The scene cut to a magnified image of the outsider vessel, a black blade athwart stars and Milky Way. Valen whistled. “Susaian, for sure,” he said. “Scout type, small, high-boost, maneuverable. However, if one of them single-handed her, it was pretty desperate. The best of their automatic systems don’t compare to the average of ours, you know.”
“Daring more than desperate, I’d say,” Lissa murmured. “You’ll see. Watch.”
Davy Windholm’s fine-boned visage took over the screen, against a backdrop of his study, swirl-grained wainscot, an antique table, shelves of codex books and memorabilia that had been in the family for generations. She thrilled to the steadiness of his voice. “The Susaian doesn’t want to talk through hyperspace. Fears the beam being tapped. Well, it could be, and our ciphers aren’t absolutely secure.” Not for the first time, Lissa wished quantum encryption had been made to work for transluminal communication. “So we require a personal representative of the House, and time is lacking for consultation. Therefore I am appointing Lissa Windholm envoy plenipotentiary. Her part in explorations of planets in this galactic vicinity has given her as much knowledge of nonhumans as anyone on Asborg seems likely to possess. She has also demonstrated self-control and sound judgment, alike in emergencies and in ordinary difficulties. I have every confidence in her.”
Dad thinks that of me!
The screen showed Lissa in the command cabin of a courier boat. In Valen’s apartment, she observed herself observing herself [64] as if another person were yonder, and thought, Why? Do I want to know how he sees me?
The rush to make ready and be off had told on her. Instead of tonight’s glittery flowrobe, she wore a coverall, smudged here and there. The auburn hair wasn’t netted in gold but, under low acceleration, hung sweat-lank past her ears. Still, she thought, she didn’t look hideous. A fair-sized number of men found her attractive. ... Stop that! she silently snapped.
The pilot gazed into the pickup and said: “I record my understanding of my assignment just prior to medicating, getting into the flotation tank, and ordering top boost for the passage.
“I’ve never met a Susaian before, and only talked casually with people who have, but naturally I’ve been interested and studied up on them. Now I’ve brought along a database and will be accessing it en route. Transit time, about sixty hours, should let me learn something, though I’d better arrive reasonably rested and fresh. Better try to avoid preconceptions, too. However, I can’t help guessing. Since that may influence my actions, I’ll enter my thoughts at this point.
“I doubt we’ve got any subtle scheme under way. We’re as alien to the Susaians as they are to us. What buttons could they single out to push? Oh, they do have that curious sensitivity to emotional states, but on an individual basis. It doesn’t tell them how groups of us will react to something.
“I also doubt we’ve got a criminal trying for a haven. Not that we can be very sure what constitutes a crime among them. But anybody smart enough to make it here must know we won’t risk provoking an interstellar incident for nothing. We’ll need to be convinced it’s worth our while to help.
“Nevertheless, this isn’t exactly a usual way for a stranger to show up. My guess is that our visitor has come on behalf of some faction. The Susaians are no more united than us humans.”
The image smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t embroil us in a civil war of theirs. I couldn’t if I wanted to. I’m really only empowered [65] to ask questions and make suggestions. Believe me, I’ll think hard before I do either.”
The screen blinked. The time displayed was two and a half standard days later. Lissa floated weightless. She had spruced herself up. “I’ve proposed to the Susaian that we rendezvous elsewhere,” she said, and projected the coordinates and orbital elements, a million kilometers from the giant planet. “It has agreed. That should enable Evana to damp out rumors and gossip on Gunvor. Please inform her. She can tell the troops this is probably some minor matter.”
Valen chuckled.
He leaned tensely forward when the other ship swelled in view. Running commentary described the matching of velocities and the extension of a gang tube. Lissa appeared, spacesuited, an automatic camera on either shoulder.
“I’m crossing over like this,” said her voice. “Not that the air or the temperature or anything would kill me, but ... well, just in case. The suit is reinforced, and I’ve got a blaster in my oddments pouch.”
“That much was beamed back to my father,” she said in the city. “The rest had to wait till I had returned to my boat— No, I misspoke. All I sent then was word that I was safe and things looked interesting. The real information I wasn’t about to trust to any transmitter.”
An interior flashed before her and the man. Its cramped plainness seemed almost familiar, until one noticed the details. The Susaian poised free-fall at the center. The sinuous body, dull red, as long as a man’s, was tautly curved about the four stubby legs. The tail, half that length, coiled to complete the ring. Two hands, each with three spidery fingers, at the end of supple arms, held a standard model translator. Just “above” them swayed the neck. Behind the blunt snout of the head, which lacked earflaps, the eyes glowed quite beautiful, like twin agates. The trans rendered purring, rustling sounds into flat Anglay. “Well be you come, [66] Earthblood. Have you immediate desires I might perchance fulfill?”
Lissa’s helmet included a sonic unit. “Can we get straight to business? I don’t want to be discourteous, but I don’t know what’s polite in your society. My database told me that if we both belonged to the Thornflower nation,”—the trans turned that human name into the appropriate buzz—“we’d spend the next hour exchanging compliments. I’m willing, but not sure how.”
Again Valen chuckled.
“I am not a member of it myself,” the Susaian said. Did the vocal tone carry wrath, or sorrow, or eagerness? “And I will gladly go by the straightest tunnel, the more so when I sense that, beneath a natural wariness, your intentions are honest.”
Listening on Asborg, Lissa wondered anew about that race’s ability to read emotional states, apparently among each other and, to some uncertain degree, in her species. Whether they could do it or not in more sentients than that was unknown, at least to any observers whose writing she’d consulted; but those were all human, of course. Could there be some exhalations of pheromones or whatever to smell—not impossible, as basically similar as the biochemistries were—or even the faint, faint radiations of brains to sense?
Both implausible here, when she was encased in a spacesuit. Body language, facial expression, tone of voice? She’d thought the best guess was that the Susaians used a suite of clues, and a highly-developed innate capability of interpretation. Very likely this one had had direct experience of her kind, or else had spent considerable time studying virtuals.
The question slipped out of her mind as she heard the being continue: “Names first? I designate myself—” the trans hesitated for an instant, tried “Mountain Copper,” and settled on “Orichalc. At present I function as male.”
“Lissa Windholm,” she had answered. “Female. I ... imagine you know what my name signifies.”
“Yes. You belong to that one of Asborg’s dominant [67] consanguinities.” It was the best rendition the program could make of a phrase in that particular Susaian language, which attempted to describe a concept perhaps unknown to any Susaian culture. “The one that I sought.”
“Then you know more about us than I do about you.”
“I was here briefly, three rejuvenations ago. That was as a crew member of a ship conveying an expedition sent to gather information about what was then a new colony.”
“Yes. I’ve studied the accounts. Your people’s only visit, wasn’t it?” Xanaduans, Rikhans, Sklerans, and Grib had also come for a look, found no threat nor any particular promise to them, and gone away again. Later contacts had been between individuals or crews or other small groups.
“Correct. Since then, of course,
much has evolved. I have striven to bring my information up to date. Travelers often take along databases about their homes. A copy is an appreciated gift or a trade item of some value.”
“I know. But why did you care about us especially?”
The tail slithered back, whispering along the glabrous hide. “The second planet of this sun would be quite hospitable to my species.”
“Freydis?” Lissa’s image registered surprise. That hot, cloudy world of swamps and deserts? “Well, yes ... I suppose so ... but there must be plenty more in the galaxy, some of them better, that you haven’t settled yet, or even found.”
“True, However, I pray you, consider who will take them. S-s-s-s—” Orichalc’s head struck at air, to and fro.
“House Windholm doesn’t own all Freydis,” Lissa said. “Nobody does.”
“Correct.” The head grew large in sight, drawing near her helmet. Fangs glistened, eyes smoldered. “But your consanguinity is uniquely qualified. First, it does own the large island on the planet that you call New Halla.” He must have put a special entry in the trans’s program. “Territory of scant or no use to you, originally claimed for prestige and on the chance of mineral resources, [68] retained merely because of inertia and, s-s-s, pride. Second, as of recent years, you have maintained exclusive operations on the moon Gunvor, This gave opportunity for a discreet approach. I realize my plan is hopeless unless we, your people and I, can suddenly present the Galaxy with an accomplished fact.”
Lissa’s tone grew strained. “What do you want?”
“The island. What else? I have considered how the transaction may be done. Pay me a sum equal to the agreed-on price for the land, with an option to buy it. Leave the sum in escrow until I have fulfilled my part of the bargain. I will know whether your chieftans intend to abide by this and, afterward, whether I have truly met the terms as they understand them. My researches lead me to expect they will be honest.”
“You’re asking ... a great deal.”
“I offer much more.”
“What?”
Orichalc hooked his tail around a stanchion. The long body swayed. “I cannot precisely tell you, for I myself do not know. But it is of the utmost.”
“Get to reality, will you?” Lissa snapped, impatient.
The undulations went hypnotic, the words sank to a breath. “Hearken. I am a cosmonaut of the Great Confederacy. It embraces four of the seven Susaian-inhabited planets, about seventeen hundred light-years from here. You have heard? Yes-s-s.
“During the last several of your calendrical years, its Dominance has repeatedly dispatched expeditions elsewhere. They are totally secret. Nothing whatsoever is said about them. Key personnel return to live sequestered in a special compound. I have gathered that they enjoy every attention and luxury there, and are well satisfied. Ordinary crewfolk of the several ships go more freely about on their leaves, but may not speak to anyone, no, not nestmates or clones or even each other, of what they have done and seen.
“That is easy to obey, for we know well-nigh nothing. Our vessels leap through hyperspace to someplace else. We lie there [69] for varying times while the scientists use their instruments and send out their probes, operations in which we do not partake. All we perceive is that we float in empty, unfamiliar interstellar space until we go back. Ah, but the feelings of those officers and scientists! They flame, they freeze, they strike, recoil, exult, shudder; the glory and the dread of Almightiness are upon them.
“And at home, I have once in a while come near enough to certain of the Dominators that I sense the same in them. Not the awe, no, for they do not venture thither themselves, to yonder remote part of the galaxy; but their inward dreams grasp a pride and a hope that are demonic.” (What did that last word really mean in the Susaian tongue?)
In free fall, there is no true over or under. Nonetheless Orichalc loomed. “Is this not a sufficient sign that something vast writhes toward birth?” he demanded.
“I, I can’t say,” Lissa stammered. “You, how and why did you—”
“They knew I was unhappy, until presently, slowly, I went aquiver,” Orichalc said. “Well, my race has learned dissimulations. I led them to believe that I suffered private difficulties, hostilities, until I began seeing ways whereby I might cope. They expected little of a humble crew member, therefore suspected little. Meanwhile I took my surreptitious stellar sightings and made my calculations.
“And at home, I plotted with others. Jointly, they raised the means to obtain this spacecraft and send me off in it, all under false pretenses. Our need is that great.
“Here I am. I know, quite closely, where and when the monster thing is to happen. It will be soon. What is this worth to you and your kindred, Earthblood?”
XII
LISSA spent the day before departure with her parents.
They were at the original family home, on Windholm itself. A stronghold as much as a dwelling, Ernhurst offered few of the comforts, none of the sensualities in mansions and apartments everywhere else. Yet Davy and Maren had refrained from enlarging it, and often returned there. It held so many memories.
From the top of a lookout tower Lissa saw immensely far. Southward the downs rolled summer-golden to the sea, which was a line of gleaming argent on that horizon. Wind sent long ripples through the herbage; cloud shadows swept mightily over heights and hollows. It boomed and bit, did the wind, but odors of growth, soil, water, sunlight brought life to its sharpness. Northward the land climbed toward hills darkling with forest. Other than the estate, its gardens and beast park, the sole traces of man lay to the west, toylike at their remove, a power station, a synthesis plant, and the village clustered around them.
“Oh, it’s good to be here again,” she sighed.
“Then why are you so seldom?” her father asked quietly.
She looked away from him. “You know why. Too much to do, too little time.”
His laugh sounded wistful. “Too little patience, you mean. You’re trying to experience the whole universe. Relax. It won’t go away.”
“I’ve heard that aplenty from you, when Mother hasn’t been after me to settle down, get married, present you with another batch of grandchildren. You relax, you two. That won’t go away. My next cycle, or the next after that, I’ll be ready to start [71] experimenting with domesticity.” Assuming I find the right man, she thought—as how often before? One I could really partner with. None so far. In all these years, none. Unless maybe now—
“If you live till then.” She sensed how he must force the words out. “We were content to let you enjoy your first time around in freedom, like most people. But your enthusiasms are never just intellectual or artistic or athletic, and your idea of a truly grand time is still to hare off and hazard your life on some weird planet. ... I’m sorry, my dear. I don’t want to nag you again, on this day of all days.” Her right hand rested on the parapet. He laid his left over it. “We’re afraid, though, Maren and I. How I rue the hour I asked you to go meet that Susaian. Ever since, you’ve charged breakneck forward.”
She bit her lip. “You could have taken me off the project. You can still.”
Aquiline against the sky, his head shook. “And have you hate me? No, I’m too weak.”
“What? You?” She stared.
He turned to smile at her. “Where you are concerned, I am. Always have been, for whatever reason.”
“Dad—” She clung to his hand.
He grew grave. “I do need to talk with you, seriously and privately. This seems to be my chance.”
She released herself, stepped back a meter, and confronted him. He had now put the well-worn importunities aside, she knew. Doubtless he had only used them as a way into what he really had to utter. Her heart knocked. “Clearance granted,” she said, and realized that today this was no longer one of their shared jokes.
“You’re bound into an unforeseeable but certainly dangerous situation—”
“No, no, no!” she protested automatically. “Must
I explain for the, it feels like the fiftieth time? The environment’s safe. Orichalc saw no extraordinary precautions being taken.”
“But Orichalc did learn that an extraordinary event will occur [72] there in the near future. Who knows what it will involve? If nothing else, the Susaians won’t be overjoyed when outsiders break in on their ultra-secret undertaking. Their resentment might ... express itself forcibly.”
“Oh, Dad, that’s ridiculous. They’re civilized.”
“There are Susaians and Susaians,” he declared, “just as there are humans and humans. The rulers of the Great Confederacy are not the amiable, helpful sorts who lead most of their nations. It isn’t general knowledge, because we don’t want to compromise our sources, but some of our intelligence about them makes me wonder what we may have to face, a century or two from now.”
She didn’t care to pursue that. The immediate argument was what mattered. “Anyhow, we’ll be in clear space. If anything looks threatening, we’ll hyperjump off in a second. No, a millisecond. Dagmar computes and reacts faster than any organic brain.”
“Understood. Otherwise I’d never have authorized the venture. But you in turn understand—don’t you?—you can’t depend on the ship to handle everything, especially make the basic decisions. If she could do that to our satisfaction, she wouldn’t need a master, nor even a scientific team aboard. Lissa, the more I’ve considered your choice of personnel, the more I’ve discovered about them, the less happy I’ve become.”
She clenched her fists. “Orichalc? He’s got to come along. Guide, advisor, and, well, hostage for his own truthfulness. Yes, we know very little about him, but that’s hardly his fault.”
“Orichalc worries me the least,” Davy replied. “Why did you co-opt Esker Harolsson?”
“Huh? You know. He’s an able physicist, specializing in astronomical problems. Bachelor, no particular attachments, easily persuaded to join an expedition whose purpose he won’t learn till we’re in space. If anybody should be loyal to us, that’s Esker.” You made him what he is, Dad, recognized the talent in a ragged patronless kid, sponsored him, funded him through school, got him his position at the Institute.
For Love and Glory Page 6
