Star Winds

Yet the monster continued to charge on its former course, and though the galleon was not broken by the impact her change in momentum was bone-cracking. For all his strength, Zhorga was torn from the wheel and found himself flung hard against the thick covering of the air balloon, which mercifully held. For a while he was confused, and afterward deduced that he must temporarily have lost consciousness. He only knew that eventually he recovered his wits to find himself resting lightly on the deck, but with practically no discernible weight.

The monster was gone. It had disintegrated, its brief, truncated life had collapsed. But, as Zhorga took note of the almost imperceptible level of acceleration, and observed that the galleon had already swung lazily round so that her decks again lay beneath Mars, he knew that the space beast had served his purpose.

The basis of his suicidal strategy had been his reasoning that the creature was not composed of ether silk and so was unaffected by the vortex. It was simple chance, he had decided, that had sent the eggs drifting through this region. He had speculated that the monster’s dread strength might just be enough to tear the Wandering Queen free of the ensnaring current before she was drawn too deeply into its coils.

He had not seriously expected the plan to work. He had expected the galleon to be torn to pieces, bringing himself and his crew a quick death, instead of a lingering one in the eye of the whirlpool, full of misery and—what was worse from his point of view—recrimination.

He relaxed, feeling peaceful, basking in his triumph. The rest of the voyage, he told himself, would be relatively plain sailing. Until Mars was reached anyway.

He wondered if the brave men on the main deck had all survived, or if more had been added to the death toll so far.

A wry thought occurred to him.

They would be dying, he admitted sourly, in the cause of trade.

Chapter SIX

Zhorga’s prediction proved correct and the Wandering Queen journeyed on through calm ether for the remaining distance to Mars. The temperature dropped sharply and the ship grew bitterly cold. He gave permission for braziers to be lit which burned chak, a combustible charcoal-like preparation which gave off heat but no stupefying fumes or irritant smoke.

There was ample time to make good the damage done by the space dragon. The midmast had cracked and so was cut down, the sails being redistributed among the remaining spars as best as could be managed. Zhorga reckoned he still had sail power enough. Mars was smaller than Earth and so had less gravity to contend with—it was only the shock wave that worried him.

The target planet became first a glowing ruby, then a red disk which Zhorga studied through his spyglass, and at last a full-blown world floating ahead of them, in its own way as fascinating a sight as Earth. At closer range its fiery redness mellowed, and was relieved by other features—the glittering white and blue of the half-frozen polar seas, the clouds of various types: white for water vapor, orange (like dyed cotton wool) for atmospheric dust, and gray for the sooty by-products of the air fires which showed up against the general background as blotches of a deeper, maroon red. Zhorga explained that these burning areas had been ignited in ancient times to release warmth and breathable air onto the planet, for once it had been uninhabitable.

The hazy dark triangle of Syrtis Major was easy to find, but he searched it in vain for any sign of Kars, its major city. At length, however, the planet became like a vast wall and it was time to act. He ordered all crewmen lashed in their places, and all sail taken in, so that the galleon coasted in free fall.

Then he waited for the telltale signs. Eventually they came, chiefly a rocking to and fro of the vessel as the first ripples of the shock wave lapped against the furled silk.

Deeper into the wave he would harness these retroactive ripples, using them to slow the ship down and make it safe for her to enter the atmosphere.

He unfurled one small sail: the aft topgallant. For a second or two it flapped, then filled with the retroactive eddy as though trapping a fall of water and bellied toward the deck, which in response tilted sternward.

The red wall which was Mars swung, tilted vertiginously, and vanished beneath the hull as the topgallant turned the ship through a hundred and eighty degrees like a weathercock turning in the wind. She was now falling Marsward bottom first, and for the first time in months the sun shone directly on the deck—a sun shrunk to half size, giving off a wan, clear light.

Zhorga ordered more sails cautiously unfurled. The shock wave snatched at them, buffeting and shaking the galleon with terrifying force. Agonized, he wondered if the tackles could take the treatment. Already the deceleration was bearing him down toward the deck. But soon the whole sail canopy had been unfurled and the galleon was on full brake.