Orion Shall Rise (35 page)

True: because the military of both lands have hitherto been regionally based, their first loyalty to a Clan or a neighborhood or some such archaism.
Hope stirred in Jovain. How could a world that included Faylis not be full of it? ‘Right,’ he said fervently. ‘Lowered barriers between us, increased trade, an open road for the missionaries.’

‘This will take time, you realize,’ he reminded Mattas. ‘We have to overcome inherited distrust, vested interests – well, you know.’

‘I know about gnats and their concerns,’ the ucheny snapped. ‘The which are not mine. I’m here to ask how soon you’ll start letting in the Truth.’

‘The Domain has never restricted freedom of religion,’ Jovain said, roweled afresh. ‘Or philosophy.’

‘You know what I mean, son.’

Jovain stroked his beard. The silkiness was soothing. ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Haven’t we talked about it through the past two or three years? Financial help for the teachers and seers, out of the Captain’s treasury; eventually, a requirement that all children be exposed to the teaching, as part of their education –’ In haste: ‘Oh, I’m not betraying you. Those are still my goals. But I begin to see how long-drawn and complicated it’ll be –’

Mattas could be strict when he wished. ‘And I’ve told you, mold while the clay is soft,’ he retorted. ‘The reactionaries are off balance. They don’t know what to expect, and they’ll rejoice if you
give
them, forthwith, things like strengthened peace and a call for moral renewal. Let the package include a little aid for
us
– not much at first, nor especially marked for what it is – Do you follow me?’

Jovain returned home late. He always did. When would the day come for him and Faylis to be their own people? As was, every moment they had alone must be stolen from something else. Well, he kept assuring her, well, he was barely in office, he must consolidate his position and set the work of their common dream in train.

Hitherto she had taken it calmly. He was getting an impression that she was more interested in the idea of love than she was in making love. Unlike Irmali – but between him and Irmali there had mostly been a courteous coolness, for longer years than he cared to number.

He found Faylis in their apartment. It was as meager as any; equality aloft was another tradition. She had servants, though, and could occupy herself with the book research that she enjoyed and that was, in fact, valuable to him.

He found her weeping.

He knelt before her chair, embraced the slight form, begged her to tell him what was wrong and thereafter crooned at her. Finally she could lay a hand across the paper on her lap. ‘M-m-my father,’ she wrung out. ‘A letter from my father. He disowns me. Because of what I’ve done… with you –
O-o-o-oh!’
she screamed, and hugged herself to him. ‘O-o-oh, oh, oh.’

He let her cry, wishing she would finish, while his mind raced:
That means worse than the family Mayn; it could mean the whole Clan Ashcroft against me, except Lorens, after the old man gets through corresponding back and forth. As if I didn’t already have Irmali’s Lundgards on my neck – This will jerk every traditionalist knee in the Domain. Never mind whether Castle-keeper So-and-So keeps half a dozen concubines; his Captain is supposed to be perfect, never sullying the anim of Charles, right?

Iern would have been better schooled in hypocrisy than I am.

The rowdy power of Mattas stood forth in Jovain. He lifted his head above his shoulder, where the head of his woman lay, and told himself:
Okay. As Mikli Karst is fond of putting it, okay. This had to be met sooner or later. I shall overcome. I will overcome.

Flying west lengthened a clay, but the sun had swung low when the Maurai overtook their quarry.

Refreshed by sleep, Iern was telling Ronica about himself. He had intended to concentrate on the glamorous aspects, but despite her wide-eyed fascination she kept asking questions that struck deep. Nevertheless he was having a marvelous time.

A part of that came from the wonder unrolling beneath him. He had not imagined such an immensity of forest, like a dark-green ocean, broken only by a frequent gleam of lakes or a silver thread of river – and now he flew parallel to the greatest lake of all, an inland sea. It shone on the left as if it too were silver which the long yellow sun-rays had turned molten.

The aircraft droned and shivered. He fancied that it strained forward, in the manner of a horse when it scents the stable near the end of a ride. Mikli had consulted a map a short while ago and estimated that an hour’s travel remained. Iern would welcome release from this cramped, noisy, vibrating room; and yet while Ronica gave him her full heed, he felt no hurry about it.

‘– flitted down to Pireff,’ he said. ‘That’s the chief port in Ellas. Its master is friendly to the Domain, which sends a fair bit of trade his way. Our plan was to hire a boat and spend a couple of months knocking about the islands –-’

The airplane rocked. An angry whine sawed through fuselage and windows. Smoke trailed. The intruder craft swept about in an arc of kilometers, ahead of this one, tilting back and forth, well-nigh speaking the taunt: ‘Take a good look.’

Iern did. It was a sizable twin-engined jet, gray-painted, so that light off metal did not dazzle him and he could make out gun turrets and rocket launcher. It bore no insignia, but he had read everything he could find about the world’s flying machines
and knew those rakish lines.

‘Charles!’ he yelled. ‘That’s a Maurai fighter!’

Sweat sprang forth on his skin, icy and gamy. His pulse almost drowned out Ronica’s blast of profanity. Behind him, Mikli’s voice came faint: ‘They’ve tracked us. How and why? Tune in the radio, girl, for hell’s sake! Standard band.’

Ronica nodded and obeyed. Her lip was curled back from her teeth.

Basso out of the receiver: ‘– calling you. Come in and be quick about it.’ Iern identified a N’Zealann accent in the Francey. The speaker shifted to a different language, of which he caught just a few words – Unglish, he supposed. A thrumming calm took him over. He had small idea of what this encounter meant, and none of what course it would take, but he was a Stormrider.

Mikli leaned past him and ripped out a reply. The jet climbed from sight. Its spokesman answered in his turn. Unable to follow the dialogue, Iern glanced back at the Norrman and saw apprehen-siveness flicker across his furrowed countenance.

Silence fell, save for the engines. Ronica switched off the transmitter and explained starkly to the Clansman: ‘They demand we surrender. There’s a broad stretch of beach not far ahead, for landing. If we don’t, they’ll force us down.’

‘What… is this … about?’ he asked.

‘Wrong place to discuss that.’ She continued in Angley as she inquired, ‘Any thoughts, Mikli?’

‘Well, we could honor their request,’ her associate replied.

She missed his derision. ‘No!’ she flared. ‘I’d pull the sky down first. If they took us prisoner, they’d find out about Orion – from
us.’

A secret, and enormous,
Iern guessed. Aloud: ‘I’ve never heard that the Maurai torture people.’

‘They would if necessary, after they’d seen our cargo,’ Mikli answered. ‘But I doubt they would need to. They have consummate doctors and psychologists. Drugs or … whatever means they used to get the information that put them on our trail. … Oh, yes, they’d wring our knowledge from us, to the last drop.’

Ronica turned steely. She peered before her, laid fingers around chin, and murmured, ‘We could land as they say, then make a break for the woods.’

‘And starve to death?’ Iern protested, before he remembered
this wasn’t his battle, maybe.

‘Oh, I’d get us to civilization, and in fine shape,’ she said mechanically. ‘I’m a professional at that sort of thing.’ Her look sought him. ‘You sit tight. They’ve no cause to hurt you, I think.’

‘You forget what Lohannaso told us,’ Mikli reminded. ‘We are not to get out until commanded. He can make a vertical landing the same as us, his guns covering us every centimeter of the way. If we run, he’ll open fire. I know him; we’ve sparred before. He hates inflicting death or injury, but when he reckons he must, he doesn’t waste time agonizing over the decision.’

Ronica nodded. ‘And anyhow,’ she said slowly, ‘they’d clap hands on the plutonium.’

The what?
It was like a thundercrack in Iern’s head.
No, I misheard, surely I misheard.

Ronica nodded again ‘Okay, we’ve got a single choice,’ she went on. Her tone was quite level. ‘I’ll crash us in the lake. They won’t recover a thing.’

‘Wait a minute!’ exclaimed Iern and Mikli together.

Her gaze went back to the passenger. ‘I’m sorry, Ferlay,’ she said low. ‘You could’ve parachuted first if I’d watched my tongue. But you’ve heard what only dead men are supposed to know, outside of Orion.’

He tensed himself to seize her. Her knife leaped from the sheath and pointed at his throat. He knew expert handling when he saw it, and pulled back. Her left hand operated the stick and brought the airplane banking around.

‘They’ll blast us if we act suspiciously,’ Mikli warned.

Ronica grinned like a skull. ‘Let them. We’ll crash and burn among the trees. If they have any sense, they won’t come near the wreck. The crates and those brittle old warheads will be broken, the plutonium scattered everywhere around. Not nice.’

Mikli spoke in Unglish. Ronica shook her head and told Iern: ‘He’s not anxious to die, but there isn’t a thing he can do about it. No weapon on him, our firearms stashed out of reach, and if you behave the least bit funny, Mikli, dear, I’ll put us into a dive on the spot. Notice how low I’ve brought us; it’d be impossible to pull out. … Iern, I really am sorry. I couldn’t do this to you if I weren’t here myself. I think you’d have loved to see Orion rise. I would have.’

‘She’s crazy, a fanatic,’ Mikli babbled.

‘No,’ Ronica said. ‘I gave my oath, that’s all.’

The lake filled more and more of the world-circle. The Maurai jet screamed past. Ronica uttered a brief laugh. They’re wondering what the devil
they
can do,’ she observed. Her wariness toward the men never slackened.

Low above conifers, the sun filled the cabin with a haze of luminance.
Sun
! It exploded in Iern. The duel that he and Jovain had fought, over a dreamland a million years ago and a million light-years remote – He didn’t pause to think further.

‘Hold, hold,’ he said, while the knife poised under his jugular. ‘We may have a chance yet. To keep your secret and save our lives. Barely possible. I am a Stormrider.’

Something akin to dawn shone in the woman’s face. A whisper in Iern declared that she was in truth no fanatic, she savored life more than most. But her blade remained unwavering. ‘Say on,’ she ordered. ‘Fast.’

‘We’ll need parachutes,’ tumbled from him. ‘While we put them on – Mikli, talk to the Maurai. Deceive them. I gather that’s your specialty. Afterward, Ronica, let me have the controls.’ They were dual. He had already taken them, and found the airplane a nimble little beast. ‘I’m more skilled than you. I’ll climb well aloft, and collide with their jet. Both will go down, but we’ll be warned, we can bailout.’

She stared. ‘They won’t let you steer close.’

Energy crackled in Mikli’s voice: ‘I believe they might, once I’ve blarneyed them. Okay, Ronica, I’m about to scramble after the parachutes, and I’d like to get a pistol while I’m at it, but I don’t want to put a bullet through your brain. Do you trust me that far? I too look forward to Orion rising, and the glorious chaos that will follow.’ Iern heard him unbuckle and crawl back across the freight.

Plutonium,
the Clansman thought.
What sort of monsters are these I’m with? But dead I can do nothing, learn nothing, and I won’t
stay alive unless I save them.

Mikli handed him a parachute pack. He went through the irksome exercise of securing it to himself in the space available. Meanwhile Ronica returned the plane to an obedient course. ‘Put on your own gear,’ Mikli said to her; and to Iern: ‘Don’t get playful, my friend. I did retrieve a pistol, but it’s cocked for you, not the lady.’

Having seen a possibility of making his goal, he’s willing to walk a tightrope,
Iern decided.
It probably gives him pleasure.
For his
part, he felt altogether alive. This was like daring a hurricane again.

Mikli stretched forward and switched on the transmitter. Unglish barked to and fro. Wilderness passed beneath. Finally he sighed off and reported:

‘I told them what’s plausible, that we considered crashing ourselves before we’d yield to them. Next I said we’d changed our minds, but want assurance we won’t be massacred. Lohannaso claimed he has no such intention, which is doubtless correct, but I insisted we come down simultaneously, rather than he second. That way, I said, we can bargain when we’re on the ground, instead of sitting helpless under his guns. I’m sure he expects we’ll attempt a dash in among the trees. He also, obviously, means to catch us or shoot us. And at worst, he’ll have our plutonium – that wasn’t mentioned, but of course he will – and he’ll have Ferlay, too, who may well be able to tell him something. He does know you are in our midst, Ferlay; I’d be very interested to hear how he learned it. … Well, that’s what I’ve negotiated. Satisfactory?’ A flint snicked, a plume of harshness streamed.

‘I hope so,’ Iern said. ‘May I fly us now, Ronica?’

‘Go ahead.,’ she answered. The knife was once more in her hand.

He grabbed altitude. That should not alarm the opposition. They’d assume he was looking for the beach where he was supposed to go. The jet buzzed him, impatiently, and climbed higher.

Soon he did spy the destination, a white crescent shadowed by the pines that gloomed behind. He moved toward it. When above, he went nose up and started backing earthward. After a short while the Maurai craft entered his view, a hundred meters off, matching his descent. He felt how his light vessel shuddered in the turbulence of yonder exhaust.

An inner trembling went through him. He was about to attack brave men who had done him no harm and would have made him welcome, in order to save a pair of devils who –
And to save me. And maybe afterward, somehow, Ronica can explain, can justify – I always have wondered about the rightness of the Power War.