The Ragged Astronauts

by Bob Shaw

Genres: Science Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

The population of Land, a technologically unsophisticated planet, must somehow escape to their twin world of Overland when their existence is threatened by the ptertha, a toxic life-form that has declared war on humanity

Release date: June 15, 1987

Publisher: Baen

Print pages: 310

Sample

It had become obvious to Toller Maraquine and some others watching on the ground that the airship was heading into danger, but – incredibly – its captain appeared not to notice.

‘What does the fool think he’s doing?’ Toller said, speaking aloud although there was nobody within earshot. He shaded his eyes from the sun to harden his perception of what was happening. The background was a familiar one to anybody who lived in those longitudes of Land – flawless indigo sea, a sky of pale blue feathered with white, and the misty vastness of the sister world, Overland, hanging motionless near the zenith, its disk crossed again and again by swathes of cloud. In spite of the foreday glare a number of stars were visible, including the nine brightest which made up the constellation of the Tree.

Against that backdrop the airship was drifting in on a light sea breeze, the commander conserving power crystals. The vessel was heading directly towards the shore, its blue-and-grey envelope foreshortened to a circle, a tiny visual echo of Overland. It was making steady progress, but what its captain had apparently failed to appreciate was that the onshore breeze in which he was travelling was very shallow, with a depth of not more than three hundred feet. Above it and moving in the opposite direction was a westerly wind streaming down from the Haffanger Plateau.

Toller could trace the flow and counter flow of air with precision because the columns of vapour from the pikon reduction pans along the shore were drifting inland only a short distance before rising and being wafted back out to sea. Among those man-made bands of mist were ribbons of cloud from the roof of the plateau – therein lay the danger to the airship.

Toller took from his pocket the stubby telescope he had carried since childhood and used it to scan the cloud layers. As he had half expected, he was able within seconds to pick out several blurry specks of blue and magenta suspended in the matrix of white vapour. A casual observer might have failed to notice them at all, or have dismissed the vague motes as an optical effect, but Toller’s sense of alarm grew more intense. The fact that he had been able to spot some ptertha so quickly meant that the entire cloud must be heavily seeded with them, invisibly bearing hundreds of the creatures towards the airship.

‘Use a sunwriter,’ he bellowed with the full power of his lungs. ‘Tell the fool to veer off, or go up or down, or …’

Rendered incoherent by urgency, Toller looked all about him as he tried to decide on a course of action. The only people visible among the rectangular pans and fuel bins were semi-naked stokers and rakers. It appeared that all of the overseers and clerks were inside the wide-eaved buildings of the station proper, escaping the day’s increasing heat. The low structures were of traditional Kolcorronian design ȓ orange and yellow brick laid in complex diamond patterns, dressed with red sandstone at all corners and edges – and had something of the look of snakes drowsing in the intense sunlight. Toller could not even see any officials at the narrow vertical windows. Pressing a hand to his sword to hold it steady, he ran towards the supervisors’ building.

Toller was unusually tall and muscular for a member of one of the philosophy orders, and workers tending the pikon pans hastily moved aside to avoid impeding his progress. Just as he was reaching the single-storey building a junior recorder, Comdac Gurra, emerged from it carrying a sunwriter. On seeing Toller bearing down on him, Gurra flinched and made as if to hand the instrument over. Toller waved it away.

‘You do it,’ he said impatiently, covering up the fact that he would have been too slow at stringing the words of a message together. ‘You’ve got the thing in your hands – what are you waiting for?’

‘I’m sorry, Toller.’ Gurra aimed the sunwriter at the approaching airship and the glass slats inside it clacked as he began to operate the trigger.

Toller hopped from one foot to the other as he watched for some evidence that the pilot was receiving and heeding the beamed warning. The ship drifted onwards, blind and serene. Toller raised his telescope and concentrated his gaze on the blue-painted gondola, noting with some surprise that it bore the plume-and-sword symbol which proclaimed the vessel to be a royal messenger. What possible reason could the King have for communicating with one of the Lord Philosopher’s most remote experimental stations?

After what seemed an age, his enhanced vision enabled him to discern hurried movements behind the ship’s foredeck rails. A few seconds later there were puffs of grey smoke along the gondola’s left side, indicating that its lateral drive tubes were being fired. The airship’s envelope rippled and the whole assemblage tilted as the craft slewed to the right. It was rapidly shedding height during the manoeuvre, but by then it was actually grazing the cloud, being lost to view now and again as it was engulfed by vaporous tendrils. A wail of terror, fine-drawn by distance and flowing air, reached the hushed watchers along the shore, causing some of the men to shift uneasily.

Toller guessed that somebody on board the airship had encountered a ptertha and he felt a thrill of dread. It was a fate which had overtaken him many times in bad dreams. The essence of the nightmare was not in visions of dying, but in the sense of utter hopelessness, the futility of trying to resist once a ptertha had come within its killing radius. Faced by assassins or ferocious animals, a man could – no matter how overwhelming the odds – go down fighting and in that way aspire to a strange reconciliation with death, but when the livid globes came questing and quivering, there was nothing that could be done.

‘What’s going on here?’ The speaker was Vorndal Sisstt, chief of the station, who had appeared in the main entrance of the supervisors’ building. He was middle-aged, with a round balding head and the severely upright posture of a man who was self-conscious about being below average in height. His neat sun-tanned features bore an expression of mingled annoyance and apprehension.

Toller pointed at the descending airship. ‘Some idiot has travelled all this distance to commit suicide.’

‘Have we sent a warning?’

‘Yes, but I think it was too late,’ Toller said. ‘There were ptertha all round the ship a minute ago.’

‘This is terrible,’ Sisstt quavered, pressing the back of a hand to his forehead. ‘I’ll give word for the screens to be hoisted.’

‘There’s no need – the cloud base isn’t getting any lower and the globes won’t come at us across open ground in broad daylight.’

‘I’m not going to take the risk. Who knows what the …?’ Sisstt broke off and glared up at Toller, grateful for a safe outlet for his emotions. ‘Exactly when did you become empowered to make executive decisions here? In what I believe to be my station? Has Lord Glo elevated you without informing me?’

‘Nobody needs elevation where you’re concerned,’ Toller said, reacting badly to the chief’s sarcasm, his gaze fixed on the airship which was now dipping towards the shore.

Sisstt’s jaw sagged and his eyes narrowed as he tried to decide whether the comment had referred to his physical stature or abilities. ‘That was insolence,’ he accused. ‘Insolence and insubordination, and I’m going to see that certain people get to hear about it.’

‘Don’t bleat,’ Toller said, turning away.

He ran down the shallow slope of the beach to where a group of workers had gathered to assist in the landing. The ship’s multiple anchors trailed through the surf and up on to the sand, raking dark lines in the white surface. Men grabbed at the ropes and added their weight to counter the craft’s skittish attempts to rise on vagrant breezes. Toller could see the captain leaning over the forward rail of the gondola, directing operations. There appeared to be some kind of commotion going on amidships, with several crewmen struggling among themselves. It was possible that somebody who had been unlucky enough to get too close to a ptertha had gone berserk, as occasionally happened, and was being forcibly subdued by his shipmates.

Toller went forward, caught a dripping rope and kept tension on it to help guide the airship to the tethering stakes which lined the shore. At last the gondola’s keel crunched into the sand and yellow-shirted men vaulted over the side to secure it. The brush with danger had evidently rattled them. They were swearing fiercely as they pushed the pikon workers aside, using unnecessary force, and began tying the ship down. Toller could appreciate their feelings, and he smiled sympathetically as he offered his line to an approaching airman, a bottle-shouldered man with silt-coloured skin.

‘What are you grinning at, dung-eater?’ the man growled, reaching for the rope.

Toller withdrew the rope and in the same movement threw it into a loop and snapped it tight around the airman’s thumb. ‘Apologise for that!’

‘What the …!’ The airman made as if to hurl Teller aside with his free arm and his eyes widened as he made the discovery that he was not dealing with a typical science technician. He turned his head to summon help from other airmen, but Toller diverted him by jerking the rope tighter.

‘This is between you and me,’ Toller said quietly, using the power of his upper arms to increase the strain on the line. ‘Are you going to apologise, or would you like your thumb to wear on a necklet?’

‘You’re going to be sorry for …’ The airman’s voice faded and he sagged, white-faced and gasping, as a joint in his thumb made a clearly audible popping sound. ‘I apologise. Let me go! I apologise.’

‘That’s better,’ Toller said, releasing the rope. ‘Now we can all be friends together.’

He smiled in mock geniality, giving no hint of the dismay he could feel gathering inside him. It had happened yet again! The sensible response to a ritual insult was to ignore it or reply in kind, but his temper had taken control of his body on the instant, reducing him to the level of a primitive creature governed by reflex. He had made no conscious decision to clash with the airman, and yet would have been prepared to maim him had the apology not been forthcoming. And what made matters worse was the knowledge that he was unable to back down, that the trivial incident might still escalate into something very dangerous for all concerned.

‘Friends,’ the airman breathed, clutching his injured hand to his stomach, his face contorted with pain and hatred. ‘As soon as I can hold a sword again I’ll …’

He left the threat unfinished as a bearded man in the heavily embroidered jupon of an aircaptain strode towards him. The captain, who was about forty, was breathing noisily and the saffron material of his jupon had damp brown stains below his armpits.

‘What’s the matter with you, Kaprin?’ he said, staring angrily at the airman.

Kaprin’s eyes gave one baleful flicker in Toller’s direction, then he lowered his head. ‘I snared my hand in a line, sir. Dislocated my thumb, sir.’

‘Work twice as hard with the other hand,’ the captain said, dismissing the airman with a wave and turning to face Toller. ‘I’m Aircaptain Hlawnvert. You’re not Sisstt. Where is Sisstt?’

‘There.’ Toller pointed at the station chief, who was uncertainly advancing down the slope of the shore, the hem of his grey robe gathered clear of the rock pools.

‘So that’s the maniac who’s responsible.’

‘Responsible for what?’ Toller said, frowning.

‘For blinding me with smoke from those accursed stewpots.’ Hlawnvert’s voice was charged with anger and contempt as he swung his gaze to encompass the array of pikon pans and the columns of vapour they were releasing into the sky. ‘I’ve been told they’re actually trying to make power crystals here. Is that true, or is it just a joke?’

Toller, barely clear of one potentially disastrous scrape, was nonetheless affronted by Hlawnvert’s tone. It was the principal regret of his life that he had been born into a philosophy family instead of the military caste, and he spent much of his time reviling his lot, but he disliked outsiders doing the same. He eyed the captain coolly for a few seconds, extending the pause until it was just short of open disrespect, then spoke as though addressing a child.

‘Nobody can make crystals,’ he said. ‘They can only be grown – if the solution is pure enough.’

‘Then what’s the point of all this?’

‘There are good pikon deposits in this area. We are extracting it from the soil and trying to find a way to refine it until it’s pure enough to produce a reaction.’

‘A waste of time,’ Hlawnvert said with casual assurance, dismissing the subject as he turned away to confront Vorndal Sisstt.

‘Good foreday, Captain,’ Sisstt said. ‘I’m so glad you have landed safely. I’ve given orders for our ptertha screens to be run out immediately.’

Hlawnvert shook his head. ‘There’s no need for them. Besides, you have already done the damage.’

‘I …’ Sisstt’s blue eyes shuttled anxiously. ‘I don’t understand you, Captain.’

‘The stinking fumes and fog you’re spewing into the sky disguised the natural cloud. There are going to be deaths among my crew – and I deem you to be personally responsible.’

‘But …’ Sisstt glanced in indignation at the receding line of cliffs from which, for a distance of many miles, streamer after streamer of cloud could be seen snaking out towards the sea. ‘But that kind of cloud is a general feature of this coast. I fail to see how you can blame me for …’

‘Silence!’ Hlawnvert dropped one hand to his sword, stepped forward and drove the flat of his other hand against Sisstt’s chest, sending the station chief sprawling on his back, legs wide apart. ‘Are you questioning my competence? Are you saying I was careless?’

‘Of course not.’ Sisstt scrambled to his feet and brushed sand from his robes. ‘Forgive me, Captain. Now that you bring the matter to my attention, I can see that the vapour from our pans could be a hazard to airmen in certain circumstances.’

‘You should set up warning beacons.’

‘I’ll see that it’s done at once,’ Sisstt said. ‘We should have thought of it ourselves long ago.’

Toller could feel a tingling warmth in his face as he viewed the scene. Captain Hlawnvert was a big man, as was normal for one of a military background, but he was also soft and burdened with fat, and even someone of Sisstt’s size could have vanquished him with the aid of speed and hate-hardened muscles. In addition, Hlawnvert had been criminally incompetent in his handling of the airship, a fact he was trying to obscure with his bluster, so going against him could have been justified before a tribunal. But none of that mattered to Sisstt. In keeping with his own nature the station chief was fawning over the hand which abused him. Later he would excuse his cowardice with jokes and try to compensate for it by mistreating his most junior subordinates.

In spite of his curiosity about the reason for Hlawnvert’s visit, Toller felt obliged to move away, to dissociate himself from Sisstt’s abject behaviour. He was on the point of leaving when a crop-haired airman wearing the white insignia of a lieutenant brushed by him and saluted Hlawnvert.

‘The crew are ready for your inspection, sir,’ he said in a business-like voice.

Hlawnvert nodded and glanced at the line of yellow-shirted men who were waiting by the ship. ‘How many took the dust?’

‘Only two, sir. We were lucky.’

‘Lucky?’

‘What I mean, sir, is that but for your superb airmanship our losses would have been much higher.’

Hlawnvert nodded again. ‘Which two are we losing?’

‘Pouksale and Lague, sir,’ the lieutenant said. ‘But Lague won’t admit it.’

‘Was the contact confirmed?’

‘I saw it myself, sir. The ptertha got within a single pace of him before it burst. He took the dust.’

‘Then why can’t he own up to it like a man?’ Hlawnvert said irritably. ‘A single wheyface like that can unsettle a whole crew.’ He scowled in the direction of the waiting men, then turned to Sisstt. ‘I have a message for you from Lord Glo, but there are certain formalities I must attend to first. You will wait here.’

The colour drained from Sisstt’s face. ‘Captain, it would be better if I received you in my chambers. Besides, I have urgent …’

‘You will wait here,’ Hlawnvert interrupted, stabbing Sisstt’s chest with one finger and doing it with such force that he caused the smaller man to stagger. ‘It will do you good to see what mischief your polluting of the skies has brought about.’

In spite of his contempt for Sisstt’s behaviour, Toller began to wish he could intervene in some way to end the little man’s humiliation, but there was a strict protocol governing such matters in Kolcorronian society. To take a man’s side in a confrontation without being invited was to add fresh insult by implying that he was a coward. Going as far as was permissible, Toller stood squarely in Hlawnvert’s way when the captain turned to walk to the ship, but the implicit challenge went unnoticed. Hlawnvert side-stepped him, his face turned towards the sky, where the sun was drawing close to Overland.

‘Let’s get this business over and done with before littlenight,’ Hlawnvert said to his lieutenant. ‘We have wasted too much time here already.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The lieutenant marched ahead of him to the men who were ranked in the lee of the restlessly stirring airship and raised his voice. ‘Stand forward all airmen who have reason to believe they will soon be unable to discharge their duties.’

After a moment’s hesitation a dark-haired young man took two paces forward. His triangular face was so pale as to be almost luminous, but his posture was erect and he appeared to be well in control of himself. Captain Hlawnvert approached him and placed a hand on each shoulder.

‘Airman Pouksale,’ he said quietly, ‘you have taken the dust?’

‘I have, sir.’ Pouksale’s voice was lifeless, resigned.

‘You have served your country bravely and well, and your name will go before the King. Now, do you wish to take the Bright Road or the Dull Road?’

‘The Bright Road, sir.’

‘Good man. Your pay will be made up to the end of the voyage and will be sent to your next-of-kin. You may retire.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Pouksale saluted and walked around the prow of the airship’s gondola to its far side. He was thus screened from the view of his former crewmates, in accordance with custom, but the executioner who moved to meet him became visible to Toller, Sisstt and many of the pikon workers ranged along the shore. The executioner’s sword was wide and heavy, and its brakka wood blade was pure black, unrelieved by the enamel inlays with which Kolcorronian weapons were normally decorated.

Pouksale knelt submissively. His knees had barely touched the sand before the executioner, acting with merciful swiftness, had dispatched him along the Bright Road. The scene before Toller – all yellows and ochres and hazy shades of blue – now had a focal point of vivid red.

At the sound of the death blow a ripple of unease passed through the line of airmen. Several of them raised their eyes to gaze at Overland and the silent movement of their lips showed they were bidding their dead crewmate’s soul a late journey to the sister planet. For the most part, however, the men stared unhappily at the ground. They had been recruited from the crowded cities of the empire, where there was considerable scepticism about the Church’s teaching that men’s souls were immortal and alternated endlessly between Land and Overland. For them death meant death – not a pleasant stroll along the mystical High Path linking the two worlds. Toller heard a faint choking sound to his left and turned to see that Sisstt was covering his mouth with both hands. The station chief was trembling and looked as though he could faint at any second.

‘If you go down we’ll be branded as old women,’ Toller whispered fiercely. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘The barbarism.’ Sisstt’s words were indistinct. ‘The terrible barbarism … What hope is there for us?’

‘The airman had a free choice – and he behaved well.’

‘You’re no better than …’ Sisstt stopped speaking as a commotion broke out by the airship. Two airmen had gripped a third by the arms and in spite of his struggles were holding him in front of Hlawnvert. The captive was tall and spindly, with an incongruously round belly.

‘… couldn’t have seen me, sir,’ he was shouting. ‘And I was upwind of the ptertha, so the dust couldn’t have come anywhere near me. I swear to you, sir – I haven’t taken the dust.’

Hlawnvert placed his hands on his broad hips and looked up at the sky for a moment, signifying his disbelief, before he spoke. ‘Airman Lague, the regulations require me to accept your statement. But let me make your position clear. You won’t be offered the Bright Road again. At the very first signs of fever or paralysis you will go over the side. Alive. Your pay for the entire voyage will be withheld and your name will be struck from the royal record. Do you understand these terms?’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ Lague tried to fall at Hlawnvert’s feet, but the men at his side tugged him upright. ‘There is nothing to worry about, sir – I haven’t taken the dust.’

At an order from the lieutenant the two men released Lague and he walked slowly back to re-join the rank. The line of airmen parted to make room for him, leaving a larger gap than was necessary, creating an intangible barrier. Toller guessed that Lague would find little consolation during the next two days, which was the time it took for the first effects of ptertha poison to become apparent.

Captain Hlawnvert saluted his lieutenant, turning the assembly over to him, and walked back up the slope to Sisstt and Toller. Patches of high colour showed above the curls of his beard and the sweat stains upon his jupon had grown larger. He looked up at the high dome of the sky, where the eastern rim of Overland had begun to brighten as the sun moved behind it, and made an impatient gesture as though commanding the sun to disappear more quickly.

‘It’s too hot for this kind of vexation,’ he growled. ‘I have a long way to go, and the crew are going to be useless until that coward Lague goes over the side. The service regulations will have to be changed if these new rumours aren’t quashed soon.’

‘Ah …’ Sisstt strained upright, fighting to regain his composure. ‘New rumours, Captain?’

‘There’s a story that some line soldiers down in Sorka died after handling ptertha casualties.’

‘But pterthacosis isn’t transmissible.’

‘I know that,’ Hlawnvert said. ‘Only a spineless cretin would think twice about it, but that’s what we get for aircrew these days. Pouksale was one of my few steady men – and I’ve lost him to that damned fog of yours.’

Toller, who had been watching a burial detail gather up Pouksale’s remains, felt a fresh annoyance at the repetition of the indictment and his chief’s complaisance. ‘You don’t have to keep on blaming our fog, Captain,’ he said, giving Sisstt a significant glance. ‘Nobody in authority is disputing the facts.’

Hlawnvert rounded on him at once. ‘What do you mean by that?’ Toller produced a slow, amiable smile. ‘I mean we all got a clear view of what happened.’

‘What’s your name, soldier?’

‘Toller Maraquine – and I’m not a soldier.’

‘You’re not a …’ Hlawnvert’s look of anger gave way to one of sly amusement. ‘What’s this? What have we here?’

Toller remained impassive as the captain’s gaze took in the anomalous aspects of his appearance – the long hair and grey robes of a philosopher combined with the height and blocky musculature of a warrior. His wearing of a sword also set him apart from the rest of his kin. Only the fact that he was free of scars and campaign tattoos distinguished him in physique from a full-blooded member of the military.

He studied Hlawnvert in return, and his antagonism increased as he followed the thought processes so clearly mirrored on the captain’s florid face. Hlawnvert had not been able to disguise his alarm over a possible accusation of negligence, and now he was relieved to find that he was quite secure. A few coarse innuendoes about his challenger’s pedigree were all the defence he needed in the lineage-conscious hierarchy of Kolcorron. His lips twitched as he tried to choose from the wealth of taunts available to him.

Go ahead, Toller thought, projecting the silent message with all the force of his being. Say the words which will end your life.

Hlawnvert hesitated, as though sensing the danger, and again the interplay of his thoughts was clearly visible. He wanted to humiliate and discredit the upstart of dubious ancestry who had dared impugn him, but not if there was serious risk involved. And calling for assistance would be a step towards turning a triviality into a major incident, one which would highlight the very issue he wanted to obscure. At length, having decided on his tactics, he forced a chuckle.

‘If you’re not a soldier you should be careful about wearing that sword,’ he said jovially. ‘You might sit on it and do yourself a mischief.’

Toller refused to make things easy for the captain. ‘The weapon is no threat to me.’

‘I’ll remember your name, Maraquine,’ Hlawnvert said in a low voice. At that moment the station’s timekeeper sounded the littlenight horn – tonguing the double note which was used when ptertha activity was high – and there was a general movement of pikon workers towards the safety of the buildings. Hlawnvert turned away from Toller, clapped one arm around Sisstt’s shoulders and drew him in direction of the tethered airship.

‘You’re coming aboard for a drink in my cabin,’ he said. ‘You’ll find it nice and snug in there with the hatch closed, and you’ll be able to receive Lord Glo’s orders in privacy.’

Toller shrugged and shook his head as he watched the two men depart. The captain’s excessive familiarity was a breach of the behavioural code in itself, and his blatant insincerity in embracing a man he had just thrown to the ground was nothing short of an insult. It accorded Sisstt the status of a dog which could be whipped or petted at the whim of its owner. But, true to his colours, the station chief appeared not to mind. A sudden bellowing laugh from Hlawnvert showed that Sisstt had already begun to make his little jokes, laying the groundwork for the version of the encounter he would later pass on to his staff and expect them to believe. The captain loves people to think he’s a real ogre – but when you get to know him as well as I do …

Again Toller found himself wondering about the nature of Hlawnvert’s mission. What new orders could be so urgent and important that Lord Glo had considered it worth sending them by special carrier instead of waiting for a routine transport? Was it possible that something was going to happen to break the deadly monotony of life at the remote station? Or was that too much to hope for?

As darkness swept out of the west Toller looked up at the sky and saw the last fierce sliver of the sun vanish behind the looming immensity of Overland. As the light abruptly faded the cloudless areas of the sky thronged with stars, comets and whorls of misty radiance. Littlenight was beginning, and under its cover the silent globes of the ptertha would soon leave the clouds and come drifting down to ground level in search of their natural prey.

Glancing about him, Toller realised he was the last man out in the open. All personnel connected with the station had retreated indoors and the crew of the airship were safely enclosed in its lower deck. He could be accused of foolhardiness in lingering outside for so long, but it was something he quite often did. The flirtations with danger added spice to his humdrum existence and were a way of demonstrating the essential difference between himself and a typical member of one of the philosophy families. On this occasion his gait was slower and more casual than ever as he walked up the gentle incline to the supervisors’ building. It was possible that he was being watched, and his private code dictated that the greater the risk of a ptertha strike the less afraid he should appear to be. On reaching the door he paused and stood quite still for a moment, despite the crawling sensation on his back, before lifting the latch and going inside.

Behind him, dominating the southern sky, the nine brilliant stars of the Tree tilted down towards the horizon.

Prince Leddravohr Neldeever was indulging himself in the one pursuit which could make him feel young again.

As the elder son of the King, and as head of all of Kolcorron’s military forces, he was expected to address himself mainly to matters of policy and broad strategy in warfare. As far as individual battles were concerned, his proper place was far to the rear in a heavily protected command post from which he could direct operations in safety. But he had little or no taste for hanging back and allowing deputies, in whose competence he rarely had faith anyway, to enjoy the real work of soldiering. Pra