The Day of Their Return df-4

by Poul Anderson

  “Aycharaych landed secretly on Aeneas and prowled. He found more than a planet growing rebellious. He found the potential of something that might break the Empire apart. For all the peoples here, in all their different ways, are profoundly religious. Give them a common faith, a missionary cause, and they can turn fanatic.”

  “No,” Ivar couldn’t help protesting.

  “Aycharaych thinks so. He has spent a great deal of his time and energy on your world, however valuable his gift would make him elsewhere.”

  “But—one planet, a few millions, against the—”

  “The cult would spread. He speaks of militant new religions in your past—Islam, is that the name of one?—religions which brought obscure tribes to world power, and shook older dominions to their roots, in a single generation.

  “I must hurry. He found the likeliest place for the first spark was here, where the Ancients brood at the center of every awareness. In Jaan the dreamer, whose life and circumstances chanced to be a veritable human archetype, he found the likeliest tinder.

  “He cannot by himself project a thought into a brain which is not born to receive it. But he has a machine which can. That is nothing fantastic; human, Ythrian, or Merseian engineers could develop the same device, had they enough incentive. We don’t, because for us the utility would be marginal; electronic communications suit our kind of life better.

  “Aycharaych, though—Telepathy of several kinds belongs to evolution on his planet. Do you remember the slinkers that the tinerans keep? I inquired, and he admitted they came originally from Chereion. No doubt their effect on men suggested his plan to him.

  “He called Jaan down to where he laired in these labyrinths. He drugged him and … thought at him … in some way he knows, using that machine—until he had imprinted a set of false memories and an idiom to go with them. Then he released his victim.”

  “Artificial schizophrenia. Split personality. A man who was sane, made to hear ‘voices.’ ” Ivar shuddered.

  Erannath was harder-souled; or had he simply lived with the fact longer, in his prison? He went on: “Aycharaych departed, having other mischief to wreak. What he had done on Aeneas might or might not bear fruit; if not, he had lost nothing except his time.

  “He returned lately, and found success indeed. Jaan was winning converts throughout the Orcan country. Rumors of the new message were spreading across a whole globe of natural apostles, always eager for anything that might nourish faith, and now starved for a word of hope.

  “Events must be guided with craft and patience, of course, or the movement would most likely come to naught, produce not a revolution followed by a crusade, but merely another sect. Aycharaych settled down to watch, to plot, ever oftener to plant in Jaan, through his thought projector, a revelation from Caruith—”

  The Ythrian chopped off. He hissed. His free hand raked the air. Ivar whirled on his heel, sprang to stand crouched.

  The figure in the doorway, limned against unending night, smiled. He was more than half humanlike, tall and slender in a gray robe; but his bare feet ended in claws. The skin glowed golden, the crest on the otherwise naked head rose blue, the eyes were warm bronze. His face was ax-thin, superbly molded. In one delicate hand he aimed a blaster.

  “Greeting,” he almost sang.

  “You woke and sensed,” grated from Erannath.

  “No,” said Aycharaych. “My dreams always listen. Afterward, however, yes, I waited out your conversation.”

  “Now what?” asked Ivar from the middle of nightmare.

  “Why, that depends on you, Firstling,” Aycharaych replied with unchanged gentleness. “May I in complete sincerity bid you welcome?”

  “You—workin’ for Merseia—”

  The energy gun never wavered; yet the words flowed serene: “True. Do you object? Your desire is freedom. The Roidhunate’s desire is that you should have it. This is the way.”

  “T-t-treachery, murder, torture, invadin’ and twistin’ men’s bein’s—”

  “Existence always begets regrettable necessities. Be not overly proud, Firstling. You are prepared to launch a revolutionary war if you can, wherein millions would perish, millions more be mutilated, starved, hounded, brought to sorrow. Are you not? I do no more than help you. Is that horrible? What happiness has Jaan lost that has not already been repaid him a thousandfold?”

  “How about Erannath?”

  “Heed him not,” croaked Ythrian to human. “Think why Merseia wants the Empire convulsed and shattered. Not for the liberty of Aeneans. No, to devour us piecemeal.”

  “One would expect Erannath to talk thus.” Aycharaych’s tone bore the least hint of mirth. “After all, he serves the Empire.”

  “What?” Ivar lurched where he stood. “Him? No!”

  “Who else can logically have betrayed you, up on the river, once he felt certain of who you are?”

  “He came along—”

  “He had no means of preventing your escape, as it happened. Therefore his duty was to accompany you, in hopes of sending another message later, and meanwhile gather further information about native resistance movements. It was the same basic reason as, caused him earlier to help you get away from the village, before he had more than a suspicion of your identity.

  “I knew his purpose—I have not perpetually lurked underground, I have moved to and fro in the world—and gave Jaan orders, who passed them on to Yakow.” Aycharaych sighed. “It was distasteful to all concerned. But my own duty has been to extract what I can from him.”

  “Erannath,” Ivar begged, “it isn’t true!”

  The Ythrian lifted his head and said haughtily, “Truth you must find in yourself, Ivar Frederiksen. What do you mean to do: become another creature of Aycharaych’s, or strike for the life of your people?”

  “Have you a choice?” the Chereionite murmured. “I wish you no ill. Nevertheless, I too am at war and cannot stop to weigh out single lives. You will join us, fully and freely, or you will die.”

  How can I tell what I want? Through dread and anguish, Ivar felt the roan eyes upon him. Behind them must be focused that intellect, watching, searching, reading. He’ll know what I’m about to do before I know myself. His knife clattered to the floor. Why not yield? It may well be right—for Aeneas—no matter what Erannath says. And elsewise—

  Everything exploded. The Ythrian seized the knife. Balanced on one huge wing, he swept the other across Ivar, knocking the human back behind the shelter of it.

  Aycharaych must not have been heeding what went on in the hunter’s head. Now he shot. The beam flared and seared. Ivar saw blinding blueness, smelled ozone and scorched flesh. He bent away from death.

  Erannath surged forward. Behind him remained his chained hand. He had hacked it off at the wrist.

  A second blaster bolt tore him asunder. His uncrippled wing smote. Cast back against the wall, Aycharaych sank stunned. The gun fell from him.

  Ivar pounced to grab the weapon. Erannath stirred. Blood pumped from among blackened plumes. An eye was gone. Breath whistled and rattled.

  Ivar dropped on his knees, to cradle his friend. The eye that remained sought for him. “Thus God … tracks me down … I would it had been under heaven,” Erannath coughed. “Eyan haa wharr, Hlirr talya—” The light in the eye went out.

  A movement caught Ivar’s glance. He snatched after the gun. Aycharaych had recovered, was bound through the doorway.

  For a heartbeat Ivar was about to yell, Stop, we’re allies! That stayed his hand long enough for Aycharaych to vanish. Then Ivar knew what the Chereionite had seen: that no alliance could ever be.

  I’ve got to get out, or Erannath—everybody—has gone for naught. Ivar leaped to his feet and ran. Blood left a track behind him.

  He noticed with vague surprise that at some instant he had recovered his flash. Its beam scythed. Can’t grieve yet. Can’t be afraid. Can’t do anything but run and think.

  Is Aycharaych ahead of me? He’s left prints in both directions.
No, I’m sure he’s not. He realizes I’ll head back aboveground; and I, whose forebears came from heavier world than his, would overhaul him. So he’s makin’ for his lair. Does it have line to outside? Probably not. And even if it does, would he call? That’d give his whole game away. No, he’ll have to follow after me, use his hell-machine to plant “intuition” in Jaan’s mind—

  The room of revelations appeared. Ivar halted and spent a minute playing flame across the thing within. He couldn’t tell if he had disabled it or not, but he dared hope.

  Onward. Out the door. Down the mountainside, through the sharp dust, athwart the wind which Erannath had died without feeling. To the aircar. Aloft.

  The storm yelled and smote.

  He burst above, into splendor. Below him rolled the blown dry clouds, full of silver and living shadow beneath Lavinia and hasty Creusa. Stars blazed uncountable. Ahead reared the heights of Ilion; down them glowed and thundered the Linn.

  This world is ours. No stranger will shape its tomorrows.

  An image in the radar-sweep screen made him look behind. Two other craft soared into view. Had Aycharaych raised pursuit? Decision crystallized in Ivar, unless it had been there throughout these past hours, or latent throughout his life. He activated the radio.

  The Imperials monitored several communication bands. If he identified himself and called for a military escort, he could probably have one within minutes.

  Tanya, he thought, I’m comin’ home.

  XXI

  Chimes rang from the bell tower of the University. They played the olden peals, but somehow today they sounded at peace.

  Or was Chunderban Desai wishfully deceiving himself? He wasn’t sure, and wondered if he or any human ever could be.

  Certainly the young man and woman who sat side by side and hand in hand looked upon him with wariness that might still mask hostility. Her pet, in her lap, seemed touched by the same air, for it perched quiet and kept its gaze on the visitor. The window behind them framed a spire in an indigo sky. It was open, and the breeze which carried the tones entered, cool, dry, pungent with growth odors.

  “I apologize for intruding on you so soon after your reunion,” Desai said. He had arrived three minutes ago. “I shan’t stay long. You want to take up your private lives again. But I did think a few explanations and reassurances from me would help you.”

  “No big trouble, half hour in your company, after ten days locked away by myself,” Ivar snapped.

  “I am sorry about your detention, Firstling. It wasn’t uncomfortable, was it? We did have to isolate you for a while. Doubtless you understand our need to be secure about you while your story was investigated. But we also had to provide for your own safety after your release. That took time. Without Prosser Thane’s cooperation, it would have taken longer than it did.”

  “Safety—huh?” Ivar stared from him to Tatiana.

  She closed fingers on the tadmouse’s back, as if in search of solace. “Yes,” she said, barely audibly.

  “Terrorists of the self-styled freedom movement,” Desai stated, his voice crisper than he felt. “They had already assassinated a number of Aeneans who supported the government. Your turning to us, your disclosure of a plot which might indeed have pried this sector loose from the Empire—you, the embodiment of their visions—could have brought them to murder again.”

  Ivar sat mute for a time. The bells died away. He didn’t break the clasp he shared with Tatiana, but his part lost strength. At last he asked her, “What did you do?”

  She gripped him harder. “I persuaded them. I never gave names … Commissioner Desai and his officers never asked me for any … but I talked to leaders, I was go-between, and—There’ll be general amnesty.”

  “For past acts,” the Imperial reminded. “We cannot allow more like them. I am hoping for help in their prevention.” He paused. “If Aeneas is to know law again, tranquillity, restoration of what has been lost, you, Firstling, must take the lead.”

  “Because of what I am, or was?” Ivar said harshly.

  Desai nodded. “More people will heed you, speaking of reconciliation, than anyone else. Especially after your story has been made public, or as much of it as is wise.”

  “Why not all?”

  “Naval Intelligence will probably want to keep various details secret, if only to keep our opponents uncertain of what we do and do not know. And, m-m-m, several high-ranking officials would not appreciate the news getting loose, of how they were infiltrated, fooled, and led by the nose to an appalling brink.”

  “You, for instance?”

  Desai smiled. “Between us, I have persons like Sector Governor Muratori in mind. I am scarcely important enough to become a sensation. Now they are not ungrateful in Llynathawr. I can expect quite a free hand in the Virgilian System henceforward. One policy I mean to implement is close consultation with representatives of every Aenean society, and the gradual phasing over of government to them.”

  “Hm. Includin’ Orcans?”

  “Yes. Commander Yakow was nearly shattered to learn the truth; and he is tough, and had no deep emotional commitment to the false creed—simply to the welfare of his people. He agrees the Imperium can best help them through their coming agony.”

  Ivar fell quiet anew. Tatiana regarded him. Tears glimmered on her lashes. She must well know that same kind of pain. Finally he asked, “Jaan?”

  “The prophet himself?” Desai responded. “He knows no more than that for some reason you fled—defected, he no doubt thinks—and afterward an Imperial force came for another search of Mount Cronos, deeper-going than before, and the chiefs of the Companions have not opposed this. Perhaps you can advise me how to tell him the truth, before the general announcement is made.”

  Bleakness: “What about Aycharaych?”

  “He has vanished, and his mind-engine. We’re hunting for him, of course.” Desai grimaced. “I’m afraid we will fail. One way or another, that wily scoundrel will get off the planet and home. But at least he did not destroy us here.”

  Ivar let go of his girl, as if for this tune not she nor anything else could warm him. Beneath a tumbled lock of yellow hair, his gaze lay winter-blue. “Do you actually believe he could have?”

  “The millennialism he was engineering, yes, it might have, I think,” Desai answered, equally low. “We can’t be certain. Very likely Aycharaych knows us better than we can know ourselves. But … it has happened, over and over, through man’s troubled existence: the Holy War, which cannot be stopped and which carries away kingdoms and empires, though the first soldiers of it be few and poor.

  “Their numbers grow, you see. Entire populations join them. Man has never really wanted a comfortable God, a reasonable or kindly one; he has wanted a faith, a cause, which promises everything but mainly which requires everything.

  “Like moths to the candle flame—

  “More and more in my stewardship of Aeneas, I have come to see that here is a world of many different peoples, but all of them believers, all strong and able, all sharing some tradition about mighty forerunners and all unready to admit that those forerunners may have been as tragically limited, ultimately as doomed, as we.

  “Aeneas was in the forefront of struggle for a political end. When defeat came, that turned the dwellers and their energies back toward transcendental things. And then Aycharaych invented for them a transcendence which the most devout religionist and the most hardened scientist could alike accept.

  “I do not think the tide of Holy War could have been stopped this side of Regulus. The end of it would have been humanity and humanity’s friends ripped into two realms. No, more than two, for there are contradictions in the faith, which I think must have been deliberately put there. For instance, is God the Creator or the Created?—Yes, heresies, persecutions, rebellions … states lamed, chaotic, hating each other worse than any outsider—”

  Desai drew breath before finishing: “—such as Merseia. Which would be precisely what Merseia needs, first to p
lay us off against ourselves, afterward to overrun and subject us.”

  Ivar clenched fists on knees. “Truly?” he demanded.

  “Truly,” Desai said. “Oh, I know how useful the Merseian threat has often been to politicians, industrialists, military lords, and bureaucrats of the Empire. That does not mean the threat isn’t real. I know how propaganda has smeared the Merseians, when they are in fact, according to their own lights and many of ours, a fairly decent folk. That does not mean their leaders won’t risk the Long Night to grasp after supremacy.

  “Firstling, if you want to be worthy of leading your own world, you must begin by dismissing the pleasant illusions. Don’t take my word, either. Study. Inquire. Go see for yourself. Do your personal thinking. But always follow the truth, wherever it goes.”

  “Like that Ythrian?” Tatiana murmured.

  “No, the entire Domain of Ythri,” Desai told her. “Erannath was my agent, right. But he was also theirs. They sent him by prearrangement: because in his very foreignness, his conspicuousness and seeming detachment, he could learn what Terrans might not.

  “Why should Ythri do this?” he challenged. “Had we not fought a war with them, and robbed them of some of their territory?

  “But that’s far in the past, you see. The territory is long ago assimilated to us. Irredentism is idiocy. And Terra did not try to take over Ythri itself, or most of its colonies, in the peace settlement. Whatever the Empire’s faults, and they are many, it recognizes certain limits to what it may wisely do. “Merseia does not.

  “Naturally, Erannath knew nothing about Aycharaych when he arrived here. But he did know Aeneas is a key planet in this sector, and expected Merseia to be at work somewhere underground. Because Terra and Ythri have an overwhelming common interest—peace, stability, containment of the insatiable aggressor—and because the environment of your world suited him well, he came to give whatever help he could.”

  Desai cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t intend that long a speech. It surprised me too. I’m not an orator, just a glorified bureaucrat. But here’s a matter on which billions of lives depend.”