Danny briefly sensed the irony of the situation when promptly at noon the air car landed in the arena. The thirty-foot hovercraft had been transported through time and space from a far future world, and here it sat on hallowed ground, a blasphemy of culture contamination. In a crass defilement of nature's chastity, the pragmatic imperatives of a mechanistic society were about to interface with the more instinctive imperatives of a dawn race in one of the cradles of creation. When Danny had first embarked on the long voyage of the Star Quest, he had not been capable of such insight, but more than the star ship had been affected by traversing the Barrier Wall. At least with some of the castaways the old packaging had been ripped open, and through a glass darkly he caught a glimpse of timeless things as if with another eye. He could understand why some men could adjust to the idea of not merely interfacing with the Talavats but actually committing themselves to a share in their destiny. It was like trading the hollow phonies for something real.
These realizations came to him briefly, yet at other times the "package" predominated. Then duty would prevail and he would struggle to stabilize by aligning himself with his commanding officer. The mission of the Star Quest took priority. This was the attitude he had groped for today, in order to face the ordeal to come and look Lyshenko straight in the eye.
King Ravano had not felt obligated under the circumstances to prepare a welcome or to even appear on the scene initially. He had been in conference all morning, first with the Krias and then with several of his sub-chieftains who had arrived during the night. That was just as well because Danny and Bjornson had their hands full trying to pacify the insurgents who were present. Most of them still swore that Poyntner was the mastermind and that the Skipper was brainwashed. They also took a dim view of being in any conference with Council members who had issued a blanket death penalty against them. So there had been few preparations for receiving the delegation with any ceremony.
The air car sat quietly where it had landed, as if its occupants were cautiously studying the situation. Danny suddenly realized that the picture his group presented couldn't look very promising. Eighteen sun-darkened revolutionaries squatted along the amphitheater tiers in the company of recent defectors. The bushy-chinned veterans were mostly shirtless, looking like a ragged assortment of pirates and guerrilla saboteurs. Every one of them was armed with some kind of modern weapon. Nor was there a welcoming smile or hand wave among them.
The air car's bullhorn crackled and the Skipper's rasping voice boomed echoingly across the red-rock slopes. "Haven't you boys forgotten something? This is a truce flight, damn it! Captain Troy! Either you and your men stack those guns or you can buy yourselves a war!"
"Tell him to shove it!" muttered Henshaw.
"Hold it, men!" Danny knew he had to cut them short. He turned to them and forced a grin. "We're all ugly enough to scare a pack of Golaks. This isn't exactly a church social but let's at least stack the hardware." He noted Bjornson standing, two tiers above him with his 2K held stubbornly across his massive chest, looking like an anachronistic Viking ready for pillage. "Axel, let's play it by ear, okay?"
There were grumblings, but when the Axe slowly complied there was a general clatter of arms being stacked.
"That's better!" came the hard voice of World Council Authority.
The hatch opened and out came the stocky khan figure in his parade yellows. He was followed by Alfred Poyntner, Cyrus Stockton, and Jules Elliott. Then came Frederica in a simple light blue flight jumper, looking slim and chic with her prim chignon and horn-rim glasses. Her searching eyes found Danny almost immediately, and the two of them seemed to bridge a gap. The silent look between them carried more signals than a microwave transmission.
There was an audible reaction when the sixth figure emerged from the air car. Evidently the textile industry at the colony had taken a spurt as well. Wearing the undyed white vestments and cowl of a Cistercian abbot, there stood Auguste Saussure, Inquisitor of Terra Nova.
"Aw hell, count me out of this!" somebody grumbled.
"There goes the ball game, kiddies!"
"We need him here like tits on a bull!"
"Who do they think they're kidding!"
Alex Lyshenko stepped briskly forward as if to establish order, but he stopped abruptly to stare up at the ridge. His heavy-lidded eyes widened in obvious outrage, causing all heads to turn. The ridge was dotted with the tall, silent figures of over six-hundred mounted lancers.
"What the hell is this?" shouted Lyshenko.
The answer came to Danny in a flash of inspiration. "Relax, Commander. Ravano's no dummy. He's just giving you an appropriate reception. I think he's trying to say that he's not looking for bargains. It's because of us he's holding court in a cave."
Cyrus Stockton's beady-eyed look of disdain was obvious. His thin lipped mouth twitch seemed overly active at the moment. "I vote for a cancellation!" he announced. "Let's get out of here!"
Surprisingly, old Pointed Head stepped forward and assumed the role of peacemaker. He spoke in low tones to the Skipper.
"Where is Ravano?" Lyshenko demanded finally. "Why isn't he here?"
"Because it's his frigging country!" yelled Kerby Zellon. "It isn't ours!"
"Sir!" Danny cut in again swiftly. "I think Ravano figures we have some things to settle among ourselves first."
The Skipper's narrowed eyes looked up at him with a gleam of defiance. His moustache fairly bristled as the heavy chin thrust forward stubbornly. "This meeting will not be cut up into running side deals on amnesty for deserters and saboteurs. All that will depend on our meeting with Ravano."
"What's the Bishop doing here?" asked Bjornson in a heavy, challenging tone.
The ensuing moment of silence was shattered by the Skipper. "I'll answer to only one spokesman, if you have one!"
"All right," said Danny, "what's the Bishop doing here?"
"He represents the rest of the Council. Take it or leave it!"
Danny smiled faintly. "I'm not fighting you, sir, but there's something you should know. This is a high holy time among the Tallies. The meeting should be kept strictly political."
The Skipper glanced sharply at Saussure, who merely opened his hands in sanctimonious innocence. The cowled figure shrugged.
"All right!" barked Lyshenko, moving powerfully up the slope. "Let's get this started. You take us to Ravano, and we'll see how far we get!"
Evidently the Skipper was truly accepting the word of Ravano. He and his unarmed group were led into the Talavat version of the lion's den. Danny managed a frustratingly brief contact with Freddie, making an excuse to touch her as he helped her up the slope.
"Thank God you're safe!" he whispered to her.
For answer, her free hand pressed his arm. She smiled nervously but the big amber eyes were naked to him. The shield was gone.
* * * *
This time the court was in full panoply except for the lack of religious representation. The Krias were deeply involved in their na-thitasu rites in the temple, and Noley and even Sam had joined them. The mantra chants of the Call were faintly audible as Danny and Bjornson led Lyshenko's delegation into the main cavern. Ravano was flanked by four of his sub-chieftains who all sat between the flaming torch poles, and his elite guard had now increased to fifty armed warriors.
Stockton and Saussure objected to the show of arms, but Lyshenko solved the problem by scorning even the presence of a threat. It was proper psychology. He was not belittling. He was here to comply exactly with Ravano's request, and that was his opener. He had come prepared to speak with few words.
And few they were, at first.
The Skipper laid out the salient points of the situation in stark clarity, yet he spoke on two levels almost simultaneously, indicating to Freddie and Danny what was to be translated for the king. Danny remembered that Frederica was practically as fluent in Talavat as Lalille, since she had been involved technically with the learning process from the start. In the mysterious absence of Lal
ille, Freddie's presence here had far more than personal connotations for him. It was practical backup at crisis time.
What was not translated was a lateral statement to the insurgents present. Lyshenko knew that Ravano was not concerned with the so-called secessionist plot. In fact he belittled the men's concern about the latter and insisted that if there had been any mastermind to speak of, Alonso was the only candidate. He planned to put him on trial before the Colonial Assembly. As for the insurgent plan to involve the Talavats in a war against Terra Nova, there would be no need for such misplaced heroics if the original colony plan and mission were to be reestablished.
"But for that there's one thing we've got to have," he concluded. "And that's native labor! If we're going to make the long pull and fully refuel the ship and someday produce an S-link, the whole industrial economy of Terra Nova must continue to expand. Now that can be accomplished in either one of two ways, slave labor or volunteers. The Talavats would be glad to get rid of us. Tell Ravano that the sooner his whole nation pitches in, the sooner we'll be gone. This emigration of his people to the mainland is a threat to the entire project."
The insurgents had a question which Danny conveyed. "Before we translate that, the men would like to know what's to happen if you never come up with an S-link."
"Hiber," replied Lyshenko quickly. "If necessary, I'll go myself and take Major Pike along, to make up the six-man crew."
Danny caught a swift glance of hope from Freddie. Was she thinking what he was? If a hiber crew could be made up without him, the two of them would not be separated.
"And the colony?" asked Bjornson.
"It will interface with the native civilization until rescue comes," said Lyshenko. "We're not discounting Mabuse's cosmoscope in the meantime. Help could come in various ways, but this is digressing. Whether we all go home eventually or there's a hiber trip, Ravano's cooperation now is the key to any decisions we will be making. Captain, give the king the message, and make it simple!"
Danny knew that Ravano regarded Freddie with as much trust as he did Lalille, so he nodded to her to make the proposition. Even before she started to translate, however, he knew of certain definite objections.
While Ravano and his sub-chiefs listened closely to Frederica, Bjornson and Henshaw drew him aside and whispered rapidly to him. The Skipper was still flying blind, they insisted. He placed too much trust in Pike who still served the mastermind. Poyntner could still be the head plotter. His presence here as a Council member could be a camouflage, a big chance to do all the spying he pleased.
"Let's see if we get the Colonial Assembly," Danny told them. "That could reshuffle the deck."
However, he noted that other men were nodding their heads to each other while glancing at Lyshenko. Evidently some of them were giving the Skipper credit for making sense out of the mess they were in. So now there were splinter groups, he thought, as there had been back on the ship.
Ravano was busy conferring with his chiefs. There was much waving of hands and a sober shaking of long-haired heads. When the king finally spoke, he immediately voiced the objection Danny had foreseen.
"The orphaned Star Sons," he said, referring to the insurgents, "well know the spirit word of the olden Oracle which guides my people. The gods of the prayava-kutami will not be patient while Maitluccan makes ready to return to his home in the stars. As I have warned Vigranyi Tarnura, the sun and moon hasten for all of us. It is spoken. We must go from Lankara.
When this was conveyed to the delegation, Lyshenko conferred with the Council members. Poyntner glanced sharply at Bjornson.
"Bjornson," he said, "you're the geologist here. You know what our own findings are. The whole tectonic survey reveals that there is no foreseeable danger of a seismic cataclysm."
The Skipper interrupted impatiently. "Axel, you and Danny educate him! Get him off of his damned superstitions!"
Ravano suddenly rose to his feet in royal indignation.
Everybody had forgotten his brief schooling while in captivity. "Word of prophecy not false!" he said in English. Then he spoke rapidly to Freddie and Danny in his own tongue.
Danny translated directly to the Council members. "I warned you this was a high holy time. He's saying there's no getting around the spirit word."
"Then he's determined to refuse us?" asked Lyshenko. His slightly slanted eyes were getting the old khan look of militancy.
Poyntner and Stockton tugged at his arm. He joined them and Elliott and Saussure in a short but heated conference, keenly aware of the fact that Ravano was doing the same with his chiefs. The Skipper had also signaled Freddie to bring the log trans-corder. Evidently a decision was to be made.
Surprisingly, Ravano was the first one to speak again. "Ask the Dragon Chieftain why he does not use Golaks to dig beneath the ground for his magic earths, and to help him grow food in the forest clearings."
Lyshenko's quick answer to that was an oblique compliment to Ravano's people. "We need the Tallies. There's no efficiency with those gorillas, no learning ability! But I'll tell you one thing the Golaks can do. They can handle rifles! Tell His Majesty that he has the choice I mentioned to you in the first place, slave labor or volunteers!"
"Aren't you blowing it?" sneered Zellon.
Lyshenko's eyes flashed adamantly. "I speak for World Council Authority! The survival of the colony and the purpose of the mission takes priority under law!"
"What do you want us to give him?" asked Danny, struggling to control himself. "A declaration of war?"
"Not yet!" snapped Lyshenko. "First, give him the only choice he's got! Damn it, Captain, that's an order!"
"Yes, sir." Danny caught a worried look from Freddie. "Better let me do the honors on this one," he told her. He faced Ravano and his tall chieftains. Taking a slow deep breath, he looked into the eyes of each of them in succession. This was Talavat protocol. It was an unspoken sign of High Talk. He spoke simply and unemotionally while he stated what was to go down in Terra Nova history as "Lyshenko's choice."
There followed a long, tense moment of silence while all eyes were fixed on the king of the Talavat nation. The so-called pagan savage serenely ignored the implications of the threat. "Tell the Dragon Chief that there is a third choice," he said quietly but firmly. "It has been our choice from the beginning. We wait for the Oracle. The final word shall be the word of Ramor."
When this was translated, it sent the Council into a furor of angry whisperings. It also gave many of the insurgents second thoughts. Danny could hear their mutterings around him.
"Jesus! If our ass is going to hang on this voodoo crap, I'm with the Skipper!"
"I told you, Ravano's selling us out!"
The pendulum was swinging circles. Danny wondered desolately if maybe an oracle was all that could save them now.
After a minute or so, Lyshenko turned to face Ravano directly. "For my world I am the Law! Ravano, this also leaves me but one choice!"
"One moment, Commander."
All eyes turned to see the cowled figure of Saussure step forward. "Before we commit ourselves to the futility of war, which can only result In a Pyrrhic victory on both sides–"
Lyshenko tried to cut him off. "You're out of line, Bishop! You have nothing to say here!"
"Then I shall speak in the name of Almighty God," retorted the self-appointed pope of Terra Nova. "For your world, as you say, you may be the law. I submit that there is a Higher Law."
"Oh, hell!" muttered Poyntner. "This is no place to start a goddamn revival meeting!"
The Bishop continued with fanatic stubbornness. "The higher wisdom of Heaven is needed in this critical moment. I offer a fourth choice which is the only course of mercy and charity. Let me convert these heathens to the true God, so that this savage idolatry may be banished. Their very blasphemy is your obstacle here."
"Oh for Christ's sake, Bishop!" shouted Poyntner. "Science will take us off this rock, not mumbo-jumbo, whether yours or theirs! If we can get this God idea out of ou
r systems, we can be our own damned God!"
Freddie's face reddened. "On the contrary," she shouted at him, "if we can dispense with blasphemy here, even you might be able to grasp what's really going on!"
"Silence, all of you!" shouted Lyshenko furiously.
He tensed in alarm, however, as Ravano made a sign to his guards. The armed Talavats took a few steps forward and unslung their crossbows while deftly fitting arrows into them. The men had brought up their weapons from the slope, however, and suddenly Vinet tossed a machine rifle to Danny.
He aimed the gun at the Tallies and cried out in their own language, "Ravano, your word!"
The king signaled again and the poised phalanx of arrows lowered, waiting. But the hasty withdrawal of Ravano's chiefs through a rear exit was more ominous than the action of the bowmen. A vision of the lancer troops on the ridge flashed into Danny's mind. A worse development now was that some defectors had switched their colors. Weapons had gotten into the hands of the Council members although Elliott and Saussure refused them. However, Lyshenko and Poyntner displayed their heavy machine rifles menacingly.
Then the Axe grabbed his 2K and aimed it at the newly armed men. "Keep your frigging heads on!" he bellowed. "Before we blow this whole world to hell, I'll give you a fifth choice, damn it! Either get some horse sense into you or you can try me on for size! We're too damn far from home for this dog and flower show of fancy law and procedures. For Christ's sake, we're all human beings! Let's use the brains we were born with!"
Danny thought personally that the Swede had made the best speech of the so-called conference. It broke the momentum of an emotional disaster but it failed to resolve the impasse.
Star Quest Page 20