Elva gave him her most confidential smile. “My own patron had the idea. The prisoner is withholding valuable information. He has been treated roughly, but resisted. Now, all at once, we’ll take the pressure off. An attractive woman of his own race. …”
“I get it. Maybe he will crack. I dunno, though, mistress. These slant-eyed towheads are mean animals—begging your pardon! Go right on in. Holler if he gets rough or, or anything.”
The door was unlocked for her. Elva went on through, into a hemicylindrical room so low that she must stoop. A lighting tube switched on, showing a pallet laid across the floor.
Captain Ivalo was gray at the temples, but still tough and supple. His face had gone haggard, sunken eyes and a stubble of beard; his garments were torn and filthy. When he looked up, coming awake, he was too exhausted to show much surprise. “What now?” he said in dull Chertkoian. “What are you going to try next?”
Elva answered in Vaynamoan (Oh, God, it was a year and a half, her own time, nearly seventeen years cosmic time, since she had uttered a word to anyone from her planet!): “Be quiet. I beg you. We mustn’t be suspected.”
He sat up. “Who are you?” he snapped. His own Vaynamoan accent was faintly pedantic; he must be a teacher or scientist in that peacetime life which now seems so distant. “A collaborator? I understand there are some. Every barrel must hold a few rotten apples, I suppose.”
She sat down on the floor near him, hugged her knees and stared at the curving wall. “I don’t know what to call myself,” she said tonelessly. “I’m with them, yes. But they captured me the last time.”
He whistled, a soft note. One hand reached out, not altogether steady and stopping short of touching her. “I was young then,” he said. “But I remember. Do I know your family?”
“Maybe. I’m Elva, daughter of Byarmo, the Magnate of Ruuyalka. My husband was Karlavi, the Freeholder of Tervola.” Suddenly she couldn’t stay controlled. She grasped his arm so hard that her nails drew blood. “Do you know what became of my son? His name was Hauki. I got him away, in care of an Alfa servant. Hauki, Karlavi’s son, Freeholder of Tervola. Do you know?”
He disengaged himself as gently as possible and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve heard of both places, but only as names. I’m from the Aakinen Islands myself.”
Her head dropped.
“Ivalo is my name,” he said clumsily.
“I know.”
“What?”
“Listen.” She raised her eyes to his. They were quite dry. “I’ve been told you have important information.”
He bridled. “If you think—”
“No. Please listen. Here.” She fumbled in a pocket of her gown. At last her fingers closed on the vial. She held it out to him. “An antiseptic. But the labels says it’s very poisonous if taken internally. I brought it for you.”
He stared at her for a long while.
“It’s all I can do.” she mumbled, looking away again.
He took the bottle and turned it over and over in his hands. The night grew silent around them.
Finally he asked, “Won’t you suffer for this?”
“Not too much.”
“Wait … If you could get in here, you can surely escape completely. Our troops can’t be far off. Or any farmer hereabouts will hide you.”
She shook her head. “No. I’ll stay with them. Maybe I can help in some other small way. What else has there been to keep me alive, but the hope of—It wouldn’t be any better, living here, if we’re all conquered. There’s to be a final attack, three decades hence. Do you know that?”
“Yes. Our side takes prisoners too. and quizzes them. The first episode puzzled us. Many thought it had only been a raid by—what’s the word?—by pirates. But now we know they really do intend to take our planet away.”
“You must have developed some good linguists.” she said, seeking impersonality. “To be able to talk with your prisoners. Of course, you yourself, after capture, could be educated by the hypnopede.”
“The what?”
“The language-teaching machine.”
“Oh, yes, the enemy do have them, don’t they? But we do too. After the first raid, those who thought there was a danger the aliens might come back set about developing such machines. I knew Chertkoian weeks before my own capture.”
“I wish I could help you escape,” she said desolately. “But I don’t see how. That bottle is all I can do. Isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He regarded the thing with a fascination.
“My patron… Golyev himself—said his men would rip you open to get your knowledge. So I thought—”
“You’re very kind.” Ivalo grimaced, as if he had tasted something foul. “But your act may turn out pointless. I don’t know anything useful. I wasn’t even sworn to secrecy about what I do know. Why’ve I held out, then? Don’t ask me. Stubbornness. Anger. Or just hating to admit my people—our people, damn it!—that they could be so weak and foolish.”
“What?”
“They could win the war at a stroke,” he said. “They won’t. They’d rather die, and let their children be enslaved by the Third Expedition.”
“What do you mean?” She crouched to hands and knees.
He shrugged. “I told you, a number of people on Vaynamo took the previous invasion at its word, that it was the vanguard of a conquering army. There was no official action. How could there be, with a government as feeble as ours? But some of the research biologists—”
“Not a plague!”
“Yes. Mutated from the local paracoryzoid virus. Incubation period, approximately one month, during which time it’s contagious. Vaccination is still effective two weeks after exposure, so all our population could be safeguarded. But the Cherokoians would take the disease back with them. Estimated deaths, ninety percent of the race.”
“But—”
“That’s where the government did step in,” he said with bitterness. “The information was suppressed. The virus cultures were destroyed. The theory was, even to save ourselves we couldn’t do such a thing.”
Elva felt the tautness leave her. She sagged. She had seen small children on Chertkoi too.
“They’re right, of course,” she said wearily.
“Perhaps. Perhaps. And yet we’ll be overrun and butchered, or reduced to serfdom. Won’t we? Our forests will be cut down, our mines gutted, our poor Alfavala exterminated … To hell with it.” Ivalo gazed at the poison vial. “I don’t have any scientific data, I’m not a virologist. It can’t do any military harm to tell the Chertkoians. But I’ve seen what they’ve done to us. I would give them the sickness.”
“I wouldn’t.” Elva bit her lip.
He regarded her for a long time. “Won’t you escape? Never mind being a planetary heroine. There’s nothing you can do. The invaders will go home when they’ve wrecked all our industry. They won’t come again for thirty years. You can be free most of your life.”
“You forget,” she said, “that if I leave with them, and come back, the time for me will only have been one or two years.” She sighed. “I can’t help make ready for the next battle. I’m just a woman. Untrained. While maybe… oh, if nothing else, there’ll be more Vaynamoan prisoners brought to Chertkoi. I have a tiny bit of influence. Maybe I can help them.”
Ivalo considered the poison. “I was about to use this anyway,” he muttered. “I didn’t think staying alive was worth the trouble. But now—if you can—No.” He gave the vial back to her. “I thank you, my lady.”
“I have an idea,” she said, with a hint of vigor in her voice. “Go ahead and tell them what you know. Pretend I talked you into it. Then I might be able to get you exchanged. It’s barely possible.”
“Oh, perhaps,” he said.
She rose to go. “If you are set free,” she stammered, “will you make a visit to Tervola? Will you find Hauki, Karvali’s son, and tell him you saw me? If he’s alive.”