Rise of the Terran Empire Page 16

  The car canted. Eric saw a watership in the middle of otherwise empty vastness. She was a windjammer, with three masts rigged fore and aft though only the mizzen sail and a jib were set to keep her hove to. He couldn't remember what the type was called; no pleasure boat on Hermes was that big. Doubtless she had an auxiliary engine . . . . What a place to meet. The reason was total privacy—nevertheless, how wildly romantic, here under Earth's moon. Lunatic?

  The false taxi came to a hover alongside the starboard rail. Eric emerged, springing to a deck that thudded beneath his feet. The air was blessedly cool. A man took his seat and the vehicle flitted off, to abide somewhere till it must return.

  More sailors were in sight, but Eric knew the captain at once, huge in the pouring pale radiance. He wore simply a blouse, wraparound skirt, and diamonds glistery on his fingers. "My boy!" he roared, and stampeded to meet the newcomer. His handshake well-nigh tore an arm off, his backslap sent the Hermetian staggering. "Ho, ho, welcome, by damn! For this, you bet I give good St. Dismas candles till he wonders if maybe he was martyred by a grease fire." He clasped his son's shoulders. "Ja, you got some of your mother in you, even if mainly you are what they call extinctive-looking like me. What a jolly roger we raised together, she and me! Often have I wished I was not too obstreptococcus a bastard for her to live with long. You, now, you is a fine, upstanding type of bastard, nie? Come below and we talk." He propelled Eric forward.

  A lean man in early middle age and a pregnant woman who looked younger stood at the cabin door. Van Rijn halted. "Here is David Falkayn, you heard about him after the Shenna affair, also his wife Coya—Hoy, what's wrong, jongen?"

  David Falkayn. I should have expected this. Eric bowed in the manner of kindred among each other. "Well met," he said ritually, and wondered how he could add what he must.

  "Below, below, the akvavit calls," van Rijn urged, less loudly than before.

  The ship's saloon was mahogany and mirrorlike brass. Refreshments crowded a table. The quartet settled themselves around it. Van Rijn poured with more skill than was obvious from his slapdash manner. "How was Lady Sandra when you left her?" he asked, still quieter.

  "Bearing up," Eric said.

  "Proost!" Van Rijn raised his liquor. The rest imitated him, sending the chilled caraway spirit down their gullets at a gulp, following it with beer. Across his tankard, Eric studied faces. Coya's was delicately molded, though somehow too strong to be merely pretty. David's was rakish in shape, rather grim in mien. No, hold, I'd better think of him as "Falkayn." Most Earthlings seem to use their surnames with comparative strangers, like Travers, not the first name like Kindred, and he's been long off Hermes.

  Van Rijn's visage—sharply remembered from documentary shows a decade ago following the Shenna business—was the most mobile and least readable of the three. What do I actually think of him? What should I?

  Sandra had never spoken much of her old liaison. She wasn't regretful, she just didn't care to dwell on the past. And she had married Peter Asmundsen when Eric was four standard years old. The stepfather had won the child's wholehearted love. That was why Eric had never considered seeking out van Rijn, nor given him a great deal of thought until lately. It would have felt almost like disloyalty. But half the genes in yonder gross body were his.

  And . . . be damned if he wasn't enjoying this escapade!

  Falkayn spoke. Abruptly Eric recalled the tidings he bore, and lost enjoyment. "We'd better get straight to work. No doubt you wonder about the elaborate secrecy. Well, we could have arranged to meet you candidly, but it would've been under covert surveillance—not too fussing covert at that. This way, we keep an option or two open for you."

  "I knew you would come," van Rijn said. "Your mother proved it on Diomedes before you was born."

  "We're not sure how complete your information is about the Commonwealth," Coya added. She had a lovely low voice. "The fact is, we're in the bad graces of the government."

  Let me buy time, while I figure out how to tell Falkayn. "Please say on, my lady," Eric urged.

  She glanced back and forth between the men. They signed her to continue. She spoke fast and rather abstractly, perhaps as a shield for nervousness.

  "Well, to generalize, for a long time in the Solar System, underneath all catchwords and cross-currents, the issue has been what shall be the final arbiter. The state, which in the last analysis relies on physical coercion; or a changeable group of individuals, whose only power is economic . . . . Oh, I know it's nowhere near that simple. Either kind of leadership might appeal to emotion, for instance—yes, does, in fact, because at bottom the choice between them is a matter of how you feel, how you see the universe. And of course they melt into each other. On Hermes, for instance, you get the interesting situation of a state having essentially risen from private corporations. In the Solar System, on the other hand, the so-called Home Companies have become an unofficial but real component of government. In fact, they've had the most to do with strengthening it, extending its control of everybody's life. And for its part, it protects them from a lot of the competition they used to have, as well as doing them a lot of different favors on request." She frowned at the table. "This didn't happen because of any conspiracy, you realize. It just . . . happened. The Council of Hiawatha—well, never mind."

  "You remind me of the final examination in the philosophy class, my dear," van Rijn said. "The single question was: 'Why?' You got an A if you answered, 'Why not?' You got a B if you answered, 'Because.' Any other answer got a C."

  Smiles twitched. Coya met Eric's eyes and proceeded. "You must know enough about Solar Spice & Liquors and its fellow independents to understand why we aren't popular in the Capitol. We can't greatly blame them for fearing us. After all, if we claim the right to act freely, we might do anything whatsoever, and simply the claim itself is a threat to the establishment. When Gunung Tuan—Freeman van Rijn—sent my husband off on a private expedition during this crisis, that was the last quantum. Commonwealth agents ransacked his ship after he returned, and sequestered her. They didn't find evidence to convict him; not that David had done anything particularly unlawful. But like everybody else, we're forbidden to leave Earth except on common carriers. And we're incessantly spied on."

  Eric stirred. His words came hesitant. "Uh, given the war, aren't your interests the same as the Commonwealth's?"

  "If you mean the government of the Commonwealth," Falkayn said, "then no, probably not. Nor are yours necessarily. Don't forget, I'm a Hermetian citizen myself."

  And you are now the Falkayn.

  "I do have my underblanket connections," van Rijn added. "So I know you is been watched since you arrived. They think: You come for an ally, yes; but how trustworthy is you? Anyways, it is in the nature of governments to be nosy."

  "Don't worry," Falkayn advised. "I'm sure you'll be accepted for what you are, and accorded more rank than you maybe want. Nor will we ask any treachery of you. At this minute I'm not sure what we will ask. Maybe only that you use the influence you're going to have—a popular hero, granted special status and so forth—your influence to get us back some mobility. I believe if you think over what we've done in the past, you'll agree we aren't such dreadful villains."

  The miners on Mirkheim. Their high-flying hopes. Eric nodded.

  "In return," Coya said, "our group may help keep Hermes from becoming a counter in a game. Because Babur and the Commonwealth won't fight till one is crushed. That's hardly possible for them. After they've traded some blows, they'll negotiate, with the upper hand in battle being the upper hand at the conference table. Tonight it looks as if that hand will be a Baburite claw—because everything we've learned indicates their force in being is at least equal to the Commonwealth's, and their lines of communication are short where its are long. For the sake of an annual quota of supermetals, the Commonwealth might well agree to let Hermes remain a so-called protectorate. Certainly the liberation of your planet is not its prime objective."

  Lorna.
The home we mean to have.

  "What I would like to do," van Rijn came in, "is send messages to the heads of independent companies, get them together for some kind of joint action. Right now they got no leadership, and I know them and their fumblydiddles by themselves. If you can arrange for people of ours to go off to them, that will be a real coup de poing."

  "Coup de main," Coya corrected under her breath. "I think."

  Van Rijn lifted the akvavit bottle. "Better let me pour you a buckshot more, my son," he invited. "This will be a long night."

  Eric accepted, tossed off the fiery swallow, and said, before he should lose all heart for the task: "Yes, we've much to tell, much to talk over, but first—This didn't get into the news, as far as I'm aware, nobody mentioned it while my men and I were being interviewed, because we'd agreed en route to avoid naming names as much as possible for fear of provoking reprisals at home, but—You recall we lost our battleship on the way out. Well, its commander was Michael Falkayn. I understand he was your brother, Captain."

  The blond man sat still. His wife seized his arm. "I'm sorry." Eric's tone stumbled. "He was a gallant officer."

  "Mike—" Falkayn shook his head. "Excuse me."

  "Oh, darling, darling," Coya whispered.

  Falkayn's fist smote the tabletop, once. Then he blinked hard, sought van Rijn's eyes, and met them unwaveringly. "You realize what this means, don't you, Gunung Tuan?" he asked, flat-voiced. "I'm the new head of the family and president of the domain. That's where my first duty lies."

  XIII

  The telephone image of Irwin Milner said: "Greeting, Your Grace. I hope you are well."

  Like death and hell you do, Sandra thought. She jerked a nod in reply, but could not bring herself to wish good health to the commander of planet-based Baburite occupation forces.

  Did he stiffen the least bit? She watched his features more narrowly. He was a squat redhead whose gray uniform differed little from that on the lowliest human among his troops. Born on Earth, he retained an accent in his Anglic that she had been told was North American. He was naturalized on Germania, he said; it was a faraway neutral, hence his service with Babur did not make him guilty of any treason.

  So he claims.

  "What did you wish to discuss, General?" she demanded rather than inquired.

  "A necessary change," he replied. "To date, we've been busy getting the protectorate functional, the military side of it, that is."

  Warcraft in orbit, whose crews are more alien to man than a shark or a nightshade, ready to hurl their nuclear weapons downward. On the ground, oxygen-breathing mercenaries, human, Merseian, Gorzuni, Donarrian—adventurers, the scourings of space, though thus far they've stayed disciplined. Not that we see much of them. They have taken over our abandoned navy facilities, plus the Hotel Zeus and a few other buildings roundabout in Starfall. He says they will spread out in garrisons, in all the inhabited parts of Hermes. He has given me no satisfactory answer as to why, when it would seem that those circling spacecraft are ample to assure our meek behavior.

  "That work will go on," Milner continued. "But we're now ready to start making a sound, uh, infrastructure. I'm sure your people understand they can't have our protection for nothing. They'll need to do their share, producing supplies in their factories, food and raw materials from their lands—you see what I mean, I'm sure, madam." He scowled. "I told you before, the attack those Hermetian ships made on ours, their defiance of orders . . . Yes, yes, not your fault, madam. But if your navy had that many subversives in it, what about civilians? We might start getting sabotage, espionage, aid and comfort to enemy agents. That has to be guarded against, doesn't it?"

  He paused. "Go on," Sandra said. The words sounded remote in her ears. She was tensing to receive a blow.

  The first several days of the occupation had gone with eerie smoothness. Were the people stunned, mechanically tracing out routines—or how much ordinary life went on, education, recreation, lovemaking, even laughter? She herself had been astonished to find she could still enjoy a meal, be concerned when her favorite horse developed a limp, take interest in some unusual triviality on the newscast. Of course, no doubt it helped that few dwellers on the planet had glimpsed an invader. And she liked to think that her speeches had had their effect—first, on a conference hookup, to the world legislature, the presidents of the domains; afterward on television to everybody. "We have no other choice but our useless deaths and our children's . . . . We yield under protest, praying for eventual justice . . . . Our forebears entered wildernesses whose very life forms were mostly unknown to them, and many suffered or died, but in the end they overcame. In this hour we must be worthy of them . . . . Prudence . . . . Patience . . . . Endure . . . ."

  "We'll have to organize for the long pull," Milner told her. "Now I'm a plain soldier. I don't know the ins and outs of your society here. But I do know there isn't another like it anywhere that humans have settled. So we're bringing in a High Commissioner. He and his staff will work closely with you, to ease the, uh, transition and make what reforms are required. He's Hermetian born, you see, madam, Benoni Strang by name."

  Strang? Not one of the Thousand Families. Possibly a Follower, but I doubt it; I'm sure I'd remember. Then he must be—

  "He arrived today and would like to meet with you informally as soon as possible," Milner was saying. "You know, get acquainted, let you see that it's his world too and he has its best interests at heart. When would be a convenient time, madam?"

  They are very polite to the prisoners, not?

  * * *

  Waiting, she wandered alone save for one of her hounds, across the top of Pilgrim Hill to the Old Keep. Its stone massiveness housed nothing these days but records and a museum; nobody else was in the formal gardens surrounding it. The stillness made her footsteps seem loud on the graveled paths.

  Flowerbeds and low hedges formed an intricate design anchored to occasional trees. Most blooms were gone; colors other than green were only in crimson daleflower and small whitefoot, in shrubs where skyberries ripened vivid blue, in the first yellow on leaves of birch and purple on leaves of fallaron. Maia shone muted through a hazy sky. The air was mild, with a slight tang. Trekking wings passed overhead. Autumn is gentle around Starfall, despite its latitude; Hermes tilts less on its axis than Earth. Under the hill gleamed the river, the city stretched eastward in roofs and towers to the bay, westward it soon gave place to plowland and pasture and Cloudhelm's ghostly peak. She saw little traffic and heard none. The world might have been keeping a Sabbath.

  But nothing ever really stopped work, least of all the forces of disruption. Soon she must go back inside and haggle for the liberties of her people. She remembered that it had been just this season and just this weather when she and Pete rode into the trouble at Whistle Creek. Pete—Her mind flew back across twenty-two Hermetian years.

  This was awhile after they met. That hour was still in the future when he would ask for marriage, or she would. (They were never quite sure which.) They were, though, seeing a good deal of each other. He had suggested she join him for some outdoor sport. She left Eric in her mother's care and flitted northeast from Windy Rim, across the Apollo Valley, to Brightwater in the foothills of the Thunderhead Mountains.

  It did not belong to him. The Asmundsens were Followers of the Runebergs, whose domain had property in these parts as well as on the coastal plain and elsewhere. However, the Asmundsens had been tenants of the estate called Brightwater for generations, managers of the copper mining and refining which were the area's sole industry. Pete was content to let his older brother handle that, while he went into business for himself, exploring the planets of the Maian System and developing their resources. (Naturally the domain took a share of the profits; but then, it had put up the original investment, after he persuaded the president and advisors that his idea was sound.)

  The family made Sandra welcome, at first with the formalities due a person of her rank, but soon warmly and merrily. Having see
n different cultures in her travels, she noticed what she would earlier have taken for granted, the absolute lack of subservience. If they had by birthright a single vote each in domain affairs while every adult Runeberg had ten, what of it? Their rights were equally inviolable; they enjoyed hereditary privileges, such as this use of a lucrative region; they were spared tedious detail work vis-a-vis neighbor domains; if any of them came to grief, it was the duty of the presidential bloodline to mobilize what resources were necessary to help. Indeed, they stood to the Runebergs much as the Runebergs stood to whatever head of state the legislature elected from the Tamarins. Her awareness growing keener as time passed, Sandra often wondered whether she envied more the Kindred or the Followers.

  On the day that she was to recall long afterward, she and Pete took horse for a ride to Whistle Creek, the industrial community. There they would visit the plant and have a late lunch before turning back. The route was lovely, a trail along ridges and down into vales whose forests were beginning to add gold, bronze, turquoise, amethyst, silver to their green, along hasty brooks, across meadows which had heaven for a roof. Mostly they rode in a silence that was more than companionable. But for an hour Pete unburdened himself to her of certain cares. Grand Duke Robert, old and failing, had begun by seeking his opinion on interplanetary development questions, then lately was progressing to a variety of matters. Pete did not want to become a gray eminence. Sandra did her awkward best to assure him that he was simply a valuable counselor. Inwardly she thought that if somehow she should be chosen successor, he never would escape the role.