Chapter 4 - The Furnace

The Man jerked his arms up. He leveled his coilspear at a boscage of Dorren. In the windless stillness of a glass sky at midnight, he watched the thicket. His brown eyes drew wide behind the goggles; not from fear, but to catch any shiver of movement in the thick dark. The Man held his breath, and waited.

A rustle sounded from the upside-down plants.

The Man waited.

A dark shape suddenly erupted from the shivering, rattling branches. Instantly The Man followed it with his barrel. He took aim at the shape. He exhaled, and squeezed. The spear surged from the barrel. The lastiwire line trailed behind.

The spear passed straight through the moving thing, as though through a cloud, without resistance. The shining silver splinter arced toward the black sky. It scudded against the glass. At eighty meters the spear reached the end of the lastiwire line connecting it to the barrel. The spear’s momentum tugged on the man’s arms.

The Man held the weapon firm. His own body was lashed to a sail-posts at the bow, so that he wasn’t pulled down the shell slope.

The spear fell when it reached the end of its line. It dropped over the side of the shell. At eighty meters down it stopped, and swung like a pendulum from the line.

The Man secured the butt of the weapon in the crook of his shoulder. He pulled his right hand out of the coat mitt and held the barrel with the other. With the line-crank, he reeled in the launched spear.

The shape in the bramble, he knew, had been nothing more than a cluster of common glassbirds. His spear might have hit one, but it would have been eviscerated by the oversized missile. Besides, glassbirds and greybirds and other small fowl did not make a meal. The coilspear was meant for Staegons, and Phaens, and Rhoks, and other large raptors.

While The Man reeled his spent shot he scanned the sky.

Wavy dunes of ice and snow formed across the glass. The Wind would not blow these dunes away like the mounds of a three nights ago. Long, rooted Aedra and Dorren clung to the glass in lines and clusters, forming barriers from the Wind and anchoring the snow and ice.

The rooted dunes were broken by huge lakes of clear glass. Midnight’s pinprick stars beckoned beyond, behind, beneath those lakes; like wisps luring fishermen to drown.

The Man cranked faster. He felt the cold sinking through the flexible cloth glove. It prickled his fingers. It was a quiet night, without the chill of a breeze, but the actual temperature was low - probably negative sixty. Or lower.

The Man knew how to fight this cold. Earlier he’d placed thin plates of lightweight shell metal in the furnace. The plates retained heat from the flame. Once they were warm, The Man inserted them into the lining of his feather coat. They shed heat to his forearms, back, toros, and shins. In this way, The Man’s body could endure the static cold of the hunter’s stance.

But now, that heat was nearly spent.

The Man glanced down at his lastiwire line. There was no gulf of empty space below the shell tonight. Tonight the shell floated through a vast field of puffy Utka - duck clouds. The cotton balls drifted in a slow herd around the shell.

The clouds would have been utterly motionless, except that The Man had left his shell unbraked. The furnace drove one track, moving snailwise through the snow dunes.

The line finally pulled the spear up through the Utka. No greybird stuck on its tip, not even a blood trace.

The Man wound the lastiwire until he could grab the spear. He shoved the shaft down the weapon barrel until he heard a click. Then he switched to winding the coil crank. He had to use more force to set the spring, but at last he heard the second click. The weapon was armed.

The Man set his back against the sail pole. He searched, pupils wide, through the goggles. The Man had seen a Staegon earlier. It had fluttered at a far distance. The Man was determined to hit if one fluttered from a close enough roost.

The Man would hunt a little longer. Even if he caught nothing, he would wait until one of the thickets of Dorren or Aedra grew close to his track. The Man knew he should at least get fuel for his furnace.

More than enough fuel now blazed in that same furnace. Below The Man, within the shell and far back at the other end, the stuffed furnace burned. The balmy shell air rushed toward the cracked furnace door. The flame swallowed the air whole, washing down its fuel with a dazzling orange glow.

The fuel was Dorren wood; last of The Man’s supply; burning with wild abandon; burning hot.

Wastefully hot. Each flamelet crackled and sparked.

Some heat, the furnace gave to the water. A hidden lake lay beside the tower of flame. Heat slid through a holding canister and made the lake sputter and bubble. The lake became steam, which made the shell heart thump. All for one meager track to spin. All this thriftless surplus of heat, used for a waddling pace.

And still the fire crackled and sparked.

Much heat, the furnace gave to the shell. Whatever energy sank through the blackened stone, or was wasted in the sputtering lake, filtered out to the shell metal. It radiated through the ovoid largess. It recoiled from the cold surface. The heated metal warmed the feather-insulated floor. The Phaen noticed the warmed metal. It raised its beak and cocked its head.

And still the fire crackled and sparked.

The air took heat as payment. Heat rushed through the spider leg pipes; rushed through vents like blood through veins. Heat cavorted and jigged in the air which gave it life. In through the furnace door rushed the air, only to return, exiting through the same crack; scalded, anaerobic, hot.

And the crackling, sparking fire, followed the air toward the furnace door.

Had the air of the glass sky not been perfectly still, and had The Man not waited motionless within it, he would never have heard cry. Even so the sound was faint. The Man just caught the pinprick trill piercing through his hood’s thick leather.

The Man arced his tunneled view across the snow dunes and puffy Utka. No visible raptors. Perhaps the noise came from a smaller bird, startled off the striation above? The Man looked up. The striation seemed clear. He glanced ahead. Farther on, three hundred or four hundred meters, a thick cluster of Aedra was growing beside the line. The Man saw that the roots looked puckered, packed in, tangled, and thicker. The Aedra species shriveled in that way when it died.

Or, when something living touched its soft bark.

The Man dropped his loaded coilspear. The weapon hung at his waist by its shoulder strap. The Man pulled his binoculars from the leather pack. He brought them to his goggles and scanned the Aedra.

He saw no birds in the shriveled roots. But on the striation nearby… there was the answer.

Skarba. The furry, tiny gnats swarmed in clusters over the metal of the line, and swarming over the nearby bush. The swarm clouds were dense enough for him to see in the magnified lens.

The Man brought the goggles down and stuffed them back in the pouch. He slung his coilspear around to his back. He couldn’t use that shrub for fuel; not if it was crawling with parasites. The Man now needed to hurry back into the ship, and seal himself until well past the Skarba.

The Man slipped his mitts on, dropped to his elbows and knees, and crawled toward the descending rungs. The lukewarm plates in his forearm lining clattered against the stud-grips.

The shrill cry sounded again. The Man recognized it this time. The Phaen. The shell would be cozy from the fire The Man had set. He wondered if he should’ve started the radio before exiting to hunt.

The Man established his plan while he crawled. First, he would reload the furnace. He’d reheat the metal plates inside. He’d heat a steak as well; no, he wouldn’t. He was hunting tonight, not spinning. He could function on fewer nutrients. After the plates had soaked in fresh heat, and the shell had rolled a long way past the Skarba infestation, The Man would resume the hunt. He should probably turn on the radio too, he thought, as he heard the Phaen’s repeated shriek.

The Man felt no rush. There were hours left in the night. Time remained to spear a larger kill. He hoped to bolster his ration while the terrain was plenteous. He hoped to spot another close growing root system as well. Stretches of sky like this semi-cover were rare around the Leeges archipelago. Around Leeges, the world’s most advanced multiships had scraped clear nearly all the sky.

Such were The Man’s thoughts between careful steps in his harness. He descended the rungs with deliberate care. The shrieks of his bird grew louder as The Man neared the door.

When he reached the fifth rung, still ten from the door, he glanced at the spinning room window.

He saw smoke.

For only a second did confusion stop The Man. Then he guessed quickly that the fire had spread from the furnace door. Then he understood the Phaen’s distress.

Just as quickly The Man acted. He gave up carefully fastening his knee and foot in the harness loop. Rung by rung he descended, arm by arm, foot by foot. He moved with quick and steady purpose, and a strong grip.

The Man did glance down once at the bottom. The lower rungs became hard to stand on as they drew in with the curve of the shell. The Man was now immersed in the cottony balls of Utka. He could see only two or three meters out.

The Man spotted the outline of the rounded metal portal door. Three rungs woul reach it. He saw, also, a thin line of fine rope. It emerged from the bottom seal of the door and disappeared down into the clouds.

The bait bag.

The Man had forgotten it. He’d set it hoping to lure Rhoks. The bag had almost twenty kilos of edible meat. But, the rope line holding it was plain jute fiber; it was flammable. If The Man opened the door, and the rope had burned…

The Man thought quickly. He hooked an elbow in the nearest rung and made sure the harness was tight. With care he pulled the coilspear around from his back. Hefting it with one arm, he planted the stock into his shoulder. He aimed it first at the line where it merged into the door. He followed the line down with his point. When it disappeared below the clouds The Man let his aim keep dropping. Fifty meters of rope, minus seventeen meters from the hook inside the ship to the door, left thirty-three from the door to where the bait hung. All this was The Man’s estimation.

He waited no time after feeling he’d trained his sight over the mark. He took aim at the bait bag’s estimated position. He exhaled, and squeezed. The spear surged from the barrel. The lastiwire line trailed behind.

The coilspear threw his shoulder back and made him sway on the rung. The spear launched down. It vanished into the clouds.

The Man heard the soft schlink of metal sinking into meat. The Man didn’t pull in the line immediately, he knew moments were precious now. He took the bulky coilspear barrel and wound it around the ladder rung. He looped it again and again to make the lastiwire cable secure.

The Man’s plated arm banged against the shell. He heard the metal retort ring dully in the Utka around him. It was a second before he felt the bruising ache. His hands were going numb, he realized.

The Man made sure his spear was fastened by the line. It had taken four seconds. Knowing his hands were numb, he now made doubly sure of his grip on each of the last three rungs.

With one elbow hooked to the second-to-last-rung, The Man reached for the door. He grabbed the drop-lever jutting from the round metal portal. He jerked down.

Fossil-colored smoke gushed from the opening. It ran upward like a waterfall in reverse and mingled with the pure-white Utka. The Man heard a slither sound as the bait rope slid out from the firm press of the doorjamb. He watched the end of the line vanish into the clouds below - not burned, but loose regardless. His coilspear clattered on the rungs; the lastiwire spear line went taut under the meat bag’s weight.

The line held.

The Man heard the Phaen’s shrill screams clearly now. Surging grey vapor filled the air. With sight fast disappearing, The Man swung into the smoking door. The shell was perfectly still in the windless day, fortunately, and The Man entered with ease.

Not just smoke, but heat as well, suffocated the hall. The Man had less than half a meter’s sight. He felt aching waves ripple over his bruised arm as it warmed. He kept his goggle hood and face cover on, but the pervasive smoke was already making him cough.

The Man wasted no time securing the exit portal. He stepped down the short atrium tunnel and entered the shell’s spanning corridor. The heat was no greater here, not yet. That was good. Also, the general flow of smoke still came from the direction of the furnace chamber. That meant fire hadn’t reached the study.

The Man heard the Phaen crying from the direction of that study. The bird had backed as far from the smoke as it could.

That gave The Man a thought. He ran towards the Phaen’s cries. His bootsteps drummed hollowly on the insulated floor. All around, the smoke filled air and rough metal walls pressed in, so that the tunnel which had always been wide enough for Man and Phaen now seemed to close in.

The plastic curtain appeared suddenly before The Man’s face. He pushed through it.

In the study the smoke was lighter, held somewhat at bay by the curtain. The Phaen was jumping across the space when The Man entered. It had been clawing over everything, between the window and the hammock and the pile of ropes. The room was a mess; a later problem.

The Phaen scurried over when it saw The Man enter. Its vertical eyes were round with fear. The Man met it like a temple guard, tossing its bulk unceremoniously to the side. He stepped across the room and around the desk. He grabbed the curtain cover for the wide window. He pulled it free of the rungs in one jerk.

The Man ran back to the corridor. The Phaen, still cawing, followed. The Man marched down the long hall. He feared a sudden wall of hot light rising to stop him. Each step, quick and determined, also came with apprehension. The crossing seemed to take longer than usual; the hall seemed to stretch out forever. The curtain of the radio chamber appeared and vanished into the smoke on The Man’s right. An eternity later, the spinning room did the same at his left. Still no fire. The heart chamber curtain came and went.

Finally, just as the study had before, the plastic separating the furnace from the corridor appeared suddenly out of the gloom. The Man stepped through and into the chamber.

Heat smashed The Man. It washed over his body like great whitecaps on a liquid sea; a wasteful, wild, dangerous fever-flood. The smoke had become an opaque wall, like a swirling air of fluid stone.

There was another feature of the haze. Through it The Man saw light. It was like lightning hidden behind the clouds of a storm. The Man saw one, massive-seeming orange glow through the swirling air. The Man moved towards it.

The heat became dizzying. Flames leapt suddenly at The Man from the mushed floor insulation.

The Man threw the plastic curtain out as a muffling blanket. The curtain came from a Leegesman chemist’s shop. It was proofed against both light and fire. Using this curtain as a fire blanket, The Man stamped. He snuffed a huge swath of fire. Round and round the flame stalked him like a beast. It roared in his ears; it nipped at his covered skin with burning fangs.

The Man backed off the curtain. He tried to pick it up, but the thick leather mitts were too stiff. He pulled them off and grabbed the curtain. Hot plastic sang its warmth through the thin leather gloves.

With his snuffing plastic, The Man battled the fire. He’d not often faced this foe. Heat in excess was inconceivable in the glass sky’s pervasive cold. Yet fire was The Man’s foe today. The entropic, tomb-like chill of the endlessly stretching sky seemed vanquished. In its place was this blinding, deafening inferno.

Finally The Man reached the furnace. The insulating floor had been entirely consumed here; the metal before the door was scorched and barren.

The Man stepped forward and slammed the iron door. The hot metal scalded his fingers through the glove.

Cliffs of lighted smoke still rose all around The Man. He took three steps back from the furnace. He was hacking in the fumes now. His head swam.

The Man dropped to the blanketing plastic. He found oxygen down there; not clear air, but breathable. He took in a lungful, then coughed it back out.

The heat from the plastic curtain rose over him like tides. He felt it scald his hands and knees. His glasses fogged over from the sweat of the hood. The Man ripped off the face mask and pulled back the goggles. But without the leather he felt himself standing in the middle of the furnace itself. The surrounding flame and heat parched his sweating skin to instant dryness. The Man brought a hot leather glove to wipe his face, spreading soot from hand to forehand.

The Man took one more coughing pull of weak oxygen. Then he held his breath and stood. He backed off the curtain and picked it up. It felt like holding boiling oil in his arms. He held on anyway. This curtain - and the barrel of precious melted ice in the corner - those were his only weapons.

With them, The Man attacked the remaining flame.

The Man stumbled into the spinning room and sank down beside the door. He could breathe now. The smoke was clearing off.

The Man felt drenched. Despite the heat, his outer coat and pants had trapped the sweat beneath his body. With clumsy fingers pummeled by frost and flame, The Man untied his fastenings. He shed his pants, coat and boots, and piled them on the floor.

The spinning room lay halfway down the hall, between the open portal to the frigid sky, and the furnace chamber. The room was pleasantly cool. The Man closed his stinging eyes for a moment. He breathed the caustic fumes made by burning feathers.

The fire was beaten. The Man had used almost all of the water in his bucket to douse it. Fortunately the blaze hadn’t spread. The Man, conditioned to the cold and filled with emergency adrenaline, had magnified the fire in his mind.

He heard a shuffle by the curtain. He opened his eyes and saw The Phaen. It stepped cautiously in through the curtain and haze. The Man reached with a comforting hand. The Phaen brought the soot stained feathers on its crest to his fingers. His hand too was covered in soot, and stung with burns. He petted the affectionate raptor.

The Man’s eyes noticed his painting where it hung on the wall. He rose quickly to his feet and stepped around the spinner. With burned fingers he pulled loose the four nails holding the wooden frame to the wall. He brought the painting down and stepped back to his place by the curtain.

The Man tilted She Crawled in Stars with Elder Bugs left and right and backwards. The smoke and soot from the furnace conflagration had gathered on all the curtains, and The Man’s equipment, and thickened the dark staining on the walls. It had gathered on the wooden frame of the art. Yet, the canvas itself looked pristine. The wavy brushstrokes formed, unmarred, the long strand of beetles; the backdrop of starry glass; the milk-pale, melancholy child’s face; all in vivid color.

The Man set the painting to the side. He leaned against the wall. His eyes settled on the window. He saw only puffy Utka rolling by. The clouds reminded him that he needed to shut the exit door. The cold was stealing his excess of heat.

A thought came to The Man - stop the shell for the night. This patch was better for hunting and fuel than most. The Man needed both now. The spreading flame had torched his supply of wood. Only some fuel remained. His food, fortunately, had been spared. Little had been in storage anyway. The Man had used much in the bait bag.

The bait bag… The moving shell… The Skarba swarms…

The Man shot up from the floor. The Phaen scurried over the spinner in alarm. Without pausing to don his coat and pants The Man leapt through the curtain. Through the half-haze he ran for the open portal.

The door was exactly as The Man had left it. Smoke drifted out and up through the opening. Cold air met The Man like a static charge. He ignored it. He slid carefully along the wall. He glanced out and to the left. The coilspear hung from the rung where he’d tied it. The Man reached for the weapon.

He stopped his hand short. He brought it back inside and tucked both hands under his armpits.

The air was negative seventy, possibly lower. The air instantly numbed his scorched fingers. If The Man touched the metal surface of the coilspear - if he spent time reeling in eighty meters of lastiwire, holding twenty kilograms of bait - his fingers would go numb. He’d lose his grip on the weapon. Both it and the meat would be lost to the clouds.

With a huff, The Man drew back into the hall.

Two minutes later he returned in his leather coat and mitts. He’d left the pants and boots behind. Now his legs felt clad in greaves of ice. His toes burned with cold.

The Man stretched out through the door and reached for his coilspear. Quick and careful, he unwound the weapon from the rung. He took care to shift his weight backwards into the hall as he came to bear both the coilspear and the bait.

The weapon was firm in The Man’s arms, the meat dangling by the lastiwire line. The Man took two paces back into the comparative warmth of the inner hall. He tucked the weapon under his shoulder. He began cranking.

The reel lever took a shove to get turning. The bait felt heavier after the fire. The lastiwire was, fortunately, made to bear weight.

After a moment, The Man felt resistance. The bottom of the pouch caught on the lower lip of the portal. The Man stalked forward, winding the line in as he neared the door.

When he reached the edge The Man peeked out over the lip.

First surprise, then elation, then disappointment switched across The Man’s face. These eventually gave way to a grimace. He reached and grabbed the metal handle of the spear. With a sharp jerk of his shoulders, The Man tugged it loose. The bait plummeted into the void.

Atop the netted pouch of meat, punctured by his spear while feeding, The Man had seen the carcass of a brown-feathered Staegon. It had been a large one; another ten or twelve kilos of meat at a glance. He’d shot for the bait, and bagged a fresh kill without realizing.

The elation this brought had vanished when The Man looked closer at the kill and the bait. Skarba. The furry gnats had infesting both bait and kill. They’d fallen from the sky or come down the track when The Man passed by their swarm. He couldn’t burn them off either - the parasites tolerated both heat and cold.

The Man kicked the nearest insulation through the opening. The metal floor looked clear of lingering Skarba. He banged the spear against the rim to clean it. He shut the door. When The Man dropped the sealing bar in place, the metal clang echoed through the smoky halls.

Passed through snow dunes; Uncounted Aedra/Dorren clusters. Gathered no fuel. A few Staegon seen, one Rhok also at distance. One Staegon bagged; dumped due to infesting Skarba. No Wind. Small fire spread from furnace; some fuel lost. Will keep furnace door shut in future.

‘Seacover 4-6km north’
‘No striation branch’
‘No artifacts, Human or Golem’
‘4 day burnables; 2kg Staegon flesh (lean), 2kg Staegon flesh (fat), 2 jars live birdworms, 20kg Staegon flesh dropped (Skarba infestation), 3 mineral tablets’
‘0hr spin; 15km approx dist’

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