This Forsaken Earth Read Online Free PDF

the restowing of the stores in the hold which had been boated ashore to let the carpenter come at the leak. As it was, she would need to be careened or dry-docked to give Kier Eiserne complete peace of mind, but she was ready to face the sea nonetheless. They had been helped by the fact that the ship was not deep in stores; they were only eighty leagues from Ganesh Ka, their cruise cut short by the encounter with the Bionese troopship and her escort. Now it was time to steer north again.
    Rol sat in the great cabin, staring landward through the new timber of the stern window-frames. No glass, of course, but Kier had done a beautiful job of replacing the blasted wood. The sun was coming up, and the yellow dawn-light sent the ship’s shadow pouring onto the beach. The watch had been up on deck this last glass or so, making ready to weigh anchor. He could hear the quiet dawn-murmurs of the ship’s company through the deck-head, and yawned, muscles in the sides of his face cracking. Under him, the Revenant was pitching and rolling with a cacophony of creaks and groans, like a horse eager for the off. The wind must have picked up.
    A soft knock on the cabin door, and without further ado Gallico twisted his huge form through the doorway. Rol grinned at him crouching there.
    “Gods in heaven, Gallico, what in the world ever made you think you’d be comfortable on board a ship?”
    The halftroll raised his paws helplessly. “Can I help it if all shipwrights are midgets?”
    “How’s the wind?”
    “Blowing in our teeth like a cheap tart.”
    “Where from?”
    “Due north, where else?”
    Rol swore. “We need sea-room, then. No point in beating up the coast against it—if it veers it’ll have us on the rocks. What say you to getting it on the larboard beam, making east? There’s the southerly Trades that come up out of Cavaillon this time of year, off the mountains.”
    Gallico studied his captain closely. “There is that, I suppose. But they don’t take hold until halfway out in the Reach. That’s a hundred and fifty leagues of blue-water sailing, if it’s an inch.” He paused. “You have no wish to go back to the Ka anytime soon, have you, Rol?”
    “I’m thinking of the ship, and her crew.”
    “Is it Artimion? He’s not the man he once was.”
    Rol stood up. He, too, had to stoop under the deck-beams, and did so without conscious volition. “No, it’s not Artimion. He and I have made our peace. It’s Ganesh Ka itself, Gallico.”
    “What about it?”
    “Just a feeling, a notion, nothing more.”
    “Spit it out before we grow old.”
    “Gallico, I have this feeling that Ganesh Ka is unlucky. I think it was unlucky for whoever built it all those centuries or millennia ago, and I think it is for us also.”
    Gallico’s eyes blazed. “It has sheltered some of us well enough these thirty years and more.”
    More softly, Rol said, “It has sheltered me, too, Gallico. Nevertheless, something in me believes it is doomed, and everyone who remains within it.”
    The halftroll’s anger faded, but there was still a hot glare about his eyes. “These Bionari cruisers and troopships?”
    “They have something to do with it, yes. We’ve been sending them to the bottom one after another for going on six months now, and still they keep coming. Sooner or later, one will get through. Either that, or our luck will run out, and one of them will send us to the bottom.”
    The halftroll considered this. “That’s as may be, but they’ve always had traffic up and down this coast—to supply their bases south of here. Golgos has a big garrison.”
    “Had. We sank most of it in the Reach last spring.”
    “You think that’s where they came from?”
    “Where else? And now they’re not going to stop sending troops south until they find out what happened to it.”
    “They’re fighting a civil war. They’ll give it up in the end—there are bigger fish in their pot.”
    “Perhaps. In the meantime, this one ship