The People of the Wind

XIV

From the ground, Arinnian hailed Eyath. “Hoy-ah! Come on, down and get inside.” He grinned as he added in Anglic, “We Important Executives can’t stall around.”

She wheeled once more. Sunlight from behind turned her wings to a bronze fringed by golden haze. She could be the sun itself, he thought, or the wind, or everything wild and beautiful above this ferroconcrete desert. Then she darted at the flitter, braked in a brawl of air, and stood before him.

Her gaze fell troubled on the torpedo shape looming at his back. “Must we travel in that?” she asked.

“When we have to bounce around half a planet, yes,” he replied. “You’ll find it isn’t bad. Especially since the hops don’t take long. Less than an hour to St. Li.” To Tabby. “Here, give me your hand.”

She did. The fingers, whose talons could flay him, were slim and warm, resting trustfully between his. He led her up the gangway. She had flown in vehicles often before, of course, but always “eyeball” cars, frail and slow for the sake of allowing the cabins to be vitryl bubbles.

“This is a problem the choths like Stormgate, members mostly hunters, are going to have to overcome,” he said. “Claustrophobia. You limit your travel capabilities too much when you insist on being surrounded by transparency.”

Her head lifted. “If Vodan can suffer worse, I am ashamed I hung back, Arinnian.”

“Actually, I hope you’ll come to see what Vodan sees. He loves it in space, doesn’t he?”

“Y-yes. He’s told me that. Not to make a career of, but we do want to visit other planets after the war.”

“Let’s try today to convince you the journey as well as the goal is something special… M-m-m, do you know, Eyath, two congenial couples traveling together — Well. Here we are.”

He assisted her into harness in the copilot’s seat, though she was his passenger. “Ordinarily this wouldn’t be needful,” he explained. “The flitter’s spaceable — you could reach Morgana easily, the nearer planets if necessary — so it has counter-acceleration fields available, besides interior weight under free fall. But we’ll be flying high, in the fringes of atmosphere, not to create a sonic boom. And while nothing much seems to be going on right now in the war, and we’ll have a canopy of fortress orbits above us, nevertheless—”

She brushed her crest across his shoulder. “Of course, Arinnian,” she murmured.

He secured himself, checked instruments, received clearance, and lifted. The initial stages were under remote control, to get him past that dance of negagrav projections which guarded the spaceport. Beyond, he climbed as fast as the law allowed, till in the upper stratosphere he fed his boat the power calculated to minimize his passage time.

“O-o-o-oh,” Eyath breathed.

They were running quietly. The viewscreens gave out-locks in several directions. Below, Avalon was silver ocean. Around were purple twilight, sun, moon, a few stars: immensity, cold and serene.

“You must’ve seen pictures,” Arinnian said.

“Yes. They’re not the same.” Eyath gripped his arm. “Thank you, dear galemate.”

And I’m bound for Tabby, to tell of a battle plan that may well work, that’ll require we work together. How dare I be this happy?

They flew on in the Ythrian silence which could be so much more companionable than human chatter.

There was an overcast at their destination; but when they had pierced its fog they found the sky pearl-gray, the waters white-laced indigo, the island soft green. The landing field was small, carved on the mountainside a few kilometers from the compound where Tabitha dwelt. When Chris called ahead she had promised to meet him.

He unharnessed with fingers that shook a little. Not stopping to help Eyath, he hastened to the airlock. It had opened and the gangway had extruded. A breeze ruffled his hair, warm, damp, perfumed by the janie planted around the field. Tabitha stood near, waving at him.

That was her left hand. Her right clasped the Terran’s.

After half a minute she called, “Do you figure to stand there all day, Chris?”

He came down. They two released each other and extended their hands, human fashion. Meanwhile her foot caressed Rochefort’s. She was wearing nothing but a few designs in body paint. They included the joyous banality of a heart pierced by an arrow.

Arinnian bowed. “We have an urgent matter to discuss,” he said in Planha. “Best we flit straight to Draun’s house.”

As a matter of fact, Tabitha’s partner and superior officer was waiting in her home. “Too many youngsters and retainers at mine,” he grunted. “Secrecy must be important, or you’d simply have phoned — though we do see a rattlewing lot of you.”

“These are always my welcome guests,” the woman said stiffly.

Arinnian wondered if the tension he felt was in the atmosphere or his solitary mind. Draun, lean, scarred, had not erected feathers; but he sat back on tail and alatans in a manner suggesting surliness, and kept stroking a dirk he wore. Tabitha’s look seemed to dwell upon Rochefort less meltingly than it had done at the field, more in appeal.

Glancing around, Arinnian found the living room little changed. Hitherto it had pleased him. She had designed the house herself. The ceiling, a fluoropanel, was low by Ythrian standards, to make the overall proportions harmonious. A few susin mats lay on a floor of polished oak, between large-windowed copperwood walls, beneath several loungers, end tables, a stone urn full of blossoms. While everything was clean-scrubbed, her usual homely clutter was strewn about, here a pipe rack and tobacco jar, there a book, yonder the shipmodel she was building.

Today, however, he saw texts to inform a stranger about Avalon, and a guitar which must have been lately ordered since she didn’t play that instrument. The curtain had not been drawn across the doorway to her sleeping room; Arinnian glimpsed a new wood-and-leather-frame bed, double width.

Eyath’s wing touched him. She didn’t like Draun. He felt the warmth that radiated from her.

“Yes,” he said. “We do have to keep the matter below ground.” His gaze clanged on Rochefort’s. “I understand you’ve been studying Planha. How far along are you?”

The Terran’s smile was oddly shy for an offplanet enemy who had bedazzled a girl sometimes named Hrill. “Not very,” he admitted. “I’d try a few words except you’d find my accent too atrocious.”

“He’s doing damn well,” Tabitha said, and snuggled.

His arm about her waist, Rochefort declared: “I’ve no chance of passing your plans on to my side, if that’s what’s worrying you, Citizen — uh, I mean Christopher Holm. But I’d better make my position clear. The Empire is my side. When I accepted my commission, I took an oath, and right now I’ve no way to resign that commission.”

“Well said,” Eyath told him. “So would my betrothed avow.”

“What’s honor to a Terran?” Draun snorted. Tabitha gave him a furious look. Before she could reply, Rochefort, who had evidently not followed the Planha, was proceeding:

“As you can see, I… expect I’ll settle on Avalon after the war. Whichever way the war goes. But I do believe it can only go one way. Christopher Holm, besides falling in love with this lady, I have with her planet. Could I possibly make you consider accepting the inevitable before the horror comes down on Tabby and Avalon?”

“No,” Arinnian answered.

“I thought not” Rochefort sighed. “Okay, I’ll take a walk. Will an hour be long enough?”

“Oh, yes,” Eyath said in Anglic.

Rochefort smiled. “I love your whole people.”

Eyath nudged Arinniaiu “Do you need me?” she asked. “You’re going to explain the general idea. I’ve heard that.” She made a whistling noise found solely in the Avalonian dialect of Planha — a giggle. “You know how wives flee from their husbands’ jokes.”

“Hm?” he said. “What’ll you do?”

“Wander about with Ph… Phee-leep Hroash For. He has been where Vodan is.”

You too? Arinnian thought.

“And he is the mate of Hrill, our friend,” Eyath added.

“Go if you wish,” Arinnian said.

“An hour, then.” Claws ticked, feathers rustled as Eyath crossed the floor to the Terran. She reached up and took his arm. “Come; we have much to trade,” she said in her lilting Anglic.

He smiled again, brushed his lips across Tabitha’s, and escorted the Ythrian away. Silence lingered behind them, save for a soughing in the trees outside. Arinnian stood where he was. Draun fleered. Tabitha sought her pipes, chose one and began stuffing it. Her eyes held very closely on that task.

“Blame not me,” Draun said. “I’d have halved him like his bald-skin fellow, if Hrill hadn’t objected. Do you know she wouldn’t let me make a goblet from the skull?”

Tabitha stiffened.

“Well, tell me when you tire of his bouncing you,” Draun continued. “I’ll open his belly on Dlarian’s altar.”

She swung to confront him. The scar on her cheek stood bonelike over the skin. “Are you asking me to end our partnership?” tore from her. “Or to challenge you?”

“Tabitha Falkayn may regulate her own life, Draun,” Arinnian said.

“Ar-r-rkh, could be I uttered what I shouldn’t,” the other male growled. His plumage ruffled, his teeth flashed forth. “Yet how long must we sit in this cage of Terran ships?”

“As long as need be,” Tabitha snapped, still pale and shivering. “Do you want to charge out and die for naught witless as any saga hero? Or invite the warheads that kindle firestorms across a whole continent?”

“Why not? All dies at last,” Draun grinned. “What glorious pyrotechnics to go out in! Better to throw Terra onto hell-wind, alight; but since we can’t do that, unfortunately—”

“I’d sooner lose the war than kill a planet, any planet,” Tabitha said. “As many times sooner as it has living creatures. And I’d sooner lose this planet than see it killed.” She leveled her voice and looked straight at the Ythrian. “Your trouble is, the Old Faith reinforces every wish to kill that war has roused in you — and you’ve no way to do it.”

Draun’s expression said, Maybe. At least I don’t rut with the enemy. He kept mute, though, and Tabitha chose not to watch him. Instead she turned to Arinnian. “Can you change that situation?” she asked. Her smile was almost timid.

He did not return it “Yes,” he answered. “Let me explain what we have in mind.”

Since the ornithoids did not care to walk any considerable distance, and extended conversation was impossible in flight, Eyath first led Rochefort to the stables. After repeated visits in recent weeks she knew her way about. A few zirraukhs were kept there, and a horee for Tabitha. The former were smaller than the latter and resembled it only in being warm-blooded quadrupeds — they weren’t mammals, strictly speaking — but served an identical purpose. “Can you outfit your beast?” she inquired.

“Yes, now I’ve lived here awhile. Before, I don’t remember ever even seeing a horse outside of a zoo.” His chuckle was perfunctory. “Uh, shouldn’t we have asked permission?”

“Why? Chothfolk are supposed to observe the customs of their guests, and in Stormgate you don’t ask to borrow when you’re among friends.”

“How I wish we really were.”

She braced a hand against a stall in order to reach out a wing and gently stroke the pinions down his cheek.

They saddled up and rode side by side along a trail through the groves… Leaves rustled to the sea breeze, silvery-hued in that clear shadowless light. Hoofs plopped, but the damp air kept dust from rising.

“You’re kind, Eyath,” Rochefort said at last, awkwardly. “Most of the people have been. More, I’m afraid, than a nonhuman prisoner of war would meet on a human planet”

Eyath sought words. She was using Anglic, for the practice as much as the courtesy. But her problem here was to find concepts. The single phrase which came to her seemed a mere tautology: “One need not hate to fight.”

“It helps. If you’re human, anyway,” he said wryly. “And that Draun—”

“Oh, he doesn’t hate you. He’s always thus. I feel… pity?… for his wife. No, not pity. That would mean I think her inferior, would it not? And she endures.”

“Why does she stay with him?”

“The children, of course. And perhaps she is not unhappy. Draun must have his good points, since he keeps Hrill in partnership. Still, I will be much luckier in my marriage.”

“Hrill—” Rochefort shook his head. “I fear I’ve earned the hate of your, uh, brother Christopher Holm.”

Eyath trilled. “Clear to see, you’re where he especially wanted to go. He bleeds so you can hear the splashes.”

“You don’t mind? Considering how close you two are.”

“Well, I do not watch his pain gladly. But he will master it. Besides, I wondered if she might not bind him too closely.” Sheer off from there, lass. Eyath regarded the man. “We gabble of what does not concern us. I would ask you about the stars you have been at, the spaces you have crossed, and what it is like to be a warrior yonder.”

“I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “Sounds damned iffy.”

“Show me the stratagem that never was,” Arinnian replied. “Thing is, whether or not it succeeds, we’ll have changed the terms of the fight. The Imperials will have no reason to bombard, good reason not to, and Avalon is spared.” He glanced at Draun.

The fisher laughed. “Whether I wish that or not, akh?” he said. “Well, I think any scheme’s a fine one which lets us kill Terrans personally.”

“Are you sure they’ll land where they’re supposed to?” Tabitha wondered.

“No, of course we’re not sure,” Arinnian barked. “We’ll do whatever we can to make that area their logical choice. Among other moves, we’re arranging a few defections. The Terrans oughtn’t to suspect they’re due to us, because in fact it is not hard to get off this planet. Its defenses aren’t set against objects traveling outward.”

“Hm.” Tabitha stroked her chin… big well-formed hand over square jaw, beneath heavy mouth… “If I were a Terran intelligence officer and someone who claimed to have fled from Avalon brought me such a story, I’d put him under — what do they call that obscene gadget? — a hypnoprobe.”

“No doubt.” Arinnian’s nod was jerky. “But these will be genuine defectors. My father has assigned shrewd men to take care of that. I don’t know the details, but I can guess. We do have people who’re panicked, or who want us to surrender because they’re convinced we’ll lose regardless. And we have more who feel that way in lesser degree, whom the first kind will trust. Suppose — well, suppose, for instance, we get President Vickery to call a potential traitor in for a secret discussion. Vickery explains that he himself wants to quit, it’s political suicide for him to act openly, but he can help by arranging for certain persons to carry certain suggestions to the Terrans. Do you see? I’m not saying that’s how it will be done — I really don’t know how far we can trust Vickery — but we can leave the specifics to my father’s men.”

“And likewise the military dispositions which will make the yarn look plausible. Fine, fine,” Draun gloated.

’That’s what I came about,” Arinnian said. “My mission’s to brief the various home-guard leaders, and get their efforts coordinated.”

Rising from his chair, he started pacing, back and forth in front of Tabitha and never looking at her. “An extra item in your case,” he went on, staccato. “It’d help tremendously if one of their own brought them the same general information.”

Breath hissed between her teeth. Draun rocked forward, off his alatans, onto his toes.

“Yes,” Arinnian said, “Your dear Philippe Rochefort. You tell him I’m here because I’m worried about Equatoria.” He gave details. “Then I find some business in the neighbor islands and belt-flit with Eyath. Our boat stays behind, carelessly unguarded. You let him stroll freely around, don’t you? His action is obvious.”

Tabitha’s pipestem broke in her grasp. She didn’t notice the bowl fall, scattering ash and coals. “No,” she said.

Arinnian found he needn’t force himself to stop and glare at her as he did. “He’s more to you than your world?”

“God stoop on me if ever I make use of him,” she said.

“Well, if his noble spirit wouldn’t dream of abusing your trust, what have you to fear?”

“I will not make my honor unworthy of his,” said Hrill.

“That dungheart?” Draun gibed. Her eyes went to him, her hand to a table beside her whereon lay a knife.

He took a backward step. “Enough,” he muttered. It was a relief when the following stillness was broken. Someone banged on the door. Arinnian, being nearest, opened it. Rochefort stood there. Behind him were a horse and a zirraukh. He breathed unevenly and blood had retreated from under his dark skin. “You were not to come back yet,” Arinnian told him. “Eyath—” Rochefort began.

“What?” Arinnian grabbed him by the shoulders. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know. I… we were riding, talking… Suddenly she screamed. Christ, I can’t get that shriek out of my head. And she took off, her wings stormed, she disappeared past the treetops before I could call to her. I… I waited, till—”

Tabitha joined them. She started to push Arinnian aside, noticed his stance and how his fingers dug into Rochefort’s flesh, and refrained. “Phil,” she said low. “Darling, think. She must’ve heard something terrible. What was it?”

“I can’t imagine.” The Terran winced under Arinnian’s grip but stayed where he was. “She’d asked me to, well, describe the space war. My experiences. I was telling her of the last fight before we crash-landed. You remember. I’ve told you the same.”

“An item I didn’t ask about?”

“Well, I, I did happen to mention noticing the insigne on the Avalonian boat, and she asked how it looked.”

“And?”

“I told her. Shouldn’t I have?”

“What was it?”

“Three gilt stars placed along a hyperbolic curve.”

Arinnian let go of Rochefort. His fist smashed into the man’s face. Rochefort lurched backward and fell to the ground. Arinnian drew his knife, started to pursue curbed himself. Rochefort sat up, bewildered, bleeding at the mouth.

Tabitha knelt beside him. “You couldn’t know, my dear,” she said. Her own control was close to breaking. “What you told her was that her lover is dead.”