by Hank Davis
“The Demon-Marcus Catalog? Oh yeah, I hearda that. Texas.”
He opened it, at random, to a page of exorcise equipment, then flipped to a picture of ungainly hiking boots. “‘Ten-league boots. These boots are for walking!’” The price was in tiny figures that seemed to writhe in the flickering light; all Brice could tell was that the boots were very expensive.
“Well? How do you like it?” Magda had slipped back into the room. She was wearing something long and black and slinky. He pulled her onto his lap.
“Watch out, you’ll spill the wine.”
His lips met hers.
Waite deck chairs. For when you want to tarry at tarot.
“Mommy!” A child began howling somewhere distant.
“Oh, damn,” she said, wrenching free. “I’ll just be a minute.”
He sighed, reopening the catalog. “‘Unicorn flakes. Your kids’ll love them.’”
Designer genies. Imps in bottles and cans. Buy a six-pack, and save.
He was leering over pictures of models showing off designer versions of the Emperor’s new clothes, when she returned.
“He’s excited,” she said. “Christmas and all.”
“I’m excited too,” said Brice, executing a judo move that deposited her on the couch and him atop her.
Your portrait by Pickman. Limited offer.
“Waah! Mommy! There’s a ghost in the closet.”
“Ignore it,” she yelled, disengaging her mouth from Brice’s. They heard the child’s wailing, and then a sound of rattling chains.
“Hell,” she muttered. “I thought the exterminators got rid of them—I’ll be right back.”
He leafed through the selection of Hummel voodoo figurines and Royal Dalton milk-glass Figurines of the Beast. The cat looked amused.
For the kids: a Gilbert Alchemy Set. It’s never too early to begin acquiring Forbidden Knowledge.
“I think I’ve got him settled down,” she said, settling down on Brice’s lap. He moved into a more comfortable position, knocking something off the coffee table.
“Don’t worry. It’s just my pet philosopher’s stone,” she whispered.
For attractive durability, try our indoor-outdoor magic carpets. They’ll remain as stainless as virgin parchment!
She had dipped her finger into the wine and was drawing playful five-pointed stars on his face.
Show your love. Send a singing pentagram.
“Mommy! Who’s there?”
She smacked her fist into the other palm, counted to ten, then said sweetly, “No one’s here, darling.”
Brice muttered curses, and poured another glass of wine. He gestured at her. She shook her head, saying, “I never drink wine.”
Something for your mummy. Tanna Leaf Tea.
“Someone is out there. I can hear ‘im.”
“Don’t come out,” she cried. “It’s—it’s Santa Claus!”
“Ho ho ho,” yelled Brice.
The excited young voice grew higher. “Did he bring it? Huh? Did he bring it?” Magda began whispering in a rhythmic foreign language.
Brice downed the wine, feeling a momentary twinge of nausea, and then abrupt vertigo. Magda, the cat, the fire, the room, all were spinning. He closed his eyes, but the bright arabesques of light continued. Every nerve was tingling. He fell to the ground.
“Is it here yet? Is it here?”
Magda gazed down at Brice, and put a sympathetic hand on his head. The black cat leapt to its feet, arched its back, and hissed at him.
I must’ve drunk too much, he wanted to say, but all that came out was, “Woof.”
“Yes, dear,” Magda called. “You can come out now. Santa brought your puppy.”
Changeling fence. For security in an urban setting.
* * *
INTRODUCTION
THE SEASON OF
FORGIVENESS
Hoping to make good in his assignment for Nicholas van Rijn, a force to reckon with in the Polesotechnic League of traders, young Juan Hernandez understands he’ll have to spend this Christmas away from home. What he wasn’t expecting was that the people of the planet he’s on have decided that the star traders are dangerous and need to be eliminated, beginning with Juan. He’ll have to use his wits to survive, along with an assist from the season. This story is set in the series that was Poul Anderson’s magnum opus, the Technic Civilization series, and if you like it you might want to check out the rest of the series, which Baen has published in seven volumes, beginning with The Van Rijn Method.
Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was one of the most prolific and popular writers in science fiction. He won the Hugo Award seven times and the Nebula Award three times, as well as many other awards, notably including the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America for a lifetime of distinguished achievement. With a degree in physics, and a wide knowledge of other fields of science, he was noted for building stories on a solid foundation of real science, as well as for being one of the most skilled creators of fast-paced adventure stories. He was author of over a hundred science fiction and fantasy novels and story collections, and several hundred short stories, as well as historical novels, mysteries and non-fiction books.
* * *
THE SEASON OF
FORGIVENESS
By Poul Anderson
It was a strange and lonely place for a Christmas celebration—the chill planet of a red dwarf star, away off in the Pleiades region, where half a dozen humans laired in the ruins of a city which had been great five thousand years ago, and everywhere else reached wilderness.
“No!” said Master Trader Thomas Overbeck. “We’ve got too much work on our hands to go wasting man-hours on a piece of frivolity.”
“It isn’t, sir,” answered his apprentice, Juan Hernandez. “On Earth it’s important. You have spent your life on the frontier, so perhaps you don’t realize this.”
Overbeck, a large blond man, reddened. “Seven months here, straight out of school, and you’re telling me how to run my shop? If you’ve learned all the practical technique I have to teach you, why, you may as well go back on the next ship.”
Juan hung his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I meant no disrespect.”
Standing there, in front of the battered desk, against a window which framed the stark, sullenly lit landscape and a snag of ancient wall, he seemed younger than his sixteen Terrestrial years, slight, dark-haired, big-eyed. The company-issue coverall didn’t fit him especially well. But he was quick-witted, Overbeck realized; he had to be, to graduate from the Academy that soon. And he was hardworking, afire with eagerness. The merchants of the League operated over so vast and diverse a territory that promising recruits were always in short supply.
That practical consideration, as well as a touch of sympathy, made the chief growl in a milder tone: “Oh, of course I’ve no objection to any small religious observance you or the others may want to hold. But as for doing more—” He waved his cigar at the scene outside. “What does it mean, anyway? A date on a chronopiece. A chronopiece adjusted for Earth! Ivanhoe’s year is only two-thirds as long; but the globe takes sixty hours to spin around once; and to top it off, this is local summer, even if you don’t dare leave the dome unless you’re bundled to the ears. You see, Juan, I’ve got the same right as you to repeat the obvious.”
His laughter boomed loud. While the team kept their living quarters heated, they found it easiest to maintain ambient air pressure, a fourth again as high as Terrestrial standard. Sound carried strongly. “Believe it or not,” he finished, “I do know something about Christmas traditions, including the very old ones. You want to decorate the place and sing ‘Jingle Bells’? That’s how to make ’em ridiculous!”
“Please, no, sir,” Juan said. “Also on Earth, in the southern hemisphere the feast comes at summer. And nobody is sure what time of year the Nativity really happened.” He knotted his fists before he plunged on. “I thought not of myself so much, though I do remember how it is in my home. But that
ship will come soon. I’m told small children are aboard. Here will be a new environment for them, perhaps frightening at first. Would we not help them feel easy if we welcomed them with a party like this?”
“Hm.” Overbeck sat still a minute, puffing smoke and tugging his chin. His apprentice had a point, he admitted.
Not that he expected the little ones to be anything but a nuisance as far as he himself was concerned. He’d be delighted to leave them behind in a few more months, when his group had ended its task. But part of that task was to set up conditions which would fit the needs of their successors. The sooner those kids adjusted to life here, the sooner the parents could concentrate on their proper business.
And that was vital. Until lately, Ivanhoe had had no more than a supply depot for possible distressed spacecraft. Then a scientific investigator found the adir herb in the deserts of another continent. It wouldn’t grow outside its own ecology; and it secreted materials which would be valuable starting points for several new organic syntheses. In short, there was money to be gotten. Overbeck’s team was assigned to establish a base, make friends with the natives, learn their ways and the ways of their country, and persuade them to harvest the plant in exchange for trade goods.
That seemed fairly well in order now, as nearly as a man could judge amidst foreignness and mystery. The time looked ripe for putting the trade on a regular basis. Humans would not sign a contract to remain for a long stretch unless they could bring their families. Nor would they stay if the families grew unhappy.
And Tom Overbeck wouldn’t collect his big, fat bonus until the post had operated successfully for five standard years.
Wherefore the Master Trader shrugged and said, “Well, okay. If it doesn’t interfere too much with work, go ahead.”
He was surprised at how enthusiastically Ram Gupta, Nikolai Sarychev, Mamoru Noguchi, and Philip Feinberg joined Juan’s project. They were likewise young, but not boys; and they had no common faith. Yet together they laughed a lot as they made ready. The rooms and passageways of the dome filled with ornaments cut from foil or sheet metal, twisted together from color-coded wire, assembled from painted paper. Smells of baking cookies filled the air. Men went about whistling immemorial tunes.
Overbeck didn’t mind that they were cheerful. That was a boost to efficiency, in these grim surroundings. He argued a while when they wanted to decorate outdoors as well, but presently gave in.
After all, he had a great deal else to think about.
A couple of Ivanhoan days after their talk, he was standing in the open when Juan approached him. The apprentice stopped, waited, and listened, for his chief was in conversation with Raffak.
The dome and sheds of the human base looked oddly bright, totally out of place. Behind them, the gray walls of Dahia lifted sheer, ten meters to the parapets, overtopped by bulbous-battlemented watchtowers. They were less crumbled than the buildings within. Today’s dwindled population huddled in what parts of the old stone mansions and temples had not collapsed into rubble. A few lords maintained small castles for themselves, a few priests carried on rites behind porticos whose columns were idols, along twisting dusty streets. Near the middle of town rose the former Imperial palace. Quarried for centuries, its remnants were a colossal shapelessness.
The city dwellers were more quiet than humans. Not even vendors in their flimsy booths cried their wares. Most males were clad in leather kilts and weapons, females in zigzag-patterned robes. The wealthy and the military officers rode on beasts which resembled narrow-snouted, feathery-furred horses. The emblems of provinces long lost fluttered from the lances they carried. Wind, shrill in the lanes, bore sounds of feet, hoofs, groaning cartwheels, an occasional call or the whine of a bone flute.
A human found it cold. His breath smoked into the dry air. Smells were harsh in his nostrils. The sky above was deep purple, the sun a dull ruddy disc. Shadows lay thick; and nothing, in that wan light, had the same color as it did on Earth.
The deep tones of his language rolled from Raffak’s mouth. “We have made you welcome, we have given you a place, we have aided you by our labor and counsel,” declared the speaker of the City Elders.
“You have . . . for a generous payment,” Overbeck answered.
“You shall not, in return, exclude Dahia from a full share in the wealth the adir will bring.” A four-fingered hand, thumb set oppositely to a man’s, gestured outward. Through a cyclopean gateway showed a reach of dusky-green bush, part of the agricultural hinterland. “It is more than a wish to better our lot. You have promised us that. But Dahia was the crown of an empire reaching from sea to sea. Though it lies in wreck, we who live here preserve the memories of our mighty ancestors, and faithfully serve their gods. Shall desert-prowling savages wax rich and strong, while we descendants of their overlords remain weak—until they become able to stamp out this final spark of glory? Never!”
“The nomads claim the wild country,” Overbeck said. “No one has disputed that for many centuries.”
“Dahia disputes it at last. I came to tell you that we have sent forth emissaries to the Black Tents. They bore our demand that Dahia must share in the adir harvest.”
Overbeck, and a shocked Juan, regarded the Ivanhoan closely. He seemed bigger, more lionlike than was right. His powerful, long-limbed body would have loomed a full two meters tall did it not slant forward. A tufted tail whipped the bent legs. Mahogany fur turned into a mane around the flat face. That face lacked a nose—breathing was through slits beneath the jaws—but the eyes glowed green and enormous, ears stood erect, teeth gleamed sharp.
The human leader braced himself, as if against the drag of a gravity slightly stronger than Earth’s, and stated: “You were foolish. Relations between Dahia and the nomads are touchy at best, violent at worst. Let war break out, and there will be no adir trade. Then Dahia too will lose.”
“Lose material goods, maybe,” Raffak said. “Not honor.”
“You have already lost some honor by your action. You knew my people had reached agreement with the nomads. Now you Elders seek to change that agreement before consulting us.” Overbeck made a chopping gesture which signified anger and determination. “I insist on meeting with your council.”
After an argument, Raffak agreed to this for the next day, and stalked off. Hands jammed into pockets, Overbeck stared after him. “Well, Juan,” he sighed, “there’s a concrete example for you of how tricky this business of ours can get.”
“Might the tribes really make trouble, sir?” wondered the boy.
“I hope not.” Overbeck shook his head. “Though how much do we know, we Earthlings, as short a while as we’ve been here? Two whole societies, each with its own history, beliefs, laws, customs, desires—in a species that isn’t human!”
“What do you suppose will happen?”
“Oh, I’d guess the nomads will refuse flat-out to let the Dahians send gathering parties into their territory. Then I’ll have to persuade the Dahians all over again to let nomads bring the stuff here. That’s what happens when you try to make hereditary rivals cooperate.”
“Couldn’t we base ourselves in the desert?” Juan asked.
“It’s better to have a large labor force we can hire at need, one that stays put,” Overbeck explained. “Besides, well—” He looked almost embarrassed. “We’re after a profit, yes, but not to exploit these poor beings. An adir trade would benefit Dahia too, both from the taxes levied on it and from developing friendlier relations with the tribesfolk. In time, they could start rebuilding their civilization here. It was great once, before its civil wars and the barbarian invasions that followed.” He paused. “Don’t ever quote me to them.”
“Why not, sir? I should think—”
“You should. I doubt they would. Both factions are proud and fierce. They might decide they were being patronized, and resent it in a murderous fashion. Or they might get afraid we intend to undermine their martial virtues, or their religions, or something.” Overbeck smiled rather g
rimly. “No, I’ve worked hard to keep matters simple, on a level where nobody can misunderstand. In native eyes, we Earthlings are tough but fair. We’ve come to build a trade that will pay off for us, and for no other reason. It’s up to them to keep us interested in remaining, which we won’t unless they behave. That attitude, that image is clear enough, I hope, for the most alien mind to grasp. They may not love us, but they don’t hate us either, and they’re willing to do business.”
Juan swallowed and found no words.
“What’d you want of me?” Overbeck inquired.
“Permission to go into the hills, sir,” the apprentice said. “You know those crystals along Wola Ridge? They’d be beautiful on the Christmas tree.” Ardently: “I’ve finished all my jobs for the time being. It will only take some hours, if I can borrow a flitter.”
Overbeck frowned. “When a fight may be brewing? The Black Tents are somewhere that way, last I heard.”
“You said, sir, you don’t look for violence. Besides, none of the Ivanhoans have a grudge against us. And they respect our power. Don’t they? Please!”
“I aim to preserve that state of affairs.” Overbeck pondered. “Well, shouldn’t be any risk. And, hm-m-m, a human going out alone might be a pretty good demonstration of confidence . . . Okay,” he decided. “Pack a blaster. If a situation turns ugly, don’t hesitate to use it. Not that I believe you’ll get in any scrape, or I wouldn’t let you go. But—” He shrugged. “There’s no such thing as an absolutely safe bet.”
