Land and Overland - Omnibus (24 page)

“Well, if your curiosity extends as far as my term in the army I can assure you that the word ‘play’ is highly inappropriate. I…”

“Be quiet, you two,” Gesalla said, placing a hand on each man’s arm. “The ceremony begins.”

Toller fell silent in a fresh confusion of emotions as the burial party arrived from the direction of the house. In his will Glo had stated his preference for the shortest and simplest ceremony that could be accorded a Kolcorronian aristocrat. His cortege consisted only of Lord Prelate Balountar, followed by four dark-robed suffragens bearing the cylindrical block of white gypsum in which Glo’s body had already been encased. Balountar, with head thrust forward and black vestments draping a bony figure, resembled a raven as he slow-marched to the circular hole which had been bored into the bedrock of the cemetery.

He intoned a short prayer, consigning Lord Glo’s discarded shell to the parent body of the planet for reabsorption, and calling for his spirit to be given a safe passage to Overland, followed by a fortuitous rebirth and a long and prosperous life on the sister world.

Toller was troubled by guilt as he watched the lowering of the cylinder and the sealing of the hole with cement poured from a decorated urn. He wanted to be torn by sadness and grief on parting with Glo for ever, but his wayward consciousness was dominated by the fact that Gesalla—who had never touched him before—had allowed her hand to remain resting on his arm. Did it signal a change in her attitude towards him, or was it incidental to some twist in her relationship with Lain, who in turn had been acting strangely? And underlying everything else in Toller’s mind was the pounding realisation that he was soon to ascend so far into the sky’s blue dome that he would pass beyond the reach of even the most powerful telescopes.

He was relieved, therefore, when the brief ceremony drew to a close and the knots of mourners—most of them blood relatives—began to disperse.

“I must return to the base now,” he said. “There are many things yet to be…” He left the sentence unfinished as he noticed that the Lord Prelate had separated himself from his entourage and was approaching the trio. Assuming that Balountar’s business had to be with Lain, Toller took a discreet step backwards. He was surprised when Balountar came straight to him, close-set eyes intent and furious, and flicked him on the chest with loosely dangling fingers.

“I remember you,” he said, “Maraquine! You’re the one who laid hands on me in the Rainbow Hall, before the King.” He flicked Toller again, clearly intending the gesture to be offensive.

“Well, now that you have evened the score,” Toller said easily, “may I be of service to you, my lord?”

“Yes, you can rid yourself of that uniform—it is an offence to the Church in general and to me in particular.”

“In what way does it offend?”

“In
every
way! The very colour symbolises the heavens, does it not? It flaunts your intention to defile the High Path, does it not? Even though your evil ambition will be thwarted, Maraquine, those blue rags are an affront to every right-thinking citizen of this country.”

“I wear this uniform in the service of Kolcorron, my lord. Any objections you have to that should be presented directly to the King. Or to Prince Leddravohr.”

“Huh!” Balountar stared venomously for a moment, his face working with frustrated rage. “You won’t get away with it, you know. Even though the likes of you and your brother turn your backs on the Church, in all your sophistry and arrogance, you will learn to your cost that the people will stand for just so much. You’ll see! The great blasphemy, the great evil, will not go unpunished.” He spun and strode away to the cemetery gate, where the four suffragens were waiting.

Toller watched him depart and turned to the others with raised eyebrows. “The Lord Prelate appears to be unhappy.”

“There was a time when you would have crushed his hand for doing that.” Lain imitated Balountar’s gesture, flicking limp fingers against Toller’s chest. “Do you no longer see red so easily?”

“Perhaps I have seen too much red.”

“Oh, yes. How could I have forgotten?” The mockery in Lain’s voice was now unmistakable. “This is your new role, isn’t it? The man who has drunk too deeply from the cup of experience.”

“Lain, I have no inkling of what I have done to earn your displeasure, and even though I’m saddened by it I have no time now to enquire into the matter.” Toller nodded to his brother and bowed to Gesalla, whose concerned gaze was switching between the two. He was about to leave when Lain, eyes deepening with tears, abruptly spread his arms in an embrace which brought his brother and wife together.

“Don’t take any foolish risks up there in the sky, little brother,” Lain whispered. “It’s your family duty to come back safely, so that when the time of the migration arrives we can all fly to Overland together. I won’t entrust Gesalla to any but the very best pilot. Do you understand?”

Toller nodded, not attempting to speak. The feel of Gesalla’s gracile body against his own was asexual, as it had to be, but there was a
rightness
to it, and with his brother completing the psychic circuit there was a sense of comfort and healing, of vital energies being augmented rather than dissipated.

When Toller broke free of the embrace he felt light and strong, fully capable of soaring to another world.

“We, have sunwriter reports from as far away as fifty miles upwind,” said Vato Armduran, the S.E.S. chief engineer. “The look-outs say there is very little ptertha activity—so you should be all right on that score—but the wind speed is rather higher than I would have wished.”

“If we wait for perfect conditions we’ll
never
go.” Toller shaded his eyes from the sun and scanned the blue-white dome of the sky. Wisps of high cloud had overpainted the brighter stars without screening them from view, and the broad crescent of illumination on Overland’s disk established the time as mid-foreday.

“I suppose that’s true, but you’re going to have trouble with false lift when you clear the enclosure. You’ll need to watch out for it.”

Toller grinned. “Isn’t it a little late for lessons in aerodynamics?”

“It’s all very well for you—I’m the one who’s going to have to do all the explaining if you kill yourself,” Armduran said drily. He was a spiky haired man whose flattened nose and sword-scarred chin gave him something of the appearance of a retired soldier, but his practical engineering genius had led to his personal appointment by Prince Chakkell. Toller liked him for his caustic humour and lack of condescension towards less gifted subordinates.

“For your sake, I’ll try not to get killed.” Toller had to raise his voice to overcome the noise in the enclosure. Members of the inflation crew were busily cranking a large fan whose gears and wooden blades emitted a continuous clacking sound as they forced unheated air into the skyship’s balloon, which had been laid out downwind of the gondola. They were creating a cavity within the envelope so that hot gas from the power crystal burner could later be introduced without it having to impinge directly on the lightweight material. The technique had been developed to avoid burn damage, especially to the base panels around the balloon mouth. Overseers were bellowing orders to the men who were holding up the sides of the gradually swelling balloon and paying out attachment lines.

The square, room-sized gondola was lying on its side, already provisioned for the flight. In addition to food, drink and fuel it contained sandbags equivalent to the weight of sixteen people which, when taken with the weight of the test crew, brought the load up to the operational maximum. The three men who were to fly with Toller were standing by the gondola, ready to leap on board on command. He knew the ascent had to begin within a matter of minutes, and the emotional turmoil connected with Lain and Gesalla and Glo’s burial was steadily fading to a murmur in lower levels of his consciousness. In his mind he was already voyaging in the ice-blue unknown, like a migrating soul, and his preoccupations were no longer those of an ordinary Land-bound mortal.

There was a sound of hoofbeats nearby and he turned to see Prince Leddravohr riding into the enclosure, followed by an open carriage in which sat Prince Chakkell, his wife Daseene and their three children. Leddravohr was dressed as for a military ceremony, wearing a white cuirass. The inevitable battle sword was at his side and a long throwing knife was sheathed on his left forearm. He dismounted from his tall bluehorn, head turning as he took in every detail of the surrounding activity, and padded towards Toller and Armduran.

Toller had not seen him at all during his time in the army and only at a distance since returning to Ro-Atabri, and he noted that the prince’s glossy black hair was now tinged with grey at the temples. He was also a little heavier, but the weight appeared to have been added in an even subcutaneous layer all over his body, doing little more than blur the muscle definition and render the statuesque face smoother than ever. Toller and Armduran saluted as he approached.

Leddravohr nodded in acknowledgement. “Well, Maraquine, you have become an important man since last we met. I trust it has made you somewhat easier to live with.”

“I don’t class myself as important, Prince,” Toller said in a carefully neutral voice, trying to gauge Leddravohr’s attitude.

“But you
are
! The first man to take a ship to Overland! It’s a great honour, Maraquine, and you have worked hard for it. You know, there were some who felt that you were too young and inexperienced for this mission, that it should have been entrusted to an officer with a long Air Service career behind him, but I overruled them. You obtained the best results in the training courses, and you’re not encumbered with an aircaptain’s obsolete skills and habits, and you are a man of undoubted courage—so I decreed that the captaincy of the proving flight should be yours,

“What do you think of that?”

“I’m deeply grateful to you, Prince,” Toller said.

“Gratitude isn’t called for.” Leddravohr’s old smile, the smile which had nothing to do with amity, flickered on his face for an instant and was gone. “It is only just that you should receive the fruits of your labours.”

Toller understood at once that nothing had changed, that Leddravohr was still the deadly enemy who never forgot or forgave. There was a mystery surrounding the prince’s apparent forbearance of the last year, but no doubt at all that he still hungered for Toller’s life.
He hopes the flight will fail! He hopes he is sending me to my death!

The intuition gave Toller a sudden new insight into Leddravohr’s mind. Analysing his own feelings towards the prince he now found nothing but a cool indifference, with perhaps the beginnings of pity for a creature so imprisoned by negative emotion, awash and drowning in its own venom.

“I’m grateful nevertheless,” Toller said, relishing the private double meaning of his words. He had been apprehensive about coming face to face with Leddravohr again, but the encounter had proved that he had transcended his old self, truly, once and for all. From now on his spirit would soar as far above Leddravohr and his kind as the skyship was soon to do over the continents and oceans of Land, and that was genuine cause for rejoicing.

Leddravohr scanned his face for a moment, searchingly, then transferred his attention to the skyship. The inflation crew had progressed to the stage of raising the balloon up on the four acceleration struts which constituted the principal difference between it and a craft designed for normal atmospheric flight. Now three-quarters full, the balloon sagged among the struts like some grotesque leviathan deprived of the support of its natural medium. The varnished linen skin flapped feebly in the mild air currents coming through the perforations in the enclosure wall.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Leddravohr said, “it is time for you to join your ship, Maraquine.”

Toller saluted him, squeezed Armduran’s shoulder and ran to the gondola. He gave a signal and Zavotle, co-pilot and recorder for the flight, swung himself on board. He was closely followed by Rillomyner, the mechanic, and the diminutive figure of Flenn, the rigger. Toller went in after them, taking his position at the burner. The gondola was still on its side, so he had to lie on his back against a woven cane partition to operate the burner’s controls.

The trunk of a very young brakka tree had been used in its entirety to form the main component of the burner. On the left side of the bulbous base was a small hopper filled with pikon, plus a valve which admitted the crystals to the combustion chamber under pneumatic pressure. On the opposite side a similar device controlled the flow of halvell, and both valves were operated by a single lever. The passageways in the right-hand valve were slightly enlarged, automatically providing the greater proportion of halvell which had been found best for providing sustained thrust.

Toller pumped the pneumatic reservoir by hand, then signalled to the inflation supervisor that he was ready to begin burning. The noise level in the enclosure dropped as the fan crew ceased cranking and pulled their cumbersome machine and its nozzle aside.

Toller advanced the control lever for about a second. There was a hissing roar as the power crystals combined, firing a burst of hot miglign gas into the balloon’s gaping mouth. Satisfied with the burner’s performance, he instigated a series of blasts—keeping them brief to reduce the risk of heat damage to the balloon fabric—and the great envelope began to distend and lift clear of the ground. As it gradually rose to the vertical position the crew holding the balloon’s crown lines came walking in and attached them to the gondola’s load frame, while others rotated the gondola until it was in the normal attitude. All at once the skyship was ready to fly, only held down by its central anchor.

Mindful of Armduran’s warning about false lift, Toller continued burning for another full minute, and as the hot gas displaced more and more unheated air through the balloon mouth the entire assemblage began to strain upwards. Finally, too intent on his work to feel any sense of occasion, he pulled the anchor link and the skyship left the ground.