in…
“We’ll soon be at your place, Ian,” Jill warned. “Unless you want to stop and talk.”
“No, let’s get it over with,” he said, called back. “Not much to tell, anyhow.”
“I don’t suppose the ships brought mail?”
“No. At least, nobody mentioned any. Captain Dejerine, their top man, did promise regular communications will be maintained. If nothing else, his courier boats will carry civilian messages, too.”
“What’re they here for?”
“That was announced yesterday, right after they first established contact. To protect us from possible Naqsan attack.”
“Ridiculous, I’d say. Wouldn’t you? Ridiculous as the whole war.”
“Maybe not.”
“Well, if their presence would guarantee the supplies we need—for your kind of work in particular—I’d be duly grateful. But no, the word is that the war effort will take nearly all shipping, and doubtless assorted key items as well. Captain Whosie confirmed it today. Didn’t he? You wouldn’t look so fierce otherwise.”
Sparling jerked a nod.
Jill studied his countenance again before she said:
“The news was worse yet. Right?”
“Right,” came from him. “They’re supposed to build a base here. For reconnaissance operations. Which means depots, backup facilities, and a local war industry to save on interstellar transportation. Dejerine has orders to mobilize everything we’ve got that isn’t required for our survival. Effective immediately, we must justify whatever of our production we consume rather than stockpile for the Navy.”
Jill halted. And he did. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
He let the stiffness slump out of his shoulders.
She caught both his hands. “Your cement plant?” she asked raggedly. “You can’t keep on making concrete for your dams?”
“That’s right.” He heard how flat his voice fell. “It’s requisitioned for the base.”
“Couldn’t you explain?”
“We tried, for our different projects. Me, I pointed out how flooding of valleys by melted snowpack has always been a major factor in wrecking civilization in South Beronnen, and if we could prevent it this periastron, then we could hope—Hell, why am I telling you? Dejerine asked when the floods’ll start. I gave him our estimate—he’ll surely have my files checked out—and he said that in five years the war should be over and we can carry on the same as before.”
“You mean he’s never heard of lead time? He thinks you can build a set of dams in high country, with native labor and a miser’s consignment of machinery, by rubbing a lamp?”
Sparling grimaced. “He and his fellows weren’t unsympathetic. They’re not evil men, nor stupid. We’re free to protest and petition to Earth, they said, and they won’t necessarily argue against us. That’ll depend on what they decide after reviewing matters for themselves. Meanwhile, they have their orders.” He drew breath. “God asked them, what about military assistance to the, Gathering? Dejerine said no. He’s been strictly and specifically instructed to stay out of local disputes. That includes us, he said. We must not risk equipment which may be valuable to the war effort, or risk getting his force embroiled, diverted from its task. Besides, a Parliamentary commission has declared that our past ‘interference’ should be investigated, since it looks very much like ‘cultural imperialism.’ ”
Jill stared. “Judas… hopping… priest,” she said.
“I’m not too surprised,” Sparling admitted. “When I was on Earth last year, that seemed to be the newest intellectual fashion, that nonhumans should be left to develop naturally.”
“Unless they’re Naqsans on Mundomar, of course.”
“Of course. At the time, I wasn’t worried about Ishtar, because the rebuttal was too strong: if we don’t step in to help civilization survive, millions of sentient beings will die. But now—” Sparling shrugged.
Jill finished for him: “Now they’ll have to rationalize the fact that they let it happen, the better to prosecute their own pet war. A ‘noninterference’ doctrine ought to make excellent conscience grease.” She spat. “Do you wonder why I’ve never bothered to visit Earth?”
“Hey, don’t judge entire nations by recent politics. I thought your reason was you didn’t feel in any hurry to see a lot of buildings and crowds when you’ve got a worldful of marvels right here. Even that isn’t true. There are still beautiful areas on Earth.”
“You’ve told me.” Jill beat fist in palm. “Ian, what can we do?”
“Try to get those orders countermanded,” he sighed.
“Or find loopholes in them?”
“If possible. Mainly, though, I’d say we should start by getting the Navy men on our side. Make them agree the Gathering of Sehala is more important than a minor base way outside the theater of war. Their word should bear more weight in Mexico City than any amount of impassioned pleas from us. I repeat, Dejerine and his staff strike me as basically decent, reasonable persons. They support the war, but that doesn’t mean they’re lunatics.”
“Do you plan a grand tour for them?”
“Not yet. I’m bound for Sehala tomorrow, to tell the assembly that… whatever help they were counting on from us, they’ll have to wait for.” Sparling winced. “It won’t be easy.”
“No,” Jill said low. “I wish it didn’t have to be you, Ian. It does. You must empathize with them better than anybody else, and Lord knows they think the cosmos of you. But I wish you didn’t have to take on the pain of it.”
He looked at her through thunder. She cares this much about me?
Turned thoughtful, she went on: “Suppose meanwhile I have a go at persuading those Earthsiders. Well, not persuade, that can’t be done overnight, but putting our case to them, laying out the facts. I’ve no professional ax to grind; a naturalist can continue research unaffected. And I do have a brother in uniform. So they should listen. I’ll be polite, yes, downright cordial. Do you think that might help, Ian?”
“Would it!” he blurted. At once: I don’t believe the idea’s crossed her mind, what a charming young woman can accomplish. She has no conscious notion of how to flirt. It moved him, though at the same time he was wrenched to understand that her concern for him was that of a friend, only a friend.
She tossed her head. “Okay. We ain’t licked yet. Which may mean we’re dry behind the ears. Not between them, let’s hope.”
Seriously: “When you see Larreka in Sehala, tell him from me, ‘Yaago barao!’ ”
“What?”
“You don’t know?… Well, it’s not Sehalan. From a dialect in the Iren islands, where the Zera was stationed, oh, decades ago.” She hesitated. “A rough equivalent of ‘I have not begun to fight.’ If Larreka hears it from me, he’ll feel better.”
Sparling squinted at her. For both of them, the banter which had long been a shared pleasure could become a refuge. “Rough, did you say?” he murmured. “How rough? What’s the literal translation?”
“I’m a lady,” she retorted. “I won’t tell you till I’ve decided I need practice in blushing—or you do.”
They stood silent for a little, hand in hand.
“Too lovely a sunset for anything but itself,” she said, looking across the river. Light from clouds and water poured hot gold across her. “Does Earth really have places left like this?”
“A few.” He was chiefly conscious of her clasp.
“Your stamping grounds?”
“No, they’re different. Woods, mountains, sea, wet climate—”
“Silly! I know you’re from British Columbia. You’ve now confirmed what I also knew, that you’re as literal- minded as a computer. If I said ‘frog,’ you wouldn’t simply jump, you’d do your best to turn green.”
He smiled across an inward flinching. “Come to Earth and meet a frog. Kiss him and change him back into a handsome prince. Then you’ll be sorry. You see, the conservation of mass will require you become a frog.”
Did she see that she had called him old and stodgy? For she spoke with renewed seriousness. “Sure, they’ve kept enclaves of nature on Earth, and you had the luck to grow up in one. But didn’t you first truly luck out when you came here? Aren’t you happier where we are the enclave? Freedom—” Abruptly she pointed. “Look! Look! A
