by Colin Harvey
Karl grinned at the evidence of Bera's knife-work, but thought, The urge to impose his will has so narrowed his mind that he can't see the wonder in this. Even Karl – to whom the Winter Song was as archaic as a medieval sailing ship – was awed by her sheer brute power. Then Karl saw the look of wonder sweep across Ragnar's face and knew that he'd misjudged the man.
With no physical means to steer the Winter Song, Karl thought, Bank to port, Loki. The ship tilted through ninety degrees, but still climbed, even on her side. The manoeuvre hurled Ragnar's men against the wall – now their floor – knocking them senseless.
"That should quieten them for a few minutes!" Karl straightened the ship again. Bera nodded, beads of sweat glistening on her forehead, a tic in her cheek pulsing. "Are you coping?" Karl asked, and she nodded again. "It's a bit scary, the first take-off," Karl said. "But don't worry; after the thousandth time, it's as dull as doing the laundry."
Bera smiled dutifully at the feeble joke.
"I'm keeping the acceleration slow so as not to do anyone any damage," Karl said.
"Never mind us, what about the ship?" Bera said. "It feels like it'll fall apart at any minute!"
"It won't," Karl said. Inside he was terrified, but he thought, If I stay calm, they will as well. He hoped his theory was right. "We should pass fourteen thousand metres in a few seconds. The slow rate of climb should enable us to move around if we're careful."
"What about them?" Bera jerked her head at Ragnar's men.
"See if they can fly," Coeo growled. The humanoid had clearly grasped the idea that the ship was no longer a stationary shrine, although the way he hunched as though expecting a blow hinted at deeply rooted anxiety.
"Show them how merciful you are," Karl said. "That you are a civilised man."
Coeo shrugged as if washing his hands of the whole problem, but when Karl passed him several lengths of cable, he duly trussed the prisoners.
Karl realised that he'd forgotten to check the screens. Fat lot of good it'll do to reach orbit if Mizar B's glare blinds us. But the metal screens slid down to cover the windows, though they groaned and rattled and one stuck for a heart-stopping couple of seconds, and one of the four monitors still worked – Karl wondered why it hadn't been removed by the crew. Maybe they had no use for it, he thought, though it begs the question what they used other monitors for. He had a mental vision of a tribe of humanoids sitting watching a blank screen.
Karl ran through which shipboard cameras were working, showing the pictures from each one in turn. Most were damaged beyond repair, but the fore and aft cameras both worked, as did one of the belly cameras. "Here's a picture of the Winter Song," Karl said as an image of the ship appeared on the monitor. Needle-thin central spine, two halves of a globe separated by a fivehundred metre-long lateral lattice. The engine pod is two hundred and ten metres in diameter, the crew pod is one hundred and forty metres across, half that in height.
As the Winter Song crawled up through the atmosphere, their prisoners slowly regained consciousness, Arnbjorn first. He watched Karl the whole time, but said nothing.
Thorir cursed and threatened them, until Bera crouched and held her knife to his throat. "Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to use this. So be quiet." Thorir glared, but obeyed.
Orn was also quiet when he came round, but he looked panicked, and Karl worried how the settler would cope with their new environment – particularly weightlessness.
Ragnar was last to recover, and looked confused, but Karl decided that he would make no concessions to Ragnar's age. He's only himself to thank for whatever state he's in, Karl thought.
The Winter Song continued her steady climb through Isheimur's atmosphere, the world's curvature now obvious on the viewscreen. Karl sub-vocalised, How are the seals holding up?
Loki came back: We're about thirty kilometres up, and the air pressure's only a quarter of what it was on the ground, but there are no leaks – and we'd know by now. The airlock to the hangar has held, no matter how primitive it might have appeared, and we seem to be maintaining our integrity.
"Good," Karl muttered.
But the datarealm is now fighting my instructions.
Can you lock it off? Karl asked.
I'll do my best, but I'm not certain that it will be possible.
Nonetheless, Karl felt the connection go dead – either Loki had locked it away, or for some other reason – the core itself may have decided to go off-line.
When Karl looked around again, Ragnar was studying him. "What are you, utlander, that you alone can do something that no one else has ever managed?"
Bera said, "What he is, is a man you shouldn't have tried to kidnap and hold to ransom."
Ragnar scowled. "Are you a traitor, or simply bewitched by him, girl? I had my reasons."
"Be quiet, the pair of you!" Karl snapped. At Bera's hurt look, he patted her hand. "I don't answer to you, Ragnar." He leaned forward. "You keep trying to make this about you. You're missing the point. This ship goes way, way beyond a feud about hospitality, or horse theft. Listen to me now…"
Ragnar nodded, eyes blazing. "Say your piece, Allman."
"You need me alive, to fly this ship home. Kill me, Ragnar, and you can forget about ever seeing Skorradalur again."
"He's right," Arnbjorn said. He looked up at Karl. "But if we worked with you, you could help us, use this ship right and we could use it to push the Formers' policies on."
"And exterminate Coeo's people in the process?" Karl said, refusing to use the settler's word "troll" in front of them, legitimise it. "The adapted are just that: adapted so that they can live on this world as it is. Raise the temperature much further and change the nitrogen-oxygen-CO2 mix, and you add genocide to your treatment of them."
"That's our decision to make!" Ragnar said.
"No it isn't," Karl said. "Not in isolation. You're subject to the laws of humanity, whether you like it or not, once a second sentient race is concerned." Karl wondered what their reaction would be if he mentioned the possibility that there might actually be shapeshifters, and who were sentient. He decided to say nothing, though. They have enough to contend with, just assimilating all this, he thought with a trace of pity.
"He's right, Pappi," Arnbjorn said, and added, to both of them: "Forget about who owes what to whom. This ship changes everything. Maybe it could be used in ways that don't harm the…" Arnbjorn groped for a name, "adapted."
Karl, Loki said quietly, the ship's datarealm has started counter-measures that will eject me from control if we cannot circumvent them. I have no idea what the ship would do in that event.
Keep working at it, Karl sub-vocalised. We can't allow it to regain control, at least until we've sent the message off, and then only if it doesn't threaten our safety.
Karl turned his attention back to the others. Orn and Thorir sat with bowed heads, too over-awed it seemed to look up at the viewscreen that now showed Isheimur in all her white speckled with green and blue glory. Ragnar and Arnbjorn continued to talk about the various uses the ship could be put to use, from carrying supplies and orbital surveys, to cannibalising it for parts.
Karl found it hard to pay attention to the others. He was more interested in the mission. Ship mentioned the Hangzhou Relay, he sub-vocalised. Can you locate it for us to send a second Mayday?
Loki said, I'll study the available data, see if I can locate it.
Karl saw Coeo watching Arnbjorn and Ragnar intently, and nudged him. Coeo said, "There is much talking. What of?"
Karl explained and Coeo said, "If it's anyone's it is ours. Not theirs to take, especially to make our world unliveable. The old one is like all the others of their kind, preferring to kill us all than share the land. And I do not have trust for the younger one, though I may misjudge him…"
"It doesn't matter, anyway," Karl said. "We have the ship. They don't."
"And it should stay that way," Coeo said. "Surely your people will agree when they come?"
"Of course.
" Karl decided that now was not the time to explain fractious humanity's fragmented politics.
I've been analysing Isheimur's atmosphere, Loki said. Comparing it with the readings that the Formers took before they left, and with what I was able to learn from the datarealm before it went off-line. The trends are worrying to anyone invested in the planet's viability. I have no idea whether these are recent developments, or have been occurring since the Formers left.
Tell me.
Atmospheric pressure is fractionally reduced, although that's expected. The atmosphere will slowly leak into space, partly through too-low gravity, partly through the Mizar solar wind stripping the magnetic field. At point six-seven standard gravities, Isheimur is just below what is considered viable to retain atmosphere against leakage.
But that's not the whole problem?
No. What is truly worrying is what's happened to the ozone layer. I'd discount the readings I'm getting now, were it not that I've got access to the – admittedly limited – scans that Ship ran. They all show that the planetary ozone layer has been reduced by forty per cent in total, and the polar ozone layer has been depleted by eighty per cent.
Are the settlers at risk? Karl said.
Perhaps, Loki said. An image appeared in Karl's peripheral vision. The first point, with the red square, is the mean average temperature at the time of the Winter Song's crash. Compare it with mean average temperatures when the Formers started their project…
About the same.
Exactly. This is how much they raised it by – a third triangle flashed up – and this is where it should be – a fourth triangle appeared with a new line joining it to the graph – is what latest readings indicate that it is.
"But that's impossible!"
The others turned to stare at Karl, and he realised that he'd spoken out loud. He continued, sotto voce, "That's several Kelvin below what it should be."
Seven point one, to be precise: I have no logical theory – or solution – at this point in time. Let me work on it.
Agreed. There isn't time to tease through all the implications now. It's more important that we set off a signal that will be noticed by others, rather than relying on just the Hangzhou Relay. However long it takes, outsiders have to be brought to Isheimur. Then we can act on your findings.
Karl noticed that Bera was trying to get his attention. The ship was reaching the planet's Karman-line, where space effectively began.
Bera watched Karl re-focus, wishing he would pay closer attention to their captives. Thorir had that shifty look that he got when he thought he was being clever.
She needed a break badly. She beckoned Coeo and indicated the prisoners. "Can you guard them, for five minutes?" She had no idea how much of her slow, precisely enunciated – but murmured – question he understood but he nodded, taking the sword.
Bera tapped Karl on the shoulder. "Back in five minutes."
"Hmm," he said, eyes glazed again.
"Karl, what is the matter with you?"
He blinked, seeming to see her for the first time. "Loki's struggling with the datarealm."
"I need to piss," Bera said. "I'll be back as soon as possible – but I have to go."
Karl nodded and she fled, acutely conscious of the pressure on her bladder.
It took her a couple of minutes to find the cubicle, which almost proved to be too long, but she just made it. When she returned, Karl seemed to be his old self again, for he winked at her. "Problem solved?" she asked.
"We think so," Karl said, turning back to Ragnar.
"Assuming what you say is true," Ragnar said, "you still have no right to decide the ship's fate, or hold us captive."
"I have every right." Karl beamed. "I'll use the same logic that you've always used, namely, I have the advantage, and Might is Right. One of the things that you'll accept if you wish to negotiate access to a starship is that your son-in-law stands trial for rape – assuming that you recognise such an enlightened concept."
"Karl, no!" Bera cried.
"What?" He gazed at her, bemused. "You don't want this bastard brought to trial?"
"This stays here," Bera said. "I can't face reliving all that."
"That's because it wasn't rape." Thorir smirked. "She came after me."
"You lying bastard!" Bera slapped Thorir. Straining every sinew, she at least had the pleasure of watching his head rock back.
"You see, spaceman," Thorir said. "She's unstable. No kind of witness." He suddenly seemed to remember that Ragnar was present, and adopted a look of injured innocence. "I was in my cups, I admit it. I'm sorry, Ragnar, it was a foolish thing to do."
"You bastard," Bera spat. It was hard to know which was worse – that it was in the open, but Thorir still seemed to be getting away with it, the look of doubt on Karl's face, or Ragnar's ashen visage.
"You?" Ragnar whispered, his whole attention fixed on Thorir.
"I'm sorry, Pappi, but–"
"I'm not your father, you maggot! Drunk or not, willing or not, you raped a girl?"
"I was not willing!" Bera shouted.
Thorir swallowed, seeming to realise for the first time that he might not be able to talk his way out of it. "Don't let them distract you from the ship. That's what this little diversion's about. Not a silly mistake I made last summer."
"A silly mistake?" Bera bellowed at Ragnar, her calm finally, belatedly, deserting her. "You were supposed to protect me, to look after me." She poked him in the chest to punctuate each word: "And. You. Did. Nothing! Nothing. Ragnar!"
Ragnar bowed his head.
Karl said, breaking the silence. "I think, deep down inside, Ragnar guessed."
He perfectly articulated her own thoughts. It would explain why you've been so angry, Pappi, and with Karl, who has never done anything to cause you harm.
The bridge suddenly seemed very small, very hot. The ship was climbing in a very shallow trajectory now, accelerating at barely a third of Isheimur's gravity so she could pace the bridge. One, two, three, four steps and she was most of the way across it.
She'd never spoken of the rape for precisely this reason. Any accusation would tear Skorradalur apart. Even if she were believed – and she wouldn't be. She must have done something to lead the bastard on, mustn't she?
Bera thought of all the times she'd laughed with Thorir when younger, never believing what he was possible of. But when she'd started to bleed, her breasts to bud, he'd cuddled her a second too long, or too closely, though it was so subtle she hadn't realised the first few times. When she'd looked uncomfortable he'd backed away, looking hurt, and she'd rushed to reassure him that she did still like him.
She meant as a friend or brother. He'd obviously thought that she meant something else.
Then there'd been that awful night. She still couldn't bear to think about it too much, had resolved instead to block it out, irrespective of the sleepless nights and panic attacks that followed.
But she hadn't expected that she would be so desperately, desperately lonely, nor had she expected the unrelenting ferocity of their condemnation when she had missed her period, and the realisation came that she was pregnant.
It all made sense now. They knew, maybe they didn't know that they knew, but deep down inside they had an inkling and to cover their guilt they made me the scapegoat.
Confronting it, she felt the blister of pain that she had borne for so long split and ooze, and wished that she could take Karl somewhere and show him that she was healing – that she was a woman where it counted – in the only way that she knew how. Her only experience was of humiliation and hurt, but she was sure that there had to be more to love than that. She looked away from Karl's long, slender fingers and the memory of him naked, sure that everyone saw the flush rising up her face.
To distract her from such thoughts she stared around at the others, who had fallen silent in the face of her fury. Their discomfort made her feel better as well.
Arnbjorn cleared his throat. "Loath though I am to agree wit
h Thorir," Arnbjorn said, "now's not the time or place for this. We should defer it until we return to Skorradalur–"
Bera felt her weight abruptly leave her, and grabbed the nearest object, a strut to which a seat had once been attached. For all Arnbjorn's hi-jacking of her life – typical of them! – she wanted to sing out loud at this dizzying new sensation of freedom. I'm flying!
"We've achieved escape velocity, and cut the acceleration," Karl said. "But we should be able to simulate a little gravity by rotating the ship."
Bera wanted to laugh out loud at the way Coeo's fur corona-ed out, though he looked as inscrutable as ever. She quietly enjoyed the panic written across the captive's faces. She kept quiet, instead wondering how it would feel to cuddle Karl without weight holding them in thrall.