Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle Read Online Free PDF Page B

disturbed my rest. Thus do I vow by the very God in whose name your foul species has committed enormities uncounted from the dawn of your so-called civilization to this very cursed day, that Man shall regret once more the deed of awakening me from my frigid slumber."
    The sky was no longer its featureless gray-white, nor the sea its unvarying green-black.
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    They had reached the edge of the ice floe after a march the length of which Clive Folliot could hardly estimate. Weak as he was, wracked by hunger and exposure to the elements, he felt that he could have lasted only a matter of hours, traveled at most a mile or two. But beneath the arctic sky, it seemed to him that he had trekked over an infinity of ice, counted an eternity of hours. He had no way of measuring the miles that they covered, and even his estimate of elapsed time was based on periods of activity and rest, waking and sleep. He was not sure what body of water they had reached, assuming that it was the Arctic Ocean. They might reach the northernmost edge of the great Eurasian land mass, or that of North America, or they might drift into the Atlantic, out of sight of land, and to their doom.
    The sun seemed to describe a wobbling course around the horizon, neither rising to the zenith nor falling below the rim of distant ice fields, but instead maintaining a perpetual twilight, now marginally brighter, now almost imperceptibly dimmer, but never giving them the brightness of full daylight nor the full darkness of nightfall.
    When they approached the edge, Clive could hear the gentle lapping of water against the ice. His stomach had shrunk by now from lack of food. Clean water was readily available—Chang Guafe was able to melt the ice to provide drinking water for any of the three of them. But there was no food.
    Clive did not know the nourishment requirements of the metal-clad cyborg that scuttered and clicked over the face of the ice, nor those of the black-clad monster that plodded tirelessly beside the human and the cyborg. He did know that he was himself growing weaker by the day. How long he could survive on clear water was problematic.
    But when they reached the edge of the ice floe and saw the green-black sea spreading unbroken to the horizon, Clive was filled with a mixture of joy and dread unmatched in his long days in the Dungeon. Was he merely exchanging one death for another? Was it going to be a contest between starvation and drowning instead of death from exposure on the ice floe?
    He could not permit himself to dwell upon this. Action, movement, that was what he needed. For well or for ill, he would meet his fate struggling to the last. Surrender was not an acceptable option.
    They managed to construct their boat of ice as Clive had suggested. The monster stood morosely watching and listening as Clive and Chang Guafe discussed their plans. Chang Guafe was an ideal mechanician, having not only the skills requisite to the task but a complete set of tools either built into his body or subject to his own fabrication.
    Clive had not formally studied marine architecture, but he had sailed small craft as a boy and traveled on both sailing ships and the new steamers as a man, and together the two of them were able to plan an ice shell capable of bearing the three companions and surviving on the northern sea.
    With Clive's plans scratched onto the smooth surface of the ice, Chang Guafe carved out the rough body of their boat, then melted and cut at the ice until the boat was completed. Chang Guafe was even able to create a sail of a thin sheet of ice, and to manufacture oars for them to use should the sail melt away. He attached a rudder at the rear of the boat and pronounced it ready.
    Clive christened the boat
Victoria
in honor of the monarch he hoped still to serve. They climbed in and shoved their cockleshell away from the ice.
    Even now, Chang Guafe's amazing toolshop came into play. At Clive's urging, the cyborg found that he could