“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.
He looked at the sorely depleted pile of things he wanted to keep, knowing it was still too big.
“We can leave the security mesh,” Orion said when he came back in with the flasks. “That must weigh a bit.”
“Yeah,” Ozzie said slowly. “Guess so. Good thinking there, man.”
The boy picked up his backpack, holding it above his head as he gave a goofy grin. His red hair hadn’t been cut since they arrived at the Ice Citadel, so that it now came down almost to his shoulders, and threatened to cover his eyes most of the time. “And I can carry a lot more for you. See, I’ve got almost nothing in here.” He tried holding his ancient nylon rucksack aloft with one hand to prove his point.
“That’s okay, man,” Ozzie said as the backpack tipped over and Orion made a comical lurch to catch it. “We’ve got everything we need to make it out of here. Anything more and we’d be jeopardizing our chances. No way am I doing that again. Did I ever tell you how totally crap our space suit was when Nigel stepped out on Mars?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Now that was being unprepared in the most serious fashion. Jesus, it was a miracle he ever came back, and he was only a couple of yards from the wormhole the whole time. That would have been fucking impressive wouldn’t it? First person to step through our new machine and he drops down dead from the lack of a bicycle puncture repair kit. History would have been a hell of a lot different.”
“What was it like, Mars?”
“Cold. Colder than this dump. And dead. I mean really seriously dead. Believe me, you know when somewhere has been dead for a billion years before the dinosaurs were killed off. You just had to look at it and you knew.” He shook his head, surprised by how strong the image was after nearly three and a half centuries. “So now, show me what you’ve put in the pack.”
Tochee returned with the bucket it ate its mashed crystal tree fruit from. Ozzie and Orion settled down on their cots with their packaged meals, and the three of them ate in silence. The Silfen out in the central chamber were singing away blithely, clearly intent on partying the night away like a bunch of boisterous students. Ozzie caught the occasional line of verse, most of which praised the icewhales for their size and speed and ferocity.
Sara was their first visitor. Ozzie handed over the items he was leaving behind, which she accepted with brisk thanks. George turned up, with the sledmasters who would captain the hunting party. The other five people who were going to try to find a path off the planet wandered in, four men and one woman. They sat on the cots, and everyone started discussing options and strategies. The modest rock cavern took on the kind of hyped-up atmosphere in the team changing room minutes before the big match. Thinking that, Ozzie briefly wondered who had won the Commonwealth Cup.
It amazed him he even managed to fall asleep. But there he was, tangled up in an unsealed sleeping bag, his arms and neck chilly, as Orion shook him awake. The rug hadn’t even been pulled over the bright crystal duct in the ceiling.
“It’s time, Ozzie,” the boy said in a near-fearful voice. “George says they’re getting ready.”
“Right then, man, let’s get to it.” Ozzie felt like singing, something uplifting, like the early Beatles or the Puppet Presidents. Out in the central chamber the Silfen had quietened down. He pulled the rings on the self-heating breakfast packets, and started to get dressed. Full body thermal underwear, of course, then a thick sweatshirt and his cord trousers, the clean checked shirt. By the time he laced his hiking boots up he was starting to feel warm, so he carried the rest, the two sweaters, waterproofed and insulated trousers, scarf, balaclava, gloves, earmuffs, goggles, and of course the icewhale fur coat, over trousers, and mittens. He checked Orion who was equally well dressed, half of his garments were Ozzie’s, cut down weeks ago and sewn carefully to fit in readiness for this occasion.
They ate their breakfast, took a last visit to the bathroom, then collected Tochee from its quarters. When they got upstairs, the big workshop was abuzz with activity. Silfen riders were already leading their animals from the stables. George was rapping out orders to his teams. Tochee shifted about uncomfortably on the cold, damp stone floor while Ozzie and Orion gave its sledge a final check, then it quickly slithered up into the protective cylinder of icewhale fur. Ozzie handed Tochee three
