Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [538]
‘Yet half the population will die … whole communities destroyed … The Oligarch wouldn’t allow that to happen in Sibornal. He’d take strong measures—’
She gestured dismissively. ‘Such die-back has its merciful side at a time when crops are failing and famine threatens. The healthy survivors benefit. Life goes on.’
He laughed. ‘In fits and starts …’
She shook her head as if suddenly impatient. ‘We must see who has survived on the ship. I don’t like the silence.’
‘I hope to thank Eedap Mun Odim for his kindness.’
‘I trust you will be able to.’
They stood close in the small stale room, gazing at each other through the stramineous light. Shokerandit kissed her, although at the last moment she moved her lips away. Then they ventured into the corridor.
The scene was to come back to him much later. He would see then, as not at the time, how much of herself Toress Lahl withheld from him. Physically, she was very desirable to him; but her attitude of independence was more attractive to him than he could then realise. Only when that independence was eroded by time could they come to any true understanding.
But Shokerandit’s proper appreciation of that fact could scarcely be arrived at while his whole outlook was based upon certain misunderstandings which left him, whichever way he turned, insecure, unable to develop emotionally. His innocence stood between him and maturity.
Shokerandit went first. Beyond the companionway, the corridor led to the main hold, where the relations of Odim had been settled. He went to listen at the door and heard stealthy movement within. From the cabins on either side of the corridor came silence. He tried the door of one, and knocked; it was locked, and no answer came.
As he emerged on deck, with Toress Lahl behind him, three naked men ran swiftly into hiding. They left a female corpse spread-eagled beneath the mizzenmast. It had been partially dismembered. Toress Lahl went over and looked at it.
‘We’ll throw it overboard,’ Shokerandit said.
‘No. This woman is already dead. Leave her. Let the living be fed.’
They turned their attention to the situation of the New Season itself. The ship, as their senses had told them, was no longer in motion. The ocean currents had brought it slowly to fetch up against the shore. The New Season was trapped against a tongue of sand which curled out from the land.
Towards the stern, a small cluster of icebergs had accumulated. At the bows, it would be an easy matter to jump over the side and walk ashore without getting a foot wet. The guardians of this spit of sand were two large rocks, one taller than the masts of the ship, which stood on the shore, deflecting ocean tides. They had probably been thrown to their present position by some long-gone volcanic explosion, though nothing so dramatic as a volcano could be seen inland. The coast offered a vista only of low cliffs, so tumbled that they might have been an old wall part-demolished by cannon fire, and, beyond the cliffs, mustard-coloured moor-land, off which a chill wind blew, bringing tears to the viewer’s eyes.
Blinking the water away, Shokerandit looked again at the larger rock. He was sure he had seen movement there. In a moment, two phagors appeared, walking with their curious glide away from the shore. It became apparent that they were going to meet a group of four of their kind who materialised over a rise, dragging with them the carcass of an animal of some kind. More phagors appeared from behind the rock to greet the hunters.
The original party of thirteen ancipitals had that morning met up with a second and larger party, a party also comprising escaped