Which she never could be.
On ground more nearly level she matched his pace and soon fell into the long, swinging rhythm of it. Neither spoke; breath was to spend on kilometers. Alone with herself, Kyra thought about Guthrie. Five daycycles, damn near, since she landed on the Moon; four since this seigneury took her unto itself, and since he drew nigh to L-5. If he had. How fared he now? And Bob Lee, the Packers, Esther Blum, yes, Nero Valencia, everybody? They could all have been captured, destroyed, anything. The Avantists wouldn’t announce it. Was that what the dearth of news meant which Rinndalir spoke of, if Rinndalir was telling the truth?
What was truth, yonder inside his walls? How much of what she remembered was natural, how much artifice, how much illusion? Thinking back, she realized how little certainty was granted her, from the moment she passed the portal. Drowsiness and dream—
No, be fair. Those first twenty-odd hours she had spent asleep or barely half awake, sedated, and it was Niolente’s suggestion but her own decision. Stress had drawn her more thin than she knew until suddenly it ended. (Wryly: This had also been her chance to take a pill from her pocket kit, cancelling the inhibitor and starting a rather overdue menstruation. It ended last nightwatch. She must remember to reinhibit. Her periods gave her no major discomfort, but should action commence again she’d rather not have that to fuss about.) Food and drink brought her were delicious, and with consciousness off guard she believed that she began to appreciate the music she heard.
Afterward, though— Yes, utter hospitality and graciousness. Niolente’s courtesy to the guest was remote. Kyra suspected fire beneath that ice, but never felt it. Rinndalir charmed or fascinated as he chose. His discourse ranged over the whole of knowledge and culture, seen through eyes not wholly human. (“The mind deceives itself less often than it plays practical jokes on itself. . . . ‘All evil comes from not following Right Reason and the Law of Nature,’ said Uriel Acosta, a Portuguese-Dutch Jew in the seventeenth century. It is a fairly workable definition of evil, for beings that imagine they think. . . . The most terrible thing a mind can conceive of is that it knows everything important about reality. . . .”) When he was not on hand, there was no lack of handsome male and comely female attendants to show her about, answer her questions, respond to her wishes, and yet not press themselves upon her.
The conservatory and the metamorphic pets rivaled the prides of Tychopolis. She swam in a great pool among fish never seen on Earth, then strapped wings to her arms and flew off above the gardens and glass sculptures of a cavern as spacious as L-5’s largest flight chamber. She learned how to play Mayan ball between the tiers of a replicated Mayan court, but the original could not become so wild. She mastered intricate low-g dances, Rinndalir’s arm around her waist, he suppleness itself. She struggled to comprehend books and recorded shows; the effort was richly rewarded, though she realized how superficial her understanding remained. Some wine or a mild psychedelic helped. Nobody offered her a quiviran session, and she would have declined, but the virtualities in a vivifer turned stranger than any dream, she whirling through an endless fractal curve, riding a billow on a sea of red smoke, turned into a harpstring plucked by the solar wind...
Oh, the Lunarians knew well how to keep her busy, distracted, away from her rightful concerns. The spires of Zamok Vysoki flashed at the horizon. It jolted through her that while she loped she had slipped entirely back into her memories of that fantasy life.
Why had she been given it? Rinndalir could simply have detained her incommunicado. But she was his ally. Was she?
The walls rose tall before their haste. An intricate frieze framed the entry valve at which they drew to a deep-breathing halt. “Welcome home, my lady,” he said.
She made herself retort, “It’s not my home. When will you let me go?”
He looked at her. The unfairly fair countenance flowed into seriousness. “I have hopes for that,” he said. Amazed, she could but follow him into the airlock and thence the castle.
As they unsuited, he told her, “You will wish to refresh and rest before evenwatch. But pray stand prepared for a call.” His undergarment clung silkily, a second skin on a panther.
Kyra went on to her room. A-buzz and a-shiver, she scarcely noticed the portraits, landscapes, and abstractions hung in the first corridor she took. Then, above a serpent-bannistered staircase, another hall was paneled for holo. The scenes changed every few hours. She had been told that a hypercomputer creatively modified recordings when it did not generate new ones, so that the inhabitants would never know what to expect. Today she passed as if on a bridge across a cosmically huge chasm. Far ahead burned fires, red and yellow and green; far behind rose a mysterious blue shimmer of ice cliffs. She felt suggestions of heat and cold, heard whispers of roaring and howling. In between were fog and smoke, wind-riven but thickly rolling. Left and right they seemed to curdle into solid forms, grotesque, one maybe human, one maybe beast.
Her room was a haven. Ample, its gold and nacre held furnishings to whose style and proportions she had gotten used. Opposite a door that gave on a private bath, a large viewscreen was at present set to show the upper heavens, stars amplified into frosty visibility against the interior lighting. That was considerate; Earth would have reminded her of too much.
A bedside table held a self-cooling carafe of the mango cider she had mentioned she enjoyed, a plate of small cakes delicately spiced with marijuana, and a vase shaped like a blue fountain of water, filled with purple roses. Their scent and a lilt of music flavored the air. She shucked her skinsuit, tossed it down the cleaner chute, and crossed a carpet patterned with constellations, silver on blue, which gave her bare feet slight electric tingles. After reveling in a shower, she came forth to study what was in her closet. A tailor machine had taken her measurements early on, and by next daywatch she was lavishly provided.
The phone did not chime or call, it fluted. Hastily she threw on a bathrobe and went to answer. Rinndalir’s face looked out at her. Behind him Kyra saw Niolente. Her expression was composed, but on his Kyra read a savage exultation ... or so she imagined.
“I promised you a change of orbit, my lady,” he said. “Here you begin. We have fresh data to coordinate and plans to make.”
It flared in Kyra. “Por favor, tell me,” she gasped.
“Radar, ion trails, and analysis—but you know the procedures. Three more torchcraft have come to Lagrange-Five. Our information is that this is as many as the North American government commands. Belike they are crammed with Security Police. Another torch was cruising about the region in such a way that it must have been on search for your launcher, but it has returned Earthward. We think it found the rocket, and found it empty. Therefore the lord Guthrie most likely was brought into the colony, and the Security Police are in frantic quest of him there.”
“Judas priest!” Kyra yelled. “Stop them before they find him!” A fragment of her noticed she had used an old oath of the jefe’s.
He’d hoped that, if she failed to get help here, Tamura could retrieve him and reveal him. It hadn’t worked out. His other self must have been too quick on the uptake. Now she alone bore hope. Suppose the Lunarians decided their advantage lay in keeping neutral, or in striking a bargain with counter-Guthrie— No, she would not think that, not yet.
And Rinndalir saved her from it: “Patience a while longer, a little, little while.” His smile reached out to capture her. “We know time is short. We marshal for action. But you, Pilot Davis, must understand that the lady Niolente and I cannot achieve by ourselves. We have been at work these past daycycles, persuading our fellow Selenarchs. It was not easy. Soon she departs again, to see to the final arrangements. Abide.”
“Why don’t you just tell the Solar System the truth?” At once Kyra recognized her idiocy. Rinndalir could have done that the hour she arrived here, had he seen fit.
His reply was much the same as he had given her earlier. “It would be irresponsible, and quite possibly useless. The situation is ex
plosive. Your enemies have made their provisions. Where is our proof? Better the solid lord Guthrie in hand than the naked assertion he exists, nay?” But this time he added, smiling again—warmly, she believed in her dazzlement, warmly— “Pray forgive us if we have been less than forthcoming. The unknowns, the complexities were too many. We could have told you nothing meaningful. We are still half in enigma. But I say we are about to act. If you will bless me with your presence at dinner this evenwatch, my lady, I will seek to explain.”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed. Her knees trembled beneath her.
“At 1930, then? Good.” The screen blanked.
She stood for a while wondering confusedly why she didn’t whoop and war-dance around the room. True, they hadn’t yet won, they could still lose, but— Her head felt all in a whirl. A private meeting with Rinndalir? She assumed it would be private, if Niolente was going away. Why in MacCannon’s name did he affect her like this? Alluring to look at, spellbinding to listen to, sure, but there should be more to a man than that. He wasn’t even a man, strictly speaking. Male, yes, but he couldn’t father a child on her if they both tried. She felt the blush as a wave of heat, glanced down and saw that it reached to her breasts.
That called forth a laugh. Ease off, girl. The exotic always appealed, and no doubt she was on the rebound from Valencia. Let that lesson stay with her. Admittedly Rinndalir had depths beneath the glittering surface. Just what were they, though? Keep watchful, ready to jump.
And don’t remain passive. Give him back some of his own. For openers, what to wear?
She spent a considerable time on that. The wardrobe bestowed on her included things she hadn’t yet used. She chose the slinkiest, an ankle-length tigryl gown cut low, its skirt slit up the right side. Silvery slippers. No jewelry except her academy ring, taken from her pocket kit. Her hands were big for a woman’s, well fitted to the heavy gold circlet and inlaid star. Cosmetics were in the bathroom. Thus far she hadn’t availed herself of them, but now, a few careful touches, plus a dab of the right perfume.
Then it was to wait, and wait. She screened a recording of an Earthside The Tempest which she liked, but found that it wasn’t registering on her. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, maybe? No, that would go too near the bone.
A servant appeared at last, to escort her ceremonially. He bowed her through a door of the Pagoda and closed it behind her.
Brilliance erupted in a million colors. This turret jutting into space was one synthetic diamond, faceted inside and out. She could not look at the blaze where the sun shone through, but everywhere else was flash and sparkle, changeable at every least motion she made. Rinndalir approached over the glassy-polished floor, in close-fitting black. Rainbows played across the whiteness of face and hands, shimmered on the pale hair, danced about his feet.
“Welcome anew,” he murmured. Unthinkingly, she offered him her arm. He held his above. Fingertips barely touched her hand. She felt each one of them. She’d granted him superior status. What of it? He smiled and guided her to a table. Wine and hors d’oeuvres were on it. Light filled the crystal. He poured. “Your Terrestrial custom,” he said, as he gave her a goblet. “Would you fain propose a toast?”
Impulse grabbed. “To our partnership!” Rims sang when they met. It was a noble wine, no, regal, imperial.
They continued standing, Lunarian style, as they drank and talked. “I am happy about this,” he told her. “Before, we were not free to deal with you as we wished, Niolente and I. Henceforth, I trust, you shall in truth be a partner. May I say a friend?”
“Yes, por favor, do.” She mustn’t let it overwhelm her. Hold steady. Speak out. “But if, if I am to be— I need to know more.”
He nodded. “Undeniably. You could not earlier because we did not ourselves. Forgive my frankness. At the start we must gather what evidence we were able that would confirm or disconfirm your story. It seemed plausible, but it could have been part of a scheme. Unless that began to look likely, we would not subject you to the horror and indignity of a deep quiz.”
Which they could have done with impunity. How could she have taken revenge, or gotten any redress afterward unless that was their whim? “K-kind of you.”
He grinned. “Precautionary. Why raise needless antagonism?”
Emboldened, she replied, “Lunarian thinking, that. Wise, of course. But as for this having been an elaborate hoax—bueno, I suppose that was Lunarian thinking too.”
“We have the reputation of being intriguers,” he agreed, unabashed. “Remember, Niolente and I must convince not only ourselves of your bona fides, but a sufficiency among the Selenarchs, and they would speculate about us. Then we must negotiate, while collecting more intelligence about your enemies. You would not have understood our ways. This is not your civilization. Had we let you follow along, simply explaining matters as they developed would have been a serious drain on time and energy, and probably an impossible task.”
Kyra stiffened a bit. “I would not have gone hysterical on you.”
“Nay,” he answered softly. “I am sure of that now. But remember, you came to us a stranger. How could we tell? You are as foreign to us as we are to you.”
“I wonder about that.” She took a deeper draught than was right for a drink like this. It hallowed her palate and sent rainbows into her bloodstream, akin to those that glorified Rinndalir. Might there be something in it, a drug to which he was accustomed or immune? No matter. She’d recognize intoxication if it started, and curb herself. “What have you arranged to do? Soon. You know we can’t dawdle.”
He sighed. “Pity to spoil this hour with business.”
Was that also how a Lunarian thought? “Get it over with and then we can relax and enjoy.”
“Suspense adds savor. However, since you feel otherwise, here is the plan, sparely sketched. Tomorrow the Selenarchy will declare all Fireball properties on the Moon sequestered, pending investigation of this alleged terrorist crisis, which we have come to suspect is false. Your officers in Port Bowen will protest but not resist; we have sounded out the key ones.”
“Why not just tell them the truth?”
“Would they keep secrecy? Some would disbelieve, others be uncertain. The natural thing to do would be to send Quito a query. You have been urging swift, decisive action. That requires surprise.”
“I think you underestimate our folk. But they aren’t yours, are they? What’ll you do next?”
“We, Pilot Davis. You are vital to us. The sequestration covers our rear and gives us authority to commandeer spaceships. You will pilot a force of us to Lagrange-Five. There you will be our liaison.”
“Wow-w-w!” she shouted inadequately. He laughed into her joy. Almost, she seized him and kissed him.
She braked her impulse in time. That effort brought feelings under control. They throbbed undwindled, but did not clamor thought out of awareness. “What kind of ship? A torch’d be too much to expect from luck. Wouldn’t make much difference anyway. Your men couldn’t stand a one-g boost for the, m-m, about three and a half hours it’d take. At least, not if they want to arrive in shape to do anything worthwhile.”
“We will be a picked troop. We can endure two Lunar gravities for the six hours necessary.”
Thrill: “You’re coming in person? Yes, you would. . . . What kinds of ship are available? How many will you be?”
“You see, you are a full comrade in the emprise,” he purred. “Ten plus yourself should suffice. In port are several vessels, but only one of them, a Narwhal, has enough couches plus sufficient delta v. Can you handle such a craft?”
Kyra shook her head. “I can, but no go. Sure, she’s a passenger carrier for Earth and ambient space, but her drive isn’t meant for a boost period that long. We’d either have to spend time we can’t well afford on trajectory, or risk burnout and, at best, guarantee rousing suspicion at the other end. Also, we’d have precious little reaction mass reserve if somebody comes after us in a torch.” Her mind sped, an excitement like surfing o
n a really big one. “There’s a Dolphin, of course, always is, rescue craft. Four couches, but I won’t need any. You’ll have to settle for that size team.”
“We shall,” he replied instantly. “I had in mind a rather large group because it could make itself difficult to subdue, should matters go awry for us. Now we must see to it that they do not.”
“We can’t just leap inboard and lift off, you know,” Kyra warned. “She’s kept pretty well ready, considering her main purpose, but some preparations are needed, and then how do you explain taking her out when we haven’t got an emergency?”
“That will all be taken care of beforehand.”
“How?”
“I have agents in the Fireball organization.”
I, he said. The implications were disquieting.
Perhaps he read it on her. He spoke fast. “The port technicians will soon receive instructions, seemingly from Quito. That is in the net on standby; I need merely key in the precise details. This change of plans that you urge—let me think. . . . Ah, yes. We Lunarians wish to send inspectors up to a relay satellite we are considering replacing, but suddenly find we have problems with our own spacecraft suitable for the task. As a courtesy, Fireball will take them. Since they are four, not ten, and a Dolphin is more maneuverable than a Narwhal, and traffic patterns show no significant probability of accidents in this vicinity at present, that is the ship to use.”
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