The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (80 page)

It had taken Ozzie and George Parkin a week to design the vehicle that carried the heavy alien. The main structure was a simple sledge of carved icewhale bone, over four yards long, which could hold Tochee’s entire body with room to spare. At the front was a windscreen of crystal cut from a tree, and secured in a bone frame that angled back. Behind that, stitched to the circular hoops that went over the sledge platform, was a cylinder of icewhale fur that laced up at the rear. The arrangement was the equivalent of a fur coat for Tochee, keeping its body insulated from the sub-arctic air and its ridges of locomotion flesh well clear of the ground. To move the sledge along, a pair of spiked poles were fixed to the framework on either side in a variant of a rowlock. George Parkin had designed, carved, and assembled the four sturdy little mechanisms himself, and was quietly proud of his achievement. All four spiked poles passed through leather rings in the fur cylinder, which allowed them a fair degree of movement. Tochee gripped the ends in its manipulator flesh, and used the poles as combination ski poles and oars.

A big crowd had gathered outside the Ice Citadel the first time Ozzie, Orion, and George had pushed the sledge out from the workshop. It had taken Tochee a couple of minutes of tentative, experimental motions before mastering the poles. Since then, the three of them had been out every day, practicing.

Ozzie watched Tochee maneuver the sledge toward where he was waiting without losing any momentum. The contraption made him think of some bizarre Victorian attempt to build a snowmobile. But it worked, and the alien was proficient enough now to give him a great deal of confidence for their venture. That just left Orion. The boy was skijoring behind Tochee, short skis strapped to his boots, and holding on to a slim rope that was tied to the back of the sledge frame. Ozzie had decided it was a lot easier for Orion to do that than learn how to ski properly. In fact, the boy was probably enjoying himself a little too much as he swayed from side to side behind the sledge. Ozzie wondered if he should insist on a shorter rope, take away the opportunity for delight. Although Orion was a lot happier these days now their preparations to leave were becoming ever more tangible.

The sledge came to a slow stop beside Ozzie, all four poles digging into the gritty ice to score narrow furrows. He was pleased to see Orion angling his own skis correctly to brake. More than once the boy had plowed into the back of Tochee’s sledge. Maybe they did stand a chance after all. Ozzie held out a mitten, thumb extended upward. Behind the thick windscreen of crystal, Tochee’s manipulator flesh formed a similar gesture.

“How are you doing?” Ozzie asked loudly, it was too cold to pull his balaclava aside and expose his mouth.

“All right,” Orion yelled back. “My arms still ache a bit from yesterday, but these skis are easier to balance on.”

“Okay, let’s keep going.” Ozzie struck off across the ice, heading toward a section of the crystal tree forest he’d visited on a harvesting trip three weeks ago. He held a steady pace, concentrating on the ground ahead. There were hidden ridges and little jutting pinnacles of rock that could prove perilous if he hit them wrong. And if Tochee ran over any of them it would be a plain disaster. He wondered if they should take some spare icewhale bone and a few tools for repairs just in case. It would mean more weight, but increase their chances. Like everything they carried with them, there had to be a balance between safety and success. When they started their trial runs in the forest he’d have a better idea.

“Ozzie!”

He turned at the muffled voice, finding Tochee was laboring hard with the sledge’s poles, moving them fast, gradually catching up. Orion was shouting furiously, his free arm waving about. Ozzie moved his legs proficiently, bending from the knees as he slewed around, and quickly came to a halt. He stared out over the empty floor of the Ice Citadel depression to where the boy was pointing.

The Silfen had finally arrived to hunt. A great procession of them was emerging from the forest on the other side of the depression. From such a distance, they were little more than a moving gray line, although dainty lights sparkled along its length. When he used his retinal inserts to zoom in, he saw the actuality. There were over a hundred of the biped aliens already in the open, with two dozen at the front riding on some quadruped animals that moved as fast as horses even in the terrible cold of this world. Those on foot jogged along effortlessly despite the thick coats they were wearing; half of them were carrying lanterns on long poles that danced about as they moved.

After so long spent in the Ice Citadel with its uneventful repetitive days the thrill Ozzie felt at the sight of them was so intense it surprised him. For months he’d been so resolutely dispassionate, he’d almost forgotten that he could experience emotions this strong.
We’re on our way out of here!

“Let’s get back,” he shouted at Orion. He made a quick hand signal to Tochee, indicating the Ice Citadel. The alien mimicked another thumbs-up behind the windscreen.

They made good time back to the Ice Citadel. The inhabitants had all turned out for the arrival of the Silfen, milling around on the ice outside. Ozzie grabbed a couple of humans and Bill the
Korrok-hi
to help push Tochee’s sledge over the last sixteen yards around the base of the big building where boots and hooves had churned the ice and sandy soil to a sluggish shingle. When the sledge’s fur covering had been unlaced, the big alien quickly slithered down into the warmer lower level. Ozzie put his skis into the rack and went back outside.

There must have been two hundred fifty Silfen in the hunt. Their singing and trilling floated across the icy ground, reaching the Ice Citadel long before they did. Even in this bleak perpetual winter the sound was uplifting, a reminder that beyond the forest there were worlds visited by summer. The riders cantered up on steeds that had bodies like fat horses, with necks that extended out horizontally ending in arrow-shaped heads. Their hide was like tawny snakeskin, with a wispy feather rising from every scale. Ozzie was sure he could see slim gills opening and closing quickly along the length of their necks amid the rippling muscle as the riders reined them in just before they reached the excited crowd. He also cast an eye over the long silver spears fastened behind the low saddles—they seemed very impractical, especially for a rider.

The mounted Silfen were warbling away in their own tongue as they looked down on the crowd. They wore long coats of fluffy swan-white fur with hoods that tapered away down their backs. Gloves and boots were made from the same pelt, which made Ozzie wonder what animal it had come from, he suspected it would look rather spectacular.

Sara stepped forward and bowed slightly before the lead rider, then spoke in their own language. “Welcome back, we are always pleased to see you and your brethren.”

The lead rider twittered away in reply. “Dearest Sara, happiness flies with the kiss that fruits among us. Joy we know at the seeing of you and your lifeful people. Cold this world is. Strong you must be to thrive below its red light. Strong you are, for thrive you do amid the deep ice and the high sky.”

“Your Citadel is a fine home for us in this cold wilderness. Will you be staying here tonight?”

“Time among this home long past is what we will reap this day.”

“If we can help, then please just tell us. Are you hunting the icewhales this time?”

“Out there they are, covered in their white deeps. Fast they move in short moments. Big they grow in long years. Loud they call. Far away amid the uncountable stars we hear their refrain. We challenge. We chase. And in the end we share our blood to know such a life we gladly live.”

“We would like to follow. We would like to have the icewhale bodies afterward.”

The rider dismounted in a quick lithe leap to stand in front of Sara. He pushed his hood back, and looked down at her well-covered face as if perplexed. “When all is done and life has lost its body what happens then to that which is left dead matters not.”

“Thank you.” Sara bowed again.

The riders led their animals into the unused stable halls, while the Silfen on foot went straight inside, singing and laughing as they descended the broad spiral passage to the central chamber. It was a gushing invasion of light and good humor and the smell of springtime and cozy fireside warmth, transforming the ancient Citadel to the kind of haven from the cold and desolation outside that its builders must surely have intended right from the start. When Ozzie finally got down to the main chamber the lantern poles had all been slotted into holes in the wall so they overhung the floor, their thick gold radiance holding back the oppressive red sunlight, banishing the grime fouling the carvings. The Silfen had shed their white coats, bringing the tangible taste of a temperate forest to the harsh stone universe of the cavern with their leaf-green toga cloaks. They opened their packs to hand around flasks and clusters of berries and little biscuity circular cakes. It was the carefree party gathering that made Ozzie ache for his earlier life and the simple pleasures it contained. To his horror and disgust he found his eyes filling with moisture at the memories that the sight triggered.

Most of the humans and other alien residents stood around the walls, watching their visitors in simple contentment. Orion was down there on the floor in the thick of things, moving from one Silfen to another to be sung at and admired and given morsels of food and sips from the flasks. A wondrous smile lifted his young face as his friendship pendant blazed with turquoise starlight.

“Quite something, isn’t it,” Sara said quietly in Ozzie’s ear.

“I’d forgotten what they were like,” he admitted. “Christ, I’d forgotten what anything outside this gulag is like.”

A slight frown deepened the heavy wrinkles on her face. “You’re going then?”

“Oh, yeah!”

“George could use some help first.”

“What?” He made an effort to turn away from the exultant Silfen.

“We have to get the big sleds ready. We need those icewhales, Ozzie. People will die without them.”

“Yeah,” he said reluctantly, knowing she was right. Too many people were depending on the hunt and its bounty. “All right. I’ll go help George.” He glanced back across the cavern. “But do me a favor, don’t ask Orion.”

“I won’t.”

Ozzie was just one of forty people who George and Sara had marshaled into the preparations for tomorrow. Even so, it took the rest of the afternoon to load the big covered sleds ready to follow the hunt. There were the triple-layer tents, and the cooking gear, and fuel oil to be transferred into bladders, the butchery kits, the barrels and cauldrons. Then George and the more proficient bone carpenters made some last-minute repairs and patches. More people were readying the ybnan in the stables.

He felt tired but quietly pleased when he finished up and made his way back down to his rooms. Orion was still with the Silfen, but Ozzie insisted he leave them. Tochee was already in their sleeping room when they arrived. Ozzie shifted his retinal inserts to ultraviolet. Ragged patterns were flashing within Tochee’s front eye segment, question upon question about the Silfen.

Ozzie made calming gestures with his arms and picked up a much-washed parchment of cured hide. He used a charcoal stump to write: Yes, they are the aliens who made the paths. Tomorrow they will hunt the big fur creatures. After that, we follow them off this world.

“What’s it saying?” Orion asked excitedly as Ozzie held the parchment up in front of Tochee.

“It’s really happy they’re here and we’ve got our chance,” Ozzie told him.

Orion snatched the parchment from Ozzie, and wiped the charcoal letters away into a broad gray smudge. Then he wrote: It’s great news, isn’t it? We’re leaving!!!!!

Tochee took its own parchment off the small pile, its manipulator flesh closed around a charcoal stump: Together we will do this. Together the three of us will be a triumph.

Orion stood in front of Tochee and raised both hands in a double thumbs up. The alien’s manipulator flesh closed around the boy’s fingers.

“Okay, you dudes,” Ozzie said. “Let’s get serious. We’ve only got one chance at this, so it’s got to be right. Orion, open the security mesh up and get all your stuff packed away. If it isn’t in your rucksack, it’s staying here. Then get your best outdoor clothes ready for the morning. When you’ve done that, pop out to the kitchen range and fill all our thermos flasks with boiling water, we’re going to make up some of that powdered juice, the stuff with extra glucose and crap in it. We’ll drink that outside tomorrow.”

“Can’t I do that in the morning?”

“There’s no telling when the Silfen are going to leave; everyone says it’s always early, so we can’t gamble that there’s like going to be hot water ready for us tomorrow. This has all got to be done now. We’ll have about fifteen minutes’ warning, man. I’ve fixed it with George for us to have places on one of the big covered sleds.”

“All right then,” Orion said. “I’ll get started.”

Ozzie wrote more lines on his parchment, telling Tochee to get the best meal it could tonight.

Don’t forget me, the alien wrote back. Don’t leave me behind.

We won’t.

Ozzie dug out some self-heating packages of Cumberland sausages and mash in onion gravy, which fizzed away while he prepared his own kit. Even piling the tent and various other essentials in bags on the back of Tochee’s sledge, and himself and Orion both skiing with their rucksacks, they’d never be able to take everything they’d brought with them on the lontrus. It was time for hard choices and educated guesses. He decided to leave most of his clothes behind, he was wearing enough to survive on this planet, which gave him enough to live anywhere, just not in any great variety. There was packaged food for fifteen days, which he included in the bundle to go on Tochee’s sledge, though luxuries like chocolates and biscuits and tea he would leave for Sara and George. The medical kit was also a must. His set of ceramic Teflon-coated cooking pans was dumped, as was the small kerosene stove. All the riding gear, the saddle, the pack harnesses from the lontrus—it was all useless to him now.