Orion Shall Rise (26 page)

He pulled a ripcord. The drogue and then the primary parachute came free, trailed, expanded, stiffened. Harness slammed brutally against his flesh. He hung for a while before he regained the strength to dismiss the pain.
I overdid the waiting. I’ll be bruised and sore tomorrow.
Exultation:
But I’ll be free!

That brought him entirely back to consciousness. Never mind eldritch beauty, he was an aviator with a landing to make. He lacked precise data, but he could observe. Warily, he began manipulating the shrouds. Winds generally blew east in the stratosphere, his last choice of directions, but he could counter them to some degree by judicious spilling, and after he entered the troposhere, they should be going different ways at different heights. He could partly collapse the canopy and drop fast when the set was wrong, open it wide and fall slowly through desirable flows.

Skyholm dwindled above him. Presently a heaviness and a whistling told him he had indeed crossed into the nether kingdom of air. Stars faded from view until those that were left formed the familiar constellations. He swung a bit, clapper underneath a broad pale bell, and navigated as best he was able. Channel and sea were not shrinking much on the horizon, were they?. … Ah-ha! He had a wind from east of south. It made the lines quiver.

He nerved himself and pulled another cord. The parachute let go of him and fluttered off, shrouds twisting about in the moonlight like tendrils on a jellyfish. He started falling swiftly – not free-floating, in this densergas, but falling, buffeting through it – until his second chute deployed and put on a brake.

He was gambling, he knew. The primary one would have brought him down safely, though he would not have had a great deal to say about where he touched ground. The second was a modern device, Maurai-inspired, an intricate and comparatively fragile thing of vanes, battens, ailerons, Venturis, well-nigh as steer-able as a hang glider. You weren’t supposed to open it more than a few kilometers above turf.

His conscience twinged. People counted on him – Tess, Dany – his friends, his pysans – Faylis? – Well, if he smashed, he
smashed. The point was that he could use this chute to reach Brezh, the country of his mother.

His whoop made the helmet ring.

– He came down almost softly, on a road he had chosen. Dust puffed from his bootsoles, gray-white. On either side, trees stood hoar under the moon and dew glittered on grass in ditches. When he stripped, he felt a breeze slide cool around him, he drank its moist earthy odors and heard an owl hoot afar.

First he should dispose of the telltale half of his gear. He went a small distance into the woods and used a knife to dig it a shallow grave. Footwear and coverall he resumed; insignia removed, they could pass for garb of an itinerant laborer.

Then he started walking on the road. He had a fair idea of where he was. Not far ahead there ought to be a trail leading to the ruins of a castle, abandoned centuries before the Judgment. The hermit who dwelt in it would
give
him shelter, and keep quiet after he was gone.

The moon rose higher. Its lambency outshone by far a Skyholm on which the sun’s rays no longer fell.

The news came to Ronica Birken soon after she had crossed the River Seyn on her way back from lands beyond the Rhin. A sweep-driven ferry let her group of half a dozen and their wagon and horses off at its left-bank wharf. They mounted to seat and saddles and started on the last three or four kilometers to Fonteynblo.

Alek Zaksun urged his steed forward until he rode in front, beside the woman, ‘A fine evening, hm?’ he remarked.

She looked around her. Trees, mostly alder and beech, formed a vaulted corridor full of shadows, wherein leaves that caught the last level sunbeams gleamed green-gold. It was no longer quite warm, but summer odors lingered. The road was graveled, crunchy beneath hoofs and wheels. Birds twittered. For a moment, homesickness tugged at her – but Laska lay beyond the Pole, and its wildernesses weren’t really akin to this domesticated forest in the middle of the Domain. ‘Yes, beautiful,’ she said.

‘Why not spend tomorrow resting?’ Alek proposed. ‘You’ve pushed us like a muleskinner.’

‘We’d’ve been fools to dawdle,’ she snapped. ‘You know that.’

Recollection:
Maybe not so much among the barbarians of the eastern parts. They seemed in awe of us, and had no firearms in any case. There, what we had to sweat at was the Doom-near impossible traveling conditions. But half-civilized western Allemans, yeh, I didn’t
want to give them time to brew up ideas about robbing us. The fact their plunder would kill them shortly after they pried it open would’ve been a mouse fuck-small consolation.

‘We’re safe now,’ he pointed out. ‘Have been for the past week, at least. And still you crack the whip over us. What’s the rush, Ronica?’

‘We may be needed at the ship.’

‘If we were, you’d have heard from Captain Karst, wouldn’t you?’

She must nod. In the outlands they had been cut off from commu
nication, but here the situation was different. The tiniest hamlet, anywhere in the Domain, kept a public radio receiver. For an hour out of each twenty-four, Skyholm devoted its relay capability to messages, for a price, which were transcribed at the designated post offices and held until called for. Mikli had had her memorize a list of code phrases. To date she had gotten nothing, and she had no reason to expect anything before she reached Kemper – perhaps nothing there, either, if he was away at the time, busy with his machinations.

‘The Domain is a clutch of states, though, each running by its own rules,’ she reminded Alek. ‘So far our papers have gotten us past every checkpoint, but we are a conspicuous gang of foreigners, and if we loaf on our course, some official may notice us enough to grow too poxy curious.’

‘What if he does? He’ll read our documents, won’t he, and not meddle with archeological salvage for a, uh, a Consvatoire.’

Salvage – four impact plutonium warheads, from that ancient battleground in the Czechy Range, shunned and dreaded by the natives – but they have nothing to tell them that the lethal contents of other missiles, broken or corroded, have leached away into Earth’s entire biosphere –

‘It’ll scarcely happen anyhow,’ Alek persisted. ‘None of the jurisdictions we’re passing through is given to fussiness. They’ve been at peace for centuries, and we’re a breath of fresh air to them. Take my word for it, Ronica. I do know this country.’

Again honesty forced her to nod. ‘M-hm. How you do.’ Without him, her expedition would have been hopeless. She could make a way through forest and swamp, over roadless heights and rivers in spate, all the while keeping her party well fed off the land and well sheltered at night. When trouble arose, as it had done a couple of times, she could order them into such a formidable array that the troublemakers slunk off. At the end, she could direct a search for the objects they sought. But she had no acquaintance with Franceterr, let alone the tribal patchwork eastward; and her knowledge of Yurrupan languages amounted to little more than limited Angley and less Francey, studied while the ship fared from Seattle. Alek Zaksun had spent a total of years on this continent, as an anthropologist. He was fluent not only in Francey and several Alleman dialects, but in a few Shlavic ones. His had been the talk that eased their path among the barbarians, the tactful inquiries
that yielded clues for them to follow in their quest.

‘Well, then, why not take a day or two off in Fonteynblo?’ he asked. ‘It’s a delightful place, it and its hinterland. If nothing
else,
think of our poor beasts.’

Ronica looked downward. She saw how her horse’s head drooped, she felt how its hooves plodded. Guilt pricked her.
He’s right. I have been setting a tough pace, and it’s not necessary anymore. At home I don’t kill an animal or cut down a tree without whispering, ‘I’m sorry, my brother (my sister); I have need.’ Should I abuse these creatures, only because I’m in a hurry to – to what? I’m not even sure of what. Although –

‘Okay,’ she decided. ‘If we don’t find a message calling for us to make tracks.’

‘Wonderful! You won’t be sorry.’ He edged his mount close, until his knee touched hers and he could pat her hand, unseen in the dimness by their followers. ‘I’ll show you around. The local wines are superb, the food
is
excellent, the sights interesting, the country-side ideal for a picnic, and – m-m-m.…’ He let his voice trail off, but not his hand over hers.

It seemed to burn, yet she did not withdraw from it. Her pulse quickened. Something of a cramp passed through her, but not like a period or a sickness. Well-nigh furtively, she glanced aside at him. He was no counterpart of the tough, burly men at the rear, soldiers and mechanics. Whipcord-slender, clean-featured, neatly clad and jauntily bearded under the harshest conditions, and a sparkling conversationalist, Alek minded his manners with her as properly as the others did. But somehow he never let her forget that her chastity was merely for the sake of maintaining discipline.

Damn, but it feels like forever since –
She remembered temptations on trek, especially after she’d picked up a smidgen of lingo. It would have been easy to sneak off with a handsome young tribesman, and nobody else ever the wiser. The trouble was, she had no immunity to numerous nasty diseases endemic in those populations, and not all of them yielded to antibiotics. (On this suddenly dizzying evening, she rejected memories of stenchful shacks, niggard fields, people gnarled and toothless and nearing the grave at forty, infant after infant: in primitive cribs, obviously dying, while flies buzzed around. According to what she had read, East Yurrupans were better off than most of the human race.) For the same reason, she hoped, her men had confined themselves to
anticipations of Franceterr. She felt sure Alek had.

I’m no floozy. I can go without as long as I must, and often have for months. There’s plenty else in life. However –
All at once she grinned.
Admit it, Ronica. You want to get yourself discreetly but thoroughly laid. Why not here?
She patted her horse’s mane. It was coarse and warm beneath her palm.
Courage, my friend,
she thought at it.
You’ll have a holiday now. Lord knows you’ve earned one.

Alek released her, for they were leaving the woods and the town stood before them.

Outbound, they had taken a northerly route, in order that they not be seen coming and going – when Maurai agents scuttled ratlike around the Domain. This sight was new to Ronica. ‘Hoy-ah!’ she exclaimed, and clapped her hands together for joy.

The forest swung off to the right in a darkling arc. Elsewhere land rolled away as vineyards, here and there a meadow or orchard, poplars along the roads, farmhouses snug in the hollows and lamplight mellow in their windows. The town clustered neatly around a time-blurred gracefulness of remnant palace walls. The sky was clear, shading from violet in the east, through gray-blue overhead, to greenish in the west above a newly sunken sun. South-westward stood Skyholm, the size in vision of the full moon that would shortly rise. Swallows darted and flicked. An angelus bell pealed, coolness given a voice.

‘Oh, yes,’ Ronica murmured. ‘Oh, yes.’ She clicked tongue at her horse and put heels in its ribs to urge it onward, but gently. Alek kept beside her. The followers clattered and the wagon rattled behind, on into town.

Streets were paved, noisy under hooves. Walls, made of the sandstone that was a local product, gave back a hint of the day’s ardor. Most folk were indoors, having dinner, but some gaped and squinted at these foreigners bound for the inn. That house fronted on a marketplace whose booths were shuttered for the night. In the middle of the square rose a post, the lamp on top not yet kindled. Lower down was a loudspeaker. Ronica clattered across.

The loudspeaker came to life. She reined her steed in so harshly that, no matter its weariness, it reared. The Francey roaring forth meant nothing to her; the tone, and the people who spilled from their doors and swarmed onto the plaza, meant everything bad.

She brought her animal under control, drew close to Alek, and
seized him by the arm. ‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘What’s gone wrong?’

His features were unclear in the gloaming, but she thought she made out a starkness upon them. ‘“Attention, attention, burghers,”’ he translated in a slurred, hurried tone. ‘“Special announcement from Ileduciel to the Domain –”’ Abandoning the effort, he turned to her and said in Unglish, amidst ongoing oratory from above and jabber of those who seethed everywhere around: ‘Some kind of political coup. Talk of a crisis, an emergency. Word is, everybody should stay calm, but – Nothing’s definite, except that hell’s boiling over.’

Immediately she was in command of herself. Then we proceed on to Kemper as fast as may be,’ she said. ‘Better not stay in town; Yasu alone knows what’ll happen. We’ll camp somewhere beyond, and eat what rations we’ve got left. Tomorrow dawn, we hit the trail again.’

Calculations clicked, as if she were back among the volcanoes.
We can’t
hope for much speed. The best road in the Domain is a cow-path, compared to any main highway in the Union. Our wagon’s light, scarcely more than a cart, but it’s a drag on animals close to exhaustion. Maybe we can make a swap, ours for stock inferior but fresh. A week or so to Kemper – can we shave a day off that?

We’ll goddamn well try.
She drew her sword, not to cut at the frightened dwellers but as a wand of authority to open a lane through them. ‘Let’s go, boys!’ she cried. ‘On the bounce!’

2

Two years ago, a detachment of Maurai from the Inspectorate had landed at Kenai, established themselves, and used the town as a base for a month’s searching around the area. They claimed they had reason to think a treaty violation was afoot, nature unspecified because – their chief eventually admitted to Lodgemaster Benyo Smith – uncertain. Although careful to behave correctly, the strangers met with scant friendliness and no helpfulness worth mentioning. Laskans were apt to be independent even by standards of the Northwest Union, and to resent the High Commission still more than did Southerners, for whom it was a fact of everyday life. This was especially true since Ruori Haakonu’s death; his successor meant well but lacked charm.