THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME BY JOHN BRUNNER

Beyond him, unfamiliar plants hanging on what were not exactly bravetrees, immensely tall strangers whose mantles were astonishingly pale … They coalesced into a reality, and he was himself and whole and able to reply.

“Tell me where we are, and how Tempestamer is, and how these people treat us.”

He was proud of being able to phrase that so soon after regaining normal awareness.

Wellearn complied, but half the time he was almost babbling, plainly having been cozened by the wonders of his first foreign landfall. Skilluck was a mite more cynical; he had spent half his life traveling, and more often than not he had been cheated by the outlanders he tried to deal with. The harsh existence led in northern lands was no school for subtleties of the kind practiced by those who dwelt in southern luxury … and it had been obvious, when Tempestamer came to harbor, that she had been driven further than any of the Wego had wandered before, perhaps to the equator itself.

So he merely registered, without reacting to, most of what Wellearn said, until a snatch of it seized his interest.

“—and they have a certain cure for cresh!”

At once Skilluck was totally attentive. Cautiously he said, “It works on everybody, without fail?”

Mantle-crumpled, Wellearn admitted, “Not on all. Blestar, they say, may well not survive. But for me and you, Sharprong and Strongrip, it’s proved its worth!”

“Do they understand what we’re saying to each other?”

“N-no! And that’s something else amazing!” Wellearn blurted. “I have to speak to them in Ancient Forbish!”

Skilluck was unimpressed. His explorations had often brought him to places where relics of that once widespread speech survived. Blestar even maintained that many Forbish words had found their way into Wegan, but since they all had to do with fire and stars—things everybody knew about, but in which the chaplains claimed a special interest—sensible people dismissed such notions as mere religious propaganda. Wego seafarers took chaplains along much as they carried pickles: just in case. The best trips were those where they weren’t needed.

Of course, their services as interpreters…

He forced himself to sound very polite when next he spoke to Wellearn.

“It seems we should behave to our hosts in the friendliest possible fashion. I guess at something we might do for their benefit. How goes it with Tempestamer?”

“That’s what I’d just been asked to tell you! She has grazed the bay where we landed clean of weed, and the cables they’ve strung across its mouth won’t hold her much longer, and they fear for their inshore fishing grounds.”

“Let the cables hold but one more day, and I’ll put her to sea and feed her such a mawful as will content her for a week. And I’ll come back, never fear. A cure for cresh—now that’s something worth making a storm-tossed voyage for!”

“There’s more,” Wellearn said after a pause.

“So tell me about it! Anything we can trade for, I want to hear!”

“I’m not sure it’s the sort of thing one can trade,” Wellearn said. “But … Well, these people have shown me Jing’s original scriptures. Or not exactly the originals, which might rot, but accurate copies. And they tell about how the stars are fire and our world will one day go for fuel to make the sun brighter and ourselves with it unless we—”

Skilluck had heard enough. He said as kindly as he could, “Boy, your brush with cresh has affected your perceptions. I counsel you to concentrate on growing up. A little worldly wisdom would do wonders for you.”

Wellburn bridled. “Captain, do you know Forbish?”

“I’ve never taken lessons, if that’s what you mean!”

“I have! And the documents I’ve been shown while you were lying sick have satisfied me that Jing was real!”

Worse and worse … Skilluck forced himself to an upright position. He said as emphatically as he could, “Since you oblige me to prove that our people are not all crazy, tell our hosts that I shall at once reclaim command of Tempestamer!”

“But you’re not fit!”

“Let me be the judge of that!” Skilluck was struggling to bring his pads under control. “I must—”

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