“If they are that villainous. If there is a cabal.”
He nodded. “The chance I take, that I’m mistaken.”
“As well as chances with your life, Dan.”
“Not too bad. Honest. I value my hide. It’s the only one I’ve got.”
“What do you want to do, essentially?”
“Go to Earth. Investigate. Act. Mainly, I suppose, alert the Rueda clan. At most, they’ll’ve heard vague rumors. I haven’t written to them directly, as you know, because I wasn’t that sure of my facts; and then when I was, I trustingly asked Aurie to push her queries harder, and then today she dumped this crockful over me. Our mail is bound to be intercepted, stopped if it says anything inconvenient. Nobody that I know on Demeter whom I might somehow pass the word to, nobody knows his way around Earth or has the connections I do there. No, I must get to Lima in person and talk to the Señor.”
“How?”
He paused in stuffing his pipe to give her a lopsided grin. “Lis, that plain and practical a question alone, right in this hour, would make me love you.”
He had not seen her blush and drop her glance in a long time. She squeezed his thigh. “We’re partners, remember?” she whispered.
“I’m not about to forget.” He set his smoking apparatus down to lay a hand over hers. “Okay, we haven’t a truck load of time, we’d better conspire onward.
“I don’t yet have an exact plan. Mainly, I figure it’s needful I bust free, out of reach. And immediately. If nothing is seen or heard of me for the next two-three days, I think Aurie’ll take for granted I’m sulking in my tent. After that, however, it’d seem funny if I didn’t at least make an occasional phone call. So I’ll skite off tonight.”
She didn’t require details. None but the two of them knew about their tunnel. A few years past, he’d rented a burrower to add a wine cellar to their storm shelter. While he was at it, he excavated a crawlway to the middle of the woods north of their land, reinforcing with spraycrete. That was during the bitter dispute, on and around Earth, regarding jurisdiction and property rights among the asteroids, when for a while it looked as if the Iliadic League would secede. If that federation of orbital and Lunar colonies left the Union—and the Union probably resorted to arms to bring it back—God knew what would happen, also on Demeter. The crisis faded away in grumbling compromise, but Brodersen still jawed himself for not having provided a secret exit from the house before then. He’d seen enough disasters, most of them due to governments, that he should have taken out that insurance at the start.
From the woods he could hike five kilometers to a lonely airbus stop, fly to a distant town, and rent a car. He had established a couple of fake identities, complete with excellent credit ratings, to protect privacy when he and his traveled. In the pond that was Demeter, population less than three million, he’d become a bigger frog than he liked.
“What next?” Lis asked.
“Let’s think,” he said, kindling tobacco and drinking smoke. “Obviously I’ll need transportation to Sol, transportation that’ll do me some good after I get there. Chinook—what else?—the crew she can carry, the supplies aboard, the auxiliary boat. Besides, Williwaw is practically designed for jobs like snatching me unbeknownst from wherever I am on this planet.”
“How do you hope you’ll get Chinook through the gate, past the watchship?”
He chuckled. The prospect of operating, instead of being operated on, cheered him immensely. Not that he welcomed the present mess. Yet in recent years his days had gotten too predictable for his taste. “We’ll figure that out. If you can’t handle the negotiations, dear, we’d better both report to the gero clinic. Off hand… hm … well, Aventureros”—the parent company of Chehalis—“certainly could use another big freighter within the Solar System; and with no prospect now of Chinook going starward, why, we might as well put her on charter there.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, yes, that’d give her the perfect official reason to contact the Ruedas.” Leaning forward, going earnest: “Yes, let’s count on that. Tomorrow you buzz the crewfolk. Speak about a possible trip to Sol on short notice, and invite them here for a conference about it. La Hancock did tell me quite frankly we’d be bugged whenever we had visitors, and jamming at that time would look too suspicious. But you can prepare written summaries to hand out, and all the real talk can be in writing, while harmless things are spoken that you can also have written out beforehand. They’re bright people I picked, quick studies. They’ll put on a convincing show.”
Lis frowned. “Will they necessarily go along with such a risky venture?”
“Well, some may be too law-abiding or something. However, I feel sure that if any refuse, they’ll still be loyal enough that they won’t run off and blab. I didn’t choose them to be my crew on a possible voyage to new planets without getting to know each one of them pretty well.”
“Even so, Aurelia is no fool. If she learns that Chinook is about to leave, she may slap on a hold, on whatever pretext she can think of, just to play safe.”
“Need she know? The Governor General’s office doesn’t usually keep track of spaceship comings and goings. I’ve little doubt you can hit on an arrangement.”
Brodersen hesitated before adding: “Uh, in due course she will grow certain I’ve vamoosed, and quite likely speculate that I was smuggled aboard. You’ll be in for considerable static, I’m afraid.”
“I can give as good as I get,” she assured him.
He smiled. “Yeah. How well I know. I don’t see how she can make really serious trouble for you without tipping her hand, which she mustn’t. What can she legally prove, except maybe that you helped your husband break out of a dubiously legal custody? And if that came to trial, wow!”
“She might trump up something worse,” Lis said. “Not that I think she’d want to. She’s not basically a commissar. But she might be ordered to.”
“Our lawyers can drag out any court case for months,” he reminded her. “By that time, I should’ve gotten the whole stinking business busted to flinders.” He frowned. “Of course, if I fail—”
“Don’t worry about me,” she interrupted. “You know I’ll manage.”
Again she grew quiet, standing beside him. “I’ll be afraid on your account,” she said at last.
“Don’t be.” He shifted his pipe and laid an arm around her shoulders.
“Well, since you are bound to go, let’s plan things carefully. For openers, how do we keep in touch?”
“Through Abner Croft,” he proposed. That was among his fictitious personalities. Abner Croft owned a cabin on Lake Artemis, a hundred kilometers hence. His phone possessed more than a scrambler. It had a military gadget Brodersen had learned about on Earth and re-created for himself, as an extra precaution during the lliadic crisis. A tap on the line would register a banal pre-recorded conversation. He and Lis had had fun creating several such, using disguises and voder-altered voices. He could get in circuit from any third instrument by requesting a conference call; the switching machinery didn’t care.
“M-hm,” she said. “Where do you expect you’ll actually be?”
“In the uplands. Logical area, no?”
She paused. “With Caitlín?”
Taken aback because she spoke so gravely, he floundered, “Well, um, that’s where she is this time of year. Everybody local’ll know how to find her, and think it quite natural that an outside visitor would want to hear a few songs of hers. And who else could better keep me concealed, or tell what’s a safe rendezvous in those parts, or… or whatever?”
He puffed hard. Lis touched him anew, and now she did not let go. “Forgive me that I asked,” she said low. “I’m not protesting. You’re right, she’s a fine bet to help us. But you see—no, I’m not jealous, but I might never see you again after tonight, and she means a great deal more to you than Joelle, doesn’t she?”
“Aw, sweetheart.” He laid his pipe aside, to slide from the bench and stand holding her.
Head on
his breast, fingers tight against his back, she let the words tumble forth, though she kept them soft. “Dan, dearest, understand. I know you love me. And I, after that wretched marriage of mine broke up, when I met you—Everything you’ve been says you love me. But you, your first wife, you were never happier than when you had Antonia, were you?”
“No,” he confessed around a thickness. “Except you’ve given me—”
“Hush. I’ve made it clear to you I don’t mind—enough to matter—if you wander a bit once in a while. You meet a lot of assorted people, and I don’t usually go along on your business trips to Earth, and you’re a mighty attractive bull, did I ever tell you? No, shut up, darling, let me finish. I don’t worry about Joelle. From what little you’ve said, there’s a kind of witchcraft about her—a holothete and—But you didn’t ever invent excuses to go back to her. Caitlín, though—”
“Her either—” he tried.
“You haven’t told me she was anything but a friend and occasional playmate. Well, you haven’t told me that, openly, about anyone. You’re a private person in your way, Dan. But I’ve come to know you regardless. I’ve watched you two when she came visiting. Caitlín is quite a bit like Toni, isn’t she?”
He could only grip her to him for reply.
“You said I didn’t have to be a monogamist myself,” Lis blurted. “And maybe I won’t always.” She gulped a giggle. “What a pair of anachronisms we are, knowing what ‘monogamy’ means!… But since we got married, Dan, nobody’s been worth the trouble. And nobody will be while you’re away this trip and I don’t know if you’ll get back.”
“I will,” he vowed, “I will, to you.”
“You’ll do your damnedest, sure. Which is one blazing hell of a damnedest.” She raised her face to his. He saw tears, and felt and tasted them. “I’m sorry,” she got forth. “I shouldn’t have mentioned Caitlín. Except… give her my love, please.”
“I, I said earlier, your practical question reminded me what kind of people you are,” he stammered. “Then, uh, this—You’re flat-out unbelievably good.”
Lis disengaged, stepped back, flowed her hands from his ribs to his hips, and said far down in her throat: “Thanks, chum. Now look, this’ll be a short night—you’ll want to catch your bus when the passengers are sleepy—and we’ve a lot of plotting to do yet. First, however… m-m-m-m?”
Warmth rose in him. “M-m-m-m,” he returned.
V
THREE HUNDRED KILOMETERS east of the Hephaestian Sea, two thousand north of Eopolis, the Uplands rose. There a number of immigrants from northern Europe had settled during the past century’s inflow. Like most colonists, once it became possible to survive beyond the original town and its technological support, they tended to clump together with their own kind. Farmers, herders, lumberjacks, hunters, they lived in primitive fashion for lack of machinery; freight costs from Earth were enormous. Later, when Demetrian industry began to grow, they acquired some modern equipment—but not much, because in the meantime they had developed ways well suited to coping with their particular country. Moreover, most of them didn’t care to become dependent on outsiders. They or their ancestors had moved here to be free of governments, corporations, unions, and other monopolies. That spirit endured.
The folk who bore it had evolved a whole ethos. In their homes, many of them continued to speak the original languages; but given that variety, English was the common tongue, in a new dialect. Traditions blended together, mutated, or sprang spontaneously into being. For instance, at winter solstice—cold, murk, snow, in this part of the continent which humans called Ionia—they celebrated Yule (not Christmas, which still went by the Terrestrial calendar) with feasting, mirth, decorations, gifts, and reunions. Halfway around the Demetrian year they found a different occasion for gatherings, more frankly bacchanalian. Then bonfire signalled to bonfire across rugged distances, while around them went dancing drinking, eating, singing, japing, gaming, sporting, lovemaking from sundown to sunrise.
For the past three years, Margaret Mulryan had given music at that season to those who met on Trollberg, when she wasn’t busy with associated pleasures. She was again on her way, afoot along a dirt road, since the journey was part of the fun. As she went, she practiced the latest song she had made for the festival, skipping to its waltz time while her clear soprano lifted.
In silver-blue, the dew lies bright.
The midsummer night
Is abrim with light.
Come take each other by the hand,
For music has wakened
All over the land.
Fingers bounced across the control board of the sonador she held in the crook of her left arm. Programmed to imitate a flute, though louder, the mahogany-colored box piped beneath her chorus.
Go gladly up and gladly down.
The dancing flies outward like laughter
From blossomfield to mountain crown.
Rejoice in the joy that comes after!
Dust puffed from under her shoes. Around her, the heights dreamed beneath the amber glow of a Phoebus declining westward, close to its northernmost point in a sky where a few clouds drifted white. The road followed the Astrid River, which rippled and gurgled, green with glacial flour, on her right, downward bound to Aguabranca where it would enter the mighty Europa. Beyond the stream lay untouched native ground, steeply falling into a dale already full of dusk, clothed in bluish-green growth wherever boulders did not thrust forth—lodix like a kind of trilobate grass or clover, gemmed with petals of arrowhead and sunbloom, between coppices of tall redlance and supple daphne. Insectoids swarmed, gorgeously hued flamewings, leaping hopshrubs, multitudinous humbugs. A bright-plumed frailie cruised among them, a minstrel warbled from a bough, a couple of bucearos swooped overhead, and a draque hovered lean, far above—not birds, these, but hypersauroids, like every well-developed vertebrate which Demeter had brought forth. Pungencies that roused memories of resin and cinnamon drifted on a south breeze which was rapidly cooling off the afternoon.
On Caitlín’s left ran a rail fence. Somewhat level, till it met a scarp three or four kilometers off, the soil thus demarked had been converted to pasture for Terrestrial livestock and, further on, barley fields for humans. To the invaders from space, Demetrian meat and vegetation were often edible, occasionally delicious; she had been plucking moonberries, pearl apples, and dulcifruct ever since she got off the bus at Freidorp. But they lacked the whole complement of vitamins and amino acids, while containing several that were useless. The imported plants were intensely verdant, the cattle that grazed them fantastically red.
Behind her, the road twisted out of sight around a hill. Ahead, it climbed like a snake. Beyond the next ridge she could see Trollberg, wooded and meadowed to its top. Ghost-faint at its back floated the Phaeacian snowpeaks. Mount Lorn their lord.
The music sparkles fleet and sweet.
She sways there before him
On eager feet,
So lithe and blithe, and garlanded
With roses and starshine
Around her dear head.
Go gladly up and gladly down.
The dancing flies outward like laughter—
Caitlín halted. From a wilderness thicket had appeared a garm. Gray-furred, round-snouted, bob-tailed, tiger-sized, it flowed along in a gracefulness that brought a gasp of admiration from her. Neither need fear. Demetrian carnivores didn’t like the scent of Terrestrial animals and never attacked them. For their part, human hunters tried to preserve the balance of a nature which provided them skins for the market, and the Upland Folkmeet had declared garms a protected species.
The beast stopped too, and stared back at her. It saw a young woman. (Her exact age was thirty-four, though being Earth-born she thought of it as twenty-five.) Of medium height, full-bosomed, withy-slender, long in the legs, she bore aloft a curly, bronze-brown mane which fell to her shoulders. Her face was wide in the brow, high in the cheekbones, tapering to the chin; but her mouth was broad and full.
Beneath arching dark brows were emerald eyes and a short, tilted nose. Weather had turned a fair skin tawny and added a dusting of freckles. Her tunic and trousers had seen rough use. A crios belt, gaudy rainbow sash, encircled them. A backpack carried changes of clothing, sleeping bag, a little dried food, the poems of Yeats, and other travel gear.
“Glory be to Creation,” she breathed, “you’re beautiful, me bucko!”
The garm vanished back onto its domain. Caitlín sighed and continued along her route.
He spurns the turf that once he paced.
His arm throws a glowing
Around her waist,
And whirled across the world, she sees
Him light as the wind and
More tall than the trees.
Go gladly up—
She broke off. A man had stepped into sight, rounding a huge rock behind the fence ahead of her. Equally surprised, after an instant he raised a hand and cried a greeting. Caitlín jogged toward him. He was young, too, she saw, stocky, blond. Clad in coveralls, he bore a horn made from a tordener’s tusk wherewith to call his cows home.
“Good day, my girl,” he said in his lilting accent when she reached him. Hereabouts that was courteous. “How goes it for you?”
“Very well. I thank you, sir, and wish the top of the day to you,” she replied in the soft English of her homeland, which long since had taken unto itself the speech of its conquerors and made that its own.
“Can I ask where you fare?”
“To Trollberg for Midsummer.”
His eyes widened. “Ah. That I guessed. You are Cathleen, true? I’d call you ‘Miz’ like a gentleman ought, but ken not your last name. Nobody seems to use it.”
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