Winter Song

by Colin Harvey

  A radical Icelandic Recidivist Sect was funded by Terraforming Council Grants – it was one of the tactics of escalation that eventually fuelled the Long Night. Loki's interruption distracted Karl, who had momentarily forgotten the other's shadowy presence and that the download would have been listening in. Loki's here all the time – of course it'll be aware of what was going on.

  Bera was saying, "On the Oracle, that about twenty thousand of them settled here. One man, Asgeir Sigurdsson, led the original group. Enough people felt the same – out of place everywhere else, that our language was being eroded, our customs forgotten, our people's ethnicity diluted – that they were willing to join him."

  Karl was surprised at the passion in her voice. "You wouldn't want to leave Isheimur, then?"

  Bera reared back as if he'd waved something under her nose, and pulled a face. "Let's find your lost ship first and get a message off to your people."

  "What do you want to do, though, if our signal gets us rescued?"

  Bera didn't answer immediately. "I thought that… if off-worlders do arrive, that I might be like a link between our people and those off-worlders. But let's take one day at a time. At the moment such thoughts feel as foolish as wishing for wings."

  "Don't you ever wish for wings?"

  Bera stared at him, and slowly grinned. "Do you read minds?"

  "No." Karl laughed. "If you mention it, then it's a fair bet that it's something important to you."

  Bera nodded. "Every summer they have hang-gliding championships at the Summer Fair. Women aren't actually forbidden to enter…"

  "But they're not encouraged either."

  "Too much of a risk," Bera said. "Mustn't lose one of our precious baby-making machines and threaten the colony's future." Her voice cracked a little at the end.

  "Do you still miss him?" Karl asked, as gently as possible.

  Her face twisted. "Baby Palli? Every single day. I didn't want him when it happened, but when I had him…" She wiped her face then started. "Oh, Freya! You're trying to get home for your own child's birth, and here I am bleating on. Do you miss her?"

  "Every single day," Karl said and wanted to reach out and hug her, but held back. She might misunderstand.

  Toward the twin sunset the wind dropped. They rode on at a steady canter until the shadows were so deep that the horses stumbled. It was colder than on previous nights. Whether they had climbed higher, were further south or it was just a cold night, Karl wasn't sure, but even he felt it tonight.

  Bera sighed. "We'll rest up for the night here."

  When she dismounted, Karl realised how much the day had taken out of her. "We need a fire," he said.

  "We can't spare any more flares," Bera said, voice dull with exhaustion. When she fed the horses Karl saw that she was shaking with cold, and her teeth chattered.

  "It's been a good day," Karl said.

  "Has it?" She stared at him, clearly bemused by the sudden change of subject.

  "Almost a whole day of sunshine," Karl said, "better for me than a hundredweight of mutton." He had no idea what a hundredweight was, but it sounded good, and Bera seemed to understand. "While we've been riding, Loki and I have been working on something. It'll seem like a magic trick." He looked around. "Not much vegetation or combustible stuff here. Still, we'll get what we can."

  Bera busied herself laying out the blankets. "We might as well huddle up," she said. "But no funny stuff – you tell that Loki."

  "He's got the message," Karl said, dropping his trousers and squatting over the fire.

  "What are you – oh! Couldn't you crap somewhere else?"

  "No," Karl said. "Then I'd have to carry it over, and I don't want to dirty my hands."

  "So you shit on the fire instead? Why?"

  "Primitive peoples often used dung for fuel." Karl pulled up his trousers, rubbing at his burning bladder.

  "Yes, but they usually dried it out first, didn't they?" Bera stared horrified at him.

  "You'll happily change a baby's nappy." Karl wandered around the horses, looking for more droppings for fuel. "Yet you baulk at this. Anyway, it is dried. Loki and I managed to reprogram the nanophytes to reabsorb the fluid, and divert it. It burns like buggery, and if I did it too often I'd end up with kidney infections and who knows what else, but this is an emergency." He dropped the few pieces of horse-dung that he'd been able to find on the fire, and urinated on them, the fluid glowing in the dark. "Ohhh," he groaned. "That is such a relief."

  "It's – hot," Bera said. "I can feel it from here." She shrieked, and clapped her hands. "It's burning."

  "Told you," Karl said. "Loki and I had a lot of time to think this one up, and we can't do it too often."

  "But how?"

  "Two problems," Karl said, sitting beside her. "No, three. The sunlight solved one by charging the nanophytes. The second problem was to get them out of me. I needed to cut myself, or find some other way–"

  "Ahhh." Bera grinned in the firelight.

  "Ahhh," Karl echoed. "So, once we reprogrammed some of them to migrate and others to combust on exposure to air, we must solve the third problem. If I'm wounded, they replicate to replace any losses. I'm not wounded, but their numbers have dropped to a critically low level." So I'd better not get hurt in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, he thought, or I'm in big trouble.

  It was only a stunt really. The fire would soon burn out, and he dared not repeat the trick, but it had lifted her spirits.

  "Can I have a hug?" Karl said. "No tricks – just warmth."

  She draped the blankets around them both, and curled up in his arms.

  "Happy birthday," Karl said.

  Bera stared at him. "It's not my birthday–"

  "Just pretend it is. This is my birthday present to you."

  "And wonderful it is, too, you, you clever, clever man."

  They sat in companionable silence, arms wrapped around one another, Karl trying not to think of the warm, breathing body curled into him. When the fire burned low, Bera ate her nightly portion of meat and fruit.

  Karl said, "I've finally realised what's been bothering me."

  "Oh?" Bera mumbled, half-asleep.

  "If snawks can feed on both farmers' and trolls' blood, then the farmers and trolls must share the same genetic code, despite superficial differences."

  "Don't be silly," Bera mumbled.

  "The troll's shrieking," Karl said. "It sounded regular."

  "So does any animal's cry," Bera said.

  "What if it was more structured than it first sounds?" Karl said. "I can see up and down the visible spectrum. What if they can hear and talk up and down the audible ranges?"

  "Don't be silly," Bera said, with a sigh, sounding as if she was reluctantly waking up.

  Loki said, Don't distress her.

  I've no desire to upset her, Karl sub-vocalised. But we can't let her reluctance to face facts distract us. What information can you find?

  Loki spent what was hours to the construct – but only seconds to Karl – scanning the jumbled mess of memory that Ship had downloaded.

  Then Karl jerked upright, spilling Bera from any last chance of sleep.

  "What?" she grumbled.

  "Loki tells me," Karl said, "that there's a story. A Pantropist ship, lost sometime around the time of the Interregnum. They were due to seed a world in an adjacent star-system."

  "But that's–"

  "Seven or eight hundred years ago," Karl finished for her. "They'd have had gene-splicing and some primitive techniques, but even less than you have. If it's true…"

  Bera wiped at her face, still only half-awake. "What happened to it?"

  "No one knows. That's why it's legendary, and lost."

  "Smart-arse," Bera said. "Don't talk in riddles, Karl. What's your point?"

  "Your people inadvertently Terraformed a world al ready settled. That's one of the few things that all humanity's factions have forbidden."

  "No." Bera shook her head. "No, they wouldn't h
ave done that."

  "The trolls are the Pantropists' descendants," Karl insisted. "And the settlers have been killing them."

  "My people wouldn't commit genocide," Bera said.

  "Not deliberately," Karl said.

  "They're animals, no more." She pulled the blanket away and turning her back to him, went back to sleep.

  FOURTEEN

  The next morning, dust rose in the air above the trail from Salturvatn, mingling with the snow-shower that was petering out in the face of the arid land ahead. Horses' hooves pounded the ground, the posse only slowing when they reached the fork in the path that Karl and Bera had taken the day before.

  Arnbjorn, who had been riding at the front, wheeled his mount to face Ragnar. "They've taken the desert route, by the look of these tracks."

  Ragnar said to Orn, "You have the maps?"

  Orn produced a sheaf of papers bound in animalhide, and opened them up, flicking through them until he came to the one they were looking for. "The trail that way leads up into the mountains, crossing over Eifelheim. The way they've taken goes through the desert."

  Ragnar peered over Orn's shoulder, then held finger and thumb against the map, measuring distance with his digits.

  "If we follow them, we'll overhaul them," Thorir said.

  "Shut up," Ragnar said, ignoring the set of his sonin-law's jaw.

  "I hate to take his side–" Bjarney said.

  "Then don't."

  "But he has a point. We have spare horses, so we can rotate them. We'll wear them down."

  "But they have the best three horses," Ragnar said.

  "Two now," Bjarney said, referring to the remains of the horse-carcass on the beach. How long it had been dead had sparked a fierce debate amongst the party. "We'll catch them."

  "In time," Ragnar said. "Which we don't have: they had a two-day start on us, and we don't know that they haven't been riding from first light to last thing at night. Sending our casualties onto Valhalla may have cost us another day. They could be three days ahead now, and we'd never overhaul them before they reach Jokullag. No, we'll take the other path." He pointed at the distant mountains, hidden by the sleet.

  "It's more hazardous," Bjarney said. "They didn't name those mountains The Roof of the World for nothing. Avalanches, altitude sickness – come on, Ragnar, why look for trouble?"

  Several of the others joined in the general muttering. Arnbjorn nudged Thorir. "I'd keep silent."

  "I know," Thorir said. "You'd think they'd recognise the danger signs. His darkening complexion, the way his jaw clenches."

  "What about a compromise?" Bjarney said, scratching at the bandage on his arm – the legacy of the snolfur attack. "Why don't half of us go with Ragnar and the others stay on this trail? We might even be able to catch them in a pincer movement."

  "And how," Ragnar drawled, oozing contempt, "do we keep in contact to co-ordinate this pincer movement?" Ragnar snorted, ignoring the flush spreading across Bjarney's face. "Even if I was prepared to divide our stores – and I'm not – which leaves those in the other party without food or bedding, dividing our numbers risks greater attacks from predators. Think how many more might attack if there are fewer of us, according to your logic."

  "I don't like it," Bjarney said.

  "We're not here because you like it," Ragnar grated. "I don't care what you like."

  "We're not your sons, Ragnar, nor your bondsmen," Orn said. "You'd be advised to remember that. Bjarney may accept your lectures, but your tone's offensive."

  Ragnar rode across slowly and stared at Orn silently, until Orn looked away. "Don't ever threaten me again," Ragnar murmured into the other man's ear. They could have been lovers exchanging small talk, but for the spine-cracking tension in their posture.

  "I wasn't threatening you," Orn said, equally quietly.

  "Men have fought duels over less than what you've just said," Ragnar murmured.

  "Men who were liquored up," Orn said. "Are you so obsessed, so bloody psychotic, that anything less than fawning obeisance warrants a duel?"

  Ragnar took a deep breath. Orn was half-right, he realised. Ragnar had to convince them, this time. Moreover, Orn had had the sense to keep his mouth shut while Ragnar worked it out for himself. He took another deep breath, and another, felt the tautness of his body ease a fraction. The other man even had the sense to look impassive, and not smile or give any expression that Ragnar might misconstrue.

  Ragnar took one last rasping inhalation, looked around at the others and shouted, "Right lads, we'll make this easy." He drew a line to the right of the furthest man. "Those of you want to go home, step across this line. Bear in mind that this utlander has abused our hospitality, stolen property and endangered our community. I'd declare him outlaw, but for the added humiliation that announcing it through the Oracle would bring on us. So, those of you who want to go home, take a horse each and ride for your lives. You can survive a few days without food, and there's loads of water in the brooks once you get past Salturvatn."

  No one moved.

  "None of us want to go home, Gothi," Bjarney said. "We're all agreed that they've put us at risk, and they must face justice. But that doesn't mean that we should behave like madmen."

  Ragnar said, "So it's that decision that's the problem?"

  Bjarney nodded.

  Ragnar said, "The next time a snolfur attacks you, should I take a vote about how we kill it?"

  Bjarney's laugh was an indignant grunt. "That's not the same!"

  "Isn't it?" Ragnar said, studying each man in turn. "At what point must I say, 'OK lads, you elected me leader, but it's a big decision, so let's put it to a vote,' eh? You either trust my judgement or you don't." He walked to the other side of the men away from the first line, and drew another, parallel to the first. "Who actually wants to follow me in bringing these fugitives to justice?"

  To Ragnar's surprise, Thorir was the first to step across. Ragnar nodded, and clapped his son-in-law's shoulder. "Thank you, son." Thorir looked like the farm cat after it had been at the cream, and Ragnar wondered why Thorir was so keen. What do you want, apart from buttering me up?

  One by one, the others followed suit.

  "Good," Ragnar said, all smiles again. "Then it's the mountains."

  The group resumed their journey.

  Ragnar drew alongside Orn's horse, "We're in the equivalent of a battle situation, friend. Those among his men who refuse to follow the commander in a battle are called mutineers. Remember what every army does with mutineers. So I wouldn't go upsetting me while we're up there beneath the vault of heaven; altitude always makes me crab-assed. Understand?"

  "Oh, I understand you, Ragnar," Orn said. "Better than you think."

  Ahead of them, along the path not taken, Karl and Bera rode steadily into the high desert. All around them the world was still, like an animal waiting for something to happen. Looking around him at the gritty surface, Karl realised how arid an environment it was – they seemed to have almost slid into it, it had changed so slowly and gradually. It's like a sponge, he thought. No matter how many snowflakes fall, the ground just seems to suck the moisture in. He cleared his throat. "Do we have anything with which we can line a pit?"

  Bera had said little all morning, answering direct questions with a nod or a shake of the head. But she said with a similar throat-clearing noise, "We should have something. Why?"

  "Good. We might be able to use it to distil water overnight." This was the first morning that they hadn't seen anything – a stream, a pond or a brook – from which they could refill the half-dozen plastic bottles which they'd taken during Bera's lightning raid on the pantry at Skorradalur.

  Thank cosmos she did, Karl thought. 'Cause I'd never have thought of it.

  The streams had allowed them to refill until now. There had been no water last night, but he'd been so distracted with lighting a fire that he'd missed the significance of it until now.

  "Will water from a still be enough?" Bera said.

 
"I don't know." Probably not, though for a time he could use the nanophytes to synthesise water from whatever else he could ingest. But the long-term damage to them – and therefore to him – would be even greater than it already was from the continual reconfiguring that he was forcing on them. Even from the limited changes he'd made – but more significantly from the recent loss of the nanophytes he'd extruded the night before – he felt light-headed, despite the hazy sunshine that occasionally peeked through.