Poul Anderson's Planet Stories

by Poul Anderson

  "It has been decided," she rejoiced. "Ve have agreement. Now ve must call other meetins throughout the realm, but there is no doubt they vill follow this lead. Already ve can send envoys to Almarro and Kurin, for negotiatin alliance. How soon can a fleet leave, Ray?"

  "Leave?" he bleated. "For where?"

  "Vy, for Yupiter. To attack the Yovians. Veren't you listenin?"

  "Huh?"

  "No, I forgot, you don't know our language. Vell, don't trouble your pretty little head about such things. Come on back to the castle, and ve vill make love before dinner."

  "But," stammered Ray, "but, but, but."

  How do you equip a host of barbarians, still in the early Iron Age, to cross four and a third light-years of space for purposes of waging war on a nation armed to its nuclear-powered teeth?

  A preliminary question, perhaps, is: Do you want to?

  Ray did not, but found that he had scant choice in the matter. Affectionately but firmly, Dyann made him understand that men kept in their place and behaved as they were bidden.

  She did go so far as to explain her reasoning. Centaurians were not stupid, or even crazy. What they were—on this continent of Varann, at least—was warlike. While in the Solar System she had almost automatically, but shrewdly, paid close heed to the military-political situation. Afterward she had plugged the capabilities of the cosmic drive into her assessment. Most of the Jovian naval strength was deployed widely through space. If the escape from Ganymede had, indeed, made the Confederation decide to lean hard on the Union while the balance of power remained in its favor, that ought to leave the giant planet quite thinly guarded, sufficient to intercept conventional attackers but not any who came in faster than light. A raid in force should, if nothing else, result in the capture of Wotanopolis. No matter how austere by Terrestrial standards, that city was incredibly rich in Varannian terms. The raiders could complete their business and get home free, loaded with loot, covered with glory, and well supplied with captives. (As for the latter, there was hope of ransom, or possibly more hope of keeping them permanently as harem inmates. The polyandrous customs of this country worked hardship on many women.) While Earth might disown the action as piracy, it would doubtless not take punitive measures; everybody on the planet would be too relieved when an alarmed Confederation pulled its forces back to the Jovian moons.

  Thus the calculation. Numerous ladies, Dyann foremost, recognized that it might prove disastrously wrong and the expedition end up as a cloud of incandescent gas or something like that. The idea didn't worry them much. If they fell audaciously, they would revel forever among the gods; and their names would ring in epic poetry while the world endured.

  Failing, to convince her otherwise, Ray sought out Urushkidan. The Martian, after an abortive attempt to steal the spaceboat and sneak off by himself, had been given a room high in a tower. Having adjusted a bit to the gravity, he sat amidst trophies of the hunt and covered a sheet of parchment with equations. This place, thought Ray, has squids in the belfry.

  He poured forth his tale of woe. The Martian was indifferent. "What of it?" he said. "Tey may conceibably succeed, in which case we will doubtless be granted a bessel to trabel home in. If tey fail, ten it cannot be a matter of bery much time before te faster-tan-light engine is debeloped independently in te Solar System and somebody arribes here who can take us back."

  "You don't understand," Ray informed him. "These buccaneers count on us as experts. They're bringing us along."

  "Oh. Oh-oh! Tat is different. We better habe suitable armament." The Martian riffled through his papers. "Let me see. I tink equations 549 tro' 627 indicate—yes, here we are. It is possible to project te same type of dribing field as we use for transport in a beam which imparts a desired pseudobelocity bector to an extraneous object. Also . . . look here. Differentiation of tis equation shows tat it would be equally simple to break intranuclear bonds by trowing a selected type of particle into te state, and none oter. Te nucleus would ten separate, wit a net energy release regardless of where it lies on te binding curbe because of te altered potentials."

  Ray regarded him in awe. "You," he breathed, "have just invented the tractor beam, the pressor beam, the disintegrator, and the all-fuel atomic generator."

  "I habe? Is tere money in tem?"

  The man went to work.

  Headquartered hereabouts, the three expeditions from Sol had each left behind a considerable amount of supplies, equipment, and operating manuals. The idea had been to accumulate enough material for the establishment of a permanent scientific base—an idea that faster-than-light travel had now made obsolete. Most of this gear was stored in the local temple, where annual sacrifices were made to the digital computer. It took an involved theological argument to get it released. The point that Ormun must be rescued was conceded to be a good one, but not until the high priestess held an earnest private discussion with Dyann, and was hospitalized for a while thereafter, did the stuff become available.

  Meanwhile Ray had been working on design and, with native assistants, some of whom knew a little English or Spanish, getting a team organized. Urushkidan's new principles proved almost dismayingly easy to apply. Everything that wasn't in the depot, native smiths could hammer out, once given the specs. Atomic engines came forth capable of burning anything whatsoever. After consulting the gods, Queen Hiltagar decreed that the fuel be coal. Nobles vied for the honorable job of stokers.

  The engines not only drove ships, but powered weapons such as Urushkidan had made possible. It proved necessary for Ray to call on the Martian for more—radiation screens, artificial gravity (after experiment showed that too many Kathantumans got sick in free fall and barfed), faster-than-light communicators, et cetera. These developments might well have taken years, except that the Martian grew sufficiently exasperated at the interruptions that he tossed off a calculus by which the appropriate circuits could be designed in hours.

  Given this much, the spacecraft proper could be built to quite low standards. They were mere hulks of hardwood, slapped together by carpenters in a matter of weeks, varnished and greased for air tightness. Since the crossing would be made in a few hours, air renewal systems weren't required; it sufficed to have tanks of compressed gas, with leakage to prevent a buildup of excess carbon dioxide. Ray gave most of his attention to features like locks and viewports. Those had better not blow out!

  Still more did he concentrate on the drive circuits. They must be reliable during a trip to Sol and back, with an ample safety margin, but soon thereafter, they must fail. Not wishing the Centaurians ill, despite everything, he gave warning that this would happen, and was glad when it was accepted. Everybody knew that wire gave way after prolonged use, and here these ships were festooned with wires. The prospect of an amazon fleet batting about in the galaxy wheresoever it pleased had not been one that he could cheerfully contemplate.

  Meanwhile the amazons themselves poured in, ten times as many as the thirty-odd hulls could hold, riding and hiking from the uttermost ends of Kathantuma and its neighbor queendoms to be in on the most gorgeous piece of banditry ever dreamed of. Only Dyann cared much about Ormun, who was just her personal joss, and only Ray gave a damn about Jupiter as a menace to Earth. However, the man was surprised at how quickly the chosen volunteers formed themselves into disciplined crews and how readily the officers of these developed the needful skills. It occurred to him at length that their way of life selected for alertness, adaptability, and—yes, though he hated to admit it—intelligence.

  Three hectic months after his arrival on Varann, the fleet departed. After his labors, followed by Dyann's idea of a celebration, he used most of the travel time to catch a nap.

  VII

  Enormous in the forward ports, banded with hues of cloud and storm that could have swallowed lesser worlds whole, diademmed with stars, Jupiter swelled to vision. Ray's heart bumped, his palms were cold and wet, his tongue dry. Somehow he pushed his way through a throng of armored women. Dyann sat at the controls
of the flagship, her gaze intent upon the giant ahead.

  "Listen," he pleaded amidst the racket of eager contralto voices, "let me at least call Earth and find out what's been happening. You need to know yourself."

  "Okay, okay," she said. "But be qvick."

  He settled himself before the comscreen and fiddled with knobs. Last year, the notion of virtually instantaneous talk across nearly a billion kilometers would have been sheer fantasy. He, though, was using a phase wave with unlimited speed to beam radio photons. It released them at a distance from Earth, which he had figured out on his pocket calculator, such that their front would reach a relay satellite with enough microwattage to be detected, amplified, and bucked on. The phone number attached to the signal was that of the Union's central public relations office. It was the only official one he knew where he could be sure to get a response without running a gantlet of secretaries.

  The satellite beamed that reply back in the direction which its instruments had registered —with due allowance for planetary motions, of course. The Urushkidan-Tallantyre standing wave acquired the photons and passed them on. It also happened to acquire a commercial for Chef Quimby's Extra-Oleaginous Oleomargarine; and, when Ray received the information officer, that person resembled something seen through several meters of rippled water. At any rate, her image did. He hadn't had a chance to work the bugs out of his circuits.

  "Who is calling, please?" she asked through an obbligato of "Friends, in these perilous times, how better to keep up your strength for the cause of civilization than by a large, nutritious serving—"

  "This is Raymond Tallantyre, calling from the vicinity of Jupiter. I've just returned from Alpha Centauri on a spacecraft traveling faster than light."

  " —deliciously vitaminized—"

  "Sir," the Union spokesman said, "this is no time to be frivolous."

  "—it's yum-yum GOOD—"

  "Listen," Ray cried, "I want to give the technology to the Union. Stand by to record."

  On the far side of Dyann, Urushkidan slithered to attention. "Hey!" he piped. "I neber said I'd gibe away—"

  "Your behavior is in very poor taste," said the official, and switched off.

  Presently Ray regained the wit to find a newcast. That wasn't hard; there were a lot of newcasts these days. He gathered that Jupiter had declared war "to assert racial rights long and cruelly denied." Three weeks ago, the Jovians had won a major naval engagement off Mars. They were not yet proceeding against Earth, but threatened to do it unless they got an armistice on terms which amounted to surrender. Without that, they would "regretfully take appropriate measures" against a planet whose defenses had become feeble indeed.

  "Oh, gosh," said Ray.

  "An armada like tat will stretch capabilities," Urushkidan opined. "Te Union has ships and bases elsewhere. It can cut Jobian supply lines—"

  "Not if the Jovian strategy is to make a dash inward, put missile carriers in orbit, and pound poor old Earth into radioactive rubbish," the human mourned. "Meanwhile, those grunt-brains yonder won't believe I've got what's needed to save them."

  "Would you beliebe tat, from a phone call?"

  "Well ... I guess not. . . . But damnation, this is different!"

  "I see a moon disc ahead," Dyann interrupted, "and it looks like Ganymede. Out of the vay, you two. Ve're clearin for action."

  The flagship, which had been a peaceful laboratory boat, came in through atmosphere with a whoop and a holler. After casting about for a while above desolation, she found the dome of Wotanopolis and stopped at hover. The rest of the fleet, still less agile, followed more leisurely.

  Lacking spacesuits, the crew could not disembark and break out the battering rams, as had been proposed back on Varann. After studying the situation, Dyann proceeded to the main freight terminal. There she cut loose with her disintegrator beam. The ship-sized airlock disappeared in blue fire and flowing lava. Air streamed forth, ghost-white as water vapor froze. Even a hole so large would take hours to reduce pressure dangerously within a volume as great as that of the city. Dyann sailed on through, into a receiving chamber which was almost deserted now in wartime. She set down near the entrance, unharnessed, and leaped to her feet. "Everybody out!" she yelled in English, and added a Kathantuman exhortation. Her warriors bawled approval.

  With fingers that shook, Ray buckled on helmet and cuirass and drew sword. Meanwhile, the rest of the barbarian fleet came in through the gap and clunked to rest, some on top of others. When all were inside, Urushkidan carried out his part of the mission by delicately melting the entry hole shut, to conserve atmosphere. He would stay behind, also, ready to open a passage for retreat. How lucky can one being get? thought Ray, as a swarm of warriors shoved him through the lock.

  "Hoo, hah!" Dyann's sword shrieked on high. Her cohort poured after, whooping and bounding. The companion ships disgorged more. The abrupt change of pressure didn't seem to have given an ear ache to anybody except Ray. The racket of metal and girlish voices made that nearly unendurable. He had no choice but to be swept along in the rush.

  Through the resonant reaches of the chamber—up a long staircase, five steps at a time—out over a plaza above, in clangor and clamor—

  A machine gun raved. Ray bellywhopped onto the flooring before he had identified the noise. A couple of Varannians tumbled, struck, though they couldn't be too badly wounded to judge from the swiftness with which they rolled out of the line of fire. Across the square, he saw the gun itself, where a corridor debouched. Several men in gray uniform crouched behind it. Whatever garrison the city possessed was reacting efficiently. Ray tried to dig a burrow.

  He needn't have bothered. With lightning-reflexes, under a weight that to them was gossamer, the invaders had already escaped further bullets, leaping sideways or straight up. Spears, darts, flung axes replied. An instant later, the Centaurians arrived in person. Ray experienced an actual moment of sympathy for the Jovians. None of them happened to get killed either, but they were in poor shape.

  An enemy squad emerged from the adjacent corridor. Their rapid-fire rifles could have inflicted fearful damage on the crowded amazons—except that one lady, who knew something about such things, picked up the .50-caliber machine gun and operated it rather like a pistol. The squad scampered back out of sight.

  "Hai-ai!" the horde shouted, with additions. Ray, who had acquired a smattering of Kathantuman, might have blushed at these had time allowed. As was, he was again borne off on the tide of assault.

  He saw little of what followed. In this warren of hallways and apartments, combat became almost entirely hand-to-hand. That was just what suited the Varannians, and what Dyann had counted on.

  He did glimpse her in action when she rounded a corner and found a hostile platoon. She sprang, swung her feet ahead of her while she flew, and knocked the wind out of two men. As she landed on them, her sword howled in an arc which left two or three more disabled. One who stood farther off tossed a grenade at her. She snatched it and threw it back. He managed to catch and return it, but was barely able to duck before she flung it again and it blew in a door behind him. While this game went on, Dyann rendered a foeman unconscious by a swordblow to his helmet, broke the nose of another with the pommel of her weapon, and kneed a third. Then several more Centaurians joined in.

  The gang of them went on. They had nothing left to do here. Ray dodged among their victims, past the door which the grenade had obligingly opened, into the apartment beyond. Maybe he could hide under a bed.

  A hoarse shout sent him spinning around. Two members of the platoon had recovered enough to stagger in pursuit of him. He would have cried, "Hail, Wilder!" and explained what a peaceful citizen he was. Unfortunately, he too wore barbarian helmet and cuirass.

  Before he could raise his hands, a Jovian had lifted rifle and fired. The shot missed. Though the range was close, the man was shaken. Also, in his time on Varann Ray had inevitably developed some strength and quickness. He didn't exactly dodge the bullet, but he
flinched fast. His wild sword-swing connected. The Jovian sank to the floor and got busy staunching a bad cut.

  His companion charged, with a clubbed rifle that was perhaps empty. Ray turned to meet him and tripped on his own scabbard. He clattered to the floor and the enemy tripped over him. Ray climbed onto the fellow's back, removed his helmet, and beat his head up and down till he lay semiconscious.

  I've got to find someplace safe, Ray thought frantically. Back to the ships, maybe? He scuttled from the apartment, overleaped the human wreckage outside, and made haste.

  Not far beyond, he came to an intersection. A tommy gun blast from the left nearly touched him. "No-o-o," he whimpered, and hit the deck once more.

  A boot in his ribs gained his attention. "Get up!" he heard.

  He reeled to obey. What he saw was like a physical blow. Elegantly black-clad men, the famous elite guard of the Leader, accompanied Martin Wilder himself. Beside the dictator stood none less than Colonel Roshevsky-Feldkamp—in charge of local defense? Ray wondered, and tried to stretch his arms higher.

  "Tallantyre!" His old opponent glared at him for a time which took on characteristics of eternity. "So you are responsible."

  "No, I'm not, so help me, no," Ray chattered.

  "Who else could have brought these savages here?" The officer cuffed the Earthling; head wobbled on neck. "If it weren't for your hostage value, I'd shoot you immediately. But I had better defer that pleasure. March!"

  The detachment proceeded wherever it was bound. That chanced to be down a mercantile corridor, on which shops fronted. Smashed glass and gutted displays showed that the Centaurians were already collecting souvenirs.

  Wilder condescended to address the prisoner: "Never think that this criminal assault of yours has truly penetrated any part of us. We may have to retire temporarily from our capital, but already help has been summoned and is on its way, the entire navy bound here on a sacred mission of vengeance."