Cycle of Fire

VIII. TRANSPORTATION

THE GLIDER did not land; its pilot was too cautious for that. Whatever might be making the flashes on the beach below was almost certainly not a launching catapult and if he touched the ground he would stay there. He had books of his own and had no intention of risking them. Nevertheless he skimmed low enough to make out the figures of Dar and Kruger and to be as puzzled by the latter as Dar had been.

One advantage of a glider is its silence. This characteristic, combined with the hyper-acute hearing of the Abyormenites, enabled a conversation to take place between Dar and the glider pilot. It was carried out in snatches as the aircraft swooped over and interrupted until it had passed on, turned into the updraft at the edge of the forest, picked up the altitude it had lost, and returned for another pass. Eventually, however, Dar got across the fact which he considered most important — the whereabouts of his books.

“I understand,” the pilot called down at length. “I will go on, turn in my load, and give your report. You had better stay where you are. Is there anything else that should be known by the Teachers?”

“Yes. My companion. You can see he is not a person. He knows much that is not in the books; he should go to the Teachers himself.”

“Does he speak?”

“Yes, though not well. He has words of his own, which are different from ours, and has not learned all ours yet.”

“Do you know any of his?”

“Some, yes.”

“Then perhaps it would be best if we brought you along, too. It will save time and there is not too much more of that.”

“I am not sure, but I get the impression that he does not die at the proper time; he expects to live longer. There may be no need of haste.”

One of the frequent interruptions to regain altitude allowed this information to sink into the pilot’s mind. When he swung past again:

“In any case remain with him. I will report all you have told me and someone will return to give you the decision of the Teachers. If you could improvise a catapult capable of launching a four-man glider it might expedite matters, since the portable ones are probably dismantled by now.” He passed on and began to circle in determined fashion for altitude, while Dar turned to Kruger to answer his questions about the numerous parts of the conversation the boy had either not heard or not understood.

“I had suspected, but found it hard to believe,” Kruger said at the end.

“What?”

“That this ‘time’ you have mentioned so often means the end of your life. How can it be that you know when you are going to die?”

“I have known it all my life; it is part of the knowledge in the books. Life starts, and continues for a measured time, and ends. That is why the books must go to the Ice Ramparts, so that the Teachers may use them to help instruct the people who come after.”

“You mean everyone dies at the same time?”

“Of course. Practically all lives started at the same time — except the few who have had accidents and had to start over.”

“How do you die?”

“We do not know, though the Teachers may. They have always told us the time but never the manner.”

“What sort of people are these Teachers?”

“Why, they are not people. They are — they are Teachers. That is, they look like people but are much bigger — bigger even than you.”

“Do they look more like your people than I do, or are there other differences like those between you and me?”

“They are exactly like me except for size — and the fact that they know so much, of course.”

“And they live on from one generation to the next — that is, through the time of one group of people and into that of the next — while all ordinary people die when the time comes?”

“So they, and the books, say.”

“How long is the time that you normally live?”

“Eight hundred and thirty years. We are now in the eight hundred and sixteenth.” Kruger thought this over and did a little mental arithmetic, and tried to imagine how he would feel knowing that he had just under nine months to live. He knew it would bother him; Dar Lang Ahn seemed to take it as a matter of course. Kruger could not help wondering whether his little friend had any secret washes concerned with a longer life span. He did not quite dare ask; it seemed to have the possibility of being a very touchy subject. He allowed the conversation to drift in the direction Dar was leading it. The little pilot seemed actually to pity him, Kruger finally realized, for not knowing when his own life was due to end; while he did not have the precise words to express his feelings, and they were a little too abstract to explain clearly, the boy got a definite impression that Dar considered the suspense of such a situation to be something he would not care to face.

“But enough of that.” Dar, too, seemed to feel that he was verging on what might prove an uncomfortable subject for his companion. “The pilot suggested that we try to set up a catapult so that they can take you off. We should at least be able to get it started before they come back. All we really need is the stakes; they will certainly bring the cables when they come.”

“How does the catapult work?”

Dar gave an explanation. Apparently it was simply an overgrown slingshot. The complication in its construction lay first in the need for placing it so that it could hurl the glider into a reasonably dependable updraft, and second in making sure that the supporting structure to which the cable was hooked could stand the strain — a flimsily assembled mass of timber suddenly coming loose and snapping back toward the glider could be decidedly embarrassing. The first requirement was not difficult to satisfy on the seashore; the second was a matter of experience. The work was actually easier than the raft building had been, since the pieces of wood used were much thinner. Kruger cut most of them with his knife to Dar’s specifications; the little native placed them and propped them with speed and skill.

Arren, circling lazily above the horizon, marked the passage of time, but neither workman noticed it particularly. They stopped to hunt and eat or for necessary rest, but Kruger never knew just how long it took the glider they had seen to complete its journey to the ice I cap, and for the relief expedition to be organized and make the return. It was certainly less than a year — they never saw Theer at all between the two events — but when the first of the gliders skimmed in from over the sea the catapult was ready.

The machine settled reasonably close to the catapult. Two others followed it within the next half hour, and a single pilot climbed from each. Dar performed the introductions; all three were acquaintances of his. Neither then nor later was Kruger able to tell them apart, and he was embarrassed to find that he could not distinguish Dar from the others except by familiar stains, nicks, and scratches on his friend’s leather harness and the iron buckles he had used for signaling. The others had bits of metal about them, but not serving the same functions; their harness buckles appeared to be of something like horn.

Their names were Dar En Vay, Ree San Soh, and Dar Too Ken. Kruger was bothered by the multiplicity of Dars, realizing that he could no longer indulge his habit of shortening his friend’s name for convenience. He wondered if the names connoted any sort of family connection — though from what Dar Lang Ahn had been telling him that seemed unlikely.

One of the gliders was considerably larger than the other two; Kruger supposed it was the “four-man” machine the other pilot had mentioned. Dar Lang Ahn called him over to it and the whole party went into consultation as to the best way of accommodating the relatively huge human body. The control seat, of course, had to be left in place for the pilot; if the three others were simply removed it left nothing to support Kruger except the frail envelope of the fuselage. No one of the seats was large enough to hold him, of course, though they were quite reasonably shaped from the human point of view. The final solution was an improvised support of slender branches, more like a mattress than a seat, which appeared to be strong enough to keep Kruger from going through to the fabric and light enough to meet the rather exacting balance requirements of the glider — requirements which were already being strained a trifle by the boy’s physical characteristics.

Kruger gathered that some time elapsed between the dying off of one race and the appearance of the next, but when he put the question to the group no one was able to answer him. The three newcomers were startled at the question and from then on seemed to regard him as more of a freak than even his admittedly strange appearance warranted. The pilot of the large glider made no objection when it was suggested that Dar Lang Ahn fly it as long as Kruger was aboard.

With this arrangement completed Dar asked where the rest of the fleet might be, or whether a group this size was expected to raid the village where his books were held. Ree San Soh answered him.

“We are not going to that village yet. The Teachers wanted to get a more complete report on the situation, which could only be obtained from you, and they also want to see your companion Kruger. You said that he knew more than was in the books, so they feel that it is more important to get him to the Ice Ramparts, particularly if he suffers from heat.”

Dar Lang Ahn admitted the force of this reasoning, although a lifetime of habit prevented his being completely easy on the subject of his lost cargo. Kruger applauded the decision; every time he heard the word which he had decided must mean “ice,” he felt homesick. A Turkish bath is all right now and then, but he had been in one for the best part of a terrestrial year.

There was no difficulty with the launching. Each glider in turn was anchored at the proper distance, the cable hooked to its nose, and a light, non-stretching line run up to the bracket, through a pulley, and back to a capstan. The latter was wound up until the stretching portion of the line reached the bracket, then the first line was detached and stowed and the glider was released. As it lunged forward over the bracket the hook disengaged from its nose and fell free, leaving the performance to be repeated with the next glider.

The only variation was with the last aircraft, which was the one used by Dar Lang Ahn and Kruger. In this case the detachable hook was fastened to the bracket instead of the craft, the capstan was installed on a support in the cockpit, and the glider was anchored by a slip knot that could be released by the pilot from his station. As a result the cable rode into the air along with them and was wound up by Kruger when they were safely airborne. Not until after this was finished did Dar comment on the consequences which would have ensued had the hook fouled in the launching bracket.

“But don’t you have some means of releasing this end of the cable if that happens?” asked Kruger.

“It’s been tried but usually the pilot doesn’t react fast enough to get any good out of it. You don’t know it’s fouled until the cable jerks your nose down and breaks you out of your safety belt.” Kruger gulped and was silent.

The flight was interesting but relatively uneventful. It was slow, of course, by Kruger’s standards; Dar could scarcely ever head straight toward an objective. He had to coast from one rising air current to the next and Kruger was by no means always sure just how he found his up-drafts. Dar, of course, could not always explain his knowledge; it had taken him a lifetime of about forty terrestrial years to pick it up and he could hardly impart it all in one flight.

One thing was certain: Dar Lang Ahn could have walked away with any sailplane prize ever offered on Earth without even realizing that he had been in a competition. The mere fact that the present flight covered over fifteen hundred miles was not the principal reason for this; rather it was the fact that he should take such a flight as a matter of course, with no more concern about the possibility of failure than a man considers when he starts to drive from Honolulu to New York. As the hours passed with no sign of the further shore Kruger began gradually to appreciate some of this.

When the coast finally did appear it was totally different in nature from the one they had left. That had been relatively flat, except for occasional volcanic cones; this was rugged. There were ranges of mountains produced quite obviously by both thrusting and block faulting — apparently young mountains, as geologists class such things. Steep cliffs, thousands of tiny streams rich in waterfalls and rapids, sharp, bare peaks — all told the same story. The air currents were incredibly complex and Dar used them with a skill bordering on the supernatural. The other gliders had long since disappeared; their lower wing loadings had enabled them to make “jumps” from updraft to updraft which Dar had not been willing to risk.

With the coast in sight Dar had begun to work to the left, and crossed it on a long slant. Usually they were too high for any animals to be seen or even the details of the forests that clothed the lower slopes of the mountains, but sometimes the glider would drift along the leeward side of a valley to make use of the air currents being forced up the next ridge, and Kruger could see that the trees were different. One reason was fairly evident: the temperature was lower, as Kruger could easily feel. At the highest altitudes reached by the glider he had felt comfortable at the start of the flight, now the comfort point was much closer to the ground.

This grew worse as the hours passed. Kruger was not sure how far they traveled but realized that it must be hundreds of miles. He was tired, hungry, and thirsty. Dar seemed indifferent to all these ills, as well as to the cold which was beginning to make his human companion almost regret the jungle. They had spoken little for many hours but each time Kruger thought of asking how much longer the flight was to last he was stopped by his reluctance to appear complaining. Eventually it was Dar who spoke.

“We may not make it before dark,” he said suddenly. “I’ll have to land soon, and go on when the sun comes up again.” Kruger looked in surprise at the blue star, whose motions he had long since ceased to notice particularly. Dar was right, it seemed. Arren was almost on the horizon behind them and a little to the glider’s right; it was very slowly going down. Kruger tried to use this fact to form an idea of his location on the planet — it must mean something, since he had seen the blue sun in the sky constantly for over six terrestrial months. One point seemed clear: Theer would not rise this year. They had crossed to the “dark side” of Abyormen. An ice cap suddenly seemed a reasonable feature of the landscape.

Nevertheless, judging by the angle at which the star was setting it should not go very far below the horizon, Kruger decided. He put this point to Dar.

“It will not actually get too dark to see, will it?” he asked.

“No, but we do not habitually fly when neither sun is in the sky,” was the answer. “Vertical air currents are much rarer and harder to identify from any distance. However, I will do my best to get to the Ramparts before the sun goes down; I have no great appetite for sitting on a hilltop for fifteen or twenty hours.” Kruger concurred heartily in this wish.

It was hard to tell just what the star was doing, since their altitude varied so widely and rapidly, but that it was setting there could be no doubt. His attention was so concentrated on the vanishing star that he failed to note the landscape below as he might otherwise have done, and the ice cap was in sight for some time before he noticed it. After that he noticed little else.

A great river flowing under their course toward the now distant sea was the first warning that caught his eye. Following it upstream he saw that it rose at the foot of a gigantic wall that gleamed pinkly in the nearly level rays of Alcyone. It took him several seconds to realized that the wall was the foot of a glacier. The river continued inland, but it was a river of ice. The mountains actually were higher toward the center of the continent, but to Kruger’s view now they seemed to shrink, for their bases were buried in what looked like the accumulated snows of centuries. As far as the eye could reach from the highest point of the glider’s flight the field of ice spread on. Most of it was held motionless by the great hills that strove to pierce it from beneath, but near the edge the glaciers oozed free and tried to make their way to the ocean. The ice was certainly a thousand feet or more thick here at the edge of the cap; Kruger wondered what it could be further inland.

But the sight of the ice cap meant that they could not be far from their goal; Dar would not have come so close to a fruitful source of downdrafts unless he had to. The pilot admitted this when Kruger asked him. “We should make it, all right. About two more climbs, if I can find good enough updrafts, and we can coast the rest of the way.” The boy forbore to interrupt him any more and watched the landscape in fascination as forest gave way to patches of snow and ice, and soil to black and gray rock streaked with white.

Eventually the pilot pointed, and following his finger the boy saw what could only be their landing place. It was a level platform, apparently a natural terrace, far up the side of one of the mountains. The valley below was filled with ice, part of a glacier which remained solid for fully a dozen more miles after flowing beneath this point. The terrace was simply an entryway; the mouths of several huge tunnels which seemed to lead deep into the mountain were visible opening onto it. Several winged shapes lying near the tunnel mouths left no doubt of the nature of the place.

To Kruger it seemed as though they could glide to it from their present position, but Dar Lang Ahn knew only too well the fierce downdrafts present along the edge of the terrace when the sun was not shining on the mountain face, and took his last opportunity to climb. For two or three minutes as he circled, the glider was in the last rays of Alcyone and must have been visible to the watchers on the terrace below.

Then the star vanished behind a peak and the terrace swelled under the aircraft’s nose. Dar brought the machine across the level space with five hundred feet to spare, made two tight slipping turns within its confines to get rid of the excess altitude, and settled like a feather in front of one of the tunnel openings. Kruger, half-frozen from the last climb, stumbled thankfully out of the machine and gratefully accepted the water jug which one of the waiting natives immediately presented him.

Apparently they were expected — naturally enough; the other gliders must have arrived long before.

“Do you need rest before talking to the Teachers?” asked one of those who had met them. Dar Lang Ahn looked at Kruger, who he knew had been awake much longer than he normally was, but to his surprise the boy answered, “No; let’s go. I can rest later; I’d like to see your Teachers and I know Dar Lang Ahn is in a hurry to get back to the village. Is it far to their office?”

“Not very distant.” Their questioner led the way back into the tunnel, which presently turned into a spiral ramp leading downward. They followed it for what seemed fully half an hour to the boy, who began to wonder just what their guide considered “very distant,” but finally the slope eased off onto the level floor of a large cavern. The cave itself was nearly deserted, but several doors led into it, and their guide headed them toward one of these.

The room beyond proved to be an office and was occupied by two being’s who were rather obviously, from Dar Lang Ahn’s description, Teachers. As he had said, they were identical with him in appearance, with the single exception of their size. These creatures were fully eight feet tall.

They each took a step toward the newcomers and waited silently for introductions. Their motions were slow and a trifle clumsy. Kruger noted, and with that observation the suspicion he had entertained for some time grew abruptly in his mind to a virtual certainty.