THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME BY JOHN BRUNNER

“Who knows? All I can say is, I’ve seen a lot of it at sea when our trencher-plants got salt-poisoned and our vines were blown away, same as now. Most people think it comes of trying to live off stale pickles. Makes you leak, drives you into dreamness, kills you in the end … Oh, curse the weight of this thing!” Skilluck abandoned his attempt to hold up the spyglass normally, and slumped forward in order to rest its end on the ridge of the briq’s saddle. “I bet we’ll be seeing cresh on land again one of these days, if the winters go on getting longer and harsher and seeds don’t sprout and fish don’t run … But you shouldn’t worry too much about yourself. It always hits the biggest and strongest first and worst. Dole out a sip at a time and be specially wary of Blestar—he’s delirious.”

Carefully filling a gowshell from the drink-bladder in use, Wellearn heard him continue, mainly to himself: “Not a trencher-plant to be seen. Don’t recognize a single one of those trees, don’t spot a single animal. No sign of a stream unless there’s one behind that cape…”

The boy shivered, wondering whether his own mantle was as patched with creshmarks as the others’, and the captain was speaking only to reassure him. All things considered, though, he felt remarkably well after his ordeal: weak and giddy, of course, so that he wondered how he would fare if he had to leap clear of a cresh-crazed crewman; thirsty in every fiber of his being; and hungry to the point where he wished he could browse off floating weed like Tempestamer. Yet he was still capable of being excited about their arrival in this unknown region, and that was an excellent sign.

So Skilluck must be telling the truth. Sharprong, on the other claw, was almost too ill to swallow, and neither he nor Strongrip had the energy to attack a helper. Ironically, Blestar was worst off of them all, his mantle cobbled with irregular bulges as though it were trying to strain outward through a badly patterned net. He was talking to himself in a garbled blend of half a dozen learned idioms. Wellearn recognized them all; it was his quickness at language that had earned him a place among the crew. Their mission was to trade hides for food-plant seeds in the hope of cross-breeding hybrids which would grow very quickly during the ever-shortening northern summer. Many briqs this year had scattered on the same quest. If it failed, the Wego might have to move south en masse, and the hope of finding habitable but unpopulated lands was dreadfully slim. So there would be fighting, and the weakened northerners might lose, and that would be the end of a once-great folk. At best they might leave behind a legend, like Forb or Geys or Ntah…

Tormented by the sun, Blestar was reflexively opening his mantle as though to roll over and cool his torso by evaporation. Wellearn had never been in such a hot climate before, but he knew enough to resist the same temptation; in their dehydrated state it could be fatal. Anxiously he wondered how he could provide shade for the sick men, and concluded there was no alternative but to untie one of their precious remaining bales of hides. The outer layers were probably spoiled, anyway.

He contrived to rig two or three into an awning; then he distributed the rest of the fresh water and returned to the captain, dismayed to find him slumped in exhaustion.

But he was alert enough to say, “Good thinking, young’un. Give me a little more water, will you? Even holding up the spyglass has worn me out. And I don’t see very clearly right now. We’ll have to wait until Tempestamer has finished feeding and see if we can make her beach herself.”

“Sharprong told me she hated that,” Wellearn ventured.

“Oh, she does, and I’d never try it normally, of course. But that’s our only hope; we’ve got to get ashore! Maybe while she’s digesting she’ll be tractable. Otherwise I’ll have to pith another of her command nerves, and if I miss my mark because she bucks and bolts, then the stars alone know how we’ll find our way home—Did you give water to the northfinder?”

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