We Have Fed Our Sea

by Poul Anderson

  "Is that you, Technic Maclaren?" he called.

  "Yes. Captain Magnus Ryerson?" Maclaren stepped ahead of Tamara and bowed. "I took the liberty, sir, of bringing a guest with me whom I did not mention when I called."

  "I can guess," said the tall man. "It's all right, lass. Come in and welcome."

  As she passed over the uneven floor to a chair, Tamara brushed Maclaren and took the opportunity to whisper: "How old he's grown, all at once!"

  Magnus Ryerson shut the door again. His hands, ropy with veins, shook a little. He leaned heavily on a cane as he crossed the room and poked up the fire. "Be seated," he said to Mac­laren. "When I knew you were coming, I ordered some whiskey from the mainland. I hope it's a good make. I drink not, you see, but be free to do so yourself."

  Maclaren looked at the bottle. He didn't recognize the brand. "Thank you," he said, "that's a special favorite of mine."

  "You've eaten?" asked the old man anxiously.

  "Yes, thank you, sir." Maclaren accepted a glass. Ryerson limped over the floor to give Tamara one.

  "Can you stay the night? I've some extra beds in the garret, from when the fisher lads would come by. They come no more, there's no reason for it now, but I've kept the beds."

  Maclaren traded a look with Tamara. "We would be hon­ored," he said.

  Magnus Ryerson shuffled to the bob, took the tea kettle, poured himself a cup and raised it. "Your health." He sat down in a worn chair by the fire. His hands touched a leather-bound book lying on its arm.

  THERE was silence for a while, except that they could all hear the waves boom down on the strand.

  Maclaren said finally: "I . . . we, I mean . . . we came to—offer our sympathy. And if there was anything I could tell you . . . I was there, you know."

  "Aye. You're kind." Ryerson groped after a pipe. "It is my understanding he conducted himself well."

  "Yes. Of course he did."

  "Then that's what matters. I'll think of a few questions later, if you give me time. But that was the only important one."

  Maclaren looked around the room. Through its shadows he saw pilot's manuals on the shelves, stones and skins and gods brought from beyond the sky; he saw the Sirian binary like twin hells upon darkness, but they were very beautiful. He offered: "Your son was in your own tradition."

  "Better, I hope," said the old man. "There would be little sense to existence, did boys have no chance to be more than their fathers."

  Tamara stood up. "But that's what there isn't!" she cried all at once. "There's no sense! There's just dying and dying and dying. What for? So that we can walk on another planet, learn another fact? What have we gained? What have we really done? And why? What did we do that your god sends our men out there now?"

  She clamped her hands together. They heard how the breath rasped in her. She said at last, "I'm sorry," and sat back down.

  Magnus Ryerson looked up. And his eyes were not old. He let the surf snarl on the rocks of his home for a while. And then he answered her: "For that is our doom and our pride."

  "What?" She started. "Oh. In English. Terangi, he means—" She said it in Interhuman.

  Maclaren sat quite still.

  Ryerson opened his book. "They have forgotten Kipling now," he said. "One day they will remember. For no people live long, who offer their young men naught but fatness and secu­rity. Tamara, lass, let your son hear this one day. It is his song too, he is human."

  The words were unknown to Maclaren, but he listened and thought he understood.

  "We have fed our sea for a thousand years

  And she calls us, still unfed,

  Though there's never a wave of all her waves

  But marks our English dead:

  We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,

  To the shark and the sheering gull,

  If blood be the price of admiralty,

  Lord God, we ha' paid it in full!—"

  When Ryerson had finished, Maclaren stood up, folded his hands and bowed. "Sensei," he said, "give me your blessing."

  "What?" The other man leaned back into shadows, and now he was again entirely old. You could scarcely hear him under the waves outside. "You've naught to thank me for, lad."

  "No, you gave me much," said Maclaren. "You have told me why men go, and it isn't for nothing. It is because they are men."