Star Winds Read online

  He turned away and continued to supervise the work. The hour was eleven in the morning, half an hour past Gebeth’s recommended time, when the Wandering Queen finally took to the air again, almost buried under blue sail, and soared proudly up toward the void.

  Chapter FOUR

  Clad like some billowing orchid in more than twice her usual spread of silk, the Wandering Queen seemed able to soar without limit Up and up she went, climbing high above the commercial flying levels until the cloud layer merged with the ground below her.

  The air thinned, producing a crop of headaches, nosebleeds and spells of dizziness. A silence and a stillness prevailed, broken only by the thrumming of the rigging and the jubilation of those on board.

  Then disaster struck. A violent jet wind, flowing through the sky at more than a hundred miles an hour, hit the galleon without warning. She yawed, reeled, and then heeled over and was dragged on her side on a new and uncontrolled course.

  It was a novel and terrifying experience for an air sailor to be at the mercy of an air wind. Ether silk, with its special porous construction, usually let air pass practically without hindrance. But even silk could not ignore a hurricane. Together with hull and canvas, it was ruthlessly seized and driven onward by the blast.

  A world of confusion and dread exploded around Rachad Caban. The wind shrieked and squealed in his ears. It scoured him, speared him, slashed him with icy knives, pounded him with numbing hammers. It tore him from the capstan where he was stationed and rolled him down the deck until he met the balustrade, to which he clung with all his strength and thanked the gods that he had belted on a safety rope. That same wind carried others over the side and flew them out on their lines like kites.

  On the quarterdeck, Zhorga’s arms were wrapped around the wheel like steel bands, and he was screaming words which the wind instantly whipped away. Then, through the roaring of the jet wind, Rachad heard a sound which completed his terror: a cracking, snapping sound.

  The unmistakable sound of timber giving way.

  The spars were breaking up.

  He sobbed. The galleon presented a dreadful, pathetic sight as she went wallowing through the air. Broken spars, tangled sails, all were trapped in the rigging. Men froze as they clung to the straps and handholds that dotted the decks, paralyzed and ready to die.

  But not all were reduced to such utter helplessness. Incredulously Rachad saw three or four drag themselves along the common safety lines, carrying axes with which they chopped and hewed at standing and running rigging. At first their actions bewildered him; he envisaged the Wandering Queen dropping to earth like a stone. Then he realized that they were working to clear away the windsail, which had borne the brunt of the jet wind, and that the ether spars were relatively undamaged. Canvas, spars and rope, the shattered parts of the ship’s superstructure, went whirling away into the distance.

  The effect on the Wandering Queen was dramatic. Cumbrously she righted herself, swaying from side to side even though still sent scudding along by the hurricane. Captain Zhorga wrestled mightily with the wheel and the ship turned, wallowing and swinging. The ether sails billowed again with a series of crackling sounds, as they once more filled with luminiferous current.

  Seconds later, as abruptly as it had come, the jet wind ceased.

  The galleon climbed in an unearthly silence. They were above the jet stream, above the eight turbulent miles of the planet’s weather. Here was a new realm: the stratosphere—tenuous, calm, extending, Zhorga believed, for more than a hundred miles until it finally petered out at the edge of space.

  He had intended his men to don space garb adapted from sea-diving gear before reaching this height. Now they were befuddled from lack of pressure, gasping in the frigid air. Yet somehow they found the strength to haul aboard those who had gone over the side, and only then did they open the deck lockers and start struggling into the protective suits.

  Fumblingly they ignited the powdered air in their backpacks. Then, utterly exhausted, they fell about the deck, hoping and praying that their captain had the good sense to abandon his foolhardy mission and turn back for home, while there was still a chance.

  Captain Zhorga, however, did not have any such good sense. True, the hurricane had left him feeling shaken, but his ship had come through it and that was good enough in his book.

  Already his mind was on the greater hazards to come. Far overhead sped the slipstream, a branch of the ether wind that instead of passing through the atmosphere split away and went racing over the top of it, like a breeze deflected by a ball. This slipstream was shallow but immensely strong and swift, and played a vital role in interplanetary sailflight. If approached correctly, it would send the Wandering Queen catapulting at top speed toward her target. Otherwise, there was a risk that it might bear her round into the Earth’s lacuna, a static region where the ether did not move at all.

  Zhorga lashed the wheel in position; from now on there would be no pitting the wind against the ether. Scorning to strap himself into his captain’s seat, he stood by the poop rail, knowing it would hearten his men to see him standing there unafraid, prominent by reason of the large number I painted on his chest Patiently breathing the acrid chemical air, he waited out the hours as the galleon continued to climb on the irresistible power of the ether. Space-suits gradually swelled in near-vacuum. Stars appeared as the sky turned first purple then black, and the sun blazed with an unfamiliar fierceness.

  With increasing anxiety he watched for the signs: a hastening of the ship’s onward pace, an extra swelling of the sails, a new strain on the tackles.

  They came; excited, he gave the prearranged arm signal. On the maindeck men clumsily worked the great ratchets, slipping and sliding on the planking. The three mainmasts that were mounted on those ratchets shuddered inch by inch toward their new settings, while at the same time sheet-ropes were taken in to bring the sails to the angle Zhorga wanted.

  But before the maneuver could be completed there came a sudden shock so violent as to send Zhorga tumbling down the stairway to the maindeck. The ship seemed to be turning, tilting. He tried to get to his feet, but discovered to his horror that the deck had turned right over to form a sloping ceiling, and that below him there spread the shimmering blue sails, two hundred miles of space and air, and the blue-and-white expanse of the Earth.

  He fell, howling. But already the deck had slipped beneath him again. He rolled, grabbed a handhold, and desperately tried to weigh up the situation.

  The ship was spinning with a waltzing gyration whose center seemed to be somewhere between the maindeck and the topgallants. Men were either clinging to whatever was within reach or else were falling and tumbling through space like insects shaken from a tree. Evidently the galleon’s entry into the slipstream had been too precipitate, and Zhorga had no doubt that she was now being carried inexorably toward the lacuna.

  He saw that four or five sailors, swaying this way and that as the ship turned over and over, were still clinging to the nearest ratchet bar. He seized a safety line, gritted his teeth, and timing his efforts to the galleon’s oscillations, hauled himself toward the bar.

  He reached the men only to glimpse, through gridded faceplates, faces rigid with fear. He thumped and shoved them, but they reacted only by gripping the ratchet bar even more stubbornly.

  He could not really blame them. It was not unknown at great heights for air sailors to freeze to the spars and to have to be pried loose. Roaring uselessly in the vacuum, he kicked and shoved more violently, almost knocking one man loose from his hold. At last they seemed to understand what they must do to save themselves. Following Zhorga’s example, they made an effort to work the ratchet mechanism, their boots scraping intermittently on the revolving deck.

  The ratchet moved a notch, then another. The mast shuddered and dropped, foot by foot, and shortly there was a change in the movements of the ship. The gyrations damped down. The stem rose, bringing the decks to a slope of nearly forty-five degrees, so that the bow
pointed directly at the Earth and it seemed to the eye that the galleon was rushing headlong back toward the ground.

  In fact, she was still in the grip of the slipstream. But now there was enough stability for the men to recover their wits and to work the remaining ratchets. The decks leveled; the onrushing slipstream began to do the work Zhorga had planned for it—lifting the galleon at a diagonal angle and at an ever-faster rate.

  The acceleration was crushing. Even Zhorga’s knees buckled, despite himself, and he sprawled full-length, scarcely able to breathe for long minutes that seemed like hours, as a colossal weight pressed him against the swaying deck.

  Then the torture abruptly vanished and was replaced by a novel feeling of lightness. Zhorga lunged to his feet, looking about him and experiencing this new sensation with enjoyment.

  His pleasure did not last long. Staggering toward him came a crewman who mouthed at him appealingly from within his helmet Zhorga saw that he clutched the fabric of his suit with both hands, and that air was escaping from a large tear. For a moment Zhorga stood nonplussed, wondering how to save the man. But already it was too late. The sailor collapsed, gaping like a fish, and turned blue.

  Zhorga hesitated, aware of many eyes watching the scene. Then he glumly unhooked the dead man’s safety line, lugged the corpse to the side, and threw it unceremoniously overboard.

  ***

  After this, Rachad was alarmed to see a spirit of mutiny appear in the crew, many of whom ignored orders, refused to work and huddled together in a sullen group. Zhorga waded in to restore discipline, aided by Clabert and a few other stalwarts. In the silence of the void brief scuffles took place, made more weird by the thuds and clumps that were transmitted along the timber of the deck and through the soles of the boots of those present But the disaffected men lacked the determination to put up any real resistance, and before long they were back at their posts, helping to put into effect the final stage of Zhorga’s launch plan—the parasol canopy with which he intended to sail across the vast gulf between Earth and Mars.

  The masts were levered erect and the upper yards swung fore and aft. The outboard sprits and booms were raised above the level of the decks. Clambering up the ratlines, men hammered in pins and rings so as to reeve new running rigging and rearrange the sails. When the sails were finally run out, they formed a multi-tiered canopy over the Wandering Queen.

  The ether wind filled them immediately, and the galleon, in a smooth majestic movement, responded by swinging round to present her bottom to the sun. For a short time she oscillated to and fro, like a pendulum, but then became rock steady.

  Zhorga breathed out a sigh of relief and immense satisfaction. All his careful calculating of weight and balance had paid off. The ship was trim. The inertia of her hull perfectly balanced the forward impetus of the sails.

  There was a long pause in which no one moved. Every man gazed about him, the harsh sound of his own breathing loud in his ears, and saw a sight that perhaps had been familiar to his grandfather. Earth shone to port, a stunningly beautiful shield. Farther off floated the moon, small and brilliant.

  The sun could not be seen. It was below the hull, blowing ether straight into the sails. Yet the scene on deck was far from dark. Apart from the glow of Earth and moon, there was a shimmering blue radiance cast down by the sails—a ghostly glow of reflected sunlight.

  A more fanciful ship would never have made it, Zhorga told himself proudly. A clipper, a chebec—even a more elaborate galleon—would by now be lying in tatters on the ground, or at best be helpless in the lacuna.

  To one side of the taut sails he found a prominent red spot, and stared at it avidly and hungrily, for a long time.

  Angry, challenging Mars stared back.

  ***

  The real mutiny did not come until many hours later, by which time a great deal of work had been done. The transparent cover known as the air balloon had been fixed and sealed to the hull, covering the sternhouse and part of the maindeck, and was now inflated. The ship’s interior had also been filled with air. The caulking had been checked seam by seam, and any leaks made staunch.

  An urn of powdered air smoldered in Zhorga’s cabin where, in the presence of Rachad, he conferred with Clabert over the disposition of watches and other matters. The three men swayed slightly in the weak gravity the ship’s steady acceleration provided, though their feet remained firmly planted on the deck due to the lead weights with which their boots were shod.

  Rachad waited for a break in the conversation. “What about me, Captain?” he then asked eagerly. “You said I could learn to work in the rigging.”

  “Very well,” Zhorga agreed. “But keep your face out of direct sunlight as much as possible. It’s always been a bane to space travelers—Earth’s atmosphere filters out the harsher rays, apparently, which cause skin diseases.” He nodded to Clabert. “Find a place for him—”

  He broke off at the sound of boots treading the deck outside. Someone had come through the balloon sphincter, even though the whole crew was at this moment supposed to be recuperating down below.

  Zhorga did not seem at all surprised. With scarcely a pause he took down the cutlass that was clipped to the cabin wall, then flung open the door. He stepped out, while Clabert and Rachad crowded the doorway behind him.

  Four men stood under the air balloon, their faces bearing a ghastly pallor in the eerie light of the sails. Obvious leader of the party was Sparge, a bear of a man recruited just before the voyage from one of Olam’s taverns—an unsavory character, Zhorga recalled, who rarely got work because of his reputation as a troublemaker. The others came from Zhorga’s former crew. All were armed—Sparge with a saber and a flintlock pistol the others with knives and axes—and all had removed their helmets.

  “The game’s over, Captain,” Sparge said bluntly. “We’ve talked it out among ourselves, and we are agreed that as we value our lives we’re turning back. The ship’s in our hands, so lay down your cutlass and we’ll settle it in peaceable fashion.”

  “Do you aim to pilot us to earth?” Zhorga asked Sparge, looking at him askance. “For you may be sure I won’t.”

  “We’ll go down on the night side, where there’s less turbulence. Then since there’s a charge of piracy hanging over us in Olam, we’ll divide everything between ourselves and split up. That’s our plan, Captain, and it makes no difference whether we take you alive or dead.”

  “If you imagine I’ll give up this enterprise now, you don’t know me,” Zhorga said. He wasted no more time in words, but launched himself at Sparge, ignoring the gun that was pointed at his chest. So sudden was the attack that Sparge failed to fire, and Zhorga knocked the muzzle of the pistol aside.

  Blades clashed and rang as the two hacked at one another. It was exaggerated, awkward swordplay. Chary of moving their feet for fear of losing control over their bodies, they swung grotesquely this way and that, while Sparge’s followers edged nervously forward, looking for an opening.

  To avoid being surrounded, Zhorga backed himself against the rail, near the wall of the air balloon. It was then that Sparge found a moment in which to aim his flintlock, and he fired.

  The shot, deafening in the enclosed space, was both clumsy and stupid. The ball missed Zhorga and punctured the air balloon behind him. The balloon began to deflate with a shrill whistling noise, but Zhorga, as if unaware of it, grinned and pressed a fresh assault.

  Everything had happened so fast that neither Clabert nor Rachad had so far been able to react. But now, without thinking, Rachad plunged past the three with axes, dodged Sparge and Zhorga, and threw himself toward the puncture.

  It was about the size of a fingernail, and as he got closer the evacuating air became like a miniature whirlwind. He slapped his hand over the hole. Air pressure immediately clamped his palm to the slick material, and he could feel the hole sucking at his skin like a ravenous little mouth.

  “A patch, bosun, a patch!” he yelled desperately. He closed his eyes, frightened by t
he grunting of men and the clanging of steel behind him. He guessed that the balloon had already lost a fair amount of air, for he felt dizzy and short of breath.

  Then the clashing stopped. A hand fell on his shoulder.

  He opened his eyes. It was Clabert, with a patch. The bosun helped him to force his hand sidewise of the puncture, substituting the square of adhesive. It flew to the hole, sticking itself down and sealing the puncture.

  Sparge lay on the deck. Blood oozed from a wound in his neck and flowed down into his suit. The other three mutineers cowered against the starboard rail, weapons hanging in limp gloves.

  Zhorga spoke. “All right, Boogle. Who organized this charade?”

  Boogle rolled his eyes. He was a stooped, cadaverous figure and he looked even more deathly in the light of the sails. “Sparge and Boxmeld mostly, Captain,” he muttered, then broke into a spluttering rush of words. “We don’t want to die in space, Captain. The Queen isn’t built for this kind of thing. Mars is too far away … Let’s go home.”

  Clabert grunted with disgust “Just look at it.”

  “They’ve got a touch of panic, all right,” Zhorga agreed. “I’ve quenched mutinies before. We’d better go down below and stamp on this one.”

  “What about these three?”

  “Take their helmets off them and leave them here.”

  The would-be mutineers put up no resistance as they were disarmed. Zhorga found powder and shot in a pouch on Sparge’s belt and loaded the flintlock, handing it to Clabert together with Sparge’s saber.

  He handed Rachad an axe. “Hold this for show, lad, but if it comes to a fight—best stay out of the way.”

  Rachad nodded. Little else was said—Zhorga seemed completely in command, completely confident They suited up, then carried the additional helmets and weapons through the sphincter, stowing them in a locker on the open deck.

  With the loping steps they were already used to, Zhorga led the way to the air-shed, a double-doored cubicle erected on the maindeck which acted as an airlock and gave access to below decks. One by one they passed through it, pulling themselves hand over hand down the companionway beneath until they were standing in the short corridor that led to the common messdeck. Here they removed their helmets and placed them on the companionway steps. A murmur of voices came from the end of the passageway, where a glimmer of lamplight outlined the frame of a door.