“Suddenly Primavera’s gone on strike. Every longtime resident, and even most short-contract workers, refusing any kind of co-operation whatsoever. They won’t as much as speak to a man in uniform or a ‘collaborator.’ Those who might prefer to behave differently, well, they don’t feel it’s worth becoming traitors in the eyes of their friends.
“Which is causing trouble aplenty, as you can guess. Captain Dejerine appeals to me damn near daily. By tacit consent, I’m the single Primaveran who can have to do with his command and stay kosher; it’s recognized that somebody must. He made a few arrests, but as soon as he saw they were considered an honor, he released the prisoners and dismissed the charges. He’s neither stupid nor wicked, you know. I fee! sorry for him. He asked rather pathetically to be informed the moment any news of you came in. We haven’t mentioned this communication line to him.
“Between us, I’m not sure the community is being wise. I have no notion what the resistance will lead to. Maybe we’ll get cancellation of the Navy project; or maybe our last funds will be cut off; who can tell? I did feel you should know how matters stand, in case you do any dickering on your own hook. And I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, don’t worry about us. As the saying goes, the situation is desperate but not serious. A vuestra salud. Next, here’s Rhoda.”
“Born dia, querido,” said the woman’s voice, and went on with a few endearments and wishes in Portuguese. Sparling clenched fists and jaws, and endured. “Jill,” Rhoda finished in English, “your parents, your sister, her family send their love.” Were those unshed tears in her voice? “I hope you will take mine, too. Live well. Thank you for what you are, what you do. I pray for your safe return. Good-by.”
Silence whirred. “That is the end,” Adissa reported. “Okay,” Sparling said mechanically. “We’ll sign off.” He sat for a while staring across the scorched mountains. Jill laid an arm around his waist. “You have a finer wife than you deserve,” she said.
“No,” he mumbled. “I mean, you’re clean and brave and—Look, we can’t yet do anything about anything, can we?” Is that the question of a coward? “In spite of my personal feelings,” he slogged on, “I share God’s doubts. A general strike against the Navy—the Peace Control—damnation, those men serve us all!”
“Don’t agonize,” she begged him. “Although—” When her words trailed off, he turned his head and saw the clear profile against raw rock and cruel air, framed in tresses which were held by the circlet that a soldier of a legion had given her. “I wonder why Dad or Mother or Alice—even Bill—weren’t on that tape,” she said into emptiness. “Do I know them too well?”
She squared her shoulders, “Now I’m being a worry machine myself,” she declared. “Hell with it. C’mon, hoofer, let’s get back down to the hall. But kiss me first.”
A while afterward, the time ended that had been theirs.
TWENTY
From his easternmost watchtower, Larreka squinted across the docks of Port Rua and the legion’s few ships at the hostile fleet standing into the bay. Fifty-eight lean hulls he counted—fifty-eight mainsails tinged red by the newly risen Rover. The Sun, not much higher, dazzled his eyes with long rays that splintered and showered off amethyst wavelets. He could barely make his tally, and doubted that the garrison artillery could strike home a stone or a fire arrow against that glare. The barbarians had no such handicap; and the wind, already hot, was behind them too. It fluttered and snapped the banner above him.
“Kaa-aa,” said Seroda, his adjutant. “Who’d have supposed they could muster that many?”
“Their chiefs a wily beast,” Larreka nodded. “He kept them in motion, in small groups, raiding amongst the islands and along the coasts. That way, we never got a real idea of the whole number of ’em. But he told their skippers to rendezvous at a particular time and place—I’d guess Plowshare Straits on Midsummer Day—and there they got their orders.” He tugged his whiskers. “Gr-r-nn, that can’t be his whole navy, not by a long cast. The bulk of it’s doubtless out blockading, in case anybody should try sending us help.”
“Then why are these here?”
“To cut us off. If we embarked on an unguarded bay, we’d have a fair chance of evading them at sea and getting home to fight on.” Larreka’s glance traveled across the town, low adobe buildings huddled together and painted in forlornly bright colors, to the river on which its western wall fronted, shallower now than erstwhile so that rocks glearned like basking monsters, and over the brown and black land enclosing the rest of the world. Dust devils were awhirl out there, dancers who related some violent dream. “Yes,” he said, “the campaign’s begun. Their foot should arrive shortly.”
In a moment he added, “Their top male is committing one foolishness, though. He’s forgotten the good old military principle: Always leave your opponent a line of retreat.”
“They must expect us to surrender eventually,” Seroda added.
“A retreat of sorts, yai? But, you see, it isn’t really. Those ships yonder say different. And in Valennen, especially these days, you can’t support a lot of idle prisoners. Either they massacre us or they put us to work—as slaves, scattered around the country, in mines and quarries, chained to wagons or plows or mill wheels—Me, I’d prefer the massacre.” Larreka ended on an oath, for he realized that he’d better assemble his troops while time remained and explain this to them. He hated making speeches.
After two sixty-fours in the legion, Seroda had no need to disclaim fear or lack of loyalty. He could say, “We might yet work out something. After all, it’d cost them plenty to take this post by force. They might still prefer to let us go.”
“In that case,” Larreka said, “it’s our reason for staying.”
Those barbarians whom the Zera Victrix killed in its last hours would not be available for an attack on Meroa and her children.
While the double afternoon blazed, the Tassu host reached Port Rua. They camped in their groundshaking thousands a kilometer from the walls, in an arc between river and bay shore. Their grotesque standards, polemounted animal or ancestor skulls, tails of slain foes, carven totems, made a forest wherein spearheads flashed as if it bore fruit. Their drums fluttered, their horns lowered, they shouted and sang and galloped to and fro in a smoke of dust.
The town walls were banked earth under a high stockade of phoenix, every log sharpened. Flanked by the towers at the corners, bartizans alternated with bastions. Each of the latter held a catapult throwing several darts at once, or a mangonel with incendiary ammunition. Below the landward slope was a dry ditch in whose bottom bristled pointed stakes. Soldiers lined the walkways back of the wall tops, mail and shields burnished, plumes and pennons flying like the banners enstaffed overhead. Spaced among archers were the few who had rifles.
Upon his return here, Larreka had shipped out most civilians, or they had left voluntarily. Those who remained were wives and servants, many native-born, practically members of the legion themselves. Their labor and nursing would be valuable. We’re not in such bad shape, he reflected. Yet.
A horn resounded thrice, and two loped from a gaudy pavilion. The first was a stripling who dipped the_flag he carried in a signal for truce. The second was huge and gold-bedight. Arnanak in person! Larreka thought upon his lofty post. Should I go talk to him? Their ethics wink at treachery.
No, wait, he is a brother in the Lodge.
And, over protests of his officers, Larreka ordered the north gate opened and its drawbridge lowered. Alone he went forth. He left off armor—why broil himself?—and wore simply his Haelen blade, a pouch, and a red cloak. The last was a confounded flapping nuisance, but Seroda had insisted the commandant couldn’t look too shabby when he met their gorgeous rival.