Floe, page 15
part #3 of Thaw Trilogy Series
After the hall was emptied of all but Council, crew, and captive, the other Old Men began to grill “Alty-Moon” about details of his shipwreck, his place of origin, the crops and products they had for trade, and other details that didn’t interest Lork all that much. He was more concerned with Attuk’s new maps, charts showing the Crevasse That Splits the World (now designated “Attuk’s Crack” to Lork’s distaste, and not only for the obscene pun), and the possible extent of Ice-End (which the captain endeavored to rename “Lork’s Cliffs” and so had Attuk inscribe on the sheepskin).
While the Old Men kept busy with Alty-Moon, Lork and Attuk conferred in a side room, under a clean-burning candle light. “Attuk, how do we get across that Crack of yours,” the captain asked. “Do you think Alty is telling the truth? Maybe he just doesn’t want us to explore beyond his ice valley, afraid we’ll find the mountaintop he came from?” Lork could not imagine any kind of civilization that could exist on that vast lake; Alty had to be from an ice port farther west.
“Cap’n,” Attuk replied, chewing on a thumbnail, “if’n he’s on the other side of the Ice Sea, then we’d have ta figger a way to drop ships down into the valley, then pull them out the other side. Three thousand feet, takes a lot o’ men, lots o’ work. But could be done.” He thought for a moment, then challenged his captain. “Why would ol’ Alty-Moon lie to us? Seems log’cal he got throwed up from the Melt Sea on that rocky shoreline, made it to the Crack, like he tole us.”
Lork was not convinced. “Do you believe in a melt-ship with a hundred men? Can you see something like that, sailing on Perdis? And it wrecks? Where are the other ninety-nine men, or their bodies? I don’t believe it!”
“’S you wish, Cap’n. I am tryin’ to scale out the sightings I done while we was down at, at ‘Lork’s Cliffs,’ and add them to my maps. You know,” he said with a wistful look in his eyes, “I’m beginning to b’lieve this whole world of ours really is a big ball. Them sightings can only be ’splained if’n we’re on a huge, I mean, real big, sphere. A world ball!”
Lork laughed aloud, saying, “Attuk, keep your maps up to date, but your ideas to yourself!” and waved goodbye as he rejoined the Council in session. Alty-Moon was still speaking. Somehow, the tall stranger’s booming voice filled him with chills. And not from the temperature, either.
19.
Before dawn the morning of their departure, Thusk boarded Una in the walled field behind the palace, where the god-machine was stored while in Mother’s City. Then he flew her over the short distance to land in the open atrium where she had rescued Thist the previous year. As before, the aircraft’s green bulk barely cleared the colonnades on either side, remaining just centimeters above the short grass.
As Una opened the access door, Thist came aboard with two large Mother’s Guards. “These men will go with us, Thusk. Just in case.” The guards took their large seats at the back of the cabin, placing their spears and swords on the floor. The smaller men sat in their scaled-down chairs in the front to discuss the plans.
Thusk thought, Landing here again, that much was easy. Now comes the hard part—getting Una to do everything else! Predictably, the god-machine’s qomp collective that was the “brain” of Una responded as its usual self, requiring Thist and Thusk to explain and justify their request to locate Captain Noor’s godsphere.
Una spoke through the Anklya-image on the forward screen in her cabin. “I will respond to your request for locating and accessing the Captain Noor godsphere. But before departing today for WaterEdge and out over the Cold Sea, you must both assure me that this information will not be used for conflict with other humans, not for planning wars or kidnappings or even just frightening other humans.”
As Thusk chuckled at Una’s reaction, his twin Thist was thinking, This machine, these immortal quantum computers, are learning too much about human behavior, almost becoming human itself. Themselves? I, too, want to minimize violence. But thinking back over the last year of rebellions in Motherland and even the one back home in The People’s Lands before those, he recognized that force must be met with force. Applied force is a fundamental element of Nature, and therefore is also an element of human nature. So we cannot seek to eliminate violence, only to direct it, to try to lessen it.
“Una, I am sure we both agree, Thusk and I, that the godsphere we seek will only be used to discover its controversial message, the one that unfortunately led to the invasion of ShadowFall.”
Thusk nodded, adding, “And to discover, if we can, the whereabouts of the priest Altamun Kech, late of WaterEdge.”
* * *
Through the seeming magic of her “radio scanning”—whatever that actually was—Una identified Captain Noor’s godsphere before Thusk had finished speaking. By chance, the crystal globe was easily located among a stack of such objects in a nearby field outside the Palace proper, where Thusk’s assistants had piled ancient artifacts taken from the vast number of tunnels and vaults below Mother’s Palace, prior to properly investigating and archiving them. With detailed directions, Thist had the guards go retrieve the godsphere and bring it back to him, which was quickly done.
Seeing that the atrium was clear of people, Thusk gave Una orders to proceed to WaterEdge while the four passengers secured themselves with belts. Through the transparent walls, below them the checkerboard pattern of red-tile roofs, white-stone buildings and houses of the capital seemed to glow in the rays of the rising sun. From the cruising altitude of a thousand meters, before them in three directions lay the flat mottled vistas of Motherland; only on the far southern horizon did low, ragged shadows give evidence of a range of hills in the distance. Much closer and to the southwest lay the Salty Sea, its rippling waters now sparkling in new light.
While gazing out at the landscape, Thist said, “In an hour Una will take us to WaterEdge. We will first stop and discuss our mission with the Kech, Awhalpa, whom I left in charge there last week. I want to see how well he is doing, and I have some questions about the rebellion that need answering before I decide what to do about reinforcing new defenses there.”
A slight acceleration, and Una headed eastward. Thusk made the walls opaque for the moment, wanting to get the full update about Captain Noor’s godsphere without distractions. The guards, seeing no requirement to remain alert, dozed off.
As Thist talked, Thusk nodded absentmindedly; he was enjoying a view of the dimming video image of the full moon near the horizon. “You know, Thist, that from the Moon you can barely make out any of our gas or oil lights here in Motherland, but from down here we can see those up there, like jewels in a necklace. Do you ever wonder why?”
Thist snorted. “Twin, I have had my hands full here on Earth, you may have noticed? What happens on the Moon doesn’t affect me, so I don’t pay any attention to it.”
“Well, yes, your wars and all of that. What I don’t understand, though, is why you stopped using the Crystal Throne after your one experience with it. You’re the first one who made contact with the Moon-girl, that Mienne.” Smiling broadly, he teased, “You made history. Thousands of years with no one talking with the Moon, and now you were the man from Earth who started it again.”
Thist made a waving motion, dismissing Thusk’s comment, and turned his attention to the sights below. As the mottled carpet of fields and forests unrolled under them, after a few minutes of silence, he said, “Look, that one time was enough for me. I felt like I was dying, being torn apart and put back together. So I was able to make contact with that Mienne girl on the Moon, so what?” He preferred not to think of the strange sensations, though they had not been totally unpleasant. That tall Moon-girl, that Mienne, she was attractive in some ways…
Thusk laughed, drawing the attention of the two Mothersmen guards who were dozing in their seats at the rear of Una’s cabin. Seeing no problem, no need for their action, they promptly returned to sleep. We don’t need you just yet, Thusk thought. Only if we have to fight pirates. Thusk said, “What you did, twin, was to get that Moon-girl to flash those Moonlights off and on during the siege of ShadowFall, showing the Mother’s awesome power to control even the Moon. That’s all!”
Thist chuckled. “Well, so I did. And so she did. But that once was enough for me. But I’m glad you are enjoying your trips Up There.”
“I enjoyed being there, but not the going to or coming back.” He could never tell Thist everything that he and Mienne had been doing on the Moon, but it had been literally “Out of this world!”
* * *
“So, back to Earth, Thusk, let’s see what that pirate left with Mother Messinex, what caused her and that damned Miran Kech to invade ShadowFall.” Thist thought, For all the death and misery it caused, Motherland is better off that the war happened. Otherwise, Pernie would not be Mother now, and I would not be her general. But why does everything in Motherland have to be decided by death? Putting those thoughts aside, he held up the godsphere globe, feeling its coolness but not seeing anything within it.
“It’s not responding to me, Thusk. You want to try it?” Typically, a receptive godsphere would light up from inside, displaying colorful and realistic miniature scenes of ancient times, occasionally with maps and three-dimensional moving pictures and sounds. And too often, Thist remembered, in languages we have not yet learned. Neither he nor anyone else to his knowledge had discovered why the ancients had left thousands of the head-sized spheres scattered all over the whole round world, as near as they could tell. One person’s touch might set them off, but not everyone could work that wonder, and just because you could light up one globe did not mean that another would work for you; most of them remained either pitch black or presented at most a swirling, milky mist.
A strange reality, Thusk thought, but there it is. Sometimes they’re useful, sometimes not. There must have been some logic behind it all, but it’s quite a mystery. He handed it over to his twin, who pushed it away.
“No, Thist, we have the same DNA, so I won’t be able to read it, either. Let’s see what Una can do.”
Una responded, “Of course I can access the information in this information sphere.” After a pause, she said, “It may be useful for you both to know that I have already downloaded all data from this and all the other informational globes in Motherland. Ask and you will receive.”
Thist gasped. “You mean you already have this godsphere’s information, and that of all of those hundreds of others out there?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You didn’t ask.”
20.
“One hundred and fifty feet, Odel,” Mox said, pointing to the top of the wooden structure rising high above her and M’ridge. “That’s as high as the timbermen will work. No farther. Too dangerous. High winds up there.”
Odel looked up to the top of the launch platform he had ordered built, the yellowish bare wood a contrast to the blue sky and white clouds behind it. Though impressively tall for anything ever built before in ShadowFall or Thessland, the tower appeared insignificant when compared to the vertical cliffs of the Dark Highlands just a quarter of a mile north of it. Those cliffs extended westward to the miles-wide Great Waterfall and beyond. To his right, the east, their dark mass was a wall that went on for hundreds of miles, right into the horizon. Unexplored territory, Odel thought. And this little valley, with its forest, has walls two thousand feet high, the lowest spot my scouts could find.
Odel sighed and looked down at his mate and said, “Mox, if that’s all they will do, so be it. I don’t want anybody risking their lives for me. I was able to fly my boosted tri-wing over two thousand feet from a tower half that size. The only thing that concerns me is the wind. It seems to roar down from the highlands at times, but sweeps upward other times.”
Mox replied, pointing toward separated piles of timber remnants and brush arranged in a line a quarter mile on each side of the launch tower parallel to the cliffs beyond. “I’ve got crews ready to build bonfires and maintain them,” she said. “We will keep records of the smoke direction at the different times of day, and see which way the winds blow and when. You can judge then when to fly.”
Odel nodded. “Brilliant, Mox.” He said. He thought, You little people are the most imaginative folks I have ever met. Does that creativity come from surviving locked in by glaciers for thousands of years? He knew he’d never know the answer to that. Maybe I should have asked that Una machine of Thist’s and Thusk’s?
“Tomorrow, then,” Odel said. “Let’s watch that smoke all day today and tonight, and then I will decide when to go.” Returning to the crude construction hut he and Mox had occupied for the last week, Odel checked the spindle on which he had rewrapped the yard-wide godscloth material. “This measures roughly two miles in length, plenty long enough,” he said aloud as Mox listened. “When I make it to the top, I will wrap the line around a sturdy tree or rock and drop this line down. Then I can haul up the pulley system. This bright yellow weight on the end weighs a lot more than all the godscloth itself, but is needed so the stuff doesn’t blow away and you all can see it when it comes down.
“Then I will attach the pulley system to the anchor end up there, and drop the other end of the line down. Using that system, we can have an elevator system. One crew using their ox pulls on one end, raising up the cage full of people or supplies on the other end.”
Mox nodded, “So those who won’t be going with us, they will be the last crew pulling up the cage for the others to leave?”
“Could be. Or maybe, if everyone wants to go, we pull up both the lines to the top and abandon this place. We would need to take all the godscloth with us. Too valuable to leave down here.”
* * *
As the sun rose the next morning, Odel and his people watched the smoke rising from Mox’s line of bonfires, the pungent evergreen fumes being swept by the heating ground below in vaporous sheets, wafting northward and smoothing themselves against the cliff face. “That’s what I wanted to see, folks. I can rise on that column of warm air, then back off a bit to get clear of the cliffs and fire my boosters. That ought to get me high enough to get over the top.”
To the cheers of the bystanders, he picked up Mox and kissed her. “Tomorrow, everybody, tomorrow we begin our journey out of these lowlands and up, up to a new life there!”
Through the rest of the day, he and Mox and others supervised the loading of weapons, tools, provisions, and miscellaneous materiel onto skids. The metal elevator cage, twelve feet square, stood nine feet high, with loops of iron through which the godscloth would be run and secured. Odel would take no tools with him for the first flight, minimizing the weight his tri-wing would have to support; tools and construction materials would be lifted up afterwards. He knew that he would have to construct some kind of cantilever system to hang out over the cliff so that the cage would not be bashed against the vertical rock face while being raised and lowered. A sketch to his timber chief described a simple configuration that could be lifted up in the first load before the cage could be used.
“Odel, you’ve got a lot of responsibility on you,” Mox said that night in bed. “Please don’t get hurt tomorrow. We can’t do this without you. And I would rather stay here and take our chances against the Originals than have you killed trying to get us away.”
“Not to worry, hon,” he replied. “We’ll do it. All of us.”
* * *
The next morning found Odel’s tri-wing spinning out of control, dangerously close to being smashed against the cliff face. “Damn, maybe I shouldn’t have done this!” he cursed, as his craft jerked around crazily, nearly a thousand feet above the valley floor. “Damn booster didn’t light. I’ve got to gain altitude or get killed!”
Below him, hundreds of Thesslanders watched in horror as their leader seemed to be caught in a vortex, spiraling upward. “But not high enough,” Mox wailed. “Fire your next rocket, Odel!”
Swinging his left arm out to a strut holding the second booster rocket, Odel touched its fuse with a firestick. With a satisfying roar, the arm-length cylinder spewed out sparks, then flames, and the tri-wing glider accelerated. Blowing out a breath of relief, Odel quickly pulled levers that allowed the craft to rise almost vertically, to the cheers of the crowd below. As he saw the top of the Dark Highlands in the distance, Odel turned his tri-wing northward, staying above the ground surface there, then gradually descending to earth several hundred feet in, away from the cliff edge. “I made it,” he breathed. “Now comes the hard part.”
* * *
Five days later, Odel, Mox, and their closest colleagues rested in the shade of large oaks in their newfound campsite a mile inland from the edge of the Dark Highlands cliffs. Breezes rustled the yellowing leaves, bringing with them the welcome scent of grasses and flowers. Standing before the circle of reclining people, Odel said, “Folks, we’ve got this far pretty fast. Everybody who is coming with us is now here. Mox, how many?”
The little woman said, “Eight hundred or so up here now, big and small.” She smiled; more big people than she and Odel had suspected had joined them, nearly a hundred in all. “And I estimate an equal number stayed behind in Thessland.”
Odel frowned. “I do hope they do find peace and security down there.” Waving toward the north, he said, “We have neither yet, but there’s a lot of unoccupied lands between here and God’s Country. Anybody wants to stay in this area is free to do so. I plan to return to my land in God’s Country and settle down again. I have a quarry there. And even there, you can get land grants for farming and such. We will leave a noticeable stone pile or tree markings every few miles along the way as we go, if anyone wants to follow us later.” He picked up a handful of fallen leaves. “It is getting to be fall now, so we need to make plans. Those staying here need to prepare for winter. Those of us going north have to make sleds or carts to carry our provisions and tools. So let’s get to it right away.”
