Land and Overland - Omnibus (90 page)

By that time the chaos above was being brought under control. The stricken ship was being abandoned. Overland's surface was almost completely occulted by condensation trails as crewmen from other vessels began the work of salvaging supplies. They were shouting to each other, sounding almost cheerful as they realized how slight was the damage to the fleet as a whole, compared to what it could have been. It occurred to Toller that the expedition had been lucky in another respect—if the encounter with the meteor swarm had not happened so close to the weightless zone recovery from it would have been much more difficult, if not impossible. Every object he could see was falling towards Land, but the rate of descent was so leisurely that in practice it could be disregarded for the time being.

Men were also jetting upwards from the four ships of the first echelon, among them Sky-commodore Sholdde, chief executive officer for the expedition. Sholdde was a tough and laconic fifty-year-old, much favoured by the Queen because of the relish with which he tackled difficult assignments. The fact that he had lost a ship, although no blame could be laid at his door, was going to make him edgy and difficult to deal with for the rest of the flight.

"Maraquine!" he shouted at Toller. "What do you think you're doing there? Get back to your ship and see what extra stores you can take on board. You shouldn't be concerning yourself with that miserable flea-bag."

"How dare you call me a flea-bag!" Jerene murmured in Sholdde's direction, feigning indignation. "Flea-bag, yourself!"

"Look, I've already warned you about…" Toller, who had been about to admonish the lieutenant on her disrespect for senior officers, met the humorous glint in her brown eyes and his resolve foundered. He liked people who could make jokes at times of stress, and he had to admit that he would have had trouble summoning up the nerve to go as close to the frightened bluehorn's head as Jerene had done.

"You may rejoin your ship now," he said stiffly. "The farmers can collect their bluehorn when they're ready."

"Yes, sir." Jerene pushed herself clear of the quiescent animal and reached for the controls of her propulsion unit.

Toller now felt that he had been unfair. "By the way, lieutenant…"

"Sir?"

"You did well with the bluehorn."

"Why thank you, sir," Jerene said, smiling demurely in a way which left Toller almost certain that he was being mocked. He watched her jet away from him, trailing a cone of rolling white condensation, and his thoughts turned immediately to Vantara. She had narrowly escaped injury from the bluehorn's hoof and had done the right thing in retiring to her ship at once. It was unfortunate, though, that her doing so had deprived him of the opportunity to establish a better relationship between them.

But I've got time in hand,
he thought, deciding to be philosophical.
There'll be all the time in the world when we get to Land.

Divivvidiv was awakened from mid-brain-sleep by a telepathic whisper from the Xa.

Look about you, Beloved Creator,
the Xa said, using the mind-colour green to show that it considered the matter to be of some urgency.

What is happening?
Divivvidiv responded, still not fully restored to every level of consciousness. He had been dreaming of simpler and happier times, in particular about his early childhood on Dussarra, and his high-brain had just begun devising the scenario for a fulfilling day, one which would have been fed in every detail into slumbering mid-brain and which he would have lived in full while asleep. He would, of course, be able to recreate it during his next inert period, but inevitably there would be some minor differences, and he could not help but experience a slight sense of loss. The vanished dream-day had promised to be well-nigh perfect. Nostalgia compounded…

The Primitives ascending from the surface of their planet have passed through the datum plane,
the Xa went on.
They have inverted their vessels and
—

Which shows they are on their way to the sister planet,
Divivvidiv interrupted.
Why did you disturb me?

I have been able to perceive them with greater clarity, Beloved Creator, and I must inform you that their organs of sight are much superior to yours. Also, they have developed instruments which efficiently magnify optical images.

Telescopes!
The idea of a primitive species having been able to devise ways of manipulating a medium as intractable as light startled Divivvidiv into full wakefulness. He sat up on the smooth, spongy block which was his bed and switched off its artificial gravity field, without which he would have been unable to enter any but the most superficial level of sleep.

Tell me,
he said to the Xa,
will the Primitives be able to see us?
He had to ask the question, to rely for the moment on the Xa's senses, because his own radius of direct perception was severely curtailed by the metal walls of the habitat.

Yes, Beloved Creator. Two of them are already scanning the general area of the visual sphere in which we are located—one of them with the aid of a double telescope—and there is a strong possibility of our being detected. The heaters of the protein synthesizing station are the most likely to draw attention—they leak radiation which is well within that part of the spectrum spanned by the Primitives' eyes. 'Purple' is the word they use for it.

I will shut down the heaters immediately.
Divivvidiv floated himself out of the habitat's living quarters and into the principal operations hall. His trajectory carried him through the air to the control matrix which governed nutrient production, and he used a pencil-slim grey finger to divert the flow of power away from the row of exterior heaters.

I have done it,
he said to the Xa.
Have the Primitives seen anything?

There was a brief pause before the Xa replied.
Yes—one of them has commented on seeing 'a line of purple lights', but there is no associated emotional reaction. The event has been dismissed as insignificant, and is already being forgotten.

I am glad of that,
Divivvidiv said, using the mind-colour appropriate to relief.

Why do you experience relief, Beloved Creator? Surely a species at such an early stage of its development can pose no threat to you.

I was not concerned about my own safety,
Divivvidiv said.
If the Primitives had been curious about us, and had decided to investigate, I would have been forced to destroy them.

There was another pause before the Xa spoke.
You are reluctant to kill any of the Primitives.

Naturally.

Because it is immoral to deprive any being of its life?

Yes.

In that case, Beloved Creator,
the Xa said,
why have you decided to kill me?

I have told you many times that nobody has decided to kill you
—
it is simply a matter of…
The talk of killing reminded Divivvidiv of why he was there, of the awesome crime against nature being perpetrated by his own kind, and a pang of anguish and guilt stilled his thoughts.

The ancient city of Ro-Atabri was
immense.

Toller had been standing at the rail of his gondola for more than an hour, staring down at the slowly expanding patch of intricate line and colour patterns which differentiated the city from the surrounding terrain. He had been conditioned to regard Prad, Overland's capital, as an imposing metropolis, and had visualized Ro-Atabri as much larger but essentially the same. The reality of the historic seat of Kolcorronian power, however, was something for which he could not have prepared himself.

He sensed that such a huge difference in size somehow led to a difference in kind, but there was more to it than that. All the cities, towns and villages on Overland had been planned, and therefore their chief characteristics sprang from the will of their architects and builders, but from high in the air Ro-Atabri resembled a natural growth, a living organism.

It was all there, just as in the sketches his maternal grandmother—Gesalla Maraquine—used to make for him when he was a child. There was the Borann River winding into Arle Bay, which in turn opened out upon the Gulf of Tronom, and to the east was the snow-capped Mount Opelmer. Cupped in and shaped by those natural features, the city and its suburbs sprawled across the land, a vast lichen of masonry, concrete, brakka wood and clay which represented centuries of Endeavour by multitudes of human beings. The great fires which had raged on the day the Migration had begun had left a still-visible discoloration in some areas, but the durable stonework had survived intact and would serve humanity again in some future era. Flecks of orange-red and orange-brown showed where the ill-fated New Men had begun capping the shells of buildings with new tiled roofs.

"What do you think of it, young Maraquine?" Commissioner Kettoran said, appearing at Toller's side. Now that gravity was back to normal he was feeling much better and was taking a lively interest in all aspects of the ship's affairs.

"It's big," Toller said simply. "I can't take it in. It makes history … real."

Kettoran laughed. "Did you think we'd made it up?"

"You could have done, as far as most of the present generation are concerned, but this… It hurts my brain, if you know what I mean."

"I know exactly what you mean—think how
I
feel." Kettoran leaned further across the rail and his long face became animated. "Do you see that square patch of green just to the west of the city? That's the old Skyship Quarter—the exact spot we took off from fifty years ago! Will we be able to land there?"

"It seems as good a place as any," Toller said. "The lateral dispersions on this flight have been remarkably slight, and those that did occur have cancelled each other out. The decision rests with the Sky-commodore, of course, but I'd say that's where we'll put down."

"That would make it perfect. The perfect full circle."

"Indeed yes," Toller agreed, no longer really listening, his attention captured by the realization that the ten-day flight between the worlds was all but over, and that very soon he would have unlimited opportunities to court Vantara. He had not even glimpsed her since the incident with the blue-horn, and the lack of contact had fuelled his obsession to the point where the prospect of seeing another world for the first time seemed no more of an adventure than being able to speak to the countess face to face and perhaps win her over.

"I envy you, young Maraquine," Kettoran said, gazing wistfully downwards at the natural stage upon which the half-remembered scenes of his youth had been enacted. "Everything lies before you."

"Perhaps." Toller smiled, savouring his own interpretation of the commissioner's words. "Perhaps you're right."

The village of Sty-vee contained no more than a hundred or so buildings, and even in its heyday would have housed only a few hundred people. Toller was tempted to cross it off his list and proceed on his way without even landing, but it would then have become necessary to falsify an inspection report and he could not allow himself to sink to petty dishonesty. He studied the layout of the village for a moment, noting that its central square was very small, even for such an out-of-the-way place.

"What do you think, corporal?" he said, testing the younger man's judgment. "Is it worth trying to put the ship down on those few yards of turf?"

Steenameert leaned over the rail to assess the prospects. "I wouldn't take the risk, sir—there's very little leeway and there's no telling what the eddy currents are like around that group of tall warehouses."

"That's what I was thinking—we'll make a pilot of you yet," Toller said jovially. "Head for those pastures to the east, beside the river, and drop us there."

Steenameert nodded, his naturally pink face growing even more roseate with gratification. Toller had taken a liking to Steenameert on the occasion of their first meeting, when he had parachuted down from the interplanetary void, and had put in a special request to have him in his crew for the flight to Land. Now he was personally grooming Steenameert for a field promotion, somewhat to the annoyance of Lieutenant Correvalte, who had spent the customary year in a training squadron.

Toller turned to Correvalte, who officially should have been conducting the landing manoeuvre and was showing his discomfiture by lounging in a seat in a posture of exaggerated boredom. "Lieutenant, detail one man to guard the ship and get the others ready to inspect the village—the walk will do them good."

Correvalte saluted, very correctly, and left the bridge. Toller maintained a carefully neutral expression as he watched the lieutenant go down the short stair to the gondola's main deck. He had already decided to recompense Correvalte by recommending him for a full captaincy earlier than usual, but had decided not to let him know until the current mission had been completed.

It was the middle of foreday, and already in the equatorial region of Land the sun's heat was baking the ground. Most of the gondola was in the shadow of the ship's gasbag, a fact which made the environment beyond seem preternaturally bright and vivid. As the vessel performed a slow half-circle to face the slight breeze, sinking all the while, Toller saw that the fields surrounding the village had almost returned to their natural uniform shade of green.

With no seasons to orchestrate the cycle of maturation, individual plants in the wild state tended to follow their own timetables, with a proportion in the earliest stages of growth while others were at their peak or in the process of withering and returning their constituents to the soil. From time immemorial, Kolcorronian farmers had sorted the seeds of useful vegetables into synchronous batches—typically creating six harvests a year—and as a result areas of cultivated land presented patterns of stripes of varying colours.

Here, after decades of neglect, those patterns had all but disappeared as the edible grasses and other crop vegetables had slowly returned to botanic anarchy. The advanced stage of the reversal led Toller to suspect that the village of Sty-vee was not one of those which the New Men had reclaimed after the ptertha plague had wiped out the normal human population. If that were the case, the inspection of the village promised to be yet another in a series of unpleasant and highly depressing experiences.