Floe, page 34
part #3 of Thaw Trilogy Series
“Una,” Thist said with a lump in his throat, “again, I want you to remain closed and sealed and unresponsive to anyone else except Wakan, until I return. In truth, though, I may never see you again. Farewell, friend.”
“Thist, farewell and good luck.” Thist could have sworn that the god-machine was feeling sad as well.
Outside the green cylinder, Thist stood and looked over the fuselage, noting that the black ovoid over the White Pilot was tilting back. The mannequin swiveled to face Thist and Wakan, hesitated for a minute, then returned to its original position. The black ovoid shut tight.
Thist laughed, “I thought he was going to say something. You know, Wakan, at times I had the feeling that Una and the White Pilot there were two different creatures, but I believe he is just a face she puts on for intimidating people.”
“I’ll ask her about that, Thist. I do plan to come back to visit her privately from time to time; there is so much knowledge I want to review. And perhaps to talk with Thusk?”
“I’m taking this godsphere with me in my saddlebags, Wakan. Let him know I have it. I don’t want him to know yet that I am giving up on Pernie and Motherland, and leaving you here alone. But I don’t like what I have become, what I have done. Worse, what I might do if I have to fight Lork. I just don’t want my twin to know I have changed so much for the worse, probably more than he has.” He laughed at that image. But Thusk’s change—a new body!—is out there for the whole world—worlds—to see, where my scars and crimes are concealed within me, only for me to have to endure, all alone.
“Wakan,” Thist said as he raised himself onto the saddle of his emu, “you have been more than a friend, more than a colleague, to me.” Shaking the priest’s hand, he said, “You are like the third twin of us. That’s all I can say. Good luck to you. And Motherland. And, and, to Pernie.” He patted his saddlebags, made fast his springbow, quiver, and shortsword.
As shadows blanketed the courtyard, Thist removed the emu’s head covering and lightly pulled back on the reins, signaling the bird to begin its trot. Wakan Kech watched with grim resolve as his dearest friend and closest companion disappeared northward into mist and darkness.
49.
The messenger boy ran into Altamun Kech’s office, out of breath. “A mirror message for you, Sire,” he gasped out. “Emergency level.” Tipping the boy with a coin, Altamun opened the sealed, folded paper and read: “The wolf runs. Feed him well.” Sighing, the Kech shredded the message and began preparing the reception as ordered. Wakan has so ordered, and I have no choice, he thought. I only pray that our Mother never hears of this.
Altamun recalled his last night at Mother’s Palace, when Wakan had taken him aside after the dinner to celebrate Thist’s and Thusk’s return and Lork’s rescue of them. The pirate’s presentation to the Mother and her embarrassing response to him was the gossip of the evening.
“Altamun,” Wakan had said that night, “I want you to be ready to act for me, should the occasion require. It will involve possible danger, but with great reward. Are you interested?”
“Wakan, you are the superior Kech in Motherland. We all owe our lives to you, you who saved us from Creesile’s castrations or death. I am yours to command, sir.” After which Wakan told him of the possible murder of the pirate chief and of his companions, if need be.
“I have overheard their conversations and I do not trust that Lork. He is a schemer and will betray Pernie and Motherland at some point. Eventually, he will leave here and will sail away. I do not want him to return. Ensure you can harvest and distill the juice of the tawa puncha poison plant that only we Kech cultivate, Altamun. It must be administered before his ship leaves to sail. His death must occur at sea.”
Altamun nodded. “Sir, I will do whatever you believe that Motherland needs. Er, you mentioned ‘rewards’?” The Kech was conflicted, trying to assess his loyalties. He thought, Lork rescued me from that crevasse valley, so I owe him a debt. But my countryman, Wakan, saved me from death or mutilation, so I owe him even more. Besides, I have learned from all of these high-ranking men that I must look out for myself.
Wakan said, “As soon as I can arrange it, Interim Administrator Awhalpa Kech will be reassigned elsewhere. Then you will be promoted to the full rank of Director of the Council for the Republic of WaterEdge. And as such, you will control the harbor and the new vessels that our Mother plans to build there. There will be major income possibilities from trading with all the islands that General Thist has discovered out in the Cold Sea. And you will reap a portion of the benefits.”
I will do it, Altamun decided. “As you wish, sir. I will await your message.”
* * *
And so the time has come, as Wakan predicted, Altamun thought, reviewing what he had committed to do. As he promised, I am Director of WaterEdge and am doing quite well, what with all the shipbuilding going on, for the new navy. But now, instead of just being a lone pirate I have to kill, Lork is Commander in Chief and Admiral of the Motherland Navy. And if the gossip is true, he is the favorite of Mother Pernie as well. But Wakan has not modified his directions since that night months ago, so I will do as he commands. For a task of this import, with this risk, my reward is commensurate, not as extravagant as I had first thought. I will earn it.
Thinking of the effects of the four-day poison to be injected into the admiral’s food for him to eat before departing WaterEdge, Altamun was glad he would not be on Lork’s ship to witness the pirate’s death throes. But those dark and disturbing scenes were overshadowed by a brighter one, the vision of becoming even richer and more powerful as the Republic of WaterEdge thrived. Life is ironic, he thought. One pirate kidnapped me but then disappeared at sea, probably dead. Another pirate rescued me, but killing him will make me richer. With a sardonic grin, he thought, There’s something to be said about dead pirates!
* * *
The day of departure dawned over WaterEdge, the rising sun spreading its light over the harbor where two dozen new seagoing ships were raising their bright white sails, ready to catch the rising winds and an outgoing tide. Amidst the raucous calls of darting seabirds in the clear blue sky, Admiral Lork and First Mate Attuk sat in a longboat as it neared his flagship, Sea God. As the crew lowered a standing elevator platform to retrieve the Admiral, Lork smiled broadly, waving at the captains of the other ships, enjoying the salt smell brought in by mild breezes just beginning to arrive from the west. “A fine day, Attuk!” he shouted to his first mate.
“Aye, aye, Cap’n, er, I means Admiral, sir,” Attuk replied with a laugh. “It ain’t ice, but we’s been training on this melt—water—a lot these months. We’s ready.”
As Lork was piped aboard by a crewman, Kleete approached, saluted formally and led him to the gunpowder cylinder. “Four of these babies on each ship, Admiral. Ready to blast Hel out of anything.” In a quiet voice, he said, “Would sure like to whip up on that Dvora fortress you talked about, if we ever get back up on the Ice Sea.”
Lork whispered back, “That’s in the plan, Kleete.” I do plan to return to Stonehaven after we take these islands, he thought. I will bring Pernie more conquests than she ever expected. And settle a few scores back home, too. “But first let’s do these melt-sea islands. Then after that you can start figuring out a way to get this whole fleet up two or three thousand feet and convert them to ice ships.” Kleete nodded and laughed, saluting again.
Lork made his way to the poop deck, satisfied to see all his fleet now flying the Motherland Navy flags, a bright blue field overlaid with a golden sunburst. “Give the command, Attuk, get us underway!”
With a blast of crank-powered air horns, the first mate sounded the “raise anchors” command and the first excursion of the Motherland Navy fleet rode the tide outward to raid their first victims.
As he watched the ships disappear over the horizon, Altamun Kech gave a note to be delivered by a messenger boy to the mirror-men atop the local Wakan’s Tower. It read, “The wolf has left. Well fed.”
* * *
Four days out of WaterEdge, Admiral Lork and First Mate Attuk were inspecting an unrolled paper map on the large wooden table in Lork’s quarters. “We should be coming up on the first island any day now,” the Admiral said, munching on a sweet fruit brought up from the galley. “Have all lookouts on alert, and report to me as soon as land is sighted.” Pointing to the drawing of a large city and its harbor, he said, “Attuk, we will stand off and bombard the big ships at their docks first. That will prevent anybody from sailing out to fight us. If that city has catapults or gunpowder cylinders of their own, as the dwarf Thist expected, they will shoot back at us. From their misses—or hits—we can judge how close to get, and what locations to fire at. What do you think?”
Attuk’s grizzled face reflected some doubt. “Admiral, sir, I ain’t thought it through like you. All I know is the catapults that the drunk Duke of Dvora used against us. These other weapons, I don’t know. Lots different from back at Stonehaven even though we been training on them. Actually, from what our Motherland recruits been tellin’ me, that little General Thist of theirs, he’s the one who could advise you, not me.”
Lork said without humor, “Attuk, old friend, don’t make me laugh. That little dwarf is a joke. Besides that, he and that Wakan Kech are not even alive now. I don’t want to hear his name again, y’hear? Either one of them.”
Attuk frowned, nodded, saluted, and proceeded out the door to relay orders to the fleet by semaphore mirrors. As his first mate shut the door to his cabin, Admiral Lork felt a strange twinge in his bowels. Sitting down in his captain’s chair, he felt another twinge, this one quite painful, in his left arm, a terrible burning sensation that sped up his arm, to his chin. As consciousness began to fade, he tried to stand but fell forward on the planning table, slamming his head and spreading the battle plans across the floor. Falling onto the floor, his nose broken, he was aware enough that the pain in his guts was unbearable. As his eyes darkened, he felt burning bile erupting up his esophagus and into his mouth, As hot as lava from Hillmork, the unfunny thought flashed. With the little remaining energy he had, with every nerve ending in his body now shouting its pain, his sight dimming to darkness, Lork struggled to scream. Though no sound came, his brain roared in agony in dark, shrieking silence.
The pain did not diminish for four days, an excruciating eternity that left Lork a gibbering, drooling, and trembling nonentity, the woeful object of his crew’s shock and pity, before welcome Death stilled him and ended his journey into Hel.
* * *
First Mate Attuk saluted as the flag-draped body of the late Admiral Lork of the Motherland Navy, slipped over the side of Sea God and into the blue-water depths of the Cold Sea. “Farewell, Cap’n,” Attuk said with tears in his eyes. “I wish we could’ve took you home, but there wasn’t no way.” He didn’t say, You were already rotting from the inside out, putrid mush in front of our eyes, even before you died. Putting back on his seaman’s cap, he turned to Zeerance Kleete and the rest of the assembled crew.
“What do we do now, boys? After our Cap’n, our Admiral, took sick, we called off the attack on that island over there”—he pointed toward a dark slump on the southern horizon—“but without no orders now that he is gone, we needs to decide something. We got two dozen ships, two thousand men to keep fed and watered, and nowhere to go. What say you, Chief Engineer? You was closest to him, these last months.”
Kleete stepped up and stood beside Attuk, removing his cap and bowing in respect to the ships’ captains assembled in the front row. “The way I see it is, one, we can all return to WaterEdge and still be the Motherland Navy. I don’t know how that Mother Pernie will react, especially since our late Admiral was her favorite…in many ways.” He ignored the ensuing laughter and crude remarks. Some of the men on the deck were nodding their acceptance of that choice, but by no means all. He could tell that they had all thought of other options, as had he.
“Another choice is to try and do the raids we came here to do, starting with that place over there. But—a big but, if you ask me—nobody in this fleet has the experience in planning and executing raids like our Admiral Lork did. Some of you were iceboat captains, but always under Lork’s command, am I right? He planned the attacks and led them?” Murmurs swept through the men, but Kleete didn’t see much acceptance in their mood.
Hearing no objections or suggestions from the captains or crews, Kleete went on. “Third, we can try to find those Lordship Islands where that pirate Noor was from, and offer them our ships and ourselves, our service, and resettle there in return for citizenship. From the reports of General Thist that I read in Mother’s Palace, it is a warm and friendly place.” Kleete saw some more interest in the crowd, but nothing unanimous yet. “And yes, they are pirates, but democratic and tolerant. As ice pirates ourselves, we ought to get along with them.” Kleete saw more and more support for this course of action evident among the listeners.
Attuk spoke up then, his stretched-arm stance presenting his argument even before he spoke. “A fourth choice, mates, and my choice—is, we go home, us from the Ice Sea. We take some ships and some gunpowder cylinders, and we get back up on The Ice. With what we got here, we can rule ever’thing on The Ice—all the towns, all of Na Saam. Nobody can whip us; we can bombard them to Hel! Even that drunk Duke of Dvora!”
Hearing a few cheers for Attuk’s choice, Kleete had him assemble all the captains in Lork’s cabin for a vote. Unsurprisingly, a fifth choice was suggested, namely that each ship would become its own pirate vessel, its crew taking immediate possession. “To go raiding on our own, Attuk,” those captains said. “Let us find our own way, our own places to raid or to live or settle down.”
After a full day of wrangling, the fleet disbanded. Attuk and Kleete, with one ship, one crew, departed for Attuk’s Crack and the Ice Sea, mainly Na Saamese crewmen returning to Stonehaven, men who had accompanied Lork’s rescue operation from Stonehaven to WaterEdge. A dozen other crews opted to go to Noorstown and ask for assimilation and service there. Seven ships wanted to explore farther out into the Cold Sea for other lands. “Gotta be warmer places than even Motherland,” was their consensus. “We got nothing in Motherland.” “We’re glad to get away, maybe find a better place to live.” “Gotta be women out there somewhere, right?”
In all, after the provisions were shared, the crews self-selected, and the goodbyes said, only four ships returned to WaterEdge, all of the crews original citizens from across Motherland, men who did not want to abandon their home country or families. Few had expressed any loyalty to their country, and none at all to Mother Pernie, a fact that the departing Zeerance Kleete found disturbing, if revealing. He said as much to Attuk as they sailed to the northeast and the Ice Sea: “Here Motherland paid for this huge fleet, all the weapons I built, and the training and supplies for two thousand men, but very few here even cared enough for their country or their Mother Pernie to return home. Says something about those people and their culture, doesn’t it?” But a happy and excited now-Captain Attuk was paying no attention to his engineer’s mutterings; the wind in his face, the flap of the sails, and the wide open expanse of blue sea were demanding all his attention.
* * *
When Altamun Kech received news of the sighting of the ships returning, only four of them, after just two weeks, he knew the poison had worked, but feared that Wakan had not anticipated the results. How had they lost twenty ships? Who would account for that enormous lost investment? More importantly—who would be blamed? Immediately he sent word to the harbor that only the captains of those returning ships would set foot on the docks, and there await his presence without speaking to anyone.
When Altamun arrived, four bedraggled sailors stood before him, men who looked as though they were already condemned to the stake or worse. The Kech took the captains out of earshot of their crewmen in the boats and of his own guards. “Captains all,” he said with a bow toward them, “it is so unfortunate that only your four crews survived that terrible storm at sea. Isn’t it?” Staring at each sailor in turn, he saw expressions of confusion, then resistance, and finally grins of acceptance, relief that they were being given a chance to avoid blame and Pernie’s notorious wrath. None of them asked their Kech director why.
“Aye, aye, Director, sir!” each man said. Followed by excited sighs of relief. “’Twere a huge storm!” “High waves you wouldn’t believe!” “Tore off sails, capsized them ships!” “We was lucky to escape and sorrowful to lose so many brave sailors!”
Altamun smiled and shook hands with each captain. “I trust that each man of your crews will learn by heart the misadventure you all suffered out there. Should I ever hear of any other tales told, no matter how long from now, you captains will be set up high on the sharpened masts of your ships, for all the world to see. Understood? Now, decide upon your story together, here and now. Then return and educate your crews. Tell them that if any one man brings it upon himself to misinterpret the true tale you report to me, all of your crews will meet also meet a sharp end. I expect your written reports yet today. In a few days you and your crews will be awarded substantial bonuses for your patriotic actions. Good day, sailors of the Motherland Navy. Thank you for your heroism.” With that, Altamun turned on his heel, summoned his guards, and returned to his office.
After the crews had disembarked and the captains reported to him officially with four written accounts remarkable in their consistency, Altamun crafted what he realized would be the most important message of his life. It may mean my life, he realized as he wrote, or my death. His first mirror message was to Wakan Kech: “Pack returned. As planned. But 20 pups lost.”
