A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

VI

As Flandry conned the Hooligan, Diomedes grew huge in the screens before him. Too heavily clouded for oceans and continents to show as anything but blurs, the dayside glowed amber-orange, with tinges of rose and violet, under the light of a dull sun. The nighted part gave pale whiteness back to moons and stars, reflections off ice and snow. When Kossara last came here, equinox was not long past; now absolute winter lay upon fully half the planet.

Flandry’s attention was concentrated on piloting. Ordinarily he would have left that to the automatics, or to Chives if no ground-control facilities existed. But this time he must use both skill and the secret data he had commandeered back on Terra, to elude the Imperial space sentries.

Most were small detector-computer units in orbit, such as supervised traffic around any world of the Empire which got any appreciable amount of it, guarding against smugglers, hostiles, recklessness, or equipment failures. Flandry had long since rigged his speedster to evade them without much effort, given foreknowledge of their paths. But surely the unrest on Diomedes, the suspicion of outside interference, had caused spacecraft to be added. Sneaking past these required an artist. He enjoyed it.

Just the same, somewhere at the back of awareness, memory rehearsed what he had learned about his goal. Pictures and passages of text flickered by:

“Among the bodies which men have named Diomedes—among all the planets we know—in many respects, this one is unique.

“Though not unusually old, the system is metal-poor. To explain that, Montoya suggested chemical fractionation of the original cloud of dust and gas by the electromagnetic action of a passing neutron star … As a result, while Diomedes has a mass of 4.75 Terra, the low net density gives it a surface gravity of only 1.10 standard. However, so large an object was bound to generate an extensive atmosphere. Between gravitational potential resulting from a diameter twice Terran, and low temperature and irradiation resulting from the G8 sun, much gas was retained. Life has modified it. Today mean sea-level pressure is 6.2 bars; the partial pressures of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide are about the same as on Terra, the rest of the air consisting chiefly of neon …

“Through some cosmic accident, the spin axis of Diomedes, like that of Uranus in the Solar System, lies nearly in the orbital plane. The arctic and antarctic circles thus almost coincide with the equator. In the course of a year 11 percent longer than Terra’s, practically the whole of each hemisphere will be sunless for a period ranging from weeks to months. Chill even in summer, land and sea become so frigid in winter that all but highly specialized life-forms must either hibernate or migrate …

“Progressive autochthonous cultures had brought Stone Age technology, the sole kind possible for them, to an astonishing sophistication. Once contacted by humans, they were eager to trade, originally for metals, subsequently for means to build modern industries of their own. Diomedes offers numerous organic substances, valuable for a variety of purposes, cheaper to buy from natives than to synthesize …

“The biochemistry producing these compounds is only terrestroid in the most general sense. It consists of proteins in water solution, carbohydrates, lipids, etc. But few are nourishing to humans and many are toxic. They permeate the environment. A man cannot survive a drink of water or repeated breaths of air, unless he has received thorough immunization beforehand. (Of course, that includes adaptation to the neon, which otherwise at this concentration would have ill effects too.) Short-term visitors prefer to rely on their basic antiallergen, helmets, protective clothing, and packaged rations.

“The Diomedean must be similarly careful about materials from offplanet. In particular, most metals are poisonous to him. That he can use copper and iron anyway, as safely as we use beryllium or plutonium, is a tribute to his intelligence. But the precautions by themselves have inevitably joined those factors which force radical change upon ancient customs. Some cultures have adjusted without extreme stress. Others continue to suffer upheaval. Injustice and alienation bring dissension and violence … ”

Although, Flandry thought, if we Imperials packed up our toys and went home, everybody here would soon be a great deal worse off. There’ve been too many irreversible changes. You can’t even sit still in this universe and not make waves.

The sun was never down in summer; but Diomedes’ 12.5-hour rotation spun it through a circle. At the point in space and time where Hooligan landed, sharply rising mountains to the south concealed the disc.

The saloon was warm and scented. Nevertheless, what he saw in the screen made Flandry grimace and give an exaggerated shiver. “Brrr! No wonder climes like this foster Spartan virtues. The inhabitants have to be in training before they can emigrate and dispossess whoever lives on desirable real estate.”

“You can’t appreciate, can you, here is home for the Lannachska that they only want to keep unruined,” Kossara said.

Couldn’t she recognize a joke? Maybe not. She’d held aloof since he interviewed her, studying as he urged but saying nothing about what meaning she drew from it.

What a waste, Flandry sighed. We could have had a gorgeous voyage, you and 1.

His gaze lingered on her. A coverall did not hide the fullness of a tall and supple body. Blue-green eyes, mahogany locks, strongly sculptured countenance had begun to haunt his reveries, and in the last few nightwatches his dreams. Did she really speak in the exact husky contralto of Kathryn McCormac? …

She sensed his regard, flushed, and attacked: “We are on Lannach, are we not? I think I recall several of these peaks.”

Flandry nodded and gave his attention back to the view. “Yes. Not far south of Sagna Bay.” He hoped she’d admire how easily he’d found a particular site on the big island, nothing except maps and navigation to guide him down through the stormy atmosphere. But she registered unmixed anger. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t object to that, seeing how carefully I fueled it.

Concealed by an overhanging cliff, the ship stood halfway up a mountain, with an overlook down rugged kilometers to a horizon-gleam which betokened sea. Clouds towered in amethyst heaven, washed by faint pink where lightning did not flicker in blue-black caverns. Crags, boulders, waterfalls reared above talus slopes and murky scraps. Thin grasslike growth, gray thornbushes, twisted low trees grew about; they became more abundant as sight descended toward misty valleys, until at last they made forest. Wings cruised on high, maybe upbearing brains that thought, maybe simple beasts of prey. Faint through the hull sounded a yowl of wind.

“Very well,” Kossara said grimly. “I’ll ask the question you want me to ask. Why are we here? Aren’t you supposed to report in at Thursday Landing?”

“I exercised a special dispensation I have,” Flandry said. “The Residency doesn’t yet know we’ve come. In fact, unless my right hand has lost its cunning, nobody does.”

At least I get a human startlement out of her. He liked seeing expressions cross her face, like clouds and sunbeams on a gusty spring day. “You see,” he explained, “if subversive activities are going on, there’s bound to be a spy or two around Imperial headquarters. News of your return would be just about impossible to suppress. And since you’re in the custody of a Naval officer, it’d alarm the outfit we’re after.

“Whereas, if you suddenly reappear by yourself, right in this hotspot, you’ll surprise them. They won’t have time to get suspicious, I trust. They’ll make you welcome—”

“Why should they?” Kossara interrupted. “They’ll wonder how I got back.”

“Ah, no. Because they won’t know you were ever gone.”

She stared. Flandry explained: “Your companions died. If rebel observers learned that you lived, they learned nothing else. No matter how idiotically my colleagues behaved toward you, I’m sure they followed doctrine and let out no further information. You vanished into their building, and that was that. You were brought from there to the spaceship in a sealed vehicle, weren’t you? … Yes, I knew it … The Corpsmen had no reason to announce you’d been condemned and deported, therefore they did not.

“Accordingly, the rest of the gang—human if any are left on Diomedes, and most certainly a lot of natives—have no reason to suppose you haven’t just been held incommunicado. In fact, that would be a much more logical thing to do than shipping you off to Terra for purchase by any blabbermouth.”

She frowned, less in dislike of him than from being caught up, willy-nilly, by the intellectual problem which his planned deception presented. “But wasn’t it a special team that caught and, and processed me? They may well have left the planet by now.”

“If so, you can say they gave you in charge of the Intelligence agents stationed here semi-permanently. In fact, that’s the safest thing for you to maintain in any event, and quite plausible. We’ll work out a detailed story for you. I have an outline already, subject to your criticism. You wheedled a measure of freedom for yourself. That’s plausible too, if you don’t mind pretending you became the mistress of a bored, lonely commander. At last you managed to steal an aircar. I can supply that; we have two in the hold, one a standard civilian convertible we can set for Diomedean conditions. You fled back here, having enough memories left to know this is where your chances are best of being found by your organization.”

She tensed again, and stretched the words out: “What will you do meanwhile?”

Flandry shrugged. “Not having had your preventive-medical treatment, I’m limited in my scope. Let’s consult. Tentatively, I’ve considered making an appearance in a persona I’ve used before, a harmlessly mad Cosmenosist missionary prospecting for customers on yet another globe. However, I may do best to stay put aboard ship, following your adventures till the time looks ripe for whatever sort of action seems indicated.”

Her starkness deepened. “How will you keep track of me?”

From his pocket Flandry took a ring. On its gold band sparkled what resembled a sapphire. “Wear this. If anybody asks, say you got it from your jailer-lover. It’s actually a portable transmitter, same as your bracelet was on Terra but with its own power source.”

“That little bit of a thing?” She sounded incredulous. “Needing no electronic network around? Reaching beyond line-of-sight? And not detectable by those I spy on?”

Flandry nodded. “It has all those admirable qualities.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“I’m not at liberty to describe the principle. Anyway, nobody ever told me. I’ve indulged in idle speculations about modulated neutrino emission, but they’re doubtless wildly wrong. What I do know is that the thing works.” Flandry paused. “Kossara, I’m sorry, but under any circumstances … before I can release you, before I can even land you again on a prime world like Terra, you’ll have to have wiped from your memory the fact that such gadgets exist. The job will be painless and very carefully done.”

He held out the ring. She half reached for it, withdrew her hand, flickered her glance about till it came to rest on his, and asked most softly: “Why do you think I’ll help you?”

“To earn your liberty,” he answered. Each sentence wrenched at him. “Defect, and you’re outlaw. What chance would you have of getting home? The orbital watch, the surface hunt would be doubled. If you weren’t caught, you’d starve to death after you used up your human-type food.

“And consider Dennitza. Your kin, your friends, small children in the millions, the past and present and future of your whole world. Should they be set at stake, in an era of planet-smasher weapons, for a political point at best, the vainglory of a few aristocrats at worst? You know better, Kossara.”

She stood still for a long while before she took the ring from him and put it on her bridal finger.

“Given the support of a dense atmosphere,” said a text, “the evolution of large flying organisms was profuse. At last a particular species became fully intelligent.

“Typical of higher animals on Diomedes, it was migratory. Homeothermic, bisexual, viviparous, it originally followed the same reproductive pattern as its less developed cousins, and in most cultures still does. In fall a flock moves to the tropics, where it spends the winter. The exertion during so long a flight causes hormonal changes which stimulate the gonads. Upon arrival, there is an orgy of mating. In spring the flock returns home. Females give birth shortly before the next migration, and infants are carried by their parents. Mothers lactate like Terran mammals, and while they do, will not get pregnant. In their second year the young can fly independently, they have been weaned, their mothers are again ready to breed.

“This round formed the basis of a civilization centered on the islands around the Sea of Achan. The natives built towns, which they left every fall and reentered every spring. Here they carried on sedentary occupations, stoneworking, ceramics, carpentry, a limited amount of agriculture. The real foundation of their economy was, however, herding and hunting. Except for necessary spurts of activity, in their homelands they were an easygoing folk, indolent, artistic, ceremonious, matrilineal—since paternity was never certain—and loosely organized into what they called the Great Flock of Lannach.

“But elsewhere a different practice developed. Dwelling on large oceangoing rafts, fishers and seaweed harvesters, the Fleet of Drak’ho ceased migrating. Oars, sails, nets, windlasses, construction and maintenance work kept the body constantly exercised; year-round sexuality, season-free reproduction, was a direct consequence. Patriarchal monogamy ensued. The distances traveled annually were much less than for the Flock, and home was always nearby. It was possible to accumulate heavy paraphernalia, stores, machines, books. While civilization thus became more wealthy and complex than anywhere ashore, the old democratic organization gave way to authoritarian aristocracy.

“Histories roughly parallel to these have taken place elsewhere on the globe. But Lannach and Drak’ho remain the most advanced, populous, materially well-off representatives of these two strongly contrasted life-orderings. When they first made contact, they regarded each other with mutual horror. A measure of tolerance and cooperation evolved, encouraged by offplanet traders who naturally preferred peaceful conditions. Yet rivalry persisted, sporadically flaring into war, and of late has gained new dimensions.

“At the heart of the dilemma is this: that Lannachska culture cannot assimilate high-energy technology, in any important measure, and survive.

“The Drak’ho people have their difficulties, but no impossible choices. Few of them today are sailors. However, fixed abodes ashore are not altogether different from houses on rafts aforetime. Regular hours of work are a tradition, labor is still considered honorable, mechanical skills and a generally technophilic attitude are in the social atmosphere which members inhale from birth. Though machinery has lifted off most Drak’hoans the toil that once gave them a humanlike libido, they maintain it by systematic exercise (or, in increasingly many cases, by drugs), since the nuclear family continues to be the building block of their civilization.

“As producers, merchants, engineers, industrialists, even occasional spacefarers, they flourish, and are on the whole well content.

“But the cosmos of Lannach is crumbling. Either the Great Flock must remain primitive, poor, powerless, prey to storm and famine, pirates and pestilence, or it must modernize—with all that that implies, including earning the cost of the capital goods required. How shall a folk do this who spend half their lives migrating, mating, or living off nature’s summertime bounty? Yet not only is their whole polity founded upon that immemorial cycle. Religion, morality, tradition, identity itself are. Imagine a group of humans, long resident in an unchanged part of Terra, devout churchgoers, for whom the price of progress was that they destroy every relic of the past, embrace atheism, and become homosexuals who reproduce by ectogenesis. For many if not all Lannachska, the situation is nearly that extreme.

“In endless variations around the planet, the same dream is being played. But precisely because the Great Flock has changed more than other nations of its kind, it feels the hurt most keenly, is most divided against itself and embittered vat the outside universe.

“No wonder if revolutionary solutions are sought. Economic, social, spiritual secession, a return to the ways of the ancestors; shouts of protest against ‘discrimination,’ demands for ‘justice,’ help, subsidy, special consideration of every kind; political secession, no more taxes to the planetary peace authority or the Imperium; seizure of power over the whole sphere, establishment of a sovereign autarky—these are among the less unreasonable ideas afloat.

“There is also Alatanism. The Ythrians, not terribly far away as interstellar distances go, have wings. They should sympathize with their fellow flyers on Diomedes more than any biped ever can. They have their Domain, free alike of Empire and Roidhunate, equally foreign to both. Might it not, are its duty and destiny not to welcome Diomedes in?

“The fact that few Ythrian leaders have even heard of Diomedes, and none show the least interest in crusading, is ignored. Mystiques seldom respond to facts. They are instruments which can be played on … ”

Twice had the sun come from the mountains and returned behind them.

“Goodbye, then,” Kossara said.

Flandry could find no better words than “Goodbye. Good luck,” hoarse out of the grip upon his gullet.

She regarded him for a moment, in the entryroom where they stood. “I do believe you mean that,” she whispered.

Abruptly she kissed him, a brief brush of lips which exploded in his heart. She drew back before he could respond. During another instant she poised, upon her face a look of bewilderment at her own action.

Turning, she twisted the handle on the inner airlock valve. He took a following step. “No,” she said. “You can’t live out there, remember?” Her body prepared before she left Dennitza, she closed the portal on him. He stopped where he was. Pumps chugged until gauges told him the chamber beyond was now full of Diomedean air.

The outer valve opened. He bent over a viewscreen. Kossara’s tiny image stepped forth onto the mountainside. A car awaited her. She bounded into it and shut its door. A minute later, it rose.

Flandry sought the control cabin, where were the terminals of his most powerful and sensitive devices. The car had vanished above clouds. “Pip-ho, Chives,” he said tonelessly. A hatch swung wide. His Number Two atmospheric vehicle glided from the hold. It looked little different from the first, its engine, weapons, and special equipment being concealed in the teardrop fuselage. It disappeared more slowly, for the Shalmuan pilot wanted to stay unseen by the woman whom he stalked. But at last Flandry sat alone.

She promised she’d help me. What an inexperienced liar she is.

He felt no surprise when, after a few minutes, Chives’ voice jumped at him: “Sir! She is descending … She has landed in the forest beside a river. I am observing through a haze by means of an infrared ’scope. Do you wish a relay?”

“Not from that,” Flandry said. Too small, too blurry. “From her bracelet.”

A screen blossomed in leaves and hasty brown water. Her right hand entered. Off the left, which he could not see, she plucked the ring, which he glimpsed before she tossed it into the stream.

“She is running for cover beneath the trees, sir,” Chives reported.

Of course, replied the emptiness in Flandry. She thinks that, via the ring, I’ve seen what she’s just done, in the teeth of every pledge she gave me. She thinks that now, if she moves fast, she can vanish into the woods—make her own way afoot, find her people and not betray them, or else die striving.

Whereas in fact the ring was only intended to lull any fears of surveillance she might have after getting rid of it—only a circlet on her bridal finger—and Chives has a radio resonator along to activate her bracelet—the slave bracelet I told her would be blind and deaf outside of Terra.

“I do not recommend that I remain airborne, sir,” Chives said. “Allow me to suggest that, as soon as the young lady has passed beyond observing me, I land likewise and follow her on the ground. I will leave a low-powered beacon to mark this site. You can flit here by grav-belt and retrieve the vehicles, sir. Permit me to remind you to wear proper protection against the unsalubrious ambience.”

“Same to you, old egg, and put knobs on yours.” Flandry’s utterance shifted from dull to hard. “I’ll repeat your orders. Trail her, and call in to the recorder cum relay ’caster I’ll leave here, in whatever way and at whatever times seem discreet. But ‘discretion’ is your key word. If she appears to be in danger, getting her out of it—whether by bringing me in to help or by taking action yourself—that gets absolute priority. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Did the high, not quite human accent bear a hint of shared pain? “Despite regrettable tactical necessities, Donna Vymezal must never be considered a mere counter in a game.” That’s for personnel and planets, the anonymous billions—and, savingly, for you and me, eh, Chives? “Will you proceed to the Technic settlement when your preparations are complete?”

“Yes,” Flandry said. “Soon. I may as well.”