Ethan looked back at the cloud. It had doubled in size and was rapidly dominating the entire horizon, swallowing light and blue sky at a furious rate. He started forward.
“Going below, young feller-me-lad?”
“No!” Ethan was shocked at the vehemence of his response. But the big man’s words had been just a mite patronizing. Maybe he wasn’t ready for dancing atop the mainmast, but by Rothschild, he could damn well stay topside and take a little storm!
Hellespont du Kane surveyed the deck, left the hatchway, and strolled over. Ethan didn’t much feel like talking to the financier, but courtesy was part of his character. Besides, he might have a chance to make use of his famous acquaintance one day—if he ever thawed out.
Du Kane nudged one of the dragon-corpses that hadn’t yet been reached by the clean-up crew. Probably estimating its potential price per kilo on the interstellar marketplace, thought Ethan drily.
“Is it over, then, Mr. Fortune?”
“That much of it is,” Ethan replied, trying hard not to be brusque. “However, it appears that we are in for a mild blow. I suggest you go below and tie down anything you don’t want banged about.”
“Only my daughter, and she can take care of herself.” Was that line for real, or was du Kane playing straight? The perpetual poker face gave no clue. “The Rifs, then.”
“You know about them?” said Ethan, a little surprised.
“Oh yes, I shall remain on deck to absorb the experience. If you’ve no objection?”
“I? Object?” He’d enjoy seeing this stuffed shirt scramble for safety when the first strong gust struck. “Be glad of your company.”
Hellespont du Kane looked at him squarely. “There is no need to play irony, Mr. Fortune. I know what you think of me.
“Just a second, now, du Kane,” said Ethan, turning from the rail. He’d been caught badly off-balance. “What makes you think—”
“Never mind, never mind.” The financier waved a hand negligently. “It does not matter. Some of us, Mr. Fortune, are not born to the comradely, easygoing, instant-intimate manner. I have friends, but they are relationships based on mutual respect and, in some cases, mutual fear. I should like to be more… more…”
“Human?” supplied Ethan, and instantly regretted it. Du Kane looked his age, then. The glance he gave Ethan was almost—almost but not quite—pitiable.
“I would not venture to express it quite so strongly, Mr. Fortune, but we cannot help the way we are, can we?”
“I don’t know, Hellespont.” He clutched a strand of the rigging to steady himself in the rising wind. Sailors were beginning to string safety lines across the deck. “Is that a question or a declaration?”
Ethan stood at the stern. Ta-hoding manned one side of the huge wheel and his helmsman the other. “It will take two of us to manage her—for the first hour, at least,” he’d explained. All but a few of the top sails had been taken in. The raft skimmed smoothly toward the northwest. Ta-hoding was trying to make as much distance that way before the front struck and forced him to swing south with the wind.
By now the stygian nimbus blotted out most of the northern sky. Lightning crackled like a mad composer’s composition on three sides of the ship.
“Soon,” moaned Ta-hoding. “Soon. I can smell it coming.”
“Hold fast, friends,” warned Hunnar. “The first moments are the worst. Tis a live thing.” He moved off forward to double-check the safety lines.
“According to the captain,” said September, having to shout to make himself heard over the wind, “it’s kind of like an atmospheric tidal bore. You know what a tidal bore is?”
No one did. Before the big man had a chance to explain, the Rifs struck.
Ethan was prepared for anything, and that’s exactly what happened. He was knocked free of the rail and blown several meters across the deck before he rolled up against the feet of a sailor. The tran iceman was hugging one of the safety lines like a mistress. Somehow he maintained his hold, reached down a massive hairy paw, and grabbed Ethan by the scruff of his jacket. Ethan practically climbed his leg until he could get a grip of his own on the line.
The concussion from that first hammer-like gust had gifted him with a bruised cheek and a cut lip—worse than he’d suffered in the gutorrbyn assault. Slowly, carefully, he dragged his way back toward the rail.
Somehow, Ta-hoding and his helmsman were holding the ship on course. Hunnar had suggested lashing the wheel, and it had been a surprise when the captain refused.
“A rope has no brains, noble sir, and the Rifs is an angry great cub. You cannot trust it with a lashed wheel.” But he’d agreed to have the two alien airfoils locked in position.
The Slanderscree suddenly tilted and Ethan made a dive for the rail. Up and over the wind heeled the flying raft, until she was hurtling along on her port runners alone. Than Ta-hoding slammed the wheel over; she turned south, and crunched back to the horizontal with a violent crash. But she continued to run easily and nothing appeared to have broken or buckled.
September pulled himself up to where Ethan clung. “Held her heading a little long, there. Got plenty of guts, our fat captain. You okay?”
Ethan carefully extended a gloved hand and moved another step closer. “One of these days I’m going to tell you I’m dying, just for the hell of it,” he shouted back.
The wind flailed at them, intent on smashing the unyielding raft to kindling. Now that they were in the storm proper and moving with it, the raft ran easier. Fury pushed them but the initial insanity was gone south.
“How fast do you reckon we’re going, young feller?” Ethan didn’t have the damndest idea, but a barely audible voice from behind him apparently did.
“I should estimate the initial front at well over 150 kph. Now I perceive we are riding a wind of slightly more than a hundred. Invigorating, is it not?”
Moving hand over hand on the safety lines, Hellespont du Kane pulled himself to where Ta-hoding and his helmsman fought with the wheel.
“Old man or not,” began September, blatantly disregarding the fact that he was no swaddling babe himself, “I’m going to put a fist in that smug puss one of these days.”
“I don’t think it’s smugness so much,” replied Ethan, wondering that the aged industrialist was still on deck at all. “It’s just that whether it’s a million credits or the proper setting of silver at the table that’s in question, du Kane is very matter-of-fact about things.”
“Probably react to a fist in the snoot that way, too,” the big man grunted.
Ethan blinked beneath his goggles. The ice was gray under the streaking storm clouds, which raced the ship like an endless herd of galloping hippos. Lightning threw geysers of ice-chips when it struck the ice.
Several times the iron rods at the tips of the three masts drew million-volt white scimitars, but without damage to the raft. If you ignored the pain in your arms from gripping the rail, or the way your goggles dug circles around your eyes, why then, Ethan admitted, it had a wild and wonderful kind of beauty.
In fact, it was magnificent.
“I’m going below for something warm. Coming, young feller?”
“I’ll… I’ll be along in a minute,” Ethan murmured. Lightning jumped in a gargantuan triple arc from one tiny island to another. “You go on.”
September grunted, then paused, swaying in the gale. “Did you ever hear of the Analava System?”
A part of Ethan’s mind managed to drag itself away from the meteorological asylum. “Sure, vaguely. Weren’t those the two planets in the Vandy sector that went to war despite intervention of a Commonwealth peace team and a Church edict… oh, some twenty years ago?”