Rise of the Terran Empire

by Poul Anderson

  "No, Phil. I understand myself better than I did before. If we tried, I know what sooner or later I'd be doing to you. And I won't. What we had, I want to keep clean."

  She kissed him gently and raised herself.

  They talked awhile longer, embarrassed, until he could dismiss her on the plea, not entirely untruthful, that he needed rest. When she was gone he did close his eyes, after donning the earcups which shut out the Terran voices.

  She's right, probably, he thought. And my life isn't blighted. I'll get over this one too, I suppose. He recalled a girl in Fleurville and hoped he would be transferred to an Esperancian hospital, when or if the cease-fire became a peace.

  Outside, Tabitha stopped to put on the gravbelt she had retrieved from the checkroom. The building had been hastily erected on the outskirts of Gray. (She remembered the protests when Marchwarden Holm diverted industrial capacity from war production to medical facilities, at a time when renewed combat seemed imminent. Commentators pointed out that what he had ordered was too little for the casualties of extensive bombardment, too much for those of any plausible lesser-scale affray. He had growled, "We do what we can," and rammed the project through. It helped that the principal home-guard officers urged obedience to him. They knew what he really had in mind—these men whose pain kept the weapons uneasily silent.) Where she stood, a hillside sloped downward, decked with smaragdine susin, starred with chasuble bush and Buddha's cup, to the strewn and begardened city, the huge curve of uprising shoreline, the glitter on Falkayn Bay. Small cottony clouds sauntered before the wind, which murmured and smelled of livewell.

  She inhaled that coolness. After Equatoria, it was intoxicating. Or it ought to be. She felt curiously empty.

  Wings boomed. An Ythrian landed before her. "Good flight to you, Hrill," the female greeted.

  Tabitha blinked. Who—? Recognition came. "Eyath! To you, good landing." How dull her tone, how sheenless her plumes. I haven't seen her since that day on the island . . . . Tabitha caught a taloned hand in both of hers. "This is wonderful, dear. Have you been well?"

  Eyath's stance and feathers and membranes drawn over her eyes gave answer. Tabitha hunkered down and embraced her.

  "I sought you," Eyath mumbled. "I spent the battle at home; afterward too, herding, because I needed aloneness and they told me the planet needs meat." Her head lay in Tabitha's bosom. "Lately I've been freed of that and came to seek—"

  Tabitha stroked her back, over and over.

  "I learned where you were posted and that you'd mentioned you would stop in Gray on your furlough," Eyath went on. "I waited. I asked of the hotels. Today one said you had arrived and gone out soon after. I thought you might have come here, and trying was better than more waiting."

  "What little I can do for you, galemate, tell me."

  "It is hard." Eyath clutched Tabitha's arms, painfully, without raising her head. "Arinnian is here too. He has been for some while, working on his father's staff. I sought him and—" A strangled sound, though Ythrians do not weep.

  Tabitha foresaw: "He avoids you."

  "Yes. He tries to be kind. That is the worst, that he must try."

  "After what happened—"

  "Ka-a-a-ah. I am no more the same to him." Eyath gathered her will. "Nor to myself. But I hoped Arinnian would understand better than I do."

  "Is he the solitary one who can help? What of your parents, siblings, chothmates?"

  "They have not changed toward me. Why should they? In Stormgate a, a misfortune like mine is reckoned as that, a misfortune, no disgrace, no impairment. They cannot grasp what I feel."

  "And you feel it because of Arinnian. I see." Tabitha looked across the outrageously lovely day. "What can I do?"

  "I don't know. Maybe nothing. Yet if you could speak to him—explain—beg grace of him for me—"

  Anger lifted. "Beg him? Where is he?"

  "At work, I, I suppose. His home—"

  "I know the address." Tabitha released her and stood up. "Come, lass. No more talk. We're off for a good hard flight in this magnificent weather, and I'll take advantage of being machine-powered to wear you out, and at day's end we'll go to wherever you're staying and I'll see you asleep."

  —Twilight fell, saffron hues over silver waters, elsewhere deep blue and the earliest stars. Tabitha landed before Arinnian's door. His windows glowed. She didn't touch the chime plate, she slammed a panel with her fist.

  He opened. She saw he had also grown thin, mahogany hair tangled above tired features and disheveled clothes. "Hrill!" he exclaimed. "Why . . . I never—Come in, come in."

  She brushed past him and whirled about. The chamber was in disarray, obviously used only for sleeping and bolted meals. He moved uncertainly toward her. Their contacts had been brief, correct, and by phone until the fighting began. Afterward they verified each other's survival, and that was that.

  "I'm, I'm glad to see you, Hrill," he stammered.

  "I don't know as I feel the same," she rapped. "Sit down. I've got things to rub your nose in, you sanctimonious mudbrain."

  He stood a moment, then obeyed. She saw the strickenness upon him and abruptly had no words. They looked, silent, for minutes.

  Daniel Holm sat before the screens which held Liaw of The Tarns, Matthew Vickery of the Parliament, and Juan Cajal of the Empire. A fourth had just darkened. It had carried a taped plea from Trauvay, High Wyvan of Ythri, that Avalon yield before worse should befall and a harsher peace be dictated to the whole Domain.

  "You have heard, sirs?" Cajal asked.

  "We have heard," Liaw answered.

  Holm felt the pulse in his breast and temples, not much quickened but a hard, steady slugging. He longed for a cigar—unavailable—or a drink—unadvisable—or a year of sleep—unbroken. At that, crossed his mind, we're in better shape than the admiral. If ever I saw a death's head, it rides his shoulderboards.

  "What say you?" Cajal went on like an old man.

  "We have no wish for combat," Liaw declared, "or to deepen the suffering of our brethren. Yet we cannot give away what our folk so dearly bought for us."

  "Marchwarden Holm?"

  "You won't renew the attack while we've got your people here," the human said roughly. "Not that we'll hold them forever. I told you before, we don't make bargaining counters out of thinking beings. Still, the time and circumstances of their release have to be negotiated."

  Cajal's glance shifted to the next screen. "President Vickery?"

  A politician's smile accompanied the response: "Events have compelled me to change my opinion as regards the strategic picture, Admiral. I remain firm in my opposition to absolutist attitudes. My esteemed colleague, Governor Saracoglu, has always impressed me as being similarly reasonable. You have lately returned from a prolonged conference with him. Doubtless many intelligent, well-informed persons took part. Did no possibility of compromise emerge?"

  Cajal sagged. "I could argue and dicker for days," he said. "What's the use? I'll exercise my discretionary powers and lay before you at once the maximum I'm authorized to offer."

  Holm gripped the arms of his chair.

  "The governor pointed out that Avalon can be considered as having already met most terms of the armistice," crawled from Cajal. "Its orbital fortifications no longer exist. Its fleet is a fragment whose sequestration, as required, would make no real difference to you. Most important, Imperial units are now on your planet.

  "Nothing is left save a few technicalities. Our wounded and our medics must be given the acknowledged name of occupation forces. A command must be established over your military facilities; one or two men per station will satisfy that requirement while posing no threat of takeover should the truce come apart. Et cetera. You see the general idea."

  "The saving of face," Holm grunted. "Uh-huh. Why not? But how about afterward?"

  "The peace treaty remains to be formulated," said the drained voice. "I can tell you in strict confidence, Governor Saracoglu has sent to the Imperium his strongest re
commendation that Avalon not be annexed."

  Vickery started babbling. Liaw held stiff. Holm gusted a breath and sat back.

  They'd done it. They really had.

  The talk would go on, of course. And on and on and on, along with infinite petty particulars and endless niggling. No matter. Avalon would stay Ythrian—stay free.

  I ought to whoop, he thought. Maybe later. Too tired now.

  His immediate happiness, quiet and deep, was at knowing that tonight he could go home to Rowena.

  XIX

  There were no instant insights, no dramatic revelations and reconciliations. But Arinnian was to remember a certain hour.

  His work for his father had stopped being very demanding. He realized he should use the free time he had regained to phase back into his studies. Then he decided that nothing was more impractical than misplaced practicality. Tabitha agreed. She got herself put on inactive duty. Eventually, however, she must return to her island and set her affairs in order, if only for the sake of her partner's family. Meanwhile he was still confined to Gray.

  He phoned Eyath at her rented room: "Uh, would you, uh, care to go for a sail?"

  Yes, she said with every quill.

  Conditions were less than perfect. As the boat left the bay, rain came walking. The hull skipped over choppy olive-dark waves, tackle athrum; water slanted from hidden heaven, long spears which broke on the skin and ran down in cool splinters, rushing where they entered the sea.

  "Shall we keep on?" he asked.

  "I would like to." Her gaze sought land, a shadow aft. No other vessels were abroad, nor any flyers. "It's restful to be this alone."

  He nodded. He had stripped, and the cleanness dwelt in his hair and sluiced over his flesh.

  She regarded him from her perch on the cabin top, across the cockpit which separated them. "You had something to tell me," she said with two words and her body.

  "Yes." The tiller thrilled between his fingers. "Last night, before she left—" In Planha he need speak no further.

  "Galemate, galemate," she breathed. "I rejoice." She half extended her wings toward him, winced, and withdrew them.

  "For always," he said in awe.

  "I could have wished none better than Hrill, for you," Eyath replied. Scanning him closer: "You remain in fret."

  He bit his lip.

  Eyath waited.

  "Tell me," he forced forth, staring at the deck. "You see us from outside. Am I able to be what she deserves?"

  She did not answer at once. Startled not to receive the immediate yea he had expected, Arinnian lifted his eyes to her silence. He dared not interrupt her thought. Waves boomed, rain laughed.

  Finally she said, "I believe she is able to make you able."

  He nursed the wound. Eyath began to apologize, summoned resolution and did not. "I have long felt," she told him, "that you needed someone like Hrill to show you that—show you how—what is wrong for my folk is right, is the end and meaning of life, for yours."

  He mustered his own courage to say, "I knew the second part of that in theory. Now she comes as the glorious fact. Oh, I was jealous before. I still am, maybe I will be till I die, unable to help myself. She, though, she's worth anything it costs. What I am learning, Eyath, my sister, is that she is not you and you are not her, and it is good that you both are what you are."

  "She has given you wisdom." The Ythrian hunched up against the rain.

  Arinnian saw her grief and exclaimed, "Let me pass the gift on. What befell you—"

  She raised her head to look wildly upon him.

  "Was that worse than what befell her?" he challenged. "I don't ask for pity"—human word—"because of past foolishness, but I do think my lot was more hard than either of yours, the years I wasted imagining bodily love can ever be bad, imagining it has any real difference from the kind of love I bear to you, Eyath. Now we'll have to right each other. I want you to share my hopes."

  She sprang down from the cabin, stumbled to him and folded him in her wings. Her head she laid murmuring against his shoulder. Raindrops glistened within the crest like jewels of a crown.

  * * *

  The treaty was signed at Fleurville on a day of late winter. Little ceremony was involved and the Ythrian delegates left almost at once. "Not in very deep anger," Ekrem Saracoglu explained to Luisa Cajal, who had declined his invitation to attend. "By and large, they take their loss philosophically. But we couldn't well ask them to sit through our rituals." He drew on his cigarette. "Frankly, I too was glad to get off that particular hook."

  He had, in fact, simply made a televised statement and avoided the solemnities afterward. A society like Esperance's was bound to mark the formal end of hostilities by slow marches and slower thanksgiving services.

  That was yesterday. The weather continued mild on this following afternoon, and Luisa agreed to come to dinner. She said her father felt unwell, which, regardless of his liking and respect for the man, did not totally displease Saracoglu.

  They walked in the garden, she and he, as often before. Around paths which had been cleared, snow decked the beds, the bushes and boughs, the top of the wall, still white although it was melting, here and there making thin chimes and gurgles as the water ran. No flowers were left outdoors, the air held only dampness, and the sky was an even dove-gray. Stillness lay beneath it, so that footfalls scrunched loud on gravel.

  "Besides," he added, "it was a relief to see the spokesman for Avalon and his cohorts board their ship. The secret-service men I'd assigned to guard them were downright ecstatic."

  "Really?" She glanced up, which gave him a chance to dwell on luminous eyes, tip-tilted nose, lips always parted as if in a child's eagerness. But she spoke earnestly—too earnestly, too much of the time, damn it. "I knew there had been some idiot anonymous death threats against them. Were you that worried?"

  He nodded. "I've come to know my dear Esperancians. When Avalon dashed their original jubilation—well, you've seen and heard the stuff about 'intransigent militarists.'" He wondered if his fur cap hid his baldness or reminded her of it. Maybe he should break down and get a scalp job.

  Troubled, she asked, "Will they ever forget . . . both sides?"

  "No," he said. "I do expect grudges will fade. We've too many mutual interests, Terra and Ythri, to make a family fight into a blood feud. I hope."

  "We were more generous than we had to be. Weren't we? Like letting them keep Avalon. Won't that count?"

  "It should." Saracoglu grinned on the left side of his mouth, took a final acrid puff and tossed his cigarette away. "Though everybody sees the practical politics involved. Avalon proved itself indigestible. Annexation would have spelled endless trouble, whereas Avalon as a mere enclave poses no obvious difficulties such as the war was fought to terminate. Furthermore, by this concession, the Empire won some valuable points with respect to trade that might otherwise not have been feasible to insist on."

  "I know," she said, a bit impatiently.

  He chuckled. "You also know I like to hear myself talk."

  She grew wistful. "I'd love to visit Avalon."

  "Me too. Especially for the sociological interest. I wonder if that planet doesn't foreshadow the distant future."

  "How?"

  He kept his slow pace and did not forget her arm resting on his; but he squinted before him and said out of his most serious thought, "The biracial culture they're creating. Or that's creating itself; you can't plan or direct a new current in history. I wonder if that wasn't the source of their resistance—like an alloy or a two-phase material, many times stronger than either part that went into it. We've a galaxy, a cosmos to fill—"

  My, what a mixed bag of metaphors, including this one, gibed his mind. He laughed inwardly, shrugged outwardly, and finished: "Well, I don't expect to be around for that. I don't even suppose I'll have to meet the knottier consequences of leaving Avalon with Ythri."

  "What could those be?" Luisa wondered. "You just said it was the only thing to do."
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br />   "Indeed. I may be expressing no more than the natural pessimism of a man whose lunch at Government House was less than satisfactory. Still, one can imagine. The Avalonians, both races, are going to feel themselves more Ythrian than the Ythrians. I anticipate future generations of theirs will supply the Domain with an abnormal share, possibly most of its admirals. Let us hope they do not in addition supply it with revanchism. And under pacific conditions, Avalon, a unique world uniquely situated, is sure to draw more than its share of trade—more important, brains, which follow opportunity. The effects of that are beyond foreseeing."

  Her clasp tightened on his sleeve. "You make me glad I'm not a statesman."