Rich-in-Peace’s inn was not large, even by local standards, and few customers were present. Those sat on their tails at the counter, which had been split from a single scarletwood log, and talked with more excitement than usual. Leonie let the door screen fold behind her. “Hello,” she called. “We’re back for some of your delicious chowder.”
“And beer,” Strongtail reminded. “Never forget beer.”
Rich-in-Peace bustled around the counter. Her big amber eyes glistened. The house fell silent; this was her place, she was entitled to break the news.
“You have not heard?” she caroled.
“No, our radio went out on the way back.” Thrailkill replied. “What’s happened?”
She spread her hands. They had three fingers apiece, at right angles to each other. “But so wonderful!” she exclaimed. “A ship has come from your country. They say you can go home.” As if the implications had suddenly broken on her, she stopped. After a moment: “I hope you will want to come back and visit us.”
She doesn’t realize, flashed through the stupefaction in Thrailkill. He was only dimly aware of Leonie’s tight grasp on his arm. That’s a one-way trip.
Sunset smoldered away in bronze and gold. From the heights above Treequad, Kahn and Thrailkill could look past the now purple hills that flanked the Door, out to a glimpse of the Weather-womb Ocean. The xenologist sighed. “I always wanted to build a real seagoing schooner and take her there,” he said. “Coasting down to Gate-of-the-South—what a trip!”
“I am surprised that the natives have not done so,” Kahn said. “They appear to have the capability, and it would be better for trade than those toilsome overland routes you mentioned.”
“I suggested that, and my father before me,” Thrailkill answered. “But none of them cared to make the initial effort. Once we thought about doing it ourselves, to set an example. But we had a lot of other work, and too few of us.”
“Well, if the natives are so shiftless, why do you care about improving their lot?”
Thrailkill bristled at the insult to his Mithrans, until he remembered that Kahn could not be expected to understand. “‘Shiftless’ is the wrong word,” he said. “They work as hard as necessary. Their arts make everything of ours look sick. Let’s just call them less adventurous than humans.” His smile was wry. “Probably the real reason we’ve done so much here, and wanted to do so much more. Not for altruism, just for the hell of it.”
The mirth departed from him. He looked from the Door, past the twinkling lanterns of Goodwort and Withylet which guarded it, back across the mercury sheet of the Bay, to Treequad at his feet.
“So, I’m not going to build that schooner,” he said. Roughly: “Come on, we’d better return.”
They started downhill, over a trail which wound among groves of tall sweet-scented sheathbud trees. Leaves rustled in the twilight, a flock of marsh birds winged homeward with remote trum-petings, insects chirred from the pseudograsses. Below, Treequad was a darkness filling the flat-lands between hills and Bay. Lights could be seen from windows, and the Center tower was etched slim against the waters; but the whole impression was of openness and peace, with some underlying mystery to which men could not quite put a name.
“Why did you establish yourselves here, rather than at the town farther north?” Kahn asked. His voice seemed flat and loud, and the way he jumped from subject to subject was also an offense to serenity. Thrailkill didn’t mind, though. He had recognized his own sort of man in the dark, moody captain, which was why he had invited Kahn to stay with him and had taken his guest on this ramble.
Good Lord, what can he do but grab blindly at whatever he notices? He left Earth a generation ago, and even if he read everything we sent up till then, why, we never could transmit more than a fraction of what we saw and heard and did. He’s got two and a half—well, an Earth century’s worth of questions to ask.
Thrailkill glanced around. The eastern sky had turned plum color, where the first few stars trod forth. We ourselves, he thought, have a thousand years’ worth; ten thousand years’. But of course now those questions will never be asked.
“Why Treequad?” he said slowly. “Well, they already had a College of Poets and Ceremonialists here—call it the equivalent of an intellectual community, though in human terms it isn’t very. They made useful go-betweens for us, in dealing with less well-educated natives. And then, uh, Point Desire is a trading center, therefore especially worth studying. We didn’t want to disturb conditions by plumping our own breed down right there.”
“I see. That is also why you haven’t expanded your numbers?”
“Partly. We’d like to. This continent, this whole planet, is so underpopulated that— But a scientific base can’t afford to grow. How would everyone be brought home again when it’s terminated?”
Fiercely: “Damn you on Earth! You’re terminating us too soon!”
“I agree,” Kahn said. “If it makes any consolation, all the others are being ended too. They don’t mind so greatly. This is the sole world we have found where men can live without carrying around an environmental shell.”
“What? There must be more.”
“Indeed. But how far have we ranged? Less than fifty light-years. And never visited half the stars in that radius. You don’t know what a gigantic project it is, to push a ship close to the speed of light. Too gigantic. The whole effort is coming to an end, as Earth grows poor and weary. I doubt if it will ever be revived.”
Thrailkill felt a chill. The idea hadn’t occurred to him before, in the excitement of meeting the fer-riers, but— “What can we do when we get there?” he demanded. “We’re not fitted for… for city life.”
“Have no fears,” Kahn said. “Universities, foundations, vision programs, any number of institutions will be delighted to have you. At least, that was so when I left, and society appears to have gotten static. And you should have party conversation for the rest of your lives, about your adventures on Mithras.”
“M-m-m, I s’pose.” Thrailkill rehearsed some fragments of his personal years.
Adventure enough. When he and Tom Jackson and Gleam-of-Wings climbed the Snowtooths, white starkness overhead and the wind awhistle below them, the thunder and plumes of an avalanche across a valley, the huge furry beast that came from a cave and must be slain before it slew them. Or shooting the rapids on a river that tumbled down the Goldstream Hills, landing wet and cold at Volcano to boast over their liquor in the smoky-raftered taproom of Monstersbane Inn. Prowling the alleys and passing the lean temples of the Fivedom; standing off a horde of the natives’ half-intelligent, insensately ferocious cousins, in the stockade at Tearwort; following the caravans through the Desolations, down to Gate-of-the-South, while drums beat unseen from dry hills; or simply this last trip, along the Benison through fogs and waterstalks, to those lands where the dwellers gave their lives to nothing but rites that made no sense and one dared not laugh—Indeed Earth offered nothing like that, and the vision-screen people would pay well for a taste of it to spice their fantasies.
Though Thrailkill remembered quieter times more clearly, and did not see how they could be told. The Inn of the Poetess, small and snug beneath the stormcloud mass of Demon Mountain, firelight, songs, comradeship; shadows and sun-flecks and silence in Hermit Woods; sailing out to Fish Hound Island with Leonie on their wedding night, that the sunrise might find them alone on its crags (how very bright the stars had been—even little Sol was a beacon for them); afterward, building sand castles with Vivian on Broadstrands, while the surf rolled in from ten thousand kilometers of ocean. They used to end such a day by finding some odd eating place in Kings Point Station or Goodwort, and Vivian would fall asleep to the creak of the sweeps as their ferry trudged home across the water.
Well, those were private memories anyway.
He realized they had been walking for quite some time in silence. Only their footfalls on the cobbles, now that they were back in town, or an occasional trill from the ho
uses that bulked on either side, could be heard. Courtesy insisted he should make conversation with the vaguely visible shape on his right. “What will you do?” he asked. “After we return, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Kahn said. “Teach, perhaps.”
“Something technical, no doubt.”
“I could, if need be. Science and technology no longer change from generation to generation. But I would prefer history. I have had considerable time to read history, in space.”
“Really? I mean, the temporal contraction effect—”
“You forget that at one gravity acceleration, a ship needs a year to reach near-light speed, and another year to brake at the end. Your passengers will be in suspended animation, but we of the crew must stand watch.”
Kahn lit a cigaret. Earlier, Thrailkill had experimented with one, but tobacco made him ill, he found. He wondered for a moment if Earth’s food had the savor of Mithran. Funny. I never appreciated kernelkraut or sour nuts or filet of crackler till now, when I’m about to lose them.
The cigaret end brightened and faded, brightened and faded, like a tiny red watchlight in the gloaming. “After all,” Kahn said, “I have seen many human events. I was born before the Directorate came to power. My father was a radiation technician in the Solar War. And, too, mine are an old people, who spent most,of their existence on the receiving end of history. It is natural that I should be interested. You have been more fortunate.”
“And the Mithrans are luckier yet, eh?”
“I don’t know. Thus far, they are essentially a historyless race. Or are they? How can you tell? We look through our own eyes. To us, accomplishment equals exploitation of the world. Our purest science and art remain a sort of conquest. What might the Mithrans do yet, in Mithran terms?”
“Let us keep up the base,” Thrailkill said, “and we’ll keep on reporting what they do.”
“That would be splendid,” Kahn told him, “except that there will be no ships to take your descendants home. You have maintained yourselves an enclave of a few hundred people for a century. You cannot do so forever. If nothing else, genetic drift in that low a population would destroy you.”
They walked on unspeaking, till they reached the Center. It was a village within the village, clustered around the tower. Thence had sprung the maser beams, up through the sky to the relay satellite, and so to those on Earth who wondered what the universe was like. No more, Thrailkill thought. Dust will gather, nightcats will nest in corroding instruments, legends will be muttered about the tall strangers who built and departed, and one century an earthquake will bring down the tower which talked across space, and the very myths will die.
On the far side of the Mall, close to the clear plash of Louis’ Fountain, they stopped. There lay Thrailkill’s house, long and solid, made to endure. His grandfather had begun it, his father had completed it, he himself had wanted to add rooms but had no reason to when he would only be allowed two children. The windows were aglow, and he heard a symphony of Mithran voices.
“What the devil!” he said. “We’ve got company.” He opened the door.
The fireplace danced with flames, against the evening cold. Their light shimmered off the beautiful grain of wainscots, glowed on patterned rugs and the copper statue which owned one corner, and sheened along the fur of his friends. The room was full of them: Strongtail, Gleam-of-Wings, Nightstar, Gift-of-God, Dreamer, Elf-in-the-Forest, and more and more, all he had loved who could get here quickly enough. They sat grave on their tails, balancing cups of herb tea in their hands, while Leonie attended to the duties of a hostess.
She stopped when Thrailkill and Kahn entered. “How late you are!” she said. “I was growing worried.”
“No need,” Thrailkill replied, largely for Kahn’s benefit. “The last prowltiger hereabouts was shot five years ago.” I did that Another adventure— hai, what a stalk through the folded hills! (The Mithrans didn’t like it They attached some kind of significance to the ugly brutes. But prowltigers never took a Mithran. When the Harris boy was killed, we stopped listening to objections. Our friends forgave us eventually.) He looked around. “You honor this roof,” he said with due formalism. “Be welcome in good cheer.”
Strongtail’s music was a dirge. “Is the story true that you can never return?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Thrailkill said. Aside to Kahn: “They want us to stay. I’m not sure why. We haven’t done anything in particular for them.”
“But you tried,” said Nightstar. “That was a large plenty, that you should care.”
“And you were something to wonder at,” Elf-in-the-Forest added.
“We have enjoyed you,” Strongtail said. “Why must you go?”
“We took council,” sang Gift-of-God, “and came hither to ask from house to house that you remain.”
“But we can’t!” Leonie’s words cracked over.
“Why can you not?” responded Dreamer.
It burst upon Thrailkill. He stood in the home of his fathers and shouted: “Why not? We can!”
The long night drew toward a close. Having slept, Kahn borrowed one of the flitters that had been manufactured here and went after Bill Redfeather, who’d gone on a jaunt with one of the autochthons.
He hummed across the Bay under constellations not so different from those on Earth. Thirty-three light-years were hardly significant in the galaxy. But the humans no longer used human names; those were the Boat, the Garden of Healing, the Fourfold, that wheeled and glittered around another pole star. I suppose there are more native influences, he thought. Not too many, but some. I wonder what kind of civilization they would build. They could hardly help but do better than Earth, on a rich and uncrowded planet In time they would be able to launch starships of their own.
The unrolling map guided him toward Stark-beam, and when the hamlet came into sight he detected the emissions from Redfeather’s portable transceiver and homed on them. They led him to a peak that loomed over the peninsular hills and the soaring scarletwood forest. He must come down vertically on a meadow.
Dew soaked his breeches as he stepped out. The eastern sky had paled, but most light still came from the stars, and from the campfire that fluttered before a tent. Redfeather and Strongtail squatted there, half seen in shadows. A pot on a framework of sticks bubbled above, merrily competing with the first sleepy bird-chirps. The air was raw, and Kahn shivered and felt glad to settle down with hands held near the coals.
Strongtail murmured some notes. “I think that means ‘welcome,’ ” Redfeather said. Strongtail nodded. “Breakfast will be ready soon. Or lunch or something. Hard to get used to his diurnal period. What do the base people do?”
“About twenty hours awake, ten asleep, around the clock,” Kahn said. “Have you had a good outing?”
“Lord, yes. Strongtail’s a mighty fine guide, even if he can’t talk to me. Very kind of you to take me.” Strongtail trilled in pleasure. “I do wish I could hunt, but my pal here doesn’t quite approve. Oh, well, I’m glad to get out in the woods anyway.” Redfeather stirred the pot. “I suppose you’re joining us?”
“No, that wasn’t why I called.” Kahn lit a cigaret and smoked in short, hard puffs. “Business. Regrets, but you will have to come directly back with me.”
“Huh? What’s the rush? I mean, unless the people changed their minds about staying.”
“No, they haven’t. They have been threshing the matter this whole night. Hardly any of them wish to leave with us. I argued, but I might as well have talked to those trees.”
“Why bother, Jake? We don’t have positive orders to bring them back.” Redfeather smiled. “Give me a few days here, and I could well decide to stay myself.”
“What?” Kahn stared at the firelit face. “Yes, I see. I am not personally one for the bucolic life—”
“No need to be. Having made the final decision, we… they’ll want mines, factories, sawmills, everything you can name.”
Kahn glanced at Strongtail. “Wh
at do you say to that?” he asked. “Do you wish these things done?”
The Mithran nodded slowly. A qualified “Yes,” Kahn assumed; he didn’t like the idea, but various regions could be given the humans and there was plenty of room elsewhere. If, indeed, anything that formal was contemplated. Thrailkill had remarked that the autochthons had no concept of real estate as property.
Kahn finished his cigaret, ground out the stub with a vicious gesture, and rose. “Excuse me, Strongtail,” he said. “We have private affairs to discuss. Come into the flitter, Bill.”
Privacy was another notion, incomprehensible, with which Strongtail cooperated to oblige. He tended the pot, drank in its odors and the green scent of the awakening forest, was briefly saddened by the trouble he had sensed, and then turned his mind to more easy and pleasurable thoughts. Once .he started, Kahn’s yell pierced the flitter canopy. “God damn you, I am the captain and you will obey orders!” He knew that humans often submitted themselves, however reluctantly, to the will of someone else. The fact that Mithrans left a job whenever they got bored had occasioned friction in the early days. Later generations solved the problem by rarely employing Mithrans.
Well-a-day, they made up for their peculiarities by such things as houseboats. It would be amusing, no, wonderful to see what they did when they really felt themselves part of the land.
Unless—No, while the prowltiger episode, and certain others, had been unfortunate, limits were not exceeded. Should that ever happen, Strongtail would be forced to kill. But he would continue to love as he did.
The canopy slid back and the Earthmen returned. Kahn looked grim, Redfeather was quiet and shaken. Sweat filled his brows. “I’m sorry,” he told the Mithran, “I must go to the spaceship.”
The meeting hall in Treequad was so big that the entire human population could gather within. Mounting the stage, Kahn looked beyond gaily muraled walls to the faces. The very graybeards, he thought, had an air of youth which did not exist for any age on Earth. Sun and wind had embraced them throughout their lives. They had had a planet to wander in, as men had not owned since Columbus.
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