The People of the Wind

VIII

Slowly those volumes of space wherein the war was being fought contracted and neared each other. At no time were vessels ranked. Besides being unfeasible to maintain, formations tight and rigid would have invited a nuclear barrage. At most, a squadron of small craft might travel in loose echelon for a while. If two major units of a flotilla came within a hundred kilometers, it was reckoned close. However, the time lag of communication dropped toward zero, the reliability of detection swooped upward, deadly encounters grew ever more frequent.

It became possible to know fairly well what the opponent had in play and where. It became possible to devise and guide a campaign.

Cajal remarked in a tape report to Saracoglu: “If every Ythrian system were as strong as Laura, we might need the whole Imperial Navy to break them. Here they possess, or did possess, approximately half the number of hulls that I do — which is to say, a sixth the number we deemed adequate for handling the entire Domain. Of course, that doesn’t mean their actual strength is in proportion. By our standards, they are weak in heavy craft. But their destroyers, still more their corvettes and torpedo boats, make an astonishing total. I am very glad that no other enemy sun, besides Quetlan itself, remotely compares with Laura.

“Nevertheless, we are making satisfactory progress. In groundling language — a technical summary will be appended for you — we can say that about half of what remains to them is falling back on Avalon. We intend to follow them there, dispose of them, and thus have the planet at our mercy.

“The rest of their fleet is disengaging, piecemeal, and retreating spaceward. Doubtless they mean to scatter themselves throughout the uninhabitable planets, moons, and asteroids of the system, where they must have bases, and carry on hit-and-run war. This should prove more nuisance than menace, and once we are in occupation their government will recall them. Probably larger vessels, which have hyperdrive, will seek to go reinforce elsewhere: again, not unduly important.

“I am not underestimating these people. They fight skillfully and doggedly. They must expect to use planetary defenses in conjunction with those ships moving toward the home world. God grant, more for their sakes than ours, most especially for the sakes of innocent females and children of both races, God grant their leaders see reason and capitulate before we hurt them too badly.”

The half disk of Avalon shone sapphire swirled with silver, small and dear among the stars. Morgana was coming around the dark side. Ferune remembered night flights beneath it with Wharr, and murmured, “O moon of my delight that knows no wane—”

“Hoy?” said Daniel Holm’s face in the screen.

“Nothing. My mind drifted.” Ferune drew breath. “We’ve skimpy time. They’re coming in fast I want to make certain you’ve found no serious objection to the battle plan as detailed.”

The laser beam took a few seconds to flicker between flagship and headquarters. Ferune went back to his memories.

“I bugger well do!” Holm growled. “I already told you. You’ve brought Hell Rock too close in. Prime target.”

“And I told you,” Ferune answered, “we no longer need her command capabilities.” I wish we did, but our losses have been too cruel. “We do need her firepower and, yes, her attraction for the enemy. That’s why I never counted on getting her away to Quetlan. There she’d be just one more unit. Here she’s the keystone of our configuration. If things break well, she will survive. I know the scheme is not guaranteed, but it was the best my staff, computers, and self could produce on what you also knew beforehand would be short notice. To argue, or modify much, at this late hour is to deserve disaster.”

Silence. Morgana rose further from Avalon as the ship moved.

“Well…” Holm slumped. He had lost weight till his cheekbones stood forth like ridges in upland desert. “I s’pose.”

“Uncle, a report of initial contact,” Ferune’s aide said.

“Already?” The First Marchwarden of Avalon turned to the comscreen. “You heard, Daniel Holm? Fair winds forever.” He cut the circuit before the man could reply. “Now,” he told the aide, “I want a recomputation of the optimum orbit for this ship. Project the Terran’s best moves… from their viewpoint, in the light of what information we have… and adjust ours accordingly.”

Space sparkled with fireworks. Not every explosion, nor most, signified a hit; but they were thickening.

Three Stars slammed from her cruiser. At once her detectors reported an object. Analysis followed within seconds — a Terran Meteor, possible to intercept, no nearby companions. “Quarry!” Vodan sang out. “Five minutes to range.”

A yell went through the hull. Two weeks and worse of maneuver, cooped in metal save for rare, short hours when the flotilla dipped into combat, had been heavy chains to lift.

His new vector pointed straight at Avalon. The planet waxed; he flew toward Eyath. He had no doubts about his victory. Three Stars was well blooded. She was necessarily larger than her Imperial counterpart — Ythrian requirements for room — and therefore had a trifle less acceleration. But her firepower could on that account be made greater, and had been.

Vodan took feet off perch and hung in his harness. He spread his wings. Slowly he beat them, pumping his blood full of oxygen, his body full of strength and swiftness. It tingled, it sang. He heard a rustling aft as his four crewfolk did likewise. Stars gleamed above and around him.

Three representations occupied Daniel Holm’s office and, now, his mind. A map of Avalon indicated the ground installations. The majority were camouflaged and, he hoped, he would have prayed if he believed, were unknown to the enemy. Around a holographic; .world globe, variegated motes swung in multitudinous orbits. Many stations had been established a few days ago, after being transported to their launch sites from underground automated factories which were also supposed to be secret. Finally a display tank indicated what was known of the shifting ships out yonder.

Holm longed for a cigar, but his mouth was too withered by too much smoke in the near past. Crock, how I could use a drink! he thought. Neither might that be; the sole allowable drugs were those which kept him alert without exacting too high a metabolic price.

He stared at the tank. Yeh. They’re sure anxious to nail our flagship. Really converging on her.

He sought the window. While Gray still lay shadowy, the first dawnlight was picking out houses and making the waters sheen. Above, the sky arched purple, its stars blurred by the negagrav screens. They had to keep changing pattern, to give adequate coverage while allowing air circulation. That stirred up restless little winds, cold and a bit damp. But on the whole the country reached serene. The storms were beyond the sky and inside the flesh.

Holm was alone, more alone than ever in his life, though the forces of a world awaited his bidding. It would have to be his; the computers could merely advise. He guessed that he felt like an infantryman preparing to charge.

“There!” Rochefort shouted.

He saw a moving point of light in a viewscreen set to top magnification. It grew as he watched, a needle, a spindle, a toy, a lean sharp-snouted hunter on whose flank shone three golden stars.

The vectors were almost identical. The boats neared more slowly than they rushed toward the planet. Odd, Rochefort thought, how close Ansa’s come without meeting any opposition. Are they just going to offer token resistance? I’d hate to kill somebody for a token. Avalon was utterly beautiful. He was approaching in such wise that on his left the great disk had full daylight — azure, turquoise, indigo, a thousand different blues beneath the intercurving purity of cloud, a land mass glimpsed green and brown, and tawny. On his right was darkness, but moonlight shimmered mysteriously across oceans and weather.

Wa Chaou sent a probe of lightning. No result showed. The range was extreme. It wouldn’t stay thus for long. Now Rochefort needed no magnification to see the hostile hull. In those screens it was as yet a glint. But it slid across the stellar background, and it was more constant than the fireballs twinkling around.

Space blazed for a thousand kilometers around that giant spheroid which was Hell Rock. She did not try to dodge; given her mass, that was futile. She orbited her world. The enemy ships plunged in, shot, went by and maneuvered to return. They were many, she was one, save for a cloud of attendant Meteors and Comets. Her firepower, though, was awesome; still more were her instrumental and computer capabilities. She had not been damaged. When a section of screen must be turned off to launch a pack of missiles, auxiliary energy weapons intercepted whatever. Was directed at the vulnerable spot.

Rays had smitten. But none could be held steady through an interval. Sufficient to get past those heavy plates. Bombs whose yield was lethal radiation exploded along the limits of her defense. But the gamma quanta and neutrons were drunk down by layer upon layer of interior shielding. The last of them, straggling to those deep inner sections where organic creatures toiled, were so few that ordinary medication nullified their effects.

She had teen built in space and would never touch ground. A planetoid in her own right, she blasted ship after ship that dared come against her.

Cajal’s Supernova was stronger. But Valenderay must not be risked. The whole purpose of all that armament and armor was to protect the command of a fleet. When word reached him, he studied the display tank. “We’re wasting lesser craft. She eats them,” he said, chiefly to himself. “I hate to send capital vessels in. The enemy seems to have much more defensive stuff than we looked for, and it’s bound to open up on us soon. But that close, speed and maneuverability don’t count for what they should. We must have sheer force to take that monster out; and we must do that before we can pose any serious threat to the planet.” He tugged his beard. “S-s-so… between them, Persei, Ursa Minor, Regulus, Jupiter, and attendants should be able to do the job… fast enough and at enough of a distance that they can also cope with whatever the planet may throw.”

Tactical computers ratified and expanded his decision. He issued the orders.

Vodan saw a torpedo go past “Hai, good!” he cried. Had he applied a few megadynes less of decelerative force, that warhead would have connected. The missile braked and came about tracking, but one of his gunners destroyed it.

The Terran boat crawled ahead, off on the left and low. Vodan’s instruments reported she was exerting more sideways than forward thrust. The pilot must mean to cross the Ythrian bows, bare kilometers ahead, loose a cloud of radar window, and hope the concerted fire of his beam guns would penetrate before the other could range him. Since Ythrians, unlike Terrans, did not fight wearing spacesuits — how could anybody not go insane after more than a few hours in those vile, confining things? — a large hole in a compartment killed them.

The son-of-a-zirraukh was good, Vodan acknowledged happily. Lumbering and awkward as most space engagements were, this felt almost like being back in air. The duel had lasted until Avalon stood enormous in the bow screens. In fact, they were closer to atmosphere than was prudent at their velocity. They’d better end the affair.

Vodan saw how.

He went on slowing at a uniform rate, as if he intended presently to slant off. He thought the Terran would think: He sees what I plan. When I blind his radar, he will sheer from my fire in an unpredictable direction. Ah, but we’re not under hyperdrive. He can’t move at anything like the speed of energy beams. Mine can cover the entire cone of his possible instantaneous positions.

For that, however, the gun platform needed a constant vector. Otherwise too many unknowns entered the equations and the target had an excellent chance of escaping.

For part of a minute, if Vodan had guessed right, the Meteor would forego its advantage of superior mobility. And… he had superior weapons.

The Terran might well expect a torpedo and figure he could readily dispose of the thing. He might not appreciate how very great a concentration of energy his opponent could bring to bear for a short while, when all projectors were run at overload.

Vodan made his calculations. The gunners made their settings.

The Meteor passed ahead, dwarfish upon luminous Avalon. A sudden, glittering fog sprang from her. At explosive speed, it spread to make a curtain. And it hid one ship as well as the other.

Rays sliced through, seeking. Vodan knew exactly where to aim his. They raged for 30 seconds.

The metal dust scattered. Avalon again shone enormous and calm. Vodan ceased fire before his projectors should burn out. Nothing came from the Meteor. He used magnification, and saw the hole which gaped astern by her drive cones. Air gushed forth, water condensing ghost-white until it vanished into void. Acceleration had ended entirely.

Joy lofted in Vodan. “We’ve struck him!” he shouted.

“He could launch his torps in a flock,” the engineer worried.

“No. Come look if you wish. His powerplant took that hit. He has nothing left except his capacitor bank. If he can use that to full effect, which I doubt, he still can’t give any object enough initial velocity to worry us.”

“Kh’hng. Shall we finish him off?”

“Let’s see if he’ll surrender. Standard band… Calling Imperial Meteor. Calling Imperial Meteor.”

One more trophy for you, Eyath!

Hell Rock shuddered and toned. Roarings rolled inward. Air drifted bitter with smoke, loud with screams and bawled commands, running feet and threshing wings. Compartment after compartment was burst open to space. Bulkheads slid to seal twisted metal and tattered bodies off from the living.

She fought. She could fight on under what was left of her automata, well after the last of the crew were gone whose retreat she was covering.

Those were Ferune, his immediate staff, and a few ratings from Mistwood who had been promised the right to abide by their Wyvan. They made their way down quaking, tolling corridors. Sections lay dark where fluoro-panels and facings were peeled back from the mighty skeleton.

“How long till they beat her asunder?” asked one at Ferune’s back.

“An hour, maybe,” he guessed. “They wrought well who built her. Of course, Avalon will strike before then.”

“At what minute?”

“Daniel Holm must gauge that.”

They crowded into their lifeboat. Ferune took the controls. The craft lifted against interior fields; valves swung ponderously aside; she came forth to sight of stars and streaked for home.

He glanced behind. The flagship was ragged, crumpled, cratered. In places metal had run molten till it congealed into ugliness, in other places it glowed. Had the bombardment been able to, concentrate on those sites where defenses were down, a megaton warhead or two would have scattered the vessel in gas and ashes. But the likelihood of a precise hit at medium range was too slim to risk a supermissile against her remaining interception capability. Better to hold well off and gnaw with lesser blasts.

“Fare gladly into the winds,” Ferune whispered. In this moment he put aside his new ways, his alien ways, and was of Ythri, Mistwood, Wharr, the ancestors and the children.

Avalon struck. The boat reeled. Under an intolerable load of light, viewscreens blanked. Briefly, illumination went out. The flyers crouched, packed together, in bellowing, heat, and blindness.

It passed. The boat had not been severely damaged. Backup systems cut in. Vision returned, inside and outside. Aft, Hell Rock was silhouetted against the waning luridness of a fireball that spread across half heaven.

A rating breathed, “How… many… megatons?”

“I don’t know,” Ferune said. “Presumably ample to dispose of those Imperials we sucked into attacking us.”

“A wonder we came through,” said his aide. Every feather stood erect on him and shivered.

“The gases diffused across kilometers,” Ferune reminded. “We’ve no screen field generator here, true. But by the time the front reached us, even a velocity equivalent of several million degrees could not raise our temperature much.”

Silence clapped down, while smaller detonations glittered and faded-in deeper distances and energy swords lunged. Eyes sought eyes. The brains behind were technically trained.

Ferune spoke it for them. “Ionizing radiation, primary and secondary. I cannot tell how big a dose we got. The meter went off scale. But we can probably report back, at least.”

He gave himself to his piloting. Wharr waited.

Rochefort groped through the hull of Hooting Star. Interior grav generation had been knocked out; free-falling, they were now weightless. And airless beyond the enclosing armor. Stillness pressed inward till he heard his heart as strongly as he felt it. Beads of sweat broke off brow, nose, cheeks, and danced between eyes and faceplate, catching light in oily gleams. That light fell queerly across vacuum, undiffused, sharp-shadowed.

“Watch Out!” he croaked into his radio. “Watch Out, are you there?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Helu’s voice in his earplugs, from the engine room.

Rochefort found the little body afloat behind a panel cut half loose from its moorings. The same ray had burned through suit and flesh and out through the suit, cauterizing as it went so that only a few bloodgouts drifted around. “Wa Chaou bought it?” asked Helu.

“Yes.” Rochefort hugged the Cynthian to his breast and fought not to weep.

“Any fire control left?”

“No.”

“Well, I think I can squeeze capacitor power into the drive units. We can’t escape the planet on that, but maybe we can land without vaporizing in transit. It’ll take a pretty fabulous pilot. Better get back to your post, skipper.”

Rochefort opened the helmet in order to close the bulged-out eyes, but the lids wouldn’t go over them. He secured the corpse in a bight of loose wire and returned forward to harness himself in.

The call light was blinking. Mechanically, conscious mainly of grief, he plugged a jack into his suit unit and pressed the Accept button.

Anglic, accented, somehow both guttural and ringing: “—Imperial Meteor. Are you alive? This is the Avalonian. Acknowledge or we shoot.”

“Ack… ack—” Before the noise in his throat could turn to sobbing, Rochefort said, “Yes, captain here.”

“We will take you aboard if you wish.” Rochefort clung to the seatback, legs trailing aft. It hummed and crackled in his ears.

“Ythri abides by the conventions of war,” said the un-human voice. “You will be interrogated but not mistreated. If you refuse, we must take the precaution of destroying you.”

Kh-h-h-h… m-m-m-m…

“Answer at once! We are already too nigh Avalon. The danger of being caught in crossfire grows by the minute.”

“Yes,” Rochefort heard himself say. “Of course. We surrender.”

“Good. I observe you have not restarted your engine. Do not. We are matching velocities. Link yourselves and jump off into space. We will lay a tractor beam on you and bring you in as soon as may be. Understood? Repeat”

Rochefort did.

“You fought well,” said the Ythrian. “You showed deathpride. I shall be honored to welcome you aboard.” And silence.

Rochefort called Helu. The men bent the ends of a cable around their waists, cracked the personnel lock, and prepared to tumble free. Kilometers off they saw the vessel that bore three stars, coming like an eagle. The skies erupted in radiance.

When ragged red dazzlement had cleared from their vision, Helu choked, “Ullah akbar, Ullah akbar… They’re gone. What was it?”

“Direct hit,” Rochefort said. Shock had blown some opening in him for numbness to drain out of. He felt strength rising in its wake. His mind flashed, fast as those war lightnings yonder but altogether cool. “They knew we were helpless and had no friends nearby. But in spite of a remark the captain made, they must’ve forgotten to look out for their own friends. The planet-based weapons have started shooting. I imagine the missiles include a lot of tracker torpedoes. Our engines were dead. His weren’t. A torp homed on the emissions.”

“What, no recognition circuits?”

“Evidently not. To lash out on the scale they seem to be doing, the Avalonians would’ve had to sacrifice quality for quantity, and rely on knowing the dispositions of units. It was not reasonable to expect any this close in. The fighting’s further out. I daresay that torp was bound there, against some particular Imperial concentration, when it happened to pass near us.”

“Urn.” They hung between darkness and glitter, breathing. “We’ve lost our ride,” Helu said.

“Got to make do, then,” Rochefort answered. “Come.” Beneath his regained calm, he was shaken at what appeared to be the magnitude of the Avalonian response.