The Emperor Dard XII was fifty-five days east of Larvis Harbor, and Elver Brokols was fifty-four days past his time of seasickness. The morning was fair, as most had been, and a brisk breeze out of the southwest drove them smartly eastward, canvas straining, ropes creaking in blocks and deadeyes.
Now and then a pack of water people swam briefly alongside, keeping pace easily, their sleek, dark-furred bodies forming something akin to sine curves, breaking the surface and often clearing it. Their arms lay snug along their sides, their broad planing fins veed back, powerful tails and flukes driving. Brokols wondered what it would be like to be one of them, to swim like that and seem so carefree. He felt guilty at the thought. Because the water people neither toiled nor laid away for the future—at least not that anyone knew of.
But they were said to be intelligent, supposedly approaching man in that highest of attributes.
And a bit ago, just after breakfast, Brokols had glimpsed a sea serpent raise its head briefly above water to peer at the ship from a hundred yards off. Interesting, those serpents. They weren't native to the ocean around Almeon, nor had the first expedition, in its time, reported them from these eastern waters. Nor had this expedition seen one until the previous day, when suddenly they'd been numerous. Some large ones had made bold to swim close alongside, raising their heads higher than the rail, as if curious, and it had seemed to Brokols that the eyes which met his had been intelligent.
But they'd made him nervous. Their long, toothed jaws had made everyone nervous, and the captain had ordered the gunners to shoot one, some fifty or sixty feet off the starboard bow, with one of the ship's two swivel guns. The four-pound explosive round had struck what he thought of as the shoulders just below the serpentine neck, and a great gout of blood and flesh had erupted. Soon after, another serpent had swum close alongside, barely awash, a hump-like wave rising over its back. Three marines had thrown grenades as it drew alongside, so that it sank from sight in a great cloud of blood, food for the sarrkas now. Unless its own kind ate it first; he saw no sign of that.
Since then no serpent had come near, nor raised its head for a more distant look for longer than brief seconds, as if somehow they'd communicated the danger, passed it on ahead. For a time, even the water people had kept their distance. And it occurred to Elver Brokols that the captain, in his nervousness, may have made an enemy for Almeon.
The thought was absurd, of course.
Comfortable reclining chairs had been set out for Brokols and the several other official passengers; each had his own. He went now to his, took a book from his pocket and sat down. He'd barely opened it to the marker when the lookout on the masthead cried: "Land ho!"
Brokols looked up; the man was pointing almost dead ahead. Two other men, including the bosun, started up the ratlines to see for themselves. "Describe it!" the captain shouted.
" 'Tis a headland showing! A hill or mountaintop! About two points off the port bow!"
Brokols got quickly to his feet and hurried to tell the other mission personnel, tucking the book in his coat pocket without regret. He'd read it several times before. A short companionway led one deck down to a passageway, and he ducked to enter it, the tallest man aboard. At Lord Kryger's door he could hear the chief of mission drilling droid irregular verbs with his aide. Brokols knocked respectfully at the door, and when Kryger's sour voice answered, told him what the seaman had called down. Kryger, who'd been seasick since they'd left Almeon, growled acknowledgement.
Brokols went on to knock at Dixen's door and tell him. Then, after pausing at his own cabin to get his telescope, he went back on deck, Dixen a moment behind with book in hand, a finger holding his place. Moments later, Kryger's aide, a quiet and efficient commoner named Argant, followed, no doubt to keep Kryger informed.
There was nothing further yet to tell. Brokols considered climbing the rigging to see for himself, then thought better of it. He was only twenty-eight, active for his size, and as a youth had been considered remarkably strong. But it wouldn't do to seem impulsive. Or common. He'd learned both lessons long ago, more than once, and this was no place to forget them. Lord Kryger was not a tolerant man.
Captain Stedmer ordered the boiler fired; among much else, mission orders said they would approach the coast under steam to impress the droids. The mate who doubled as engineer, and one of the seamen who'd been trained to assist him, went aft to kindle fires in the fireboxes. The Dard had large bunkers in both sides, filled with charcoal, expensive but much more efficient of storage space than wood.
The headland grew till they could see it from the foredeck—a promontory, the culmination of a ridge. Brokols' telescope clearly showed a tower on the headland's highest point, which surely meant a town nearby. Probably the Dard had been sighted well before now. Across from that was another headland, lower, and between the two no doubt a harbor. By that time, a long thin train of black smoke trailed from the slender stack aft; in the boiler, the water would be hot, perhaps boiling by now. Argant went below to update Kryger, then came back on deck again.
Far to the south, white clouds were building vertically as if to rain. Soon they saw a sail, then a second and a third, fishing smacks perhaps, or small coastal haulers. According to the first expedition, the people on this continent had no large ships. A fifty-footer with a single thirty-foot mast was regarded here as large. The Dard, by contrast, measured 150 feet, bark-rigged with three tall masts.
Kryger came on deck, weak and pale, shrunken from his long near-fast, but no one to sneer at even covertly. Try as he had, Brokols could not like the chief of mission. Kryger was invariably cold and unpleasant toward him. The man's eyes had spoken disapproval at their first meeting, just after they'd been selected for this mission.
Brokols had wondered if perhaps Kryger's dislike was jealousy, a matter of family. The Brokols family was prominent, Kryger's of the lesser nobility. But then, Kryger didn't like Dixen either, and Dixen's family was no higher than Kryger's. Perhaps relative height accounted for some of it; Kryger didn't stand as high as Brokols' chin. Brokols and Dixen both were exceptionally tall, although Dixen's height was gangly. The first expedition had found that droids were considerably larger than humans, thus height had been a factor in appointing ambassadors.
But clearly not the principal factor. The chief of mission was undoubtedly qualified. He'd been on the army general staff for several years, and his dominating presence more than made up for less than normal height.
And Kryger's unadapting, unforgiving stomach had actually strengthened his image of indomitability. Brokols remembered how he'd felt himself, those first few hours at sea; Kryger had felt that way and worse for fifty-five days. Worse, because while Brokols had never been quite sick enough to vomit, Kryger could be heard puking and retching whenever the ship's motion worsened even a little. But whenever the chief of mission had appeared briefly, his flinty eyes, his clamped and lipless mouth, his gray, ever-bonier face had been hard and unrelenting. As it was now.
The three ambassadors—Kryger, Dixen, and Brokols—their aides in tow, gathered with Captain Stedmer. The captain knew the old expedition report as well as they, including the lengthy interviews with the learned slaves the King of Djez Gorrbul had given the first expedition as gifts, fifty-two years earlier.
Costly gifts it turned out, because of the plague they'd carried. In the three droids it had seemed a light cold, too mild to be the same illness that struck and decimated the crew a few days out. It would reap a terrible harvest across all the islands of Almeon. But the slaves had provided much information about the lands of the new continent, information far beyond what the expedition could ever have gained directly. And of course, the slaves had taught them the droid language, so different from Almaeic.
Now there was a vaccine. The ambassador's chests, like everyone's in Almeon, bore the scars of it, and of vaccines for older plagues.
There might, of course, be other droid plagues. The possibility had influenced the emperor's plan. This small mission would spend half a year in the droid lands, likelier a full year, before the army landed. If, during that time, any was infected by some serious disease, word would be wirelessed home, and the invasion postponed. But it seemed to Brokols that the history of his own land included almost every plague imaginable.
The headland grew bolder. Kryger agreed with the captain that this must be the coast of Hrumma, because of the tall hills. The Djezian coast, where the previous expedition had visited, was low and flat. Which meant that Brokols would be the first ashore, for he was to be the ambassador to Hrumma.
The captain ordered the electric generator activated, a small hydraulic turbine built against the hull, then ordered the sails furled; steam pressure was fast approaching the requisite 140 pounds per square inch. As seamen scrambled aloft, Kryger went forward to wireless the emperor's office and let him know they'd sighted the continent at last.
Brokols went to his cabin to secure his gear. It wouldn't take long; much of it had never been unpacked since they'd left Almeon.