Orion Shall Rise Read online

  Often in the past the electors had not assembled for months, and their deliberations had paraded onward for weeks, but these times looked too sinister; statelines had better go by the board. This meant that a voting majority must reach a consensus in advance. They did so unofficially and quietly. Nevertheless, they must consult the wishes of prominent Clansfolk and groundlings. The wiser among them also sounded out pysans and ordinary towndwellers. There was no way to keep truly secret the trend of the proceedings, nor any thought that that might be advisable.

  Again and again the dirigibles from Tournev came to harbor at Skyholm, and from them trod the Seniors, spouses, and entourages. Some were missing for various reasons, but they were a minuscule minority. More than a thousand men and women gathered in solemnity to pay Talence Toma Sark his last honors. The weight was such that all visitors and Cadets had perforce been dismissed from the aerostat, with the promise that they could come back later and the assurance that this was their part in the work, for them to carry out with pride.

  Words and music rolled forth; the sun-fire blazed; the ashes blew out and mingled with the dust of shooting stars. Afterward came a memorial feast in Charles Hall, and performances – orchestral, lyrical, athletic, dramatic, military – representing the different states. Everything was very reverential, but it ran very late.

  The following day was free, that Seniors might rest and, if they chose, converse among themselves. The day after that, their Council would assemble.

  2

  ‘Come with me, Faylis,’ Iern said. ‘We’ve got to talk, and this apartment feels like a cage. Let’s go to the Garden.’

  Silent and stiff-backed, she accompanied him. The passageways were crowded, but not bustling or noisy. Rather, gravity, slow movement, low voices suggested the quietness that can fall before a thunderstorm explodes. Farther down, comparatively few had sought the country of the leaves. It was as if most people dared not risk yielding to its peace.

  Iern took a route he had always liked. It led him and his wife past the Winter Lord statue, through the fungus corridor and amaryllis beds, down a ramp between two trees, and along a path to a rose bower. ‘Nobody here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go inside. It has a viewer – Hai, what’s the matter, dear?’

  Faylis had flinched and doubled her fists. They unclenched but she remained pale. ‘Nothing,’ she mumbled.

  He studied her. ‘Are you well? You’ve been as tense as a fiddle-string these past several days, more all the time till I expect something will snap and recoil. Why?’

  She wet her lips. Perfume did not entirely blanket a rankness from the sweat that misted her brow and darkened her sleeves below the arms. ‘I’m … nervous. Aren’t you?’

  ‘In a way, of course.’ He took her by the elbow and guided her into the fragrant dusk that trellis and flowers made. In the prism Earth curved enormous, green and brown and silvery where clouds did not interpose their snowbank forms. Turning toward her, he laid his other hand on her other arm as well. For a time he stood looking into her eyes. They flickered about; he thought of trapped birds.

  ‘Faylis,’ he asked finally, ‘do you want to be the Captain’s lady?’

  ‘I – What do you want?’ Her voice had gone scratchy.

  His lips pinched together before he answered. ‘When it first started looking possible I’d be chosen, I took for granted you’d think it was the most wonderful thing that could happen. But this past couple of years, if not longer – Well, you never said much, but you acted less than elated when I was raised to Clan Senior, and now, when I can almost certainly be the next Captain, you’ve turned downright grim.’

  She gave him a whiff of defiance: ‘If I never said much, that was because you never listened much.’

  ‘Zhesu! Must we go over that ground again?’ He mastered his temper. ‘Let’s not argue rights and wrongs,’ your sullenness, your body flaccid in bed, your shutting yourself away hour after hour, your open study of Gaean books and even attendance at Gaean communions –‘Can’t you understand? This is the most important decision of my life so far. If I decide, no, it’ll be the most important ever. I want to consult your wishes because, chaos take it, our marriage does matter to me.’ Really? Well, a fair amount, I suppose. I hate to see you aching, if only because you’re a living creature; and, to be sure, once we were happy together. He recognized the calculation that followed for what it was: Besides, a Captain who got divorced would lose a certain respect among the conservatives of the Aerogens, and I’ll need their wholehearted support. My bedmates and I will have to be very discreet. What a nuisance. Is that a reason why I shilly-shally about this?

  ‘Are you looking for an excuse to say no?’ she flung at him.

  Taken aback, he stood staring down at the world, hearing a hum of bees, feeling a pulse in his throat. Finally he shaped a grin. ‘Maybe I am, Faylis. Maybe I am.’

  ‘Why might you not want the post?’

  Again he was astonished, for he thought he sensed eagerness and, yes, hopefulness in her tone, such as he had almost forgotten could be hers. He returned his gaze to her and saw how she strained forward, wide-eyed, lips parted, the small bosom rapidly rising and falling.

  ‘The responsibility,’ he confessed. ‘Oh, I think I could pick sound advisers, and I know I can delegate authority, but at the end, I couldn’t let myself be a figurehead.’

  ‘Why not? Many Captains have been.’

  ‘Mostly in the Isolation Era, and the Enric Restoration put paid to the account of the Great Houses, didn’t it?’ Iern shook his head. ‘No, if I don’t take the lead, I’ll simply have all the drawbacks of the office with none of the satisfactions. And the drawbacks are countless. Starting with being tied to the Domain, except possibly for dull official visits abroad. You know how I’ve dreamed of traveling over the whole planet. And then, it’d be cheating the Seniors who elected me, the people who trusted me. I understand how they expect me, a young man, to collect sage counsel and heed it. But they also expect a head of state who’ll give of himself, make the hard choices and see them through.’ A second passed by. ‘My father used to say that no man or woman who actually wants to be Captain is fit to be. By that standard, I qualify.’

  ‘Why do you think nobody else does?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ Chariest She is different today. Why? ‘Although … what other realistic prospects does Clan Talence have to offer? Aidwar Turain is a reactionary who frankly wishes the nasty, upsetting foreigners would go away, and will certainly be no good at making deals with them. Hald Simonay has Gaean leanings. Emma Zhiraudou doesn’t, but she believes we can safely reduce the military forces and devote the money saved to social betterment. The list goes on.’

  He saw her nostrils flare and wished he had been less blunt about the pro-Gaean candidate. ‘What would you do as Captain?’ she demanded.

  ‘What seems indicated,’ he answered. ‘Who can read the future? But I do feel – in a marrowbone way that most Domain folk can’t yet – I feel the future will be different from the past, whether we like it or not, and we’d better get busy trying to hammer it into a shape that we’ll have a chance of liking. For instance, this argument over whether we should give the Maurai the benefit of our data and experience of their own project to construct Okress aerostats. Why not? They’ll do it regardless. If we don’t help, it’ll merely slow them down; and I suspect they’ll develop an improved model. Why not cooperate, earn their goodwill, make this an opening for really close relationships? Yes, the reactionaries are afraid that’ll bring on huge changes at home. The Gaeans are afraid it’ll be a victory for us technophiles and leave them forever in the shadow. Doubtless both are correct. Good, say I!’

  ‘You’ll permanently alienate many of our own people,’ she sought to warn, ‘not to mention Espayn and the Northwest Union.’

  Now why’s she suddenly concerned about the Northwest Union? I thought she was hardly aware it exists…. One of her correspondents may have wakened her interest. Iern could not help kn
owing that she wrote and received many letters, but after some rebuffs –in the form of ‘A classmate of mine; the topics we discuss would bore you’ – he had given up inquiring about them. Honor forbade that he snoop, and he didn’t particularly care in any event.

  ‘It wouldn’t be an either-or proposition, nor would revolutions come overnight,’ he told her. ‘Tradeoffs, a balancing act – it would be a challenge.’ He sought to gentle the conversation. ‘And there are so many other things I’d like to see done, that won’t stand big in the history books but that I could hug to me on my deathbed. Laws against cruelty to animals, for instance.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s the real bait, the idea that I, myself, might change the world a little bit for the better.’

  She appeared stricken. ‘Then you will agree to election.’

  ‘I more than halfway have already, you know,’ he reminded her. ‘But I did want to ask you. Leave public benefit aside. What is your own wish?’

  He saw her summon up resolve, a convulsion that forced tears from the big gray eyes. ‘Don’t!’ she cried. ‘Refuse it – openly, for everybody to hear – now!’

  He could only gape at her. She reached toward him like a blind woman. ‘Oh, please, please, Iern. I don’t want you hurt, in danger –’

  Alarm shrilled through him. ‘What the devil do you mean?’ Simple hysterics? But she’s educated. She must know that no Captain has died violently for something like five hundred years.

  She brought knuckles to mouth and shrank from him. Her left hand made fending motions. ‘Nothing,’ she gasped, ‘nothing, really, except – oh, please –’

  He tried to thrust anger down. He was too often angry with her. A flash on the edge of vision seemed a lucky chance, a possible diversion while they calmed down a trifle.

  He bent over the prism. ‘Hul-lo-ah,’ he murmured. ‘Look, darling. An airship bound this way from below.’ He peered. ‘And a jet for escort, seems like.’ The shapes were still tiny in chasm-dark heaven, the sunlight fierce off metal, but he knew well every type of flying machine in Uropa and had seen pictures of most sorts elsewhere. ‘Not a regular shuttle; that’s a Clan transport. And … the plane’s a Stormrider model. Who’s spending that much fuel?’

  ‘Already?’ Faylis wailed. ‘I thought –’ She whirled about and fled. Her skirt flapped back to brush him, the yellow hair stirred likewise at her haste, and she was gone. For a minute he heard her running from him.

  He started to follow, but halted after one stride. No. She’s overwrought, for whatever reason. Give her time to recover. He forced his attention back outward.

  As the dirigible neared, the emblem on its flank became identifiable, the gold rosettes on black of Clan Bergdorff. So … Senior Pir Verine, who called in sick, feels enough better that he’s coming for tomorrow’s Council. A vote against me; he’s favourable to Gaeanity, if not an outright convert. … But why has he brought that hulking vessel all the way from the South, instead of taking the liner to Tournev and a shuttle up to here like pratically everybody else?

  Spiraling about to maintain lift in the tenuous air, the jet passed close. Iern squinted after it. He had glimpsed protrusions sleek along the wings, but the sight went by too fast for him to be certain what they were. Cowls over machine guns? Talk had gone around for years of arming a few meteorological superplanes. They’d be invincible against anything this side of the Maurai Federation. The obstacle was their fuel consumption. Besides the starving of equipment that was needed worse, such as scout cars and field ambulances, on a distant battlefront it would pose a nearly insoluble problem of supply.

  But the officers in charge of one could quietly have gone ahead and had it modified, as an experiment. They’d have the authority, I imagine. My corps is always tinkering with its gear, including vehicles. … But why bring it here, unannounced? Is Bergdorff Pir Verine planning a splashy demonstration of achievement that he hopes will swing votes to Hald Simonay?

  Iern rubbed his chin. Bristles scratted slightly against his finger. Hm. Why don’t I go meet the party and find out? I’ve nothing better to do just now. It wrenched in him. Nothing better. He left.

  3

  Skyholm loomed immense amidst endlessness. Talence Jovain Aurillac’s heart shivered in its bone cage. He wanted to strain against the window before which he stood, like a child long confined by illness who sees Father riding homeward with an armful of birthday presents. Birthday in truth. This day he was reborn, to the kingdom and the power and the glory kingdom over the land that had nurtured him, power to guide it on the way of life, glory that was Faylis.

  But no. He must not compromise his dignity. Threescore men waited at his back, hushed and tense before the shattering thing they were about to try. If he could plan and work in secret for more than two years, at risk of everything he had and loved, he could wait these few remaining minutes in the calm that his followers needed from him.

  He turned to face them. Seated, in the green uniforms he had designed – green for Gaea, though he would not provoke added resistance by proclaiming that – they filled the shadowy length of the gondola. About half, including all officers, were Clansmen, mostly young idealists but with a healthy fraction of hardheaded, ambitious opportunists. The rest were Eskuaidunak from the Valdor region, tough, aggrieved, not precisely sworn enemies of the Aerogens but not friends either. He could have had Espaynian soldiers as well; however, their presence would have made him a traitor, rather than a reformer, in too many eyes throughout the Domain. For the same reason, he kept clandestine the help he got from Northwestern adventurers.

  ‘The hour of decision,’ he said with rehearsed softness, through the rumble of engines, and added in Eskuara, The moment of truth,’ before returning to the Francey that everyone here understood. ‘You know our purpose –– to avert the next Uropan war, that reckless militarism could easily cause; to bring under control the alien influences that are poisoning our civilization; to right longstanding wrongs and establish a new justice; on that foundation, to build a gateway to the future, when everywhere upon Earth life shall be truly One.

  ‘Let me give you a final word before we launch our enterprise. We have practiced over and over what each squad is to do, which key point it is to seize and hold, how we will maintain communication among ourselves, what actions are appropriate to meet which contingencies. Your leaders are familiar with Ileduciel; never fear that you are getting lost in a maze. There are no firearms, or virtually none, anywhere in the aerostat – scarcely a single weapon more dangerous than a kitchen knife. Your entry will be a total surprise.’

  At this moment, I trust, passed across Jovain’s mind, the pilot is on the radio, ‘explaining’ why Bergdorff Pir Verine sees fit to arrive in such style – to demonstrate that airships serving as tankers, protected by certain new devices, make a limited number of high-powered warplanes feasible – a development that is bound to affect policy, and therefore should be taken into account when electing the new Captain.… In point of fact, Bergdorff Pir Verine lay low in an Alpine hunting lodge. He had proved willing to conspire, but had been frank to Jovain about his intention – if the coup failed – of declaring shock and grief that his trusted colleague could so misuse vehicles lent him for what had been alleged to be patriotic research and development.

  ‘On that very account, men, it is crucial that you restrain yourselves. We dare not inflict serious damage on Ileduciel, and our goal must be to inflict none whatsoever. Almost as urgently, we dare harm no person except in case of direst necessity. We shall need the skills of some from the beginning; we shall need the acquiescence of the rest shortly after, and eventually the support of most. Remember, besides vital technical personnel, these are the Clan Seniors, their spouses, their immediate assistants. They are more than human beings who have a right not to be wantonly hurt or insulted. They are leaders, symbols, embodiments. Ileduciel is mighty, but not almighty. At best, our troops on the ground will have taken only a few areas. They cannot hold those, let alone spread control ove
r the countryside, if our behaviour here has outraged the entire Domain.’

  Small and thinly spread would the garrisons be indeed. You couldn’t introduce many newcomers into a town, the neighborhood of an airfield or important factory, a defensible hill, without attracting undue notice, even over a period of months and under many different ingenious pretexts. Still more difficult were the smuggling and concealment of their weapons. The operation would probably have been impossible in most parts of the world; but guarded by Skyholm, the Domain had rested in peace for so long that it took its own security effortlessly for granted, like air and sunshine.

  They are ready, though. Or else I shall soon be dead. That knowledge was not daunting to Jovain; in him, it tingled and trumpeted.

  When the signal flashed from on high, that Skyholm was his, the men on the ground would don their uniforms, take up their arms, and occupy their ordained places. If all went well, there would be little fighting, or none. People would be too stunned, too disorganized; and they would be under bombardment of messages from the aerostat, that the soldiers were on hand by right, strictly as protectors during a period of emergency. Castlekeepers, commanders of military bases, skippers in the navy, might not believe it, and did possess forces. But they would hesitate to risk destroying town halls, Consvatoires, depots, transportation and communication centers, whatever facilities the Jovainists held – not to mention hazarding the annihilation that Skyholm itself could thunder down on them.

  And while everybody mills about and temporizes, the Council of Seniors meets aloft to choose the new Captain.

  For this, the Seniors must be alive.

  ‘Never be frightened. Always remember that the strength is yours. Fire no shot except in extreme danger, and then only on orders from your ranking officer. Use lesser degrees of force if you must, but only if you must and only to the degree absolutely necessary for you to carry out your assignment. We are not invaders, we are liberators.’