time coming, we think. Lots rain already. Hope the hay’s not ruined before it dries.”
“Yes, that’s what happened.” Thank you, madam, for inventing my explanation. Yasmin could not resist probing further the riddle of Nike. “Do you really expect many storms?”
One child hustled after his father while they went in and took leather-covered chairs. The woman made a large to-do about coffee and cakes. Her name was Elanor, she said, and her husband was Petar Landa, a freeholder. One must not think them backwoods people. They were just a few hours from the town of Sea Gate, which lay nigh the Great Cave itself and was visited by ships from this entire coast. Yes, the Landa family went there often; they hadn’t missed a Founders’ Festival in ten years, except for the year after the friends came, when there had been none.
“You only needed a year to recover from something like that ?” Yasmin exclaimed.
Dagny showed alarm, laying a hand on the Sassanian’s and squeezing hard. Elanor Landa was surprised. “Well, Sea Gate wasn’t hit. Not that important. Nearest place was… I forgot, all the old big cities went, they say, bombed after being looted, but seems to me I heard Terrania was nearest to Hanno. Far off, though, and no man I know was ever there, because ’twas under the Mayor of Bollen and he wasn’t any camarado to us western cavedoms, they say—”
Yasmin saw her mistake. Unthinkingly, she had taken “year” to mean a standard, Terran year. It came the more natural to her because Sassania’s wasn’t very different. Well, thought the clarified brain within her, we came here to get information that might help us escape. And surely, if we’re to pretend to be Nikeans, we must know how the planet revolves.
“I’ve forgotten,” she said. “Exactly when was the attack?”
Elanor was not startled. Such imprecision was common in a largely illiterate people. Indeed, it was somewhat astonishing that she should say, “A little over five years back. Five and a quarter, abs’lut, come Petar’s father’s, birthday. I remember, for we planned a feast, and then we heard the news. We had radio news then. Everyone was so scared. Later I saw one black ship roar over us, and waited for my death, but it just went on,”
“I think we must use a different calendar from you in Kraken,” Yasmin said. “And—being wealthier, you understand—not that Hanno isn’t—but we did suffer worse. We lost records and—Well, let’s see if Kraken and Sassania were attacked on the same day you heard about it. That was… let me think… dear me, now, how many days in a year?”
“What? Why, why, five hundred and ninety-one.”
Yasmin allayed Elanor’s surprise by laughing: “Of course. I was simply trying to recollect if an intercalary date came during the period since.”
“A what?”
“You know. The year isn’t an exact number of days long. So they have to put in an extra day or month or something, every once in a while.” That was a reasonable bet.
It paid off, too. Elanor spoke of an extra day every eleventh Nikean year. Yasmin related how in Kraken they added a month—“What do you call the moons hereabouts?… I mean by a month, the time it takes for them both to get back to the same place in the sky… We add an extra one every twentieth year.” Her arithmetic was undoubtedly wrong, but who was going to check? The important point was that Nike circled its sun in 591 days of 25.5 hours each, as near as made no difference.
And hadn’t much, in the way of seasons, but did suffer from irregular, scarcely predictable episodes when the sun grew noticeably hotter or cooler.
And was poor in heavy metals. Given all the prior evidence, what Yasmin wormed from the chattersome Elanor was conclusive. Quite likely iron oxides accounted for the basic color. But they were too diffuse to be workable. Metals had never been mined on this globe; they were obtained electrochemically from the sea and from clays. (Aluminum, beryllium, magnesium and the like; possibly a bit of heavy elements too, but only a bit. For the most part, iron, copper, silver, uranium, etc., had been imported from outsystem, in exchange for old-fashioned Terrestrial agroproducts that must have cornmanded good prices on less favored worlds. This would explain why, to the very present, Nike had such a pastoral character.)
The Empire fell. The starships came less and less often. Demoralization ruined the colonies in their turn; planets broke up politically; in the aftermath, most industry was destroyed, and the social resources were no longer there to build it afresh. Today, on Nike, heavy metals were gotten entirely through reclaiming scrap. Consquently they were too expensive for anything but military and the most vital civilian uses. Even the lighter elements came dear; some extractor-plants remained, but not enough.
Elanor did not relate this directly. But she didn’t need to. Trying to impress her distinguished guests, she made a parade of setting an aluminum coffeepot on the ceramic stove and mentioning the cost. (A foreigner could plausibly ask what that amounted to in real wages. It was considerable.) And, yes, Petar’s grandmother had had a lot of ironware in her kitchen. When he inherited, Petar was offered enormous sums for his share. But he had it made into cutting-edge implements. He cared less about money than about good tools, Petar did. Also for his wife. See, ladies, see right here, I use a real steel knife.
“Gold,” Dagny said, low and harsh in Yasmin’s ear. “Animals, buy, ride.”
The younger girl jerked to alertness. Tired, half lulled by Elanor’s millwheel voice, she had drifted off into contemplation. Dagny said this was a young world. Nevertheless it was metal-poor. The paradox had an answer. This system could have formed in the galactic halo, where stars were few and the interstellar dust and gas were thin, little enriched. Yes, that must be the case. It had drifted into this spiral arm… But wouldn’t it, then, have an abnormal proper motion? Tom hadn’t mentioned observing any such thing. Nor had he said there was anything peculiar about Nike’s own orbit. Yet he had remarked on less striking facts…
“Tell! Buy!”
Yasmin nodded frantically. “I understand. I understand.” They carried a number of Sassanian gold coins. In an age when interstellar currency and credit had vanished, the metal had resumed its ancient economic function. The value varied from place to place, but was never low, and should be fabulous on Nike.
“Good lady,” Yasmin said, “we are grateful for your kindness. But we have imposed too much. We should not take any of your men away from the hayfields when storms may be coming. If you will spare us two horses, we can make our own way to Vale and thence, of course, to your Engineer.”
Like fun we will! We’ll turn east. Maybe we’ll ride horseback maybe we’ll take passage on a river boat— whatevei—looks safest—but we’re bound for his enemy, the Prater of Silva!
“We’ll pay for them,” Yasmin said. “Our overlords provided us well with money. See.” She extended a coin. “Will this buy two horses and their gear?”
Elanor gasped. She made a sign again, sat down and fanned herself. Her youngest child sensed his mother’s agitation and whimpered.
“Is that gold?” she breathed. “Wait. Till Petar comes. He comes soon. We ask him.”
That was logical. But suppose the man got suspicious. Yasmin glanced back at Dagny. The Krakener made an imperceptible gesture. Beneath their coveralls were holstered energy weapons.
No! We can’t slaughter a whole, helpless family! I hope we won’t need to.
I won’t! Not for anything!
Tom reached the fire-control turret as two aircraft peeled off their squadron and dove.
The skyview was full of departing stormclouds, tinged bloody with dawn. Against them, his space-armored women looked tiny. Not so their hunters. Those devilfish shapes swelled at an appalling, speed. Tom threw himself into a manual-operation seat and punched for Number Two blastcannon. A cross-hair screen lit for him with what that elevated weapon “saw.” He twisted verniers. The auxiliary motors whirred. The vision spun giddily. There… the couple was separating… one to keep guard on him, its mate in a swoop after Dagny and Yasmin. Tom got the latter centered and pressed the discharge button.
The screen stepped down the searing brightness of the energy bolt. Through the open manlock crashed the thunderclap that followed. The Hannoan craft exploded into red-hot shards that rained down upon the trees.
