Harvest of Stars

by Poul Anderson

  Valencia’s grip closed bruisingly on Kyra’s arm. “Vamos!” he snapped. “I don’t know when he’d have met the next guard, or whether that one will come searching or call in an alarm straightaway. We can just try to haul clear before then.”

  She could not pull her look from the single empty eye. “You killed him,” she heard. The words fell dulled off a dry tongue. “He was wounded, and you killed him.”

  “What else?” She sensed how he reined in impatience, to speak hurriedly but soothingly: “Kyra, it was necessary. This meeting was happenstance, his bad luck and ours. Let’s not make it Fireball’s.”

  She gagged down acid. No, God damn it, she would not puke. She turned and strode from the corpse. Her heels hit the sidewalk in perfect cadence.

  Valencia joined her. “That’s better,” he said. She guessed that he smiled, though she didn’t care to see. “You’re a brave muchacha, Kyra.”

  She ought to reply, “I am Pilot Davis,” but didn’t.

  “Shouldn’t you have the carryall in your hand?” he asked. “That’s how the multi shows spacers taking their personal gear aboard.”

  He was right. He stayed cool and thought of everything. She followed the suggestion without comment. What she must concentrate on was steadiness.

  They went around several outer buildings so as to appear in the more public areas as if coming from the main gate. It took a while. She wondered indifferently whether tension increased in him pace by pace, listening for the doomsday siren. No matter. If so, he’d conceal it well. He was expert at such things. For her, stolidity must serve. That didn’t seem hard to maintain, after sickness had congealed to numbness.

  They emerged in the open and walked under lampposts, between more buildings, miniature gardens, benches and tables where employees liked to eat lunch. Afar they saw the field. The spacecraft poised floodlighted, a dart aimed at heaven, against the gaunt array of laser launchers. Maui Maru was her name, returned to Kyra. An ordinary small freighter, not meant for deep space, plying the lanes between Earth, Luna, and L-5. Having boosted, she traveled mostly on trajectory till she reached her destination. Kyra’s Kestrel was docked at L-5. It would be healing to take those dear controls again, to ride a torch again out to the haunts of the comets.

  Two uniformed Sepo confronted her. “Your identity, por favor,” said the larger.

  “Pilot Davis, reporting to Director Packer for tonight’s mission.” She gave him her card to examine.

  “Mario Conroy, reporting with information.” Valencia’s tone was as pleasant as his smile. He didn’t yank out his ident, he eased it out.

  The officer spoke into a miniphone. “Ah, yes,” he said. “In order. If you’ll wait a minute, a vehicle will come for you.”

  “Why wasn’t there one for them at the gate?” wondered his partner.

  The first man shrugged. “This business popped up with no notice. Nobody’s sure what it is. Nobody was prepared. Nobody knows his tail from his butt.”

  Except Fireball’s folk, Kyra thought. They were puzzled too, of course, but they’d swing right into action. Besides, though the circumstances were peculiar, this launch in itself was the nadir of routineness.

  A bug car brought her and Valencia to headquarters. “Wait, if you can,” he told the driver. “We may be back soon.” The scene inside was blessedly familiar, known faces, known voices and mannerisms welcoming her—if she ignored the militiamen at their stations and the wary-eyed plainclothes operatives. She and Valencia were ushered directly to Packer’s office.

  He rose to his feet behind the desk. “Buenas tardes.” The greeting sounded raw. He could never go pale, but was there a grayness underneath the brown? “Have a seat. Care for some refreshment?”

  “I’m afraid we haven’t time,” Valencia replied. “New word has come in. Pilot Davis has to scramble immediately.”

  Packer blinked, swallowed, recovered. His body actually loosened. Now he wasn’t chewing on the hours till the 2300 set for liftoff, Kyra realized. Instead, he was challenged to stage an act for the electronics planted here. “Oh? I haven’t been told.”

  “Nor will you be, sir, till we can brief you in a more secure place.” The “we” implied an outfit overriding the Sepo: which meant direct agents of the Advisory Synod. In his orders, Guthrie had not explicitly said anything like that about Mario Conroy, because it was never done for such persons, but he had made the implication clear.

  “If I have to go off with you, I’d like to stop by my home and notify my family,” Packer said.

  “Certainly,” Valencia replied. “I’ll ride along, if I may.” Unspoken: And we’ll pack them into your car and make for the first of the limbos I have chosen. Kyra decided it was best she couldn’t tell Packer what had happened to the guard. “But how much can you advance the countdown?”

  “That depends on where the ship is bound, which I haven’t been told either,” Packer said.

  Kyra stirred. “No worry about a launch window,” she said. “If the tanks are full, I’ll have reaction mass to waste, and there won’t be any call afterward to justify it.”

  “So it’s a matter of a new clearance to lift,” Packer said needlessly. “I’ll call Captain Ueland”—evidently the chief of the occupying force, whose authorization he must get in any case—“and ask him to put in for crash priority.” Federation Astro Control normally granted such requests, which were not frequent, when they came from a government official. “I’d guess we can raise you in half an hour, Pilot Davis.”

  How long since the murder—the liquidation—the unfortunate necessity? How long till it was discovered? “Then I’d better board at once,” Kyra said.

  “Buen viaje.” Packer kept the farewell conventional, unemotional. She caught the slightest tremor in it, which said, Oh, good voyage to you, good voyage to our hopes that you bear!

  Guthrie had once more gone heavy, as if Earth dragged at them both. She saluted and started out. Valencia flowed in front of her. “Buena suerte, amiga, y hasta la vista,” he said low. His hand swung behind her waist. He kissed her. It was light and brief, nothing to make anybody speculate, only what two people who’d become friendly might exchange; but she felt his lips tremble.

  She had all she could do not to shudder. “Adiós,” she said, and went out the door.

  24

  “—Zero.”

  The ship lifted. Acceleration pressed Kyra deep into her couch. She gave herself to the task of breathing. Before her eyes, lights blinked, needles turned across dials, the hieroglyphs in display screens shifted from shape to shape. The drive pulse throbbed in her ears and bones, it took her, she became one with it.

  Upward and eastward the ship rose, until the lasers could no longer reach her. At that height, scant air remained for them to energize into thrust. For a short span she moved on momentum and Kyra floated free, held just by her safety web, in an enormous quiet.

  When the ship reached vacuum of the required hardness, her drive kicked in. The force was less than before and the only sounds Kyra heard were the breath in ventilators and her nostrils, the blood in her veins.

  “Orbit achieved,” said a synthetic voice and various instruments. Again she was weightless. Her body reveled in the freedom. Null-g had its nuisances and over any real length of time it was bad for her, she’d have to spend hours daily exercising and in the centrifuge to counteract, but these first moments were always joy.

  Or they had been. She and Guthrie were aloft, they had escaped alive, yet muscles alone took pleasure. Inside, she felt frozen.

  She unsnapped her harness, floated off the couch, looked out the viewport. A segment of Earth’s vast curve filled half of it, clouds white swirls, cities constellated across the night beneath. She was above México, she judged—yes, the locator positioned Maui’s symbol there on its map. The rest of the scene was stars. She’d dimmed the cabin before liftoff, as was her wont, so that now they crowded vision, a frosty glory.

  She pushed with a foot, flew to the ra
ck behind the couch, caught a bracket to stop herself—a maneuver as gratifyingly graceful as a pass in a water dance among the Keiki—and hung by Guthrie. “How’re you doing?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he replied from the web. His eyestalks extended toward her face. “I can’t say the same of you, though, can I?”

  Kyra glanced away. “I’m all right,” she mumbled.

  “The hell you are. It’s about Valencia, isn’t it?”

  She set her teeth. “Yes. What he did. Do you know?” She hadn’t quite dared talk to him after they were aboard. There might have been a bug of some kind. Anyway, she’d been busy, stowing things, readying herself, ordering a flight plan for the Moon and studying it.

  “I have a fair idea from what I heard in your pack. A sentry surprised you. Valencia got the drop on him and killed him.”

  Kyra’s knuckles whitened on the bracket. “Not simply that,” she forced out. “I don’t know if the man died at once. It makes … no difference … Valencia shot him again, point blank, in the head.”

  “Yeah, I had that impression.”

  She stared into the blankness of him. “You don’t care?” she whispered.

  “Oh, it’s too bad, sure, but—No, I don’t approve of slaughtering helpless people. Once I’m back in charge at Fireball, I’ll find out who that man was, whether he left a family and what can be done to help them. But it was an emergency, Kyra. Either Valencia shot first, or we lost everything. Wash Packer too; they’d be certain to arrest and deep-quiz him. That second bullet may or may not have been called for. I hope I couldn’t have brought myself to it. But Nero’s a gunjin. He’ll never stand trial, you know. One way or another, making him a whole new identity or whatever else is called for, his brotherhood will see to that. And I won’t interfere. Because he saved us. And by his standards, he was doing the right and necessary thing.”

  Kyra’s eyes blurred and stung. “That’s what I keep telling myself. When can I believe it?”

  “Yes, a terrible shock for you. And a ghastly sight, I know all too well. Lass, I wish and I wish I could hold you tight. Even robot arms would be better than this damned box.”

  That brought a measure of warmth, the beginning of a thaw. Kyra swallowed, met the lensed gaze, found she could smile a little. “G-gracias, jefe. Muchas gracias.”

  “I did think he wasn’t for you.”

  The warmth turned absurdly hot. “Nothing serious went on!”

  “Good. You’ll have a spell to come to terms with what happened. It was sad and horrible, but it’s done, and it didn’t hurt you in any fundamental way, as a rape would have. That attitude isn’t selfish, it’s practical. You’re too healthy to let a mere nightmare set up housekeeping in your head. Be zen. Play some music you like. Remember glad things. You’ll get over it.”

  After some seconds Guthrie added slowly: “You’ll have to decide this for yourself, but I hope you can also get over hating Nero Valencia. I don’t suppose you’ll ever feel exactly cordial, but—well, me, in several ways I’m kind of sorry for him.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Silence murmured. Ocean sheened on Earth’s disc.

  “Shouldn’t we make ready to send me off?” Guthrie said rather than asked.

  Kyra started. “Crack, yes! Forgive me. I’ve been a, a self-pitying nullhead. Now, prontito.”

  She returned to the console, held herself fast by the toeholds, and gave the problem to the navigation program.

  Maui’s path was already determined. The ship was in an orbit low but widening. When she had come about three-fourths of the way around Earth, her drive would fire afresh and put her on course for the Moon. It would be a fast trajectory for a vessel like her, extravagant of reaction mass, but bringing her there in a couple of days. That was the best possible under the initial conditions; this wasn’t a torchcraft, capable of long-sustained boost.

  The new question was: Exactly when and how should the auxiliary launcher be released, to carry Guthrie past L-5? Since the colony trailed Luna by sixty degrees in the same orbit, the time wasn’t far ahead. As an additional requirement, Maui’s hull must screen the launcher from Earth-based radar while it was under thrust and for as much longer afterward as might be. If the Union police hadn’t yet locked onto this ship, they soon would. If they noticed anything leaving her, that pretty well ended the game.

  To be sure, they were limited to radars within their national boundaries. They wouldn’t ask Federation AstroCon for help; it would involve explanations. But the moment they found the slain guard and the snipped fence, they’d know they’d been had, and very soon false Guthrie would be alerted. He in his turn commanded all the resources of Fireball. Maui was going to be observed from that instant until she reached Luna.

  “I expect he’d have us blown apart, and invent a story to justify it, if any weapons but small arms were allowed in space,” Guthrie had said during their conference in Hilo—how many millennia ago? “I don’t expect he’ll order a torch to rendezvous with us and her crew to board, assuming he could get one there in time. An awkward, dangerous, time-consuming, and, most especially, conspicuous maneuver. The world would notice and ask why. He’ll see that you’re headed for the Moon, know that in your breed of ship you’ll have no choice but to land at Port Bowen, and set the Sepo ready to nab you when you arrive.”

  “Why can’t you broadcast the truth while you’re in space?” Valencia inquired. “What then can he do but confront you publicly? And he’s bound to fail any serious test.”

  “Unfortunately,” Guthrie explained, “Fireball owns just about every ship and facility at Earth, Luna, and L-5, plus most of those elsewhere.”

  “No, the satellites—”

  “Oh, commercial, weather, Peace Authority, and the rest of those sats, they don’t count. I mean ships, ports, interplanetary communications systems, the works. Even Federation personnel ride with us and rent from us when they need offices or quarters off Earth—unless they contract with us to do their jobs for them, which is what happens most often. That’s why there aren’t any government cops for Kyra to appeal to at Bowen. The tiny constabulary is Fireball, and will be under orders to stand aside from whatever the Sepo detachment does.

  “As for calls from spacecraft to anywhere, such as Earth, they aren’t direct. The sheer volume of communications traffic, plus the liability of various critical systems to interference, made us give up straightforward transmission quite a while ago. What we use is safer, more efficient, and more reliable. Any signal from or to space passes through Fireball’s relay sats or stations, which are the only ones equipped to amplify and unscramble it. They shunt it through the general communications net, or through Fireball’s own circuits, as the case may be. This is all computer work, you know, and the first chance my twin got, he put in a secret command to watch for suspicious messages and hold them for his inspection or Sayre’s. I would have.”

  Valencia whistled. “I knew you had a great empire, sir. I didn’t realize how great.”

  “It works so smoothly that people don’t notice it much,” Packer said. “We don’t want power over them, we simply want to do what interests us and make an honest profit on it.”

  Guthrie had kept Fireball true to that, Kyra thought. Without him, no doubt it would have evolved into a quasi-government, or a robber barony.

  “The monopoly wasn’t planned, it grew,” Guthrie said. “Being the only real pioneers in space at the time we began, we could negotiate a charter from Ecuador that kept politicians’ and bureaucrats’ picky-paws off us. Later, when troubles broke out here and there, we strengthened ourselves as a precaution. But I haven’t got time today for a history lesson.”

  “Spacecraft can talk directly with each other, of course,” Kyra put in. “But it’d be fantastic luck if any manned vessel—manned by folk of ours—happened to be locatable and in beam range of us. Especially since false Guthrie will revise flight plans to avoid the possibility.”

  “He’ll clap a firm grip on L-5 the m
oment he suspects I’ve made for it,” the jefe said. “However, his attention should be on Maui Maru, bound for Luna. Our best bet is that when Kyra lands, the Lunarians will spring her free of Sayre’s goons and she can release the truth to the Solar System.

  “Partly to make that outcome likelier, partly as a backup in case it fails, my destination is L-5. If all goes well, Tamura will bring me in. After I’ve announced the facts to the colony, the Sepo there will be lucky if they aren’t lynched. If for some reason Tamura can’t, well, I’ll be on an orbit known to Kyra, and she can arrange for me to be collected at a more convenient date.”

  Valencia turned his eyes to the woman. “But you,” he said. The note of worry tugged at her. “You will walk, into the hands of the enemy on the Moon.”

  “That’s why we’ll alert my lord Rinndalir before we leave,” Guthrie told him. “I can’t convey the actual story in any message that would get by the monitoring. But I can encrypt a few words that ought to, hm, intrigue him. We’ve had dealings before, he and I.”

  Valencia scowled. “Suppose he can’t or won’t do anything.”

  Kyra gave him a smile. At the moment she felt excited, exalted, a-wing. “From what I know about him,” she said, “it will be strange if he doesn’t take action.”

  What that action might be, she admitted to herself, they could only guess at.

  Her mind snapped back to immediacies. The computer was presenting the figures she wanted.

  Briefly, that weighed her down. What was she but a parasite on the machine? It carried her, kept her alive, informed her within the limits of her comprehension—to what purpose? This operation could have been entirely robotic. It well-nigh was. She’d told the ship she wanted to go to Luna, expeditiously, departing at such-and-such an instant. The ship did everything else, computations, thrust, steering, maintenance. Should they run into a bit of space junk, or encounter almost any sort of trouble, the ship would cope. Kyra had brought Guthrie aboard, and she’d put him in the launcher, but the most elementary of robots could have done either job. The ship would communicate with the ground control machines at Port Bowen, come in as they directed, and land herself. Kyra’s part would be to touch a button bidding the airlock open and let her out.