The Fugitive Worlds (12 page)

"It seems as good a place as any," Toller said. "The lateral
dispersions on this flight have been remarkably slight, and
those that did occur have cancelled each other out. The
decision rests with the Sky-commodore, of course, but I'd
say that's where we'll put down."

"That would make it perfect. The perfect full circle."

"Indeed yes," Toller agreed, no longer really listening, his
attention captured by the realization that the ten-day flight between the worlds was all but over, and that very soon he
would have unlimited opportunities to court Vantara. He
had not even glimpsed her since the incident with the blue-
horn, and the lack of contact had fuelled his obsession to the point where the prospect of seeing another world for the first
time seemed no more of an adventure than being able to
speak to the countess face to face and perhaps win her over.

"I envy you, young Maraquine," Kettoran said, gazing
wistfully downwards at the natural stage upon which the
half-remembered scenes of his youth had been enacted.
"Everything lies before you."

"Perhaps." Toller smiled, savoring his own interpretation
of the commissioner's words. "Perhaps you're right."

The village of Styvee contained no more than a hundred or
so buildings, and even in its heyday would have housed only
a few hundred people. Toller was tempted to cross it off his
list and proceed on his way without even landing, but it
would then have become necessary to falsify an inspection
report and he could not allow himself to sink to petty dishonesty. He studied the layout of the village for a moment,
noting that its central square was very small, even for such
an out-of-the-way place.

"What do you think, corporal?" he said, testing the
younger man's judgment. "Is it worth trying to put the ship
down on those few yards of turf?"

Steenameert leaned over the rail to assess the prospects.
"I wouldn't take the risk, sir—there's very little leeway and
there's no telling what the eddy currents are like around that
group of tall warehouses."

"That's what I was thinking—we'll make a pilot of you
yet," Toller said jovially. "Head for those pastures to the
east, beside the river, and drop us there."

Steenameert nodded, his naturally pink face growing even
more roseate with gratification. Toller had taken a liking to Steenameert on the occasion of their first meeting, when he had parachuted down from the interplanetary void, and had put in a special request to have him in his crew for the flight
to Land. Now he was personally grooming Steenameert for
a field promotion, somewhat to the annoyance of Lieutenant
Correvalte, who had spent the customary year in a training
squadron.

Toller turned to Correvalte, who officially should have
been conducting the landing maneuver and was showing his discomfiture by lounging in a seat in a posture of exaggerated
boredom. "Lieutenant, detail one man to guard the ship and get the others ready to inspect the village—the walk will do
them good."

Correvalte saluted, very correctly, and left the bridge.
Toller maintained a carefully neutral expression as he
watched the lieutenant go down the short stair to the gon
dola's main deck. He had already decided to recompense
Correvalte by recommending him for a full captaincy earlier
than usual, but had decided not to let him know until the
current mission had been completed.

It was the middle of foreday, and already in the equatorial
region of Land the sun's heat was baking the ground. Most
of the gondola was in the shadow of the ship's gasbag, a fact
which made the environment beyond seem preternaturally bright and vivid. As the vessel performed a slow half-circle
to face the slight breeze, sinking all the while, Toller saw
that the fields surrounding the village had almost returned
to their natural uniform shade of green.

With no seasons to orchestrate the cycle of maturation,
individual plants in the wild state tended to follow their own timetables, with a proportion in the earliest stages of growth
while others were at their peak or in the process of withering
and returning their constituents to the soil. From time im
memorial, Kolcorronian farmers had sorted the seeds of
useful vegetables into synchronous batches—typically crea
ting six harvests a year—and as a result areas of cultivated land presented patterns of stripes of varying colors.

Here, after decades of neglect, those patterns had all but disappeared as the edible grasses and other crop vegetables
had slowly returned to botanic anarchy. The advanced stage
of the reversal led Toller to suspect that the village of Styvee
was not one of those which the New Men had reclaimed
after the ptertha plague had wiped out the normal human
population. If that were the case, the inspection of the village
promised to be yet another in a series of unpleasant and
highly depressing experiences.

The final stages of racial extinction—half a century ago—
had come so swiftly that there had been no time for the dying
to bury the dead. . . .

The thought cast a pall over Toller's mood, reminding him
of how wrong he had been in his supposition that the fleet's arrival on Land would give him endless opportunity to keep
company with the Countess Vantara. At the heart of his
mistake had been a single historical fact.

The migration from Land to Overland had been a carefully
planned affair, one which should have been carried out in orderly stages, but in the event it had been essayed in
circumstances of panic and chaos. With the city of Ro-Atabri
burning, with mobs on the rampage and the army's discipline
gone, the evacuation had been forced through with only
minutes of notice for the refugees*—and in that extreme
not one book
had been taken on the journey between the worlds.
Jeweler and useless bundles of currency notes had been
carried in plenty, but not one painting, not one written poem,
not one sheet of music.

While men and women of culture were later to complain
that the race had left its soul behind, King Chakkell and his heirs were to fret about a more irksome oversight. In all the
turmoil and confusion nobody had thought of bringing any
maps of Kolcorron, of the empire, or of Land itself. From
the time of the Migration until the present day—although
the Kolcorronian royal family still claimed sovereignty
over the Old World—the lack of charts had proved an
annoyance more than anything else, but the situation had
changed entirely.

Prince Oldo, Daseene's sole remaining offspring, was now
in his late fifties and had been thwarted all his life by the
Queen's refusal to step down from the throne. And, just as
his mother's frailty was promising to clear the way for him,
he had been given an extra frustration to contend with in
that he was about to become heir to a kingdom whose actual
and potential wealth were almost a total mystery.

Unknown to Toller, he had prevailed on Daseene to put
off the circumnavigation of Land until a detailed survey of
Kolcorron itself had been carried out. Thus it was that,
instead of pacing Vantara's ship on a challenging round-the-
world flight, Toller had found himself committed to a seem
ingly endless series of aerial hops from one deserted village or town to another. He had been on Land for almost twenty
days and in all that time had not even seen Vantara, who
was engaged on similar duties in a different quarter of the
country.

Just as the city of Ro-Atabri had impressed him with
its sheer size, Kolcorron was overwhelming him with the
multiplicity of centers, large and medium and small, which
had once been necessary to house its population. Having
lived all his life on Overland, where it was possible to fly for
hours without seeing a single habitation, Toller felt op
pressed, suffocated, by the extent of men's interference with
the natural landscape. He had begun to visualize the old
kingdom as one vast, seething hive in which any individual
would have counted for very little. Even the knowledge that
it was the birthplace of his grandfather did little to counteract
his negative feelings about Kolcorron's tamed and over
worked countryside.

He gazed moodily at the cluster of dwellings and larger
buildings, apparently tilting with the airship's movements,
which made up Styvee. The old maps and gazetteers which
had been found in Ro-Atabri showed that its chief impor
tance arose from the fact that the village contained a pumping
station which had been vital to the irrigation of a considerable area of farming land north of the local river and canal system.
It was required of Toller that he should inspect the station
and report on its condition.

Still keeping a watchful eye on Steenameert and his hand
ling of the airship, Toller consulted his list and confirmed
that after Styvee had been crossed off there would be only
three further locations to check. If there were no compli
cations he could be on his way back to base camp in the
capital before littlenight of the following day. Vantara might
also have returned to Ro-Atabri by that time. The thought
helped to dispel some of Toller's forebodings about the task
in hand, and he began to whistle as he took his sword from
a locker. The steel weapon—which had once belonged to his grandfather—was too awkward to wear in the close confines
of a ship, but he never ventured abroad without it strapped
to his side. It enhanced his sense of kinship with that other Toller Maraquine, the one whose exploits he would never
have the chance to emulate.

A minute later—to the accompaniment of short bursts
from the secondary jets—the gondola's keel made contact
with the ground and the four anchor cannon fired their
barbs into the grassy earth. Crewmen leapt over the side
immediately with extra lines and began doubly securing
the ship against the possibility of the heat vortices which
commonly roamed the land close to the equator.

"Closing down the engines, sir," Steenameert said, his
eyes seeking Toller's as he vented the pneumatic reservoir
which fed power crystals to the jets. "How was the landing?"

"Passable, passable." Toller used a tone of voice which
showed that he was more pleased with the corporal's per
formance than his choice of words implied. "But don't stand there all day congratulating yourself—we have business in
yonder metropolis. Over the side with you!"