Star Winds

Chapter TWO

Captain Zebandar Zhorga came out of the Portmaster’s office wearing a glum face. He muttered a few curses for the man, glancing back at the office’s lighted windows, then padded with his lumbering gait across the beaten earth of the field.

Captain Zhorga was a man whose qualities could all be summed up in one word: bluntness. His approach to problems was always direct, often clumsily so. His weather-beaten face showed this, with its heavy-lidded, slightly bulging eyes and powerful nose that was corrugated through having been broken twice. The hairs of his beard were like stiff black wires, though fringed with gray.

He had always been an air sailor. In his time he had been a fighting man, an armed midshipman in the world’s last flying navy. But that was all in the past now. As he would put it, “The world hasn’t got the guts for a decent war any more.” Fighting with ether sail was no longer a going proposition, all available silk having been pressed into commerce. So he had become a merchant, and in time had bought his own ship, though it had nearly broken his back paying off the installments.

The panorama of the ship-strewn field was still visible in the dusk, which was enlivened by the light of numerous lamps. From the decks of craft of all kinds—galleons, clippers, chebecs, cogs—a forest of topmasts raked the darkening sky. There was even a schooner, a relatively rare type of vessel whose highly skilled crews made use of the “ground currents” that raced along close to the Earth’s surface during the hours of daylight. Over one or two hulls repairmen swarmed with much hammering and calling, while from others rose the merry sound of pipes and of singing. Most, however, were silent and dark, guarded by ground watches.

And on the margin of the vast field the rotting hulks of boomers and jammers, giant ships of bygone times, loomed against the fading sky. There was no ship owner alive who could gather together enough sail to loft one of those great hulls now. Indeed, were an air sailor of an earlier generation able to inspect some of the craft on which the world’s trade depended these days, he would probably have shaken his head with dismay.

The crudest type of ether rig was the balloon jib, which was used by the comparatively primitive cogs, many of which were mastless. Consisting of a single square (or sometimes triangular) sail set before the bow, the balloon jib simply dragged its load along behind it. The principle was somewhat further elaborated in the three-masted barquentine. Here the balloon jib, still carried before the bow, was raised on the foremast, the foot being lashed to radiating hullsprits, while mid and aft masts carried fore-and-aft canvas sail—a neat combination of wind and ether which greatly increased maneuverability.

But it was in ships like the galleon and the clipper that the science of sail really came into its own. Permanent masts on top, shipable sprits and booms below and around, these ships could so completely shroud themselves in sail that they resembled scudding clouds. Except in the chebec, which boasted upright masts and elegant lateens, topmasts were always raked. Mounted on movable block-and-beam arrangements, they could take up any angle of slant—for flying a sailship was a delicate matter of balance and the ship behaved aerodynamically like a free-flying kite. Yards could carry either silk or canvas, or both together in any combination. A ship could “keel” herself on the wind and tack against the ether, or vice versa. More simply, she could play wind against ether to move in practically any third direction, aided by a large rudder made of laminated wood or metal wrapped in ether silk.

There were other complications, of course. Since ship fields were invariably located on the outskirts of large towns, landing and takeoff presented the nuisance of ether whistle. Landing was less of a problem, since any crew worth its salt could put a ship safely on the ground using canvas alone, furling all ether sail just before entering the land-ether interference band. Takeoff, though, clearly could not be accomplished with canvas. One answer was to loft ships by means of huge gas or hot-air balloons, and only then to spread their silk. The simpler recourse adopted here in Olam was to restrict departure to a certain time of day (dawn in this case) when ships could gain altitude quickly without having to pass over the town. During that period, of course, everyone in the immediate vicinity wore earplugs.

Zhorga paused in front of his own ship, the Wandering Queen. Her timbers were in fairly good shape, but little else could be said for her. As on most other ships these days, her ether sails—what there was of them—were a mass of patches and sewn-up rents. For some time Zhorga had been flying overburdened and now, as he was forced to recognize, he had hit rock-bottom.

He hesitated, his mind half made up to go aboard, but instead he raised his gaze to the sky. In the clear night air the stars were strengthening; low over the horizon, visible even through the light of the lamps, shone a glowering red spot. Zhorga stared at the red planet, a reckless idea forming in his mind.

Then he began to curse again, the oaths becoming a monotonous grumble in his throat, and at length, an expression of disgust on his face, he turned and trudged away.

On the town side of the field, half a mile away, he approached a lone building outlined against the dusk. The building’s narrow windows glowed from the light within, and were composed of strips of colored glass. A painted signboard picturing a clipper hung outside the door. The tavern was named, appropriately enough, The Ship.

Zhorga pushed open the door and let the comforting noise and confusion of the taproom sweep over him. The lamplight gleamed on burnished oak ceiling beams, pewter tankards and teak tables. Many of his crew were already there, including his first mate, Clabert. He ignored them and shouldered his way to the counter.

“Give me a bottle of ombril.”

Clutching the bottle of pale orange spirit he moved to a table where other air captains sat in a huddle. Zhorga had some esteem among them; few owned their own ships as he did, but captained the vessels of merchants. He sat down grumpily, answering their greetings with grunts. The ombril, with its bitter, fiery taste, slid down his throat and warmed his stomach, sending heady fumes to his brain.

The talk was of the increasing tribulations facing the air trade, and more specifically, of piracy. There had always been such depredations, of course, but latterly it had a different object. Pirates sought to rob ships, not of the cargoes they carried, but primarily of the ether sail on their masts.

“I heard that Ringebass was forced down in the Sanaman Desert, and every scrap of silk taken from him,” said Hindemage, a scrawny and uncommonly ugly individual with a glaucomatous left eye and a dirty red bandanna under his captain’s hat. “He and his men would have died of thirst if a camel caravan hadn’t come upon them.”

This information prompted Zhorga to join in. “That’s terrible. Something ought to be done,” he said, choosing to forget that not too long ago, espying a small bark when on the other side of the world, he had done the same thing himself for what bit of ether silk was bent to her yard.

Everyone knew of his escapade over Olam that afternoon, and that he had been called to the Portmaster. But when asked about it Zhorga merely scowled and refused to speak, until he started on his second bottle of ombril, by which time drink had loosened his tongue.

“Business is all over,” he said in a heavily laden voice. “I haven’t got enough sail to carry a decent cargo any more. We damn near came down in the ocean a few days ago. Had to throw part of my freight overboard.” To sink in the sea, now, that would be a disgrace. As it was the trip had left him without a penny of profit.

“What’s the Portmaster have to say?” asked Hindemage, repeating someone else’s question.

“Wasn’t my fault,” announced Zhorga grudgingly. “I’m short on good sail, that’s all. I don’t have a single piece that’s without holes in it.” In fact the Portmaster had imposed a swingeing return fine, which meant that next time Zhorga landed at Olam he would either have to pay it or have his ship impounded.

The others turned from him in that slightly awkward manner of those who see a defeated man in their midst. This tweaked Zhorga’s pride, and it was for this reason, perhaps, that he blurted out his next words so impulsively.

“There’s only one thing wrong, and that’s that there’s no silk to be had. The solution’s obvious. All we have to do is get fresh silk.”

“Oh yes, that’s all.” Everyone smiled and turned to new topics.

“I know where to get some,” Zhorga interrupted forcefully, angered that he should be ignored.

Instantly he was the center of attention. Hindemage leaned close, sly and concerned. “Where?”

“Mars,” Zhorga stated.

This time he elicited derisive laughter. Even Hindemage grinned crookedly, a chuckle escaping his lips. Zhorga reddened.

“What’s the matter, you never heard of the place?” he roared.

“We’ve heard of it,” Hindemage said mildly. “No one’s been there since I was a boy. As a matter of fact there are no spacefaring ships in existence now, as far as I am aware.”

Zhorga shrugged. “In principle there’s no reason why any large, well-built ship shouldn’t make the journey, provided she has ether sail enough. An air-sailing ship could be caulked for the voyage—”

“Principles are one thing, facts are another,” Hindemage said quietly. “The notion is madness. The chances of getting to Mars and back in one of our ships are negligible.”

“Even supposing there’s silk to be had there,” put in Ench, a squat bald man who captained a clipper. “If there is, why does no one from there ever come here?”

“Who the hell would want to come here?” rumbled Zhorga into his beard, and placing the palms of his hands on the table, he pushed himself to his feet and walked unsteadily toward the back of the tavern.

Outside, he relieved himself at the urinal and was about to return to the taproom when a slim figure accosted him. “Sir, may I speak to you?”

Zhorga looked at a fair-haired young man in a faded green tunic. The face was alert and mobile, eager one might say, and the hands rested on a wide leather belt.

“Who in hell might you be?”

“My name is Rachad Caban, Captain. Allow me to offer all assistance in your project. I overheard your conversation of a few minutes ago—”

“What on Earth are you talking about?” Zhorga screwed up his face, looking at Rachad suspiciously.

“Why, your voyage to Mars, Captain.”

Zhorga gazed briefly at the red planet which still hung low in the sky. “What are you, a loon? What makes you think I can sail my ship millions of miles through space? I was joking, you fool.”

“Since no one has tried, who’s to say it can’t be done?” Rachad rushed on, the words tumbling out of his mouth. “You will need a good astrologer to chart your course. Let me recommend my mentor, Gebeth the Alchemist. Gebeth can also advise you concerning chemical provisioning, so that we shall have sufficient air for the journey, as well as on other matters. Gebeth is learned in many ancient arts.”

“We?” questioned Zhorga. “What is this we?”

“I will be honored to take part in the venture.”

“A fool indeed, longing after a fool’s fancies.” Zhorga belched, steadied himself, then pushed past Rachad and into the tavern.

“Have you resigned yourself to a life on the ground, then?” Rachad called after him tauntingly, then skipped after him to make a final thrust.

“Remember, there is almost certainly ether silk on Mars, or indeed elsewhere in the solar family,” he urged when they were just inside the door. “Also—Mars is nearing conjunction, which will bring it nearer to Earth than for several years to come.”

“Anyone bringing back a cargo of silk from Mars at this time would make himself rich,” Zhorga nodded in agreement. “It’s unlikely anyone else would repeat the feat until the next conjunction.”

These thoughts had already occurred, casually and glancingly as it were, in Zhorga’s mind. Mars had been the main supplier of ether silk in olden times, for it lay far enough from the sun to make crystallization of the substance feasible. Zhorga reasoned that Mars had probably declined in the same way Earth had, with commerce falling off and interest in the outside universe fading. Nevertheless there would still be some traffic on Mars itself, as there was on Earth, unless civilization had collapsed altogether. So it was likely that silk was still being made there.

Sailing the Wandering Queen to Mars had been a wild, daredevil idea that Zhorga had conceived as being the only way out of his difficulties. It was a do-or-die idea—Zhorga would either succeed and make his fortune, or go out in a blaze of glory. Better than moldering away on the ground, anyway, in his view.

But common scorn for the suggestion had caused it to be stillborn in his mind. Until, that was, he came back into the taproom, with Rachad still arguing at his elbow, to be greeted with general uproarious amusement.

“Captain Zhorga, the Martian ambassador!”

“Look out for space monsters, Captain!”

“He’s the original monster himself!”

Zhorga glowered and went purple. His crew alone seemed unaffected by the hilarity and some of them, knowing their captain’s ways, looked genuinely worried. Clabert, the wiry first mate, went so far as to approach him as he stepped to the bar.

“What’s this about Mars, Captain? There’s no truth in it, is there? If so you can count me out. That goes for the others too, I reckon.”

Zhorga clamped a huge iron-like fist on the smaller man’s shoulder and leaned close to him, intimidating him with his bulk.

“Don’t think of running out on me, Clabert,” he said in a low, confidential tone. “If I decide to take you to Mars that’s where we’re all going, see? We’ll sail into the sun if I say so.”

He shoved the man away from him and took himself through the main door. Hunch-shouldered, he went striding away beneath the star-canopied sky, importunately followed by a loping, hopeful Rachad Caban.

****

“All right,” Zhorga said, “let’s get to the business.”

He sat uneasily in Gebeth’s living room, a big rough man who felt incongruous in such cozy, enclosed quarters. His ham-fists rested on the table, at which also sat Rachad and the alchemist.

“First we must settle terms,” said Gebeth mildly. “I will prepare your sailing instructions and give any other assistance I can. There will be no fee. Instead I make two conditions. Rachad here must accompany you, and you must make your Mars landing at the city of Kars, staying there until his business is done.”

This Rachad and Gebeth had already decided, speaking privately in the laboratory while Zhorga waited in the other room. Gebeth had been astonished at the tale told by the two, and made no light matter of the dangers involved in the enterprise. But, seeing Rachad’s keenness, and recognizing that the boy was a born adventurer, he had eventually consented to the deal which he now put before Zhorga.

Zhorga, however, demurred, hunching his shoulders and eyeing Rachad. “This pup has caused me enough annoyance already tonight, following me around and touting for business on your behalf. He is no sailor. There’s no room on this trip for passengers.”

“I’ll be no passenger!” Rachad protested indignantly. “I’ll work for my passage. I’ll learn to work in the rigging, even.”

“Well, it’s no go. State your fee in money, alchemist.”

“I’m afraid I look on this as a joint venture. I have stated my terms and they cannot be negotiated.”

“Then I’ll find another astrologer.”

“If you wish, though I know of none in Olam as proficient as I claim to be.” Gebeth smiled sourly. “There was a time when any captain worth his salt could do for himself what you need me to do for you.”

Zhorga chewed at his beard, showing some annoyance. “It is not my fault. No airfarer knows much of astrology any more. There’s no need to follow the celestial bodies, not really. One merely has to take note of the sun and the moon.” He looked at Gebeth askance. “What possible business could you have in Kars.”

“While we would prefer to keep that confidential, I suppose it is reasonable that you should want to know,” Gebeth told him. “Briefly, we are students of alchemical works. There are texts in Kars we wish to obtain.”

Understanding showed like a gleam of slyness in Zhorga’s eyes. His gaze flitted round Gebeth’s library.

“Gold! You think you can find the secret of making gold!” Forgetting his manners, he allowed himself to laugh lustily as if at a joke. “Dreams, ridiculous dreams.”

“You do not believe in the Philosopher’s Stone?” inquired Rachad.

“I believe the way to make wealth is not by messing about with crucibles and whatnot. The silk I shall bring back from Mars is gold for me, real silver and gold, more than you’ll ever find in your dusty books.” He scratched his side, looking at Rachad again. “All right, I’ll take him. Half my lousy crew will probably desert anyway, so I might be shorthanded.”

Glee came to Rachad’s features. “We are as good as there!”

“Don’t run ahead of yourselves,” Gebeth said soberly. “Even Captain Zhorga may change, his mind when he learns of the hazards ahead.

The alchemist puttered about the room taking down books and large dusty rolls of paper, all of which he dumped on the table.

“Before even planning the expedition you must satisfy yourself that you can actually manage your ship in space,” he told Zhorga. “Remember that there will be no air or wind on which to keel your galleon or to use in opposition to contrary ether currents. There is only the ether. Therefore there is no question of steering in the same way you do on Earth, though to some extent there is a force that can be used in interplay with the ether, and that is the attractive force of the various celestial bodies. Hence the direction in which one launches oneself to begin with is of vital importance, since subsequent maneuvers take a considerable time to effect.”

“I’m not that much of a dunderhead,” Zhorga said. “I know the rules of travel in space: the longer you keep your sails out, the faster you go; don’t try to tack against the ether wind—it can’t be done, or hardly ever; find a current that’s flowing roughly your way, toward the same half of the compass anyway, and tack across it to get where you want to go.”

“That, in essence, is the procedure. Danger presents itself in the vicinity of the destination, for then one must lose the velocity one has accumulated during transit. This is done by making use of the eddies surrounding a planet, and is a tricky operation to say the least.”

Clearing a space, he spread a large chart upon the table.

“I will make you a copy of this for general reference, though you must be guided mainly by the specific horoscopes I will prepare.”

The chart was a map of the inner part of the solar family of planets extending as far as the Girdle of Demeter, as the region of rocks and planetoids beyond Mars was called. Marked on the map in a whirl of fine lines engulfing everything was the centrifugal vortex of ether that radiated out from the sun. It formed an intricate force field, streaming back into the sun at certain places, breaking up into eddies and whirlpools here and there, creating complicated flurries and rapids where interrupted by large bodies like moons and planets, but for the most part sweeping out and out like an expanding spinning top.

Zhorga pored over the chart, putting his face almost to within inches of it and examining it with intense concentration. Quaint illustrations were dotted here and there, accompanied by legends such as “Here run rapids,” “This vortex will claim any ship,” and “Here lie monsters.”

“What’s this?” he demanded, putting his finger on the last. “This, I assume, is not to be taken seriously.”

“Hmm.” Gebeth looked uncertain. “The chart is supposed to be factual. I would not ignore it.”

“Pah!” Zhorga made an expansive gesture. “Many of these old mapmakers had fanciful imaginations. How many charts have I seen showing monsters in the sea, monsters in the air? Where are these monsters? They don’t exist.”

“Then you must use your own discretion.” Gebeth laid the chart on one side and, taking an ephemeris, began to construct a geocentric horoscope.

“The day and hour of departure must be chosen with care. How soon will your vessel be ready?”

Zhorga stuck out his lower lip. “Three weeks, perhaps? Maybe longer.”

“Let us see if we can find a suitable day…” Consulting the tables, the alchemist marked his chart with planetary signs. He studied it briefly, then laid it aside and set to work yet again. This time he constructed, on transparent paper, a heliocentric horoscope, using a second set of tables. This he laid over the big main chart and began to trace various features from it, skillfully drawing curved lines to indicate the course of the ether winds, and so forth.

Rachad noticed that this horoscope differed from the chart in many respects. “You seem to be marking those vortices in the wrong places,” he remarked. “Why is that?”

“The first map is a general one only,” Gebeth explained. “As the planets move, their relationships to one another alter, and the flow of the ether winds is affected. This causes the eddies, vortices and rapids to move, too. They shift and waver, and some die down while new ones spring up. It’s as if large stones were to be kept moving in a stream. Sometimes the configuration of the planets is such that the whole of solar space erupts into a violent storm and navigation is impossible.”

“There are unpredictable times of bad ether weather on Earth also,” Zhorga rumbled. “Could that be from the same cause?”

“No doubt of it.”

The air captain grunted. “Then this astrology could be useful to sailors after all, if it can forecast storms. It’s strange it hasn’t been adopted. Though one knows, of course, that the direction of the ether changes with the positions of the sun and moon, and also with the moon’s phases.”

“It was used extensively once, and every captain possessed an ephemeris. But like much else it has fallen into disuse with the ending of transspatial communication.”

The work finished, he nodded judiciously. “The time I have selected would seem propitious enough. Takeoff should be during mid-morning, say ten-thirty. Enter the slipstream above the atmosphere, set your sails to travel at an angle thus—” he indicated with a thrust of his pen—“and you will be on your way. But it will take skill. Mismanage the maneuver and you risk being carried by the slipstream round the curve of the world. If that happens you could fall into the Earth’s lacuna—a dead spot in her shadow where there is no ether movement. Your sails will be becalmed. You could well end by crashing onto the moon.”

Zhorga stared somberly at Gebeth’s chart. “Then we’d better do the job right,” he declared.

“Some practice forays into space would be well-advised before embarking on the main journey,” Gebeth continued. “You must also learn the art of drawing up these charts yourself, so that you may interpret the changing planetary positions during the course of the voyage. Jupiter and Saturn, and the planets beyond, will produce little change since they move so sedately and in any case lie downwind. But it is the upwind planets, close to the sun, that you must watch, since they move with alacrity. Mercury, especially, exerts an influence out of all proportion to its size, lying only thirty-six million miles from the sun and completing an orbit every three months. All planetary ether fluctuations begin, in fact, with Mercury.”

Zhorga nodded his understanding.

“Space captains would sometimes carry an orrery as an aid to quick judgment,” Gebeth added. “Are you familiar with the instrument?”

“An orrery? No, what’s that?”

The alchemist hesitated. Then he moved to a cupboard and unlocked it with one of many keys on a key ring. From the cupboard he lifted out an unwieldy gangling object, all orbs, nested armillary rings, cogwheels and gears.

Setting it down, Gebeth turned a handle. The gears creaked and tinkled; the variously sized orbs circled, each at a different rate. It was a perfect representation of the solar family, from the sun to Saturn. Even the relative distances were given some demonstration, though much scaled down as was inevitable. And the Earth even had the moon in attendance, whizzing round it on the end of a rod, thirteen times to every orbit of its own.

“See?” Gebeth said. “At one glance one can see how the planets stand in relation to one another.”

“Indeed,” Zhorga breathed. “Wonderful! Will you lend me this device, Master Alchemist?”

“I place considerable value on it,” Gebeth said reluctantly. “But possibly I could donate it toward the success of the venture.”

“They move—it’s like magic!” Zhorga was enchanted—and hardly less so was Rachad.

Hypnotized, they both stared at the dancing orbs.