "We must get to Estorya first if we would
realize the full value of our cargo."
"Utter featherbrained folly," snarled Green. "That ship doesn't carry
live fish. It can't possibly compete with us."
"No, but we've other things to sell. Besides, it's in Miran's blood. If
he saw another merchant pass him he'd come down sick."
Green threw his hands into the air and rolled his eyes in despair. Then
he went back to work. There was much to do yet before he'd be allowed
to sleep.
The days and nights passed in the hard routine of his labor and the
alarms and excursions that occasionally broke up the routine. Now and
then the gig was launched, while the 'roller was in full speed, and
it sped away under the power of its white fore-and-aft sail. It would
be loaded with hunters, who would chase a _hoober_ or deer or pygmy
hog until it became exhausted; then would shoot the tired animal. They
always brought back plenty of fresh meat. As for water, the catch-tanks
on the decks were full because it rained at least half an hour at every
noon and dusk.
Green wondered at the regularity and promptness of these showers.
The clouds would appear at twelve, it would rain for thirty to sixty
minutes, then the sky would clear again. It was all very nice, but it
was also very puzzling.
Sometimes he was allowed to try target practice from the crow's nest
on the grass cats or the huge dire dogs. These latter ran in packs of
half a dozen to twenty, and would often pace the _Bird_, howling and
growling and sometimes running between the wheels. The sailors had
quite a few tales of what they did to people who fell overboard or were
wrecked on the plains.
Green shuddered and went back to his target practice. Though he
ordinarily was against shooting animals just for the fun of it, he
had no compunction about putting a ball through these wolfish-looking
creatures. Ever since he'd been tormented by Alzo he'd hated dogs with
a passion unbecoming to a civilized man. Of course, the fact that every
canine on the planet instinctively loathed him because of his Earthman
odor and did his best to sink his teeth into him, strengthened Green's
reaction. His legs were always healing from bites of the pets aboard.
Often the 'roller would cruise through grass tall as a man's knee. Then
suddenly it would pass onto one of those tremendous lawns which seemed
so well kept. Green had never ceased puzzling about them, but all he
could get from anyone was one or more variations of the fable of the
_wuru_, the herbivore bigger than two ships put together.
One day they passed a wreck. Its burned hulk lay sideways on the
ground, and here and there bones gleamed in the sun. Green expressed
surprise that the masts, wheels and cannon were gone. He was told that
those had been taken away by the savages who roamed the plains.
"They use the wheels for their own craft, which are really nothing but
large sailing platforms, land-rafts, you might say," Amra told him. "On
these they pitch their tents and their fireplaces, and from them they
go forth to hunt. Some of them, however, disdain platforms and make
their homes upon the 'roaming islands.'"
Green smiled but said nothing about that fairy story because disbelief
excited these people, even Amra.
"You'll not see many wrecks," she continued. "Not because there aren't
many, for there are. Out of every ten 'rollers that leave for distant
breaks, you can expect only six to get back."
"That few? I'm amazed that with such a casualty ratio you could get
anybody to risk his fortune and life."
"You forget that he who comes back is many times richer than when he
sailed away. Look at Miran. He is taxed heavily at every port of call.
He is taxed even more heavily in his home port. And he has to split
with the Clansmen, though he does get a tenth of the profit of every
cargo. Despite this, he is the richest man in Quotz, richer even than
the Duke."
"Yes, but a man is a fool to take risks like these just for the
remote chance of a fortune," he protested. Then he stopped. After all,
for what other reason had the Norsemen gone to America, and Columbus
to the West Indies? Or why were so many hundreds of thousands of
Earthmen daring the perils of interstellar space? What about himself,
for instance? He'd left a stable and well-paying job on Earth as a
specialist in raising sea crops to go to Pushover, a planet of Albireo.
He'd expected to make his fortune there after two years of not-too-hard
work and then retire. If only that accident hadn't happened...!
Of course, some of the pioneers weren't driven by the profit motive.
There was such a thing as love of adventure. Not a pure love, however.
Even the most adventurous saw Eldorado gleaming somewhere in the wilds.
Greed conquered more frontiers than curiosity.
"You'd think the ruins of 'rollers would not be rare, even if these
plains are vast," said Amra, breaking in on his reflections. "But the
savages and pirates must salvage them as fast as they're made."
"Your pardon, Mother, for interrupting," said Grizquetr. "I heard
a sailor, Zoob, remark on that very thing just the other day. He
said that he once saw a 'roller that had been gutted, by pirates, he
supposed. It was three days' journey out of Yeshkayavach, the city of
quartz in the far North. He said their 'roller was a week there, then
returned on the same route. But when they came to where the wreck had
been it was gone, every bit of it. Even the bones of the dead sailors
were missing."
"And he said that that reminded him of a story his father had told
him when he was young. He said his father told him that his ship had
once almost run into a huge uncharted hole in the plain. It was big,
at least two hundred feet across, and earth had been piled up outside,
like the crater of a volcano. At first that was what they thought it
was, a volcano just beginning, even though they'd never heard of such a
thing on the Xurdimur. Then they met a ship whose men had seen the hole
made. It was caused, they said by a mighty falling star...."
"A meteor," commented Green.
"... and it had dug that great hole. Well, that was as good an
explanation as any. But the amazing thing was that when they came by
that very spot a month later, the hole was gone. It was filled up
and smoothed out, and grass was growing over it as if nothing had
ever broken the skin of the earth. Now, how do you explain that,
Foster-father?"
"There are more things in heaven and earth than ever your philosophies
dreamed of, Horatio," Green nonchalantly replied, though he felt as
though he wasn't quoting exactly right.