Fire Time

EIGHTEEN

Jill had barely arrived at Ulu when Arnanak got a message that sent him off again. “They want to parley in Port Rua,” he told her. “I make no doubt your presence among us has to do with that. Raise not your hopes too high. The odds are you must stay here for—maybe till fall or early winter.”

She thought his advice was kindly intended. But then, the big black-skinned barbarian was not evil by any means. From the viewpoint of his people he was a hero, and might become a savior.

He and she had spoken together at great length and in growing intimacy, first aboard his galley and later on the overland trip from the fjord where he left it. He had done everything he could to help her across those high mountains. Often she had ridden on him or a warrior of his, as she used to ride on Larreka. And this was despite her having killed his son, with not so much as a bone brought home to call the soul back in dreams.

While he was gone, she found her captivity light except for being captivity. She got a room to herself, which none entered without her leave. She could walk abroad freely. Since her supply of amino acids and vitamins was sequestered between meals, she had no possibility of escape.

“Best you not fare beyond sight of the close,” Innukrat said. “You could well get lost.”

“I know woodcraft better than that,” Jill answered, “and I don’t believe any animals in Valennen are dangerous to me.”

Innukrat pondered, then decided: “First, go out twice or thrice in company and see if you can find your way back.” When this had been done she made no further objection.

She was a wife of Arnanak’s and, after he left, the sole native in the compound who knew Sehalan. That was due to her being a trader who, before the war on civilization began, had ranged as far as its outposts in the Esali Valley. The sexual equality found in most Ishtarian societies—exceptions were as apt to be matriarchal as patriarchal—prevailed here too; but under hard and primitive conditions, there was necessarily more specialization of jobs than elsewhere. As a rule, males did the trading and raiding abroad, while among other skilled tasks, females took goods for barter across the home country. They feared no assault. While they stayed on the marked routes, their persons and burdens were sacred. Jill asked if that law was ever violated. “I have heard of it, very rarely.” Innukrat said. “The neighborhoods tracked down the doers, slew them, and pickled them in brine.”

Initially Jill, fascinated by her surroundings, enjoyed herself, until in abrupt guilt she would remember how those who cared for her must be worrying, and how she had become a high card in the hand of Larreka’s enemy. The steading alone was worth days of exploration. Its basic layout resembled that of a southland ranch, but everything else was quite foreign. A hall formed one side of an adobe-paved courtyard, a great single-storied building of undressed stone, massive logs, sod roof, half of it a chamber where the household gathered for meals or sociability, the rest given over to service rooms and private cubicles. When she had grown used to their angular style, she deemed the carvings on roof pillars and wainscots as good as she had ever seen. The remainder of the court was defined by smaller, plainer structures: sheds, workshops, housing for subordinates and a few domestic animals. It always brawled with activity here, a hundred individuals going about their labor or their pleasures; Jill found the little ones as irresistible as they were at home. But without a common language, she was barred from doing much more than watch. The Valenneners soon came to take her for granted.

Ulu lay in the eastern foothills of the Worldwall range. Forest all around gave some shielding from the suns, though most trees were scrubby and this year their red or yellow leaves drooped, curled, withered. The occasional blue T-plants looked better, and in places a phoenix loomed magnificent. The household held frequent fire drills, and Jill recollected that the phoenix had its name, translated from a native equivalent, because its reproduction depended on the conflagrations which devastated these lands every millennium.

A trail into the woods soon ended at a cabin. Two armed guards waved her off. She asked Innukrat why and got an uneasy response: “Best not talk of that till the Overling comes back, if he then chooses.” Jill decided probably it was a shrine or a magical site. And yet nobody minded her inspecting the family dolmens, though oracular dreams were supposed to come from them.

This was the single restriction on her freedom of movement. Every other path she could follow as long as hunger or weariness allowed. Ten kilometers southeast the forest came to a halt and she looked widely from mountain peaks sheer in the west, across umber hills and down over a remote veldt, ashimmer in the heat which billowed from the two suns.

Here and there she saw crofts. The social system appeared to rest on a kind of voluntary feudalism. An Overling dominated a region, led its fighters in battle or its workers in civil emergency, tried lawsuits upon request, officiated at the major religious rites. Lesser families could stay independent of him if they chose, but most found it preferable to become his “oathgivers,” pledge him certain services and obedience in exchange for the protection of his household troops and a share in his food stores when times got hard. Either party could annul the contract for cause, and it was not binding on the next generation—after the latter had passed that sixty-fourth birthday before which the power of the parents was absolute.

Innukrat spoke of killings, especially among the young. Both sexes were raised haughty and quarrelsome. “They must be ready to fight, and know how, when raiders come or when we ourselves go raiding; for you see what a niggard land ours is.” Nevertheless Overlings and oldsters kept bloodshed within bounds and eventually got unfriends reconciled. Well, Jill thought, Ishtarians aren’t human.

Her loneliness began to press in on her. She craved language lessons from Innukrat, and the female obliged as much as possible. That was no large amount, a wife’s duties being countless. Jill offered to help, but soon discovered she was merely in the way. Beside lacking the strength to use these crude implements, she hadn’t the skill.

She took to spending most of her daytimes outdoors, The open country threatened sunstroke; and besides, the woods held more nature to study. It was sparse compared to that in the southern hemisphere, but as she gained a little familiarity, she found herself just as captivated, and frequently stayed out late.

Thus it was that she had her encounter.

She was returning after both suns, now close companions, had set. Tropical twilight was brief. However, the moons sufficed through this scanty foliage. Often her trail went through what she would have called a meadow were it less parched. Entering one such, the path curved sharply around a canebrake, to bring her out in a single stride.

Low, gnarly trees made shadow masses around. Behind them on her right, the battlements of the Worldwall glimmered gray into a black-purple sky where stars burned fewer than usual. For Caelestia was rising near the full, and Urania at the half hung close by. No longer did either have two clear phases at once or avoid regular eclipse. Apart from a thin edging of silver, they shone pale red. Their glow upon dead lia and dry thornbushes made the air feel more hot than it was. Silence lay like a weight.

Jill stopped noticing, stopped moving. Her pulse alone jumped, a knock-knock-knock through head and throat, as she and the creature stood confronted. It had been crossing the meadow when she surprised it.

No—can’t be—trick of moonlight—I’m hungry, heat-exhausted, my brain’s gone into free fall—

The shape bounded from her.

“Wait!” she cried, and stumbled after. But already it had disappeared among the trees.

A moment’s dread made her grip the dagger Arnanak had given her. No, it fled, not I… Regardless, I’d better get on back.

While she strode, faster and faster, she tried to conjure the shape forth as it had stood in the red beams. A T-beast, beyond a doubt. Whatever life had been like on Tammuz a billion years ago, when it started anew from microbes on Ishtar it did not follow the same course as ortho-life, or Earth’s. There were three sexes. There was no elaborate symbiosis, nor hair or milk; and instead of plant chemistry or perspiration, the homeothermic animals, like many plants, controlled temperature by changing color. There were vertebrates of a sort, but none descended from an ancient worm, rather from a thing like a starfish—no true head but a branch, the fifth limb changed into a carrier of mouth and sensory organs. There were a few bipeds—

But they were small. This had been a giant of its kind. The petals atop its branch would have reached to her chest. On the abdomen she thought she had made out three eyes above the central bulge of the genital sheath.

Legs had been long and powerful for the size; it was more a leaper than a strider. Yet the boneless-looking arms were well developed also, ending in a hand of five fingers arranged in a star.

Hands? Fingers?

Yes, if she wasn’t crazy. She’d seen the right arm lifted, digits spread, as if caught by astonishment at sight of her. The left had been carrying what seemed to be a knife.

Illusion. Got to’ve been. I’ve made a remarkable discovery, sure, a T-beast never suspected before. Probably come down from the north because of changing conditions. Only a beast, though!

Windows appeared yellow ahead of her. She burst into the hall, pushed through its crowdedness, blurted to Innukrat what had happened.

The female traced a sign. “You met a daur,” she said uneasily.

“A what?” Jill asked.

“I think best we wait for Arnanak about this, too.”

“But—” Memory stirred. Primavera did have xenological data on the Valenneners, mostly taken secondhand from members of the Gathering, yet filling a few books which she’d read. “Daur. Dauri.” Yes, I seem to recall, they believe in a kind ofelfor pooka or minor demon—“Are those, uh, are they beings that haunt the wilderness— magical powers—?”

“I told you, wait for Arnanak,” said the chieftain’s wife.”

He returned some days later. Jill didn’t know how many; she’d ceased keeping count.

She chanced to be home when he arrived. To save her human clothes, she’d begged a length of the coarse cloth the natives wove from plant fibers, and stitched together several knee-length shifts caught by a rope belt. She was no Ishtarian whose life depended on ample sunlight; hereabouts, Bel could bum off her skin. Head, arms, and legs were sufficiently tanned to be safe if she took due care. Next she wanted footgear. Her shoes stank from overuse.

The household produced most of what it consumed. Occasionally Valenneners needed boots. The female who was best at leatherwork proved quite willing to make Jill two or three pairs—maybe because that got her out of her ordinary chores, maybe because it was a challenge, maybe from simple kindliness, or a combination of these. She required the girl on hand, to be a living dummy and to explain with gestures and a few Tassu words how the things should fit.

Jill stood at the booth, holding up a parasol she had made against heat and glare. Shouts lifted, foot-thuds, a rattle of iron. Into the courtyard dashed Arnanak and his followers. Jill dropped the parasol. For a second she went dizzy. Then: “Ian!” she yelled, and sped heedless across adobe which tried to blister her soles. “Ian, darling!”

And into his arms—She burrowed against the human male strength, hardness, sweat, and warmth of him. She kissed him so teeth clashed together; after having drawn back just enough to look upon his beaky face through tears and wonder, she kissed him again with a trembling tenderness which turned into the way of lovers.

At last they stood apart, hands in hands, dazedly regarding each other. It made no difference that scores of Ishtarians milled around in the white and crimson dazzle.

“Oh, Ian,” she stammered, “you came… to fetch me—?”

Joy drained from his countenance till the bones stood forth like reefs at low tide. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he answered in a voice gone dull. “No release yet.”

Her first emotion was bewilderment. “What? Then why’re you here?”

“I couldn’t leave you alone, could I?” He marshaled himself and spoke fast. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here by agreement. Arnanak isn’t ready to let us go—he and Larreka made a very limited bargain that didn’t change anybody’s objectives—but he’s anxious to get on good terms with us humans eventually. Two hostages are better than one, he thinks. The idea is to exchange us in due course for concessions—which might amount to no more than establishing a kind of diplomatic relations with his kingdom—and for that, obviously we’d better be well treated meanwhile. We talked a lot on the road. He’s really not a bad chap in his fashion. For now, well, I’ve brought along food, medicine, clothes, as much stuff as I could for you. Including, uh, what I think are your favorite books.”

She searched the blue-green eyes and knew; He is in love with me. How could I not have been sure?

“You shouldn’t have,” she forced out.

“Like hell! I, I’ll explain the situation—got a lot of news to pass on—but it amounts to me being the logical choice. How’ve you been? How are you?”

“All right—”

“You’re looking good. Kind of thin; but, you know, that sun-bleached hair against that sun-tanned skin, you’re damn near a platinum blonde.” In haste: “Everybody was okay at home, at least they were when last we heard in Port Rua. They send their love. The whole community wants you back.”

“Chu,” Arnanak’s Sehalan joined their English, “will you not come indoors? Go to your room, you two guests of mine. The males will bring your baggage. Later we will feast. But you must have much to talk about.”

Most certainly they had much.

Sparling knew her better than to soften his tidings. “No real compromise. Just a couple of minor arrangements to make the war less destructive on both sides, which can’t affect the outcome either way. The Tassui won’t stop till the last legionary is out of Valennen or dead in it. The Zera will hang on as long as it possibly can, in the hope of reinforcements. I can hardly blame the barbarians. According to Arnanak, if they stay penned in their homelands. Fire Time—he calls it Fire Time—will kill most of them. We, we humans, should’ve given more thought to that. We should’ve mounted programs for the relief of this country, too. Not that that swine Dejerine would let us carry them out.”

“Yuri is no villain,” Jill said. This made Sparling look so grim and hurt that she must stroke his cheek and lean closer to him. They were sitting side by side on the boughs and straw mattress which made her bed, backs against a rough log wall, legs stretched across a clay floor. With a loose-woven blind over its single window, the room was dim and halfway cool. It had no door; a similar curtain in the entrance let through the sounds of readying for rejoicing which filled the hall.

“Neither is Arnanak,” he said, milder the moment she chose him to be. “Still, they both have missions, and Lord help whoever gets in the way. Arnanak means for his people to grab off territory less hard hit by periastron and its aftermath than here—territory to live in, and live well. Of course, that involves breaking up the Gathering. It couldn’t stay idle while that many of its members were overrun, displaced, subjugated, slaughtered. And when the Gathering’s gone under, Beronnen will lie wide open. The end of civilization on Ishtar—again. Arnanak made no bones about that to me.”

“Nor to me,” Jill said. “Though he does think his descendants will inherit and rebuild it.”

“In time. How long, considering Ishtarian life-spans? What horrors go on meanwhile, and how much gets lost forever?”

“I know, Ian, I know.”

“For us, time’s gotten damnably short, if we want to do anything to help Larreka, Arnanak told me he already has messengers out, calling ships and ground forces to rendezvous. I don’t give Port Rua another month before he cuts loose the storm.”

Jill sat quiet a while. Somehow Sparling had not spoken like a man in despair. At last she ventured, “You sound as if we’re not altogether helpless.”

He nodded. His cowlick bobbed, ludicrous and dear in the gray-shot black hair. “We can try. Jill, I’d have come anyway to help you, but it happens I made me an excuse.” He slid back the sleeve on the left arm against which she nestled. Braceleted on the wrist was a micro transceiver “Arnanak checked my kit item by item before allowing anything along. But as I’d hoped, he didn’t recognize this. He believed me when I explained it’s a talisman.”

She frowned. “What’re you getting at? We must be three hundred kilometers from Port Rua, or worse. Under ideal conditions, a high-gain detector might pick this thing up at ten.”

“Ah-ah-ah!” He wagged a finger. “You underestimate my low cunning.”

In a burst of hope, she said, “No, if it’s low, I’ve got to have overestimated it.”

He rattled a laugh. “As you like. But listen. Larreka helped me work out the details. Part of the deal he made was, the natives will let small legionary bands hunt freely, in exchange for the soidiers not firing these woods and savannahs. Well, I brought along a few solar-energized portable relays—Mark Fives, you know, same as we’ve got around South Beronnen wherever a bigger, permanent unit isn’t convenient to install. Certain of those foraging parties will plant ’em strategically when nobody’s looking, well hidden in trees, on hilltops, et cetera.”

“But, Ian, how can they come near enough—?”

“They can’t, especially when they don’t know our location. In fact, as Larreka must have mentioned to you, he’s never learned just where Ulu is, where the enemy chief has his headquarters. Arnanak’s been cagy about that; he’s no slumpskull. Yet surely one of those relays will come within a hundred kilometers of here.” Sparling drew breath. She noticed at the back of her excitement how much she liked seeing his pleasure. “Okay, I brought several plastic containers of protein powder, different sizes to confuse the issue. He emptied and refilled each, as I’d expected. But he didn’t think to check for false bottoms. In a particular can is snuggled a rather bigger and huskier transceiver, put together for this purpose. A signal from my micro will switch its main circuit. That’ll be our primary relay—stepping down the frequency so we aren’t limited to line-of-sight— and it can do more than a hundred kilometers!”

“O-o-o-oh.” She stared before her white all her nerves tingled.

“Nothing can happen in a hurry,” Sparling cautioned, “and the scheme depends on every link in the chain. First, I imagine it’ll take a while before the rest of the system is in place. Then, second, we’ll simply have audio contact with Port Rua. True, they can reach Primavera, but still—Third, with the rudimentary equipment I could bring along, I’ll need a fair bit of time to survey this neighborhood to sufficient accuracy.”

“Survey?”

“Sure. I think probably I can use the stars, and sights taken on local landmarks like mountain peaks, to pinpoint us on the map. Then we can hike to a rendezvous point where a flyer can land for us.” He gave her a shy smile. “It was the best I could invent on short notice.”

Notice—she thought. I notice that funny little wrinkle at the comer of your lips.

Damn, though! I don’t want to be merely a captive damsel languishing for her knight.

It came to her what she might do for her share.

Arnanak was in alpine good humor. While he ate and drank and boasted prodigiously, standing at a trestle table in the hall, she jollied him along. Not that she pretended to have changed sides. He knew her too well. But she did make plain that her stay had given her a favorable opinion of his folk and she would gladly intercede for them. No lie, either. We should be helping them, them and the Gathering both. My lie is a withheld truth, that our cruel, idiotic war makes this impossible. She felt less guilty when he replied:

“We will talk more after I have crushed them in Valennen. If naught else, I must put on such show of might to hold the Tassui at my beck. I warned the legion again and again, if it did not leave it would be destroyed. Now my warriors are coming together. They will see Arnanak keep his word.”

Sparling stayed short-spoken and noncommittal, on Jill’s orders. The Overling must have gained some feel for human attitudes and expressions, and the man was better at outright concealing than at dissembling.

At the end of the feast, she turned grave and said, “I have to ask you about a thing. Could we three go outside?”

Arnanak was willing. Beyond the court, Jill tugged his elbow and pointed. “This way,” she urged.

He stiffened. “That path goes to a forbidden place.”

“I know. Come, a short ways.”

He yielded. They stopped out of view of the buildings. The suns were beneath the Worldwall, though not yet the ocean it hid. Shadows lay thick among dwarfish trees and shriveled brush. Overhead the sky was an ever richening blue, a planet stood white, Ea red. A breeze carried a ghost of coolness and rattled came stalks.

Arnanak’s eyes were green lanterns in the blackness under his mane. Fangs glinted when he said, bell-deep:

“Speak what you will, but be quick: for I have my own errand here.”

Jill gripped the comfort of Sparling’s arm. Her pulse fluttered. “What are the dauri, and what have you to do with them?”

He dropped hand to sword hilt. “Why ask you this?”

“I think I met one.” Jill described her encounter. “Innukrat would tell me naught, said I must wait for you. Yet surely there is common knowledge about them. I remember… hearing… somewhat.”

His tension lowered. “Aye. They are beings, creatures, not mortal. They are believed to have powers, and many folk set out small sacrifices, like a bowl of food, when a daur has been glimpsed. But that is seldom.”

“The food is no use to the daur. Is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. Remember, my business is to learn about animals. The daur I saw was nothing magical. It was as mortal as you or I—a creature belonging to the same kind of life as the phoenix or the skipfoot, the kind of life which wholly possesses the Starklands, Yet it carried a knife. I saw the metal.” Did I really? “Arnanak, if the dauri were plentiful enough and far enough along to mine and forge metal, we humans would have discovered them. I think you gave it the blade… as part of a bargain.”

A leap in the dark. But, Christ, I’ve got to have guessed right!

Sparling added, “I told you myself, we came to, to these countries mainly to explore them, find out what they’re like. My fellows would be most grateful to anyone who gave them an important new piece of knowledge.”

Arnanak had stood quietly. Now he sprang like a panther to his decision. “Well,” he said. “The matter is not a dead secret, after all. I have told other Tassui somewhat of it. And I will keep you two till my hold on Valennen is beyond shaking.” He turned. “Follow.”

As they finished the short walk, Sparling stooped to whisper in Jill’s ear: “Then you’re right. An entire conscious race—and you figured out the truth.”

“Sh,” she answered. “Don’t talk English here. He might decide we’re conspiring.”

They reached the cabin. The sentries lifted spears in salute and stood aside. Arnanak unbolted the door and led the humans in. He closed it again immediately, before his watchers stepped back to where they could see.

Within, a pair of clay lamps cast dim light and monstrous glooms; for the windows, too high for peering through, were full of dusk. A single room lay roughly furnished in miniature. Shelves held blue-leaved vegetation, odd-shaped butchered carcasses: food for T-life. A rear door, latch on the inside, gave egress at will to the three who lived here.

Sparling choked on a gasp. Jill squeezed his hand.

Otherwise her attention burned at the starfish shapes. They scuttled back, letting out timid whistles and trills. The Ishtarian—the ortho-Ishtarian—reassured them with Tassu words, and at last they came to stand before newcomers who must be hideous in their sight.

“Hear the tale of my quest,” Arnanak said.

While he spoke, Jill stared and stared. Like most sophonts, the dauri seemed fairly unspecialized in body. She identified features, modified to be sure, she had seen illustrated in many works on T-biology. Inside those roughly spheroidal torsos must be skeletons arranged on a plan of intersecting hoops, with ball-and-socket joints for the five limbs. The top one, the branch, culminated in five fleshy petals which served both as chemosensor organs and as tongues to push food down into a pentagon of jaws. Under each petal was a tendril, an intricate set of fibers that received sound. At the ends of the arms, five symmetrical fingers could not grasp a shaft as firmly as man or Ishtarian, but no doubt were superior for an object like a hand ax. (Yes; Jill saw how their iron knives were hafted, and admired the ingenuity of Arnanak, who must have designed this.) The eyes at the roots of the arms were well developed, though strange to look into because the entire ball was self-darkening according to light intensity. Under the branch was a more primitive third orb, to co-ordinate visual fields which did not overlap. The remaining two eyes had changed into protuberances above the legs, whose varying shapes, colors and odors indicated that all three sexes were here represented. Otherwise, in this gloaming, the skin was dark purplish. In full tropical day it would be an almost metallic white—not too conspicuous, when many plants had the same protection.

Yes, remarkable but comprehensible, as T-life went… except for the minds behind.

And when Arnanak finished, and from a chest took out the Thing he had carried from the Starklands—

Both humans cried aloud. A crystalline cube, some thirty centimeters on a side, held blackness full of many-colored gleam-points. When Arnanak gestured, the vision changed, and symbols glowed now beside this spark, now beside that.

“Look well,” said the Overling of Ulu. “You will not see it again soon, if ever. It, and these dauri, go with me a pair of days hence, to hearten my warriors for our onslaught.”

A lamp had been lit in their room, and a bed heaped for Sparling, to rustle beneath feet when they entered. Oil burned with a piney fragrance, the air was merely warm, the window revealed the brightest stars.

“Oh, God, Ian, what a marvel!” Jill had not felt this caught up in splendor since—since—

His visage grew still more gaunt. “Yeah. But for what use?… Well, we’ll pass the information on.”

“We,” She caught his hands afresh. “You were here, to share it. Can I ever make you know what that means?”

“I, I’m glad I was.”

Borne on a tide, she said, “Ian, this is the first good I chance I’ve had to thank you. I never will be able to, not really, but I aim to try my damnedest.”

“Well, uh—” A side of his mouth bent upward, though he spoke almost uneasily: “Look, I should’ve insisted on separate rooms. If none’re available, and doubtless none are, I— Okay, I’ll go find my sleeping bag, wherever they’ve stowed it. Good night, Jill.”

“What? Good night? Don’t be ridiculous!”

He made as if to retreat. She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him. After a second, he answered.

“Stop being this bloody honorable, man,” she murmured at last. “Oh, I’m fond of Rhoda myself and—You don’t have to say it, you didn’t expect a reward. But I want to!”

I do, I do. It’s been a starvishly long time. And, I don’t know, does revelation make a person horny? Anyhow, what harm, what besides kindness and caring, between two people who may never come back?

A wispy voice said through the drumbeats that there was a possibility her most recent sterishot had worn off. Go to hell, she told it. A thought flickered that the Sparlings had always wanted more children, but none were for adoption in Primavera. “I think I’m in love with you, Ian,” she said. “Already.”