Flandry's Legacy: The Technic Civilization Saga

by Poul Anderson

  “In those few minutes?” Did she sound irritated. “Certainly not.”

  “Well, you did mean to give your people a halfway plausible explanation of this sudden scurry.”

  “I told Huang what we’d agreed on. He may have been a bit skeptical, but I’m not sure. Now do be quiet. I’ve got to help Yewwl lead the rest aboard; they know nothing about spacecraft. And we’re afraid the onsars will balk.”

  The man broke the connection, fired up the promised cigarette, and punished his lungs with it. Huang, skeptical? That could spell trouble, if and when the second in command was interviewed by ducal agents. Why shouldn’t he doubt us, though? I would, Flandry thought. Granted, a nasty, suspicious mind is part of my stock in trade, while he’s supposed to be an unworldly scientist. Nevertheless—

  He reviewed the situation. He had nothing else to do at the moment. It would have been folly, on the order of that committed by the famous young lady named Alice, to confide in the station personnel. A few might be inclined to support him, but most would be shocked, especially the majority of Hermetians. Everybody grumbled at the slow throttling of their work; most wanted climate modification and deplored how Cairncross had dragged his tail. But it was a quantum jump from that to acceptance of possible rebellion, and to defiance of both his authority and the Emperor’s. Someone would be certain to call Dukeston or Port Asmundsen and warn. Ducal militia were (supposedly!) few in this system, more a rescue corps than a police force; but it wouldn’t take many to abort Flandry’s mission.

  Overtly, therefore, he had simply come to Ramnu to see for himself. If he decided the climate project was worthy, he would use his good offices at court. On this trip tonight, the announced plan was for him to observe native life, employing Yewwl/Banner as guide.

  Everything was quite reasonable in outline. The details were the problem, as commonly with lies. Why had he waited till sunset to depart? Why had Banner gotten her fellows who also practiced linkage to urge their Ramnuans to contact Yewwl on her way to the Volcano? Explanations—that he felt he must first absorb a lot of information from the data banks; that she hoped a formal appeal by the clans would exert moral pressure on the Imperium—were inevitably weak.

  Flandry had relied on the basic human tendency to swallow any positive statement. After all, these people lived insulated from politics, except for what they played among themselves; besides, to them, he represented Authority. But the yarn would come unraveled at the first tug on it by a professional investigator. And if Huang, or whoever, called one in, even before Cairncross’ troubleshooters arrived—

  Well, that wouldn’t be long in any event. Meanwhile Banner sat chained to her unit. It could not be shifted aboard the spacecraft, being integral with the station. What could happen to her if she was arrested was the stuff of nightmare, sleeping and waking, for whatever excess time Flandry survived.

  I’ve sacrificed enough lives and dreams by now, haven’t I? Not hers too! Max’s daughter, facing the risk with his curt gallantry and planning against it with his remembered coolness. The cigarette stub scorched his fingers. He crushed it as he would a foeman. And she’s become the closest friend I’ve got, maybe the only real friend, for I am certainly not one to myself. He shivered back from any thought of love. It had never been a lucky thing to be in love with Dominic Flandry.

  “The Ramnuans are prepared to board, sir,” Chives reported on the intercom.

  “Eh?” The man adjusted a viewscreen. Yes, there they came, leading their animals through the rain-cataract. An extruded ramp awaited them, their route into a compartment of the hold. He’d seal it off during flight.

  An onsar studied the metal shape before it and grew suspicious. It dug hoofs and extensors into the ground. Its brethren took their cue from that, milled about, stamped, butted snouts at their masters, heedless of reins and thorny whips. Might they stampede?

  “Beasts of burdensome,” Flandry muttered in frustrated anger. They couldn’t be abandoned, they were essential to the deception.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Chives said. “I believe if I went out I might be of assistance.”

  “You? In that gravity?”

  “I will fly on impellers, of course.”

  “What’s your scheme? I think nature’s better equipped me for any such job.”

  “No, sir. You are too important. Anticipating difficulties, I have taken the liberty of donning my spacesuit, and am about to close the faceplate and cycle through. Should an accident occur, I suggest that for dinner you heat the packet numbered ‘three’ in the freezer. The Eastmarch Camay Beaujolais ’53 would complement it well. But I trust you will not be forced to such an extremity, sir.”

  “Carry on, Chives,” Flandry said helplessly.

  Wind made a steady roar about the hull, which trembled under its force. Rain smote like hammers. Lightning flew, thunder rattled teeth in jaws. No matter how well outfitted, a skinny old Shalmuan aflit in that fury, in the grasp of that gravity, could well lose control and be dashed to his death. And still he plays his part. Well, it’s the sole part he can play, alone among aliens; therefore I must play mine without ever faltering. We can never really communicate, but this dance we dance between us does say, “I care for you.”

  Flandry need not have worried, though. It soon became a joy to watch how elegantly Chives darted through the air. He had set his blaster to lowest beam, and the onsars had thick hides. However, the flicks of energy sufficed to herd them, and then chastise them. They shuffled aboard as meek as taxpayers.

  Flandry whooped laughter. “How about that, Banner?” he cried.

  Her voice was strained. “The hull screens Yewwl’s signal. We’re cut off. Can you relay?”

  “Nothing so complex, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, then, get to your destination fast!” she shrilled.

  Chives came back inboard. Flandry prepared to lift.

  Banner spoke in a subdued tone. “I’m sorry, Dominic. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Nerves overstrung.”

  “Sure, I understand, dear,” he said. Inwardly: Do I? How deep into her soul does that linkage go? She can break it for a while without pain, but what if it broke forever?

  Hooligan rose, leveled off, and lined out east-northeast. She had to fly low, lest by malevolent luck a ship going to or from Port Asmundsen should notice. Despite her ample capabilities, Flandry didn’t like it. He felt boxed in.

  Regardless, the journey was uneventful—for him and Chives; surely not for the Ramnuans, who must be terrified in their metal cave, weighing a seventh of what they ought to, under light they saw as harsh blue-white, while cloven air rumbled and screamed outside and that which they breathed grew foul. Banner could have reassured Yewwl, but Yewwl and her followers now had naught but courage to uphold them. A scanner showed them iron-steady. Flandry admired.

  The storm fell behind. He passed fully into this planet’s long, long night. Plains grew frost-silvery; snow whitened hillcrests, and not all that fell in the dark would melt when day returned. Had he lacked optical amplification, he would have been virtually blind. Diris was a crescent, half Luna size though brighter; Tiglaia showed tiny; Elaveli was not aloft, and would have seemed smaller yet. The visible stars were few and dim, save for the red spark of Antares, and the Milky Way was lost to sight.

  Five thousand kilometers rolled beneath, and he approached a coast. Ahead glimmered the Chromatic Hills, where Dukeston stood amidst its mines and refineries and—what else was there. Beyond, the St. Carl River ran down into brackish marshlands, once rich with life and still, he had heard, worth harvesting. Beyond those, an ocean lay sluggish until winds raised monstrous billows upon it. In recent years, the waves had brought icebergs crashing ashore.

  They mustn’t detect Hooligan at the settlement. Flandry’s navigational system identified a site he and Banner had chosen off maps, blocked from view by an outcrop which a few hours’ riding would serve to get around. He made a gingerly descent onto roughness and told the woman, flat-voiced: “We�
�re here.”

  “Good. Let them out.” Her words quivered. “Send them on their way.”

  “A minute first, just a minute,” he begged. “Listen, I can flange up an excuse for returning to Wainwright this soon. Then I’d be right there, for snatching you away if the Duke’s boys come.”

  “No, Dominic.” She spoke softer than before. “We agreed otherwise. How did you say? ‘Let’s not put all our eggs in one basket.’” Her chuckle was tender. “You have a marvelous gift for making phrases.”

  “Well, I—Look, I’ve been thinking further. Yes, you have to keep in touch with Yewwl till her task’s accomplished, or till everything falls apart for us. And, yes, in the second case, Hooligan ought to remain at large, in the faint hope that something can be done some different way. But . . . you probably don’t appreciate how powerfully armed she is. We can fight through anything Cairncross is likely to send, at least that he’s likely to send at first. And we can outrun everything else.”

  Banner sighed. “Dominic, we discussed this before. You yourself admitted that that requires opening fire at the start, on little or no provocation. It gives us no flexibility, no chance to get more clues. It puts this station, its innocent staff, its work of centuries, in mortal danger. It alerts the Duke so thoroughly that his whole force will be mobilized to kill us or keep us at a distance. What can we do after that? Especially if we’re wrong and he is not plotting a coup. Whereas, if he merely knows you’ve been skulking about—”

  “He’ll take what precautions he’s able,” Flandry interrupted, “and the precautions that involve you won’t make your future worth reaching. . . . Well, I had to ask, but I knew you’d refuse. We’ll stay by the original plan.”

  “We’re wasting time right now.”

  “True. Very well, I’ll let the Ramnuans off, and Chives and I will go wait at the place agreed on.”

  Incommunicado, for fear of detection. It will be a hard wait. In several ways, harder for me than for her. She’ll be in the worse peril, but she’ll be with her oath-sister.

  “Goodbye, darling.”

  X

  Things have the vices of their virtues. Today Edwin Cairncross had reason to curse the fact that there was no interstellar equivalent of radio. He actually caught himself trying to imagine means of getting past the unfeasibility. The “instantaneous” pulses emitted by a ship in hyperdrive are detectable at an extreme range of about a light-year. They can be modulated to carry information. Unfortunately, within a few million kilometers quantum effects degrade the signal beyond recovery; even the simplest binary code becomes unintelligible. The number of relay stations that would be required between two stars of average separation is absurdly enormous; multiply by the factor necessary for just several hundred interconnections, and you find it would take more resources than the entire Empire contains.

  But couldn’t something very small, simple, cheap be devised, that we can afford in such quantities? I’ll organize a research team to look into it when I am Emperor. That will also help rouse enterprise again in the human race.

  Cairncross checked the thought and barked laughter. He’d have plenty to do before his throne was that secure! Until then, he should be thankful. When messages took half a month or more to go straight from Hermes to Terra, and few ships per year made the entire crossing, his realm was satisfactorily isolated. Only ambiguous hints as to what might be amiss trickled back from an undermanned Imperial legation. With patience, intelligence, sophistication, a bold leader could mount a mighty effort in obscure parts of his domain. Lacking that advantage, he could never have given flesh and steel to his desire.

  Therefore, let the Empire be thankful too.

  Meanwhile, though, he had no way of tracing Admiral Flandry. Where was the old devil a-prowl? The single certainty was that he had not reported in at Hermes as he was supposed to. Well, it was also known that he had left Terra, and that the Abrams bitch had disappeared under the kind of queer circumstances you’d expect him to engineer.

  Cairncross hunched forward in his pilot seat. The speedster had no need of his guidance, but he felt he drew strength from the power at work below his fingers. A touch, and he could release missiles capable of wiping out a city, or the sunlike flame of a blaster cannon. He sat alone here, but within this same hull were men who adored him. Niku stood before him in heaven, become the brightest of the stars, and yonder poised nearly half the force he would presently unleash, to make himself lord of a hundred thousand worlds.

  Maybe that’s why I’m going in person, when I decided I’d waited too long at home on Flandry. I could have dispatched a trusty officer, but it feels good to be in action again, myself. Cairncross scowled. Besides, he might outwit anybody else. I know better than to underestimate him.

  A waft of chill seemed to pass through the air that rustled from the ventilator. If he went directly, he’s been there for days.

  Cairncross squared his shoulders and summoned confidence. How could a solitary human creature evade his precautions in that scant a time? Nigel Broderick allowed no laxity. No stranger would get access to any place where he might see what was building. After all, my original idea was to neutralize Flandry by bringing him to Hermes.

  Just the same—

  We’ll take no chances, we’ll strike immediately and hard. In a few more hours, Cairncross would be on the moon Elaveli, issuing orders. Let Broderick lead a detachment to Port Lulang and occupy it, on the grounds that he was searching for a spy—true, as far as it went. But probably Flandry was on Ramnu. I’ll command the planetside operation. The stakes are too high for a lesser player. They are the destiny of civilization.

  Brief wistfulness tugged at Cairncross. He’d cherished a secondary hope of winning Flandry over to his cause. The man would be valuable. And why shouldn’t he join me? What does he owe Gerhart? He’s been slighted, ignored, shunted aside. I’d have the brains to reward such a follower as he deserved, and listen to him. My aim is to give the Empire the strong, wise government it so desperately needs, to found a dynasty armored in legitimacy against usurpers . . . yes, then I’ll clone myself. . . . Why, there’ll no longer be any reason not to reverse the glaciation on Ramnu. In fact, it will be a suitably glorious achievement for my reign. An entire race of beings will revere my name for as long as their sun endures.

  Though that will be the littlest part of what I shall do. I could be remembered through the lifetime of the universe.

  Beneath the triumphant vision went a sigh. It is very lonely to be an embodiment of fate. He had daydreamed of gaining a friend in Flandry; their spirits were much alike, and the officer’s derisive humor would relieve the Emperor’s austere seriousness. But as matters had developed, the odds were that Cairncross would seize the other, wring him dry of everything he knew with a deep hypnoprobing, and mercifully obliterate what was left.

  Civilization was deathly ill; the rot had reached the heart. Nothing could save it but radical surgery.

  Yewwl’s first encounter was with a couple of native workers. Her party was riding toward Dukeston, which was as yet hidden from sight by a ridge in between. Its lights made a glow that night-adapted eyes saw as brilliant. Thence rolled a low rumbling, the sound of machines at their toil. Here the land seemed untouched. Hills lifted stark, white-mantled save where crags reared forth, above gorges full of blackness. Frosty soil rang beneath hoofs; stones rattled; brush cracked. The air hung still and bitterly cold, making the travelers keep their vanes wrapped around them; breath formed frost crystals that lingered in glittery streamers. Overhead twinkled more stars than a human would have seen unaided, though fewer than Yewwl had observed on pictures from Terra. Mothermoon was a crescent, scarcely moved from its earlier place among them, while Fathermoon was well down the sky. Child-moon rose tiny in the east.

  The strangers appeared suddenly, around the corner of a bluff. They halted, like Yewwl’s group. Stares went back and forth. She saw them quite clearly, except that she couldn’t be sure of the precise color of th
eir fur. It was paler than hers, and the two were tall and slender. In their hands and strapped to their thighs they carried objects that must be made by star-folk.

  After a moment, one of them spoke something that could be a question. Yewwl opened and drooped her vanes, trying to show she didn’t understand. She emphasized it by saying aloud, “We share not the same language.”

  To her surprise, the male of the pair addressed her in Anglic. He had less vocabulary and grammar than she had acquired from Banner, and neither of them had a vocalizer to turn the sounds into those that a human would have formed. Nevertheless, a degree of comprehensibility got through: “Do you know this talk?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  —“Don’t admit to knowing much,” Banner warned in her head. “They mustn’t identify you.”

  “A little,” Yewwl added, nervously fingering the scarf that hid her collar. “How did you guess?”

  “You are from afar,” the male answered shrewdly. “I have never seen your kind before, though my mate and I range widely in our work. But they say that off westward is another human settlement, and I thought you might well have come from there. None of the barbarians known to us do any business here.”

  Communication was not truly that easy. It was full of obscurities, false starts, requests for repetition, annoyed rephrasings. But persistence kept it limping along.

  Like many local natives, in these hills and the marshes below, the couple were employed by the star-folk. Live timber cruisers, harvesters, and so forth—including operators of various machines—came cheaper than robots. They were paid in trade goods, by which this region had become prosperous but upon which it was now, after centuries, totally dependent. (—“Don’t you think we have been kinder to your people at Wainwright?” Banner murmured.) These two were prospectors, searching out the ores for which Dukeston’s appetite had become insatiable of late. The colony itself had grown at the same pace. Why? Who knew? The humans must have their reasons, but those were beyond the grasp of simple Ramnuans.