For Love and Glory

“And you’d let the Susaians breed till they’ve crowded out the trees?” somebody cried. “Don’t you care?”

“We have pledged our honor,” Davy answered. “Remember what a tremendous service the Susaian Orichalc did, not only for Windholm or Asborg or humankind, but every sentient race. If the Dominators had kept a monopoly of what we’ve since learned, the future might not be very pleasant.”

“But we can keep the colony on that island. It’s big and fertile. Pretty generous payment, I’d say.” The speaker’s companions muttered agreement.

Davy shook his head. “That was discussed behind the scenes. Some of the Old Truth leaders felt it would be fair. Unfortunately, it would be unenforceable. One fundamental of their belief is individual liberty. We can sympathize, can’t we? Generations to come would revolt against forced limitations on family size. Best to face reality and help them cope with it.

“Besides, by now more Houses than only Windholm and Seafell support the idea. A Susaian population expanding over the planet means a growing market—for goods, services, everything— which pays out of its own productivity. Freydis will at last become profitable.”

“At the price of its life!”

“The scientists don’t extrapolate serious ecological trouble for another five centuries.”

“I plan to be alive then. Most of us do.”

“Mass extinction won’t happen. Haven’t you seen the proposals?”

“Yes, and we here don’t like any of them.”

Nor did Lissa. She hadn’t had the heart to say so, then and there, nor much about it afterward, for she knew that her father wasn’t happy about it himself.

She heard the mighty rushing of wind through the trees and across the heights. From somewhere resounded a call, a wild creature. It was like a trumpet in the night. It sang of marvels, mysteries, and nobody knew what insights to gain, or what profits of understanding and inspiration could be forgone forever.

“Yes,” she told Hebo, “I’ve seen the grandiose, expensive schemes. Increase the planet’s albedo, for instance, by orbiting a cloud of reflective particles around it. Or cut down the sunlight with a giant reflector at the L2 point. Or— Never mind. No doubt it can be done, if money’s to be made. But hardly any of Freydis’ life can survive a change like that. There’ll be nothing but cities, machines, and drab gene-engineered plantations. A corpse with worms and fungi feasting on it.”

The bags side by side, she felt him stiffen. “How dramatic,” he said. With a sneer?

“We can do better. That’s what we’ve begun on, a handful of Susaians and humans, finding the ways. Already—”

“This’s turned into a head-butting contest,” he growled. “I’m dead worn out, and we’ve got work to do in the morning. Your work. Goodnight.”

He rolled over, his back to her. The rainfall loudened. She lay staving off anger, fear, despair, until she blundered into an uneasy sleep.

XXXVIII

She had set her brain to wake at the earliest clear light. In these latitudes at this time of year, nights were short. She sprang to consciousness, gasped, and sat up. Hebo’s eyes were already open. They widened—in appreciation, she felt fleetingly—but he put an arm across them before she could cross hers over her breasts. “Do you want to dress first or shall I?” he mumbled. Laughter broke from her of its own accord and shook her to full alertness.

The rain had ended a couple of hours ago, easing her worst dread. When she emerged, she found mist a- smoke over the ground and among the trees. The cold didn’t belong on the Freydis of popular imagination. A whole world, though, a whole congregation of miracles like none other in the universe— How was Orichalc? She sped to the last signs she had found yesterday.

“I’ll fix breakfast,” offered Hebo at her back. She nodded absently, her mind concentrated on brush, dead leaves, mud. It was not easy to trace the spoor farther; the rain had obliterated much. In vague wise she noticed him gather deadwood, use a lighter to start a fire, make a grill of green sticks on which to heat food in its containers. Well, naturally he’d have elementary skills.

He brought her a serving, together with his own. She glanced up from her crouch. He didn’t look as though he had slept well, either, but if he could smile, so could she. “Here.” She lifted a branchful of crimson berries she had cut off a chance-encountered bush. “Redballs for sweetener.”

“Have you eaten any?” he exclaimed.

“Not yet. I meant to share— What’s wrong?”

“Whew! That’s not a proper redball, it’s a highland species, poisonous to us. Those little yellow dots on the leaves mark it. You’d have been one sick girl.”

“Thanks.” You are necessary, damn you. And you are trying to be friendly again, damn you. And I think you’re succeeding, damn you. Lissa took the opened container, set it down, spooned food from it with her right hand while her left hand turned debris over.

“Can you really still pick up sign?” he wondered.

“Yes. Tracks in the dirt don’t all slump away under rain. Many collect water before silt starts to fill them, and are temporarily more visible than before. Leaves blow onto others and protect them. Bent twigs and such don’t disappear overnight. The problem does get extra complicated. I find plenty of breaks in the trail. Just the same, I’m getting an approximate direction. Once this flinking fog lifts I’ll have better clues. Orichalc wouldn’t move purely at random, you see. No animal does. Whether or not he had much consciousness left, the body itself would tend to follow the least strenuous course. If we look ahead and study the contours—A-a-ah!” A breeze made rags of the gray. Dripping trees, begemmed shrubs, wetly gleaming boulders hove into sight.

Having gulped their ration, swallowed some milk, and separated to do what else was needful, the searchers moved onward. Lissa led the way, slowly, often pausing to cast about or for eyes and fingers to probe, yet with a confidence that waxed and tingled in her. Up the slope they climbed, topped the ridge, and gazed across vastness.

The air had cleared, though it remained bleak, and heaven was featureless, colorless, save where the unseen sun brightened it a little, low above eastern bulwarks. Ground slanted downward, begrown with bushes and dwarf trees well apart, otherwise ruddy-bare to a narrow ledge. Underneath this a talus slope plunged into unseen depths. The far side of the gorge reared a kilometer beyond. Its course zigzagged north and south, a barrier between distant plain and distant mountains.

“Look!” Lissa shouted. “The trail, straight and plain!” Runoff had gouged the slight hollowings unmistakeably deeper. Wavery as the footprints of a man staggering at the end of his endurance, tail dragging behind, they pointed to her goal.

Hebo caught her arm. “Easy,” he warned. “Remember what kind of soil and rock we’ve got hereabouts. You could lose your footing at best, touch off a small landslide at worst.”

“Orichalc didn’t.” Still, she placed her boots warily, one, two, one, two, on the way down.

The reddish body lay coiled in a clump of scrub. Lissa fell to her knees, crushing branches, to cast arms about it. “Orichalc, Orichalc, s-s-siya-a, shipmate, here I am, how are you, comrade, comrade?”

Cheek against skin, she felt not the wonted warmth but a faint incessant shuddering. Otherwise the Susaian barely stirred. Glazed eyes turned toward her and drooped again. The least of sibilations reached her ears.

She scrambled erect. “Hypothermia,” she heard her voice say; it rang within her skull. “Extreme. Fatal, I think, unless we act fast.”

“He didn’t wear any clothes?” Hebo asked, as if automatically.

“None of them foresaw the need, when they’d spend every night in camp.” Her own tongue likewise moved of itself. “You know, you ought to know, Susaians seldom do. They’re warmblooded, with thermostats better than ours. But the wind chill factor last night overloaded his. You or I would be dead. He’s dying.”

“What to do?”