Chapter III: Part 3

That was to come later. At the moment Amra was strangely quiet and meek. All she would say was that she had many business connections and that she knew well Zingaro, the Thieves' Guild Business Agent. They had been childhood playmates, and they'd helped each other in various shady transactions since. It was only natural that she should hear about the _exurotr_ a slave hiding on the _Bird of Fortune_ had given Zingaro to take back to the Duke. Cornering Zingaro, she had worked out of him enough information to be sure that Green had escaped to the 'roller. After all, Zingaro was under oath only to be reticent about certain details of the whole matter. From there she had taken the business into her own hands, had told Miran that she would inform the Duchess of Green's whereabouts unless he permitted her and her family to go along on the voyage.

"Here I am, your faithful and loyal wife," she said, opening her arms in an expansive gesture.

"I am overwhelmed with emotion," replied Green, for once not exaggerating.

"Then come and embrace me," she cried, "and don't stand there as if you'd seen the dead return from the grave!"

"Before all these people?" he said, half-stunned, looking around at the grinning captain and first mate on the foredeck beside him and at the sailors and their families on the middeck below. The only ones not watching him were the goggled helmsmen, whose backs were turned because they were intent on wrestling with the great spoked wheel.

"Why not?" she retorted. "You'll be sleeping on the open deck with them, eating with them, breathing their breath, feeling their elbows at every turn, cursing, laughing, fighting, getting drunk, making love, all, all on the open deck. So why not embrace me? Or don't you want me to be here?"

"The thought never entered my head," he said, stepping up to her and taking her in his arms. Or, if it had, he reflected, you can bet that I'd not dare say it.

After all, it was good to feel her soft, warm, firmly curved body again and know that there was at least one person on this godforsaken planet that cared for him. What could have made him think for one minute that he could endure life without her?

Well, he had. She just would not, could not, fit into his life if he ever got back on Earth.

11

Miran coughed and said, "You two and your children and maid must get off the deck and go amidships. That is where you will live. Never again must you set foot upon the steering deck unless you are summoned. I run a tight ship and discipline is strictly adhered to."

Green followed Amra and the children down the steps to the deck below, noticing for the first time that Inzax, the pretty blond slave who took care of the children, was also aboard. You had to give credit to Amra. Wherever she went she traveled in style.

He also thought that if this was a tight ship a loose one must be sheer chaos. Cats and dogs were running here and there, playing with the many infants, or else fighting with each other. Women sat and sewed or hung up washing or dried dishes or nursed babies. Hens clucked defiantly from behind the bars of their coops, scattered everywhere. On the port side there was even a pigpen holding about thirty of the tiny rabbit-eared porcines.

Green followed Amra to a place where an awning had been stretched to make a roof.

"Isn't this nice?" she said. "It has sides which we can pull down when it rains or when we want privacy, as I suppose we will, you being so funny in some ways."

"Oh, it's delightful," he hastened to assure her. "I see you even have some feather mattresses. And a cookstove."

He looked around. "But where are the fish tanks? I thought Miran was going to bolt them to the deck?"

"Oh, no, he said that they were too valuable to expose to gunfire if we encountered pirates. So he had the deck cut open wide enough to lower the tanks inside the hold. Then the deck planking was replaced. Most of these people here would be sleeping below if it weren't for the tanks. But there's no room now."

Green decided to take a look around. He liked to have a thorough knowledge of his immediate environment so that he would know how to behave if an emergency arose.

The windroller itself was about two hundred feet long. Its beam was about thirty-four feet. The hull was boat-shaped, and the narrow keel rested on fourteen axles. Twenty-eight enormous solid rubber-tired wheels turned at the ends of these axles. Thick ropes of the tough rubber-like substance were tied to the ends of the axles and to the tops of the hull itself. These were to hold the body steady and keep it from going over when the 'roller reeled under too strong a side wind and also to provide some resiliency when the 'roller was making a turn. Being aboard at such times was almost like being on a water-sailing ship. As the front pair of wheels--the steering wheels--turned and the longitudinal axis of the craft slowly changed direction, the body of the vessel, thrust by the shifting impact of the winds, also tilted. Not too far, never as far as a boat in similar case, but enough to give one an uneasy feeling. The cables on the opposing side would stretch to a degree and then would stop the sidewise motion of the keel and there would be a slight and slow roll to the other direction. Then a shorter and slower motion back again. It was enough to make a novice green. 'Roller sickness wasn't uncommon at the beginning of a voyage or during a violent windstorm. Like its aqueous counterpart, it affected the sufferer so that he could only hang over the rail and wish he _would_ die.

The _Bird of Fortune_ sported a curving bow and a high foredeck. On this was fastened the many-spoked steering wheel. Two helmsmen always attended it, two men wearing hexagonal goggles and close-fitting leather helmets with high crests of curled wire. Behind them stood the captain and first mate, giving their attention alternately to the helmsmen and to the sailors on deck and aloft. The middeck was sunken, and the poopdeck, though raised, was not as high as the foredeck.

The four masts were tall, but not as tall as those of a marine craft of similar size. High masts would have given the 'roller a tendency to capsize in a very strong wind, despite the weight of the axles and wheels. Therefore, the yardarms, reaching far out beyond the sides of the hull, were comparatively longer than a seaship's. When the _Bird_ carried a full weight of canvas she looked, to a mariner's eyes, squat and ungainly. Moreover, yards had been fixed at right angles to the top of the hull and to the keel itself. Extra canvas was hung between these spars. The sight of all that sail sticking from between the wheels was enough to drive an old sailor to drink.

Three masts were square-rigged. The aft mast was fore-and-aft rigged and was used to help the steering. There was no bowsprit.

Altogether, it was a strange-looking craft. But once one was accustomed to it, one saw it was as beautiful as a ship of the sea.

It was as formidable, too, for the _Bird_ carried five large cannon on the middeck, six cannon on the second deck, a lighter swivel cannon on the steering deck, and two swivels on the poopdeck.

Hung from davits were two long liferollers and a gig, all wheeled and with folding masts. If the _Bird_ was wrecked it could be abandoned and all the crew could scoot off in the little rollers.

Green wasn't given much time for inspection. He became aware that a tall, lean sailor was regarding him intently. This fellow was dark-skinned but had the pale blue eyes of the Tropat hillsmen. He moved like a cat and wore a long, thin dagger, sharp as a claw. A nasty customer, thought Green.

Presently, the nasty customer, seeing that Green was not going to notice him, walked in front of him so that he could not help being annoyed. At the same time, the babble around them died and everybody turned his head to stare.

"Friend," said Green, affably enough, "would you mind standing off to one side? You are blocking my view."

The fellow spat _grixtr_ juice at Green's feet.

"No slave calls me friend. Yes, I am blocking your view, and I would mind getting out of the way."

"Evidently you object to my presence here," said Green. "What is the matter? You don't like my face?"

"No, I don't. And I don't like to have as a crewmate a stinking slave."

"Speaking of odors," said Green, "would you please stand to leeward of me? I've been through a lot lately and I've a delicate stomach."

"Silence, you son of an _izzot_!" roared the sailor, red-faced. "Have respect toward your betters, or I'll strike you down and throw your body overboard."

"It takes two to make a murder, just as it takes two to make a bargain," said Green in a loud voice, hoping that Miran would hear and be reminded of his promise of protection. But Miran shrugged his shoulders. He had done as much as he could. It was up to Green to make his way from now on.

"It is true that I am a slave," he said. "But I was not born one. Before being captured I was a freeman who knew liberty as none of you here know it. I came from a country where there were no masters because every man was his own master.

"However, that is neither here nor there. The point is that I earned my freedom, that I fought like a warrior, not a slave, to get aboard the _Bird_. I wish to become a crew member, to become a blood-brother to the Clan Effenycan."

"Ah, indeed, and what can you contribute to the Clan that we should consider you worthy of sharing our blood?"

What indeed? Green thought. The sweat broke out all over his body, though the morning wind was cool.

At that moment he saw Miran speak to a sailor, who disappeared below decks and come out almost at once carrying a small harp in his hand. Oh, yes, now he remembered that he had told the captain what a wonderful harpist and singer he was, just the man that the Clan, eager for entertainment on the long voyages, would be likely to initiate.

The unfortunate thing about that was that Green couldn't play a note.

Nevertheless he took the instrument from the sailor and gravely plucked its strings. He listened to the tones, frowned, adjusted the pegs, plucked them again, then handed the harp back.

"Sorry, this is an inferior instrument," he said haughtily. "Haven't you anything better? I couldn't think of degrading my art on such a cheap monstrosity."

"Gods above!" screamed a man standing nearby. "That is my harp you are talking about, the beloved harp of me, the bard Grazoot! Slave! Tone-deaf son of a laryngiteal mother! You will answer to me for that insult!"

"No," said the sailor, "this is my affair. I, Ezkr, will test this lubber's fitness to join the Clan and be called brother."

"Over my dead body, brother!"

"If you so wish it, brother!"

There were more angry words until presently Miran himself came down to the middeck. "By Mennirox, this is a disgrace!" he bellowed. "Two Effenycan quarreling before a slave! Come, make a decision quietly, or I will have you both thrown overboard. It is not too far to walk back to Quotz."

"We will cast dice to see who is the lucky man," said the sailor, Ezkr. Grinning gap-toothedly, he reached into the pouch that hung from his belt, and pulled out the hexagonal ivories. A few minutes later he rose from his knees, having won four out of six throws. Green was disappointed more than he cared to show, for he had hoped that if he had to fight anybody it would be the pudgy, soft-looking harpist, not the tough sailor.

Ezkr seemed to agree with Green that he could not have had worse luck. Chewing _grixtr_ so rapidly that the green-flecked slaver ran down his long chin, Ezkr announced the terms that the blond slave would have to meet to prove his fitness.

12

For a moment Green thought of leaving the ship and making his way on foot.

Miran protested loudly. "This is ridiculous. Why can you not fight on deck like two ordinary men and be satisfied if one gives the other a flesh wound? That way I won't stand the chance of losing you, Ezkr, one of my top topmen. If you should slip, who could take your place? This green hand here?"

Ezkr ignored his captain's indignation, knowing that the code of the Clan protected him. He spit and said, "Anybody can wield a dagger. I want to see what kind of a man this Green is aloft. Walking a yard is the best way to see the color of his blood."

Yes, thought Green, his skin goose-pimpling. You'll likely see my blood all right, splashed from here to the horizon when I fall!

He asked Miran if he could withdraw a moment to his tent to pray to his gods for success. Miran nodded, and Green had Amra let down the sides of his shelter while he dropped to his knees. As soon as his privacy was assured, he handed her a long turban cloth and told her to go outside. She looked surprised, but when he told her what else she was to do, she smiled and kissed him.

"You are a clever man, Alan. I was right to prefer you above any other man I might have had, and I could have had the best."

"Save the compliments for afterwards, when we'll know if it works," he said. "Hurry to the stove and do what I say. If anybody asks you what you are up to, tell them that the stuff is necessary for my religious ritual. The gods," he said as she ducked through the tent opening, "often come in handy. If they didn't exist it would be necessary to invent them."

Amra paused and turned with an adoring face. "Ah, Alan, that is one of the many things for which I love you. You are always originating these witty sayings. How clever, and how dangerously blasphemous!"

He shrugged, airily dismissing her compliment as if it were nothing.

In a minute she returned with the turban wrapped around something limp but heavy. And within two minutes he stepped out from the tent, clad in a loincloth, leather belt, dagger and turban. Silently, he began climbing the rope ladder that rose to the tip of the nearest mast. Behind him came Ezkr.

He did get some encouragement from Amra and the children. The Duke's two boys cried out to him to cut the so-and-so's throat, but if he was killed instead, they would avenge him when they grew up, if not sooner. Even the blond maid, Inzax, wept. He felt somewhat better, for it was good to know that some people cared for him. And the knowledge that he had to survive and make sure that these women and children didn't come to grief was an added stimulus.

Nevertheless he felt his momentarily gained courage oozing out of his sweat pores with every step upward. It was so high up here, and so far down below. The craft itself became smaller and smaller and the people shrank to dolls, to upturned white faces that soon became less faces than blanks. The wind howled through the rigging and the mast, which had seemed so solid and steady when he was at its base, now became fragile and swaying.

"It takes guts to be a sailor and a blood-brother of the Clan Effenycan," said Ezkr. "Do you have them, Green?"

"Yes, but if I get any sicker I'll lose them, and you'll be sorry, being below me," muttered Green to himself.

Finally, after what seemed endless clambering into the very clouds themselves, he arrived at the topmost yard. If he had thought the mast thin and flexible, the arm seemed like a toothpick poised over an abyss. And he was supposed to inch his way out to the whipping tip, then turn and come back fighting!

"If you were not a coward you would stand up and walk out," called Ezkr.

"Sticks and stones will break my bones," replied Green, but did not enlighten the puzzled sailor as to what he meant. Sitting down on the yard, he put his legs around it and began working his way out. Halfway to the arm he stopped and dared to look down. Once was enough. There was nothing but hard, grassy ground directly beneath him, seemingly a mile below, and the flat plain rushing by, and the huge wheels turning, turning.

"Go on!" shouted Ezkr.

Green turned his head and told him in indelicate language what he could do with the yard and the whole ship for that matter if he could manage it.

Ezkr's dark face reddened and he stood up and began walking out on the yard. Green's eyes widened. This man could actually do it!

But when he was a few feet away the sailor stopped and said, "No, you are trying to anger me so I will grapple with you here and perhaps be pushed off, since you have a firmer hold. No, I will not be such a fool. It is you who must try to get past me."

He turned and walked almost carelessly back to the mast, against which he leaned while he waited.

"You have to go out to the very end," he repeated. "Else you won't pass the test even if you should get by me, which, of course, you won't."

Green gritted his teeth and humped out to what he considered close enough to the end, about two feet away. Any more might break the arm, as it was already bending far down. Or so it seemed to him.

He then backed away, managed to turn, and to work back to within several feet of Ezkr. Here he paused to regain his breath, his strength and his courage.

The sailor waited, one hand on a rope to steady himself, the other with its dagger held point-out at Green.

The Earthman began unwinding his turban.

"What are you doing?" said Ezkr, frowning with sudden anxiety.

Up to this point he had been master, because he knew what to expect. But if something unconventional happened....

Green shrugged his shoulders and continued his very careful and slow unwrapping of his headpiece.

"I don't want to spill this," he said.

"Spill what?"

"This!" shouted Green, and he whipped the turban upward towards Ezkr's face.

The turban itself was too far from the sailor to touch him. But the sand contained within it flew into his eyes before the wind could dissipate it. Amra, following her husband's directions, had collected a large amount from the fireplace's sand pile to wrap in it, and though it had made his head feel heavy it had been worth it.

Ezkr screamed and clutched at his eyes, releasing his dagger. At the same time, Green slid forward and rammed his fist into the man's groin. Then, as Ezkr crumpled toward him, he caught him and eased him down. He followed his first blow with a chopping of the edge of his palm against the fellow's neck. Ezkr quit screaming and passed out. Green rolled him over so that he lay on his stomach across the yard, supported on one side by the mast, with his legs, arms and head dangling. That was all he wanted to do for him. He had no intention of carrying him down. His only wish was to get to the deck, where he'd be safe. If Ezkr fell off now, too bad.

Amra and Inzax were waiting at the foot of the shrouds when Green slowly climbed off. When he set foot on the deck, he thought his legs would give way, they were trembling so. Amra, noticing this, quickly put her arms around him as if to embrace the conquering hero but actually to help support him.

"Thanks," he muttered. "I need your strength, Amra."

"Anybody would who had done what you've done," she said. "But my strength and all of me is at your disposal, Alan."

The children were looking at him with wide, admiring eyes and yelling, "That's our daddy! Big blond Green! He's quick as a grass cat, bites like a dire dog and'll spit poison in your eye, like a flying snake!"

Then, in the next moment, he was submerged under the men and women of the Clan, all anxious to congratulate him for his feat and to call him brother. The only ones who did not crowd around, trying to kiss him on the lips, were the officers of the _Bird_ and the wife and children of the unfortunate sailor, Ezkr. These were climbing up the rigging to fasten a rope around his waist and lower him.

There _was_ one other who remained aloof. That was the harpist, Grazoot. He was still sulking at the foot of the mast.

Green decided that he'd better keep an eye on him, especially at night when a knife could be slipped between a sleeper's ribs and the body thrown overboard. He wished now that he'd not gone out of his way to insult the fellow's instrument, but at the time that had seemed the only thing to do. Now he had better try to find some way to pacify him.

13

Two weeks of very hard work and little sleep passed as Green learned the duties of a topsailman. He hated to go aloft, but he found that being up so high had its advantages. It gave him a chance to catch a few winks now and then. There were many crow's nests where musketmen were stationed during a fight. Green would slip down into one of these and go to sleep at once. His foster son Grizquetr would stand watch for him, waking him if the foretop captain was coming through the rigging toward them. One afternoon Griz's whistle startled Green out of a sound sleep.

However, the captain stopped to give another sailor a lecture. Unable to go back to sleep, Green watched a herd of _hoobers_ take to their hoofs at the approach of the _Bird_. These diminutive equines, beautiful with their orange bodies and black or white manes and fetlocks, sometimes formed immense herds that must have numbered in the hundreds of thousands. So thick were they that they looked like a bobbing sea of flashing heads and gleaming hoofs stretching clear to the horizon.

To stretch to the horizon was something on this planet. The plain was the flattest Green had ever seen. He could scarcely believe that it ran unbroken for thousands of miles. But it did, and from his high point of view he could see in a vast circle. It was a beautiful sight. The grass itself was tall and thick-bodied, about two feet high and a sixteenth of an inch through. It was a bright green, brighter than earthly grass, almost shiny. During the rainy season, he was told, it would blossom with many tiny white and red flowers and give a pleasing perfume.

Now, as Green watched, something happened that startled him.

Abruptly, as if a monster mowing machine had come along the day before, the high grass ended and a lawn began. The new grass seemed to be only an inch high. And the lawn stretched at least a mile wide and as far ahead of the _Bird_ as he could see.

"What do you think of that?" he asked Amra's son.

Grizquetr shrugged. "I don't know. The sailors say that it is done by the _wuru_, an animal the size of a ship, that only comes out at night. It eats grass, but it has the nasty temper of a dire dog, and will attack and smash a 'roller as if it were made of cardboard."

"Do you believe that?" Green said, watching him closely. Grizquetr was an intelligent lad in whom he hoped to plant a few seeds of skepticism. Perhaps some day those seeds might flower into the beginnings of science.

"I do not know if the story is true or not. It is possible, but I've met nobody who has ever seen a _wuru_. And if it comes out only at night, where does it hide during the daytime? There is no hole in the ground large enough to conceal it."

"Very good," said Green, smiling. Happily, Grizquetr smiled back. He worshiped his foster-father and nursed every bit of affection or compliment he got from him.

"Keep that open mind," said Green. "Neither believe nor disbelieve until you have solid evidence one way or another. And keep on remembering that new evidence may come up that will disprove the old and firmly established."

He smiled wryly. "I could use some of my own advice. I, for instance, had at one time absolutely refused to put any credence in what I have just seen with my own eyes. I put the story down as merely another idle story of those who sail the grassy seas. But I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps there couldn't be an animal of some kind like the _wuru_."

Both were silent for a while as they watched the animals race off like living orange rivers. Overhead, the birds wheeled in their hundreds of thousands of numbers. They, too, were beautiful, and even more colorful than the _hoobers_. Occasionally one lit in the rigging in a burst of dazzling feathers and a fury of melodious song or raucous screeches.

"Look!" said the boy, eagerly pointing. "A grass cat! He's been hiding, waiting to catch a _hoober_, and now he's afraid he'll be trampled to death by them."

Green's gaze followed the other's finger. He saw the long-legged, tiger-striped body loping desperately ahead of the thundering hoofs. It was completely closed in a pocket of the orange-maned beasts. Even as Green saw him, the sides of the pocket collapsed and the big cat disappeared from sight. If he remained alive he would do so through a miracle.

Suddenly, Grizquetr cried, "Gods!"

"What's the matter?" cried Green.

"On the horizon! A sail! It's shaped like a Ving sail!"

Others saw it too. The ship rang with shouts. A trumpeter blew battle stations; Miran's voice rose above those of others as he bellowed through a megaphone; chaos dissolved into order and purpose as everybody went to his appointed place. The animals, children and pregnant women were marshaled into the hold. The gun crews began unloading barrels of powder with a crane from a hatch. Musketmen swarmed up the rigging. The entire topmast crew tumbled aloft and took their places. As Green was already in his, he had some leisure to observe the whole outlay of preparations for fight. He watched Amra hurriedly give her children a kiss, make sure they'd all gone below, then begin tearing strips of cloth for bandages and of wadding for the muskets. Once she looked up and waved at him before turning back to her task. He waved back and got a severe reprimand from the top-captain for breaking discipline.

"An extra watch for you, Green, after this is over!"

The Earthman groaned and wished that the martinet would fall off and break every bone in his body. If he lost any more sleep...!

The day wore on as the strange ship came closer. Another sail appeared behind it, and the crew grew even tenser. From all appearances, they were being pursued by Vings. Vings usually went in pairs. Then there was the shape of the sails, which were narrower at bottom than at top. And there was the long, low, streamlined hull and the over-large wheels.

Nevertheless discipline was somewhat relaxed for a time. The pets and children were allowed to come up, and meals were prepared by the women. Even when the swifter craft came close enough so that the color of the sails was seen to be scarlet, thereby confirming their suspicions of the strangers' identity, battle stations weren't recalled. Miran estimated that by the time the Vings were within cannon range night would fall.

"That is what they hate and what we love," he said, pacing back and forth, fingering his nose ring and blinking nervously his one good eye. "It'll be an hour before the big moon comes up. Not only that, it looks as though clouds may arise. See!" he cried to the first mate. "By Mennirox, is that not a wisp I detect in the northeast quarter?"

"By all the gods, I believe it is!" said the mate, peering upward, seeing nothing but clear sky, but hoping that wishing would make the clouds come true.

"Ah, Mennirox is good to his favorite worshiper!" said Miran. "_He that loves thee shall profit_, Book of the True Gods, Chapter Ten, Verse Eight. And Mennirox knows I love him with compound interest!"

"Yes, that he does," said the mate. "But what is your plan?"

"As soon as the last glow of the sun disappears completely from the horizon, so our silhouette won't be revealed, we'll swing and cut across their direct path of advance. We know that they'll be traveling fairly close together, hoping to catch up with us and blast us with cross-fire. Well, we'll give them a chance, but we'll be gone before they can seize it. We'll go right between them in the dark and fire on both. By the time they're ready to reply we'll have slipped on by.

"And then," he whooped, slapping his fat thigh, "they'll probably cannonade each other to flinders, each thinking the other is us! Hoo, hoo, hoo!"

"Mennirox had better be with us," said the mate, paling. "It'll take damn tight calculating and more than a bit of luck. We'll be going by dead reckoning; not until we're almost on them will we see them; and if we're headed straight at them it'll be too late to avoid a collision. Wharoom! Smash! Boom! We're done for!"

"That's very true, but we're done for if we don't pull some trick like that. They'll have caught us by dawn--they can outmaneuver us--and they've more combined gunfire. And though we'll fight like grass cats we'll go down, and you know what'll happen then. The Vings don't take prisoners unless they're at the end of a cruise and going into port."

"We should have accepted the Duke's offer of a convoy of frigates," muttered the mate. "Even one would have been enough to make the odds favor us."

"What? And lose half the profits of this voyage because we have to pay that robber Duke for the use of his warships? Have you lost your mind, mate?"

"If I have I'm not the only one," said the mate, turning into the wind so his words were lost. But the helmsmen heard him and reported the conversation later. In five minutes it was all over the ship.

"Sure, he's Greedyguts himself," the crew said. "But then, we're his relatives; we know the value of a penny. And isn't the fat old darling the daring one, though? Who but a captain of the Clan Effenycan would think of such a trick, and carry it through, too? And if he's such a money-grabber, why, then; wouldn't he be afraid to risk his vessel and cargo, not to mention his own precious blood, not to mention the even more precious blood of his relatives? No, Miran may be one-eyed and big-bellied and short of temper and wind, but he's the man to hold down the foredeck. Brother, dip me another glass from that barrel and let's toast again the cool courage and hot avariciousness of Captain Miran, Master Merchant."

Grazoot, the plump little harpist with the effeminate manners, took his harp and began singing the song the Clan loved most, the story of how they, a hill tribe, had come down to the plains a generation ago. And how there they had crept into the windbreak of the city of Chutlzaj and stolen a great windroller. And how they had ever since been men of the grassy seas, of the vast flat Xurdimur, and had sailed their stolen craft until it was destroyed in a great battle with a whole Krinkansprunger fleet. And how they had boarded a ship of the fleet and slain all the men and taken the women prisoners and sailed off with the ship right through the astounded fleet. And how they had taken the women as slaves and bred children and how the Effenycan blood was now half Krinkansprunger and that was where they got their blue eyes. And how the Clan now owned three big merchant ships--or had until two years ago when the other two rolled over the green horizon during the Month of the Oak and were never heard of again, but they'd come back some day with strange tales and a hold brimming with jewels. And how the Clan now sailed under that mighty, grasping, shrewd, lucky, religious man, Miran.

Whatever else you could say about Grazoot, you could not deny that he had a fine baritone. Green, listening to his voice rise from the deck far below, could vision the rise and fall and rise again of these people and could appreciate why they were so arrogant and close-fisted and suspicious and brave. Indeed, if he had been born on this planet, he could have wanted no finer, more romantic, gypsyish life than that of a sailor on a windroller. Provided, that is, that he could get plenty of sleep.

The boom of a cannon disturbed his reverie. He looked up just in time to see the ball appear at the end of its arc and flash by him. It was not enough to scare him, but watching it plow into the ground about twenty feet away from the starboard steering wheel made him realize what damage one lucky shot could do.

However, the Ving did not try again. He was a canny pirate who knew better than to throw away ammunition. Doubtless he was hoping to panic the merchantman into a frenzy of replies, powder-wasting and useless. Useless because the sun set just then and in a few minutes dusk was gone and darkness was all around them. Miran didn't even bother to tell his men to hold their fire, since they wouldn't have dreamed of touching off the cannon until he gave the word. Instead he repeated that no light should be shown and that the children must go below decks and must be kept quiet. No one was to make a noise.

Then, casting one last glance at the positions of the pursuing craft, now rapidly dissolving into the night, he estimated the direction and strength of the wind. It was as it had been the day they set sail, an east wind dead astern, a good wind, pushing them along at eighteen miles an hour.

Miran spoke in a soft voice to the first mate and the other officers, and they disappeared into the darkness shrouding the decks. They were giving prearranged orders, not by the customary bellowing through a megaphone but by low voices and touches. While they directed the crew, Miran stood with bare feet upon the foredeck. He held a half-crouching posture, and acted as if he were detecting the moves of the invisible sailors by the vibrations of their activities running through the wood of the decks and the spars and the masts and up to his feet. Miran was a fat nerve center that gathered in all the unspoken messages scattered everywhere through the body of the _Bird_. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and if he hesitated or doubted because of the solid blackness around him, he gave the helmsmen no sign. His voice was firm.

"Hold it steady."

"... six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Now! Swing her hard aport! Hold her, hold her!"

To Green, high up on the topmost spar of the foremast, the turning about seemed an awful and unnatural deed. He could _feel_ the hull, and with it his mast, of course, leaning over and over, until his senses told him that they must inevitably capsize and send him crashing to the ground. But his senses lied, for though he seemed to fall forever, the time came when the journey back toward an upright position began. Then he was sure he would keep falling the other way, forever.

Suddenly the sails fluttered. The vessel had come into the dead spot where there was no wind acting upon her canvas. Then, as her original impetus kept her going, the canvas boomed, seeming to his straining and oversensitive ears like cannon firing. This time the wind was catching her from what was for her a completely unnatural direction, from dead ahead. As a result, the sails filled out backwards, and their middle portions pressed against the masts.

The 'roller came almost to a stop at once. The rigging groaned, and the masts themselves creaked loudly. Then they were bending backwards, while the sailors clinging to them in the darkness swore under their breaths and clamped down desperately on their handholds.

"Gods!" said Green. "What _is_ he doing?"

"Quiet!" said a nearby man, the foretop-captain. "Miran is going to run her backwards."

Green gasped. But he made no further comment, trying to visualize what a strange sight the _Bird of Fortune_ must be, and wishing it were daylight so he could see her. He sympathized with the helmsmen, who had to act against their entire training. It was a bad enough strain for them to try to sail blindly between two vessels. But to roll in reverse! They would have to put the helm to port when their reflexes cried out to them to put it to starboard, and vice versa! And no doubt Miran was aware of this and was warning them about it every few seconds.

Green began to see what was happening. By now the _Bird_ was rolling on her former course, but at a reduced rate because the sails, bellying against their masts, would not offer as much surface to the wind. Therefore, the Ving vessels would by now be almost upon them, since the merchant ship had also lost much ground in her maneuver. In one or two minutes the Ving would overtake them, would for a short while ride side by side with them, then would pass.

Provided, of course, that Miran had estimated correctly his speed and rate of curve in turning. Otherwise they might even now expect a crash from the foredeck as the bow of the Ving caught them.

"Oh, Booxotr," prayed the foretop-captain. "Steer us right, else you lose your most devout worshiper, Miran."

Booxotr, Green recalled, was the God of Madness.

Suddenly a hand gripped Green's shoulder. It was the captain of the foretop.

"Don't you see them!" he said softly. "They're a blacker black than the night."

Green strained his eyes. Was it his imagination, or did he actually see something moving to his right? And another something, the hint of a hint, moving to his left?

Whatever it was, 'roller or illusion, Miran must have seen it also. His voice shattered the night into a thousand pieces, and it was never again the same.

"Cannoneers, fire!"

Suddenly it was as if fireflies had been in hiding and had swarmed out at his command. All along the rails little lights appeared. Green was startled, even though he knew that the punks had been concealed beneath baskets so that the Vings would have no warning at all.

Then the fireflies became long glowing worms, as the fuses took flame.

There was a great roar, and the ship rocked. Iron demons belched flame.

No sooner done than musketry broke out like a hot rash all over the ship. Green himself was part of this, blazing away at the vessel momentarily and dimly revealed by the light of the cannon fire.

Darkness fell, but silence was gone. The men cheered; the decks trembled as the big wooden trains holding the cannon were run back to the ports from which they'd recoiled. As for the pirates, there was no answering fire. Not at first They must have been taken completely by surprise.

Miran shouted again; again the big guns roared.

Green, reloading his musket, found that he was bracing himself against a tendency to lean to the right. It was a few seconds before he could comprehend that the _Bird_ was turning in that direction even though it was still going backwards.

"Why is he doing that?" he shouted.

"Fool, we can't roll up the sails, stop, then set sail again. We'd be right where we started, sailing backwards. We have to turn while we have momentum, and how better to do that than reverse our maneuver? We'll swing around until we're headed in our original direction."

Green understood now. The Vings had passed them, therefore they were in no danger of collision with them. And they couldn't continue sailing backwards all night. The thing to do now would be to cut off at an angle so that at daybreak they'd be far from the pirates.

At that moment cannonfire broke out to their left. The men aboard the _Bird_ refrained from cheering only because of Miran's threats to maroon them on the plain if they did anything to reveal their position. Nevertheless they all bared their teeth in silent laughter. Crafty old Miran had sprung his best trap. As he'd hoped, the two pirates, unaware that their attacker was now behind them, were shooting each other.

"Let them bang away until they blow each other sky-high," chortled the foretop-master. "Ah, Miran, what a tale we'll have to tell in the taverns when we get to port."

14

For five minutes the intermittent flashes and bellows told that the Vings were still hammering away. Then the dark took hold again. Apparently the two had either recognized each other or else had decided that night fighting was a bad business and had steered away from each other. If this last was true, then they wouldn't be much to fear, for one Ving wouldn't attack the merchant by itself.

The clouds broke, and the big and the little moons spread brightness everywhere. The pirate vessels were not in sight. Nor were they seen when dawn broke. There was sail half a mile away, but this alarmed no one, except the untutored Green, because they recognized its shape as a sister. It was a merchant from the nearby city of Dem, of the Dukedom of Potzihili.

Green was glad. They could sail with it. Safety in numbers.

But no. Miran, after hailing it and finding that it also was going to Estorya, ordered every bit of canvas crowded on in an effort to race away from it.

"Is he crazy?" groaned Green to a sailor.

"Like a _zilmar_," replied the sailor, referring to a foxlike animal that dwelt in the hills. "We must get to Estorya first if we would realize the full value of our cargo."

"Utter featherbrained folly," snarled Green. "That ship doesn't carry live fish. It can't possibly compete with us."

"No, but we've other things to sell. Besides, it's in Miran's blood. If he saw another merchant pass him he'd come down sick."

Green threw his hands into the air and rolled his eyes in despair. Then he went back to work. There was much to do yet before he'd be allowed to sleep.

The days and nights passed in the hard routine of his labor and the alarms and excursions that occasionally broke up the routine. Now and then the gig was launched, while the 'roller was in full speed, and it sped away under the power of its white fore-and-aft sail. It would be loaded with hunters, who would chase a _hoober_ or deer or pygmy hog until it became exhausted; then would shoot the tired animal. They always brought back plenty of fresh meat. As for water, the catch-tanks on the decks were full because it rained at least half an hour at every noon and dusk.

Green wondered at the regularity and promptness of these showers. The clouds would appear at twelve, it would rain for thirty to sixty minutes, then the sky would clear again. It was all very nice, but it was also very puzzling.

Sometimes he was allowed to try target practice from the crow's nest on the grass cats or the huge dire dogs. These latter ran in packs of half a dozen to twenty, and would often pace the _Bird_, howling and growling and sometimes running between the wheels. The sailors had quite a few tales of what they did to people who fell overboard or were wrecked on the plains.

Green shuddered and went back to his target practice. Though he ordinarily was against shooting animals just for the fun of it, he had no compunction about putting a ball through these wolfish-looking creatures. Ever since he'd been tormented by Alzo he'd hated dogs with a passion unbecoming to a civilized man. Of course, the fact that every canine on the planet instinctively loathed him because of his Earthman odor and did his best to sink his teeth into him, strengthened Green's reaction. His legs were always healing from bites of the pets aboard.

Often the 'roller would cruise through grass tall as a man's knee. Then suddenly it would pass onto one of those tremendous lawns which seemed so well kept. Green had never ceased puzzling about them, but all he could get from anyone was one or more variations of the fable of the _wuru_, the herbivore bigger than two ships put together.

One day they passed a wreck. Its burned hulk lay sideways on the ground, and here and there bones gleamed in the sun. Green expressed surprise that the masts, wheels and cannon were gone. He was told that those had been taken away by the savages who roamed the plains.

"They use the wheels for their own craft, which are really nothing but large sailing platforms, land-rafts, you might say," Amra told him. "On these they pitch their tents and their fireplaces, and from them they go forth to hunt. Some of them, however, disdain platforms and make their homes upon the 'roaming islands.'"

Green smiled but said nothing about that fairy story because disbelief excited these people, even Amra.

"You'll not see many wrecks," she continued. "Not because there aren't many, for there are. Out of every ten 'rollers that leave for distant breaks, you can expect only six to get back."

"That few? I'm amazed that with such a casualty ratio you could get anybody to risk his fortune and life."

"You forget that he who comes back is many times richer than when he sailed away. Look at Miran. He is taxed heavily at every port of call. He is taxed even more heavily in his home port. And he has to split with the Clansmen, though he does get a tenth of the profit of every cargo. Despite this, he is the richest man in Quotz, richer even than the Duke."

"Yes, but a man is a fool to take risks like these just for the remote chance of a fortune," he protested. Then he stopped. After all, for what other reason had the Norsemen gone to America, and Columbus to the West Indies? Or why were so many hundreds of thousands of Earthmen daring the perils of interstellar space? What about himself, for instance? He'd left a stable and well-paying job on Earth as a specialist in raising sea crops to go to Pushover, a planet of Albireo. He'd expected to make his fortune there after two years of not-too-hard work and then retire. If only that accident hadn't happened...!

Of course, some of the pioneers weren't driven by the profit motive. There was such a thing as love of adventure. Not a pure love, however. Even the most adventurous saw Eldorado gleaming somewhere in the wilds. Greed conquered more frontiers than curiosity.

"You'd think the ruins of 'rollers would not be rare, even if these plains are vast," said Amra, breaking in on his reflections. "But the savages and pirates must salvage them as fast as they're made."

"Your pardon, Mother, for interrupting," said Grizquetr. "I heard a sailor, Zoob, remark on that very thing just the other day. He said that he once saw a 'roller that had been gutted, by pirates, he supposed. It was three days' journey out of Yeshkayavach, the city of quartz in the far North. He said their 'roller was a week there, then returned on the same route. But when they came to where the wreck had been it was gone, every bit of it. Even the bones of the dead sailors were missing."

"And he said that that reminded him of a story his father had told him when he was young. He said his father told him that his ship had once almost run into a huge uncharted hole in the plain. It was big, at least two hundred feet across, and earth had been piled up outside, like the crater of a volcano. At first that was what they thought it was, a volcano just beginning, even though they'd never heard of such a thing on the Xurdimur. Then they met a ship whose men had seen the hole made. It was caused, they said by a mighty falling star...."

"A meteor," commented Green.

"... and it had dug that great hole. Well, that was as good an explanation as any. But the amazing thing was that when they came by that very spot a month later, the hole was gone. It was filled up and smoothed out, and grass was growing over it as if nothing had ever broken the skin of the earth. Now, how do you explain that, Foster-father?"

"There are more things in heaven and earth than ever your philosophies dreamed of, Horatio," Green nonchalantly replied, though he felt as though he wasn't quoting exactly right.

Amra and her son blinked. "Horatio?"

"Never mind."

"This sailor said that it was probably the work of the gods, who labor secretly at night that the plain may stay flat and clean of obstacles so their true worshipers may sail upon it and profit thereby."

"Will the wonders of rationalization never cease?" said Green.

He rose from his pile of furs. "Almost time for my watch." He kissed Amra, the maid, the children, and stepped out from the tent. He walked rather carelessly across the deck absorbed in wondering what the effect would be upon Amra if he told her his true origin. Could she comprehend the concept of other worlds existing by the hundreds of thousands, yet so distant from each other that a man could walk steadily for a million years and still not get halfway from Earth to this planet of hers? Or would she react automatically, as most of her fellows would do, and think that he must surely be a demon in human disguise? It would be more natural for her to prefer the latter idea. If you looked at it objectively, it _was_ more plausible, given her lack of scientific knowledge. Much more believable, too.

Somebody bumped him. Jarred out of his reverie, he automatically apologized in English.

"Don't curse at me in your foreign tongue!" snarled Grazoot, the plump little harpist.

Ezkr was standing behind Grazoot. He spoke out of the side of his mouth, urging the bard on. "He thinks he can walk all over you, Grazoot, because he insulted your harp once and you let him get away with it."

Grazoot puffed out his cheeks, reddened in the face and glared. "It is only because Miran has forbidden duels that I have not plunged my dagger into this son of an _izzot_!"

Green looked from one to the other. Obviously this scene was prearranged with no good end for him in view.

"Stand aside," he said haughtily. "You are interfering with the discipline of the 'roller. Miran will not like that."

"Indeed!" said Grazoot. "Do you think Miran cares at all about what happens to you? You're a lousy sailor and it hurts me to have to call you brother. In fact, I spit every time I say it to you, brother!"

Grazoot did just that. Green, who was downwind, felt the fine mist wet his legs. He began to get angry.

"Out of my way or I'll report you to the first mate," he said firmly and walked by them. They gave way, but he had an uneasy feeling in the small of his back, as if a knife would plunge into it. Of course, they shouldn't be so foolish, because they would be hamstrung and then dropped off the 'roller for the crime of cowardice. But these people were so hot-headed they were just as likely as not to stab him in a moment of fury.