Fire Time

by Poul Anderson

  Jill tossed off the rest of her brandy. Dejerine moved to pour her a refill. ‘After all that lecturing.’ she said, ‘I suppose I should fetch me a beer. … Aw, a shame, on top of this gorgeous stuff. Go ahead, thanks.’

  ‘You certainly make your subject come alive,’ he said, the faintest accent on the first word.

  ‘Well, your turn. Tell me about places you’ve been.’

  ‘If you will give me more songs later.’

  ‘Let’s find songs we both know. Meanwhile, please do reminisce.’ Jill looked again skyward. Caelestia had dropped out of view and the stars shone forth still keener. Wistfulness tugged at her. ‘So much wonder. Damn it, I haven’t got time to die.’

  ‘Why have you never visited Earth?’

  ‘Oh … I dunno. Seems as if everything interesting there – wait, yes, I realize they have natural extravagances left like the Grand Canyon, but Ishtar has them too – mainly, everything is man-made; and our data banks hold millions of pictures, recordings, whatnot.’

  ‘The best hologram isn’t the real thing, Jill. It isn’t the totality of, oh, the cathedral at Chartres … which besides beauty includes the fact that countless pilgrims for hundreds of years walked and knelt and slept on the selfsame stones under your feet. … And you can have fun on Earth, you know. A lively person like you–’

  A chime sounded from the open door. Jill rose. ‘Phone,’ she said ‘’Scuse.’ Who’d call at this hour? Maybe an officer of Yuri’s, in need of him?

  The fluoropanel she switched on was harsh after the majestic dimness outside. The room leaped at her, comfortably shabby, slightly untidy, its plainness defied by scarlet drapes on which she had painted gold swirls and by a fireburst feather-plant cloak from Great Iren. Other souvenirs included native tools and weapons hung on the walls among pictures, landscapes and portraits, she had done herself with camera or pencil. Printouts were shelved and piled around, both flimsies for recycling and permanents which she had liked sufficiently well to pay for. The phone chimed anew. ‘“Bong” right back at you,’ she grumbled, sat down before it, and tapped the accept plate.

  Ian Sparling’s head sprang into the screen. He was haggard, the lines trenched in his long face, eyes burning blue-green out of hollowness. The gray-shot black hair was totally unkempt and no beardex could have touched his skin for two or three days.

  Jill’s pulse stumbled and began to run. ‘Hi,’ she said mechanically. ‘You look like outworn applesauce. What’s wrong?’

  ‘I thought you should know.’ His voice came hoarse. ‘Being as close to Larreka as you are.’

  She caught the table edge and hung on.

  ‘Oh, he’s safe,’ Sparling told her. ‘But– Well, I’m calling from Sehala. We’ve been here arguing, pleading, trying to bargain, this past eight-day. No go. The assembly has voted to abandon Valennen. We couldn’t convince them the danger there is as bad as Larreka claims.’ He hesitated. ‘Well, hell, I had to take his word for that myself. I don’t know from experience. And … not only did the Tamburu commandant declare we – the Gathering could absorb the loss and survive elsewhere. The Kalain’s boss did too. Sent a courier clear from the Dalag to say his ground and naval forces are in control but could use whatever help they might get which is now tied up in less vital areas. Larreka doesn’t believe any legion will agree to join his Zera. The cause looks too lost.’

  Rage leaped in Jill. ‘Those idiots! Couldn’t they investigate for themselves?’

  ‘Not easy to do, especially when they’ve such growing demands on their attention right at home. I suppose I can try to talk a few key people into letting us fly them there for a look-around. If we can get a vehicle.’ Sparling sounded dubious. ‘What gets you involved is Larreka. He’s taking this pretty hard. You could … encourage him, console him, whatever you gauge is best. He thinks the world of you.’ His weary eyes dwelt on her image as if to add Larreka was not alone.

  Tears stung. Jill must swallow before she could ask, What’s he plan to do?’

  ‘Head straight back. He’s already left. You can catch him at the Yakulen Ranch, though. He’ll stop off there to collect travel gear and say good-by.’

  ‘I c-can fly him.’

  ‘If our dear naval governor will release an aircraft of the right size. Ask him. It’d sure help. Larreka’s not simply got to take charge – he says the new vice commandant is overcautious – but he’s got to persuade his troops to stand fast.’

  Jill nodded. A legion elected a chief by a rank-weighted three-fourths vote of its officers, and could depose him the by the same.‘Ian,’ she half begged, ‘is it necessary? Does he really have to stay on? Won’t he be spending himself, his males, for nothing?’

  ‘He says that’s the chance he must take. He’ll keep a capability of evacuating survivors, should worst come to worst. But he hopes to do more than harass the barbarians. He hopes he can draw them into fights that’ll show their real strength, their real intentions, before it’s too late; and this’ll get him his reinforcements. Sounds forlorn to me, but–’ Sparling sighed. ‘Well, now you know, and I’d better report to God.’

  ‘You called me first?’ she blurted. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

  He smiled the wry smile she had always liked. ‘You deserved it,’ he said. ‘I’ll be home in two or three days, after tying up some loose ends here. Come see us. Meanwhile, daryesh tauli, Jill.’ It meant both ‘fare you well’ and ‘fare in love’. He was silent for an instant. ‘Good night.’ The screen blanked.

  She sat briefly in an equal blindness. Dear, awkward Ian. Did he suspect how she admired him, he who had roved over half the planet readying to do battle with the red giant? Or how fond of him she had grown, his patience and decency, the good company he was when a dark mood had not taken him? Sometimes she daydreamed about how things could have been, were she born twenty years earlier on Earth.

  She blinked hard, wiped her eyes with the back of a hand, blinked again.Damn! Why am I woolgathering on a sheeless less planet? I’ve got a job to do. Except I don’t know how.

  Surging to her feet, she went back outside. Light from the doorway caught Dejerine sharp athwart a night where she could not at once see stars. He rose, concern upon his features. ‘Bad news, Jill?’

  She nodded. Her fists were clenched at her sides. He came to take them in his hands and raise them. His gaze captured hers. ‘Can I help in any way?’ he asked.

  Hope sprang. ‘You bet you can!’ Abruptly controlled, she related the situation in a few unemotional words.

  The mobile face before her congealed. He let her go and stared past her. ‘A pity, I suppose,’ he said, toneless. ‘That is, naturally I regret your distress. As to the wisdom of the military decision, I am not qualified to judge. You realize my orders are clear. Apart from self-defense, my command is forbidden to intervene in native affairs.’

  ‘You can appeal. Explain–’

  He had never before interrupted her. ‘It would be futile. Therefore it would be undutiful, wasting the time of my superiors.’

  ‘Well … okay. Let’s talk about that later. Right now, Larreka needs quick transportation. I hear you’ve classed flyers big enough to hold an Ishtarian as, uh, Federation resources’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, half defiantly. ‘You have few. We couldn’t bring many more. To construct the ground installations in a short time will take every available freight carrier.’

  ‘You can let me borrow one for a couple of days, can’t you?’ she inquired around a tightening in her throat. ‘Fullscale work hasn’t started.’

  ‘I was afraid you would request that.’ He shook his head. ‘No. Believe me, I wish I could. But if nothing else, the risk from storms – how bad do equinoctial gales get during a periastron? Nobody was here last time to study the meteorology. It must be unpredictable.’

  Jill stamped her foot. ‘Damn you, I don’t need protection against myself!’ She gulped. ‘Sorry. My turn to be sorry. Somebody else can pilot if you insist.’

  His e
yes shifted back to hers, and the least sardonicism touched his lips.Huh? Does he think I think he’s worried about losing delightful me?

  He turned grave, even gentle. ‘I cannot authorize it for anyone,’ he said. ‘The aircraft would be put at hazard for a purpose irrelevant to my mission. Worse, this would be a kind of intervention, however minor. Given such a precedent, where can I draw the line against further demands? No, there is no way I could justify myself to my superiors.’

  Rage and grief whirled upward. ‘So you’re afraid of a reprimand!’ Jill yelled. ‘A check mark in your file! A delay in your next promotion! Get out!’

  Astounded, he stuttered, ‘Mais … please, I don’t … I didn’t mean–’

  ‘Get out, you gonococcus! Or do I have to throw you out – like this?’ She snatched the bottle and hurled it to the porch. It didn’t break, but the contents ran forth as if from a wound.

  His mouth compressed, his nostrils dilated. He gave her a bow. ‘My apologies, Miss Conway. Thank you for your hospitality. Good evening.’

  He walked off with metronomic strides and was lost in the dark.

  Was I foolish? chopped to and fro. Should I have–? But I couldn’t! I couldn’t! She sat down by the spilled cognac and wept.

  XI

  As Larreka and his escort neared the headquarters of Yakulen Ranch, a storm drove ponderously out of the west. Wind sighed cold through the heat which had brooded earlier, like a sword through flesh, and sun-scorched lia rippled and rustled across yellow-brown kilometers of range. Far off, a herder and his wo were bringing in a flock of owas; they seemed lost in that hugeness. Single trees tossed, brawled, threw splashes of russet at flying murky clouds. Between land and low heaven swept a hundred fleetwings; their cries creaked faintly in the whine and boom around. Where lightspears, fire or brass color, struck, they changed the look of the world. Westward stood a purple-black cliff down which lightnings torrented. The noise of those streams rolled steadily louder.

  The trooper from Foss Island said, ‘If I was home and saw that weather coming at me, I’d haul my boat as high ashore as she’d go and cable her fast.’ Larreka could barely hear him.

  ‘Well, it’s not a twister, but I’d sure appreciate a roof over me when it gets here,’ the commandant agreed. ‘On the double!’ He flogged his tired body into a smart trot.

  The familiar buildings made a clustered darkness to north. He saw that the sails were off the windmill and the flag was descending a pole whose horned bronze finial swayed in arcs above the hall. Letters from her, to him and Meroa in Valennen, had told how nobody took a chance any longer on a gale not turning into a hurricane.

  The first raindrops lashed nearly level when he entered the courtyard. Long, low, half-timbered, peak-roofed in tile, the lesser structures of the ranch walled in its paved rectangle – barns, stables, kennels, mews, storehouses, granaries, workshops, bakery, brewery, cookhouse, laundry, surgery, school, ateliers, observatory, library – not everything a civilized community needed, but ample when it could trade with other ranches and the towns, Yakulen’s publishing linked to Nelek’s ropewalk and Sorku’s iron smelter and thus outward over South Beronnen and the whole Gathering. Folk scurried about, battening down. Just before a hireling closed the door, Larreka glimpsed a small flyer parked in a shed. Ng-ng, we’ve got a human visitor, he thought. I wonder who.

  Hail whitened the wind, danced across flagstones, rattled on walls, bit at skin. He shielded his eyes with an arm and slogged to the hall.

  It rose enormous at the middle of the court, stone, brick, and phoenix, many-windowed, many-balconied, gargoyles time-worn but mosaics still bright after ten sixty-four-years. That was at the east end, the oldest. As the Yakulen family grew in wealth, numbers, retainers, and guests, they added new units, each enclosing its own patio. Changing styles (the latest incorporated heraklite and armor glass from Primavera) flowed together as do bluff, crag, and canyon.

  Somebody must have been watching out of the warm window-glow, for Larreka and his males had scarcely loped onto the verandah when the Founders’ Door swung wide for them. Beyond its copper-sheathed massiveness waited an entryful of servants who took their baggage and toweled them dry. Larreka hung onto his Haelen blade. It was a trademark; the soldiers said One-Ear slept with it. The rest, such as fire-crackle profanity in a score of languages, he needn’t keep up here among his kindred. The heroic capacity for drink – well, he’d take as much tonight as he felt like, and no more; he was getting along in years, after all.

  At the head of his six legionaries he walked down a corridor to the main room. It was brick, carpeted in deep-blue Primavera neolon, wainscoted in woods of several hues and grains. Flames leaped and sang in four hearths, bracketed lanterns shone along the walls. Between them hung pictures, trophies, ancestral shields; high overhead, the rafters bore banners which had flown over battles or rescues. At the far end of the chamber, half hidden among unrestful shadows, was a shrine of She and He. (Few of the household attended it; most of the family were Triadists, while their help were drawn from a wide reach holding many different cults. But if nothing else, respect for tradition demanded it be kept.) The room was chiefly floor space, a long table mattresses strewn about, some chairs for occasional humans. The warm air smelled of woodsmoke and bodies. Windows on two sides, closed against the storm which dashed itself on them, muffled its noise.

  About sixteen persons were there, talking, reading, thinking, idling, doing minor chores. The chamber dwarfed them. Most of the hundreds who dwelt in the hall were at work, or in their private apartments. His wife came to meet him.

  Meroa was a large female, which made her the size of her short husband. She had the Yakulen features, big gray eyes, curved muzzle, pointed chin. Age showed in dried and darkened complexion, the thinning down of hump and haunches that had once been rounded enough to make a male bay at the moons. But the embrace she gave him wasn’t the dignified gesture of her relatives, it was the hug of a soldier’s wench.

  From across two and a half centuries, flashed through him the awe of miracle when she agreed to marry him. He’d been brash toward her, and they’d had fun together. However, she’d turned down two earlier proposals of his (following a proposition – which she’d had the sense not to be offended by, recognizing that a legionary was almost expected to make a pass at every attractive female). He’d never dared imagine she found more in him than the yarns he could spin about his fifty footloose years prior to enlistment.

  Her yes turned out to be only the gold before the dawn. He had sworn, ‘I, I’m not a fortune hunter, believe me I’m not. I could almost wish you were poor.’

  She had widened those beautiful eyes, where she nestled against him so close that they felt the tendrils of each other’s manes. ‘What do you mean? I’m not rich.’

  ‘Your kin – the Yakulens have one of the biggest ranches in the country–’

  ‘Cku-ha! I see.’ She laughed. ‘Silly, you’ve forgotten you’re not back in Haelen. A ranch isn’t a wretched little stead that a single household owns. It belongs to the family – the land, the waters. But members work for themselves.’

  ‘Yai I had forgotten. You make me forget everything except you.’ Larreka braced his will. ‘My term in the legion has another three years to run, you know, and next year we’re due for an overseas post. Well, I’ll be back, and … and by the Thunderer’ – he had not yet taken the Triadic faith, though he invoked the gods of his youth out of habit rather than belief – ‘I’ll make us a fortune!’

  She drew away from him. ‘What is this nonsense? Do you suppose I want you nailed down here? No, you’re going to – re-up, and I’ll be there to watch.’

  That was when the Sun sprang over the world-rim.

  Today she whispered a lusty suggestion in his ear, adding, ‘We’ll have to wait a while, confound it. Still, I’ll have you here a tad longer than you figured.’

  ‘What?’ He decided she’d explain when she was ready. They disengaged and he exchanged pro
per greetings with the others. Presently he was sprawled on a mattress beside Meroa, his pipe alight, a mug of hot spiced jackfruit cider to hand. A couple of family elders lay nearby. The rest of the folk gathered around his troopers in different parts of the room, since these would have things to relate from Sehala less depressing than Larreka’s word. He had of course used his walkie-talkie, via radio relays, to keep his wife informed; and she had passed the news on.

  ‘They had already settled it between them: When he returned to Valennen, she would stay behind. It would not be the first time; they had erstwhile met reasons, like undue hazard or shortage of transport or a small child, why she could not accompany him. She had protested: ‘The youngsters are grown. And if the barbarians do overrun you, I want them to know they’ve been in a fight with me too.’

  (He answered starkly, ‘I can’t be both places. Foul years are coming to South Beronnen also, and nobody else around the ranch has the kind of military knowledge you’ve picked up. For the family – the whole futtering future – we’d better get the spread properly organized. ‘You’re tapped, soldier.’)

  ‘Who’s our human guest?’ he asked.

  ‘Jill Conway,’ Meroa said. ‘She grew restless and went out with Rafik. They’ll doubtless draggle in pretty soon.’

  ‘Gr’m.’ Larreka told himself not to worry. His youngest son should be able to last out even as vicious a storm as howled and drummed outside. But Jill–

  Well, they died, they died, the poor all-powerful starfarers. If you started caring for them, you had to make it a bond to a bloodline more than to a single person. And thus it had been between him and the Conways. Yet there had always been something special about Jill, maybe because she used to stump across the yard before she could talk, laughing for joy, whenever he called. Chaos! Why hadn’t she bred and given him a new little girl to uncle?