Orion Shall Rise (40 page)

Bors Liuvich Kharsov, major in the Blue Star and magistrate of Dulua Prefecture, leaned back. His Merican-style chair creaked. He looked across his desk at those who sat on the bench before him, twirled his mustache, fiddled with the ornate collar of his tunic, and said unhappily, ‘Your stories don’t match, and none of them rings true.’

‘Sir,’ Mikli Karst replied, ‘I have explained as much as my duty allows. To repeat, we were bringing Talence Iern Ferlay to political asylum when these Maurai overtook and assaulted us. The conflict brought both planes down, and we must perforce join in a march to civilization.’

‘Yes, yes. But why did your female companion abscond?’

Dustmotes bobbed in the sunlight slanting through a begrimed windowpane. Air in the office was stale. Four armed guards stood against the wall. ‘She
is
a woodsrunner. Claustrophobiac. She feared detention.’

‘That doesn’t make sense, you know.’ Bors glowered at Iern Ferlay and Plik. ‘What have you to add?’

Vanna Uangovna translated the question. The Clansman’s answer was more clipped than she rendered it: ‘No comment, sir.’

‘And what of you from the Maurai Federation?’ Bors persisted,
using Unglish as he had been doing.

‘Karst lies,’ Terai Lohannaso snarled. ‘Excuse me, sir, I can’t say more than I have. He’s the outlaw, in a violation so gross I’m certain your authorities will agree we had a right of hot pursuit. But I cannot give you details. Not to anybody except the principal diplomatic representative of the Federation.’

‘I will send after her,’ Bors promised, ‘but you must be patient. We don’t have your advanced radio communications in Krasnaya. We’re a poor country, and electronic parts are expensive, relay towers prohibitive, telephone networks unthinkable. I’ll dispatch a courier tomorrow. You can send a letter by him, which I shall want to read first. At this season, though, the Gospodin has gone into retreat, as is his custom. Court has shut down, officials and envoys are taking a holiday. I have heard that the Maurai legate likes to fish our wild lakes. It may take a week or more to find her, and then she must get here.’

‘I can wait,’ the big man said, grimly satisfied. How curious, Vanna thought, that Mikli Karst and – yes – Iern looked satisfied too. The Norrman had probably anticipated delay; it was plain that he was well acquainted with the laws and customs of Krasnaya. How and why?

Bors addressed him: The nearest Union consulate is in Jinya, no great distance. Or you may write to your embassy in Minyatonka if you prefer.’

‘No point in that, sir,’ Karst answered. ‘What would either of them know to exonerate me? May I, instead, give you addresses in the Union and the Domain to which you yourself can write? The responses will show that my companion and I were on a legitimate assignment.’

‘That will take a considerable time.’

Karst smiled and imitated Lohannaso’s voice: ‘I can wait.’

Bors stiffened in his chair. ‘Meanwhile,’ he said to the group, ‘you must admit your accounts have been inadequate. No offense intended if none is called for, but you could be smugglers, bandits, or … or uranium hunters. … I have no choice but to detain you, pending further investigation.’

‘I quite understand, sir,’ Karst purred. ‘Indeed, no offense.’

‘You shall have comfortable quarters –’

A thought had been querning in Vanna. It burst forth. ‘Honored Major,’ she said, ‘I would claim privilege.’

He was surprised. ‘What is your desire, reverend lady?’

‘House the gentlemen from the Federation and … honored Karst … where you see fit. Separately, I suggest, but properly, of course. However, let me be responsible for the other two gentlemen. The Library has guest rooms, you know. You can post guards if you wish, though I don’t imagine they will cause any trouble.’

Bors raised his brows and twiddled his mustache. He and she had collided ere now; but they had also cooperated. ‘May I ask your reason, reverend lady?’

‘Why,’ she said in perfect honesty, ‘we’ve never before had visitors from Yevropea. I’ve a million questions to ask them, a million aspects of Gaea to learn.’

3

The garden was large and beautiful, but in ways unheard of by Iern. Here was neither the many flowered lushness of Bourgoyn nor the formal beds and topiaries favored in Brezh. The space enclosed by the Library on one side and walls on the remaining three was intricately but sparely laid out. Those walls were of stone and timber interspersed, each piece chosen and placed to create a harmonious whole. Opposite the great building, a portal crowned by an arc of wood held a gate whose wrought iron formed a Yang-and-Yin symbol. Graveled paths wound among banks of moss, clover, or herbs. Here and there were trees which had been bent as they grew, into curious but pleasing shapes. Goldfish and water lilies graced pools of varying size and form. Several plots consisted only of ground cover or bare earth, daily raked, surrounding a boulder, a stele, or an abstract sculpture. Then abruptly you would come on a patch of weeds, unselected, untended save to contain them in their place, a reminder of the primeval, and somehow this too belonged.

Bathed, groomed, nourished, freshly clad, Iern paced beside Vanna. Though they had talked till far into the night, and bells and gongs calling to rites had wakened him at dawn, he felt well rested. The morning was young, after a breakfast as light but tasty as dinner had been yesterday; Vanna had rushed through her duties in order to meet him. Plik was sleeping off the wine she had told a scandalized servitor to keep bringing him on demand, while pity was clear to see upon her.

Gravel scrunched underfoot. Walls gave lee from a wind that
soughed in the tallest trees. This day was cold but sunny, with scraps of cloud hurrying by overhead.

For the most part, conversation had hitherto dwelt on him and his world. Given all that there was to tell, he had not found it hard to steer clear of those events about which Ronica had asked for his silence. Now Vanna agreed his turn had come to inquire of her. Besides, she said, smiling in her shy manner, what he asked her and how would tell her yet more about him. They had reached a point where they could touch on personal matters.

‘Mine has been a quiet life,’ she related. To you it may seem tedious, but I have found it measurelessly rich.’

His glance admired her. She was small and slight, but a loose gray robe did not hide litheness or delicately female curves. Her head was large, its brown eyes oblique, nose snub, chin rounded, lips that made him think of flower petals. The ivory skin showed faint lines and the black hair, clasped at the neck and falling halfway down her back, held streaks of white. Her voice was almost too soft, but that was because she spoke of herself. Enthusiasm would make her vibrant.

‘I was born into the Aldan Polk, whose range lies northward. My father taught school. I grew up among foresters, lumberjacks, hunters, trappers, fishers, artisans. Living thus, the Aldans keep few slugai and do not regard any task as menial. This was doubtless healthy for me; otherwise my studiousness might have kept me entirely among books. As was, they joined with the nature around to make me feel a Gaean vocation early in my life.’

‘Pardon me,’ Iern interrupted. ‘Let’s make sure I understand you. Polk? Slugai?’

‘M-m, that requires a discussion of history.’

‘I don’t mind. On the contrary. Please talk away.’

‘I suppose “polk” can be most nearly rendered as “regiment,” though that is no longer exactly what the concept implies. See, when our ancestors came to Merica, driven by terrible need, they must fight their way. Besides, a military type of organization was essential to everything they must do in an unknown land. That included fighting each other. They did not come over in a single wave, after all, nor from a single place. If nothing else, a stock of medicine or motor fuel could become the occasion of a battle. Only slowly did the Five Nations coalesce, and wars between them continued frequent until modern times.

‘So the regiment became the basis of every Mong society. A Soldat is born into his or hers, and often marries within it; when not, the wife enrolls in the husband’s. It has its unique emblems, honors, customs, traditions. It sends representatives to its national government, yet if it finds reason to change allegiance, that is no disgrace, for the regiment is what commands ultimate loyalty.

‘Of course, over the centuries its nature has evolved. Today, though everyone still receives military training and stays in the reserves, the actual soldiers are a minority. Most of us are … almost anything else.’ Vanna smiled. ‘For example, a Librarian.’

Iern thought back over what little he knew. ‘And the slugai, then, are the nonmembers?’ he guessed. ‘Descendants of the old population. Regimental property.’

‘No, not that, not slaves.’ Her tone was a little defensive and again she spoke at length, but faster than before.

‘This also began in the Migrations. Agriculture across the plains had broken down during Death Time. Grass took over; and the Soldati were accustomed to a mobile life. What more natural than that they became stockbreeders, nomadic herders? Yet they still required the productions of sedentary people, everything from flour and fruit to machinery and chemicals. So was it not also natural for a polk to protect those surviving Mericans who lived in its range, and in exchange receive their labor?

‘Yes, a sluga is born to the service of a particular Soldat family, with no legal provision for release. But he or she has rights, guarantees against abuse; they include the right of appeal directly to the colonel. The Soldat family is responsible for the well-being of its slugai, and to fail in this is a criminal offense. Very few are bound to the soil anymore, and those who are generally prefer it thus. Remember, they cannot be evicted. Most are free to choose their lifework. As a rule, the only requirement is that they keep their masters informed of developments and pay a modest tax on earnings. When any of them wish to change residence, permission is seldom withheld; the master reassigns them to relatives of his. Quite commonly, a Soldat family will see that a promising sluga child gets an appropriate education and a start on a career. Feelings between Soldat and sluga usually range from tolerant to deeply affectionate. Legal intermarriage is impossible, but unofficial marriages are not rare, and the acknowledged children of such unions become Soldati.’

Iern recalled how Plik had expressed skepticism yesterday evening, after Vanna had been tending to represent her country as altogether peaceful and benevolent. She had later tried to get information about the collection of fissionables. Obviously she knew it was going on, and it seemed as
if
she knew yet more, something dreadful which she must not reveal. Iern claimed ignorance; Ronica, Ronica.… ‘Whoever is busy need not be an absolute monster,’ Plik had drawled. ‘How pure is Krasnaya? How pure would it be if it were a world power? Not a jot, I assure you. Incompatible.’ He took a gulp of wine. ‘No rudeness intended, my lady. You are sincere. It’s just that you believe mankind has a potential for becoming orderly and moral, and going on from there to transcend itself, whereas I consider this to be the newest version of the Pelagian heresy.’ He was apt to use obscure words when in his cups.

Now Iern thought:
Nearly all people I’ve ever met or heard about have accepted the conditions they live under because they must, and made the best they could of their lives. It doesn’t follow that they think those are the best lives possible. Who would be so uncouth as to shock this gentle academician with accounts of sordidness and brutality? What would be the point in it?

She appeared to sense his reservation, for she touched his hand, moth-lightly, and her tone grew twofold serious: ‘Please don’t think we are barbarians, or that our forefathers were. They were perforce rough, but they seldom ravaged wantonly. And knowledge, such knowledge as is in books, was sacred to them. With a book, a Soldat could carry a piece of civilization in his saddlebag. The attitude has persisted.’

She fell silent. They walked on through the bleakly bright day for a minute or two, until a laugh trilled from her. ‘Oktai, how I do talk!’ she said. ‘I forget I am not on a platform lecturing to my acolytes.’

‘I was not bored,’ Iern assured her. ‘But if you’ve finished that digression, won’t you tell me more about yourself?’

‘Shall we rest for a bit?’ She gestured at a bench, a granite slab, which faced a seven-meter circle defined by rocks whose erosions and concretions made each one unique, an object for contemplation until you appreciated its special beauty. White sand covered the ground. Placed upon it, in a pattern so subtle that it almost appeared random, were a number of sea shells, from gaudy conch to
minute and spiraled cone. Just off center loomed a man-high mass of coral.

Vanna settled herself and gazed at its rosiness.
She can’t
be tired,
Iren realized.
She must want to
…
do what? Draw strength from this? Calm?
He wondered if she had ever seen an ocean.

Joining her, he found the seat faintly warmed by the sun.
Does she take that into her awareness too?
Irreverence:
Revelation through the buttocks
. And:
Why not? To her, as nearly as I can discover, every part of a living thing has its dignity. Its mystery
.

‘You said,’ he prompted, ‘when you were a child, you decided you wanted to be a priestess.’

Her look remained fixed on the coral, but she smiled afresh. ‘No, no. “Priestess” is a totally misleading word – as misleading, I admit, as the churchlike practices, rites, costumes, organization that Gaeanity has developed over the centuries. Those are merely aids, comforts. Gaeanity is not a religion, it is a philosophy and way of life, in conflict with no faith that I know of. There is nothing ecclesiastical. True, there is intercommunication, and in grave matters it is best for someone like me to accept the guidance of the Great Center, and persuade my disciples to do likewise. But we are never compelled. To stifle individual judgment would be to stifle that expression of the Life Force which it is.’