"Oh. Yes," Les said. "But you see, the real surinomaz won't grow under normal conditions on Tran. Just for a few years out of every six hundred. But for about five years, starting a couple of years from now, it grows very well. The mercenaries could demand a pretty stiff price if they knew it." He sighed. "I guess the best thing will be to set them down near a small village in the right geographical region and hope they're intelligent enough to manage."
"They won't even know the languages-"
"They'll have to learn them."
"Why six hundred years?"
"Orbits," the pilot said. "Tran has two main suns. Both a little bigger and a little hotter than Sol. Planet's farther away from either of them, so it's not as warm. Reasonable climate, actually. But even with both suns, surinomaz won't grow properly. It's only a weed until the third sun comes close, but then fora short time it's the best stuff in the galaxy."
"But what is surinomaz?"
"Ever hear of Acapulco Gold?" the pilot asked.
"Marijuana-you mean drugs?"
"In away. Look, back on Earth, you've just discovered endogenous morphiates. Know what I'm talking about? No? Well, it turns out that the brain manufactures its own painkillers and euphoric drugs. Chemicals similar to morphines. Enough of them in your system, and you have a natural high. Surinomaz makes the same stuff, only by the barrelful. It has about the same effect on Shalnuksis as on humans, and they use it about the same way that Americans use alcohol. And Tran Natural gets a premium price, like Talisker scotch, or the rarer wines."
Gwen stared at him.
"I see you don't approve," Les said. "Look, what is it to me if the Shalnuksis use drugs? Or to you?"
But there has to be more, she thought. There has to be. Or is it that I can't accept being in love with a drug dealer? "Isn't all this illegal?" Gwen asked.
Les shrugged. "The drug traffic isn't precisely legal, but no one really cares. Keeping Tran a secret — now, that's highly illegal."
"But the crop is important to you," Gwen said.
The pilot was very serious now. "More important than you can guess that the mercenaries succeed."
"Then you should stay and help them," she said. "Can't. The ship's too vulnerable. And this trip has to be kept secret, which means the ship must return as quickly as possible-"
And then, as he always did, he changed the subject.
The computer's files on Tran were sketchy. As nearly as Gwen could tell, the planet had never been visited except to obtain a harvest, and there had never been any systematic studies made. No one had been sufficiently curious. There were only groups of traders who had brought mercenary soldiers from Earth with instructions to seize a particular area and cultivate surinomaz, harvest it, and sell the product to ships that would come later.
That had begun in Indo-European times, as Gwen had deduced from the language. She was pleased to find confirmation in the computer's records. The first humans had been sent to Tran because a dominant life-formS, centauroid (vaguely similar to the Greek centaur of legend, but the intelligent and unrelated centauroids she'd seen in other pictures were far more so) and about as intelligent as a chimpanzee, could not be trained to do cultivation. She could not find out why humans had been chosen, or why, once they had decided on humans, they had brought a band of Achaean warriors and their slaves instead of planting a high-technology colony.
The original expedition had been expensive. In addition to the Achaeans, the Shalnuksi traders had brought a variety of Earth plants and animals, scattering seeds broadside on the planet and returning years later with more animals and insects. There had been no scientific rationale to what they had brought, no attempt at a balanced ecology. It was instant natural selection; adapt or die.
The records didn't say so, but Gwen wondered if one of the reasons that surinomaz had become increasingly difficult to cultivate might be the competition from Earth plants, animals, and insects. Tran's native life forms used levoamino acids and dextro sugars, like Earth's, and thus competed for many of the same nutrients.
Trans's history and evolution was dominated by its suns. The two major suns together gave it at best only a bit more than 90 percent of what Earth receives from Sol; Tran was normally a cold world, with only the regions near the equator comfortable for humans. But then came the cyclic approach of the third star; for 20 years out of each 600, Tran received nearly 20 percent more sunlight, a combined total of 10 percent more illumination than Earth ever got.
In those times of burning, ice caps melted. Weather became enormously variable, cycles of drought and rainstorms alternating nearly everywhere. The higher latitudes, in normal times too cold for humans and resembling the Alaska tundra, were warmed and became temperate, experiencing a brief but glorious bloom of life.
The effects of the invader's passage were devastating to the human cultures. They never rose higher than an Iron Age feudalism. Gwen thought that curious and wanted to talk to Les about it, but she didn't feel very good and went to bed early.
The next morning she vomited her breakfast.
In a week she was certain. She went to find Les. He was seated at the control console dictating notes for the mercenaries. When she came in he looked up with a slight frown, annoyed that she'd disturbed him at work. "Yes?"
"I'm pregnant."
His face ran a gamut of emotions. Surprise, but then something else. It looked almost like horror. He said nothing for what seemed like an eternity. Then, his voice calm, he said, "We have reasonably complete medical robots aboard. I can ask the computer if they're up to an abortion."
"Damn you!" she shouted. "Damn you!"
"But-"
"What makes you think I want an abortion? I suppose this is an inconvenience to you. It-"
"Hush. There's more involved than you know."
He's serious, she thought. Deadly serious. Deadly. Now there's an appropriate word. "Les, I thought you might be pleased." Tears welled despite her effort to control them. Couldn't he understand?
"There's so much you don't know. Can't know," he said. "Gwen, we can't have a family life. Not as you think of family life-"
"You're already married. I should have known." She was alone again. Alone, and she couldn't go home.
His reaction startled her. He laughed. Then he said, "No. I'm not married." He stood and came toward her. She moved away. His face changed, the expression softening. "Gwen, it's going to be all right. You startled me, that's all. It will be all right. You'll see."
She wanted desperately to believe him. "Les, I love you-"
He moved closer. She was afraid, of him and of everything, but she didn't know what to do; and when he came to her, she clung to him in despair.
Two weeks passed. Les did not mention their future again. They entered Tran's star system, and Les busied himself finding a suitable place to land the mercenaries.
PART THREE
Tylara do Tamaerthon sat at the head of the great wooden council table beneath banners and armor taken in a hundred battles. Her blouse was fine silk, dyed a cornflower blue to match her eyes, but under it she wore mail. The dagger at her belt had jewels and a pommel carved to the likeness of a gull's head; a work of art, but the blade was made in Rustengo and was honed to a fine point. Her braided raven-black hair was crowned with a cap of hammered iron.
She was young and beautiful, and every man in the room felt her presence; despite her armor and the dagger at her waist, she seemed small and vulnerable, in need of protection.
Everyone seemed dwarfed in the great hall of Castle Dravan. Like all of the ancient castles of Tran, Dravan stood above caves of ice; there was a faint smell of ammonia in the council room as an acolyte opened a massive door far below them. Above ground, stone arches and great wooden beams stretched massively. Other rooms in the fortress sported rich tapestries and wood paneling, but here the bones and sinews of the castle showed nakedly. The only decorations were mementos of battles won.