The rover fleet got there just before sunrise. From its height, five thousand feet, the land was bluish gray, smoked with mists. Irrigation canals caught the first light as if they were full of mercury. Westward the ocean gleamed, its far edge dissolved into purple and a few stars.
Loklann sunna Holber leaned over the gallery rail of his flagship and pointed a telescope at the city. It sprang to view as a huddle of walls, flat roofs, and square watchtowers. The cathedral spires were tinted rose by a hidden sun. No barrage balloons were aloft. It must be true what rumor said, that the Perio had abandoned its outlying provinces to their fate. So the portable wealth of Meyco would have flowed into S’ Anton, for safekeeping—which meant that the place was well worth a raid. Loklann grinned.
Robra sunna Stain, the Buffalo’s mate , spoke. “Best we come down to about two thousand,” he suggested. “To make sure the men aren’t blown sideways, to the wrong side of the town walls.”
“Aye.” The skipper nodded his helmeted head. “Two thousand, so be it.”
Their voices seemed oddly loud up here, where only the wind and a creak of rigging had broken silence.
The sky around the rovers was dusky immensity, tinged red gold in the east. Dew lay on the gallery deck. But when the long wooden horns blew signals, it was somehow not an interruption, nor was the distant shouting of orders from other vessels, thud of crew feet, clatter of windlasses and hand-operated compressor pumps. To a Sky Man, those sounds belonged in the upper air.
