Mayday Orbit

by Poul Anderson

  Through his binoculars, the Tebtengrian watcher actually saw the Terran ship descend. Moonlight gleamed off sleek, armed swiftness. He whistled in awe. Still, he thought, this was only one vessel, and officially, at least, it was only paying a visit. Oleg, the Damned, had camouflaged or disguised his modem installations, weeks ago. He would receive the Terrans like butter, wine them and dine them, but they would see what he wished them to see and hear what he wished them to hear. Presently they would go home again, to report that nothing worth worrying about was happening on Altai.

  The scout sighed, beat his gloved hands together, and wished his relief would soon arrive.

  And near the glacial cap, Dominic Flandry turned from Toghrul’s receiver. "That’s that,” he said. “HMS Callisto has landed at Ulan Baligh. We’ll maintain our radio monitors, but I don’t expect they’ll pick up anything . . . until the moment the ship takes off again, of course.”

  “When will that be?” asked the Gur-Khan.

  “In three or four days, I imagine,” said Flandry. “We’ve got to be ready! Every ordu must be alerted tonight. By dawn I want them moving across the plains according to the scheme Juchi and I drew up for you.”

  Toghrul nodded. Arghun Tiliksky, who had also crowded into the kibitka, demanded: “What’s the meaning of this? Why haven’t I been told?”

  “You didn’t need to know before the time came,” Flandry answered. “The Tebtengri warriors can get into motion, ready for battle, on five minutes’ notice, under any conditions 'whatsoever. Or so you were assuring me, in a ten-minute speech, one evening last week; Very well, Noyon, move them!”

  Arghun bristled. “Where? Why?”

  “You’ll be in command of the Mangu Tuman varyak division,” Toghrul said. “Lead it due south for 500 kilometers, then stand by for further radio orders. The other tribal forces will be stationed elsewhere. Probably you will see a few, but maintain strict radio silence. Yurts and kibit-kas, being less mobile, will proceed to positions closer by. The women and children can drive them.”

  "Also the herds,” reminded Flandry. “Don’t forget, the massed Tebtengri herds can cover quite a large area.”

  Arghun looked at the formation sketched on a piece of paper, which the alliance was to adopt. “But this is lunacy!” he yelped. “If Oleg knows we’ve spread ourselves out, straggling over half the map in this ridiculous manner, he can drive a wedge between—”

  “He won’t know,” said Flandry. “Or if he does find out, he won’t know why were doing it—which is what counts. Now, git!”

  For a moment Arghun’s eyes clashed with his. Then the noyon slapped gauntlets against one thigh, whirled, and departed. It was indeed very few moments before the night grew loud with varyak motors and lowing battle horns.

  When that racket had faded, Toghrul tugged his beard and said to Flandry, “Well, now that we two are quite alone, can’t you at least tell me how that Terran ship was fetched here?”

  “Why, it came to inquire more closely into the reported death of me, a Terran citizen, on Altai,” Flandry chuckled. “Or so the captain will tell Oleg, I’m sure. Oleg will believe him; it’s entirely plausible. The Terrans will look around Ulan Baligh a few days and let Oleg convince them my death was merely an accident. After which they’ll take off for their base again.”

  Toghrul stared at him, back at the map, and then suddenly broke into buffalo laughter. For a while the Gur-Khan of the Mangu Tuman and the field agent of the Imperial Terrestrial Naval Intelligence Corps joined hands and danced around the kibitka singing of the flowers that bloom in the spring.

  Presently Flandry left. There wasn’t going to be much sleep for anyone in the next few days. But nonetheless, he didn’t plan on sleeping tonight. He rapped eagerly on his own yurt. Silence answered him. He scowled and opened the door.

  A note lay on his bunk. My beloved, the alarm signals have blown. You know Toghrul gave me weapons and a new varyak. My father taught me to ride and shoot as well as any man. It is fitting that the last of Clan Tumurji depart with the warriors.

  Flandry stared at the scrawl for a long while. Finally, he undressed and went-to bed.

  When he awoke in the morning, his cart was under way. A boy had taken the wheel for him. He emerged to find the whole encampment grinding across the steppe. Toghrul stood taking a navigational sight on the rings. He greeted Flandry with a gruff: “We should reach our own assigned position tomorrow.” A messenger dashed up, something needed the chief’s attention— one of the endless emergencies when so big a group was on the move. Flandry found himself alone.

  By now he had learned not to offer the nomads his unskilled assistance. He spent the day composing scurrilous limericks about the superiors who had assigned him to this mission. The trek continued noisily through the dark. Next morning there was drifted snow to clear before camp could be made. Flandry discovered that he was at least able to wield a snow shovel. Soon he wished he wasn’t.

  By noon the ordu was settled—not in the compact laagers which offered maximum safety, but wavering across kilometers in a line which brought mutinous grumbling. Toghrul roared down protest and went back to his kibitka to crouch over the radio. But two incredibly tedious days passed before he sent for Flandry.

  Then things happened in a hurry.

  “Ship departing,” the Gur-Khan said. “We’ve just detected the usual broadcast warning aircraft from the spaceport area.” He frowned. “Will there be time before nightfall to carry out every planned maneuver?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Flandry assured him. “Our initial pattern is already set up. The Callisto skipper can’t help spotting that from space, even if it weren’t routine to keep a very beady eye on any suspicious planet as you leave. When he notices, the captain will linger. If he floats in orbit with radiation screens at max and generators throttled down to minimum, I doubt that they’ll know in Ulan Baligh that he’s still around.”

  His eyes went to the map on the desk. The various Tebtengrian units had confirmed their positions. The ordus lay in a heavy east-west line, 500 kilometers long across the winter-white steppe. The more mobile varyak divisions sprawled in bunches to form lines which slanted past either end of the first one, meeting in the north but far apart in the south. He stroked his mustache and waited.

  “Spaceship cleared for takeoff. Stand by. Rise, spaceship Callisto!”

  As the relayed voice trickled weakly from the receiver, Flandry snatched a pencil and drew another figure on the map. “This is the next formation,” he said. “Might as well start on it at once. The ship will have seen the present one inside of five minutes.”

  Toghrul bent over the microphone and rapped, “Varyak divisions of Clans Munlik, Fyodor, Kubilai, Tuli, attention. Drive due west for 100 kilometers from your present positions and stop. Belgutai, Bagdarin, Chagatai, Kassar, due east for 100 kilometers. Gleb, Temujin . . .”

  Flandry rolled the pencil between his fingers. As the reports came in, over an endless hour, he marked where each unit had halted. The whole device began to look pathetically crude.

  “I have been thinking,” said Toghrul after a prolonged silence.

  “Nasty habit,” said Flandry. “Hard to break. Try cold baths and long walks.”

  “What if Oleg finds out about this?”

  “He’s pretty sure to discover something is going on. His scouts will pick up bits of our messages. But only bits, since these are short-range transmissions. I’m depending on our own air cover to keep the enemy from getting too good a look at what we’re up to. All Oleg will know is that we’re shifting around on a large scale.” Flandry shrugged. “If I were him, I’d decide that the Tebtengri were practicing formations against the day he attacks.”

  “Which is not far off.” Toghrul drummed the desk top. Flandry drew a figure on the paper. “This will be the third arrangement. I believe we can get that done too before sunset. During the night we can proceed to the fourth one, and start the fifth at dawn. I expect we’ll finish in two day
s.” “It’s going to consume an unholy amount of stored energy.” “Don’t worry about that. Before the shortage gets acute, your people will be safe with the Imperium sending enough necessities to tide them over—or they’ll be dead, which is still more economical.”

  The night that followed wore very slowly away. Now and then Flandry dozed. He paid scant heed to the sunrise; too much else must be done. Sometime later a warrior was shown in. “From Juchi Sharman,” he reported, with a clumsy salute. “Air scouts watching the Ozero Rurik area report troops are being massed and that outrider columns are starting northward.”

  Toghrul smote the desk with one big fist “Are they invading us already?”

  “That big a push won’t get this far north for a week,” Flandry said, though his guts felt cold at the news. “Or more, if we harry them from the air.”

  “A week. . . . When can we expect help?” said Toghrul.

  “Not for three or four weeks at the earliest. The Callisto has to return to Catawrayannis base, where the commandant will have to patch together a task force which will have to get here. Allow four weeks, plus or minus. Can we fight a delaying action that long, without suffering too much damage?”

  “We had better,” said Toghrul, “or we are done.”

  XII

  Captain Flandry laid the rifle butt to his shoulder. The stock felt smooth and not cold, insofar as his numbed cheek could feel anything. The metal parts, so chill that they would skin any bare fingers that touched them, stung him through his gloves.

  It was hard to gauge distance in this red half-light, across this whining scud of snow. Hard to guess windage; even trajectories were baffling on this miserable three-quarter-gee planet. He decided the enemy wasn’t close enough yet, and lowered his gun.

  Crouched beside him in the lee of the snowbank, the Dweller turned dark eyes upon the man. “I go now?” he asked. His Altaian was worse than Flandry’s, though Juchi himself had been surprised to learn that any of the Ice Folk knew the human tongue.

  “I told you already, no.” The Terran’s own. accent was thickened by the frostbitten puffiness of his lips. “You’ve to cross a hundred meters of open ground to reach those trees. You’d be seen and shot before you got half way. We have to arrange a distraction first.”

  He peered again through the murk. Krasna had almost vanished from these polar lands for the winter, but at this moment was not yet very far below the horizon. A surly gleam in the south gave men enough light to see a little distance.

  The attacking platoon had come so close that Flandry could make out individuals: blurred forms against the great, vague lake. He could see that they rode upon modified varyaks, with runners and negagrav thrust to drive them across the permasnow. It was sheer ill luck that he and his squad had blundered into them. The Tebtengri had retreated onto the polar cap and eventually into the depths of the Ice Lands. They lived off a few slaughtered and frozen animals, while their herds wandered the steppe under slight guard, while men and Dwellers skirmished, avoiding pitched battle as much as they could, fighting a guerrilla war to slow Oleg Khan’s advance. Skulk, shoot, run, hide, bolt your food, snatch a nap in a sleeping bag and tent as dank as yourself, and go forth to skulk again.

  Now the rest of Flandry’s party lay dead by Tengri Nor. He had escaped, but not far. With this one companion he was trapped, for the pursuers could move faster on their machines than he could afoot.

  He gauged his range afresh. He got a man in his sights and jerked his head at the Dweller, who slipped away. Then he fired.

  The southerner jerked in the saddle, caught at his belly, and slid to the ground. Even in this glum light, his blood was screaming red on the snow. Through the wind, Flan-dry heard the others yell. They scattered over a wide front. He took aim and fired once more. A miss. He wasn’t accomplishing enough. He had to furnish a few seconds’ diversion, so they wouldn’t notice the Dweller running toward those crystalline trees at his back.

  Flandry thumbed his rifle control to automatic fire. He popped up from behind the snowbank, shooting, and called, “My grandmother can lick your grandmother!”

  Diving, he sensed more than heard the lead storm that went where he had been. Energy bolts crashed overhead, scythed downward and sizzled in the snow. He breathed hot steam. Surely that damned Dweller had reached the woods by now. He fired, blind in the vapors as his onward-rushing enemy. Come on, someone, putt me out of this mess! What’s the use, anyhow? The little guy babbled something about sending a message through the roots—ridiculous! Through gun-thunder Flandry heard the first high-ringing noise. He raised his eyes in time to see the medusae attack.

  They swarmed from above, hundreds upon hundreds, their tentacles full of lightning. Some were hit, burst into hydrogen flames, and sought men to bum even as they died. Others snatched warriors from the saddle, lifted them, and dropped them into the mortally cold waters of Tengri Nor. Most went efficiently about a task of electrocution. Flandry had not quite grasped what was happening before the platoon retreated. By the time he had climbed erect, die retreat was a rout.

  “Holy hopping hexaflexagons,” he mumbled in awe. “Now why can’t I do that stunt?”

  The Dweller returned, small, furry, rubbery, an unimpressive goblin who said with diffidence, “Not enough medusa to do this often. Your friends come. We wait here.” “Huh? Oh, you mean a rescue party. Yeh, I suppose one of our units would be close enough to hear the fight and join in.” Flandry stamped his feet, trying to force the circulation back. “Nice haul,” he said, looking over strewn weapons and vehicles. “I think we got revenge for our squad.” “Dead men just as dead on any side of fight,” reproached the Dweller.

  Flandry winced. “Don’t remind me.”

  He heard the whirr of tow motors. The ski patrol that came around the woods was bigger than he had expected. He recognized Arghun and Bourtai in the lead. It came to him, with a shock, that he hadn’t spoken to either one, except to say hello and goodbye, since the campaign began. Too busy. That was the trouble with war. Leave out the toil, discipline, discomfort, scant sleep, lousy food, monotony and combat, and war would be a fine institution.

  He strolled to meet the newcomers as debonairly as possible for a man without cigarettes. “Hi,” he said. "You missed the show.”

  “Dominic.” Bourtai seized his hands. “You might have been killed!” she gasped.

  “Occupational hazard,” said Flandry. “I thought you were in charge of our western division, Arghun?”

  “No more fighting there,” said the noyon. “I am going about rounding up our troops.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Have you not heard?” The frank eyes widened. For a moment Arghun stood on the snow and gaped. Then a grin cracked his frozen mustache, he slapped Flandry’s back and shouted: “The Terrans have arrived!”

  “Huh?” Flandry felt stunned. The blow he had taken— Arghun owned a hefty set of muscles—wait, what had he said?

  “Yesterday,” chattered the Altaian. “I suppose your receivers didn’t bring in the announcement, nor anyone’s in that outfit you were fighting. There’ve been some bad atmospherics in this area. Or maybe your opponents were die-hard fanatics. There are some whom we’ll have to dispose of. But that should not be difficult. You and I won’t be needed.”

  He brought himself under control and went on more calmly: “An Imperial task force appeared out of space and demanded the surrender of the Yesukai troops as being Merseian clients. The commander at Ulan Baligh yielded without a fight; what could he have done against such power? Oleg Khan flew to the front and tried to rally his forces. You should have been listening, the ether was lively last night! But a couple of Terran spaceships arrived and dropped a demonstration bomb squarely on his field headquarters. That was the end of that. The Khanist tribesmen are already disengaging and streaming homeward. Juchi Shaman has been asked by the Terran admiral at Ulan Baligh to come and advise him what to do next—and to bring you along!”

  Flandry closed
his eyes and swayed on his feet. Bourtai caught him in her arms. “What is the matter, Dominic?” she cried.

  “Brandy,” he whispered. “Tobacco. India tea. Shrimp mayonnaise, with a genuine Riesling on the side. Air conditioning. . . He shook himself. “Sorry. My mind wandered.”

  He scarcely saw how her lip trembled. Arghun did, gave the Terran a defiant look and caught the girl’s hand. She clung to his like a child.

  This time Flandry did notice. His mouth twitched upward. “Bless you, my children,” he murmured.

  “What?” Arghun snapped, half-angry and half-bewildered.

  “When you get as old and battered as I,” Flandry told them, “you will realize that no one dies of a broken heart. In fact, that organ heals with disgusting speed. If you want to name your first-born Dominic, I will be happy to mail a silver spoon suitably engraved.”

  “But—” stammered Bourtai. “But—” she gave up and held Arghun’s hand more tightly.

  The noyon’s face burned. He said hastily, seeking impersonal things, “Now will you explain your actions, Terra man?”

  “Hm?” Flandry blinked. “Oh, yes. To be sure.”

  He started walking. The other two kept pace along the thin, blue Lake of Ghosts, under a lacework of icy leaves. The red half-day smoldered toward night. Flandry spoke with laughter reborn in his voice:

  “Our problem was to send a secret message to the Terran base. The most secret one possible would, naturally, be one which nobody recognized as a message. For instance, May Day painted on the Prophet’s Tower. It looked like gibberish, pure, spiteful mischief . . . but the whole city could see it. They’d talk. How they’d talk! Even if no Betelgeuseans happened to be at Ulan Baligh just then, there would soon be some who would certainly hear news so sensational no matter how closely they were guarded. And the Betelgeuseans in turn would carry the yam home with them, where the Terrans connected with our embassy would hear it. And the Terrans would understand!