Fire Time (9 page)

‘I thought: If the Gathering keeps its might, there can be no such invasion of it now; and most of my people will die. I cared for them still. What quarrels I had had among them I saw as lovers’ quarrels.

‘I thought: But the Gathering will at best be much weakened. If Valennen meanwhile is strengthened, united, knowingly led– Do you see? And before you say it, I will. Yes, of course I want to be he who shapes the whole next cycle. I want the humans to come to
me
while I live, not to Sehala, and deal with me in wonders. And when I am dead, I want my memory to stand, my skull enshrined for an oracle, till the next Fire Time after this, and beyond. That is no more than soldier’s pay for saving a folk.

‘Therefore I came home.

‘You have heard the rest: how I cleared new land at Ulu; how I built wealth and power through trade with the Gathering, and reaving of those places from which the Gathering withdrew; how lesser families who saw worsening years ahead came to me, gave oath in return for land and leadership, learned from me how to fight with the head as well as the hands. They are the bone of my strength.

‘But the spirit in it–

‘Kusarat, I will say frankly, I have hunted out word about you, because you are an Overling of weight. Thus I know I can speak to you more openly than to some. You are no back-country huddler who gulps down every cackle of old wives’ gossip about the gods. When I say that our shortsighted, wrangling Tassui cannot be brought together by force alone, not to save their very lives – that only an Otherness can melt them into an ingot from which I may forge a sword – you will understand.

‘I sought my dauri again.

‘Long and long was that search. Yet they do make ever more treks to mortal realms, in ever greater numbers, as the Stormkindler draws nigh. Their Starklands dry out worse than our grounds do; and meanwhile, as the waxing heat kills off our kind of life, their kind – which can better take it – moves in, to nourish them. Thus in the end, it matters not how, I found me a daur. We spoke what little
we could. Later I met more dauri and we spoke further.

‘I do not know if he I saved was among them, nor even if they had heard that tale. I tried to find out, and failed. What I did have was a slight command of their speech and knowledge of their ways, to show I had formerly been friendly with their sort. I worked hard to add to this.

‘For … in Fire Time, it is not only mortals who seek what allies they can get.

‘They are leery of us. And, frankly again, too much closeness might make my followers not leery enough of them. I needed a sigil, a Thing, which I could bear for a mark of their favor while they mainly kept away from the Tassui. But I could not make this clear; they are so utterly sundered from us. Or if they understood me, perhaps they did not know what would serve. After all, I myself was blind as to what there might be. A token of stone or bone was no use; I could have fashioned that myself.

‘The upshot was that they took me into their homeland.

‘You have heard that I went. You may have heard that I came back in mummy skin and bones a-rattle, and took a year to regain my health. But you have not heard of the quest.

‘I spent three years merely readying. First the dauri took food of mine and made caches for me along the way. In the Starklands it would not rot, nor would beasts eat it. Regardless, I almost starved. They had laid down too little; the load a daur can carry is small, and I had not foreseen how grim that country is. Still nearer did I come to death by thirst. It is not a desert northward, or was not before the Red One returned. But it is dry, its life needs less water than ours does, and this too we had not allowed for.

‘Yet in the end we won to certain ruins. I groped half mad among them, until a daur showed me the Thing that is full of unknown stars. I clutched it to me and sent my feet back across that land which scorned and scorched them. Somehow they bore me.

‘Since, the dauri and I have grown closer. We have secrets I am not free to share. But their will toward me is good; and my will toward you is good. My friends they will help, my
foes they will harm. This is enough to say. I have spoken; and you will understand.’

Later, as he drifted toward sleep, Arnanak thought:
Enough to say to
him.
Humans would surely pay well to hear more. What I can tell them about the dauri might buy me their abandonment of the Gathering.

Anu was a few hours under the horizon and Bel quite low above. Light streamed yellow under the trees along Campbell Street. Where it passed through the translucent leaves of jackfruit, it flecked the shade beneath with spots of coral. The air lay quietly cooling, full of spicy autumn fragrances from across the river. Several children played hopscotch on the pavement. Their shouts flew thin and sweet to Ian Sparling’s ears. A bicyclist dodged around them. Otherwise nobody was in sight. The laboratories and industries whose low, garden-surrounded buildings lined this thoroughfare were closed for the evening, their workers at home or – a few score – outside the mayor’s house to see the Earthlings come forth and hope for a scrap of news.

Actually, that first conference was finished. The Han-shaws had invited participants to stay for dinner. Sociability might ease a little of the stress between them. Sparling had excused himself on the ground that his wife would be disappointed if he didn’t return for a special dish she’d prepared. He suspected Hanshaw knew it was a lie, but he didn’t care. By taking the rear exit to an alley, and thence a roundabout way home, he avoided questions from the crowd.

Pipe cold between teeth, fists jammed into pockets, he scissored space with his legs, scarcely aware of the world. Fingers must close on his arm and shake before he noticed. But then he saw Jill Conway. He stopped. The blood quickened and sang in him.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘What’s the hurry? You’re traveling like the devil to a tax collector’s wake.’ Scant mirth was in her tone, and after a second she added, ‘Bad, huh?’

‘I shouldn’t–’ He nearly lost his pipe, crammed it away, and swallowed before he demanded, ‘What’re you doing here?’

‘Waiting for you.’

He stared at her slenderness. Light ran down the street and struck gold from her hair. ‘Huh? But why–?’
No, obviously she didn’t wait for
me.
Just a chance to talk to me.
Sparling collected himself. ‘How did you know when or where?’

‘I asked Olga Hanshaw to phone me as soon as the official discussion ended. She wasn’t forbidden to, and she feels she owes me a favor.’ Jill had rescued the couple’s youngest child from drowning a couple of years before. This was the first time Sparling had heard of her claiming any reward. ‘Don’t mention it, please, Ian.’

‘No,’ he promised at once; then:
But God did request we keep things confidential till he’s planned how to tell Primavera and
…
the whole Gathering.
Then:
Well, I won’t go back on my word to Jill. I can’t. It’s harmless. If anybody on this planet can be trusted, she can. She should’ve been invited to sit in on the conference. Though that would’ve roused jealousies, and distracted me
–
or inspired me– Throttle that nonsense!
he ordered himself.
You old fool!

‘As for how I knew where to wait,’ Jill told him, ‘why, I know you. Campbell to Riverside and on home. Right?’

He attempted a smile. ‘Am I that transparent?’

‘No.’ She regarded his gaunt features carefully. ‘No, you’re a mighty private person. However, chances were you’d leave early; you’re never much for polite banalities. You’d choose a route which avoided people. At this hour, it has to be this way. Primavera isn’t exactly a labyrinth.’ Her voice snapped: ‘You know my methods, Watson. Apply them!’

He couldn’t but chuckle and shake his head. ‘Why not loosen your collar?’ Jill suggested. ‘You don’t have to choke any more to impress the Navy with our earnestness. Besides, that cowlick of yours spoils the effect.’

‘Well – okay.’ When he had done, she took his arm again, tucked hers beneath, and started them off in the free-swinging stride they both favored.

‘What happened?’ she asked after a while.

‘I’m not supposed to–’

‘Yeh, yeh, yeh. You’re not under oath of secrecy, are you? I’ll give you my promise if you like, not to let anything go any further.’ She was silent for a space, during which he heard their boots thud and felt her touch. When she spoke anew, it was most softly. ‘Yes, Ian, I am presuming, I am begging for a privilege. But I’ve got a brother in the Navy. And Larreka’s always been like a second father to me. The night he stayed at my house … hardest to take was the way he kept working to crack jokes, tell anecdotes, whatever he hoped might amuse me. I wanted to cry. Except naturally he’d’ve known what that meant, and soldiers’ daughters don’t show grief.’

‘The legionary tradition,’ he said for lack of better words. ‘It’d be dangerous to morale if allowed. We’re different, we humans.’

‘Not that different. And if I knew what– The sooner I know, the sooner I can start thinking about something real to do, not sit inside myself and gnaw my guts.’

He must look at her then, less far downward than a man of his height need do with the run of women. Her blue gaze was steady, yet she smiled no more and the level sunbeams caught sparks in her lashes.

‘You win,’ he rasped. ‘Though you won’t like the news.’

‘I didn’t expect to. Oh, Ian, you’re such a laren!’ The word meant, approximately, ‘good trooper’, overtones of kindliness as well as strength and fidelity. She let go his arm and took his hand. He checked a wish to squeeze back. No use, worse than useless, to let her guess how she had altogether gripped him. But he could keep a very gentle hold, couldn’t he?

They reached the landing and turned north into Riverside, a road cut from the left bank of the Jayin. On their right, trees screened them from view of town, a long row of deep-rooted swordleaf, preserved amidst this terrestrialized
ecology to be a windbreak when tornados whirled out of the west. Opposite, the stream flowed broad, murmurous, evening ablaze upon it. Snags and shoals made ripples; an ichthy would leap in a gleam of silver and a clear splash; rocket flies darted brilliant. On the farther shore, native pastureland rolled into blue remoteness – tawny turf of lia, scarlet firebloom, scattered trees crowned with copper or brass. In the middle distance a flock of owas grazed, and the larger els individually, six-legged kine in a peacefulness that Sparling wished Constable could have painted.

Here the air was cooler still, damp, breezy, many-scented. Westward under sinking Bel, a few clouds glowed orange. Elsewhere the sky stood unutterably clear. A ghostly, waning Caelestia drew eastward. Beneath, so high as to be only a pair of wings, hovered a saru. It did not stoop on any of the iburu which flapped along lower down; maybe it waited for easier prey than those big bronzy-green ptenoids. A cantor sat on a bough, small, gray-feathered, fearless, and sang its autumn song.

Sparling remembered how Jill had continued the work of her mentor, old Jim Hashimoto, on the many functions of song in the cantor and related species, for her first serious research project, and how she’d run whooping across his sight in the joy of a breakthrough idea. Had that been when he first– No, probably not. She was a long-legged youngster then, six or seven years older than his, merely one of three kids born to the Conways. Since, Alice had married Bill Phillips, and Donald had followed Becky to college on Earth till the Navy pulled him in …

‘We’ll soon be at your place, Ian,’ Jill warned. ‘Unless you want to stop and talk.’

‘No, let’s get it over with,’ he said, called back. ‘Not much to tell, anyhow.’

‘I don’t suppose the ships brought mail?’

‘No. At least, nobody mentioned any. Captain Dejerine, their top man, did promise regular communications will be maintained. If nothing else, his courier boats will carry civilian messages too.’

‘What’re they here for?’

‘That was announced yesterday, right after they first established contact. To protect us from possible Naqsan attack.’

‘Ridiculous, I’d say. Wouldn’t you? Ridiculous as the whole war.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Well, if their presence would guarantee the supplies we need – for your kind of work in particular – I’d be duly grateful. But no, the word is that the war effort will take nearly all shipping, and doubtless assorted key items as well. Captain Whosie confirmed it today. Didn’t he? You wouldn’t look so fierce otherwise.’

Sparling jerked a nod.

Jill studied his countenance again before she said, ‘The news was worse yet. Right?’

‘Right,’ came from him. ‘They’re supposed to build a base here. For reconnaissance operations. Which means depots, backup facilities, and a local war industry to save on interstellar transportation. Dejerine has orders to mobilize everything we’ve got that isn’t required for our survival. Effective immediately, we must justify whatever of our production we consume rather than stockpile for the Navy.’

Jill halted. And he did. ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered.

He let the stiffness slump out of his shoulders.

She caught both his hands. ‘Your cement plant?’ she asked raggedly. ‘You can’t keep on making concrete for your dams?’

‘That’s right.’ He heard how flat his voice fell. ‘It’s requisitioned for the base.’

‘Couldn’t you
explain?
’

‘We tried, for our different projects. Me, I pointed out how flooding of valleys by melted snowpack has always been a major factor in wrecking civilization in South Beronnen, and if we could prevent it this periastron, then we could hope– Hell, why am I telling you? Dejerine asked when the floods’ll start. I gave him our estimate – he’ll surely have my files checked out – and he said that in five years the war should be over and we can carry on the same as before.’

‘You mean he’s never heard of lead time? He thinks you can build a set of dams in high country, with native labor and a miser’s consignment of machinery, by rubbing a lamp?’

Sparling grimaced. ‘He and his fellows weren’t unsympathetic. They’re not evil men, nor stupid. We’re free to protest and petition to Earth, they said, and they won’t necessarily argue against us. That’ll depend on what they decide after reviewing matters for themselves. Meanwhile, they have their orders.’ He drew breath. ‘God asked them, what about military assistance to the Gathering? Dejerine said no. He’s been strictly and specifically instructed to stay out of local disputes. That includes us, he said. We must not risk equipment which may be valuable to the war effort, or risk getting his force embroiled, diverted from its task. Besides, a Parliamentary commission has declared that our past “interference” should be investigated, since it looks very much like “cultural imperialism”.’