made forest. Wings cruised on high, maybe upbearing brains that thought,
maybe simple beasts of prey. Faint through the hull sounded a yowl of
wind.
"Very well," Kossara said grimly. "I'll ask the question you want me to
ask. Why are we here? Aren't you supposed to report in at Thursday
Landing?"
"I exercised a special dispensation I have," Flandry said. "The
Residency doesn't yet know we've come. In fact, unless my right hand has
lost its cunning, nobody does."
At least I get a human startlement out of her. He liked seeing
expressions cross her face, like clouds and sunbeams on a gusty spring
day. "You see," he explained, "if subversive activities are going on,
there's bound to be a spy or two around Imperial headquarters. News of
your return would be just about impossible to suppress. And since you're
in the custody of a Naval officer, it'd alarm the outfit we're after.
"Whereas, if you suddenly reappear by yourself, right in this hotspot,
you'll surprise them. They won't have time to get suspicious, I trust.
They'll make you welcome--"
"Why should they?" Kossara interrupted. "They'll wonder how I got back."
"Ah, no. Because they won't know you were ever gone."
She stared. Flandry explained: "Your companions died. If rebel observers
learned that you lived, they learned nothing else. No matter how
idiotically my colleagues behaved toward you, I'm sure they followed
doctrine and let out no further information. You vanished into their
building, and that was that. You were brought from there to the
spaceship in a sealed vehicle, weren't you? ... Yes, I knew it ... The
Corpsmen had no reason to announce you'd been condemned and deported,
therefore they did not.
"Accordingly, the rest of the gang--human if any are left on Diomedes,
and most certainly a lot of natives--have no reason to suppose you
haven't just been held incommunicado. In fact, that would be a much more
logical thing to do than shipping you off to Terra for purchase by any
blabbermouth."
She frowned, less in dislike of him than from being caught up,
willy-nilly, by the intellectual problem which his planned deception
presented. "But wasn't it a special team that caught and, and processed
me? They may well have left the planet by now."
"If so, you can say they gave you in charge of the Intelligence agents
stationed here semi-permanently. In fact, that's the safest thing for
you to maintain in any event, and quite plausible. We'll work out a
detailed story for you. I have an outline already, subject to your
criticism. You wheedled a measure of freedom for yourself. That's
plausible too, if you don't mind pretending you became the mistress of a
bored, lonely commander. At last you managed to steal an aircar. I can
supply that; we have two in the hold, one a standard civilian
convertible we can set for Diomedean conditions. You fled back here,
having enough memories left to know this is where your chances are best
of being found by your organization."
She tensed again, and stretched the words out: "What will you do
meanwhile?"
Flandry shrugged. "Not having had your preventive-medical treatment, I'm
limited in my scope. Let's consult. Tentatively, I've considered making
an appearance in a persona I've used before, a harmlessly mad
Cosmenosist missionary prospecting for customers on yet another globe.
However, I may do best to stay put aboard ship, following your
adventures till the time looks ripe for whatever sort of action seems
indicated."
Her starkness deepened. "How will you keep track of me?"
From his pocket Flandry took a ring. On its gold band sparkled what
resembled a sapphire. "Wear this. If anybody asks, say you got it from
your jailer-lover. It's actually a portable transmitter, same as your
bracelet was on Terra but with its own power source."
"That little bit of a thing?" She sounded incredulous. "Needing no
electronic network around? Reaching beyond line-of-sight? And not
detectable by those I spy on?"
Flandry nodded. "It has all those admirable qualities."
"I can't believe that."
"I'm not at liberty to describe the principle. Anyway, nobody ever told
me. I've indulged in idle speculations about modulated neutrino
emission, but they're doubtless wildly wrong. What I do know is that the
thing works." Flandry paused. "Kossara, I'm sorry, but under any
circumstances ... before I can release you, before I can even land you
again on a prime world like Terra, you'll have to have wiped from your
memory the fact that such gadgets exist. The job will be painless and
very carefully done."
He held out the ring. She half reached for it, withdrew her hand,
flickered her glance about till it came to rest on his, and asked most
softly: "Why do you think I'll help you?"
"To earn your liberty," he answered. Each sentence wrenched at him.
"Defect, and you're outlaw. What chance would you have of getting home?
The orbital watch, the surface hunt would be doubled. If you weren't
caught, you'd starve to death after you used up your human-type food.
"And consider Dennitza. Your kin, your friends, small children in the
millions, the past and present and future of your whole world. Should
they be set at stake, in an era of planet-smasher weapons, for a
political point at best, the vainglory of a few aristocrats at worst?
You know better, Kossara."
She stood still for a long while before she took the ring from him and
put it on her bridal finger.
"Given the support of a dense atmosphere," said a text, "the evolution
of large flying organisms was profuse. At last a particular species
became fully intelligent.
"Typical of higher animals on Diomedes, it was migratory. Homeothermic,
bisexual, viviparous, it originally followed the same reproductive
pattern as its less developed cousins, and in most cultures still does.
In fall a flock moves to the tropics, where it spends the winter. The
exertion during so long a flight causes hormonal changes which stimulate
the gonads. Upon arrival, there is an orgy of mating. In spring the
flock returns home. Females give birth shortly before the next
migration, and infants are carried by their parents. Mothers lactate
like Terran mammals, and while they do, will not get pregnant. In their
second year the young can fly independently, they have been weaned,
their mothers are again ready to breed.
"This round formed the basis of a civilization centered on the islands
around the Sea of Achan. The natives built towns, which they left every
fall and reentered every spring. Here they carried on sedentary
occupations, stoneworking, ceramics, carpentry, a limited amount of
agriculture. The real foundation of their economy was, however, herding
and hunting. Except for necessary spurts of activity, in their homelands
they were an easygoing folk, indolent, artistic, ceremonious,
matrilineal--since paternity was never certain--and loosely organized
into what they called the
Great Flock of Lannach.
"But elsewhere a different practice developed. Dwelling on large
oceangoing rafts, fishers and seaweed harvesters, the Fleet of Drak'ho
ceased migrating. Oars, sails, nets, windlasses, construction and
maintenance work kept the body constantly exercised; year-round
sexuality, season-free reproduction, was a direct consequence.
Patriarchal monogamy ensued. The distances traveled annually were much
less than for the Flock, and home was always nearby. It was possible to
accumulate heavy paraphernalia, stores, machines, books. While
civilization thus became more wealthy and complex than anywhere ashore,
the old democratic organization gave way to authoritarian aristocracy.
"Histories roughly parallel to these have taken place elsewhere on the
globe. But Lannach and Drak'ho remain the most advanced, populous,
materially well-off representatives of these two strongly contrasted
life-orderings. When they first made contact, they regarded each other
with mutual horror. A measure of tolerance and cooperation evolved,
encouraged by offplanet traders who naturally preferred peaceful
conditions. Yet rivalry persisted, sporadically flaring into war, and of
late has gained new dimensions.
"At the heart of the dilemma is this: that Lannachska culture cannot
assimilate high-energy technology, in any important measure, and
survive.
"The Drak'ho people have their difficulties, but no impossible choices.
Few of them today are sailors. However, fixed abodes ashore are not
altogether different from houses on rafts aforetime. Regular hours of
work are a tradition, labor is still considered honorable, mechanical
skills and a generally technophilic attitude are in the social
atmosphere which members inhale from birth. Though machinery has lifted
off most Drak'hoans the toil that once gave them a humanlike libido,
they maintain it by systematic exercise (or, in increasingly many cases,
by drugs), since the nuclear family continues to be the building block
of their civilization.
"As producers, merchants, engineers, industrialists, even occasional
spacefarers, they flourish, and are on the whole well content.
"But the cosmos of Lannach is crumbling. Either the Great Flock must
remain primitive, poor, powerless, prey to storm and famine, pirates and
pestilence, or it must modernize--with all that that implies, including
earning the cost of the capital goods required. How shall a folk do this
who spend half their lives migrating, mating, or living off nature's
summertime bounty? Yet not only is their whole polity founded upon that
immemorial cycle. Religion, morality, tradition, identity itself are.
Imagine a group of humans, long resident in an unchanged part of Terra,
devout churchgoers, for whom the price of progress was that they destroy
every relic of the past, embrace atheism, and become homosexuals who
reproduce by ectogenesis. For many if not all Lannachska, the situation
is nearly that extreme.
"In endless variations around the planet, the same dream is being
played. But precisely because the Great Flock has changed more than
other nations of its kind, it feels the hurt most keenly, is most
divided against itself and embittered vat the outside universe.
"No wonder if revolutionary solutions are sought. Economic, social,
spiritual secession, a return to the ways of the ancestors; shouts of
protest against 'discrimination,' demands for 'justice,' help, subsidy,
special consideration of every kind; political secession, no more taxes
to the planetary peace authority or the Imperium; seizure of power over
the whole sphere, establishment of a sovereign autarky--these are among
the less unreasonable ideas afloat.
"There is also Alatanism. The Ythrians, not terribly far away as
interstellar distances go, have wings. They should sympathize with their
fellow flyers on Diomedes more than any biped ever can. They have their
Domain, free alike of Empire and Roidhunate, equally foreign to both.
Might it not, are its duty and destiny not to welcome Diomedes in?
"The fact that few Ythrian leaders have even heard of Diomedes, and none
show the least interest in crusading, is ignored. Mystiques seldom
respond to facts. They are instruments which can be played on ... "
Twice had the sun come from the mountains and returned behind them.
"Goodbye, then," Kossara said.
Flandry could find no better words than "Goodbye. Good luck," hoarse out
of the grip upon his gullet.
She regarded him for a moment, in the entryroom where they stood. "I do
believe you mean that," she whispered.
Abruptly she kissed him, a brief brush of lips which exploded in his
heart. She drew back before he could respond. During another instant she
poised, upon her face a look of bewilderment at her own action.
Turning, she twisted the handle on the inner airlock valve. He took a
following step. "No," she said. "You can't live out there, remember?"
him. He stopped where he was. Pumps chugged until gauges told him the
chamber beyond was now full of Diomedean air.
The outer valve opened. He bent over a viewscreen. Kossara's tiny image
stepped forth onto the mountainside. A car awaited her. She bounded into
it and shut its door. A minute later, it rose.
Flandry sought the control cabin, where were the terminals of his most
powerful and sensitive devices. The car had vanished above clouds.
"Pip-ho, Chives," he said tonelessly. A hatch swung wide. His Number Two
atmospheric vehicle glided from the hold. It looked little different
from the first, its engine, weapons, and special equipment being
concealed in the teardrop fuselage. It disappeared more slowly, for the
Shalmuan pilot wanted to stay unseen by the woman whom he stalked. But
at last Flandry sat alone.
She promised she'd help me. What an inexperienced liar she is.
He felt no surprise when, after a few minutes, Chives' voice jumped at
him: "Sir! She is descending ... She has landed in the forest beside a
river. I am observing through a haze by means of an infrared 'scope. Do
you wish a relay?"
"Not from that," Flandry said. Too small, too blurry. "From her
bracelet."
A screen blossomed in leaves and hasty brown water. Her right hand
entered. Off the left, which he could not see, she plucked the ring,
which he glimpsed before she tossed it into the stream.
"She is running for cover beneath the trees, sir," Chives reported.
Of course, replied the emptiness in Flandry. She thinks that, via the
ring, I've seen what she's just done, in the teeth of every pledge she
gave me. She thinks that now, if she moves fast, she can vanish into the
woods--make her own way afoot, find her people and not betray them, or
else die striving.
Whereas in fact the ring was only intended to lull any fears of
surveillance she might have after getting rid of it--only a circlet on
her bridal finger--and Chives has a radio resonator along to activate
her b
racelet--the slave bracelet I told her would be blind and deaf
outside of Terra.
"I do not recommend that I remain airborne, sir," Chives said. "Allow me
to suggest that, as soon as the young lady has passed beyond observing
me, I land likewise and follow her on the ground. I will leave a
low-powered beacon to mark this site. You can flit here by grav-belt and
retrieve the vehicles, sir. Permit me to remind you to wear proper
protection against the unsalubrious ambience."
"Same to you, old egg, and put knobs on yours." Flandry's utterance
shifted from dull to hard. "I'll repeat your orders. Trail her, and call
in to the recorder cum relay 'caster I'll leave here, in whatever way
and at whatever times seem discreet. But 'discretion' is your key word.
If she appears to be in danger, getting her out of it--whether by
bringing me in to help or by taking action yourself--that gets absolute
priority. Understand?"
"Yes, sir." Did the high, not quite human accent bear a hint of shared
pain? "Despite regrettable tactical necessities, Donna Vymezal must
never be considered a mere counter in a game." That's for personnel and
planets, the anonymous billions--and, savingly, for you and me, eh,
Chives? "Will you proceed to the Technic settlement when your
preparations are complete?"
"Yes," Flandry said. "Soon. I may as well."
VII
---
Where the equator crossed the eastern shoreline of a continent men
called Centralia, Thursday Landing was founded. Though fertile by
Diomedean standards, the country had few permanent residents. Rather,
migration brought tides of travelers, northward and southward