In places the thick, triangular stalks tended to a deep, rich green, in others the color turned almost red or brown. Hunnar talked on about the agricultural wealth of this unexploited, icebound prairie.
He didn’t use a complex collection of consonants, but instead referred to the growth by its most simple, colloquial name, for the benefit of speech-poor humans. Occasionally the passage of the icerigger would stir up clouds of batwinged butterflylike creatures, little knots of black, purple, and gray fur supported by wings seemingly too delicate to cope with Tran-ky-ky’s ferocious winds.
Larger arboreals would then rise to pursue. These had long thin snouts, almost half the length of their bodies, which were filled to crowding with curved, pin-thin teeth. Flapping membranous wings, they would swoop in among the bat-butterflies, mouths moving like scythes as they snapped at their agile but tightly packed prey. Pincushion jaws nearly always emerged from the colorful moving clouds with one or two punctured prizes.
Hunnar’s attention wandered to Eer-Meesach’s more learned explanations directed at the school teacher Williams. Though diminutive and wizened by adult Tran standards, the aged native wizard still towered over his human counterpart, his white-gray fur contrasting electrically with Williams’ satin black beneath his face mask.
“So we see that the pika-pina’s regenerative powers are so great that though it is cut today, it will have grown in behind us by this time on the morrow.” The wizard gestured with a shaky paw at the tracks in the path of the ship.
“If it can regenerate so fast,” asked Williams, “why doesn’t it spread until it covers every square meter of ice on the planet?”
“It is not that simple, friend Williams.” And Eer-Meesach repeated the method of pika-pina growth which Ethan had come to know and marvel at.
Long burrowing roots laboriously melted or wedged their way through the ice just beneath the surface until they located a cavity, usually an ancient air bubble trapped by freezing. The root would expand there to form a thick nodule. Nutrients concentrated in such nodules—which the Tran hungered after—were difficult to locate and hard to excavate. When the nodule was rich and large enough, it would send out four, five or more new roots in quest of other cavities, while the nodule’s supply of nutrients was constantly replenished from other nodules and eventually from some distant landmass.
“Thus,” the wizard continued, “with many nodules nearby, the pika-pina can quickly re-establish itself behind our ship, since root-paths have already been cut through the ice here. But to expand further into new territory, it must dig new pathways for itself through the resisting ice. This is why—”
A yell from the mainmast interrupted the lecture. Ethan looked forward, to where the field of green was becoming a wall.
“Pika-pedan,” he murmured to himself.
Ta-hoding was already studying the forest through a crude but serviceable Tran telescope. “It appears to extend,” he told Ethan, in response to the other’s question, “as far to east and west as its tiny cousin.” He put down the glass, looked worried.
Pika-pedan was the giant relative of the smaller pika-pina, rising to heights of as much as ten meters.
Hunnar appeared on deck, folded his dan and skidded to a stop. “Weather and ice are your concern, Captain. Do what you believe best.”
“Poyolavomaar is through this,” Ta-hoding pointed out. “We do not know the extent of the field to east and west. My directions do not take detouring into account. If we try to go around, we could become hopelessly lost and never reach our destination.
“Therefore, we must try to go through.” He moved forward, to the front railing of the helmdeck. “Hello the deck!” Acknowledgement sounded instantly from waiting mates.
Ta-hoding ordered additional sail put on. There was good-natured grumbling from the sailors on spar duty as the sheets they’d just recently taken in were let out again, billowing taut in the steady wind.
The Slanderscree was once again traveling under full sail. She picked up speed steadily, massively.
“What would you have ordered, good friend Ethan?”
Startled, he turned to see Elfa staring at him. He hadn’t seen her come up on the helmdeck. Great searchlight eyes shone down at him, competing with the sun.
“We have to go through, of course.” He tried to sound as positive as Ta-hoding had.
“The bolder decision, but typical of you.” She favored him with a searing Trannish smile, then moved away to ask a question of Eer-Meesach before Ethan could explain that he was only agreeing with Ta-hoding’s decision.
Ethan turned, caught Hunnar glaring morosely at him. As soon as the knight saw that his stare had been noticed he turned away, chivaning down the ramp to the main deck.
Ethan considered following him, to explain, and then decided not to. Apparently repeated protests had done nothing to mollify Hunnar’s absurd jealousies. Repetition of his innocence would have no more effect than before.
A subtle jar shook the ship, forcing him to clutch at the nearest support. It felt as if the Slanderscree had rammed a gigantic sponge. The sweeping panorama of green fields and blue sky had been obliterated by the columnar emerald wall now sliding past on both sides of the ship. Moving at over ninety kilometers per hour, the icerigger had struck the pika-pedan forest and was grinding smoothly through it.
A glance astern showed a lengthening highway unrolling like a ribbon, the pika-pedan stalks cut off four meters above the ice by the speeding mass of the ship. Flat-sided green logs lay strewn across the stumps, fragments from the broom of a chlorophyllic colossus.
Without distant landmarks to measure by, it was difficult to estimate their speed. Ethan guessed the ship had slowed some since impact, but was still traveling steadily ahead at a respectable velocity. Water and pulp spattered his survival suit, and he had to turn away to keep his vision clear. Up by the bowsprit, he knew the situation must be far worse.
It seemed incredible that the dense vegetation would give way so easily before the ship. But while the pika-pedan looked more solid and treelike than its miniature relative, it was equally mushy inside, consisting mostly of water-soaked soft fibres which snapped instantly under the weight of the Slanderscree.
A harsh, husky screech sounded just to port. Ethan looked in that direction in time to see a pair of startled guttorbyn—winged, dragonlike predators—take to the air. For several minutes they paralleled the ship, hissing and screaming imprecations at the crew, before veering off southeast. A flock would have attacked. There being only two, and two surprised ones at that, they chose retreat over challenge.
The furry butterfly-things were abundant in the high vegetation, and once Ethan thought he spied something long and luminous, like a writhing sunbeam, slithering away from the ship’s path with incredible speed. Instead of screaming, it sang weird flute notes back at him as it vanished into the dense evergrowth, and Ethan never knew it was not the creature itself he had seen but its radiant shadow.
Below the tops of the pika-pedan, the wind penetrated fitfully. It was unusually quiet on board, not only from the absence of the familiar gale, but because each crewmember was attending to private thoughts as well as cooperative sailing. Ethan knew the Tran did not enter and explore the rolling forests of pika-pedan. They did not do so because of its usual impenetrability, and because of herds of a certain creature which fed within.