The Day of Their Return

XII

South of Cold Landing the country began to grow steep and stony, and the peaks of the Cimmerian range hung ghostlike on its horizon. There the river would flow too swiftly for the herds. But first it broadened to fill a valley with what was practically a lake: the Green Bowl, where ships bound farther south left their animals in care of a few crewfolk, to fatten on water plants and molluscoids.

Approaching that place, Ivar paddled his kayak with an awkwardness which drew amiable laughter from his young companions. They darted spearfly-fast over the surface; or, leaping into the stream, they raced the long-bodied webfooted brown osels which served them for herd dogs, while he wallowed more clumsily than the fat, flippered, snouted chuho—water pigs—which were being herded.

He didn’t mind. Nobody is good at everything, and he was improving at a respectable pace.

Wavelets blinked beneath violet heaven, chuckled, swirled, joined livingly with his muscles to drive the kayak onward. This was the reality which held him, not stiff crags and dusty-green brush on yonder hills. A coolness rose from it, to temper windless warmth of air. It smelled damp, rich. Ahead, Jade Gate was a gaudily painted castle; farther on moved a sister vessel; trawlers and barges already waited at Cold Landing. Closer at hand, the chuho browsed on wetcress. Now and then an osel heeded the command of a boy or girl and sped to turn back a straggler. Herding on the Flone was an ideal task, he thought. Exertion and alertness kept a person fully alive, while nevertheless letting him enter into that peace, beauty, majesty which was the river.

To be sure, he was a mere spectator, invited along because these youngers liked him. That was all right.

Jao maneuvered her kayak near his. “Goes it well?” she asked. “You do fine, Rolf.” She flushed, dropped her glance, and added timidly: “I think not I could do that fine in your wilderness. But sometime I would wish to try.”

“Sometime … I’d like to take you,” he answered.

On this duty in summer, one customarily went nude, so as to be ready at any time for a swim. Ivar was too fairskinned for that, and wore a light blouse and trousers Erannath had had made for him. He turned his own eyes elsewhere. The girl was far too young for the thoughts she was old enough to arouse—besides being foreign to him—no, never mind that, what mattered was that she was sweet and trusting and—

Oh, damnation, I will not be ashamed of thinkin’ she’s female. Thinkin’ is all it’ll ever amount to. And that I do, that I can, measures how far I’ve gone toward gainin’ back my sanity.

The gaiety and the ceremoniousnesses aboard ship; the little towns where they stopped to load and unload, and the long green reaches between; the harsh wisdom of Erannath, serene wisdom of Iang Weii the chaplain, pragmatic wisdom of Riho Mea the captain, counseling him; the friendliness of her husband and other people his age; the, yes, the way this particular daughter of hers followed him everywhere around; always the river, mighty as time, days and nights, days and nights, feeling like a longer stretch than they had been, like a foretaste of eternity: these had healed him.

Fraina danced no more through his dreams. He could summon a memory for inspection, and understand how the reality had never come near being as gorgeous as it seemed, and pity the wanderers and vow to bring them aid when he became able.

When would that be? How? He was an outlaw. As he emerged from his hurt, he saw ever more clearly how passive he had been. Erannath had rescued him and provided him with this berth—why? What reason, other than pleasure, had he to go to the river’s end? And if he did, what next?

He drew breath. Time to start actin’ again, instead of bein’ acted on. First thing I need is allies.

Jao’s cry brought him back. She pointed to the nigh shore. Her paddle flew. He toiled after. Their companions saw, left one in charge of the herd, and converged on the same spot.

A floating object lay caught in reeds: a sealed wooden box, arch-lidded, about two meters in length. Upon its black enamel he identified golden symbols of Sun, Moons, and River.

“Ai-ya, ai-ya, ai-ya,” Jao chanted. Suddenly solemn, the rest chimed in. Though ignorant of the Kuang Shih’s primary language, Ivar could recognize a hymn. He held himself aside.

The herders freed the box. Swimmers pushed it out into midstream. Osels under sharp command kept chuhos away. It drifted on south. They must have seen aboard Jade Gate, because the flag went to half-mast. “What was that?” Ivar then ventured to ask. Jao brushed the wet locks off her brow and answered, surprised, “Did you not know? That was one coffin.”

“Huh? I—Wait, I beg your pardon, I do seem to remember—”

“All our dead go down the river, down the Yun Kow at last—the Linn—to the Tien Hu, what you call the Sea of Orcus. It is our duty to launch again any we find stranded.” In awe: “I have heard about one seer who walks there now, who will call back the Old Shen from the stars. Will our dead then rise from the waters?”

Tatiana Thane had never supposed she could mind being by herself. She had always had a worldful of things to do, read, watch, listen to, think about.

Daytimes still weren’t altogether bad. Her present work was inherently solitary: study, meditation, cut-and-try, bit by bit the construction of a semantic model of the language spoken around Mount Hamilcar on Dido, which would enable humans to converse with the natives on a more basic level than pidgin allowed. Her dialogues were with a computer, or occasionally by vid with the man under whom she had studied, who was retired to his estate in Heraclea and too old to care about politics.

Since she became a research fellow, students had treated her respectfully. Thus she took a while—when she missed Ivar so jaggedly, when she was so haunted by fear for him—to realize that this behavior had become an avoidance. Nor was she overtly snubbed at faculty rituals, meetings, dining commons, chance encounters in corridor or quad. These days, people didn’t often talk animatedly. Thus likewise she took a while to realize that they never did with her any more, and, except for her parents, had let her drop from their social lives.

Slowly her spirit wore down.

The first real break in her isolation came about 1700 hours on a Marsday. She was thinking of going to bed, however poorly she would sleep. Outside was a darker night than ordinary, for a great dustcloud borne along the tropopause had veiled the stars. Lavinia was a blurred dun crescent above spires and domes. Wind piped. She sprawled in her largest chair and played with Frumious Bandersnatch. The tadmouse ran up and down her body, from shins to shoulders and back, trilling. The comfort was as minute as himself.

The knocker rapped. For a moment she thought she hadn’t heard aright. Then her pulse stumbled, and she nearly threw her pet off in her haste to open the door. He clung to her sweater and whistled indignation.

A man stepped through, at once closing the door behind him. Though the outside air that came along was cold as well as ferric-harsh, no one would ordinarily have worn a nightmask. He doffed his and she saw the bony middleaged features of Gabriel Stewart. They had last been together on Dido. His work was to know the Hamilcar region backwards and forwards, guide scientific parties and see to their well-being.

“Why … why … hello,” she said helplessly.

“Draw your blinds,” he ordered. “I’d as soon not be glimpsed from beneath.”

She stared. Her backbone pringled. “Are you in trouble, Gabe?”

“Not officially—yet.”

“I’d no idea you were on Aeneas. Why didn’t you call?”

“Calls can be monitored. Now cover those windows, will you?”

She obeyed. Stewart removed his outer garments. “It’s good to see you again,” she ventured.

“You may not think that after I’ve spoken my piece.” He unbent a little. “Though maybe you will. I recall you as bold lass, in your quiet way. And I don’t suppose Firstlin’ of Ilion made you his girl for nothin’.”

“Do you have news of Ivar?” she cried. “ ’Fraid not. I was hopin’ you would … Well, let’s talk.”

He refused wine but let her brew a pot of tea. Meanwhile he sat, puffed his pipe, exchanged accounts of everything that had happened since the revolution erupted. He had gone outsystem, in McCormac’s hastily assembled Intelligence corps, and admitted ruefully that meanwhile the war was lost in his own bailiwick. As far as he could discover, upon being returned after the defeat, some Terran agent had not only managed to rescue the Admiral’s wife from Snelund—a priceless bargaining counter, no doubt—but while on Dido had hijacked a patriot vessel whose computer held the latest codes … “I got wonderin’ about possibility of organizin’ Didonians to help fight on, as guerrillas or even as navy personnel. At last I hitched ride to Aeneas and looked up my friend—m-m, never mind his name; he’s of University too, on a secondary campus. Through him, I soon got involved in resistance movement.”

“There is one?”

He regarded her somberly. “You ask that, Ivar Frederiksen’s bride to be?”

“I was never consulted.” She put teapot and cups on a table between them, sank to the edge of a chair opposite his, and stared at the fingers wrestling in her lap. “He—It was crazy impulse, what he did. Wasn’t it?”

“Maybe then. Not any longer. Of course, your dear Commissioner Desai would prefer you believe that.”

Tatiana braced herself and met his look. “Granted,” she said, “I’ve seen Desai several times. I’ve passed on his remarks to people I know—not endorsin’ them, simply passin’ them on. Is that why I’m ostracized? Surely University folk should agree we can’t have too much data input.”

“I’ve queried around about you,” Stewart replied. “It’s curious kind of tension. Outsider like me can maybe identify it better than those who’re bein’ racked. On one hand, you are Ivar Frederiksen’s girl. It could be dangerous gettin’ near you, because he may return any day. That makes cowardly types ride clear of you. Then certain others—Well, you do have mana. I can’t think of better word for it. They sense you’re big medicine, because of bein’ his chosen, and it makes them vaguely uncomfortable. They aren’t used to that sort of thing in their neat, scientifically ordered lives. So they find excuses to themselves for postponin’ any resumption of former close relations with you.

“On other hand"—he trailed a slow streamer of smoke—"you are, to speak blunt, lettin’ yourself be used by enemy. You may think you’re relayin’ Desai’s words for whatever those’re worth as information. But mere fact that you will receive him, will talk civilly with him, means you lack full commitment And this gets you shunned by those who have it. Cut off, you don’t know how many already do. Well, they are many. And number grows day by day.”

He leaned forward. “When I’d figured how matters stand, I had to come see you, Tatiana. My guess is, Desai’s half persuaded you to try wheedlin’ Frederiksen into surrender, if and when you two get back in touch. Well, you mustn’t. At very least, hold apart from Impies.” Starkly: “Freedom movement’s at point where we can start makin’ examples of collaborators. I know you’d never be one, consciously. Don’t let yon Desai bastard snare you.”

“But,” she stammered in her bewilderment, “but what do you mean to do? What can you hope for? And Ivar—he’s nothin’ but young man who got carried away—fugitive, completely powerless, if, if, if he’s still alive at all—”

“He is,” Stewart told her. “I don’t know where or how, or what he’s doin’, but he is. Word runs too widely to have no truth behind it.” His voice lifted. “You’ve heard also. You must have. Signs, tokens, precognitions … Never mind his weaklin’ father. Ivar is rightful leader of free Aeneas—when Builders return, which they will, which they will. And you are his bride who will bear his son that Builders will make more than human.”

Belief stood incandescent in his eyes.