Of course they failed. A few score—a few hundred at absolute maximum, if the ship had been rigged with suspended-animation lockers—could not preserve a full-fledged civilization while coping with a planet for which man was never meant. And they had to content themselves with that planet. Once into the Cloud Universe, even if their vessel could still wheeze along for a while, they were no longer able to move freely about, picking and choosing.
Kirkasant was probably the best of a bad lot. And Laure thought it was rather a miracle that man had survived there. So small a genetic pool, so hostile an environment . . . but the latter might well have saved him from the effects of the former. Natural selection must have been harsh. And, seemingly, the radiation background was high, which led to a corresponding mutation rate. Women bore from puberty to menopause, and buried most of their babies. Men struggled to keep them alive. Often death harvested adults, too, entire families. But those who were fit tended to survive. And the planet did have an unfilled ecological niche: the one reserved for intelligence. Evolution galloped. Population exploded. In one or two millennia, man was at home on Kirkasant. In five, he crowded it and went looking for new planets.
Because culture had never totally died. The first generation might be unable to build machine tools, but could mine and forge metals. The next generation might be too busy to keep public schools, but had enough hard practical respect for learning that it supported a literate class. Succeeding generations, wandering into new lands, founding new nations and societies, might war with each other, but all drew from a common tradition and looked to one goal: reunion with the stars.
Once the scientific method had been created afresh, Laure thought, progress must have been more rapid than on Earth. For the natural philosophers knew certain things were possible, even if they didn’t know how, and this was half the battle. They must have got some hints, however oracular, from the remnants of ancient texts. They actually had the corroded hulk of the ancestral ship for their studying. Given this much, it was not too surprising that they leaped in a single lifetime from the first moon rockets to the first hyperdrive craft—and did so on a basis of wildly distorted physical theory, and embarked with such naïvete that they couldn’t find their way home again!
All very logical. Unheard of, outrageously improbable, but in this big a galaxy the strangest things are bound to happen now and again. The Kirkasanters could be absolutely honest in their story.
If they were.
“Let the past tend the past,” Graydal said impatiently. “We’ve tomorrow to hunt in.”
“Yes,” Laure said, “but I do need to know a few things. It’s not clear to me how you found us. I mean, you crossed a thousand light-years or more of wilderness. How did you come on a speck like Serieve?”
“We were asked that before,” Demring said, “but then we could not well explain, few words being held in common. Now you show a good command of the Hobrokan tongue, and for our part, albeit none of these villagers will take the responsibility of putting one of us under your educator machine . . . in talking with technical folk, we’ve gained various technical words of yours.”
He was silent awhile, collecting phrases. The three people continued up the trail. It was wide enough for them to walk abreast, somewhat muddy with rain and melted snow. The sun was so far down that the woods walled it off; twilight smoked from the ground and from either side, though the sky was still pale. The wind was dying but the chill deepening. Somewhere behind those dun trunks and ashy-metallic leaves, a voice went “K-kr-r-r-ruk!” and, above and ahead, the sound of a river became audible.
Demring said with care: “See you, when we could not find our way back to Kirkasant’s sun, and at last had come out in an altogether different cosmos, we thought our ancestors might have originated there. Certain traditional songs hinted as much, speaking of space as dark for instance; and surely darkness encompassed us now, and immense loneliness between the stars. Well, but in which direction might Homeland lie? Casting about with telescopes, we spied afar a black cloud, and thought, if the ancestors had been in flight from enemies, they might well have gone through such, hoping to break their trail.”
“The Dragon’s Head Nebula,” Laure nodded.
Graydal’s wide shoulders lifted and fell. “At least it gave us something to steer by,” she said.
Laure stole a moment’s admiration of her profile. “You had courage,” he said. “Quite aside from everything else, how did you know this civilization had not stayed hostile to you?”
“How did we know it ever was in the first place?” she chuckled. “Myself, insofar as I believe the myths have any truth, I suspect our ancestors were thieves or bandits, or—”
“Daughter!” Demring hurried on, in a scandalized voice: “When we had fared thus far, we found the darkness was dust and gas such as pervade the universe at home. There was simply an absence of stars to make them shine. Emerging on the far side, we tuned our neutrino detectors. Our reasoning was that a highly developed civilization would use a great many nuclear power plants. Their neutrino flux should be detectable above the natural noise level—in this comparatively empty cosmos—across several score light-years or better, and we could home on it.”
First they sound like barbarian bards, Laure thought, and then like radionicians. No wonder a dogmatist like Vandange can’t put credence in them.
Can I?
“We soon began to despair,” Graydal said. “We were nigh to the limit—”
“No matter,” Demring interrupted.
She looked steadily first at one man, then the other, and said, “I dare trust Daven Laure.” To the Ranger: “Belike no secret anyhow, since men on Serieve must have examined our ship with knowledgeable eyes. We were nigh to our limit of travel without refueling and refurbishing. We were about to seek for a planet not too unlike Kirkasant where—But then, as if by Valfar’s Wings, came the traces we sought, and we followed them here.
“And here were humans!
“Only of late has our gladness faded as we begin to see how they temporize and keep us half prisoner. Wholly prisoner, maybe, should we try to depart. Why will they not rely on us?”
“I tried to explain that when we talked yesterday,” Laure said. “Some important men don’t see how you could be telling the truth.”
She caught his hand in a brief, impulsive grasp. Her own was warm, slender, and hard. “But you are different?”
“Yes.” He felt helpless and alone. “They’ve, well, they’ve called for me. Put the entire problem in the hands of my organization. And my fellows have so much else to do that, well, I’m given broad discretion.”
Demring regarded him shrewdly. “You are a young man,” he said. “Do not let your powers paralyze you.”
“No. I will do what I can for you. It may be little.”
The trail rounded a thicket and they saw a rustic bridge across the river, which ran seaward in foam and clangor. Halfway over, the party stopped, leaned on the rail and looked down. The water was thickly shadowed between its banks, and the woods were becoming a solid black mass athwart a dusking sky. The air smelled wet.
“You realize,” Laure said, “it won’t be easy to retrace your route. You improvised your navigational coordinates. They can be transformed into ours on this side of the Dragon’s Head, I suppose. But once beyond the nebula, I’ll be off my own charts, except for what few listed objects are visible from either side. No one from this civilization has been there, you see, what with millions of suns closer to our settlements. And the star sights you took can’t have been too accurate.”
“You are not going to take us to Homeland, then,” Demring said tonelessly.
“Don’t you understand? Homeland, Earth, it’s so far away that I myself don’t know what it’s like anymore!”
“But you must have a nearby capital, a more developed world than this. Why do you not guide us thither, that we may talk with folk wiser than these wretched Serievans?”
“Well . . . uh . . .
Oh, many reasons. I’ll be honest, caution is one of them. Also, the Commonalty does not have anything like a capital, or—But yes, I could guide you to the heart of civilization. Any of numerous civilizations in this galactic arm.” Laure took a breath and slogged on. “My decision, though, under the circumstances, is that first I’d better see your world Kirkasant. After that . . . well, certainly, if everything is all right, we’ll establish regular contacts, and invite your people to visit ours, and—Don’t you like the plan? Don’t you want to go home?”
“How shall we, ever?” Graydal asked low.
Laure cast her a surprised glance. She stared ahead of her and down, into the river. A fish—some kind of swimming creature—leaped. Its scales caught what light remained in a gleam that was faint but startling against those murky waters. She didn’t seem to notice, though she cocked her head instinctively toward the splash that followed.
“Have you not listened?” she said. “Did you not hear us? How long we searched in the fog, through that forest of suns, until at last we left our whole small bright universe and came into this great one that has so much blackness in it—and thrice we plunged back into our own space, and groped about, and came forth without having found trace of any star we knew—” Her voice lifted the least bit. “We are lost, I tell you, eternally lost. Take us to your home, Daven Laure, that we may try to make ours there.”
He wanted to stroke her hands, which had clenched into fists on the bridge rail. But he made himself say only: “Our science and resources are more than yours. Maybe we can find a way where you cannot. At any rate, I’m duty bound to learn as much as I can, before I make report and recommendation to my superiors.”
“I do not think you are kind, forcing my crew to return and look again on what has gone from them,” Demring said stiffly. “But I have scant choice save to agree.” He straightened. “Come, best we start back toward Pelogard. Night will soon be upon us.”
“Oh, no rush,” Laure said, anxious to change the subject. “An arctic zone, at this time of year—We’ll have no trouble.”
“Maybe you will not,” Graydal said. “But Kirkasant after sunset is not like here.”
They were on their way down when dusk became night, a light night where only a few stars gleamed and Laure walked easily through a clear gloaming. Graydal and Demring must needs use their energy guns at minimum intensity for flashcasters. And even so, they often stumbled.
Makt was three times the size of Jaccavrie, a gleaming torpedo shape whose curve was broken by boat housings and weapon turrets. The Ranger vessel looked like a gig attending her. In actuality, Jaccavrie could have outrun, outmaneuvered, or outfought the Kirkasanter with ludicrous ease. Laure didn’t emphasize that fact. His charges were touchy enough already. He had suggested hiring a modern carrier for them, and met a glacial negative. This craft was their property and bore the honor of the confederated clans that had built her. She was not to be abandoned.
Modernizing her would have taken more time than increased speed would save. Besides, while Laure was personally convinced of the good intentions of Demring’s people, he had no right to present them with up-to-date technology until he had proof they wouldn’t misuse it.
One could not accurately say that he resigned himself to accompanying them in his ship at the plodding pace of theirs. The weeks of travel gave him a chance to get acquainted with them and their culture. And that was not only his duty but his pleasure. Especially, he found, when Graydal was involved.
Some time passed before he could invite her to dinner à deux. He arranged it with what he felt sure was adroitness. Two persons, undisturbed, talking socially, could exchange information of the subtle kind that didn’t come across in committee. Thus he proposed a series of private meetings with the officers of Makt. He began with the captain, naturally; but after a while came the navigator’s turn.
Jaccavrie phased in with the other vessel, laid alongside and made air-lock connections in a motion too smooth to feel. Graydal came aboard and the ships parted company again. Laure greeted her according to the way of Kirkasant, with a handshake. The clasp lasted a moment. “Welcome,” he said.
“Peace between us.” Her smile offset her formalism. She was in uniform—another obsolete aspect of her society—but it shimmered gold and molded itself to her.
“Won’t you come to the saloon for a drink before we eat?”
“I shouldn’t. Not in space.”
“No hazard,” said the computer in an amused tone. “I operate everything anyway.”
Graydal had tensed and clapped hand to gun at the voice. She had relaxed and tried to laugh. “I’m sorry. I am not used to . . . you.” She almost bounded on her way down the corridor with Laure. He had set the interior weight at one standard G. The Kirkasanters maintained theirs fourteen percent higher, to match the pull of their home world.
Though she had inspected this ship several times already, Graydal looked wide-eyed around her. The saloon was small but sybaritic. “You do yourself proud,” she said amidst the draperies, music, perfumes, and animations.
He guided her to a couch. “You don’t sound quite approving,” he said.
“Well—”
“There’s no virtue in suffering hardships.”
“But there is in the ability to endure them,” She sat too straight for the form-fitter cells to make her comfortable.
“Think I can’t?”
Embarrassed, she turned her gaze from him, toward the viewscreen, on which flowed a color composition. Her lips tightened. “Why have you turned off the exterior scene?”
“You don’t seem to like it, I’ve noticed.” He sat down beside her. “What will you have? We’re fairly well stocked.”
“Turn it on.”
“What?”
“The outside view.” Her nostrils dilated. “It shall not best me.”
He spread his hands. The ship saw his rueful gesture and obliged. Space leaped into the screen, star-strewn except where the storm-cloud mass of the dark nebula reared ahead. He heard Graydal suck in a breath and said quickly, “Uh, since you aren’t familiar with our beverages, I suggest daiquiris. They’re tart, a little sweet—”
Her nod was jerky. Her eyes seemed locked to the screen. He leaned close, catching the slight warm odor of her, not quite identical with the odor of other women he had known, though the difference was too subtle for him to name. “Why does that sight bother you?” he asked.
“The strangeness. The aloneness. It is so absolutely alien to home. I feel forsaken and—” She filled her lungs, forced detachment on herself, and said in an analytical manner: “Possibly we are disturbed by a black sky because we have virtually none of what you call night vision.” A touch of trouble returned. “What else have we lost?”
“Night vision isn’t needed on Kirkasant, you tell me,” Laure consoled her. “And evolution there worked fast. But you must have gained as well as atrophied. I know you have more physical strength, for instance, than your ancestors could’ve had.” A tray with two glasses extended from the side. “Ah, here are the drinks.”
She sniffed at hers. “It smells pleasant,” she said. “But are you sure there isn’t something I might be allergic to?”
“I doubt that. You didn’t react to anything you tried on Serieve, did you?”
“No, except for finding it overly bland.”
“Don’t worry,” he grinned. “Before we left, your father took care to present me with one of your salt-shakers. It’ll be on the dinner table.”
Jaccavrie had analyzed the contents. Besides sodium and potassium chloride—noticeably less abundant on Kirkasant than on the average planet, but not scare enough to cause real trouble—the mixture included a number of other salts. The proportion of rare earths and especially arsenic was surprising. An ordinary human who ingested the latter element at that rate would lose quite a few years of life expectancy. Doubtless the first refugee generations had, too, when something else didn’t get them first. But by now their des
cendants were so well adapted that food didn’t taste right without a bit of arsenic trioxide.
“We wouldn’t have to be cautious—we’d know in advance what you can and cannot take—if you’d permit a chromosome analysis,” Laure hinted. “The laboratory aboard this ship can do it.”
Her cheeks turned more than ever coppery. She scowled. “We refused before,” she said.
“May I ask why?”
“It . . . violates integrity. Humans are not to be probed into.”
He had encountered that attitude before, in several guises. To the Kirkasanter—at least, to the Hobrokan clansman; the planet had other cultures—the body was a citadel for the ego, which by right should be inviolable. The feeling, so basic that few were aware of having it, had led to the formation of reserved, often rather cold personalities. It had handicapped if not stopped the progress of medicine. On the plus side, it had made for dignity and self-reliance; and it had caused this civilization to be spared professional gossips, confessional literature, and psychoanalysis.
“I don’t agree,” Laure said. “Nothing more is involved than scientific information. What’s personal about a DNA map?”
“Well . . . maybe. I shall think on the matter.” Graydal made an obvious effort to get away from the topic. She sipped her drink, smiled, and said, “Mm-m-m, this is a noble flavor.”
“Hoped you’d like it. I do. We have a custom in the Commonalty—” He touched glasses with her.
“Charming. Now we, when good friends are together, drink half what’s in our cups and then exchange them.”
“May I?”
She blushed again, but with pleasure. “Certainly. You honor me.”
Flandry's Legacy: The Technic Civilization Saga Page 60
