“Observed,” Liaw said. There followed ritual courtesies, and the screen blanked which had shown Cajal.
Holm and Liaw traded a look across the kilometers between them. At the rear of the man’s office, Arinnian stirred uneasily.
“He means it,” Holm said.
“How correct is his assessment of relative capabilities?” the Wyvan asked.
“Fairly good. We couldn’t block a full-out move to wreck us. Given as many ships as he can whistle up, bombarding, ample stuff would be sure to get past our interception. We depend on the Empire’s reluctance to ruin a lot of first-class real estate… and, yes, on that man’s personal distaste for megadeaths.”
“You told me earlier that you had a scheme.”
“My son and I are working on it. If it shows any promise, you and the other appropriate people will hear. Meanwhile, I imagine you’re as busy as me. Fair winds, Liaw.”
“Fly high, Daniel Holm.” And that screen blanked.
The Marchwarden kindled a cigar and sat scowling, until he rose and went to the window. Outside was a clear winter’s day. Gray did not get the snowfall of the mountains or the northern territories, and the susin stayed green on its hills the year around. But wind whooped, cold and exultant, whitecaps danced on a gunmetal bay, cloaks streamed and fluttered about walking humans, Ythrians overhead swooped through changeable torrents of air.
Arinnian joined him, but had to wet his lips before he could speak. “Dad, do we have a chance?”
“Well, we don’t have a choice,” Holm said.
“We do. We can swallow our damned pride and tell the people the war’s lost.”
“They’d replace us, Chris. You know that. Ythri could surrender because Ythri isn’t being given away. The other colonies can accept occupation because it’s unmistakable to everybody that they couldn’t now lick a sick kitten. We’re different on both counts.” Holm squinted at his son through rank blue clouds of smoke. “You’re not scared, are you?”
“Not for myself, I hope. For Avalon — All that rhetoric you hear about staying free. How free are corpses in a charred desert?”
“We’re not preparing for destruction,” Holm said. “We’re preparing to risk destruction, which is something else again. The idea is to make ourselves too expensive an acquisition.”
“If Avalon went to the Empire, and we didn’t like the conditions, we could emigrate to the Domain.”
The Marchwarden’s finger traced an arc before the window. “Where would we find a mate to that? And what’d be left of this special society we, our ancestors and us, we built?”
He puffed for a minute before musing aloud: “I read a book once, on the history of colonization. The author made an interesting point. He said you’ve got to leave most of the surface under plant cover, rooted vegetation and phytoplankton and whatever else there may be. You need it to maintain the atmosphere. And these plants are part of an ecology, so you have to keep many animals too, and soil bacteria and so forth. Well, as long as you must have a biosphere, it’s cheaper — easier, more productive — to make it supply most of your food and such, than to synthesize. That’s why colonists on terrestroid worlds are nearly always farmers, ranchers, foresters, et cetera, as well as miners and manufacturers.”
“So?” his son asked.
“So you grow into your world, generation by generation. It’s not walls and machinery, it’s a live nature, it’s this tree you climbed when you were little and that field your grandfather cleared and yonder hilltop where you kissed your first girl. Your poets have sung it, your artists have drawn it, your history has happened on it, your forebears returned their bones to its earth and you will too, you will too. It is you and you are it. You can no more give it away, freely, than you could cut the heart out of your breast”
Again Holm regarded his son. “I should think you’d feel this stronger than me, Arinnian,” he said. “What’s got into you?”
“That man,” the other mumbled. “He didn’t threaten terrible things, he warned, he pleaded. That brought them home to me. I saw… Mother, the kids, you, my choth-mates—”
Eyath. Hrill. Hrill who is Tabitha. In these weeks we have worked together, she and Eyath and I… Three days ago I flew between them, off to inspect that submarine missile base. Shining bronze wings, blowing fair hair; eyes golden, eyes green; austere jut of keelbone, heavy curve of breasts… She is pure. I know she is. I make too many excuses to see her, be with her. But that damned glib Terran she keeps in her house, his tinsel cosmopolitan glamour, he hears her husky-voiced merriment oftener than I do…
“Grant them their deathpride,” Holm said.
Eyath will die before she yields. Arinnian straightened his shoulders. “Yes. Of course, Dad.”
Holm smiled the least bit. “After all,” he pointed out, “you got the first germ of this ver-r-ry intriguing notion we have to discuss.”
“Actually, it… wasn’t entirely original with me. I got talking to, uh, Tabitha Falkayn, you know her? She dropped the remark, half joking. Thinking about it later, I wondered if — well, anyhow.”
“Hm. Quite a girl, seems. Especially if she can stay cheerful these days.” Holm appeared to have noticed the intensity of his stare, because he turned his head quickly and said, “Let’s get to work. We’ll project a map first, hm?”
His thoughts could be guessed. The lift in his tone, the crinkles around, his eyes betrayed them. Well, well. Chris has finally met a woman who’s not just a sex machine or a she-Ythrian to him. Dare I tell Ro, yet? — I do dare tell her that our son and I are back together.
Around St Li, winter meant rains. They rushed, they shouted, they washed and caressed, it was good to be out in them unclad, and when for a while they sparkled away, they left rainbows behind them.
Still, one did spend a lot of time indoors, talking or sharing music. A clear evening was not to be wasted.
Tabitha and Rochefort walked along the beach. Their fingers were linked. The air being soft, he wore simply the kilt and dagger she had given him, which matched hers.
A full Morgana lifted from eastward waters. Its almost unblemished shield dazzled the vision with whiteness, so that what stars could be seen shone small and tender. That light ran in a quaking glade from horizon to outermost breakers, whose heads turned into wan fire; the dunes glowed beneath it, the tops of the trees which made a shadow-wall to left became hoar. There was no wind and the surf boomed steadily and inwardly, like a heartbeat. Odors of leaf and soil overlay a breath of sea. The sands gave back the day’s warmth and gritted a little as they molded themselves sensuously to the bare foot.
Rochefort said in anguish, “This to be destroyed? Burned, poisoned, ripped to flinders? And you!”
“We suppose it won’t happen,” Tabitha replied.
“I tell you, I know what’s to come.”
“Is the enemy certain to bombard?”
“Not willingly. But if you Avalonians, in your insane arrogance, leave no alternative—” Rochefort broke off. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that the news cuts too close.”
Her hand tightened on his. “I understand, Phil. You’re not the enemy.”
“What’s bad about joining the Empire?” He waved at the sky. “Look. Sun after sun after sun. They could be yours.”