Harvest of Stars - [Harvest of Stars 01]

by Poul Anderson

  When she reached Tsiolkovsky Prospect she had to slow down because of the crowds. In these surroundings she didn’t care. The passage ran straight and broad, sides paved for skaters, duramoss green and yielding on the midstrip. Three levels of arcades rose on feathery pillars, shops, cafes, inns, amusement dens, enterprises more exotic. Overhead, the ceiling was a single glowpanel. Illusions drifted along it like clouds, a dragon, a jewelburst, an undulant abstraction, trailing their umbras beneath them.

  Odors of food, drink, perfume, and curious smoke mingled with music that trilled, wailed, beat, rippled from here and there in the arcades, never loud, never fully comprehensible to her. Voices overrode it, ceaseless chatter. More than half the people who thronged the corridor were visitors, tourists, businessfolk, journalists, spacers, vacationers from Astrebourg or L-5. The tumble-about of races, garbs, manners made her remember kaleidoscopes.

  The Lunarians were less conspicuous among them than you might have expected. True, all were fine-boned and most were very tall, two meters or more; but the stature wasn’t invariable, nor was everybody as thin as the stereotype. Many wore the typical somberly rich, Renaissance-like clothes, but some were in workaday unisuits or blouse and slacks. Men did lack beards and hair on their arms, women were small-bosomed and slim-hipped, but locks did not necessarily flow long, eyes were not necessarily big and oblique nor skins pale. The genetic transformation had not wiped out every trace of varied ancestry. What set them apart more than anything else was style. They moved through the swarm deftly, avoiding contact, as though the outsiders were an inanimate stream. They went singly or paired and talked low, in the euphonious language they had created for themselves.

  Shopkeepers, tour guides, and such were more outgoing. Kyra suspected that that was generally a show. Certainly most of them, aloofly polite, gave the impression that when they took your money they were conferring an honor on you. It didn’t bother her. The more variety in the cosmos, the better, and this was their world. She did wonder whether those commentators were right who declared that the Lunarians were basically different in mind as well as in body. Could you make human DNA over so radically that its bearers could spend their lives and have children here, without also getting a soul alien to Earth?

  A troupe of musicians and mimes passed in flamboyant motley. They capered, they gesticulated, they played their sonors and tabors and crescent-flaring huntress horns; but each face stayed hidden behind a fanciful animal mask. They weren’t performing for handouts. This was a traditional part of the scene, endowed by the local seigneurs. (Traditional? Fifty years at most. But evidently when you changed the organism, it found its own modes fast.)

  The Prospect debouched on Hydra Square. Now transparent paving was under Kyra’s feet, roof for an aquarium in whose deeps fish shimmered multi-hued among sinuous algae. The fountain at the center sprang nearly to the ceiling, a rush of whiteness and clear noise. Subsonics pulsed its cascades into evanescent forms suggestive of serpents. One side of the plaza housed service bases, constabulary, maintenance, hospital, rescue squads. The other three held museums. The historical museum was especially interesting, Kyra recalled. Among its exhibits were representations of Tychopolis before independence, back when anybody could enter the residential sections.

  From the square she took Oberth Passage. Traffic was much less. Behind these closed doors, computers cerebrated and nanoworks bred their products. The district was worth walking through because of the emblems identifying each property. It was strange art, not quite reminiscent either of European heraldry or Chinese calligraphy, governed somehow by the curves of analytical geometry.

  Ellipse Lane went off from Oberth. Fifty meters down its arc she spied what she sought. A light-sign flashed THE LAUNCH PAD. She entered.

  “Kyra!” A short form pressed close. Arms embraced her.

  She blinked and peered, vision adjusting to the dimness of the bar. For an instant she was astounded. Eiko? Then she made out the features and recognized Consuelo Ponce. A luminous L-5 shoulder patch had helped fool her. Twice foolish, she thought; Eiko would never go in for display like that, if ever she left home.

  The young woman stepped back and beamed up at Kyra. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said. Her English kept a slight, winsome Tagalog accent; she wasn’t born in the space habitat where she lived. “The last I heard, you were bringing ice to Mars.”

  “Bueno, helping nudge it back onto the right trajectory, after it got perturbed,” Kyra replied. “How in MacCannon’s name did you hear about that?” Their acquaintance was casual, Consuelo being a cytomedic.

  “Oh, I follow the news about all you space pilots avidly. Not many of you left, are there?” In haste, having seen Kyra’s lips tighten a bit: “I’ve come for a conference in Astrebourg, on radiation damage therapy, but first wanted to see what consortes were here. Can we have some time together later?”

  Kyra hesitated. Consuelo was a sweet person but almighty voluble. Besides, after her cruise Kyra wasn’t hunting for female companionship. However— “Why not now? I’ll just fetch me a beer.”

  The other clouded over, leaned close on tiptoe, and whispered under the buzz and rumble of talk, “I can’t well leave that poor man yonder. I was bound back to him from a trip to the lavabo. Let me disengage gently.”

  Kyra’s gaze followed Consuelo’s furtive gesture. He seemed fairly young, sporting a mustache, a turban on his dark head, a white tunic patched with the trademark of Maharashtra Dynamics. Shoulders slumped, he stared into the tumbler before him. “A stranger to me,” Kyra said.

  “To me too when I arrived, but he was so sad that— It’s a serious matter when a Parsee gets drunk. He needs a sympathetic ear.”

  “What’s his trouble?”

  “He was an engineering mineralogist, working with meteoroid ores. His company has cybered his job out from under him. Oh, he has a new position, but he knows it’s makework. The pride, the meaning, they are gone.”

  Kyra winced for the second time. How much longer could old Guthrie hold out on behalf of her kind? She kept telling herself that no software yet written was entirely her match against the unending astonishments in space—regardless of what capabilities modern hardware might have—and you must also take capital costs into account— Nevertheless—

  “It’s good of you to care, Consuelo,” she said. “Yes, let’s by all means rendezvous later. I may get involved myself this evenwatch, but . . . tomorrow? Yes, yes, we’ll stay in touch.”

  Unworthily glad to escape, she moved toward the bar. The Launch Pad was as antique as its name indicated, tables and chairs crowded together, a dart board, random souvenirs of spacefaring piled high on dusty shelves, photos and cards stuck blanketingly thick on the walls and faded with time. A multi offered chromokinetic accompaniment to a muted rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth. You didn’t come here to gape at it but to meet your lodge siblings. You didn’t describe this place to groundlings, nor respond much to any tourist who happened in. The proper customers were spacers of every trade and their Earthside associates. Therefore the majority were Fireball— including, of course, those from L-5, special though their status was—and the allegiances of the minority divided among half a dozen lesser organizations.

  Several of them who noticed Kyra recognized her and cried greetings. She hailed back, happy again, and bellied up to the bar. “Welcome home, gorgeous,” caroled Rory Donovan behind it. “You’ve been gone unconscionably long, you have. Once more this mill is worth running. What’s your wish, darling, the usual?”

  “Yes, gracias, a draft Keplerbrau. And, uh, for openers, a shot of aqualunae, chilled.” You could have imports if you were willing to pay the cost, but the local stuff was fine.

  The bartender busied himself. “When and where’s your next voyage?” he asked. She understood that he knew about her latest. Word from everywhere around the System reached Tychopolis, by laser if not by ship. “Far in the future, I’m hoping.”

  “They haven’t decided,” sh
e said. “What’s going on that’s fun?”

  “A colleen like you needn’t ask or look. It’ll find you. There you are. On the house, this round.” At her thanks: “No, no, it’s I am owing you, as bright as you make my heart.”

  “You say that to every woman who comes in, Rory. And we love it.”

  He grinned, then had to go take an order. No robot would replace him while he lasted. Ugly as Avantism, Rory was, but he didn’t need to get his face remodeled, the way he could blarney.

  He might have done so when he was young, crossed Kyra’s mind. Surely then he wanted to give the girls more than blarney. However, his body— He wasn’t obviously deformed. It was an inner thing. He lived his life on the Moon, in poor health, because he wouldn’t survive any reasonable span on Earth unless bonded to machines and chemical tanks. Not a metamorph; an adapt, relic of an experiment that hadn’t paid off. The genes that handled low-weight for him weren’t intrinsic, they’d been added after his birth, and they didn’t mesh with his own as effectively as had been hoped. Hardly any like him remained. She’d never known whether his cheerfulness was genuine or a shield.

  Crack, why did she let darkness keep thrusting in on her? She sought the tang of her liquor, the sparkle of the beer.

  “Ah, Pilot Davis. Good evenwatch.”

  She turned. The man who had come to her side was blond, well-clad, attractive. “Perhaps you do not remember me,” he said. His English was guttural. “Hans Gieseler. We met last year at a party in Heidelberg.”

  She recalled now. He was Fireball, a symbolic analyst, techno-economic interface. They’d talked about travels. He’d recommended several spots in Europe, and indeed she enjoyed those she afterward visited. He had a nice smile. When they shook hands, his clasp was straightforward. “What brings you to Luna?” she asked.

  “A somewhat peculiar mission. Excuse me. Bartender, another glass of chablis. And may I reinforce yours, Pilot Davis?”

  “Wait, I’ve barely begun,” she laughed.

  “I hope I am not being—anmassend—presumptuous. The truth is, I was feeling rather lonely after a difficult day, and you are the first person known to me who has come in here.”

  Kyra relaxed onto a stool. “Bueno, I should go around and say hola to my friends, but they all seem occupied at the moment.”

  “They will seek you out in any case. While I have the chance, how have you fared?”

  “Muy bien, gracias.” Curiosity piqued. “What is this mysterious mission of yours?”

  “Nothing secret, although we do not publicize. You may well be aware that the company would like a third staging satellite in Lunar orbit. The Selenarchs refuse. They give various objections, but we suspect that principally they do not want more ground control and support personnel of ours on the Moon. I programmed and ran an inquiry, finding that the benefits to them will outweigh any inconvenience we bring. They studied it, said they were not convinced, but invited Fireball to send a spokesman. For some reason, not only the time lag, they prefer to negotiate in personal presence. I have been hours with Rinndalir and his underlings.”

  Kyra whistled. “Rinndalir? From what I’ve heard, at least you’ve started as near the top as they’ve got. How was it?”

  “Oh, they were unfailingly gracious, but always I sense the steel underneath and the—Mutwilligkeit?—trickiness, wantonness? No, that is not the correct word. Steel, yes, but also mercury, and in them courses electricity—”

  A voice cut through the noise, softly as a whetted blade through cloth. It was the baritone of a singer, speaking but vibrant with half-heard overtones, the English accented like none that ever was on Earth. “Hans Gieseler of Fireball Enterprises.”

  What the blaze! Every look in the room went to the multi. Its cylinder was big enough to hold, life size, a holo of head and upper torso. The face was marble-white, a vein blue in the throat. High cheekbones flanked great eyes gray as ice. The straight nose flared at the nostrils, the mouth was redeemed from feminine fullness by the pointed chin beneath. Silvery hair fell to the shoulders, past ears whose convolutions were not normal human. A goldwork fillet crossed the brow and iridescence played over the black tunic.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Rory whispered, “it’s himself.”

  Rinndalir, Kyra knew. She’d seen few images of Lunarian lords and ladies, they were seldom out in public, but there was no mistaking Gieseler’s expression.

  “I have been in touch with my colleagues,” the voice purred. “We wish to discuss further those questions that you raised. Please return immediately to your hotel. Transport for you and your effects will be waiting. Forgive this haste, I pray. Certain urgencies are involved. Thank you.”

  The bust vanished. Colors and music came back. For seconds more, silence held the people.

  Gieseler shook his head as if stunned. “I have . . . never met the like before,” he muttered. “How did he know where I am? How did he pre-empt this set? Or did he everywhere?”

  “What’ll you do about it?” Kyra asked stupidly.

  Gieseler straightened. “I go. What else? I dare not risk offending them.”

  Rory plucked his sleeve and said against a rising uproar, “Hold on a mite, me boy. It would not surprise me at all, at all, are those rascals of a mind to wear you down and win a better bargain than they deserve.”

  “I can merely recommend.” Gieseler tried to tug free.

  “Even so, it’s supperless you are, and I’ll wager the hour will be late before they offer refreshment. Let me fix you a sandwich to eat on your way to the hotel. It will take but a minute.”

  “Good idea,” Kyra said. Gieseler nodded jerkily. Thereafter he had to reply as best he could to those who swarmed around him wanting to know what this was about. The agitation pursued him to the door.

  It wasn’t that anybody felt hostile to the Selenarchy, Kyra knew. Lunarians might not be the most likable folk alive, but you were safe from crime here, they didn’t bother you if you didn’t bother them, and in their fashion they too were space. It had been natural for your parents to rejoice when the Moon declared itself a sovereign nation and made the declaration stick. But now it was natural to hope Fireball would carry the day.

  The distraction had broken up conversational groups. As they re-formed, Kyra was surrounded by camaradas. A hectic merriment set in. Drink flowed, gushed, torrented. Rather than go out after food, her group settled for Rory’s monumental sandwiches. Eventually they got to singing, more and more the old spacer songs until—

  “MacCannon was a Fireball man. That rambling rocketeer

  Could lift off into orbit on a single keg of beer.

  The whisky that he much preferred was made not for the meek.

  Unless you were a Scot, a shot would ground you for a week.

  “MacCannon was a macho man, a brawling, balling Celt.

  For EVA he needed just a helmet and his pelt.

  His lady friends expressed their love in moans and groans and pants,

  And made remarks among themselves concerning elephants.

  “Its clouds sulfuric acid high above the CO2,

  So hot and thick down underneath that lead itself would stew,

  The atmosphere of Venus is as poisonously ripe

  As the air became around us when MacCannon lit his pipe.

  “His ship once had an argument while passing through the void,

  Alone, about the right of way, with one big asteroid.

  Adrift, he used the time to make a large discovery,

  The art of shooting craps to win in zero gravity.

  “The devil knocked upon the lock and said, ‘You’re due to die.

  Come down with me.’ MacCannon spat some whisky in his eye.

  The sizzle and reaction sent the devil with a yell

  On a hyperbolic orbit that would take him back to hell.

  “MacCannon then decided his disabled boat should boost.

  He ate a mighty meal of beans and set himself to roost

  Upo
n a mass ejector tube far sternward in his craft,

  And the ship went leaping forward from the thunders booming aft.

  “ ‘Round Jupiter he whipped so fast he had but minor woes;

  The radiation only crisped the hair within his nose.

  Approaching home, he showed us what his pilot skills were worth,

  Crash landing on an island off Antarctica of Earth.

  “Besieged by lustful penguins, nearly out of whisky too,

  He set to make a signal that would fetch a rescue crew.

  Olympus Mons had never spewed more smoke up over Mars

  Than the vileness puffing skyward from MacCannon’s damn cigars. — “

  The ballad went on, gross, childish, and, for Kyra during a minute after she happened to glance at the man who had lost his career, forlornly defiant.

  * * * *

  14