“I’ve got it, Carpenter.”
“Copy that. Good luck.”
Carpenter’s assessment was optimistic: they were still too high. If she waited until they were over the clearing to cut thrust, the lander would smash into the trees at the far end. “We’re going down,” she said. “Check your restraints. Eye shields on. It’s going to be a rough landing.” Behind her, she heard rustling and metallic clicks.
She waited until they were about three klicks from the clearing before cutting thrust. For a moment they were suspended in air as the nose of the lander dipped. They began to dive, and suddenly the trees were surging toward them. For a split-second, Slater wondered if she had cut the thrusters too soon. But then they were clear of the treetops. Ahead of them was nothing but pristine white. She closed her eyes and pulled the eye shield of the helmet down. The gel pack filled, pushing uncomfortably against her eyelids.
The lander’s nose hit the ground.
Chapter Eleven
“I suppose most of you have heard Gunnar Bjornson’s sales pitch,” Sigurd said. “Or have at least heard about it. Nothing much has changed since the last time Harald Tanglehair made this play, except the urgency of the plea. It’s the same deal he offered last time. And that is to say, it’s no deal at all.”
A few chuckles went up from the group. There were twenty-eight of them altogether, Twenty-six men and two women, representing nearly all the households in the scattered settlement known as Haavaldsrud. Only two were missing: old Hjalmar had injured his foot and was unable to make the hike down from his cottage, and Torvald Ulfson was off chasing down some missing sheep in the foothills, several miles away. The assembled met around a fire pit in a clearing not far from Torvald’s farm, as they generally did on the first day of the new moon. It made a good meeting place as it was centrally located and easily accessible to most of the area’s residents.
The air was cool and crisp this spring morning, and the group was huddled tightly around the fire pit, where a pile of pine logs sizzled and crackled, throwing off thick gray smoke. Sigurd stood near the edge of fire, his eyes stinging as a gentle breeze pushed the smoke toward him. Gunnar and his men had left early that morning, after speaking with several other prominent men in the community—all of whom were present here. They had spent the night in the house of a wealthy man named Oyvind, a relative of Gunnar’s. Sigurd had seen Gunnar and his party turning onto the main road inland when he got up to attend the meeting.
“Harald has grown in strength since then,” said a man slightly older than Sigurd, who stood at the back of the group, across the fire from Sigurd. The man was named Arnulf, and he knew of what he spoke: he’d lost two fingers on his left hand to a Dane’s axe when his shield splintered during a battle in Vestfold seven years earlier. They had won the day, but at the cost of twenty-three men. Many more had been wounded. Sigurd himself had nearly been killed when a thrown spear missed his throat by an inch.
“Our numbers have grown as well,” Sigurd said.
“Not enough to stave off Harald’s army,” Arnulf said.
“Our arrangements for mutual assistance with the neighboring villages remain in place.”
“Those agreements were made to deter attacks by Danish raiders and bandits,” Arnulf said. “There is no telling whether anyone will come to our defense against Harald. If it’s true that the jarls in the north have sworn fealty to Harald, then we certainly can’t expect any help from them.”
“You would have us surrender without a fight?”
“Svelvig is less than a day’s journey from here. You’ve heard the rumors as well as I: Harald is amassing a force there, under the command of Ragnar Ivarsson. I’ve heard reports that there are as many as fifty men there, and word is that more are on their way. Do you suppose this is a coincidence?”
“I don’t put much stock in rumors,” Sigurd said, “but it’s never been a secret that Harald plans to rule all of Norway. It’s been to our advantage that until now he’s found more appealing targets along the coast. That said, if he does launch an attack from Svelvig, we are the first line of defense for the valley. I suggest that we make our own appeal to the jarls and villagers to the north. Two dozen men stationed at the bridge—”
“Two dozen men! For how long? How many able-bodied men do you think this valley can spare? Will we build our own garrison at the bridge? How do you think Harald will respond to that?”
“It is not an easy thing, to be sure,” Sigurd said. “But this is not a deal that we will be able to back out of. It’s not an even exchange by any stretch of the imagination. We’ll be giving up our freedom in exchange for security.”
“Freedom to do what?” Arnulf asked. “Die at the hands of Harald’s army?”
Sympathetic murmurs went up from the group.
Sigurd frowned. “Arnulf, did Gunnar Bjornson come to speak with you?”
“That he did,” Arnulf replied. “And it took all my restraint not to throttle him where he stood. What Harald was thinking sending that lout to win us over is beyond me. Few in this valley remember him, and that is to his benefit. But we must not confuse the messenger with the message. This is a matter of survival.”
Sigurd was disheartened by Arnulf’s sympathy to Harald’s offer. He said, “Surely this is not the same Arnulf who killed three Danes with his axe and then, when the handle split, brained two more with the axe head?”
“One and the same,” Arnulf said, with a grim smile. “Seven years older.”
“And still two fingers short,” said the young man next to him, holding up Arnulf’s mutilated hand. “In a couple years, you’ll need to take off your shoes to count that high.”
Laughter went up from the group. Arnulf jerked his hand away in mock annoyance. “I can still wield an axe, you diseased whelp,” Arnulf growled good-naturedly.
“And you’re still worth five Danes,” Sigurd said. “As are most of the men here.”
Nods and grunts of agreement went up from the group. It was an obvious ploy, but Sigurd knew he couldn’t go wrong playing on the men’s sense of bravery and manliness.
“The bravado of men,” muttered a hoarse voice to Sigurd’s right. Two men moved aside to make way for Gunhild, the oldest woman in the community. Her husband, a fisherman and warrior, had died some twenty years earlier, leaving her a widow and the owner of his considerable land holdings. Although all free persons were considered equal under the laws of the Northmen, Gunhild’s age, wealth and history of providing shrewd counsel gave her outsized standing in the community. If Sigurd couldn’t rally Gunhild to his side, he would be fighting an uphill battle to gain the support of the others.
“You think we are unable to provide for our own defense, Gunhild?” he asked.
“I think there is no defense against violence in this world,” Gunhild replied.
“What will you have us do, woman?” asked a dour fisherman named Jannik. “Lay down our arms and hope the gods protect us?”
“Not at all,” Gunhild said. “I counsel no strategy. I’m only suggesting that you do no one any favors by lying to yourselves.”
“In what way are we lying to ourselves, Gunhild?” Sigurd asked, his voice measured and respectful.
She pointed to Arnulf. “This man was a fierce warrior once. Perhaps he really was worth five Danes at one time. But his eyes have gone hazy and the fingers he has left are swollen with gout.”
Arnulf’s face went red with shame and rage.
“Gunhild,” Sigurd chided gently. “It isn’t necessary to—”
“It is necessary!” Gunhild cried. “You tell yourself these lies, and then you die and leave the weak amongst us to fend for themselves. You’re still strong, Sigurd, but you have your limits as well. You all do. What happens when these unstoppable warriors are cut down? The young and healthy are taken away to be slaves, and the old and infirm are left to starve.”
“What is your solution, Gunhild?” Sigurd asked. “Weakness will only embolden the Danes, to say no
thing of Harald.”
“As I say, I counsel no strategy. I will say only this, and then I will allow you to go on with your chest-beating and war cries: if you spurn Harald’s offer, do so not because you are powerful, but because you would rather die than be subjects of that simpering buffoon. Do not confuse the messenger with the message, but observe that they sprout from the same root. A powerful man needs to make no difficult choices. Bravery arises not from strength but from perseverance despite weakness. The weak among us already know what we face if you lose. We will not have the luxury of a quick death on the battlefield. We are not afraid, for we are brave. And now you must do us the courtesy of acting out of bravery, not foolhardiness.”
The group was quiet for some time.
“Gunhild is right,” Sigurd said at last. “Arnulf, there is no doubt in my mind that you are still worth five Danes, but we must not deceive ourselves. We have only one Arnulf among us, and we may very well be outmanned six to one at some point. Harald has us badly outnumbered, and help from the north may not arrive in time to save us—if it arrives at all.”
“Then we have no choice,” Jannik said. “We must turn to Harald.”
“If it’s foolish to believe we can defend ourselves,” said the other woman in the group, to Sigurd’s left, “then it is equally foolish to believe Harald is our savior.” The woman’s name was Hella. She had inherited her father’s pig farm. Over six feet tall and built like a bear, Hella had never married.
“Hella speaks wisdom,” Sigurd said. “Allowing ourselves to be subjugated by Harald is a guarantee only of a different sort of defeat.”
“We’ve heard your thoughts on the matter already,” Arnulf said. “If no one has anything new to add, I suggest we vote and get it over with. I have a field to plow.”
No one else spoke.
“All right, then,” Sigurd said. “All in favor of taking Harald up on his offer?”
Several men raised their hands, Arnulf among them. It was less than half of the group, but Sigurd suspected Gunhild and a few others would abstain. Sigurd counted ten hands altogether. It was going to be close.
“All in favor of rejecting the offer?”
Several others raised their hands, including Hella and Oyvind. Sigurd noticed Jannik’s eyes darting from one hand to another. Jannik seemed on the verge of voting against the offer, but in the end his hand dropped to his side.
“Looks like ten to nine,” Sigurd said grimly. “It saddens me to ally with a man like Harald, but I will abide by the wishes of the community. We’ll send a messenger to inform Harald of our decision. His men left only a few hours ago; a fast runner should be able to—”
“Hold on, Sigurd,” said a young man named Sven, who stood in the middle of the crowd. “I stopped by Thorvald’s house on the way here. Thorvald said he will not be party to any pact with Harald.”
“Then we’re at an impasse,” Sigurd said, trying not to let his relief show.
“The law states that entering an agreement requires a majority vote,” Gunhild said. “A tie means the agreement will not be ratified.”
A few dissatisfied mutters arose from the crowd.
“What about Hjalmar?” someone asked.
“Hjalmar abstains,” replied a young hunter named Njáll.
“He told you this?” Sigurd asked.
“Well,” Njáll said, “his exact words were ‘Fuck those people and their endless meetings.’” Laughter went up from the group. “I can run to his house and ask him to clarify if you think it’s necessary.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Sigurd said with a smile.
“So that there’s no question of the legality of our decision,” Gunhild said, “I will change my vote. Sigurd, I’m on your side.”
Sigurd nodded his thanks to the old woman. “Then we’re at eleven to ten against. Does anyone else wish to change their vote?”
There were a few grumbles and mutters, but no one spoke up.
“Then Harald’s offer is rejected. I don’t suppose we need to send a messenger. He’ll figure it out soon enough.”
Several men laughed.
“Then if there are no more pressing matters to discuss…”
Sigurd trailed off as several men in front of him gasped as they looked up at the sky behind him. He turned to see what they were looking at: a small, silvery object glinting in the sun. The thing was moving impossibly fast; it was nearly overhead now. It looked to Sigurd a little like a duck, its wings pinned against its sides as it dived.
“What is it?” Hella gasped.
“Some kind of bird?” Jannik offered.
“It would be the biggest bird I’ve ever seen,” Arnulf. “And it shines like it’s made of—”
His words were drowned out by the rumble of thunder. Sigurd’s heart raced with fear and excitement. The object disappeared behind the trees to the east.
“The gods are angry with us,” Njáll murmured, looking fearfully to the sky.
“Not the gods,” said another man. “One god.”
Sigurd heard murmurs of agreement, but no one dared speak the name of He Who Thunders.
“It is the hammer, Mjölnir,” Jannik said, “cast to Earth.”
As if in response to Jannik’s words, they heard a rumbling in the distance, echoing off the snow-covered mountains.
“We need to vote again,” Jannik said.
“Don’t be a fool,” Arnulf snapped. “Nothing has changed.”
“Nothing has changed? The god of thunder has thrown his hammer to the Earth!”
“Didn’t look like a hammer to me,” Arnulf said. “And if the Thunderer is angry at us for rejecting Harald’s offer, he’s got lousy aim.”
“That’s enough!” Sigurd barked. “Stop your cowering and foolish talk. We don’t know what it was. It may have been Mjölnir, or a skystone, or something else entirely. We would be wise to put aside other business and investigate.”
Grunts and murmurs of assent went up. Skystones were extremely rare, and Sigurd had never heard of one this size, but they were prized as a source of iron.
“Whatever that thing was,” Sigurd said, “it seems to have hit the ground a few miles to the east, just north of the fjord. It must have been seen from many miles away. We have to assume the sentries at Harald’s outpost at Svelvig saw it and will be taking an interest. We will need to be quick. I will lead the expedition. Who else can come?”
About half the men present raised their hands. Sigurd was pleased to see Arnulf among them. Jannik and Njáll raised their hands as well.
“Good,” said Sigurd. “Go home and gather your things. It shouldn’t take more a few hours to get to the place where the object hit the ground, but bring enough food for three days, in case we are gone longer. We’ll meet where the path from my house meets the main road. We leave at mid-morning.”
Chapter Twelve
Carolyn Reyes dozed beside the fire, the flickering red light playing across her eyelids. This had always been her favorite part of these hunting trips with her father. She’d never been much for hiking or hunting; she’d rather sit in the cabin, reading a book and sipping hot chocolate. But these lazy evenings around the campfire made it all worth it.
Geneva, where Reyes had grown up, had no native life, but since being terraformed it had become home to several thousand species that had been introduced from the gene banks of colonization ships. Before life on Earth had been exterminated by the Cho-ta’an, biologists had assembled a library of DNA for tens of millions of Earth species. The vast majority of these remained on ice, as the process of reviving a species from a genotype was difficult, time-consuming and expensive. Additionally, suitable homes for most species had not been found. Geneva was one of the more welcoming worlds, and it had taken the HCC twenty years to give it an atmosphere that could support plant life. Even now, only a narrow strip near the equator was habitable; the rest of the planet was too cold to support life.
Reyes had been one of the lucky ones: her
father was on the board of the HCC’s settlement committee, so he’d gotten in on the first round of real estate picks. He hadn’t gotten his first or even his second choice, but they’d ended up with a sizeable estate right on the bigger lakes. Much of the land was considered uninhabitable, as Geneva was a young planet by geological standards. Not enough time had elapsed for much topsoil to form; most of the ground was volcanic rock covered by a thin layer of silt. Genetically modified grasses had been introduced to help break down the rock, with minimal success. The problem was that the grasses proved unexpectedly tempting to the burgeoning deer population. The deer had no natural predators in the region (or on the planet, for that matter), so the settlement committee had set bounties for deer. As a result, deer hunting had become very popular of late, particularly on large estates like the Reyes’s. Her father had built a small cabin about five klicks from the lake, and their family spent many weekends there. Her father and older brother hunted while Carolyn sat by the fire and read.
Those lazy days seemed to last forever, but now they existed only as hazy memories. Since enlisting with the IDL after engineering school, she’d had little time to read for pleasure. Even during her downtime, she was reading manuals and white papers. The IDL’s efforts to stay technologically ahead of the Cho-ta’an were relentless. Taking into account the periods she spent in stasis, as well as the time dilation involved in interstellar travel, she fell further behind every day. As a young ship’s engineer, she always felt like she was running to stand still.
Even now, sitting beside the fire, she felt a twinge of guilt. The IDL was working on a prototype for a new type of reciprocal ionic thruster that was small enough to be used for auxiliary thrusters. If it worked, it would be a huge advantage for the IDL’s ships. Currently their starships had two separate propulsion systems: a reciprocal ionic thruster for primary propulsion and an old-fashioned hydrogen-and-oxygen system for attitude adjustments and axial movement. Using ionic propulsion for both would eliminate the need for ships to carry massive fuel tanks filled with chemical propellant. A ship like Andrea Luhman would be a prime candidate for upgrade—but only if the ship’s engineer were up to speed on the technology. I should get up, she thought. But she was so tired. It had been far too long since she had just sat and relaxed like this, her surroundings silent except for the crackling of the campfire, the smell of smoke filling her nostrils….
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