Wheel of the Winds by M J Engh

Author:M J Engh [Engh, M J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497635326
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 1988-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

18

The Red Wind

And I mean to claim it, Rep,” the Warden answered grimly. He stood with the torch in his hand, looking up at the cliff wall into which they had crashed at full tilt, but what he was calculating in his mind was speed and distance, both of which looked discouraging. On foot they would have no choice but to stop for sleep; and since the pods traveled many times faster than a walking pace, those fifty watches the Exile had mentioned must be multiplied by some unknown number, and he thought he would be waiting a long time for that dinner in Rotl. But he was past despair now, and meant simply to go on so long as they had means, were it only by crawling. And not seeing any reason for delay, he turned again to the Exile, asking him if he thought he could walk.

This, when they had helped him up, the Exile managed in a painful hobble, and even observed deferentially that they were lucky the pods had been traveling so slow—a notion of slowness too outlandish to call for answer. At first he could not believe that his precious vessel was past flying, and insisted on opening hatches and creeping into and over it, tinkering with the little box and with certain devices lodged in the pod's walls, while the Warden stirred restlessly from foot to foot; but in the end he gave it up.

Both Warden and Captain were much relieved to find that he could travel on his own feet (for it would have made slow going indeed to carry him) and still more when he told them there was a packet of medicines among his supplies, one of which was good to dull pain and so should make his walking easier. This the Captain found and gave him, and then began to question him about the other packets. “For,” she said, “we want to carry everything that will help to get us through, but nothing that's not needed.”

But the Exile said there was no need to carry anything, for every one of the pods could fly by its own power, if only the little box had not suffered damage. And he showed the Captain how, by changing the setting of a knob, she could turn the box's force to one or another of the pods, or to all of them at once, making them swim in air like a school of fish in water, rising or turning all at the same instant and all the same way. This gave her much pleasure, especially as the largest remaining pod could carry either Broz or the Exile, if walking grew too wearisome for them. So it was with lighter hearts that they started off again, and the school of pods floated above them.

The first use the Captain found for the size of that largest pod was to make a shipcrow of the Exile, and this she did even before they started. For their first

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