The Stars Are Also Fire

by Poul Anderson

  “I can study it up,” he said, faintly amazed at the levelness of his voice. “You have vivifer material about that model, so we won’t have to tap the public database, don’t you?”

  “But the whole world will see!” Aleka exclaimed.

  Matthias grinned. “Right. Something that spectacular can’t be kept entirely off the news, and the Teramind itself will be hard put to explain it away.”

  Sobriety slid into Kenmuir’s passion. “Unless Venator’s service heads me off in time.”

  “They have craft with far greater capabilities, true, and they’ll react fast,” Matthias said. “But you’ll take them by surprise, and they won’t know where you’re bound till you’ve landed. Then you’ll have to be quick, oh, yes.”

  In for a penny, in for a pound. Kenmuir laughed aloud. “We’ll plan the operation. You can get data on what Authority units are currently stationed where or in which orbits, can’t you? That’s public information. And I’ve got an idea about how to keep them from silencing me once they’ve caught me. Come, let’s get busy!”

  “’Auwē no hō’i ē,” Aleka murmured. “You surprise me, you do. I didn’t expect I’d ever see you in a state like this.”

  “I’ve work ahead of me,” was all Kenmuir could find to say.

  She rose and regarded him closely. “One thing, amigo. What’s this ‘I’? You’re not going alone.”

  His pacing jarred to a halt. “What? You? Untrained and—and vulnerable—No, ridiculous.”

  “I’m a quick study,” Aleka said. “I can learn what I’ll need to be of some help.” She addressed Matthias. “Can’t I, señor?”

  The Rydberg smiled. “I believe you had better have a partner, Captain Kenmuir. I’m too decrepit. This lass strikes me as being potentially the most competent person we have on hand.”

  “Besides,” Aleka told them, “it’s my mission too. And, and, Pele’s teeth, Ian, I won’t let you go without me!”

  42

  “God speed you.” The ancient words seemed to follow Kenmuir and Aleka out of Guthrie House. Matthias did not, nor anyone else. Alone, they crossed the lawn toward the forest.

  Light streamed from a sun close to the sea. It set grass and the massed needles of trees aglow. The Moon stood in deepening blue nearly as high as it was going to mount. Though the day’s mildness lingered, Kenmuir pulled his hooded cloak tighter about him. He would have wished for clouds to veil this freehold a little from the seeing, unseen orbiting robots.

  But for the quickest passage today, launch must be now; and to wait would be to run a worse risk. Into the past fifty-odd hours, less a few for sleep, had been crammed as much preparation as was possible, study, simulation practice, planning. What was to come of it, that could never be foreseeable.

  Beneath the alertness that took hold of him in any crisis, tension pulsed and shivered. The rugged bark of a fir, its fragrance, the scuff of his feet on duff, its crackly yielding to his weight, were vivid as lightning. More than biochemical stimulant upbore him. He was bound on a mission, perhaps his last but surely his greatest.

  Silent, he and Aleka passed along the trail through the woods and out into the clearing. Shadow brimmed it. Light burned yet on treetops around and on the prow of the spaceship. Poised within the clear cylindrical shelter, she thrust her torpedo shape aloft to outshine the Moon.

  A stone wall guarded the shrine. In front of its entryway, a two-meter block held a bronze tablet bearing an account of what Kyra Davis had done. Here Fireball folk always paused, as at an altar. Kenmuir and Aleka gave salute.

  Sometimes those who came went on into the ship, for special rites or just to service her. Several had done it of late. They too had worn cloaks, in their case to hide the equipment and rations they took aboard. The hope was that this would touch off no alarm in the surveillance machines—another ceremony, another assertion of an identity long since obsolete. Leading the way onward, Kenmuir took care to pace slowly.

  A mechanism permanently activated detected his approach and extruded a ramp from beneath the aft personnel lock, which opened. Man and woman ascended. For a bare instant, they glanced about at the living forest and took a breath. Then they went inside. The valve shut, the ramp retracted.

  Beyond the chamber, Kenmuir doffed his cloak. To stow it in a locker was sheer reflex; he noticed and grinned at himself. Aleka did likewise. They were both clad in skinsuits, to slip directly into space outfits. Even now, the sight of her caught at him. “Come along,” he said hastily.

  When the ship rested on her landing jacks, passageways through the length of her became vertical shafts. You used fixed ladders. The climb between pearl-gray bulkheads went past sections where remembrances of the original pilot darted forth, stowed high-acceleration couches, door to the wash cubicle, folded galley manifold, closet for personal possessions, multiceiver with vivifer, hobby kit, a family picture faded to a blur … Air hung heavy. It would not freshen until the recycler and ventilators resumed work.

  To him the command cabin was archaic, a bit of history, to her new and foreign, but in the simulator both had grown familiar with it. They took their seats before the control console and secured their harnesses. Viewscreens and displays were blank, meters dead. Kenmuir sought after words. Aleka’s smile flashed taut. “Go,” she said to him. “Go for broke.”

  His fingers moved across the board. Lights glowed, needles quivered, numbers and graphics appeared, the forward viewscreen filled with sky. A rustle of air reached him, as if somewhere lungs were stirring. His voice sounded unnaturally loud. “Full readiness. Immediate liftoff.”

  The voice from the speaker was female, husky, Kyra Davis’s own. So had she wanted it. “Salud. … It’s been a long time. … You are strangers.” His glance flipped involuntarily to the scanners whereby Kestrel observed him. The voice firmed. “We have no clearance.”

  Part of the study had been of the language as it was spoken in that era. Kenmuir tried to form a pronunciation close enough for the robot to understand. “Emergency.”

  Sensors were sweeping around. “No spacefield here. Liftoff in surroundings like these is unlawful. And I am enclosed.”

  Hard to grasp that this was no sophotect, merely a robot, without conscious mind or independent will. He knew not how many such he had dealt with in his life, but here was something different. Here was a machine that had flown with Kyra Davis, served her, conversed and played games with her, maybe listened to her secret confessions and heard her weep. More than database entries remained. Against all reason, to Kenmuir, a spirit haunted the ship.

  He had not expected it would hurt to key the Override code.

  He did.

  The orders jerked out of him: “We’re bound for the Moon. The shell is hyalon, tough, but you can break through if you boost at ten g. Then reduce to two g and proceed. However, don’t make directly for Luna. Set a course that will skim us past it, as if to get a gravity boost for a destination—” He gave coordinates, arbitrarily chosen, that would point them to deep space, well off the ecliptic. “In about an hour I’ll tell you the maneuver we actually want, and you can figure your deceleration vectors accordingly.” He didn’t care to do it earlier because he didn’t know what would happen. By then the whole plan might have crashed.

  “Confirming.” Displays repeated the instructions. They gathered detail as computation sped by. “I warn you, this is dangerous. I’m streamlined for getting around on the likes of Mars or Titan, not Earth. Maybe the laws of astronautics changed while I was asleep, but, hombre, the laws of physics can’t have.”

  If only she didn’t sound so human, so alive.

  Aleka stroked the console. “You’ll swing it, Kestrel,” she said. “You did a lot more for Kyra.”

  “Gracias,” replied the voice, as warm as hers. Briskly: “Liftoff in sixty seconds.”

  Kenmuir and Aleka spent them looking into one another’s eyes.

  Thunder boomed through their bones. Weight crammed them back. Darkness swooped in.
>
  It retreated. Kenmuir drew a gasp. Acceleration had dropped to twice normal. His gaze roved the view-screens. Aft, beneath, fire crowned the trees around the blackened clearing. Well, the ecological service would soon quench it. Forward, heaven was purpling toward night.

  The hull pierced most of Earth’s atmosphere while he sat half-conscious. The last vibrations ebbed away, the sky went black, stars came forth. The only noises he heard were his breath and thudding blood. No sound rose from the engine. A plasma drive was too efficient, out here where it belonged.

  Aleka stared ahead, hugged herself, and whispered, “We’re on the loose. We really are.”

  “For the moment,” Kenmuir mumbled.

  She nodded. “Traffic Control around the world must be like a hornets’ nest kicked over. Why aren’t they calling us?”

  “This ship isn’t integrated with the system,” he reminded her. Too many facts to learn in too short a time. Some would not come at once when summoned. Which was he forgetting? “They’ll have to find the appropriate band, and then I suppose they’ll assign a sentience to their end.”

  In the after screens Earth’s horizon was a huge sapphire arc. It contracted ever faster. Soon the planet would lie whole within the frames. Slowing at an equal rate after turnover, Kestrel would reach Luna inside three hours. Their bodies in good condition and nanochemically reinforced, her riders could well endure doubled weight that long and arrive fit for action.

  If they did.

  “Direct a laser communication to Luna,” Kenmuir said, and specified the coordinates.

  “Zamok Vysoki,” responded the ship. “I remember. … Ready.”

  “Ian Kenmuir to the lady Lilisaire,” he intoned. A part of him wanted to say, “Well done” to Kestrel, which kept the beam aimed and Doppler-compen-sated throughout her furiously mounting velocity. “I am bound for deep space on your service. TrafCon objects. Get the data on their movements before they clamp down secrecy. If you can, obstruct pursuit and intervention, but please don’t endanger anyone. Out.”

  He didn’t know whether the message was received. Perhaps the facilities at the castle were jammed or otherwise disabled by the opposition. Certainly surveillance heard everything; and he had no encrypting capabilities. Mention of Proserpina would likely have provoked immediate, radical counteraction. Besides, it was a bargaining counter to hold in reserve—an ace in the hole, Aleka had said, thinking of some obscure game. The purpose of Kenmuir’s call was mainly to further his deception. Make the hunters concentrate their strength and build up their velocities on a trail that he would suddenly leave. Then he might for a brief spell be free to enter Dagny’s tomb.

  A light blinked red. “Communication from Earth,” the ship told them. “It claims absolute priority.”

  “Make contact,” Kenmuir ordered.

  No image appeared. The videos weren’t compatible. He knew the voice, however. Once Matthias realized what kind of agent was visiting him, he had surreptitiously had a man of his record whatever was feasible. He played the recording for these two as part of their briefing.

  “Spaceship Kestrel null registry, respond at once.”

  “Hello, Venator,” the spaceman said, and heard his companion catch her breath. Himself, he was not very surprised.

  “Kenmuir?” The tone was equally cool. “I rather thought so. And greeting, Alice Tam. It’s doubtless you who boarded with him.”

  Kenmuir signed her not to speak. Why give anything away? “I daresay you’d like an explanation.”

  “More than that, my friend. Considerably more. Do you two have any conception of what you have brought on yourselves?”

  “A public inquiry will determine whether we are justified.”

  “Everyone at Guthrie House will be arrested, you know. You’ve probably destroyed your beloved Fireball Trothdom. Did you intend that?”

  Fireball Enterprises had destroyed itself in bringing down an evil, the spaceman thought. For the first time, he wondered what agonies of soul Matthias was undergoing.

  “Something may yet be salvaged,” Venator urged. “Cease acceleration, admit boarders when they match velocity, and come back to discourse like reasonable human beings.”

  “Will the world listen in?” Kenmuir demanded. “What guarantees of that can you give us?”

  “None. You would see through any trick we attempted, as suspicious as you are. How can I persuade you that this is not a matter which ought to be public?”

  Kenmuir’s lips pulled back from his teeth. “That would be difficult, wouldn’t it?” Inwardly he thought Matthias’s choice had been easy, set beside this that he must make. Were he and Aleka in the right?

  “Every minute you let go by, you’re in worse trouble,” Venator said. “What cause do you imagine you’re serving? Lilisaire’s? What she intends—we have reason to believe—could cost millions of lives. Do you want them on your conscience?”

  “No. If you’re telling the truth. Are you?” Now Kenmuir could speak the name. “Your people lied about Proserpina for lifetimes.”

  “There are good reasons to keep that confidential, till the world is ready. I—no, the cybercosm will be glad to explain them to you, in privacy.”

  “Will it? Or will we—my partner and I—simply disappear?”

  Venator sighed. “You’ve been watching too many historical dramas.” Sternly: “Consider this an ultimatum. If you surrender now, clemency is possible, for you and for Fireball. Later, I fear not.”

  “What about the Covenant, and our rights under it? I tell you again, we want total disclosure. Otherwise you’re in worse violation than we could ever be.”

  “The Covenant makes provision for emergencies—” Venator broke off. After a half minute, while Earth dwindled and Luna grew: “You are determined.”

  “We are,” Kenmuir said to him and to himself.

  “Your record suggests you mean that. I shall not let you talk a delaying action.” Venator laughed softly. “Nor shall I wish you luck. But may you survive. I’d like to talk candidly with you, intelligence to intelligence. Ave atque vale.”

  The light went out. “Transmission ended,” the ship said.

  Kenmuir glanced once more at Earth. If he could broadcast, rouse those who loved freedom—But the signal must go through satellite relays if it was to have any chance of being heard, and they were under control.

  And how many on the planet would especially care?

  Matthias had said he felt the walls closing in, all his life. Kenmuir had not, until lately. At least, not in the upper part of his mind. Down below, had he too sensed that he was caged?

  Was he?

  He shook the questions off, as a dog shakes off the water of a cold river, and began unharnessing. “It should be a steady run,” he told Aleka, “but we’d better have spacesuits on, in case.” He’d definitely need his.

  She nodded. Under two gravities, the dark hair fell straight and thickly past her face. “’Ae.”

  They went aft. For a few minutes before donning the gear, they kissed.

  When they returned, he called for data on pursuit. They were few and the probable errors were high, but instruments did appear to show two or three vessels bound through an intercept cone for his deep-space course. How they proposed to stop Kestrel short of ramming, he didn’t know. But they were of modern design with far more delta v. If necessary, they could hound her till she exhausted her reaction mass, then draw alongside.

  He began entering the detailed instructions that would enable Aleka to take command. “I hope I’m not too clumsy with you,” he said into his communicator, impulsively, foolishly.

  “You haven’t Kyra’s skill,” Kestrel answered, “but your hands feel much like hers.”

  43

  The ship neared Luna.

  By then it was certainly clear to the hunters that they had been deceived and this was in fact her destination. But they could not stop her. All spacecraft capable of interception were now too distant to arrive in time. There
were no missiles available that she could not dodge. Those emplaced on the Moon were few and slow, intended for unlikely targets, such as a large meteoroid on a catastrophic orbit. Constabulary and Peace Authority forces were doubtless on full alert, but that was of no immediate help.

  The moment came when Aleka looked into the eyes behind Kenmuir’s helmet and said through the radio, “Aloha. Let’s hope it’s not forever. You’ve become … more than a friend, do you know?” He found no words, could merely smile and touch a glove to her hand before they went their separate ways.

  Waiting, enclosed in an airlock chamber, the drive unit and its mass tank so heavy under the acceleration that he must sit against them, he felt a slight shock, and after a minute or two another. Aleka had dispatched their decoys. He imagined the carrier modules, braking down toward widespread points on the surface—points not far from Selenarchic strongholds. He pictured Aleka, hastening back to the command cabin, transmitting to Zamok Vysoki: Lilisaire, have someone retrieve those cylinders before the opposition does. No telling if the Lunarian, or any Lunarian, got that message, or was able to act on it, or willing to try. But it should distract the government’s forces. With reasonable luck, his departure should escape their attention.

  Of course, they’d keep their radars and other detectors constantly on this vessel. However, she’d oriented her hull so that he probably wouldn’t register as he left. If a beam did happen to sweep across him afterward, he could hope the program would note him as a piece of cosmic debris and continue following the ship.

  The plan might not work. No matter how carefully he and Kestrel had calculated the odds on the basis of accessible data, it was a gamble.

  Life always was.

  Weight vanished. Engine turned off, the ship swung around Luna at scarcely more than low orbital speed. He felt the throb of the air pump emptying the chamber. Light from the overhead fixture shrank to a puddle, with vague reflections off the sides, as diffusion ceased. He braced his muscles. Time to go. An uncanny calm was upon him.