vehicles these days. Meanwhile, till we have some solid information, why keep men tied down in Port Rua?”
“Must you go yourself? And immediately?”
“We’d better have a human on the spot.” No longer able to meet her look, he regarded a picture of Becky on the wall. “I’m idle here; the Navy will get no more advice from me. I have about as wide an experience of Ishtar and Ishtarians as any man. You know how I’ve perforce become a fairly good jackleg physician, in case she—she—Well, she’ll’ve had a rough time at best.”
Rhoda straightened her dumpy figure, “Also your top reason,” she said quietly. “You are in love with her.”
“Huh?” he exclaimed, shocked. “Why, that, that’s ridiculous! We’re friends, sure, but—”
She shook her head. “No, querido.” She hadn’t used the endearment of their early days for a long time. The tears would not altogether stay down. “I know you, I knew this from the start, and knew you were both innocent. You have always been kind to me, Ian. So I think, because you must go back into a dangerous place—you must—I should say you go with my blessing. Bring her home safe.”
He hugged her to him, protesting. “You’re wrong. I can’t imagine how you got such a wild idea,” since that felt like the only possible thing to do.
“Well, perhaps I was mistaken,” she likewise lied against his breast. “We will talk no more of it. Let me help you pack. And I will call the Conways and ask if there is any way we, I can help.”
Should I feel guilty that I chiefly feel embarrassed? he wondered. Or that several of my contingency plans call for me to risk my life?
A thought went through him like an electric shock. She sensed it in his body. “What is the matter?” she asked timidly.
“Nothing, Nothing.” He spoke with his voice alone; his mind was elsewhere. “I just got a notion. It’ll keep me here maybe two’or three days yet.”
SEVENTEEN
Port Rua was legionary barracks and their outbuildings, workshops, trading posts, warehouses, taverns, the homes of long-time dwellers, all crowded together on straight and narrow streets in order that a high, betowered stockade might enclose them. Outside sprawled tents, booths, and shacks where overflow people could shelter unless attacked. Further scattered were the steadings of farms and pastureland which had helped nourish the town. But most of these stood deserted amidst heat-sickened fields. Tassu raiders had plundered several. Legionary columns made sallies northward and westward as much to hunt and gather food as to harass their foes.
From that mountaintop where he waited at the head of warriors, Arnanak could barely see the settlement. Clearer in view were the long sweep of the Esali River through its brown-burnt valley tilt it emptied into Rua Bay, and the easterly glint of that great bight opening at last en the Sea of Ehur. His telescope found boats trying to fish—they didn’t venture far, lest a native warcraft snap them up—and masts of ships tied at the wharf, supply line and escape for the Zera Victrix.
The sky seemed white-hot over the two suns. Though the air never stirred, and its dryness made pelts and manes crackle, somehow it seethed. Arnanak and his sixty-four males wore nothing save their shields and weapons, whose metal parts they did not touch, and still they felt consumed. What must it be like for the sixty-four from cold Haelen and gentle Beronnen, bound full-armored up the mountainside?
They came at a smart trot, though, which thumped the bricklike soil, snapped stalks of parched dead lia across, and kept their standard slowly flapping. They were in battle order too, squads knit into platoons (three heavy-mailed shock troopers with a porter for their gear; four pairs each of an archer and his arrow-bearer, who held a big shield for them both; eight light troopers, swift scouts or close infighters as need might be) and one catapult trio (its bearer, its shooter, and its ammunition lugger). This left a single male in command, if the agreed- on number was not to be exceeded.
Actually, it had been, but Arnanak didn’t fret. For the extra member was a human!
Clad in white, its head likewise decked against heaven, it moved mysterious to the sight. A murmur and growl went among the Tassui. “Hold steady,” Arnanak told them. “This is a thing I was hoping for. Remember, such creatures are mortal. Do I not hold one of them captive?”
The new arrival was noticeably taller and broader than Jill Conway, doubtless a male. Arnanak wondered if a death tool lay beneath yonder flowing garments, to wipe his whole band out at a burst. He thought not. How then would the male ever learn where the female was kept? No, he must have arrived lately in a flying boat. Much earlier, the Zera’s commandant had released a couple of Tassu prisoners with the message that he wanted to talk under truce. Arnanak set out from Ulu the day he got that word, sending a courier ahead to declare the place and terms whereon he would meet. He had barely arrived and pitched camp here. Thus he would not hitherto have heard of the newcomer.
The legionaries hatted two spearcasts away. Their standard dipped thrice, their sign of peacefulness. Arnanak for his part thrust sword into ground. He and their leader stepped forward.
Startled, he saw this was none less than Larreka. All knew of old One-Ear. Arnanak had glimpsed him a few times, on visits to Port Rua before war began. So he was back from South-Over-Sea and gambling his life on the good faith of his enemies? Why not? the Tassu decided. I am here in my own person, and I may well be more the keel of my people’s strength than he of his.
“Greeting, mighty one,” said Larreka in the vernacular. He added no customary wishes for luck.
Arnanak returned a Sehalan salutation: “Honor and happiness be yours, Commandant, and fellowship between us.”
Larreka stood quiet, his pale blue eyes probing the other’s green. Hardly aware that he did, the latter took soldier’s stance, torso and arms straight, feet squared, tail bowed outward. Larreka stepped near and offered his left hand. There passed between them the initiates’ grip of the Triad, followed by certain phrases.
They let go. “Where did you serve?” Larreka asked.
“Tamburu Strider,” Arnanak told him. “Combat engineer corps, mostly in the Iren Islands. But that was long ago.”
“Yes, it would’ve been… You’re the Overling of Ulu, aren’t you? Gods know I’ve heard enough about you.” Larreka paused. “And we’ve met before. You don’t seem to have recognized me then, in my helmet. But I’d know you in the Final Dark. You bore the human off my ship. I cast her ration box onto yours.”
Arnanak’s hearts clenched. Was this a fate—whether of Sun or Ember Star—or a whim of the Rover which might breed a fate—or might mean nothing?
Because Larreka stood unshaken, he rallied to his purpose. “Then well are we met anew, maybe. Let us swear a day’s peace, and your folk can take ease with mine.” He waved at the awnings they had raised. “We brought beer for hospitality.”
“You and I and this human have work to do.”
“Aye.”
The fighters gave oath in their separate ways, broke formation, disarmed, and mingled, southerners more warily than northerners. In Sehalan, Arnanak acknowledged Larreka’s introduction of Ian Sparling, and led them to his shelter. A regular tent, though two sides were furled for the sake of breath, it stood in a patch of wan blue blades. Already Starkland seeds, blown in on storm winds, were surviving Fire Time better than most of the plants which fed mortals.
Beneath the tent were shade, rugs to rest on, ale, waterskins, and goblets. The Ishtarians folded their legs. The human sat down jerkily, arms clasping knees, face haggard, insofar as that visage was readable. Arnanak told him: “She of your kind who names herself Jill Conway is well. She has suffered no harm, nor do I mean for her to.”
“That… is good to hear,” Ian Sparling grated.
“I seized her, when the chance came, as much to bring about a meeting like this as for any other reason. On my side we have ever stood ready to make peace. We got no word—”
“You sent us none,” Larreka interrupted in a tone as dry as the land, “save that the legions must get out and stay out.”
