THE CRUCIBLE OF TIME BY JOHN BRUNNER

So they were as content as the folk of any big city.

That was the majority. There were, however, others whose traditional obligation was to view Ripar in the context of the world: not only of the globe, but of the universe which comprehended all time and all space. It was said they possessed arcane knowledge dating back before the Northern Freeze. Always there were half a score of them; always they were presided over by the incumbent Doq; always they were collectively disliked because they levied duty on cargoes passing from sea to land or vice versa, and because they enforced the ancient laws with neither fear nor favor. Were one among their own number to succumb to a plague brought by strangers, for which no cure was known, he would quit the city himself before prongsmen came to expel him; were one of his relatives to enter into an unauthorized mating, he would be prompt to bring the new-budded youngling before a eugenic court to determine its fitness to survive; were it his own home that became infested with teredonts, or boraways, or a putrefying mold, he would be the first to pour the poison at its roots.

And it was among these notable and austere personages—short of their customary total by one, for the doyen Chelp had died a few days earlier—that the inventor Yockerbow was summoned to stand today, beneath the interlaced branches of the Doqal Hall, with water plashing underpad. Acutely conscious of being no more than half as old as anyone else present, he strove to reason out why he had been sent for. Surely it could not be, as his beautiful spouse Arranth insisted, that he was to be invited to replace Chelp! His weather-sense informed him that the idea was ridiculous, for the peers were exuding a distinct aura of incipient panic.

But the fact was in no way reassuring.

He sought some kind of signal from Iddromane, spokesman for those who worked with fire and metal, and the only one of the peers he could claim close acquaintance with, but the old fellow remained stolidly imperturbable.

Yockerbow trembled a little.

Then the period of waiting was over, and the Doq rose to his full height.

“Greetings to my brothers, and to Yockerbow the stranger, who is uninformed concerning the reason for his attendance. All will be made clear in moments.

“Since time immemorial”—catching on, Yockerbow glossed that as meaning, in practice, a few score-of-score years—”the Great Fleet of the Eastern Sea has enjoyed harborage rights at Ripar. It has been a considerable while since those rights were exercised. Today, however, notice has been served that the Fleet is to call here very shortly.”

So that was it! Making no attempt to maintain a stoical demeanor like the others, Yockerbow clenched his claws. He was schooled in history, and knew that there had been times when a visit by the Fleet was welcome; then the folk boasted how they on land shared ancestors with the People of the Sea, and clamored to trade and intermarry. On the other claw, there had been occasions when the Fleet arrived storm-bedraggled and half-starved, and crazed mariners stole what they could and spoiled the rest, whereupon the folk vowed they could never be called kin to such monsters.

Yockerbow’s lifetime had elapsed without a sight of the Fleet; it was working the broadest equatorial waters. Reports from travelers indicated that it had a new commander—land-budded, they said as one—who, having deposed the former admiral, was interesting himself more than any of his predecessors in what the continents could offer.

His name, they said, was Barratong, and his shadow fell across the day-half of the world at every dawn. In Yumbit he had agents who seized the sharp spice remotaw and made it a monopoly for those he favored; in Clophical his prongsmen guarded the giant trees beloved of the spuder, and each autumn they rolled up as many webs as a junq could carry and used them for rope to snare wild junqlings and increase the Fleet; in fabled Grench—yes, he had ventured so far!—he held the sole right to export the fine wax known as cleb.