User:JohnB/The Book and the stone 7

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Frozen In:[edit]

The ice began pressing against the ship, the chunks on port side and a level ice field on the starboard side. The captain called to the lookout asking how the situation looked from above. The lookout responded that there was a channel, so he gave directions where to steer to get through the ice floe. It was simply a matter of using logs and timber to push their way through, but there was one bottleneck where the ice refused to budge. Men on either side of the ship pushed to save their lives, but the ice was immobile. Suddenly there was a loud bang, and word came from below that they were taking on water. The hull had been breached. The captain ordered some below to man the bilge pumps.

Vaezbrub approached the captain.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” he said humbly. "But I have a bit of a sooth to say."

“Please, NOT NOW!” the captain responded wild-eyed.

Vaezbrub continued unfazed, “It appears our keel has butted against ice.”

“Do you honestly think I’m not aware of that?!” the captain responded, spittle flying in all directions.

“This may sound like a lunatic idea, but how about lowering the anchor on the starboard ice and dragging it over to that promontory over there,” Vaezbrub said pointing, “then have the men at the capstan haul it back in?”

“HA...!” the captain answered as if he was about the laugh Vaezbrub to scorn, but then he shouted clapping him on the shoulder, “Vaezbrub! You’re a genius!”

The anchor was lowered onto the ice, and a team of men dragged it toward the promontory where they hooked it. Then the capstan’s inner ratchet was set, and men began hauling it back in.

“Easy, boys! Steady!” the captain cautioned as the ratchet clinked like a slow metronome.

Hauling a 100-ton ship was far more strenuous than hauling in a mere anchor. It took twice the number of men to do this, and for every clink of the ratchet, there was a short space to reload one's energy and then push until it clinked again, over and over again.

The keel of the ship began tilting upward as the keel groaned against the ice barrier. Then somebody on the port side pointed down. Men ran to look, and there they could see the breach just below the waterline that had just come out of the water. The captain ordered men to search the ship for the wherewithal to repair it. Somebody came up from below with a large sheet of lead of uncertain purpose and usage, but it was just what they needed. Men in rope slings were lowered to nail it over the breach. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but from then on the water was dribbling rather than spraying as it entered the ship. The bilge pumps had to continue working around the clock.

At long last, the ship then tilted downward and was floating free again, and with the crisis overcome, the ice moved aside more easily as the men hauled the anchor at a quicker pace. Everyone’s energy was thoroughly spent, which made them more susceptible to scurvy.

There was a rather large herd of horkers on the ice field, so the captain ordered men with crossbows to harvest some of them. The herd was so numerous and thick that they needn’t aim in order to hit one, but it was better to aim to kill because a wounded horker was no easy force to reckon with. Chunks of ice were also brought on board to replace the brackish swill that had to be boiled before it could be consumed. However, men continued to get sick. You can fill your belly full of horker meat and still die.


User-JohnB-Sir-willoughby-on-ice-1553.jpg

(Sir Willoughby's voyage around Norway, 1553. He didn't get to Cathay but found a sea route to Russia--and died along the way.)


The men came on deck at night to watch as curtains of colored light fluttered throughout the sky. Asantus made a mental note to ask Master Cyreril what caused this phenomenon, but he could already guess the answer — “I really have no idea! All I know is that it is one of the many wonders of nature." But one thing the master requested of Asantus was to search the heavens for a platter shaped body called the Milky Way. Yes, there it was.

The master’s strong point was that he wasn’t afraid to admit there were things he didn’t know. One thing he hated more than anything was the quackery of “alternative facts" that otherwise rational people accepted unquestioningly. If a magnetized needle aligned itself north and south, it was simply because the whole world was a magnet as well, not because the needle had invisible hands that grasped at the north. And if Masser and Segunda didn’t fall and crash into Nirn, it was because they are falling but in an elliptical course. The Greeks never doubted that the Earth was round because the sun changes it’s course when you’re traveling north or south, and the medieval Europeans took their word for it because it was as plain as the nose on your face.

("The author of the Norwegian book Konungs Skuggsjá, from around 1250, discusses the existence of [antipodeans]. He notes that (if they exist) they will see the sun in the north in the middle of the day and that they will have seasons opposite those of the Northern Hemisphere." [Wikipedia] The "if" clause stemmed from Medieval doubt that people lived south of the torrid zone along the equator.)

When the new navigation table was finally installed on the observation deck, the navigator discovered that the sun was now well to the north of the zenith. They successfully took a latitude reading with the astrolabe and were dismayed to find that their position was somewhere near the bottom edge of the map. They would have to make a sharp turn northeast to return to their original course. Islands that should have come into view didn't, and islands that shouldn't be there appeared out of nowhere. It was impossible to tell if the map was wrong or if they were. There was nothing left to eat and drink but maggots and rain water, and the captain was hard-pressed to keep the men in good cheer.

User-JohnB-800px-MartinBehaim1492.png

(The Behaim Globe of 1492 showing Cathaya in the upper left, Java Major and Minor to the south, Cipangu left of center, and Gallia, Hispania, and Libya are along the eastern horizon. News of Columbus's voyage hadn't yet reached Germany. The islands, sprinkled like so many pretzel crumbs Herr von Behaim must have been munching on, don't exist, much less the Isle of St. Brendan to the east of Cipangu. It wasn't until well into the 19th century that the Isle of St. Brendan disappeared from navigation charts.)

"Land ho!" the lookout finally called out.

All hands were on deck straining to see, and there it was, a low ridge of hills on the horizon.

"Well-done, my hearties!" the captain called. "Give each man a jug of flin, and let the fiddler make merry!"