The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (119 page)

There was no sign of Shiva Bamaputra, but Hwang picked Antal out of the crowd immediately. There was no threat in his pose this time. All of the cockiness had gone out of him.

“We’ve got to get away from here!” he said wildly.

“Why? What’s the hurry?” September folded his arms and adopted the stance of a man with all the time in the world. “We’ve things to do.”

“Do whatever you want but don’t do it here. Bamaputra’s gone mad.” He gestured back toward the dark tunnel. “He’s running the whole system on intentional overload, way beyond its design peak. Locked himself in control central. You won’t pry him out of there, not even with rifles. It’s five-centimeter plexalloy paneling, molecular welded.”

“Now why would he want to go and do that?”

“He’s trying to accelerate the terraforming process. We talked about it lots of times, but not on this scale. He’s got an outside chance of bringing it off. Way outside.”

“What happens if the system fails?” Williams asked him.

“Melt down.” It was the young female technician who spoke. “You get large-scale melt down. The containment fields in the reactors collapse.”

“You mean the installation melts?” Ethan asked her.

She stared over at him. “I mean the mountain melts. Maybe more, I don’t know. And I’m not planning on hanging around to work out the calculations. You better not either.”

“Right. Resume positions,” Iriole told them. They retreated back aboard the waiting skimmer.

“Wait a minute!” Antal rushed the craft, stopped short as the muzzle of a rifle swung in his direction. “What about us?”

“You’ve all got survival suits,” September told him as the skimmer slowly drifted over the edge of the steep slope and commenced its downward flight. He pointed to the switchbacked path. Some of the installation personnel were already halfway down. “Better not run too fast or you’re liable to fall and tear ’em.”

Antal stared at the descending vehicle. Then he turned and joined his former employees in a mad scramble to get down the mountain.

Those on board the skimmer followed the frantic flight of their former adversaries as they drifted safely toward the harbor.

“What do you think?” September asked their teacher.

“I don’t know. We don’t have any idea what their setup here is capable of or where its limits lie. Obviously Bamaputra believes he’s keeping within them.”

“He seems to be the only one,” Ethan commented.

“That doesn’t mean he isn’t right.”

“I don’t like the idea of going off and leaving him holed up in there,” September muttered. “Won’t do us much good to escort this lot back to Brass Monkey if we don’t shut down what they’ve left behind.”

“Let’s get back to the ship and decide there,” Ethan suggested. “Roger, what do you think our chances are of blasting into this control room and taking him?”

“Not good, if that other one was telling the truth. Plexalloy’s tough.”

“The foreman had one good point,” Williams reminded them. “What
are
we going to do with them now that they’ve put aside their weapons?”

“Let ’em stumble around Yingyapin for a while,” September said. “Let the Tran there see what their all-powerful friends are really like. By the time they make it to the harbor I don’t think we’ll have to worry about keeping watch over ’em. Maybe we can lash a couple of ice ships together and tow the whole bunch of miscreants back to Brass Monkey. They’ll be too cold to give us any trouble. The trip back may not force confessions out of all of ’em, but it sure as hell will make ’em humble.”

They were moving out across the ice, heading for the
Slanderscree
, when Ethan pointed toward the mountain that contained the terraforming station.

“Something’s happening up there. Some kind of activity.”

September squinted, cursed under his breath. “Can’t see. Eyes are getting old, like the rest of me. Hunnar! Can you see anything up there?”

The knight joined them. “Truly I can, friend Skua. Clouds are coming out of the mountain. I think mayhap your mad kinsman is making a rifs.”

Not a rifs in the traditional sense, but a massive storm front was forming with incredible speed above the highest peak. Lightning began to flash inside the boiling mass of cumulonimbus and thunder boomed across the harbor. The cloud bank continued to thicken until it dominated the visible sky. And then something else happened, something so extraordinary it stimulated excited discussion among the scientists and awe among the Tran.

For the first time in forty thousand years, rain fell on Tran-ky-ky.

“Liquid ice.” Warm drops pelted the skimmer. “Water.” Elfa stared in astonishment at the tiny pool that accumulated in her cupped paws. “Who thought ever to see such a thing?”

A shout from the mainmast lookout drew their attention. The heavy metal gate which had barred the icerigger’s flight was slowly swinging open, sliding out of the way on its multiple runners. On board the
Slanderscree,
Ta-hoding gaped at the retreating barrier, then began bellowing orders. Sails were unfurled, spars adjusted, stays pulled taut.

“What of the humans who came out of the mountain?” Ethan asked Hunnar.

“They are …” The knight paused a moment to be certain of what he was seeing. “They are running through the city. The townspeople are staring at them. Now a few begin to throw stones.”

A new sound, deeper and more ominous than the thunder. Shouts and yells from both those on the icerigger and in the city acknowledged its power. The rumbling arose deep within the solid rock of the continental shelf, a gigantic hiss. It was as though something monstrous was awakening inside the earth.

“Look at that. Even I can see that.” September nodded toward the docks. In haste and confusion the personnel from the installation were pouring out onto the ice. They promptly began slipping and sliding all over the place. Their repeated failures only made them redouble their frantic efforts.

“Any arms?” asked Colette du Kane.

Iriole was peering through a military monocular. “None visible, ma’am.”

“Hell. Pick them up and put them aboard the big ship, I guess. The prosecution’s going to want as many witnesses as possible.” She turned demurely to Ethan. “If that meets with your approval, my love?”

He didn’t doubt for an instant that the question was rhetorical, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

“You have my consent,” he replied grandly.

“Thank you.” She actually batted her eyelashes at him. They exchanged a grin.

Then and there he decided this wasn’t going to be a bad marriage after all.

The skimmer had to make several trips to transfer all of the refugees from the ice to the
Slanderscree,
which fortunately had ample room since it had been traveling with a minimal crew ever since departing Poyolavomaar. Body searches revealed that the technicians and engineers had fled the station unarmed. Most were too exhausted to have offered any resistance even had they wished to.

The foreman was in the second group. Antal didn’t look in control of anything including himself as he scrambled frantically onto the skimmer’s deck.

“Move, move, we’ve got to get out of here!”

“Not yet,” Ethan told him.

“Why, what’s the hold up?” The foreman was staring worriedly at the storm raging over the mountain.

Ethan gestured onto the ice. Led by Hunnar and Elfa, a group of sailors from the icerigger were chivaning at maximum speed toward Yingyapin.

“We still have to warn the people you were going to use.” He eyed Antal accusingly. “You could have done that on your way out.”

“No time, we don’t have any time. Don’t you understand?”

“Perfectly,” said Ethan softly. “We’ve talked to your engineering people. If the installation melts, it won’t affect us.”

“Not the installation, not that.” The foreman was on the edge of hysteria. “You can’t imagine how much heat a complete and sudden melt down up there will release. There are three industrial fusion plants operating on overload inside that mountain, for god’s sake!”

“We know.”

“No you don’t know. If the containment fields fail, more than the installation will melt. Rock will melt.” He paused for impact. “Ice will melt a lot faster.”

“Oh, hell,” Colette muttered. Together she and Ethan turned away from the city. The
Slanderscree
was heading out of the harbor, loaded down with its contingent of Tran and scientists and refugee humans. It was accelerating slowly under Ta-hoding’s skillful guidance, but was it accelerating fast enough?

“They’ll make it,” he murmured. “We’ll wait here for Hunnar and Elfa and the rest.” He favored Antal with a look of disgust. “What are you worried about? You’re safe. A skimmer’s as stable traveling over water as over a solid surface. Meanwhile I’m sure we can find a portable recorder or two. Why don’t you tell your story? For the records?”

The foreman hesitated, licked his lips.

“Or maybe,” Colette said sweetly, “you’d prefer to walk?”

“Or swim, as the case may be.” September was looking at him hard. “Come on, man, the only way you’ve a chance of surviving your former employer’s wrath is in protective custody. Tell it all now without coercion and you might even escape mindwipe.”

Antal looked at him, then nodded to Ethan. Iriole provided recording materials, a guard, and privacy belowdecks.

“People will do anything for money.” Colette du Kane’s jaw was set as she leaned over the railing. “I know. My father was like that. But he was lucky. He grew out of it before he died.” She gestured toward the city as another violent rumble came from inside the mountain. “Hunnar and his people better get back here fast. They can skate like hell, but I doubt there’s one among them who can swim.”

Organizing a mass evacuation in a matter of minutes isn’t easy under the best of circumstances. Fortunately the panicky flight of Antal and his crew helped Hunnar and Elfa to convince the citizens of Yingyapin that for the moment at least safety lay in abandoning their homes and striking out across the ice. Once persuaded, the townspeople moved swiftly. Yingyapin was so poor there was little in the way of goods to remove anyway.

Once a few of the more prominent families stepped out onto the ice the rest followed in a rush. Males and females supported their cubs between them. They formed a long, broad column chivaning toward the mouth of the harbor.

Last to leave was a repentant third mate, Kilpit Vyo-Aqar. “If there is any danger, it should fall upon me,” he told Elfa. “I have no excuse for what Mousokka and I did except to say we were driven by the twin demons of homesickness and loneliness.”

“You don’t mutiny because you are homesick,” she shot back as they raced across the ice sheet to catch up with the
Slanderscree.
“If so much as one citizen is left behind, I will hold your life forfeit. Later we may find a means to forget your treachery.”

“Yes, princess.” The joy and relief in the mate’s face was overwhelming.

Rumbling continued to sound from inside the mountain as the icerigger and skimmer led the entire population of Yingyapin out to sea.

“We’ll have to find an island or secondary inlet somewhere along the coast to settle them temporarily,” Hunnar declared. “They can sleep and talk and wait for aid from Poyolavomaar.”

“We can ferry supplies,” Colette told him via her translator. “Portable shelters, food, medicine, that sort of thing. Later we can—”

She was interrupted not by an explosion but by a titanic blast of superheated steam from the side of the mountain facing the ocean. The pressure hurled rocks and debris a kilometer into the sky. Boulders as big as the skimmer were scattered like pebbles. Ta-hoding tried to find another place to hang more sail.

The initial eruption was followed by a second which punched a hole in the cliff that delineated the edge of the continental shelf. The powerful storm started to dissipate as rapidly as it had formed. Rain ceased.

“See,” Hunnar murmured as he reboarded the skimmer, “the earth bleeds.”

It looked as if half the mountain was glowing pale crimson from the heat within. The periodic rumbling had been replaced by a steady whisper from deep within the rock.

They were far out on the ice now, the
Slanderscree
steadily accelerating under full sail but with Ta-hoding moderating their speed so the population of Yingyapin could keep pace. City and harbor had fallen out of sight astern, though they could still see the line of cliffs that marked the rim of the continental plateau. As they stared, it began to collapse. Together he and Colette waited for the final explosion that never came.

The plateau imploded slowly, collapsing in on itself like a fallen cake as the tremendous freed heat of the three fusion plants spread out like a wave from the incinerated installation. As it melted, the rock absorbed the heat.

Grurwelk Seesfar continued to prove her name was not casually given. From the mainmast lookout bin she called down to the deck.

“The ice melts! Its corpse comes marching!”

“Waves,” Ethan murmured. There was no word for “wave” in the entire Tran language.

A loud cracking sound precipitated a rush to the railings on both the skimmer and much larger icerigger. Small at first, the crack appeared beneath the
Slanderscree
’s right fore runner. It gave birth to several smaller cracks while it continued to widen. Dark water bubbled up from eons-old depths.

Screams and fear calls rose from the chivaning citizens of Yingyapin. No solid deck lay between them and the horror sweeping out of the continent. It was far more frightening than an earthquake.

The oceans of Tran-ky-ky were trying to make a comeback.

But the
Slanderscree
did not tumble down into the liquid center of the world, nor did the terrified evacuees. The melange of water and broken ice that initially appeared in their wake grew and then stopped. Even as he observed it through one of the skimmer’s monoculars Ethan saw it beginning to refreeze. Gradually the spreading cracks receded behind them. The icerigger lurched once to port, leveled off, and stayed on top of the surface.