“In time. How long, considering Ishtarian life-spans? What horrors go on meanwhile, and how much gets lost forever?”
“I know, Ian, I know.”
“For us, time’s gotten damnably short, if we want to do anything to help Larreka, Arnanak told me he already has messengers out, calling ships and ground forces to rendezvous. I don’t give Port Rua another month before he cuts loose the storm.”
Jill sat quiet a while. Somehow Sparling had not spoken like a man in despair. At last she ventured, “You sound as if we’re not altogether helpless.”
He nodded. His cowlick bobbed, ludicrous and dear in the gray-shot black hair. “We can try. Jill, I’d have come anyway to help you, but it happens I made me an excuse.” He slid back the sleeve on the left arm against which she nestled. Braceleted on the wrist was a micro transceiver “Arnanak checked my kit item by item before allowing anything along. But as I’d hoped, he didn’t recognize this. He believed me when I explained it’s a talisman.”
She frowned. “What’re you getting at? We must be three hundred kilometers from Port Rua, or worse. Under ideal conditions, a high-gain detector might pick this thing up at ten.”
“Ah-ah-ah!” He wagged a finger. “You underestimate my low cunning.”
In a burst of hope, she said, “No, if it’s low, I’ve got to have overestimated it.”
He rattled a laugh. “As you like. But listen. Larreka helped me work out the details. Part of the deal he made was, the natives will let small legionary bands hunt freely, in exchange for the soidiers not firing these woods and savannahs. Well, I brought along a few solar-energized portable relays—Mark Fives, you know, same as we’ve got around South Beronnen wherever a bigger, permanent unit isn’t convenient to install. Certain of those foraging parties will plant ’em strategically when nobody’s looking, well hidden in trees, on hilltops, et cetera.”
“But, Ian, how can they come near enough—?”
“They can’t, especially when they don’t know our location. In fact, as Larreka must have mentioned to you, he’s never learned just where Ulu is, where the enemy chief has his headquarters. Arnanak’s been cagy about that; he’s no slumpskull. Yet surely one of those relays will come within a hundred kilometers of here.” Sparling drew breath. She noticed at the back of her excitement how much she liked seeing his pleasure. “Okay, I brought several plastic containers of protein powder, different sizes to confuse the issue. He emptied and refilled each, as I’d expected. But he didn’t think to check for false bottoms. In a particular can is snuggled a rather bigger and huskier transceiver, put together for this purpose. A signal from my micro will switch its main circuit. That’ll be our primary relay—stepping down the frequency so we aren’t limited to line-of-sight— and it can do more than a hundred kilometers!”
“O-o-o-oh.” She stared before her white all her nerves tingled.
“Nothing can happen in a hurry,” Sparling cautioned, “and the scheme depends on every link in the chain. First, I imagine it’ll take a while before the rest of the system is in place. Then, second, we’ll simply have audio contact with Port Rua. True, they can reach Primavera, but still—Third, with the rudimentary equipment I could bring along, I’ll need a fair bit of time to survey this neighborhood to sufficient accuracy.”
“Survey?”
“Sure. I think probably I can use the stars, and sights taken on local landmarks like mountain peaks, to pinpoint us on the map. Then we can hike to a rendezvous point where a flyer can land for us.” He gave her a shy smile. “It was the best I could invent on short notice.”
Notice—she thought. I notice that funny little wrinkle at the comer of your lips.
Damn, though! I don’t want to be merely a captive damsel languishing for her knight.
It came to her what she might do for her share.
Arnanak was in alpine good humor. While he ate and drank and boasted prodigiously, standing at a trestle table in the hall, she jollied him along. Not that she pretended to have changed sides. He knew her too well. But she did make plain that her stay had given her a favorable opinion of his folk and she would gladly intercede for them. No lie, either. We should be helping them, them and the Gathering both. My lie is a withheld truth, that our cruel, idiotic war makes this impossible. She felt less guilty when he replied:
“We will talk more after I have crushed them in Valennen. If naught else, I must put on such show of might to hold the Tassui at my beck. I warned the legion again and again, if it did not leave it would be destroyed. Now my warriors are coming together. They will see Arnanak keep his word.”
Sparling stayed short-spoken and noncommittal, on Jill’s orders. The Overling must have gained some feel for human attitudes and expressions, and the man was better at outright concealing than at dissembling.
At the end of the feast, she turned grave and said, “I have to ask you about a thing. Could we three go outside?”
Arnanak was willing. Beyond the court, Jill tugged his elbow and pointed. “This way,” she urged.
He stiffened. “That path goes to a forbidden place.”
“I know. Come, a short ways.”
He yielded. They stopped out of view of the buildings. The suns were beneath the Worldwall, though not yet the ocean it hid. Shadows lay thick among dwarfish trees and shriveled brush. Overhead the sky was an ever richening blue, a planet stood white, Ea red. A breeze carried a ghost of coolness and rattled came stalks.
Arnanak’s eyes were green lanterns in the blackness under his mane. Fangs glinted when he said, bell-deep:
“Speak what you will, but be quick: for I have my own errand here.”
Jill gripped the comfort of Sparling’s arm. Her pulse fluttered. “What are the dauri, and what have you to do with them?”
He dropped hand to sword hilt. “Why ask you this?”
“I think I met one.” Jill described her encounter. “Innukrat would tell me naught, said I must wait for you. Yet surely there is common knowledge about them. I remember… hearing… somewhat.”
His tension lowered. “Aye. They are beings, creatures, not mortal. They are believed to have powers, and many folk set out small sacrifices, like a bowl of food, when a daur has been glimpsed. But that is seldom.”
“The food is no use to the daur. Is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know what I mean. Remember, my business is to learn about animals. The daur I saw was nothing magical. It was as mortal as you or I—a creature belonging to the same kind of life as the phoenix or the skipfoot, the kind of life which wholly possesses the Starklands, Yet it carried a knife. I saw the metal.” Did I really? “Arnanak, if the dauri were plentiful enough and far enough along to mine and forge metal, we humans would have discovered them. I think you gave it the blade… as part of a bargain.”
A leap in the dark. But, Christ, I’ve got to have guessed right!
Sparling added, “I told you myself, we came to, to these countries mainly to explore them, find out what they’re like. My fellows would be most grateful to anyone who gave them an important new piece of knowledge.”
Arnanak had stood quietly. Now he sprang like a panther to his decision. “Well,” he said. “The matter is not a dead secret, after all. I have told other Tassui somewhat of it. And I will keep you two till my hold on Valennen is beyond shaking.” He turned. “Follow.”
As they finished the short walk, Sparling stooped to whisper in Jill’s ear: “Then you’re right. An entire conscious race—and you figured out the truth.”
“Sh,” she answered. “Don’t talk English here. He might decide we’re conspiring.”