Fire Time gh-2

by Poul Anderson

  “Jill put the apparatus together—she wheedled a friend out of it—and brought it here,” Meroa went on. “It’ll take two or three days to make an ample supply, she says. You’ll save more than that on the trail.”

  And I will have you meanwhile, said her look.

  This was the thing that humans might come to know about, but never to know: What it meant when someone who had been a part of you for two or three hundred years was gone. Larreka and Meroa would bid each other farewell, and though the blessed radio carry their words after he reached Port Rua, they could not be sure they would ever touch again.

  Well, she was a soldier’s wife; and he was a soldier’s husband.

  (It wasn’t that simple. The legions had learned to do everything possible which made for lessened sorrow. They did not accept enlistments of close kin into the same one of them; rather, they kept the companies and regiments wildly diverse, a practice that Hanshaw had remarked would be unthinkable for his race. They discouraged marriage and, through their traditional standards of maleness, encouraged promiscuity; but the very camp followers were made to shift among them from time to time. They exchanged stations every octad, and two successive stations were always far apart. And even so, even so, there had to be rituals, customs, tokens, help, to keep a trooper going after his long-term sword brother was dead… Larreka dismissed the passing thought. He and Meroa had the Triad and their work; the survivor would survive.

  (He had decided in these latter years that the work would be more use to him than the Triad.)

  “I’d better let Jill tell the rest herself,” Meroa added. Her glance flickered around the group. “No insult. What you don’t know, you can’t be guilty of concealing from that Primavera boss; and Yakulen may have sore need of his good will.”

  They signified assent.

  “What we can discuss openly,” Meroa said to Larreka, “is Rafik. He wants to enlist—in the Yissek, because of your ideas about the Fiery Sea coming under attack soon, where they are.” Dryly: “Also, I suspect, because of what he’s heard about balmy tropical paradises and eager dusky maidens.”

  “No,” Larreka replied. “Not if I can talk him out of it, Can’t he see, his best service is right here? If we can hold Valennen, a few raids on the Fieries won’t matter. If we can’t, then we’ve lost the Fieries too, and Beronnen is next in line.”

  “Chu, do talk to him. Bear in mind, he probably doesn’t care for the idea of his mother being his military chief.”

  “He’d care for those islands less. Already the Rover’s made them the opposite of paradise. The Yissek’s fighting typhoons and flood tides and famines oftener than it’s fighting barbarians. The dusky maidens are too busy staying alive to be particularly eager any more.”

  “I tried to tell him that, but it only fanned his idealism. Service where service is needed, no matter the risk!”

  “Then I’ll tell him that a soldier who willingly takes risks is a soldier the legion is better off without—Speak of a rammer and he’ll stave in your boat.”

  The noise from the entry was immensely relieving, foot-stamp, servants busy, Rafik’s deep young tones and Jill’s bugle clarity. He heard the girl say,” —we thought of taking shelter, but no tree would be safe with all that lightning blatting around, so he took me on his back and galumphed his hardest—”

  His son staggered in, soaked despite a rubdown, hailed them, and collapsed onto a mattress. That must have been a real fiend’s race he ran. Well, Meroa had birthed him on a vessel beating through Ripship Straits in the teeth of an easterly, and a tinge of that had remained with the lad. I’m proud of you, of you and all the rest. I’m no Yakulen—only by marriage—I’m not in the way of seeing my family as octads of cousins sharing the same land. I’m an old Haelener, whose world has his wife and kids at its core.

  Jill followed. She had shed her clothes. Her skin glowed from toweling. The hair stayed as wet as Rafik’s foliage, trailing firelight shimmers. Having been carried, she was not exhausted, and sped to hug Larreka. “Sugar Uncle! Hello!”

  Watching her come, he thought how oddly lovely she was. Once in her adolescence, when they’d been for a swim, she had commented on that. “Tell me for honest, won’t you? How horrible do I seem to you? Sure, you like me, but how do I look? Four-limbed, a torso tottering along, no whiskers, no hump, no tail, no plants, bald except for ridiculous little patches, breasts dangling on top and… and genitalia right out in front too, in sight of the world and everybody—”

  “How do you think I look?” he had replied.

  “You’re beautiful. The way a cat is beautiful.”

  “Okay, you remind me of a saru in flight, or a swordleaf in a high wind, or whatever. Now shut up and break out our lunch.”

  For a blink of time, while she dashed across the floor, he wished he could spend an hour being her human lover. To gaze into those curious half-white eyes, rub beak against beak and taste thick pink lips, send fingers down the long slim blue-veined throat, across the softnesses beneath to their sunrise-colored tips and on over a many-curved slope till they rested between her thighs… Did humans ever have such wonderings about Ishtarians? Unlikely; humans were too frail. His was the merest flicker of sadness that he could never be closer than now to her. Damn! When would she grab herself a mate and start whelping?

  She cast herself onto her knees and into his arms. Her nails dug through the leaves of his mane.

  Larreka bellowed for more cider. Jill liked it, too. “I brought you a kilo of tobacco,” she said.

  “You brought more than that, I hear,” he answered. “Freeze-dried rations—You’re grand.”

  She switched to English. He saw and felt the bleakness upon her. “You know about the ban on transport, don’t you? Instead of battering my skull against that wall, I kept quiet and… went around collecting firearms and ammunition. You’ve got mighty little in Valennen. I couldn’t be very bold, in case that Dejerine bastard got wind of it. But I bought, begged, borrowed, a couple of times I stole—about twenty rifles and pistols, plus a few thousand rounds for them.”

  “Jill, you’re a laren!”

  “The least I could do, Uncle. Let’s be practical, though. First, you’ll have to arrange for porters while you’re here, to help lug that stuff to the north coast.”

  “Couldn’t you just flit it to Port Rua in a small vehicle?”

  “Uh-uh. Too obvious. Dejerine could wonder why Miss Conway took a junket. He could check back and confiscate what he found. Whereas if I go off overland on a field trip, and the weapons aren’t really missed for weeks—You see?

  “Another thing. Several thousand rounds aren’t that flinkin’ many. You know how ninety-nine percent are bound to miss in action, no matter how skilled the marksmen; and you have maybe ten skilled marksmen in Valennen, right? You’ll want an instructor who can spend a minimum of ammo on training more. And it’ll help if, come combat, that instructor is there in the line, firing shots that go where they’re supposed to.”

  He understood before she had finished. “You don’t mean you aim to come along with me?” he exclaimed.

  She nodded. She had drawn knees close to chin and folded arms around them; the ends of her wet hair stroked her breasts and left gleaming streaks. “I mean exactly that, Uncle.”

  TWELVE

  Dejerine had found it astonishingly hard to acquire a site for his ground installations. He wanted a place not too far from Primavera, and discovered an area two hundred kilometers eastward which his planetological team reported was suitable. It was otherwise useless land, stony, dusty when rain didn’t make it muddy, barren aside from scattered leathery shrubs, deserted by the natives. Repeated periastrons were doubtless responsible for that, droughts which killed off vegetation followed by cloudburst after cloudburst to wash away exposed topsoil. The planet had many such regions. Yet a substantial water table remained, the bedrock was solid, the surrounding hills could be quarried for building material.

  He expected that the Tayessa
family, to whose ranch this desert belonged, would be glad to sell it. No doubt they’d jack the price as high as they were able, but he had plenty of gold along, plus authority to draw pesos if Federation currency was demanded. He was dumfounded when, after conferring, the owners refused.

  On the basis of what xenological knowledge he had, he replied to their representative: “I am aware that no individual owns the land, but rather the Tayessas do, and you must consider the rights of generations unborn.

  However, surely titles change hands, for one reason or another. Have you the right to deny the unborn what my gold can buy?”

  “What can it?” she answered through the interpreter Hanshaw had supplied. “The Red Sun is here. Who can eat gold, or shelter in it?”

  “I can pay in money of my people.”

  “How can we spend that, if no shipments are coming from Earth?”

  In the end, he negotiated a contract which bound the Navy to send specified goods within a specified period. His superiors were going to give him hell for it; but no Ishtarians were likely to offer a better deal. The alternatives were either to set up in the antipodes, where only goblins lived, and thus complicate his job without end, or to seize and hold a spot by force. (Ah-ah-ah! Imperialism!) In writing his report, to go home by the next courier boat, he indicated tactfully but unmistakably that if the Navy did not honor the contract, he would resign his commission—and speculated how to let Jill Conway know he had done this.

  Immediately upon taking possession, he brought down his men and established camp. Then he phoned to Primavera and requested a visit by Ian Sparling. The engineer should have a large amount of good advice in him, if he could be conciliated.

  Sparling’s flyer landed the next day. Ever nearer to each other, both suns were aloft in a breathless sky. The cracked red clay wavered with heat; the hills around were gray and unreal. Prefab barracks clustered offside, ugly hemicylinders, while machinery cluttered the rest of fifty square kilometers, brawling like dinosaurs among sweating men. Dejerine, who had been making a general inspection, conducted him to an office small and bare but air-conditioned.

  “Coffee or tea?” he asked as he settled down behind his desk. “And would you like a cigar?”

  “Nothing, thanks.” Sparling’s voice might have blown off the south pole. He folded his lean length into a chair, took forth pipe and tobacco pouch, and got busy. “I don’t expect to be here long.”

  “I was hoping you would.”

  “Why should I?”

  “I mentioned a consultant’s fee. And with your project suspended, you have nothing else to do, have you?” Dejerine considered the aquiline face. “I won’t make noises about patriotism. Let us be frank, you are hostile to my mission. But the sooner I complete it, the sooner I can release your resources back to you. Won’t you help to that end?” He paused. “Furthermore—please don’t misunderstand, this is neither a threat nor a bribe—I would like to see regular supplies coming to you from Earth again. My recommendations will carry more weight if I have done a good job fast.”

  Sparling in turn studied him. “All right,” he said at length. “I think probably you are a decent sort. As we foulup humans go.”

  Dejerine inhaled a cigar alight. However tiny, this thawing was an encouragement, especially since the engineer was a close friend of Jill. He should use the opportunity to learn a little more about these people, “Will you bear with a personal question?” he asked.

  Sparling smiled sourly. “Go ahead. I may not answer.”

  “Why do you long-term dwellers here have such an inferiority complex with respect to the Ishtarians?”

  The other man was startled. “Huh? Who says we do?”

  “Perhaps I phrased it badly,” Dejerine conceded. “But I have heard repeatedly how many superiorities to our species they have, both physical and mental. And yet… they fight wars too, don’t they?”

  “Not every war is as senseless as yours,” Sparling snapped. He sat quiet for a few seconds. “No. Excuse me. I shouldn’t have made that remark, no matter how true it is. But as for, m-m, combative behavior, it can be a survival mechanism. To the best of my information and belief, no Ishtarians fight for anything but strictly practical reasons.” A new pause. “Not quite correct. Pride or revenge can be a motive, particularly in the young. However, always an individual motive. No Ishtarian ever tried to force a nationality or an ideology on someone else. Under all circumstances, killing is looked on as a regrettable last-ditch necessity.”

  “Still, they do have ideologies, don’t they? Such as various religions.”

  “Yeah. They aren’t fanatical about them.” Sparling seemed to grow more amicable as he talked. “I don’t believe any Ishtarian can become what we’d call ardently religious. Certainly this planet has never seen a proselytizing faith.”

  “Not the—Triadic, do they call it?” Dejerine ventured a smile. “I have been reading, you see. How does that church gain converts?”

  “By making more sense, to many people, than paganism does. At that, it isn’t easy to get into. There’s a lot of hard study required first, and examinations, and finally an expensive sacrifice. But you know, if I had a religious inclination, I’d think wistfully about joining.”

  “What? You can’t be serious. Personifying the three suns—”

  “A symbol. You can suppose they are literal gods, but you don’t have to; you can take the personalities as allegorical if you prefer, tokens of the reality.” Sparling looked thoughtfully at the smoke drifting from his pipe, “And the mythology does contain a great deal of truth about life, with poetry and ritual to help you feel it more directly. Bel, the Sun, the life-giver, who can also be terrible; Ea, the Ember Star, a diadem on the Dark which is winter and death—but the world needs them; Anu, the Rover, bringing both chaos and a chance for renewal. Yes, it strikes me as quite a bit more reasonable than a Christian God who’s simultaneously one person and three, who’s called merciful but left us to handle creations of his like cancer and stroke.”

  Dejerine, who considered himself a Christian, refrained from saying more than: “Have there been conversions among humans?”

  “No,” Sparling said. “Nor will there be, I’m sure. If nothing else, since we can’t dream right, we’d miss half the significance. We’d be like a Catholic forever unable to attend Mass or take communion. No, worse off; he could read his missal.”

  “Dreams?” Dejerine frowned. “Like the medicine dreams of primitive humans?”

  “Not at all. You don’t know? Well, it’s so subtle and difficult an idea—for us—that I suppose it’s not gotten into the average popular account of this planet. Ishtarians sleep like us, and apparently for the same basic reason: the brain needs time off the line, to assimilate data. But the Ishtarian’s forebrain doesn’t shut down as thoroughly as ours. He keeps more consciousness than we do. To a certain extent, he can direct his dreaming.”

  “I’ve had that experience myself, when barely asleep.”

  “Most humans have. With us, though, it’s rudimentary and unusual. It’s normal for the Ishtarian. He can choose what he’ll dream about. It becomes a major part of his emotional life—maybe one reason why, in spite of using a few drugs, Ishtarians never become addicted. Of course, some have more talent for it than others. There are actually professional dreamers. They use that blend of consciousness and randomness to experience marvelous visions, and an entire art of communicating the effect afterward to an audience. Words, tone, gesture, expression, music, dance, an enormous body of ancient conventions, all go into it.” Sparling sighed. “We’ll never be able to share that, you and I. So, since I can’t dream the Triad, it can’t be anything more to me ever than a philosophical concept.”

  Dejerine drank smoke. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I see how the Ishtarians could have a… a rather overwhelming impact. But I don’t feel they are necessarily inherently superior, except in a few departments.”

  “Nor do I, nor any sensible person,” Sparling answere
d. “For instance, insofar as we can separate culture and heredity—which isn’t very bloody damn far—they seem to have less sense for three-dimensional geometry than we do. Maybe because of having no arboreal ancestors? A lot of them are terrified of flying, though they know our vehicles are safe. Et cetera. No, you’re wrong about an inferiority complex. We simply consider them our friends, from whom we can learn a huge amount if Earth’s politicos will get off our backs.”

  “Will you believe that I, too, have been close to nonhumans?” Dejerine asked softly.

  Sparling nodded.

  It flashed in Dejerine: He is becoming better disposed to me. Perhaps he will carry an olive branch to Jill?

  Am I in love with her? Or is it merely charm that met a longstanding celibacy, like steel meeting flint? I don’t know. I never will know unless I can see her again. Often.

  He said with care, “Would you mind mentioning that to Miss Conway, if opportunity should arise? I’m afraid she is angry at me because I couldn’t help her native official. She gave me no chance to explain how sorry I was.”

  Abruptly Sparling froze over. “How can I do that?”

  A hand took hold of Dejerine’s heart and squeezed. “Is something wrong with her?”

  “No way to tell,” Sparling clipped. “She’s gone north with Larreka. They’ve been on the trail for days.”

  “What? Why, that is crazy!”

  “How’d you stop her? If she chooses to do research in Valennen before it’s closed to us, who has the right to forbid her? At that, she sent notes to her parents and me by a messenger who was not to deliver them till she was welt on her way. I flitted over the route but saw nothing. Didn’t really expect to, that small a party in that big and rugged a landscape. I called, but naturally they’d switched off their transceivers when they passed beyond ordinary relay range.”