Fire Time

TWELVE

Dejerine had found it astonishingly hard to acquire a site for his ground installations. He wanted a place not too far from Primavera, and discovered an area two hundred kilometers eastward which his planetological team reported was suitable. It was otherwise useless land, stony, dusty when rain didn’t make it muddy, barren aside from scattered leathery shrubs, deserted by the natives. Repeated periastrons were doubtless responsible for that, droughts which killed off vegetation followed by cloudburst after cloudburst to wash away exposed topsoil. The planet had many such regions. Yet a substantial water table remained, the bedrock was solid, the surrounding hills could be quarried for building material.

He expected that the Tayessa family, to whose ranch this desert belonged, would be glad to sell it. No doubt they’d jack the price as high as they were able, but he had plenty of gold along, plus authority to draw pesos if Federation currency was demanded. He was dumfounded when, after conferring, the owners refused.

On the basis of what xenological knowledge he had, he replied to their representative: “I am aware that no individual owns the land, but rather the Tayessas do, and you must consider the rights of generations unborn.

However, surely titles change hands, for one reason or another. Have you the right to deny the unborn what my gold can buy?”

“What can it?” she answered through the interpreter Hanshaw had supplied. “The Red Sun is here. Who can eat gold, or shelter in it?”

“I can pay in money of my people.”

“How can we spend that, if no shipments are coming from Earth?”

In the end, he negotiated a contract which bound the Navy to send specified goods within a specified period. His superiors were going to give him hell for it; but no Ishtarians were likely to offer a better deal. The alternatives were either to set up in the antipodes, where only goblins lived, and thus complicate his job without end, or to seize and hold a spot by force. (Ah-ah-ah! Imperialism!) In writing his report, to go home by the next courier boat, he indicated tactfully but unmistakably that if the Navy did not honor the contract, he would resign his commission—and speculated how to let Jill Conway know he had done this.

Immediately upon taking possession, he brought down his men and established camp. Then he phoned to Primavera and requested a visit by Ian Sparling. The engineer should have a large amount of good advice in him, if he could be conciliated.

Sparling’s flyer landed the next day. Ever nearer to each other, both suns were aloft in a breathless sky. The cracked red clay wavered with heat; the hills around were gray and unreal. Prefab barracks clustered offside, ugly hemicylinders, while machinery cluttered the rest of fifty square kilometers, brawling like dinosaurs among sweating men. Dejerine, who had been making a general inspection, conducted him to an office small and bare but air-conditioned.

“Coffee or tea?” he asked as he settled down behind his desk. “And would you like a cigar?”

“Nothing, thanks.” Sparling’s voice might have blown off the south pole. He folded his lean length into a chair, took forth pipe and tobacco pouch, and got busy. “I don’t expect to be here long.”

“I was hoping you would.”

“Why should I?”

“I mentioned a consultant’s fee. And with your project suspended, you have nothing else to do, have you?” Dejerine considered the aquiline face. “I won’t make noises about patriotism. Let us be frank, you are hostile to my mission. But the sooner I complete it, the sooner I can release your resources back to you. Won’t you help to that end?” He paused. “Furthermore—please don’t misunderstand, this is neither a threat nor a bribe—I would like to see regular supplies coming to you from Earth again. My recommendations will carry more weight if I have done a good job fast.”

Sparling in turn studied him. “All right,” he said at length. “I think probably you are a decent sort. As we foulup humans go.”

Dejerine inhaled a cigar alight. However tiny, this thawing was an encouragement, especially since the engineer was a close friend of Jill. He should use the opportunity to learn a little more about these people, “Will you bear with a personal question?” he asked.

Sparling smiled sourly. “Go ahead. I may not answer.”

“Why do you long-term dwellers here have such an inferiority complex with respect to the Ishtarians?”

The other man was startled. “Huh? Who says we do?”

“Perhaps I phrased it badly,” Dejerine conceded. “But I have heard repeatedly how many superiorities to our species they have, both physical and mental. And yet… they fight wars too, don’t they?”

“Not every war is as senseless as yours,” Sparling snapped. He sat quiet for a few seconds. “No. Excuse me. I shouldn’t have made that remark, no matter how true it is. But as for, m-m, combative behavior, it can be a survival mechanism. To the best of my information and belief, no Ishtarians fight for anything but strictly practical reasons.” A new pause. “Not quite correct. Pride or revenge can be a motive, particularly in the young. However, always an individual motive. No Ishtarian ever tried to force a nationality or an ideology on someone else. Under all circumstances, killing is looked on as a regrettable last-ditch necessity.”

“Still, they do have ideologies, don’t they? Such as various religions.”

“Yeah. They aren’t fanatical about them.” Sparling seemed to grow more amicable as he talked. “I don’t believe any Ishtarian can become what we’d call ardently religious. Certainly this planet has never seen a proselytizing faith.”

“Not the—Triadic, do they call it?” Dejerine ventured a smile. “I have been reading, you see. How does that church gain converts?”

“By making more sense, to many people, than paganism does. At that, it isn’t easy to get into. There’s a lot of hard study required first, and examinations, and finally an expensive sacrifice. But you know, if I had a religious inclination, I’d think wistfully about joining.”

“What? You can’t be serious. Personifying the three suns—”

“A symbol. You can suppose they are literal gods, but you don’t have to; you can take the personalities as allegorical if you prefer, tokens of the reality.” Sparling looked thoughtfully at the smoke drifting from his pipe, “And the mythology does contain a great deal of truth about life, with poetry and ritual to help you feel it more directly. Bel, the Sun, the life-giver, who can also be terrible; Ea, the Ember Star, a diadem on the Dark which is winter and death—but the world needs them; Anu, the Rover, bringing both chaos and a chance for renewal. Yes, it strikes me as quite a bit more reasonable than a Christian God who’s simultaneously one person and three, who’s called merciful but left us to handle creations of his like cancer and stroke.”

Dejerine, who considered himself a Christian, refrained from saying more than: “Have there been conversions among humans?”

“No,” Sparling said. “Nor will there be, I’m sure. If nothing else, since we can’t dream right, we’d miss half the significance. We’d be like a Catholic forever unable to attend Mass or take communion. No, worse off; he could read his missal.”

“Dreams?” Dejerine frowned. “Like the medicine dreams of primitive humans?”

“Not at all. You don’t know? Well, it’s so subtle and difficult an idea—for us—that I suppose it’s not gotten into the average popular account of this planet. Ishtarians sleep like us, and apparently for the same basic reason: the brain needs time off the line, to assimilate data. But the Ishtarian’s forebrain doesn’t shut down as thoroughly as ours. He keeps more consciousness than we do. To a certain extent, he can direct his dreaming.”

“I’ve had that experience myself, when barely asleep.”

“Most humans have. With us, though, it’s rudimentary and unusual. It’s normal for the Ishtarian. He can choose what he’ll dream about. It becomes a major part of his emotional life—maybe one reason why, in spite of using a few drugs, Ishtarians never become addicted. Of course, some have more talent for it than others. There are actually professional dreamers. They use that blend of consciousness and randomness to experience marvelous visions, and an entire art of communicating the effect afterward to an audience. Words, tone, gesture, expression, music, dance, an enormous body of ancient conventions, all go into it.” Sparling sighed. “We’ll never be able to share that, you and I. So, since I can’t dream the Triad, it can’t be anything more to me ever than a philosophical concept.”

Dejerine drank smoke. “Yes,” he said slowly, “I see how the Ishtarians could have a… a rather overwhelming impact. But I don’t feel they are necessarily inherently superior, except in a few departments.”

“Nor do I, nor any sensible person,” Sparling answered. “For instance, insofar as we can separate culture and heredity—which isn’t very bloody damn far—they seem to have less sense for three-dimensional geometry than we do. Maybe because of having no arboreal ancestors? A lot of them are terrified of flying, though they know our vehicles are safe. Et cetera. No, you’re wrong about an inferiority complex. We simply consider them our friends, from whom we can learn a huge amount if Earth’s politicos will get off our backs.”

“Will you believe that I, too, have been close to nonhumans?” Dejerine asked softly.

Sparling nodded.

It flashed in Dejerine: He is becoming better disposed to me. Perhaps he will carry an olive branch to Jill?

Am I in love with her? Or is it merely charm that met a longstanding celibacy, like steel meeting flint? I don’t know. I never will know unless I can see her again. Often.

He said with care, “Would you mind mentioning that to Miss Conway, if opportunity should arise? I’m afraid she is angry at me because I couldn’t help her native official. She gave me no chance to explain how sorry I was.”

Abruptly Sparling froze over. “How can I do that?”

A hand took hold of Dejerine’s heart and squeezed. “Is something wrong with her?”

“No way to tell,” Sparling clipped. “She’s gone north with Larreka. They’ve been on the trail for days.”

“What? Why, that is crazy!”

“How’d you stop her? If she chooses to do research in Valennen before it’s closed to us, who has the right to forbid her? At that, she sent notes to her parents and me by a messenger who was not to deliver them till she was welt on her way. I flitted over the route but saw nothing. Didn’t really expect to, that small a party in that big and rugged a landscape. I called, but naturally they’d switched off their transceivers when they passed beyond ordinary relay range.”

“Why in cosmos would she do so mad a thing?”

“Because she’s Jill, and wants to help. Yeah, ‘intervention.’ But she calls it research, and you’d have a sweet time proving different, Dejerine. She’ll phone when she reaches Port Rua, and quite likely I’ll find a research project for myself in those parts at that time. Now dog your hatch! Haven’t you done enough harm?”