by Hans Kneifel
“It’s time,” he muttered heavily. “All quiet outside.”
I disentangled my fingers from the sleeping girl’s hand and went through the necessary motions of pulling myself together. In a shortime I was outside. I had actually slept several hours without hearing the wailing of the storm or any other sound. Now as the icy wind blew in my face I began to follow the wide-spaced footsteps that Sawbones had made, doing my tour of duty through this stretch of untrammelled Nature before the cave in the rocky tower which stretched its fist into the night.
As I saw the last patch of stars fade away before the on-driving storm clouds I went back to the snowmobile and decided to build up more fire in the burner. I took wood, bone-oil and coal from the fuel bins and fed them all into the fire box. There was no way to avoid a banging and clattering as I turned the grate lever and
dumped hot ashes into the hissing snow.
And so the night crept by with the two of us sharing watches.
At the first light of dawn we were under way again
* * * *
The next leg of the journey took us along the lake shore toward the northeast. We soon came into a region that offered a variety of changes from one minute to the next. Fratulon was at the wheel and was driving the machine almost at its maximum. At first we travelled over a flat white plain where a wandering pattern of snowdrifts reflected the whimsical forces of the wind. Then came an abrupt change to valleys and hills, some of which we had to climb over. Visibility was fairly good, however, and we neither saw nor heard any snow ghosts.
Finally, toward noon, we came to one of the last mountain ranges before the polar region, according to Fratulon.
“We have a choice,” he said with a gruff abrupt-ness.
“What choice is that?” asked Ice Claw from the rear of the cab. “To freeze? Or to melt away in our own sweat?”
“The choice of making a long detour or to take a shortcut which is the more dangerous route,” said Sawbones. But he seemed to be directing the question especially to me.
I was momentarily at a loss because I was torn between alternatives that presented a dilemma. Where our vital headstart was concerned, the shortcut spelled safety yet the price of that would be an exposure to additional dangers.
“I’m for the shortcut,” I said finally. “I’d rather face dangers we can see in front of us than have death riding on our backs.”
“Right you are! I see that the education I gave you is beginning to bear fruit!” replied Fratulon.
So we drove along the ever-rising slopes of the mountains directly northwards toward the next halfway station. Actually this route appeared to be pleasant in its aspect and we made good headway. Farnathia held one of the rifles and kept an eye out to the rear. Even Ice Claw seemed to feel considerably better than he had for some hours, gesticulating with his childlike arms and chattering about his impressions and recollections. We all felt as though we were already in the vicinity of Sawbones’ mysterious stronghold. And yet that sense of death riding on our backs persisted.
“See anything back there, Farnathia?” I inquired.
“No, nothing. Only our tracks!” she answered.
This girl had been torn from the cloistered protection of her home and been thrown into this whole perilous adventure, mostly because of her attachment to me, I thought. “Looks as if the snow ghosts have dropped us out of sight and mind,” I conjectured after awhile yet I was reminded of the fact that the noise of this steamchugger of ours must sound like the thunder of a winter storm.
“I’m not cancelling out the possibility of an attack by them until we’ve reached the Omirgos,” commented Fratulon. He kept glancing above us to the upper slopes. Nobody knew what kind of ground we were traversing because of the heavy snow. All we knew was that it was reasonably firm and even After another half hour he added: “Well, we’re gathering experience as we go. You never can tell when we’re going to need it.”
I took a bite of roast meat that Farnathia had given me. “Wise men teach themselves through experience,” I answered. I was looking out at the lowlands beneath us which were apparently a swampy type of river drainage or one of the vast bogs that were typical of the Pale Land. “But specifically those experiences which they choose to have. On that score we don’t seem to be so wise.”
“At the moment there’s little choice,” asserted Fratulon, “because we are fugitives.
What happened then was something that we had unconsciously been anticipating. At first there was a sound as of distant thunder. Then Fratulon started cursing and turning the wheel like mad.
“Avalanche!” he yelled.
4/ FROM AVALANCHE TO CREVASSE
Before the snow car cut away to the left I glanced through the reeling windshield. I saw the steep slope which we had been following for almost an hour. It formed a steep, white, triangular-shaped wall. With the unaided eye it was difficult to see what was moving up there on the ridge but it could have only one meaning: snow ghosts. The car bumped and jolted to the left but then straightened out again. Fratulon pulled and shoved every possible control in order to get up all the speed the machine was capable of. The yowling concert of battered and overloaded bearings began anew.
“What is an avalanche?” asked Farnathia, shouting above the noise.
“A giant mass of snow that falls from the tops of steep slopes and pours down into the valleys, sweeping everything along with it!” shouted Fratulon. “Let’s hope we can beat it to safety!” He was straightened out on a course to his right in order to get out of a small forest of leafless trees.
On the far crest of the slope, a spray of snow plumed out against the dull-grey sky. It bloomed into a massive cloud that took on the shape of a giant steamroller within a matter of seconds.
I stared into the rearview mirror and held on desperately as our vehicle began to progress by jumps over the terrain, causing the tractor chains to spin free
spasmodically and damage the bearings more.
“Faster!” shrieked the Chretkor. “Faster, Sawbones!”
“What do you think I am, an eagle?” retorted Fratulon with seeming calmness.
The doom cloud grew, finally taking a steady plunge down the slope. It picked up speed and doubled its size again. Then the tumbling masses began to churn and billow, causing even the snow at lower levels to start shaking loose behind us It was as though a giant tidal wave were trying to overtake a lifeboat.
“Faster!” yelled Ice Claw, almost losing his voice. “We’ll get buried and be smothered!”
“What can we do?” I bellowed at Fratulon.
“Nothing,” was his laconic reply.
We raced on. Now the avalanche wave widened out and its fringes reached out toward the hurtling snowmobile. The unleashed forces of Nature that the snow ghosts had started became a pounding Juggernaut that struck the small forest behind us and flattened it like so many straws. Several boulder-sized snowballs crashed like thunder against our battered stern. The overworked drive mechanisms shrieked and howled. We began to smell fumes inside the cabin but took little note of them. Now the final wave of the avalanche reached us. A mighty fist struck us from behind and shoved us onward.
We were virtually lifted as though we had been a feather as the plunging snow pushed in under the wheels and tractor chains. We glided along as if on a flood crest, gathering speed, as the snow came inside and threatened to cover us. Ice Claw screamed in animal panic. I felt the girl’s hand gripping deep into my shoulder. Before us the landscape seemed to change and came rushing at us like an animated nightmare.
“Made it!” I heard Fratulon’s groaning shout of relief.
Two long arms of loosely packed snow overtook us to the right and left of the car and then came to rest. Our hurtling pace slackened. The wheels began to turn again and we climbed ahead out of the snow.
“We’re saved!” said Fratulon matteroffactly and he steered back onto his course to the right. The cabin was full of snow and it was starting to melt under t
he effects of the internal heat. Our boiler pressure had fallen and we were clattering along quite slowly. “Get this cursed snow out of here!” he ordered. “It’s needed out there for the next spring thaw!”
I joined the others in the necessary work of digging ourselves out. By afternoon we were all exhausted but we found ourselves far removed from the snow-denuded mountain slope and we were still sticking to our shortcut.
Fratulon pointed to a distant hill ahead of us. “We have to go over that hill. Once we’ve made it we’ll take a rest.”
It was nothing less than a miracle that our poor rattletrap steed was still running and hadn’t long since fallen apart. We actually made it to the hill but didn’t relax until we had reached the top We were unspeakably tired.
Fratulon leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, and once more his thoughts were of things I was only to know of later.
Still 7 or 8 days yet to Adjover—the infamous hole of the North. And before that, the Valley of Steam. I hope we get through it. After Adjover we have to make it without this spunky jalopy and really start to sweat. Especially to get over the glacier. So there’s still no sign of Sofgart’s Kralasenes—hm-m… This lad here is really remarkable; with his mere 17 Arkon years he can run rings around others of his age.
Three days yet to the Valley of Steam… no use telling them ahead of time. Better to let them see the facts as they come.
Can only afford a one-hour rest—otherwise we’ll never pull ourselves together. The farther we go the more dangerous it’s going to get. I’m glad I have Atlan with me. If we reach the base in time, that’s when I’ll need him the most.
Fratulon opened his eyes and gave me one of his challenging grins.
“What were you thinking about?” I asked.
“About that infernal tea that Farnathia is brewing,” he answered, “and about the days ahead out there in the Pale Land.” He pointed ahead and added drily: “Beyond the hills to the North.”
I warmed my hands around the hot mug that the girl had given me. I tried to recall what little I knew about the place called Warm Spot. It was a circular region surrounded by jagged terrain which was higher at the edges than in the centre. Measuring about 10 kilometres in diameter, its main feature was a lake of glowing magma. It boiled and hissed continuously and since time immemorial there had been no snow inside the crater. At the most, only heavy mists had been reported. Also, snow couldn’t hold up against the head of its surroundings. The place couldn’t be avoided because we had to stop in Adjover to overhaul our equipment and add to our supplies. But I wasn’t concerned so much with the crater and its strange phenomena as I was with the lawless settlement itself.
I emptied my mug and hoped for better days.
“You thinking about Adjover?” my friend asked me.
“Yes.”
“We’ll be given a hostile reception—it’s always that way with them.”
“Because of who we are,” I asked calmly, “or for other reasons?”
“All strangers are met there with hostility and suspicion. They are lawless outcasts.”
I nodded; this is what I had often heard. The men up there were the offscourings of the planet. As a boiling kettle gets skimmed off the top or overruns, civilization had rejected these men and driven them away as contaminants of various racial cultures. Their type wouldn’t even be found in the slum sectors near
the spaceports.
“I see.”
“They don’t have enough women to go around,” he half-whispered in a very conspiratorial tone.
“You mean… “I didn’t finish the question, since the answer was self-evident. It meant that the sight of a beautiful girl would send them raving. So I’d have to watch Farnathia every minute and not let her get an inch from my side. Whenever I had her with me there I’d have to be carrying a loaded gun.
“Do you understand?”
I swallowed with difficulty. “Yes.”
We ate our fill, washed it down and then inspected the snow car. Apparently the plucky old crate would hold up awhile yet but the farther we drove it the more it was likely that our sole means of transportation might suddenly drop out from under us.
Fratulon’s next remarks made me wonder if he had read my mind. “It’s a statistical certainty that each additional kilometre we drive this thing is going to add to its deterioration. The farther we travel ahead the more we should start getting used to the thought that we might have to be on foot the last few days.”
“If the boiler bursts we’ll take to the air!” prophesied Ice Claw, only proving, however, how macabre humour can sometimes get.
Fratulon shook his head. “Going it on foot will be a picnic compared to the terror and mayhem in Adjover. I ask you—all three of you not to forget that for a
second. And now, let’s get on with it!”
“I’ll drive,” I told him, and once more we exchanged places.
A shortime later I was again following the compass, whose steel finger kept pointing in the direction of our goal. We left the hill behind us and now came into a region that looked like the haunt of ghosts, even in the late afternoon.
* * * *
“My friends,” said Fratulon with unaccustomed gravity, “we are in a vast and empty wilderness. Basically the Pale Land is not dangerous in itself. The normal manifestations of Nature are only deadly for fools and blindmen. However, shortly ahead of us we are faced with three distinct dangers. You can believe me because I know this planet as well as a handful of others I’ve knocked around on in my time. These dangers are: the snow ghosts, the Valley of Steam and Adjover. Once we have gotten these behind us we’ll only have to struggle with Nature plus our own fatigue and sagging efficiency as a team. That’s the gist of what I had to tell you.”
Before us lay a typical polar plain of permafrost, as Sawbones called it. Our iron steed rattled along over it at a modest but steady rate. I reasoned that taking it slightly easier would prolong the lifespan of the snow car. Whether that might prove to be a right choice or a fatal mistake only the future could tell.
By now the Kralasenes, the hired mercenaries of the Arkonide Emperor, would have been well-advanced on our trail. We knew there could be no question about it, even though we had received no confirmation of it as yet The main question was, how far were they behind us? As for myself I was rather optimistic. They weren’t sure exactly what direction we had taken and for the most part our tracks had been obliterated. Besides, between the point where they had started their pursuit and the place where we had begun our rapid march North lay a considerable stretch of the Spider Desert. And there the drifting sands had left no track or sign of our passage.
“Thanks for the briefing, Fratulon,” I said while watching every detail of the terrain ahead of us. “But what can you tell me about this weird no-man’s land we’re heading into?”
Sawbones shrugged his wide but chubby-looking shoulders and grunted. “I wish there were something special I could tell you but one never knows out here. At any rate we have to watch out for the snow ghosts yet.”
“No doubt,” I muttered and we drove on in silence for awhile.
The broad plain stretched indiscernibly to the horizon, or in other words it reached out before us to where the eye could no longer distinguish the line between ground and sky. The terrain was basically flat and was covered rather evenly with about a yard-thick layer of snow. But from this white background rose trees, rocks and cone-shaped objects or hillocks which made the landscape look like a mad painter’s nightmare. The basic colour of everything was white but the ice-encrusted trunks of the bare trees glistened with a predominantly greyish colour whereas the rocks and hillocks gleamed with a strange unreal tone of brown. I heeded Sawbones’ advice by carefully steering a zigzag course through this region… northward toward Warm Spot and the Pole.
“Snow ghosts…” I mumbled half aloud to myself as I thought of them. Semi-intelligent mutated descendants of the enigmatic beings who had once established
a highly advanced culture on Gortavor. In the course of centuries and millenniums they had degenerated into animals and for some unknown reason they furiously attacked anyone who entered their domain.
I steered around a tree that rose up like a grotesque skeletal fragment. Then I guided the clanking and puffing steamer around a conical hillock. The snowy surface beyond was completely smooth.
Too smooth! The sudden thought struck me. The characteristic ripple markings of the wind were missing.
“As I veered away from the area in a half circle, Fratulon commented: “What happening—a twitch of instinct?”
“You could call it that.”
“In the past few hours the snow ghosts have been strangely quiet,” remarked Ice
Claw.
“Let’s hope they stay that way!” said Farnathia.
I had been watching her almost continuously whenever time and task permitted it. She wasn’t merely a beauty, she also had brains. In this present situation, which was an entirely new experience to her, she carried on as though such perils had been a part of her existence. She was one of us.
“I’d like to think that but I’m not counting on it,” I said reluctantly and I concentrated on the stretch ahead.
The vehicle was bumping with a hard screeching of springs over unknown rough spots hidden under the snow. The denuded trees and the weird rock formations glided past.
As I suddenly muttered a curse, Fratulon looked at me. “What’s wrong, lad?”
“I have a nagging suspicion—Do you think it’s possible for the snow ghosts to have planted a trap for us here?”
Fratulon was polishing a spot on his armour with the fur sleeve of his cloak. “Yes and no,” he said finally. “They’d attack at any opportunity but I don’t think
they’re smart enough to do any premeditated planning.”
“Just the same I’m suspicious,” I answered curtly.
“That’s not only your privilege,” he countered, “it’s part of our life insurance!”