Glory

by Alfred Coppel

  “Well, so be it. It is Clavius’ loss,” Osbertus said peevishly. “I would have imagined that after ten years he would be anxious to see a Goldenwing. But who can understand the ways of the kaffir?”

  He arranged the academic robe he had chosen to wear and addressed himself to Broni. “What we shall do is this, mynheera Cousin. I have the telescope aimed at the spot on the western horizon where the Goldenwing will appear. Once that takes place, I shall start the clockwork and the telescope should track the object until it disappears in the east. The Goldenwing will be in sight for approximately twenty-one minutes. Then we must wait for an hour and some until it appears again. You might be able to see the cargo vehicles separating and beginning their descent to Voersterstaad. Am I understood, Cousin?”

  “For God’s sake, Osbertus. The Voertrekkersdatter is not a child,” Roark said irritably.

  The Healer was having serious second thoughts about his decision to come to Einsamberg with Eliana and the others. He had made a political decision on the basis of what he felt for the girl--and for her mother. Which had been a very stupid thing to do. Tiegen Roark had not achieved his present position in life by being rash or stupid. His second thoughts were being joined by third and fourth thoughts. All of them told him that he was in great danger, and he had put himself in this position for the sake of a woman who was far above him in the Voertrekker scheme of things. A woman he could not touch, and dare not dream of.

  “She looks like a child, Brother Healer,” Buele said, grinning foolishly.

  The physician flushed with anger.

  “Don’t be impertinent, Buele,” Osbertus said swiftly. To Roark, he said, “Bring Broni over here, please, Healer.”

  They settled Broni comfortably at the telescope. When she put her eye to the eyepiece, Buele asked, “Can you see anything, Sister?”

  “Buele!” Healer Roark quivered with indignation.

  “I can see stars,” Broni said. “Very bright.”

  Osbertus craned to look up at the sky over Einsamberg. The clouds were broken, their edges gleaming with the light of the Giants Wallenberg and deKlerk. Osbertus examined his watch, a heavy gold timepiece that had come to Voerster aboard the Milagro. Voertrekker families tended to hoard heirlooms. Unchanging things reinforced their illusion of the strength of Voertrekker society.

  “It is almost time, Broni,” he said anxiously. “Look carefully. Tell me when you see the Goldenwing and I will set the clockwork.”

  Tiegen Roark whispered to Eliana, “Mynheera, I disapprove of the Voertrekkersdatter sitting in an open window in this freezing weather.”

  “Hush, Tiegen. Let it be.”

  Roark frowned and helped himself to a toddy from the tray on the table. He rubbed nervously at his duelling scar. The damned thing itched whenever he was emotionally distraught. Even the lightness of socially sanctioned, deliberate self-disfigurement was brought into question by his act of rebellion in following Eliana Ehrengraf Voerster.

  From below, in the field where the damaged dirigible was moored, came the sound of Black Clavius’ balichord. He was serenading the kaffirs helping Otto Klemmer repair the airship. The melody was pure and melancholy in the frigid mountain air. Blues. A kaffir lament. Eliana was listening intently. It disturbed Tiegen to see her moved by kaffir music.

  He tried to imagine Eliana Ehrengraf’s true life--the secret, personal life of a beautiful, passionate woman condemned to the coldness of a Voertrekker political marriage. He was overwhelmed by the wave of near grief that flooded over him. It was known that Eliana’s moods affected those around her. What a dreadful power that was, Tiegen Roark thought. The more so for being unsought and unwanted.

  She suddenly became aware of what she was doing and the mood in the tower room changed.

  Osbertus Kloster left off frowning and began fairly to dance with excitement. “There, there it is, Broni! Can you see it?”

  “Oh, Cousin! Mother! I can see it! It is so beautiful!”

  Broni saw a glittering, flashing butterfly against the star-shot dark. She could hear the telescope clockwork starting and feel the instrument move to keep the golden vision in sight.

  Against the starry background, Glory climbed into Voerster’s sky, her furled sails and embracing masts and yards shimmered with light as the sun-angle changed.

  Broni said excitedly, “Oh, mynheera, do look!”

  Eliana took her daughter’s place at the eyepiece and drew in her breath. The image was far clearer and larger than it had been through the large telescope at Sternhoem. The Goldenwing was close, so close that it seemed she could reach out and pluck the beautiful thing from the sky. She had not expected to be so deeply moved.

  The Gloria Coelis flashed in the high brilliance of the white Luyten sun. Her spars and rigging seemed to shimmer with light. As a child, Eliana Ehrengraf had been told that the Goldenwings were the most beautiful constructs of man. She believed it now.

  “Mother? Mynheera? Isn’t she lovely?”

  Broni’s questioning voice brought Eliana back to present reality. “Yes, Broni. Lovely.” She stepped away from the telescope and let Broni return.

  As the girl watched, cargo sleds and mules began to slide from the Gloria Coelis’ ventral bay. One after another they emerged from the Goldenwing’s belly, flashed retrofire, and fell behind her.

  Broni pushed away from the telescope, horrified.

  “Mother, mynheera, she is making babies! She will die, Mother! She will die....’“

  Eliana caught the girl in her arms.

  “Broni, no, she won’t die, my love. She is of Earth, not of Voerster, Broni, my sweet love...”

  Osbertus Kloster cursed himself for an old fool. He might have known she would see the cargo sleds separating, and as a native of this benighted planet what else would she think but that the beautiful sky-creature was another necrogene?

  “What you see are not her children, Broni. They are only landing sleds. She is a machine, Cousin, not an animal. Look again. She is much closer to us now.”

  What a world we live in, Osbertus thought. A world where the giving of one life means the relinquishing of another. “Look and see, Broni.”

  The girl returned to the eyepiece and stared open-mouthed. The large “children” had fallen far behind the Goldenwing. Another, smaller object separated from it and drifted across the sky beside it

  The Voertrekkersdatter had seen Duncan Kr and Anya Amaya begin the reentry that would bring them to Einsamberg.

  At the crest of the ridge to the west of the valley of Einsarntal, Eigen Fontein and his brother stood in the mountain darkness and studied the activity on the floor of the valley. They could hear, faintly, the music of a balichord. From time to time figures below crossed in front of the bonfires that had been lighted at a safe distance from the crippled airship.

  “A kaffir’s playing,” Georg Fontein said. “He’s good.”

  Eigen spat into the brittle grass. He was far more interested in the manor house and how well defended it might be. When old Vikter had returned from Voersterstaad after Deorbit Day, there had been rumors that a lowland Ehrengraf bride might soon be coming to Winter. As the heir, Eigen had assumed the lowlander would be his.

  Eigen’s rudimentary nictitating membrane flashed to and fro across his pallid eyes. He was very angry. He had been angry since his father had returned, grinning like a cheet in estrus, from a second visit to the lowlands. He had been to Pretoria whence he had come with a signed marriage contract--a contract pledging himself in marriage to the daughter of Ian Voerster.

  The news had enraged Eigen Fontein. A young bride might mean other heirs. It was intolerable. His reaction had been to set out on this expedition. He intended to take Einsamberg--the girl Broni’s dowry--for himself and perhaps destroy the scheme his father and The Voerster had agreed upon.

  Georg Fontein followed his elder brother cautiously. Eigen was in the process of doing something very stupid, and very dangerous. There must be, he reasoned, a way
in which he, Georg, could benefit from his duel-scarred brother’s rashness.

  Georg, the thoughtful one, had suggested a possible reason for their parent’s lunacy. “The girl is frail,” Georg said. “No matter what they say, she’s sickly. Old Vikter intends to use the Law of Tribe to get himself something far better than Broni Voerster.”

  The Law of Tribe was simple and primal, designed for a colony world with a limited gene pool. It was a law out of the Dark Age immediately following the Rebellion. But like all Voertrekker laws, once written, it remained in the books as a religious canon and a part of the legal code.

  Simply stated, the Law declared that once a tribe betrothed a female, the prospective groom had a right to expect a healthy and umblemished woman for his bed. If one was not forthcoming, the groom’s family-had the right, in his name and in the name of the Tribe, to claim from the unsuitable female’s family another, more worthy conjugal mate, and to keep her until she supplied him with a healthy child. The choice was unlimited and unrestricted. A sister, wife, or even mother could be required to copulate with the disappointed groom until an heir was delivered.

  “The old hornhead has seen Eliana Ehrengraf,” Georg Fontein said with a leer. “The Law of Tribe will give her to him. What do you think of that? You’ve seen The Voerster’s woman. Wouldn’t you like to explore under her skirt yourself? The old man has diddled you, elder brother.”

  Eigen scowled at the distant balichord. He was thinking that it was an unbelievable stroke of luck to find the Voerster women here at Einsamberg. If the Law of Tribe worked for his bastard of a father, it would work as well for Eigen Fontein of Winter.

  Kopje, one of the lumpen Eigen always brought along on hunting and whoring expeditions, was listening to the galena-powered radio. There had been feeble, hard-to-hear messages originating from Einsamberg Kraal all day. Georg said the people in the house were communicating with the syndicate in the Goldenwing that crossed the sky west to east every ninety or so minutes. If so, they were breaking the Voertrekker-Praesident’s own law--the one enacted in the Kongresshalle years ago, after the Nepenthe had come and gone. It was written that only officials of the Voertrekker State might communicate with offworlders. It was all very interesting to Eigen. Was it possible that his hunt would net him a sled filled with who-knew-what treasures from a Goldenwing?

  Another of the lumpen came pounding up the hill from the camp below. “Look, Eigen-sah, look!”

  The brilliant star they had been watching was racing across the sky as before. Within minutes it transited the Plough and the Hanged Man. When Georg asked for the field glasses he was rewarded with a snarl from Eigen, who was using them.

  ‘There, again!” the lumpe said. “See, it is breaking in pieces!”

  Eigen watched the cargo panniers separate from the gemlike object in the binoculars’ field. He watched as the smaller points of light fell behind to form a string of golden beads.

  “Let me look, Brother,” Georg insisted.

  Eigen slammed the glasses against his brother’s chest and ran back down the hill toward the camp.

  Georg raised the binoculars as the racing light crossed the zenith. He could make out some details. The object in orbit around Voerster resembled a golden dragonfly. He was impressed by its jewelled beauty. As he watched, another, smaller object separated and began to descend. Across the sky now were displayed the Goldenwing, a string of golden beads, and the last object to separate, smaller than the others. All crossed the sky with distance widening among them. Georg watched until they had vanished beyond the black shadow of the Grimsel mountain crags to the east.

  Georg considered, as had his brother only moments before, what of value there might be within those golden droplets in the sky. Every mynheer on Voerster had heard since childhood of the vast treasure expended when the Goldenwing Nostromo departed with orders to replenish Voerster’s livestock and who knew what else. The Voerster must, at this very moment, be totting up the cost to the government of Voerster of the shipment that seemed about to arrive.

  From the Fontein camp came Eigen’s shouted order: .”Make ready! We will take the manor house tonight!”

  Georg shivered with an apprehension he had never before experienced. The lights in the sky, he thought, will change my world.

  21. MARQ DESCENDING

  The storms that had troubled the Grassersee now had moved west to the shores of Amity Bay in longitude fifteen degrees. At Voertrekkerhoem, rain fell in torrents as the line squalls swept across the flatlands between the Voertrekker-Praesident’s estate and the city of Voersterstaad. The grasses lay crushed under the deluge and the land drank in the rain thirstily. When these storms were past, the grasses would grow wings and fly on the Nachtebrise, replenishing the savannah with fodder for the herds of wild ebray. And the ebray would multiply, the richness of their diet encouraging multiple births, so that the feral cheet and other predators would have a surfeit of prey animals for the approaching winter.

  It troubled and angered The Voerster that certain pampered academics in Pretoria were now questioning the wisdom of accepting the long-awaited shipment of placental mammal embryos from Earth. Their argument was that the native necrogenes were perfectly attuned to the fragile ecology of Voerster, based generally on a one-for-one replacement of living animals. Mammals had shown a vast capacity to reproduce in the high-technology years before the Rebellion. Many of the native species had been forced into extinction by competition from the more biologically advanced Earth animals.

  The Rebellion had shattered that pattern as it had many others. But now the question was being asked again. I am no scientist, Ian Voerster thought exasperatedly. I know nothing of ecosystems and macrobiology. I only see a world sparsely populated by man and beasts. My predecessor thought it wise to restock the animals, and if he thought it so do I, and there’s an end to it. This was not the moment to worry about either the long-term effects or the cost. There were other things on Ian Voerster’s plate. A disloyal wife, for one.

  The weather had delayed the arrival of the Impala-class police dirigible. The special detachment of police The Voerster had ordered to prepare for a swift flight to Einsamberg stood to arms, waiting for the skies to clear. The skies did not. There were short intervals of sunshine and clear weather, but without the Impala, the troops were useless. And there was a stubborn radio silence from Einsamberg.

  The intelligence wirelessed in to Voertrekkerhoem from Ian Voerster’s spies in Pretoria and Grimsel was disquieting. The one thing The Voerster had not prepared for was an act of violent stupidity by one of Vikter Fontein’s brutish sons. Yet the Voertrekker-Praesident was experienced enough in the statecraft of Planet Voerster to visualize what Eigen Fontein might be doing. When a professor of the Faculty of Law at Pretoria wirelessed in a long and academic dissertation on the Law of Tribe, The Voerster exploded in a fury and sent off an order that the old fool be de-tenured and banned. But the sense of the lecture was clear and Ian Voerster seethed.

  And in their midst of bad news and bad weather, Ian Voerster was informed that the cargo shuttles from the orbiting Goldenwing had separated and were beginning their entry into the atmosphere.

  Another delay was inevitable. The Voertrekker-Praesident dared not be absent when the spacemen descended with Gloria Coelis’ valuable cargo. His quarrel with Eliana and the recovery of the Voertrekkersdatter would have to wait

  Secretly, The Voerster was not only angry, he was sick with worry. It had been a mistake to tell The Fontein that Einsamberg would be his. Ian had no legal right to make such a promise and he knew it. But he had counted on Fontein’s greed. Vikter’s acquisitiveness was legendary even among Voertrekkers. Ian, sitting at his antique desk under the wall-mounted assegai and shield, clawed at his white-blond beard in anger. He was a man who despised the haphazard. Yet the years of planning seemed suddenly to be completely at the mercy of senseless variables: the weather, the arrival of the Goldenwing, the capriciousness of a strong woman’s will. I was
not born to be The Voerster, he thought angrily. Why did it fall to me!

  Polizeioberst Transkei appeared at the open door to the Praesident’s office. The Oberst was apprehensive. His last meeting with Ian Voerster had not been one he cared to remember.

  “What is it?” Ian Voerster demanded sharply.

  ‘The first of the shuttles is in sight, Mynheer.” As if to underscore his words a sonic boom cracked across the rainswept grassland surrounding the old manor house. It rattled the glass in the high windows and seemed to shake the very stones of which the house was built.

  “Any radio messages from the pilot? What rank?” It was a given on Planet Voerster that whether one’s visitor came from the next kraal or from the stars, protocol had to be followed.

  “Only an identification signal, Mynheer. The Starman piloting the shuttle train is called Jean Marq. He is alone. They always identify themselves as Starmen without regard for titles. It is their way, Mynheer.”

  Ian Voerster was well aware of all this. The ceremonials for the visit of a Goldenwing were imbedded in all colonial cultures. Man was dispersed now among all the habitable worlds of the stars within a half dozen light-years from Sol, and everywhere a port call by a Goldenwing was a rare event.

  “Is there space enough for the cargo shuttles?”

  “Starman Marq sees no difficulty, Mynheer. At least I believe that is what he is telling us. His Afrikaans is very bad.”

  “How good is your Space English, Transkei?” Voersler asked irritably. “Turn out an honor guard for this Marq person. Do the shuttles carry weapons?”

  “I do not know, Mynheer Voertrekker-Praesident.”

  I am surrounded by fools, The Voerster thought. “Have a company of the Wache on the landing ground. Armed. There is no point in being careless.” Deep in his Voertrekker Afrikaans psyche was a strong distrust of foreigners.