The Avatar

by Poul Anderson

  The aliens had englobed her, a shield-burg.

  “Standard call,” Janigian directed. “Switch any response straight to me.”

  In less than a minute, the comscreen bore Daniel Brodersen’s visage. The days since last he came through to Sol had deepened the furrows therein, spread more gray across the coarse black hair, and given something else, indefinable, a look of farawayness… How was that possible?

  He smiled and drawled his Spanish the same as before: “Good day, Captain, or night if that’s what the clocks say. Listen, please. We are not unsuspecting innocents that you can blow out of space before they know it. But we come in absolute peace. If you shoot, we won’t shoot back. No need to. I hope you won’t squander the taxpayer’s ammunition on us. We’re proceeding to Earth. However, since we have a story to tell the entire human race, we’d like to begin with Copernicus and Alhazen. We hope you’ll hear us out and send a message—to official headquarters—bearing witness. Will you?”

  It trumpeted in Janigian. “Yes,” he said.

  Lawes took over the auxiliary set. “No,” he groaned. “They’re insurrectionists, I tell you, who must have recruited a fleet of monsters.”

  “Who told you?” Brodersen snorted.

  “Lawes,” Janigian said, “shut up. And let your men watch.”

  Brodersen began. He had recordings to project, and live scenes from inside the Betan ships. As he went on, Janigian’s shock became anger and mounted toward berserk rage. Lawes, incredulous at first, started after a time to show wrath of his own: until he must leave his post to forestall a mutiny.

  The bedside phone hauled Ira Quick out of nightmare. A crumbled house, a small dead girl accusing the sky, still holding her teddy bear, blood impossibly scarlet… Sweat was chill upon him. As he raised himself on an elbow and switched on a light, he saw how snow hissed by a nighted window. Beside him, a warm bundle, his wife moved, swimming toward wakefulness.

  He accepted. A face entered the panel, a voice began to rattle forth news received. Within seconds, Quick said: “Hold. Stop. I want to take this on another line. Record whatever else comes in till I recontact, and make sure your circuit is secured.”

  He swung feet to floor Alice sat up. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Confidential,” he replied. “Wait here.” He rose.

  Odd, thought a section of him, how one doesn’t feel the catastrophes immediately. Like the leg I broke skiing, or the blackmail attempt, or Bergdahl’s demand for a vote recount and investigation. I met those quite well. A person becomes temporarily an efficient automaton. The anguish comes later. He regarded Alice, judged her beautiful, regretted he would probably lose her, wished vaguely he had paid her more heed.

  “Darling, it must be awful,” she whispered. “Let me be with you. Please.”

  “No. Wait here, I told you.”

  In his study, he heard the report at length. It was confused and incomplete but quite unambiguous. He made the obvious rejoinders, left the instrument on special call, and went back upstairs to knock on the door of his incognito house guest.

  Simeon Ilyitch Makarov let him in. The short stout figure was attired in outrageously gaudy pajamas. “Well, what is it?” snapped the premier of Great Russia.

  Quick urged him back and closed the door behind them. “Bad news,” he said. “The worst, in fact.”

  Makarov gnawed his mustache and stood his ground.

  “Seems Brodersen’s returned. Leading a Betan fleet,” Quick jerked forth. “Alhazen tried to reach me, but they entered too fast. The word is from Copernicus to the Astronautical Control Board. Palamas notified me. She’s rattled, doesn’t know what to think, but guessed I deserve a chance. What could I tell her? Essentially, ‘Lies. Fraud. Preserve secrecy till we know more.’”

  “But it is not a fraud,” Makarov said slowly.

  “I hardly think so. Somehow that devil—” Quick gulped, headed off an attack of the shakes, and went into detail.

  “Well,” Makarov said. “Well.”

  The shakes resumed, worse. “What are we going to do?”

  “I go home, of course.” Makarov wheeled, stumped to the clothes keeper, opened it, and picked up his suitcase. “You will lend me a car to the airport.”

  “But—sir—” Quick fought himself. “We have to plan, coordinate, alert the organization.”

  “Yes. Meanwhile, deny. Keep tough, is that what you North Americans say? We have a few days until the enemy arrives at Earth.”

  “When he does—”

  “We must be ready.” Makarov sagged. For a moment he looked gray all over. “Politically I am terminated, like you. And my hopes.” He squared off, laid the suitcase on the bed, and commenced his packing. “I will try to get in position where I can bargain for my personal survival. Or else I arrange to disappear. I advise you do same.”

  No, I’m not prepared, I’m not the type, this isn’t that kind of country and I don’t’ have the right connections abroad, my time is up. Quick stared at the snowstorm. The public will turn on me. My choices are prison or a pistol.

  “God damn them!” he screamed “The ingrates! God damn them to hell!”

  XLIX

  THERE WERE FEW street lamps in Église de St. Michel, none in sight of the Brodersen house. As Elisabet Leino opened the door, she saw her lawn, flowerbeds, treetops frosty with moonlight. Both Persephone and Erion were aloft; double shadows reached across early dew. The air which entered was cool and quiet.

  She checked a sound of surprise and waited for the person to speak who had chimed for admittance. Light from within was less kind to Aurelia Hancock than the glow from heaven must have been. The Governor General of Demeter stood a while, staring downward, twisting fingers together. At last she raised her eyes and begged, “May I come in?”

  “Yes,” replied Lis, and stood aside.

  Hancock passed through. “Please, would you close the door? I’m here secretly.”

  Lis obliged, turned about, and confronted her visitor. The living room, carpet and hardwood floor, wainscot, picture window, fireplace that Dan had built, no longer felt serene. It felt alert. Even the cat on the sofa awoke and sent forth a yellow stare.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Lis invited automatically.

  “I don’t know if I can,” the other woman said in her wretchedness. She groped in her pouch for a cigarette.

  “A drink, then?”

  Hancock gave Lis a startled glance. “You’d drink with me?”

  “I offered you a drink.”

  “I see…. No, thank you.”

  Lis crossed to the hearth and leaned an elbow against the mantel above. Thereon rested a few souvenirs-heirloom candlestick from her parents, a rack of his pipes, a trophy from a figure skating contest which they had won together, the kind of things that belong in a home. Secure beside them, Lis demanded, “Why have you come?”

  Hancock started trembling. “To, to ask for your help, your forgiveness, and—”

  Lis raised her brows. “What do you suppose I can do? The news is out. The provisional governor ought to come through the gate in another day or so, and the investigating committee won’t be far behind. I’ve no official standing.”

  “But you’re Dan Brodersen’s wife!”

  “The man you did your best to get killed.” Lis struck fist on stone. “No. I shouldn’t have said that, maybe. I’ll believe what you told me before, over the phone, that you’d no such intention, that events got out of hand. Just the same, Aurie, you assumed a responsibility and you’ll have to bear the consequences.”

  Head bowed, Hancock drew forth the cigarette she had been after, but instead of kindling it, she shredded it with shivery fingers. “You don’t understand,” she mumbled. “I’m not asking anything for myself. I’m asking you take pity on Ira Quick.”

  Lis grew stiff in surprise. “What?”

  Again Hancock made herself look up. “You see him as a monster, the one who did in fact try to do away with your husband and, and choke
off everything you and Dan hoped for.” Her voice gathered force. “But he isn’t. He’s made some terrible mistakes, no doubt—though we’ll never know what might have happened if he’d won, will we? He’d’ve gone down in history as a statesman, a hero…. Never mind. He lost, that’s all. But can you possibly realize, he didn’t do what he did because of being evil? Ambitious, vainglorious, yes; he’s human. But he honestly thought he was doing what must be done.”

  “I’m not too sure of that,” said Lis.

  “Never mind,” Hancock repeated. She was crying now. “Only ask yourself, what purpose would revenge serve? Wouldn’t it be better for everybody—wouldn’t it start this new age of yours off right—if you forgave?”

  Lis was silent a few seconds before she said, “I asked you what you expect I could do, supposing I wanted to.”

  “Everything!” the visitor cried. Lower: “Grant me that I, I do know politics. Dan himself, he’s the man of the hour, the man of the century, but he does need to have charges against him dismissed, illegal actions that led to homicide and—If he made a public request for a general amnesty, who could refuse?” She knuckled her eyes. “You can get him to do it. He’s not a vindictive man, and…I told you, wouldn’t it be a hopeful gesture? No matter me. I’ll take whatever’s coming to me. I was a pawn anyway, it turns out. And no matter the rest of the conspirators, either. But Ira—” She sank to the floor, half curled up, weight rested on arms. “Ira, please, Ira!”

  Lis stood for a time in her own long-legged strength. Darknesses and brightnesses crossed her face. At last she murmured, mostly to herself: “They’re finished in public life, the lot of them. Dare they walk abroad any more on Earth? But Demeter still has whole continents for people to make a fresh beginning.”

  She would not touch the huddled form before her, but she said, “Yes, Aurie, I’ll put in the word you want. On your behalf also.”

  When she was alone except for the sleeping children, Lis returned to her study. That was a fair-sized chamber, efficiently laid out, full of up-to-date office equipment; but above the desk stood a hologram of Mt. Lorn and the undying snows. She paused, frowning at a comset, until she flipped its playback switch. Once more she reviewed the latest message from Brodersen in Lima. Image and voice alike registered weariness: “—just such a hellish lot of utter nonsense to wade through. No end in sight, either. You’d cope better than I’m doing, honey. And wouldn’t it be grand to have you here! I keep telling myself that isn’t really practical, then looking for ways to prove myself wrong—”

  Soon, however, he mentioned Caitlín. At first Lis skipped that part, then she bit her lip and played it over, twice. Thereafter she sat down and pondered. Finally she ran through the reply that she had been composing when Aurelia Hancock interrupted. She now had considerable to say that was new and important. Before she did, something remained which might matter a great deal more.

  Her electronic Doppelgänger looked out of the screen and declared: “—Your news is almost scary. Let me talk to her. The next few minutes of this are for her.”

  An awkward clearing of throat and shifting of position, followed by: “Caitlín, dear, hello. Salud. What Dan tells me about you does not sound good. Not that he says much, I think in part because he hasn’t much to say. Apparently you go about your life in a more or less normal fashion. But, well, for instance, he hasn’t mentioned any jokes between you and him, and he usually shares those with me. Or—” The tape recorded a doorchime and stopped.

  Lis considered, started the machine again, and spoke into the light-years behind it.

  “Dan, this is for Caitlín. Her alone. Switch off and let her have the rest. I’ve more to give you, but I’ll put that on the next track.” She knew he would honor the request.

  “Caitlín, I don’t think you’d better show this to Dan. Tell him it’s girl talk. God knows he has worries enough. You, your grief, that’s the heaviest of them.

  “Please,” Lis said, suddenly fighting for breath, “can you see I don’t want to make you feel guilty or anything? What you’ve been through, I’ll never be able to imagine. Or what you’re longing for—that’s more nearly the trouble, isn’t it? You’re lost in a dream of what was, and he senses you are, and—”

  She marshalled her thoughts. “You have to come back. For your own sake, and his, and, yes, mine. Mine, not only through him. I could book passage to Earth, Caitlín, since he’s going to be there for months yet. I would, except that you need all he can give. He mustn’t lose you to the half-life you’re in. I mustn’t either. I’ve discovered how much you are to me.”

  She sighed. “Oh, yes, I’ve been envious of you, and no doubt I will be once in a while in future. But not jealous. Not any longer. We both love him, and he loves both of us. Well, shouldn’t we care for each other?” A chuckle. “Could be the day will come when he envies me a little… or feels a little jealous. Which wouldn’t hurt him!

  “Caitlín, come home.

  “I’ve not been where you’ve been, but I am older than you and I have seen parts of life that you maybe haven’t. Let me suggest, let me call to you—”

  —When she was done, Lis rose and stretched, muscle by muscle. She’d scan her speech tomorrow, perhaps edit it, though merely for clarity; she knew what the counsel was, and hoped it might help. Meanwhile, how about a nightcap, some Sibelius, and bed? She’d want her full energy in the morning.

  To hell with being Griselda or even Penelope. She had work to do.

  L

  SPRING CAME EARLY that year to Ireland. On a morning thereof, Brodersen and Caitlín set out on a day-long ramble.

  This was in County Clare. Five centuries old, long abandoned, lately restored for renting to visitors, their cottage nonetheless held remembrances of generations who had been born within its walls, grown up, fallen in love, begotten and raised children, toiled, suffered, sorrowed, laughed, sung, dreamed, grown aged, died and been keened over. Low and whitewashed beneath a mossy thatch roof, it stood alone on a height overlooking the sea; they who dwelt here had mostly kept sheep. Several kilometers off, a village in a cove still housed fisher folk. Their manners being of an ancient kind, they did not rush to inform the world who was staying close by, but honored a wish for privacy that their priest had told them of. Meeting the famous pair in street or store, taking them out in a boat, drinking with them in the pub, the villagers were content to be friendly.

  “A fine day for sure,” Brodersen said. He put the knapsack that held lunch on his back while he looked around.

  Westward, gorse and bracken came to an abrupt end at a cliff edge. Afar, the waters shone tawny, emerald, quicksilver, in a shiver of small waves. Closer in, they burst in surf, white fountains, on rocks and skerries and steeps. This high up, he heard the roaring. Southward the land was likewise rugged, northward more so. Eastward it rolled in verdancy toward the blue bulk of a mountain whose top was the goal of his and Caitlín’s hike. Hawthorn hedges bloomed snowy along winding lanes. Scattered farmhouses sent chimney smoke into a sky where a few clouds wandered. Closer stood the grassy slopes of a rath, a circular earthwork which had guarded a homestead before St. Patrick walked through Erin; deserted at last, it became known as a haunt of the Sidhe, of whom the first tales were told before Christ walked through Galilee.

  A cool breeze bore odors of sea and soil and growth. High overhead, a lark sang.

  “Aye,” Caitlín said. “As if the country would bid us goodbye with a blessing.”

  He turned his gaze on her. Heavy shirt, slacks, and brogans could not hide erect slenderness or take away free-striding gracefulness. Bronze hair fell below a headband; a stray lock above fluttered. In the sun-touched, lightly freckled face, her eyes were more green than the quickening fields, and her smile held a merriment he had not seen from the time she left his ship for the Others to the time when they had for a while been by themselves in this place.

  “She, uh, she gave me the best blessing she can, way off on Demeter,” he said. “You.”


  Caitlín laughed. “Why, Dan, is it a bard you’d be?”

  “No. Hardly my line of work. But—oh, rats—I’m forever wanting to say how I feel about you, and never able.”

  “You’ve a better way than words for that, and you might consider a demonstration when we’ve rested on yonder peak. But first we must get there. Come.” She led him by the hand down a path to a narrow dirt road that rambled between its flowering hedges, now right, now left, more or less in the direction they wanted to go.

  When they had fallen into a steady pace—flex of muscles, swing and soft thud of shoes, lungs full, blood coursing—he ventured, “Another thing I can’t figure out how to tell, Pegeen, is how glad I am to see you back to your real self. Glad? Huh! I’d have died to bring it about.”

  Gravity descended upon her. “Was I that mournful?”

  “Oh, no. Somebody who hadn’t met you before would never guess anything strange had ever happened to you.”

  “I should hope not.” Her tone held a touch of grimness. The one secret that they of Chinook preserved was the fact of the avatars.

  “I lay on you a geas that you keep silent about this,” she had told her shipmates, “for my sake, and the sake of the Others, and likely the sake of many more.” Brodersen had added weight to that last by pointing out what lunacies, deceptions, and empty hankerings the knowledge would inspire, with no benefit to anybody. Doubtless a judgment that his crew would give and abide by the promise had been a factor in the decision to let them go home. Elsewhere it sufficed to say that the Others had, after study, made that decision.

  Walking beside Caitlín, Brodersen went on: “You didn’t go around openly brooding or acting important or any such childishness. In fact, the child in you seemed to have died. You didn’t joke or tease or skip down a corridor or, oh, the million things you used to. You never sang unless we asked, and they were never happy songs, and you didn’t make new ones. In bed with me—well, sure, you took pleasure, in a way, but there was no fun about it. And sometimes I’d catch you crying, like at night when you thought I was asleep, or I’d see the signs on you afterward. But you shied off from telling me why, till I figured I’d better pretend not to notice.”