by Joe Pace
The main thoroughfare of Horfa was crowded, though the denizens were not engaged in their usual morning labors. They were as vividly dressed as ever, in an array of orange and yellow, green and white, every shade but those three reserved for the castes. Most stood in doorways, watching the alien procession in groups of three or four, clutching their children protectively. Captain Baker had worked so hard, so patiently, to earn the trust of the Cygni during the first visit by Englishmen to this planet. Was it all lost, now? He thought then of the memorial at Friendship Point. No, he thought. Some remnant of goodwill remains. It fell to him to nurture that ember into a flame strong enough to sustain the work they needed to do there.
They came to a three-story building that Pearce recalled vividly, with a face of mortared stone flanked by two large gray statues. One held a book and pointed up, face skyward, while the other grasped a bladed weapon with both hands. Above the wide doorway was an inscription, in stylized Cygni symbols, translating to Mind and Heart. This was the Law-House, the town hall, the center of political life in Horfa. They were escorted through the door and down a wood-floored hallway into a spacious library with a wide table and several chairs. A servant scurried to stoke the fire in the hearth, and Arkadas closed the door behind them. Everyone sat except for Crutchfield and Luther-45, who kept their vigil on either side of the door.
“It is good to see you again,” Arkadas said, shooing away the servant, his tasks complete. “But it has been some time, Commander. Our people will be curious why you are here, and the sooner we can give them truth rather than rumor, the safer we all will be.”
Pearce glanced around the table. Green was almost explosively excited, while Reyes was the opposite in her customary glacial cool. Worth was striving to find that midshipman’s balance between attentive and unobtrusive, while Fletcher, he was pleased to see, appeared focused. Of the Cygni, Arkadas was all genial welcome, Leyndar a wall of martial reserve, and Jairo a cipher. Withholding a sigh, Pearce hitched what he hoped was a casual smile to his face. He was about to weave threads of truth with deception, and that was not something with which he had much skill or comfort.
“We’ve wanted to return for some time now.” Lie. “It was hard to know, though, just what happened after we left ten years ago. You could have been engaged in a civil war, or harboring resentment against us.” Truth. He spread his hands and shrugged. “As in so many other things, it is the desires of the King that set events in motion.” Truth. “You’ve met, briefly, Sir Green and Dr. Reyes. They are here because our King is a botanical enthusiast, and wishes to expand his gardens to include several of the species he has read about in the scientific reports of our previous visit.” Half-truth. “In particular, he desires some of your food crops, to diversify and enrich his table.” Even Pearce couldn’t say how much of that was truth and how much falsehood.
“So you’re looking for…” Arkadas prompted.
“Seeds,” Pearce said. “Young plants. Some time to study them here, and then some samples to bring back with us when we leave.”
“And in return?” General Leyndar asked from his end of the table, in front of the fire.
“A fair exchange,” Pearce replied. “Technology.”
“What kind of technology?” There were windows in one wall, between the bookcases -- high, narrow windows, casting the room into alternating bands of light and dark. It was mostly dim where Leyndar sat, and the orange flames behind him lit only his thin silhouette. Pearce hesitated a moment before replying. This was the question he and Banks had discussed at some length. Guidelines existed for the provision of technology to developing worlds, designed by the Royal Society to allow cultures to advance at a natural and proper rate. It had been a great deal of work to identify what could appropriately be shared with the Cygni, and they were about to run within a breath of crossing the line. But Lord Banks had been convinced that the Kingdom’s need was too great to risk failure. Some lines mattered more than others. Pearce nodded at Sir Green.
“Agricultural techniques,” the gardener said, with his usual rapid enthusiasm. “In the course of studying your crops, we can provide you with some advanced techniques and practices that will reduce your labor and increase your yield.” He glanced at Pearce and continued. “I also understand your people have been experimenting with steam and water power for textile manufacturing and steel production for some decades now. We can offer some guidance that will…accelerate that process.” There was silence around the table. Pearce could not make out Leyndar’s eyes, but he could feel the soldier’s gaze on him. Finally, Arkadas spoke.
“It is a start.” He smiled. “You will find us very apt pupils, my friend.”
“Excellent,” Pearce said. “Lieutenant Fletcher will handle the details.”
“Jairo is our lead scholar on the matters of green and growing things,” Arkadas indicated the younger Cygni. “She can coordinate directly with him.”
An electric look passed between the two subordinates. Pearce was on the verge of asking for another Cygni, or withdrawing Fletcher from the assignment, but he saw no way to do so without insulting Arkadas or shattering what brittle trust might still remain between himself and his lieutenant. It will just be a few weeks, he thought as he rose from his seat. Arkadas was on his feet as well.
“Our hospitality is yours during your visit,” he was saying. “I hope that you and your crew will enjoy your stay, and that this business will be a profitable one for us all.”
****
As it turned out, they could not have hoped for a better local contact than Jairo. He listened carefully to Sir Green and Dr. Reyes and quickly brought them to where they needed to go, brokering introductions to the wealthiest landowners of the Horfan countryside and helping to establish three harvesting and testing sites: one in the wheat plains, one in the cornfields, and one in the lowland rice patties farther distant. Christine Fletcher roamed with him on these rounds and beyond, riding on the broad backs of zaldi, shaggy horse-like creatures that had been domesticated by the Cygni centuries before as beasts of burden, transport, and warfare. After a lifetime of traveling in enclosed metal boxes, this was a wholly new and seductive experience for her. She was used to her mode of transport smelling of metallic benzene, not living equine lather.
Jairo was a scholar of the discipline he called acik havada. Translated roughly, the closest approximation was “outdoors”. His expertise was broad and deep, surprisingly so given his age. Fletcher had little idea how analogous Cygni life cycles were with humans’, but if she had to approximate, she would have put Jairo at no more than forty, not all that much older than she was herself. As they rode, he pointed out the different plants and animals they encountered in the forests and fields. His descriptions of each were almost poetic. The yellow star known as Kepler-22 to the Admiralty, known as Muo (roughly, “sky mother” in the Cygni language) here, was a little smaller than Earth’s Sol, burned a little less brightly, but still bathed the planet in enough of the right kind of heat and radiation to support life. Cygnus rotated slowly and tilted at just the right angle to ensure very little extreme weather and long, warm growing seasons. When it did rain, Jairo showed Fletcher trees that spread wide, hungry leaves, drinking in the water as it fell, and streams that swelled in their courses, and the music of raindrops on sheltered ponds.
One early morning, perhaps a week after the arrival of the Harvest, they traveled to the cliffs south of Horfa, overlooking the sea. There, feathered creatures of every color of vivid brilliance rooked by the thousands, and she watched as the ptica flocks rose into the sky as one, their haunting cry filling the dawn sky. But even inundated by that impossibly beautiful sight and sound, it was the rising sun on the flowers that took her breath away.
Fletcher was accustomed to the hues and shades of home. When the sun rose over Earth, it could be beautiful, an orange heartbeat between black and gray. But the light caressed nothing but steel, concretia, and glass. Even the cultivated gardens of the
wealthy existed mostly in protected domes, hermetic oases from the unremitting artificiality of the world. She thought of Brimstone Hill, against the rust-colored shoulders of Mt. Liamulga. She climbed there often as a child, to the ancient fort that still perched at the summit, a crumbling relic from centuries past. The sky spread out overhead there, as it still did over parts of her island home. Once, when she was eleven, she had found a flower growing in a crack in one of the redoubts. It had been a stunted, almost-yellow thing, but it was the first time she had seen one in the wild, uncultivated. It had been her secret, and she had smuggled enriched soil from her grandfather’s garden to share with it. In her youthful naivety, she had not known how wildly expensive such soil was, or how closely her grandfather monitored its use. She was caught, and when she confessed about the flower, her grandfather made her bring him to the fort. When they arrived, the flower was withered and brown, and Fletcher had been punished for wasting the soil. She never saw another wildflower, but she never forgot the one she did see.
That morning, they were all around her.
Fletcher sat down near the edge of the cliffs, feeling the soft, moss-like vegetation with her bare feet. Wildflowers surrounded her, in vivid carpets of red and yellow. She had learned the names of some of them from Jairo - dainty paintcups, and many-armed thalias – but a lifetime would never be enough to learn them all. A breeze, warm and loving, drifted in from the sea and toyed with the strands of her hair. It was warm, and she undid her braids and took off her jacket. The warmth of the small sun as it climbed was an embrace against her dark skin as she lay down amid the flowers.
That morning Jairo touched her bare shoulder, and she shuddered with the warmth of it. Fletcher had been touched by men, of course, but this was different. Intellectually, she understood that Cygni had somewhat higher body temperatures than Earthers, but the feel of him against her skin was living flame.
That was the first time they made love, there on the cliffs, surrounded by wildflowers, ptica overhead, screaming and wheeling.
The second time was at sea.
The oceans on Cygnus were immense, deep, and teeming with life. The boat Jairo had brought her aboard was tiny, a bare speck against the vast blue-green with an unbroken line of water and sky all around. Some kind of animals trailed the craft, leaping out into the air, their silvery skin iridescent in the foam. Their wind-caught spray soaked Christine Fletcher to the skin.
It was magnificent.
“You like it?” Jairo asked, in English. He had insisted that she teach him, even as he tutored her in his native tongue, adding idiom and patois to the sterility of her computer learning.
“I’ve never known anything like it,” she replied.
Was this what true islanders felt? she wondered, leaning against the wooden railing and breathing the sharp tang of the air. Is this what it had been like to sail? This was life, freedom, and fertility, not the antiseptic vacuum and confinement of starships. It spoke to something in her soul, something ancient and resonant. She had flown over the remnants of the Atlantic many times, shuttling from St. Kitts to London, and in her mind she knew it had once been like this – bursting with life in endless diversity and numbers – but now it was an empty, dead sewer of brackish water, hot and silent. Her heart had never reacted to the tragedy of the long-extinguished romance and danger and liberty of the seas her ancestors had wandered, explored, loved.
She lay down on the deck of the boat and Jairo was above her. All around him was endless, cloudless sky, the identical shade of blue as his eyes. Fletcher could feel the heat of him, radiating through his skin everywhere they touched – his hands, his thighs, the heat of the smooth, sun-drenched deck beneath her, on her bare back, her bare legs. Her awareness was overwhelmed with sensations more forcibly present and real than any she had ever known. She had known rapture before, but not like this. This was fire.
That was the second time, and it was not the last.
I never knew, Fletcher thought, with explosive realization. She had never known what she was looking for. In truth, she hadn’t known that she was looking at all. But now, she knew that she had found it. She was in love, with a man and a place and a time, and she never wanted to leave any of them.
****
Hope Worth didn’t quite know what to do with herself.
For the first time she could remember, there wasn’t any work to do. She wasn’t part of the team collecting plant specimens with the natives and her only other responsibilities were minimal. Like the rest of the crew, officers and jacks alike, she had a healthy amount of shore leave, alternating with shipboard duties on the Harvest. No studying, no classes, just unstructured free time on the surface. So, at the urging of Captain Pearce, she explored the city of Horfa, its outlying settlements, the farms, even the edge of the wilderness, usually alongside Charlie Hall.
Worth didn’t quite know what to do with him, either. She had never really known anyone like him before. Beginning with her own father, then including her classmates and even her instructors at Greenwich, the men in her life had almost universally been ambitious, confident, even arrogant. But Hall wasn’t any of these. He was quiet and withdrawn, an almost timid starship pilot. And clearly a talented one, as smart and instinctive as any of the strutting peacocks at the Naval College. It was endearing, in its way. He doesn’t believe in himself, Worth thought. Maybe he just needs someone to do it for him.
She laughed out loud at the thought, at the possibility that she might be falling in love with anyone, let alone someone like Charlie.
“What?” he asked. They were wandering through one of the sprawling hedge mazes the Cygni of this region seemed so fond of. Drysfa, they called them, and they were everywhere. The wealthier intellectuals had large private ones on the grounds of their vast estates, and the worker castes visited the immense public ones during their leisure time. They were a blatant consumption of space, an overt demonstration that here on Cygnus there was more land than could ever be used.
“Nothing,” she replied, smiling at him. “Just amazed by all the sky. Still.” He nodded, and they kept walking, though her eyes were on him as much as the winding green walls and high blue welkin above. She had known more plenty in her childhood than he had. The daughter of a successful naval officer, she and her family had enjoyed their share of conveniences and privileges - good schooling, some variety of diet, and even occasional access to the gardens. She knew Hall’s experience had been less comfortable, and while this expanse of green foliage and endless sky dazzled her, it must have been even more overwhelming to him.
The hedges towered over them both, well over four meters high on either side of the path. Hall stepped into the cool of shadow, and it occurred to her that she had never seen the sun on his face before they came to Cygnus. As he moved into the dimmer light, the pale pallor returned to his skin, and she thought he seemed smaller and younger somehow.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Taking a break.” He wiped a hand across his forehead, and rested his hands on his hips. “I’m not used to so much walking. Or that sun beating down. I’m actually sweating.”
“Just think – it’s cooler than our own sun.” She held out a hand. “Come on. I want to see if we can find our way through.” Hall hesitated, then reached out took her hand.
As it turned out, they couldn’t.
“How big is this thing?” Hall asked, more in wonder than frustration.
“I think we’ve been down this part twice. Maybe three times. See? That fountain has that same three fish-things.”
“Great. We’re lost.”
“Lost?” Worth laughed. “Aren’t you a navigator, Charlie?” He plucked a handful of leaves from the hedge nearby and threw them at her playfully.
“Space is one thing. This maze…” he shook his head.
“We’re alone,” Worth said, standing close to him. There was a tiny yellow leaf in his sandy-brown hair, and she reached up and brushed it away,
letting the tips of her fingers trail gently against his ear.
“I know,” he said, his face pointed toward the sky, eyes closed, the sun dappling his sharp features. He was almost handsome. “It’s so quiet. I never had any quiet growing up, there were always so many…people…” He trailed off as she laid one finger over his lips, moving closer still, leaning into him.
“That’s not what I meant, Charlie.” It was unlike her to be so forward, but she knew if she waited for him she would be waiting forever, he was so shy. She didn’t know if she loved him or not, like the way her mom and dad felt about each other, but they were young and they were alone and she liked him a lot. They’d spent so much time together, on duty and in their books, and she had come to feel so natural, so comfortable with him. And he took Lamb’s punch for me, she thought, remembering that awful night in the galley. That has to count for something.
She looked in his eyes, those muddy-hazel eyes, curious what he was thinking and feeling. At least he was looking back at her, not at his feet. That was a start. He has to know what I’m doing. Her hand moved from his hair to the back of his neck.
“Oh,” he said.
“Charlie,” Worth murmured, moving even closer, so close she knew he could count the freckles on her nose.
“Yeah?”
“When we argue about this later, just remember that I kissed you first.” And she did, closing her eyes, pressing her lips against his, wrapping her arms around him. His mouth was slightly open, and she was pleasantly surprised to find that his kiss was just the right mix of wet and soft, pliable and firm. After a heartbeat of stunned hesitation, she felt him respond, felt the pressure of his arms on her back, felt the transition from a kiss to kissing.
