The tundra reached in crisp dunes and a glimpse of wind-scoured frozen lake. But it was not empty. Black among the blue shadows, leaves thrust upward in clumps that only looked low and bushy; their stems often went down through meters of snow. The sooty colors absorbed sunlight with high efficiency, aided by reflection off the surface. In some, a part of that energy worked through molecular processes to liquefy water; others substituted organic compounds, such as alcohols, with lower freezing points; for most, solidification of fluids was important to one stage or another of the life cycle.
North of the mountains, the glaciers were becoming too thick for plants. But south of them, and on the islands, vegetation flourished. Thus far it was sparse, and it would never approach the luxuriance of summer. Nonetheless it supported an animal population off which other animals lived reasonably well—including the Ruadrath. Still, you could understand why they had such intense territorial jealousies…
Flandry’s breath steamed into air that lay cold on his cheeks; but within his garments he was sweating a trifle. The day was quiet enough for him to hear the shuffle-shuffle of his walking. He said carefully:
“Rrinn, I do not ask you to follow my counsel blind. Truth indeed is that I could be telling you untruth. What harm can it do, though, to consider ways by which you may prove or disprove my speech? Must you not as leader of Wirrda’s attempt this? For think. If my folk and Merseia’s are in conflict, maneuvering for position among the stars, then harbors are needed for the sky-swimming craft. Not so? You have surely seen that not every Merseian is here to gather knowledge. Most come and go on errands that I tell you are scoutings and attacks on my folk.
“Now a warlike harbor needs defense. In preparation for the day the enemy discovers it, a day that will unfailingly come, it has to be made into more than a single small encampment. This whole world may have to be occupied, turned into a fortress.” What a casuist I am! “Are you certain the Merseians have not been staring into your lives in order that they may know how easiest to overwhelm you?”
Rrinn growled back, “And am I certain your folk would leave us be?”
“You have but my speech,” Flandry admitted, “wherefore you should ask of others.”
“How? Shall I call Ydwyr in, show him you, and scratch for truth as to why he spoke nothing about your kindred?”
“N-n-no, I counsel otherwise. Then he need but kill me and give you any smooth saying he chooses. Best you get him to come to Wirrda’s, yes, but without knowledge that I live. You can there draw him out in discourse and seize whether or not that which he tells runs together with that which you know from having traveled with me.”
“S-s-s-s.” Rrinn gripped his vocalizer as if it were a weapon. He was plainly troubled and unhappy; his revulsion at the idea of possibly being driven from his land gave him no peace. It lay in his chromosomes, the dread inherited from a million ancestors, to whom loss of hunting grounds had meant starvation in the barrens.
“We have the rest of the trek to think about what you should do,” Flandry reassured him.
More accurately, for me to nudge you into thinking the scheme I hatched in the cache house is your own notion.
I hope we do feel and reason enough alike that I can play tricks on you.
To himself: Don’t push too hard, Flandry. Take time to observe, to participate, to get simpâtico with them. Why, you might even figure out a way to make amends, if you survive.
Chance changed the subject for him. A set of moving specks rounded a distant hill. Closer, they revealed themselves as a moose-sized shovel-tusked brute pursued by several Ruadrath. The hunters’ yells split the air. Rrinn uttered a joyous howl and sped to help. Flandry was left floundering behind in spite of wanting to demonstrate his prowess. He saw Rrinn head off the great beast and engage it, knife and spear against its rushes, till the others caught up.
That evening there was feasting and merriment. The grace of dancers, the lilt of song and small drums, spoke to Flandry with an eloquence that went beyond language and species. He had admired Ruadrath art: the delicate carving on every implement, the elegant shapes of objects like sledges, bowls, and blubber lamps. Now tonight, sitting—bundled up—in one of the igloos that had been raised when the old females predicted a blizzard, he heard a story. Rrinn gave him a low-voiced running translation into Eriau. Awkward though that was, Flandry could identify the elements of style, dignity, and philosophy which informed a tale of heroic adventure. Afterward, meditating on it in his sleeping bag, he felt optimistic about his chances of manipulating Wirrda’s.
Whether or not he could thereby wrest anything out of the Merseians was a question to be deferred if he wanted to get to sleep.
Ydwyr said quietly, “No, I do not believe you would be a traitress to your race. Is not the highest service you can render to help strike the Imperial chain off them?”
“What chain?” Djana retorted. “Where were the Emperor and his law when I tried to escape from the Black Hole, fifteen years old, and my contractor caught me and turned me over to the Giggling Man for a lesson?”
Ydwyr reached out. His fingers passed through her locks, stroked her cheek, and rested on her shoulder for a minute. To save her garments—indoors being warm and she simply an alien there, her body neither desirable nor repulsive—she had taken to wearing just a pocketed kilt. The touch on her skin was at once firm and tender; its slight roughness emphasized the strength held in check behind. Love flowed through it, into her, and radiated back out from her until the bare small office was aglow, as golden sunsets can saturate the air of worlds like Terra.
Love? No, maybe not really. That’s a typical sticky Anglic word. I remember, somebody told me, I think I remember…isn’t it caritas that God has for us mortals?
Above the gray robe, above her, Ydwyr’s countenance waited powerful and benign.
I mustn’t call you God. But I can call you Father—to myself—can’t I? In Eriau they say rohadwann: affection, loyalty, founded on respect and on my own honor.
“Yes, I could better have spoken of burning out a cancer,” he agreed. “The breakdown of legitimate authority into weakness or oppression—which are two aspects of the same thing, the change of Hands into Heads—is a late stage of the fatal disease.” A human male would have tried to cuddle her and murmur consolations for memories that to this day could knot her guts and blur her eyesight. Then he would have gotten indignant if she didn’t crawl into bed with him. Ydwyr continued challengingly: “You had the toughness to outlive your torment, at last to outwit the tormentors. Is not your duty to help those of your race to freedom who were denied your heritage?”
She dropped her gaze. Her fingers twisted together. “How? I mean, oh, you would overrun humanity…wouldn’t you?”
“I thought you had learned the worth of propaganda,” he reproached her. “Whatever the final result, you will see no enormous change; centuries of effort lie ahead. And the goal is liberation—of Merseians, yes, we make no bleat about our primary objective being anything else—but we welcome partners—and our endeavor is, ultimately, to impose Will on blind Nature and Chance.”
Junior partners, she added to herself. Well, is that necessarily bad? She closed her eyes and saw a man who bore Nicky Flandry’s face (descendant, maybe) striding in the van of an army which followed the Merseian Christ. He carried no exterior burden of venal superiors and bloodless colleagues, no interior load of nasty little guilts and doubts and mockeries; in his hand was the gigantic simplicity of a war knife, and he laughed as he strode. Beside him, she herself walked. Wind tossed her hair and roared in green boughs. They would never leave each other.