The Day of Their Return df-4 Read online

  “Law and order are very fragile here, Honorable. I hope to proceed firmly but humanely with the reintegration of the Virgilian system into Imperial life. At present, practically anything could touch off a further explosion. Were it a major one, the consequences would be disastrous for the Aeneans, evil for the Empire. We’re not far from the border, from the Domain of Ythri and, worse, independent war lords, buccaneers, and weird fanatics who have space fleets. Aeneas bulwarked this flank of ours. We can ill afford to lose it.

  “A number of hostile or criminal elements took advantage of unsettled conditions to debark. I doubt if my police have yet gotten rid of them all. I certainly don’t propose to let in more. That’s why ships and detector satellites are in orbit, and none but specific vessels may land—at this port, nowhere else—and persons from them must be registered and must stay inside Nova Roma unless they get specific permission to travel.”

  He realized how harsh he sounded, and began to beg pardon. Aycharaych broke smoothly through his embarrassment. “Please do not think you give offense, Commissioner. I quite sympathize with your position. Besides, I sense your basic good will toward me. You fear I might, inadvertently, rouse emotions which would ignite mobs or outright revolutionaries.”

  “I must consider the possibility, Honorable. Even within a single species, the ghastliest blunders are all too easy to make. For instance, my own ancestors on Terra, before spaceflight, once rose against foreign rulers. The conflict took many thousand lives. Its proximate cause was a new type of cartridge which offended the religious sensibilities of native troops.”

  “A better example might be the Taiping Rebellion.”

  “What?”

  “It happened in China, in the same century as the Indian Mutiny. A revolt against a dynasty of outlanders, though one which had governed for considerable tune, became a civil war that lasted for a generation and killed people in the millions. The leaders were inspired by a militant form of Christianity—scarcely what Jesus had in mind, no?”

  Desai stared at Aycharaych. “You have studied us.”

  “A little, oh, a hauntingly little. Much of it in your esthetic works, Aeschylus, Li Po, Shakespeare, Goethe, Stargeon, Mikhailov … the music of a Bach or Richard Strauss, the visual art of a Rembrandt or Hiroshige … Enough. I would love to discuss these matters for months, Commissioner, but you have not the time. I do hope to convince you I will not enter as a clumsy ignoramus.”

  “Why Aeneas?” Desai wondered.

  “Precisely because of the circumstances in which it finds itself, Commissioner. How do humans of an especially proud, self-reliant type behave in defeat? We need that insight too on Jean-Baptiste, if we are not to risk aggrieving you in some future day of trouble. Furthermore, I understand Aeneas contains several cultures besides the dominant one. To make comparisons and observe interactions would teach me much.”

  “Well—”

  Aycharaych waved a hand. “The results of my work will not be hoarded. Frequently an outsider perceives elements which those who live by them never do. Or they may take him into their confidence, or at least be less reserved in his presence than in that of a human who could possibly be an Imperial secret agent. Indeed, Commissioner, by his very conspicuousness, an alien like me might serve as an efficient gatherer of intelligence for you.”

  Desai started. Krishna! Does this uncanny being suspect—? No, how could he?

  Gently, almost apologetically, Aycharaych said, “I persuaded the Governor’s staff, and at last had a talk with His Excellency. If you wish to examine my documents, you will find I already have permission to carry out my studies here. But of course I would never undertake anything you disapprove.”

  “Excuse me.” Desai felt bewildered, rushed, boxed in. Why should he? Aycharaych was totally courteous, eager to please. “I ought to have checked through the data beforehand. I would have, but that wretched attempt at guerrilla action—Do you mind waiting a few minutes while I scan?”

  “Not in the slightest,” the other said, “especially if you will let me glance at those books I see over there.” He smiled wider than before. His teeth were wholly nonhuman.

  “Yes, by all means,” Desai mumbled, and slapped fingers across the information-retriever panel.

  Its screen lit up. An identifying holograph was followed by relevant correspondence and notations. (Fakery was out of the question. Besides carrying tagged molecules, the reel had been deposited aboard ship by an official courier, borne here in the captain’s safe, and personally brought by him to the memory bank underneath Imperial House.) The check on Aycharaych’s bona fides had been routine, since they were overworked on Llynathawr too, but competently executed.

  He arrived on the sector capital planet by regular passenger liner, went straight to a hotel in Catawrayannis which possessed facilities for xenosophonts, registered with the police as required, and made no effort to evade the scanners which occupation authorities had planted throughout the city. He traveled nowhere, met nobody, and did nothing suspicious. In perfectly straightforward fashion, he applied for the permit he wanted, and submitted to every interview and examination demanded of him.

  No one had heard of the planet Jean-Baptiste there, either, but it was in the files and matched Aycharaych’s description. The information was meager; but who would keep full data in the libraries of a distant province about a backward world which had never given trouble?

  The request of its representative was reasonable, seemed unlikely to cause damage, and might yield helpful results. Sector Governor Muratori got interested, saw the being himself, and granted him an okay.

  Desai frowned. His superior was both able and conscientious: had to be, if the harm done by the rapacious and conscienceless predecessor who provoked McCormac’s rebellion was to be mended. However, in a top position one is soon isolated from the day-to-day details which make up a body of politics. Muratori was too new in his office to appreciate its limitations. And he was, besides, a stern man, who in Desai’s opinion interpreted too literally the axiom that government is legitimatized coercion. It was because of directives from above that, after the University riots, the Commissioner of Virgil reluctantly ordered the razing of the Memorial and the total disarmament of the great Landfolk houses—two actions which he felt had brought on more woes, including the lunacy in Hesperia.

  Well, then, why am I worried if Muratori begins to show a trifle more flexibility than hitherto?

  “I’m finished,” Desai said. “Won’t you sit down again?”

  Aycharaych returned from the bookshelf, holding an Anglic volume of Tagore. “Have you reached a decision, Commissioner?” he asked.

  “You know I haven’t.” Desai forced a smile. “The decision was made for me. I am to let you do your research and give you what help is feasible.”

  “I doubt if I need bother you much, Commissioner. I am evolved for a thin atmosphere, and accustomed to rough travel. My biochemistry is similar enough to yours that food will be no problem. I have ample funds; and surely the Aenean economy could use some more Imperial credits.”

  Aycharaych ruffled his crest, a particularly expressive motion. “But please don’t suppose I wish to thrust myself on you, waving a gubernatorial license like a battle flag,” he continued. “You are the one who knows most and who, besides, must strike on the consequences of any error of mine. That would be a poor way for Jean-Baptiste to enter the larger community, would it not? I intend to be guided by your advice, yes, your preferences. For example, before my first venture, I will be grateful if your staff could plan my route and behavior.”

  A thawing passed through Desai. “You make me happy, Honorable. I’m sure we can work well together. See here, if you’d care to join me in an early lunch—and later I can have a few appointments shuffled around—”

  It became a memorable afternoon.

  But toward evening, alone, Desai once more felt troubled.

  He should go home, to a wife and children who saw him far too little. He
should stop chain-smoking; his palate was chemically burnt. Why carry a world on his shoulders, twenty long Aenean hours a day? He couldn’t do it, really, for a single minute. No mortal could.

  Yet when he had taken oath of office a mortal must try, or know himself a perjurer.

  The Frederiksen affair plagued him like a newly made wound. Suddenly he leaned across his desk and punched the retriever. This room made and stored holographs of everything that happened within it.

  A screen kindled, throwing light into dusky corners; for Desai had left off the fluoros, and sundown was upon the city. He didn’t enlarge the figures of Peter Jowett and himself, but he did amplify the audio. Voices boomed. He leaned back to listen.

  Jowett, richly dressed, sporting a curled brown beard, was of the Web, a merchant and cosmopolite. However, he was no jackal. He had sincerely, if quietly, opposed the revolt; and now he collaborated with the occupation because he saw the good of his people in their return to the Empire.

  He said: “—glad to offer you what ideas and information I’m able, Commissioner. Cut me off if I start tellin’ you what you’ve heard ad nauseam.”

  “I hardly think you can,” Desai responded. “I’ve been on Aeneas for two years; your ancestors, seven hundred.”

  “Yes, men ranged far in the early days, didn’t they? Spread themselves terribly thin, grew terribly vulnerable—Well. You wanted to consult me about Ivar Frederiksen, right?”

  “And anything related.” Desai put a fresh cigarette in his holder.

  Jowett lit a cheroot. “I’m not sure what I have to give you. Remember, I belong to class which Landfolk regard with suspicion at best, contempt or hatred at worst. I’ve never been intimate of his family.”

  “You’re in Parliament. A pretty important member, too. And Edward Frederiksen is Firstman of Ilion. You must have a fair amount to do with him, including socially; most political work goes on outside of formal conferences or debates. I know you knew Hugh McCormac well—Edward’s brother-in-law, Ivar’s uncle.”

  Jowett frowned at the red tip of his cigar before he answered slowly: “Matters are rather worse tangled than that, Commissioner. May I recapitulate elementary facts? I want to set things in perspective, for myself as much as you.”

  “Please.”

  “As I see it, there are three key facts about Aeneas. One, it began as scientific colony, mainly for purpose of studyin’ natives of Dido—which isn’t suitable environment for human children, you know. That’s origin of University: community of scientists, scholars, and support personnel, around which mystique clusters to this very day. The most ignorant and stupid Aenean stands in some awe of those who are learned. And, of course, University under Empire has become quite distinguished, drawin’ students both human and nonhuman from far around. Aeneans are proud of it. Furthermore, it’s wealthy as well as respected, thus powerful.

  “Fact two. To maintain humans, let alone research establishment, on planet as skimpy as this, you need huge land areas efficiently managed. Hence rise of Landfolk: squires, yeomen, tenants. When League broke down and Troubles came, Aeneas was cut off. It had to fight hard, sometimes right on its own soil, to survive. Landfolk bore brunt. They became quasi-feudal class. Even University caught somethin’ of their spirit, givin’ military trainin’ as regular part of curriculum. You’ll recall how Aeneas resisted—a bit bloodily—annexation by Empire, in its earlier days. But later we furnished undue share of its officers.

  “Fact three. Meanwhile assorted immigrants were tricklin’ in, lookin’ for refuge or new start or whatever. They were ethnically different. Haughty nords used their labor but made no effort to integrate them. Piecewise, they found niches for themselves, and so drifted away from dominant civilization. Hence tinerans, Riverfolk, Orcans, highlanders, et cetera. I suspect they’re more influential, sociologically, than city dwellers or rural gentry care to believe.”

  Jowett halted and poured himself a cup of the tea which Desai had ordered brought in. He looked as if he would have preferred whiskey.

  “Your account does interest me, as making clear how an intelligent Aenean analyzes the history of his world,” Desai said. “But what has it to do with my immediate problem?”

  “A number of things, Commissioner, if I’m not mistaken,” Jowett answered. “To begin, it emphasizes how essentially cut off persons like me are from … well, if not mainstream, then several mainstreams of this planet’s life.

  “Oh, yes, we have our representatives in tricameral legislature. But we—I mean our new, Imperium-oriented class of businessmen and their employees—we’re minor part of Townfolk. Rest belong to age-old guilds and similar corporate bodies, which most times feel closer to Landfolk and University than to us. Subcultures might perhaps ally with us, but aren’t represented; property qualification for franchise, you know. And … prior to this occupation, Firstman of Ilion was, automatically, Speaker of all three Houses. In effect, global President. His second was, and is, Chancellor of University, his third elected by Townfolk delegates. Since you have—wisely, I think—not dissolved Parliament, merely declared yourself supreme authority—this same configuration works on.

  “I? I’m nothin’ but delegate from Townfolk, from one single faction among them at that. I am not privy to councils of Frederiksens and their friends.”

  “Just the same, you can inform me, correct me where I’m wrong,” Desai insisted. “Now let me recite the obvious for a while. My impressions may turn out to be false.

  “The Firstman of Ilion is primus inter pares because Ilion is the most important region and Hesperia its richest area. True?”

  “Originally,” Jowett said. “Production and population have shifted. However, Aeneans are traditionalists.”

  “What horrible bad luck in the inheritance of that title—for everybody,” Desai said. And, seated alone, he remembered his thoughts.

  Hugh McCormac was a career Navy officer, who had risen to Fleet Admiral when his elder brother died childless in an accident and thus made him Firstman. That wouldn’t have mattered, except for His Majesty (one dare not speculate why, aloud) appointing that creature Snelund the Governor of Sector Alpha Crucis; and Snelund’s excesses finally striking McCormac so hard that he raised a rebel banner and planet after planet hailed him Emperor.

  Well, Snelund is dead, McCormac is fled, and we are trying to reclaim the ruin they left. But the seeds they sowed still sprout strange growths.

  McCormac’s wife was (is?) the sister of Edward Frederiksen, who for lack of closer kin has thereby succeeded to the Firstmanship of Ilion. Edward himself is a mild, professorial type. I could bless his presence—except for the damned traditions. His own wife is a cousin of McCormac. (Curse the way those high families intermarry! It may make for better stock, a thousand years hence; but what about us who must cope meanwhile?) The Frederiksens themselves are old-established University leaders. Why, the single human settlement on Dido is named after their main ancestor.

  Everybody on this resentful globe discounts Edward Frederiksen: but not what he symbolizes. Soon everybody will know what Ivar Frederiksen has done.

  Potentially, he is their exiled prince, their liberator, their Anointed. Siva, have mercy.

  “As I understand it,” the image of Jowett said, “the boy raised gang of hotheads without his parents’ knowledge. He’s only eleven and a half, after all—uh, that’s twenty years Terran, right? Their idea was to take to wilderness and be guerrillas until … what? Terra gave up? Ythri intervened, and took Aeneas under its wing like Avalon? It strikes me as pathetically romantic.”

  “Sometimes romantics do overcome realists,” Desai said. “The consequences are always disastrous.”

  “Well, in this case, attempt failed. His associates who got caught identified their leader under hypnoprobe. Don’t bother denyin’; of course your interrogators used hypnoprobes. Ivar’s disappeared, but shouldn’t be impossible to track down. What do you need my advice about?”

  “The wisdom of chasing him
in the first place,” Desai said wearily.

  “Oh. Positive. You dare not let him run loose. I do know him slightly. He has chance of becomin’ kind of prophet, to people who’re waitin’ for exactly that.”

  “My impression too. But how should we go after him? How make the arrest? What kind of trial and penalty? How publicize? We can’t create a martyr. Neither can we let a rebel, responsible for the deaths and injuries of Imperial personnel—and Aeneans, remember, Aeneans—we can’t let him go scot-free. I don’t know what to do,” Desai nearly groaned. “Help me, Jowett. You don’t want your planet ripped apart, do you?”

  —He snapped off the playback. He had gotten nothing from it. Nor would he from the rest, which consisted of what-ifs and maybes. The only absolute was that Ivar Frederiksen must be hunted down fast.

  Should I refer the problem of what to do after we catch him to Llynathawr, or directly to Terra? I have the right.

  The legal right. No more. What do they know there? Night had fallen. The room was altogether black, save for its glowboards and a shifty patch of moonlight which hurried Creusa cast through the still-active transparency. Desai got up, felt his way there, looked outward.

  Beneath stars, moons, Milky Way, three sister planets, Nova Roma had gone elven. The houses were radiance and shadow, the streets dappled darkness, the river and canals mercury. Afar in the desert, a dust storm went like a ghost. Wind keened; Desai, in his warmed cubicle, shivered to think how its chill must cut.

  His vision sought the brilliances overhead. Too many suns, too many.

  He’d be sending a report Home by the next courier boat. (Home! He had visited Terra just once. When he stole a few hours from work to walk among relics, they proved curiously disappointing. Multisense tapes didn’t include crowded airbuses, arrogant guides, tourist shops, or aching feet.) Such vessels traveled at close to the top hyperspeed: a pair of weeks between here and Sol. (But that was 200 light-years, a radius which swept over four million suns.) He could include a request for policy guidelines.