For Love and Glory

by Poul Anderson

  “What to do?”

  “We haven’t got a thermal unit. Quick! Unroll your sleeping bag, open it fully, spread it out.” Lissa released her backpack, dropped it, squatted to pluck at the fastenings of her sack.

  He followed suit while he asked, “What’ve you got in mind?”

  “Warming him, of course. Putting him between the padded fabrics and ourselves.” She glanced about, saw a spot that wasn’t [211] truly level but was not so canted that they would roll off, and brought her bag there. Returning, she said, “It’ll take both of us to carry him. Susaians are massier than you’d think.”

  Hebo had the strength to be gentle as he hauled the limp form up across his shoulders. Lissa took the head end. Grunting with effort, they bore Orichalc over and laid him down on her bedding, stretched out. Hebo fetched his and put it above. “Now what?” he inquired.

  “Clothes off,” Lissa directed. He gaped. “Strip, I said! To chaos with modesty.” She ripped at her garments.

  He removed his more slowly, eyes at first locked on her. Then, doubtless realizing how he stared, he swiveled his head away. A moment later he turned his back while he completed the task. She was already between the bags. As he faced her again, he tried to cover himself with one hand. Though big, it wasn’t quite enough.

  Lissa couldn’t help herself. Laughter pealed. “Oh, fout, don’t worry!” she called. “I’d feel slighted if you did not react. C’mon, join the party.”

  He grinned and obeyed. They snuggled close on either side of Orichalc. That put their arms in contact across the Susaian while glance met glance over his head. The chill made them shiver too. Then as heat flowed from them, replenishing itself within, and the victim’s blood began to respond, they felt a growing voluptuous comfort.

  “Yeah, I recall hearing of this trick,” he said. “Never had to use it before, and I doubt I’ll ever do it again with so shapely a trailmate.”

  Respond amicably, but don’t be too encouraging, Lissa warned herself. “Thank you, kind sir. We’ll be here a fairish while. May as well relax and enjoy it, now that we know it’s working.”

  “It does feel good, saving a life. Uh, that sounds smug, doesn’t it? Wasn’t meant to be.”

  “You mean it doesn’t fit your rough-and-tough image. Well, I admit to a touch of smugness in me, and consider it well-earned. Relax, I said.”

  [212] “How to pass the time? Not with more wrangling, I hope.”

  “Me too. We must both have a lot of stories from our pasts that we haven’t swapped.”

  “Good idea. Want to start?”

  “What?” she teased. “A man doesn’t snatch at a chance to talk about himself?”

  “I know my biography.” A shadow passed over his face. He could not yet be quite sure how much of it was gone from him. He lightened again, but she decided to steer clear of talk about Earth. “Yours is new.”

  “No, do go first, please.”

  He regarded her for a moment. “You want something to get your mind off fretting about your friend, don’t you?” he asked softly. “All right, I’ll try.”

  So he has that much sensitivity, she thought. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Still, it’s good to know. She let her hand brush across his. “Thank you.”

  “Um-m-m, something really different from right now. ... This happened maybe fifty years ago, to a fellow I knew. You not being a girl fresh out of convent school,” whatever that meant, “it shouldn’t offend you too much.”

  The anecdote was bawdy and funny. Two hapless lovers, stranded on an asteroid with supplies and equipment but otherwise only their two spacesuits, and nothing else to do until the relief ship would arrive and rescue them, weeks hence, applying their engineering ingenuity to the problem—Lissa whooped laughter. Only later did she wonder who the man was to whom the incident had really happened.

  As if in response, Orichalc writhed a bit, raised his head, let it sink again but whispered a few words. Lissa’s trans was in her pack. However, by now the Susaian understood Anglay. “Everything is well,” she said gladly. “Rest. Get warm. We’ll soon take you home.”

  “To New Halla?” Hebo asked.

  “To our base on the coast,” Lissa replied. “From there, we [213] can call for further transportation if need be, but I don’t think we’ll have to. A couple of days’ relaxation ought to put Orichalc in fine fettle.”

  “What’ll he do with it? Isn’t the upland project spoiled?”

  “Not permanently. First he can join another group, maybe my river cruise—”

  The muzzle brushed her cheek. “S-s-s,” she heard, and words that must mean something like, “I would enjoy that, your company, darling comrade.” She patted the big bald head.

  “Meanwhile somebody can talk with Uldor at Forholt,” she continued. “If he’s up to it, and I bet he soon will be, we can arrange audiovisual transmissions, so a new expedition can have the benefit of his advice till he’s recovered himself. I can lead it, once we’ve taken care of my canoers, if nobody better is available.”

  He studied her for a spell before he murmured, “My God, you’re a hopeful one still. But just what is it you’re so hopeful for?”

  “I’ve tried to tell you.”

  “In snatches. We keep being interrupted.” He smiled ruefully. “Or interrupting ourselves. I only got from you what I’d heard about in a fuzzy, general way. It’d always seemed too far-fetched to me to bet the store on. Maybe, while we wait here, you could rightfully explain.”

  Now she was happy, yes, eager to discuss immediate reality. “It hasn’t been a secret, but it hasn’t been publicized either, so I suppose I can’t blame you for not knowing more. Partly that’s because the people working on it don’t want to make overblown promises. They, we need more scientific evidence, more data on the Freydisan biosphere and its ecologies, before we can draw up a comprehensive scheme.”

  Go ahead, take the risk. “Also, if we raise premature expectations, they’d be bound to cause public disappointment and disbelief. This is a long-range, gradual thing. And there are those, even on New Halla, who’d take advantage of that disappointment [214] to undermine support and build opposition. No offense, Torben. Honestly, none. We know full well the colony needs a base of conventional industries to start from, to build on. What we want to prevent is them becoming much larger and more widespread than they are. That leads toward over-commitment, outright dependency, and the end result—I’ve spoken already of the end result. Certain interests want exactly that to happen. They stand to profit hugely. Not just in return on their investments, but in the power that control of such a system will give them.” In a rush: “I believe as independent a spirit as you would stand against that.”

  He nodded, showing no resentment. “In principle, sure.” He grinned a bit. “I don’t care for fat cats. Keep ’em lean and hard, I say.” Soberly: “I’m here to make money, but within decent limits. Trouble is to figure out what they are.”

  Yes, she thought, he is looking toward something else. And dropping no hint about it.

  “What is your alternative, anyway?” he went on. “How much chance has it got of working?”

  “The basic concept is almost ridiculously simple and obvious,” she told him with mounting enthusiasm. “It went far toward rehabilitating Earth, till Earth civilization became so—so ethereal that industry and commerce are irrelevant. It’s used in different ways and degrees on several other planets, including Asborg. It isn’t striking there, because the settlers began with a remarkably Earthlike world and with state-of-the-art technology, nano, robotic, self-recycling, that doesn’t need to draw heavily on the environment. Besides, huge territories are still held as preserves by the Houses.”

  “You mean gene-modification. Sure. Can you do it on the scale you’ll need for a global civilization?”

  “That’s what we’re working toward. It’ll take a tremendous lot of research, sequencing and reading the genetic codes of millions of species, detailing their biochemistry, working
out their evolutionary histories, understanding how they interact, everything, on a world that is not very Earthlike. In the end, though—[215] microbes that extract and refine minerals, buildings that grow out of the soil, food, fiber, chemicals, not from farms or factories but from the forests that keep Freydis alive.”

  “What’ll that do to your beloved wilderness? Sounds to me sort of like the nightmare you were laying out yesterday.”

  “No, not truly, not at all if things work out the way we hope. Of course there’ll be some conventional artifacts and processes, but minimal. Besides, ‘wilderness’ is a relative concept. It doesn’t mean chaos. The life you see around you is in balance, though it does change with changing conditions. What we dream of is a civilization not opposed to nature, but integrated with it, both in and of it. Something altogether new. No telling how it will develop, what shapes it will take, what the rest of the galaxy might learn from it.”

  “Visionary.”

  “We mean to move toward it step by strictly practical step. If we’re given the chance.”

  “ ‘Bold,’ I should’ve said.” Hebo smiled into her eyes. “Except that’s too weak a word. A scheme bound to appeal to one like you, Lissa.” His gaze dropped. “Could I think about it for a while?”

  “I was wishing you would,” she answered softly.

  The silence that fell beneath a rising wind grew more and more companionable.

  Finally Orichalc stirred, making as if to move from between them. Lissa had been feeling renewed warmth in the smooth, muscular body. “I think we can let go of you,” she told him. “But you stay under covers for now, hear me?”

  She slipped forth, bounded to her feet, and hastily dressed. Hebo followed suit. They were careful about keeping back to back till they were done.

  Thereupon she said, “Our patient’s out of danger, I suppose. But you must have noticed how cut and bruised he is—thorns, rocks—and probably still weakened, in poor shape to travel cross country. Can we do an airlift?”

  [216] He frowned. “You’d better stay with him while I fetch the flyer. Whether a safe landing is possible hereabouts, I don’t know. If not, I can try hovering and lowering a stirrup cable, though that might be tricky in this weather. Let me look around for a more promising spot close by.”

  The wind had strengthened as the air warmed. It boomed, slewed about, shook boughs, sent dust devils awhirl. He’s right, Lissa thought.

  His tall form zigzagged away from her, stopping to examine outcrops and dig bootheel into gravel, till he reached the ledge above the canyon. She saw him glance at his bracelet, and well-nigh read his mind. Guided by the radio beacon, he could make most of his return distance on that bare strip instead of struggling through the brush. A new smile tugged at her lips.

  The rock broke beneath his feet. He flailed his arms, then pitched downward out of sight.

  XXXIX

  LISSA screamed and bounded forward. Orichalc sibilated an alarm behind her. Whoa! she told herself amidst the hammers in her pulse. No use two of us going over. If the stone betrayed him, how easily it could fool me.

  Slowed to a gliding walk, she sought Hebo’s footprints and took that exact route until it approached the verge. There she hunkered down, peered at the rock and rubble ahead, piecemeal made sure of where it had crumbled and where it might crumble and where it seemed reasonably safe. Cracks meant water seepage, which occasionally froze and expanded; but you must also shun bands and blotches of soft iron oxide. ...

  Prone, she thrust her head over the edge and squinted. Talus littered a slant into remote mistful depths. Hebo sprawled on its darkness, come to precarious rest after sliding some four meters. His face, turned skyward, was smeared with blood, and he did not stir; but the brilliant red stream out of his right thigh showed a heart still beating.

  A sharp edge cut a major vessel, she knew. He’s exsanguinating. If he doesn’t get help fast, he’s dead. Eternally. We couldn’t bring him to revival before the cerebrum cells that make him human decayed beyond restoration.

  Pebbles gritted under clawed feet. She felt Orichalc plucking the trans out of her pack. “You should have stayed,” she answered automatically.

  “One can summon up one’s ultimate reserves when one must,” the Susaian replied. “I believe I can assist you to recover our comrade.”

  [218] “Our” comrade, she noticed. The thought flickered past and was gone. She weighed her chances. Did Orichalc overestimate his own strength? Maybe so, but if she took care, then she needn’t perish, though Hebo certainly would. Trapped on an unclimbable hillside, she could nevertheless call Forholt by radio satellite, and a rescue party would arrive. Unless, of course, her efforts triggered a slide. Then she’d lie chopped to flitches, smashed to pulp, buried beyond finding.

  No time for worries. Glancing about, she saw the bush Orichalc plainly was counting on. It grew within centimeters of the edge, but inspection showed thick roots that must go deep, and above them a bonsai twisting that decades or centuries of wind must have wrought. Probably it could withstand a few hundred kilos’ worth of stress.

  A dash back to fetch cords or straps would take too long. Cutting a stick, she put it between her teeth. She pulled off her shirt, slashed it in two, knotted the halves together at the bottoms and one sleeve around Orichalc’s neck. The other sleeve she took in her hand, with a bight to secure her grip. Orichalc curled his tail around the lower stem of the bush. Lissa sat down and went over the side on her rear end.

  Shards rattled, slid, slashed at pants and boots. The Susaian strained backward, easing her descent, paying out his length bit by bit until at last he was stretched taut. The scree must be cruelly painful against skin, but she heard no murmur.

  At the end of her line she lay side by side with Hebo. She dared not kneel, but by cautious use of palm and elbow she could support herself well enough to work on him. Her sheath knife slid forth again. Best single tool the mind of man has yet hit on, she thought, not for the first time. She ripped the trouser leg, exposed the wound, cut a cloth strip, made a tourniquet with the stick and tightened it. The lethal flow ceased.

  Sweat beaded his face under the blood, he felt clammy and his breathing was shallow, yes, he was in shock. Got to get him upstairs quick. Slip her improvised hawser under his back, below [219] the arms, and secure it. “All right, Orichalc, haul away!”

  Could he? If not, she’d yell for help and try to keep Hebo alive where they were. Whether she could or not was a crapshoot. It was just about as uncertain whether his weight, as he was drawn higher, would start a rockslip fatal to her.

  Somehow it didn’t. Somehow, from somewhere, Orichalc got the power to haul him aloft, undo the line and cast it down, raise her in turn. She went backside under, keeping her bare torso above the flinders that would have lacerated it. The tough material of her trousers didn’t give way, but she’d be seating herself gingerly for the next couple of days.

  Pulled to the ledge, she lay briefly, heaving air in and out of her lungs, before she clambered to her feet. Orichalc was almost as limp as Hebo. “I can drag him the rest of the way by myself,” she mumbled. “Can you make it? You’ve got to.”

  “I ... can ... since you ... wish—” her friend whispered. “And then?”

  “Why, then—” Laughter shrilled. “We apply naked bodies to him, you and I.”

  Once between the covers, both humans unclad and Orichalc on his other side, Lissa sent her message. A voice from Forholt Station sounded faint but crisp out of the bracelet: “We’ll dispatch our ambulance immediately. It should reach you in about an hour. Can you manage that long?”

  “I’d better, hadn’t I?” she retorted.

  She could not simply lie waiting by the man. From time to time she must tend him, massage, loosen the tourniquet and tighten it anew. The blood that ran out made a gluey mess, but some went into the injured limb to keep the flesh alive. Of course, if gangrene set in, a surgeon could amputate, and at a clinic on Asborg they could regenerate what was
lost. However, she didn’t want him subjected to that.

  Strong and healthy, he responded well. Before the medics appeared, his eyes fluttered open to hers.

  Lissa must needs admire the adroitness of the rescuers. The [220] ambulance hovered high and lowered a platform which had thrusters to stabilize it against the wind. A paramedic started work on Hebo while they lifted him. “You did fine, milady,” he said. “This shot’s the only added thing he needs to put him out of danger. Thanks. We’re pretty fond of the old man.”

  Aboard the vehicle it was possible to wash, receive treatment for injuries, and don fresh clothes. Lissa hadn’t minded the masculine looks she received—to the extent that she noticed them—but how good to settle down warmly swaddled and fall asleep by Orichalc.

  Neither woke till they landed at Forholt. The director greeted them courteously and offered overnight accomodations, that they be well rested before they were flown back to their base. They accepted, and emerged from bed only for dinner. Nonetheless, at the meal Lissa enjoyed telling the staff what had happened. Nobody mentioned the dispute.

  As they returned to their quarters, Orichalc asked, “Can we visit honored Torben Hebo in the morning?”

  “I’m sure we can,” she said. “I mean to.”

  “With some privacy.”

  “Hm?” She caught the implication. A thrill shot through her. “Well, we’ll see what the conditions are.”

  XL

  THEY slept luxuriously late and enjoyed an extravagant breakfast before they walked over to sickbay. Morning had brought a mild, silvery rain, filled with odors of growth and cheery animal cries. It veiled the ugliness of prospecting operations. The buildings immediately around were for housing, recreation, and the like, almost deserted while the day’s work was under way.