The High Crusade

Chapter III

And so we departed.

Stranger even than the ship and its advent was that embarkation. There the thing towered, like a steel cliff forged by a wizard for a hideous use. On the other side of the common huddled little Ansby, thatched cots and rutted streets, fields green beneath our wan English sky. The very castle, once so dominant in the scene, looked shrunken and gray.

But up the ramps we had let down from many levels, into the gleaming pillar, thronged our homely, red-faced, sweating, laughing people. Here John Hamewaid roared along with his bow across one shoulder and a tavern wench giggling on the other. There a yeoman armed with a rusty ax that might have been swung at Hastings, clad in patched wadmal, preceded a scolding wife burdened with their bedding and cooking pot, and half a dozen children clinging to her skirts. Here a crossbowman tried to make a stubborn mule climb the gangway, his oaths laying many years in Purgatory to his account. There a lad chased a pig which had gotten loose. Here a richly clad knight jested with a fine lady who bore a hooded falcon on her wrist. There a priest told his beads as he went doubtfully into the iron maw. Here a cow lowed, there a sheep bleated, here a goat shook its horns, there a hen cackled. All told, some two thousand souls went aboard.

The ship held them easily. Each important man could have a cabin for himself and his lady — for several had brought wives, lemans, or both as far as Ansby Castle, to make a more social occasion of the departure for France. The commoners spread pallets in empty holds. Poor Ansby was left almost deserted, and I often wonder if it still exists.

Sir Roger had made Branithar operate the ship on some trial flights. It had risen smoothly and silently as he worked the wheels and levers and knobs in the control turret. Steering was childishly simple, though we could make neither head nor tail of certain discs with heathenish inscriptions, across which quivered needles. Through me, Branithar told Sir Roger that the ship derived its motive power from the destruction of matter, a horrid idea indeed, and that its engines raised and propelled it by nullifying the pull of the earth along chosen directions. This was senseless. Aristotle has explained very clearly how things fall to the ground because it is their nature to fall, and I have no truck with illogical ideas to which flighty heads so easily succumb.

Despite his own reservations, the abbot joined Father Simon in blessing the ship. We named her Crusader. Though we only had two chaplains along, we had also borrowed a lock of St. Benedict’s hair, and all who embarked had confessed and received absolution. So it was thought we were safe enough from ghostly peril, though I had my doubts.

I was given a small cabin adjoining the suite in which Sir Roger lived with his lady and their children. Branithar was kept under guard in a nearby room. My duty was to interpret, to continue the prisoner’s instruction in Latin and the education of young Robert, and to act as my lord’s amanuensis.

At departure, however, the control turret was occupied by Sir Roger, Sir Owain, Branithar, and myself. It was windowless, like the entire ship, but held glassy screens in which appeared images of the earth below and all the sky around. I shivered and told my beads, for it is not lawful for Christian men to gaze into the crystal globes of Indic sorcerers.

“Now, then,” said Sir Roger, and his hooked face laughed at me, “let’s away! We’ll be in France within the hour!”

He sat down before the panel of levers and wheels. Branithar said quickly to me: “The trial flights were only a few miles. Tell your master that for a trip of this length certain special preparations must be made.”

Sir Roger nodded when I had passed this on. “Very well, let him do so.” His sword slithered from the sheath. “But I’ll be watching our course in the screens. At the first sign of treachery—”

Sir Owain scowled. “Is this wise, my lord?” he asked. “The beast—”

“Is our prisoner. You’re too full of Celtic superstitions, Owain. Let him begin.”

Branithar seated himself. The furnishings of the ship, chairs and tables and beds and cabinets, were somewhat small for us humans — and badly designed, without so much as a carven dragon for ornament. But we could make do with them. I watched the captive intently as his blue hands moved over the panel.

A deep humming trembled in the ship. I felt nothing, but the ground in the lower screens suddenly dwindled. That was sorcerous; I would much rather the usual backward thrust of a vehicle when it starts were not annulled. Fighting down my stomach, I stared into the screen — reflected vault of heaven. Ere long we were among the clouds, which proved to be high floating mists. Clearly this shows the wondrous power of God, for it is known that the angels often sit about on the clouds, and do not get wet.

“Now, southward,” ordered Sir Roger.

Branithar grunted, set a dial, and snapped down a bar. I heard a clicking as of a lock. The bar stayed down.

Hellish triumph flared in the yellow eyes. Branithar sprang from his seat and snarled at me; “Consummati estis!’ His Latin was very bad. “You are finished! I have just sent you to death!”

“What?” I cried.

Sir Roger cursed, half understanding, and lunged at the Wersgor. But the sight of what was in the screens checked him. The sword clattered from his hand, and sweat leaped out on his face.

Truly it was terrible. The earth dwindled beneath us as if it were falling down a great well. About us, the blue sky darkened, and stars glittered forth. Yet it was not nightfall, for the sun still shone in one screen, more brightly than ever!

Sir Owain screamed something in Welsh. I fell to my knees.

Branithar darted for the door. Sir Roger whirled and grasped him by his robe. They went over in a raging tangle.

Sir Owain was paralyzed by terror, and I could not pull my eyes from the horrible beauty of the spectacle about us. Earth shrank so small that it only filled one screen. It was blue, banded, with dark splotches, and round. Round!

A new and deeper note entered the low drone in the air. New needles on the control panel quivered to life. Suddenly we were moving, gaining speed, with impossible swiftness. An altogether different set of engines, acting on a wholly unknown principle, had unwound their ropes.

I saw the moon swell before us. Even as I stared, we passed so near that I could see mountains and pockmarks upon it, edged with their o*n shadows. But this was inconceivable! All knew the moon to be a perfect circle. Sobbing, I tried to break that liar of a vision screen, but could not.

Sir Roger overcame Branithar and stretched him half-conscious on the deck. The knight got up, breathing heavily. “Where are we?” he gasped. “What’s happened?”

’We’re going up,” I groaned. “Up and out.” I put my fingers in my ears so as not to be deafened when we crashed into the first of the crystal spheres.

After a while, when nothing had occurred, I opened my eyes and looked again. Earth and moon were both receding, little more than a doubled star of blue and gold. The real stars flamed hard, unwinking, against an infinite blackness. It seemed to me that we were still picking up speed.

Sir Roger cut off my prayers with an oath. “We’ve this traitor to handle first!” He kicked Branithar in the ribs. The Wersgor sat up and glared defiance.

I collected my wits and said to him in Latin, “What have you done? You will die by torture unless you take us back at once.”

He rose, folded his arms, and regarded us with bitter pride. “Did you think that you barbarians were any match for a civilized mind?” he answered. “Do what you will with me. There will be revenge enough when you come to this journey’s end.”

“But what have you done?”

His bruised mouth grinned. “I set the ship under control of its automaton-pilot. It is now steering itself. Everything is automatic — the departure from atmosphere, the switch-over into translight quasi-velocity, the compensation for optical effects, the preservation of artificial gravity and other environmental factors.”

“Well, turn off the engines!”

“No one can. I could not do so myself, now that the lock-bar is down. It will remain down until we get to Tharixan. And that is the nearest world settled by my people!”

I tried the controls, gingerly. They could not be moved. When I told the knights, Sir Owain moaned aloud.

But Sir Roger said grimly: “We’ll find whether that is the truth or not. The questioning will at least punish his betrayal!”

Through me, Branithar replied with scorn: “Vent your spite if you must. I am not afraid of you. But I say that even if you broke my will, it would be useless. The rudder settings cannot be changed now, nor the ship halted. The lock-bar is meant for situations when a vessel must be sent somewhere with no one aboard.” After a moment he added earnestly: “You must understand, though, I bear you no malice. You are foolhardy, but I could almost regret the fact that we need your world for ourselves. If you will spare me, I shall intercede for you when we get to Tharixan. Your own lives may be given you, at least.”

Sir Roger rubbed his chin thoughtfully. I heard the bristles scratch under his palm, though he had shaved only last Thursday. “I gather the ship will become manageable again when we reach this destination,” he said. I was amazed how coolly he took it after the first shock. “Could we not turn about then and go home?”

“I will never guide you!” said Branithar to that. “And alone, unable to read our navigational books, you would never find the way. We will be farther from your world than light can travel in a thousand of your years.”

“You might have the courtesy not to insult our intelligence,” I huffed. “I know as well as you do that light has an infinite velocity.”

He shrugged.

A gleam lit Sir Roger’s eye. “When will we arrive?” he asked.

“In ten days,” Branithar informed us. It is not the distances between stars, great though they are, that has made us so slow to reach your world. We have been expanding for three centuries. It is the sheer number of suns.”

“Hmm. When we arrive, we have this fine ship to use, with its bombards and the hand weapons. The Wersgorix may regret our visit!”

I translated for Branithar, who answered, “I sincerely advise you to surrender at once. True, these fire-beams of ours can slay a man, or reduce a city to slag. But you will find them useless, because we have screens of pure force which will stop any such beam. The ship is not so protected, since the generators of a force shield are too bulky for it. Thus the guns of the fortress can shoot upward and destroy you.”

When Sir Roger heard this, he said only: “Well, we’ve ten days to think it over. Let this remain a secret. No one can see out of the ship, save from this place. I’ll think of some tale that won’t alarm the folk too much.”

He went out, his cloak swirling behind him like great wings.