American Science Fiction

by Gary K. Wolfe

  He nodded as I came into view. “Ah, there, Brother Parvus. Sit down and have a stoup. You’ve a head on your chine, and we need all good redes tonight.”

  A while longer he paced, brooding. I dared not interrupt with my dreadful news. A medley of noises in the dark deepened its twin-mooned otherness. These were not frogs and crickets and nightjars of England: here was a buzz, a saw-toothed hum, an inhumanly sweet singing like a lute of steel. And the odors were alien, too, which disturbed me even more.

  “Well,” said my lord. “By God’s grace, we’ve won this first encounter. Now we must decide what to do next.”

  “I think—” Sir Owain cleared his throat, then spoke hurriedly: “No, gentles, I am sure. God aided us against unforeseeable treachery. He will not be with us if we show undue pride. We’ve won a rare booty of weapons, with which we can accomplish great things at home. Let us therefore start back at once.”

  Sir Roger tugged his chin. “I’d liefer stay here,” he answered, “yet there’s much in what you say, my friend. We can always come back, after the Holy Land is freed, and do a proper job on this fiend’s nest.”

  “Aye,” nodded Sir Brian. “We’re too alone now, and encumbered with women and children and aged and livestock. So few fighting men against a whole empire, that were madness.”

  “Yet I could like to break another spear against these Wersgorix,” said Alfred Edgarson. “I haven’t won any gold here yet.”

  “Gold is no use unless we bring it home,” Captain Bul­lard reminded him. “Bad enough campaigning in the heat and thirst of the Holy Land. Here, we know not even what plants may be poisonous, or what the winter season is like. Best we depart tomorrow.”

  A rumble of assent went up among them.

  I cleared my throat miserably. Branithar and I had just spent a most unpleasant hour. “My lords—” I began.

  “Yes? What is it?” Sir Roger glared at me.

  “My lords, I do not think we can find the way home!”

  “What?” They roared it out. Several leaped to their feet. I heard Lady Catherine suck a horrified breath in between her teeth.

  Then I explained that the Wersgor notes on the route to our sun were missing from the shattered control turret. I had led a search party, scratching about everywhere in the attempt to find them, but had no success. The interior of the turret was blackened, melted in places. I could only conclude that a stray fire-beam had come through the hole, played across a drawer burst open by the violence of our landing, and cindered the papers.

  “But Branithar knows the way!” protested Red John. “He sailed it himself! I’ll wring it out of him, my lord.”

  “Be not so hasty,” I counseled. “’Tis not like sailing along a coastline, where every landmark is known. There are uncounted millions of stars. This scouting expedition zigagged among them looking for a suitable planet. Without figures which the captain wrote down as they sailed, one might spend a lifetime in search and not happen on our own sun.”

  “But doesn’t Branithar remember?” yelped Sir Owain.

  “Remember a hundred pages of numbers?” I responded. “Nay, none could do that, and this is the more true since Branithar was not the captain of the ship nor the one who kept track of her wanderings and heaved the log and performed other navigational duties, rather our captive was a lesser noble whose task was more among the crewmen and in working with the demonic engines than—”

  “Enough.” Sir Roger gnawed his lip and stared at the ground. “This changes things. Yes. . . . Was not the Crusader’s route known in advance? Say by the duke who sent her out?”

  “No, my lord,” I said. “Wersgor scoutships merely go off in any direction the captain likes and look at any star he deems promising. Not till they come back and report does their duke know where they have been.”

  A groan went up. Those were hardy men, but this was enough to daunt the Nine Worthies. Sir Roger walked stiffly over to his wife and laid a hand on her arm.

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” he mumbled.

  She turned her face from him.

  Sir Owain arose. The knuckles stood forth pale on the hand that clutched his harp. “This have you led us to!” he shrilled. “To death and damnation beyond the sky! Are you satisfied?”

  Sir Roger clapped hand on hilt. “Be still!” he roared. “All of you agreed with my plan. Not a one of you demurred. None were forced to come. We must all share the burden now, or God pity us!”

  The younger knight muttered rebelliously but sat down again.

  It was awesome how swiftly my lord rebounded from dismay to boldness. Of course it was a mask he put on for the others’ benefit; but how many men could have done that much? Truly he was a peerless leader. I attribute it to the blood of King William the Conqueror, a bastard grandson of whom wed an illegitimate daughter of that Earl Godfrey who was later outlawed for piracy, and so founded the noble de Tourneville house.

  “Come, now,” said the baron with a degree of cheerfulness. “’Tis not so bad. We’ve but to act with steadfast hearts, and the day shall yet be ours. Remember, we hold a good number of captives, whom we can use as a bargaining point. If we must fight again, we’ve already proven they cannot withstand us under anything like equal conditions. I admit there are more of them, and that they have more skill with these craven hell-weapons. But what of that? ’Twill not be the first time brave men properly led have driven a seemingly stronger army from the field.

  “At the very worst, we can retreat. We have sky-ships enough, and can evade pursuit in the trackless deeps of space. But I’m fain to stay here, bargain shrewdly, fight where needful, and put my trust in God. Surely He, who stopped the sun for Joshua, can swat a million Wersgorix if it pleases Him: for His mercy endureth forever. After we’ve wrung terms from the foe, we’ll make them find our home for us and stuff our ships with gold. I say to you, hold fast! For the glory of God, the honor of England, and the enrichment of us all!”

  He caught them up, bore them on the wave of his own spirit, and had them cheering him at the end. They crowded close, hands on his hands above his great shining sword, and swore to remain true till the danger was past. Thereafter an hour went in eager planning—most of it, alas, wasted, for God seldom brings that to pass which man expects. Finally all went to their rest.

  I saw my lord take his wife’s arm to lead her into his pavilion. She spoke to him, a harsh whisper, she would not hear his protests but stood there denouncing him in the enemy night. The larger moon, already sinking, touched them with cold fire.

  Sir Roger’s shoulders slumped. He turned and went slowly from her, wrapped himself in a saddle blanket, and slept in the dews of the field.

  It was strange that a man among men was so helpless against a woman. He had something beaten and pitiful about him as he lay there. I thought it boded ill for us.

  Chapter VIII

  * * *

  WE HAD been too excited at first to pay attention, and afterward we slept too long. But when I woke again, finding it still dark, I checked the movement of stars against trees. Ah, how slowly! The night here was many times as long as on Earth.

  This unnerved our folk badly enough in itself. The fact that we did not flee (by now, it could no longer be concealed that treason, rather than desire, had brought us hither) puzzled many. But at least they expected weeks to carry out whatever the baron decided.

  The shock, when enemy ships appeared even before dawn, was great.

  “Be of good heart,” I counseled Red John, as he shivered with his bowman in the gray mists. “’Tis not that they have powers magical. You were warned of this at the captains’ council. ’Tis only that they can talk across hundreds of miles and fly such distances in minutes. So as soon as one of the fugitives reached another estate, the word of us went abroad.”

  “Well,” said Red John, not unreasonably, “if that’s not magic, I’d like to know what is.�
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  “If magic, you need have no fear,” I answered, “for the black arts do not prevail against good Christian men. However, I tell you again, this is mere skill in the mechanic and warlike arts.”

  “And those do prevail against g-g-good Christian men!” blubbered an archer. John cuffed him to silence, while I cursed my own clumsy tongue.

  In that wan, tricky light, we could see many ships hovering, some of them as big as our broken Crusader. My knees drummed under my cassock. Of course, we were all inside the force screen of the smaller fort, which had never been turned off. Our gunners had already discovered that the fire-bombards placed here had controls as simple as any in the spaceship, and stood prepared to shoot. However, I knew we had no true defense. One of those very powerful explosive shells whereof I had heard hints could be fired. Or the Wersgorix might attack on foot, overwhelming us with sheer numbers.

  Yet those ships did only hover, in utter silence under the unknown stars. When at length the first pale dawnlight streamed off their flanks, I left the bowmen and fumbled through dew-wet grass to the cavalry. Sir Roger sat peering heavenward from his saddle. He was armed cap-a-pie, helmet in the crook of an arm, and none could tell from his face how little sleep had been granted him.

  “Good morning, Brother Parvus,” he said. “That was a long darkness.”

  Sir Owain, mounted close by, wet his lips. He was pale, his large long-lashed eyes sunken in dark rims. “No midwinter night in England ever wore away so slowly,” he said, and crossed himself.

  “The more daylight, then,” said Sir Roger. He seemed almost cheerful, now when he dealt with foemen rather than unruly womenfolk.

  Sir Owain’s voice cracked across like a dry twig. “Why don’t they attack?” he yelled. “Why do they just wait up there?”

  “It should be obvious. I never thought ’twould need mentioning,” said Sir Roger. “Have they not good reason to be afraid of us?”

  “What?” I said. “Well, sire, of course we are Englishmen. However—” My glance traveled back, over the pitiful few tents pitched around the fortress walls; over ragged, sooty soldiers; over huddled women and grandsires, wailing children; over cattle, pigs, sheep, fowl, tended by cursing serfs; over pots where breakfast porridge bubbled—“However, my lord,” I finished, “at the moment we look more French.”

  The baron grinned. “What do they know about French and English? For that matter, my father was at Bannockburn, where a handful of tattered Scottish pikemen broke the chivalry of King Edward II. Now all the Wersgorix know about us is that we have suddenly come from nowhere and—if Branithar’s boasts be true—done what no other host has ever achieved: taken one of their strongholds! Would you not move warily, were you their constable?”

  The guffaw that went up among the horse troopers spread down to the foot, until our whole camp rocked with it. I saw how the enemy prisoners shuddered and shrank close together when that wolfish noise smote them.

  As the sun rose, a few Wersgor boats landed very slowly and carefully, a mile or so away. We held our fire, so they took heart and sent out people who began to erect machinery on the field.

  “Are you going to let them build a castle under our very noses?” cried Thomas Bullard.

  “’Tis less likely they’ll attack us, if they feel a little more secure,” the baron answered. “I want it made plain that we’ll parley.” His smile turned wry. “Remember, friends, our best weapon now is our tongues.”

  Soon the Wersgorix landed many ships in a circular formation—like those stonehenges which giants raised in England before the Flood—to form a camp walled by the eerie faint shimmer of a force screen, picketed by mobile bombards, and roofed by hovering warcraft. Only when this was done did they send a herald.

  The squat shape strode boldly enough across the meadows, though well aware that we could shoot him down. His metallic garments were dazzling in the morning sun, but we discerned his empty hands held open. Sir Roger himself rode forth, accompanied by myself gulping Our Fathers on a palfrey.

  The Wersgor shied a trifle, as the huge black stallion and the iron tower astride it loomed above him. Then he gathered a shaky breath and said, “If you behave yourselves, I will not destroy you for the space of this discussion.”

  Sir Roger laughed when I had fumblingly translated. “Tell him,” he ordered me, “that I in turn will hold my private lightnings in check, though they are so powerful I can’t swear they may not trickle forth and blast his camp to ruin if he moves too swiftly.”

  “But you haven’t any such lightnings at your command, sire,” I protested. “It wouldn’t be honest to claim you do.”

  “You will render my words faithfully and with a straight face, Brother Parvus,” he said, “or discover something about thunderbolts.”

  I obeyed. In what follows I shall as usual make no note of the difficulties of translation. My Wersgor vocabulary was limited, and I daresay my grammar was ludicrous. In all events, I was only the parchment on which these puissant ones wrote, erased, and wrote again. Aye, in truth I felt like a palimpsest ere that hour was done.

  Oh, the things I was forced to say! Above all men do I reverence that valiant and gentle knight Sir Roger de Tourneville. Yet when he blandly spoke of his English estate—the small one, which only took up three planets—and of his personal defense of Roncesvaux against four million paynim, and his singlehanded capture of Constantinople on a wager, and the time guesting in France when he accepted his host’s invitation to exercise the droit de seigneur for two hundred peasant weddings on the same day—and more and more—his words nigh choked me, though I am accounted well versed both in courtly romances and the lives of the saints. My sole consolation was that little of this shameless mendacity got through the language difficulties, the Wersgor herald understanding merely (after a few attempts to impress us) that here was a person who could outbluster him any day in the week.

  Therefore he agreed on behalf of his lord that there would be a truce while matters were discussed in a shelter to be erected midway between the two camps. Each side might send a score of people thither at high noon, unarmed. While the truce lasted, no ships were to be flown within sight of either camp.

  “So!” exclaimed Sir Roger gaily, as we cantered back. “I’ve not done so ill, have I?”

  “K-k-k-k,” I answered. He slowed to a smoother pace, and I tried again: “Indeed, sire, St. George—or more likely, I fear, St. Dismas, patron of thieves—must have watched over you. And yet—”

  “Yes?” he prompted me. “Be not afraid to speak your mind, Brother Parvus.” With a kindness wholly unmerited: “Ofttimes I think you’ve more head on those skinny shoulders than all my captains lumped together.”

  “Well, my lord,” I blurted, “you’ve wrung concessions from them for a while. As you foretold, they are being cautious whilst they study us. And yet, how long can we hope to fool them? They have been an imperial race for centuries. They must have experience of many strange peoples living under many different conditions. From our small numbers, our antiquated weapons, our lack of home-built spaceships, will they not soon deduce the truth and attack us with overwhelming force?”

  His lips thinned. He looked toward the pavilion which housed his lady and children.

  “Of course,” he said. “I hope but to stay their hand a short while.”

  “And what then?” I pursued him.

  “I don’t know.” Whirling on me, fierce as a stooping hawk, he added: “But ’tis my secret, d’ you understand? I tell it to you as if in confession. Let it come out, let our folk know how troubled and planless I truly am . . . and we’re all done.”

  I nodded. Sir Roger struck spurs to his horse and galloped into camp, shouting like a boy.

  Chapter IX

  * * *

  DURING THE long wait before Tharixan reached its noontide, my master summoned his captains to a council. A trestle table was erecte
d before the central building, and there we all sat.

  “By God’s grace,” he said, “we’re spared awhile. You’ll note that I’ve even made them land all their ships. I’ll wrangle to win us as much more respite as may be. That time must be put to use. We must strengthen our defenses. Also, we’ll ransack this fort, seeking especially maps, books, and other sources of information. Those of our men who’re at all gifted in the mechanic arts must study and test every machine we find, so that we can learn how to erect force screens and fly and otherwise match our foes. But all this has to be done secretly, in places hidden from enemy eyes. For if ever they learn we don’t already know all about such implements—” He smiled and drew a finger across his throat.

  Good Father Simon, his chaplain, turned a little green. “Must you?” he said faintly.

  Sir Roger nodded at him. “I’ve work for you, too. I shall need Brother Parvus to interpret Wersgor for me. But we have one prisoner, Branithar, who speaks Latin—”

  “I would not say that, sire,” I interrupted. “His declensions are atrocious, and what he does to irregular verbs may not be described in gentle company.”

  “Nevertheless, until he’s mastered enough English, a cleric is needed to talk to him. You see, he must explain whatever our students of the captured engines do not understand, and must interpret for any other Wersgor prisoners whom we may question.”

  “Ah, but will he do so?” said Father Simon. “He is a most recalcitrant heathen, my son, if indeed he has any soul at all. Why, only a few days ago on the ship, in hopes of softening his hard heart, I stood in his cell reading aloud the generations from Adam to Noah, and had scarcely gotten past Jared when I saw that he had fallen asleep!”

  “Have him brought hither,” commanded my lord. “Also, find One-Eyed Hubert and tell him to come in full regalia.”

  While we waited, talking in hushed voices, Alfred Edgarson noticed how I sat quiet. “Well, now, Brother Parvus,” he boomed, “what ails you? Methinks you’ve little to fear, being a godly fellow. Even the rest of us, if we conduct ourselves well, have naught to fear but a sweating time in purgatory. And then we’ll join St. Michael at sentry-go on heaven’s walls. Not so?”