“Easy.” Flandry came behind her, laid his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “Anything’s possible. But I think the chances favor us. The Ardazirho can hardly spare personnel for something so routine and, to them, unimportant, as weather adjustment. At the same time, the human engineers are very probably still on the job. Humanity always continues as much in the old patterns as possible, people report to their usual work, hell may open but the city will keep every lawn mowed … Our real gamble is that whoever spots our call will have the brains, and the courage and loyalty, to act on it.”
She leaned against him a moment. “An’ d’you think there’s a way for us to be gotten out o’ here, under the enemy’s nose?”
An obscure pain twinged in his soul. “I know it’s unfair, Kit,” he said. “I myself am a hardened sinner and this is my job and so on, but it isn’t right to hazard all the fun and love and accomplishment waiting for you. It must be done, though. My biggest hope was always to steal a navigation manual. Don’t you understand, it will tell us where Ardazir lies!”
“I know.” Her sigh was a small sound almost lost in the boom of dry hot wind beyond die door. “We’d better start work.”
While she opened the transmitter and cut out the meter circuits, Flandry recorded a message: a simple plea to contact Emil Bryce and arrange the rescue from Station 938 of two humans with vital material for Admiral Walton. How that was to be done, he had no clear idea himself. A Vixenite aircraft would have little chance of getting this far north undetected and undestroyed. A radio message — no, too easily intercepted, unless you had very special apparatus — a courier to the fleet — and if that was lost, another and another—
When she had finished, Kit reached for the second water bottle. “Better not,” said Flandry. “We’ve a long wait.”
“I’m dehydrated,” she husked.
“Me too. But we’ve no salt; heat stroke is a real threat. Drinking as little as possible will stretch our survival time. Why the devil aren’t these places air conditioned and stocked with rations?”
“No need for it. They just get routine inspection … at mid-winter in these parts.” Kit sat down on the one little bench. Flandry joined her. She leaned into the curve of his arm. A savage gust trembled in the hut walls, the window was briefly blackened with flying grit.
“Is Ardazir like this?” she wondered. “Then ’tis a real hell for those devils to come from.”
“Oh, no,” answered Flandry. “Temulak said their planet has a sane orbit. Doubtless it’s warmer than Terra, on the average, but we could stand the temperature in most of its climatic zones, I’m sure. A hot star, emitting strongly in the UV, would split water molecules and kick the free hydrogen into space before it could recombine. The ozone layer would give some protection to the hydrosphere, but not quite enough. So Ardazir must be a good deal drier than Terra, with seas rather than oceans. At the same time, judging from the muscular strength of the natives, as well as the fact they don’t mind Vixen’s air pressure, Ardazir must be somewhat bigger. Surface gravity of one-point-five, maybe. That would retain an atmosphere similar to ours, in spite of the sun.”
He paused. Then: “They aren’t fiends, Kit. They’re fighters and hunters. Possibly they’ve a little less built-in kindliness than our species. But I’m not even sure about that. We were a rambunctious lot too, a few centuries ago. We may well be again, when the Long Night has come and it’s root, hog, or die. As a matter of fact, the Ardazirho aren’t even one people. They’re a whole planetful of races and cultures. The Urdahu conquered the rest only a few years ago. That’s why you see all those different clothes on them — concession to parochialism, like an ancient Highland regiment. And I’ll give odds that in spite of all their successes, the Urdahu are not too well liked at home. Theirs is a very new empire, imposed by overwhelming force; it could be split again, if we used the right tools. I feel almost sorry for them, Kit. They’re the dupes of someone else — and Lord, what a someone that is! What a genius!”
He stopped, because the relentless waterless heat had shriveled his gullet. The girl said, low and bitter: “Go on. Sympathize with Ardazir an’ admire the artistry o’ this X who’s behind it all. You’re a professional too. But my kind o’ people has to do the dyin’.”
“I’m sorry.” He ruffled her hair.
“You still haven’t tol’ me whether you think we’ll be rescued alive.”
“I don’t know.” He tensed himself until he could add: “I doubt it. I expect it’ll take days, and we can only hold out for hours. But if the ship comes — no, damn it, when the ship comes! — that pilot book will be here.”
“Thanks for bein’ honest, Dominic,” she said. “Thanks for everything.”
He kissed her, with enormous gentleness.
After that they waited.
The sun sank. A short night fell. It brought little relief, the wind still scourging, the northern sky still aflame. Kit tossed in a feverish daze beside Flandry. He himself could no longer think very clearly. He had hazed recollections of another white night in high-latitude summer — but that had been on Terra, on a cool upland meadow of Norway , and there had been another blonde girl beside him — her lips were like roses …
The whistling down the sky, earthshaking thump of a recklessly fast landing, feet that hurried over blistering rock and hands that hammered on the door, scarcely reached through the charred darkness of Flandry’s mind. But when the door crashed open and the wind blasted in, he swam up through waves of pain. And the thin face of Chives waited to meet him.
“Here, sir. Sit up. If I may take the liberty—”
“You green bastard,” croaked Flandry out of nightmare, “I ordered you to—”
“Yes, sir. I delivered your tape. But after that, it seemed advisable to slip back and stay in touch with Mr. Bryce. Easy there, sir, if you please. We can run the blockade with little trouble. Really, sir, did you think natives could bar your own personal spacecraft? I shall prepare medication for the young lady, and tea is waiting in your stateroom.”
XV
Fleet Admiral Sir Thomas Walton was a big man, with gray hair and bleak faded eyes. He seldom wore any of his decorations, and visited Terra only on business. No sculp, but genes and war and unshed tears, when he watched his men die and then watched the Imperium dribble away what they had gained, had carved his face. Kit thought him the handsomest man she had ever met. But in her presence, his tongue locked with the shyness of an old bachelor. He called her Miss Kittredge, assigned her a private cabin in his flagship, and found excuses to avoid the officers’ mess where she ate.
She was given no work, save keeping out of the way. Lonely young lieutenants buzzed about her, doing their best to charm and amuse. But Flandry was seldom aboard the dreadnaught.
The fleet orbited in darkness, among keen sardonic stars. Little could actively be done. Ogre must be watched, where the giant planet crouched an enigma. The Ardazirho force did not seek battle, but stayed close to Vixen where ground support was available and where captured robofactories daily swelled its strength. Now and then the Terrans made forays. But Walton hung back from a decisive test. He could still win — z/ he used his whole strength and if Ogre stayed neutral. But Vixen, the prize, would be a tomb.
Restless and unhappy, Walton’s men muttered in their ships.
After three weeks, Captain Flandry was summoned to the admiral. He whistled relief. “Our scout must have reported back,” he said to his assistant. “Now maybe they’ll take me off this damned garbage detail.”