Mayday Orbit

by Poul Anderson

  Oleg Khan looked out the window of his tower room. “It shall be made good to you,” he muttered. “Oh, yes, my people, you shall have satisfaction.”

  Turning to the Betelgeusean who had just been fetched, he glared into the blue visage. “You have seen?”

  “Yes, your majesty.” Zalat’s Altaian, usually fluent and little accented, grew thick. He was a badly shaken being. Only the prompt arrival of-the royal household troops had saved his ship from destruction by a thousand shrieking fanatics. “I swear we had nothing to do with . . . we are innocent as—”

  “Of course! Of course!” Oleg Yesukai brought one palm down in an angry slicing motion. “I am not one of those ignorant rodent herders out there. Every Betelgeusean has been under constant surveillance since—” He checked himself.

  “I know that, your majesty,” faltered Zalat. “But I am Still unsure as to your reason.”

  “Did I not make it plain to' you? You know the Terran visitor was killed by Tebtengri agents, the very day he arrived. It bears out what I have long suspected, the north-land tribes have become religiously xenophobic. Since they doubtless have other operatives in the city, they may well try to murder you Betelgeuseans as well. Thus it is best that you be closely guarded and have contact only with men who we know are loyal, until the situation is under full control.”

  Somewhat calmed by his own words, Oleg sat down, stroked his beard and watched Zalat from narrowed eyes. “I regret you were so nearly lynched this morning,” he said smoothly. “Because you are out-worlders, and the defiling symbols are not in the Altaian alphabet, the mob jumped to the conclusion that it was some dirty word in your language. I, of course, know better. From studying the wreckage of a patrol craft lost, last night, my technicians have deduced that the outrage involved the arctic devilfolk, doubtlessly in concert with the Tebtengri. Such a vile deed would not trouble those tribes in the least; they are not followers of the Prophet. But what puzzles me is—I admit this frankly, though confidentially—why? A daring, grueling task..-. . . merely to give us a wanton insult?”

  He glanced back at the window. From this angle, the Tower looked normal. You had to be on the north to see what had been done; the tablet wall disfigured by more than a kilometer of paint. But from that side, the fantastic desecration was visible across entire horizons.

  The Kha Khan doubled a fist. “It shall be repaid them,” he said. “This has rallied the orthodox tribes behind me as no other thing imaginable. When their children are boiled before their eyes, the Tebtengri will realize what they have done.”

  Zalat hesitated. “Your majesty—”

  “Yes?” Oleg snarled.

  “Those symbols ... on the Tower . . . they are letters of the Terran alphabet.”

  “What"

  “I know the Anglic language somewhat. Most Betelgeuseans do. But how could those Tebtengri ever have learned—”

  Oleg, who knew the answer to that, interrupted by seizing the captain’s tunic and shaking him. “What does it sayP” he yelled.

  “That’s the strangest part, your majesty,” stammered Zalat. “It doesn’t mean anything. The word makes no sense.”

  “Well, what sound does it spell, then? Speak before I have your teeth pulled!”

  “May Day,” choked Zalat. “Just May Day, your majesty.”

  Oleg let him go. For a while there was silence. At last the Khan said: “Is that a nonsense phrase, or an actual Terran word?”

  “Well ... I suppose it could be a word. I don’t claim to be intimate with, uh, with every slang phrase or idiom or technicality in the language. Uh, well, May is the name of a month in the Terran calendar, and Day means ‘diurnal period.’” Zalat rubbed his yellow eyes, searching for logic. “Perhaps May Day means the first day of May.”

  Oleg nodded slowly. “That sounds reasonable. The Altaian calendar, which is modified from the ancient Terran, has a similar name for a month of what is locally springtime. Mayday . . . could it mean our Day of the Spring Festival? Perhaps.”

  He got up, returned to the window and brooded across the city. “It’s long until May,” he said. “If that was an incitement to anything it’s foredoomed. We are going to break the Tebtengri this very winter. By next Spring Festival Day—” He cleared his throat and finished curtly: “By then, certain other projects will be well under way.”

  “How could it be an incitement anyhow, your majesty?” argued Zalat, emboldened. “Who in Ulan Baligh could read it?”

  “True. I can only conjecture, some wild act of defiance or superstition, hoping to change our luck for the worse.” The Khan turned on his heel. “You are leaving shortly, captain, are you not?”

  “Yes, your majesty. As soon as your inspectors have finished checking our cargo.”

  “You shall convey a message. No other traders are to come here for one year. We will have troubles enough, suppressing the Tebtengri and their aboriginal allies, without keeping guard on foreigners.” Oleg shrugged. “Besides, there would be no reason for merchants to visit us. The coming war will disrupt the caravans. Afterward, when things are set in order . . . perhaps.”

  Privately, he doubted that trade would ever be resumed. By summer, the Merseian engineers would be here and work would have started on the great naval base. A year from now, Altai would be firmly in the Merseian Empire. And, as its viceroy, the Kha Khan would have no time for commerce. Instead he would be leading his warriors to battles in the stars, more glorious and full of booty than any ancient hero had dreamed.

  X

  Winter came early to the northlands. Snow fell and lay endlessly on the plains, under a sky like blue steel. The Mangu Tuman proceeded on their migratory cycle. Wagons and herds and people were a hatful of dust strewn across immensity. Here and there a fire sent a thin smoke-streak vertically into the windless air. Krasna hung low in the southwest, a frosty red-gold wheel.

  Three persons glided from the main ordu. They were on skis, rifles slung behind their parkas, hands gripping tethers which led to a small negagrav tow unit. It flew swiftly, pulling them, so that the skis sang on the thin crisp snow.

  Arghun Tiliksky said hard-voiced: "I can appreciate, Orluk Flandry, that you and Juchi Ilyak keep secret the reason for that Tower escapade, five weeks ago. What no man knows, no man can reveal if captured. Yet you seem quite blithe about the consequences. Have you not heard what our spies and scouts relate? Infuriated warriors flock to Oleg Yesukai, who has pledged to annihilate us before next thaw. Never before was so great and firm an army gathered against us. In consequence, the whole Tebtengrian alliance cannot spread around the arctic circle as hitherto, but must remain close together. And there is not enough forage under the snow for so many herds in so small an area. I say to you, the Khan need not invade. He need only wait. By spring, famine will have done half his work for him!"

  “Let’s hope he plans on that,” said Flandry. “Less strenuous than fighting, isn’t it?”

  Arghun’s angry young face swung toward him. The noyon clipped: “I do not share the common awe of everything Terran. You are as human as I. In this environment, where you are untrained, you are more fallible. I warn you plainly, unless you here and now give me good reason to do otherwise, I shall request a kurultai. And at it I will argue that we cease this waiting—that we strike now at Ulan Baligh, while we still have full bellies.”

  Bourtai cried aloud, “Nol That would be asking for ruin.

  They outnumber us, the Khanists, three or four to one. And I have seen some of the new engines the Merseians brought them. If we invaded the south, it would be like animals invading a butcher’s corral.”

  “It would be quick, at least.” Arghun glared at Flan dry. “Well?”

  The Terran sighed. He might have expected this. In the past weeks, Bourtai had always been near him, and Arghun had always been near her. The noyon had given him surly words before now. He might have known that this invitation to hunt sataru—mutant ostriches escaped from the herds and gone wild—masked something e
lse. Well, Arghun was decent to warn him.

  “If you don’t trust me,” he said, “though cosmos knows I’ve fought and bled and had my nose frostbitten in your cause, can’t you trust Juchi Ilyak? He and the Dwellers know my scheme. They will assure you that our success depends on hanging back and avoiding battle as long as possible.”

  “Juchi grows old,” said Arghun. “His mind is feeble— Hoy, there!”

  He yanked a guide line. The negagrav unit purred to a stop and hung in mid-air, halfway along a slope. Politics dropped from Arghun; he pointed at the snow with a hunting dog’s eagerness. “Spoor,” he hissed. “We go by muscle power now, to sneak close. The birds can outrun this motor if they hear it. You go straight up this hill, Orluk Flandry. Bourtai and I will encircle it to right and left."

  The Altaians had slipped their reins and skied noiselessly from him before Flandry quite understood what had happened. Looking down, he saw big splay tracks: a pair of sataru. He started after them. How the deuce did you manage these footsticks, anyway? Waddling across the snow, he tangled them and tripped. His nose grazed a boulder. He sat up, swearing in eighteen languages and Old Martian phonoglyphs.

  “This they call fun?” He tottered erect. Snow had gotten under his parka hood. It began to melt, and trickle over his ribs. “Great greasy comets,” said Flandry, “I might have been sitting in the Everest House with a bucket of champagne, lying to some beautiful wench about my exploits ... but no, I had to come out here and experience them!”

  Slowly, he dragged himself up the hill. At the brow he crouched and peered through an unnecessarily cold and thorny screen of brush. No two-legged birds, only a steep slant back down to the plain. . . . Wait!

  He saw blood and the dismembered sataru an instant before he himself was attacked.

  The beasts seemed to rise from weeds and snowdrifts, as if the earth had spewed them forth. A dozen white, scuttering shapes, big as police dogs, rushed in upon them. Flandry glimpsed long, sharp noses, alert, black eyes that hated him, high backs and hairless tails. He yanked his rifle loose and fired. The slug bowled over the nearest animal. It rolled halfway downhill, gathered its muscles, and crawled back with a shattered spine to fight some more.

  Flandry didn’t notice. The next was at him. He shot it point blank. Flesh and bone exploded. One of its fellows stopped to rip the meat. But the rest continued their charge. Flandry took aim at a third. A heavy body landed between his shoulders. He went down on his face. Jaws worried his leather coat.

  Somehow he rolled over. One arm shielded him. His rifle had fallen out of his grip. A beast fumbled it in forepaws almost like hands. He groped for the dagger at his belt. Two animals were upon him. Chisel teeth slashed. He managed to kick one of them on the nose. It squealed and bounced away. But two more attacked in its place.

  Someone yelled. The sound was nearly smothered by Flandry’s heartbeat. He drove his knife into a hard shoulder. The beast writhed free, leaving him weaponless. The others piled on him. He fought with boots and knees, fists and elbows, in a cloud of kicked-up snow. An animal jumped in the air, came down on his midriff. The wind whoofed out of him. His face-defending arm dropped. A creature went for his throat.

  Arghun arrived behind. The Altaian seized that animal by the neck. Steel flashed in his free hand. In one expert movement he disemboweled the beast and flung it aside. Several of the pack left Flandry, fell upon the still snarling body and fed. Arghun booted another exactly behind the ear. It dropped as if poleaxed. One jumped the rear to get on his back. He stooped, his left hand made a judo heave, and as the animal soared over his head he ripped its stomach with his knife.

  “Up, man!” He hoisted the Terran. The pack chattered around them. But then Bourtai began to shoot. She dropped them right and left. The largest of the animals whistled. At that signal, the survivors bounded off and were out of sight in seconds.

  Arghun sank down gasping. Bourtai flew to Flandry. “Are you hurt?” she sobbed.

  "Not too much.” He looked at the noyon. “Thanks,” he said inadequately.

  “You are a guest,” grunted Arghun. After a moment: “They grow bolder each year. I had never expected to be attacked this near an ordu. Something must be done about them, if we live through the winter.”

  “What are they?” Flandry shuddered toward relaxation.

  “Gurchaku. They range the Khrebet and the northern steppes. They’ll eat anything, but prefer meat. Chiefly they kill feral animals, but they also steal from our herds, and people have died under their jaws.” Arghun looked grim. “They were not as large in my grandfather’s day, nor as cunning.”

  Flandry nodded. “Rats.”

  “I know what rats are,” said Bourtai. “But the gurchaku—”

  “A new genus. Similar things have happened on other colonized planets.” Flandry wished for a cigarette. He wished so hard that Bourtai had to remind him to continue. “Oh, yes. Some of the stowaway rats on your ancestors’ ships remained small pests, but others moved into the wilds as the country became Terrestrialized. They changed, as the Voiskoye changed, but even faster because of having shorter generations. Yes, an early job for a Terran commissioner here will be to wipe out the gurchaku. Pity, in a way. They look like a species with interesting possibilities.”

  He managed a tired grin at Bourtai. “After all,” he said, "if a frontier planet has beautiful girls, tradition requires that it have monsters as well.”

  Her blush was like fire.

  They returned to camp in silence. Flandry entered the yurt given him, dressed his wounds, washed and changed clothes. Then he flopped down on his bunk and stared at the ceiling. He reflected bitterly on the assorted romancing he had heard about the High Frontier in general and the dashing adventurers of the Intelligence Corps in particular. So what did it amount to in practice? A few nasty moments with men or giant rats that wanted to kill you, stinking leather clothes, wet feet, chilblains and frostbite, unseasoned food, creaking wheels replaced by squeaking runners, temperance, chastity, early rising, weighty speech with tribal elders, not a book he could enjoy or a joke he could understand for light-years. He yawned, rolled on his stomach, and tried to sleep. After a while he gave that up and began to wish that Arghun’s reckless advice would be followed. Anything to break this dreariness!

  A tap on the door. He started to his feet, bumped his head on a curved ridgepole, swore, and said, “Come in.” The caution of years laid a hand on his blaster.

  As the door opened he saw the short winter day was near an end. A red streak lingered above one edge of the world. His overhead lamp picked out Bourtai. She entered,, closed the door, and stood silently.

  “Why . . . hullo.” Flandry paused. “What brings you here?”

  “I came to see if you were well.” Her eyes did not meet his.

  “Oh? Oh, yes. Yes, of course,” he said stupidly. “Kind of you. I mean, uh, shall I make some tea?”

  “Are you certain your bites were not serious? Did you put on an antiseptic?”

  “Sure, sure. I do know a few things about taking care of myself.” Automatically, Flandry added with a smile: “I could wish I didn’t, though. So lovely a nurse—”

  Again he saw the blood rise in her face. Suddenly he understood. He would have realized earlier, had Altaians not been basically a more shy and reticent people than his own. A heavy pulse beat in his throat. “Sit down,” he invited.

  She lowered herself to the floor. He joined her, sliding a practiced arm over her shoulder. She did not flinch. He let his hand glide on downward till the arm was about her waist. She leaned against him.

  “Do you think we will see another springtime?” she asked. Her tone was level, devoid of self-pity, phrasing a strictly practical question.

  “I have one right here with me,” he said. His lips brushed her hair.

  “No one speaks thus in theordu,” she breathed. “We are both cut off from our kindred, you by distance and I by death. Let us not remain lonely any longer.”

  H
e forced himself to give fair warning: “I’ll return to Terra the first chance I get, and wouldn’t recommend that you come along.”

  “I know,” she murmured. “But until then!”

  His mouth found hers.

  There was a thump on the door.

  “Go away!” said Flandry and Bourtai together. They looked surprised into each other’s eyes and laughed.

  "My lord,” called a man’s voice, “Toghrul Gur-Khan sends me. A messages has been detected. From a Terran spaceship!”

  Flandry knocked Bourtai over in his haste to get outside. But even as he ran, he thought with frustration that this job of his had been hoodooed from the outset.

  XI

  Invisibly high among the thin winds over Ulan Baligh, a warrior sat in the patient arms of a medusa. He breathed oxygen from a tank and rested numbed fingers on a radio transceiver. However thickly he was swaddled, his watch could only last four hours before he was relieved. Maybe Altaians were the sole breed of man who could endure it that long.

  This night he was rewarded. His earphones crackled with a faint, distorted voice, in a language he had never heard. A return beam gabbled from the spaceport. The speaker above gave place to another, who addressed the portmaster in halting Altaian, doubtlessly learned from the Betelgeuseans.

  The Tebtengrian listener dared not try any communication of his own. If detected (and the chances were that it would be) such a call would bring a nuclear missile streaking from Ulan Baligh. However, his transceiver amplified and relayed what he heard. Kilometers away, another hovering medusa carried another set which passed the message on to still another. The long chain ended at the ordu of the Mangu Tuman. If, by some accident, the Khanists detected that re-transmission, they would not be alarmed. Radio beams often leaked, and the ionosphere might well bounce such leakage halfway round the planet.