Star Winds Read online

  Zhorga beckoned. Lead boots thudded quietly on timber as they crept to the end of the corridor. Then Zhorga pushed open the door, and without a pause stepped through.

  Faces turned, and froze to see Zhorga’s bearded visage. Zhorga glowered around him, taking in the long compartment with bunks down both sides and a board table down the middle. A barrel of powdered air threw off a faint smoke which dissipated quickly into breathable phlogiston. He had known there were not many weapons aboard; as he glanced here and there he saw axes, knives, a couple of swords—and one more flintlock, lying on the table in front of Boxmeld, who was regarding him with a calculating eye.

  Zhorga pointed his cutlass at him. “Sparge got what he deserved, Boxmeld—and the same is in store for you, unless you give yourself up and take whatever punishment I mete out.”

  Standing to the rear, Rachad wondered if Zhorga’s apparent confidence was not misplaced. What if the whole crew were ready to rally behind Boxmeld? How could Zhorga possibly cope?

  Boxmeld clearly had the same thought. He came to his feet with an unpleasant smile and turned, addressing the others. “Well, do you want to follow our good captain into eternity, boys? Do you want to die out here, where no one will even find our bodies? Of course you don’t—so get them!”

  As he snapped out the last words he snatched up his pistol. But Clabert was too quick for him; his shot took Boxmeld in the throat, and the renegade fell slowly back with the blast still resounding on the air.

  His death was hardly noticed by those who attempted to rush the newcomers. Zhorga and Clabert found themselves shoulder to shoulder, facing a dozen angry and determined men. Rachad, heeding Zhorga’s earlier advice, dodged back into the passageway, and peered between the straining bodies to try to see what was happening.

  Zhorga realized that few of his crewmen had stomach enough to fight. Even so, the odds were heavily against himself and Clabert, encumbered as they were in their spacesuits. He slashed and swiped, ripping cloth and spilling a spray of blood, at the same time taking a nick in the cheek.

  Momentarily the mutineers drew back from the ferocious blades. “Give up!” a voice cried hoarsely. “You haven’t got a chance!”

  At that moment a loud pounding noise came from the far end of the messdeck. A door that led to a storeroom burst open. Through it piled four men whose faces Zhorga had noticed were missing from the gathering—those same diehards who had already saved the ship when she had been caught in the hurricane.

  Yelling wildly, the four raced the length of the mess-deck, shoving aside any who stood in their way and grabbing up chairs to attack the renegades from the rear. For a while the scene resembled a tavern brawl. In the confusion Zhorga managed to disarm one of the swordsmen facing him, snatching up the weapon and tossing it to his new fillies.

  Axes and knives were no match for three skillfully wielded swords, and suddenly the fight did not seem so uneven. Even so, more blood was spilled before the mutineers lost heart, threw down their weapons and backed grudgingly against the bunks. Three were dead; four others lay injured.

  Zhorga called for Salwees, a sailor who doubled as barber and amateur surgeon. While the wounds were being dressed he turned to Bruges, one of those who had come bursting in from the storeroom.

  “Thanks for your intervention,” he said. “I was wondering where you were.”

  “We couldn’t get loose straight away,” Bruges replied. He grinned crookedly. “They took us by surprise, you know. But you needn’t worry about us—we’re with you, all the way.”

  Zhorga nodded. He turned to face the rest of the crew, who were staring ashen-faced. “So, you want to go home,” he rumbled. “Well, there’s only one thing I can say to you—put the thought out of your minds. It’s Mars we’re bound for, and Mars is where we’re going. When we come back, you’ll all be rich.”

  “We’ll never get there!” a sailor backed against the bunks protested in a tremulous voice. “The ship’s simply not up to it. Already we must be way off course!”

  “It’s true we’re a few degrees off,” Zhorga admitted in an even, reasonable tone, “but it’s nothing we can’t compensate for. We’re navigable; we can correct errors.” His voice became suddenly impatient. “Do you think I can’t read an astrolabe?”

  “You can’t correct for space monsters,” another voice muttered.

  “Don’t talk nonsense. There are no such things,” Zhorga retorted firmly. “Now listen to me, all of you. Instead of quaking in your boots the way you are, you should be feeling proud of yourselves. You’ve proved that a wooden hulk like the Queen can be taken up into space, given enough sail—and enough guts—and that’s an achievement. Everyone will look up to you when you get back to Earth—and you’ll get back, never fear. You’ll be wealthy into the bargain, if we return with a hold full of silk. Thanks to you, the interplanetary trade might even revive.

  “Now there’s nothing much between us and Mars, so from now on I anticipate an easy journey,” he continued. “As for turning back, well, I wouldn’t try it even if I wanted to. We’re in space now, and you can’t backtrack on your course just like that. If you could, you’d find the Earth had moved on and you’d likely never catch her. These things have to be planned a long time in advance. To put it bluntly, to go back we have to reach Mars first.”

  Zhorga’s words, consisting mainly of half-truths, were greeted by silence. Nevertheless he knew the rebellion was over. He hoped his men understood now that if they wanted to stay alive there was only one person they could rely on—himself.

  ***

  Back in his cabin with Rachad, Zhorga sat down and began to brood anew over a problem that had occupied him ever since the sail canopy had been extended.

  It would not have reassured the crew to know that the dangers of takeoff they had so narrowly survived were not, in Zhorga’s view, anything like so hazardous as the business of landing on Mars. The tricky part of traveling to a downwind planet lay in being able to shed the velocity that had been gained on the way over, if one were not to go streaking through its atmosphere like a meteor. The recognized way of doing this was to fly past the target planet at short range, allowing its natural attraction to pull the ship into circum-planetary orbit. The ether itself could then be used to reduce speed, during as many circuits as were necessary.

  But Zhorga did not trust his sense of computation too far. If he missed planetary capture he would find himself hurtling out into the Girdle of Demeter. So he was left with the alternative method: tilting at Mars head-on, going for dead center, and braking on the retroactive shock wave the planet created in the ether flow. If, that was, the Wandering Queen’s timbers were equal to the strain.

  The prospect so worried Zhorga that he had scarcely begun to think about the homeward journey, for which different tactics altogether were required. To travel to an upwind planet one sailed against the solar system’s general rotation, so as to lose angular momentum. The massive attraction of the sun would then draw the ship inward, enabling her to match orbits with the target planet and land.

  But once again the theory was simpler than the practice. How much angular momentum should be shed? Guesswork would not be enough.

  Zhorga sighed, rose, and taking a handful of powdered air from a walnut box, poured it into the smoldering urn. Wearily he rubbed his face with his hand, then suddenly noticed that Rachad was watching him attentively, aware of his troubled mood.

  “You’d better bed down here in the sternhouse for a while, Rachad,” Zhorga rumbled. “Some of the crewmen might have it in for you.”

  The Wandering Queen swept on through the blazing darkness, gaining velocity all the time. Zhorga’s thick black hair, Rachad saw for the first time, was streaked with gray.

  Chapter FIVE

  For all Zhorga’s assurances, the voyage of the Wandering Queen continued to be fraught with difficulty. The continuous beating of the sun on the ship’s bottom caused her interior to become stiflingly hot, but what was worse, softened t
he caulking, making it bubble and leak. The crewmen were obliged to spend much of their time making good these breaches, and some became so terrified of asphyxiation that they tried to sleep in their space-suits, only to be forcibly dragged from them for the sake of conserving the powdered air.

  Zhorga became concerned at the damage the heat was doing to the costly essences and expensive wines included in his cargo—damage which, he now saw with hindsight, could have been prevented if a reflective screen had been fitted under the hull. But annoying though this was, there were more serious worries. For one thing, chasing Mars across the sky was proving not nearly so simple as he had imagined. His first attempt, guided by orrery and astrolabe, to make a course change by bracing a few sails had ended in the ship swinging wildly off-center, forcing him to issue a hasty countermand. The rules of ~ aerial flight, he was discovering ruefully, were not all good for space.

  But gradually he was getting the hang of it. The sun receded and the ship cooled, and life aboard her settled into a routine. Fear faded in most into a mulish resentment, even to growing pride. And there were always a few to whom every moment was a glorious adventure …

  ***

  Blue silk billowed and strained all around Rachad. Occasionally the sails rippled as they met some tiny irregularity in the ether flow and the ship trembled ever so slightly. Mostly, however, everything was rock-steady. It required an effort of the imagination to realize that the ship was moving at all.

  Having finished his daily task of checking tacks and pulleys, he was making his way along a yardarm. Below him, the maindeck was deserted. Overhead he could see Mars, glowing like a red warning lamp, and to one side, as if below the level of the deck, was an equally brilliant blue-white star he knew was Earth.

  Suddenly something seemed to flash past him, so close as to make his heart jump. A meteor, he decided apprehensively—the one accident a spacefarer could do nothing to avoid. Making sure his safety line was clear, he stepped off the foot-rope, let go the yard, and floated gently down until hitting the deck. Then he unhooked his line, coiled it neatly and clipped it in place near the deck lockers.

  It happened again. A flash, a fleeting impression of something hurtling aslant the deck, this time narrowly missing the midmast.

  A swarm, he thought with fright. A third object approached, more slowly, visible as a pale white ball which thudded into the deck, splintered the planking, and rolled before coming to rest against the airshed.

  Rachad saw Clabert and two others working forward. They seemed to have noticed nothing, the sound of the impact being conducted poorly, perhaps, through their lead-soled boots and mingling with the thuds and thumps one heard when busy in a spacesuit. It occurred to him to warn them, but instead he turned to peer in the direction from which the meteors were coming, and thought to detect a whole swarm of tiny glints, distinguishable from the starry background by their motion.

  He hurried to the white ball and picked it up. It was about the size of a large melon, very regular in shape, and not at all what he would have expected a meteor to be. Judging by the ease with which he was able to move it, he judged it to have the density of wood rather than stone, and its pale rind-like surface made him think of a hard-shelled fruit. One side seemed partly decomposed and was friable under the pressure of his hands.

  Very odd, Rachad thought. He decided to give the object closer inspection. He tucked it under his arm, passed through the airshed, and made his way to the mess deck.

  He now messed with the rest of the crew, having been unceremoniously booted out of the sternhouse by Zhorga once the men seemed more settled. Few of them were friendly toward him, however, and he met only hostile glances as he walked in, set down the ball on his bunk, and unscrewed his helmet.

  The stench of the crew quarters invaded his nostrils, but within seconds he ceased to notice the familiar thick odor. He unfastened the suit’s toggles and pulled apart the self-sealing inner lining, ducking his head through the brass ring and pulling the suit down over his shoulders. He withdrew his arms from the sleeves and picked up the ball with his bare hands. It was as cold as ice—colder. It seemed to suck the heat from him. He dropped it back on the bunk, his fingers numb.

  Then he became aware of Boogle standing over him. The sailor spoke in a hoarse whisper. “What you got there, boy?”

  “It dropped on the deck,” Rachad said, blowing on his aching fingers.

  “So that was it … we heard the thump …” For once Boogle’s bulging eyes were fixed in concentration as he leaned closer to the pallidly shining ball. Then, with a hysterical shriek, he staggered back.

  “Oh God! Look at this, mates!” he called out breathlessly. “He’s copped a space dragon’s egg!”

  Rachad blinked, and gave a nervous laugh. “Nonsense!” he declared. “Space dragons don’t exist. This is a piece of rock, that’s all, that probably drifted in from the Girdle of Demeter.”

  He fell silent, uncomfortably aware of the crowd that rapidly surrounded him in answer to Boogle’s cries. He caught a whiff of superstitious panic.

  Boogle pointed with a trembling finger. “Don’t you recognize it, any of you?” he hooted. “A space dragon’s egg, that’s what it is!”

  “It’s a dragon’s egg, all right,” another voice said hotly. “I saw one in Indie, once—de-animated.”

  “Well this one won’t be!” Boogle snapped back excitedly. “Our little Captain’s pet has brought a dragon into the ship, that’s what he’s done! And we’re all done for!”

  “Get rid of it!”

  Boogle’s last words had ended on a wail, and echoing wails answered them. The panic mounted. Men went for spacesuits. Some so much forgot themselves as to dash for the companionway unprotected.

  “All right!” Rachad yelled in exasperation. “I’ll get rid of it!”

  He picked up the ball, intending for some reason to transfer it to the table before suiting up and taking it back topside. The ball was no longer cold; in fact it seemed improperly warm, and in the next moment or two a network of fine cracks appeared on its surface, which then broke open. A gray tentacle, ending in a pincer which clicked audibly, emerged and waved in the air.

  With an involuntary cry of horror Rachad dropped the space egg. Around him were screams and a general rush.

  “Don’t be fools!” he shouted, nonplussed. “A thing that size can’t hurt you.”

  But he was proved wrong for the second time. The monster remained small only for as long as it took it to emerge from the egg. It seemingly had no central body. It was a matted mass of tentacles, of lumps and nodes. Each tentacle was either pronged, pincered or bladed, and many of them were also barbed and suckered.

  Defying any laws of matter Rachad could envisage, it swelled and grew, the tentacles thickening, growing stronger, lashing about them and seizing the legs of the table, which it shook in an impressive show of strength.

  And it continued to grow, with lightning speed. Later Rachad remembered little of the next few minutes. In fact, he was among the first to be suited and to go clattering along the short corridor to the companionway. Others attempted to pull their suits on as they ran, while some had left their helmets behind and, too afraid to go back for them, cowered in the corridor together with those lacking suits at all, unable to go either way.

  Rachad, however, joined the press at the airshed (which was so hastily operated that both doors were momentarily levered open at the same time, only to be slammed shut again, fail-safe fashion, by the internal air pressure). The crew streamed out onto the deck, some climbing the ratlines, others huddling together behind whatever cover they could find.

  Taking himself to the port rail, Rachad looked out again. The white flecks were more easily seen now. They were closer. And even as he looked, one burst into life!

  At first it was only a burgeoning patch, writhing and slowly expanding. But then it seemed to explode into a fiery smoke which billowed and spread and roiled, towering over the Wandering Queen, until finally it
took on definite shape and became solid.

  And now it stood revealed as a giant version of the tentacled creature on the mess-deck—a monster huge enough to crush the ship to matchwood!

  It seemed aware of the passing galleon, for it came onward, propelling itself by some means unknown, blotting out space and becoming even more vast as it approached, its tentacles jerking this way and that in a frantic dance as it reached for its prey.

  Rachad was stupefied. The monster, he guessed, was three or four times the size of the ship, and any one of its pincers could have snipped a mast easily. In color it was predominantly gray, but the skin had an oily sheen which seemed to glow with hundreds of transient hues.

  While Rachad was frozen at the rail, his shipmates clung to one another or else fell to their knees, sobbing uncontrollably inside their suits. In no time at all the space monster was upon them, expanding about them, the stars glimmering through its reticulated body. Its tentacles reached out to embrace the ship—

  Then there was a flash, a flare, an explosion of light. The galleon rocked, tipped, began to spin.

  And it was over. The ship restabilized, her attitude corrected at once by the ether’s constant action. Of the space monster, Rachad’s dazzled eyes could see nothing.

  He passed a hand over his faceplate, forgetting for a moment that he could not rub his eyes. How could such a huge beast disappear so completely? How, indeed, could it grow so incredibly swiftly in the first place?

  .He blinked hard, and when his vision cleared and he looked about him, he discovered, at least, what had caused the explosion.

  The space monster had been demolished by a single shot from one of the bombards. Bosun Clabert stood on the foredeck, his hand resting on the weapon, which somehow he had lifted onto its firing platform. His other hand held a lighted taper, of the kind that would burn even in the void.