The Blue World (14 page)

A lamp on a shelf
lit the room dimly. Kneeling around a hole in the floor were Barquan
Blasdel and Luke Robinet. They manipulated a contrivance of wood,
leather and cord, which extended through the hole into the blue
water. To the side was a plug to fill the hole during the day.

Barquan Blasdel
slowly rose to his feet, as did Luke Robinet. Into the room came
Phyral Berwick, Roger Kelso, and the others.

No one spoke. There
was clearly nothing to be said. Sklar Hast went to the hole, lifted
out the sound-producing mechanism, replaced the plug.

There were hurried
footsteps in the outer room. A voice spoke through the door.
“Caution; halt the sounds. Folk are astir.”

Sklar Hast flung
wide the door, seized the speaker, Vida Reach, formerly Sumber
Intercessor, and drew him into the room. Quietly he went to the front
door. No-one else could be seen. In all likelihood the entire group
of intercessors were concerned with the plot, but only these three
could be directly charged.

From the first
Barquan Blasdel had made no pretense of satisfaction with his altered
circumstances. His former rank counted nothing, and in fact aroused
antagonism among his float-fellows. Blasdel grudgingly adapted
himself to his new life, building sponge-arbors and scraping withe.
His spouse, who on Apprise Float had commanded a corps of four
maidens and three garden-men, at first rebelled when Blasdel required
her to bake pangolay, as the bread-stuff baked from pollen was known,
and core sponges “like any low-caste slut,” as she put it.
Finally she surrendered to the protests of her empty stomach. Her
daughters adapted themselves with better grace, and indeed the four
youngest participated with great glee at the slaughter of the kragen.
The remaining two stayed in the background, eyebrows raised at the
vulgar fervor of their sisters.

These then were the
circumstances of Barquan Blasdel’s existence at the time of his
ill-founded concept of summoning King Kragen; Luke Robinet and Vidal
Reach lived under similar conditions, with no restraints except in
regard to the coracles. On the morning after their apprehension, the
three conspirators were brought before a judicial assembly of
guild-masters and caste-elders. Inasmuch as Phyral Berwick had
participated in the actual apprehension of the persons accused, Gian
Recargo served as Arbiter. The morning sun shone bright on the float.
At the entrance to the lagoon lay the bulk of the kragen still in the
process of being flensed by apprentice nigglers and advertisers. The
assembly sat in near silence, conversing in whispers.

From the hut where
they had spent the night came Barquan Blasdel, Luke Robinet, and
Vidal Reach, blinking in the glare of the sun; in utter silence they
were marched to a bench and ordered to sit.

Phyral Berwick
arose and described the circumstances of the previous night. “It
is evident that they intended to attract the attention of King
Kragen, if by some chance he was cruising near.”

Gian Recargo leaned
forward. “Have they admitted as much?”

The Arbiter looked
at the accused. “What have you to say?”

“So far as I
am concerned, nothing,” said Barquan Blasdel.

“You admit the
charges?”

“I have no
statement to make. Things are as they are.”

“Do you deny
or repudiate any of Phyral Berwick’s testimony?”

“No.”

“You must be
aware that this is an extremely serious charge.”

“From your
point of view.”

“Did you have
reason to believe that King Kragen is, or was, in the vicinity? Or
did you produce this noise merely in the hope of attracting his
attention if he should chance to be nearby?”

“I repeat, I
have no statement to make.”

“You put
forward no defense?”

“It would
obviously be futile.”

“You do not
deny the acts?”

“I have no
statement to make. Things are as they are.”

Luke Robinet and
Vidal Reach were similarly taciturn. The Arbiter took statements from
Sklar Hast, Julio Rile, and Rollo Barnack. He said, “Clearly the
accused are guilty of the most vindictive intentions. I am at a loss
as to what penalty to impose. There is absolutely no precedent, to my
knowledge.”

Phyral Berwick
spoke. “Our problem is how to make ourselves secure. We can kill
these men. We might maroon them on a lonely float, even the Savage
Floats, or we can guard them more carefully. I even feel a certain
sympathy for them. If I shared the fervor of their convictions, I
might act similarly in a similar situation. I say, give them the
sternest of warnings, but give them their lives.”

No one dissented.
Gian Recargo turned to the three criminals. “We give you your
lives. All shall be as before. I suspect that this is more than you
would do for us, but no matter. We are not you. But remember, for our
own security, we can show no more mercy! Consider that you are now
living a new life, and make the best possible use of it. Go. Return
to your work. Try to make yourselves deserving of the trust we have
placed in you.”

“We did not
ask to be brought here,” said Barquan Blasdel in his easy voice.

“Your presence
here is a direct consequence of your original treachery, when you
attempted to arrange that King Kragen should intercept our flotilla.
In retrospect, it seems that we are unreasonably merciful. Still,
this is the nature of the life we hope to lead and you are the
unworthy beneficiaries. Go, and remember that mercy will not be
extended a third time.”

Luke Robinet and
Vidal Reach were somewhat subdued, but Barquan Blasdel sauntered away
undaunted.

Sklar Hast and
Roger Kelso watched him depart. “There is a man who knows only
hate,” said Sklar Hast. “Forbearance has not won his
gratitude. He will bear the most vigilant watch!”

“We are not
preparing ourselves fast enough,” said Kelso.

“For what?”

“For the
inevitable confrontation. Sooner or later King Kragen will find us.
The intercessors seem to feel he swims this far afield. If he comes,
we have no means of escape, and certainly no means to repel him.”

Sklar Hast somberly
agreed. “All too true. We do not feel enough urgency; this is
indeed a false security. By some means we must formulate a system by
which we can protect ourselves. Weapons! Think of a great harpoon,
launched by a hundred men, tipped with hard metal … But we have no
metal.”

“But we do,”
said Kelso. He brought forth a gray pellet the size of a baby‘s
tooth. “This is iron.”

Sklar Hast took it,
turned it back and forth in his fingers. “Iron! From where did
it come?”

“I produced
it.”

“By the system
the savages use?”

“As to that, I
can’t say.”

“But how? What
is its source? The air? The sea? The fruit of the float?”

“Come to
Outcry Float tomorrow, somewhat before noon. I will explain all.”

“Including the
provenance of the name ‘Outcry’?”

“All will be
explained.”

In order to work
undisturbed, with a minimum of interference from casual passers-by
and elderly guild-masters with well-meant advice, Kelso had preempted
for his investigations the float next to the west, and this, for
reasons arising from his activities, became known as Outcry Float.
For helpers and assistants and fellow researchers, Kelso had
recruited several dozen of the most alert young men and women
available, who worked with energy and enthusiasm surprising even to
themselves.

Only three hundred
yards separated the two floats, and Sklar Hast paddled the
intervening distance, he already envisaged hoodwink towers
transmitting messages between the two. A vagrant thought came to him:
best set up practice machines, so that old hoodwinks should not lose
their reflexes, that apprentices might be instructed, that the craft
might be kept alive.

Arriving at Outcry
Float, he tied the coracle to the rude dock which Kelso had caused to
be built. A path led around a tall clump of banner-bush into a
central area beside the central spike, which was now scrupulously
cleared of vegetation, and as a result the pad surface had become a
liverish purple-brown.

Kelso was hard at
work on an intricate contrivance, the purpose of which Sklar Hast
could not fathom. A rectangular frame of stalk rose ten feet in the
air, supporting a six-foot hoop of woven withe in a plane parallel to
the surface of the float. To the hoop was glued a large sheet of
first-quality pad-skin, which had been scraped, rubbed, and oiled
until it was almost perfectly transparent. Below, Kelso now arranged
a box containing ashes. As Sklar Hast watched, he mixed in a quantity
of water and some gum, enough to make a gray dough, which he worked
with his fingers and knuckles, to leave a saucer-shaped depression.

The sun neared the
zenith; Kelso signaled two of his helpers. One climbed the staging;
the other passed up buckets of water. The first poured these upon the
transparent membrane, which sagged under the weight.

Sklar Hast watched
silently, giving no voice to his perplexity. The membrane, now
brimming, seemed to bulged perilously. Kelso, at last satisfied with
his arrangements, joined Sklar Hast. “You are puzzled by this
device; nevertheless it is very simple. You own a telescope?”

“I do. An
adequately good instrument, though the gum is clouded.”

“The purest
and most highly refined gum discolors, and even with the most careful
craftsmanship lenses formed of gum yield distorted images, of poor
magnification. On the Home World, according to Brunet, lenses are
formed of a material called glass.”

The sun reached the
zenith; Sklar Hast’s attention was caught by a peculiar occurrence in
the box of damp ash. A white-hot spot had appeared; the ash, began to
hiss and smoke. He drew near in wonderment. “Glass would seem a
useful material,” Kelso was saying. “Brunet describes it as
a mixture of substances occurring in ash which he calls ‘fluxes,’
together with a compound called ‘silica’ which is found
in ash, but also occurs husks of sea-ooze: ‘plankton,’ as
Brunet calls it. Here I have mixed ash and sea-ooze; I have
constructed a water-lens to condense sunlight. I am trying to make
glass…”

He peered into the
box, then lifted it a trifle, bringing the image of the sun to its
sharpest focus. The ash glowed red, orange, yellow; suddenly it
seemed to slump. With a rod Kelso pushed more ash into the center,
until the wooden box gave off smoke, whereupon Kelso pulled it aside
and gazed anxiously at the molten matter in the center. “Something
has happened; exactly what we will determine when the stuff is cool.”

He turned to his
bench, brought forward another box, this half-full of powdered
charcoal. In a center depression rested a cake of black-brown paste.

“And what do
you have there?” asked Sklar Hast, already marveling at Kelso’s
ingenuity.

“Dried blood.
I and my men have drained ourselves pale. It is an operation
conducive of woe, hence ‘Outcry’.

“But why
should you bleed yourself?” demanded Sklar Hast.

“Again I must
refer you to the scientist Brunet. He reveals that human blood is
colored red by a substance called ‘hemoglobin.’ This is
composed of much carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen and a single particle
of iron.

Carbon is the main
ingredient of char; oxygen gives to air its invigorating quality;
with hydrogen oxygen makes water. But today we seek only that
extremely small quantity of iron, so here is blood. I will burn away
the various unstable fluids, gases, and oozes, to discover what
remains. If all goes well, we will again find unyielding iron.”
Kelso thrust the box under the lens. The dried blood smoldered and
smoked, then burst into flame which gave off a nauseous odor. Kelso
squinted up at the sun. “The lens burns well only when the sun
is overhead, so our time is necessarily limited.”

“Rather than
water, transparent gum might be used, which then would harden, and
the sun could be followed across the sky.”

“Unfortunately
no gum is so clear as water,” said Kelso regretfully.
“Candle-plant sap is yellow. Bindle-bane seep holds a blue fog.”

“What if,the
two were mixed, so that the blue defeated the yellow? And then the
two might be filtered and boiled. Or perhaps water can be coagulated
with tincture of bone.”

Kelso assented.
“Possibly feasible, both.”

They turned to
watch the blood, now a glowing sponge tumbled into cinders and then,
apparently consumed, vanished upon the surface of the blazing
charcoal. Kelso snatched the crucible out from under the lens.

Your blood seems
not overrich,” Sklar Hast noted critically. “It might be
wise to tap Barquan Blasdel and the intercessors; they appear a
hearty lot.”

Kelso clapped a
cover upon the box. “We will know better when the charcoal goes
black.” He went to his bench, brought back another box. In
powdered charcoal stood another tablet, this of black paste. “And
what substance is this?” inquired Sklar Hast.

“This,”
said Kelso, “is kragen blood, which we boiled last night. It
man’s blood carries iron, what will kragen blood yield? Now we
discover.” He thrust it under the lens. Like the human blood, it
began to smolder and burn, discharging a smoke even more vile than
before . Gradually the tablet flaked and tumbled to the surface of
the charcoal; as before, Kelso removed it and covered it with a lid.
Going to his first box, he prodded among the cinders with a bit of
sharp bone, scooped out a congealed puddle of fused material which he
laid on the bench. “Glass. Beware. It is yet hot.”

Sklar Hast, using
two pieces of bone, lifted the object. “So this is glass. Hmm.
It hardly seems suitable for use as a telescope lens. But it may well
prove useful otherwise. It seems dense and hard indeed, almost
metallic.”

Kelso shook his
head in deprecation. “I had hoped for greater transparency.
There are probably numerous impurities in the ash and sea-ooze.
Perhaps they can be removed by washing the ash or treating it with
acid, or something of the sort.”

“But to
produce acid, electricity is necessary, or so you tell me.”

“I merely
quote Brunet.”

“And
electricity is impossible?”

Kelso pursed his
lips. “That we will see. I have hopes. One might well think it
impossible to generate electricity, using only ash, wood, water, and
sea-stuff—but we shall see. Brunet offer a hint or two. But
first, as to our iron … “

The yield was
small: a nodule of pitted gray metal like the first, half the size of
a pea. “That bit represents three flasks of blood,” Kelso
remarked glumly. “If we bled every vein on the float, we might
win sufficient iron for a small pot.”

“This is not
intrinsically an unreasonable proposal,” said Sklar Hast. “We
can all afford a flask of blood or two, or even more, during the
course of months. To think we have produced metal entirely on our own
resources!”

Kelso wryly
inspected the iron nodule. “There is no problem to burning the
blood under the lens. If every day ten of the folk come to be bled,
eventually we will sink the pad under the accumulated weight of the
iron.” He removed the lid from the third box. “But observe
here! We have misused our curses! The kragen is by no means a
creature to be despised!”

On the charcoal
rested a small puddle of reddish-golden metal, three times as large
as the iron nodule. “This metal must be copper, or one of its
alloys. Brunet describes copper as a dark red metal, very useful for
the purpose of conducting electricity.”

Sklar Hast lifted
the copper from the coals, tossed it back and forth till it was cool.
“The savages have copper, in chunks larger than this. Do they
kill kragen and burn their blood? It seems incredible! Those
distorted furtive half-men!”

Kelso chewed
reflectively at his lip. “The kragen must ingest its copper from
some source. Perhaps the savages know the source.”

“Metal!”
murmured Sklar Hast reverently. “Metal everywhere! Nicklas Rile
has been hacking apart the kragen for its bones. He is discarding the
internal organs, which are black as snuff-flower. Perhaps they should
also be burned under the lens.”

“Convey them
here—I will burn them. And then, after we burn the kragen’s
liver or whatever the organ, we might attempt to burn snuff-flower as
well. Who knows? Perhaps all black substances yield copper, all red
substances iron. Though Brunet never makes so inclusive a
generalization.”

The kragen’s
internal organs yielded further copper. Snuff-flowers produced only a
whitish-yellow ash which Kelso conscientiously stored in a tube
labeled: “Ash of a Snuff-flower.”

Four days later the
largest kragen seen so far appeared. It came swimming in from the
west, paralleling the line of floats. A pair of swindlers, returning
to the float with a catch of gray-fish, were the first to spy the
great black cylinder surmounted by its four-eyed turret. They bent to
their oars, shouting the news ahead.

A well-rehearsed
plan now went into effect. A team of four young swindlers ran to a
lightweight-coracle, shoved off, paddled out to intercept the kragen.
Behind the coracle trailed two ropes, each controlled by a gang of
men. The kragen, lunging easily through the water, approached,
swimming fifty yards off the float. The coracle eased forward, rowed
by two of the men, with one named Bade Beach going forward to stand
on the gunwales.

The kragen stopped
the motion of its vanes, to drift and eye the coracle and the
derricks with flinty suspicion. The two swindlers at the oars thrust
the coracle closer.

Bade Beach stood
tensely, twitching a noose. The fourth man controlled the lines to
the float. The kragen, contemptuous of attack, issued a few nonplussed
clicks the mandibles, twitched the tips of its vanes, to create four
whirlpools. The coracle eased closer, to within 100 feet—80—60 feet. Bade Beach bent forward.

The kragen decided
to punish the men for their provocative actions. It thrust sharply
forward. When it was but 30 feet distant, Bade Beach tossed a noose
toward turret and missed. From the float came groans of
disappointment. One of the gangs hastily jerked the coracle back. The
kragen swerved, turned, made a second furious charge which brought it
momentarily to within five feet of the coracle, whereupon Bade Beach
dropped the noose over its turret. From the float came a cheer; both
gangs hauled on their lines, one snatching the coracle back to
safety, the other tightening the noose pulling the kragen aside,
almost as it touched the coracle. Thrashing and jerking, the kragen
was dragged to the sea-leaning derrick and hoisted from the water in
the same fashion as the first. This was a large beast; the derrick
creaked, the float sagged before the kragen heaved clear from the
water, 65 men were tugging on the end of the lift. The derrick tilted
back; the kragen swung in over the float. The vanes were lashed, the
beast lowered. Again the onlookers surged forward, laughing,
shouting, but no longer manifesting the fury with which they had
attacked the first kragen.

Chisels and mallets
were plied against the kragen turret; the dome was pried loose, the
nerve-nodes destroyed. Fiber buckets were brought; the body fluids
were scooped out and carried off to evaporation trays.

Sklar Hast had
watched from the side. This had been a large beast—about the
size of King Kragen when first he had approached the Old Floats, a
hundred and fifty years previously. Since they had successfully dealt
with this creature, they need have small fear of any other—except King Kragen. And Sklar Hast was forced to admit that the
answer was not yet known. No derrick could hoist King Kragen from the
water. No line could restrain the thrust of his vanes. No float could
bear his weight. Compared to King Kragen, this dead hulk was a
pygmy…

From behind came a
rush of feet; a woman tugged at his elbow, gasping and gulping in the
effort to catch her breath. Sklar Hast, startled, scanning the float,
could see nothing to occasion her distress. Finally she was able to
blurt: “Barquan Blasdel has taken to the sea, Barquan Blasdel is
gone!”

“What!”
cried Sklar Hast.