The Stars are also Fire - [Harvest the Stars 02]

by Poul Anderson

  "Um-m, it's a fairly free country these days, yeah. Dunno how long it'll stay that way."

  "Oh? Why?"

  "The Renewal pretty well destroyed its middle class. The Second Republic is tinkering too much, trying too hard to restore a productive society and bring the underclass into it, by actions from above, instead of letting people alone to heal things for themselves." Guthrie projected a shrug. "But liberty ought to last a while yet. And whether it does or no, our company communities should stay autonomous, in fact if not in name."

  "Jefe, I said we would like nature around us, Northern nature, not an enclave. Most of the time, anyhow."

  "Hm-m . . . Hey, an idea! Listen, I once bought myself a beautiful preserve on Vancouver Island, Pacific Northwest, built a big house, spent as much time there as I could wangle. The poor thing's stood empty ever since, aside from a caretaker. I bet it'd love some clatter and chaos."

  Lars stared. "What? But this is—is—"

  "If you find you like it, I'll make it over to Fireball and you the trustee, with the right to bequeath your position. It's isolated, but a short hop by air to Victoria or Vancouver, not a lot longer by fast boat. The kids can go to school, call on their friends or invite 'em over, as often as you can stand. The winters are no worse than Sweden; or you can spend them in a southerly clime. Think about it, talk with your wife, make an inspection trip, let me know at your convenience. I hope you'll give it a try."

  "This is, is very sudden."

  "When factors click together for me, I don't stall around." Guthrie's created gaze gentled. "Keep things in the family, as near as may be, hm?"

  * * * *

  Going up the path to the verandah, he remarked, "I'm glad to see how well you maintain things. You still like the place?"

  "Oh, yes," Ulla said passionately.

  "So do quite a few of our consortes, I hear. Don't you ever get tired of all those house guests?"

  "No, no, they are friends. And it is good for the children to meet such different kinds of people, not in a screen but here, alive."

  "And they bring space home to us in a way that recordings, writings, nothing else can do." Wistfulness tinged Lars's voice.

  "I understand," said Guthrie quietly.

  "Business as well as pleasure," Ulla continued. "It is necessary to know everything one can, when so much is always unknown. The house is becoming a center for informal, rank-free conferences—But why am I telling you?"

  "Because you're feeling a tad nervous, ma'am. Don't. This is not the boss coming to dinner." Guthrie laughed. "Absolutely not." In seriousness: "Lars and I are closer than you realize. I think the time's ripe, you've proved you are reliable, for you to learn how close that is. But first, what I've mainly come about, I ask for your help."

  "Whatever we can do!"

  They mounted the steps, crossed to the door, opened it, and passed through into the vestibule. A cloud left the sun. The colors in a window blazed, Daedalus and Icarus a flight.

  Cloaks removed, Lars led the way to a room whose ceiling was the roof itself, beams two stories above a parquet floor, oak wainscots, stone fireplace where logs were burning. Light fell soft upon furniture ancient and massive, thick carpet and drapes, paintings from centuries ago, wrought brass and silver. Smetana's "Moldau" flowed out of speakers. The robot entered like a spider into a sanctuary.

  "Shall we talk here?" Lars proposed.

  "Okay," Guthrie said. "I see you haven't changed anything to speak of. Do by all means, if you want. Isn't the décor kind of heavy for you?"

  "No, no," Lars replied. "We have felt free to adapt the rest of the house, but this—it feels right as it is."

  "Not a shrine," Ulla added. "We use it, it is the center of our home. But it is also like a heart or a root, not only for us but for Fireball."

  Neither of them mentioned the other unaltered chamber, the one where Guthrie died.

  "Can we . . . offer you anything, sir?" she went on, suddenly awkward.

  "Just your company," Guthrie answered. "Wit and wisdom, or whatever else you've got in stock. Look, por favor, relax. Pour a Scotch or coffee or something, put your feet up, let's be our plain selves."

  He guided them for a while through gossip and minor affairs: what had lately happened in the Hawaiian compound where the Rydbergs spent some of their winters; their recent vacation in L-5, the burgeoning arts and amusements of variable weight; a carefully unpublicized comic incident at Weinbaum Station on Mars; mining operations on Elara, Jupiter XI; the new Lake Aldrin park in Luna—

  "It is about Luna, is it not?" Lars asked. "Why you have come."

  By then he sat beside Ulla, a glass in his hand, a cup in hers. Guthrie faced them, standing before the hearth. Firelight shimmered on the metal of him. Words moved readily.

  "Yeah," he said. "I daresay you guessed right away when I called about getting together." Lars nodded. "After all, Dagny Beynac is your mother."

  "And virtually coequal with the governor general," Ulla observed.

  "Not legally," Lars reminded her. "She has no official position these days, aside from her berth in Fireball."

  "The much greater her power."

  "You're a wise lady," Guthrie said. "She's only half concerned about Fireball these days."

  Shocked by the outspokenness, Lars exclaimed, "She would never break troth!"

  "I didn't say that. Of course not. On the contrary, you know how since her supposed retirement she's stayed on tap as a consultant for us, but maybe you don't know just how badly the outfit would hate to lose her advice."

  Guthrie fell silent for a span before he resumed, "However, like everything else human, 'troth' can be taken in a number of different ways."

  Lars went defensive. "Please, what do you mean by that?"

  "Nothing bad. She doesn't figure Fireball can be hurt by her Lunarians getting more of what they want, mainly home rule and scope for action. She claims we'd benefit. But she is more and more involved with the effort to get it for them." Guthrie made a sigh. "As a result, we're no longer as close as we used to be, we two."

  "Since—" Ulla broke off.

  "Since my original cashed in his chips and I took over?" Guthrie replied. "Don't be afraid to say it. Sure, that was bound to change the relationship, but it did less'n you might have expected. In the last several years, though, she's—well, she's gotten out of the way of sharing with me everything that's big on her mind."

  "She grows old," Ulla said low. "People change with age."

  "Hard to imagine her old. I remember her like yesterday, a little curlytop—" Guthrie stopped. That was not quite his yesterday. "But no. Time has only honed Dagny Beynac sharper."

  "Then what is worrying you, jefe?" Lars inquired.

  "That calls for a review of the background," Again Guthrie paused. "Look, you're both well aware of how, ever since they got leave to, Lunarians have been making a strong push to get into deep space on their own hook. Her sons are at the forefront. Purchase, manufacture, training—small-scale stuff to date, but energetic and ambitious."

  "Yes," Lars mused. "Ambitious. An ambition that puzzles me, I confess. It isn't really economic. We have never—Fireball doesn't want to suppress them, for God's sake. But when I try to persuade them that at this stage, chartering vessels and hiring out jobs is better—they are polite, but it is as if they do not hear."

  "Your experience isn't unique," Guthrie said dryly.

  "I have told you, dear," Ulla recalled to her husband. "This is a matter of pride, self-assertion. When will you learn that not everybody is as rational as you are?"

  Guthrie laughed once more. "The besetting irrationality of rationalists. You're right, my lady. I'm doubtful what is and is not rational to a Lunarian, that wild-ass breed, but basically you're right.

  "Okay, let 'em go ahead. There's sure no dearth of things to do in space, even if the rich Lunarians have to subsidize their part of it. But—you wouldn't know, you two, because it was between Dagny Beynac and me—you wouldn't k
now how she's leaned on me about it, throughout this long while, on behalf of those folks."

  Lars rubbed his chin and took a smoky sip of whisky. "M-m, I have wondered at some of the assistance Fireball has given, loans of money and facilities and so forth. How could it pay? But I am no economist."

  "You aren't alone in wondering, either," Guthrie said. "Others have been more vocal about it, or downright obstreperous. Not being the absolute dictator of the company that the news media make me out as, I had several knock-down-and-drag-out fights behind the scenes, getting this or that operation okayed and holding it on track."

  "Why?" inquired Ulla.

  "Trust a woman to ask an embarrassingly straight question. Why'd I go along with Dagny's requests? Well, as you might guess, partly I looked beyond the money side of it. The nations of Earth, the whole fat Federation, they need somebody in a position to cock a snook at them. At least, we the people do, if we aren't to see government growing all over us again like jungle rot." Guthrie's phrase went past his listeners. He hesitated. "But, well, also . . . it was Dagny who asked."

  "And now she has asked for top much?" Fire-crackle mingled with Lars's muted words.

  "N-no. But it is pretty radical this time, enough to make me wonder real hard. So I thought I'd check with you."

  "I am not—an intimate of hers. Not truly. Has she had any since Edmond died?"

  "You know her better than most. And you, Señora Rydberg, seem to have a better than average feel for people. Let's try."

  Lars leaned forward. "What does she want?"

  "A torchcraft, designed and built to order, suitable for a Lunarian crew. That's nothing off the shelf, you realize. Financing it, complete with R and D, would be a tad burdensome for us, and repayment slow, if ever."

  "Can't they wait until they are able to produce it themselves?"

  "Evidently not. That could be a decade or more. They're too antsy. Anyhow, that's what Dagny claims. They want to get out and explore on their own. Really explore."

  "That is . . . not unreasonable, is it?" Lars said. Ulla heard the longing and took his hand.

  "I s'pose not. Still, to go this blue-sky at this earlyish stage of their space program—It looks like betting the store. For what?"

  "She gave you no hint?"

  "None, except that because her children bodaciously want this, she does. Oh, there was talk of it as a symbol that'll help quiet down the rebellious mood in the younger Moon generation. A sop, I'd call it. And there was talk of it as an investment, training, experience, et cetera. But mainly, she admits, they're impatient."

  "They grow no younger," Lars muttered. Ulla tightened her grip on his hand.

  "I thought you might have the information or ideas to help me decide."

  "I am sorry, no. That Lunarian generation is as foreign to me as to you."

  Ulla raised her head. "I suspect this is no simple impulse," she offered. "They have something specific in mind."

  "My selfsame hunch," Guthrie agreed.

  Lars repeated himself: "I cannot believe my mother would endorse it, so wholeheartedly, if it were any threat to us."

  "No, no, certainly not," Guthrie said. "But a substantial expense, recoverable maybe, and for me a royal ruckus with my directors."

  "A treasure trove? Perhaps they have learned of an extraordinary lode on some distant body?"

  "That's the obvious guess. I asked Dagny forthright. She said no, and asked me in return how the hell they could get wind of any such thing if they didn't have a ship to prospect in or even robot probes with the needful capabilities."

  "A spacecraft in orbit is potentially a terrible weapon. One like that—"

  "No!" Ulla cried.

  "No is right," Guthrie said. "The Lunarians may in assorted ways be crazy, but they aren't insane. Nor stupid."

  Lars nodded. "I didn't mean that seriously," he explained. "I simply wanted to dismiss it. Also because of what my mother is. They could not hoodwink her, and she would never allow—" He drew breath. "Aside from the economics, what harm, jefe? Knowledge or wealth or whatever they hope to gain, does it not in the end come to all humankind?"

  "That's a natural-born explorer talking, and, I'm afraid, an idealist. I'm less naive. Nor is Fireball in the business of do-gooding."

  "It does do good," Ulla insisted.

  "Sort of, in the course of doing well," Guthrie said. "Though Lord knows we've got our share of shortsighted greed, hog-wild foolishness, and the rest of the human condition. They weren't left out of my program, either. . . . But this wanders. Should we or should we not underwrite the venture?"

  "I am inclined to think we should—" Lars began.

  "In hopes of satisfying our curiosity about it, hey?" And again Guthrie laughed.

  "That may never happen. I am thinking of discovery, and diversity, and—But we must talk together more. Can you really only stay until tomorrow?"

  "Unfortunately, yes. Well, in what hours we've got, we'll puzzle along as best we can. I'm inclined to think we'll end up with 'Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!'"

  Ulla looked a while at the robot and then said to the mind within it: "Because you too are what you are."

  * * * *

  25

  V

  enator had returned to Central after his interview with Matthias, less than satisfied. He had no simple need to do so. He could be as closely in touch with developments, including any thoughts from the cybercosm, anyplace on Earth where there was an interlink terminal. But he felt that here he would find the calm and sureness from which his mind could win total clarity.

  He well understood the reason for that feeling. This was holy ground.

  He was among the few humans who knew of it, other than vaguely. He was among the very few who had ever walked it.

  The morning after his arrival, he set forth on an hours-long hike. Though athletic, he was not acclimated to the altitude. However, the evening before he had gotten an infusion of hemoglobin surrogate and now breathed easily. The air entered him cold, quiet, utterly pure.

  Domes, masts, parabolic dishes soon dropped from view behind him. They were no more than a cluster, a meteorological station. Nothing showed of what the machines had wrought underground. Instruments aboard a monitor satellite could detect radiations from below, but those were subtle, electromagnetic, infrared, neutrino; and the cybercosm edited all such data before entering them in the public base.

  Seldom visiting, Venator was not intimate with the territory. From time to time he took out a hand-held reader to screen a map and a text listing landmarks; he used his informant to check his exact position and bearing. That was his entire contact with the outer world. He wandered untroubled, drawing serenity from magnificence.

  His course was northward. Around him as he climbed, scattered dwarf juniper, birch, rhododendron gave way to silvery tussocks between which wildflowers bloomed tiny and rivulets trilled glistening. Sunlight spilled out of blue unboundedness; shadows reached sharp from lichenous boulders. Sometimes for a while he spied an eagle-vulture on high, sometimes a marmot whistled, once a cock pheasant took off like an exploding jewel. Ahead of him rose the Great Himalaya, from left horizon to right horizon, glaciers agleam over distance-dusky rock, the heights radiant white. A wind sent snow astream off one of those tremendous peaks, as if whetting it.

  Venator's muscles strained and rejoiced. His breath went deep, his sight afar. From the might of the mountains he drew strength; trouble burned out of him; he was alone with infinity and eternity.

  But those were within him. The highland had only evoked them. Among the stars, it was a ripple in the skin of a single small planet lost in the marches of a single galaxy. Life was already old on Earth when India rammed into Asia and thrust the wreckage heavenward. Life would abide after wind and water had brought the last range low—would embrace the universe, and abide after the last stars guttered out— would in the end be the universe, the whole of reality.

  For intelligence was the ultimate evolut
ion of life.

  He knew it, had known it from before the day he was enrolled in the Brain Garden, not merely as words but as a part of himself like heart or nerves and as the meaning of his existence. Yet often the hours and the cares of service, the countless pettinesses of being human, blurred it in him, and he went about his tasks for their own sakes, in a cosmos gone narrow. Then he must seek renewal. Even so—he thought with a trace of sardonicism—does the believer in God make retreat for meditation and prayer.