[169] He must go ahead cautiously. The first order of business was to gain a better idea of what the situation really was, what to look for, what to provide against. Or try to look, try to provide.
Simply getting the gist of what was available meant slow, hard work. His brain wasn’t built for theoretical physics. He studied at certain hours of the day, after which it was a relief to deal with knowledge less cosmic. Nor was he built for sitting unbrokenly in one place and filling his head. He sallied forth, sought recreations, struck up casual friendships, and, when opportunity offered, sounded people out. There was no Neocatholic church anywhere on the planet, but once in awhile he attended Josephan services.
He had been thus occupied for about three months, and local fall was turning into winter, when his phone chimed, lighted the screen with a visage he didn’t recognize. Wall transparencies showed dusk setting in and the city coming aglow. The hills where he’d spent the day tramping trails, wind rustling fallen leaves while wildlife fleeted and flew around him, were lost to sight. His lungs missed that freshness, but his muscles were comfortably tired.
The face was pale of complexion, black of eyes and curly of hair, chiseled as sharply as it gazed at him. “Good evening, Captain Hebo,” said the voice. “Do you remember me? Romon Kaspersson Seafell. I was with the Dagmar expedition to Jonna.”
“Uh, sure,” Hebo lied. Although he’d kept more of his newer than his older memories, he’d had the program remove what seemed like mere clutter. Not that he’d identified each recollection individually, of course—a practical impossibility. The program had learned him and his wishes, then exercised its own judgment. “You’ll remember yourself, however, my partner and I only paid one courtesy call on your camp.”
Romon nodded. “Otherwise your contacts were by communicator, with our leaders, and through them with the authorities here, negotiating a payment for your discoveries. Oh, yes.”
Didn’t he approve? Hebo wasn’t yet familiar enough with [170] Asborgan culture to always know what somebody meant by something. “How did you learn?” he asked curtly.
Romon’s mouth bent in a rather stiff smile. “No offense. I quite understand your position, and was happy to see that you did get a reasonable reward. I’ve wondered how things went for you since then.”
“How did you learn I’m in town?”
“You’ve made no secret of your presence.”
“Nor blared it out.”
“Still, you’re not nobody, Captain Hebo. You’re the man who made that remarkable find. Your arrival was a news item in these parts.”
“Pretty small.” What little brief fame might have been his was eclipsed by the black hole sensation, perhaps especially so on Asborg. He’d foreseen that, and counted on it. This felt like an intrusion on the obscurity he preferred for the nonce. “Why didn’t you get in touch before, if you wanted to?”
“To tell the truth, the item escaped me. As you say, not exactly first-projection news, and not followed up. I retrieved it a couple of days ago, when I’d been told you were here.”
“And?”
Romon appeared to suppress exasperation. “Captain Hebo, I simply want to be friendly, and trade anecdotes. And we might possibly discover we can do business. May I invite you to dinner? Tomorrow evening, perhaps?”
Hebo had been intending to meet a lady then. Well, he didn’t think she’d be too annoyed if he called and apologized for suddenly having to reshuffle his plans. “All right, why not?”
He smelled something on the wind, whatever it was.
XXXIII
THE Baltica enjoyed a setting as elegant as itself, a clear dome atop one of the tallest towers in Inga. City lights shone, flashed, fountained to the edge of sight, under a moon ringed with a frost halo. Designer flowers bedded among the tables deployed multitudinous colors, animated the air, and trilled a melody that evoked springtime in the blood. Stepping in and seeing the customers, Hebo felt distinctly underdressed. Nonetheless, when he spoke Romon’s name he was conducted with deference to a table in a reserved alcove. He’d come a trifle early, so he wouldn’t be in strange surroundings, and ordered a beer to keep him company while he looked around. Quite a few of the women on hand were worth looking at.
Romon entered on the dot, immaculate in blue tunic, red half-cloak, and white trousers tucked into silver-buckled boots. On his left shoulder, a ring of tiny diamonds glinted around the emblem of his House. Contrast made the man with him doubly slovenly. Besides, the fellow was short, squat, ugly—a kind of arrogance, not getting that dark, hooknosed face remodeled. He stood unsmiling as Romon introduced him: “Captain Torben Hebo, I’d like you to meet Dr. Esker Harolsson Seafell.”
Hebo rose. The other ignored his proffered hand, though a shake was customary on Asborg, and gave him a nod. “Esker Harolsson?” Hebo blurted. “The physicist who—observed those black holes? But I thought you were a Windholm.”
He never had been much good at tact, he realized, and doubtless never would be.
“I changed my patrons,” Esker snapped. Evidently he hadn’t [172] wanted that publicized. They could have arranged it.
“House Seafell was honored to adopt him,” Romon said, as if to gloss over the surliness.
“And I’m, uh, honored to meet you,” Hebo said. The honor didn’t feel overwhelming.
They sat down. Romon ordered a martini, Esker a whiskey over ice. Hebo decided to bull ahead. “Why’ve you come along, if I may ask? What you did, what you’re working on, is way beyond me.”
“I thought you might have questions you’d like authoritative answers to,” Romon made reply. His manner intensified. “Inasmuch as you’ve been retrieving not just popular accounts of the matter, but everything, including new interpretations and theories as they appear.”
“How do you know that?”
The drinks slid up from the table port. Romon sipped his before replying, “You didn’t request an anonymous address.” Esker took a pretty deep swallow of his.
“No, why should I?” Hebo countered. “And why should you keep watch for everybody who wants full reports?”
“Everybody who has no clear reason to do so,” growled Esker.
Romon frowned at him, obviously not liking even this slight giveaway. “You were from offplanet, and not in any registry of scientists known to us. Don’t you agree, that’s interesting?”
“Why?”
Romon shrugged. “A natural curiosity, reinforced by having previous acquaintance.”
“You said ‘everybody.’ ”
Esker leaned forward, tumbler gripped tight in a hairy hand. “The potentialities of this phenomenon are unpredictable,” he stated. “Revolutionary new technologies may well spring from it. Dangerous, in ignorant or irresponsible possession.”
“Those Susaians didn’t go there from a disinterested love of pure science,” Romon added.
And parts of the story are still untold, Hebo thought, not for [173] the first time. And these two aren’t about to share them with me.
He forced a laugh. “I don’t qualify,” he said. “Anyhow, that particular cat is long since out of the bag.”
“Too many cats are.”
The old saw had escaped Hebo without forethought, as old saws were apt to do. It surprised him that Romon knew this one. The man must be a reader. What more was there to him that didn’t show on the surface?
“Even the discovery at Jonna should not have been broadcast to any and every world,” Romon continued. “We should at least have released the data gradually and discreetly. House Seafell urged it. But no, the other Houses knew better.”
The bitterness in his tone made Hebo wonder aloud: “Who’re you afraid would benefit, besides us? The Susaians?”
Romon’s manner turned thoughtful. “I suppose you mean the Dominance. No, not that per se. I don’t share the paranoia of too many people about it. We may not much approve of the regime, but we have no military or political conflict with it worth worrying over, and, as a matter o
f fact, it’s having internal problems.”
Hebo had likewise heard such news, leaking out across light-years, economic troubles and unrest which refused to stay repressed. Susaians as a race seemed to fare no better under totalitarianism than humans. Nevertheless, he didn’t quite agree with Romon’s assessment. That interstellar violence made no sense and hadn’t happened didn’t mean it never could.
He realized fleetingly that once upon a time he had had a different opinion. His revised mind didn’t think in quite the same way as before.
Romon was saying, “I simply have in mind whatever technology may be gotten from the knowledge. And, no, we’d not be able to monopolize it for long. But a head start, a competitive advantage—”
Better return to our muttons, Hebo thought. Aloud: “Well, amongst all those big astropolitical questions, why such a concern over me?”
[174] Romon lifted a palm. “Please. It’s entirely friendly. I recognized your name when I was most recently checking the list of retrievals. Naturally, I was surprised, but also glad of a chance to meet you again.”
Esker sneered. “Alas, the fair Lissa Davysdaughter wasn’t here to greet you.”
He’s heard about us on Jonna, Hebo thought. His feelings on the subject sound pretty strong. I wish there were more grounds for it. “I’ll admit I was disappointed,” he gave back. “What man with his glands working right wouldn’t be?”
That must have hit a nerve. Esker glared.
And did Romon wince ever so slightly? He made haste to interpose a smile and a chuckle. “Well, of course, a very natural reason to come. But the only one? The black hole material has been sent to a number of institutions elsewhere. Scientists communicate to and fro.”
“Why is a layman like you downloading it?” demanded Esker. “What use to you?”
“Sir, I don’t appreciate your tone of voice,” Hebo said, truthfully enough. “Is this a reunion dinner or an interrogation?”
“I’m sorry,” Romon responded fast. “We both are,” which Hebo doubted. “We seem to have expressed ourselves poorly. Of course we don’t expect anything ... untoward. I repeat, I’m simply curious, and it occurred to me that Dr. Esker might be of some help to you. Or I might be.”
He drew breath. “Yes, I checked further,” he went on. “You’re collecting information on Freydis as well, the planet and the proposed Susaian colony. That suggests to me your main reason for coming to Sunniva has to do with it. You’re an entrepreneur. House Seafell is business-oriented, you know. If you care to discuss your ideas, we might perhaps find we can cooperate.”
Hebo took cover behind his beer mug while he reassembled his thoughts. Be wary, he decided, but not too standoffish to learn whatever may be here to learn. “I see. Well, I’m not broadcasting it yet, when nothing may come of it. But if the colony does get [175] started, there’ll be a lot of work to do, a lot of inventions needed, and, if the project succeeds, a lot of money to make.”
Romon laughed. “Ah-hah! That’s what I thought.”
“But why your preoccupation with the black holes?” his companion persisted. “You must be spending hours per week sifting through the information in search of bits and pieces you can halfway understand.”
“Esker,” Romon clipped, “if you don’t keep a civil tongue, I’ll regret inviting you along.”
“I’m entitled to be curious too,” said the physicist. “Or am I merely another machine of yours, to be switched off when you aren’t using it?”
Hey, better lighten the atmosphere, or I’ll have wasted an evening that looked promising yesterday, Hebo thought. He constructed amiability. “It’s no riddle, Dr. Harolsson, and I do appreciate your taking the trouble to join us. If you’ve looked closely at my queries, and I’ll bet you have, you know I’m not only asking about astrophysics, or even mainly, but about the whole little-known stellar neighborhood. The event’s bound to have effects across parsecs. Radiation effects on biospheres are just the most obvious.”
“Slight, and in the course of correspondingly many years,” Esker retorted. “Those studies can wait.”
“I gather they are in fact waiting. Sure, the new hole is the urgent case, and has a lot more to teach us. However, later on, exploration may turn up things farther off.”
Romon raised his eyes and his drink. “Profitable things?” he murmured as mildly.
“What else, for me? I’m keeping an eye open, while I carry on my current fishing expedition.”
“Excuse me, but doesn’t that flood of ... abstruse data and calculations ... almost blind you?”
Hebo spread his hands. “At this stage, who can tell what’s going to give a new opportunity? Besides, it’s kind of a challenge.”
“Why?” muttered Esker. “You’ll never be a scientist.”
[176] “I see,” Romon put in. “You want to keep expanding your mental horizons. And your physical ones.” His voice dropped to a murmur:
“Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life!”
Esker scowled, puzzled by the archaic language and resentful.
Hebo blinked. “Hey, Tennyson’s Ulysses,” he exclaimed.
“Oh, do you know it?” Romon asked, in surprise of his own.
“Yeah, sure, and a bunch of other mostly forgotten stuff. I may not be any literary type, but I do go a long way back, and there’s been plenty of time with nothing better to do than read.”
“Well, well. I hope we can get together over drinks now and then and cap quotations.”
Esker broke in. “This is very fine, no doubt, but it makes me wonder still the more why you’re trying to understand astrophysics and cosmology.”
Hebo decided to smooth things over. “Just incidental, as I thought you realized.” The hell it is. “A change of pace from the Freydis work. And just in short little forays.”
“A hobby?” said Romon, likewise anxious to maintain politeness. “Good for you. To get practical, though, I repeat, possibly we can help each other as regards Freydis.”
“Possibly.” As he thought about it, Hebo felt more and more that the possibility might well be very real. Don’t tip the hand, though, especially bearing in mind that Lissa Windholm once mentioned having a certain coldness toward House Seafell. “I’ll have to see, or try to gauge, how things are developing. Maybe I’ll decide the business is not for me at all, and go away before I go broke. If something positive should occur to me, sure, I’ll let [177] you know.” He knocked back his beer. “Before we have another round, what say we screen the menu?”
“Sheer genius!” Romon exclaimed with a bonhomie that Hebo didn’t think came natural to him. “Yes, indeed.”
The rest of the time passed fairly pleasantly, since Esker didn’t say much.
And then the next five years were amply eventful. And then Lissa returned.
XXXIV
AT first the aircraft shone above the sea so much like a star that she felt something catch at her throat. Freydis was beautiful in the morning and evening skies of Asborg, but on Freydis itself there was never a glimpse of the sister planet, nor of anything in the heavens other than a vague sun-disc when clouds thinned to an overcast. Suddenly, sharply, a longing seized her for the cool green hills of home.
She thrust it away. Ridiculous. She’d had three months in them after her return from Jonna—when she wasn’t elsewhere boating or skiing or among the pleasures of the cities—and then barely as many weeks at New Halla and here. And right now she had a life to save.
If she could.
Recognizing the approaching object for what it was, she turned and trotted off the headland toward the landing strip. At her back, the ocean murmured against cliffs. It glimmered yellowish-green close in, darkened to purple farther out. A storm yon
der hulked black and lightning-streaked, but overhead and eastward stretched silver-gray blankness. Before her rose forest, a wall of great boles, vines, brakes, foliage in hues of russet and umber, brilliant blossoms, shadowful depths. It dwarfed the clearing where the Susaian compound stood. The multitudinous smells of it lay heavy in the heat and damp.
Long, limber bodies were bounding from the huts. Glabrous hides sheened in a variety of colors; the New Hallan colonists were from many different ancestral regions, alike only in their faith and hopes. Several still clutched tools or instruments in their delicate [179] hands. Excitement often spread with explosive speed through beings so directly perceptive of emotions. Not that it wasn’t justified. Lissa’s own eagerness had driven her onto the promontory to stare southwestward, once the curt acknowledgment came that help was on its way.
She reached the strip. It lay bare, soil baked bricklike. A hangar of wood and thatch gaped empty. The camp’s flyer had borne casualties away to medical care or eventual cremation, after leaving off the uninjured here. Impatient, she squinted up. “C’mon, move it,” she muttered. “What’re you dawdling for?” A drop of sweat got past her brows, into an eye. It stung. She spoke a picturesque oath.
Coppergold arrived and joined her. The botanist had thought to bring a translator. It rendered rustles, hisses, purrs into Anglay. “That is a cautious pilot, honored one.”
Lissa replied in her language, which the Susaian understood though unable to pronounce it intelligibly. “Well, I suppose this area is new to him, and he doesn’t want the airs to play some trick that catches him off guard. I’ve learned to fly warily myself.” She begrudged the admission, and knew that Coppergold felt that she did.
However, fairness compelled. She mustn’t lose her temper, her judgment, when she had Orichalc to save. The fact was that Freydis remained an abiding place of mysteries, and within some of them were deathtraps.
A whole planet, after all, she thought. (How often had she thought the same, here and elsewhere?) Not the global hell of jungle and swamp that most people imagined; no, as diverse as Asborg. But dear Asborg was well-nigh another Earth, renewed and again virginal. Humans soon made it theirs, and in its turn it claimed them for itself. Throughout the centuries that followed, few ever cared to set foot on Freydis, and none to make a home there. Occasional explorers: now and then a handful of scientists—until damned, destroying Venusberg Enterprises sprang up—scant wonder that most was still Mundus Incognitus, that [180] she herself was more familiar with several planets parsecs away.
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