World without Stars Read online

  World Without Stars

  Poul Anderson

  Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  About the Author

  I

  GOD WAS RISING in the west, and this time the sun was down—only lately, a few clouds were still red above the eastern treetops, against purple dusk; but over the hours that light had waned, until it was little more than an echo of what now swung above Lake Silence—so that His pale glory stood clear to be adored.

  The Pack could not all make worship. They had met on a ridge near the lairs and howled when the fingers of God’s foremost arm glimmered into view. But He would take long to mount so high that His entire self was revealed. The hes must hunt, the shes wreak, the youngs gather, lest God’s Coursers perish. Moreover and worse, the whole Pack unmoving here, so distant from their hills, could draw the notice of a downdevil out of the sea depths; and night or no, the downdevil might then send a war fleet of the Herd … if, indeed, that which had lately arrived in fire and thunder was not enemy work itself. Ya-Kela, the One, had brought some bold followers who would go with him to see about that. But first he stood his watch of homage on behalf of the whole folk.

  Slowly, slowly, God climbed into heaven. Ya-Kela crouched on the back of Crooked Rock and sang. He sang the Welcome, and the Praise, and the Strength. Then the last coals of sunset went out, and the sky was empty of everything save God, the angels, and three planets, and God cast a white glade from the world’s edge, down the width of Lake Silence until it was lost among the reeds at this shore. The night was still and cool. A breeze gusted, smelling of damp; a fish leaped in a single clear spash, a wing cried its lonely note, reeds rustled and were answered by the inland brush; but otherwise ya-Kela and God had darkness to themselves.

  He stopped a while to rest and eat. He was hoarse, the rock was harsh beneath his webs and tail, and weariness dragged at him. Yes, he thought, I grow old. But I am yet the One of the Pack. —A distant boom made him start. Drums? It was not impossible for the Herd to come raiding by night. But it was rare. The downdevils feared God and so their worshipers did too. … Only a twyhorn, off in Umber Swamp, he decided.

  He looked west again, and was astonished to see God’s body flame in sight. Why, I must have dozed, he thought in dismay. Does that mean anything other than that I am in truth old? Hastily he went through the invocations and gestures he had missed, until he was caught up. The legends haunted him about creatures that had long ago come from the sky and returned—to Herd day or Pack night, who knew save God and the downdevils? Were these unknown newcomers at Balefire Head, whom he must presently seek out, the same ones? More than ever, the world needed shielding against strangeness. “I call to Thee, we call to Thee, Thou Who casteth out the sun, arise, arise, arise ….”

  II

  ON ANOTHER EVENING, very far away, I had heard another song. This was when I got back to City.

  Like most who colonize a planet, the settlers of Landomar wanted nature and elbow room. There is no other good reason for planting yourself at the bottom of a gravity well. The reason is not quite logical—after all, most of us can satisfy our ape instincts with an occasional groundside visit somewhere, or just with a multisense tape—but I suppose that a gene complex still crops up occasionally which makes the owner want to belong to a specific patch of earth. So if you can find a habitable uninhabited world (statistically rare, but consider how many stars the universe holds) you go with a band of like-minded people to claim it. I don’t know whether breeding then reinforces the instinct, or the original parents remain culturally dominant over the centuries. In all events, after a while you have a scattered population which doesn’t want outsiders building a starport.

  At the same time, starports are necessary. Theoretically they shouldn’t be, when any point in space is as close as any other point. In practice, though, an expanding race needs them. First, you have to make up energy differentials between one system and the next in stages. That’s obvious enough in the case of the really remote galaxies; we could get there, but we couldn’t match a relative velocity which is a goodly fraction of c. However, just the variation between, say, the inner and outer part of a spiral arm is a bit too fuel-consuming to overcome in a single jump.

  Then second, you need a base for observation, so you can establish precisely where your next goal is and how fast it’s moving. And third, of course, you want docks, yards, supply depots. Those could be built anywhere, but since the advanced bases are required for the first two reasons, they soon serve the third function also. And the fourth: rest, recreation, a place to roister and brag and ease off. For this purpose, even a spaceman born is happiest when the environment isn’t entirely artificial.

  They were more reasonable on Landomar than on some worlds I could name. They wouldn’t let us build on the ground, but they made no objection to an orbital satellite. We could go down to their villages and farmsteads, hunt in their forests, sail on their oceans. They didn’t mind our money in the least. Then, as City got bigger, with more and more to offer, their young folk started coming to us, to visit, eventually to work. The elders grumbled, until we brought in socio-dynamicists to extrapolate the trend for them and prove that it would never really affect their own timeless oneness with the planet. At most, a cluster of small space-oriented service enterprises would develop groundside. Which is what happened.

  I had spent several days there, arranging for stores, isotopes, and so forth. I also hoped to recruit a gunner. But in that I’d failed. Those few who applied had no aptitude. Well, there was a man, a hunter by trade; but the psychograph showed that he enjoyed killing too much. I felt a little tired and depressed. It didn’t help, either, that Wenli was ill. Nothing serious, but the kid would doubtless be adult when I returned, and I like to remember my get as happy while they’re small.

  So I was eager to leave dust behind. My boat hit sky with a yell. Landomar became a giant cloud-banded shield, soft blue against the black. Before long City hove in view.

  You can’t add randomly to a satellite, or the spin properties would get ridiculous. But City had existed for a few centuries now, and grown in a way that the Landomar elders would not admit was organic. I remembered the original cheerless metal shell. Today I saw towers rocketing from parapets, domes and ports glowing brighter than stars, the Ramakan memorial rakish across the galactic clouds; I could see ships in dock and boats aswarm; and as nearly as any spaceman (except Hugh Valland) ever does, I felt I was home.

  I cycled through the lockfield faster than was strictly safe and did no more than tell the mechmen to check out an irregularity which had registered in the boat-pilot’s gamma rhythm. At once, wreck all formality, I was out of the dock area and its crowds, along the ramps and through the halls toward Lute’s place.

  She lives in high-weight, overlooking space itself. That’s expensive, but her husbands can afford to pay their share. Not that she picks them on any such basis—not Lute—it’s only that a handsome, intelligent woman attracts able men. She’s probably my favorite portwife.

  So I hurried down the last corridor. It was empty at the moment. My feet thudded on the floor, which gave me a springier response than Landomar’s overrated lawns, and the ventilators seemed to purr louder than usual. The color patterns in the walls happened to be grays and greens, and that was
right too; they fitted with the touch of sadness, homesickness-in-advance, which counterpointed my pleasure in getting back.

  The music did likewise: so much so that I was almost on top of it before it registered on me. An omnisonor was being played, uncommonly well. The tune was archaic, paced like sea tides, but with ringing chords below; and then a man’s voice joined in, quite softly:

  “Mary O’Meara, the stars and the dewfall have covered your hilltop with light.

  The wind in the lilies that blossom around you goes bearin’ your name from the height.

  My girl, you are all of the night.”

  I rounded the hall’s curve about the satellite and saw him. He lounged in a bay close to Lute’s door. The broad port framed him in darkness and a crescent moon. His fingers ran casually over the keys of the instrument in his lap, his eyes were half closed and he was singing to himself.

  “A ship out of shadow bears homeward by starlight, by stars and the loom of your hill.

  A hand at a brow is uplifted in peerin’, salutin’ and shakin’ with chill.

  My dear, are you waitin’ there still?”

  In a pause for breath, he noticed me. Something I did not understand went out of his face, to be replaced by a friendly grin. “Hello,” he said. His accent had an odd lilt. “Sorry about the racket.”

  “Enjoyable, sir,” I answered formally.

  “I was passin’ the time,” he said, “waitin’ for Captain Argens.”

  “Myself.” I bowed.

  He unsprawled his height, which was considerable, and thrust out a muscular hand. Archaic for certain! But I made the clasp, and took that moment to study him.

  His dress was conventional: blue tunic, white breeks, flexible halfboots. The comets of a Master’s rating glowed on his wide shoulders. But the physical type was one that you don’t see often: fair skin over craggy features, close-cropped yellow hair, fire-blue eves. “Hugh Valland,” he said, “off the Lady Lara.”

  “Felipe Argens,” I responded, mechanically in my startlement. I’m old enough to recognize that anyone bearing a name like his must be a great deal older.

  “Hear you’re lookin’ for a gunner,” he said.

  “Well … yes.” That was no surprise. Gossip flies fast when more than one ship is in port. “You’re interested?”

  “Yes, sir, I am. The Lady’s inbound again, so her skipper don’t mind lettin’ me off my contract. Understand you’re goin’ to Earth.”

  “Eventually,” I nodded. “Might be some time, though.”

  “That’s all right. Just so we get there.”

  I made a fast computation. If this man had served on the Lady he’d have a record and shipmates to consult: much better than a psychograph. Though he already looked good.

  “Fine; let’s talk,” I said. “But, uh, why didn’t you wait in the apartment? My wife would have been glad—”

  “Hear tell she’s got a sick kid. Didn’t know if she’d want to play hostess.” I liked him better and better.

  The door dilated for me and Lute met us. “How’s Wenli?” I asked after presentations.

  “Fretful,” she said. “Fever. I had her down to the clinic and they confirmed it’s a neovirus.”

  Nothing to be alarmed about, oh, no, not with supportive treatment. But when a thing that was extraterrestrial to start with mutates, the biotechs in a frontier post like City don’t have the equipment to tailor a quick-cure molecule. In twenty years or so, having reached optimum adulthood, Wenli would get her antithanatic; thereafter her cells would instantly reject any hostile nucleic acids. But for now my little girl must rely on what poor defenses nature had provided. Recovery would be slow.

  She was asleep. I peeked in at the flushed round face, then went back to the others. Valland was jollying Lute with an anecdote from his latest voyage. They’d needed to gain prestige in a culture which rated poetics as the highest art, so he’d introduced the limerick. Watching her laugh, I felt a twinge of jealousy. Not personal; Lute is so thoroughly decent that it isn’t even awkward when two of her men happen to be in port at the same time. No, I only wished I had Valland’s gift of blarney.

  Yet when we invited him to dinner, he accepted with a courtliness you rarely see anymore.

  He and I went onto the porch for cocktails while Lute programmed the food mechs. Space dropped dizzily from the viewport, thin starred black here on the rim. Huge and shapeless—we being still more or less within it—the galaxy streamed past and was lost to sight; we looked toward remoteness.

  “I need a gunner in case of trouble,” I told him. “We’ll be dealing with a technologically advanced race, one that we know almost nothing about. But of course we don’t really expect a fight, so we want a man who can double as second deck officer. If he has some xenological skill to boot, that’s ideal.”

  “I think I can claim the whole lot,” he answered. “No formal trainin’. By the time they got around to foundin’ academies in those subjects, I’d already been in space for quite a spell. But you can check me out with the people aboard Lady Lara, and on a psychograph too if you want.”

  Luck seemed to have fluxed in my direction. Unless—“You may change your mind when you know where the Meteor’s bound,” I warned him. “Or do you?”

  “No. Just that it’s a pretty long hop, and you’ll call at Earth afterward. Otherwise none of your gang has blabbed.” He chuckled. “Reckon you’d rather not have competition in the early stages of contact, when the cream’s at its most skimmable.”

  “I’ll have to tell you, though, and trust you as a Guild brother. We’re going to some Yonderfolk.”

  “Eh?” He started gratifyingly. “Beyond this galaxy? Like M 31?”

  “No,” I said. “Not that far. Though where we’re bound, we’ll be much lonelier. Intergalactic space.”

  Valland settled back, crossed his legs and twirled his glass between calloused fingers. I offered him a cigarillo, but he declined in favor of a pipe from his tunic: another archaism. Having lit up, I explained:

  “There are stars between the galaxies, you know. Dim red dwarfs, so widely separated that this neighborhood looks Crowded by comparison; nevertheless, stars. Hitherto no one’s thought it worthwhile to investigate them in any detail. Not when we’ll take millions of years learning about this one Milky Way of our own, let alone its sisters. But lately … some of the intergalactics have made contact with us. They might be worth trading with, goods or knowledge or both. We’re going out to have a look. If anything develops, we’ll stay for a few years to get the business established.”

  “I see.” He blew a slow cloud. “Sounds interestin’. But after that, you’ll head for Earth?”

  “Yes. A universarium there is one of the Meteor’s, co-owners, and wants a direct report.” I shrugged. “Science is still alive on Earth, if nothing else.”

  “More’n that,” he murmured. “Earth’ll always be Manhome.”

  “Look here,” I asked bluntly, “if you’re so anxious to go back, why not get a ticket?”

  “No hurry.” His affability was unruffled. “I’d’ve done so in time, if need be. I’ve done it before. But passage across an energy gap like that isn’t cheap. Might’s well get paid for makin’ the trip.”

  I didn’t press him. That’s no way to get to know a man. And I had to know my crew, so that we wouldn’t break under the years of otherness.

  Lute had arranged a good dinner. We were enjoying it, talking the usual things—whatever became of old Jarud, did you hear what happened on Claw, now once I met the damnedest nonhuman society you ever, let me warn you from bitter experience against gambling with the Stonks, is it true they’ve made a machine that—when Wenli came in. She was trying not to cry.

  “Daddy!” she begged of me. “I got bad dreams in my head.”

  “Better start the hypnopulser, Lute,” I muttered as I picked up the slight form. Having operated out of City enough consecutive years to know as well as beget the child, I hurt at her pain.

&n
bsp; My wife half rose. “’Scuse me, mistress,” Valland said. “Don’t you think best we chase the dreams off for good before we put her to sleep?”

  She looked doubtful. “I been around a while,” Valland said apologetically. “Not a father myself, but you can’t help pilin’ up observations. C’mere, little lady.” He held out his arms and I passed Wenli to him.

  He set her on his lap and leaned back from the table, letting the plate keep his food warm. “All right, my friend,” he said, “what kind of dreams?”

  She was at a shy stage of life, but to him she explained about blobby monsters that wanted to sit on her. “Well, now,” he said, “I know a person who can take care of that. Let’s ask him to come give a hand.”

  “Who?” Her eyes got quite round.

  “Fellow name of Thor. He has a red beard, and he drives in a wagon pulled by goats—goats are animals with horns and long long whiskers—and the wheels make thunder. You ever heard thunder? Sounds like a boat takin’ off in a terrible hurry. And Thor has a hammer, too, which he throws at trolls. I don’t think those blobby characters will stand a chance.”

  I started to open my mouth. This didn’t look semantically right to me. Lute laid a warning hand on mine. Following her gaze, I saw that Wenli had stopped shivering.

  “Will Thor come if we ask?” she breathed.

  “Oh, yes,” Valland said. “He owes me a favor. I helped him out once when he got into an argument with an electrostatic generator. Now let me tell you more about him.”

  Afterward I learned that the tall tale he went on to relate came from Earth, in days so old that even the books are forgetting. But Wenli crowed and clapped her hands when Thor caught the snake that girdles the world. Lute laughed. So did I.

  Finally Valland carried Wenli back to bed, fetched his omnisonor, and sang to her. The ballad was likewise ancient—his translation—but it bounced right along, and before he had finished cataloguing the improbable things that should be done to the drunken sailor, my daughter was asleep with no machine needed.