The Green Odyssey by Philip José Farmer (love books to read TXT) 📗

high grass ended and a lawn began. The new grass seemed to be only an inch high. And the lawn stretched at least a mile wide and as far ahead of the Bird as he could see.

"What do you think of that?" he asked Amra's son.

Grizquetr shrugged. "I don't know. The sailors say that it is done by the wuru, an animal the size of a ship, that only comes out at night. It eats grass, but it has the nasty temper of a dire dog, and will attack and smash a 'roller as if it were made of cardboard."

"Do you believe that?" Green said, watching him closely. Grizquetr was an intelligent lad in whom he hoped to plant a few seeds of skepticism. Perhaps some day those seeds might flower into the beginnings of science.

"I do not know if the story is true or not. It is possible, but I've met nobody who has ever seen a wuru. And if it comes out only at night, where does it hide during the daytime? There is no hole in the ground large enough to conceal it."

"Very good," said Green, smiling. Happily, Grizquetr smiled back. He worshiped his foster-father and nursed every bit of affection or compliment he got from him.

"Keep that open mind," said Green. "Neither believe nor disbelieve until you have solid evidence one way or another. And keep on remembering that new evidence may come up that will disprove the old and firmly established."

He smiled wryly. "I could use some of my own advice. I, for instance, had at one time absolutely refused to put any credence in what I have just seen with my own eyes. I put the story down as merely another idle story of those who sail the grassy seas. But I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps there couldn't be an animal of some kind like the wuru."

Both were silent for a while as they watched the animals race off like living orange rivers. Overhead, the birds wheeled in their hundreds of thousands of numbers. They, too, were beautiful, and even more colorful than the hoobers. Occasionally one lit in the rigging in a burst of dazzling feathers and a fury of melodious song or raucous screeches.

"Look!" said the boy, eagerly pointing. "A grass cat! He's been hiding, waiting to catch a hoober, and now he's afraid he'll be trampled to death by them."

Green's gaze followed the other's finger. He saw the long-legged, tiger-striped body loping desperately ahead of the thundering hoofs. It was completely closed in a pocket of the orange-maned beasts. Even as Green saw him, the sides of the pocket collapsed and the big cat disappeared from sight. If he remained alive he would do so through a miracle.

Suddenly, Grizquetr cried, "Gods!"

"What's the matter?" cried Green.

"On the horizon! A sail! It's shaped like a Ving sail!"

Others saw it too. The ship rang with shouts. A trumpeter blew battle stations; Miran's voice rose above those of others as he bellowed through a megaphone; chaos dissolved into order and purpose as everybody went to his appointed place. The animals, children and pregnant women were marshaled into the hold. The gun crews began unloading barrels of powder with a crane from a hatch. Musketmen swarmed up the rigging. The entire topmast crew tumbled aloft and took their places. As Green was already in his, he had some leisure to observe the whole outlay of preparations for fight. He watched Amra hurriedly give her children a kiss, make sure they'd all gone below, then begin tearing strips of cloth for bandages and of wadding for the muskets. Once she looked up and waved at him before turning back to her task. He waved back and got a severe reprimand from the top-captain for breaking discipline.

"An extra watch for you, Green, after this is over!"

The Earthman groaned and wished that the martinet would fall off and break every bone in his body. If he lost any more sleep...!

The day wore on as the strange ship came closer. Another sail appeared behind it, and the crew grew even tenser. From all appearances, they were being pursued by Vings. Vings usually went in pairs. Then there was the shape of the sails, which were narrower at bottom than at top. And there was the long, low, streamlined hull and the over-large wheels.

Nevertheless discipline was somewhat relaxed for a time. The pets and children were allowed to come up, and meals were prepared by the women. Even when the swifter craft came close enough so that the color of the sails was seen to be scarlet, thereby confirming their suspicions of the strangers' identity, battle stations weren't recalled. Miran estimated that by the time the Vings were within cannon range night would fall.

"That is what they hate and what we love," he said, pacing back and forth, fingering his nose ring and blinking nervously his one good eye. "It'll be an hour before the big moon comes up. Not only that, it looks as though clouds may arise. See!" he cried to the first mate. "By Mennirox, is that not a wisp I detect in the northeast quarter?"

"By all the gods, I believe it is!" said the mate, peering upward, seeing nothing but clear sky, but hoping that wishing would make the clouds come true.

"Ah, Mennirox is good to his favorite worshiper!" said Miran. "He that loves thee shall profit, Book of the True Gods, Chapter Ten, Verse Eight. And Mennirox knows I love him with compound interest!"

"Yes, that he does," said the mate. "But what is your plan?"

"As soon as the last glow of the sun disappears completely from the horizon, so our silhouette won't be revealed, we'll swing and cut across their direct path of advance. We know that they'll be traveling fairly close together, hoping to catch up with us and blast us with cross-fire. Well, we'll give them a chance, but we'll be gone before they can seize it. We'll go right between them in the dark and fire on both. By the time they're ready to reply we'll have slipped on by.

"And then," he whooped, slapping his fat thigh, "they'll probably cannonade each other to flinders, each thinking the other is us! Hoo, hoo, hoo!"

"Mennirox had better be with us," said the mate, paling. "It'll take damn tight calculating and more than a bit of luck. We'll be going by dead reckoning; not until we're almost on them will we see them; and if we're headed straight at them it'll be too late to avoid a collision. Wharoom! Smash! Boom! We're done for!"

"That's very true, but we're done for if we don't pull some trick like that. They'll have caught us by dawn—they can outmaneuver us—and they've more combined gunfire. And though we'll fight like grass cats we'll go down, and you know what'll happen then. The Vings don't take prisoners unless they're at the end of a cruise and going into port."

"We should have accepted the Duke's offer of a convoy of frigates," muttered the mate. "Even one would have been enough to make the odds favor us."

"What? And lose half the profits of this voyage because we have to pay that robber Duke for the use of his warships? Have you lost your mind, mate?"

"If I have I'm not the only one," said the mate, turning into the wind so his words were lost. But the helmsmen heard him and reported the conversation later. In five minutes it was all over the ship.

"Sure, he's Greedyguts himself," the crew said. "But then, we're his relatives; we know the value of a penny. And isn't the fat old darling the daring one, though? Who but a captain of the Clan Effenycan would think of such a trick, and carry it through, too? And if he's such a money-grabber, why, then; wouldn't he be afraid to risk his vessel and cargo, not to mention his own precious blood, not to mention the even more precious blood of his relatives? No, Miran may be one-eyed and big-bellied and short of temper and wind, but he's the man to hold down the foredeck. Brother, dip me another glass from that barrel and let's toast again the cool courage and hot avariciousness of Captain Miran, Master Merchant."

Grazoot, the plump little harpist with the effeminate manners, took his harp and began singing the song the Clan loved most, the story of how they, a hill tribe, had come down to the plains a generation ago. And how there they had crept into the windbreak of the city of Chutlzaj and stolen a great windroller. And how they had ever since been men of the grassy seas, of the vast flat Xurdimur, and had sailed their stolen craft until it was destroyed in a great battle with a whole Krinkansprunger fleet. And how they had boarded a ship of the fleet and slain all the men and taken the women prisoners and sailed off with the ship right through the astounded fleet. And how they had taken the women as slaves and bred children and how the Effenycan blood was now half Krinkansprunger and that was where they got their blue eyes. And how the Clan now owned three big merchant ships—or had until two years ago when the other two rolled over the green horizon during the Month of the Oak and were never heard of again, but they'd come back some day with strange tales and a hold brimming with jewels. And how the Clan now sailed under that mighty, grasping, shrewd, lucky, religious man, Miran.

Whatever else you could say about Grazoot, you could not deny that he had a fine baritone. Green, listening to his voice rise from the deck far below, could vision the rise and fall and rise again of these people and could appreciate why they were so arrogant and close-fisted and suspicious and brave. Indeed, if he had been born on this planet, he could have wanted no finer, more romantic, gypsyish life than that of a sailor on a windroller. Provided, that is, that he could get plenty of sleep.

The boom of a cannon disturbed his reverie. He looked up just in time to see the ball appear at the end of its arc and flash by him. It was not enough to scare him, but watching it plow into the ground about twenty feet away from the starboard steering wheel made him realize what damage one lucky shot could do.

However, the Ving did not try again. He was a canny pirate who knew better than to throw away ammunition. Doubtless he was hoping to panic the merchantman into a frenzy of replies, powder-wasting and useless. Useless because the sun set just then and in a few minutes dusk was gone and darkness was all around them. Miran didn't even bother to tell his men to hold their fire, since they wouldn't have dreamed of touching off the cannon until he gave the word. Instead he repeated that no light should be shown and that the children must go below decks and must be kept quiet. No one was to make a noise.

Then, casting one last glance at the positions of the pursuing craft, now rapidly dissolving into the night, he estimated the direction and strength of the wind. It was as it had been the day they set sail, an east wind dead astern, a good wind, pushing them along at eighteen miles an hour.

Miran spoke in a soft voice to the first mate and the other officers, and they disappeared into the darkness shrouding the decks. They were giving prearranged orders, not by the customary bellowing through a megaphone but by low voices and touches. While they directed the crew, Miran stood with bare feet upon the foredeck. He held a half-crouching posture, and acted as if he were detecting the moves of the invisible sailors by the vibrations of their activities running through the wood of the decks and the spars and the masts and up to his feet. Miran was a fat nerve center that gathered in all the unspoken messages scattered everywhere through the body of the Bird. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and if he hesitated or doubted because of the solid blackness around him, he gave the helmsmen no sign. His voice was firm.

"Hold it steady."

"... six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Now! Swing her hard aport! Hold her, hold her!"

To Green, high up on the topmost spar of the foremast, the turning about seemed an awful and unnatural deed. He could feel the hull, and with it his mast, of course, leaning over and over, until his senses told him that they must inevitably capsize and send him crashing to the ground. But his senses lied, for though he seemed to fall forever, the time came when the journey back toward an upright