At The Edge Of Space (Hanan Rebellion) (2 page)

It was the dark that was terrible, lonely as the space between stars. He had seen birds that day, too high to distinguish; he had seen the shells of mollusks and nudged at things that scuttled off into deeper water; and several times he had startled small creatures from the high grass and sent them bounding off, quickly invisible in the brush and weeds. Nothing yet had threatened him, and no cries disturbed the night. But his mind invented images from a score of worlds. He started at every sound. The water lapped and sucked at the shore, and small scavenger crustaceans sidled about beyond the circle of firelight, seeking food.

At last he rose up and put a great deal of wood on the fire, then curled up as closely as he could before he abandoned himself to sleep.

 

Pebbles grated. Sand crunched. Kurt lifted his head and strained his eyes in the dying glare of the fire. Beyond it a dark dragon head rode the waters, rocking with the motion of the sea.

He scrambled for his gun, was hurled flat by sinuous bodies that hit his back, man-sized and agile. He spat sand and rolled and twisted, but a blow exploded across the side of his head, heavy with darkness. He went down again, fading, aware of the bite of cords, of being dragged through water. He choked in the brine and went out altogether.

He was soaking wet, facedown on a heaving wooden surface. He sprang up, and was tripped and thrown by a chain that linked his ankles together around a wooden pillar; when he twisted over to look up, he could make out a web of ropes and lines against the night sky, a dragon head against the moon. It was a wooden ship, with a mast for a single sail.

Men’s voices called out and oars splashed down, sweeping in unison; the motion of the ship changed, steadied,—and with a rustle and snap of canvas the great square sail billowed out overhead, men hauling to sheet it home. Kurt stared up in awe as the swelling canvas blotted out the sky and the deck acquired a different feel as the wind sped the ship on her way.

A man crowded him. Kurt scrambled up awkwardly, the chain keeping his feet apart around the mast. Others were close to him. He saw in the dim light the same structure repeated in every curious face; wide cheeks, flat noses, well-formed, with flaring nostrils; the eyes large and dark, brows wide and heavy, slightly tilted on a plane with the high cheekbones—the faces of wise children, set in a permanent look of arrogant curiosity; but the bodies were those of men, tall and slim and muscular.

They did not touch him. They looked. And finally one spoke to them with authority and they dispersed. Kurt sank down again, sick and trembling, not alone with the chill of the wind. One returned, and gave him a warm cloak for his comfort, and he clutched that about him and doubled up. He did not sleep.

No one troubled him until the first light brought color to things. Then a man set a bowl and cup beside him on the boards, and Kurt took the warm food gratefully, and drank the hot, sweetened tea.

In the growing daylight he found the men of the ship not unpleasant to look upon. They were brown- to golden-skinned, with black hair. They moved about the tight confines of the ship with amiable efficiency, and their laughter was frequent and not unkind among themselves. Kurt soon began to know some of them,—the one who had brought him the food, the gruff elder man who relayed the orders of a narrow-eyed young officer; and he thought the name of the boy who scurried around on everyone’s errands must be Pan, for that was the word others shouted when they wanted him.

They were cleanly, proud folk, and they kept their ship well ordered; human or not, they were a better crew than some lots of
homo sapiens
he had managed.

Fed and beginning to be warmed by the daylight, Kurt had only begun to achieve a certain calm in his situation, when the young officer approached him and had the chain removed. Kurt rose carefully, avoiding any appearance of hostility, and the man nodded toward the low cabin aft.

He let himself be directed below, where the officer opened a door for him and gestured him through.

Another young man was seated at a low writing table, on a chair so low he must cross his ankles on the floor. He spoke and Kurt’s escort left him and closed the door after; then he gestured, offering Kurt to sit too. There was no chair, only the woven reed mat on which he stood. With ill grace Kurt settled cross-legged on the mat.

“I am captain of this ship,” said the man, and Kurt’s heart froze within him, for the language was Hanan. “I am Kta t’Elas u Nym. The person who brought you in is my second, Bel t’Osanef.” The accent was heavy, the forms archaic; as
Endymion
’s communications officer, Kurt knew enough to make sense of it, although he could not identify the dialect.

“What is your name, please?” asked Kta.

“Kurt. Kurt Morgan. What
are
you?” he asked quickly, before Kta could lead the questions where he would. “What do you want?”

“I am nemet,” said Kta, who sat with hands folded in his lap,—he had a habit of glancing down when beginning to speak. His eyes met Kurt’s only on the emphasis of questions. “Did you want that we find you? Was the fire a signal asking help?”

Kurt remembered, and cursed himself.

“No,” he said.

“Tamurlin are human like you. You camp in their land like a man in his own house,—careless.”

“I know nothing of that.” Hope surged wildly in him. Kta’s command of human speech found explanation—a Hanan base onworld, but something in the way Kta spoke the word
Tamurlin
did not indicate friendship between that base and the nemet.

“Where are your friends?” Kta asked, and took him by surprise.

“Dead,—dead. I came alone.”

“From what place?”

Kurt feared to answer and did not know how to lie, but Kta shrugged, and from a decanter on the table beside his desk he poured drink into two tiny porcelain cups.

Kurt was not anxious to drink, for he did not trust the sudden hospitality; but Kta sipped at his delicately and Kurt followed his example. It was thin and fruity-tasting, and settled in the head like fire.

“It is
telise,
” said Kta. “I offer to you tea, but
telise
is more warming.”

“Thank you,” said Kurt. “Would you mind telling me where we’re going?” But Kta only lifted his small cup slightly as if to say they would talk when they were finished; and Kta took his patient time finishing.

“Where are we going?” Kurt repeated the instant Kta set his cup aside. The nemet’s short brows contracted slightly.

“My port. But you mean—what is there for you in my port? We nemet are civilized. “You are civilized too, not like the Tamurlin. I see this. Please do not have fear. But I ask: why came you?”

“My ship—was destroyed. I found safety on that shore.”

“From the sky, this ship. I am aware of such things. We have all seen human things.”

“Do you fight the Tamurlin?”

“Always. It is an old war, this. They came,—long ago. We drove them from their machines and they became like beasts.”

“Long ago.”

“Three hundreds of years.”

Kurt kept his joy from his face. “I assure you,” he said, “I did-n’t come here to harm anyone.”

“Then we will not harm you,” said Kta.

“Am I free, then?”

“In day, yes. But at night—I am sorry. My men need secure rest. Please accept this necessity.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Kurt. “I understand.”

“
Hei yth,
” said Kta, and joined his fingertips together before him in what seemed a gesture of gratitude. “It makes me to think well of you, Kurt Morgan.”

And with that, Kta turned him out on the deck at liberty. No one offered him unpleasantness, even when his ignorance put him in the way of busy men. Someone would then gesture for him to move—they never touched him—or politely call to him: “
Umanu, o-eh,
” which he thought was his species and a request to move. And after a part of the day had passed and he decided to imitate the crew’s manner of bows and courteous downcast looks, his status improved, for he received bows in return, and was called “
umanu-ifhan
” in a tone of respect.

But at night the young officer Bel t’Osanef came and indicated he must take his place again at the mast. The seaman who performed Bel’s order was most gentle in applying the chain, and came back afterward to provide him a blanket and a large mug of hot tea. It was ludicrous. Kurt found the courage to laugh, and the nemet seemed also to understand the humor of the situation, and grinned and said, “
Tosa, umanu-ifhan,
” in a tone which seemed kindly meant.

His hands left free, he sipped his tea at leisure and finally stretched out at such an angle that he did not think anyone would trip over him in the dark. His mind was much easier this night, though he shuddered to think what might have become of him if not for the nemet. If Kta’s Tamurlin were indeed fallen Hanan, then he had had an escape close enough to last a lifetime.

He would accept any conditions of the nemet rather than fall to the Hanan: and if Kta spoke the truth and the Hanan were powerless and declined to barbarism, then he was free. There was no more war. For the first time in his imagination, there was no more war.

Only one doubt still gnawed at the edges of his mind: the question of why a modern Hanan starship had run from the destroyed world of Aeolus to this world of fallen humans.

He did not want to think on that. He did not want to believe Kta had lied, or that the gentleness of these people hid deception. There was another explanation. His hopes, his reason for living insisted upon it.

In the next two days he walked the deck and scanned the whole of the ship for some sign of Hanan technology, and concluded that there was none. She was wooden from stem to stern, hand-hewn, completely reliant on wind and oars for her propulsion.

The skills by which these men managed their complex vessel intrigued him. Bel t’Osanef could explain nothing, knowing only a handful of human words. But when Kta was on deck, Kurt questioned him earnestly; when the nemet captain seemed finally to accept that his interest was unfeigned, he tried to explain, often groping for words for objects long-vanished from human language. They developed between them their own patois of Hanan-Nechai, Nechai being Kta’s own language.

And Kta asked about human things, which Kurt could not always answer in terms Kta could understand. Sometimes Kta looked puzzled at human science and sometimes shocked, until at last Kurt began to perceive the disturbance his explanations caused. Then he decided he had explained enough. The nemet was earthbound; he did not truly conceive of things extraterrestrial, and it troubled his religion. Kurt wanted least of all for the nemet to develop some apprehension of his origins.

A third day passed in such discussions, and at the dawn of the fourth, Kta summoned Kurt to his side as he stood on the deck. He had the look of a man with something definite on his mind. Kurt approached him soberly and gave a little bow of deference.

“Kurt,” said Kta, “between us is trust, yes?”

“Yes,” Kurt agreed, and wondered uneasily where this was tending.

“Today we go into port. I don’t want shame for you, bringing you with chains. But if I bring you in free, if then you do hurt to innocent people, then I have responsibility for this. What must I do, Kurt Morgan?”

“I didn’t come here to hurt anyone. And what about your people? How will they treat me? Tell me that before I agree to anything.”

Kta opened his hands, a gesture of entreaty. “You think I lie to you these things?”

“How could I know? I know nothing but what you tell me. So tell me in plain words that I can trust you.”

“I am of Elas,” Kta said, frowning, as if that were accustomed to be word enough; but when Kurt continued to stare at him: “Kurt, I swear this beneath the light of heaven, and this is a holy word. It is truth.”

“All right,” said Kurt. “Then I will do what you tell me and I won’t cause trouble. Only what is the place where we’re going?”

“Nephane.”

“Is that a city?”

Kta frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, it is a city, the city of the east. It rules from Tamur-mouth to the Yvorst Ome, the sea of ice.”

“Is there a city of the west?”

The frown deepened. “Yes,” he said. “Indresul.” Then he turned and walked away, leaving Kurt to wonder what he had done to trouble the nemet.

 

By midday they were within sight of port. A long bay receded into the shoreline, and at the back of it was a great upthrust of rock. At the base of this crag and on its gently rising side were buildings and walls, hazy with distance, all the way to the crest.

“
Bel-ifhan,
” Kurt hailed Kta’s lieutenant, and the narrow-eyed officer stopped and bowed, although he had been going elsewhere in apparent haste. “
Bel-ifhan, taen Nephane?
”

“
Lus,
” Bel agreed and pointed to the promontory. “
Taen Afen, sthages Methine.
”

Kurt looked at the crag Bel called Afen, and did not understand.

“
Methi,
” said Bel, and when he still did not understand, the young officer shrugged helplessly. “
Ktas unnehta,
” he said. “
Ktas, uleh?
”

He left. They were going in. Somewhere aft, Bel shouted an order and men ran to their stations to bring in the sail, hauling it up to the yard. The long oars were run out and they dipped together, sweeping the ship toward the now visible dock at the foot of the cliffs, where a shoreside settlement nestled against the walls.

“Kurt.”

Kurt glanced from his view of the bay to the face of Kta, who had joined him at the bow.

“Bel says you have question.”

“I’m sorry. I tried to talk to him. I didn’t mean he should bother you. It wasn’t that important.”

The nemet turned one hand outward, a shrug. “Is no difficulty. Bel manages. I am not necessary.—What think you of Nephane?”