She felt and smelled the sweat cold on her skin, her heart slugged, but the clarity of endangerment was again upon her and she had no time to wonder why the thing hadn’t arrived until now. If it was to study them, stop them if they started doing damage—
Her faceplate darkened itself. Even so, the glare from the lens left blinding after-images. She turned away, and the plate cleared. Dzesi’s yowl rang in her receiver. “Yaroo tsai!” Then: “It’s shooting at us!”
Either Rikhan eyes were less readily dazzled or she had kept from staring straight at it. Yes, a dryland hunter. ... Hebo must [286] also have been spared, for she heard him: “My God, watch out! That was close!” Once more he yanked at her.
She stumbled back. Vision began to recover. She saw a strut glow red. Melted metal congealed below a deep gouge. Had she not been spacesuited, she would have felt the heat.
Another fire-spot erupted on another girder. And the one beyond it. An energy beam, she knew, sweeping about in bursts of nigh-solar fierceness. “It’s a killer,” Hebo said. “I think the force-field’s confusing its aim, but it’ll probe till it gets us. The robots can make repairs later.”
Senseless fury speared through Lissa. Would the Forerunners, the Earth people order this?
“Run,” Dzesi snarled. “Scatter. Don’t give it a single sitting target.”
She’s right, Lissa knew, and groped out from under the helicoid. Seeing still better, she dashed for a giant polyhedron. Hide behind it, inside it. But the machine would keep on, though the whole complex be wrecked.
A chant rang wild in her receiver, Dzesi’s voice. It pulled her from herself, brought her to a halt beside the structure. She looked back.
Barely, she glimpsed the dart that spurted from the helicoid. Flame and smoke burst against the flyer. Dzesi had stood her ground, with target-seeking missiles.
The shape lurched in midair. Had the explosion put a dent in the hull? It recovered. New incandescences fountained on the lower coils. Dzesi wasn’t there. She had climbed, bounded, crouched higher on the frame. She fired afresh. Her song went on.
Hebo came from wherever he had gone. “We’ll try for the ship,” he gasped. “Quick!”
“But Dzesi—”
“She’s diverting it, duelling with it. That’s her death-song we hear. Don’t let her die for nothing. We can’t help. Maybe we can tell her Trek.”
[287] Yes, our own weapons are toys, Lissa realized. She ran beside Hebo. Fatigue had dropped away. There was nothing but running.
They left the complex and pelted over rock and sand. The straightest way to Hulda kept the fight at the edge of their field of view. Shot after shot rocked the machine. Bolt after bolt pursued Dzesi up the tower skeleton. The song went on.
It broke off. Lissa heard a scream. A firebolt had found Dzesi. The hit was not direct, the wound not immediately mortal. A last missile flew. Maybe she had stared right into the lens to dispatch it. She fell off the lattice, down to the black stone. But this burst was straight to the nose. The machine lurched, veered, crashed, and lay still.
And now Hulda loomed ahead. At Hebo’s hoarse command, she had extruded a boarding ramp and opened a crewlock. Man and woman staggered into the chamber. They stood embraced while the outer door closed, the alien air was pumped off, ship’s air flowed in, and the inner door retracted. Lissa wept.
When Hebo took off his helmet, she saw that his face streamed with more than sweat.
“Anything else around?” he snapped.
“Not in my detection range,” Hulda answered.
“We’ll lift for space right away.”
Lissa’s breath gasped in and out. She felt stifled. “Let’s first shuck these suits,” she stammered. “W-won’t do us much good if, if we take a hit and the hull can’t close.”
“Okay.” They helped one another. When they were free, they again clung together for a moment before they mounted to the control compartment.
As they fell into their chairs, they looked through the view-screen, back toward the complex. From here, they saw none of the harm done, or the fallen killer, or any other sign. “Goodbye, Dzesi,” Hebo said. “Yes, I’ll go myself and tell your Ulas Trek.”
“We will,” Lissa whispered.
No data would be lost either, she thought aside, irrelevantly. [288] The instruments they bore had downloaded everything into each database. So that much that was Dzesi’s would also abide.
Ironbright’s image entered the visiscreen. “You escaped,” she said. “That is well. We could do nothing to help you, in orbit as we are, but now you shall have our protection.”
“We’re leaving,” Hebo replied, equally flat-voiced.
“Of course. The only prudent action.” Even the trans conveyed grimness. “You will rendezvous with us at a thousand kilometers’ altitude. Do not attempt to flee. If it seems you are making a break for hyperjump distance, we will destroy you. You may have the acceleration to dodge one naval missile, but you cannot outrun a barrage.”
Hebo did not smile; he skinned his teeth. “If you insist. We’ll boost and take orbit very slowly. But don’t you come any closer to us than—um-m—fifty klicks. If you do, we will scamper. We may or may not get clear, but either way, you’ll have lost the information you sent us after.”
“Be sensible. You are exhausted, perhaps injured. You need rest, nourishment, care. Your friends are aboard, waiting to welcome you.”
“Ironbright, if it weren’t an insult to a better species, I’d call you a bitch. Our real friend is dead because you forced us to go down. She, nobody and nothing else, bought our two lives for us. The data are our bargaining counter. Why should we trust you any further than we’d trust a spitting cobra?”
The Susaian rested rock-still for a few seconds that hummed. Then: “Your attitude is wrong but comprehensible, when you are overwrought. We will assume orbit at the distance you request, and until then, if you wish, refrain from further communication. I urge that you refresh yourselves and consider the realities. Our duty is to the Dominance and the Great Confederacy. However, I tell you on my nest-honor that we have no desire to harm you.”
Lissa’s mind roused. “If you mean that, don’t you be in a hurry,” she said. “Give us several hours before you approach.”
Hours to think. Time to kiss.
[289] Ironbright rippled assent. “Unless something unforeseen occurs, Authority will take station fifty kilometers from you at 2100 by her clock. It now registers 1430.”
“Fair enough.” The best we could hope for, anyhow.
“I shall cease transmission. Leave your receivers open, as we will ours.”
“Of course.” The screen blanked.
Lissa slumped. “You heard, Hulda,” she said dully. “Get us out of here.”
LII
THEY could quench their thirst, bathe, don clean clothes, eat a little. They could not sleep. They hardly dared.
However, it became oddly restful to lie weightless, at peace for this while. The planet glowed huge, starkly beauteous. When their vessel swung around the night side with interior lights dimmed, stars crowded darkness, the galactic belt became a river of silver, nebulae glimmered afar, majesty and mystery that went on forever. Music lilted softly in the background, old melodies that Lissa had always loved, the harmonies of home.
Neither dared they drug themselves to any extent; but mild psychotropes helped the body heal the hurts of stress. At last they could speak almost calmly.
“I can’t quite believe the Forerunners, or at least the Earth people—they must be in touch—would suddenly turn so ... vicious,” Lissa said.
“I don’t think you have to believe it,” Hebo answered.
She looked at him as she might have looked at salvation. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve had years to turn notions over in my head, and, oh, I don’t claim any real knowledge, but maybe I’ve gotten a sort of feel for the business. Experience seems to bear my hunches out. You’re right, a high civilization
won’t be aggressive or quick on the trigger. It wouldn’t have lasted if it were. And it doesn’t need to be.
“But it isn’t God. It can’t foresee and provide against everything.”
No, she thought, this is too big and strange a universe. There [291] was an odd comfort in that. Her own kind belonged here too. The same ultimate freedom was theirs.
“Whether the Forerunners originally planned to install a guardian, or Earth suggested it and helped program it, we know it was benign,” Hebo went on. “If necessary, it might have disabled our drives as well as our hyperwave sets, but then I bet you it would’ve sent a message to our planets to come and get us. Ironbright, though, blasted it.
“I wonder if the Forerunners or Earth know. They must have concerns that interest them more than this. Quite likely they, or rather some machine of theirs, calls in periodically, and dispatches somebody or something if there seems to be trouble. The central robot mind here, or whatever centrum they have, may not be bright enough to transmit more than observations by itself. That was supposed to be the guardian’s job. Sure, just a guess of mine. Could well be mistaken. Still, the fact is, no almighty outsider has appeared yet.”
Hulda was passing dayward. Hebo gazed at dawn over craters, crags, stonefields, icefields, and unseen outposts of an unknown race. “The groundside robots do have adaptability,” he said. “They can improvise. Remember my idea that they weren’t predesigned, they were developed according to what local conditions had become? They’d have ‘known’ the guardian was destroyed. They’d have ‘known’ the intruders sent down a party to prowl around. But how could they know our intentions? Certainly what had happened suggested danger. I think they ‘decided’ to eliminate it in the only way they could. It took hours to design, make, and program an attack machine. But when it was ready, it had just that single purpose. We’re lucky it didn’t stop off to shoot at Hulda first. Maybe it perceived she was only our carrier and it could deal with her at leisure.”
He sighed. “It could not know we had Dzesi with us.”
Lissa took his hand. They floated mute for a time.
Dzesi was a warrior, she thought. She’d want us to fight on till we can bring her story home.
[292] As if he heard, Hebo said, “You probably know Susaians better than I do. What do you think we should expect?”
She harked back to Orichalc. “I can’t say any more about all of them together than I can about human beings.”
“Nor I. Still, your friends among them are bound to have told you a lot. You’re a wise lady; you’d discount grudges and prejudices. And your father’s a big man on Asborg, bound to have plenty of dealings and many sources of information. You’re close to him, you’d have learned from him. Think, darling. What’s your assessment of these particular ones we’re up against?”
She was silent for another while, which lengthened.
Finally, slowly: “The Dominators are absolute rulers. They live for power. Ironbright’s a fanatic. She’d rather lose our data altogether than let us return without having shared it. The superiors at home will approve. After all, from their viewpoint, this has been a, a sheer windfall. Authority will have carried out her basic mission, and more. As for the fact that we’ve contacted Asborg, the Dominators need only declare that they know nothing about us, that we must have suffered some disaster en route. In fact, that will give them an excuse, over and above their claim of discovery, to send a naval force, mount guard, deny access to everybody else.”
“While they investigate.” Hebo grinned. “For our own protection. Yeah, sure. But do you think they seriously imagine they can cope with Earth, or the actual Forerunners?”
“I think probably they’ll be willing to take the chance. So many unknowns. If they are ordered off, they can try to put a good face on it. But they can hope that won’t happen, or at least that they can negotiate favorable terms.” She paused. “Their regime is in bad trouble. It may well be getting desperate. They’ll feel they haven’t much to lose, and perhaps everything to gain.”
“Uh-huh.” Hebo kept his tone level and hard. “Either we download for them, or we die. But what when we have obliged them?”
Her coolness cracked a little. She shivered. “I don’t know.”
[293] “Ironbright did pledge by nest-honor. The crew must have heard. Isn’t that sacred? Isn’t breaking it worse than perjury amongst us?”
“Yes. Except ... fanatics—”
“Or sea lawyers.”
Though she didn’t catch the reference, it ignited an insight. “Ironbright’s exact words were that they have no desire to harm us. That could be ... interpreted ... almost any way.”
Hebo scowled. “She could say, afterward, we seemed about to take hostile action, and duty required assuming the worst,” he grated. “Or we could just be carried back to Susaia as prisoners, with the same disclaimer as if we’d been nuked. Or—what?”
“I don’t know, I tell you. She could be honest. Other worlds having the information wouldn’t threaten the Dominance.”
“Not directly. However, what we learn might upset plenty of ideas, and dictatorships never want that.”
“What can we do but avoid giving any provocation, and, and hope?” She wished she had his God to pray to, less for herself than for him and all she loved.
“Yes, I suppose so,” dragged from him. I’m sure as hell not going to allow any move that puts you at needless risk.” His voice broke. “If I could know whether it’s needless!”
His fist struck the bulkhead. He recoiled from the impact.
And somehow the sight of him cartwheeling through midair struck her wildly funny. She laughed aloud. Tenderness followed, washing away terror. She dived to him, caught both his hands, and smiled into his gaze. “Whatever else,” she murmured, “we do have a couple of hours left.”
He looked at her with amazement. “By God, we do. You’re purely wonderful.”
And later when they floated side by side, amidst music and stars, it came to her that she kept one small power. Very small, but she was not absolutely helpless.
Nor was he, after she told him.
LIII
ORBITING fifty kilometers ahead through the shadow of the planet, Authority was to the naked eye hardly a glint in the shining throng. Viewscreen magnification and amplification brought forth the steely form, the guns and launchers, aimed straight at Hulda. The human ship lay not quite facing, her hull at a slight angle. “Like an underdog baring his throat to the alpha, not to get bitten,” Hebo had jested without much mirth.
Ironbright’s image appeared. “Are you ready to send the data?” she demanded.
“When we’ve settled the terms,” Hebo replied curtly.
The head reared on the long neck. “What further is to discuss? You shall transmit at once, before a new emergency arises. Do not abuse our patience.”
“We have a few questions first. How can you be sure we’ll convey fully and accurately?”
“Afterward we will inspect your vessel and verify.”
Hebo made a chopping gesture. “Uh-uh. We’re not about to admit a boarding party, to do whatever it wants.”
“Be realistic. You have personal weapons. You can barricade yourselves if you choose, and wait. One inspector, no more, will actually be hostage to you. After he has reported back, you may depart.”
This’s no surprise, Lissa thought, and on the surface it’s by no means unreasonable. “Nevertheless,” she said, and the marvel was how steadily she could speak, “we want to talk with Romon Seafell. We’re acquainted, you know; he’s been a shipmate of mine and an associate of Captain Hebo’s for years. He and we [295] can better make certain that everything is clearly understood and agreed to, than members of two different species can.”
Ironbright hesitated. “Romon Seafell is in an agitated condition,” she stated after half a minute. “Evidently from concern for you.”
You can sense that, Lissa thought, and a fear for himself if he feels it, which he well
may, but you can’t read his mind. Orichalc might have had some slight intuition, but Orichalc’s been with humans a long time, and has a sympathetic heart such as you’ll never know, you or your crusader crew. “All the more reason to talk with him,” she said. “He must need a friendly human touch.” Esker doesn’t qualify.
“Are you afraid he’ll let out your real intentions?” Hebo challenged. “That wouldn’t help either him or us, would it?”
“No,” Ironbright admitted. “It would be harmful in that it forced us to fire on you. Do not infer any such thing from his words or his manner.”
“We shan’t,” Lissa replied. “We simply want his reassurance.”
“You may have it.” The screen blanked.
“A decisive type,” Hebo said. “But, yes, like we figured, she doesn’t care to stall around one second longer than necessary to get what we can give.”
He had made the observation earlier, and was now merely staving off silence. Then, she had wondered if they would be permitted to go home and complain. He had opined that that was no serious consideration. Quite soon after Ironbright returned to Susaia, Dominator warcraft would be here. Asborg could not muster strength that quickly. Neither side wanted war. Whoever arrived first would be in possession—till the Forerunners or Earth acted—and the diplomats could quibble about an “incident” as much as they cared to.
When the matter of a Susaian inspector arose between them, he had in his turn wondered whether that would be a real requirement, or merely a ploy. It would presumably guarantee the [296] correctness of their transmission, and lull their wariness for a critical span.
“We’ll have no choice but to go along with it,” he had concluded bleakly. “I repeat, no gamble with your life that we don’t absolutely have to take.” She shuddered and held him close.
In this instant, the visiscreen flicked back to life. Romon stared out at them. He had gone haggard, he trembled, sweat studded his forehead and danced off in tiny star-gleams. “Lissa,” he croaked.
For Love and Glory Page 27
