“Ma’am,” Guthrie said, “you’re an intelligent and reasonable lady. Must we, between the two of us, use loaded words? Fireball hasn’t delivered any ultimatum. We’ve simply warned the Avantist government that we can’t—we cannot, ma’am—stand idly by while it arbitrarily imprisons people of ours and, considering what’s going on thereabouts, unnecessarily exposes them to danger. The seizure of our property without due process is an outrage too, but minor compared to this. Likewise, the occupation of L-5 is illegal, having been carried out under false pretenses, and the hazard it poses is intolerable.
“We beg them in Futuro to set matters right. We realize this can’t be done in a single stroke, and we offer to negotiate and cooperate at every step. For instance, if they’ll evacuate L-5, we’ll provide ferry service to Earth. As for mobilization—ma’am, politicians chronically remind me Fireball is not a nation and its directorate is not a government. How could we mobilize? I’ve requested our consortes to prepare for whatever action may prove necessary in the present emergency. They’re starting to do so. That’s all.”
—Lustrous eyes narrowed. “What action have you in mind?”
Robot shoulders shrugged. “I said, whatever proves necessary. Isn’t that pretty much up to Futuro?” Weightily: “If you hadn’t called me, I’d have appealed to you before this daywatch was over. Use your good offices, Madame President. Bring the Avantists to their senses.”
—Mukerji smiled bleakly. “You have a clever way with your bluff words, Mr. Guthrie. But let us not play games. Your communiqué said nothing about the call to rebellion and the pledge of aid to it that were in the earlier broadcast you call false.”
“What’d you expect, ma’am? Obviously I’d like to see the Avantist government replaced. Whether or not that happens, I’d hate to see a lot of people who wish for freedom butchered, jailed, or brainwashed because they trusted a promise made in the name of Fireball. So, yes, I did propose”— He and Kyra saw her wince at the foregoing sentence, then quickly, dutifully recover.—”a cease-fire, a general amnesty, and in due course a convention of all parties to work out new arrangements. I offered our good offices toward this end. Meanwhile, though, the uprising is still going on. Lives and treasure are being squandered. If your Peace Authority mustn’t intervene in a purely domestic affair, how may poor, private Fireball? The one right we claim, if neither the North American government nor the Authority will do it, is to assure the safety and well-being of our consortes, and, secondarily, secure our property.”
—”That is a considerable claim.”
“Sure. We’ll affect the course of events. How could we not, even if we do nothing? We’ll discharge our obligations as we see them, as best we’re able.”
This pause was longer than light speed imposed.
“Your concern for your personnel in North America is in itself commendable,” Mukerji said, as solemnly as if she spoke at a funeral. “Perhaps it has caused you to forget that there are many more of them elsewhere on Earth, and each is a citizen of some country belonging to the Federation.”
“And they could become hostages or the objects of reprisal? Ma’am, I can’t believe you’d dream such a thing. They’re totally innocent.”
—Mukerji’s voice went dry. “Is that why your General Director Almeida ordered every Fireball spacecraft on Earth into orbit, and every regional chief concurred?”
“That order came from me. They just executed it. I won’t insult your intelligence. It’s obvious where their sympathies lie. But they and the rest of our folk on Earth did nothing illegal, nothing their governments or your office had forbidden, and from now on, whatever happens, they’ll scarcely be in a position to flout your laws.”
—”Their sympathies, you say. Their loyalties? . . . Well, a general conflict would certainly endanger them.”
Guthrie lifted his hands. “Ma’am, please! Who spoke a word about that? Surely it can’t be what you’re planning. And we in space want a conflict like we want a hole in our helmet. I’m amazed that the Council and the Authority aren’t working to free and safeguard our people in North America. The moment that’s done, everything else becomes negotiable.”
—Mukerji’s lips tightened. “The effort is being made, I assure you. It cannot be carried out in a glare of publicity.”
“I understand, and thank you, and wish I were religious so I could pray for you. I hope you understand that Fireball cannot abandon its trothgivers to their fate, and therefore must make ready to help them if other attempts fail. Maybe that fact will be a useful bargaining chip for you. Meanwhile we’ll do nothing that might embarrass you, and whatever you ask that might assist you.”
—”Very well, sir. Cancel this mobilization of yours.”
“Madame President, I repeat, it is not a mobilization, and with respect I disagree that unpreparedness on our part would serve any good purpose.”
—Mukerji sighed. “This has gone as I feared. But I was obliged to try.”
“I hoped you’d see we’re reasonable folks here. That should have a little value to you.”
—Mukerji smiled sadly. “Reasonable people too can be at odds with each other. I trust you will receive future calls from me or my office immediately, day or night, as I will yours?”
“Of course. Vaya con Dios.”
—”Farewell.” The screen blanked. Guthrie stared into it a moment before he turned back to Kyra.
“Is, is it war, then?” she stammered.
“I hope to Christ not,” he sighed. “We’ll know in a couple more daycycles.”
“I should think . . . Mukerji will need longer than that ... to persuade the Avantists.”
“I’m afraid so. She’s capable and well-intentioned. But if I were that regime, I’d stall her till the Kayos have been stamped out, while maneuvering to bring the Peace Authority actively onto my side against contumacious Fireball, which has given me such a lot of woe.”
Kyra brought fingers to mouth. “You mean—your action is helping them?”
“Well, they can at least appeal to the herd instinct in their fellow governments. If they provoke us into taking the role of villains, their antics with regard to us can be swept under the carpet and several important persons among them won’t be hauled before an international court. If they can bring it about that the Federation declares us outlaws, they can confiscate everything we have in the Union. That would be quite a boost for the ramshackle economy they’ve created.
“But I don’t see how we could’ve stayed passive. Nor can we wait long. Suppose those ‘relocation centers’ are next to militia bases, political headquarters, or wherever else it’d hurt to be struck, whether by the Kayos or us? However that turns out, you know that consortes of ours will be going into the interrogation labs.”
Guthrie smote the table beside him. “No, Kyra, we’ll honor our troth. Afterward I’ll take the blame and the consequences.”
She rose, went to him, and caught both his cold, heavy hands. “Like hell,” she said. “We will.”
Above and beyond his turret, the galactic belt gleamed. She remembered hearing that in Swedish it was named the Winter Road.
* * * *
38
F
or seconds Kyra could only stare. Her head felt as though she had suddenly gone into free fall. “Is this real?” she whispered at last.
“ ‘What is reality?’ said jesting Pilate,” Rinndalir answered. “The invitation is quite sincere, no ruse or entrapment. How could my nation gain by that? Fireball already has ample grudges against us. You shall return whenever you choose, your dignity intact. The visit may cause you to look on us less unfavorably. Since you have evidently become rather close to the lord Guthrie, that would be furthersome to us—and, you may agree, to him. However this proves out, I can promise you a unique entertainment.” Damn him, that voice and that smile were enough to melt your back teeth. “And, naturally, I shall savor your presence.” The beautiful face went serious. “But if you wish to come, you m
ust at once. Events approach their perihelion. They will pass it soon and swiftly.”
She hauled her brain together. She didn’t know of anything more she could do for Fireball. Guthrie had declined her offer to pilot Kestrel in his service. “We’ll have plenty, and after what you’ve been through, you need a longer rest than time allows before you’re fit again.” She had yielded, not altogether reluctantly.
Nor could she phone for his advice. As occupied as he was, it would likely take hours to get through to him. Here was a chance to, just possibly, learn something useful about the Lunarians. Yes, this might turn out to be a new betrayal of theirs, but she didn’t see how she could be so important.
And—back to Rinndalir, that heartless, treacherous, gorgeous son of a cat.
“Muy bien,” she threw at him. “I shouldn’t, after the trick you pulled, but all right.”
His smile flared. “Glorious. Transport waits at the spacedrome, Berth 23.” Did it happen to be there, or had he dispatched it, confident she would accept? “Do not stop to pack. Your room in Zamok Vysoki remembers you.”
Blood racketed in Kyra’s ears. She sent a message for Guthrie’s attention when he should have some to spare, hauled on her boots, and left the suite at a Lunar run.
Outside the hotel she must slow down. Tsiolkovsky Prospect was thronged. No Lunarians were in sight. Such as had not departed Tychopolis kept to their residential quarter. In this city foreigners outnumbered them and emotions ran high. Few of those dwellers and transients were at their businesses, now when crisis drew near to climax. They wandered about, sat in the cafes talking too merrily or low and intently, fingered wares in the shops, clustered around every multi in which news repeated itself with different speakers and different scenes but over and over. Where somebody used English, Spanish, or Russian, Kyra caught snatches.
“—won’t attack,” said a thick-set man, unmistakably North American. “Wouldn’t dare. The governments of Earth would seize everything they’ve got on the planet.” Kyra smelled his sweat. He wasn’t as confident as he claimed. Earth’s industries depended on space, its resources were what saved the biosphere, and the overwhelming majority of space enterprises were Fireball’s.
“—alliance with the Selenarchs?” a Latino raged. “Those double-dealing bastards?” He wore a company emblem.
“We may have no choice,” replied the woman with him.
“—God’s judgment,” said a gray-bearded Orthodox priest. “His penalties for our sins and foolishness will be less than they themselves cost us.” Maybe he was right, Kyra thought.
Yet what could Fireball do, after the Union’s President Escobedo addressed the world?”—no compromise with criminality. Fireball has from the very beginning been hostile to our government, has obstructed and intrigued and encouraged sedition.” True, though no more than was well within the bounds of what North America once, and a few countries today, considered freedom of speech and the right to conduct one’s affairs as one saw fit. “A pronouncement from Fireball has sparked civil war in our country. Sr. Guthrie claims it was false, but he has not called on the Chaotics to halt their rebellion,” and be led away for the Sepo and the corrective psychotechnicians to work on, “nor retaliated against the Selenarchs whom he alleges were the perpetrators.” What was he supposed to do, declare war on them? “I make him this proposal. Let Fireball make amends by helping us. For example, it has more capability of space surveillance than the Peace Authority does, if it chooses to deploy the vessels, and it is not limited by mandate as the Peace Authority is. Let Fireball provide us information about Chaotic units, their locations and activities. Or let Fireball provide suborbital transport, which we are woefully short of, to our militia and Security Police, wherever that will enable them to strike a telling blow. There are many possibilities. We can agree on which, if Fireball will first agree to obey the law of the land.
“Then, as soon as the present danger is past, we for our part will release all Fireball personnel” to deportation? “not facing criminal charges” which ones, charged with what? “and negotiate other outstanding issues,” such as the disposal of many billion ucus’ worth of property, more of it held by consorte families than by the company. “Meanwhile, we must keep those persons detained,” prisoners, hostages, “and appeal to the High Council and Assembly of the World Federation that they order the Peace Authority to suppress anarchism and piracy.” Easier said than done, when the military force for space operations was lacking. Nothing but small arms in licensed hands legally existed beyond geosync radius, wherefore Luna had been able to make its declaration of independence stick after some minor clashes. “But I hope and pray that such action will not prove necessary, that Fireball will voluntarily redeem itself. May this come about! Then Fireball will have earned a voice in the historic conference that must follow these troubles, to extend law throughout the Solar System and properly regulate activity in space” thus ending the autonomy of human beings freely working together. The North American government wasn’t the only one that had long desired it.
Yes, the Avantists were playing their cards pretty shrewdly, Kyra thought. They might yet survive the coming showdown. But whether they did or not, this wasn’t the last hand. Much more was at stake. Lord, almost cosmic— An opening occurred in the crowd ahead of her. She hastened her strides.
At Ley Circus she got a fahrweg out to the drome. She had it nearly to herself. Leaving it, she stepped forth into a tiled cavern where sounds rang unnaturally loud. Activity was about at a standstill. An occasional human worker gave her a frightened look. The machines went about their jobs unperturbed.
The gate to Berth 23 scanned her and let her past. From the number, she had foreknown that what waited was a suborbital. It too was robotic. She boarded and snugged herself down. The vessel trundled on rails through the airlock to its launch station, got clearance from TrafCon’s computer, and lifted off. The acceleration that pushed Kyra back was mild, two Lunar gravities. Soon she was weightless in her harness, soaring among stars. From the northern horizon, full Earth cast witchy blue over maria and craters. Shadows mingled manifold. This was a soft landscape, actually, desolate but soft; stonefall and spalling radiation had worn it down, blurred its edges, without Earth’s tectonics querning forth mountains ever new.
The planet fell behind, sank farther, until it hung barely above the Moonscape and the darknesses that it cast stretched very long across level ground. Mostly they lost themselves among the cliffs and crags of the heights toward which the boat slanted. It set down on a small field with a single service building. A car rolled toward it. “Pray debark,” said a musical synthetic voice.
Kyra obeyed, climbing from airlock through extended gangtube to the interior of the ground vehicle. It detached itself and trundled off on a road rudimentary but adequate for a weatherless world. The castle towers leaped into her view above a ridge, and then the outer walls, and she passed inside.
A live servant genuflected and escorted her up a ramp to a high, opalescent hall. Rinndalir waited, in purple and gold. He rippled forward to take her hands. His were not metal and plastic but live flesh and graceful bone, warm to the touch. The great gray eyes shone downward at hers. “Well are you come,” he said. “Valiantly did you fare, and what a prize you took!”
How did he know? That story hadn’t been made public yet. Agents within Fireball— It didn’t seem to matter, when she could tell him, “Gracias,” and hear the pride resonate. She was no longer his captive or his dupe; they met in shared respect. “Where is the lady Niolente?” she asked.
His reply tingled in her: “Elsewhere, representing us amidst our colleagues.” He raised his brows slightly, mischieveously.
She made herself withdraw her hands and say, “Yes, of course you Selenarchs need to keep as alert and ready for action as we do. Then why’d you invite me here?” She felt unable to add that it could hardly be for fun and games, at least not exclusively.
“I told you, amiga. Fireball is understand
ably angry at us, albeit we require each other for allies in the tricky times ahead. My hope is that you will return better disposed toward us and influence the lord Guthrie in that direction. I am on call, but there is no immediate need of me and this is a service I can do my race.” The tone grew earnest. “As well as myself. I would like to have back your goodwill.”
“I’ll . . . listen.”
“And behold. Come, pray.” He offered his arm. Hers went below, almost involuntarily. His fingertips touched her hand. It was ridiculous what lust the gentle contact roused in her. “I wish you had arrived earlier, giving us leisure for discourse and friendliness before that happens which must, but I was in truth overbusied until this hour.”
They moved off between glass pillars toward an archway opening on a corridor. That happens which must. The chill struck at Kyra’s loins. “What do you mean?” she exclaimed. “War?”
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