your
irresponsibility? You threaten the lives and properties of others who
wish no part of your mad antics; do you not feel shame?”
“I have
thought at length about the situation,” said Sklar Hast. “I
have concluded that a great evil exists, that inertia and fear press
so heavily upon otherwise worthy folk like yourself that you abide
this evil. Someone must be willing to take great risks, even with the
lives of other people. This is not irresponsibility; it is far more
responsibility than I relish. The judgment is not solely my own; I am
no monomaniac. Many other sane and responsible folk agree with me
that King Kragen must be defeated. Why do you not join us? Once the
sea-beast is destroyed, we are free. Is not this worth the risk? We
can use the ocean as we please! We need feed the gluttonous maw no
longer! The intercessors will be deprived of their sinecures and must
then work like the rest of us, which appalls them; hence their
antagonism. This is the way the future must go!”
Gian Recargo was
silent. Ixon Myrex tugged irritably on his beard. A heavy half moment
went by. Semm Voiderveg looked at them impatiently. “Why do you
not refute this incredible diatribe?”
Gian Recargo turned
away to look out over the lagoon; “I must think at length,”
he muttered. “I do not care to hear such a challenge to my
courage.”
“Bah,”
said Ixon Myrex uneasily. “Conditions were well enough in the
past. Who wants to sail the ocean? And the sponges consumed by King
Kragen are not a staggering tax upon us.”
Semm Voiderveg
smote the air with his fist. “This is superficial! The issue is
Sklar Hast’s abominable arrogance, his disrespect and irreverence
toward our great King Kragen!”
Gian Recargo turned
on his heel and walked slowly off across the float, Semm Voiderveg
made another angry gesticulation. Ixon Myrex held his ground a moment
longer, turned a searching gaze upon ruined tower, lagoon, Sklar
Hast, the others who stood attentively about, then made a nondescript
sound and marched away.
The hoodwinks and
larceners returned to work. Sklar Hast, with Roger Kelso, went off to
confer with Rollo Barnack, to hear his plan for killing King Kragen.
Both agreed that if conditions were right, if timing were precise, if
the materials were sufficiently tough, King Kragen might well be
killed.
Chapter 7
Gradually the
evidence of disaster disappeared; gradually Tranque Float resumed its
normal aspect. The broken huts and shattered timbers were burned on
the fire-raft, and the ashes carefully stored for later use in the
manufacture, of soap, whitewash, fire-brick, the mordanting of cloth,
the weighting of sinkers, the clarification of varnish. The corpses,
after two weeks’ submersion in special receptacles, during which time
certain small finned worms stripped the flesh from the bones, were
conveyed to a remote part of the float where the hardest bones were
removed, and the remainder calcined for lime: a work which
traditionally had been the exclusive domain of advertisermen.
Withe had been cut,
seasoned, formed into new huts, covered with pad-skin and varnished;
new sponge arbors had been built, seeded with floss and lowered into
the bright blue water.
The hoodwink tower,
the most massive and complicated object of the float, was the last
structure to he rebuilt. The new tower was even taller than the old,
more massive in design, with a site somewhat closer to the lagoon.
The method of
construction was also different from the old and elicited
considerable comment among the folk of Tranque Float. Customarily
each leg descended through a hole in the float to be anchored in the
crotch of a sturdy underwater stem. In the new tower these supports
terminated in a low platform twenty-five feet square, and from this
platform rose the four legs: great poles a hundred feet long
fabricated from lengths of withe laid in varnish and whipped. The
legs, held rigid by spreaders, gradually converged, to terminate in a
frame
irresponsibility? You threaten the lives and properties of others who
wish no part of your mad antics; do you not feel shame?”
“I have
thought at length about the situation,” said Sklar Hast. “I
have concluded that a great evil exists, that inertia and fear press
so heavily upon otherwise worthy folk like yourself that you abide
this evil. Someone must be willing to take great risks, even with the
lives of other people. This is not irresponsibility; it is far more
responsibility than I relish. The judgment is not solely my own; I am
no monomaniac. Many other sane and responsible folk agree with me
that King Kragen must be defeated. Why do you not join us? Once the
sea-beast is destroyed, we are free. Is not this worth the risk? We
can use the ocean as we please! We need feed the gluttonous maw no
longer! The intercessors will be deprived of their sinecures and must
then work like the rest of us, which appalls them; hence their
antagonism. This is the way the future must go!”
Gian Recargo was
silent. Ixon Myrex tugged irritably on his beard. A heavy half moment
went by. Semm Voiderveg looked at them impatiently. “Why do you
not refute this incredible diatribe?”
Gian Recargo turned
away to look out over the lagoon; “I must think at length,”
he muttered. “I do not care to hear such a challenge to my
courage.”
“Bah,”
said Ixon Myrex uneasily. “Conditions were well enough in the
past. Who wants to sail the ocean? And the sponges consumed by King
Kragen are not a staggering tax upon us.”
Semm Voiderveg
smote the air with his fist. “This is superficial! The issue is
Sklar Hast’s abominable arrogance, his disrespect and irreverence
toward our great King Kragen!”
Gian Recargo turned
on his heel and walked slowly off across the float, Semm Voiderveg
made another angry gesticulation. Ixon Myrex held his ground a moment
longer, turned a searching gaze upon ruined tower, lagoon, Sklar
Hast, the others who stood attentively about, then made a nondescript
sound and marched away.
The hoodwinks and
larceners returned to work. Sklar Hast, with Roger Kelso, went off to
confer with Rollo Barnack, to hear his plan for killing King Kragen.
Both agreed that if conditions were right, if timing were precise, if
the materials were sufficiently tough, King Kragen might well be
killed.
Chapter 7
Gradually the
evidence of disaster disappeared; gradually Tranque Float resumed its
normal aspect. The broken huts and shattered timbers were burned on
the fire-raft, and the ashes carefully stored for later use in the
manufacture, of soap, whitewash, fire-brick, the mordanting of cloth,
the weighting of sinkers, the clarification of varnish. The corpses,
after two weeks’ submersion in special receptacles, during which time
certain small finned worms stripped the flesh from the bones, were
conveyed to a remote part of the float where the hardest bones were
removed, and the remainder calcined for lime: a work which
traditionally had been the exclusive domain of advertisermen.
Withe had been cut,
seasoned, formed into new huts, covered with pad-skin and varnished;
new sponge arbors had been built, seeded with floss and lowered into
the bright blue water.
The hoodwink tower,
the most massive and complicated object of the float, was the last
structure to he rebuilt. The new tower was even taller than the old,
more massive in design, with a site somewhat closer to the lagoon.
The method of
construction was also different from the old and elicited
considerable comment among the folk of Tranque Float. Customarily
each leg descended through a hole in the float to be anchored in the
crotch of a sturdy underwater stem. In the new tower these supports
terminated in a low platform twenty-five feet square, and from this
platform rose the four legs: great poles a hundred feet long
fabricated from lengths of withe laid in varnish and whipped. The
legs, held rigid by spreaders, gradually converged, to terminate in a
frame
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