Encounter with Tiber [v1.0]

by By Buzz Aldrin

  The most popular thing we had done—at least among the Nisuans we had rescued—was killing off Nim Rar and all his heirs. Just to make things extra-clear, we also blew up the stone tower and breached the walls. Real People Town, as an imperial capital, was finished. At times I felt sorry for various terrified Seteposians; but when I did, I thought of what I had learned from talking to Diehrenn and her father.

  “So are you going to take your native princess back with you?” Bepemm asked, a strange glint in her eye.

  “What?” I said, through a mouthful of food.

  “Exactly what do you have in mind for Diehrenn?”

  I was startled. “Well, I don’t think that’s my decision—”

  Bepemm snorted. “Right. She follows you around like a pet, you spend hours talking to her, you’re even learning Real-People from her, and she happens to have a wonderful body and a beautiful face. And all this is coincidence.”

  It occurred to me that Bepemm might be jealous, but since she and I had never actually been involved, I could see no graceful way to discuss that, so instead I said, “Well, don’t be silly. She is one of our best interpreters. She does like working with me, and yes, she’s beautiful, but neither she nor I have talked about anything like that.”

  “And she just happened to come up on this very lander for her dialysis,” Bepemm said.

  “Well, her mother had regained consciousness—it was about time she got to see her. She’s been worried.”

  Using Soikenn’s work from decades before as a starting point, it had only taken Dr. Lerimarsix a couple of days to track down the slowly accumulating toxins produced by the Nisuan immune system trying to deal with ubiquitous unassimilable Seteposian proteins, and to show that those were what was slowly causing kidney and lung failure, as well as early sterility and half a dozen other complications that the Nisuans in Real People Town had not even known they had. Once the problem was solved, he had constructed dialysis rigs to clean out the toxins, and induced-regeneration drugs could then fix up most Nisuans as good as new. He had started on the Nisuans who had arrived on Wahkopem Zomos, because they had accumulated more toxins due to eating adult portions of Seteposian food almost from the day they arrived. Now he was starting on the first generation born on Setepos.

  “You know, if we’d been a couple of years later,” I said, “there might have been no one who spoke Nisuan at all. A lot of the older ‘native’ generation were very close to the line, or so Dr. Lerimarsix says.”

  “Do you suppose if they’d had no memory of a time before slavery, and no memory of adults telling them about it, they’d have been less vengeful?” Bepemm asked.

  “Being a slave is being a slave, wherever you came from, I think,” I said. “I don’t think any of us will ever understand how deeply they all hate Seteposians. I don’t think I would want to be able to understand.”

  Bepemm took a large mouthful and chewed vigorously. “Me either,” she said. “But seriously, Thetakisus, even if you don’t feel anything for Diehrenn, she’s clearly fascinated with you.”

  That made me even more uncomfortable, because the truth was she’d been haunting my dreams—when I’d had time to sleep, which wasn’t often or much. Her ferocity shocked me, her experiences appalled me (from puberty on, she had copulated with whomever she was ordered to copulate with—and seemed to regard it as the least unpleasant part of her job), and yet. . . there was something about her I found really magnificent. Possibly I was just impressed with what she had survived, or with her fierce curiosity and longing to learn everything new right away. Perhaps Bepemm was right and it was only that Diehrenn was beautiful.

  From the way Bepemm was glaring at me, I realized I had probably gotten a faraway look in my eyes, right when the subject of Diehrenn had come up—a bad idea. I was trying to think how to correct the situation when Krurix came in, carrying a pastry that was probably part of finishing off his big meal. “Do the two of you have a minute to talk?”

  Bepemm looked visibly relieved; maybe she hadn’t wanted to have a fight, either. “If we can stuff our faces while you talk, that’s even better.”

  He sat down, took a bite of the pastry he had carried in, swallowed, and said, “Well, to start with the embarrassing part, it’s about the zero-point energy laser again, and the way the plates are working. When I got back and looked at the recorded graphs, from every time we modulate the laser—which we have to do because every time either of the landers docks or launches, and every time we launch a probe, we have to retune it just a little to maintain station—well, the plate responses have been getting weirder. The periods of chaos are taking longer, less and less of the curves are smooth. I’m really afraid it’s deteriorating.”

  “Uh, isn’t this something for you to talk to Azir about?” I asked. What he was saying was alarming, but we weren’t the people who could do anything about it.

  “Yeah. That’s what I want to talk to you about. Azir is so scared of going back to Streeyeptin that she won’t even try. It would throw the schedule off by quite a bit, you know. The overhaul in ballistic orbit would be about ten days, and with having to fly rendezvous maneuvers instead of just coming up like an elevator, each lander would only be able to make a trip every other day or so, I think, instead of the two per day they’re making now. So it would really throw Streeyeptin’s plans off. But I think if Streeyeptin understands the risk, he’s not going to be completely unreasonable. He wants to get the mission accomplished and get home, too. So I think he needs to know that it looks bad, and what’s bad about it, and what I wanted to ask you is if you have any brilliant ideas about how to approach him.” He took a large bite, chewed hard, and added, “The thing is, I don’t care if he’s mad at me as long as the ship is safe, but I know I’m a pretty irritating person, and I don’t want to blow the chance to explain the situation. And I’m afraid that’s just what would happen. I think that—”

  “Pardon me,” Streeyeptin said, coming in. We all froze. He looked around and sighed. “No, don’t think you’re in any trouble. Krurix, I wasn’t deliberately listening, but I was passing by when you started your conversation. So it is your judgment that we have less time than you had thought before the main drive fails? And do I remember that, if it fails, the ship could be destroyed?”

  “Only if it fails during hover, sir,” Krurix said. “If we’re in orbit or en route, we’d have all the time in the world to fix it, and it’s not hard to fix. It’s only if we should drop into the atmosphere while the plates are jammed at the bottom that we could get blown up, once the emergency restart kicks in. But if that happened . . . well, then, yes, the ship would be pretty much gone. That’s why I’d rather take us to orbit; that would mean we’d have all the time we needed to do the overhaul.”

  Streeyeptin seemed to consider, and finally said, “Well, there’s a sort of compromise that we can make, but I’m afraid it’s bad news for the four of us.” He saw that he had our attention and went on. “Here’s the situation. No doubt it’s occurred to you that the Nim’s breeding program has put us in a terrible spot? We had planned to have room to take along ten Nisuans, in case a couple of children had been born to the original expedition. Twelve, with a great deal of squeezing and discomfort, is the limit. We can’t take even one-third of the Nisuans off of Setepos and back to Nisu in Egalitarian Republic.

  “Now, that’s bad enough. I’ve already sent a radio message back to Nisu about all this, and when they get it, four years from now, assuming ships aren’t desperately needed for dozens of things they probably will be needed for . . . then I would guess it would only take them two years to get a rescue expedition together, which would take about four and a half years to get here—so we’re looking at any help being at least a decade away.

  “But there’s another problem, one that none of you would have had much reason to think about just yet. The Nisuans here are former slaves and they hate Seteposians violently. Ergo, if we arm them and tell them to wait for us here, all we’re going
to do is recreate the Nim’s empire with a Nisuan royal family. Equality, if it means anything, has to extend to everyone—even to Seteposians living in the Stone Age—and we need people here on the spot to make sure that what develops is a fair and free society, to teach these people, both the former slaves and the former masters, how to live together, at least as well as we’ve managed on Nisu. The most obvious person for such a job is a political officer, and hence I’m volunteering.”

  “You mean—you’re going to stay here for ten more years?” Krurix asked, incredulous.

  “One doesn’t always get to pick what one’s duty is,” Streeyeptin said. “There are other implications as well. First of all notice it’s ten years until the rescue ship gets here, then another four and a half before it gets back to Nisu. So it will be more nearly fifteen years before I see home again. But secondly, because there will be a permanent team here, there is no special need for Egalitarian Republic to remain. As soon as necessary equipment has been delivered to the ground, the ship can leave. So for those who do stay on board the ship, this cuts the mission short by almost a year.”

  “Lucky them,” Krurix said, looking down. “You said a team would be staying with you?”

  “Well, what I need are several junior officers with a mix of skills,” Streeyeptin said. “I’m purely a social planner and a policeman, you know. Relevant to the job but not capable of doing it all by myself. I need people with technical backgrounds and officer training to help get a functional society going here. Senior officers have to fly the ship, ordinary spacers don’t have enough education . . .”

  I saw which way it was going and used the same good common sense that had gotten me the job of captain’s assistant. “I’ll stay,” I said. When it’s clear that they want you to volunteer, it’s a bad idea to drag your feet. And everyone knows you really can’t fight a Political Officer. Had I tried to get out of staying, I knew things would go badly for me, and I would still end up staying. By volunteering, I at least got the credit for doing it. Besides, though it probably would not help me make captain, it would give me an important role in a major scientific project, it would establish me as one of the people most experienced on frontier worlds at just the time when they were figuring out who would hold executive positions for the Migration itself—and doing Streeyeptin a big favor would probably set up some political connections. There was more than one way to climb the pyramid of power.

  And, a small voice in the back of my head said, there was always Diehrenn.

  I never asked Bepemm what her reasons were for volunteering; probably many of them were the same as mine. I was much more surprised when, with a strange shudder, Krurix followed suit. Maybe it was because Bepemm and I were the closest thing he had to friends, or perhaps he had just figured out the situation about the same way I had. There are things it’s better not to know about each other, I guess.

  And just like that, we were in for a decade more on Setepos, trying to bring the former slaves and former masters together, through a hundred centuries of progress, almost overnight. When I lay down to take my nap, I made sure I slept well and long. I had a feeling it would be a very long time before that happened again.

  * * * *

  6

  TWO EIGHTDAYS LATER, KRURTX AND I WERE SWEATING OVER THE FOURTH crate of lab supplies that we had wrestled into headquarters—the former palace—that morning. “Quote me some numbers,” I said to him.

  He grunted and lifted; I grabbed the other side of the crate, and with one big heave we got it onto the table where it was supposed to go. Then he sighed and said, “All right. Current schedule is for seventeen more lander trips to and from Egalitarian Republic. Last three trips bring down the dialysis rig. You and I unload all that by ourselves because Bepemm is going to be busy cramming enough medical information to pass as our doctor. One last down and up for our farewell dinner and to get Otuz, Priekahm, Osepok, and Zahmekoses onto Egalitarian Republic. Eighteen trips at one per day for two landers means nine days, but they’re taking longer and longer to get each fresh trip underway. So my current bet is that we get three more leaves on the ship before it departs. Pick your three favorite meals and think about your three favorite kinds of shower.”

  I sighed. “Same numbers as before, then.”

  “Always worth rechecking,” he said. “Well, that’s all they left on the porch this time. It’s half a day till the next lander comes back down, and Bepemm doesn’t like to work with either of us on the stuff she’s setting up. Want to get some food and rest a little?”

  “Suite me completely.” I mopped my face with the piece of native cloth that hung down around my head; we had gotten in the habit of wearing the same head covering the Seteposians and the Nisuans born there did. It was one more thing Bepemm was angry at us about. “I think I saw the cooks roasting a couple of goats earlier this morning. Let’s go see if those are done.”

  We walked through the camp that had been Real People Town, saying hello to people who waved and said hello to us. That was mostly Nisuans, but a few Seteposians had learned that as long as they accepted the new order, we weren’t going to make life impossible for them. Except for the greetings, we didn’t talk much, but it was a friendly, companionable silence.

  It occurred to me how strange that was. I wasn’t sure how much I had changed, but Krurix surely had, all for the better, and somehow though our forty-four eightweeks subjective aboard ship hadn’t made us friends, the short time working together on Setepos had. Some of it, I knew, was that the more accepted he felt, the fewer jokes he made and the easier he was to talk to. He was smart, and very loyal to anyone who was kind to him.

  Then too, since Bepemm had decided she was permanently mad at me, he was who I had to hang around with. Perhaps some of my not liking him before had been a matter of seeing him through Bepemm’s eyes.

  And finally, unlike Bepemm and Streeyeptin, hard as it was to admit, we sort of liked it here. Not enough to look forward to losing our favorite foods, showers, recorded entertainment, and comfortable bunks, but enough so that whenever it was time to “hurry up and wait,” we tended to go exploring in town or nearby together, even if it was only to try some Seteposian food or to get the view from a hilltop.

  “Streeyeptin seems pretty worried,” Krurix commented as we sat down with our sticks of chunks of roasted goat and onions. “I don’t think it’s just that there’s so much to get done and so little time to do it, either. I think his political meetings with the younger Nisuans haven’t been going the way he wishes they would. And it’s not only because he doesn’t speak Real-People very well, or because they haven’t learned much Nisuan just yet.”

  I took a bite and chewed for a moment or two. “Well,” I said, “remember it took us a while to find out that he was basically a decent guy, even if he does have kind of a rules-are-rules approach to things. With the language barrier—and the fact that he’s trying to talk them into exactly what they don’t want to do, establishing a decent relationship with Seteposians—well, there’s bound to be a clash, just as you said. I don’t see why you have to look for any other causes for the trouble.”

  Krurix sighed. “I just have a feeling that that’s not all of it,” he said. “You know, they may have been in the Stone Age a few eightdays ago, but they aren’t stupid. And the first thing an intelligent animal learns is to tell other intelligent animals, particularly ones in authority, what they want to hear.”

  I almost choked on the goat. “Too right,” I said, laughing. “Well, when does he get back here to resume political education? He was supposed to be on this last flight—did his note say when he would be back?”

  “Apparently it’s taking him a while to get arrangements made on Egalitarian Republic for Itenn to take over as Acting Political Officer, and that’s cutting into the time for writing and transmitting his reports,” Krurix said. “He’s afraid that if our transmitter here goes down or doesn’t work well, it might be a long time before any of his reports get back to Nisu,
and they might not realize how urgent the situation is here. But it is a nuisance not to have him around. He’s the one with the plan and the authority, after all—”

  At first I thought the deep rumble was thunder, but then it was much too loud, and went on too long. A great light shone through the clouds.

  Krurix leaped to his feet, letting his lunch land wherever, and I followed him as we raced back to the palace. The thunder grew louder, the light from overhead grew brighter, and as we ran we felt a low pulsing rumble through our feet. Suddenly we were knocked from our feet by a savage, hot wind; we rolled, got up, ran again, and were knocked down twice more by further shocks.

  By the time we got to headquarters Bepemm was already there, talking frantically into the radio. “Acknowledge contact, please, Egalitarian Republic,” she was saying. “Please acknowledge contact.” She groaned with frustration. Without looking up from the control panel, she added, “Run playback on the communications link, please, Krurix. I want to make sure we don’t miss any message that might—”