Star Winds

A sailor who had been drinking at the bar, wearing a hip-length crimson jacket and chunky earrings, burst out laughing. “That’s Captain Zhorga’s ship, the Wandering Queen. He’ll get it in the neck from the Portmaster for this, that’s sure. That old devil’s always in trouble—if he can’t make a landing under canvas he’s about done, I reckon.”

Rachad went back into the Pivot where he had left his drink. But he made a face when he tasted it: the etheric disturbance had turned the beer completely flat. After a moment’s thought he decided against ordering another, since the landlord might well find his entire stock ruined.

He left the inn and made his way downhill toward the lower part of the town. Rachad was a youngish man of not unpleasing appearance whose dark eyes roved restlessly, some might have said roguishly. His disposition did not belie this impression. By nature he was adventurous, but found it a misfortune to be living in a tame and quiet world. He spent much time hanging about the ship field and drinking in the taverns frequented by sailors, and would have liked to have been a man of the air himself. In his teens he had tried to get himself taken on by various merchant ships, but already there had not been enough work for seasoned sailors, let alone untrained boys.

Sadly, the great age of flying sail was drawing to a close. The reason for this was that there were no new supplies of ether silk, the marvelous material that interacted with the ether in such a way as to be opaque to its winds and currents, deriving inertia from them as canvas does from the atmospheric wind. Earth had declined so much in its level of trade that all space-faring traffic, which had brought the silk here originally, had long fallen off. Nor could the silk be made locally—Earth was too close to the sun to allow it to crystallize properly. In consequence all ether sails now in use were at the very least a generation old, more often centuries old. Every sheet lost, every sheet torn, meant the loss of yet more irreplaceable sailing power. Rachad could not say how long had passed since the last flying ship had been built, but he had heard that down on the coast at Umbuicour they were laying the keels of seagoing ships relying entirely on wind-driven canvas and unable to take to the air at all.

But that, of course, was only to speak of Earth, a decaying backwater planet which no one from outside visited any more. What was happening on other worlds it was impossible to say. Perhaps their skies were crammed with scudding sail. Rachad had even heard of worlds where the wind blew so strong that canvas alone was enough to lift the heaviest ships, which used ether silk only for steering and tacking.

Coming to Marekama Street, he walked between gable-ended, half-timbered buildings that the weak autumn sunlight invested with a sense of nostalgia. Olam was an old town that had prospered because its geographical location in relation to the seasonal ether winds made it an ideal port nearly all the year round. Rachad had lived all his life there, and even in that time he had seen its outer suburbs begin to empty and the seedy process of decay and obsolescence begin to set in.

A movement over the rooftops caught his eye. In the distance a ship was maneuvering into its landing approach. There was a sudden flowering of white canvas and a glinting flash of blue as the ether sails were simultaneously reefed.

Sooner or later he must leave Olam, Rachad told himself for the hundredth time. He thought of cities across the world that were little more than names to him, larger than Olam and still offering a greater wealth of experience. Perhaps he would go to Umbuicour and try to get work on the new sea ships. But somehow such slow, lumbering vessels did not attract him.

Presently he came to the marketplace and wandered for a time between the stalls. He lingered beneath the awnings of merchants who had recently brought in consignments of garments from foreign lands, fingering the rich velvets and satins and admiring the gallant styles. By contrast, he glanced down at his own costume. His green woolen tunic was faded and was fastened with worn cords which left it a couple of inches open at the chest, showing a mat of curly blond hair. He could have used a new pair of breeks, too; however, all this fine garb was beyond his present means. Perhaps if Gebeth were to succeed … He paused also at a nearby armorer’s shop and inspected various swords and foils. This engraved blade, now, with a scabbard plated with tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl, would lend him considerable dash. But he reflected that, even leaving aside the cost, it might advertise to others an exaggerated self-esteem and so lead to his having to use it, which was far from his desire. The short poniard he already carried was jaunty enough, with its copper pommel, and did not invite challenges.