Foster, Alan Dean - Icerigger 01 by Foster Alan Dean

Author:Foster, Alan Dean
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Eight

He remembered vanilla wafers. Then he opened his eyes and saw a familiar fair-framed face with a unique nose. September was staring at him anxiously. Other memories hooded in and he sighed. Likely there wasn't a vanilla wafer within half a dozen parsecs of where he lay.

Where he lay was in his bed in his room in Wannome Cas-tle. He tried to sit up and was made aware of a fascinating phenomenon. Every square centimeter of his body was put-ting in an impolite claim for attention.

"I," he announced slowly, falling back onto the fur blanket someone had bunched beneath his head,

"hurt. All over."

"Not surprising, young feller-me-lad," said September, the concern vanishing from his face. "But other than that, how are you feeling?"

Ethan chuckled. It was mentally satisfying, but it also com-pelled certain sections of self to protest violently. He followed the ensuing silence with a, question of characteristic wit, scintillating brilliance.

"What happened?"

"Why didn't you let go your latch when Hunnar gave the signal?" the big man asked instead of answering.

Ethan thought, remembered. "We would have missed. It was turning the wrong way and we would have missed. Shot right past ... " He tried to rise again. September put a hand on his chest and gently forced him back.

"'That particular beastie is no longer a problem. Lord, what a sight! I've seen a lot of big and biggests,

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lad, but that hunk of ugly meat tops them all. Couldn't believe how fast some-thing that big can move."

"Hunnar told nee, before."

"I thought we'd seen the, last of you for sure when you didn't let loose with the rest of us," September continued. "Gone forever down that unholy gullet. Oh, by the way, you turned it fair and proper. Took off southward with a roar you wouldn't believe. Near to shake a man's skin off, what? Though how it could even move with that log down its pipe I don't know. Tough? Oh my, yes!"

"I don't mean what happened to it. 'hat about me?"

"Oh, you? Well, I didn't see much myself, being a-scooting fast in the opposite direction. But there was a well-positioned lookout in the front-running raft. Said when the thing rose off the ice ... unheard of thing to do ... and whacked down, it tossed you into the air like a ballooning spider.

"You came down on the other side of the beast in the high. pedan. That and the padding in 'the boat probably saved you. After contact, though, it was every chip and splinter for itself. If you'd landed on bare ice I expect we'd still be scraping up pieces of you. As it developed, you should have seen how much wood they pulled out of your skin. Good thing those survival parkas are tough. How you got out without busting anything, let alone everything, I'll wonder over til my last days. You took a powerful sock in the head."

"I feel tolerable now," he lied. "How long have I been out?"

September grinned. "Off and on, about a week.

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