Foster, Alan Dean - Icerigger 02 by Foster Alan Dean

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

XI

Several days later a path wide enough for the _Slanderscree_ had been nearly completed through the ridge. A few last blocks of intervening ice were all that kept them from the open ocean beyond.

Tahoding worried some about his ship and the strain the constant break and tow was placing on her superstructure, but he'd gained confidence as block after multi-ton block was torn free and pulled clear without any visible damage to the raft's stern.

Three or four more tows of comparatively modest-sized chunks and they would be through. Cables were being readied for securing to one of those last blocks when work was interrupted by a frantic cry from the mainmast lookout.

"_Rifs_! North northwest!"

Working with the cable-setting crew, Ethan heard that threatening word too. Like his nonhuman companions, he stopped working as if stabbed, whirled and glanced in the direction from which the danger approached.

They'd encountered a rifs only once before, one time too often. A rifs was a meteorological anomaly peculiar to Tran-ky-ky, the manifestation of extreme weather forming over an ocean that was cold and solid instead of liquidly warm. September had described it as a linear hurricane, packing winds of over two hundred kph force.

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Moving awkwardly on his skates, September fol-lowed the rest of the cable crew back down the path through the ridge. By the time he emerged, a black line made innocuous by distance was visible off to the northwest. As he watched, it grew larger, overwhelm-ing the horizon.

That black line was the aerial equivalent of a tidal bore, a sooty sky-swelling wall of wind compressed like an atmospheric sponge. It could scour the ice clear of life save for tightly rooted vegetation such as the pikapedan or massive life-forms such as the stavanzers.

Neither well-rooted nor massive, the _Slanderscree_ had to do what all other life-forms did before a rifs- run.

" 'Twill never be cleared in time," complained one of the anxious Tran standing by the stern port runner of the ship.

Ethan slipped free of his skates, mounted the near-est boarding ladder. He found Tahoding, Elfa and Hunnar in animated discussion on the helmdeck. Williams and September were nowhere around.

"We must loose the cables and run 'til the rifs blows itself out," Elfa was saying.

"A rifs can blow for many days. We waste time," Hunnar argued.

She sneered at him. "Better to waste days than the ship."

"Perhaps," put in Tahoding, desirous of serving as peacemaker while keeping one eye on the rapidly nearing storm, "But I think Sir Hunnar has another suggestion."

"I do." The knight gestured back aft. "We must move off, gather our speed, and try to break through."

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