World without Stars

by Poul Anderson

  We had a little guzzling alcohol left. It steadied me. I forgot the rain and the heat and the darkness outside, bending myself to talk with Gianyi.

  That wasn’t any light job. Neither of us had a large vocabulary in that language of gestures as well as sounds. What we had in common was still less. Furthermore, his people’s acquaintance with it antedated mine by many generations, and had not been reinforced by subsequent contact. You might say he had another dialect. Finally, a language originated by beings unlike his race or mine was now filtered through two different body types and cultural patterns—indeed, through different instincts; I had yet to discover how very different.

  So I can no more set down coherent discourse for Gianyi and me than I could for ya-Kela and Valland. I can merely pretend:

  “We came from the sky,” I said. “We are friendly, but we have been wrecked and need help before we can leave. You have met others, not akin to us but also from the sky, not so?”

  “They tell me such beings came,” Gianyi said. “It was before my time, and far away.”

  That made sense. In an early stage of space travel, the Yonderfolk would have visited their neighbor planets. Finding intelligent life here, they would have instituted a base from which to conduct scientific studies—before they discovered the space jump and abandoned this world for ones more interesting and hospitable to them. And it would have been an unlikely coincidence if that base happened to have been anywhere near here.

  How, though, had the mutual language been preserved through Earth centuries after they left? And how had it traveled across hundreds or thousands of kilometers to us? I asked Gianyi and got no good answer through the linguistic haze. The Ai Chun could do such things, he tried to explain. The Ai Chun had sent his party to us, making him the commander since he was among those Niao who were traditionally instructed in sky-talk. He bowed his head whenever he spoke that name. So did the blind dwarf. The giant remained motionless, poised; only his eyes never rested.

  “A ruling class,” Bren suggested to me. “Theocrats?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I have an impression they’re something more, though.” To Gianyi: “We will be glad to meet the Ai Chun and make gifts to them as well as to the rest of your people.”

  He got unreasonably excited. I must not lump Niao and Ai Chun together. That was wrong. That was bad medicine. I apologized for my ignorance.

  Gianyi calmed down. “You will meet the Ai Chun,” he said. “You will come with us to them.”

  “Well, one or two of us will,” I agreed. We had to take some risks.

  “No, no. Every one of you. They have so ordered.”

  Not being sure whether that last term indicated a fiat or simply a request, I tried to explain that we could not abandon our camp. Gianyi barked at the giant, who growled and took a stiff-legged step forward. I heard guns leave their holsters at my back.

  “Easy! Easy!” I sprang to my feet. “You want to start a war?” Gianyi rose also and waved his bully boy back. We faced each other, he and I, while the rain came down louder. The dwarf had never stirred.

  I cleared my throat. “You must know that those from the sky have great powers,” I said. “Or if you do not, the Ai Chun should. We have no wish to fight. We will, however, if you insist we do what is impossible. Have all the Niao come here? Certainly not. Likewise, all of us cannot go away with you. But we will be glad to send one or two, in friendship.”

  When I had made this clear, which took time, Gianyi turned to the dwarf and spoke a while in his own high-pitched language. Something like pain went across the blind countenance. The answer was almost too low to hear. Gianyi folded his hands and bent nearly to the floor before he straightened and addressed me again.

  “So be it,” he told me. “We will take a pair of you. We will leave two canoes here to keep watch. The crews can catch fish to live. You are not to molest them.”

  “What the bloody blazes is going on?” Urduga whispered behind me.

  I looked at the dwarf, who was now shivering, and made no replay. That poor little thing couldn’t be the real chief of the party. Well, I’ve met different kinds of telepathic sensitives among the million known civilizations; none like him, but—

  “Think it’s a good idea to go, captain?” Galmer asked.

  “I don’t think we have much choice,” I told him, trying hard to keep my voice steady. Inside, I was afraid. “We’ll be here a long time. We’ve got to know what we’re up against.”

  “They may mean well in spite of their manners,” Bren said.

  “Sure,” I said. “They may.” The rain gurgled as it fell onto soaked earth.

  While Gianyi and his escort waited impassively, we discussed procedure. Our representatives were to be taken to the opposite shore, where the Niao had a frontier settlement. From Valland’s questioning of ya-Kela, we knew the lake was broad, an inland sea. Still, we should get across in a couple of standard days, given those swift-looking boats. We might or might not be able to maintain radio contact. Valland could, but he hadn’t traveled so far. Under the tenuous ionosphere of this planet, we needed a hypersensitive receiver to read him.

  I must go, having the best command of Yonder. An extra man was desirable, both as a backup for me—the situation looked trickier than Valland’s—and as evidence of good faith on our part. Everyone volunteered (who could do otherwise, with the rest of us watching him?) and I picked Yo Rorn. He wasn’t my ideal of a traveling companion, but his special skills could be duplicated by Valland and Bren working in concert, whereas nobody but Urduga could fix a drive unit and Galmer was alone in knowing the ins and outs of a control system.

  We started to pack our gear, more or less what Valland himself had taken along. Bedrolls; plastic tent; cooking and distilling utensils; lyophilized food from stores; medical kit; torchguns and charges; radio, extra capacitors, hand-cranked minigenerator for reviving them; flashes, goggles, photoplates, space garments— The receiver buzzed. I thrust across the crowded hut and sat down. “Hello?” I shouted.

  “Me here,” Valland’s voice said, tiny out of the speaker. “Just reportin’. Things look pretty hopeful at this end. How’s with you?”

  I told him.

  He whistled. “Looks like the Herd’s found you out.”

  “The what?”

  “The Shkil. You remember. I’ve about decided it translates best as ‘Herd.’ What’d you say they call themselves?”

  “The Niao. With somebody else in charge that they name as Ai Chun.”

  “Um. The downdevils, I suppose. My own translation again, of an Azkashi word that means somethin’ like ‘the evil ones in the depths.’ Only I thought the downdevils were a set of pagan gods, as contrasted with the local religion where the galaxy’s the one solitary original God, beware of imitations.”

  Valland’s lightness was not matched by his tone. I realized with a jolt that this was putting him in a bad fiix. What with the strain of the past hours, trying to unravel Gianyi’s intent, we’d forgotten that our shipmate was among people who hated and feared those I was to depart with.

  And … surely the Pack had watchers by the edge of wilderness.

  “We can hardly avoid going,” I said, “but we’ll stall till you can return here.”

  “Well, I’ll try. Hang on a bit.”

  There followed some ugly noises.

  “Hugh!” I cried. “Hugh, are you there?”

  The rain had stopped, and silence grew thick in the hut. Gianyi muttered through the dwarf to his unknown masters. I sat and cursed.

  Finally, breathlessly, Valland said:

  “Matters peaked in an awful hurry. Ya-Kela figured treachery. He called in his goons and wanted to put me to the question, as I believe the polite term is. I pointed out that I could shoot my way clear. He said I’d have to sleep eventually and then he’d get me. I said no, I’d start right back to camp if need be, might not make it but I’d sure give him a run for his money. Only look, old pal, I said, let’s be reasonable. My
people don’t know anything about the downdevils. Maybe they’ve been tricked. If so, I’ll want your help to rescue them, and between us we can strike a hefty blow. Or suppose the worst, suppose my people decide to collaborate with the enemy because they offer a better deal. Then I’ll be worth more to you as a hostage than a corpse. I got him calmed down. Now he wants to lecture me at length about how bad the downdevils are.”

  “Try to explain the idea of neutrality,” I said. “Uh, Hugh, are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  “No,” he said. “Are you sure for yourself?”

  I tried to answer, but my throat tightened up on me.

  “We’re both in a bad spot,” Valland said, “and I wouldn’t be surprised but what yours is worse. Ya-Kela swore by his God he won’t hurt me as long as I keep my nose clean. I won’t be a prisoner, exactly; more like a guest who isn’t permitted to leave. I think he’ll stand by that. I’ve already handed him my gun, and still he’s lettin’ me finish before he sequestrates the radio. So I ought to be safe for the time bein’. You go ahead and sound out the whosits—Ai Chun. You’ve got to. Once you’re back, we’ll parley.”

  I tried to imagine what it had been like, standing in a cave full of wolves and surrendering one’s only weapon on the strength of a promise. I couldn’t.

  X

  THE GALLEY walked fast over the water. Except for creak and splash of oars, soft thutter of a coxswain’s drum, an occasional low-voiced command, it was too silent for my liking. Torches lit the deck built across the twin hulls. But when Rorn and I stood at the rail, we looked into murk. Even with goggles, we saw only the galaxy and its wave-splintered glade; the accompanying canoes were too far out.

  Rorn’s gaunt features were shadow and flicker beside me. “We’re facing something more powerful than you maybe realize,” he said.

  I rested my hand on my gun butt. Its knurls comforted me. “How so?” I asked.

  “Those boats which first came, and ran away. They must have been from the place we’re headed for now. What’s its name again?”

  “Prasiyo, I think.”

  “Well, obviously they simply chanced on us, in the course of fishing or whatever. The crews were ordinary unspecialized Niao, we saw that. But they didn’t take the responsibility of meeting us. No, they reported straight back to Prasiyo. Now normally, you know, given a generally human-type instinct pattern, a technological-geographical situation like this one makes for individualism.”

  I nodded. Tyranny gets unstable when a cheap boat can pace a warship and there’s a wilderness for dissatisfied people to vanish into. The Niao had not fled us because of timidity. Their harrying of the Azkashi proved otherwise. So the Niao must like being subservient.

  “Nevertheless,” Rorn continued, “it took some while before this delegation arrived. That means it had to be organized. Authorized. Which means word had to get back to a distant front office.”

  “Now that needn’t take long, given telepathy.”

  “My exact point. The masters therefore debated the matter at length and took their time preparing to contact us. There’s also the business of the Yonder language having been preserved so long and carried so far. What these clues point to is: we’re on the marches of a very big and very old empire.”

  I was surprised. Rorn hadn’t seemed capable of reasoning so clearly. “Makes a good working hypothesis, anyhow,” I said. “Well, if we can get them to help us, fine. They’ll have more resources, more skills of the kind we need, than the Pack does. Of course, first we have to get Hugh back into camp with us.”

  Rorn spat.

  “You don’t like him, do you?” I asked.

  “No. A loudmouthed oaf.”

  “He’s your crewfellow,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, yes. I know. But if matters should come to a pass—if we can only save ourselves, the whole remaining lot of us, by abandoning him—it won’t weigh on my conscience.”

  “How would you like to be on the receiving end of that philosophy?” I snapped. “We orbit or crash together!”

  Rorn was taken aback. “I didn’t mean—Captain, please don’t think I—”

  Ghostlike in his robes and hat, Gianyi glided to me. “I have thought you might be shown the ship,” he offered.

  We were both relieved at the interruption, as well as interested in a tour, and followed him around the deck. The cabin assigned us was pretty bare. The others, for Gianyi and three more Niao of similar rank, were a curious blend of austere furnishing with ornate painted and carved decoration. I noticed that two symbols recurred. One was a complicated knot, the other a sort of double swastika with a circle superimposed. I asked about them.

  Gianyi bowed deep. “The knot is the emblem of the Ai Chun,” he said.

  “And this?”

  He traced a sign on his breast. “The miaicho bound fast by the power of the solar disc.”

  A few minutes later, I observed that helmsmen and lookouts wore broad hats with that second insigne on them. I asked why. Gianyi said it was protection against the miaicho.

  Rorn was quick to understand. He pointed at the immense spiral in heaven. “That?”

  “Yes,” Gianyi said. “Its banefulness is great when there is no sun at the same time. We would not have crossed the water tonight had the Ai Chun not commanded.”

  So, I thought, the God of the Azkashi was some kind of demon to the Niao. Just as the Niao’s venerated Ai Chun were the downdevils of the Pack …

  Gianyi made haste to take us below. The hull, like everything else, was well built. No metal anywhere, of course; ribs and planks were glued, then clinched with wooden pegs. Construction must have been a major job. Gianyi admitted there was just this one ship on the lake; otherwise only canoes were needed, to fish and to keep the savages in their place. But whole fleets plied the oceans, he said. I was prepared to believe him after he showed me some very fine objects, ceramic and plastic as well as polished stone.

  The crew intrigued me most. The rowers worked in several shifts on a well ventilated, lantern-lit deck. They were all of a kind, with short legs, grotesquely big arms and shoulders, mere stumps of tail. Some fighters were on board too, like the colossus I had already seen. To our questions, Gianyi replied that other types of Niao existed, such as divers and paddy workers. He himself belonged to the intellectual stock.

  “You may only breed within your own sort?” I asked.

  “There is no law needed,” Gianyi said. “Who would wish to mate with one so different, or keep alive a young which was not a good specimen? Unless, of course, the Ai Chun command it. They sometimes desire hybrids. But that is for the good of all the Niao.”

  When I had unraveled that this was what he had actually said, and explained to Rorn, my companion reflected in our own tongue: “‘The system appears to operate smoothly. But that has to be because hundreds, thousands of generations of selective breeding lie behind it. Who enforced that, in the early days?” I saw him shudder. “And how?”

  I had no reply. There are races with so much instinct of communality that eugenics is ancient in their cultures. But it’s never worked long enough at a time for others, like the human race, to be significant. You get too much individual rebellion; eventually some of the rebels get power to modify the setup, or wreck it.

  So perhaps the autochthones of this planet did not have human-type minds after all?

  No—because then how did you account for the Azkashi?

  In spite of the temperature, we felt cold. And belowdecks was a cavern, full of glooms, lit by no more than a rare flickering lamp. We excused ourselves and returned to our little room. It had only one sconce, but we stuck spare candles in their wax around us.

  Rorn sat down on his bedroll, knees hugged to chin, and stared at me where I stood. “I don’t like this,” he said.

  “The situation’s peculiar,” I agreed, “but not necessarily sinister. Remember, the Yonderfolk suggested we might base ourselves here.”

  “They supposed we’d arrive wit
h full equipment. Instead, we’re helpless.”

  I regarded him closely. He was shivering. And he had been so competent hitherto. “Don’t panic,” I warned him. “Remember, the worst thing that can happen to us is no more than death.”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking and—well, consider. The Ai Chun, whoever they are, haven’t much physical technology, for lack of metal. But they’ve gone far in biology and mentalistics. Consider their routine use of telepathy, which to this day is too unreliable for humans. Consider how they could regulate the Niao, generation after generation, until submissiveness was built into the chromosomes. Could they do the same to us?”

  “A foul notion.” I wet my lips. “But we have to take our chances.”

  “Harder for me than you.”

  “How so?”

  He looked up. His features were drawn tight. “I’ll tell you. I don’t want to, but you’ve got to understand I’m not a coward. It’s only that I know how terrible interference with the mind can be, and you don’t.”

  I sat down beside him and waited. He drew a breath and said, fast and flat, eyes directly to the front:

  “Faulty memory editing. That’s not supposed to be possible, but it was in my case. I was out in the Frontier Beta region. A new planet, with a new med center. They didn’t yet know that the pollen there has certain psychodrug properties. I went under the machine, started concentrating as usual, and … and I lost control. The technicians didn’t see at once that something was wrong. By the time they did, and stopped the process— Well, I hadn’t lost everything. But what I had left was unrelated fragments insufficient for a real personality. Worse, in a way, than total amnesia. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to wipe the slate clean. That would be like suicide.”

  “How long ago was this?” I asked when he stopped to gulp for air.

  “Forty-odd years. I’ve managed to … to restructure myself. But the universe has never felt quite right. A great many very ordinary things still have a nightmare quality to them, and—” He beat the deck with his fist. “Can you imagine going through something like that again?”