“Ill is this,” Vosmaer said. “We must—first we must see to relief for you and help in rebuilding, lest you freeze to death come winter. Afterward we must put a new stronghold in the pass. I will seek to provide it with more firearms.” He meant simple weapons such as uplanders would be able to maintain.
Amber eyes gave him a lingering regard. “You are very kind to us, dear alien.”
“We have our reasons,” Vosmaer answered gruffly. “You stand between the wild folk and richer country below.” —which feeds the Seruenu cities, which feed us and make those things we need for our mission.
The chieftain leaned heavily on ix’s staff. This day had changed ixen from middle-aged to old. “Yet I have heard you cannot eat our food.” The voice wavered. “We whom you saved cannot offer you as much as the Beaker of Fellowship.”
“Our kind of food can be raised in the lands that you wall off from the reavers.” Nevermind about ecological conversion, let alone the fact that the plantations were mainly a reserve, in case hostiles knocked out the synthesizers. “It is we who are in your debt.”
“We will strive to remain worthy.” Tacit was the hope that someday these people would have earned assistance against more than the nomads, famine, pestilence, toil. Rumors had risen this high, concerning what the humans had done for Seruenu. They must have infinite powers.
If only we did, went through Vosmaer. Or if only we could bring to you a fraction of what our race does know how to do. But we aren’t gods or kings on this world of yours. We’re just a garrison too, keeping a pass on the far frontier.
“Come to order,” Jiao directed, and the assembly did. Amplified, his voice continued to be a softness around a steel core. The screen behind the stage lighted up with our enlarged images. I wondered if these troops had experienced this commonplace, a close look at whoever was talking, before in their lives. Those had been such impoverished lives; or had they, really, always?
“It was important to see how many would come to this meeting,” Jiao went on. “If few were strongly opposed to being evacuated, there would be no sense in talking. You could go on griping, but you would have to conform. Well, the count stands at 537. That is significant. The meeting will proceed.
“I shall not waste time discussing the petition that has been circulating. I have already made inquiries at the top level. The possibility of restoring the force on Procrustes does not exist.”
A growl rose from those gathered. Eyes and teeth gleamed in furrowed, toughened faces. Jiao lifted a hand to quell the noise. “Be calm,” he said. “From the viewpoint of efficiency, the Fleet is perfectly justified.
“Think. What we actually maintained was a naval base on the fringe of Alliance space. That sun is well situated for monitoring the region, where skiprunners and warlords had been making havoc in traffic and on planets. Our ships first provided escorts and guardians. Later, piece-by-piece, in the course of decades, they sought out and destroyed the nests of banditry.
“Besides the location of the sun, Procrustes was a decisive factor in choosing the site of the base. It is the single world thereabouts where humans can live without artificial help.”
I heard a laugh or two. Didn’t somatotypal selection and, in half the cases, biomodification, count as artificial? The brigadier proceeded unperturbed: “Moreover, it has intelligent natives, certain of whom have developed pre-industrial civilizations. They could produce a great deal of the necessary supplies and war materiel at modest cost. Otherwise, maintaining the outpost at such a distance from the centers of the Alliance—the long; lines of communication—would have been very expensive; and to the Fleet, expense doesn’t mean money so much as it means personnel and resources urgently wanted elsewhere.
“The civilized natives were willing, eager, to assist. They knew what benefits to them would follow. However, given the primitive state of their technology, conversion to manufacturing for the Fleet soon took most of their energies. They could no longer defend themselves against barbarians and half-civilized rivals. We took over that task, as well as instructing and leading them in the new engineering projects.
“And that is why you were on Procrustes. That, and no other reason. The spaceborne units have now worked themselves out of a job and are needed for the Khalian war.”
His tone slowed down to somberness. “Why have I reviewed this history, which everybody ought to know already? Because tonight you are not a troop being briefed, you are individuals met to decide what should be done. First you must decide what you actually want. If the terms of discussion were not spelled out at the beginning, you would spend these too few hours wrangling over them, instead of getting on with your real business. At best, I doubt that a group like this can come to agreement and then act in concert, decisively. But since enough of you have demonstrated your feelings by coming here, I am prepared to give you your chance.
“Before reporting on the possibilities available to you, I want to know more precisely what those feelings are. The meeting will be open for a limited time to discussion from the ground. Questions?”
A hand shot up in the crowd. The pickup found its owner and put her likeness on the screen. She was young, the idealism not yet leached out of her. Tears quivered on her lashes. “Doesn’t the Fleet know where we’re needed?” she appealed. “Back on the planet we’ve left, with our friends!”
I glanced at Jiao, and for a heartbeat’s time something played across his face as it had over Vosmaer’s. But this was gentler, I thought, a memory that might make the brigadier weep once he was alone, except that I supposed he had forgotten how.
A century had wrought vast changes throughout Seruenu. Mines and their tailings scarred mountainsides. Roads and rails webbed the valleys, seamed the ridges. Factories dominated the town in which they had arisen. Amidst the browns and yellows of pastures, croplands, woods, there were swathes rustling green or blooming white, crops that once grew on Earth. Motors pulled more vehicles than zateks did; the gallant spectacle of cavalry was only for ceremonies; the scions of warrior houses most often became technicians, while bards sang less of ancient deeds than of wonders aloft among the stars. Shrines were seldom visited. Instead, those who could travel made pilgrimage above the overcast, in order to behold the stars for themselves.
Yet Seruenu had not lost its soul. The new buildings were harmonious with their surroundings, gracefully pillared and turreted. Countryfolk still danced the springtime in, and welcomed home the spirits of their ancestors at harvest; possession of an exact calendar had, if anything, added deeper meaning to the festivals. With rigidities dissolving, the highborn served the commoners better than before the humans came. Prosperity enabled the arts to flourish, a burst of creativity like nothing since the Age of Dourva. Above all, the country was at peace. The Ilkai glowered and grumbled beyond the northern frontier, but not for generations had their armies crossed it. One could count on living out one’s life, one’s dreams.
Still Ouahallazin soared in walls and towers, alabaster topped with domes of blue and gold. Still the River Taouriri toppled down the cliff beside the city, and the slow thunder pervaded streets, homes, beings. These nights it lighted lamps, as oil once did, but brightly, brightly; and the hydroelectric plant was so made as not to mar the snowlike purity of the fall.
From the terrace where he stood, Jiao glimpsed mist blown off the water. The breeze was cool, a benediction after the heat of the day; at this altitude, air pressure was less than two bars and he breathed easily enough. His view swept down the curtain wall, which was fragrant with flowering vines, to the stream rushing on into its canyon. It gleamed. Looking upward, his back to every window, he saw the sky of early dark filled with soft, shifting glow. The sun was in a flare period and had turned the permanent cloud layer auroral. Strange that a star so fierce could evoke beauty so gentle. Far northward, though, thunderheads loomed, monstrous blacknesses, lightning aflicker in the caverns of them.
> Tazrou gestured yonder. “Our forebears would have called that sight an omen,” ix said low. The storm was of a size and violence extraordinary even for the south temperate zone of Procrustes. “They would have thought the Deathsower was readying to ride.”
“You no longer believe in omens,” Jiao replied. “Do you?”
The Mayor Paramount made a sound that whistled through the endless rumble of the cataract. A human would have sighed. “We have at least kept a sense of the world as being somehow a whole. It may be chance, but it is fitting that rage-weather should arise over Ilkaizan just after you brought word that you are forsaking us.”
Jiao stiffened. He would not stand and be accused, however mildly. “This is no abandonment. I came to warn you, give you ample notice. We will help you prepare yourselves. We will leave you the means of defense. “
“The enemy has weapons akin to ours.” That had been foreordained. The Ilkai were civilized in their fashion, which was not a fashion to make them cooperative with foreigners. Their artisans were quite able to produce firearms once a few had been stolen and studied. “War is an art that we have lost, but to them it remains the crown of life. The thwarted ambitions of ix’s predecessors burn high in their Dominator. When ix hears you shall be leaving, ix will begin marshalling for the day when you have left.”
“We have our orders,” Jiao rasped. “That is something you must learn over again in Seruenu, to follow orders—to be soldiers.”
“Will we have time to learn? It is knowledge that must go into the bones, is it not?” Tazrou paused. Ix’s fingers closed hard on the parapet. “This is a terrible saying. Yet ... before you go, you could destroy the Ilkai. For us.”
A few nukes; a few cities, a million or two lives, blazed out of existence; youngsters farther from ground zero screaming, eyeballs melted and skin burned off; survivors fighting for what was left, disruption, starvation, plague; make a desert and call it peace. Jiao chose his words with care. “Do you truly wish that?”
“Not truly. It required utterance. I have grandchildren.”
“Grandchildren also live across .the border. Besides, it would do you small good for a short spell, and what happened afterward would be pure evil. We humans kept the Ilkai curbed for you, and it cost us more than you ever knew. We did not conquer them, for then we would have had to govern and protect them, and that was beyond what we could do. Now, if the Ilkai should suddenly cease to be, the wild tribes on the far side of them would come ravening over their lands and into yours. With the Dominator you can at least deal.”
Pride rang: “If we are willing to be wrung dry; and we are not.” His voice died out. Tazrou lowered ix’s head. “No,” ix murmured, “you have right; you cannot be butchers. We must stave off the flood as best we can. I think we will lose much. Ouahallazin will surely fall. But belike we can save the heartland of Seruenu, and perhaps after many years fight our way back.”
“Good!”
The light within Jiao flickered low again as Tazrou went on: “But what will be the end of it? Will we and they grind each other down, until at last we are so weak that the barbarians can overwhelm us both? Or else must Seruenu turn into a monster, a thing more grim than the Ilkai themselves’? Whatever befalls, that life our forebears created and knew, it will be no more than a memory, borne away on the night wind like the odor of these flowers. I am selfishly glad that before then I shall be dead.”
Ix’s fingers brushed feather-light across Jiao’s cheek.
“Meanwhile I shall miss you, old friend,” ix finished.
It was astonishing how many and loud were the shouts that followed the woman’s call. “Your loyalty is commendable,” the brigadier responded dryly. “However, your oaths were to the Fleet.”
“Where’s any loyalty to us?” Deledda roared. “What are we to the high command but a boxful o’ goddamn chess pieces?” He swallowed and added, “Sir.” It was lost in the growl that lifted anew.
Jiao raised an arm and chopped it downward. The gesture brought swift silence. “Self-pity is contemptible,” he rapped. “You are receiving your due, adequate quarters and living allowances—”
A mass groan interrupted. Well, I had visited the sleazy rooms, eaten in the greasy cafes, watched little girls shrink aside in fright and little boys jeer, women draw fastidiously aside and men glower, when a half-human-looking Crusty walked down the street or boarded a bus. I’d sat in on a couple of parties, veterans squeezed together in somebody’s kennel or huddled together in a park, passing the bottles and the tokes around for lack of any better recreation. After a couple of nasty brawls, taverns everywhere on Bellegarde had been put off limits for them.
“And you should have the guts to make do,” Jiao said.
“You’ll be taken away as soon as transport is available. It shouldn’t be much longer. Then those of you who are fit, or who can be rehabilitated, will get new assignments. They are virtually certain to be in easier environments than almost any place on Procrustes. Those who are not fit for continued service will also get whatever medical attentions called for, then their discharges and pensions. What more do you want?”
The question was rhetorical but fair. The Fleet would not have persisted these many centuries if it did not look after its own. And that was part of the trouble here. “Sir, they’ll break us up,” Deledda protested. “We won’t be in our old outfits anymore. Our outfits won’t be.”
I saw the bleakness on Vosmaer. He too had belonged to his command. How could he now end his service, except as an anonymous key pusher in a bullpen of an office? No wonder that he meant to resign. But surely even his birthworld would be alien, if he went back to it.
Deledda sagged where he stood. The screen showed, in brutal detail, how weariness laid hold on him. His amplified mumble ran around the meadow and lost itself among the trees. “Not that we’ll keep the uniform, Lea and me. We’ll be no use anywhere. We knew we wouldn’t be, way back when we were young and volunteered for biomod. We figured after we retired we could settle down where we’d been. Had us a bit of a farm lined up—”
Some alterations of the body go very deep; and habitat makes its own slow changes, which finally become irreversible. The medics at Port Tau Ceti could probably fix the sergeant so he wouldn’t require a machine to help him breathe at ordinary pressure; but he would never be comfortable. He would wheeze and shiver while swift age overtook him.
“You will have your pensions,” Jiao reiterated. “You will find a place where you want to live.”
Torskov stirred. “Sir, I believe we’ve covered the obvious things,” he said. “We ought to move on and consider what to do about them. May I take over?”
The brigadier nodded. Torskov stepped to the front.
Rainbow-clad and golden-bearded, he might have been a pagan god appearing before a conclave of trolls. His blue glance traveled downward and rested for a few seconds on Deledda, as though he was reminded of something. And when he spoke, from deep in his throat, what he first said was, “I know what it can be like for an old soldier from a strange world.”
Terreneuve is a good planet for normal humans and, in areas where the climate is less than idyllic, not too expensive.
Wind scouring from the North Pole struck cold through clothes; dry snow flurried before its whistle; but there was an exhilaration in it, a challenge, and when you had had enough you could go indoors. The houses of Aubourg clustered close together, windows cheerfully aglow, their backs to the winter.
Thus the Lodge seemed doubly stark, a foursquare block outside of town, alone on the white prairie. Torskov’s walk to it had made the blood tingle in his veins. Abruptly his enthusiasm waned, and he stood hesitant a moment in the wind before he touched the call plate.
A minute or two passed. A gatekeeper must be scanning him. He’d had to search out a resident who had business in Aubourg, practically force an acquaintance, then cultivate it over
days, before he got the invitation he wanted. At that, he must promise not to document the experience in video, audio, or print.
The valve opened for him. He stepped into an airlock chamber. It closed again and a pump chuttered, thinning the atmosphere. Moisture went out also. His mucous membranes smarted, and he slipped on his nose mask. A tube led to a water bottle and humidifier. It was equipment he’d had to prepare for himself. Nothing like it was on sale. Town dwellers hardly ever came into the Lodge.
The inner valve opened and he strode forward. Heat assailed him. The light was sullen red. He wished he’d brought supplemental oxygen; but he wasn’t going to be active, he was merely going to look around and converse with whoever was willing. “To satisfy my curiosity,” he’d admitted. “I’m a wanderer, a dilettante. Of course, if I can do anything to help you people—”
“You can’t,” Ventura had replied. “It’s too late. Except that I think a lot of us will enjoy listening to you yarn about your adventures. That’s why we’re letting you in. Our lives are so enclosed.”
“Do they have to be?”
“What else is ours?”
Ventura waited to meet ‘Torskov. He had the gauntness, big rib cage, parched appearance of most veterans of Eremos. His garb was a surprise, in spite of its being known that they dressed in special ways here. An elaborately plumed bonnet rested on his head, a scalloped cloak swirled above a tapestried jerkin, fluorescent trousers bagged into half-boots. He caught the newcomer’s stare. His smile was spastic. “Clothes have many meanings for us,” he said. “It’s one game we can play. “
They went down a corridor. Doors giving on it belonged to apartments. Ventura showed Torskov a couple. The tenants weren’t in. Nobody used locks. There was nothing worth stealing. The places were minimally furnished and small almost to the point of being cells. “When we’d clubbed together to build ourselves this home, not much money was left for comforts.”
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