"They're stealing slaves!" Alea cried.
"Of course," Gar said. "Didn't your childhood stories tell you that those greedy giants are always trying to steal everything you own?"
"But that's all they're stealing! Just slaves!"
"Well, after all," Gar said, "from what you've told me, most of the slaves don't dare try to escape. They're sure they'll be caught, and the punishments are harrowing-and very public."
The Midgarders formed up across the road and to the sides, but they were only two ranks deep, and the giants simply smashed through them, kicking and laying about them with clubs. One Midgarder hurled a spear that stuck in a giant's chest; she stumbled, but her fellows to either side caught her arms and helped her to keep striding.
"Body armor," Gar explained.
The giants were past the Midgarders and striding away, too fast for the army to catch up. The slaves began to stumble and fall, so giants caught up half a dozen each and carried them away.
"They stole all our slaves!" the radio yammered. "Who's going to grow our food now? Who's going to tend the cattle and cook and clean?"
"We'll send you enough slaves to get you by," another voice snapped. "There are always more being born, you'll replace them soon enough. Warriors are another matter. How many of you died?"
"Only six, praise Thor! But we have fifty wounded."
"How many giants?"
"None dead." The voice sounded sheepish. "We might have wounded three or four."
"None dead? If this catches on, they'll wipe us out! Tell us everything about the battle! We have to figure out a way to stop them!"
The voice began an account of the raid in hesitant tones. Alea cried, "They could have done this all along! They never had to lose a single giant!"
"No," Gar agreed. "As long as the Midgarders were doing the raiding, they could choose the place and be ready for the enemy, so they could throw spears down from ambush, and giants did die. But the giants were only worrying about protecting their own villages. When the giants do the raiding, they choose the time and place, and nothing can stop them."
"Then they could have been safe for hundreds of years, simply by raiding Midgard so often that we couldn't recover enough to attack them!"
"That's not the giants' way," Gar told her. "You know that as well as L"
"Yes, I do." Alea stared at the picture, her opinion of her own people sinking even further, and her opinion of the giants rising.
"Let's hear AM," Gar said. "What are the giants and dwarves talking about?"
The tinny voices shifted pitch and timbre to those of the dwarves. "Three wheels out first! Hold the tunnel while we gather the slaves!"
"Can you center on them?" Gar asked.
"Playing back," Herkimer said.
"How can he show us what happened in the past?" Alea protested.
"It's like memory," Gar told her, "electronic memory." The picture jumped, and she saw the earth erupting in the center of a farmyard. It formed a hole four feet across, and armored dwarves poured out of it to take up station around the edges. Taller dwarves, as big as Midgarders and dressed just like them, leaped out and went running to the slave barracks. Others went running to the kitchens. Midgarder warriors came pelting out, pulling on their armor. Dwarven crossbow bolts struck them down before they could come close enough to swing an axe. Then the big "dwarves" came running, shooing slaves before them, seeming to threaten them with their bows. The slaves leaped down into the hole.
More Midgarder warriors came, but stopped well back from the hole and raised bows, loosing arrows of their own. Spears flew, and a few dwarves fell, transfixed-but the crossbows spewed death, piercing Midgarder armor. The archers fled, unable to match the rate of fire or the penetrating power.
Then the dwarves were leaping back into the hole, all of them gone in a matter of minutes, taking their wounded with them. The Midgarders charged the hole, but skidded to a halt at its edge, then stood around nervously looking at one another. Finally, the oldest shook his head, and they turned away, leaving a dozen to guard the hole.
"A party of women is coming!" the radio barked. "Bandit women, by the look of them!"
"This is the past," Herkimer told them, and the picture jumped again. Alea saw the broad grassland of the North Country, bordered by its scrubby woods. Twenty-odd women were hurrying across the plain with babies in their arms and children clutching their skirts.
"Dumi would turn away from any who did not help women," a basso rumbled, "and Freya's wrath would strike any who did not rescue mothers. We will send a score of giants to guard them. Tell us when their men come in sight."
The screen jumped, and Herkimer's voice said, "This is happening now."
On the screen, the bandit women were running between the pairs of female giants in a line of a dozen, with the women standing two by two to reassure their smaller equivalents. The bandits came charging pell mell after them, then saw the giants and stopped dead. One giant stepped forward, hands up in a placating gesture, talking.
The voice of the sentry said, "Retsa is talking to them. She is explaining that their women still love them, but are no longer willing to be beaten, or to see their children knocked about, or be commanded to do all the drudgery while the men take their ease. She is telling them they can win back their wives if they learn to treat them well-and if they are willing to be married by a priestess of Freya."
Alea clapped her hands in delight.
"A new source speaks," Herkimer informed them, "with high power, low frequency, and long waves."
Gar frowned. "That sounds like a broadcast designed to reach as far as possible-but how many people have radios in Midgard?"
"I shall search for signs of listeners, Magnus."
"What's the voice saying?" Alea asked.
"We will join it in progress," Herkimer said.
A voice that sounded for all the world like a Midgarder spoke. ". . . walked across the Rainbow Bridge, and no one offered to stay him from his quest. Thus Thummaz came to Asgard, He strode into Valhalla and the women of the Aesir exclaimed to one another at his beauty, but the men began to speak bitterly in jealousy."
"There," Herkimer said, and the picture jumped again to show a knot of Midgarders, some very tall and others very short, all dressed in worn and ragged clothing, huddled together around a cooking fire, but there were no gestures, no signs of speech. All heads were bowed, all eyes on a small, flat, gray box that lay on the ground in their center.
"So Loki came up behind Thummaz, and struck him on the head," the voice was saying. "He fell, and Tiw stepped forward with a war-axe, to hew. . ."
"That voice must be a giant's child, Midgarder-sized," Gar said quickly.
"Or a dwarf's," Herkimer responded.
They had meant well, but not quickly enough. Alea had heard the description, and felt a bit queasy. The speaker was making the tale far more detailed than Gar had.
In the picture, an overseer started toward the group of slaves. One of them looked up, spoke a single word, and a hand snaked out to make the radio disappear as the whole group burst into conversation.
"How did they get a radio?" Gar asked, staring.
"It has been three months since we visited the giants," Alea reminded him.
"Shortly after your visit, the giants and dwarves began to discuss the plan by radio," Herkimer told them. "It took me a while to decipher their code, to realize that a 'toe of Thummaz' was a slave and a 'talisman' was a radio receiver-but decipher it I did. The dwarves manufactured hundreds of receivers very quickly-apparently a much easier task than a transceiver--and gave some to merchants to take to the giants, but found ways to give others to slaves all along the western border of Midgard. They passed from hand to hand. Within a year, I suspect there will be at least one in every village."
"Thus it has begun," Gar said quietly.
"What? The peace between the three nations that your stories are supposed to bring us?" Alea rounded on him. "You're foolish if you think th
at! At the most, the giants and the dwarves.may manage to steal most of the slaves, but there will be more born, and more! Besides, their raids will only make the Midgarders' hate burn hotter. They will set their minds to discovering new weapons and new strategies for fighting the giants, you may be sure of that! Then as dwarves and giants are killed in the fighting, they will begin to hate, too!"
"Dwarves and giants have always died fighting Midgarders," Gar reminded her. "If they die in raids rather than in defense, they will at least be able to understand why. Then, when the Midgarders discover that enslaving new people draws giant raiding parties, they will finally begin to exile all instead of enslaving some. Slavery will die out, though it will take twenty years or more. Gradually, they will learn to do their own work, and will have less time to spare for raiding."
"But they will hate more than ever!"
"Yes." Gar nodded heavily. "That will take two or three generations of telling new tales to eradicate-of tales, and of trading with the North Country for the ores and plants and dwarf-made goods that they can't find in Midgard."
"They have always gained such things, by raiding! Oh..." Alea frowned, turning her gaze away, thinking. "You really believe the Midgarders will stop raiding, don't you?"
"They will be too busy defending against attacks by the giants and dwarves," Gar agreed, "and within twenty years, they'll have a new enemy, too."
"A new enemy?" Alea looked up, frowning. Then her face cleared. "Of course! We have shown the North Country how to unite, haven't we?"
"Yes, we have." Gar's eyes glowed at her. "The bandit women will never forget how the giants have helped them regain their self-respect, protecting them against their menfolk until the men learn to treat them as the giants treat their women. The mothers will tell that to their sons and daughters, and tell them the stories of Freya and Dumi and Thummaz. . . ."
"And the children will grow up to think the giants and dwarves are their friends(" Alea cried.
Gar grinned, nodding. "Midgard may take a century or more to learn tolerance, but the separate limbs of Thummaz will be gathered in the North Country, and breathe new life into a new people who value all their offspring, no matter their size. Eventually, those stories will be told in Midgard, too-they will begin in Freya's temples, I think. Give it enough time, and even Midgarders will begin to think of giants and dwarves as friends."
"But will the other nations be ready to befriend them?" Alea countered.
"If they tell the tales we've left them and make up as many new ones as I think they will-yes."
Alea leaped up. "Come( I want to go out and see if the world has changed already!"
Gar laughed, sharing her delight, and followed her back down the ramp.
The day had waned as they watched history being made in the big picture aboard the ship. They came out into moonlight and night, with insects shrilling all about them and the cool breeze filling the land with the odors of living.
Alea drew them in, breathing deeply. "It's in the air already, new life and new ways!" she cried. "We must go out to help it be born!"
Gar saddened. "If you must, then of course you must. But I must go."
Alea whirled, staring at him, feeling betrayed, and deeply. "Go? But why?"
"I'm a catalyst," Gar explained, "something that starts a change but can't really be a part of it. You can-this is your world-but I cannot."
Alea searched his face, not understanding.
"What would I do if I stayed?" Gar asked with a touch of impatience. "Lead a band of giants? Why should they listen tc my orders? Why should the dwarves? Oh, I could form an army of bandits, but what good would that do? They will manage their own armies without me, and I wish to bring less death, not more. No, your people can do all that needs to be done by themselves. They have no need of me. There's nothing more I can do here."
Alea caught the emphasis on the word. She repeated it with a hollow sound. "Here?"
"Out there, I can still do some good." Gar looked up; sweeping a hand to take in all the sky. "There, where humanity has settled on sixty-odd worlds that we know about, and dozens more that we don't. There are people living in oppression, being ground down so brutally that you would scarcely recognize them as human. There's nothing more 1 can do here that you can't do yourselves, but on another world, under another sun, there is work for me indeed."
"But what will happen here?" Alea cried.
"The same things that will happen if I' stay," Gar told her. "It will take a hundred years or more with me or without me. I might save a few more lives, speed up the transformation by a dozen years-but I also might not. No, Alea, my work here is done." The bleakness came to his face again as he said it.
That same emptiness settled in Alea's heart. "And me?" she demanded. "What will happen to me? Will you leave me to become some bandit's woman whether I want to or not, or to go to Saret or Garlon and live on their charity for the rest of my life, like a poor relation?"
Gar looked deeply into her eyes and said, "Wherever you go, you will rise to lead your people. You know how to fight now, so no bandit will be able to make you his property without more battle than he is willing to undergo. The dwarves would be glad of your strength, and you know it, and the giants would welcome you as a comrade, now that Gorlan and his kin have done so. You are an exceptional woman, Alea, a rare and remarkable human being, and no matter where you go, people will treasure you."
His eyes glowed as he said it, and she could almost have believed that his mind was reaching out to touch hers. She stood mute, staring back at him, trying to deny the words he said, but feeling a flood of delight and gratitude to hear them spoken.
Finally she could speak again. "People. Maybe people. But can there be one person, one man alone who could treasure me, delight in my presence, cherish me?"
"It may happen," Gar told her, "now."
Her mind screamed, It already has, but she buried the words quickly in the darkest recesses of her heart and masked them with a bitter tone.
"It also may not! If you can't do any good here, then neither can I! I haven't belonged here since I turned fifteen and grew taller than the boys! I haven't felt at home since then, not anywhere but in my parents' house, and not even there, now that they're dead!" She remembered the last sight of her old home and shuddered at what Birin Wentod had done to it. In a lower voice, she said, "I have no home anymore."
Gar stared at her.
But Alea stood, feeling numb, listening to her own words echo inside her, and knew that she had finally acknowledged something that she had known as true for months, but had striven to deny.
Gar saw that recognition in her eyes and reached out a hand, smiling gently. But he didn't even try to touch, only swept that hand back up toward the interior of the ship and said, "You have a new home, though, if you wish to take it."
Alea stood frozen, unable to believe the fantastic good fortune that opened out before her. Her soul shied from it, she found that she feared the happiness it offered, the tearing away of all she had ever known and loved....
But that had been torn away already. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I want to go with you."
Gar's eyes shone, and he took a step toward her, arms open in welcome.
She still stood like a statue, unable to take the answering step into his arms, the old dread clamoring within her. Be still, she told it furiously. She had nothing to fear that way now, and she knew it. There really was something wrong with him when it came to sex, but it was in his mind, and whatever it was, it kept her safe while she was with him-and she had developed an abhorrence for her own people, strengthened by her awareness that many, many Midgarders would want to use her as a target for revenge, once they knew how she had helped Gar turn their world upside down.
Did she really want to be safe that way? From him? For now, yes-and "for now" was all that mattered.
Still, she stood where she was, didn't reach out, but said, "I'll come. No matter where you're going or what you're doing, it h
as to be a better life than this."
Now it was Gar who was struggling not to show delight, but she saw it in him, and her heart sang.
"I'm going to the stars," he warned her. "You may not ever be able to come back."
"I don't intend to come back," she said, trembling. "There will be danger," Gar cautioned, "as great as any you've ever known here, possibly greater. There will be hunger and thirst, perhaps even torture. But if we live, we'll free other people who have been ground down as badly as you were, perhaps worse."
"It's worth the chance," she said, and knew she'd regret it someday. "How can it be worse? This world has become a torment for me already." Worse, without you in it, she thought, but kept the words from her tongue and hoped he'd meant what he said, that he wouldn't read her mind. But the thought of freeing other slaves fired her imagination, and she trembled as much with excitement as with fear.
"Don't you dare," she whispered, "don't you dare try to go away and leave me here."
Magnus grinned widely and said, "Now, that would be very foolish of me indeed."
"Separate bedrooms," she said, a touch of her old fear rising.
"Definitely," Magnus agreed, "and separate sitting rooms, too. But we can meet in the lounge when you want to."
"And you'll have to keep teaching me how to fight!" Alea warned him.
"Oh, yes," Magnus said softly, "I surely will."
Alea stared at him, her only real friend, and wondered if he would ever be anything more, if she would ever want him to be anything more. He raised his arms again in welcome, and finally she managed to walk.
She walked right around him and on up the ramp, snapping, "What are you waiting for, then? If we're going to leave this world, let's leave!"
She was almost to the top of the ramp before she heard his answer, coming up behind her, filled with suppressed delight: "Yes. Let's go."
Alea stepped back into the wondrous, luxurious room, Gar stepped in behind her. Something whirred as the ramp slid up to close the doorway. She kicked off her boots, jammed her feet into her slippers, and marched across the thick yielding carpet to sit in her chair as though by right, like a queen on her throne. Gar sat opposite her and said quietly, "Lift off, Herkimer."
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