A Stone in Heaven

XI

Hooligan flitted back westward until the broad dim sheet of Lake Roah glimmered below her. The terminator storm had moved on and the night was at peace.

There was no peace in Flandry. The lines were drawn harsh in his face and his fingers moved with controlled savagery as he piloted. The navigation system and a map found for him the bay on the south marge that Banner had picked. Instruments told him that everything was sealed; Chives pattered about to make certain. For a minute, gravity drive roiled water, then the little ship was under the surface. She sank fifty meters before coming to rest in ooze and murk.

Her topside was less far down. Flandry shut off or damped powered units as much as he could. The lake screened most emission, but not all; an intensive search could find him, and he lived by the principle of never giving an enemy a free ride. The largest demand on the generators while lying quiet was for the interior fields that maintained normal weight against Ramnu’s pull. It helped to be oriented lengthwise, not needing a tensor component to keep feet drawn deckward as when the vessel was in vertical mode. Yet six out of seven standard gees were still being counteracted. He and Chives could endure being heavier than on Terra—say two gees—for as long as they must endure this wait.

First he activated one of the numerous gadgets he had had made for Hooligan over the years. A miniature hatch in the outer hull opened and a buoyant object emerged, trailing a wire. Its casing was of irregular shape; unless you came within centimeters, it looked like a chance bit of vegetable matter, on any of hundreds of planets, bobbing about. In reality, it was an antenna and a fish-eye video scanner. Transmitted, computer-refined, optically amplified, the image on the screen beneath was of less than homeview quality—“but ’tis enough, ’twill serve,” Flandry judged. He set a monitor to sound an alarm if a member of certain classes of objects appeared. Thereafter he reduced the negagravity, and his mass laid hold of him and dragged.

“That was fun,” he said to no one in particular. “Now what shall we play?”

Can’t get drunk, or drugged any different way, he thought. If and when I need to be alert, I’ll receive no advance notice. Electrostim? No, the after-euphoria might fade too slowly. I need to be mean and keen. Besides, it wouldn’t feel right to sit tickling my pleasure center while Banner’s in peril of her life and hurting on account of her friend.

Ha, getting moral, am I? Probably need a fresh course of antisenescents.

He rose and made his way aft, feeling every step, feeling how he must strain to hold his spine erect. In earlier days, he had shortened his hated exercises by turning up the weight before he did them; and under standard conditions, he seldom noticed himself walking—he floated. Nowadays—Well, he wasn’t yet elderly, he could still pace most men twenty or thirty years his junior, but a hundred variable cues kept him reminded that time was always gnawing, the snake at the root of Yggdrasil. Who was it had said once that youth is too precious to be wasted on the young?

Chives was in the saloon, stooped under the burden. “Sir,” he reproached, “you did not warn me of this change in environment. May I ask how long it is to prevail?”

“Sure, you may, but don’t expect an answer,” Flandry said. “Hours, days? Sorry. You knew we’d have to lie doggo, so I assumed you’d realize this was included.” With concern, “Is it too hard on you?”

“No, sir. I do fear it will adversely affect luncheon. I was planning an omelet. Under two gravities, it would get leathery. Will sandwiches be acceptable instead?”

Flandry sat down and laughed. Why not? The gods, if any, did. I sometimes think we were created because the gods wanted to be entertained one evening by a farce—but no, that can’t be. We are high comedy at least.

The prospector who spoke some Anglic was called Ayon Oressa’ul. Folk hereabouts did not live in the large, shared territory of a clan, but on patches of land, each owned by a single family which bequeathed a common surname to its children. Ayon was evidently trusted by the chief (?) of Dukeston, for he was put in charge of the visitors. That involved a lengthy discussion on a farseer in his house, while they waited outside. He came back to them looking self-important.

“We will quarter you in my dwelling and its neighbors,” he announced. His gestures included three round-walled, peak-roofed structures. Their sameness made them yet more peculiar than did their foreign style and artificial materials. Inhabitants stared at the strangers but made no advances. Their postures suggested they were used to regarding all outsiders as inferior, no matter whether one among those understood human language. “You are not to leave except under escort, and always together.”

Yewwl sensed a catch of Banner’s breath. It brought home anew to her how cut off her band was, how precarious its grip on events. Her natural reaction was anger, an impulse to strike out. She suppressed it. Not only would it compromise her venture, but that in turn would gust her and her companions down into mortal jeopardy. She was ready to die if that would help avenge Robreng and their young ones upon the Ice; but having worked off the worst grief, she was once more finding too many splendors in the world to wish to leave it.

She smoothed her stance and asked politely, “Why? We intend no harm, we who came in search of aid.”

“You might well come to harm yourselves,” Ayon said. “Or you might, through ignorance, cause damage. Things strange and powerful are at work here.”

Yewwl seized the chance. “We are eager to see them. Besides being curious, perhaps we will get an idea of how our country can be rescued. Please!”

“Well … well, I suppose that would be safe enough.”

“At once, I beg you.”

“What, you do not want to rest and eat first?”

“We have no sharp need of either. Also, we fear that at any moment the humans may decide to deny our plea. Then we would be sent away, no? Unless, before, we have thought of a more exact proposal to make. Please, kind male.”

(The conversation was not this straightforward. Yewwl and Ayon had gained a bit more mutual fluency, talking on the way to town, but it remained awkward. She saw advantages in that, such as not having to explain precisely—and falsely—what she had to do with Wainwright Station.)

Ayon relented. He was proud of the community he served and would enjoy showing it off. “I am required to take certain things along when conducting you,” he said, and went back into his house. He re-emerged with a box strapped to his left wrist, which Banner identified as a radiophone, and a larger object sheathed on his right thigh, which Yewwl recognized as a blaster. “Stay close by me and touch nothing without permission,” he ordered.

—“This is less than we hoped for,” she told her oath-sister. “I meant to go about freely.”

—“They’re showing normal caution,” the woman decided. “They can’t suspect your real purpose, or you’d be prisoners. We may actually manage to turn the situation to our use. The guide may well answer key questions … if he continues to take you for an ignorant barbarian.”

“What’s going on, Mother?” Skogda asked. He radiated impatience. “What’s he about?”

Yewwl explained. Her son spread vanes and showed teeth. “That’s an insult,” he rasped.

“Calm, calm,” she urged. “We must put our pride away here. Later, homebound, we’ll track down plenty of animals and kill them.”

Ayon gave them both a hard stare. Banner saw and warned:—“Body language doesn’t differ much from end to end of the continent. He senses tension. Never forget, he can call armed force to him from above.”

“Skogda too is anxious to start off,” Yewwl assured Ayon. “Overly anxious, maybe, but we’ve fared a long, gruelling way for this.”

He eased. “If nothing else, you will carry back tales of wonder,” he replied. “Come.”

They left the native quarter and followed a street that descended into a hollow between two hills. The entire bottom was occupied by a single building, blank of walls and roof. Intake towers showed that still more was underground. Stacks vented steam and smoke. In the glare of lights, vehicles trundled back and forth.

—“That is, or was, the palladium refinery; but it’s incredibly enlarged.” Banner’s voice shook. “Ask him about it. I’ll give you the questions.”

—“You’d best,” Yewwl said sardonically, “for I’ve no wisp of an idea what you’re talking about.”

Discourse struggled. Ayon described the ore that went in and the metal that came out. (—“Yes, palladium.”) He related how the ingots were taken to the field, loaded aboard the sky-ships, and carried off. He supposed it went to the distant home of the humans. (—“There’s no reason for any planet but Hermes to import it from here, and I’ve never heard that Hermes is using an unusual amount … “)

“I will show you something more interesting,” Ayon offered.

The street climbed to a crest whereon stood another big building, this one with many transparent sections—which Yewwl thought of as glass—in walls and roof. Within, beneath lights less clement than the sun, a luminance like that aboard the vessel she had ridden, were rows and tiers of tanks. Plants grew there, exotically formed, intensely green.

“Here the humans raise food they can eat,” Ayon said. “It isn’t vital, for the ships bring in supplies, but they like to add something fresh.” Banner had already informed Yewwl of this; now the latter must translate for her followers. “In late years they have added far more rooms for the purpose, underground. Many of us worked in the construction, and no few of us now work at preparing and packing what is gathered, for shipment elsewhere.” He strutted. “It must be uncommonly tasty, for the humans to want it at their home.”

—“It doesn’t go there,” Banner observed. “Not anywhere … except to a military depot?”

At her prompting, Yewwl inquired, “What else do you—your folk—make for them?”

“Lumber and iha oil in the lowlands. Ores in the hills, though mainly those are dug by machines after persons like me have found veins. Lately we’ve been set searching for a different kind. And about the same time, a number of us were trained to handle machines that make clothes and armor.”

“Clothes? Armor?” Yewwl and Banner exclaimed almost together.

“Yes, come and see.” Ayon took a westbound street toward the outskirts of town.

“What is all this?” Skogda asked.

“Nothing,” Yewwl said. She needed silence in which to think, to sort out everything that was bursting upon her.

“Oh, no, other than naught is in the air,” Skogda retorted, close to fury. “See how your own vanes are stiffened. Am I an infant, that you pouch me away from truth?”

“Yes, we fared as your friends, not your onsars,” Ych added.

“You, a friend, an equal?” Iyaal snapped, indignant on her mistress’ behalf. “You’re not even in her service.”

“But Ych and I are your equals, Yewwl, and have our clans to answer to,” Ngaru reminded. “For them, we require you share what you learn with us, your way-siblings.”

—“It may be for the best.” Trouble was heavy in Banner’s voice. “A fuller understanding of what’s afoot may make them calmer, more cooperative. You must judge, dear.”

Yevvwl decided. She had thin choice, anyhow. “It begins to seem these star-folk are secretly readying for an outright attack on ours,” she said. “I know not why; my oath-sister has tried to make the reason clear to me, and failed. If we see that they forge the stuff of battle here, the likelihood of it heightens.”

“Attack—!” Kuzhinn gasped. “All of them together, like a pack of lopers?”

Ayon halted. His hand dropped to the blaster, his vanes and ears drew back, his pupils narrowed beyond what the glare brought about. “What are you saying among each other?” he demanded. “You do not bear yourselves like peaceful people.”

Yewwl had taken a lead in moots at home and assemblies on the Volcano for well-nigh twenty years. She relaxed her whole frame, signalled graciousness with her vanes, and purred, “I was translating, of course, but I fear I alarmed them. Remember, we are completely new to this kind of place. The high walls, the narrownesses between, light, noise, smells, vehicles rushing by, everything sets us on edge. Mention of armor has raised a fear that you—the local Ramnuans—may plan to oust us from our lands, against the coming of the Ice. Or if you plot no direct attack on us, you may mount one on neighboring barbarians. That could start a wave of invasions off westward, which would finally crash over our country.” She spread open palms. “Ai-ah, I know well it’s ridiculous. Why should you, when you already have from the humans more than what we came seeking? But it would soothe them to see what you really do make.”

—“Oh, good, good!” Banner cheered.

Ayon dropped his wariness, in a slightly contemptuous manner. “Come,” he invited.

Clangor, lividness, a vast sooty hall where natives controlled engines that cut, hammered, annealed, transported … a warehouse where rack after rack held what appeared to be helmets, corselets, arm-and legpieces, and shapes more eldritch which Banner had names for … It was as if Yewwl could feel the woman’s horror.

“You see that none of this could fit any of us,” Ayon fleered. “It is for humans. They take it elsewhere.”

—“Combat space armor; auxiliary gear; small arms components.” The Anglic words in Yewwl’s head were a terrible litany. “I suppose he’s established a score of factories on out-of-the-way worlds, none too big to be hidden or disguised—” Urgently, in the tongue of the clans: “Find out about those garments.”

“Yes, we receive cloth and tailor it to pattern,” was Ayon’s reply to Yewwl’s leading questions. “The finished clothes are alike, except in size and ornament; yes, also for humans to wear.”

—“Uniforms,” Banner nearly groaned. “Instead of making a substantial, traceable investment in automated plants, he uses native hand labor where he can, for this and the fighting equipment and—and how much else?”

Fear walked the length of Yewwl’s spine. “Oath-sister,” she asked, “have I seen enough for you?”

—“No. It’s not conclusive. Learn all you can, brave dear.” Anguish freighted the tone.

“Does this prove what you have fretted over?” Skogda breathed.

“Thus it seems,” his mother answered low. “But we need our fangs deeper in the facts, for if the thing is true, it is frightful.”

“We will take that bite,” he vowed.

Ayon led them out. “We’ve walked far,” he said. “I grow hungry, whether or not you do. We’ll return home.”

“Can we go forth again later?” Yewwl requested. “This is such a wonder.”

He rippled his vanes. “If the humans haven’t dismissed you. I’ve no hope for your errand. What under the sky can you offer them?”

“Well, could we go back by a different route?”

Ayon conceded that, and padded rapidly from the factory. Its metal clamor dwindled behind Yewwl. She looked around her with eyes that a sense of time blowing past had widened.

The tour had gone beyond the compact part of town. New structures stood well apart, surrounded by link fences and guarded by armed Ramnuans. The street was now a road, running along a high ridge from north to south, over stony, thinly snow-covered ground. Eastward, the hill was likewise bare of anything except brush, to its foot. There a frozen river gleamed. Across a bridge, Dukeston reared and roared and glared. Westward lay only night, wild valleys, tors, canyons, cliffs, tarns. A cold wind crept out of the wastes and ruffled her pelt. The few stars she could see were as chill, and very small. Banner said they were suns, but how remote, then, how ghastly remote …

Ahead, the road looped past another featureless building which air towers showed to be the cover of caverns beneath. “What is in that?” Yewwl queried, pointing.

“There they work the new ore I spoke of earlier,” Ayon said.

—“Find out what it is!” Banner hissed.

Yewwl tried. The clumsiness of conversation helped mask her directness, and the rest of her party, in their unmistakable hostility, trailed her and the guide. “Ruad’a’a,” Ayon responded finally. “I have no other word for it. The humans use ours.”

—“Oh, shit!” Banner exploded; and: “But why would they go to that trouble? Ordinarily they use Anglic names for such things. Get him to describe it.”

Yewwl made the attempt. Ayon wanted to know why she cared. She thought fast and explained that, if the Dukeston humans valued the stuff, and her homeland chanced to be supplied with it, that would be a bargaining point for her.

“Well, it’s black and often powdery,” Ayon said. “They get a kind of metal from it.”

—“Could be pitchblende,” Banner muttered in Anglic. To Yewwl: “Find out more.”

Ayon could relate little else. Native labor had done only the basic construction; after that, secrecy had clamped down. He did know that large, complex apparatus had been installed, and the interior was conditioned for humans, and machines regularly collected the residue that came out and hauled it off to dump at sea, and the end product left here in sealed boxes which must be thick, perhaps lead-lined, since they were heavy for their size.

—“Fissionable? Nobody uses fission for anything important … except in warheads—” The incomprehensible words from afar were a chant of desperation. In Yewwl’s speech, Banner said out of lips that must be stretched tight across her teeth: “It would be the final proof. But I can’t think how you could learn, my sister—”

“What is this?” Skogda growled.

“Nothing,” Yewwl said hastily. “He’s just been describing what they make there.” If her son knew that Banner thought it might be the very house of destruction—if that was what Banner thought—he could go wild.

“No,” he denied. “You may fool everybody else, Mother, but I can read you.” His fangs glistened forth, hackles lifted, ears lay back, vanes extended and shivered. “You agreed we, your companions, have the right to know what’s happening.”

“Well, yes, it does seem that something weird goes on, but I don’t understand what,” she replied with mustered calm. “I would guess we’ve discovered as much as we’re able to. Let’s stay quiet, give no alarm, till we’re safe—”

Ayon stepped backward. “The young fellow stands as if he’s about to attack me,” he said. His own voice and posture were charged with mistrust. “The rest of your following are fight-ready too.”

“No, no, they are simply excited by this experience.” Yewwl insisted. A sick feeling swept through her. Ayon didn’t believe. And surely it must seem peculiar to him that a group of touring foreigners were so taut.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But I’ve served the humans through my whole life—”

And grown loyal, as I am to Banner, Yewwl realized. And observed that in these past few years they have been working on a thing vital to them. They have not told you what, but you sense that this is true, and for their sake you are wary. No doubt it is a reason why they put us in your charge.

“You may be harmless,” Ayon continued. “Or you may be spies for a horde plotting to sack the town, or—I know not. Let the humans investigate.” His blaster came forth. “Tell your friends to hold where they are,” he ordered. “I am going to call for assistance. If you behave yourselves, if you really have no evil intentions, you will not be hurt.”

“What does he mean?” Skogda roared.

—“Yewwl, Yewwl.” Banner’s tone shuddered. “Do as he says. Don’t resist. It would be hopeless. Dominic and I will free you somehow—”

“He’s grown suspicious, thanks to the lot of you and the fuss you’ve made,” Yewwl told her group. “He’s sending for people to take us prisoner—”

She got no chance to explain that surrender was the single sensible course. Skogda howled and sprang.

Even as he did, his mother saw upon him his astonished regret, the instant knowledge that his nerves had betrayed him. Then the blaster shot.

Its blue-white flare would have left her blinded for a while, had she seen it full on. As was, her son’s body shielded her eyes from most of it. After-images danced burning; they did not hide how Skogda crashed into Ayon and the two of them went down, but Skogda was now only a carcass which had had a great hole scorched through it.

“Ee-hooa!” shrieked Yewwl, and launched herself. Ayon was struggling out from under the corpse. His left wrist brought the caller to his mouth. “Help, help,” he moaned. Yewwl was upon him. Her knife struck. She felt the heaviness of the blow, the flesh giving way beneath it. She twisted the blade and saw blood spurt.

Iyaal and Kuzhinn were shaking her. “We must flee,” they were saying. “Come, please come.”—In her head, Banner stopped weeping and said almost levelly, “Yes, get away fast. They have instruments which can track you by your body heat, but first they’ll need to give those to people who can use them—”

Skogda is destroyed, Robreng’s son and mine, Skogda whom I bore and pouched and sent off laughing for joy on his first glide and saw wedded, Skogda who gave me grandchildren to love. This thing was done in Dukeston. Aii, aii, I will give Dukeston to the wildfire, I will strew its dwellers for the carrion fowl, I am become the lightning against them. Here I am, slayers. Come and be slain!

“Yewwl, go,” Banner pleaded. “If you stay, you’ll die, and for nothing. I will punish them, Dominic and I. Your oath-sister swears it.”

Almost, Yewwl obeyed. They can take such a vengeance as the world has never seen. Let me abide until they are ready. A few words more would have mastered the blind rage that was grief. But—

Huang flipped the main switch. The system went off line; the night at the far end of the continent blanked out; Banner stared into his face and the barren walls behind it.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Abrams,” she heard, and knew in a dim way that his formality was meant to show his regret was genuine. “I know you aren’t supposed to be disturbed when you’re in rapport. But you did issue strict orders—”

“What?” She couldn’t see him well through her tears.

“About newcomers. You were to be informed immediately, under any circumstances.”

“Yes … ”

“Well, we’ve received a call. Three spacecraft of the militia will land in half an hour. The Duke himself is aboard, and requires your attendance.” Anxiety: “I hope I didn’t do wrong to tell him you’re here, when he asked.”

“I didn’t tell you not to,” Banner said mechanically. How could I have?

Huang scowled. “What’s going on, anyhow? Something deucedly strange.”

“You’ll hear later—”

For a moment, nearly every part of Banner’s being cried to be back with Yewwl. Nothing but the memory of Dominic stood between. But he had described, unsparingly, what could happen if she fell into Cairncross’ hands—to her and afterward to several billion sentient beings. Yewwl, Yewwl, Yewwl was an atom among them.

Banner removed the helmet and lurched to her feet. Flandry’s words against this contingency flowed of themselves. “Listen. We have an emergency situation. As you may have guessed, the admiral didn’t come here just to oblige me; it was on his Grace’s personal commission. I have to leave for a while—at once—alone—No, not a word! I haven’t time. Tell them I’ll be back shortly. His Grace will know what I mean.”

All too well, he’ll know. But I can be gone by then, a flying speck on a monster world.

She ran from the chamber and the bemused man. She ran from Yewwl. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. The news of her father’s death had not hurt so much.

From somewhere far down inside herself, Yewwl found speech. “Go,” she commanded her followers. “Scatter. Hide in the wilderness. Make your ways home.” It was no fault of theirs that they had helped kill Skogda.

They saw that her fate was upon her, and departed. Air currents streamed over the hillside. They leaped from the ridge, their vanes took hold, they planed off into darkness.

It boomed around Yewwl. A flyer was descending. She took the blaster from Ayon’s slack hand, the weapon that had slain her son. Her oath-sister had let her practice with such things in the past, for sport. She grinned at the oncoming machine, into the wickedness of its guns, and sprang.

Her own vanes thrilled. Each muscle in them rejoiced to stir, tense and flex, become one with the sky and steer her in a long swoop above the world. The chill brought blood alive in them; she felt it throb and glow. Overhead burned stars.

Had the pilot seen her? She’d make sure of that. She took aim and fired. By whatever trick, when she was shooting the beam was merely bright, it did not dazzle. It raised a sharp noise and a stormy odor. When it smote, brilliance fountained.

The flyer veered. Its wake thundered around Yewwl. She rode that surge, rising higher on it. Then she was above her foe, she could glide down as if upon prey.

A hailstorm struck. She tumbled under the blows. There was no pain, she wouldn’t live long enough to feel any, but she knew she had been torn open. Somehow she recovered, kept her vanes proudly bearing her, went arching toward the frozen river. The aircraft slowed, drew near, sought to give its pilot a good look at his opponent. Yewwl saw it blurrily, through waves of blindness, but she saw it, and his head within the transparent canopy. She took aim again and held the beam fast on target.

The pilot died. His aircraft spun away, hit the ice below, broke through and sank. More machines hovered close. No matter them. Yewwl spent her last strength in swerving about and aiming herself at the opened water. She would lay her bones to rest above those of the man she had slain to her wounding. Oath-sister, farewell.