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Sklar Hast lifted the copper from the coals, tossed it back and forth till it was cool. "Metal everywhere! Nicklas Rile has been hacking apart the kragen for its bones. He is discarding the internal organs, which are black as snuff-flowerPerhaps they should also be burned under the lens."
"Convey them here, I will bum them. And then, after we bum the kragen's liver, or whatever the organ, we might attempt to bum snuff-flowers as well."
The kragen's internal organs yielded further copper. The snuff-flowers produced only a powder of whitish-yellow ash which Mem Cagno conscientiously stored in a tube labeled: ash of snuff-flower.
Four days later the largest of the kragen seen so far reappeared. It came swimming in from the west, paralleling the line of floats. A pair of Swindlers, returning to the float with a catch of gray-fish, were the first to spy the great black cylinder surmounted by its four-eyed turret. They bent to their oars, shouting the news ahead. A well-rehearsed plan now went into effect. A team of four young swindlers ran to a lightweight coracle, shoved off, paddled out to intercept the kragen. Behind the coracle trailed two ropes, each controlled by a gang of men. The kragen, lunging easily through the water, approached, swimming fifty yards off the float. The coracle eased forward, with one named Bade Beach going forward to stand on the gunwhales. The kragen halted the motion of its vanes, to drift and eye the coracle and the derricks with flint-eyed suspicion.
The two swindlers yet at the oars eased the coracle closer.
Bade Beach stood tensely, twitching a noose, while the fourth man controlled the lines to the float. The kragen. contemptuous of attack, issued a few nonplussed clicks of the mandibles, twitched the tips of its vanes, creating four whirlpools.
The coracle eased closer, to within a hundred feet, eighty- sixty feet. Bade Beach bent forward. The kragen decided to punish the men for their provocative actions and thrust sharply forward. When it was but thirty feet distant. Bade Beach tossed a noose toward the turret-and missed. From the float came groans of disappointment; one of the gangs hastily jerked the coracle back. The kragen swerved, turned, made a second furious charge which brought it momentarily to within five feet of the coracle, whereupon Bade Beach dropped the noose over its turret. From the float came a cheer; both gangs hauled on their lines, one snatching the coracle back to safety, the other tightening the noose and pulling the kragen aside, almost as it touched the coracle.
Thrashing and jerking, the kragen was dragged over to the sea-leaning derrick, and hoisted from the water in the same fashion as the first. This was a large beast: the derrick creaked, the float sagged; before the kragen heaved clear from the water sixty-five men were tugging on the end of the lift. The derrick tilted back, the kragen swung in over the float.
The vanes were lashed, the beast lowered. Again the onlookers surged forward, laughing, shouting, but no longer exemplifying the fury with which they had attacked the first kragen. At a distance a group of Intercessors watched with curled lips. They had not reconciled themselves to their new circumstances, and conscious of their status as the lowest of castes worked as little as possible. Chisels and mallets were plied against the kragen turret; the dome was pried loose, the nerve nodes destroyed. Fiber buckets were brought, the body fluids were scooped out and carried off to evaporation trays.
Sklar Hast had watched from the side. This had been a large beast-about the size of King Kragen when first he had approached the Old Hoats, a hundred and fifty years previously. Since they had successfully dealt with this creature, they need have small fear of any other-except King Kragen.
And Sklar Hast was forced to admit that the answer was not yet known. No derrick could hoist King Kragen from the water. No line could restrain the thrust of his vanes. No float could bear his weight. Compared to King Kragen, his dead hulk now being hacked apart was a pygmy… - From behind came a rush of feet; a woman tugged at his elbow, gasping and gulping in the effort to catch her breath.
Sklar Hast, sca
"Barquan Blasdel has taken to the sea, Barquan Blasdel is gone!"
"What!" cried Sklar Hast.
The woman told her story. For various reasons, including squeamishness and pregnancy, she had absented herself from the killing of the kragen, and kept to her hut at the far side of the float. Seated at her loom she observed a man loading bags into a coracle, but preoccupied with her own concerns she paid him little heed, and presently arose to the preparation of the evening meal. As she kneaded the pulp from which the breadstuff known as pangolay was baked, it came to her that the man's actions had been noticeably furtive. Why had he not participated in the killing of the kragen? The man she had seen was Barquan Blasdel! The implications of the situation stu
Biasdel might even now be watching the killing of the kragen.
So she hurried across the float to investigate. But on the way the conviction hardened: the man indeed had been Barquan Blasdel, and she had sought out Sklar Hast with the information.
From the first Barquan Blasdel had made no pretense of satisfaction with his altered circumstances. His former rank counted nothing, in fact aroused antagonism among his floatfellows. Barquan Blasdel grudgingly adapted himself to his new life, building sponge arbors and scraping withe. His spouse, who on Apprise Float had commanded a corps of four maidens and three garden-men, at first rebelled when Blasdel required her to bake pangolay and core sponges "like any low-caste slut," as she put it, but finally she surrendered to the protests of her empty stomach. Her daughters adopted themselves with better grace, and indeed the four youngest participated with great glee at the slaughter of the kragen.
The remaining two stayed in the background, eyebrows raised disdainfully at the vulgar fervor of their sisters.
Barquan Blasdel, his spouse, his two older daughters and their lovers were missing, as was a sturdy six-man coracle together with considerable stores. Sklar Hast dispatched four coracles in pursuit, but evening had brought the west wind, and there was no way of determining whether Blasdel had paddled directly east. or had taken refuge in the jungle of floats at the eastern edge of the chain, where he could hide indefinitely.
The coracles returned to report no sign of the fugitives.
The Council of Seven gathered to consider the situation.
"Our mistake was leniency," complained Robin Magi-am, a gnarled and weather-beaten old Swindler. "These Intercessors- Barquan Blasdel and all the rest-are our enemies. We should have made a complete job of it, and strangled them. Our qualms have cost us our security."
"Perhaps." said Sklar Hast. "But I for one ca
"These other Intercessors now-" Margram jerked his thumb to a group of huts near the central pinion "-what of them? Each wishes us evil. Each is now pla
His proposal met no great enthusiasm- Arrel Sincere, a Bezzler of complete conviction and perhaps the most casteconscious man on the float, said glumly, "What good do we achieve? If Barquan Btasdel returns to the Old Floats, our refuge is known and we must expect inimical actions."
"Not necessarily," contended Meth Cagno. "The folk of the Old Boats gain nothing by attacking us."
Sklar Hast made a pessimistic dissent. "We have escaped King Kragen, we acknowledge no overlord. Misery brings Jealousy and resentment. The Intercessors can whip them to a sullen fury." He pitched his voice in a nasal falsetto. '* 'Those insolent fugitives' How dare they scamp their responsibility to noble King Kragen? How dare they perform such bestial outrages against the lesser kragen? Everyone aboard the coracles! We go to punish the iconoclasts!* "
"Possibly correct," said Meth Cagno. "But the Intercessors are by no means the most influential folk of the Floats.
The Arbiters will hardly agree to any such schemes."
"In essence," said Phyral Berwick, "we have no information. We speculate in a void. In fact Barquan Blasdel may lose himself on the ocean and never return to the Old Floats.
He may be greeted with apathy or with excitement. We talk without knowledge. It seems to me that we should take steps to inform ourselves as to the true state of affairs: in short, that we send spies to derive this information for us.''
Phyral Berwick's proposal ultimately became the decision of the Seven. They also ordained that the remaining Intercessors be guarded more carefully, until it was definitely learned whether or not Barquan Blasdel had returned to the Old Floats. If such were the case the location of the New Floats was no longer a secret, and the concensus was that the remaining Intercessors should likewise be allowed to return, should they choose to do so. Nicklas Rile considered the decision soft-headed. "Do you think they would warrant us like treatment in a similar situation? Remember, they pla
"True enough," said Arrel Sincere wearily, "but what of that? We can either kill them, hold them under guard, or let them go their ways, the last option being the least taxing and the most honorable."
Nicklas Rile made no further protest, and the council then concerned itself with the details of the projected spy operation. None of the coracles at hand were considered suitable, and it was decided to build a coracle of special design-long, light, low to the water, with two sails of fine weave to catch every whisper of wind. Three men were named to the operation, all originally of Almack Float, a small community far to the east, in fact next to Seonia. the end of the chain. None of the three men had acquaintance on Apprise and so stood minimal chances of being recognized.
The coracle was built at once. A light keel of laminated and glued withe was shaped around pegs; ribs were bent and lashed into place; diagonal ribs were attached to these, then me whole frame was covered with four layers of varnished pad-skin.