For Love and Glory

II

The spot was about halfway between. All four halted. For an instant only the wind spoke.

After an appraising look, the man apparently decided that Anglay was their likeliest common language. “Greeting, my lady, sir.” She didn’t recognize his accent. The voice was resonant, though she guessed from it that he couldn’t carry a tune if it had handles. “Welcome. Maybe.” He added the last word with a grin. She suspected it was not entirely in jest.

“Thank you,” she replied. Her glance searched him. He stood tall in his rough garb, thick-shouldered, slender-hipped. The head was round, the face blunt, blue-eyed, weatherbeaten; a stubble of beard showed he hadn’t bothered lately with depilatory. The light-brown hair grew a bit thin on top but peeked abundantly from under collar and sleeves. By no means unattractive, she thought. “I’m Lissa Davysdaughter Windholm of Asborg—Sunniva III. My companion’s name for human purposes is Karl.”

“What language does he prefer? I know a few.”

“His own. The dominant one on Gargantua,” as humans called the mother planet of that race, a back formation from their name for the race itself. “He understands us quite well.”

“We’d like to understand him, though, wouldn’t we?”

“Shouldn’t my translator be set for that?”

He laughed. “A touch, my lady! Well, I’m Torben Hebo. My partner is Dzesi, from her native world.”

The other made a gesture involving her knife. “S-s-su alach.” She switched to Anglay. Her species could render human sounds fairly well, with hissing overtones and an underlying growl. “Peace between us, Lissa Windholm and Karl Gargantuan.”

“Peace in truth, Dzesi,” Karl answered through the device. “I request knowledge of your origins, that we may address you in seemly wise.”

Lissa realized, startled, that he had some familiarity with Rikhans—must have had dealings, probably scientific. Fortunate! Her acquaintance was minimal, almost entirely from what she had learned in school and from occasional anecdotes. They were said to be innately proud and touchy.

The anthropard’s eerily humanlike mouth made a smile, baring pointed reddish teeth. Otherwise the visage, with its slit-pupilled amber eyes, flat single-nostrilled nose, upstanding tufted ears, and long cilia, suggested a cat more than anything else. The body, nude except for orange-hued, black-spotted fur and a belt holding two pouches and the knife, was also not unlike Lissa’s, in a huge-chested, breastless, wasp-waisted fashion. The long legs brought the height to about the same as the man’s.

“Yes-s,” she said. “I am of the Ulas Trek in Ghazu.”

“In honor,” Karl responded.

“Accepted and offered.”

Lissa turned to Hebo. “But where are you from, sir, and what’s your allegiance?”

He shrugged. “Everywhere, and to my friends.” With another laugh: “Hey, this is an unexpected pleasure. Welcome for sure, Lissa—and, uh, Karl, of course. Come on, we’re being rotten hosts, let’s get you settled down and have a drink for openers.”

He was scanning her with imperfectly concealed lust. That was natural under the circumstances, even a compliment if he kept it under control. She was not tall but full-bodied, supple, tawny of skin and high of cheekbones, short-nosed, heavy-lipped, stubborn-chinned, mahogany hair banged and bobbed. Her last rejuvenation having been eighteen years ago, time had thus far only laid a few laughter lines at the hazel eyes. And she always carried her biological age well, whatever it was at any given time.

“We thank you, but we must take your hospitality provisionally,” Karl said toward Dzesi.

“Your warning satisfies,” the Rikhan told him.

“For now, anyway,” said Hebo. Quickly: “We’ve got a lot to talk about. Plus that drink.”

He led the way. Dzesi came well behind.

Karl signed to Lissa that she should lower the volume of the translator before he explained: “Her ancestors seldom went about without a rearguard. To provide one was an amicable act. The feuds are now ended—or sublimated—but traditions endure. And, I believe, instincts. Ghazu is largely steppe. Its inhabitants are the only known beings who, nomadic, independently developed high technology.”

Lissa nodded. What a diverse and wonderful universe she lived in!

The habitation dome was clean, and neat where neatness counted. Hebo’s things showed a certain bachelor disarray. Dzesi’s things were few. The humans sat on folding chairs, the Rikhan on her haunches, the Gargantuan balanced on his tail. Hebo broke out a bottle of excellent whiskey for Lissa and himself, not diluting it much. Dzesi poured water from a gilt bottle into a decorated drinking horn and sipped ceremoniously, almost religiously. Karl had tea from his own canteen. Everybody knew how poisonous alcohol was to his kind.

Hebo lifted his tumbler. “Here’s to friendship.”

“Indeed.” No matter how much she enjoyed the dram she took, Lissa tautened. “I must say, though, you haven’t seemed eager for it.”

“Business is business,” Hebo replied, unabashed. “Now that you’ve found us, let’s make the best of it.”

“What’s your business, then, if you please?”

“I might ask why you care. A whole planet should be plenty big enough for all, no?”

“If nothing else, we’re concerned about possible damage. You can’t be unaware of what ecological havoc can start if strict precautions aren’t taken, especially when biochemistries are strongly similar.” She was sounding like an elementary school teacher, she heard. Amusement flickered across his face. She didn’t want that. “And now, this object in the river—what’s it mean, what’s its scientific value—and you haven’t reported it. I imagine you counted on sheer area to hide you.”

His grin flashed afresh. “Hey, I like your frankness. It’s a long story on both sides, I’ll bet. You’re with a scientific expedition, right?” She nodded. “Yeah, Dzesi and I guessed that, when we detected your ship and base as we approached. Whose are they?”

“You could have learned that when you arrived.” His gaze on her stayed shameless. “Our expedition originated on Asborg. Several Houses there sponsor what planetary exploration and research their means allow. This time it’s mine and one other. Jonna has been neglected since it was first found and skimpily surveyed.”

“Jonna? Your people’s name?”

A second sip glowed along her tongue. She relaxed somewhat and smiled. “Better than a catalogue number.”

“Seems like your party’s awfully small. To judge by the glimpse we had. No offense, but how much can you do, working out of one camp in—how long a stay?”

She sighed. “Two years. Asborgan, that is; twenty-one months Earth standard. The most the consortium can afford at this stage.” Too many worlds, she thought, too full of unknownness, and we sophonts too few. “But a beginning. There’s no such thing as useless information, insight, is there?” Enthusiasm surged. “Who knows? We could make a discovery important enough that major institutions on several planets will mount a real effort.” She curbed it. “You may have made one, Captain Hebo.”

“Torben, Lissa. Formality doesn’t belong hereabouts.”

The Rikhan surprised her by taking her side. “Tradition is not a shield to lower lightly.”

“Speak for your own folk, partner. Uh, not to get forward, Lissa, or m’lady Windholm if you’d rather. How did you find us?”

“A monitor satellite of ours captured a view.” Happenstance, as enormous as the region was, but not too improbable, given the capabilities.

“I reckoned so. We’d figured it was lucky for us your base is on the next continent. Well, our luck didn’t hold out. Not that any harm’s necessarily been done. For sure, none was intended.”

“You didn’t respond to our calls,” she accused.

“Is that compulsory? They weren’t distress signals.”

Her amity dimmed. “You hoped we didn’t receive more than an inadequate image that could be misleading, and we’d be too busy to investigate just on the strength of it. Didn’t you?”

He laughed again. “That was sort of what we hoped. At least, we were buying a little time. But, say, if you wanted to check, why not send a flyer directly?”

“We are busy,” she admitted. “Undermanned, underequipped, under a deadline because of supplies—” She stiffened her backbone. “It chanced that Karl and I were in this vicinity. Base asked us to go have a look.”

He raised beaker and brows together. “On foot?”

“Our flyer is parked about fifty hours’ journey away by the most direct route,” Karl put in. “Our mission is to conduct a random-sampling investigation of nature in these parts, on the ground, for comparison with data from elsewhere. Brief, superficial, inadequate in itself, granted; but trained observers may conceivably come upon a clue that causes research to redirect itself. Since, in our ignorance, one direction was as good as another, we readily agreed to make for this point.”

Hebo kept his attention on the woman. “So you’re a xenobiologist, Lissa?”

“No, Captain Hebo,” she said. “I’m a—generalist. I’ve simply done a fair amount of wilderness exploration on more than one planet, and the forest here is not too unlike others for scouts afoot to cope with.” The joy of it! “Karl’s the scientist.”

“And the muscle, I see. Not that you don’t have mighty good-looking muscles yourself,” Hebo purred.

She felt herself flush, and snapped, “Very well, here we are. Now it’s the turn of you two to explain what you’re at.”