Orion Shall Rise

by Poul Anderson

‘We have wrought such ghastly wonders,

  Lightnings at our beck, and thunders –

  Help, before this poor earth sunders.

  ‘Lord beyond eternity,

  Fountainhead of mystery,

  Why have You now set us free?’

  The last chords rang away into stillness. He stood for a while longer. All at once he seemed to buckle. He dropped the guitar on the floor as he returned to his knees and hid his face.

  ‘Redeemer,’ he begged, ‘forgive me, I am overwrought, forgive so bad a verse.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Except for basic maintenance and security, the Orion establishment was shut down this morning, everyone gathered in the auditorium to hear the word. Hurrying through empty, susurrant, whitely lighted corridors, Iern thought of catacombs – when he thought of anything except nightmare and tactics.

  Wairoa had not been in the audience. He would surely have been if he were able. He would have stayed prudently in the rear and thus been visible to the Clansman. Therefore he was in the confinement section, doubtless by order of Mikli or a cautious subordinate.

  A single guard was on duty in the office, amidst a stench of cigarette smoke. He looked nervously up from his desk and snatched for the submachine gun on its top as Iern entered. Seeing who it was, he brought his hand back. His voice was high and uneven: ‘What’s the news, sir? Did we really hit the Mong yesterday like the radio said?’

  Iern made himself halt and nod. ‘Yes. Nuclear warheads on rockets. Destroyed them.’ Were you there, little Vanna? Are you yet? I believe I hope you died. Living, you would grieve too much for the dead and the unborn. ‘What do you think of that?’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to think, sir. I’m, well, kind of stunned. Are we going to have a new Doom War?’

  ‘Captain Karst promises us a glorious victory.’

  The sergeant gave Iern a closer regard. ‘You don’t look too happy yourself, sir. Pale and shaky.’

  ‘Letdown, I suppose. They could have stopped Orion from rising.’ Now for the part that had better sound convincing. ‘The reason I’m here is that I need the release of the Maurai prisoner.’

  ‘Sir?’

  Iern was faintly amazed at his own readiness. In the past, he had been glib only during a seduction. ‘You probably know he and I are acquainted; were before we arrived. I have hopes the shock of this news will make him more cooperative. Whether as a source of information, or ago-between, or both, he might prove valuable in getting his people off our backs.’

  The Norrman was dubious. ‘I don’t know, sir. My orders –’

  ‘No time for niggling,’ Iern snapped. ‘Captain Karst himself told me I could try. You’ve routinely let him go every day, haven’t you? Today he’s been in protective custody, else he might have been lynched. That danger’s past. I’ll sign him out.’ Iern gestured at the inner door.

  His guess was evidently right, that the detention order had been casual and verbal. Save for armed guards at critical points – who had never needed to do more than turn an occasional drunk aside – this home of the Minotaur had had no reason for wariness (yet). Moreover, Iern bore the enormous prestige of an astronaut. ‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant said, took keys from a drawer, and rose.

  There were only a few cells in the block, most vacant. Offenders gaped, a psychotic bleated as Iern was led down the passage to Wairoa’s place. The hybrid was reading. He laid down his book when the door opened, got to his feet, and stood impassive. ‘We … I want to talk with you,’ Iern said, no longer smoothly, while he wondered how much knowledge the brain behind those strange eyes already had of him.

  Wairoa came forth. The blue coverall issued him was ill fitted to his proportions, but somehow he made it an imperial uniform. In the office, Iern scrawled an acknowledgment. A part of him speculated how he would explain his action to Mikli. If everything went well, Mikli wouldn’t learn of it until far, far too late. If not – no matter.

  Thoughts like these were nothing but eddies. His will was the stream, flowing on toward its cataract. Last night, after the newscast, both he and Ronica had been very quiet. They spoke little about the event, and only clichés (‘Awful.… Violation of trust.… Maybe necessary.… War knows no honor.… Wait for more information; this is all so vague and confused.…’) uttered in flat voices, and they seldom looked straight at each other. He went to bed early and was surprised to find himself soon drowsing off. Numb, he supposed. He awoke happily, until he remembered. Then, after a gasp, he set about preparing for the day – washing, dressing, eating if not tasting breakfast in a hushed mess hall – like a machine. Within him, the stream rose and gathered force.

  He didn’t know when Ronica had sought sleep or if she ever found it. When the alarm roused him, she lay awake at his side. Her eyes were dark-rimmed and she had even less to say than he did. They went together to the announced assembly, but not holding hands as usual.

  – ‘We need a private location,’ Iern said when he and Wairoa were in the corridor. ‘I think the library will serve best.’

  He meant the public library, not any of the technical collections. Ordinarily it was busy, reading being a favorite pastime here. Today the long room was deserted, as if nobody would ever again care what the philosophers and poets had to offer. The men chose a table at the far end, took opposite sides, and began to talk. Presently Iern noticed how low their voices were. He yelped a laugh.

  ‘What is funny?’ Wairoa asked.

  ‘I … I imagined … Vanna Uangovna’s ghost … telling us please to be quiet.’ Iern swallowed. I will not cry. We haven’t time for that. He finished his account of the proceedings.

  Wairoa appeared unsurprised. ‘Once,’ he remarked, ‘in an old book – pre-Downfall – I saw mention of a still older epitaph on a tombstone. It read, “I expected this, but not so soon.”’

  ‘I did not,’ Iern said raggedly. ‘I truly did not. Nor, this morning, did I expect the son of reaction Karst evoked. The glee, in those people I’d come to like, that was the most horrifying experience of my life.’

  ‘You do not agree the weapons were required to save Orion?’

  ‘Can anybody sane agree that anything is worth that price? I thought… nuclear power need not be misused. I was wrong. You Maurai are right. Given the potentiality, the weapons are inevitable. And they’ll provoke the building of more and worse, until we bring a new Judgment on ourselves. The only survival course is total prohibition.’

  ‘Which entails the conquest of the Northwest Union and the suppression of Orion,’ Wairoa said in a calm tone.

  Iern nodded violently. ‘Yes! These … Wolves … have proved they’re unfit to hold power over Earth.’

  ‘No people are fit, my friend. No individual is. The best that can be said for my nation is that we have merely aspired to maintain a balance advantageous to us, not to gain an empire. And nevertheless we have done our share of terrible deeds.’

  ‘Damn your niceties! Listen. If we hurry, we, you and I, today, we can stop Orion.’

  Wairoa’s pupils dilated, then narrowed in the mask of his face. ‘How?’

  It flamed from Iern: ‘By taking the spaceship up!’

  Wairoa grew felinely attentive.

  The words rushed out of Iern on the torrent of his will.’ Orion Two is the prototype. The tests and studies made in her are going to be absolutely essential to the completion of the rest. She’s ready. Crews and backups are too. I suspect the actual selections have been made, though not yet announced. The launch is just waiting for thick weather, so the Maurai can’t see where the ship rises from. They’ll be caught unawares, and won’t get a radar fix on her, either, before she’s out of range, at her acceleration. The crew will conduct their experiments and maneuvers, voice-radioing down whatever isn’t automatically telemetered, to make sure, the data are received here whatever happens to the craft. According to plan, she’ll land on an airfield north of the mountains – which one will depend on conditions
– and be trucked back. But if this doesn’t work out, it shouldn’t make a large difference, provided the mission itself was successful.

  ‘We can abort it.’

  Wairoa pounced: ‘You intend to fly her yourself.’

  ‘Yes. Immediately. While that obscene rally is going on and the air outside is clear. Your Maurai will see the ascent, and surely triangulate on it. Knowledge of the site ought to make their bombing more effective. Probably that alone can’t do serious damage, as armored as these installations are, but it should do some. More important, loss of Orion Two will set the project back months. Dreng’s gang can’t ready a new prototype any faster. That should give the Maurai time to muster ample force – even against the few nuclears I daresay are stored somewhere in this neighborhood. If Dreng is wise, he’ll surrender at once. Whichever way that goes, I hope afterward they burn Mikli Karst alive, but I’m afraid they’re too humane. He wouldn’t be!’

  ‘How do you propose to accomplish this? All entries are well guarded.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve become a big figure, you know. We have two key points ahead of us. First is the portal control, near the top of the launch shaft. Obviously the way has to be clear before the ship can rise. We’ll have to take that by force, but we can bring guns from my apartment, we can exploit surprise, and nobody else will be around to give help or sound an alarm. I’ll show you how to operate the mechanism. Next I’ll proceed to the entry near the bottom. The guards ought to let me in when I explain I want to look the pilot console over with a view to recommending certain adjustments on the basis of my simulator experience. You open the gate, I raise the ship – I can’t otherwise, because of a safety interlock – we do that –’ Iern’s hands lifted, fingers talon-crooked – ‘and Orion is dead!’

  Wairoa was silent for half a minute before he murmured, ‘You and I will also be dead, what?’

  ‘If you’re lucky,’ Iern replied, ‘you can slip off in the confusion, fight past an exit sentry, and escape into the mountains. You’ve told me about that collar you wear, but you should have a chance to get out of range before they overhaul you, and later make contact with your fleet. True, the odds are against it, but it’s not impossible.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘The single thing I have left to care about,’ said Iern out of his forsakenness, ‘is taking that ship away from the Norrmen.’

  2

  He entered his home, and there was Ronica.

  Dismay rammed through him. He halted in midstride. She set down the cat she had been hugging to her bosom, rose from the bed on which she had been reclining, and moved toward him. The features were drawn taut over the strong bones of her face; tear tracks glistened. ‘Iern, dearest, are you ill?’ The husky voice laid a whiplash across him. ‘You look awful.’ She noticed Wairoa at his back. ‘Oh, hullo,’ she said absently, and reached her man and took him in her arms.

  I know what I must do, he realized. It makes me glad I haven’t long to live.

  Her warmth strained against him. Her hair smelled of summer. He brought an ankle behind hers and pushed. They fell to the floor together. She swung hands downward in time to soften the impact. His weight was on her loins and thighs. His right forearm came across her throat to pin her head down. Stupefaction stared at him. ‘Shut the door, Wairoa,’ he called, ‘and come help me.’

  ‘What the living fuck?’ she gasped. ‘Has this business driven you crazy?’

  She began to struggle. How often had he felt that supple solidity astir beneath him? His left arm fended hers off. He might not have held her long by himself. Wairoa arrived and took possession of her wrists. He at her hands, Iern at her feet, they used sheer mass to keep her captive. Her hair spilled amber over the carpet. Above, the rainbow streamers she had hung before the ventilator grille fluttered forlornly. From the bed, her cat watched round-eyed.

  Ronica snarled. ‘Darling,’ Iern begged, ‘listen to me. Please listen. I love you. We mean you no harm. We have to do this, and hate it, but it’s for your sake as much as ours.’

  She drew a deep breath. Her lips bent into a stark smile. ‘When a man says he wants to do something to me for my own good, I run,’ she flung at him. ‘But you have me staked, you bastards. Say on.’

  His intent rushed from him.

  ‘We can’t allow you to carry a warning,’ he finished. ‘We’ll bind and gag you. That will prove your loyalty; you couldn’t help what happened.’ Abjectly: ‘I’m more sorry than you will ever know. I didn’t expect to find you here. I love you … more than I will ever know, I think.’

  She had quieted while he talked, save for the quiverings of tension. Now the green stare burned. ‘Then why in Satan’s name are you doing this?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Do you remember… topside… I told you I, I would not condone any new … abomination?’ he stammered. ‘Well, it happened, and I will not. I c-c-cannot.’

  ‘Why can’t you? Why don’t you just go on strike, instead of ruining everything for the rest of us?’

  ‘Because the rest of you – no, not you, Ronica never you, but… the murderers, who’d be overlords of the world … they, the consequences of their, their egoism – would ruin everything for everyone. For my people in the Domain, and Wairoa’s, and, and yours too –the children I hope someday you’ll have –’ Abruptly, the river of Iern’s resolution flowed fast and grew Polar-cold. ‘In the end,’ he said,’I am a Talence of Skyholm. I don’t rejoice at that, but it is so. A master who docs not serve is no master.

  ‘Time is short. We have to secure you and be off. Please don’t resist. Please don’t hate my memory forever.’

  ‘I see,’ she answered slowly. ‘It’s what I thought.’ Her tone sharpened: ‘You realize you plan a suicide mission, don’t you? That ship isn’t meant for singlehanding. They simplified – speeded up – the design process by omitting an escape module. You can launch her,

  but unless there’s at least an engineer on the after controls, you can’t execute more than the simplest maneuvers. You can’t bring her down without crashing, if you don’t burn up in the atmosphere first.’

  Iern nodded. ‘Of course. I’ll switch off the telemetry and head straight out.’ He shaped a smile himself, and it was honest. ‘She’s stocked for eight man-weeks. Given the accelerations she can make, I ought to see some splendid sights. I’ll think of you.’

  Her laughter rocked him back. Wairoa showed disconcertion. ‘Indeed you will, lover,’ she cried. ‘I’ll be right on deck.’

  He could only stare.

  ‘Let me loose, huh?’ she said. ‘This pose is ridiculous. I couldn’t dash out the door and holler. Nobody to hear me, anyway.’

  Iern and Wairoa exchanged a glance, released her, and stood up as she did.

  She surged to Iern and gave him a fierce kiss. ‘You flinking idiot,’ she said into his ear, before she gulped back a sob. ‘Did you imagine I’d let you go and leave me behind? You don’t know me very well yet, do you?’

  ‘But – but your Lodge –’

  She stepped back, caught his gaze, held it as strainingly as she held his hands. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It hurts like fire. But what hurt worse was that our captains lied to me, to all of us – gave their word of honor we were not helping let the Doom loose out of its hell – used us, as though we were their subjects and not the Free Folk! If the Northwest Union doesn’t stand for liberty, straight down the line, what is it but another God damned empire?’

  She shuddered. ‘And today, when they learned for certain – they did not kill Mikli. He invited them to, even, but he knew them better than I did. I saw them howl hosannahs as he ranted – howl like curs for a Glorious Leader. Our calm, educated, sensible, kindly team boss, he was prancing for joy, he was yelling for more and more of that mind-buggery. Eygar Dreng, I’ll give him credit, Eygar stood aside and looked grim, but not Rainier Abron, oh, no, not him nor the huge most of’em.’

  Ronica snapped after air. ‘I left. I came home to do some howling of my own, over the c
orpse of everything I’d believed in. I hoped you’d be here already. But instead –’ Iern saw the countenance of a Fury. ‘Oh, now I know how much I love you! You’ve got your engineer. We’ll do our justice together. And afterward we’ll land somewhere – a Mong field, maybe – and start winning Skyholm back!’

  ‘But – but – no, the hazard, I won’t allow –’ For an instant, he wondered if this was a ruse. No. She can’t betray, it isn’t in her. Wairoa gave him a slight nod. His weird perceptions tell him she’s true. And she may be the help we must have to take the ship. ‘Yes,’ he sighed.

  Ronica sank cross-legged to the floor, closed her eyes, spent a minute bringing nerves and muscles and brain back toward oneness. The men stood almost as quiet, not daring to disturb.

  She sprang to her feet. Her breath was even, her motions flowed. ‘Okay,’ she said crisply, ‘let’s hash out a few details. Two rifles in yonder rack.’ While neither she nor Iern killed for amusement, they had maintained their marksmanship. ‘Each can knock a man over. Better take extra ammo clips, in case things turn sour. And, oh, yes –’ She whirled toward the bureau, snatched notepad and pencil, scribbled as she stood. ‘This is to ask Cluff and Sonaya Browen to adopt Pussifer,’ she explained. ‘They’re cat people, they’ll give her a good home.’

  3

  In a high-level corridor, a ladder fixed to the wall went up through a three-meter shaft. This gave on a horizontal passage, short but zigzagged, which in turn led to another ladder and shaft. Having completed the second climb, Iern emerged at the end of a thirty-meter hallway. Halfway down that length, a massive ironwood door stood open. Shutters covered loopholes in it. The near side was steel-plated, the farther side heavily lined with spongy, sound-absorbent material. Similarly padded was the rest of the tunnel. At the midpoint of that section, a control board was set flush in rock and concrete. The mouth of the tunnel stood open on a dimly lighted emptiness: the ascent tube. A narrow balcony with a safety rail projected out.

  Two guards sat at a table by the door, near the entrance to a lavatory. They were playing a card game but clearly had scant interest in it. Their casual garb identified them only by the brassards they wore, and the sidearms. Close at hand, a rack held two automatic rifles.