Beyond Heaven's River (7 page)

“I feel a little guilty,” he said as they entered their cabin.

“Why?” she asked.

“This may not be in the line of duty.”

“It may not be for me, either. So we are both consorting with the enemy.”

“No, not exactly, but —” He laughed.

“My people will get as much out of this as yours, everyone will be happy. So far, it looks a lot like a farce.”

“How’s that?” He thought she meant their own behavior, and he stiffened.

“This whole affair. An empty planet, heavily explored and charted — for nothing. Blank slate.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. Everything will turn out fine. What would you be doing in your lander now?”

“Filing reports.”

“We’ve already sent an unedited transcript of Yoshio’s talk to your ship in orbit. What else could you report about?”

“Nothing my crew can’t handle,” Elvox admitted.

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Beyond Heavens River

Nine

If most people could be compared to dull glows, Nestor was white heat. Her eyes were wide and full of energy even while her voice was measured and restrained. She never said a thing that hadn’t been passed through a dozen self-contained censors. But she had ways of letting out her energy. One was in a sleep-field.

She was almost too much for him. On his home world, such cooperation and enthusiasm would have been unseemly. He was almost afraid of her independence, of having to satisfy both of them. Yet she didn’t demand more than he could give. All in all, they matched each other rather well.

After they’d made love, he sat up in the sleep-field and folded his hands on his stomach. “I was raised on a pretty straight-laced world,” he said.

“So was I — though my world was a ship.”

“No, I mean where love is concerned.”

“You’ve had some good teachers, wherever you came from,” she said, smiling at him sleepily.

He stroked her shoulder and reached down to caress her breast. Her skin was soft, just taking on the matte texture that shows a woman is leaving girlhood behind. He found it much more attractive than the plastic tightness that usually brought approval.

“This means a great deal to me,” he ventured. “Where I come from, we believe in commitments.”

“Mm,” she breathed, snuggling against him.

“I know it’s a release … shared release of tensions.” His words sounded incredibly inept to him. “And I don’t think you’re trying to win me over.”

“Already have,” she said under his arm.

He shook his head and said no more.

The Centrum team visited Nestor’s lander the next day. Four men and six womenex officio judges took the case under consideration after listening to the depositions. Half of the proceedings were held aboard the USC lander, and a tour of the Waunter vehicle was made as well. The Waunters watched without expression, grimly confident — it seemed to Elvox — that they had no case at all. True enough, the Centrum was seldom called in to intervene on the behalf of individuals, dealing instead with entities like USC or Nestor’s far-flung operation.

The Waunters could not give up all hope, however. Alae prepared a deposition on her own, using what legal advice she could glean out of the lander’s library. The Centrum took it under advisement.

Nestor — in the presence of the judges — behaved according to strict protocol. Elvox was an officer attached to United Stars, she was a representative of separate interests. They were cordial but aloof.

The next evening, however, he was again a friend and confidant. They ate a late snack and made love. Before sleep, he realized how beautiful she really was. He had thought of her as moderately attractive before, but when she laughed, she went right over the line into beauty. It was like watching a monument turn into a living woman.

As they ate breakfast in the lounge — alone, as if by assumption of the crew and Kawashita — he felt a moment of emotional vertigo. It was worse now. Not only did he not care about duty, he hardly cared about returning to United Stars. He chastised himself for thinking like an adolescent.

“I’ve been working for USC for seven years,” he said.

“They must have gotten you young.”

“Nineteen. How does that stack up against your crew, in terms of experience?”

She shrugged. “Depends on what you’re an expert at.”

“General ship work, I suppose. Command of equipment watches, sortie captain.”

She cocked her head and looked at him. “Julio, you’re not thinking of transferring, are you?”

He didn’t know how to answer. “It crossed my mind,” he said finally. “I’ve been comparing services. Your crew —”

“Works very hard,” she threw in.

“Yes, but the work seems much more basic, important. In the action.”

“We’re both here. USC can’t be that far away from the good stuff.”

“And besides,” he said, “you’re here.” He chuckled knowingly but watched her expression.

“Close to the action, as it were,” she joked, eyes twinkling.

“Yes.”

“Indeed I am. Some of my crew never see me for weeks at a stretch.”

He felt like a fish being played on a line. Her words were double-edged. “I always honor my commitments,” he said.

“Yes, I would think that.”

“But a lateral transfer, with warning, is allowed in our contracts.”

“I could offer you a post,” Anna said. “The work’s hard, but … I think you’d fit in.”

He grinned broadly, caught himself, and felt his face flush. She laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “But I’m in command, and I’m not always reasonable. Sometimes I do monstrous, foul things — and make my officers drop years off their life-spans, right and left, like dandruff. You don’t believe that, do you?” she asked, this time with a bite in her tone.

“I believe you can be tough,” Elvox said.

“Tough is not the word,” she said, looking away from him. Something seemed to cloud her expression. “We’ll think about it.”

In the days following, he realized that there were competent people, and there were masters. Nestor was a master at what she did. She wined and dined the Centrum lander crew — not so intimately as Elvox, and not beyond discretion — and got into their good graces. Because she was obviously staying neutral, they had no objection to her tutoring Kawashita, and Kawashita had no objection to almost anything she did. By being pleasant and cooperative, she got her way.

The judgment of majority ownership was made in the Centrum lander, with all parties attending. The lander lounge was turned into a small courtroom, and the ten judges opened their records of deliberation. Elvox almost felt sorry for the Waunters. They looked totally defeated as they read the judgment. Alae’s face was grim as death. She took her copy of the proceedings and walked out of the ship with Oomalo close behind.

Even after the judgment, the Centrum work wasn’t over. It took two weeks for Centrum satellites to thoroughly scan the planet. Percentages of ownership had to be established, and values assigned for taxation.

In that time, Elvox’s confusion seemed to evaporate. His time with Anna was smooth and regular. His awe at her status became subdued.

The planet yielded almost nothing — and what it did yield was an insult. The ruins of a weather machine were discovered practically at antipodes to the dome. Like the simulacra and equipment in the dome, the machine had powdered to a sandy mix of minerals and metal traces. How such a small device could control the weather was impossible to tell, but nothing else was found, and the ruin’s outlines were at least suggestive of its purpose — field vanes, seeder guns, and the like. They analyzed the marks that resembled roadbeds, and found they were geological. The planet was still mildly active. The concrete plains were already being re-formed. In a hundred million years all traces of the Perfidisians would be buried or ground to rubble. It would be no great loss.

Of the nothing that the Perfidisians had left behind, Kawashita was given a ninety-percent interest. The Waunters, because of the unusual circumstances, were given a ten-percent share. The planet itself was to be controlled by Kawashita, but of any profits he might make from its eventual sale or lease or other dealings, ten percent would go to the Waunters. The Waunters could orbit and land anywhere on the planet they wished, at any time, so long as they did not interfere with operations that Kawashita could profit from. And so on, and on … all the fine legal points established over centuries of planetfalls and millennia of property settlements.

In the final proceedings, Kawashita didn’t seem the least disappointed that he wasn’t going to be wealthy.

“Has the majority owner decided on a name for this world?” the first judge asked him.

“I have,” Kawashita said. “It will be known as Yamato.”

Anna had coached him on the presentation, and he performed flawlessly.

“And does this name have a meaning?”

“Yes, your honors. It is the old name for my native land, Japan.”

“Well and good. This court has made its decisions, executed its responsibilities as arbiter and mediator, and any further judgments must be appealed to Centrum courts on Myriadne. These proceedings are at an end.”

Four hours later, the Waunters returned to their old Aighor ship and broke orbit.

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Beyond Heavens River

Ten

“My God, Julio, you’re an officer, not a Casanova!” Tivvers stood in the door to Elvox’s cabin, hands on his hips, the perfect picture of outraged sensibility.

Elvox smiled wanly. “We’re doing our work, aren’t we? Nothing’s slacked. All the decisions have been made.”

“Yes — and you’ve found an excuse to keep us down here for another three weeks. Think the CO likes being delayed?”

Elvox stood in the cramped quarters and stretched. “We can help Kawashita readjust. We shouldn’t just leave it to Anna and her crew.”

“Why bother? This planet’s stripped — worthless.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” He frowned and rubbed his head. “Call it a gut feeling.”

“I call it being lovesick. She’s got you right where she wants you. Let’s up-ship and go to a righteous liberty, for Christ’s sake — not this blasted billiard ball. You’re the only one getting —”

“Goddammit, Tivvers, I’m your superior officer!”

Tivvers grinned sardonically. “Not that you’d notice by your actions.”

“If you see me slacking, report it to the CO,” Elvox said, bristling. He raised his hand and swept it to indicate the USC shuttle. “This is my command, and my decisions stand.”

“She’s using you.”

“She is Anna Sigrid Nestor. She could have her pick of any man, and if she is settling for me, doesn’t that mean something?”

“What?”

Elvox backed away and shrugged.

“She’s got you bad, doesn’t she? How the hell could you let this happen to yourself?”

“I’m a fool, I suppose,” Elvox said blankly.

“What about that planet you come from, with all the zealots. Didn’t any of their sense get through to you?”

Elvox rubbed his eyes and laughed. “Sense? Tivvers, they were Baptists and three or four other kinds of fool. They schismed from the lot that colonized God-Does-Battle, but they have the same goal — to bring Christian heaven down to Earth. Well, they couldn’t have Earth, so they settled for Ichthys. Their idea of heaven doesn’t include a rational approach to worldly things. God’s kingdom is ruled by a line of patriarchs. That’s what I grew up with, not sense. It was fine when I was a boy, but when the world started explaining itself to me through my gonads, it became hell. I thought I was a sex maniac, that my family would disown me. Well, I grew out of that but not completely. Not yet. I can’t reject what I’ve been taught since I was a child.”

“Then why is she getting to you?”

“Her attitude. She’s so free and loving.”

“Dross, pure dross. She’s a businesswoman. She’s using you for all you’re worth.”

For a moment Elvox seemed to be considering that. Then he shook his head. “No, she’s helping me to grow up. She’s not the first woman I’ve had, not by a long shot. But —”

“She’s got you, all right.”

“I will not give her up easily! I feel like I’m willing to give everything to her.”

“Concessions.”

Elvox shook his head. “You’re a block of ice, Tivvers.”

“No, I’m an officer, and I’m your friend. This is going to cook your career if it goes any further.”

Elvox pushed past the unterloytnant and took the ladder down to the equipment bay. Tivvers followed, keeping quiet, trying to figure out what he was up to.

“I’m going to her ship,” he said.

“You’ve been staying here off and on to keep up appearances, right?” Tivvers said. Elvox didn’t answer.

On the concrete, walking to Nestor’s shuttle, he felt a sudden dislike for Kawashita. He envied the Japanese and his immediate access to Nestor. They were all so concerned with Kawashita, but he was little more than a freak.

Elvox shook his head vigorously. They’d have to leave soon. He’d have to make his decision. Nestor would take the Japanese to Earth for a visit, fulfilling her obligations as a guide and tutor. And Elvox? He couldn’t stand the thought of returning to normal duty. But lately the idea of joining Anna’s crew had seemed — as Tivvers would undoubtedly comment if he knew — a bit off the beam.

The last few days she had seemed more reluctant, preoccupied. Was that because of Kawashita? His thoughts were jumbled. Separation. Disgrace. Disgust. What the hell was he doing?

His bubble merged with the environment around the ramp. The russet-furred alter stood at the top of the ramp, arms folded. Elvox looked away from her animal femininity. She was one of the few that had stayed behind after another shuttle had picked up Nestor’s entourage. “Can I help you, Loytnant?” she asked, her beautiful voice incongruously human.

“I’d like to speak to Anna.”

The alter called Nestor to the intercom.

“Julio!” Anna’s voice, over the speaker, sounded tired. “Listen, things are really hell around here. We’re making all the final preparations. We leave in four days. Will you — be coming with us?”

“I don’t know,” he said, suddenly feeling unclean. “I’ll have to see you soon.” He couldn’t have told Tivvers about the offer. It would have meant cutting the last thin threads of respect still between them.

“I’ve got a lot of questions,” he said, looking down at the concrete.

The alter seemed to regard him with pity.

“Fine. Come tomorrow morning. I’ll have some clear time then.”

That night he was almost sick.

The next morning he was mad but still queasy. He said nothing to Tivvers as he left the lander, and Tivvers kept his counsel to himself.

It was time to have things out.

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