As she stood in amazement, Blan first saw flashing lights like the ones she had seen in the walls of the cavern she had found beneath her home. These lights were very faint, though. Then she saw that the ceiling above was slightly illuminated otherwise than by the reflection of the flashing lights alone. She studied the ceiling and soon understood that daylight was finding its way through; only through patches of the floor of the upper chamber which were not still covered by loose boards of skyhull. Then she noticed the outline of a hatchway in the ceiling. Clearly there was a way up which she had not noticed from the upper chamber.
She studied the flashing lights for a while. It seemed that the inside of the hull extruded a multitude of filaments which joined dozens of crystal clusters suspended inside the chamber. The faint, flashing lights appeared to be coming from these filaments and sometimes from crystal clusters. It reminded her of drawings she had seen of the brain, except that here there was a multitude of brains made of crystalline material which were each interlinked and also linked to the hull by a nervous system of crystalline filaments.
There were sheets of some shiny material on the ground. Blan picked some up. They were extremely thin and bent easily. Not knowing quite what she was going to achieve, she picked up a bundle of them, bent them in a curve to keep them from flopping over and used them to push up on the outline of the hatch above.
She pushed twice to no effect. Then, with the third push, she heard a faint click and her hopes rose. She pushed harder.
Instead of moving upward or, worse, not budging at all, the hatch unexpectedly fell downward and expanded into a staircase. Blan had to be careful to dodge the crystal clusters and filaments behind her as she writhed away from the descending stairs. She then ran up and proudly announced her exit to a cheering crowd, including some good-natured whimpers and hoots from the watching orbears.
With plenty of light now coming through the staircase, Blan spent the rest of the daylight hours examining the crystalline structures in the lower chamber. Telko helped her as best he could, mainly to hold the lenses and other tools she had brought from Nantport, while she worked with one or another of them.
It was the short man, Pelembras, who made one of the most useful discoveries. A master shipwright, he had been asked to examine the sky ship’s structure. Partly by purposeful probing and partly by accident he managed to detach one of the brains from the filaments to which it was connected. The faint, flashing lights in it faded and then ceased. When he managed to reattach it the flashing lights started up again. After that, Blan detached several of the brains and left them on the ground for further study next morning.
Seemingly with no objection from the orbears, the company of humans set up camp near the thicket of trees and watched stars come alight in the opening high above. All of them wondered in amazement at what they had seen that day. Blan was also thinking in more concrete terms about her plans for the next day. However, in the engine room of her mind beyond conscious thought, the seeds of great discoveries were germinating.
19
Panners Island – 29th September
Arnapa had been anxious to make contact with Nightsight, so she set off downstream as soon as everything except one canoe had been brought past the rapids. She did not wait for Telko and Blan; she left two men with a canoe waiting for them near the bottom of the rapids.
Her team made rapid progress down Panners Stream. She had been delighted that Telko had chosen people who were all competent in the use of canoes. This was not surprising as they were an elite force, the best mariners from his flagship which had been manned by the best mariners from his entire maritime principality, and many of them experienced commandos.
While Blan and Telko were setting up their camp in the orbears’ cavern, Arnapa set up camp on the river island two miles from Austra Castle. The island’s historical name was Prospectors’ Rest. Nobody remembered that, so the few travellers who still came that way simply called it Panners Island.
Arnapa sent four scouts downstream in two canoes to check whether the mouth of Panners Stream was clear of enemy troops and spies. The first two scouts returned before midnight.
“We reached the mouth of the river and saw two quimals anchored close to shore,” one scout reported. “We got out of sight and watched for a while. Then we saw thirty dragon boats, each carrying twenty soldiers armed with crossbows. They were coming from the direction of the castle and they appeared to be turning to shore and heading for the mouth of this river. My partner and I left immediately to report back to you. Our two comrades stayed behind to see if the flotilla entered the river.”
After no more than five minutes the other canoe came into view. As soon as the water was shallow enough both canoeists jumped out. The older man drew the canoe to shore while the younger one ran to Arnapa and blurted out his report.
“We waited to see the first dragon boat hauled into Panners Stream. The others were lining up along the shore to follow. My guess is that all thirty are heading this way as we speak. It would have delayed them getting through the constricted river mouth. Nevertheless, I estimate that the first boats will arrive here in less than an hour.”
“We can’t risk everything by waiting to fight six hundred crossbowmen,” Arnapa decided, “nor do we have time to hide our canoes and equipment, and we can’t allow the enemy to find them.”
“We are willing to stand and fight if you wish,” one high-ranking Akrinan offered. “We can hold them off at the downstream end of this island. However, if they bypass us through the jungle and get behind us, then we are in great trouble, being so heavily outnumbered. I agree with you that it would be wise to avoid a battle. Perhaps we can divert the enemy.”
“Thank you, Admiral Wayhooay. You are right. We must leave here by foot. Take only weapons and enough food and water for two days. We must draw the enemy away from our camp and hence from Telko and Blan.”
“Should we send warning to the prince?” another Akrinan asked.
“He will be alert to the possibility of attack from any direction, so a messenger could only give emphasis to one danger whilst another might be greater,” Wayhooay replied. “We should not put messengers at risk until we know enough to cause our prince to divert from his chosen path. If I understand correctly, he has little choice but to use the river if he is to reach us with the materials that Blancapaw has promised and which are vital to our attack on the castle. If we can divert the enemy’s approach, the prince will see all this.” He gestured toward the rows of canoes and the baggage strewn around.
“Our abandoned camp will have to be our message to Telko and Blan,” Arnapa concurred. “So, let’s go!” She slung a small sack over her shoulder, picked up a short bow, checked that her knife and quiver of arrows were secure, and set off at a fast walk.
Wayhooay immediately issued orders to the Akrinans. For weapons, most of them had only bows, arrows, and knives; except that two of the strongest men each carried one of Kem’s smaller bombs on his back. Zeep took two pigeons with her; she released all the others and hoped that their arrival in Proequa without messages would not cause undue alarm. There was no time to make out a message now; and she would not risk leaving the birds on the island, confined in their baskets, for jungle creatures to attack.
The whole party jogged across the island, the last ten covering all the tracks as best they could in such a hurry. They swam the river and pushed through the jungle to the highway, really a broad dirt track with two pairs of wheel ruts, one for each direction. They ran along the highway until a scout reported travellers ahead. They then moved back into the jungle toward Panners Stream. Thirty minutes after they had left Panners Island, they found cover along the top of the river bank and watched the slow approach of the first two dragon boats.
The ambush was short and sharp. While the Akrinan bowmen let loose a hail of arrows into the leading boats, the two bomb carriers, despite the difficulties of hurling heavy objects through a barely adequate opening in thick jungle vegetation, each managed t
o ignite their load and lob it into their allocated vessel.
Each of the bombs shattered the timbers of its target. The boats took water quickly and sank mid-stream. Their crew had avoided serious injury by jumping into the water as soon as they saw the flaming bombs lobbed at them. They had all heard the horror stories about the two rebel ships which had used a dangerous new type of bomb to escape to the west several weeks ago.
Satisfied that her first objective had been achieved, to block Panners Stream from the other dragon boats, Arnapa whistled the signal for retreat. It was not long before she was satisfied that her second objective had been achieved, for the time being at least. The enemy soldiers had abandoned their expedition upstream and were concentrating their efforts on finding the perpetrators of the ambush. The crews who had jumped into the water to save themselves were already wading downstream to alert the dragon boat crews behind them.
“I fear we have lost the element of surprise,” Arnapa complained to Zeep when the herald finally caught up with her. “Instead of joining up with Nightsight and making a surprise attack on Austra Castle, we must now fight a guerrilla war against vastly superior forces: six hundred enemy soldiers from the dragon boats; reinforcements from the quimals and from the castle; and goodness knows how many from contingents guarding the towns and ports.”
“You are being too pessimistic,” Zeep soothed. “The enemy may yet believe we are just a small band of outlaws, or a shore party landed along the coast by Azimath weeks ago. They have no reason to know our numbers or to believe that we plan an audacious attack on Austra Castle.”
“Again you comfort me, Zeep. It’s not like me to feel that things are so far beyond my control. I have been feeling on edge since we left Pitpet Brook rapids, as though some terrible tragedy awaits us. I must calm myself, so I can concentrate on our immediate predicament.”
Arnapa’s party trudged slowly toward Austra Castle. They were spread out in pairs, more or less parallel with the highway. They kept under cover of the jungle, except on one occasion when they came very close to the highway and found the opportunity to attack a stray party of ten enemy soldiers. They let the soldiers escape to report the attack, hoping that this would help draw enemy forces away from the abandoned camp.
Hot, exhausted, and plagued by all kinds of jungle insects, Arnapa halted as dawn started to come into the sky. She could hardly remember being as anxious as now, nor as uncomfortable.
Seeing the worry on Arnapa’s face, Zeep gently took her arm and said, “If this is how it ends, then I could not wish for better company or a more worthy cause.” This did not ease Arnapa’s worries, but it did lighten her mood.
20
Pitpet Brook – 30th September
Blan had stayed under the sky ship until after dark to watch the flashing lights fade and then go out. Now she rose before dawn and went there again to see if the clusters and filaments started to light up again when the sun came up. They did.
“See, the activity gains strength as the light grows outside,” she confirmed to Telko who had followed her there. They had waited there for the dawn to come and made use of the time to be alone together.
“I took away a roll of skysheet when I last visited this place. When it is unrolled in the sunlight it absorbs energy and becomes exceedingly hot; on the one side only. My guess is that the skin, what I call skysheet, covering the outside of this ship absorbs the light of the sun and feeds it through these filaments to the crystal brains suspended in here. That is where the ship gets its energy and why, in the low light of this cavern, it has lain dormant since the Visitors left it here.”
“Why did they not finish their ship and use it?” Telko asked.
Blan thought for a moment before replying.
“Maybe there was something missing and it would not fly. The design of the mechanism inside the skyhull and the crystal brains must have been very complex and difficult to get just right. Or maybe the Visitors died out before they had the opportunity to use it. I doubt if it’s the same craft that they used to land on Earth. I would expect that to be much larger. Perhaps this was for an attempt to escape Earth.”
Blan and Telko rolled away from each other to get up. Telko inadvertently rolled into one of the crystal clusters they had detached and placed on the ground.
“Ouch! This is sharp. I’m sure there was no sharp edge on it when we put it here.”
Blan carefully grasped the crystal cluster in both hands and lifted it. It was heavy. She deduced that the weight of the brains had made the sky ship heavier to lift than she and the shipwrights had estimated.
“Crystal filaments have grown out from the cluster overnight,” Blan said excitedly. “See, tiny, sharp crystals have grown from the sides and from underneath.” She pulled the cluster carefully up to reveal a longer filament like the root of a small plant that seemed to have grown into the ground overnight. She drew it out of the ground and saw that it was five fingers long and already had other filaments starting to grow out along its length.
“Let’s push that staircase back up for a while and have a closer look at the flashing lights without too much outside light,” Blan suggested.
After Telko pushed the stair up, the flashing light in the crystal clusters became more easily visible. However, what amazed them both was that the crystal clusters lying on the ground were now also flashing more strongly than the ones attached to the inside of the sky ship.
“Just like the Communicor,” Blan sighed as the revelation struck her. “The crystals can draw ground lightning from Earth. The energy drawn by my skysheet from the sun, the ground lightning that feeds the Communicors and these crystal clusters, and the metal lightning I make from my water mill are all the same fluid charge that attracts or repels. There, I guess, is the source also of what Praalis calls the Separation, and it can be the foundation of many useful things we might make someday, even sky ships like this one. Oh, Telko, I am so excited about this I can hardly think.”
“I don’t understand precisely what you mean, Blan, but I doubt if anything will stop you thinking. However, I do understand that these crystal clusters or brains, as you call them, suggest the existence of a power that you believe can be usefully mastered. I’ve seen the evidence for myself. I can’t think exactly how one might employ this power, but I am confident that it can be done and that you are the one who can discover how to do it.” He was impressed and excited by how Blan glowed with pleasure and enthusiasm as she bathed in the joy of an important new discovery. He was not jealous of her at all. If anything, he was just a bit jealous of science itself, as he knew he must share her with it.
With the help of the shipwright, Pelembras, they carried the five crystal clusters that had been detached and left on the ground overnight up the staircase and then to the campsite.
“My lady,” Pelembras said with a big smile on his face, “in my spare time I have become a fairly skilled potter, if I say so myself, and I would be delighted if you would permit me to make a special plate for you and inscribe on it the thanks of the people of Akrin for the honour you have brought to us and for the happiness you have brought to our prince.”
Blan froze. For a moment Pelembras blushed as he wondered if he had said something wrong. Suddenly Blan put her arms around him and drew him in against her. Again his face was pressed against her breasts. His good wife, whom he loved dearly, often did this very thing with him. As she was a woman of extremely generous dimensions all round, the experience was somewhat like being buried alive in comfort with the prospect of resurrection. Against Blan’s firm young body the sensation was quite different. Pelembras smiled broadly at the younger men looking on in awe as he was released. His regard for Blan was driven by his avuncular nature and protective instinct, but he guessed that the younger men would be envious of him for other reasons. Let them dream, he thought. He had promised Telko’s father that he would look out for Telko as best he could. Now he promised himself that he would also look out for Blan, should she ever need h
elp and should he be in a position to give it.
“Plates!” Blan sang as everyone wondered what she was talking about. “Thank you so much Pelembras for reminding me!”
Blan ran back to the sky ship with a bemused Telko running after her. She almost leapt across the gangway and down the staircase. She grasped the bundle of material she had used to push the roof hatch when she had first entered the lower chamber. She handed them to Telko and searched around for more. After a while she found so many that they needed help to carry them out. Each was about one pace square and, although each was very thin, the pile they found was half a pace thick.
In the better light from the gap over the thicket of trees Blan used her lenses to study several of the flexible plates she had collected. She recalled the words of Praalis from what seemed to be another era in another world at Slave Island. He had said to her, I discovered ancient records written like musical notes on transparent plates. They were written by Visitors, a people who were not humans but were intelligent beings like us (or some of us). Thanks to my study of mathematics and cryptology in my former role as a Quaestor in a royal court, I eventually managed to decipher some of the language of the plates.
Blan wished that she had the system of lenses that she had persuaded Count Tor, with some difficulty because of the expense, to commission from the glassmaker in Nantport. They would take many weeks to grind and test. Still, the lenses she had with her were sufficient for her to see what she needed to know for now.
Each individual plate of the material she was studying was transparent and clearly inscribed with some kind of notation. Praalis had not had time to say much about the language he had deciphered. It was enough for her to remember the symbol for Vanantii which she quickly identified at the top of one of the plates.
“These plates must be taken back to Praalis,” she insisted. “Can two of your men take them back upstream straight away, with two of the crystal clusters?” Blan beseeched Telko.
Grand Vizier of Krar Page 9