The People of the Wind

IX

When the boat had come to rest, thundering and shuddering ended, only bake-oven heat and scorched smells remaining, Rochefort let go of awareness.

He swam up from the nothing some minutes later. Helu stood over him, “Are you okay, skipper?” At first the engineer’s voice seemed to come across a whining distance, and the sweat and soot on his face blurred into the haze which grayed all vision.

“Okay,” Rochefort mumbled. “Get me… ’nother stimpill…”

Helu did, with a glass of water that wrought a miracle on wooden tongue and parchment palate. “Hand of Fatima, what a ride!” he said unevenly. “I thought for certain we were finished. How did you ever get us down?”

“I don’t remember,” Rochefort answered.

The drug took hold, giving him back clarity of mind and senses, plus a measure of energy. He could reconstruct what he must have done in those last wild minutes. The ergs stored in the capacitors had not been adequate to kill the boat’s entire velocity relative to the planetary surface. He had used them for control, for keeping the hull from being boiled off by the atmospheric friction that braked it. Hooting Star had skipped halfway around the globe on the tropopause, as a stone may be skipped over a lake, then screamed down on a long slant which would have ended in drowning — for the hole aft could not be patched, and a sealed-off engine room would have weighed too much when flooded — except that somehow he, Philippe Rochefort, had spotted (he recollected now) a chain of islands and achieved a crash landing on one…

He spent a while in the awe of being alive. Afterward he unharnessed, and in their separate fashions he and Helu gave thanks; and they added a wish for the soul of Wa Chaou. By that time the hull had cooled to a point where they dared touch the lock. They found its outer valve had been torn loose when the boat plowed across ground.

“Good air,” Helu said.

Rochefort inhaled gratefully. It was not just that the cabin was hot and stinking. No regeneration system on any spacecraft could do the entire work of a living world. This atmosphere that streamed to meet him smelted of ozone, iodine, greenery, flower fragrances; it was mild but brisk with breezes.

“Must be about Terran standard pressure,” Helu went on. “How does a planet like this keep so much gas?”

“Surely you’ve met the type before,” Rochefort said.

“Yes, but never stopped to wonder. Now that I’ve had the universe given back to me, I’d, uh, I’d like to know it better.”

“Well, magnetism helps,” Rochefort explained absently. “The core is small, but on the other hand the rotation is rapid, making for a reasonable value of H. Besides, the field has fewer charged particles to keep off, therefore fewer get by it to bounce off gas molecules. Likewise, the total ultraviolet and X radiation received is less. That sun’s fairly close — we’re getting about 10 percent more illumination than Terra does — but it’s cooler than Sol. The energy distribution curve peaks at a lower frequency and the stellar wind is weak.”

Meanwhile he sensed the gravity. His weight was four-fifths what it had been when the boat’s interior field was set at standard pull. When you dropped sixteen kilos you noticed it at first — a bounciness, an exuberance of the body which the loss of a friend and the likelihood of captivity did not entirely quench — though you soon came to take the feeling for granted.

He stepped forth and looked around. Those viewscreens which remained functional had shown him this area was unpeopled. Inland it rose steeply. On the other side it sloped down to a beach where surf tumbled in a white violence whose noise reached him across more than a kilometer. Beyond, a syenite sea rolled to a horizon which, in spite of Avalon’s radius, did not seem appreciably nearer than on Terra or Esperance. The sky above was a blue more bright and deep than he was used to. The sun was low, sinking twice as fast as on man’s home. Its disk showed a bit larger, its hue was tinged golden. A sickle moon trailed, a fourth again the angular diameter of Luna seen from the ground. Rochefort knew it was actually smaller but, being close, raised twice the tides.

Occasional sparks and streaks blinked up there — monstrous explosions in space. Rochefort turned his mind from them. For him the war was presumably over. Let it be over for everybody, soon, before more consciousnesses died.

He gave his attention to the life encircling him. His vessel had gouged and charred through a dense mat of low-growing, beryl-green stuff which covered the island. “I suppose this, explains why the planet has no native forests,” he murmured, “which may in turn help explain why animal fife is underevolved.”

“Dinosaur stage?” Helu asked, watching a flock of clumsy, winged creatures go by. They each had four legs; the basic vertebrate design on Avalon was hexapodal.

“Well reptiloid, though some have developed features like hair or an efficient heart. By and large, they don’t stand a chance against mammalian or avian life forms. The colonists had to do quite a lot of work to establish a stable mixed colony, and they keep a good deal of land reserved, including the whole equatorial continent.”

“You’ve really studied them up, haven’t you?”

“I was interested. And… seemed wrong to let them be only my targets. Seemed as if I ought to have some reality on the people I was going to fight.”

Helu peered inland. Scattered shrubs and trees did exist. The latter were either low and thick or slim and supple, to survive the high winds that rapid rotation must often create. Autumn or no, many flowers continued in bloom, flamboyant scarlets and yellows and purples. Fruits clustered thick on several other kinds of plant.

“Can we eat local food?” Helu asked.

“Yes, of course,” Rochefort said. “They’d never have made the success they did, colonizing, in the time they’ve had, if they couldn’t draw on native resources. Some essentials are missing, assorted vitamins and whatnot. Imported domestic animals had to be revamped genetically on that account. We’d come down with deficiency diseases if we tried to eat Avalonian material exclusively. However, that wouldn’t happen fast, and I’ve read that much of it is tasty. Unfortunately, I’ve read that much is poisonous, too, and I don’t know which is which.”

“Hm.” Helu tugged his mustache and scowled. “We’d better call for somebody to come get us.”

“No rush,” said Rochefort. “Let’s first learn what we can. The boat has supplies for weeks, remember. We just might be able to—” He stopped. Knowledge stung him. “Right now we’ve a duty.”

Perforce they began by making a spade and pick out of scrap; and then the plant cover was tough and the soil beneath a stubborn clay. Sunset had perished in flame before they got Wa Chaou buried.

A full moon would have cast ample light; higher albedo as well as angular size and illumination gave it more than thrice the brilliance of Luna. Tonight’s thin crescent was soon down. But the service could be read by two lamp-white companion planets and to numberless stars. Most of their constellations were the same as those Rochefort had shared with Eve Davisson on Esperance. Three or four parsecs hardly count in the galaxy.

Does a life? I must believe so. “—Father, unto You in what form he did dream You, we commit this being our comrade; and we pray that You grant him rest, even as we pray, for ourselves. Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.” The gruesome little flashes overhead were dying away.

“Disengage,” Cajal said. “Withdraw. Regroup in wide orbits.”

“But, but, Admiral,” protested a captain of his staff, their ships — they’ll use the chance to escape — disappear into deep space.”

Cajal’s glance traveled from screen to screen on the comboard. Faces looked out, some human, some non-human, but each belonging to an officer of Imperial Terra. He found it hard to meet those eyes.

“We shall have to accept that,” he told them. “What we cannot accept is our present rate of losses. Laura is only a prologue. If the cost of its capture proves such that we have to wait for reinforcements, giving Ythri time to reorganize, there goes our entire strategy. The whole war will become long and expensive.”

He sighed. “Let us be frank, citizens,” he said. “Our intelligence about this system was very bad. We had no idea what fortifications had been created for Avalon—”

In orbit, automated stations by the hundreds, whose powerplants fed no engines but, exclusively, defensive screens and offensive projectors; thus mortally dangerous to come in range of. Shuttling between them and the planet, hence guarded by them, a host of supply craft, bringing whatever might be needed to keep the robots shooting.

On the surface, and on the moon, a global grid of detectors, launch tubes, energy weapons too immense for spaceships to carry; some buried deep in rock or on the ocean beds, some aboveground or afloat. The chance of a vessel or missile getting through from space, unintercepted, small indeed; and negafields shielding every vital spot.

In the air, a wasp swarm of pursuit craft on patrol, ready to streak by scores against any who was so rash as to intrude.

“—and the defenders used our ignorance brilliantly. They lured us into configurations that allowed those instrumentalities to inflict staggering damage. We’re mouse-trapped between the planet and their ships. Inferior though the enemy fleet is, under present circumstances it’s disproportionately effective.

“We have no choice. We must change the circumstances, fast. If we pull beyond reach of the defenses, their fleet will again be outmatched and, I’m sure, will withdraw to the outer parts of this system as Captain Kthak has said.”

“Then, sir?” asked a man. “What do we do then?”

“We make a reassessment,” Cajal told him.

“Can we saturate their capabilities with what we’ve got on hand?” wondered another.

“I do not know,” Cajal admitted.

“How could they do this?” cried a man from behind the bandages that masked him. His ship had been among those smashed. “A wretched colony — what’s the population, fourteen million, mostly ranchers? — how was it possible?”

“You should understand that,” Cajal reproved, though gently because he knew drugs were dulling brain as well as pain. “Given abundant nuclear energy, ample natural resources, sophisticated automatic technology, one needs nothing else except the will. Machines produce machines, exponentially. In a few years one has full production under way, limited only by available minerals; and an underpopulated, largely rural world like Avalon will have a good supply of those.

“I imagine,” he mused aloud — because any thought was better than thought of what the navy had suffered this day — “that same pastoral economy simplified the job of keeping secret how great an effort was being mounted. A more developed society would have called on its existing industry, which is out in the open. The Avalonian leadership, once granted carte blanche by the electorate, made most of its facilities from zero, in regions where no one lives.” He nodded. “Yes, citizens, let us confess we have been taken.” Straightening: “Now we salvage what we can.”

Discussion turned to ways and means. Battered, more than decimated, the Terran force was still gigantic. It was strewn through corresponding volumes of space, its units never motionless. Arranging for an orderly retreat was a major operation in itself. And there would be the uncertainties, imponderables, and inevitable unforeseen catastrophes of battle. And the Avalonian space captains must be presented with obvious chances to quit the fight — not mere tactical openings, but a clear demonstration that their withdrawal would not betray their folk — lest they carry on to the death and bring too many Imperials with them.

But at last the computers and underlings were at work on details, the first moves of disengagement were started. Cajal could be alone.

Or can I be? he thought Ever again? The ghosts are crowding around.

No. This debacle wasn’t his fault. He had acted on wrong information. Saracoglu — No, the governor was a civilian who was, at most, peripherally involved in fact-gathering and had worked conscientiously to help prepare. Naval Intelligence itself — but Saracoglu had spoken sooth. Real espionage against Ythri was impossible. Besides, Intelligence… the whole navy, the whole Empire… was spread too thin across a reach too vast, inhuman, hostile; in the end, perhaps all striving to keep the Peace of Man was barren.

You did what you could. Cajal realized he had not done badly. These events should not be called a debacle, simply a disappointment. Thanks to discipline and leadership, his fleet had taken far fewer losses than it might have; it remained overwhelmingly powerful; he had learned lessons that he would use later on in the war.

Nevertheless the ghosts would not go away.

Cajal knelt. Christ, who forgave the soldiers, help me forgive myself. Saints, stand by me till my work is done. His look went from crucifix to picture. Before everyone, you, Elena who in Heaven must love me yet, since none were ever too lowly for your love, Elena, watch over me. Hold my hand.

Beneath the flyers, the Middle Ocean rolled luminous black. Above them were stars and a Milky Way whose frostiness cut through the air’s warmth. Ahead rose the thundercloud mass of an island. Tabitha heard surf on its beaches, a drumfire in the murmur across her face.

“Are they sure the thing landed here?” asked one of the half-dozen Ythrians who followed her and Draun.

“Either here or in the sea,” growled her partner. “What’s the home guard for if not to check out detector findings? Now be quiet and wary. If that was an Imperial boat—”

“They’re marooned,” Tabitha finished for him. “Helpless.”

“Then why’ve they not called to be fetched?”

“Maybe their transmitter is ruined.”

“And maybe they have a little scheme. I’d like that. We’ve many new-made dead this night. The more Terrans for hell-wind to blow ahead of them, the better.”

“Follow your own orders and shut up,” Tabitha snapped.

Sometimes she seriously considered dissolving her association with Draun. She had come to see over the years that he didn’t really believe in the gods of the Old Faith, nor carry out their rites from traditionalism like most Highsky folk; no, he enjoyed those slaughterous sacrifices. And he had killed in duello more than once, on his own challenge, however much trouble he might have afterward in scraping together winner’s gild for the bereaved. And while he seldom abused his slaves, he kept some, which she felt was the fundamental abuse.

Still — he was loyal and, in his arrogant way, generous to friends; his seamanship combined superbly with her managerial talents; he could be good-company when he chose; his wife was sweet; his youngest cubs were irresistible, and loved their Kin-She Hrill who took them in her arms…

I’m perfect? Not by a fertilizing long shot, considering how I let my mind meander!

They winged, she thrust above the strand and high over the island. Photoamplifier goggles showed it silver-gray, here and there speckled with taller growth; on boulders, dew had begun to catch starlight. (How goes it yonder? The news said the enemy’s been thrown back, but — ) She wished she were flying nude in this stroking, giddily perfumed air. But her business demanded coveralls, cuirass, helmet boots. That which had been detected coming down might be a crippled Avalonian, but might equally well be — Hoy!

“Look.” She pointed. “A fresh track.” They swung about, crossed a ridge, and the wreck lay under them.

“Terran indeed,” Draun said. She saw his crest and tail-feathers quiver in eagerness. He wheeled, holding a magnifier to his eyes. “Two outside. Hya-a-a-a-ahl”

“Stop!” Tabitha yelled, but he was already stooping.

She cursed the awkwardness of gravbelts, set controls and flung herself after him. Behind came the other Ythrians, blasters clutched to breasts while wings hastened their bodies. Draun had left his gun sheathed, had taken out instead the half-meter-long, heavy, crooked Fao knife.

“Stop!” Tabitha screamed into the whistle of split air. “Give them a chance to surrender!”

The humans, standing by a patch of freshly turned earth, heard. Their glances lifted. Draun howled his battle cry. One man yanked at a holstered sidearm. Then the hurricane was on him. Wings snapped around so it roared in the pinions. Two meters from ground, Draun turned his fall into an upward rush. His right arm swept the blade in a short arc; his left hand, on the back of it, urged it along. The Terran’s head flew off the neck, hit the susin and horribly bounced. The body stood an instant, geysering blood, before it collapsed like a puppet on which the strings have been slashed.

“Hya-a-a-a-ah!” Draun shrieked. “Hell-winds blow you before my chothmates! Tell Illarian they are coming!”

The other Terran stumbled back. His own sidearm was out. He fired, a flash and boom in blackness.

Before they kill him too — Tabitha had no time for planning. She was in the van of her squad. The man’s crazed gaze and snap shot were aimed at Draun, whose broad-winged shadow had not yet come about for a second pass. She dived from the rear, tackled him low, and rolled over, gripping fast. They tumbled; the belt wasn’t able to lift both of them. She felt her brow slammed against a root, her cheek dragged abradingly over the susin.

His threshings stopped. She turned off her unit and crouched beside him. Pain and dizziness and the laboring of her lungs were remote. He wasn’t dead, she saw, merely half stunned from his temple striking a rock. Blood oozed in the kinky black hair, but he stirred and his eyeballs were filled with starlight. He was tall, swarthy by Avalonian measure… people with such chromosomes generally settled beneath stronger suns than Laura…

The Ythrians swooped near. Wind rushed in their quills.

Tabitha scrambled to her feet. She bestrode the Terran. Gun in hand, she gasped, “No. Hold back. No more killing. He’s mine.”