So they climbed into their ship, leaving Armageddon to its eons of frost.
For the people who lived on New Earth, one part at least of their only myth came true. The sky cracked and fell.
What were the vital differences here? Why could New Earth never recover, while Earth flourished and put forth new forms like the geonauts?
When the terrestrials developed their empathic link with the gossies of Helliconia, a new factor entered the universe. The terrestrials, whether or not they knew it, were acting as a focus of consciousness for the whole biosphere. The empathic link was not a weak thing. It was a psychic equivalent of magnetism or gravity; it bound the two planets.
A more startling way of putting it would be to say that Gaia communicated directly with her lusty sister, the Original Beholder.
Of course it is speculation. Mankind cannot see into the greater umwelts about him. But he can train his ample senses to look for evidence. All the evidence suggests that Gaia and the Original Beholder made contact through their progeny’s projecting the link. One can only guess at the ripples of shock that contact caused — unless the second ice age and its ripples of remission provide evidence of that contact.
It is speculation that Gaia’s recovery was prompted by the refreshment of encountering a sister spirit in the void nearby.
There were the geonauts: serene, calm, apparently amiable, a new thing. They can be understood not as an evolutionary freak but as an inspiration born of a fresh and powerful friendship…
While on Helliconia, the august processes of the seasons were in undeniable stride.
In the northern hemisphere, small summer was nearly over. Frosty nights foretold colder nights ahead. In the winding passes of the Shivenink Chain, frost already ruled, and the living creatures who ventured there were subject to that rule.
It was morning. A screaming windstorm, the frigid breath from the pole. The supplies were being stacked away. The phagor and Uuundaamp were harnessing up their asokins. Seventeen days had elapsed since leaving Sharagatt. They had seen no sign that they were being pursued.
Of the three passengers Shokerandit had fared best. Toress Lahl had lapsed into speechlessness. She lay in the tent at night as if dead. Fashnalgid seldom spoke, except to curse. Their eyebrows and lashes were frosty white within a minute of leaving shelter, their cheekbones black with frostbite.
The last section of the trail ran above six thousand metres. To their right, in fuming cloud, was a solid mountain of ice. Visibility was down to a few feet.
Uuundaamp came to Shokerandit, eyes merry in his frosted face. ‘Today soft going,’ he shouted. ‘Downhill through tunnel. You ’member tunnel, chief?’
‘Noonat Tunnel?’ It was an effort to talk in the wind.
‘Yaya, Noonat. Tonight we be there. Takit drink, bit meal, occhara, gumtaa.’
‘Gumtaa. Toress tired.’
The Ondod shook his head. ‘She soon make meat together asokin. No much biwack gumtaa no more, eh?’ He laughed with closed mouth.
Shokerandit sensed the man had something more to say. Simultaneously they turned their backs on the others working at lashing up the sledge. Uuundaamp folded his arms.
‘Your friend got tail grow along face.’ One quick sly look from his profile.
‘Fashnalgid?’
‘Your friend got tail along face. Team no like him. Team give plenty kakool. Make bad time. We lose that sherb in Noonat Tunnel, ishto?’
‘Has he been molesting Moub?’
‘Mole sting? No, he stick him prodo up Moub las’ night again. Biwack the bag, ishto? She no like. She full baby Uuundaamps.’ He laughed. ‘So we lose in Tunnel, you see.’
‘I’m sorry, Uuundaamp. Loobiss for telling me — but no smrtaa in Tunnel, please. I speak him friend in Noonat. No more biwack your Moub.’
‘Chief, you better lose that friend. Else big kakool, I see.’ He laughed and scowled, tapping his forehead, then turned abruptly on his heel.
The Ondod rarely showed anger. But they were treacherous — that Shokerandit knew. Uuundaamp remained friendly; without at least an appearance of friendship, the journey could never be made; but he had lost face by telling a human of his wife’s disgrace.
Shokerandit had been invited to copulate with Moub. Such was Ondod courtesy, and Shokerandit would have offended by declining the invitation. But Fashnalgid had done it uninvited, and had broken Ondod law. Ondod laws were simple and stark; transgression meant death, smrtaa. Fashnalgid would be killed without compunction. If Uuundaamp had decided to lose Fashnalgid in Noonat Tunnel, Shokerandit’s plea would count for nothing.
Both Toress Lahl and Fashnalgid shot him curious looks from their red-rimmed eyes. He gave them no word, though deeply troubled. Uuundaamp was always watching, and would see if Shokerandit passed Fashnalgid a warning. That would count as kakool.
The shaggy bulk of Bhryeer emerged from the murk, trudging down the length of the sledge. His eyes gleamed cerise as he swung his head momentarily to contemplate them. His morose gaze settled on Shokerandit. There was no interpreting the phagor’s expression.
He clicked his milt up one ice-encrusted nostril and then shouted above the wind, ‘Team ready go. Climb your plaze. Hol’ tight.’
Harbin Fashnalgid pulled a flask from inside his skins, thrust the neck between his flaking lips, and swallowed. As he stowed the flask away, Shokerandit said, ‘Be advised, don’t drink. Hold tight, as he said.’
‘Abro Hakmo Astab!’ Fashnalgid growled. He belched and turned away.
Toress Lahl looked appealingly at Shokerandit. He shook his head severely, mutely saying, Don’t give up, bite tightly on the silver fox tail.
As they took their places on the sledge, they could just see the bundles that were Uuundaamp and Moub, the latter wrapped in her bright blanket. The dogs were invisible. Uuundaamp brought the long whip forward over his head. Ipsssssisiii. Then the first squeal of the steel runners as they chastised the snow. The place where they had spent the night, marked by yellow stains of human and asokin urine, was immediately lost.
Within an hour, they were moving downhill towards Noonat Tunnel. Shokerandit felt the sickness of fear in his throat. He would lose face himself by allowing an Ondod to kill a fellow human, whatever the justification. His anger turned against both Uuundaamp and Harbin Fashnalgid. The man was next to him, back hunched in misery. No communication passed between them.
Their speed increased. They were moving at perhaps five miles an hour. Shokerandit kept staring ahead, squeezing his eyes between cheeks and brow. Only the eternal grey to be seen, although somewhere above was a suspicion of light. Spectral white trees flitted by.
Beyond the customary noises, the sledge creaks, the whistle of whip, the dog farts, the crack of ice, the wind song, another noise grew, hollow, threatening. It was the sound of the wind keening in Noonat Tunnel. Moub answered it with blasts on a curled goat horn.
The Ondod were giving warning of their presence to other teams which might be coming in the other direction.
The suspicion of light overhead was abruptly cut off. They were in the tunnel. The phagor gave a hoarse cry and applied the rear crossbeam brake to slow their progress. Uuundaamp’s whip made a different note as he flicked it just before the nose of his lead dog who bore his name, to slow their pace.