The compleat collected s.., p.621
The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 621
Then he sniffed, smiled, and moved back.
Brendan thought that the gift of tongues would be very useful at this moment, because he needed to hold two conversations in two different languages at the same time, but the one with Tall Tree and Kargha was the more important. While it was going on, he was aware of his orders being shouted to the ships. Then the talking was over and Kargha moved closer and struck him sharply on the head.
O'Donnell swore again and struggled to draw his sword, hampered by the double grip of Malcolm's hands on his wrist. Kargha ignored them and raised his staff high, communicating with all the spirits in words spoken too rapidly for Brendan to follow, then lowered it again to administer a congratulatory whack on the rump.
"Peace, Captain," said Brendan quickly, his mind running much faster than his tongue. "I have been most highly honored. In the past few moments it was decided that the last few hours of the initiation ceremony, which should not have ended until noon, could be dispensed with since there was no doubt that I could pass the tests. How are the horses?"
"The horses!" O'Donnell shouted. "Here you are, tied up, wounded, and bleeding, and you ask about the horses. They are a lot healthier than you are. Let me cut you down from this bloody—"
"The red stuff," said Malcolm quietly, "does not smell like blood."
"It isn't blood," said Brendan. "And don't free me, the ceremony isn't over. The Redman with the staff is Kargha, a healer of sorts, and the other one is Tall Tree, Chief of this village. I want you to disarm yourselves and lay your weapons, all of your weapons, at the Chief's feet ..."
There were objections, naturally, not only from O'Donnell and Malcolm. The argument raged for several minutes until Tall Tree spoke sharply and Brendan broke off to reply.
"What were you saying to him?" asked Malcolm when they had finished speaking.
"I told him that you wanted me back among you," Brendan replied gravely, "and that you were all willing to lay down your lives for me. He said that you were brave warriors, but that fighting now would be a great foolishness. I told him that you would do what I asked."
With difficulty he inclined his head toward the trees behind him.
There were many, many Redmen emerging from among the trees, their bows ready but not aimed. Not only were the warriors of the village present, but all those who had escorted their Chiefs to the Great Council. They continued to move from among the trees until every trunk was hidden. There must have been more than two thousand of them.
Before his men could react, four squaws arrived to cut Brendan down and carry him into the sea, where they washed off the clay and berry stains and allowed him to exercise the stiffness from his muscles. Then clean and pink once more, with the sun drying him as he walked, he returned to the Tree of Testing. The fact that he was naked as a newborn babe was one of the embarrassments he had learned to ignore in recent weeks, and he remained impassive while Tall Tree and Kargha helped him into his clothes, which had been freshly washed, dried, and scented with herbs by the Chief's squaws for the dressing ceremony.
His breeches and tunic felt strange to him, the thigh-length sea boots and cape bearing the emblem of his Order an unnecessary encumbrance. His cap had been lost when he had been taken by the Redmen. But he did not need it because on his head they placed a beautiful and imposing headdress of eagle feathers which fell behind his shoulders and past his waist. They spoke the time-honored words of the Inauguration, to which he gave the prescribed replies, and then he turned to face his own people again.
"I told him that you would disarm yourselves if I asked it of you," Brendan resumed calmly, "because I am your Chief."
... AND MANY centuries later, on a new world distant indeed from that discovered by Brendan the Navigator, the embers of the open galley fire were giving enough light to show that the eyes of the injured Pilot Brenner were closed.
In a softer voice, Nolan went on, "I am being inconsiderate of my patient and everyone else. We will be faced with a long, hard row tomorrow. The rest of Brendan's story can wait until another time. Tonight we need our sleep."
The crews dispersed quietly to their ships and began settling down for the night. Nolan was about to do the same when the pilot said, "Healer, I cannot sleep. Please stay and talk."
"Your leg pains you," said Nolan gently. "But pain is like hard work: its tensions tire the mind and muscles alike. You do not believe it now, but shortly you will sleep. It helps if you think about something else."
"About Brendan?" said Brenner in a weak voice. "About his shameful treatment by Connair, and the Holy See? That would make me feel worse."
"Not about Brendan," said Nolan. "Think, rather, about what was to befall his first officer, Malcolm the Fair."
He heard the pilot give a long, quiet sigh. Nolan smiled in the darkness and said, "And to remind you of what was to happen, I shall ask the lady Ulechitzl to stand the first watch ..."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
A FAVORING wind of nearly gale force drove them onto the beach of a wide, sandy bay overlooked by wooded hills and, on the north side, by a high promontory. They quickly recovered their strength after the sea crossing, and the delay in continuing the journey was due to waiting for Pilot Brenner's leg to mend.
The ground inland was too hilly to risk carrying an injured man on a litter, and in the additional weeks of forced idleness the colonists developed lazy habits and talked more and more often of remaining in this pleasant place, with its cooling winds and plentiful supply of wild thumper meat and edible vegetation, to await rescue by the main colony. Nolan ignored the talk, hoping that they would soon become tired of lying about in their tropical paradise, and spent the time adding to his catalog of edible roots and berries.
One of which nearly killed him.
It was a small ground-growing nut with a pale blue, liquid-filled kernel. The kernels were small and the parent plants much too scarce for it to make an addition to the food supply, but it had a sharp and not unpleasant taste and an aroma that was reminiscent of cinnamon, and Nolan had tested it with a view to its being used as a spice to improve the often bland flavor of thumper meat. He had tasted and eaten it in minute quantities over several days without any harmful effect, but before releasing it for general consumption, he had squeezed the liquid content of the kernel onto a piece of freshly roasted thumper meat.
As soon as the liquid touched the hot meat it exploded into a small cloud of vapor which in his surprise he had inhaled. Thereafter Nolan had fallen into a coma from which it had been impossible to rouse him for two days.
Later and more careful tests showed that when eaten raw, the kernel had only a mild soporific effect, probably due to normal detoxification by the human digestive system. But when sufficient heat was applied for the juice to vaporize and be inhaled, so powerful was the effect that Nolan had been unsure whether to classify it as a soporific or a general anesthetic. When administered in measured doses, however, it ensured that the injured Brenner spent no more sleepless nights, and his injuries healed apace.
The pilot had been back on his feet and in the air for a week before Nolan finally insisted that they move on.
Brenner's observations showed that they were on the section of coast nearest to their destination and that they could go no farther by sea. Time and again Nolan reminded everyone that they had traveled more than half the distance to the main colony in less than one Earth year, that even though Aisling Gheal had not reacted in any detectable fashion to their many signal fires or to Brenner's now-exhausted suit farspeaker, this did not mean that their presence was unknown to the ship and the other colonists, or that a rescue party of their friends had not been dispatched to meet them. Sooner or later they would have to complete the journey to the colony, and making excuses for remaining in this place was a waste of everyone's time.
It was possible that the captain was too busy with his own scientific concerns, or too aged and physically unwell, to scan the surface night after night for the tiny sparks that were all that the cooking fires would have shown—if he happened to be looking in that area. But it was even more likely that they had all been posted missing presumed dead, and that neither the cardinal-captain nor anyone else was looking for them.
Those thoughts Nolan kept to himself while he encouraged everyone to prepare yet another fiery signal, one that could not be mistaken for any natural occurrence, because it would burn far out on the waters of the bay and would show a direction as well as light. All that was required, he told them, was hard work and the patience to wait for the conditions that would ensure maximum visibility from the orbiting Aisling Gheal.
On a night that was calm and cloudless, the three ships, long since emptied of stores and loaded with as much wood and combustible vegetation as they would carry without overturning, were rowed carefully into position. Each fire ship carried a single, lighted torch, carefully guarded so as to avoid a premature ignition, to show its position to the other vessels and those on shore, and crews made up of only the strongest swimmers. The ships took position on two sighting fires that had been lit on the beach, one at the water's edge and another just under the trees, so that Sea Dragon lined up on the shore fires while Sinead and White Dancer stationed themselves in line abreast six hundred yards astern of her and three hundred yards apart.
When Aisling Gheal had climbed high into the western sky and there would be no slightest trace of dayshine to distract the observer on the ship from what was to happen on the night side below him, the signal was given to fire all three ships from bows to sterns. By the time the crews arrived back on the beach, the ships were well ablaze and the bay resembled the aftermath of some old-time sea battle.
When viewed from orbit, however, the three blazing ships would together form a narrow isosceles triangle pointing like a fiery arrowhead toward the main colony. When he learned of this, Nolan thought, the monsignor would be a very worried man.
"It is a great pity, Healer," said Brenner, loudly enough to be heard above the sporadic cheering of the colonists, "that there is insufficient wind to launch the glider. This would be a spectacular sight from the air. And it must be generating enough thermals to take me halfway up to Aisling Gheal!"
Nolan did not reply. He knew that they had served their purpose and must be abandoned, but the sight of the burning ships performing their last service made him feel sad.
As if sensing Nolan's mood, Brenner said, "Healer, you are continually telling us that we are doing nothing new, that all this has happened before. We have indeed done many of the things Brendan did, although not always as he did them. He burned only parts of his ships because he expected to return home in them, while we are going on. And nothing lies before us except distance, for up until now we have survived every obstacle this world could place in our way. So smile, Healer, and ease your mind.
"At least," he ended, with an apologetic look at Golden Rain, "we will not have unfriendly natives to contend with."
"Thank God for that," said Nolan. Then, remembering what he was, he added, "Or somebody."
And so it was that on the 271st day after landing, their burned boats still smoking behind them and full of confidence and high spirits, they set out on the second half of the journey to the main colony.
They had forgotten how viciously the insects could bite and how abominable was the smell of the protecting stench-tree bulbs, and as the days went by they grew hungrier because the wild thumpers became harder to find, and angrier because they were continually dragging the domesticated herd and themselves up an unending succession of thickly forested lower slopes of mountains and down into valleys whose swampy floors were carpeted with an even denser growth, when they were not covered by swamps that hummed with an angry, strident fog of insects that were not always discouraged by the stench pods. They were hot and hungry, bitten, stung, and torn by thorn bushes. And no matter how high Brenner flew, he could report no change or improvement in the conditions ahead of them. Then on a.l. 329, when they had closed the distance to the colony by less than two hundred miles, it started to rain.
Many times they had encountered heavy and prolonged rain both on land and at sea, but this was far beyond any previous experience. It roared and rattled off the leaves above them to splash onto the ground like a continuing, erratic waterfall, and it tumbled down the slope past them as if the surrounding underbrush were growing out of a wide, slow-running stream. So heavy was the rain that to try to walk in it brought an immediate fear of drowning. It was impossible to hunt or light fires or do anything but huddle miserably inside tents whose floors were continually awash and shout words that were usually curses at each other. The rain lasted for four days and five nights, then stopped as suddenly as it had started.
They took stock, finding that the seed stores had remained sealed and dry, that two of the thumpers had drowned, that the glider framework was warped and would have to be rebuilt, and that everything and everyone else was sodden in body and spirit. Nolan ordered an immediate move to higher, unwooded ground to enable them to dry out. Then he withdrew some distance, ostensibly to write up his journal but in reality to allow the colonists to talk freely among themselves. He knew what they wanted to talk about, and he needed time to think of an answer before the problem was officially presented to him.
Late that afternoon it came as no surprise that Brenner and the two ladies had been chosen to speak for the others.
"Healer Nolan," the pilot said in an embarrassed voice, "we have been asked to tell you that the majority of the colonists want to return to the Bay of the Burning Boats, where there is food and cool air and a life that is as pleasant as it can be in our particular situation. We are attempting an impossible journey, they say, and if we go on we will all die. They say much more, but that is the gist of it, and they ask you with respect if you will abide by the expressed wishes of the majority?"
"I will not," said Nolan.
"You are not a stupid man, Healer," said Ulechitzl angrily. "It is only a stupid man who will not change his mind. Why not?"
"For the same reasons I discussed with Pilot Brenner a few days after we landed. Has he discussed them with you?"
"I promised not to speak of them to anyone until we reached the colony," said Brenner before she could answer. "It is better if you argue the reasons for yourself."
"And your promise was kept," said Nolan gratefully. "But now, Pilot, I think it would be better if you left us for a moment."
Brenner turned without a word and walked away.
"It seems that the pilot and yourself have been withholding information from us," said Ulechitzl in a quiet, angry voice. "And now you are going to keep information from him. Healer, what else are you hiding?"
Hopefully, thought Nolan, you will never know. Aloud, he said, "Unless you request it, my lady, nothing we say here will be hidden from him. Pilot Brenner is a good man, and I wish to save him needless embarrassment. Is the majority in favor of returning a large one, and does it include the three members of this delegation?"
"It is a small majority overall," said Ulechitzl. "And this in spite of Golden Rain and Pilot Brenner wanting to go on and myself to return. But we three will abide by the majority decision. Will you?"
Nolan shook his head. He said, "No, my lady. Whether it is only one person or a handful or, indeed, all of you who accompany me, I shall go on to the colony."
For a moment Ulechitzl breathed heavily through her delicately formed and beautifully proportioned nose, then she said, "Pilot Brenner told me that I would find it difficult to change your mind. I repeat, Healer, a person who will not change his mind is a stupid person, and you are not stupid. Why behave as if you are?"
He did not reply because it was plainly a rhetorical question.
"We survived the landing," she went on, "and with your help and encouragement we survived on the planet itself. But we will not survive if we continue this journey. You have brought us farther than anyone would have believed possible, but now you are intent on leading us to our deaths. After a lifetime of unquestioning obedience in the Court of Tenochtitlan, no matter how distant in time and space that Court lies today, you must know that I will not be treated like some unthinking foot soldier expected to follow an officer wherever he leads, and neither will the others. In their own nations, they, too, were persons of rank and influence. And intelligence."
That is why the monsignor abandoned you here, Nolan thought, because you would not blindly follow him, either. He did not speak.
"My apologies, Healer, I was never a good diplomat," she resumed in a quieter voice. "I did not mean to suggest that you were a martinet without feeling. You have led us, by example, and have risked your life while teaching us to live off this land. That is why you cannot be allowed to throw your life away. We need you with us, and we already owe you more than we can ever repay. But if you will give up this senseless and suicidal journey, there is one of us who is able to repay you in ways impossible for the others.
"Do you understand me, Healer?"
Nolan had to close his eyes to shut out the sight of her looking up at him, and of the jacket shrunk by four days of rain to the tightness of a second skin over that tiny, perfect body. But the dark screen that was his closed eyelids was immediately filled with the hot, tactile images of what she was offering him, and he had to open them again.
"I understand you well, my lady," he said in an unsteady voice, "but I will not mate with you."
For an instant she glared at him, anger darkening to copper the smooth bronze of her face, then she said, "I see. Could it be that you prefer someone taller and more robustly formed, someone who would bear you tall, strong children like yourselves? I am sorry, Healer. For some reason which she has not disclosed to me, Golden Rain is not disposed to offer herself to you. But if you were to remain with us, you might, in time, find ways of persuading her otherwise. Until then you needs must settle for me."
