Chapter 14

For five minutes the intermittent flashes and bellows told that the Vings were still hammering away. Then the dark took hold again. Apparently the two had either recognized each other or else had decided that night fighting was a bad business and had steered away from each other. If this last was true, then they wouldn’t be much to fear, for one Ving wouldn’t attack the merchant by itself.

The clouds broke, and the big and the little moons spread brightness everywhere. The pirate vessels were not in sight. Nor were they seen when dawn broke. There was sail half a mile away, but this alarmed no one, except the untutored Green, because they recognized its shape as a sister. It was a merchant from the nearby city of Dem, of the Dukedom of Potzihili.

Green was glad. They could sail with it. Safety in numbers.

But no. Miran, after hailing it and finding that it also was going to Estorya, ordered every bit of canvas crowded on in an effort to race away from it.

“Is he crazy?” groaned Green to a sailor.

“Like a zilmar,” replied the sailor, referring to a foxlike animal that dwelt in the hills. “We must get to Estorya first if we would realize the full value of our cargo.”

“Utter featherbrained folly,” snarled Green. “That ship doesn’t carry live fish. It can’t possibly compete with us.”

“No, but we’ve other things to sell. Besides, it’s in Miran’s blood. If he saw another merchant pass him he’d come down sick.”

Green threw his hands into the air and rolled his eyes in despair. Then he went back to work. There was much to do yet before he’d be allowed to sleep.

The days and nights passed in the hard routine of his labor and the alarms and excursions that occasionally broke up the routine. Now and then the gig was launched, while the ‘roller was in full speed, and it sped away under the power of its white fore-and-aft sail. It would be loaded with hunters, who would chase a hoober or deer or pygmy hog until it became exhausted; then would shoot the tired animal. They always brought back plenty of fresh meat. As for water, the catch-tanks on the decks were full because it rained at least half an hour at every noon and dusk.

Green wondered at the regularity and promptness of these showers. The clouds would appear at twelve, it would rain for thirty to sixty minutes, then the sky would clear again. It was all very nice, but it was also very puzzling.

Sometimes he was allowed to try target practice from the crow’s nest on the grass cats or the huge dire dogs. These latter ran in packs of half a dozen to twenty, and would often pace the Bird, howling and growling and sometimes running between the wheels. The sailors had quite a few tales of what they did to people who fell overboard or were wrecked on the plains.

Green shuddered and went back to his target practice. Though he ordinarily was against shooting animals just for the fun of it, he had no compunction about putting a ball through these wolfish-looking creatures. Ever since he’d been tormented by Alzo he’d hated dogs with a passion unbecoming to a civilized man. Of course, the fact that every canine on the planet instinctively loathed him because of his Earthman odor and did his best to sink his teeth into him, strengthened Green’s reaction. His legs were always healing from bites of the pets aboard.

Often the ‘roller would cruise through grass tall as a man’s knee. Then suddenly it would pass onto one of those tremendous lawns which seemed so well kept. Green had never ceased puzzling about them, but all he could get from anyone was one or more variations of the fable of the wuru, the herbivore bigger than two ships put together.

One day they passed a wreck. Its burned hulk lay sideways on the ground, and here and there bones gleamed in the sun. Green expressed surprise that the masts, wheels and cannon were gone. He was told that those had been taken away by the savages who roamed the plains.

“They use the wheels for their own craft, which are really nothing but large sailing platforms, land-rafts, you might say,” Amra told him. “On these they pitch their tents and their fireplaces, and from them they go forth to hunt. Some of them, however, disdain platforms and make their homes upon the ‘roaming islands.’”

Green smiled but said nothing about that fairy story because disbelief excited these people, even Amra.

“You’ll not see many wrecks,” she continued. “Not because there aren’t many, for there are. Out of every ten ‘rollers that leave for distant breaks, you can expect only six to get back.”

“That few? I’m amazed that with such a casualty ratio you could get anybody to risk his fortune and life.”

“You forget that he who comes back is many times richer than when he sailed away. Look at Miran. He is taxed heavily at every port of call. He is taxed even more heavily in his home port. And he has to split with the Clansmen, though he does get a tenth of the profit of every cargo. Despite this, he is the richest man in Quotz, richer even than the Duke.”

“Yes, but a man is a fool to take risks like these just for the remote chance of a fortune,” he protested. Then he stopped. After all, for what other reason had the Norsemen gone to America, and Columbus to the West Indies? Or why were so many hundreds of thousands of Earthmen daring the perils of interstellar space? What about himself, for instance? He’d left a stable and well-paying job on Earth as a specialist in raising sea crops to go to Pushover, a planet of Albireo. He’d expected to make his fortune there after two years of not-too-hard work and then retire. If only that accident hadn’t happened... !

Of course, some of the pioneers weren’t driven by the profit motive. There was such a thing as love of adventure. Not a pure love, however. Even the most adventurous saw Eldorado gleaming somewhere in the wilds. Greed conquered more frontiers than curiosity.

“You’d think the ruins of ‘rollers would not be rare, even if these plains are vast,” said Amra, breaking in on his reflections. “But the savages and pirates must salvage them as fast as they’re made.”

“Your pardon, Mother, for interrupting,” said Grizquetr. “I heard a sailor, Zoob, remark on that very thing just the other day. He said that he once saw a ‘roller that had been gutted, by pirates, he supposed. It was three days’ journey out of Yeshkayavach, the city of quartz in the far North. He said their ‘roller was a week there, then returned on the same route. But when they came to where the wreck had been it was gone, every bit of it. Even the bones of the dead sailors were missing.”