“They’ll cooperate!” Homat declared angrily. “I’ll see to it that they do.”
“And why should they listen to thee?” Tyl replied without malice. “Thee are a runaway from one of the far city-states that border the Groalamasan. The river folk do not trust those who come from the lands that lie against the Sea.”
“I am not of the city-states,” Homat said proudly. “Not anymore. I am of,” he hesitated to glance sideways at Etienne and Lyra, “I am of these folk.” Etienne suddenly felt very good.
“Don’t include me in that mental family,” Lyra said sardonically. “I’m going along with this insanity but I don’t believe in it. If Homat wants to consider himself as one with Etienne, that’s fine. Idiocy knows no species boundaries.” Everyone smiled.
“We’ll do it, Lyra,” Etienne told her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “You’ll see. We’ll do it! We’ll get the hydrofoil up to Jakaie, around the Topapasirut, and down to the river on the far side. Then we’ll be on our way again.”
“Sure we will,” she said softly. She inhaled deeply. “Well, I guess we’d better get on with it. The sooner this is begun, the sooner it will end.”
“That’s right,” he replied with a grin, “but not the way you think it will.”
Word was passed down the river, the call going out for the bravest of Brul mahouting only the strongest of mounts. Meanwhile the carpenters of the village of Taranau, which was the last sizable town near the narrowing of the Barshajagad, set about under Etienne’s and Lyra’s instructions building a platform to hold the hydrofoil. It was to be light and strong, with double-wheeled axles fore and aft. These could be bound to the platform which in turn could be attached to the two hydrofoils. Not only would the skeleton frame provide a maximum of support with a minimum of weight, the open woodwork also would not block the downward exhausts of the repellers.
Though they talked as rapidly as their brethren, the Brul turned out to be less loquacious and argumentative than their urbanized relatives. They formed a tightly knit society with rules all their own and wore their pride on their faces. It was not quite group arrogance.
Lyra learned from Homat that most of the Brul lived outside the villages in isolated clusters or in single dwellings with only the immediate family for company. Their lives were devoted to the care and handling of their vroqupii.
As it turned out the Redowls did not have to exhaust their store of trade goods. Once the nature of the enterprise became widely known, Brul arrived from distant locations not to serve for pay but simply to pit the strength and endurance of their animals against those of their competitors.
Still, the expedition was fortunate in engaging forty of the massive animals and their owners. After some discussion among the Brul the vroqupii were yoked to the boat in ten ranks of four abreast. They walked on pile-driver legs and their bellies scraped the earth. The vroqupii was all traction and muscle, its short square head set on a bull neck. A line of horny plates ran along the upper jaw and swept back to form a low ridge above each eye, downcurving to shield the throat.
It was a startling assembly, not the least because with a few faintly yellow exceptions, the vroqupii were clad in short, bristly, rose-hued fur. They grunted and heaved against their harnesses, anxious to get moving. The Brul sat on the soft saddle behind the neck frill, alternately joking with and taunting his fellow drovers.
With the rushing roar of the Skar for counterpoint, the expedition finally got under way. At first there was nothing but good-natured jostling for position as each Brul strove to prove that his animal was the strongest. Eventually the drovers settled down to work, conversation fading as each concentrated on the task at hand.
The vroqupii plodded onward in comparative silence, even when they reached the branch canyon and the way turned steep and difficult. They were used to pulling against the constant pressure of the river, and the incline did not seem to cause them any unusual problems. Etienne knew the real test would come during the final thousand meters, when the air turned cold and thin.
Days passed and their speed slowed only slightly. What did drop off considerably was the amount of joking among the Brul, as the difficulty of what they were attempting began to sink in. Etienne had Homat weaving in and out among the Mai every night, listening for talk of discouragement or dissent.
The tension was hard on everyone, and when they finally passed the four-thousand-meter mark, four-fifths of the way to the top, humans, Tsla, and Mai were as tired as the patient vroqupii. It had been days since any joking had passed among the Brul, and the increasingly cold air was beginning to bother them if not their animals.
A few quit under the strain. One was killed when, shivering from the chill, he fell from his mount and was crushed under the heavy feet of the team behind him before it could be halted. But even those Brul who gave up left their animals in the care of friends, admonished them to return the precious creatures in good condition when the final goal was achieved—if it ever was. Forlorn and disappointed, they straggled back down the trail by ones and twos.
It was the cold that discouraged them more than anything else. By the time the temperature had fallen to sixty degrees the Brul were so wrapped up in heavy clothing it was all they could do to cling to their saddles. A steady breeze tumbled from the flanks of nearby Aracunga, and soon even Etienne and Lyra had to bundle up.
“Do you think we’ll make it?” Lyra asked her husband one day as she finished the latest count of the remaining Brul. “It looks like we just might, if we don’t lose too many more drovers.”
“Don’t you go getting confident on me just when I’m starting to have doubts,” he told her. He blew into his hands. If the temperature fell much further they would have to dig jackets out of the hydrofoil’s storage lockers. The Tsla also looked uncomfortable. It was chillier than it had been during their climb to the Topapasirut.
As Tyl had explained, Jakaie lay at the uppermost limit of Tsla habitation. Above that level even the hardiest Tsla crops withered and died, though one could survive by foraging and hunting. Or so it was said.
Forty-five hundred meters, forty-six, and as Etienne’s nervousness increased, Lyra’s spirits rose.
“We’re going to make it, Etienne. You were right all the time. We’re going to make it.”
“I’ll believe it when the boat’s sitting in Jakaie’s central square,” he told her. “I wish I knew why you get more enthusiastic the closer we come to a crisis point, while I get more and more worried.”
“We complement each other, remember? When I’m down, you’re up, and vice versa.”
“I thought all you wanted was to get back to Turput.”
“I never thought we’d get this far. Now that we have, I’m dying to see how the Tsla of Jakaie have adapted to their harsh environment. There should be different architecture, methods of farming, cooking, everything. Society as a function of altitude. There’s a whole paper in that.”
“Must be a very close-knit population.”
“I agree, but what makes you think so? You usually don’t speculate in my field.”
“They have to be close. It may be the only way to keep warm.”
“Anytime you think it’s getting a little chilly, Etienne, just consider the poor Mai.” She gestured toward the long team of vroqupii and Brul as she and Etienne marched alongside the hydrofoil. “I wonder how low the temperature has to fall before they become susceptible to frostbite?”
“To freezing, I’d expect, but you’d never know it to look at them now. Half of them are so cold they can’t shiver anymore. Too numb.”
Not one Brul had quit for several days now, however. For those who remained the climb had turned into a grim contest. None would give up so close to the goal for fear of being derided by those who stayed on.
As for the vroqupii, they could not voice any complaints, but they seemed to adjust to the colder weather much better than their masters. Their pace was slower now, more measured, but none had fallen by the wayside. Undoubtedly their short brightly colored fur afforded some protection against the changing climate. It also helped that when a particularly steep spot was reached, they were unhitched while one of the humans lifted the boat and its wheels to the next level on repellers. The Brul looked forward to such respites with relief.
Forty-eight hundred meters. Forty-nine.
“Tomorrow morning.” Etienne spoke as he crouched across from the portable heater they recharged every couple of days from the boat’s batteries. He longed for the comfort of their heated cabin. They slept outside at Homat’s insistence. If they did not, he warned them, they risked losing the respect of the Brul. “We’ll reach the top of the canyon tomorrow morning.”
He put down his self-heating cup of tea and slid beneath the thermosensitive blanket. The covering was warm but the ground beneath the sleeping pad very hard. A glance showed the temperature to be fifty-three.
Tomorrow, vindication, he mused. After that, two days of steady travel overland to Jakaie. There they would find friends, shelter, and fires large enough to warm even the Brul.
Lyra still sat in front of the heater, staring at her husband. “You never would know when to say no, would you, Etienne? A bad habit, one that’ll be the death of both of us one of these days.” She smiled. “You dragged me all this way when I’d just as soon have quit and turned back toward home.”
