“Welcome home, youngest son,” she said. “How fared you?”
“Into a wind that stank of evil,” he replied. “How fare the folk?”
“Well enough . . . thus far. But you are back sooner than is wont. It would not be for aye, this time?”
“It would not. It cannot. I tell you, death was in the wind I snuffed upon Daedalus. I must return.”
Her tendrils drooped. “Ever will you go forth—someday, if you live, beyond any ken of mine. Overbold are you, my son.”
“No more than you, mother, when you skippered a ship on the Zletovar Sea and the vaz-Siravo rose beweaponed from beneath.”
“But you are male.” Dragoika sighed. “The Terran example? Are you driven to do everything a female can do, as I’ve heard their females were once driven to match the males? I hoped for grandchildren from you.”
“Why, you shall have them. Just find me a wife who’s content if I’m often away.”
“Or always away, like him who begot your friend Diana?” Dragoika’s mood lightened. She did send a parting shot: “Long will it be ere many vaz-Toborko besides yourself are found on Daedalus, let alone worlds among the stars. How like you your celibacy?”
“Not much. It measures my feelings for you, mother, that I came here before seeking the waterfront minxes. However, if this is the price to pay—There is naught a fellow can get so far behind on, nor so quickly catch up on.”
She whistled in merriment. “Well, then, scapegrace, come have a smoke and we’ll talk.” She surveyed him closely. “It was not filial piety brought you first to me. You’ve somewhat to ask.”
“I do that,” he admitted. Excitement pulsed within him. Dragoika got word from around this globe. If anyone could aid him onward, it was she.
The wind blew slow but powerful. It filled the upper square sails, lower fore-and-aft canvas, and jibs that drove Firefish southeast. Seas rushed, boomed, flung bitter spindrift off their crests; they shimmered green on their backs, dark purple in their troughs. Following the wake soared a flock of flying snakes.
Abruptly the lookout shouted. Sailors swarmed to the rail or into the rigging to see. Captain Latazhanda stayed more calm. She had received word on the ship’s radio, and given directions.
The van lumbered down, extended pontoons, sought to lay alongside. Though Targovi maneuvered cautiously, he nearly suffered a capsizing. Waves under this gravity moved with real speed and force. His second pass succeeded. Leaning out an opened door, he made fast a towline tossed him and let his vehicle drop aft. He flew across on a gravity impeller.
Besides the crew, their passengers were on deck to meet him. He thrust aside awe at his first in-the-flesh sight of a Wodenite, and turned toward Diana Crowfeather. She sprang over the planks and into his arms.
“Targovi, you rascal, how wonderful!” she warbled. “What’re you doin’ here?” Anxiety smote. She stepped back, her hands still on his shoulders, and stared at him through the vitryl that snugged around her head. Aside from it and its pump, she was briefly clad. No matter the broad orbit, Imhotep’s atmosphere has a greenhouse effect felt even at sea. “Is somethin’ wrong?”
“Yea and nay,” Targovi replied in his language, which she understood and the Wodenite presumably did not. “I would fain speak with you alone, little friend.” He purred. “Fear not. I, the trader, have in mind to give you, in swap for this adventure of yours, a bigger and wilder one.”
“Oh, but I’ve promised Axor—”
“He will be included. I count on you to persuade him. But let me be about my devoirs.”
Saluting Latazhanda, he explained that he carried an urgent message. She and her crew were a rough lot, but had the manners not to inquire what it was. “I daresay you know whither we’re bound,” she remarked. “The Starboard and Larboard Islands, where this mad pair want to look at what may be ruins left by fay-folk of old.” She rumbled a chuckle. “They’re paying aplenty for the charter.”
“Need is that I must take them from you. But I’ll make your loss good, my lady. A fourth of the fare.” Targovi winced as he spoke. The price would come out of his purse, and it was uncertain whether the Corps would ever honor that expense account.
“A fourth!” yowled Latazhanda. “Are you madder than they? I declined a lucrative cargo to make this trip. Three-fourths at least.”
“Ah, but so enticing a puss as you cannot fail to attract the offers of ardent agents.” Much consignment, brokerage, and other shoreside business was in male hands. “How I envy them. Your charms cause me to reward you with a third of the passage money you’re forgoing.”
Latazhanda gave him a long look. “I’ve heard of you, the chapman who goes beyond the sky. If you’ve time to take hospitality, your stories should be worth my accepting a mere two-thirds.”
They haggled amicably and flirtatiously until they reached an agreement which included his spending the night in her cabin. She enjoyed variety, and he did not mind that part of the bargain at all.
What with additional introductions, and leisured preliminaries of acquaintanceship with F. X. Axor, the hour was near sunset when Targovi and Diana could be by themselves. That was in the crow’s nest on the mainmast. He balanced against the surging and swaying as easily as any of his race, and it delighted her so much that she took a while to calm down and pay heed.
Wind swirled in shrouds, bore iodine odors. The ship creaked and whooshed. A low sun threw a bridge over the waters. Forsaking this quest for another would not be quite easy.
“My mother Dragoika told me about you and your comrade, of course,” Targovi began. “You had called on her and she helped you arrange this transportation. My thanks to the gods, for you two must be their very sending.”
“What do you want of us?” she asked.
“How would you like to go to Daedalus and roam about?”
“Oh, marvelous! I’ve only seen Aurea and its neighborhood—” Diana checked herself. “But I did promise Axor I’d be his guide, interpreter, assistant.”
“Axor will come along. In fact, that is the whole idea.”
“But don’t you understand? He isn’t travelin’ for pleasure, nor for science, really. To him, this is a . . . a pilgrimage. We can’t go ’til he’s looked over the stones on those islands.”
“They’ve lasted thousands of years—millions, if he is right. They can wait a bit longer. Tell him, what’s true, this is a chance he had better seize. Soon none but Navy ships may be going between Patrician planets.”
“What? Why?”
“And Javak the Fireplayer alone knows when the spacelanes will be open again. If Axor must be stranded, better on Daedalus than Imhotep. That air helmet of his seems to pain him.”
“Yes, I think it does, though he never complains. It had to be made special for him. He’s comfortable in Olga’s Landin’.”
“But what would there be for him to do? Whereas Daedalus may well be the world that has what he’s seeking. Likelier, I should think. Have any such things ever been found on globes the size of Imhotep? Chances are, he’s wasting his efforts. You, small person, are not, because you are having a glorious time simply traveling. However, you can have the same on Daedalus, and more. No need for a helmet. Plenty of handsome young men.”
Diana sniffed and tossed her head as much as she could under these conditions. “I can take care of myself, thank you. Do you know of anything yonder that might be Foredweller remains?”
“In my traffickings I have seen curious sights, and heard tell of others. Once we’re there, I will ask more widely and more closely, until I have a goal or three for you.”
She gave him a hard stare. “Why do you want this?”
“Well, as a trader who smells trouble uptime, I need better information—”
She laughed. “Let’s not play pretty games. Nobody can overhear us. You’re no more a simple packman than I am. I’ve known for years. What you really are, it wouldn’t’ve been polite to ask . . . ’til now.”
He joined an
acrid mirth to hers. “Hai, little friend of the universe, you are your father’s daughter! . . . I suspected that you suspected. Certain remarks you made, looks you pierced me with, already ere your limbs lengthened—not what a child shows the son of her mother’s associate when he’s come back from an adventure and put her on his lap to tell her about it. . . . Aye, trusting you to keep silence, I admit to turning an honest credit now and then by keeping my senses open on behalf of your father’s corps. Is that terrible?”
“Contrariwise,” she replied enthusiastically. “The Navy staked you, didn’t it? I never really believed what you said about the pirates.”
“Well,” he growled, miffed, “we can talk further another time. What matters this evening is that devils are loose. They know me too well on Daedalus. But who would be wary of an innocent old priest and his young girl companion, wandering about on a purely religious expedition?”
Diana tensed. “What’d we really be doin’?”
“Essentially, distracting attention from me. I have business I want to pursue, best not discussed here. You two will be conspicuous without posing a threat to anybody.”
She scowled. “I can’t just use him.”
“You’ll not.” Targovi spread his hands. “Who dares say there are no Ancient relics along the Highroad River and—on islands beyond? Already millions of years ago, that must have been a good place to settle. I’ll help you gather information about it.”
She bit her lip. “You tempt me. But it isn’t right.”
“Think why I do this,” he urged.
“Why?”
“Because everything I have seen, heard, discovered on Daedalus shouts a single thing. Admiral Magnusson plans to rebel. His forces will hail him Emperor, and he will lead them in an assault on Gerhart’s.”
Silence fell, save for wind, sea, and ship. Diana clutched the rail of the crow’s nest, which was pitching violently, and stared horizonward. Finally she said low: “No big surprise. Olga’s Landin’, too, has been abuzz with rumors. People are mainly afraid of an Imperial counterattack. I’ve lined up several hidey-holes for myself. But prob’ly that’s foolish. Why should anybody strike Imhotep? We’ll simply wait the whole thing out.”
“You care not about revolt and civil war?”
Diana shrugged. “What can I do about it? ’Twouldn’t be the first time it’s ever happened. From what I’ve heard, Olaf Magnusson would make a fine Emperor. He’s strong, he’s smart, and he can deal better with the Merseians.”
“What makes you believe so?” Targovi asked slowly.
“Well, he . . . he’s had to, for years, in this borderspace, hasn’t he? When things finally blew up, it wasn’t his fault. He met them and gave them a drubbin’. They respect strength. I’ve heard him blamed for not followin’ up the victory and annihilatin’their fleet, but I think he was right. The Roidhun might not have been free to forgive that. Didn’t you often advise me, always leave an enemy a line of retreat unless you fully intend to kill him? As is, we’re back at peace, and the diplomats are workin’ on a treaty.”
“Ah, you are young. Myself, I have lost faith in the likelihood of water spontaneously running uphill, teakettles boiling if set on a cake of ice, and governments being wise or benevolent. Tell me, what do you know about Admiral Magnusson?”
“Why, why, what everybody knows.”
“What is that? Spell it out for me. I am only a xeno.”
Diana flushed. “Don’t get sarcastic.” Calming: “Well, if you insist. He was born on Kraken . . . m-m . . . forty-some Terra-years ago. It’s a hard, harsh planet for humans. They grow tough, or they die. An independent lot; their spacefolk trade outside the Empire as well as inside, clear to Betelgeuse or Merseia itself. But they give us more’n their share of military recruits. Magnusson enlisted young, in the Marines. He distinguished himself in several nasty situations. Durin’ the dust-up with Merseia at Syrax, he took command of the crippled ship he was aboard, after the officers were killed, and got her to safety. That made his superiors transfer him to the Navy proper and send him to the Foundry—the officer school in Sector Aldebaran. It has a fierce reputation.”
“What did he do during the last succession crisis?”
“Which one? You mean the three-cornered fight for the throne that Hans Molitor won? Why, he—m-m, his age then—he must’ve been at the academy yet. But the accounts I’ve seen tell how he did well when a couple of later rebellions needed squelchin’, plus in negotiatin’ with the Merseians, so you can’t say he hasn’t been loyal. In fact, he’s seldom visited Terra and never played office politics, they say, but he’s risen fast regardless.”
“It did no harm that he married a Nyanzan heiress.”
“Oh, foof! You’ve got to have money to go far in the service, civil or military. I know that much. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her.”
“That is the official biography. What have you learned about him as a person?”
“Oh, just the usual sort of thing you see on the news. No, I’ve also talked with some of the boys who serve under him. What they tell sounds all right to me. He does seem pretty humorless and strict, but he’s always fair. The lowliest ranker who deserves a hearin’ will get it. And he may be curt in everyday life, but when he unrolls his tongue—” Diana shivered. “I caught his speech last year, of course, after he’d saved us from the Merseians. I still get cold prickles, rememberin’.”
“A hero, then,” said Targovi down in his throat.
Diana’s gaze sharpened. “What’s wrong?”
“Best I say no more at this stage,” he demurred. “I could be mistaken in my fears. But ask yourself what elements—criminal, mayhap—could be conspiring to take advantage of chaos. Ask yourself what harm I can work on any innocent party by helping uncover the truth, whatever the truth may prove to be.”
“Um-m-m.” She stared out beyond the sunset. “Persuadin’ Axor—because I will not fool him, Targovi, though I could maybe shade the facts a trifle—m-m-m. . . . Yes, if I said Daedalus is a better huntin’ ground for him, and we’d be wise to get there while we’re sure we can, and you’ll take us because you’re sort of interested yourself—I think that would satisfy him. You see, he really does believe in goodness.”
“Which you and I are not certain of. But we are certain of evil,” said Targovi. His tone had gone steely. “You might also, Diana Crow-feather, consider the cost of a civil war launched by your hero. Destruction, death, maiming, pain, grief, billionfold. You are more compassionate than I am.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The home of Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson lay in the desirable tract a hundred kilometers north of Aurea. It was small, and the interior austere, for a man of wealth and power. But such was his desire, and any decisions he made, he enforced. The only luxuries, if they could be called that, were a gymnasium where he worked out for at least forty minutes in every fifteen hours, and an observation deck where he meditated when he felt the need. Naturally, his use of these was restricted to times when he was there, which had not been many of late.
He stood on the deck and let his gaze range afar—a tall man, thickly muscular, with wide, craggy features, heavy blond brows over sapphire-blue eyes, thinning sandy hair. The face was tanned and deeply lined; its left cheek bore the seam of a battle scar which he had never troubled to have removed and which had become a virtual trademark. What he saw was a vast sweep of land and sky. Close by, the land had been terraformed, planted in grass, roses, hollyhocks, Buddha’s cup, livewell, oaks, maples, braidwoods, and more, the gardens of an empire brought together around human houses. Beyond was primeval Daedalus, trees and brush, leaves a somber, gleaming green, never a flower. Those were not birds that passed above, though their wings shone in the evening light as the wings of eagles would have. The sun, sinking west, had begun to lose its disc shape. Haze dimmed and reddened it enough for vision to perceive that, because the rays came through ever more air as it dropped below what should have been the horizon. Golden clouds fl
oated above.
Olaf Magnusson did not really see this, unless with a half-aware fraction of his mind. Nor was he rapt in the contemplation of the All that his Neosufic religion enjoined. He had striven to be, but his thoughts kept drifting elsewhere, until at last he accepted their object as the aspect of the Divine which was set before him tonight.
Strength. Strength unafraid, unhesitant, serving a will which was neither cruel nor kind but which cleanly trod the road to its destiny. . . . He could not hold the vision before him for very long at a time. It was too superb for mankind. Into his awareness there kept jabbing mere facts, practicalities, things he must do, questions of how to do them—yes, crusades have logistic requirements too—
A footfall, a breath reached his hearing. He swung about, his big frame as sure-footed as a fencer’s or a mountaineer’s, both of which he was. His wife had come out. She halted, a meter away. “What’s this?” he demanded. “Emergency?”
“No.” He could barely hear her voice through the cold, whittering breeze, as soft as it was. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have interrupted you, except that it’s getting late and the children are hungry. I wondered if you would be having dinner with us.”
His basso rasped. “For something like that, you break in on my devotions?”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. Yet she did not cringe, she stood before him in her own pride. And her sadness. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t. But since you are going away for a long while at best, and God knows if you will ever come back—”
“What gives you that idea?”
Vida Lonwe-Magnusson smiled a bit. “You’d never have married an idiot, Olaf, no matter how much money she brought with her. Allow that I’ve gotten to know you over the years, in part, and I follow the news closely, and have studied history. What date have you set for the troops to spontaneously proclaim you Emperor? Tomorrow?”
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