"Captain's dinner," Flandry decreed. While he stood over the cook, and ended preparing most of the delicacies himself, Djana ornamented their cabin with what cloths and furs she could find. Thereafter she spent a long while ornamenting herself. For dress she chose the thinnest, fluffiest blue gown she owned. Flandry returned, slipped into red-and-gold mufti, and popped the cork on the first champagne bottle.
They dined, and drank, and chatted, and laughed through a couple of hours. He pretended not to see that she was forcing her mirth. The moment when he must notice came soon enough.
He poured brandy, lounged back, sniffed and sipped. "Aahh! Almost as tasty as you, my love."
She regarded him across the tiny, white-clothed table. Behind her a viewscreen gave on crystal dark and a magnificence of stars. The ship shivered and hummed ever so faintly, the air was fragrant with odors from the cleared-away dishes, and with the perfume she had chosen. Her great eyes fell to rest and he could not dip his own from them.
"You use that word a lot," she said, quiet-voiced. "Love."
"Appropriate, isn't it?" Uneasiness tugged at him.
"Is it? What do you intend to do, Nicky?"
"Why . . . make a dummy trip to 'claim my inheritance.' Not that anybody'd check on me especially, but it's an excuse to play tourist. When my leave's up, I report to Terra, no less, for the next assignment. I daresay somebody in a lofty echelon has gotten word about the Talwin affair and wants to talk to me—which won't hurt the old career a bit, eh?"
"You've told me that before. You know it's not what I meant. Why have you never said anything about us?"
He reached for a cigarette while taking a fresh swallow of brandy. "I have, I have," he countered, smiling hard. "With a substantial sum in your purse, you should do well if you make the investments I suggested. They'll buy you a peaceful life on a congenial planet; or, if you prefer to shoot for larger stakes, they'll get you entry into at least the cellars of the haut monde."
She bit her lip. "I've been dreading this," she said.
"Hey? Uh, you may've had a trifle more than optimum to drink, Djana. I'll ring for coffee."
"No." She clenched fingers about the stem of her glass, raised it and tossed off the contents in a gulp. Setting it down: "Yes," she said, "I did kind of guzzle tonight. On purpose. You see, I had to form the habit of not thinking past any time when I was feeling good, because knowing a bad time was sure to come, I'd spoil the good time. A . . . an inhibition. Ydwyr taught me how to order my inhibitions out of my way, but I didn't want to use any stunt of that bastard's—"
"He's not a bad bastard. I've grown positively fond of him."
"—and besides, I wanted to pull every trick in my bag on you, and for that I needed to be happy, really happy. Well, tonight's my last chance. Oh, I suppose I could stay around a while—"
"I wouldn't advise it," Flandry said in haste. He'd been looking forward to searching for variety in the fleshpots of the Empire. "I'll be too peripatetic."
Djana shoved her glass toward him. He poured, a clear gurgle in a silence where, through the humming, he could hear her breathe.
"Uh-huh," she said. "I had to know tonight. That's why I got a touch looped, to help me ask." She lifted the glass. Her gaze stayed on his while she drank. Stars made a frosty coronet for her hair. When she had finished, she was not flushed. "I'll speak straight," she said. "I thought . . . we made a good pair, Nicky, didn't we, once things got straightened out? . . . I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask if you'd like to keep on. No, wait, I don't have any notions about me as an agent. But I could be there whenever you got back."
Well, let's get it over with. Flandry laid a hand on one of hers. "You honor me beyond my worth, dear," he said. "It isn't possible—"
"I supposed not." Had Ydwyr taught her that instant steely calm? "You'd never forget what I've been."
"I assure you, I'm no prude. But—"
"I mean my turnings, my treasons . . . . Oh, let's forget I spoke, Nicky, darling. It was just a hope. I'll be fine. Let's enjoy our evening together; and maybe, you know, maybe sometime we'll meet again."
The thought slashed through him. He sat straight with a muttered exclamation. Why didn't that occur to me before?
She stared. "Is something wrong?"
He ran angles and aspects through his head, chuckled gleefully at the result, and squeezed her fingers. "Contrariwise," he said, "I've hit on a sort of answer. If you're interested."
"What? I—What is it?"
"Well," he said, "you brushed off the idea of yourself in my line of work as a fantasy, but weren't you too quick? You've proven you're tough and smart, not to mention beautiful and charming. On top of that, there's this practically unique wild talent of yours. And Ydwyr wouldn't be hard to convince you've zigzagged back to him. Our Navy Intelligence will jump for joy to have you, after I pass word along the channels open to me. We'd see each other often, I daresay, perhaps now and then we'd work together . . . . why, even if they get you into the Roidhunate as a double agent—"
He stopped. Horror confronted him.
"What . . . what's the matter?" he faltered.
Her lips moved several times before she could speak. Her eyes stayed dry and had gone pale, as if a flame had passed behind them. There was no hue at all in her face.
"You too," she got out.
"Huh? I don't—"
She checked him by lifting a hand. "Everybody," she said, "as far back as I can remember. Ending with Ydwyr, and now you."
"What in cosmos?"
"Using me." Her tone was flat, not loud in the least. She stared past him. "You know," she said, "the funny part is, I wanted to be used. I wanted to give, serve, help, belong to somebody . . . . But you only saw a tool. A thing. Every one of you."
"Djana, I give you my word of honor—"
"Honor?" She shook her head, slowly. "It's a strange feeling," she told her God, in a voice turned high and puzzled, like that of a child who cannot understand, "to learn, once and forever, that there's no one who cares. Not even You."
She squared her shoulders. "Well, I'll manage."
Her look focused on Flandry, who sat helpless and gaping. "As for you," she said levelly, "I guess I can't stop you from having almost any woman who comes by. But I'll wish this, that you never get the one you really want."
He thought little of her remark, then. "You're overwrought," he said, hoping sharpness would work. "Drunk. Hysterical."
"Whatever you want," she said wearily. "Please go away."
He left, and arranged for a doss elsewhere. Next mornwatch the ship landed on Ysabeau. Djana walked down the gangway without saying goodbye to Flandry. He watched her, shrugged, sighed—Women! The aliens among us!—and sauntered alone toward the shuttle into town, where he could properly celebrate his victory.
THE REBEL WORLDS
Make oneness.
I/we: Feet belonging to Guardian Of North Gate and others who can be, to Raft Farer and Woe who will no longer be, to Many Thoughts, Cave Discoverer, and Master Of Songs who can no longer be; Wings belonging to Iron Miner and Lightning Struck The House and others to be, to Many Thoughts who can no longer be; young Hands that has yet to share memories: make oneness.
(O light, wind, river! They flood too strongly, they tear me/us apart.)
Strength. This is not the first young Hands which has come here to remember the journey that was made so many years before he/she was born; nor shall this be the last. Think strength, think calm.
(Blurred, two legs, faceless . . . no, had they beaks?)
Remember. Lie down at ease where leaves whisper beneath hues of upthrusting land coral; drink light and wind and sound of the river. Let reminiscence flow freely, of deeds that were done before this my/our Hands came to birth.
(Clearer, now: so very strange they were, how can the sight of them even be seen, let alone held in me/us? . . . Answer: The eye learns to see them, the nose to smell them, the ear to hear them, the tongue of the Feet and the limbs of the Wi
ngs and the Hands to touch their skins and feel, the tendrils to taste what they exude.)
This goes well. More quickly than usual. Perhaps i/we can become a good oneness that will often have reason to exist.
(Flicker of joy. Tide of terror at the rising memories—alienness, peril, pain, death, rebirth to torment.)
Lie still. It was long ago.
But time too is one. Now is unreal; only past-and-future has the length to be real. What happened then must be known to Us. Feel in every fiber of my/our young Hands, that i/we am/are part of Us—We of Thunderstone, Ironworkers, Fellers and Builders, Plowers, Housedwellers, and lately Traders—and that each oneness We may create must know of those who come from beyond heaven, lest their dangerous marvels turn into Our ruin.
Wherefore let Hands unite with Feet and Wings. Let the oneness once again recall and reflect on the journey of Cave Discoverer and Woe, in those days when the strangers, who had but single bodies and yet could talk, marched overmountain to an unknown battle. With every such reflection, as with every later encounter, i/we gain a little more insight, go a little further along the trail that leads to understanding them.
Though it may be that on that trail, We are traveling in a false direction. The unit who led them said on a certain night that he/she/it/? doubted if they understood themselves, or ever would.
Chapter One
The prison satellite swung in a wide and canted orbit around Llynathawr, well away from normal space traffic. Often a viewport in Hugh McCormac's cell showed him the planet in different phases. Sometimes it was a darkness, touched with red-and-gold sunrise on one edge, perhaps the city Catawrayannis flickering like a star upon its night. Sometimes it was a scimitar, the sun burning dazzlingly close. Now and then he saw it full, a round shield of brilliance, emblazoned on oceans azure with clouds argent above continents vert and tenné.
Terra looked much the same at the same distance. (Closer in, you became aware that she was haggard, as is any former beauty who has been used by too many men.) But Terra was a pair of light-centuries removed. And neither world resembled rusty, tawny Aeneas for which McCormac's eyes hungered.
The satellite had no rotation; interior weight was due entirely to gravity-field generators. However, its revolution made heaven march slowly across the viewport. When Llynathawr and sun had disappeared, a man's pupils readjusted and he became able to see other stars. They crowded space, unwinking, jewel-colored, winter-sharp. Brightest shone Alpha Crucis, twin blue-white giants less than ten parsecs away; but Beta Crucis, a single of the same kind, was not much further off in its part of the sky. Elsewhere, trained vision might identify the red glimmers of Aldebaran and Arcturus. They resembled fires which, though remote, warmed and lighted the camps of men. Or vision might swing out to Deneb and Polaris, unutterably far beyond the Empire and the Empire's very enemies. That was a cold sight.
Wryness tugged at McCormac's mouth. If Kathryn were tuned in on my mind, he thought, she'd say there must be something in Leviticus against mixing so many metaphors.
He dared not let the knowledge of her dwell with him long. I'm lucky to have an outside cell. Not uncomfortable, either. Surely this wasn't Snelund's intention.
The assistant warden had been as embarrassed and apologetic as he dared. "We, uh, well, these are orders for us to detain you, Admiral McCormac," he said. "Direct from the governor. Till your trial or . . . transportation to Terra, maybe . . . uh . . . till further orders." He peered at the fax on his desk, conceivably hoping that the words it bore had changed since his first perusal. "Uh, solitary confinement, incommunicado—state-of-emergency powers invoked—Frankly, Admiral McCormac, I don't see why you aren't allowed, uh, books, papers, even projections to pass the time . . . . I'll send to His Excellency and ask for a change."
I know why, McCormac had thought. Partly spite; mainly, the initial stage in the process of breaking me. His back grew yet stiffer. Well, let them try!
The sergeant of the housecarl platoon that had brought the prisoner up from Catawrayannis Port said in his brassiest voice, "Don't address traitors by titles they've forfeited."
The assistant warden sat bolt upright, nailed them all with a look, and rapped: "Sergeant, I was twenty years in the Navy before retiring to my present job. I made CPO. Under His Majesty's regulations, any officer of Imperials ranks every member of any paramilitary local force. Fleet Admiral McCormac may have been relieved of command, but unless and until he's decommissioned by a proper court-martial or by direct fiat from the throne, you'll show him respect or find yourself in worse trouble than you may already be in."
Flushed, breathing hard, he seemed to want to say more. Evidently he thought better of it. After a moment, during which a couple of the burly guards shifted from foot to foot, he added merely: "Sign the prisoner over to me and get out."
"We're supposed to—" the sergeant began.
"If you have written orders to do more than deliver this gentleman into custody, let's see them." Pause. "Sign him over and get out. I don't plan to tell you again."
McCormac placed the assistant warden's name and face in his mind as carefully as he had noted each person involved in his arrest. Someday—if ever—
What had become of the man's superior? McCormac didn't know. Off Aeneas, he had never been concerned with civilian crime or penology. The Navy looked after its own. Sending him here was an insult tempered only by the fact that obviously it was done to keep him away from brother officers who'd try to help him. McCormac guessed that Snelund had replaced a former warden with a favorite or a bribegiver—as he'd done to many another official since he became sector governor—and that the new incumbent regarded the post as a sinecure.
In any case, the admiral was made to exchange his uniform for a gray coverall; but he was allowed to do so in a booth. He was taken to an isolation cell; but although devoid of ornament and luxury, it had room for pacing and facilities for rest and hygiene. The ceiling held an audiovisual scanner; but it was conspicuously placed, and no one objected when he rigged a sheet curtain for his bunk. He saw no other being, heard no other voice; but edible food and clean fabrics came in through a valve, and he had a chute for disposal of scraps and soils. Above all else, he had the viewport.
Without that sun, planet, constellations, frosty rush of Milky Way and dim gleam of sister galaxies, he might soon have crumbled—screamed for release, confessed to anything, kissed the hand of his executioner, while honest medics reported to headquarters on Terra that they had found no sign of torture or brainscrub upon him. It would not have been the sensory deprivation per se that destroyed his will in such short order. It would have been the loss of every distraction from the thought of Kathryn, every way of guessing how long a time had gone by while she also lay in Aaron Snelund's power. McCormac admitted the weakness to himself. That was not one he was ashamed of.
Why hadn't the governor then directed he be put in a blank cell? Oversight, probably, when more urgent business demanded attention. Or, being wholly turned inward on himself, Snelund perhaps did not realize that other men might love their wives above life.
Of course, as day succeeded standard day (with never a change in this bleak white fluorescence) he must begin wondering why nothing had happened up here. If his observers informed him of the exact situation, no doubt he would prescribe that McCormac be shifted to different quarters. But agents planted in the guard corps of a small artificial moon were lowly creatures. They would not, as a rule, report directly to a sector governor, viceroy for His Majesty throughout some 50,000 cubic light-years surrounding Alpha Crucis, and a very good friend of His Majesty to boot. No, they wouldn't even when the matter concerned a fleet admiral, formerly responsible for the defense of that entire part of the Imperial marches.
Petty agents would report to administrative underlings, who would send each communication on its way through channels. Was somebody seeing to it that material like this got—no, not lost—shunted off to oblivion in the files?
McCormac sig
hed. The noise came loud across endless whisper of ventilation, clack of his shoes on metal. How long could such protection last?
He didn't know the satellite's orbit. Nevertheless, he could gauge the angular diameter of Llynathawr pretty closely. He remembered the approximate dimensions and mass. From that he could calculate radius vector and thus period. Not easy, applying Kepler's laws in your head, but what else was there to do? The result more or less confirmed his guess that he was being fed thrice in 24 hours. He couldn't remember exactly how many meals had come before he started tallying them with knots in a thread. Ten? Fifteen? Something like that. Add this to the 37 points now confronting him. You got between 40 and 50 spaceship watches; or 13 to 16 Terran days; or 15 to 20 Aenean.
Aenean. The towers of Windhome, tall and gray, their banners awake in a whistling sky; tumble of crags and cliffs, reds, ochres, bronzes, where the Ilian Shelf plunged to a blue-gray dimness sparked and veined with watergleams that was the Antonine Seabed; clangor of the Wildfoss as it hurled itself thitherward in cataracts; and Kathryn's laughter when they rode forth, her gaze upon him more blue than the dazzlingly high sky—
"No!" he exclaimed. Ramona's eyes had been blue. Kathryn's were green. Was he already confusing his live wife with his dead one?
If he had a wife any more. Twenty days since the housecarls burst into their bedchamber, arrested them and took them down separate corridors. She had slapped their hands off her wrists and marched among their guns with scornful pride, though tears rivered over her face.
McCormac clasped his hands and squeezed them together till fingerbones creaked. The pain was a friend. I mustn't, he recalled. If I wring myself out because of what I can't make better, I'm doing Snelund's work for him.
What else can I do?
Resist. Until the end.
Not for the first time, he summoned the image of a being he had once known, a Wodenite, huge, scaly, tailed, four-legged, saurian-snouted, but comrade in arms and wiser than most. "You humans are a kittle breed," the deep voice had rumbled. "Together you can show courage that may cross the threshold of madness. Yet when no one else is near to tell your fellows afterward how you died, the spirit crumbles away and you fall down empty."
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