A Voyage To Dari
Page 25
Pan, listen. I am your woman as of four years ago; we were as much one as a man and a woman can be. You are one with Croyd as of four years ago, totally one with Croyd. Time gone is red; it is red totally for when it was. I am not leaving you as of then, but only as of now.
Do you love me as of now?
Bitterly. Please hold me.
Mind silence, while Greta suffered with them. Then:
Pan, if you are a self, know yourself. It is not for you to have one place or one task, or one woman. At the same time, know me: except for pleasant interludes, it is not for me to share my man. This is total and permanent divorce, Pan—for the good of my faithful soul, for the good of your roving soul.
I will never stop loving you.
Thank God for that. I will never stop watching you and loving you. And then she flung an astounding thought past Pan: Will we, Greta?
Palsied, Greta thought assent: it was all she could manage.
And she blessed Pan for not letting go of Freya as now he turned to Greta, You and Freya together are the woman I cared about from the moment I met you, and the only woman until four years ago. Since then, no matter what the appearances may have been, Freya has been the only woman I have cared about. When you two become one, I will suffer, because you will be with Croyd and not with me.
Freya could not respond: mind-to-mind is truth. Greta responded sturdily, staying away from him. Then when Freya and I are one again, you will love both of us wholly as one for what we two meant to each other four years ago, and you will also love Freya wholly for what she has meant to you during four years; and you will make this separation in your mind, realizing the impossibility of a jointure; and you will go on your roving ways knowing privately, as I will be knowing privately, that a four-year half of me loved Pan and not Croyd at all. And this knowing will heighten the glow of your new adventures for me and for Croyd—and for you.
And as Pan’s heart wavered, Freya’s mind whispered: I love you, Pan. So shall we get on with it?
Greta mind-threw: I will give a guest gift. Our name will be Freya, Freya.
THE SIGNING OF THE TREATY on Moudjinn was accomplished with imperial pomp in a contexture of intergalactic amity, with high Moudjinn nobles assembled. The eager young Emperor (who, on receiving the prisoner person of Archduke Dzendzel, had confined him to his castle on parole) somehow reminded me of Moskovia’s Alexander I. I mentioned this to Gorsky; she bit, “I hope for all our sakes that he is more realistic.”
Following rather a bizarre ceremony, at whose climax Croyd reluctantly but perforce accepted the title Archduke of Dari and in return swore modified fealty, the Emperor expressed desire to send the new governor to his planet at the head of a Moudjinnian space fleet swarming with marines. “You will encounter,” he warned, “hostility—and not only from Darians.” Croyd would have demurred in any event, having the Castel Jaloux; but now that the subtle brain of Roland had replaced the Castel’s brute force, his demurral was fervent. The impression on Dari would be wrong, he said; it would be sufficient for the Emperor to inform the outgoing Moudjinnian governor that Croyd was about to relieve him, and to add a command that he inform the populace. Reluctantly the Emperor agreed.
After a week of celebration, the Castel departed with all her company; following a Dari stopover, she would take me home to Nereid and Erth.
Aloft in the Castel, Croyd went alone to his cabin and projected a thought. Still his projections were feeble, but they were strong enough to be picked up by a certain I-ray from remotely away and inward. Immediately he was in contact with Roland, who, in the fissure depth, had been tracking him constantly.
Croyd told Roland, “I have rather a complex request. Can you flood Dari with an aura of such-and-such a texture for Darians laced with such-and-such another texture for resident Moudjinnians?”
“Affirmative. Excellent.”
“Can you then gradually, over a period of months, dilute this aura until by the end of a year it will be gone entirely?”
“I suggest, sir, that you retain this aura indefinitely.”
“No, Roland. Eventually, in full possession of their own minds and emotions, the Darians must make their own decisions as to whether they continue to want me. I want only an early-on honeymoon; after that, if I lose, I lose honestly.”
“My liege, I cannot agree. And my brain is feeding back logical disagreement”
“Acknowledged, Nevertheless, Roland, this is what I want.”
“My liege, consider the aura established—and sustained—to be withdrawn at your pleasure. But I will withdraw it only as you may please and direct, and I will obey with reluctance,”
Thereafter the Castel proceeded leisurely toward Dari, taking forty-eight hours for the short run.
Long before the Castel arrived, Dari and her environing space resembled an overripe apple being departed by swarms of pig-frightened fruit flies. These flies were space frigates and cutters and scouters, under command of the mortally and inexplicably terror-smitten governor from Moudjinn and numbers of his high vassals who had lorded fiefs on thousands of planetary islands, departing Dari permanently with their top vassals, leaving below their junior officers and soldiery and overseers abject with blue funk, and (on some fifty islands) unstrung Darian pirate lords wondering why their piracy.
Informed of this by Roland, Croyd told the knight to ease that ingredient of his aura so that miserable fear would relax into mere submissiveness, but to keep the feeling of mellow gold, for the while, warm in the heart of every Darian.
And it was so.
Gorsky and I remained aboard the Castel, which was parked in a five-hundred-kilometer orbit around Dari; we would descend next day for a visit, with me incognito because I did not want my own oint du seigneur to divert central attention from the new governor. Officers and men would follow in relays: shore leave all around before the voyage home.
Croyd, with Hanoku and Djeel and the thirty-nine civilian members of his staff—unguarded, and all dressed only in lua-lua—departed the Castel aboard the admiral’s cutter. This cutter was equipped with a magnificent system of viewports on all flanks and above and below; and her bridge boasted a broad bay window. (The allusive poignancy of communicating with this commandcom was eased for Croyd, because the voice of this commandcom was masculine.)
They took several hours to circumnavigate Dari at a twenty-five-kilometer altitude, while Prince Onu and Princess Djeelian divided themselves between eager survey of their home planet and proud inspection of the delight on the faces of Croyd and his crew. It was indeed an islanded ocean paradise.
They came in finally on one of the largest islands—culturally the main island, the seat of the departed Moudjinnian governor, the island that had once been equally divided between the gently feudal power of the house of Faleen and the benignly feudal power of the house of Hanoku.
They came in on the seaside city—if an overgrown village can be called a city—that had been Onu’s birthplace. Now forward on the bridge stood the triumvirate, Croyd and Onu and Djeelian: Croyd in the middle with his right arm about Hanoku’s shoulders and his left hand draped over Djeel’s left shoulder, while Hanoku’s left arm encircled Croyd’s shoulders and Djeel’s right hand held Croyd’s left hand.
Descending, they contemplated the largening city, whose wooden houses were lumping in sad desuetude; and central in the city rose a grisly anomaly—a fortified stone castle, the house of the departed governor—on precisely the site once occupied by the high wooden Hanoku house. But all the people were out, looking upward; and although their expressions could not be descried at this altitude, Croyd was satisfied that they were glad anticipatory expressions by reason of Roland’s aura.
Hanoku tested: “Croyd, that castle is yours now.”
Croyd countered, “Perhaps, but not as a dwelling. Whether it is to come down or be perpetuated as an eyesore museum for your people, I leave to your people.”
Gratefully Djeel squeezed his hand, observing, “Pray tak
e note, Onu, that if this governor fails, the reason will not be dishonesty.”
Table of Contents
Title
Publisher's note
from the back cover
splash page
Copyright
Forenote
PROLOGUE IN A BRAIN
Phase One - OUT OF THE UNIVERSE
Phase Two - LONG FALL INTO MIND
Phase Three - POWER FAILURE
Contemporary Action - PAN SAGITTARIUS
Phase Four - LORD OF THE FISSURE
Phase Five - DUEL AT PHANTOM DAWN
Contemporary Action - INTERSPACE/NONSPACE
Phase Six - ULTIMATE TEMPTATION
Phase Seven - INTERPERSONAL CODA