Well, that’s the way it goes, Jarel thought. The Empire has to expand; new worlds are needed—and the worlds are taken. He had come to learn how it was done, hadn’t he? He had wanted to take part in the shaping of humanity’s glorious future among the stars?
Only he wished, somehow, that this was an uninhabited world.
No one knew I was aboard the landing craft until we were actually down to the planet’s surface. Hidden as I was, they couldn’t detect me any more than I could see or hear them, and of course I had been very careful to keep my thoughts strictly to myself during the descent. Sometimes Evrek and I communicate too well, and the rapport between Father and myself is even better—not that they can probe my mind, since your full consent’s needed for that, but I still tend to transmit involuntarily when I’m excited. I don’t yet have full conscious control over any of my psychic powers.
A few moments after I felt the ship settle gently to a landing, I came out of hiding. The others were already outside; I had to recycle the airlock. When its outer door slid open I stood there breathing in marvelously free air and sunlight, and I called to them. What a child I was, poised on the threshold of my first new planet, with my happy-go-lucky expectations of grand and glorious adventure! Sometimes I think of it, now that I’m wiser and know that worlds are not playgrounds; I remember how carefree I felt and I’m wistful, for it will never be that way again.
The place where we had come down was an idyllic one, a pastoral spot in which the metallic sphere of our ship seemed almost incongruous. There was a meadow, starred with clumps of yellow flowers, and a fringe of dark woods. Nearby within the forest was a river; the murmur of it could be heard clearly, though the trees hid it from view. The sun, low in the sky, shimmered through a lacy veil of cloud. An alien sun—the first I’d ever seen—yet it didn’t look alien. Dimmer, perhaps, than the one of my home solar system; I could look straight at it as the clouds blew past. But it seemed natural.
On the grass near the ship stood the members of the landing party; all three of them turned and stared at me, and I stared back. Nobody said anything, though I caught Father’s swift thought: Oh no, Elana! Father and Evrek wore ordinary field outfits, clothes more or less like my own, but Ilura was dressed in a long, full skirt, a style that I could only suppose was Andrecian. (Service starships carry all sorts of odd supplies, like homespun cloth, for nobody can predict what a survey team will run into.) When I stopped to think about it, I realized that she was of a race very much like the Andrecians physically, and that she could conceivably pass for one of them—which of course the rest of us could not, our coloring and features being quite different. But it was startling to see her so disguised.
Evrek, I think, was the most upset by my appearance—Evrek, who I’d have thought would be secretly glad to see me! “Are you crazy, Elana?” he demanded as I joined them in the meadow. “Did you think we were going on a picnic or something? It’s a critical mission, and risky. You could get hurt.”
Evrek is funny sometimes. Looking back, I realize that he was truly afraid for me, and because he didn’t want to show that fear, he let it out as anger. And I didn’t help matters any. “Oh, that’s silly!” I said impatiently. “Father won’t let any of us get hurt.”
Father agreed firmly. “Not if I can prevent it, I won’t. And in your case I can. You’re going right back with the landing craft.”
“To the starship? But that would leave you stranded here!”
“We are going to be stranded anyway, until our job’s done. Did you think we’d keep a ship around for someone to find?”
I did not really know many of the details of how a field team operated, I realized. The landing craft could, of course, be returned to the starship’s orbit under automatic control and recalled later, but somehow I hadn’t expected them to do this. It seemed rather drastic, in a way.
Well, in any case, I’d had a glimpse of Andrecia; it hadn’t all been wasted effort. “This is a beautiful planet!” I burst out.
“Yes,” said Ilura. “No wonder the colonists want it.”
“Colonists?” I didn’t have any actual information about what was going on here, other than my own guesses; the official announcement aboard the starship had been very noncommittal.
“You might as well know,” Father said. “There’s another ship here, a ship from a quite powerful young Empire. They’re clearing land for a colony.”
“And we’re going to stop them?”
“We hope so. There are plenty of uninhabited worlds they can colonize. But they’re a formidable people, Elana.”
“But still Youngling,” I said. They were at a high level, I knew, if they had achieved the stardrive—not too far below us technologically. There could be no other Younglings significantly superior to them. Still …
“Yes, Youngling—of course,” Ilura told me. “They have no command of psychic powers at all; their gods are machines. All the same they’re dangerous, and there are nearly a hundred of them here, I’d say.”
“Come on, let’s get busy,” Father interrupted. “Elana, you can help us to set up camp, but when I send the ship back you’ll be in it.”
We crossed the meadow and selected a place near the river, among tall, majestic trees, for the base camp. Naturally we couldn’t put up any sort of shelter that would not seem indigenous to the surroundings. But there were plenty of fair-sized stones strewn around nearby—apparently the river was sometimes higher than at present—and from them Father and Evrek erected a small, windowless stone hut. This was done quickly and silently, and, I believe, psychokinetically, though the stones rarely left anyone’s hands and conventional plastics were used for cementing them. I know that Father has more ability along these lines than most of us; I could not, with my own mind, have moved one of those stones two feet without emotional stimulus. Perhaps, of course, the urgency was more apparent to him. The fact remains that the hut went up much more rapidly than it should have, if there had been anyone there to watch.
While the hut was taking shape, Ilura and I unloaded the supplies and carried them to the edge of the woodsy clearing. When we were almost finished Father said to me, “Go aboard now, Elana. Leave the last few things in the meadow, and we’ll pick them up. I’ve got to get that ship out of here.”
A breeze rippled the new spring leaves of the trees; I took a deep breath, and the air seemed alive with a faintly alien scent. A Youngling world: a lush, green world full of mystery and promise. What might lie hidden in this unearthly forest? I’d had a look at it, anyway—that was something, though perhaps it was only tantalizing. I started reluctantly toward the meadow and the waiting ship. And then, in one brief instant, the first real turning point of my life came; and now nothing will ever be the same as it was before.
There was no warning until, just as I was about to step out from the shelter of the trees, Father grabbed me and pulled me back. Directly across the clearing from us I saw a flash of metal. Two men were emerging from the forest, and they could not be Andrecians. They wore pressure suits and helmets; Andrecia’s atmosphere—or its bacteria—must be poisonous to them.
“The ship!” Evrek cried out.
Father must have been aware of what was happening before the rest of us were, for the ship had already begun its swift, soundless lift from the meadow. The invaders couldn’t have spotted it as they came into the clearing; a large clump of thick-foliaged trees had kept it out of their direct line of sight. They now had their backs to it, but if they turned within the next thirty seconds they could not fail to see.
“A clear disclosure!” murmured Ilura. “They’ll know what an alien ship means! It’s the worst thing that could happen, for the Imperials to—”
I understood her. A spherical, noiseless ship—a ship without visible means of propulsion—they’d know it for the earmark of a civilization more advanced than their own. So the danger wasn’t just to this world. It could change the course of their Empire’s history if those men saw and were believed.
The thing happened so fast that I could scarcely take it in. Father and Evrek could do nothing; for them to be seen, undisguised, would have been disastrous. But Ilura wore the dress of an Andrecian woman. Physically, she could pass as Andrecian. As the invaders started to turn toward the rising ship she ran forward with a terrific yell, snatched out the Andrecian-type knife she’d had concealed somewhere—and threw it.
“What’s she doing?” I exclaimed, horrified. “She wouldn’t kill them? She couldn’t, even if she wanted to, with that, not with them wearing suits.”
“No,” Evrek said softly. “It was a diversion. The ship’s gone, they didn’t see.”
The ship had indeed disappeared, silently, into a pink-tinged bank of clouds. The Imperials were facing Ilura. Though the knife had fallen harmlessly to the ground, one of them raised his weapon.
It was a laser of some kind; it made no sound, and the flash was unbearably bright. When I got my eyes open again, Ilura was gone. Just—gone!
“Her Shield!” I whispered numbly. “What happened to her Shield?”
Evrek faced me. “She didn’t use it. The Shield would have given her away; the Imperials would have known she was alien.”
I froze there, overcome by stunned disbelief. They had meant what they were saying. It was not a sightseeing trip, not a picnic, not a game. The things that happened here would be real.
The two invaders had turned back toward the forest and were disappearing in the direction from which they had come; apparently they were not in the mood to take on more hostile natives, not knowing how many of these there might be. Still Father stood motionless, his face marked by pain that was more than the shock of a mere observer. I looked at him, suddenly seeing a man who was not my father at all. You and Ilura were—communicating! I asserted mutely.
Of course.
Was it her idea … or yours?
It was hers, Elana.
But he could have stopped her, I thought. She was under his orders; whether it was her own idea or not, surely he could have found some other way …
Evrek put his arms around me, and I clung to him. Soundlessly I cried, Oh, Evrek! Why did Father let it happen?
Elana, he is sworn! They were both sworn; what choice did they have?
Around Evrek’s neck hung the Emblem, the multifaceted pendant symbolizing the Oath that every agent wears; now, with my cheek against his shoulder, I saw it as if for the first time. All my life I’d accepted this as a standard article of dress; even my mother had worn one, and no doubt it had first caught my eye during my infancy. Certainly one of my earliest memories was of sitting on her lap and turning it over and over in my hands. But I had not truly grasped its significance before.
Evrek, too, was sworn! If he had been the one disguised as a native of this world, he would now be dead. My mother herself had been killed under roughly comparable circumstances, though at the time I’d been too young to understand. The Oath was more than a colorful ritual to which, if you happened to want a Service career, you looked forward all through your schooldays; it was more than a decision that you made once, for all time, about the vocation you would follow. It was a thing you lived with continuously, during every moment you spent on an alien world.
We stayed hidden until we were sure that the Imperials would not return; then, without speaking, we picked up the supplies and carried them into the hut. It was cold there. I dropped my load in a corner and went outside again, into the fast-fading sunlight.
Father followed me and put his arm around my shoulders, but I pulled away. He came after me. “Things like this happen,” he said gently. “It’s part of the price we pay.”
“For being here?”
“For being what we are. For our knowledge.”
“I know … only it—it wasn’t real before.”
“There’s always a moment when it becomes real. I’m sorry; I’d rather you had been older.”
“I’m all right!” I knew that the situation was one to which I’d have to adjust if I really was old enough to be here. But one thing was still troubling me. “Father, would they have known for sure, from the Shield?”
“It was too great a chance to take, considering that we had only a few seconds for a decision.” He hesitated, then went on, “Elana, I’m going to be very honest with you. In this particular case, they might not have. In fact, if they had recognized it for what it is—a mental power instead of a physical one—a demonstration of the Shield might actually have been helpful to us; that makes this doubly hard to bear. But they probably wouldn’t have recognized it, for they are conditioned to see such things from a materialistic viewpoint. They would have investigated and found us. Even if they hadn’t found us, their suspicions would have been aroused, and we’d have lost our only chance to help the Andrecians.”
“Why would we?”
“For reasons too complicated to explain right now, reasons having to do with our plan of action.” Father shook his head sadly. “No agent can ever be sure. Here, we were confronted with a very real possibility not only of starting a chain of events that would have led to the failure of our mission, but of disclosure to the Empire. Two Youngling civilizations, Elana! They would both have been hurt—”
“Hurt, if she’d merely used the Shield?”
“The more power you have, the greater the consequences of the little things.”
I looked up at the tall conifers silhouetted against the soft glow of an Andrecian sunset. Behind me, the sound of the river seemed to grow louder. There’s just such a river near Grandfather’s summer place on my home world; I used to hear it from my bedroom whenever I woke at night. How many rivers, I thought, on how many planets … in the whole universe? How many of them will I see? Beside how many of them will I stand when something like this happens?
But you don’t want anyone, least of all your father, to think that you aren’t mature enough to face reality. I turned to him and said steadily, “What happens now?”
Father looked at me thoughtfully. “Elana,” he began, “you know that for you to be here, unsworn, is illegal.”
“Yes. I—I’m sorry.”
“Really?” He met my eyes, and I saw suddenly that he was not angry with me at all. There was something there that, if it had not been for Ilura, would have been a smile. “You haven’t lost your enthusiasm or your nerve, have you?” he asked quietly.
“No!” Realizing what he was leading up to, I added, “You’re not going to recall the ship, are you?”
“No, I’m not. I don’t dare to recall it right now, and even if I did—well, I’ve had an idea, Elana.” He paused and then said slowly, “You’re not really ready. You won’t understand everything that happens. But I need someone to fill Ilura’s place, and it’s too much of a risk to wait for another agent to be brought in at this point.”
“Ilura’s place? Me?” I hadn’t dared to hope he’d let me play any real part.
“Yes, if you want it.”
“Of course I do!” I said, my excitement returning. After all, I’d known all along that an agent’s job is at times perilous, and I wasn’t about to let that stop me.
Evrek had joined us just in time to hear this. Glaring at Father, he protested, “Elana can’t pose as a native, as Ilura was to have done!”
“No. None of us can, so we’ve got to revamp the plan. But I’ve something in mind for which Elana’s well suited.”
Turning to me, Evrek said quietly, “Elana, you don’t have to agree. You don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for.”
“Are you going to try to protect me, too?” I laughed.
“Of course I am! I love you! Don’t you see the responsibility you’re accepting?”
I followed his glance toward the spot where Ilura had stood just minutes before, and it did give me the shivers, I’ll admit. Not that the same circumstances would arise again, but it was true enough that an agent’s role would, in principle, entail an agent’s obligations; the fact that I was not yet
sworn was only a technicality. There are some kinds of training that you don’t get until Third Phase. The Shield, for example, is a more or less automatic mental reflex to which you are conditioned from childhood. You can’t control it by an act of will unless you’ve been specifically taught to. Would I even know how not to use it?
But if I had any doubts on that score, I certainly wasn’t going to let Evrek suspect them. I told him, “I guess I accepted it when I came down here in the first place, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did,” he admitted reluctantly. Drawing me to him, he added, “But oh, Elana, if anything happened to you—”
Just then Father broke in hurriedly. “Someone’s coming. Get inside!”
We retreated into the hut and, staying clear of its uncovered opening, peered out through a chink between the rough stones. More Imperials? To my astonishment, I began to feel a sort of sick, icy fear that was not at all familiar to me.
“Andrecians,” Evrek said. “Peasants—woodsmen, maybe—on foot, and unarmed. They look harmless.”
“They’re coming over here!” I whispered. “They’ll find us!”
Father was silent for a few moments, then made a fast decision. He smiled at me and said softly, “Yes. We’re going to let them.”
“Contact? Now?” Evrek demanded, sounding somewhat horrified. “No investigation? No preparation—”
“This isn’t a textbook case! There’s no time to explain now, but I think we’ve got to take a real plunge. Maybe no one else will be by here for days, and I’d rather do it this way than seek them out.”
You don’t question your Senior Agent’s strategy. Besides, not having made a contact before, Evrek was eager. “Can I go out with you?” he asked.
Enchantress from the Stars Page 3
