Land and Overland Omnibus

CHAPTER 13



The Bluebird Inn in Prad was named after a prominent hostelry in old Ro-Atabri, and it was the ambition of its landlord to win a comparable reputation for decorum. As a consequence, he had been visibly disturbed when Toller had walked into his premises with the disreputable figure of Bartan Drumme in tow. It had been obvious that in his mind the honour of accommodating the heroic aristocrat scarcely compensated for the presence of his smelly and bedraggled companion. He had, however, been persuaded to provide two bedchambers and to set up in one of them a large bath filled with hot water. Bartan was now soaking in the bath, and except for his head the only part of him visible above the soap-greyed water was the hand which was clutching a beaker of brandy.

Toller took a sip from the drink Bartan had given him and grimaced as the crude spirit burned his throat. "Do you think you should be drinking this concoction all the time?"

"Of course not," Bartan said. "I should be drinking good brandy all the time, but this is all I can afford. It has cost me my last penny to get here, my lord."

"I told you not to address me as lord." Toller raised his drink to his lips, smelled it and emptied the ceramic beaker into the bath.

"There was no need to waste it," Bartan complained. "Besides, how would you like that sort of stuff swilling around your private parts?"

"It may do them good—I think it was intended for external application," Toller said. "I'll have our host serve us with something less poisonous in a little while, but in the meantime I have to go back to the part of your story which sticks in my craw."

"Yes?"

"You claim that your wife is alive on Farland, not as a spirit or a reincarnation—but in the flesh as you knew her. How can you believe that?"

"I can't explain. Her words conveyed more than words—and that was what I got from them."

Toller tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip. "I'm not conceited enough to think I know all there is to know about this strange existence of ours. I concede that there are many mysteries, most of which we may never penetrate, but this does not sit easy with me. It still binds."

Bartan stirred in the bath, slopping water over the side. "I have been a convinced materialist all my life. I still scorn those simpletons who cling to a belief in the supernatural, in spite of all I went through in the Basket—but although I am at a loss to explain it, this is something I know. There were strange lights that night. Sondeweere did something beyond my understanding, and now she lives on Farland."

"You say she appeared to you in a vision, spoke to you from Farland. I find it difficult to imagine anything more supernatural than that."

"Perhaps we use the word in different ways. My wife did speak to me—therefore it was a natural occurrence. It only appears to smack of the supernatural because of elements beyond our comprehension."

Toller noted that Bartan spoke with impressive fluency in spite of his intoxication. He stood up and walked around the lamplit room, then returned to his chair. Bartan was contentedly sipping his brandy, not looking at all insane.

"liven Zavotle is going to be here soon, provided the messenger has found him all right," Toller said. "And I warn you that he is going to laugh at your story."

"There is no need for him to believe it," Bartan replied. "The part about my wife is of concern to me alone, and I related it only to show that I have personal reasons for wanting to voyage to Farland. I could not expect others to undertake such a journey on my account, whatever my reasons. But it is my hope that the King will wish to succeed where Rassamarden failed—by extending his domain to another world—and that, as originator of the scheme, I will be granted a place on the expedition if it becomes a reality. All I ask of your friend Zavotle is that he devise a means of making the journey possible."

"You don't ask much."

"I ask more than you will ever know," Bartan said, a brooding expression appearing on his young-old face. "I am responsible for what happened to my wife, you see. Losing her was bad enough, but carrying the burden of guilt…"

"I'm sorry," Toller said. "Is that why you drink?"

Bartan tilted his head as he considered the question. "It's probably the reason I started drinking, but after a while I found that I simply prefer being drunk to being sober. It makes the world a pleasanter place to live in."

"And on the night you had the vision? Were you…?"

"Drunk? Of course I was drunk!" Bartan gulped some more brandy as if to reinforce his statement. "But that has no bearing on what happened that night. Please, my lord…"

"Toller."

Bartan nodded. "Please, Toller, feel free to regard me as insane or deluded on that particular point—it is irrelevant, after all—but I beg you to take me seriously on the question of the expedition to Farland. I must go. I am an experienced airship pilot, and if necessary I will even stop drinking."

"That would be necessary, but—much though I am intrigued by the idea of flying to Farland—I can't speak seriously about it, to the King or anybody else, until I hear what Zavotle has to say. I will meet him downstairs and take a private parlour where we can have some refreshment and discuss the matter in comfort." Toller stood up and set his empty beaker aside. "Join us when you have completed your toilet."

Bartan signalled his assent by raising his drink in a salute and taking a generous swallow. Shaking his head, Toller let himself out of the room and went along a shadowy corridor to the stair. Bartan Drumme was a highly disturbed young man, not to say a madman, but when he had first spoken of a mission to Farland something deep within Toller had responded immediately and with a passion akin to that of a traveller who had just glimpsed his destination after an arduous journey lasting many years. A yearning had been born in him, accompanied by a powerful surge of excitement which he had repressed for fear of disappointment.

Wild, extravagant and preposterous though the idea of flying to Farland was, Chakkell could be in favour of it for the reasons Bartan had suggested—but only if liven Zavotle considered the mission feasible. Zavotle had won the King's confidence in anything to do with the technicalities of interplanetary flight, so if the little man with the clenched ears considered Farland to be unreachable then Toller Maraquine would indeed have to accept the prospect of becoming a commonplace mortal awaiting a commonplace death. And that could not be allowed to happen.

I'm behaving exactly as Gesalla says I behave, he thought, pausing on the stair. But, at this stage of our lives, what would be the point in my trying to do anything else?

He completed the descent to the inn's crowded entrance hall and saw Zavotle, clad in civilian clothes, making enquiries of a porter. He called out a greeting and within a few minutes he and Zavotle were installed in a small room with a flagon of good wine on the table between them. Lamps were burning steadily in the wall niches, adding a bluish haze to the air, and by their light Toller noticed that Zavotle was looking tired and introspective. Instead of being obviously premature, the whiteness of his hair was now making him look old, although he was some years younger than Toller.

"What ails you, old friend?" Toller said. "Is your stomach still misbehaving?"

"I get indigestion even when I haven't eaten." Zavotle gave him a wan smile. "It hardly seems fair."

"Here's something to take your mind off it," Toller said, pouring out two glasses of green wine. "You recall the talk we had with the King this morning? Our disagreement about what should be done with the defence stations?"

"Yes."

"Well, only this aftday I met a young man called Bartan Drumme who put forward an intriguing thought. He is permanently soused and quite mad—you'll see that for yourself in a short time—but his idea has a certain appeal to it. He suggests taking one or more of the stations to Farland."

Toller had kept his tones light and almost casual, but he was watching Zavotle's reactions closely and felt a pang of alarm as he saw his lips twitch with amusement.

"Did you say your new friend is quite mad? I'd say he's a raving lunatic!" Zavotle smirked into his wine.

"But don't you think it just might…?" Toller hesitated, realising he would have to deliver himself into his friend's hands, come what may. "liven, I need Farland. It is the only thing left for me."

Zavotle eyed him speculatively for a moment.

"Gesalla and I have parted for ever," Toller replied to the unspoken question. "It is all finished between us."

"I see." Zavotle closed his eyes and delicately massaged the lids with the tips of a finger and thumb. "A lot would depend on Farland's position," he said slowly.

"Thank you, thank you," Toller said, overwhelmed with gratitude. "If there is anything I can do to repay you, you have but to name it."

"There is something I expect in repayment—and I do not have to name it. Not to you, anyway."

It was Toller's turn to try reading his friend's face. "The flight is bound to be dangerous, liven—why do you want to risk your life?"

"For a time I thought my digestion was too weak, then I discovered it is too strong." Zavotle patted his stomach. "I am being digested, and the incestuous banquet cannot be prolonged indefinitely. So you see, Toller, I need Farland as much as you do, perhaps even more. For myself, it would suffice to plan a one-way journey, but I suspect that the other members of the crew would not take kindly to such an arrangement, and therefore I will have to tax my brain and make provision for their safe return. The problem will provide an excellent distraction for an hour or two, and I thank you for that."

"I…" Toller glanced around the room, blinking as his tears surrounded the wall lights with spiky haloes. "I'm so sorry, liven. I was too wrapped up in my own worries even to consider that you might be…"

Zavotle smiled and impulsively caught his hand. "Toller, do you remember how it was on the skyship proving flight all those years ago? We flew into the unknown together, and were glad to do so. Let us now put our personal sorrows aside and be thankful that ahead Of us—just when we need them—are an even greater proving flight and an even greater unknown to explore."

Toller nodded, gazing at Zavotle in affection. "So you think the flight is possible?"

"I'd say it might be done. Farland is many millions of miles away, and it is moving—we mustn't forget that it moves—but with plenty of the green and purple at our disposal we could overtake it."

"How many millions of miles are we talking about?"

Zavotle sighed. "I wish that somebody had brought science texts from Land, Toller—we have lost most of our store of knowledge, and nobody has had time to start rebuilding it. I have to go by memory, but I believe that Farland is twelve million miles from us at the nearest approach, and forty-two million when it's at the opposite side of the sun. Naturally, we would have to wait for it to come near."

"Twelve million," Toller breathed. "How can we think of flying a distance like that?"

"We can't! Remember that Farland moves. The ship would have to travel at an angle to meet it, so we have to think about flying perhaps eighteen million miles, perhaps twenty million, perhaps more."

"But the speeds! Is it possible?"

"This is no time to be faint-hearted." Zavotle took a pencil and a scrap of paper from his pouch and began to scribble figures. "Let us say that, because of our human frailties, the outward journey must be completed in not more than … um … a hundred days. That obliges us to cover perhaps 180,000 miles each day, which gives us a speed of … a mere 7,500 miles an hour."

"Now I know you are toying with me," Toller said. "If you considered the journey impossible you should have said so at the outset."

Zavotle raised both hands, palms outward, in a placatory gesture. "Calm yourself, old friend—I am not being frivolous. You have to remember that it is the retarding of the air, which increases according to the square of the speed, which holds our airships to a snail's pace and even limits the performance of your beloved jet fighters. But on the voyage to Farland the ship would be travelling in almost a vacuum, and would also be away from Overland's gravity, so it would be possible for it to build up quite an astonishing speed.

"Interestingly, though, air resistance could also aid the interplanetary traveller. If it weren't for the necessity of returning we could plunge the ship into Farland's atmosphere, jump clear of it when the speed had been reduced to an acceptable level, and descend to the surface by parachute.

"Yes, it's the necessity of coming back which forms the main stumbling block. That is the nub of the problem."

"What can be done?"

Zavotle sipped his wine. "It seems to me that we need … that we need a ship which can divide itself into two separate parts."

"Are you serious?"

"Absolutely! I visualise a command station as the basic vessel. Let's call it a voidship … no, a spaceship … to distinguish the type from an ordinary skyship. Something the size of a command station is necessary to accommodate the large stores of power crystals and all other supplies needed for the voyage. That ship, the spaceship, would fly from the weightless zone to Farland—but it could never make a landing. It would have to be halted just outside the radius of Farland's gravity, and it would have to hang there, stationary, until it was time for the return journey to Overland."

"This is like having wedges driven into one's brain," Toller complained, struggling to assimilate the shockingly new ideas. "Do you see the spaceship dispatching something like a lifeboat to the planetary surface?"

"Lifeboat? That's the general idea, but it would have to be a fully fledged skyship, complete with a balloon and its own power unit."

"But how could it be carried?"

"That's what I was getting at when I said the spaceship would have to be able to divide itself into two parts. Say the spaceship is made up of four or five cylindrical sections, just as a command station is now—the entire front section would have to be detached and converted back into a skyship for the descent. There would have to be an extra partition, and a sealable door, and…" Zavotle shuddered with pleasurable excitement and half-rose from his seat. "I need proper drawing materials, Toller—my mind is on fire."

"I'll have them brought for you," Toller said, motioning for Zavotle to sit down again, "but first tell me more about this dividing of the spaceship. Could it be done in the void? Would there not be a great risk of losing all the ship's air?"

"It would certainly be safer to do it within Farland's atmosphere, and easier as well—that's something I need to ponder over. It may be, if we are lucky, that the atmosphere is so deep that it extends beyond the radius of Farland's gravity, in which case the operation would be relatively straightforward. The spaceship would simply be hanging there in the high air. We could detach the skyship, inflate the balloon and connect the acceleration struts—all in a fairly routine manner. It is something which should be practised in our own weightless zone before the expedition starts.

"On the other hand, if the spaceship has to wait outside the atmosphere, the best course might be for it to descend briefly to a level where the air is breathable, and only then cast the skyship section adrift. The skyship would of course be falling while its balloon was being inflated, but—as we know from experience—the fall would be so gradual that there would be ample time to do all that was necessary. There is much to think about…"

"Including air," Toller said. "I presume the plan would be to use firesalt?"

"Yes. We know it puts life back into dead air, but we don't know how much would be needed to keep a man alive during a long voyage. Experiments will have to be done—because the quantity of salt we'll have to transport could be the principal factor in deciding the size of the crew."

Zavotle paused and gave Toller a wistful look. "It's a pity Lain isn't with us—we have need of him."

"I'll fetch the drawing materials." As Toller was leaving the room his memory conjured up a vivid image of his brother, the gifted mathematician who had been killed by a ptertha on the eve of the Migration. Lain had possessed an impressive ability to unveil nature's hidden machinations and predict their outcome, and yet even he had been seriously in error concerning some of the scientific discoveries made on the first flight from Land to the weightless zone. The mental image of him was a reminder of just how presumptuous and reckless was the plan to fly through millions of miles of space to a totally unknown world.

A man could very easily die attempting a journey like that, Toller told himself, and almost smiled as he took the thought one step further. But nobody would ever be able to say it had been a commonplace death…

"I'm trying to decide what irks me most about this Farland business," King Chakkell said, gazing unhappily at Toller and Zavotle. "I don't know if it's the fact that I'm being manipulated … or if it's the sheer lack of subtlety with which the manipulation is being conducted."

Toller put on an expression of concern. "Majesty, it dismays me to hear that I'm suspected of having an ulterior motive. My sole ambition is to plant the flag of…"

"Enough, Maraquine! I'm not a simpleton." Chakkell smoothed a strand of hair across his gleaming brown scalp. "You prate about planting flags as though they were capable of taking root unaided and producing some manner of desirable crop. What yield would I get from Farland? A meagre one, I'd say."

"The harvest of history," Toller said, already beginning to plan the Farland project in detail. Chakkell's display of peevishness was a sure indication that he was about to give his consent for the construction and provisioning of the spaceship. In spite of his show of doubt and indifference, the King had been seduced by the idea of laying claim to the outer planet.

Chakkell snorted. "The harvest of history will not be gathered in unless the ship successfully completes both legs of the voyage. I am by no means convinced that it will be able to do so."

"The ship will be designed to cope with any exigency, Majesty," Toller said. "I have no desire to commit suicide."

"Haven't you? There are times when I wonder about you, Maraquine." Chakkell stood up and paced around the small room. It was the same apartment in which he had consulted Toller about the aerial defence of Overland immediately after his reprieve. The circular table and six chairs took up most of the floor space, leaving the King a narrow margin through which to guide his paunchy figure. On reaching the chair in which he had been seated, Chakkell leaned on the back of it and frowned at Toller.

"And what about the money?" he said. "You never trouble yourself with such mundane concerns, do you?"

"One ship, Majesty—and a crew of not more than six."

"The size of the actual crew is a flea-bite, and well you know it. This scheme of yours is bound to cost me a fortune in development and in keeping support stations operational in the weightless zone."

"But if it opens the way to a new world…"

"Don't start playing the same tune all over again, Maraquine," Chakkell interrupted. "I'm going to let you proceed with your wild enterprise—I suppose you are entitled to some indulgence on account of your services during the war—but I make one provision, and that is that Zavotle does not accompany you. I cannot afford to lose his services."

"I regret to say this, Majesty," Zavotle put in before Toller could speak, "but you will shortly be deprived of my services come what may, expedition or no expedition."

Chakkell narrowed his eyes at Zavotle and scrutinised him as though suspecting deviousness. "Zavotle," he finally said, "are you going to die?"

"Yes, Majesty."

Chakkell looked embarrassed rather than concerned. "I would have had it otherwise."

"Thank you, Majesty."

"I must attend to other matters now," Chakkell said brusquely, moving towards the door, "but, under the circumstances, I will not object to your going to Farland."

"I'm most grateful, Majesty."

Chakkell paused in the doorway and gave Toller a look of peculiar intensity. "The game has almost run its course, eh, Maraquine?" He moved away into the corridor before Toller could frame a reply, and a quietness descended on the room.

"I'll tell you something, liven," Toller said in a low voice. "We have made the King afraid. Did you notice how he twisted everything around so that it appears he is granting us a favour by permitting the expedition to go ahead? But the real reason is that he wants his standard to fly on Farland. A guaranteed place in history is a poor kind of immortality, but all kings seem to crave it—and we remind Chakkell of just how futile such ambitions are."

"You speak strangely, Toller," Zavotle said, his gaze hunting over Toller's face. "I won't return from Farland—but surely you will."

"Put your mind at ease, old friend," Toller replied, smiling. "I'll return from Farland, or die in the attempt."

Toller had not been certain that his son would agree to meet him, and it was with a profound sense of gladness that he saw a lone rider appear on the skyline on the road that led south to Heevern. He had chosen the meeting place partly because the nearness of a gold-veined spire of rock and a pool made it easy to specify, but also because it was on the northern side of the final ridge on the way to his house. Had he ridden an extra mile to the crest. Toller would have been able to view his former home in the distance. The knowledge that Gesalla was within the familiar walls would have caused him fresh pain, but that was not the reason he had held back. It was simply that he had taken a vow to separate the courses of their lives for ever, and in a way which was important to him, although he could not rationally justify it, going within sight of the house would have been a breach of his word.

He dismounted from his bluehorn and left the beast to graze while he watched the other rider approach. As before, he was able to identify Cassyll from afar by the distinctive creamy colour of his mount's forelegs. Cassyll rode towards him at moderate speed and reined his bluehorn to a halt at a distance of about ten paces. He remained in the saddle, studying Toller with pensive grey eyes.

"It would be better if you got down," Toller said mildly. "It would make it easier for us to talk."

"Have we anything to talk about?"

"If we haven't there was little point in your riding out here to meet me." Toller gave his son a wry smile. "Come on—neither your honour nor your principles will be compromised if we talk face-to-face."

Cassyll shrugged and swung himself down from his bluehorn, a movement he accomplished with athletic grace. With his oval face and pronounced widow's peak of glossy black, he owed much of his appearance to his mother, but Toller observed a sinewy strength in his spare figure.

"You look well," Toller said.

Cassyll glanced down at himself and his clothing—rough-spun shirt and trews which would not have looked out of place on a common labourer. "I do my share of work at the foundry and factories, and some of it is heavy."

"I know." Toller was heartened by the civility of Cassyll's response and decided to go straight to the points he had to make. "Cassyll, the Farland expedition leaves in a few days from now. I have faith in liven Zavotle's designs and calculations, but only a fool would refuse to acknowledge that many unknown dangers lie ahead of us. I may not return from the voyage, and it would ease my mind greatly if we settled some matters concerning the future for you and your mother."

Cassyll showed no emotion. "You will return, as always."

"I intend to, but nevertheless I want you to give me your word on certain matters before we part this day. One of them is to do with the fact that the King has confirmed my title as being hereditary—and I want you to accept it if I am declared dead."

"I don't want the title," Cassyll said. "I have no interest in such vanities."

Toller nodded. "I know that, and I respect you for it, but the title represents power as well as privilege—power you can use to safeguard your mother's position in the world, power you can put to good use in worthwhile endeavours. I don't need to remind you how important it is for metals to replace brakka wood in our society—so vow to me you will not reject the title."

Cassyll looked impatient. "All this is premature. You will live to be a hundred, if not more."

"Your vow, Cassyll!"

"I swear that I will accept the title on that far-off day when it eventually falls my due."

"Thank you," Toller said earnestly. "Now, the management of the estate. If at all possible I want you to perpetuate the system of peppercorn rents for our tenants. I take it that the revenues from the mines, foundries and metal works are still increasing and will be ample for the family requirements."

"Family?" Cassyll gave a half-smile to show that he considered the word inappropriate. "My mother and I are financially secure."

Toller allowed the tacit challenge to pass and spent more time on practicalities connected with the estate and its industrial associations, but all the while he was aware that he was delaying the moment when he would have to admit his most important motive in arranging the meeting with his son. At last, after a tense silence had developed and looked like continuing indefinitely, he accepted that it was necessary for him to speak out.

"Cassyll," he said, "I met my father for the first time only a few minutes before he died by his own hand. There was so much … waste in both our lives, but we were united before the end. I … I don't want to leave you without putting things right between us. Can you forgive me for the wrongs I have done you and your mother?"

"Wrongs?" Cassyll spoke lightly, affecting puzzlement. He stooped and picked up a pebble which was heavily banded with gold, examined it briefly and hurled it into the nearby pool. The image of Land mirrored on the water broke up into jostling curved fragments.

"What wrongs do you speak of, father?"

Toller could not be put off. "I have neglected you both because I can never be content with what I have. It's as simple as that. My indictment takes but a few words—none of them fancy or abstruse."

"I never felt neglected, because I believed you would love us both for ever," Cassyll said slowly. "Now my mother is alone."

"She has you."

"She is alone."

"No more than I am," Toller said, "but there is no remedy. Your mother understands that better than I. If you could learn to understand you might also learn to forgive."

Cassyll suddenly looked younger than his twenty-two years. "You're asking me to understand that love dies?"

"It can die, or it can refuse to die; or a man or a woman can change, or a man or a woman can remain changeless; and when a person does not change with time the effect—from the viewpoint of a person who is changing—is as if the unchanging person is actually the one who is undergoing the greatest change…" Toller broke off and stared helplessly at his son. "How can I know what I'm asking you to understand when I don't understand it myself?"

"Father…" Cassyll moved a step closer to Toller. "I see so much pain inside you. I hadn't realised…"

Toller tried to check the tears which had begun to blur his vision. "I welcome the pain. There is not enough of it for my needs."

"Father, don't…"

Toller opened his arms to his son and they embraced, and for the fleeting period of the embrace he could almost remember what it had been like to be a whole man.

"Put the ship on its side," Toller ordered, his breath rolling whitely in the chill air.

Bartan Drumme, who was at the controls because he took every possible opportunity to practise skyship handling techniques, nodded and began firing short bursts on a lateral jet. As the thrust gradually overcame the inertia of the gondola, Overland slid up the sky and the great disk of Land emerged from behind the brown curvature of the balloon. Bartan halted the ship's rotation by means of the opposing jet, stabilising it in the new attitude, with an entire world on view on either side of the gondola. The sun was close to Land's eastern rim, illuminating a slim crescent of the planet and leaving the rest of it in comparative darkness.

Against the dim background of Land, the waiting spaceship, now less than a mile away, was visible as a tiny bar of light. It was attended by several lesser motes, representing the few habitats and stores which King Chakkell had permitted to remain in the weightless zone to service the newly completed vessel. The group was an undistinguished feature of the crowded heavens, almost unnoticeable, but the sight of it caused a stealthy quickening of Toller's pulse.

Sixty days had passed since he had received the royal assent for the expedition to Farland, and now he was finding it hard to accept that the hour of departure was at hand. Trying to dispel a slight sense of unreality, he raised his binoculars and studied the spaceship.

There had been one major amendment to the design which Zavotle had sketched out during their meeting in the Bluebird Inn. The foremost of the ship's five sections had originally been designated as the detachable module, but the arrangement had posed too many problems in connection with obtaining a view ahead of the vessel. After some unsatisfactory experiments with mirrors it had been decided to use the aft section as the landing module. Its engine would power the flight to Farland, and when the section was separated from the mother craft a second engine would be exposed, ready for the return to Overland.

Toller lowered the binoculars and glanced around the other members of the crew, all of them swaddled in their quilted suits, all of them deep in their own thoughts. Apart from Zavotle and Bartan, there was Berise Narrinder, Tipp Gotlon and another ex-fighter pilot, a soft-spoken young man called Dakan Wraker. Toller had been surprised by the large number of volunteers for the expedition, and he had selected Wraker because of his imperturbable nature and wide range of mechanical skills.

The conversation among the crew members had been lively in the preceding hour, but now, suddenly, the magnitude of what lay ahead seemed to have impressed itself on them, stilling their tongues.

"Spare me the long faces," Toller said, grimly jovial. "Why, we might find Farland so much to our liking that none of us will ever want to return!"