Free enterprise, in a human sense, had never existed here. As if to compensate, war and similar follies had always, by human standards, occurred on an incredibly small scale. The world state had ample reserves for a space program.
Soon Betans discovered the T machine orbiting Centrum, exactly opposite their planet. In the next ten centuries, with vast effort and patience, they found guidepaths through a hundred separate star gates; they colonized half a dozen uninhabited globes; they met a score of other intelligent races, learned from them, and thereby enriched beyond measure their own civilization.
But at the same time, the foundations of that civilization were being eroded away, ever faster. The biological revolution went far more slowly than anything that important would have gone through mankind; still, it went, inexorably. While males, having overcome their physical dependence on females, were generation by generation losing their spiritual dependence as well, chemistry made controllable the reproductive cycle. A female could be in heat or not as she chose, whenever she chose.
The psychological effects of this were at once liberating and devastating. The primordial harmony with sun and stars was no more—or was, at most, a matter of conscious decision. If she entered a hitherto masculine field like spacefaring, she had to settle not just her working relationships, but the question of her identity, who and what she truly was. She never quite succeeded. Confusion and embitterment spread, also to those who stayed home. Too often sexuality became a weapon.
Prophets, philosophers, and common folk alike sought after a viable, satisfying new ideal. The example of alien sentiences, the knowledge that the Others existed, made their quests doubly intense, their disappointments doubly agonizing.
When Emissary arrived, the psychosexual dilemma had brought Beta to a crisis. Restlessness, eccentricity, mental illness, crime, tumult were steeply on the rise. No matter how busy, prosperous, interested in what they were doing, few of the more fortunate were altogether happy, and in many the sadness underlay their whole beings.
Some actually urged using time travel to abort the entire development of science; but if nothing else, this was impossible because no path was known which would fetch a ship out at Centrum very far in the past, nor did it seem likely that any could be found. Proposals heard much more often, that the race go “back to nature” by an act of will, were equally quixotic. Without modern technology, nearly the whole population, belike the whole species, must die; and that technology could Only be run by the sexually emancipated. There was nowhere to go but forward… in what direction, though?
Then Emissary arrived.
As communication improved, year by year, excitement waxed among the more discerning Betans. What had been an intriguing academic project took on a gigantic significance. These bipeds were not simply a new type of sophonts. They were by birthright what the Betans were struggling to become.
Their sexual pattern occurred in several breeds elsewhere, but there too many differences existed as well, too profound affecting too much the forms that it took. (For instance, one race, winged, was perpetually migratory, around and around its world. None of its institutions, mores, attitudes, beliefs were adaptable to surface dwellers.) Humans, despite every divergence, had a basic likeness to their hosts. Proof lay in the affinities which developed between individuals of the two kinds.
From scientific study, from literature, from friendship, Betans could hope to learn what it meant to be that kind of male and female, and how to be it. This would not happen in a single generation or a single century; what insight was gained might take a thousand years to transform civilization; the end result would surely be no copy, but uniquely Betan. Yet here could well be an approach to understanding. The lodestar for which so many had searched for so long, blind in their pain, could well be Sol.
Fidelio had begged it of Joelle: “Teach us your ways of love.”
Neither she nor Christine paid close heed to the weather. Sunset gales were sometimes dangerous, but Centrum was Earth-days above the horizon. Besides, those winds came out of the west. Rain this early was unusual but welcome, lifting the heat. If any fell, afterward their clothes and footgear would quickly dry. They walked on bearing their private storms.
But at last Chris drew the older woman to her, for else the air would have ripped the words from her mouth: “I say, don’t you think we’d better head back?”
Joelle looked around. The sky was inky. Lightning forked, thunder banged. Gray rags of cloud flew beneath. Spindrift blew stinging off a sea that reared, trampled, crashed, exploding its darkness into white foambursts, grinding the shingle together with a noise as of mighty millstones. She could not see far, but to the end of sight, bushes moved in brown, gold, red waves; trees were flailing; torn-off leaves and fronds whipped past, away into murk. The wind roared and yelled. It closed around her and thrust like a chill, turbulent billow, like the solar tidal bore that had drowned Alexander Vlantis. And still it strengthened.
“Yes,” she called. “Shelter in the car. Not try to lift before this is over.”
They turned about. Now the rain smote, first in spears, then in axes, then in a hammer whose single stroke went on and on forever. It torrented over the hard-baked soil, clutching at feet, until that began to dissolve in mud. The women slipped, fell, crawled half erect, clung to each other for help, and staggered on. The tempest filled Joelle’s skull with blast, shriek, yowl. Thunder shook her bones.
This is impossible! a walled-off part of her cried. In eight Terrestrial years, twenty-five Betan, we’ve met nothing of this kind… before evening… never!
The holothete within her responded passionlessly: What are twenty-five years in the duration of a world? Given sufficient time, anything that can happen will happen. Probably a massive cold front, sliding down from the arctic on a freakish path, has driven the terminator storms ahead of it. You should have checked a meterorological report before you left. But do not feel guilty. Only when you are in rapport with your machine can you think of everything.
The wind rose and rose. Lightning turned the rain to mercury, then lightlessness boomed down anew. Now the hail came. Stones bounced across the land and whitened it. They hit flesh, bruised, drew blood which instantly washed away. There was no breasting that barrage. The humans turned and groped west, backs to it, seeking for a lee.
A shadow loomed ahead, a tree to huddle behind. They lurched around it, blinded, deafened, embraced.
A whip-thin branch flayed open Joelle’s scalp. She fell to her hands and knees, down in the mud and tumbling water. A flash showed her the limb wrapped around Christine’s neck.
It let go, it let her fall too. Quadruped, Joelle crept to her. Scarlet welled from Christine’s mouth. She reached upward, into the hail. Joelle crouched, trying to be a roof. Christine’s hands dropped, her eyes rolled back, lightning glimmered off their blankness. Joelle put lips to lips.
No use. A fractured larynx is swiftly fatal.
Joelle knelt under the tree with Christine’s body in her arms.
XII
AT THE PROPER MOMENT in her orbit around Demeter, Chinook’s main engine awoke. For a few seconds, her electromagnetic shield against cosmic radiation was switched off. It came on again, rapidly building up a high positive potential on the hull, as soon as the plasma jet had reached dynamic equilibrium. At a standard one gravity of acceleration, which was about her upper limit when reaction mass tanks were full, the spaceship spiraled free and lined out for the T machine. Since it was at the L4 point, in the same path around Phoebus as the planet but sixty degrees ahead, the journey—with turnover at midpoint followed by braking—would theoretically take seventy-three hours, in practice a little more.
When everything was in order, Brodersen ordered all systems left on automatic and all hands to the common room. On his way there from the command center (which his mind, remembering cruises along Juan de Fuca and northward through the stern glories of the Inside Passage, still called the bridge) he felt Earth weight drag at h
im, a fourth more than what Demeter gave. He made sufficient interplanetary trips annually that he knew he’d adjust to this before long, together with watches set according to the Terrestrial day; but every time, his body was a smidgin slower about it. Passing down a companionway and a circular corridor, a yielding green carpet underfoot but otherwise bare gray and white paint, he wondered if he might not be thinking of himself as starting to get old, were it not for Caitlín.
Apart from furniture and recreation equipment, the common room was equally bleak. On notice as short as he’d given, nobody could have brought decorations or done anything else to add a touch of cheer. Yet when he saw her, the chamber came radiant.
From her backpack she had taken a brief crocus-colored dress. It set her like a sun against the large viewscreen before which she stood enraptured. Demeter filled a quarter of that scene, dayside cobalt blue shading into turquoise and sapphire, swirled with virginal white that here and there gave ocher glimpses of land, nightside a phantom of moonglow. The brilliance dazzled stars out of vision until you looked away, toward the frame, and let your eyes make ready to receive their myriads. “Glory, glory,” he heard her croon, “and how could you not be a mother of life?”
“Easily,” he couldn’t help saying.
She jumped around, laughed for joy, and barefoot sped toward him. The added load on her seemed unfelt. Well, she does abolish gravity, flitted through him before the beloved mass collided and clung. She smelled of very recent soap and scrubbing, but also of herself, and an odor of sunshine lingered in the loose hair. Breasts strained against the barrel of his chest. The kiss went on.
“Whoa, whoa, horsey,” he muttered when they came up for air. “The others’ll be here in a clockblink.”
“The Others?” She had such range of tone, with her grin to see as well, that he heard the capital letter. “Is it peeping Toms they are? Maybe they’ll learn somewhat. Maybe we can trade technical information.”
“You know I mean the crew, you spinhead.” He disengaged. “Things’ll be complicated aplenty without them finding their aged and supposed-to-be-revered captain in your clutches.”
“Should they find him in someone else’s clutches? You cannot suppose they’ll take me for your maiden aunt. I disqualify on two counts at least.”
His gladness flickered out. “And that’ll bring on worse than envy, I’m afraid. Especially—Later, I’ll explain later. But look, Pegeen, macushla, I realize this is a grand adventure to you. Except it’s not. It’s an ugly business. It’s too goddamn likely to turn into the kind that gets remembered as,’ More fun, and more people getting killed—’” Fist smote palm. “You could be among ’em, oh, Christ, you could.”
Sobered, she answered low, “Or you. Aye. If you want me to bounce less, I’ll try my best, for you.” Impulse returned, to send her fingers along his head and the blocky line of his jaw, caressing the slight bristliness. “But faith, Daniel, pessimism fits you badly, the fighter born that you are.”
“I’m a realist, or trying to be. You live in a universe that’s good and cheerful, same as yourself. I love you for that. You brighten mine up for me no end. Reality, though, reality doesn’t give beans for our notions.” Brodersen felt his ears warming, heard his words stumbling. He needed a way to phase out his sermon, and snatched at what seemed handiest. “Let me give you a for-instance. When I came in, I caught you claiming Demeter has to be … uh… viviferous because it’s beautiful. That don’t follow. Every planet I’ve seen is beautiful in its style, and nearly every one is dead and always has been. You make life out to matter more than it does.”
She bridled a trifle. “Are you thinking I’ve not dealt with pain and death, and me a paramedic? Nor ever sat contemplating a fossil and—” She broke off. A crewman came through the door.
The rest were close behind. Brodersen shook hands, introduced Caitlín to those who had not met her earlier, exchanged “How’ve you been?” with each, urged beer or soft drinks from the cooler upon them, and at length got them seated in a row before him, his girl demure at its end. He hitched himself up onto the pool table, swung his legs, unlimbered pipe and tobacco.
“Okay,” he began in English, which his followers used as a mutual tongue oftener than Spanish. “First off, let me say I can’t figure how to thank you, and better not try. We shouldn’t be too hard on those who didn’t elect to come along. There probably aren’t any absolute rights or wrongs in this affair. A person has to choose; and could be, when the chips come down, we here’ull wish we’d chosen different. I think not. But regardless of what happens, may I sing high soprano in the Grand Khan’s harem if ever I forget your loyalty today.”
Not simple loyalty, he thought. They’re too smart and free to be any man’s dogs. I’d not’ve signed them on if they weren’t what they are. Only, what are they? Do they themselves know? Risking your neck against hostile stars is not the same thing as risking your honor against duly constituted public authorities. Nine out of fourteen refused. I don’t suppose among these five I’d find two identical motivations. Can I guess what the drives are? I can’t flat-out ask. No telling what that might provoke. However, the information is almighty important, ¿noes verdad, old son? His gaze raked them.
Stefan Dozsa, mate and electronics officer. Cocky as usual.
Philip Weisenberg, engineer. Calmly watchful.
Martti Leino, assistant engineer. Glowering from Caitlín to Brodersen and back again.
Susanne Granville, computerman. Intent, hunched forward in her chair, look never leaving the captain.
Sergei Nikolayevitch Zarubayev, gunner and principal boat pilot. His usual sober mien had lightened when Caitlín gave him an energetic hello kiss; they happened to be friends of old.
Stop dithering. Bend on the spinnaker!
“My wife’s explained to you what kind of a chowder kettle we’re in,” Brodersen proceeded, “but under the circumstances—written communication and fake chatter, right?—probably she couldn’t go into much detail. I’ll quack on about the subject as long and as tee-jusly as you want, the bunch of you today or individually later on. For now, though, let me just summarize.”
He ticked points off on thick fingers. “The robot observer at the gate, that you know about, reported what I swear has got to’ve been Emissary coming back. She was escorted on to the Solar System—where else?—and hasn’t been heard from since. A couple of you who chanced to be around heard me grumble out my suspicions. Afterward some elementary research pretty well confirmed them. When I braced the governor, she fed me a steaming dish of moose turds, raisined with hints about awful things rampaging through the galaxy, and ended by slapping a house arrest on me and a gag rule on Lis. Well, I snuck out, and here we are.
“This is not exactly what you had in mind, when you volunteered to train for Chinook and then stand by in your regular jobs for me, hoping you’d get a crack at going to the stars. My compliments to your brains. You’ve seen the route we’ve got to go beforehand, and that if we don’t, nobody will.
“I suppose Lis made clear to you what I suspect. This isn’t the Union government as a whole acting, it’s a faction within. Simple publicity should blow the conspirators out of the sky, if we don’t allow ’em time to armorplate their arrangements.
“I aim to go to Earth and contact various people I know, mainly the Rueda tribe. That’ll be under wraps, to avoid touching off possible alarms. Meanwhile you can take it easy aboard ship; officially you’re nothing but a crew ferrying Chinook to her charterers. And maybe that’ll be the whole game, far’s we’re concerned. Maybe my contact can take it from there. I’d sure like that.
“If not, though—well, my wife warned you, didn’t she? I’ve no notion of what’ll happen. I’ll play the cards as they fall, and if I make a bad bet, you go broke too.” He jabbed the stem of his pipe toward them before filling the bowl. “I dunno if laws are left on the books about piracy. We could be forced to that.
“Listen, if this is more than you bargained for,
do me a last favor and tell me, will you? I’ll give you a formal discharge, I’ll enter in the log that you protested, I’ll keep you under the very mildest restriction, and I’ll let you off at the first place safe for everybody concerned. Okay? Speak.”
He tamped down tobacco and got it lit while he waited. Silence stretched.
“I didn’t figure you would,” he said in due course. “The offer stays open while we travel peaceful. Once action commences, if any does, that’ll be too late to resign. Understood?”
Will I shoot whoever gives way under fire… out of these, my friends? Yes, I’d have to, and invoke space law at my trial, unless it turned out this whole safari sprang from a terrible mistake of mine. In that case, I’d rate the treatment my fathers handed out to bandits.
Ventilation whirred. The smoke gave his tongue a soothing love-bite. “End of speech,” he finished. “Questions? Comments? Catcalls?”
“Yes.” Martti Leino leaned forward, a motion that splashed beer from the mug he gripped. Harshly: “What is…Miz Mulryan doing aboard?”
Expected. Brodersen studied him before replying. Lis’ youngest brother did not resemble her showing more of the Ladogan side of their descent: short, broad, snubnosed, a slightly Asian outline to his face, with sleek black hair and tilted blue eyes. His normal cheerfulness was quite gone.
“She hid me after I’d escaped,” Brodersen said. “Without her, I’d’ve had to stay someplace inhabited, and might’ve been recognized. Mainly, she’s to be our medical officer.”
“Her?” It was an open sneer.
“She’s on the staff of St. Enoch’s well qualified to treat anything that might hit us, like injuries. Also, she’ll double as quartermaster.” Brodersen nodded. “Oh, she’ll have her work cut out for her.”
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