Glory

by Alfred Coppel

  “Of course not, Osbertus. You believe what you told him, don’t you?”

  “I hope I do, mynheera.”

  ‘Then there is nothing to resent.”

  It was the answer Osbertus expected from Eliana Ehrengraf. The Ehrengraf humanitarianism was part of Voerster’s history. It had got them into trouble during the Kaffir Rebellion, as a surfeit of humanitarianism and courage often did.

  As the police people and Buele carefully climbed the badly illuminated ladder to the observing platform, Eliana returned to the telescope and touched the polished brass of the eyepiece tube with her fingertips. It was an almost religious gesture. She lowered her face and looked again. Osbertus could see the golden light from the Glory shining out of the tube and into Eliana’s eye.

  “It has moved,” she said.

  “Indeed it has,” Osbertus said. “According to the wireless messages we have been receiving, Glory is still moving at nearly two tenths of a percent of the speed of light.”

  “How fast is that?”

  “If we had a dirigible that could fly so fast, it could circumnavigate Voerster in three minutes, mynheera.”

  “Surely that’s ridiculous, Mynheer Osbertus,” the Wache captain said, breathing heavily. Dietegen Kreiske was a man with a pedestrian mind--what the Voertrekker-Praesident called “a bean counter.” Perfect for his present task, Osbertus Kloster thought: To spy on Eliana Ehrengraf and remain unmoved by her elegance and beauty.

  “Look and wonder,” Osbertus said loftily. “Then tell me what is ridiculous and what is possible, Kapitan Kreiske.”

  The two policewomen were typical lumpen females, not of the Wache, thick-bodied and plain of feature with straw-blonde hair and the blue porcelain eyes of the true Voertrekker underclass. Buele followed them up the ladder and joined the group on the scaffold.

  Osbertus said, “It is crowded up here. We will go down, mynheera. Buele, see to it that the ladies and the captain get a fine view.”

  The police contingent’s attention focussed on the telescope. None objected to the retreat of Eliana and the Astronomer-Select. Osbertus had a puckish impulse to remove the ladder and leave them stranded ten meters above the observatory floor, but he denied himself.

  Eliana followed Osbertus to an open balcony overlooking the steep, regular slopes of the Sternberg. The night was so clear and the stars so bright that the patterns of the Nachtebrise in the Sea of Grass were visible. From the paddock behind Osbertus’ living quarters and in front of the barracoon where the domestic kaffirs lived, they could hear the squabbling of the ferden--the Voersterian cognate for meat animals. The beasts had to be kept segregated by sex since they were always in estrus and a pregnancy meant the certain and untimely loss of a breeder.

  Eliana listened and said, “We live in a strange, unfinished world, Cousin Osbertus. Are there necrogenes on Earth, I wonder?”

  “There were none when the First Landers departed. At least none that I know of. There were egg-layers and placenta! mammals, of course, and all sorts of other untidy ways of propagating, but none quite so brutal as the way of Voerster.”

  Eliana said, “The beasts of Voerster die so that their young can live. I live and my children have died.”

  Osbertus impulsively took her hand. “Do not blame yourself, Cousin. And there is Broni,” he said.

  “For how long?” Eliana said desperately. “Tell me how long.”

  Far out in the Sea of Grass a hunting cheet roared at the stars. On nights this bright with starlight, hunting was poor on the open savannah. Overhead the constellations performed their slow, majestic dance: The Ploughman followed the Maiden and the Serpent followed the Hanged Man. There was an eotemporal grandeur to the nocturnal rotation of the heavens, Eliana thought. What were they like, those people aboard that glorious winged thing approaching her world?

  Had they mortal needs and sympathies? Were they like Black Clavius? Or were they beings of power, secretive and evolved beyond humanity?

  Eliana. looked back into the observatory. Her dogged escorts were still on the viewing scaffold with Buele. She shivered with resurgent anger. “Ever since he arrested Clavius, I have had those three or others like them with me night and day. What is he thinking of?”

  “Perhaps he is asking the question: ’What are you thinking of?’“ Osbertus said.

  “I intend to take Broni out of Voertrekkerhoem.”

  “She is very ill, mynheera,” Osbertus said fearfully. He suspected what would come next, or if not next, then soon.

  “Do you know Einsamberg? The house in the Grimsel mountains I had from my godfather of Ehrengraf-Rand Kraal?”

  “No, Cousin. I did not know you still owned property.” It was customary on Voerster for an heiress to deed all her property to her husband When she married. Only lands that were part of a First Lander’s Portion were exempt from the Man Laws. A domicile protected by a First Arriver’s deed was sacroscanct. It could not even be entered by the Trekkerpolizei. The kraal at Einsamberg must have been so protected.

  Osbertus began to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of his ample belly. “I heard a rumor that Black Clavius is often seen in Cousin Ian’s company,” he said.

  “He has been at Voertrekkerhoem for a month,” Eliana said. “I have not been allowed to see him. But Tiegen Roark tells me that Clavius has seen Broni and that his visit cheered her. She was very depressed when Oberst Transkei took the Starman away. They had him confined south of the Isthmus, you know.”

  Osbertus shivered and glanced back into the darkened observatory. The police visitors were laboriously clambering down the ladder.

  Eliana caught his arm and said, “I mean to take Broni to Einsamberg. I don’t trust Ian. He intends something he knows I will oppose. I intend to take the Starman, too. And I will have a promise from Clavius that when the Goldenwing and its syndicate arrive, he will assist me to demand their help for Broni. I came here tonight to ask you for your loyalty, Cousin. Will you give it?”

  Osbertus felt as though he were suffocating. He could feel the manacles locking on his wrists, hear the whir of the airship motors transporting him to the Southern Ice. “But what about The Voerster, mynheera? What about Ian?”

  “Ian now allows me a single visit with Broni each day. It will be enough.” She paused, drew a breath. “If he tries to stop me I will kill him, Cousin.”

  “Eliana! My God, be careful what you say!”

  “The Ehrengrafs were not always so docile as now, Osbertus. In the Rebellion they fought with the kaffirs.”

  “And lost their Civil Rights for a hundred years. Remember who you are. You are the wife of The Voerster. You terrify me when you talk of killing.”

  “Let Ian beware, Cousin.”

  “And Broni?”

  “What Clavius said is so, Cousin. Broni’s heart is damaged. Without help from the men of the Goldenwing, she will surely die.”

  In the bright starlight, Osbertus could see that Eliana’s cheeks glistened with tears.

  “Ian has always known that Broni’s sickness is not tuberculosis. He is convincing himself--or the public. Ian Voerster is like that. What he thinks he must do, he will do. He is bred for it,” Eliana said.

  “As you are, mynheera,” Osbertus Kloster said.

  “As I am,” Eliana whispered in agreement.

  In the starlight the aging man could see the winglike arch of Eliana’s dark brows, the reflective depth of her eyes. She had more than beauty, he thought. She had the strength of a fine blade. If I had been better born, if I were thirty years younger, if-- But what did it matter, after all? She needs me, my beautiful, treasonous cousin. And with a single word the Astronomer-Select sighed and threw his career, his comfort, and very possibly his life into the balance. “Yes,” he said. “Whatever I can do for you, I will do, Cousin.” I may end my days nobly alone, Osbertus Kloster thought fearfully, in a very cold place.

  15. A FLIGHT TO EINSAMBERG

  Luftkapitan Otto Klemmer was a man with a well-deve
loped sense of his position in life. He and his family took great pride in the fact that of all the dirigible commanders of the Staadluftflot--the government air service of Voerster--it was Otto Klemmer who had been selected to fly Volkenreiter, the personal transport of the Voertrekker-Praesident’s family.

  Cloud Rider was the latest and finest of the air fleet, with a lifting body design and a length of fifty-nine meters. The gondola was furnished with the comfort of the first family of Voerster in mind, with a forward viewing salon, above which the crew operated on a flight deck equipped with the latest in magnetic navigational and wireless communication devices. The wireless had a range, under optimal conditions, of nine hundred kilometers. The navigational devices included a magnetic compass and a rather fragile and primitive directional gyroscope.

  Far better devices than these were built before the Rebellion, but aviation was no longer a government priority on Voerster. Travel, except on government business, was slightly disreputable on Planet Voerster.

  Carrying a nominal load the ship was capable of a nonstop flight of one thousand six hundred kilometers. For longer flights it could be refueled in midair by one of the service’s tanker dirigibles. If the flight was made when the Nachtebrise blew steadily west to east across the Sea of Grass, Volkenreiter was capable of flying from Voersterstaad to Pretoria without refueling. Of course, Klemmer would never make such a closely measured flight with any of the first family aboard. Luftkapitan Klemmer was a careful man.

  On this gusty morning, however, the airshipman who was responsible for the traveling comfort and safety of the Voertrekker-Praesident’s family found himself with a problem. On the day following Allegiance Tuesday (Voerster’s calendar was laden with celebration days--none of which, save First Landers’ and Deorbit Days, were true holidays.), Klemmer was notified that he would be required to fly the mynheera Eliana, the Voertrekkersdatter, and a number of others from Voertrekkerhoem to Einsamberg, a distance of nine hundred kilometers.

  A rest in the mountain climate of Einsamberg had been prescribed for the mynheera Broni, and a rest in the mountains she had to have, regardless of the weather or the logistical difficulty such a flight presented.

  Unconfirmed orders made the Luftkapitan uneasy. And the orders for today’s flight had come, not from the office of the Voertrekker-Praesident, who was away from Voertrekkerhoem on an inspection of the fisheries on Windhoek Gulf, but from the staff of the Astronomer-Select Osbertus Kloster, whom Klemmer regarded as a pompous old fool.

  Early in the morning Healer Tiegen Roark presented himself at the airship shed and informed Klemmer that the Volkenreiter would transport not only the mynheera and the Voertrekkersdatter, but several members of her household, the Astronomer-Select and his young half-witted assistant Buele, Roark himself and the kaffir Starman, who for some time now had been at Voertrekkerhoem as a “guest” of the Voertrekker-Praesident.

  It was intended, Roark said, to set up a small observatory at Einsamberg so that the mynheera Broni could observe the approach to orbit of the Goldenwing Gloria Coelis. All told, the traveling party would consist of twelve people and they would present themselves at Lufthavan airship field at noon.

  By ten in the morning the shed was cluttered with the enormous amount of luggage the mynheera Eliana felt essential for comfort at the mountain kraal. It became immediately apparent to Klemmer that Cloud Rider could not carry the entire traveling party, the full crew, the baggage, and enough fuel to fly to Einsamberg and return to Voertrekkerhoem. The Volkenreiter was normally flown with the captain and four airmen, plus four kaffir stewards. Clearly this could not be done on this flight.

  Klemmer first used the Lufthavan wireless to ask the airship sheds north of Voersterstaad for a tanker to accompany his airship. The tanker fleet was otherwise engaged. Every year at this time, the dirigible fleet made “ceremonial” overflights of kaffir townships across the Sea of Grass. It was traditional. It was also a show of force to remind the kaffirs that misbehavior would bring a rain of ordnance down on their heads from the Voertrekker-owned skies of Planet Voerster.

  Klemmer next put on his best uniform and called on the Voertrekkerschatz. She was gracious, but iron-willed. He was told that neither the timing nor the load to be carried to Einsamberg could be changed. “I am confident, Luftkapitan,” the mynheera Eliana said, smiling at him ingenuously, “that an airshipman of your skill and experience can devise a solution to our dilemma. Do so, Luftkapitan.”

  Klemmer was a willing thrall to Eliana Ehrengraf. He was married to a typically blonde and plump Voertrekker wife; Eliana Ehrengraf s dark beauty opened up fields of dreams in Otto Klemmer’s subconscious.

  He returned to the airship shed and sat down with navigational calculator, paper, and pencil. At an average weight of 72 kilograms per passenger (high in the case of Eliana and Broni, low for Osbertus Kloster and the Healer) and estimating all other payload, the elimination of all but one of his flight crew and the entire cabin staff would save 576 kilograms. This could be spent on 164 liters of fuel. This meant that Volkenreiter could carry enough hydrogen to deposit the mynheera’s party at Einsamberg and, if carefully handled, return to the presidential kraal without replenishment.

  A near thing, but it could be done. It was important to Otto Klemmer that he and his vessel be at Voertrekkerhoem when the Voetrekker-Praesident returned from Windhoek. Actually, The Voerster disliked flying, but it was Klemmer’s duty to have himself and Volkenreiter available at all times.

  The news that Black Clavius would be a member of the traveling party touched a nerve. Ever since Clavius had appeared on Voerster, the presence of a kaffir who was also a Wired Starman made the airshipman uneasy. Of course, one did not attain rank as a member of the household at Voertrekkerhoem by succumbing to anti-kaffir prejudice.

  The kaffirs, the Voertrekker-Praesident often said, were a vital part of the society of Voerster. “If I can accept the idea of a kaffir Starman,” he once had said to the Kraalheeren in the Kongresshalle, “who are you to show prejudice?” and if Kraalheeren were not supposed to show prejudice, who was Otto Klemmer to be exclusive than his betters?

  But the fact was that Otto Klemmer, though no Kraalheer, was uncomfortable with kaffirs, foreign or native-born. For three hundred years after Landing, the Klemmers had been lumpen. Before the Rebellion the Klemmers had been of “uncertain ancestry.” Which meant mixed lumpen and kaffir blood. After the Rebellion, in which they gave good service to the state, a Jong process of gentrification began. Early Klemmers served as commando troopers, then as commando .officers. Now, after a very long and cautious testing period, Klemmers were allowed to seek university degrees, and in the case of Otto Klemmer, training at the Luftacademie.

  Klemmer felt no ill will toward kaffirs; they simply reminded him that he was slightly tainted.

  The Rebellion being the axiological event of Voertrekker history, most Voertrekkers believed that their color prejudice was born in that bloody cauldron of civil war. But planetary historians were well aware that Voertrekker prejudice predated the Great Trek to the Luyten system. The Exodus to Luyten had been driven by far more ancient Boer prejudices and by resentment of Earth’s refusal to “understand.”

  In the ancient days before the uprising no Klemmer owned anything valuable enough to be stolen by rioting kaffirs. But since the Klemmer family’s elevation to mynheeren status, attitudes had changed. Voertrekker families who succeeded in escaping the bondage of class tended to regard their elevation as heaven-ordained. In the case of the Klemmers, the cause was more earthy. Otto’s ancestor Erich Klemmer, who had led the family out of lumpenheit, managed it simply by being accommodating to a Kraalheer provincial governor when that gentleman developed a lust for Erich’s quarter-kaffir wife, Mbelli.

  Mbelli Klemmer was said to have been one of the great mixed-race beauties of her day. Whether or not she was that, she most certainly was the making of the Klemmers. Thanks to her, a Klemmer, in the person of the Luftkapitan Otto, was now a perso
nal servant of the Voertrekker-Praesident. Klemmer, a rigidly righteous man, accepted slights and whispers about his ancestry with disciplined silence. But his relationships with all kaffirs, even those who served as stewards aboard Volkenreiter, were kept cold and formal. Otto Klemmer ran a tight ship and no one could ever say that he was slack in his dealings with kaffirs. The ghost of Mbelli Klemmer bedevilled the airshipman.

  Volkenreiter lifted at thirty minutes after noon on a gusty, threatening day. Weather on the Sea of Grass was always uncertain. Seasons changed but little on Voerster. The planet’s inclination from the ecliptic was a mere one-and-one-half degrees. Every season brought days of bright sunshine capable of suddenly changing to squalls and tornadoes. Airshipmen and their passengers knew that dirigible travel under the Tropic of Luyten and near the Shieldwall, at the base of which Einsamberg was located, was risky.

  Under a sky filled with racing cumulus clouds growing veils of ice crystals to form the familiar anvilheads, Volkenreiter lifted off from Lufthaven at Voertrekkerhoem. Airships had been lost on such days, as Otto Klemmer well knew, and the airshipman was not happy at needing to fly Volkenreiter shorthanded. Even in good weather, the elevator control required the attention of two strong men. On this flight it had one, the mate, a lumpe named Blier from Joburg. The man was burly and strong enough, but the .airship’s new style-lifting body design tended to make it porpoise in the air even in calm weather. This had to be prevented for comfort as well as safety. Klemmer did not want his passengers frightened or made uncomfortable. He had a reputation for airmanship to uphold and he told Blier so.