Captive of the Centaurianess

by Poul Anderson

  Yet the impression grew upon her that she was being hurried along, from sight to sight and conversation to conversation, without ever a chance really to talk to anyone, to glimpse whatever soul there dwelt beneath the busy flesh. True, she heard lectures about the superiority of Jovian society and its clear right to leadership of the Solar System, till she lost count. Nonetheless she wondered if the people she met would have been that monomaniacal had her guide not been present. Besides, if they felt they ought to rule, why didn't they just hop into their spaceships and have at the Earthlings?

  Everywhere she saw portraits of the Leader, a short and puffy-faced man named Martin Wilder. Once Lieutenant Hamand, the person conducting her, said in awe that, if the Leader was not too occupied with cares of state, she might actually be introduced to him. Hamand looked hurt when she yawned.

  Meanwhile, she fretted about Ray Tallantyre. Though she hadn't really seen much of her erstwhile roommate, she had found him uncommonly appealing. In part, she recognized, that was no doubt because, what with one thing and another, she hadn't gotten laid for some time when she boarded the liner, nor had she since. But in part, also, she liked his liveliness and wry humor. They contrasted vividly with the humble men of her homeland. She had confirmed for herself that male Earthlings often deserved the reputation they had won among female Varannians; she suspected that Ray exceeded the average. It was unlikely that he'd adjust well to harem life, but she had no such plans for him. It was impossible that he, belonging to a different species, could father a child of hers. Right now, that was no drawback at all.

  She'd been looking forward to developing the acquaintance on Ganymede. Then he got into trouble, and she'd not been able to discover a thing about his present situation. Under pressure, Hamand had put her in touch with an officer of the political police, who said that the case was under consideration and advised her not to get involved. If nothing else, he said, her tour of the Jovian System would end before the matter had been disposed of. He concluded with assurances that Tallantyre would "receive justice," which she did not find very satisfactory.

  Her concern sprang from more than attraction. That had caused her to think of Ray as a friend—and in Kathantuma, one did not abandon a friend. They hadn't exchanged blood oaths or anything like that. Nevertheless, the fact that she had enjoyed his company led her warrior conscience toward the illogical conclusion that she owed him her help.

  This did not come about overnight, nor in any such clear terms. What she experienced was simply an anxiety which grew and grew. It fed upon her distaste for the civilization which currently surrounded her. If Ray had offended these creatures, well, they needed offending. Could she be less brave?

  Ganymede swung once about Jupiter, a period of a week, while Dyann Korlas wrestled ever more with her emotional and ethical dilemma. At last she did the proper thing according to her own beliefs: alone in her quarters, save for a bottle of whiskey, she brought the matter out before herself, considered it explicitly, realized that it was indeed important to her, and resolved that she would no longer stay idle. In the morning she would seek divine guidance.

  That decision made, she slept well.

  At 0600 hours, as always, lights flashed on throughout Wotanopolis to decree a new day. Dyann bounded out of bed, sang a cheerful song of clattering swords and cloven skulls while she washed and dressed—cuirass, helmet, sword, dagger above tunic and sandals—and sought the kitchenette of her apartment, where she prepared a breakfast that would have sufficed two Terrestrial laborers. Ordinary Jovians knew no such luxuries, but she rated diplomatic housing.

  When she entered the main room, she found Hamand present; crime was alleged to have been stamped out of Symmetrist society, and locks on civilian doors were thought to suggest that those within might be talking sedition. A powerfully built young man, immaculate in gray cloth and shiny boots, he bowed from the waist. "Good day," he greeted. "You will recollect that we are going topside to visit the Devil's Garden. At 1145 we will proceed to Heroville, where we will appreciate the Revolutionary Cenotaph and have lunch. At 1300 hours we have an appointment to fill out the necessary documents for your forthcoming visit to Callisto. Thereafter—"

  "Hold," Dyann interrupted. "First I have a reliyious rite."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Vy? You have done no wrong." Dyann gestured to the image of Ormun, standing ferocious on a table. "I must ask for the counsel of this god." She paused, struck by a thought. "You better—vat is the vord?—you better prostrate yourself too."

  "What?" cried the lieutenant.

  "She does not like atheists," Dyann explained.

  Hamand flushed and stiffened. "Madame," he said, "I have been educated in the scientific principles of Symmetrism. They do not include groveling before idols."

  Dyann took him by the back of his neck, bore him down to his knees, and rubbed his nose in the carpet. "You vill please to grovel," she said amiably. "It is good manners." She spread herself prone, while keeping a grip on him, and recited a magical formula. Thereafter she let him go, rose to a crouch, dredged three Kathantuman dice from the purse at her belt, and tossed them.

  "Haa," she murmured after study. "The omen says—vell, I am not a marya, a certified vitchvife, but I do think the omen says I should seek Urushkidan. See, here the Visdom sign lies right next to the Mystery sign, vith the Crossed Axes over here. . . . Yes, I am sure Ormun tells me I need to see Urushkidan." She bowed to the image. "Thank you, sveet lady. Laesti laeskul itorum." Rising: "Shall ve go?

  Hamand, who had finished swallowing his resentment for the sake of public relations, was taken aback all over again. "Do you mean the Martian scientist?" he yelped. "Impossible! He is doing critically important work—"

  Dyann strolled out into the corridor. She had been shown the Academy of Sciences earlier. No matter how alien this warren of passages was to her native forests, she retained a huntress' sense of direction and landmarks. Hamand trailed her, gabbling, barely able to keep her in sight. There were no slideways. Except in the tunnels where authorized vehicles moved, everybody walked. It was a result of the government's concern over preserving public physical fitness in Ganymede's low gravity. Dyann felt feather-light. She proceeded in three- and four-meter bounds. When a clump of people got in the way of that, she sprang over their heads.

  The Academy occupied 50 hectares on a high level of town, a pleasant break in an environment where the very parks were functional. Here, grass, trees, and flowerbeds made lanes of life between walls which, admittedly roofless, were at least covered with plastic ivy. Overhead, a teledome gave an awesome vision of Jupiter, stars, Milky Way, the shrunken sun. The air bore faint, flowery perfumes and recorded birdsong. Upon this campus, moving from building to building, were a number of persons, several obviously military personnel but most just as obviously scholars, little different from their colleagues on Earth.

  Dyann stopped one of the latter, loomed over him, and asked where Dr. Urushkidan might be. "In Archimedes Hall—over there," he gasped, and tottered off, perhaps in search of a reviving cup of tea.

  She might have known, Dyann thought. In front of that door, a soldier on guard clashed with the general atmosphere. She guessed his presence was due to the military significance of Urushkidan's work. Though her appearance startled him, too, rather badly, he slanted his rifle before him and cried, "Halt!"

  Dyann obeyed. "I must see the Martian," she told him. "Please to let me by."

  "Nobody sees him without a pass," he replied.

  Dyann shoved him aside and took hold of the door switch. He yelled and batted at her with his rifle butt. That was his great mistake.

  "You should show more respect for ladies," she chided, and removed the weapon from his grasp. Her free hand flung him across the greensward. He collided with Hamand, who had panted onto the scene, hard enough that neither was of much use for some time to come. Dyann admired the rifle—Earthlings on Varann were deplorably stingy about giving such things to her folk—bef
ore she slung it across her back by the strap. By now, too many passersby had halted to stare and chatter. Best she keep on the move. She opened the door and passed on through.

  For a minute she poised in the hallway beyond, cocking her ears this way and that. They were keen. A faint sound of altercation gave her the clue she hoped for, and she bounded up a flight of stairs. Before another door she stopped to listen. Yes, that was the voice of Urushkidan, bubbling like an infuriated teakettle.

  "I will not, sir, do you hear me? I will not. And I demand immediate return passage from tis ridiculous satellite."

  "Come now, Dr. Urushkidan, do be reasonable." Was that Roshevsky-Feldkamp? "What is your complaint, actually? Do you not have generous financial compensation, Mars-conditioned lodgings, servants, every imaginable consideration? If you wish something further, inform us and we will try to provide it."

  "I came here to lecture and to complete my matematical research. Now I find you habe arranged no lectures and expect me to superbise an—an engineering project—as if I were a mere empiricist!"

  "But your contract plainly states—"

  "Did you tink I would waste my baluable time reading one of your pieces of printed gibberish? Sir, in human law itself, a proper contract requires tat tere habe been a meeting of minds. Te mind of your goberment neber met te mind of myself. It was not capable of it."

  The man attempted ingratiation: "You are a leading scientist. As such, you realize that science advances by checking theory against fact. If, with your help, we create a faster-than-light ship, it will be a total confirmation of your ideas."

  "My ideas need no confirmation. Tey are a debelopment of certain implications of general relatibity, true. Howeber, tat is incidental. In principle, what I habe produced is a piece of pure matematics, elegant and beautiful. If it agrees or disagrees wit te facts, tat is of no concern to any proper philosopher. And furtermore—" The squeaky tones approached ultrasonic frequencies. "—not only do you want experimental tests, you want to me lend my genius to bulgar military applications! No, no, and again no! Do you understand? I want a ticket on te next ship bound for Mars!"

  "I am afraid," said the man slowly, "that that will not be possible."

  Dyann opened the door and trod through. "Are they annoyin you?" she asked.

  Urushkidan goggled at her from the chair across which he was draped. The room was so thick with the fumes of his pipe that one of the two Jovians present, a bald man in the black tunic of the political police, was holding a handkerchief to his nose. The other was, indeed, Roshevsky-Feldkamp, who sprang to his feet and snatched for his revolver.

  Dyann had already unlimbered the expropriated rifle. She aimed it at his midriff. "Better not," she warned him. He froze.

  "What . . . you . . . what are you doing here?" stammered the political officer.

  "Lookin for Ray Tallantyre," she answered. "Could you tell me vere he is?"

  "Guards!" Roshevsky-Feldkamp bellowed fearlessly. "Help!"

  Dyann made a leap across the room, seized him by the neck, and hammered his forehead against the desk. With her right hand she kept the second Jovian covered. "I asked you vere is Ray Tallantyre," she reminded him.

  "I am glad you came," Urushkidan told her. "Shall we leabe tis uncibilized place?" Two soldiers appeared in the doorway. "Perhaps not."

  Dyann swung her rifle around. She was a trifle slow. Both newcomers already had weapons unlimbered, and opened fire. She dropped behind the desk. Twin streams of slugs pierced its mass, seeking her. She took it by the legs and heaved. It arced high over the floor and landed on the soldiers in a burst of drawers, papers, penstyls, and books. They went down beneath it and stayed there, stunned.

  The secret police officer had taken advantage of the distraction to snatch forth his sidearm. He trained it on Dyann as she rose. Urushkidan snaked forth a tentacle and pulled him off his feet. Dyann paused to knock Roshevsky-Feldkamp unconscious before she closed fingers around the other man's Adam's apple. "Vere you not listenin?" she growled. "Vere is Ray Tallantyre?"

  "Come, no delay, prudence requires we get out of here," urged the Martian.

  Perforce, Dyann agreed. She hadn't really intended to get into a brawl. Things had just sort of happened. "Vat's a safe vay to go?" she inquired.

  "Tis way. I'be been shown around. Follow me." Urushkidan paused to relieve both officers of their pistols. He carried one in either hand, gingerly, as if he feared they might explode. Dyann frogmarched the political policeman out into the hall after him. Shouts of alarm rang through it, coming nearer; she heard the thud of military boots.

  "Hurry," Urushkidan gasped. "Shalmuannasar, we habe te entire Jobian Confederacy after us!" Since he could not move as fast as a human or Centaurian, Dyann expedited matters by picking him up and draping him over her prisoner's head.

  They rounded a corner and clattered down several flights of stairs to a steel door marked HANGAR. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. It wasn't locked. Passing through, they found themselves in a cavernous enclosure where several small spacecraft rested on mobile cradles. Mechanics stared at the trio.

  "Tese are bessels for scientific use around te surface," Urushkidan explained. "We want one."

  A superintendent hurried up, obviously puzzled but afraid to comment. "You heard vat ve vant," Dyann whispered, and squeezed her captive at the shoulder, quite gently, only enough to make bones creak.

  "Yes," the officer gasped through the tentacles that curtained his face. "Practice maneuvers. We ... we have immediate requirement of a fully-equipped craft. Mission confidential and —ow-w-w!—urgent."

  "Yes, sir," responded a lifetime's training in blind obedience. However, the crew was a little less efficient than usual. They kept stealing looks.

  As a teardrop-shaped boat trundled forth, Dyann held most of her attention on the door through which she had entered. Pursuit might reopen it at any instant. Surely by now Roshevsky-Feldkamp and the soldiers had been found. It shouldn't take somebody long to think of the possibility that her group had fled hither.

  "I'll start the warmup, sir," the head mechanic said.

  "No, don't bother, ve'll take her straight out," Dyann replied.

  Aghast, he protested, "Madame, you don't understand. That'll cause carbon deposits in the tubes. You'll risk engine failure, a crash—"

  "You find that an acceptable risk," Dyann told the secret policeman.

  "Yes, of course I do," he choked. "The .. . the Leader tells us no hazard is too great for the cause."

  Dyann propelled him ahead of her through the airlock. In the control cabin, she pushed him into the pilot's recoil chair, which she recognized from her travels around Earth. "I hope you can fly vun of these," she said.

  "I hope so too," added Urushkidan. He slithered off the Jovian, secured the airlock, and knitted himself to a passenger seat.

  "Ve are goin to find Ray Tallantyre," Dyann instructed the man. Part of her thought that she was beginning to sound obsessive. Yet, given the witch's brew of events in which she had somehow submerged herself, it was as reasonable a plan of action as any. Ray's shrewdness and sophistication might lend her the vital extra help, when Ormun was being left behind. In fact, this appeared to have been Ormun's intention.

  "What do you mean?" the officer asked. He seemed a trifle disconcerted and confused.

  "Ray Tallantyre, the Earthman that vas arrested off the Yovian Qveen" Dyann said with what she congratulated herself was exemplary patience. "You in your service ought to know vere he is kept. Vould some blows refresh your memory?"

  "Camp Muellenhoff, you savage!" he got out. "North of the city. You'll never succeed. You'll kill us all."

  Dyann smiled. "Then ve vill feast forever vith the gods, in the Hall of Skulls," she comforted him. "Von't that be nice?"

  The cradle got into motion, rumbling toward the hangar airlock. Up a long ramp . . . into the chamber . . . darkness outside, as valves closed . . . hollow noise of pumps, withdrawing air. . . . Urushkidan relit his pipe wi
th shaky tendrils. Dyann whistled tunelessly between her teeth.

  "I am not so sure we are wise," the Martian said. "Tis bessel cannot carry us away from te Jobian System, or eben to anoter satellite of te planet."

  "No, you are not wise," the political officer agreed eagerly.

  "Hindsight vill show," Dyann responded. "Meanvile, you vould be most unvise not to pilot like I tell you."

  The outer valve opened. The cradle rolled out onto the field. Behind that flat expanse, the dome which covered Wotanopolis glowed against sawtoothed mountains, rearing above a near horizon, and starlit sky. The dwarfed pale sun cast luminance from the west. Only one other spacecraft was in sight, a black shape which Dyann could identify as a patrol ship.

  "They vill come out after us in force pretty soon," she said. "Vat can ve do about that boat yonder, ha?" She reached a decision. "Ah, yes." Her involuntary pilot received his orders. When he clamored refusal, she reminded him, briefly but painfully, that he was no volunteer but, indeed, an impressed man. The engine thuttered and the little scientific craft rose.

  Having reached altitude, she descended again, sufficiently to play her jets across the patrol ship. That was not good for the patrol ship.

  Dyann didn't bother to receive whatever they were trying to tell her from the control tower. "Now," she stated as her boat rose anew, "you, my policeman friend, take us to this prison and make them release Tallantyre to us. If this goes okay, ve vill set you free somevere. If not—" she passed the edge of her knife across the back of his hand, neatly shaving off hairs, "you may still be a police, but you might not be a man."

  "You unutterable monster," he said.

  "It is nicer droppin nuclear missiles on cities?" she asked, genuinely bemused.