Winners!

by Poul Anderson

  He had risen likewise. “You don’t care about children dying, no, of course not,” he answered. “What sense of motherhood have you got, for hell’s sake? About like a balloon’s. Drift free, scatter seed, forget it, it’ll bud and break loose and the Swarm will adopt it, never mind anything except your pleasure.”

  “Why, you—Are you wishing you could be a mother?” she jeered.

  His empty hand swung at her. She barely evaded the blow. Appalled, they stiffened where they stood.

  He tried to speak, failed, and drank. After a full minute she said, quite low: “Hugh, our natives were getting messages from us. Not verbal. Unconscious. Through them”—she choked—“were you and I seeking to kill each other?”

  He gaped until, in a single clumsy gesture, he set his own glass down and held out his arms to her. “Oh, no, oh, no,” he stammered. She came to him.

  Presently they went to bed. And then he could do nothing. The medicine cabinet held a remedy for that, but what followed might have happened between a couple of machines. At last she lay quietly crying and he went out to drink some more.

  The wind awakened her. She lay for a time listening to it boom around the walls. Sleep drained out of her. She opened her eyes and looked at the clock. Its luminous dial said three hours had passed. She might as well get up. Maybe she could make Hugh feel better.

  The main room was still lighted. He was asleep himself, sprawled in an armchair, a bottle beside it. How deep the lines were in his face.

  How loud the wind was. Probably a storm front which the weather service had reported at sea had taken a quick, unexpected swing this way. Medean meteorology was not yet an exact science. Poor ouranids, their festival disrupted, they themselves blown about and scattered, even endangered. Normally they could ride out a gale, but a few might be carried to disaster, hit by lightning or dashed against a cliff or hopelessly entangled in a tree. The sick and injured would suffer most.

  A’i’ach.

  Jannika squeezed her lids together and struggled to recall how badly wounded he was. But everything had been too confused and terrible; Hugh had diverted her attention; before long she had flitted out of transmission range. Besides, A’i’ach himself could hardly have ascertained his own condition at once. It might not be grave. Or it might. He could be dead by now, or dying, or doomed to die if he didn’t get help.

  She was responsible—perhaps not guilty, by a moralistic definition, but responsible.

  Resolution crystallized. If the weather didn’t preclude, she would go search for him.

  Alone? Yes. Hugh would protest, delay her, perhaps actually restrain her by force. She recorded a few words to him, wondered if they were overly impersonal, decided against composing something more affectionate. Yes, she wanted a reconciliation, and supposed he did, but she would not truckle. She redonned her field garb, added a jacket into whose pockets she stuffed some food bars, and departed.

  The wind rushed bleak around her, whoo-oo-oo, a torrent she must breast. Clouds scudded low and thick, tinged red where Argo shone between them. The giant planet seemed to fly among ragged veils. Dust whirled in the compound, gritty on her skin. Nobody else was outdoors.

  At the hangar, she punched for the latest forecast. It looked bad but not, she thought, frightening. (And if she did crash, was that such an enormous loss, to herself or anyone else?) “I am going back to my study area,” she told the mechanic. When he attempted to dissuade her, she pulled rank. She never liked that, but from the Danubian ghosts she had learned how. “No further discussion. Stand by to open the way and give me assistance if required. That is an order.”

  The little craft shivered and drummed on the ground. Takeoff took skill—with a foul moment when a gust nearly upset her—but once aloft her vehicle flew sturdily. Risen above the cloud deck, she saw it heave like a sea, Argo a mountain rearing out of it, stars and companion moons flickery overhead. Northward bulked a darkness more deep and high, the front. The weather would really stiffen in the next few hours. If she wasn’t back soon, she’d better stay put till it cleared.

  The flight was quick to the battleground. When the inertial pilot had brought her there, she circled, put on her helmet, activated the system. Her pulse fluttered and her mouth had dried. “A’i’ach,” she breathed, “be alive, please be alive.”

  The green light went on. At least his transmitter existed on the site. He? She must will herself toward rapport.

  Weakness, pain, a racket of soughing leaves, tossing boughs—“A’i’ach, hang on, I’m coming down!”

  A leap of gladness. Yes, he did perceive her.

  Landing would be risky indeed. The aircraft had a vertical capability, excellent radar and sonar, a computer and effectors to handle most of the work. However, the clear space below was not large, it was cleft in twain, and while the surrounding forest was a fair windbreak, there would be vile drafts and eddies. “God, into Your hands I give myself,” she said, and wondered as often before how Hugh endured his atheism.

  Nevertheless, if she waited she would lose courage. Down!

  Her descent was wilder still than she had expected. First the clouds were a maelstrom, then she was through them but into a raving blast, then she saw treetops grab at her. The vehicle rolled, pitched, yawed. Had she been an utter fool? She didn’t truly want to leave this life . . .

  She made it, and for minutes sat strengthless. When she stirred, she felt her entire body ache from tension. But A’i’ach’s hurt was in her. Called by that need, she unharnessed and went forth.

  The noise was immense in the black palisade of trees around her, their branches groaned, their crowns foamed; but down on the ground the air, though restless, was quieter, nearly warm. Unseen Argo reddened the clouds, which cast enough glow that she didn’t need her flashlight. She found no trace of the slain ouranids. Well, they had no bones; the dromids must have eaten every scrap. What a ghastly superstition—Where was A’i’ach?

  She found him after a search. He lay behind a spiny bush, in which he had woven his tendrils to secure himself. His body was deflated to the minimum, an empty sack; but his eyes gleamed, and he could speak, in the shrill, puffing language of his people, which she had come to know was melodious.

  “May joy blow upon you. I never hoped for your advent. Welcome you are. Here it has been lonely.” A shudder was in that last word. Ouranids could not long stand being parted from their Swarm. Some xenologists believed that with them consciousness was more collective than individual. Jannika rejected that idea, unless perhaps it applied to the different species found in parts of Nearside. A’i’ach had a soul of his own!

  She knelt. “How are you?” She could not render his sounds any better than he could hers, but he had learned to interpret.

  “It is not overly ill with me, now that you are nigh. I lost blood and gas, but those wounds have closed. Weak, I settled in a tree until the Beasts left. Meanwhile the wind rose. I thought best not to ride it in my state. Yet I could not stay in the tree, I would have been blown away. So I valved out the rest of my gas and crept to this shelter.”

  The speech held far more than such a bare statement. The denotation was laconic and stoical, the connotations not. A’i’ach would need at least a day to regenerate sufficient hydrogen for ascent—how long depended on how much food he could reach in his crippled condition—unless a carnivore found him first, which was quite likely. Jannika imagined what a flood of suffering, dread, and bravery would have come over her had she been wearing her helmet.

  She gathered the flaccid form into her arms. It weighed little. It felt warm and silky. He cooperated as well as he was able. Just the same, part of him dragged on the ground, which must have been painful.

  She must be rougher still, hauling on folds of skin, when she brought him inside the aircraft. It had scant room to spare; he was practically bundled into the rear section. Rather than apologizing when he moaned, or saying anything in particular, she sang to him. He didn’t know the ancient Terrestrial words, but h
e liked the tunes and realized what she meant by them.

  She had equipped her vehicle for basic medical help to natives, and had given it on past occasions. A’i’ach’s injuries were not deep, because most of him was scarcely more than a bag; however, the bag had been torn in several places and, though it was self-sealing, flight would reopen it unless it got reinforcement. Applying local anesthetics and antibiotics—that much had been learned about Medean biochemistry—she stitched the gashes.

  “There, you can rest,” she said when, cramped, sweat-soaked, and shaky, she was done. “Later I will give you an injection of gas and you can rise immediately if you choose. I think, though, we would both be wisest to wait out the gale.”

  A human would have groaned: “It is tight in here.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean, but—A’i’ach, let me put my helmet on.” She pointed. “That will join our spirits as they were joined before. It may take your mind off your discomfort. And at this short range, given our new knowledge—” A thrill went through her. “What may we not find out?”

  “Good,” he agreed. “We may enjoy unique experiences.” The concept of discovery for its own sake was foreign to him . . . but his search for pleasures went far beyond hedonism.

  Eager despite her weariness, she moved into her seat and reached for the apparatus. The radio receiver, always open to the standard carrier band, chose that moment to buzz.

  Argo in the east glowered at the nearing, lightning-shot wall of storm in the north. Below, the clouds already present roiled in reds and darknesses. Wind wailed. Hugh’s aircraft lurched and bucked. Despite a heater, chill seeped through the canopy, as if brought by the light of stars and moons.

  “Jan, are you there?” he called. “Are you all right?”

  Her voice was a swordstroke of deliverance. “Hugh? Is that you, darling?”

  “Yes, sure, who the hell else did you expect? I woke up, played your message, and—Are you all right?”

  “Quite safe. But I don’t dare take off in this weather. And you mustn’t try to land, that would be too dangerous by now. You shouldn’t stay, either. Darling, rostomily, that you came!”

  “Judas priest, sweetheart, how could I not? Tell me what’s happened.”

  She explained. At the end, he nodded a head which still ached a bit from liquor in spite of a nedolor tablet. “Fine,” he said. “You wait for calm air, pump up your friend, and come on home.” An idea he had been nursing nudged him. “Uh, I wonder. Do you think he could go down into that gulch and recover Erakoum’s unit? Those things are scarce, you know.” He paused. “I suppose it’d be too much to ask him to throw a little soil over her.”

  Jannika’s tone held pity. “I can do that.”

  “No, you can’t. I got a clear impression from Erakoum as she was falling, before she cracked her skull apart or whatever she did. Nobody can climb down without a rope secured on top. It’d be impossible to return. Even with a rope, it’d be crazy dangerous. Her companions didn’t attempt anything, did they?”

  Reluctance: “I’ll ask him. It may be asking a lot. Is the unit functional?”

  “Hm, yes, I’d better check on that first. I’ll report in a minute or three. Love you.”

  He did, he knew, no matter how often she enraged him. The idea that, somewhere in the abysses of his being, he might have wished her death, was not to be borne. He’d have followed her through a heavier tempest than this, merely to deny it.

  Well, he could go home with a satisfied conscience and wait for her arrival, after which—what? The uncertainty made a hollowness in him.

  His instrument flashed green. Okay, Erakoum’s button was transmitting, therefore unharmed and worth salvaging. If only she herself—

  He tensed. The breath rattled in his lungs. Did he know she was dead?

  He lowered the helmet over his temples. His hands shook, giving him trouble in making the connections. He pressed the switch. He willed to perceive—

  Pain twisted like white-hot wires, strength ebbed and ebbed, soft waves of nothingness flowed ever more often, but still Erakoum defied. The slit of sky that she could see, from where she lay unable to creep further, was full of wind . . . She shocked to complete awareness. Again she sensed Hugh’s presence.

  “Broken bones, feels like. Heavy blood loss. She’ll die in a few more hours. Unless you give her first aid, Jan. Then she ought to last till we can fly her to Port Kato for complete attention.”

  “Oh, I can do sewing and bandaging and splinting, whatever, yes. And nedolor’s an analgesic stimulant for dromids too, isn’t it? And simply a drink of water could make the whole difference; she must be dehydrated. But how to reach her?”

  “Your ouranid can lift her up, after you’ve inflated him.”

  “You can’t be serious! A’i’ach’s hurt, convalescent—and Erakoum tried to kill him!”

  “That was mutual, right?”

  “Well—”

  “Jan, I’m not going to abandon her. She’s down in a grave, who used to run free, and the touch of me she’s getting is more to her than I could have imagined. I’ll stay till she’s rescued, or else I’ll stay till she dies.”

  “No, Hugh, you mustn’t. The storm.”

  “I’m not trying to blackmail you, dearest. In fact, I won’t blame your ouranid much if he refuses. But I can’t leave Erakoum. I just plain can’t.”

  “I . . . I have learned something about you . . . I will try.”

  ***A’i’ach had not understood his Jannika. It was not believable that helping a Beast could help bring peace. That creature was what it was, a slaughterer. And yet, yet, once there had been no trouble with the Beasts, once they had been the animals which most interested and entertained the People. He himself remembered songs about their fleetness and their fires. In those lost days they had been called the Flame Dancers.

  What made him yield to her plea was unclear in his spirit. She had probably saved his life, at hazard to her own, and this was an overpowering new thought to him. He wanted greatly to maintain his union with her, which enriched his world, and therefore hesitated to deny a request that seemed as urgent as hers. Through the union, she helmeted, he believed he felt what she did when she said, with water running from her eyes, “I want to heal what I have done—” and that kind of feeling was transcendent, like the Shining Time, and was what finally decided him.

  She assisted him from the thing-which-bore-her and payed out a tube. Through the latter he drank gas, a wind-rush of renewed life. His injuries twinged when his globe expanded, but he could ignore that.

  He needed her anchoring weight to get across the ground to the ravine. Fingers and tendrils intertwined, they nevertheless came near being carried away. Had he let himself swell to full size, he could have lifted her. Air harried and hooted, snatched at him, wanted to cast him among thorns—how horrible the ground was!

  How much worse to descend below it. He throbbed to an emotion he scarcely recognized. Had she been in rapport, she could have told him that the English word for it was “terror.” A human or a dromid who felt it in that degree would have recoiled from the drop. A’i’ach made it a force blowing him onward, because this too raised him out of himself.

  At the edge, she threw her arms around him as far as they would go, laid her mouth to his pelt, and said, “Good luck, dear A’i’ach, dear brave A’i’ach, good luck, God keep you.” Those were the noises she made in her language. He did not recognize the gesture either.

  A cylinder she had given him to hold threw a strong beam of light. He saw the jagged slope tumble downward underneath him, and thought that if he was cast against that, he was done for. Then his spirit would have a fearful journey, with no body to shelter it, before it reached Beyond—if it did, if it was not shredded and scattered first. Quickly, before the churning airs could take full hold of him, he jetted across the brink. He contracted. He sank.

  The dread as gloom and walls closed in was like no other carouse in his life. At its core, he felt incandescent
ly aware. Yes, the human had brought him into strange skies.

  Through the dankness he caught an odor more sharp. He steered that way. His flash picked out the Beast, sprawled on sharp talus, gasping and glaring. He used jets and siphon to position himself out of reach and said in what English he had, “I haff ch’um say-aff ee-you.”***

  —From the depths of her death-place, Erakoum looked up at the Flyer. She could barely make him out, a big pale moon behind a glare of light. Amazement heaved her out of a drowse. Had her enemy pursued her down here in his ill-wishing?

  Good! She would die in battle, not the torment which ripped her. “Come on and fight,” she called hoarsely. If she could sink teeth in him, get a last lick of his blood—The memory of that taste was like sweet lightning. During the time afterward which refused to end, she had thought she would be dead already if she had not swallowed those drops.

  Their wonder-working had faded out. She stirred, seeking a defensive posture. Agony speared through her, followed by night.

  When she roused, the Flyer still waited. Amidst a roaring in her ears, she heard, over and over, “I haff ch’um say-aff ee-you.”

  Human language? This was the being that the humans favored as they did her. It had to be, though the ray from its head was hidden by the ray from its tendrils. Could Hugh have been bound all the while to both?

  Erakoum strove to form syllables never meant for her mouth and throat. “Ha-watt-tt you ha-wannit? Gho, no bea haiar, gho.”

  The Flyer made a response. She could no more follow that than he appeared to have followed hers. He must have come down to make sure of her, or simply to mock her while she died. Erakoum scrabbled weakly after a spear. She couldn’t throw one, but—

  From the unknownness wherein dwelt the soul of Hugh, she suddenly knew: He wants to save you.