“I always thought,” Yockerbow admitted, “the Order of the Jingfired did have evidence.”
“They claim to have, but when you ask for it, it can’t be produced!” Barratong exclaimed. “I’m ready to believe, for instance, that long ago one of the stars in the sky blazed up until it outshone the sun. I can see the cloud of glowing gas they still call its Smoke—it’s right there, isn’t it? What I want to know, though, is why that happened, and why it hasn’t happened since! And then there are elderly folk among my own people who say that when they were budded certain stars were not so bright as they are now … but who’s to define what ‘bright’ means? Can the members of your Order tell me that? They swear in principle they could—if only they had certain ancient star-maps which were spoiled by a flood! But when I asked for them they hadn’t even kept fragments and tatters which I could have shown to Ulgrim!”
He concluded that tirade on a fierce tone, and a second later continued in a much milder voice, as though reminded about Arranth by his reference to his chief navigator.
“They said at Ripar that your buds don’t take.”
Yockerbow curled his mantle before he could stop himself, and a waft of combat-stink fouled the salty air. Aghast at his bad manners, he was on the point of prostrating himself when he realized that the remark had been made in the matter-of-fact fashion of an equal speaking to an equal. Flattered, he confirmed its truth.
“Nor do mine,” said Barratong, staring across the water where the new-risen moon was creating a path of brightness for others to follow— not the Fleet. “Your lady wishes me to join with her, and I shall with pleasure, but don’t expect the offspring you can’t give her. Were I capable, my line would be among the greatest in history. But the only thing that keeps the Fleet in being—the only thing that helps so many cities to survive around the shores of the eastern ocean—is the fact that a first-time mating between strangers takes more often than not, so your seventeen from Ripar will engender enough progeny to keep us going for quite some while … Oh, Yockerbow, I almost look forward to the tumult the great melting will entail! We must stir the folk around more! Little by little, thanks to our habit of choosing either sea or land, either drom or junq, either this or that, we are breeding apart! And the same holds for the inventions made in one place or another! Do you know about the longwayspeakers that they have at Grench? No? I thought not. But think what use you could have made at Ripar of a means to communicate simply by beating on a distended bladder in a patterned code, comprehensible to somebody the other side of a mountain range: they can do that! And they can signal orders at Clophical by using trained and brightly colored wingets which make patterns that are visible from end to end of the valley, but they don’t survive being taken out to sea. And the use they could make of your pumps at Gowg…! Do you see what I mean?”
Yockerbow certainly did, but already he was lost in contemplation of the possibilities. He stood silent for a long while, until Barratong roused him with a nudge, pointing to the north.
“Look yonder! What can the Jingfired tell me about that—hmm?”
For an instant Yockerbow thought he must be watching a drift of cloudcrawlers on their migration route; some species displayed bright flashes from time to time, and occasionally they synchronized to make bright polychrome bands. But this was much too blue, and too near the horizon, and anyway the season was wrong.
“Tonight the sky is clearer than I ever saw it,” said Barratong. “You’re looking at the aurora round the pole. I’ve been told that when one draws close enough it reaches to the apex of the sky. Not that anyone has seen it in all its glory since the Northern Freeze—but on this trip we shall! Even my sub-commanders don’t know what I have in mind, friend Yockerbow, but on this voyage I mean to break all records for a northern swim, and go where nobody has dared to venture since the ice claimed what was habitable land. I want to witness the rebudding of the continents! Don’t you?”