What with the turmoil in her own head, she had not noticed Kawar also turning on his receiver. He stood the din a few seconds longer before shutting it off again. He did hear one thing she'd missed: "They won't be halfway around the world for long—the Jêng Ho has been on the way here since the moment you recognized who the goddess was."
Magda only grunted. She liked the independence six thousand kilometers of distance gave her, but the move made sense. The action was here, with Hotofras abruptly a backwater.
Someone scratched at the door, which had a bar on the Terrans' side. Glad for the interruption, Magda raised the bar. Servants fetched in supper, bowed nervously, and left. The fare was similar to what nobles had eaten when the Leeuwenhoek was there: bread, boiled vegetables and roots, a stew of salt fish, with preserved fruit and sweet wine.
The Terrans had reached the tooth-picking stage when the scratching sound came again. Expecting more servants to fetch away the dirty dishes, Magda opened the door. Sabium stood there instead, alone.
"C-come in." Magda stepped aside, as wary as the palace servitors had been with her. She made no move to close the door, being unsure that was proper.
Sabium shut it. When she began to prostrate herself, Kawar stopped her. With an apologetic glance toward Magda, he said, "You do not need to humble yourself before us. Rather, we are in awe of you, hardly less than your own subjects. And why not? I am but forty-two years old, and my companion is—"
"Thirty-one," Magda supplied.
"I do not believe you," Sabium said. Then, studying them with that searching clarity of hers, she changed her mind. "No; I do. Say rather I do not understand."
Again Magda saw the quality in this woman that had led David Ware to find her worth saving. And he was dishonored dust these many centuries, and here she stood yet.
For a moment the anthropologist was tempted to tell Sabium everything, but she did not: she could not make herself believe one interference justified another. Instead, she said, "Queen . . . goddess . . . have you ever sent out couriers with messages they could not speak of, save to their own superiors who were to receive them?"
"Of course."
"Think of us in such a light, then. Much of what we know, we may not speak."
"You say you are messengers of the gods, then, not gods yourselves?"
"We are messengers." Magda let it go at that, relieved she had not made a full confession. However brilliant and experienced Sabium was, it was in the context of her own culture. Asking her to assimilate the idea of the Federacy all at once was too much.
"That is marvel enough for me," Sabium said firmly. "My ships scoured the western coast, my artisans founded towns there in hopes of finding folk like unto those who had rescued me. And so they did, though long years after I proposed it."
"No wonder the city's name means 'search'!" Magda burst out. "All that time you were looking for Ware and Crouzet! They said they came from the west, didn't they?"
"If those were their names; I never knew them," Sabium said. "But yes, they said they were from the west. Here in this valley, we knew nothing of the west then. But though I never found a trace of my saviors, I never forgot them, either, or let my priests do so. If ever folk of strange aspect appeared, saying they were from a country of which we were ignorant, I wanted to meet with them, the more so if they had possessions unlike any of ours." She smiled. "And so you are here."
"So we are," Magda said, doing her best to hide her chagrin. Their "simple, foolproof" story could not have done a better job of advertising them to Sabium if they had concocted it for that very purpose.
She took a deep breath, forced herself to steadiness, and said, "We are glad to be here, for in you, Queen, we have found a greater marvel than any we know ourselves." She did not care whether Sabium was examining her for the truth in that—it was there.
"You are messengers, and you did not know of me?" Sabium paused. "I see it is so, though I do not see how. Well, if one tries to put it baldly, there is little to tell after the early years. You have said you know of my cure?"
At the Terrans' nods, Sabium continued. "Once I felt myself again, I went on as I always had, doing my best for Helmand. The years went by. People I had grown up with envied me at first, that I kept my looks while their hair whitened and their faces wrinkled. I remember I thought nothing of it, past the flattery a queen always hears."
She stared back into the distant past she alone remembered. "Then one day I noticed—it seemed very sudden at the time—that my servants were the grandchildren of those I had first known and seemed no younger than I. They did not envy me any longer. They felt awe instead . . . as did I, when I began to realize my span of days, whatever it was, truly was longer than the usual run."
"Did you not fear overthrow in war, even if sickness would not come for you?" Kawar asked.
"Oh, indeed, and that overthrow almost happened more than once, when I was young. But Helmand survived. Eventually we came to win more easily, through alliances with our enemies' neighbors or by fighting before our foes were ready. By then I had begun to see how such things were managed, for already I was wiser than any king who opposed me."
Sabium poured a cup of wine and sipped reflectively. "I do not say I am more clever than any mortal; time and again the brilliance of some woman or man bringing a new thing before me will leave me dumbfounded. But what wit I have draws on lifetime after lifetime of experience, against the few paltry years that are all others can gain. And what is wisdom but wit tempered by experience?
"I did not die; after a while I did not lose. And after a while my people looked as much to me as to the gods I had always known. Bit by bit they forgot the old gods, and only I recall I became a goddess by their favor."
She drank again. Magda had been looking for a chance to interrupt. "You spoke of people bringing new things to you. We know you encouraged them to do so long ago—you have kept it up all this time?"
"Why, of course," Sabium said in faint surprise. "All manner of worthy things have come from such inventors, to make the lives of my people and me easier and more pleasant. Weapons of war, too, at need, which also helped our triumph. But I own I prefer the tools of peace, or of thought."
She gestured enthusiastically. "Why, do you know, a woman last year had observations to show the world and the moving stars go around the sun, and not all of them around us. Other astronomers are still measuring away, to see if she is right. What a marvelous thing if it were so!"
"Marvelous," Magda echoed. She tried to ignore the look of consternation Irfan Kawar sent her way, but it wasn't easy. With a civilization less than two thousand years old, Bilbeis IV was right at the edge of the scientific revolution.
No planet Magda knew of came close to matching that—Earth was as progressive as any, but in 1200 b.c. people on Earth were just getting around to finding out about iron. But then, no early culture on Earth or anywhere else she knew of had fostered invention for fifteen hundred years, either.
Sabium brightened. "Being messengers as you are, surely you would know the answer to our riddle. Is that why you have chosen to come now, to show us whether such a momentous change in the way we view the world is correct?"
"We're merely here to observe," Magda said.
The anthropologist had not had much hope Sabium would accept the lame evasion, but she did, and bowed her head as at a deserved rebuke. "Of course. What value to us if we are merely given knowledge without wrestling it from the fabric of the world for ourselves? You have great wisdom, to keep from interfering."
That made Magda want to laugh, or cry, or both at once. How would Sabium react if she ever learned that she herself was a product of interference? Would she say her greatness—which Magda could not deny—justified the meddling, or would she wish her world back to the slower but more proper course it would have taken had she died at her appointed time?
Magda did not know, and was afraid to ask.
Irfan Kawar had been thinking along a different line. He said
to Sabium, "Perhaps you will have returned to us, then, the goods your priests confiscated at Hotofras? Some of them embody principles your people have not yet learned."
"Be it so," Sabium said at once. "When I leave you, I shall give the order to my servants."
"Keep the jewels, of course, as tribute to your own splendor," Magda said. She felt like kissing Kawar for his quick wits.
"I would not wish to impoverish you—" Sabium began.
"You do not," Magda said firmly.
Sabium acknowledged the gift with a dignity more than queenly. She departed a few minutes later, saying, "If it please you, I would speak with you again tomorrow. Though you may not speak of things I and mine do not yet know, surely there can be no harm in discussing the long-lost days. I never thought to meet anyone who knew of them but from my own tales, and to talk with such people is like seeing the reflection of a reflection of my own face. Sleep well now; use my servants as if they were your own." The door closed behind her.
"Whew!" Magda said when she and Kawar were alone again. That seemed to sum things up as well as anything. Her clothes were soaked with sweat, and not just from the heat.
The palace attendants who returned the Terrans' property looked at them with wide eyes and bowed as they might have toward their goddess. At Magda's dismissal, they fled. She hardly noticed. She was too busy strapping on her stunner. After so many months of being a politely held prisoner, she reveled in the feeling of freedom it gave her.
The transceiver behind her ear let out a hoot loud enough to hurt. She had almost forgotten about the override signal; only Captain Brusilov had the authority to use it. His harsh voice echoed in her head and in Kawar's: "We are down, safe and undetected, in the desert country north of Helmand—I mean, the Holy City. Escape at once, using your stunners if you have to: you did well to get them back. Get far enough out of the city so a flier can pick you up without any of the locals seeing it."
"Hey, wait!" Magda protested. "Don't we get any say in this?"
"You know I have the right to tell you no, Dr. Kodaly," Brusilov said with cold formality. "I will, however, appeal to your reason before doing so. Would you not agree the situation we have encountered"—as polite a way to say "crisis" as Magda had ever heard—"calls for discussion and analysis with all experts present?"
She bit her lip and glanced toward Kawar to see if he would back her in defiance. It looked unlikely. She sighed. "Very well."
The escape itself proved preposterously easy. The Terrans used their stunners through the chamber door to knock out any guards outside. There proved to be two, lying slumped against the wall. Magda set an empty wine jar between them to explain their unconsciousness.
The torchlit hallways were almost empty so late at night. A couple of servants bowed low to the Terrans. No one tried to stop them; it did not occur to anyone that the goddess's honored guests would want to leave without her permission. And once out of the palace, Kawar and Magda became just another couple of strangers, a bit stranger than most, wandering the streets of the Holy City.
The only mishap came when Kawar turned his ankle descending the hill of rubble on which the city sat. He stumbled on, his arm around Magda's shoulder. The night was hot and sticky. The contact should have been uncomfortable, but it was a relief to them both. Kawar did not let go even after they reached flat, smooth ground.
When the Holy City was well behind them, Magda keyed her transceiver. "You may as well come get us," she said. "This spot is as good as any."
"Half an hour," Brusilov said. He was not one to waste words.
Magda sat in the dust with a sigh of relief. Kawar sprawled, panting, beside her. In the darkness, she took a while to recognize the expression on his face. It was more than exhaustion; it was fear.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"We'll have to cover this up," he blurted.
She gaped at him. "What? Are you crazy?"
"Not me. You were the one talking about the damned Purists a couple of days ago. What better club than Bilbeis IV for beating the Survey Service over the head?"
Magda drew in a thoughtful breath. There was a good deal of truth in that. Still, she answered slowly, "Strikes me we deserve to get beaten over the head for this one. We've managed to twist the history of a whole planet out of shape. How do you go about justifying that? People have to know we screwed up, and how badly we screwed up. Maybe getting it out in the open will keep it from happening again."
"But under Sabium, the planet is better off and farther along than it would have been without her. Why not leave well enough alone?" Kawar said, returning to the argument he had raised before.
"It won't wash," Magda said. "A bit of interference I could overlook; that's the kind of stuff the Purists howl about, and it doesn't mean a thing. But this is too big to sweep under the rug: a whole powerful religion—powerful, hell! Real!—that never should have been here, and a goddess who wouldn't be either, if it weren't for us. I just shiver in my shoes to think how lucky we were here."
"Make up your mind. If what Ware did was as terrible as you're making out, how can we be lucky now?"
"How? Easy—suppose he'd been a rotten judge of character along with being an altruistic idiot. That Bilbeis IV is what it is, is all thanks to Sabium. You saw her. She happens to be just what Ware thought she was—a wise, kindly woman. What if she hadn't been? What if she'd used her immortality to burn anybody with green hair or to wipe out all the people who spoke with a lisp? Think what we'd be facing now."
"Ware didn't know he was giving her immortality," Kawar protested.
"Yes, and that's the point—when you interfere, you don't know what's going to happen afterward. What do you want, us using planets full of people as smart as we are for laboratories? Count me out."
"Well, what do you want? The Service to go down the drain, and us with it? Is that better?" He reached almost pleadingly to touch Magda's face, but his hand faltered and stopped before it reached her.
Through her own hurt, she answered, "I don't know. But if I have to go down, I'd rather do it for the truth than nailed to a lie. And as for the Service, it can take care of itself. Bureaucracies are tough beasts."
"Yes, and one reason is that they find scapegoats when things go wrong. Three guesses who they'll pick here. I'm serious, Magda—we can't let word of what's happened here get out. Too much rides on it. I think a lot of the crew will agree with me, too."
Magda grunted. She knew where she could find one certain ally—Atanasio Pedroza. His Afrikaner rectitude wouldn't let him be a part of anything underhanded.
She would rather have had a leg taken off without anesthetic. She liked Irfan Kawar; once or twice she had imagined she was in love with him. The thought of lining up against him with someone she loathed made her guts clench. But she realized how hard Kawar was trying not to see the scope of the interference on Bilbeis IV. She could not deliberately blind herself the same way.
The flier came down beside them, quiet as a dream. Magda climbed wearily to her feet. When she offered Irfan Kawar a hand, he ignored her and struggled up by himself.
She shrugged and turned away, but her nails bit into her palms. It was going to be a long trip home.
IV
"Thank you so much, Chairman Koch," Assemblyman Valleix said. He was a Purist; his voice dripped sarcasm.
"It is my duty and my pleasure, sir," replied the plump middle-aged woman who was Chairman of the Survey Service. Paulina Koch's own voice was studiedly neutral. She wore her habitual gray—the better to blend into the background, her detractors said.
Valleix returned to the attack. "Isn't it a fact, Madam Chairman, that the natives of Rugi II learned of the moldboard plow through an indiscreet remark by one of your Survey Service operatives? That strikes me as a serious breach."
Paulina Koch did not smile. One of her subordinates had leaked that report to the aide of another, less prominent Purist months ago. Now it was going to come home to roost.
She
let him blather along, listening with half an ear.
"Under the best of circumstances, the Survey Service strikes me as a luxury the Federacy can ill afford in these days of budgetary constraints. Such debacles as Rugi II only make matters worse. I ask you again, Madam Chairman, isn't it a fact that the natives of that planet learned about the moldboard plow from Service personnel?"
"No, I am afraid that is not a fact, Assemblyman." That he showboated by repeating his question only made springing the trap sweeter, though she did not let her face show it.
His eyebrows shot up. "I suppose you have evidence to support such a startling assertion." By his tone, he did not suppose so at all.
"Yes, Assemblyman, here it is." She produced a data card. "This will show that the moldboard plow was in fact invented on an island off the main continent of Rugi II and that it spread there through normal trade contacts at around the time of the last Survey Service examination of the planet. That accounts for its sudden appearance in areas where it had previously been unknown."
Valleix was a black man; had he been white, he would have blanched. He had tangled with Paulina Koch too often to suppose her data were anything but what she said they were. He was also painfully aware she had just made a fool of him throughout the Federacy. He cut his losses, nodding to the head of the subcommittee. "I request a day's recess to evaluate these documents."
"Granted. Madam Chairman, you will be available tomorrow?"
"Certainly, madam." Paulina Koch still did not smile or show any outward sign of triumph. She had been a bureaucrat too long for that. But having savaged one Assemblyman, she did not expect any problems from the others. The Survey Service's appropriation looked safe again.
* * *
Professor Fogelman breezed into the classroom fifteen minutes late, something he had done a lot in his undergraduate lecture course. Stavros Monemvasios was not surprised to find him acting the same way in his graduate seminar.
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