The Icerigger Trilogy

by Alan Dean Foster

  From Blanchard they shifted their reliance to Skua September, who as it turned out had the best memory of all for places and passageways. As they crept down corridors and stairs they remained fully alert, but no one appeared to confront them. Machinery hummed and fussed around them, masking the noise of their footsteps on the metal catwalks. Clearly the installation was attended by a minimal night crew.

  “Down this way, I think,” Williams whispered.

  September shook his head in disagreement. In the poor light, his white hair served as a bobbing beacon for all to focus on. “Over here. After we left the Tran they took us up one more level.” He started toward a stairwell, silent as a ghost.

  In a few minutes they found themselves standing across from the oversize door that sealed the refrigerated storage room where their Tran compatriots were being held. Williams had to admit that he’d been wrong. September accepted the apology as his due.

  This would be the trickiest part of their escape attempt, for naturally there was no thought of trying to flee without freeing Hunnar, Elfa, and the rest of their Tran friends.

  “Can you see anything?” Ethan and the others looked on anxiously as Blanchard put his face to the window in the door and stared into the room beyond.

  “Two dimples in the ceiling. They might be spy eyes, or they might be something else. Can’t make out details.”

  “Sprinkler heads,” Semkin suggested hopefully. “Why would anyone put spy-eye cameras in a freezer?”

  “I don’t know.” Blanchard stepped back, rubbed at his eyes. “We’ll just have to slip inside and hope that if they are cameras I’ll have a chance to jam them before anyone wakes up.” The abrupt stirring of the fifty or so Tran in the room would be bound to draw the immediate attention of even the sleepiest of security personnel watching the monitors.

  They waited while the geophysicist used his homemade device to interrupt the magnetic flow which kept the door sealed. In the darkness the faint clicks sounded preternaturally loud. September wrapped one huge fist around the oversize handle, nodded at Blanchard, then slowly eased the door aside.

  Several Tran stirred. One sat up and stared in the darkness but said nothing. Blanchard hurriedly moved to aim the jamming unit at one of the dark spots in the ceiling, relaxed with a sigh. Sprinkler heads. No reason, just as Semkin had said, to put security cameras in what was essentially an enlarged refrigerator. Ethan didn’t doubt such devices would eventually be installed to keep an eye on the Tran as well as the humans. For now it wasn’t an immediate concern of Bamaputra’s or Antal’s. Besides, a primitive native couldn’t defeat a magnetic lock. The cold room was perfectly secure.

  As secure as the dormitory.

  They spread out and began waking the Tran, admonishing them to silence. Dark furry shapes began to rise and gather. Faint light shone eerily through raised dan, giving their native companions the appearance of enormous bats. Within minutes the entire group had been awakened. Hugs and greetings were postponed until they could be exchanged under more amenable circumstances. They still had to get out of the installation.

  The corridor was empty as a newly dug grave and they began filing out of the room. The mere movement of so many bodies produced a certain amount of sound, enough to rise above the soft muttering of machinery. Still, by itself the noise wouldn’t be enough to raise an alarm. Someone had to hear it first. Blanchard reseated the chamber door while Ethan and the others discussed their plans with the newly liberated Tran.

  “We’ve got to try and retake the ship.”

  Hunnar nodded, that odd little down and sideways movement of the head that Ethan knew as well as any human gesture. “It will be good to fight.”

  “Even if we should fail,” whispered Monslawic, Ta-hoding’s first mate, “better to die fighting than rotting away in a cage.”

  September clapped the Tran on a furry shoulder. “We ain’t going to fail. Not after having made it this far.”

  They followed the giant as he struggled to retrace the path they’d taken when they’d been marched inside the installation. There was no way to muffle the clatter of clawlike chiv on metal, which sounded like an army of dog-sized insects. A single night tech left his dials and gauges to find out what was making the strange noise. He found out. His eyes widened as half a dozen of the Slanderscree’s sailors jumped him. They would have cut his throat save for the intervention of the humans. Ethan pointed out that the unlucky man wasn’t responsible for the installation or its raison d’être. It required all their powers of persuasion to dissuade the Tran, who were eager and anxious for someone to kill. In the end they settled for gifting the technician with a mild concussion.

  Cheela Hwang and her companions descended on the man’s equipment belt and pockets like so many scientific scavengers, appropriating everything that might prove useful later.

  No one guarded the entrance to the installation. It would have been a waste of manpower. The human inhabitants rarely went outside and unauthorized Tran were never admitted. Nevertheless, Blanchard and Moware wasted what Ethan and September thought were precious minutes double-checking possible alarm relays. The Tran milled aimlessly behind the humans, fancying they could already smell the frigid freedom that lay on the other side of the heavy barrier.

  The geophysicist, Hwang, and Semkin worked with the door mechanism for several minutes. Then they all stepped back. Blanchard made a connection, a motor sprang to life, and the door swung up and back quietly. Everyone held their breath, but no sirens screamed behind them, no horns shattered the night silence. On the barren slope outside the ceaseless wind moaned invitingly.

  There was no holding back the Tran. Sailors and soldiers poured through the opening and gathered on the cleared, flat area that had been sliced from the granite. They sucked in the fresh cold air, spread their dan, and danced pirouettes on the frozen places out of sheer exhilaration.

  Off to their left lay the path that led down toward sleeping Yingyapin. Tran-ky-ky’s multiple moons illuminated the switchbacks, a dark ribbon drizzled among lighter rock. A few lights burned late in the would-be capital of all Tran-ky-ky.

  Ethan started down as Blanchard closed the door behind them. A clawed hand held him back and he turned to see Hunnar Redbeard’s cat’s eyes glowing down at him. The knight smiled with satisfaction.

  “There is a quicker way, my friend.” He turned, exposing his broad back. “Climb on. Put your legs around my waist, just below where the dan is attached.”

  “I don’t…”

  “Do not argue. In that place we rely on your wisdom. Out in the real world you must listen to us. See.” He pointed and Ethan could see Hwang and the other scientists crawling onto the backs of strong sailors.

  As the door closed, Blanchard came rolling out beneath it, just clearing the descending lip of the barrier. He rose panting, the visor of his suit temporarily fogged. His tone was exultant.

  “I haven’t done anything like this since I was at university. Rather like a complex game.” He turned to face the doorway, a part of the hillside once more. “The thirty-second repeat is still fooling them.”

  “Let’s hope it continues doing so.” Ethan climbed onto Hunnar’s back and wrapped his fingers around the straps that held the two pieces of the hessavar-hide vest together. He locked his legs around the knight’s waist. “What now?”

  “This now.”

  Hunnar trudged to the edge of what to Ethan looked like a sheer drop. Closer inspection revealed that the slope wasn’t quite vertical. He’d never been very fond of heights. Water had been dumped here to create a smooth ribbon of ice down the embankment. In the moonlight it gleamed like a frozen waterfall.

  He started to say, “You can’t…!” as Hunnar pushed off into emptiness.

  They were falling. Wind roared around his visor. The knight spread his powerful arms, opening his membranous dan to their maximum extent—not to catch the wind this time but to brake their descent. To Ethan it didn’t feel like they were slowing down at all.
His fingers dug into the hessavar straps while his heart commenced a rapid migration up into the vicinity of his throat.

  This was how the local Tran, Corfu, and his ilk, returned from the installation back to Yingyapin. Not for them hours wasted trudging down the switchbacks. It was like descending a ski jump except there was no upcurving jump ramp waiting at the bottom. Only solid rock and what looked like far too small an area in which to stop.

  Daring to open his eyes, he saw the rest of the Tran screaming down the ice flow. Some carried his fellow humans. One husky sailor balanced Skua September on his back. As Ethan stared, Skua saw him and waved wildly in his direction. His large friend was apparently enjoying the near-suicidal descent immensely.

  Miraculously they arrived at the bottom of the drop intact. Trembling, Ethan slid down off Hunnar’s back and struggled to regulate his breathing and heart rate. As he did so he tilted his head back and stared up at the ledge which marked the entrance they’d just fled. It showed as a thin line against the lighter stone impossibly far above. September strode over to him, his eyes shining, and clapped him on the back.

  “Was that a ride or weren’t it, young feller-me-lad?”

  “I could have lived without the experience.” Ethan was still gulping air via his visor membrane. Much as he wanted to, there was no thought of pushing back his hood or visor, not during the coldest time of night.

  If their captors had thought ahead, they would have appropriated the research team’s suits, exchanging them for normal coveralls or similar attire. That would have precluded any possibility of escape more effectively than the strongest locks or thickest doors. Antal hadn’t bothered. Why worry? The prisoners were secured in a locked room under constant video surveillance. They couldn’t possibly flee.

  The breathtaking descent had deposited the escapees on a rocky ledge just outside the city. While the humans recovered from the precipitous drop, the Tran were conferencing. Hunnar, Elfa, Grurwelk, and Ta-hoding rejoined them moments later.

  “We think it safer to avoid the city. Though none should be about this time of night, you can never tell when you might encounter a watch. The harbor is ringed with easy icepaths. The farther we stay from inhabited areas the better. It will take a little more time.” Hunnar traced a course over rock and ice in the moonlight. Across the harbor, her sails reefed and still tied to the dock where they’d arrived, the Slanderscree waited like a sleeping princess in a dream.

  “We will go around there, and there, and then cross the harbor.”

  September studied the proposed route thoughtfully. “We’ll be mighty exposed out there on the ice. No cover.”

  “Corfu’s guards will be huddled around a fire or one of your magical heaters on the city side. They have no reason to believe us anything but tightly imprisoned inside the mountain. As for the traitors on the Slanderscree, if their consciences trouble them as they should, they will not rest as easy, but neither would they bother to mount guard over a vessel already under guard. By approaching the ship from the harbor side we will avoid the gaze of any who may be awake.”

  “I don’t see that we have any other choice,” Ethan ventured. “Besides, the faster we move the better our chances. Speed’s stood us in good stead so far.”

  Hunnar grinned at him. “Ready then, friend Ethan, for another ride?”

  “So long as it’s not vertical.”

  They moved out, Tran in the lead, humans in the middle, more Tran under First Mate Monslawic’s command bringing up the rear. The Tran traveled on the icepath that paralleled the coastline while the humans had to make their way across the bare rock nearby. From time to time they had to slow and detour around an isolated shack or stone hut, but no lights burned in these habitations. If any held occupants, they slept on unaware of the desperate column that marched so carefully around them.

  Any fighting to be done would be left to the Tran. While the human’s survival suit material was tough and durable it was not designed to serve as armor. It was intended to keep heat or air conditioning in, not sword points out. A stab or slice at the right angle and with enough force could penetrate the inner lining and render a suit useless. If they were to escape, they would need the suits functional.

  Elfa insisted they were worrying needlessly. There was no reason to mount a guard on the harborside of the icerigger. They would approach undetected.

  Then it was time for Ethan to mount Hunnar’s back again and a moment later the entire party was moving out onto the ice. Hunnar lifted his arms, letting his outstretched dan catch the wind. Ethan could feel them picking up speed, accelerating steadily, until they were chivaning silently across the harbor. The layer of melt water which covered the surface slowed them somewhat and Ethan readied himself for a fall or two, but the Tran adapted to the presence of the water well and had no difficulty in maintaining their balance.

  Hunnar’s guess proved correct. As they neared the great icerigger even the most myopic among them could see that the railings and masthead lookout bins were unoccupied. Ship slept as soundly as city.

  Jacalan and his companions kept throwing nervous glances in the direction of the buried installation they’d just fled, only to be reassured by the continued absence of flashing lights or blaring alarms. Their departure had yet to be detected, and it would be hours before anyone needed to check the dormitory in person. If all went well aboard the icerigger, by breakfast time they would have left the harbor behind and would be flying across open ice. The more kilometers they could put between themselves and Yingyapin before their escape was discovered, the better their chances of outdistancing one of the short-range skimmers.

  Hunnar turned and let Ethan slide down. It was hard to walk on the ice in survival suit boots but not impossible. The layer of water didn’t make things any easier. They had to move more cautiously than usual. The sound of so many feet sloshing about seemed deafeningly loud to Ethan.

  Half the loyal Tran began to climb the boarding ladders cut into the ship’s side while the rest chivaned beneath the hull. They would board from the starboard side. A third group led by Skua September headed for the dock. They would silence any guards ashore and then give a signal, whereupon the final attack on the icerigger would begin.

  Unfortunately, Corfu’s minions were neither as lazy nor sleepy as everyone hoped. Instead of continued silence, the night air was broken by a hoarse scream. Ethan tensed at the faint, unmistakably whispery hiss of a beamer being fired. Hunnar muttered something incomprehensible in Tran and started up the boarding ladder nearby. No point in holding back now. Staring into the darkness Ethan could see the soldiers and sailors of the Slanderscree climbing frantically and knew that on the starboard side of the ship others would be doing likewise. They outnumbered the mutineers, but that was no guarantee of success. They had no way of knowing how many guards Corfu had put aboard the ship itself or what type of armament they carried.

  He found himself scrambling up the roughhewn steps, up over the railing and out onto the moonlit deck. Muffled sounds filtered up from below where what fighting there was was taking place. He immediately rushed to the far rail and stared toward the city. Shouts and yells came from the small building at the far end of the dock where the guards had barricaded themselves. The occasional flash of a beamer was shockingly bright against the night. Lights were already appearing in other buildings as those awakened by the noise fumbled for their lamps. Anxiously he glanced up and back toward the mountain that dominated the far side of the harbor, but there was still nothing to indicate that the alarm had been carried to their captors.

  Dissension and fighting were as natural to the Tran as eating and sleeping. With luck anyone observing the goings-on in the city would put it down to normal internecine argument. It couldn’t have anything to do with the recently acquired prisoners. After all, didn’t the security monitor continue to show the captured visitors from Brass Monkey sleeping soundly in their beds?

  No, there was no reason to believe the nocturnal ruckus was due to
anything out of the ordinary. Even if word eventually reached Massul fel-Stuovic or Corfu it would take time to raise the alarm up at the underground installation. Unless Bamaputra’s allies had the use of a communicator. Even if they did, it would take a while to wake someone like Antal who had the power to make decisions.

  His attention was drawn to an alien shape emerging from belowdecks nearby. Moonlight glanced off a sword wet with blood. Seeing the look on his face, Elfa hastened over to reassure him.

  “Little enough killing there has been. We surprised them in their hammocks. The traitors Kilpit and Mousokka were in Ta-hoding’s cabin. Among those who remained true there was some sentiment for butchering them all, but Hunnar, sweet-tongued devil that he is, insisted that those who rebelled had been swayed as much by the difficulties of the long journey as by this merchant Corfu’s offer and that they might be reinstated as crew once again. Until we can be sure of them each will be watched over by one whose fealty is not in doubt. Those who offered no resistance and have expressed remorse will be given this opportunity. Myself, I think my mate too compassionate, but we need every hand we can get.” She gestured toward the mainmast, where sailors were braving the frigid wind as they fought to set sail.

  Others wrestled to bring in the ice anchors while Ta-hoding supervised the hasty splicing of the severed steering cables. Ethan ran to watch. September joined them a moment later, breathing hard.

  “You didn’t surprise them,” Ethan said accusingly.

  “Sometimes your target ain’t as cooperative as you’d like. That’s the real world for you, feller-me-lad.” Behind the survival suit’s visor his eyes shone like tiny echoes of Tran-ky-ky’s moons. “We were lucky to do as well as we did. The bastards had beamers.

  “One of ’em was off in a bathroom and got away before we could run him to ground. He’s the one who saw us coming and raised the alarm. The rest of ’em divided into two groups. We took the first bunch easy enough but the others stood their ground well. I’m still not sure we got them all. But we did get these. Here.” He tossed something small and silvery to Ethan. A beamer. Ethan clutched the illegal weapon gratefully.