by John Dalmas
Her eyes grabbed mine and wouldn't let them go. "And you pulled that one off."
That was beside the point, I wanted to tell her. That had been then. The situation had been
different. I'd been lucky. But all I could answer was: "Dad had as much to do with it as I did."
"Not according to him he didn't." Her gaze withdrew for a minute. "I can see the difficulties you're talking about, and the dangers. But it seems to me that when we get down to it, having a scout ship will make up for a lot. And if things don't shape up for us there, we can take on fresh provisions and try another world somewhere. The fuel slug on this rig is good for years and years if we don't run her too long at high speeds in proximity mode."
She had a point. I'd been letting myself get bogged down in the difficulties. And although dad had played as big a role as I had in the final showdown on Fanglith, all in all, it had been my show. So I said okay, she'd made sense, and we didn't talk much about it the rest of the way.
Meanwhile, Tarel and I let our hair grow, to look more like Fanglithans. Also, we found a drawer with several remotes-small receiver units you can put in your ear for confidential radio reception. They operate on a wireless relay from your belt communicator, and with our hair over our ears, no Fanglithan would know we had them.
Eventually, one day near ship's "midnight," the scout's honker woke us up. We'd set it to let us know when the computer kicked us down out of FTL mode. Ahead of us we could see the system's primary-the sun that Fanglith circled. Seen from where we were, it was a glaring, small white globule against a star-frosted backdrop of deepest black. We were farther out from Fanglith than we'd expected-part of the tiny error inherent in servomechanisms and ancient equations-but still less than a day away in mass-proximity mode.
I had flitter bugs in my stomach. I wasn't sure how much of it was just plain excitement and how much was fear, There'd be enough of both in store for me on Fanglith. I took a deep breath. Whatever, I told myself. When we'd taken care of a few preliminaries, we'd be eating real food again, all of us, breathing unrecycled air, and seeing the surface of a planet where surely the Empire hadn't landed.
NINE
The first time we'd arrived, I'd been sixteen and Deneen fourteen, and we'd known almost nothing about Fanglith. So we'd looked it over pretty carefully. You might think we wouldn't need to a second time, but we weren't taking any chances. We made several slow swings around it at 40,000 miles, monitoring for radio signals just in case Imperials had landed. We got nothing, and the radio monitoring equipment aboard the Jav-we'd named our scout The Rebel Javelin-was pretty sensitive. It was certainly a lot more sensitive than most private craft would carry, so we could assume that if we hadn't picked up anything, there was nothing to pick up.
But to make doubly sure, we moved in below both zones of heavy radiation and circled at 150 miles above the surface. We didn't pick up anything from down there, either. Meanwhile, I'd had the computer establishing a reference grid for the planet, and because the scout had a recording broad-band EM scanner, I had it map the surface for us as we flew over it.
All of which used up another day-another day of short and monotonous rations. By then we were ready to put down somewhere, anywhere, to get something fit to eat. So I called a council.
The immediate problem, I pointed out, was that I didn't have anything to buy food with, and what I could think of to trade, they'd have no use for. Except weapons of course-stunners and guns. We had a locker full of them, but they weren't anything we wanted the locals to have. For one thing, they might decide to use them on us.
Which meant I'd have to trade my services for food. The question was, what services?
Deneen eyed me coolly. "Larn," she said, "you're thinking like a planner, which is fine when you have data to plan with, but right now you don't. What you need to do is let me put you down somewhere. Then you circulate and find out what services people want that you can give them."
It sounded simple, the way she said it, but doing it,.. Mainly it bothered me that she'd pointed it out to me in front of Tarel, but she was right. I tended to worry sometimes when I didn't have a plan of action all figured out ahead. And there were-are-times when that just isn't possible. There are times when a person needs to do whatever comes next, and figure that somehow he'll make it come out right.
My mind went back then to something our Norman knight, Arno de Courmeron, had mentioned when we'd been here before. There was a seaport in Provence, on the Mediterranean coast, from which he had planned to ship horses to-somewhere. Sicily. The island of Sicily.
"Okay," I said, "let's see if we can find a seaport named Marseille, in Provence. It's probably as good a town as any to put down near, and maybe while I'm at it, I can get a lead on Arno." I smiled smugly. "Meanwhile, you guys will have to make do with what's left of the dry food while I line up something down below."
Which I'd do for them as fast as I could.
We didn't know whether it was Marseille or not. But it was definitely the biggest Mediterranean seaport west of the high mountains, with a population of maybe, oh, eight or ten thousand, at a guess. The river near it seemed to be the one Arno had called the Rhone-part of the route he'd probably have taken from Normandy. We'd followed it once, farther north.
Here it divided into a number of channels, to flow into the sea through broad, wild, delta marshes. The town we were assuming to be Marseille was the nearest seaport, lying not many miles east of the river, away from the marshes. If it wasn't Marseille, it would do for the time being.
Actually I was enjoying working without a plan. Not that I considered "no plan" a virtue-I looked forward to having one. But it was kind of exhilarating, playing by ear, and it wasn't entirely "no plan"-it was more as if the plan only existed for a step or two in advance, not all the way to the goal.
We'd spied out the terrain from three miles up, with a viewscreen magnification that let us examine things in detail when we wanted to. Especially the road that led from river to town. Where it approached the town, it ran along not far from the sea, with high, rugged hills close behind it to the north. As a road, it was mainly the tracks of animals in the stony, muddy ground, with the cartwheel ruts mostly broken down by hooves. It looked as if it had rained a lot lately.
Just then there wasn't much moving on it. On one stretch, for example, two peasants on foot, with long sharpened sticks, prodded along six of Fanglith's version of cattle. These are big, hoofed animals, with two horns curving out from above their ears. Behind the two peasants, a heavy-bodied man rode on a "horse," an animal resembling a gorn. He seemed to be the men's boss-their "master," as they call them on Fanglith.
A quarter mile ahead of them were three men walking together, carrying stout staffs that could be used for fighting as well as walking. Their clothes were old, dirty, and patched. A hundred yards ahead of them was a two-wheeled cart pulled by a donkey-a small, long-eared animal a little like a horse. The cartwheels looked almost as if they'd been sawed from tree trunks in single pieces.
That was all the traffic on a half-mile piece of road. Not what you'd call heavy use or high speed.
Next, there was the question of where to put me down. From our earlier experience on Fanglith, we'd concluded it was best to keep our ship secret until we needed to exercise some power, because unless we handled things right, people would react to it in one of two ways: either hate and fear, on the assumption that we were what they thought of as devils or demons (I'm still not sure what the difference is); or with greed for our ship and weapons. Either reaction was dangerous to us.
We'd have to come out in the open sooner or later, of course, to develop a political power base and accomplish anything. But for now, I'd land somewhere where the ship wouldn't be seen, and blend in with the population the best I could.
And hopefully get a lead on Arno de Courmeron. Although Arno might not feel altogether friendly to us now, I was pretty sure I could work with him.
Assuming he was still alive. An
ambitious knight in this world might die anytime. But Arno would take a lot of killing, and his ambitions had seemed to lie in getting rich, not necessarily in becoming famous as a warrior.
It wasn't hard to decide on a time and place for landing-just before dawn, in a ravine where it opened onto the narrow coastal rim. It was just above the road, and only about two miles from the town walls. The ravine's bottom was rough and sloping, so we wouldn't land the scout. Tarel would lower me the last dozen feet with a winch and sling, while Deneen kept the scout steady.
We thought about landing Bubba with me. When we were around people, he'd be able to monitor for dangerous intentions. But he'd also be conspicuous, and make me conspicuous, especially if he tried to tell me something, so the decision was for a solo landing.
I'd travel light-stunner, blast pistol, communicator, and a pocket recorder I'd record all conversation on. We'd feed the recordings into the scout's computer, running it through the linguistics program to improve our knowledge of local language. Then we could use the learning program to help us learn it.
I'd also wear a crucifix-a local type of religious artifact-around my neck. I'd cut it from a piece of steel in the Jav's tiny workshop. Polished, it looked pretty nice, and it could easily be helpful down below. I'd made three crosses, actually-one for each of us humans. I had a notion that for Bubba to wear one might not be acceptable on Fanglith; their native canids were not at all on Bubba's intelligence level, and were considered simply animals.
This time, I'd wear a remote in my ear. I remembered the trouble I'd gotten into before on Fanglith when Deneen's voice had come out of my communicator. The monks had thought I'd had a demon, and I was lucky not to be burned at a stake.
I stood there in the harness-like sling, wearing a navy jumpsuit. It wasn't much like what people wore on Fanglith, but I didn't plan to stay down long this time, and if I got a chance, I'd get some native clothes before I returned to the Jav.
It was moonless and cloudy, and had been showering off and on since evening, which cut down a little on how clearly our infrascope imaged things on the ground. But Bubba assured us that no one was near. Still, as we lowered, we had our windows on one-way opaque- something you couldn't do with our family cutter-so we couldn't be noticed.
Deneen, at the controls, stopped our descent, dimmed our lights nearly out, and keyed the door open. Touching another control, she swung the winch out of its housing above the door and into place in the opening. Tarel hooked its cable to a ring on my sling, and I tugged on it, testing, then stood backward in the door. "Take care, you guys," I said.
"Right," Tarel answered, and reached out. We shook on it.
"You take care, too," Deneen told me over her shoulder. "And don't take too long getting that food."
Bubba stood with his tail slowly waving, his brown eyes fixing me. "Have fun," he told me. It was his standard goodbye, but somehow this time it didn't have its usual jauntiness. The food on this trip has gotten to him more than any of us, I thought to myself.
I leaned back and stepped out into another world. Until that moment, Fanglith had been something we looked out at through the windows or on the screens. Now I was part of it again, already separated from the secure space inside the Jav. A little shiver of excitement went through me as I lowered the fifteen feet to the ground. It had stopped raining, but the air was cool and moist, and clouds cut off all starlight. Solid ground met my feet before I even saw it. It was really dark, and the night smelled like-well, it didn't smell like recycled ship's air. It smelled like wet dirt and resinous plants.
I pulled the safety pin and turned the harness release, and the sling fell away. Then I gave the cable a triple tug, signaling Tarel that I was free, and it snaked back up, leaving me behind. A minute later the vague, faint light from the door closed off. Another five seconds and the dim form of the Jav began to lift; three seconds after that, I couldn't see it anymore.
Time to get on with it.
I hiked carefully out of the ravine, which was wet and muddy but stony-rough enough for good footing. It was so dark that I kept stepping into the little rivulet without seeing it. Five minutes after I'd backed out the door, I stood on the rough beast trail that served as the major road to the largest seaport of Provence. I knew I'd found it when my feet felt the cattle tracks and stumbled on a wheel rut.
I wasn't worried or even nervous. Somehow my chest felt big, my body strong, and my self eager.
Because the road was rough and the night so black, I didn't walk very fast. Only the feel of the tracks beneath my feet kept me from losing it in the darkness. After half an hour or so, it was definitely starting to get light; I could actually see a little bit. Minutes later I passed a hut, then more of them, set back from the road. This was the part of town that was outside the walls. About that time I made out the town wall itself, ahead in the lightening grayness.
The gate, when I reached it, was closed. The wall was maybe thirty feet high, made of stone blocks, and had battlements on the top. Huddled against it were two soggy-looking guys with walking staffs. They looked as if they'd been there most of the night. One eyed me dully, the other curiously.
"Hello," said the curious one. His language was Provengal, as I'd expected it would be here.
"Been walking all night?"
"Only since the rain stopped," I said.
"How'd you keep dry?"
"Tent," I lied. "But I didn't like who I shared it with."
He shrugged.
"When do they open the gate?" I asked.
"Sunrise. Best they can guess on a morning like this. Come a long way?"
"Pretty far."
"You ain't no Norman, but you been in Normandy, I'll wager, from your talk."
I could get myself in trouble if I kept answering questions, so I just nodded.
"English?" he asked. "I've heard the English are tall, and I never seen clothes like yours before."
Instead of answering, I asked a question of my own. "Ever hear of a Norman named Arno of Courmeron? I'd like to find him. I've heard he brings war horses here, to ship to Sicily."
He shrugged. "Not many Normans take the sea route. Most go over the Cenis Pass and south through Italy. Brigands and barons are more to their liking than storms and Saracen pirates."
I nodded, remembering what I'd heard of Saracens. They were a military people whom the Normans had warred with on Sicily. It was the Saracens whom Arno had fought in the battle that had won him his knighthood, at a place called Misilmeri.
"But Normans have shipped horses out of Marseille a time or two," the man went on. "It's faster than overland. No doubt they'd do more of it if horses were better sailors. They get sicker'n a pregnant woman at the slightest seas, and are likely to go down and break a leg."
Marseille, he'd said. We'd hit it right. "Are you a sailor?" I asked.
"Aye." He gestured at his companion. "We both are, though Marco here finds it hard to get hired anymore. Lost a thumb in a bight, and don't neither row nor haul ropes so well as he did. Though better'n you'd maybe think."
I hadn't understood every word he'd said, but enough. The other man removed his right hand from his armpit, where he'd been keeping it warm, and displayed the scarred nub, red and ugly, where once a thumb had been.
"How can I get some food?" I asked. "Quite a lot of food."
The talkative sailor snorted, and eyed me even more curiously. "How much is a lot? All you can eat and drink you can buy at an inn, if you've got a few coppers. And the market is in the middle of town. While if it's a shipload you want…"
"I have no coppers," I told him. "I'll have to see what I can do to get some."
"What do you do?" he asked. "Clearly you're no farmer, nor no sailor, I'll wager. You're no knight nor sergeant, nor mercenary neither, going about without weapons." His eyes traveled up and down me. "A monk, I'd say, except your clothes ain't monkish. And what else is there?" He shook his head. "It's sure you're no merchant."
"Mercenary's closest,"
I told him, and an idea struck me. "I'm a bodyguard. If a merchant wants his person kept safe, he'll do well to hire me."
"Is that so?" An eyebrow had raised. "Jesu knows you're a big one, and maybe strong, though I might say you don't look the type. Not a scar to be seen," He paused. "Nor any weapon at all, unless you carry one of them little daggers hid in your clothes, and they be mainly useless in a fight."
I didn't answer, just squatted down beside them. I'd talked too much already. I had no business claiming to be a fighting man on this world; someone might easily call my bluff. And unless I was willing to use my stunner or pistol, which was undesirable, I could be dead in a hurry. Hand-foot art was nothing to face a trained swordsman with, and the odds wouldn't be good against a skilled knife fighter either.
It was most of an hour before the gate opened, and by that time it looked as if the weather might clear. The clouds seemed thin again, and in places blue showed through. I didn't even say goodbye to the two sailors, just walked inside and followed the muddy road, which became a muddy street.
Marseille smelled bad. I'm sure that not all the water in the street was rain. It seemed as if these people didn't have much idea of sanitation, and I was glad we'd used the broad spectrum immunoserum in the medkit.
There weren't many people on the street yet, but most that I did see seemed lively enough and not unhappy. One young guy, a year or two younger than me by his looks, was striding along whistling, his step springy. His clothes were red and yellow beneath their grime.
"Hello, young sir," I said. "Can I ask you a question?"
He stopped and looked me over. I stood about a head taller than him. "Ask away," he answered.
"I'm looking for a merchant who will hire me. I do calculations very quickly." It seemed to me that that was a safer thing to advertise than martial skills.