Orion Shall Rise (70 page)

‘No … not really. I sought you out because I did remember what you are and – Oh, I won’t betray my Lodge or Orion, nothing like that, but it seems as if you might understand what’s happening and help me understand –’ Lisba took his hands and leaned close. ‘I’ve got a room in the bachelor women’s section.’ She spoke fast. ‘A cubbyhole, but private, and there’s a jug of wine. Come along. Please.’

6

The storm ramped over western Uropa until about sunset. Faylis kept indoors (what else could a delicate woman do?) and heard wind scream, thunder roll, rain gallop on the roof and rush in the streets, gusts of hail like drum tattoos. When lightning flared, the cataracts down windowpanes gave it an evil flicker, as if something burned outside. The Aurillac mansion in Tournev was cold; sabotage had disabled the city power station that received from Skyholm. She could huddle near a tile stove, by the glow of lamps, but beyond lay sarcophagean darknesses. What few aged servants slippered around did not come to her unless she rang, talk to her unless she talked first, or give her other than rudimentary replies. She had no appetite and noticed only vaguely that her cook had been careless.

The wine cellar and liquor cabinet offered wares more attractive. Toward evening, as the weather diminished, she felt sufficiently eased, warmed, to carry a book to bed, a collection of favorite verses.

They caused her to weep for all the sadness and terror walking the world, those poor people killed so awfully on the far side of it, poor Jovain, whose lifework was crumbling when he had scarcely begun it, her poor father, who must miss her terribly, poor Faylis, whose husband traipsed around the sky with a barbarian hussy and proclaimed his faithlessness to the whole human race.… Nevertheless, she had the largeness of spirit that might forgive him if he returned to her.… She slept ill, plagued by dreams.

She woke from one, panting and sweat-bedewed, before dawn. The windows were not dark, for light poured through brighter than any full moon, to cast whiteness and shadow across the rug. The air was cool, so quiet that she heard the old house creak as its joints settled. Her night candle guttered low.

She could not get back to sleep, nor lie alone for hours until the maid brought her chocolate.
I will look outdoors,
she decided.
Yes, why not take a walk?
Hesitation.
Those terrorists
. But they had done no worse to date than drub some soldiers and demolish some machinery. No man of the Domain would attack a woman out of political resentment. Nobody had done worse, really, than shun her and be distant, albeit correct, when conversation was unavoidable.
Outdoors. A glimpse of nature. The peace that is in Gaea
. She dressed quickly, in a plain gown and hooded cloak that would hide her identity from casual observers, lighted her way downstairs, unbolted the main entrance, and stepped through.

Stairs, pavement below, walls and roofs opposite, sheened beneath the enormous disc of Skyholm. Far-apart gas lamps were dimmed well-nigh to invisibility by that unreal brilliance, and she could find no stars above, merely a few snowy scraps of cloud. The street was deserted, save for a cat slinking by; it gave her a glance out of eyes turned opal. She went down to the sidewalk and started off. Her footfalls rattled in the silence. Her breath formed cloudlets of its own.

I think, yes, I will go as far as Riverside
. She quickened her pace. The motion pumped the lingering nightmares out of her and raised a slight exhilaration.
My life is not ended. Hardship, injustice, lack of discernment in everybody, those have wounded me, but I will recover, I will achieve Oneness, and the right man may come courting
.

If not
–

She emerged on an esplanade. Trees, balustrade, time-blurred
statues reached hoar. Beyond them the Loi flowed ashimmer, and beyond it open ground, where farms and orchards nestled, rose toward the crest which the Consvatoire occupied. At this remove its spires were ivory miniatures, but beneath them dwelt the beauty, wisdom, and calm of centuries. The east was rosily brightening. A carillon began to ring from Scholars’ Tower, the same welcome to the sun that had sounded for half a millennium. She could not tell whether she heard the distant music in her head or in her soul.
Yes,
she thought,
my true abiding place may well be there
.

She lifted her gaze toward Skyholm. For a few minutes yet it would reign alone, luminous and numinous. More lights than usual glittered across its face. And did not something move along the edges?

What? No, no, no!

The chimes stopped. Faylis stood screaming, and a hidden part of her wondered if she would ever stop screaming, as Skyholm slowly drifted north, then faster and faster until it had dwindled out of her sight and heaven was left inhuman.

Orion Two
rounded the moon and Earth rose before her. The sun now at their backs, Iern and Ronica saw their planet as a white-marbled sapphire amulet, only a little worn away by night. Its radiance dazzled stars out of vision, though elsewhere the galaxy made a frosted highway through their brilliance.

The ashen craterscape fell away aft and beneath. Daylit harshness became shadow and mystery. Where eventide dusk was clear, men at home beheld the old moon
in
the new moon’s arms.

Ronica and Iern floated behind the pilot window. Tears glimmered in her eyes. ‘Each time that sight is lovelier,’ she breathed.

He nodded, himself struck dumb by it.

‘Here I see what before I only understood,’ she said into the hush that filled the ship. ‘The Gaeans are right about the wholeness of life, the aliveness of Earth. How alone it is, and how infinitely precious. We
can’t
let Earth be killed. There is nothing else.’

He found an awkward voice: ‘Well, someday, habitats in space, maybe even worlds beyond the Solar System.’

‘I hope for that, of course. But this will always be our mother.’

Catan, Rosenn,
he thought in a stab of pain.
How do you fare?

‘Not that the moon isn’t marvelous, in its gaunt fashion,’ Ronica went on. ‘I want to come back, and make a landing … in the Sea of Tranquillity, I think, to pay my respects to whatever is left from the
Eagle
.’

‘Would you really consider that worth another crossing?’

‘Why, this one’s been magnificent –’

‘For me, yes, when I could take a rare moment of leisure.’

‘And me. Chores, cramped quarters, smelly air, indifferent rations, sanitation woes, all the drawbacks of weightlessness – wonderful anyhow. Besides, we’ve gotten things fairly well licked into shape, haven’t we? And the hang of working in orbit. The return
leg ought to be a lot easier.’

‘Right. We’ll probably need a small course correction or two, but otherwise I expect three holidays for us. Except for deciding what we’ll do when we arrive, where we’ll go.’

‘Have you had any further thoughts on that?’

‘I’m afraid not. A place which won’t treat us as criminals, and won’t confiscate this vessel. Meyco? Okkaido?’

‘Too vulnerable to Maurai pressure, as I told you before. How about my suggestion of a backward region, well inland?’

‘I considered that,’ Iern said reluctantly, ‘but the more I come to know these controls, the more certain I am we can’t land without adequate ground facilities. A full crew might conceivably set down on an Asian steppe or an African savannah, though I wouldn’t care to risk it and I’m a moderately reckless sort. We can’t by any manner of means. A single pilot won’t have sufficient data input, nor could I by myself direct you, fast and accurately enough, how to operate the engines – which are badly undermanned too. When we hit atmosphere, I’ll mainly have to make snap guesses about most of the parameters, including the most important ones; and as an aircraft, rather than a spacecraft, this thing is a pretty good brick. We’ll be doing well – better than well – to make a safe landing on the best, and best-monitored, airfield in the world.’

Ronica sighed. ‘Uh-huh. Say, don’t look so down in the mouth, or I’ll spin myself around and make you seem like smiling. At worst, we turn ourselves in to the Maurai. They should treat us fine, seeing what we’ve done for them, and from what I’ve heard, Oceania
is
not a bad place to live. Maybe eventually we can talk them into reconstructing Orion for themselves. Or – who knows? – maybe when we reach Earth, establish proper radio contact, and get some news, we’ll learn of a country that’ll welcome us on our terms.’

‘Maybe. More likely, bioscience will have developed a giant moth that can fly between planets.’ Iern jerked. His fingernails whitened on the seatback to which he held himself moored.

Ronica reached for him. ‘Hey, sweetheart! Trouble?’

He wrenched the words out, while he stared before him and did not really see Earth. ‘Yes. Earlier I was too exhausted, or else too busy, or else too caught up in this experience … for the fact to sink in … that we can very easily crash, or burn on our way down … and you be killed.’

‘Aw-w.’ She rumpled his hair. ‘Come off that Francey chivalry,
will you? I knew what I was doing, and never for a wingbeat wanted anything else. No, of course I’m not anxious for us to die, not before we’re too old and decrepit to screw, but this way, if it happens, we’ll go out fast – crack! – and together. And we’ve had better lives by several light-years, both of us, than most of the human race ever imagined. Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.’

‘Well –’ He kissed her. They lost their holds and drifted off, embraced. ‘You’re the greatest wonder the universe has, Ronica, you.’

By Earthlight, as it flooded the darkened cabin, he saw her eyelids droop, nostrils flare, lips grow fuller. ‘In that case,’ she proposed from down in her throat, ‘let’s go to the cargo section, where there’s more room. I’ve figured a way round the problems in making love in free fall.’

2

For eight hundred years, Skyholm had simply maintained station against stratospheric winds, save for the briefest of test cruises after a major engine replacement; and none of those had occurred in living memory. Its voyage across the ice-crown of the planet became an epic of daring, ingenuity, and will.

Jovain encountered little of that himself, except as tales told him by men who trembled and whose words dragged in weariness. He knew that inexperienced Aimay Roverto Awilar had lost footing in an unexpected gust, while on a team changing a blown-out skin panel, and gotten his parachute lines fatally ensnarled; that inexperienced Katarina Papetoai, returning from a reconnaissance, had missed her landing on the flange, been caught in turbulence, and blasted into unconsciousness and a lethal tailspin when her small jetplane passed under the hot-air vent; that others had promptly volunteered; that engineers, electronicians, work gangs frantically made repairs on systems stressed beyond design limits, as pilots contended with forces that were huge upon a thing of this size, navigators peered and hunched over inadequate charts and muttered profanely to themselves, preachers preached but a few determinedly lighthearted amateur entertainers did more to keep morale high – He heard of these things, and for his part issued commendations and honors, but nothing was entirely real; he was lost in the passage itself.

The continent, the Channel, Angleylann amazingly verdant, Scotalann still bleak, a sea wild and murky when it was not wild and green, rocks heaving gray-blue around fjords and then the inland glacier that seemed to have no end until storms drowned the sight, unseasonable stars and shuddery auroras after dark, and always, always, the purpose before him, the thing he must do: while Skyholm lumbered on toward his destiny.

The time came at last when it halted.

‘General checkout,’ he ordered. ‘Combat teams to their stations, three-watch schedule.’ He felt no exultation. He was inexorable but tired, and Laska had cloaked itself against him. Nothing but clouds showed beneath Skyholm, from rim to rim of the world. The navigators could tell him no more than that he was approximately above his goal, plus or minus fifty kilometers. The sun stood wan in blue-black heaven.

No importance. The roiling whiteness below must break for a spell and he could get a fix on the target area. Meanwhile, always, he poised invulnerable and omnipotent. The subarctic day at this time of year was equal to any on the planet, and it would lengthen beyond aught the Domain summer knew, until he had power to maintain bombardment almost the whole twenty-four hours. He did not expect he need be here nearly that long. Well before solstice, he could have laid the region waste in the course of a methodical raking that must eventually find and annihilate all of Orion. The enemy ought to surrender much sooner than that.

He sought the central control compartment. Mattas accompanied him. Rewi Seraio was already present, to represent his government, on whose side Skyholm had gone to war. The three of them stood at the center of a circular chamber ringed in by instrumented panels where technicians sat alert. Screens presented images of the world, downward, sideward, spaceward. A hum and a faint ozone smell pervaded the atmosphere. The deck vibrated very slightly underfoot.

‘You may proceed when ready.’ Jovain’s words felt enormous in his skull.

Bolts flared, more lurid than lightning, as the outraged air rushed back and discharged.

A boss technician removed his earphones and swiveled his chair around. ‘Operation satisfactory, sir,’ he reported, ‘and radar ionoscopy shows adequate power delivered to the ground.’

‘Good,’ said Jovain. ‘Stand by.’ He departed from the uncanny squiggles on the oscilloscope screen, to the familiarity of his office, and wished Mattas and Rewi did not follow him.
Why did they come to that room? Curiosity? A need somehow to participate? An exorcism of fear? Why did I?

Arrived, he ordered a radio call to ground and an intercom patch-in for himself when the Orion chief was on the line. Thereafter he stared across his desk, the desk from High Midi, at the others. ‘Well,’ he said. His skin prickled and felt cold. He noticed wet patches under the sleeves of his uniform.
Faylis,
he thought, but she was infinitely remote.