Rise of the Terran Empire Page 22

  Eric thought of crowds wild with fear, demonstrating in favor of just such a policy, as well as influential commentators, businesspeople, politicians . . . . Pressure on the government, yes. But how much of the pressure was being engineered? The Home Companies had an overriding interest in protecting their properties from attack, in manufacturing unlimited armaments at fat profits, in getting the citizenry into the habit of being closely controlled by a state wherein they exercised much of the power; and the devil might have Hermes for all they cared.

  Yet why did Dad talk me into making those speeches, antagonizing those authorities? He had a purpose of his own. At the time, I was too impatient, too angry to probe him. Protest came natural to me. But now I begin to see we'll have to talk further, he and I.

  He couldn't continue the minuet. "Freelady," he growled, "these arguments have been batted back and forth till the meaning's knocked out of them; they've become slogans. Let's drop them. Are you and I hopelessly at odds, or can we reach an agreement?"

  "You do not put it very diplomatically."

  "My food's getting cold." Eric began eating.

  Lennart picked at hers. "Well-ll . . . if you insist on being blunt—"

  "'Tis why we're here, not? Go ahead."

  "Well, then, quite simply, if you will be discreet, refrain from further public statements, prepare yourself and your following to cooperate in our larger mutual purpose—if you will prove you can do that, then I believe, I do not promise but I believe, in due course I can persuade the high command to enlist you on the terms originally proposed."

  More delay. Which Dad prodded me into causing. Why?

  "What is the alternative?" he asked.

  Redness splotched Lennart's skin. "You cannot expect that the Commonwealth will indefinitely grant shelter and assistance to a violator of its hospitality."

  Eric scowled. "I'll not take time to analyze that sentence, Freelady. But I will wonder aloud precisely what 'the Commonwealth' is. An individual, receiving another individual as a guest? Or a government? In that case, who makes up the government, the real power, and why have they received us, and why like they not my presenting a different point of view from theirs to the people at large? I thought this was a democracy."

  He raised his palm. "Enough," he said. "I don't mean to irritate; and I am prepared to be realistic. You'll admit my first duty is to Hermes, that if the freeing of Hermes isn't going to be an objective, my men and I have no business in your war. But I'm willing to try working for that quietly, laying it before cabinet ministers, corporation chairmen, and union leaders rather than the public."

  Lennart relaxed a trifle. "That would probably be acceptable."

  "One small thing," Eric continued. "Your navy has sequestered a spacecraft belonging to my father's company. I want her released to me, assigned to my force."

  She was surprised. "Why?"

  "No great matter. She's my father's, and I feel under some filial obligation to him."

  Actually 'twas Coya who begged me to insist on this. Muddlin' Through isn't really van Rijn's, she's David's.

  Though . . . did Old Nick put her up to that bit of sentimentalism? Muddlin' Through does have more capabilities than most ships.

  Lennart clutched her fork tightly. "That's another matter you and I must handle today," she said. "We on Earth knew of your parentage, but hoped Freeman van Rijn would have no attraction for you. You had never seen him. At first those hopes seemed fulfilled. But suddenly you were collaborating with him, doubtless after furtive contacts. We are quite disappointed."

  "Why? Should I have disowned him? Was I ever required to file reports of all my comings, goings, and meetings? Is he not a citizen in good standing of the Commonwealth?"

  "Only technically, Admiral Tamarin-Asmundsen, only technically. His has been a pernicious influence."

  Which is to say, he's taken a forefront position in combating the growth of statism. Also, from time to time he's cut the Home Companies out of juicy deals.

  "You can explain why at your leisure, Freelady," Eric said, resigning himself. "First, though, what about yon vessel? Blame my request on my primitive colonial hankering for tangibles."

  Lennart pondered. "You would have custody, not he?"

  "That's right. I'd arrange for her commissioning in the Hermetian navy. Which will bring her under the Commonwealth when our forces are integrated." If.

  "Hm . . . . I see no major objection. It's not my department, but I could make a recommendation. In return—"

  "Yes. I stop stumping." Eric filled his mouth. Now the food tasted good. Lennart would lecture him during the whole meal, but he needn't pay close attention. Instead, he could daydream about bringing Lorna here . . . sometime.

  * * *

  Nicholas Falkayn was born in his great-grandfather's mansion in Delfinburg, which was then passing through the Coral Sea above the wrecks of an ancient battle. Labor was long, for he was big and his mother slender. Since her man was away, she denied admittance to everyone save the medics, who noted that she often had half a grin on her face, as if telling the universe to put down its pride.

  Afterward she received her new child gladly. She was nursing him when van Rijn hurricaned into her room. "Hallo, hallo, harroo!" the old man boomed. "Congratugoddamnlations! Is that the pup? Ah, a whopper. He has the family looks, I see—never mind which family, Adam's maybe, they are all crumpled red worms at this age. How is you?"

  "Restless," Coya complained. "They won't let me out of bed till tomorrow."

  "I got some conosolium," van Rijn told her in a stage whisper, and slipped a bottle of brandy from under his jacket.

  "Well, I don't know . . . . Oh, he may as well start learning early. Thanks, Gunung Tuan." She took a hearty swig.

  He studied her, pale features in which the eyes still seemed too large, dark hair spread across the pillows. "I am sorry I did not come sooner. I could not get free of business."

  "It must have been important."

  "To the other osco. A little trader what supplies me with a particular offplanet spice. Jula, you ever heard of it? Tastes like chocolate soap to me, but they like it on Cynthia. The war, the ban on travel, he was threatened with bankrupture. I could not just give him a loan over the phone because of the tapioca-brain antitrust laws. Better he should crawl broken to the government and beg for a crust, nie? So we met and talked personal; and things is now hunky-dinghy."

  "That was good of you."

  "No, no, bah, is a bad time, and a worse time coming. If we do not stand together, we will have to stand for anything. Never mind such fumblydiddles. How you do, bellybird?"

  She had long ago accepted the fact that he would never stop using the nickname he had bestowed when she was a baby. "I'm fine. My parents called an hour ago. They said to give you their regards."

  "Swat my regards straight back at them." Van Rijn took a turn about the chamber. Sunlight, slanting inward, cast wave reflections on the wall behind him. "They is nice people," he said, "but like their whole generation, they do not understand an image is not enough. We is been too intellectual too long, here on Earth."

  Coya kept silent. Nicholas tugged lustily at her breast.

  "Ach, my apologetics," van Rijn said. "I should not have criticized. Everybody does his or her foolish best. But the touch of a hand—especial when Davy is gone from you—" He poked a finger toward the infant, who, temporarily sated, rolled his head that way and blew milk bubbles at him. "Ho, ho, already he has got the art of making political speeches!"

  "Davy," Coya whispered. Aloud: "No, I will not bawl, no matter how he's been cheated. But Gunung Tuan, what do you think may be happening to him?"

  Van Rijn tugged unmercifully on a ringlet. "How can I tell, a futtersnipe like me? Too many unknowns, darling, too many unknowns."

  She half lifted the arm which was not holding her child. "Haven't you thought your way toward any answer? Provisional, yes, yes, but an answer?"

  Van Rijn grimaced, banged his great bottom
down on a chair, and took a long drag on the bottle he carried, which afterward he offered to Coya. She signed refusal, intently watching him.

  "We got a mystery here," he said. "Some parts is plain to see, or ugly to see. Others—" He gave a shrug like a mountain shedding a snowpack. "Others make no sense. We got many paradoxes and no paradoctors. You heard me talk about this."

  "Yes, but I've been so concerned about Davy, and later this kid here . . . . Talk. Please. No harm done if you repeat things. I need to be able to imagine I'm somehow working on Davy's behalf."

  "Hokay," van Rijn sighed. "We go down the list." He ticked points off on his hairy fingers.

  "Item: How did Babur arm for war? And why? Nobody could have foreseen Mirkheim; that was only the trigger to the landslide, what caught Babur splatfooted too and maybe made it act before it had really intended.

  "Item: A couple companies of the Seven had been having dealings with Babur over the years. Why did they get no hint of that arming? Oh, ja, the dealings was small and unoften, and the planet is huge and strange. But nothingtheless—

  "Item: What makes Babur so sure it can win? And why is it been so contemptuous of the League as to arrest your husband when he came peaceful like? Babur is not really such a mighty place. Most of it is desert.

  "Item: Looks like Babur has got lots of oxygen-breathing mercenaries. You tell me how hydrogen breathers recruited those, secretly, over the worlds and the years. No, Babur had help—also with research, development, and production for its war machine—but whose, and why?

  "Item: What makes Babur think it knows enough about us aliens that it can fight us and, eventfully, negotiate whatever kind of peace? Who's been telling it things?

  "Item: Why should Babur occupy a neutral, small-populated, terrestroid planet—"

  The phone at the bedside chimed. Coya swore and accepted. The image of van Rijn's executive secretary burst onto the screen. "Sir," he stammered, "sir, news received, a—a—a ship from Hermes, the Grand Duchess aboard, she's broadcast an announcement that she's the Hermetian government in exile . . . and—and David Falkayn is with her!"

  Glory exploded in the room.

  Later came grimness, as they who were there got to wondering.

  XIX

  A third of a century had blurred Sandra's memories of Earth. She recalled the hugeness of megalopolitan integrates, but had forgotten how daunting it could be. She had experienced totally synthetic, totally controlled environment, but only now did it come to her that this was in its way more alien than the outer planets of Maia. And in her earlier visit she had been a tourist, free to flit around, available for every adventure that came along; she had not known how heavy were the chains which Earth laid upon the prominent. Each hour was appointed, each meeting a ritual dance of words, each smile measured for its public effect. She was shown some of the remaining natural marvels, but she could only look, she could not scramble down a trail into the Grand Canyon or cast off her clothes and plunge into Lake Baikal. And everywhere, everywhere guards must accompany her.

  "Who would want power, here, at this price?" she lamented once.

  David Falkayn had grinned wryly and replied, "The politicians don't have that much. They put on a show, but most of the real decisions are made by owners, managers, bureaucrats, union chiefs, people who aren't conspicuous enough to need all that protection or all that secretarial prearrangement of their days . . . . Of course, the politicians think they lead."

  So it was immensely good to be back among her own, aboard her flagship, the cruiser Chronos, cramped and sterile though the interior was. Orbiting independently around Sol, the Hermetian flotilla counted as Hermetian soil. After an unpleasant argument, she had even gotten the secret service left behind. And the men and women aboard were bred of the same lands as hers, born to the same skies, walking with the easy gait and talking with the slight burr that were hers, standing together in a loneliness that she shared.

  Yet her heart stumbled. This day she would again meet Nicholas van Rijn. No matter that that was in her territory—to prevent electronic eavesdropping, if nothing else—she felt half afraid, and raged at herself for it. Eric, waiting beside her, should have been a tall comfort, but was instead almost a stranger, flesh of this stranger she must receive, reluctantly come from Earth and his Lorna. The spacemen in their white dress uniforms, their double line flanking the airlock, had also gone foreign to her; for what were they thinking behind their carefully smoothed-out faces? Ventilation muttered, touching her with a coolness that said her skin was damp.

  The inner valve opened. There he stood.

  Her first thought was an astonished How homely he is. She remembered him bulky and craggy rather than corpulent; and he did not belong in the lace-trimmed sylon blouse, iridon vest, purple culottes he had donned for this occasion. Behind him, in plain gray tunic and slacks, Falkayn was downright cruelly contrasting. Why, he's old, Sandra knew, and her embarrassment dropped from her. The stranger was no longer her son but that girl who had once been headstrong.

  "Good greeting, gentlemen," she said as if they were anybody with whom she meant to confer.

  And then van Rijn, damn his sooty heart, refused to be pitiable but grabbed her hand, bestowed a splashing kiss upon it, and pumped it as if he expected water to gush from her mouth. "Good day, good day," he bawled, "good nights too, cheers and salutations, Your Gracefulness, and may joy puff up your life. Ah, you is a sight for footsore eyes, getting better and better with time like a fine cheese. I could near as damn thank the Baburites for making you come shine at us, except they brought you trouble. For that they will pay through the noses they isn't got but we will make them buy from us at a five hundred percent markup. Nie?"

  She disengaged herself. Cold with indignation, she presented the captain and ranking officers of the ship. Eric took over the making of formal excuses to them, since they were not invited to the wardroom for drinks before dinner. They had already been apprised of that; van Rijn's message had asked for a conference in secret. Mechanically they accepted the courtesy due them, their attention mainly on the merchant, the living legend. Could this be he? And what hope for Hermes might he have in his pocket?

  He took Sandra's arm when she led off their son and Falkayn. She resented the familiarity but couldn't think how to break loose without a scene. He dropped his voice: "I would say, 'Weowar arronach,'"—the phrase from the Lannachska language of Diomedes was one they had made their own during their first year together—"but is long ago too late. Let me only be glad you was happy afterward."

  "Thank you." She was caught off balance anew.

  They entered the wardroom. It was not large, but was outfitted in stonebark wainscoting and cyanops leather as a sign of home. Faint odors of them lingered. Pictures hung on the bulkheads, Cloudhelm seen from a wooded Arcadian hilltop, dunes in the Rainbow Desert, the South Corybantic Ocean alive with night phosphorescence. A viewscreen gave a wild contrast, the spaces which encompassed this hull, millionfold stars, billionfold Milky Way, Earth a globule almost lost among them, fragile as blue glass. Eric stepped behind the miniature bar. "I'll be your messboy," he said. "What'll you have?"

  It broke a certain tension. Gets he that skill from his father? flashed in Sandra. I've never been quick to transform the mood of a group. Seeing that the men waited for her, she chose an Apollo Valley claret. Van Rijn tried a Hermetian gin and pronounced it scorchful. Falkayn and Eric took Scotch. It struck Sandra as funny—or symbolic, or something—that that should have been hauled the whole way from Edinburgh to Starfall and back.

  They settled themselves on the bench which curved around the table: she, Eric, Falkayn, and, to her relief, van Rijn at the far end. But when she took out her cigar case, the trader did likewise, and insisted she have a genuine Havana. She found she had also forgotten how good that was.

  Silence fell.

  After a minute or two, Eric shifted in his seat, took a gulp from his drink, and said roughly, "Hadn't we better get to our business
? We're here because Freeman van Rijn has a word for us. I'm anxious to know what."

  Sandra tautened, met the old man's eyes, and felt as if sparks flew. "Yes," she agreed, "we've no right to dawdle. Please tell us." Her look sought Falkayn's. We know. And Eric's. You and I talked about this too, after we had first embraced on Earth.

  Van Rijn streamed smoke from his nostrils. "We ought to put on a scene like from a roman policier, where I dump a kilo of clues on the rug and we fit them together in the shape of the villain, us having a guilting bee," he began. "But you has a fair-to-muddling notion of what must be the answer. Mainly we is got to decide what to do.

  "Let me lay everything out before us anyways, to make sure we is thinking the same."