Ha, getting moral, am I? Probably need a fresh course of antisenescents.
He rose and made his way aft, feeling every step, feeling how he must strain to hold his spine erect. In earlier days, he had shortened his hated exercises by turning up the weight before he did them; and under standard conditions, he seldom noticed himself walking—he floated. Nowadays—Well, he wasn’t yet elderly, he could still pace most men twenty or thirty years his junior, but a hundred variable cues kept him reminded that time was always gnawing, the snake at the root of Yggdrasil. Who was it had said once that youth is too precious to be wasted on the young?
Chives was in the saloon, stooped under the burden. “Sir,” he reproached, “you did not warn me of this change in environment. May I ask how long it is to prevail?”
“Sure, you may, but don’t expect an answer,” Flandry said. “Hours, days? Sorry. You knew we’d have to lie doggo, so I assumed you’d realize this was included.” With concern, “Is it too hard on you?”
“No, sir. I do fear it will adversely affect luncheon. I was planning an omelet. Under two gravities, it would get leathery. Will sandwiches be acceptable instead?”
Flandry sat down and laughed. Why not? The gods, if any, did. I sometimes think we were created because the gods wanted to be entertained one evening by a farce—but no, that can’t be. We are high comedy at least.
The prospector who spoke some Anglic was called Ayon Oressa’ul. Folk hereabouts did not live in the large, shared territory of a clan, but on patches of land, each owned by a single family which bequeathed a common surname to its children. Ayon was evidently trusted by the chief (?) of Dukeston, for he was put in charge of the visitors. That involved a lengthy discussion on a farseer in his house, while they waited outside. He came back to them looking self-important.
“We will quarter you in my dwelling and its neighbors,” he announced. His gestures included three round-walled, peak-roofed structures. Their sameness made them yet more peculiar than did their foreign style and artificial materials. Inhabitants stared at the strangers but made no advances. Their postures suggested they were used to regarding all outsiders as inferior, no matter whether one among those understood human language. “You are not to leave except under escort, and always together.”
Yewwl sensed a catch of Banner’s breath. It brought home anew to her how cut off her band was, how precarious its grip on events. Her natural reaction was anger, an impulse to strike out. She suppressed it. Not only would it compromise her venture, but that in turn would gust her and her companions down into mortal jeopardy. She was ready to die if that would help avenge Robreng and their young ones upon the Ice; but having worked off the worst grief, she was once more finding too many splendors in the world to wish to leave it.
She smoothed her stance and asked politely, “Why? We intend no harm, we who came in search of aid.”
“You might well come to harm yourselves,” Ayon said. “Or you might, through ignorance, cause damage. Things strange and powerful are at work here.”
Yewwl seized the chance. “We are eager to see them. Besides being curious, perhaps we will get an idea of how our country can be rescued. Please!”
“Well … well, I suppose that would be safe enough.”
“At once, I beg you.”
“What, you do not want to rest and eat first?”
“We have no sharp need of either. Also, we fear that at any moment the humans may decide to deny our plea. Then we would be sent away, no? Unless, before, we have thought of a more exact proposal to make. Please, kind male.”
(The conversation was not this straightforward. Yewwl and Ayon had gained a bit more mutual fluency, talking on the way to town, but it remained awkward. She saw advantages in that, such as not having to explain precisely—and falsely—what she had to do with Wainwright Station.)
Ayon relented. He was proud of the community he served and would enjoy showing it off. “I am required to take certain things along when conducting you,” he said, and went back into his house. He re-emerged with a box strapped to his left wrist, which Banner identified as a radiophone, and a larger object sheathed on his right thigh, which Yewwl recognized as a blaster. “Stay close by me and touch nothing without permission,” he ordered.
—“This is less than we hoped for,” she told her oath-sister. “I meant to go about freely.”
—“They’re showing normal caution,” the woman decided. “They can’t suspect your real purpose, or you’d be prisoners. We may actually manage to turn the situation to our use. The guide may well answer key questions … if he continues to take you for an ignorant barbarian.”
“What’s going on, Mother?” Skogda asked. He radiated impatience. “What’s he about?”
Yewwl explained. Her son spread vanes and showed teeth. “That’s an insult,” he rasped.
“Calm, calm,” she urged. “We must put our pride away here. Later, homebound, we’ll track down plenty of animals and kill them.”
Ayon gave them both a hard stare. Banner saw and warned:—“Body language doesn’t differ much from end to end of the continent. He senses tension. Never forget, he can call armed force to him from above.”
“Skogda too is anxious to start off,” Yewwl assured Ayon. “Overly anxious, maybe, but we’ve fared a long, gruelling way for this.”
He eased. “If nothing else, you will carry back tales of wonder,” he replied. “Come.”
They left the native quarter and followed a street that descended into a hollow between two hills. The entire bottom was occupied by a single building, blank of walls and roof. Intake towers showed that still more was underground. Stacks vented steam and smoke. In the glare of lights, vehicles trundled back and forth.
—“That is, or was, the palladium refinery; but it’s incredibly enlarged.” Banner’s voice shook. “Ask him about it. I’ll give you the questions.”
—“You’d best,” Yewwl said sardonically, “for I’ve no wisp of an idea what you’re talking about.”
Discourse struggled. Ayon described the ore that went in and the metal that came out. (—“Yes, palladium.”) He related how the ingots were taken to the field, loaded aboard the sky-ships, and carried off. He supposed it went to the distant home of the humans. (—“There’s no reason for any planet but Hermes to import it from here, and I’ve never heard that Hermes is using an unusual amount … “)
“I will show you something more interesting,” Ayon offered.
The street climbed to a crest whereon stood another big building, this one with many transparent sections—which Yewwl thought of as glass—in walls and roof. Within, beneath lights less clement than the sun, a luminance like that aboard the vessel she had ridden, were rows and tiers of tanks. Plants grew there, exotically formed, intensely green.
“Here the humans raise food they can eat,” Ayon said. “It isn’t vital, for the ships bring in supplies, but they like to add something fresh.” Banner had already informed Yewwl of this; now the latter must translate for her followers. “In late years they have added far more rooms for the purpose, underground. Many of us worked in the construction, and no few of us now work at preparing and packing what is gathered, for shipment elsewhere.” He strutted. “It must be uncommonly tasty, for the humans to want it at their home.”
—“It doesn’t go there,” Banner observed. “Not anywhere … except to a military depot?”
At her prompting, Yewwl inquired, “What else do you—your folk—make for them?”
“Lumber and iha oil in the lowlands. Ores in the hills, though mainly those are dug by machines after persons like me have found veins. Lately we’ve been set searching for a different kind. And about the same time, a number of us were trained to handle machines that make clothes and armor.”