The People of the Wind

XIII

The bony, bearded face in the screen said, on a note close to desperation, “Sirs, you are… are behaving as if you were mad.”

“We’ve got company,” Daniel Holm replied.

“Do you then propose to secede from the Domain?” Admiral Cajal exclaimed.

“No. The idea is to stay in it. We’re happy there. No Imperial bureaucrats need apply.”

“But the armistice agreement—”

“Sure, let’s keep the present cease-fire. Avalon doesn’t want to hurt anybody.”

Cajal’s mouth stiffened. “You cannot pick and choose among clauses. Your government has declared the Empire may occupy this system pending the final peace settlement.”

Liaw of The Tarns thrust his frosty head toward the scanner that sent his image to Holm’s office and Cajal’s orbiting warcraft. “Ythrian practice is not Terran,” he said. “The worlds of the Domain are tied to each other principally by, vows of mutual fidelity. That our fellows are no longer able to help us does not give them the right to order that we cease defending ourselves. If anything, deathpride requires that we continue the fight for what help it may afford them.”

Cajal lifted a fist into view. “Sirs,” he rasped, “you seem to think this is the era of the Troubles and your opponents are barbarians who’ll lose purpose and organization and go away if they’re stalled for a while. The truth is, you’re up against Imperial Terra, which thinks in terms of centuries and reigns over thousands of planets. Not that any such time or power must be spent on you. Practically the entire force that broke the Domain can now be brought to bear on your single globe. And it will be, sirs. If you compel the outcome, it will be.”

His gaze smoldered upon them. “You have strong defenses,” he said, “but you must understand how they can be swamped. Resistance will buy you nothing except the devastation of your homes, the death of thousands or millions. Have they been consulted?”

“Yes,” Liaw replied. “Between the news of Ythri’s capitulation and your own arrival, Khruath and Parliament voted again. A majority favors holding on.”

“How big a majority this time?” Cajal asked shrewdly. He saw feathers stir and facial muscles twitch, and nodded. “I do not like the idea of making war on potentially valuable subjects of His Majesty,” he said, “most especially not on women and children.”

Holm swallowed. “Uh, Admiral. How about… evacuating everybody that shouldn’t stay or doesn’t want to… before we start fighting again?”

Cajal sat motionless. His features congealed. When he spoke, it was as if his throat pained him. “No. I may not help an enemy rid himself of his liabilities.”

“Are you bound to wage war?” Liaw inquired. “Cannot the cease-fire continue until a peace treaty has been signed?”

“If that treaty gives Avalon to the Empire, will you obey?” Cajal retorted.

“Perhaps.”

“Unacceptable. Best to end this affair at once.” Cajal hesitated. “Of course, it will take time to set things in order everywhere else and marshal the armada here. The de jure cease-fire ends when my ship has returned to the agreed-on distance. But obviously the war will remain in statu quo, including the de facto cease-fire with respect to Avalon and Morgana, for a short period. I shall confer with Governor Saracoglu. I beseech you and all Avalonians to confer likewise with each other and use this respite to reach the only wise decision. Should you have any word for us, you need but broadcast a request for a parley. The sooner we hear, the milder — the more honorable — treatment you can expect”

“Observed,” Liaw said. There followed ritual courtesies, and the screen blanked which had shown Cajal.

Holm and Liaw traded a look across the kilometers between them. At the rear of the man’s office, Arinnian stirred uneasily.

“He means it,” Holm said.

“How correct is his assessment of relative capabilities?” the Wyvan asked.

“Fairly good. We couldn’t block a full-out move to wreck us. Given as many ships as he can whistle up, bombarding, ample stuff would be sure to get past our interception. We depend on the Empire’s reluctance to ruin a lot of first-class real estate… and, yes, on that man’s personal distaste for megadeaths.”

“You told me earlier that you had a scheme.”

“My son and I are working on it. If it shows any promise, you and the other appropriate people will hear. Meanwhile, I imagine you’re as busy as me. Fair winds, Liaw.”

“Fly high, Daniel Holm.” And that screen blanked.

The Marchwarden kindled a cigar and sat scowling, until he rose and went to the window. Outside was a clear winter’s day. Gray did not get the snowfall of the mountains or the northern territories, and the susin stayed green on its hills the year around. But wind whooped, cold and exultant, whitecaps danced on a gunmetal bay, cloaks streamed and fluttered about walking humans, Ythrians overhead swooped through changeable torrents of air.

Arinnian joined him, but had to wet his lips before he could speak. “Dad, do we have a chance?”

“Well, we don’t have a choice,” Holm said.

“We do. We can swallow our damned pride and tell the people the war’s lost.”

“They’d replace us, Chris. You know that. Ythri could surrender because Ythri isn’t being given away. The other colonies can accept occupation because it’s unmistakable to everybody that they couldn’t now lick a sick kitten. We’re different on both counts.” Holm squinted at his son through rank blue clouds of smoke. “You’re not scared, are you?”

“Not for myself, I hope. For Avalon — All that rhetoric you hear about staying free. How free are corpses in a charred desert?”

“We’re not preparing for destruction,” Holm said. “We’re preparing to risk destruction, which is something else again. The idea is to make ourselves too expensive an acquisition.”

“If Avalon went to the Empire, and we didn’t like the conditions, we could emigrate to the Domain.”

The Marchwarden’s finger traced an arc before the window. “Where would we find a mate to that? And what’d be left of this special society we, our ancestors and us, we built?”

He puffed for a minute before musing aloud: “I read a book once, on the history of colonization. The author made an interesting point. He said you’ve got to leave most of the surface under plant cover, rooted vegetation and phytoplankton and whatever else there may be. You need it to maintain the atmosphere. And these plants are part of an ecology, so you have to keep many animals too, and soil bacteria and so forth. Well, as long as you must have a biosphere, it’s cheaper — easier, more productive — to make it supply most of your food and such, than to synthesize. That’s why colonists on terrestroid worlds are nearly always farmers, ranchers, foresters, et cetera, as well as miners and manufacturers.”

“So?” his son asked.

“So you grow into your world, generation by generation. It’s not walls and machinery, it’s a live nature, it’s this tree you climbed when you were little and that field your grandfather cleared and yonder hilltop where you kissed your first girl. Your poets have sung it, your artists have drawn it, your history has happened on it, your forebears returned their bones to its earth and you will too, you will too. It is you and you are it. You can no more give it away, freely, than you could cut the heart out of your breast”

Again Holm regarded his son. “I should think you’d feel this stronger than me, Arinnian,” he said. “What’s got into you?”

“That man,” the other mumbled. “He didn’t threaten terrible things, he warned, he pleaded. That brought them home to me. I saw… Mother, the kids, you, my choth-mates—”

Eyath. Hrill. Hrill who is Tabitha. In these weeks we have worked together, she and Eyath and I… Three days ago I flew between them, off to inspect that submarine missile base. Shining bronze wings, blowing fair hair; eyes golden, eyes green; austere jut of keelbone, heavy curve of breasts… She is pure. I know she is. I make too many excuses to see her, be with her. But that damned glib Terran she keeps in her house, his tinsel cosmopolitan glamour, he hears her husky-voiced merriment oftener than I do…

“Grant them their deathpride,” Holm said.

Eyath will die before she yields. Arinnian straightened his shoulders. “Yes. Of course, Dad.”

Holm smiled the least bit. “After all,” he pointed out, “you got the first germ of this ver-r-ry intriguing notion we have to discuss.”

“Actually, it… wasn’t entirely original with me. I got talking to, uh, Tabitha Falkayn, you know her? She dropped the remark, half joking. Thinking about it later, I wondered if — well, anyhow.”

“Hm. Quite a girl, seems. Especially if she can stay cheerful these days.” Holm appeared to have noticed the intensity of his stare, because he turned his head quickly and said, “Let’s get to work. We’ll project a map first, hm?”

His thoughts could be guessed. The lift in his tone, the crinkles around, his eyes betrayed them. Well, well. Chris has finally met a woman who’s not just a sex machine or a she-Ythrian to him. Dare I tell Ro, yet? — I do dare tell her that our son and I are back together.

Around St Li, winter meant rains. They rushed, they shouted, they washed and caressed, it was good to be out in them unclad, and when for a while they sparkled away, they left rainbows behind them.

Still, one did spend a lot of time indoors, talking or sharing music. A clear evening was not to be wasted.

Tabitha and Rochefort walked along the beach. Their fingers were linked. The air being soft, he wore simply the kilt and dagger she had given him, which matched hers.

A full Morgana lifted from eastward waters. Its almost unblemished shield dazzled the vision with whiteness, so that what stars could be seen shone small and tender. That light ran in a quaking glade from horizon to outermost breakers, whose heads turned into wan fire; the dunes glowed beneath it, the tops of the trees which made a shadow-wall to left became hoar. There was no wind and the surf boomed steadily and inwardly, like a heartbeat. Odors of leaf and soil overlay a breath of sea. The sands gave back the day’s warmth and gritted a little as they molded themselves sensuously to the bare foot.

Rochefort said in anguish, “This to be destroyed? Burned, poisoned, ripped to flinders? And you!”

“We suppose it won’t happen,” Tabitha replied.

“I tell you, I know what’s to come.”

“Is the enemy certain to bombard?”

“Not willingly. But if you Avalonians, in your insane arrogance, leave no alternative—” Rochefort broke off. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that the news cuts too close.”

Her hand tightened on his. “I understand, Phil. You’re not the enemy.”

“What’s bad about joining the Empire?” He waved at the sky. “Look. Sun after sun after sun. They could be yours.”

She sighed. “I wish—”

She had listened in utter bewitchment to his tales of those myriad worlds.

Abruptly she smiled, a flash in the moonglowthat clad her. “No, I wont wish,” she said; “I’ll hold you to your promise to show me Terra, Ansa, Hopewell, Cynthia, Woden, Diomedes, Vixen, every last marvel you’ve been regaling me with, once peace has come.”

“If we’re still able.”

“We will be. This night’s too lovely for believing anything else.”

“I’m afraid I cant share your Ythrian attitude,” he said slowly. “And that hurts also.”

“Can’t you? I mean, you’re brave, I know you are, and I know you can enjoy life as it happens.” Her voice and her lashes dropped. “How much you can.”

He halted his stride, swung about, and caught her other hand. They stood wordlessly looking.

“I’ll try,” he said, “because of you. Will you help me?”

“I’ll help you with anything, Phil,” she answered.

They had kissed before, at first playfully as they came to feel at ease beside each other, of late more intensely. Tonight she did not stop his hands, nor her own.

“Phil and Hrill,” she whispered at last, against him. “Phil and Hrill, Darling, I know a headland, a couple of kilometers further on. The trees shelter it, but you can see moon and water between them and the grass is thick and soft, the Terran grass—”

He followed her lead, hardly able to comprehend his fortune.

She laughed, a catch deep in her breast “Yes, I planned this,” she sang. “I’ve watched my chance for days. Mind being seduced? We may have little time in fact.”

“A lifetime with you is too little,” he faltered.

“Now you’ll have to help me, my love, my love,” she told him. “You’re my first. I was always waiting for you.”