Fire Time (26 page)

Yes, if she wasn’t crazy. She’d seen the right arm lifted, digits spread, as if caught by astonishment at sight of her. The left had been carrying what seemed to be a knife.

Illusion. Got to’ve been. I’ve made a remarkable discovery, sure, a T-beast never suspected before. Probably come down from the north because of changing conditions. Only a beast, though!

Windows appeared yellow ahead of her. She burst into the hall, pushed through its crowdedness, blurted to Innukrat what had happened.

The female traced a sign. ‘You met a daur,’ she said uneasily.

‘A what?’ Jill asked.

‘I think best we wait for Arnanak about this too.’

‘But–’ Memory stirred. Primavera did have xenological data on the Valenneners, mostly taken second-hand from members of the Gathering, yet filling a few books which she’d read. ‘Daur. Dauri.’
Yes I seem to recall, they believe in a kind of elf or pooka or minor demon–
‘Are those, uh, are they beings that haunt the wilderness – magical powers–?’

‘I told you, wait for Arnanak,’ said the chieftain’s wife.

He returned some days later. Jill didn’t know how many; she’d ceased keeping count.

She chanced to be home when he arrived. To save her human clothes, she’d begged a length of the coarse cloth the natives wove from plant fibers, and stitched together several knee-length shifts caught by a rope belt. She was no Ishtarian
whose life depended on ample sunlight; hereabouts, Bel could burn off her skin. Head, arms, and legs were sufficiently tanned to be safe if she took due care. Next she wanted footgear. Her shoes stank from overuse.

The household produced most of what it consumed. Occasionally Valenneners needed boots. The female who was best at leatherwork proved quite willing to make Jill two or three pairs – maybe because that got her out of her ordinary chores, maybe because it was a challenge, maybe from simple kindliness, or a combination of these. She required the girl on hand, to be a living dummy and to explain with gestures and a few Tassu words how the things should fit.

Jill stood at the booth, holding up a parasol she had made against heat and glare. Shouts lifted, foot-thuds, a rattle of iron. Into the courtyard dashed Arnanak and his followers. Jill dropped the parasol. For a second she went dizzy. Then: ‘Ian!’ she yelled, and sped heedless across adobe which tried to blister her soles. ‘Ian, darling!’

And into his arms– She burrowed against the human male strength, hardness, sweat, and warmth of him. She kissed him so teeth clashed together; after having drawn back just enough to look upon his beaky face through tears and wonder, she kissed him again with a trembling tenderness which turned into the way of lovers.

At last they stood apart, hands in hands, dazedly regarding each other. It made no difference that scores of Ishtarians milled around in the white and crimson dazzle.

‘Oh, Ian,’ she stammered, ‘you came … to fetch me–?’

Joy drained from his countenance till the bones stood forth like reefs at low tide. ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ he answered in a voice gone dull. ‘No release yet.’

Her first emotion was bewilderment. ‘What? Then why’re you here?’

‘I couldn’t leave you alone, could I?’ He marshaled himself and spoke fast. ‘Don’t be afraid. ‘I’m here by agreement. Arnanak isn’t ready to let us go – he and Larreka made a very limited bargain that didn’t change anybody’s objectives – but he’s anxious to get on good terms with us humans eventually. Two hostages are better than one, he thinks. The
idea is to exchange us in due course for concessions – which might amount to no more than establishing a kind of diplomatic relations with his kingdom – and for that, obviously we’d better be well treated meanwhile. We talked a lot on the road. He’s really not a bad chap in his fashion. For now, well, I’ve brought along food, medicine, clothes, as much stuff as I could for you. Including, uh, what I think are your favorite books.’

She searched the blue-green eyes and knew:
He
is
in love with me. How could I not have been sure?

‘You shouldn’t have,’ she forced out.

‘Like hell! I, I’ll explain the situation – got a lot of news to pass on – but it amounts to me being the logical choice. How’ve you been? How are you?’

‘All right–’

‘You’re looking good. Kind of thin; but, you know, that sunbleached hair against that sun-tanned skin, you’re damn near a platinum blonde.’ In haste: ‘Everybody was okay at home, at least they were when last we heard in Port Rua. They send their love. The whole community wants you back.’

‘Chu’
Arnanak’s Sehalan joined their English, ‘will you not come indoors? Go to your room, you two guests of mine. The males will bring your baggage. Later we will feast. But you must have much to talk about.’

Most certainly they had much.

Sparling knew her better than to soften his tidings. ‘No real compromise. Just a couple of minor arrangements to make the war less destructive on both sides, which can’t affect the outcome either way. The Tassui won’t stop till the last legionary is out of Valennen or dead in it. The Zera will hang on as long as it possibly can, in the hope of reinforcements. I can hardly blame the barbarians. According to Arnanak, if they stay penned in their homelands, Fire Time – he calls it Fire Time – will kill most of them. We, we humans, should’ve given more thought to that. We should’ve mounted programs for the relief of this country too. Not that that swine Dejerine would let us carry them out.’

‘Yuri is no villain,’ Jill said. This made Sparling look so grim and hurt that she must stroke his cheek and lean closer to him. They were sitting side by side on the boughs and straw mattress which made her bed, backs against a rough log wall, legs stretched across a clay floor. With a loose-woven blind over its single window, the room was dim and halfway cool. It had no door; a similar curtain in the entrance let through the sounds of readying for rejoicing which filled the hall.

‘Neither is Arnanak,’ he said, milder the moment she chose him to be. ‘Still, they both have missions, and Lord help whoever gets in the way. Arnanak means for his people to grab off territory less hard hit by periastron and its aftermath than here – territory to live in, and live well. Of course, that involves breaking up the Gathering. It couldn’t stay idle while that many of its members were overrun, displaced, subjugated, slaughtered. And when the Gathering’s gone under, Beronnen will lie wide open. The end of civilization on Ishtar – again. Arnanak made no bones about that to me.’

‘Nor to me,’ Jill said. ‘Though he does think his descendants will inherit and rebuild it.’

‘In time. How long, considering Ishtarian life-spans? What horrors go on meanwhile, and how much gets lost forever?’

‘I know, Ian, I know.’

‘For us, time’s gotten damnably short, if we want to do anything to help Larreka. Arnanak told me he already has messengers out, calling ships and ground forces to rendezvous. I don’t give Port Rua another month before he cuts loose the storm.’

Jill sat quiet a while. Somehow Sparling had not spoken like a man in despair. At last she ventured, ‘You sound as if we’re not altogether helpless.’

He nodded. His cowlick bobbed, ludicrous and dear in the gray-shot black hair. ‘We can try. Jill, I’d have come anyway to help you, but it happens I made me an excuse.’ He slid back the sleeve on the left arm against which she nestled. Braceleted on the wrist was a micro transceiver.
‘Arnanak checked my kit item by item before allowing anything along. But as I’d hoped, he didn’t recognize this. He believed me when I explained it’s a talisman.’

She frowned. ‘What’re you getting at? We must be three hundred kilometers from Port Rua, or worse. Under ideal conditions, a high-gain detector might pick this thing up at ten.’

‘Ah-ah-ah!’ He wagged a finger. ‘You underestimate my low cunning.’

In a burst of hope, she said, ‘No, if it’s low, I’ve got to have overestimated it.’

He rattled a laugh. ‘As you like. But listen. Larreka helped me work out the details. Part of the deal he made was, the natives will let small legionary bands hunt freely, in exchange for the soldiers not firing these woods and savannahs. Well, I brought along a few solar-energized portable relays – Mark Fives, you know, same as we’ve got around South Beronnen, wherever a bigger, permanent unit isn’t convenient to install. Certain of those foraging parties will plant ’em strategically when nobody’s looking, well hidden in trees, on hilltops, et cetera.’

‘But Ian, how can they come near enough–?’

‘They can’t, especially when they don’t know our location. In fact, as Larreka must have mentioned to you, he’s never learned just where Ulu is, where the enemy chief has his headquarters. Arnanak’s been cagy about that; he’s no slumpskull. Yet surely one of those relays will come within a hundred kilometers of here.’ Sparling drew breath. She noticed at the back of her excitement how much she liked seeing his pleasure. ‘Okay. I brought several plastic containers of protein powder, different sizes to confuse the issue. He emptied and refilled each, as I’d expected. But he didn’t think to check for false bottoms. In a particular can is snuggled a rather bigger and huskier transceiver, put together for this purpose. A signal from my micro will switch its main circuit. That’ll be our primary relay – stepping down the frequency so we aren’t limited to line-of-sight – and
it
can do more than a hundred kilometers!’

‘O-o-o-oh.’ She stared before her while all her nerves tingled.

‘Nothing can happen in a hurry,’ Sparling cautioned, ‘and the scheme depends on every link in the chain. First, I imagine it’ll take a while before the rest of the system is in place. Then, second, we’ll simply have audio contact with Port Rua. True, they can reach Primavera, but still– Third, With the rudimentary equipment I could bring along, I’ll need a fair bit of time to survey this neighborhood to sufficient accuracy.’

‘Survey?’

‘Sure. I think probably I can use the stars, and sights taken on local landmarks like mountain peaks, to pinpoint us on the map. Then we can hike to a rendezvous point where a flyer can land for us.’ He gave her a shy smile. ‘It was the best I could invent on short notice.’

Notice
– she thought.
I notice that funny little wrinkle at the corner of your lips.

Damn, though! I don’t want to be merely a captive damsel languishing for her knight.

It came to her what she might do for her share.

Arnanak was in alpine good humor. While he ate and drank and boasted prodigiously, standing at a trestle table in the hall, she jollied him along. Not that she pretended to have changed sides. He knew her too well. But she did make plain that her stay had given her a favorable opinion of his folk and she would gladly intercede for them.
No lie, either. We
should
be helping them, them and the Gathering both. My lie is a withheld truth, that our cruel, idiotic war makes this impossible.
She felt less guilty when he replied:

‘We will talk more after I have crushed them in Valennen. If naught else, I must put on such show of might to hold the Tassui at my beck. I warned the legion again and again, if it did not leave it would be destroyed. Now my warriors are coming together. They will see Arnanak keep his word.’

Sparling stayed short-spoken and noncommittal, on Jill’s orders. The Overling must have gained some feel for human
attitudes and expressions, and the man was better at outright concealing than at dissembling.

At the end of the feast, she turned grave and said, ‘I have to ask you about a thing. Could we three go outside?’

Arnanak was willing. Beyond the court, Jill tugged his elbow and pointed. ‘This way,’ she urged.

He stiffened. ‘That path goes to a forbidden place.’

‘I know. Come, a short ways.’

He yielded. They stopped out of view of the buildings. The suns were beneath the Worldwall, though not yet the ocean it hid. Shadows lay thick among dwarfish trees and shriveled brush. Overhead the sky was an ever richening blue, a planet stood white, Ea red. A breeze carried a ghost of coolness and rattled cane stalks.

Arnanak’s eyes were green lanterns in the blackness under his mane. Fangs glinted when he said, bell-deep: ‘Speak what you will, but be quick; for I have my own errand here.’

Jill gripped the comfort of Sparling’s arm. Her pulse thuttered. ‘What are the dauri, and what have you to do with them?’

He dropped hand to sword hilt. ‘Why ask you this?’

‘I think I met one.’ Jill described her encounter. ‘Innukrat would tell me naught, said I must wait for you. Yet surely there is common knowledge about them. I remember … hearing … somewhat.’

His tension lowered. ‘Aye. They are beings, creatures, not mortal. They are believed to have powers, and many folk set out small sacrifices, like a bowl of food, when a daur has been glimpsed. But that is seldom.’

‘The food is no use to the daur. Is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think you know what I mean. Remember, my business is to learn about animals. The daur I saw was nothing magical. It was as mortal as you or I – a creature belonging to the same kind of life as the phoenix or the skipfoot, the kind of life which wholly possesses the Starklands. Yet it carried a knife. I saw the metal.’
Did I really?
‘Arnanak, if the dauri were plentiful enough and far enough along to mine and
forge metal, we humans would have discovered them. I think you gave it the blade … as part of a bargain.’

A leap in the dark. But, Christ, I’ve got to have guessed right!

Sparling added, ‘I’ve told you myself, we came to, to these countries mainly to explore them, find out what they’re like. My fellows would be most grateful to anyone who gave them an important new piece of knowledge.’

Arnanak had stood quietly. Now he sprang like a panther to his decision. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘The matter is not a dead secret, after all. I have told other Tassui somewhat of it. And I will keep you two till my hold on Valennen is beyond shaking.’ He turned. ‘Follow.’

As they finished the short walk, Sparling stooped to whisper in Jill’s ear: ‘Then you’re right. An entire conscious race – and
you
figured out the truth.’