Fire Time

NINETEEN

About the time that Ulu celebrated midsummer, Bel solstice, by dance, chant, drumbeat, and sacrifice, the yellow sun overtook the red one in the sky. Thereafter Anu was the pursuer. Heat waxed; waterless winds roared; the veldt burned for days, and bitter smoke drifted into the hills; clouds surfed white against the Worldwall, but never broke past to birth their rain in this country.

Sparling ignored any discomfort. Jill claimed she did, too. He believed her, and not just because she was the most disconcertingly honest person he knew. In near-zero humidity, temperature tolerance is a matter of relaxing and letting the body go about its business. Food was coarse but still in ample supply. Except for keeping control of dietary supplements, the natives were eager to please, whether by helpfulness or by letting their prisoner-guests alone. Most often it was the latter. For he and she were taking all they were able of each day and each night granted them.

He had never been as happy as now. That was a feeling laced with fret and, for him, a dram of guilt, less on Rhoda’s account than because he couldn’t bring himself to work full time on escape. But then, he reflected, joy never comes straight; only fear and pain do.

They seldom spoke about their private future. Such talk always ended soon, in a passage of love. Presently he, like she, ceased tallying the days; he let them happen in a place outside of time. But afterward he reckoned their number at forty-three, and wished they had been Terrestrial in length. Being who they were, he and she found a great deal else to do together.

They sat where a shrunken brook muttered around stones it had formerly hidden. Sky showed pale behind boughs which did keep enough leaves that the forest floor was partly shaded, flecked with gold and ruby light-spots. A perching ptenoid, blue as a kingfisher and itself watching for ichthyoids which would likely never come by, hung on four-footed as if already heat and hunger sapped its life. “Okay, we’ll have another try,” Sparling said, and turned the knob on his transceiver. Jill leaned close over his arm. The clean odor of her hair took him in a wave. “Calling Port Rua,” he intoned.

“Please reply on this band.”

“Military Intelligence Unit X-13 calling Port Rua,” she added solemnly. “Secret and urgent. We need new disguises. An onion sandwich has made our false beards uninhabitable.”

I wish I had her gift for having fun, Sparling thought.

Is that why she’s so splendid in bed? Not that I have much basis for comparison. I didn’t even know what a difference it makes. “Frankly, I’m getting worried,” he said. “Larreka would have a technician on duty around the clock. Either our idea hasn’t worked, or—”

Insect-small, but sharp in the silence around, an Ishtarian voice rose: “Port Rua responds. Are you the captive humans?”

Jill rocketed to her feet and did a whooping war-dance. “Yes,” Sparling said, while his relief reached a lower peak than hers. “We’re fine thus far. How’re things with you?”

“Quiet. Too quiet, I feel.”

“Uh-huh. Won’t last. Can you get me the commandant?”

“Not soon. He is inspecting our signal system. We do not await him back until tomorrow-I can patch you in to Primavera.”

“No, don’t. That’d be an unnecessary drain on the batteries for our two sets here. You may know that I couldn’t figure out how to smuggle in replacements that we’d have safe access to.” Nor what I could say to Rhoda. “Do contact them and explain we’re both being quite generously treated. I’ll call again—let’s say day after tomorrow, about noon. Meanwhile, good-by and good luck.”

“May the Twain be kind to you, and the Rover do no harm.”

Sparling switched off. “Well,” he told the girl, “there’s a long step taken.”

“And you took it!” She cast herself upon him.

They walked under stars and moons. The light across mountains and along the treeless ridge was nearly lavender, purpling with distance as the land rolled eastward away from them until horizon hazed into sky. The air was gentle, sweet-scented. A creature akin to the cantor of Beronnen sang.

“You wouldn’t think such a night was possible in Fire Time, would you?” he said. After regarding her: “It’s like us, when everything is falling apart and burning, us catching gladness the way we have.”

She tightened her fingers around his. “People must always have done the same,” she answered. “Otherwise, they’d be extinct.”

He stared upward. “I wonder if that was Ishtar’s ancient sky we saw,”

“Oh, you mean in, m-m, Arnanak’s Thing?”

“Yes. I wish he’d let us examine it closer. But I’d guess at its being a stellar simulacrum, variations determined by a solid-state minicomputer, energized by sunlight or a long-lived isotope, for space navigation or teaching or—” He sighed. Here I am and here’s my beloved and still I talk like a professor. “Well, who can read a dead man’s mind? Let alone a dead race.”

“If they are dead,” she replied, no less eager to speak of this than of themselves. “They might have gone elsewhere. Look, they could make an object that’s resisted the sheer chemistry of a billion years. Somewhere in the north is a remnant of their colony—eroded, buried, or we’d’ve found it by now—nevertheless, recognizable as ruins. If they could do that, why shouldn’t they have survived?”

“If, if, if!” he exclaimed in the prison of his finiteness.

“I often think that’s the most wonderful word in the language,” Jill said.

“Certainly we—you’ve come on a discovery like nothing since—”

“No, darling. We have.”

“I’d give a lot to know how to pass the information on. How to make sure it doesn’t—all right—doesn’t die with us, should that happen.”

“Why, we’ll tell Larreka. What else? He can tell Primavera. In fact, look,” Jill said, excitement lifting, “the truth should be broadcast everywhere. Arnanak’s using myth and mana for his political purposes. Let the Tassui realize the dauri are mortal, that he’s actually done no more than make a deal with certain members of a different species—they help him where they can, he’ll see to it they get better lands after he’s cleared civilization away—Ian, what a blow to morale!”

He shook his head. “No, dear. I’ve thought this over. If word gets around, he’ll know his secret is breached; and who could have breached it but us? He told us in the cabin, he’d told others about that epic pilgrimage of his, but not about the practical politics which followed, because that’d spoil the awe.”

“True,” she said, reluctantly reminded.

“He doesn’t have to know radio technology to decide we pulled a fast one somehow. And then—”

“I don’t imagine he’d be vindictive.”

“Maybe, maybe not. He might kill us as a precaution, I refuse to take such a risk with you, sweetheart.”

“Ye-e-es, I see your point. I’m the only me I’ve got,” She halted, making him do likewise. He saw her nose wrinkle at him in the tender light, “What matters more, though, you’re the only you I’ve got.”

He drew her to him. The turf here was descended from Tammuz, water-hoarding, soft to lie upon.

Later he raised himself on an elbow and looked at the miracle of her. Reaching up, she rumpled his hair. “I take back my remark,” she purred. “What?”

“About ‘if’ being the most wonderful word. Actually it gets second prize. The best is a four-letter Anglo-Saxoner, in your mouth and preceded by ‘let’s.’ ”

They could temporarily have foregone their extra ration. But when they announced their wish for an overnight trip, Innukrat doled out a supply. “Those are rugged heights westward,” she told them. “You should feel as well as may be.”

“You’re a good person,” Sparling said. His conscience jabbed him.

“If you truly mean that,” she answered, “then after you have returned home and again wield power, remember—not me—my children.”

The humans left the compound and trudged. He carried a pocket compass, allowed him since the Tassui knew of a crude version among the legionaries. Jill took notes to his dictation. Arnanak, conceding that they might as well put their stay to use by recording what they saw, had also admitted paper, pencils, clipboard. “Can you really pace that accurately?” she had asked.

“Fairly close,” he said. “Oh, I’d prefer a laser transit and an integrating pedometer, but they’d have been hard to explain away,”

And thus they were carrying out a survey whose results, referred to maps in Primavera, would locate Ulu within meters.

They were headed back next day, zigzagging down a furnace-hot talus slope, when the transceiver beeped. Sparling pressed accept. “What the devil goes on?” he snapped.

“Technician Adissa in Port Rua,” said the tiny voice. “We have received a message for you from Primavera.”

“Holy hopping Hanuman!” He felt as furious as the light around him. “What is this farce? You clotbrain, we might’ve been in the middle of our jailers!”

“Kda-aa.—” came a dismayed tone.

“Easy, darling,” Jill counseled. “No harm done. He’s probably a new recruitie, human-trained and anxious to serve.” She leaned near the bracelet. “As we say in show biz, Adissa, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

“I beg forgiveness,” the Ishtarian said humbly.

“Okay, you’ve got it; and we won’t tell Larreka on you, either,” Jilt promised. “As long as talking is safe, what’s your message?”

“First, what about the legion?” Sparling asked, mollified. He scrambled across the scree, which rattled and slipped, toward an overhang whereunder he saw a scrap of shade.

“Weapons continue sheathed,” Adissa reported. “But fire has spoiled the nearby hunting grounds, and the commandant sends out no more parties. The ship that brought me carried supplies and a few soldiers. I am told it was the last that the legion—the units of our legion not already here—can afford; and nobody else will help.”

The pair settled down below the cliff. Adissa switched on a recorded voice, Goddard Hanshaw’s:

“Hi, there, you two. I thought you’d like an updating, though to tell the truth, very little about it is likable. We’re personally well, I hasten to say. But things are pretty much at a standstill, or “stand-off might be more accurate.

“Fact is, you’ve become a symbol, a rallying point, ie ne sais quo the hell to call you.

“The usual situation. People live their lives meekly, but all the while their anger concentrates, and at last it’s supersaturated and anything can make it crystallize out, rock hard. In the present case… well, I can’t say exactly what. News from the battlefront, which is stalemated again, except not quiet: instead, a meat grinder. And on top of that, two popular, valuable members of our community are barbarians’ pawns because of this same futile thing.

“Suddenly Primavera’s gone on strike. Every longtime resident, and even most short-contract workers, refusing any kind of co-operation whatsoever. They won’t as much as speak to a man in uniform or a ‘collaborator.’ Those who might prefer to behave differently, well, they don’t feel it’s worth becoming traitors in the eyes of their friends.

“Which is causing trouble aplenty, as you can guess. Captain Dejerine appeals to me damn near daily. By tacit consent, I’m the single Primaveran who can have to do with his command and stay kosher; it’s recognized that somebody must. He made a few arrests, but as soon as he saw they were considered an honor, he released the prisoners and dismissed the charges. He’s neither stupid nor wicked, you know. I fee! sorry for him. He asked rather pathetically to be informed the moment any news of you came in. We haven’t mentioned this communication line to him.

“Between us, I’m not sure the community is being wise. I have no notion what the resistance will lead to. Maybe we’ll get cancellation of the Navy project; or maybe our last funds will be cut off; who can tell? I did feel you should know how matters stand, in case you do any dickering on your own hook. And I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, don’t worry about us. As the saying goes, the situation is desperate but not serious. A vuestra salud. Next, here’s Rhoda.”

“Born dia, querido,” said the woman’s voice, and went on with a few endearments and wishes in Portuguese. Sparling clenched fists and jaws, and endured. “Jill,” Rhoda finished in English, “your parents, your sister, her family send their love.” Were those unshed tears in her voice? “I hope you will take mine, too. Live well. Thank you for what you are, what you do. I pray for your safe return. Good-by.”

Silence whirred. “That is the end,” Adissa reported. “Okay,” Sparling said mechanically. “We’ll sign off.” He sat for a while staring across the scorched mountains. Jill laid an arm around his waist. “You have a finer wife than you deserve,” she said.

“No,” he mumbled. “I mean, you’re clean and brave and—Look, we can’t yet do anything about anything, can we?” Is that the question of a coward? “In spite of my personal feelings,” he slogged on, “I share God’s doubts. A general strike against the Navy—the Peace Control—damnation, those men serve us all!”

“Don’t agonize,” she begged him. “Although—” When her words trailed off, he turned his head and saw the clear profile against raw rock and cruel air, framed in tresses which were held by the circlet that a soldier of a legion had given her. “I wonder why Dad or Mother or Alice—even Bill—weren’t on that tape,” she said into emptiness. “Do I know them too well?”

She squared her shoulders, “Now I’m being a worry machine myself,” she declared. “Hell with it. C’mon, hoofer, let’s get back down to the hall. But kiss me first.”

A while afterward, the time ended that had been theirs.