Ta-hoding was not yet awake and on deck, but a second mate named Fassbire was. He relayed instructions of his own as he coordinated with Hunnar’s information. Sails were trimmed and spars angled. The Slanderscree commenced to slow. A worried glance forward showed Hunnar that it was fast enough. Ice anchors would not be needed.
Dream-dull eyes showed as the morning crew stumbled out onto the deck. Cries of consternation came from those emerging from the fore cabin as they saw what was bearing down on them.
Ethan appeared on deck, followed closely by September. So acclimated to Tran-ky-ky had the humans become that their hoods were off and face masks down, exposing them to the chilly morning air, twenty-five below with a sixty kph tailwind. They soon had hoods and masks up, however, the danger of frostbite being too real to tempt.
Hunnar noted that Ethan was panting as he sealed his face mask, and had to remind himself for yet another time that the humans panted because they were short of wind, not to cool their bodies.
Spying Hunnar in the captain’s position, he ran toward the helmdeck. “What is it, Hunnar?”
The knight, all thoughts of ludicrous romantic competition now forgotten, pointed forward, then to starboard and port where the phenomenon extended.
“Teeliam’s myth is correct thus far, friend Ethan. ’Twas fortunate I was awake and… alert, for the lookout was sleeping or looking elsewhere, I think.”
Ethan ran to the railing, sliding across the icepath, to study the remarkable barrier ahead and the quilted reflections it shot at his eyes from wrenched and tortured ice. “The bent ocean,” he murmured in amazement. He repeated it to Hunnar after mounting the helmdeck.
“You find it pleasing, friend Ethan? Would it not unsettle you to see the ocean of your own world bent and twisted so abnormally?”
“A liquid ocean can’t be bent, Hunnar. Not in this fashion, anyway. I don’t know what it’s called, but I’ve seen fax… pictures of it on other worlds. Maybe some were taken on my own. I don’t know. It’s ice, exactly like the ice we’ve traveled so many satch across.” They continued to slow as they came close to the ridge of jagged ice blocks and spears, frozen girders and sparkling white boulders.
“But the ocean is bent,” Hunnar insisted, with the tone of someone describing a round globe as flat.
“Not exactly bent,” explained Milliken Williams from the other side of the helmdeck, “as much as compressed. This is a pressure ridge. Ages ago, this must have been one of the last areas of open water on Tran-ky-ky. Last minute freezing by two bodies of ice moving toward each other created this wall of broken floes. Clap your paws or hands together in a bowl of water and it will shoot up between them. That’s what has happened to the ocean here, Hunnar. It was created by hydrophysics and not by devils or daemons.”
“Did I say it was created by devils?” Hunnar spoke with great dignity. “Do you take me for a superstitious fool of a common sailor?”
“I’m sorry. I meant no insult,” the teacher replied plaintively. Hunnar accepted the apology gruffly, then quickly changed the subject.
“The concern should not be what name to give it, but how to pass through.”
Ethan studied the eerily regular ridge. “It can’t be more than twenty meters high. Surely we can get across somewhere.”
Scouting parties were sent out east and west, to locate a break in the ice the Slanderscree could navigate. Reluctant knots of sailors left the ship to explore the ridge itself, but only after being presented with anti-devil amulets rapidly sculpted by Eer-Meesach.
The icerigger lay facing the ridge, sails furled, awaiting their return. When the first explorers came chivaning back, Ethan and the others awaited their reports anxiously. They were not encouraging.
According to the scouts the ridge ran in an unbroken line almost due east and west. It extended as far as a Tran could see to the distant horizons. In some places the monstrous chunks of ancient ice rose considerably higher than the twenty meters they presently faced.
Having met no devils, the ridge climbers returned equally unharmed and equally discouraged. While the ridge was barely a hundred meters wide, it was as solid as the ship’s runners.
“We can’t go around it, and we can’t go over.” Ethan was standing on the crest of the ridge, staring at the inviting expanse of open ice ocean on the far side. “We certainly can’t go through. The Slanderscree’s no thermprow.”
“What’s a thermprow?” Hunnar asked, his chiv digging deeply into the ice, holding him steady against the wind.
“In the arctic regions of other worlds they have ships with powerful heat elements built into their bows and sides to melt the ice. I’ve seen pictures on the tridee.” He glanced back at the icerigger. Sailors were moving listlessly about on deck and aloft, trying to keep busy to stave off discouragement. “If we had sufficient recharge capacity we could melt our way through with our beamers.”
“Come now, young feller-me-lad.” September indicated the massive ice blocks surrounding them. “It would take us a hundred years using these bitty little beamers to melt a Slanderscree-size traverse through this ridge. What we need is a proper shipyard torch.” He gazed westward, ice particles buffeting his mask. “All to move a few blocks of ice.”
“Blocks.” Ethan stamped a foot. “How much would you say this one we’re standing on weighs? Ten tons… twenty?”
September eyed his young companion, then looked back at the anchored Slanderscree. “Might be possible at that. If the wind holds steady.”
“Have you learned naught of my world?” Hunnar spoke critically, but gently. “The wind is always steady, day and night, year and shayear. If the wind dies, Tran-ky-ky turns upside down.”
“Never mind the theology, Hunnar. Do you think it can be done?”
“’Tis not for me to judge, friend September. Best to put the question to the Captain…”
“If Ethan and September and Williams believe this thing is workable, who are we to disagree? Besides, I think it a most excellent idea,” said Eer-Meesach.
Ta-hoding made a gesture of concurrence to the Tran wizard, then set about giving the necessary orders.
Pika-pina cables were wrapped tight around the lowest boulder in the ridge opposite. Meanwhile several intricate maneuvers had turned the great icerigger stern-first to the ice barrier. Cables were tied aboard, back of the helmdeck, made fast to the members of the raft’s hull.
Ethan and September stood with the cable party on the ice nearby, watched as spars and sheets were adjusted to catch maximum wind. The Slanderscree strained, groaning and creaking like an old man. Cables hummed in the wind, dug at a single chunk of ice that weighed a good fifteen tons.
“Think they’ll hold?” Ethan spoke without turning, watching the ship.
“The cables?” September snorted. “From what I’ve seen of pika-pina properties, it ain’t the cables I’m worried about. The cables’ll hold, but the ship’s only wood.”
Timbers moaned within the ship as the icerigger remained motionless. Her runners might have been welded to the ice for all the progress she was making.
It made the glass goblet splintering sound of the ice block all the more startling when it suddenly loosened from the ridge. Towing a mass the size of a shuttle-craft, the Slanderscree began to move ponderously northward.
Those sailors not immediately occupied let out a cheer. Sails held. So did the cables and the deck to which they were bound.
The icerigger started to slow. Ta-hoding bellowed a command. Spars were shifted. Now the ship swung ten, fifteen degrees north-eastward from its initial heading, putting pressure on the ice block from a different angle.