? ? ?
Eventually the steam faded, by which time their new island home had shrunk to a platform twenty feet across at its widest point. Not quite the smallest vessel I’ve yet commanded, Hilemore reflected without much humour. Yet still too small for even an eight-man crew.
“Perhaps twelve days, sir,” Steelfine reported in a quiet murmur, Hilemore having asked him to undertake a realistic appraisal of how long their remaining supplies might last. “Could stretch to fifteen, given we’re not expending so much energy now.”
“Thank you, Mr. Steelfine.” Hilemore adjusted the pointers on his sextant and raised the instrument to the sky. One advantage the southern extremes offered the sailor was the clarity of the sky at night. He couldn’t see even the slightest wisp of cloud from one end of the horizon to the other, making it fairly easy to gauge their heading from the stars.
“Two miles south of where we started,” Scrimshine called to Hilemore with a strangely cheerful grin. “Am I right, Skipper?”
“Two point eight,” Hilemore replied.
“I’m guessing all currents lead south at this latitude.” The smuggler drew his hood back to cast his gaze about, shaking his head a little in wonder. “Will you look at all this. Could be the ice is melted all the way to the pole.”
“It’s certainly a possibility.”
The gaps between the drifting bergs had increased considerably since the sea had stopped roiling, the nearest berg was at least fifty yards off and the distance showed no sign of lessening. Earlier he had risked dipping a hand into the sea, finding the water chilly but not numbing. He could only conclude that whatever processes had brought about this change were still continuing far below the surface. The kind of energies capable of returning so much of the ice-cap to the ocean in so short a space of time were far beyond both his comprehension and, he suspected, the comprehension of the finest scientific minds. The sight of the spire itself had been humbling enough but now he had an inkling of the vastness of the mystery they had come to investigate. We were children, he thought, his mind repeating the image of the platform taking Clay and the others into the depths of the shaft. Rousing a monster we could never understand.
“Reaching the pole would be something,” Scrimshine went on. “Never been done as far as I know. One for the history books, if we ever get to tell anyone, o’course.”
The man’s cheeriness was both aggravating and puzzling. Hilemore, in common with the rest of the party, viewed their current predicament with grim comprehension, but this former convict seemed to find it a cause for levity.
“Didn’t think I’d live to see anything else,” Scrimshine said, perhaps in response to Hilemore’s sour glance. “Besides the walls of my cell. Instead”—he spread his arms, baring his meagre teeth in a smile—“I got to see wonders. Can’t say it’s been an unfair shake of the rope.”
“A creditable attitude, Mr. Scrimshine.” Hilemore glanced over to where Braddon sat close to the edge of the berg, hunched and apparently indifferent to the bleakly concerned face of the stocky harvester who stood near by. “Even so,” Hilemore said, turning back to Scrimshine. “I doubt anyone would take it amiss if you saw fit to once again beseech your ancestors on our behalf.”
The smuggler pondered the notion for a moment before shrugging. “I think old Last Look may well have used up all my credit on that account, Skipper. But it can’t hurt to ask.”
Hilemore saw Skaggerhill hug himself tight and retreat from his captain. “Much appreciated, Mr. Scrimshine.”
Braddon didn’t turn as Hilemore approached, continuing to sit with his hood drawn back from his weathered features, staring out at the current-churned waters. Hilemore sank down next to him, drawing back his own hood. He didn’t say anything. Commiserations would be redundant, as would apologies. However, if the fellow wanted to vent his anger at a man who fully deserved it, Hilemore wasn’t about to stand in his way.
When the words came from Braddon’s mouth, however, there was no anger in them, only faint curiosity. “Do you have a family, Mr. Hilemore?”
“I have a mother and two brothers,” Hilemore replied.
“No. I meant a wife, children.”
“No, sir. I was engaged until recently but fate decided the marriage wasn’t to be.”
“Fate, huh? In my experience it ain’t fate that breaks a couple apart.”
Hilemore gave a tight smile, acknowledging the point. “Very true. My fiancée is . . . was a lady of profound convictions and heart-felt principles. She considered my continued employment with the Protectorate to be incompatible with these beliefs.”
“Gave you a choice, did she? Her or the Protectorate.”
“Actually no. I don’t imagine you know a great deal about the Dalcian Emergency, since Ironship’s friends in the press were skilled in obscuring the details. Suffice to say that the reality of war rarely matches the image portrayed in the news-sheets. Lewella, however, has her own sources of information. I’ll not pretend to have emerged from the Emergency with completely clean hands, but I was at least at ease with my own conscience. Lewella was not.”
“Think she’ll ever know about all this? You coming such a long way to die for no good reason.”
“We had a good reason, Captain Torcreek. Perhaps Lewella would never have known my fate. Perhaps she would have found another man more suited to her outlook and forgotten me in time. I would be content to be forgotten if it meant she remained alive long enough to do so.”
“My Freda would never forget. And she’s lost more than just a husband. Turns out I’m a coward, Mr. Hilemore. Y’see, ain’t nothing scares me more than the prospect of looking into my wife’s eyes when I tell her I lost our daughter.”
? ? ?
Hilemore didn’t bother to institute rationing. The farther south they drifted it became clear that the cold would most likely claim their lives before starvation set in. So the crew occupied themselves with eating their way through the remaining supplies in between stomping about their limited environs in an effort to stave off the cold. Although the sea had warmed, the air was as chilled as ever. It had become an all-consuming presence now, adding a painful edge to every breath and a razor-like caress to exposed skin. Hilemore could see the beginnings of frost-bite on the men’s faces, reddish patches appearing on noses and cheeks that grew more inflamed as the days passed.