Delighted to be the center of attention, Arranth could not resist preening a little, but when Barratong invited her to present her report, she spoke in a clear and businesslike manner.
"With only a single telescope and what crude instruments we could improvise, Ulgrim and I have not been able to make the sort of exact measurements that could be performed at a proper observatory. However, that is paradoxically fortunate. Whoever compiled these ancient maps can have had access to a telescope barely better than our own, if at all, so we have an excellent basis for comparison. In other words, we can be reasonably sure that the stars we see and those depicted on the old maps correspond. Thoughtfully enough, the map-maker indicated which stars were visible to the unaided eye, and which only with the aid of a glass. We have therefore been able to establish the following facts.
"First: the stars do change position—very slowly, but unmistakably— and some have certainly grown brighter.
"Second: there are not just a few but many stars now discernible which were not known to the map-maker, and all of them have something most disconcerting in common. They are all deep red, and they all he in the same general area of the sky. Which leads me to the third point.
"What we have been accustomed to call the Smoke of the New Star can be nothing of the sort. We have traced the site of the New Star, which in the days when these old maps were prepared was still clearly visible, though now it takes a strong glass to detect it. Indeed, one does not so much see the star itself, as a faint and wispy cloud of glowing gas with a dot at its center. But this is not the large, widespread cloud we normally think of. It's too far away—several degrees distant. On the other claw, within it there are some genuinely new stars, which must be far newer than that fabled one which burst out without warning and became brighter than the sun, as the old legends claim—though, strangely, no reference is made to heat from it.
"Within the Smoke, as I was saying, we have counted no fewer than ten stars of which there is no sign on the old maps. Moreover, what reference is made to the Smoke is cursory and vague, and no outline is indicated for it, though we can see one fairly clearly. All these ten new stars, what's more, are reddish, even darker than the Smoke, as though they only recently lighted their fires. They are barely bright enough to make the surrounding cloud shine by reflection, and much too far away to account for the ending of the Freeze.
"And even that is not the most astonishing news."
Having helped as best they could with the observations, Yockerbow and Barratong were primed for the final revelation, and glanced covertly around to see what impact it would have on the unforewarned.
Using an image which Barratong himself had supplied, Arranth said, "Imagine the Great Fleet keeping station on a calm sea, and yourselves aboard a solitary junq making haste towards it. Would you not see the nearest of the Fleet diverge to either side as you drew close, while the furthest remained at roughly the same angle?"
Puzzled at being reminded of something that everybody knew, her listeners signified comprehension.
"What disturbs and even frightens me," concluded Arranth, "is that scores of stars whose positions we can check against the old maps appear to have diverged outward from a common center, and that center is located in or near the Smoke. Either we, with the sun and all its planets, are hurtling in that direction, or the Smoke and its associated stars are rushing towards us. It makes no difference which way you look at it; the outcome is the same. And if, as certain astronomers believe, stars begin because they accumulate surrounding matter, be it whole wandering planets or mere dust like what comes to us as meteorites and comets, then there must be incredible quantities of it in any zone where ten new stars have started to burn since these maps were drawn!"
As though to emphasize her words, a meteor brilliant enough to shine through the daytime sky slashed across the zenith, and immediately thereafter Barratong cried, "Get those maps under cover! The storm will be upon us any moment!"
An echo of thunder confirmed his warning, and they scattered, the sub-commanders to their respective junqs, Arranth, Ulgrim, Yockerbow and Barratong to huddle beneath the shelter offered by their own's haodah.
Tucking the precious maps carefully into the tube again, Arranth said, "Do you think they understood?"
"Most of my fellow-navigators," Ulgrim grunted, "have never thought about stars except to figure out what use they are in guiding us, and most of our lives that hasn't been much, you know. The admiral's right: a real change is working in the world. This is more the sort of weather I'd have expected here in the far north, not the clear bright land we've had since our arrival."
The first assault of rain rattled the canopy of interwoven reeds that formed the haodah's upper deck, and the junq stirred restlessly as the air-pressure changed.
"Will the fine weather return?" asked Arranth.
Her question was mainly addressed to Ulgrim, but before he could answer Barratong cut in.
"It's over-soon to guess, but either way we must get these maps to where they'll be most useful. To begin with, I shall arrange to have them copied with the utmost care. I know who among the Fleet are most skillful at writing and drawing. Of course, I don't know whether we have enough writing-material left. But we'll do what we can, although we have to kill and flay one of the junqlings to make writing-sheets. Beyond that, though, there's the question of what we should do with the originals."
"Why, we take them back to Ripar, obviously!" Arranth burst out.
"It may seem obvious to you; it's not to me. They should go to the finest of modern observatories, and that's not at Ripar. Besides, Ripar is due to be flooded. Not all your spouse's pumps can save it—can they, Yockerbow?"
He made sober reply. "From the bluff where we've installed the telescope, we've seen ice stretching to the skyline. I wouldn't dare to calculate how far the level of the oceans will rise when it melts, but if it's going to be the same as before the Freeze, nothing can save Ripar or any other coastal city."
"Agreed. We should therefore present them to the observatory at Huzertol, inland from Grench and in a zone of clear skies." The admiral spoke in a tone of finality, not expecting to be contradicted.
"Won't do," said Ulgrim instantly.
"What?"
"Won't do," the navigator repeated. "Huzertol may have the best astronomers in the world, the best instruments—it doesn't matter. That far south, they can scarcely see the Smoke, and some of the other important stars nearby never clear its horizon."
Barratong gave a dry laugh. "You know something, old friend? Next year I think we ought to circumnavigate the globe, if only to impress on your admiral's awareness that we do live on a spherical planet! You're right, of course. We must find a northerly observatory."
"Or found one," said Yockerbow.
"Hmm! Go on!"
"Well, if there isn't any place in the northern hemisphere to outdo Huzertol, there ought to be. Ripar is wealthy, and Ripar is doomed. What better memorial than to create a city dedicated to learning and science on some suitable upland site, to which we could transfer—?"
But Barratong wasn't listening. Of a sudden, he was paying attention to the junq. Her back was rippling in a rhythmic pattern.
"The water's growing warmer," he said positively.
To Yockerbow, that seemed unsurprising, since the heavy rain must be raising its temperature. That, though, seemed not to be what the admiral meant.
A gong-signal boomed across the water. A pattern of banners, rain-limp but comprehensible, appeared at the prow of the junq lying furthest to the eastern side of the bay.
Barratong rose to his normal height as he stepped out from the haodah's protection. He said to Arranth, "Give me the map-tube!"
"What? I—"
"Give it to me! Bring cord to make a lashing and a bladder to wrap round it! There's no time to make a new wax seal!"
Ulgrim recognized the scent of authority before the rest of them, and scrambled to comply. While the others stared in asto
nishment, Barratong folded the tube with its maps inside a skin bag, and tied it tight with all his strength to the thickest of the haodah's multiple crossbars.
"Thus does the legend say Skilluck preserved his spyglass," he muttered, while the gong-signals multiplied and grew more frantic, and the junqs began to fret and buck. "And for the sake of imitating him, I'm risking the greatest fleet that ever was..."
The job was done. He turned back to them, claws clenched. "Now, Ulgrim, give the signal! Open sea!"
And the Fleet incontinently turned and fled.
The order came in tune, but only just. Wide though the bay-mouth was, the junqs jostled and tossed in their mad retreat, and the first huge slabs of the ice-wall were already sliding down as they escaped and their commanders regained control.
"Scatter!" Barratong yelled, and pounded the banner junq's gong. It could not be heard above the scraping, grinding, splashing noise from astern, and the rushing, pounding, battering racket of the new-budded waves that were smashing floes against the rocks. All of a sudden the world rocked and twisted and great hills of water erupted in their path, and sometimes the junqs ascended them at a giddying angle and came close to capsizing and sometimes they crashed into them prow-foremost so they broke and doused the crews and filled the back-wells, soaking the stored food. There was no need to order scattering; the alternative did not exist.
Out from the bay rushed bergs as keen as new-cut fangs, and the junqs panicked in their attempt to dodge. The haodah lashings creaked and the junqs screamed for pain, and some of the youngest sought to escape their burdens by rolling over, but their flotation bladders obliged them to right themselves, and if any riders were lost they were children and old folk too weak to cling on. Primeval reflexes bound the adults to whatever they could grasp, folding their mantles around to reinforce their claws and pressurizing the edges until they were stiff as stone.
In a moment of lucidity Yockerbow thought: Just so must Skilq, or Skilluck, or whoever, have endured that legendary storm...
Yet it was not the storm which had caused this. It went on pelting down, but it was trifling. No storm could make the ocean heave and seethe this way! Louder than thunder the noise of shattered ice conveyed the truth.
That warming of the water which Barratong had detected must have presaged the undermining of the high ice-wall. Once it collapsed, whatever was pent up behind it was turned loose, and the Fleet was washed away across the world as randomly as those vaned flying seeds...
IX
"Has it only been a year?" mourned Arranth, her mantle shrunken by salt and cresh, when next they came to what had been the site of Ripar. There was no more trace of the sea-defenses, no sign of the pumps Yockerbow had been so proud of—only some wilting treetops bending to the water, and a trapped mass of what had been prized personal possessions that washed back and forth, back and forth, in time to the waves. Any corpses must have been devoured long ago, for now a horde of greedy sharqs ruled where the Order of the Jingfired had held sway.
Not all the destruction, of course, had been caused by a simple rise in water-level. Maps and charts explained why Ripar had been worse affected than so many other cities they had visited. Northward, an archipelago had focused the impact of the first gigantic wave, driving it into a single channel where it could no longer spread out relatively harmlessly. Some of the islands had been completely washed away; enough, though, had resisted to ensure that Ripar's fragile protective banks dissolved under the eventual onslaught. Once the city's roots were exposed to the intense saltiness of the warm northern water—warm!—they were doomed.
But the melting was certain to continue, as was betokened by the presence of countless bergs following the same currents as the Fleet, and when—if—all the polar ice returned to the liquid state, the world would be transformed unrecognizably.
They had talked long and long about the future as they strove to recreate the Fleet. Barratong had had the foresight to decree what none of his predecessors had thought necessary: a rendezvous in mid-ocean, near four islands with fresh water and ample vegetation. That was where they had waited out the winter, but one of the islands was shrunk to half its normal size and many of the edible plants were dying ... as were too many of the reunited junqs. There was a loathsome taint in the air, and every gust of northern gale brought a drift of grittiness that revolted the maw and made the torso itch beneath the mantle. Sometimes the aurora towards the pole was blanked out not by regular clouds but by some kind of dust, not cleanly star-budded dust such as gave rise to meteors—few, come to that, had been seen this year, hidden no doubt by the same ghastly veil—instead, like the much-feared smoke which drifted from the world's rare drylands when a lightning-strike released wildfire, and could blind and choke those trapped downwind.
"But we saved something worth as much as any city," said Barratong, and pointed to the glass tube holding the old star-maps, which had miraculously resisted the worst the waves could do.
Embittered, Yockerbow as well as Arranth railed at him, and to all their complaining he responded imperturbably:
"You will die, and I, and all we can create—why not a city? But if there is one thing that deserves to be immortal, it is knowledge. Perhaps in the far future like my web to catch the moon a means will exist to unite past and present, here and there, abolishing distance and anxiety at a blow. We spoke a while back, though—did we not?—of an observatory, and a city we shall dedicate to science?"
"A while back" had been very nearly a full year, and Yockerbow, overcome with misery and privation, had long ago dismissed his proposal to the realms of fantasy. He was amazed to hear the admiral repeat it seriously.
"It's out of the question after a catastrophe on this scale," he muttered. "And it isn't over yet. It may take scores of years before the water-level stabilizes. If all the polar ice melts, there may be no dry land whatsoever."
"I don't believe it," Barratong responded. "But even if that's so, we shall build continents of floating weed! We'll not go tamely to an accidental doom! And if we can't learn about the stars, we'll learn about ourselves and the life around us!"
He drew himself up stern and tall, and now he did overtop his companions, for their dispirited mood had sorely shrunk them.
"This you must understand at least: we are the Jingfired now."
Eventually the implications of his words penetrated the dismal fog in Yockerbow's mind, and he too straightened. He said, "You intend it seriously?"
"Oh, not at once, of course. First we have other duties to attend to. I shall break up the Fleet, and dispatch it to every corner of the world, bearing seed and medicine and knowledge above all. At every port of call my commanders will be instructed to inquire after secure sites where people may remove to, and rescue whoever needs to be conveyed thither. Also they shall diligently search out scientists and scholars, so that when we choose the site for our new city—not this year, not next, perhaps not in our lifetime—our successors will know where to recruit a population for it. Then let them assemble with their books and instruments and do as you, friend Yockerbow, suggested: combine their knowledge so that none be lost."
"Will you be obeyed in this?" husked Arranth.
"Oh, I think pride will serve to persuade the ones I have in mind."
"Pride in independence, because they will be in command of their own Fleets, with the right to take wild junqlings and increase them?" Ulgrim's tone was cynical; for countless generations, it had been a punishable offense to do so.
"In part." Barratong was unperturbed. "More to the prong, however, pride in ancestry—which I, an ex-landsider, cannot boast of. Think, Ulgrim! Think of how the People of the Sea must already be reacting to the news that their forebears chose correctly! We face nothing worse than storms and tidal waves. If an island we're accustomed to put in at vanishes, we find another; if the waters rise and swamp what was dry land, so much the better, for where there were isthmi now we find new channels that will take us into undiscovered seas ... Oh,
we shall be rulers of the western ocean too, and very soon! And will not it make for pride that we give aid to those who boasted of security on land?"
"You think more clearly and more distantly than anyone," said Ulgrim in a sober voice.
"Not I! Not I! But Arranth and her like. You chided me for not reacting to the fact the world is round! She saw the very stars moving apart like local floes!"
He gave a little crazy laugh. "That's why I must break up the greatest fleet that ever was. There aren't enough of us to fight the stars, and after this long melting we'll be fewer still. We need a score of Fleets, a score-of-scores! We have to be so crowded and so crammed together that we can burst outward from the world—become like these!"
From one of his baldrics he produced a tiny object, dry and shriveled.
"Remember these?"
"One of the seeds that pelted us up north," said Yockerbow.
"Correct! Well, if a mindless plant can find a way to spread beyond its isolated patch, why shouldn't we? Did it ever strike you that there must have been a first person who pithed a barq or briq, just as there was certainly a first who tamed a junq? Then, folk were confined to continents or islands, and had to trudge wearily from place to place unless they had a drom—and someone, equally, must have been first to ride a drom!"
Ulgrim and Yockerbow exchanged worried glances. Sometimes nowadays Barratong spoke so strangely ... Only Arranth seemed totally to understand him, as though he and she, during this dreadful winter, had found a skyward course into the future in their joint imaginations. But how sane was their shared vision, when the world itself was dissolving back into its primeval waters?