within meters.
They were headed back next day, zigzagging down a furnace-hot talus slope, when the transceiver beeped. Sparling pressed accept. “What the devil goes on?” he snapped.
“Technician Adissa in Port Rua,” said the tiny voice. “We have received a message for you from Primavera.”
“Holy hopping Hanuman!” He felt as furious as the light around him. “What is this farce? You clotbrain, we might’ve been in the middle of our jailers!”
“Kda-aa.—” came a dismayed tone.
“Easy, darling,” Jill counseled. “No harm done. He’s probably a new recruitie, human-trained and anxious to serve.” She leaned near the bracelet. “As we say in show biz, Adissa, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
“I beg forgiveness,” the Ishtarian said humbly.
“Okay, you’ve got it; and we won’t tell Larreka on you, either,” Jilt promised. “As long as talking is safe, what’s your message?”
“First, what about the legion?” Sparling asked, mollified. He scrambled across the scree, which rattled and slipped, toward an overhang whereunder he saw a scrap of shade.
“Weapons continue sheathed,” Adissa reported. “But fire has spoiled the nearby hunting grounds, and the commandant sends out no more parties. The ship that brought me carried supplies and a few soldiers. I am told it was the last that the legion—the units of our legion not already here—can afford; and nobody else will help.”
The pair settled down below the cliff. Adissa switched on a recorded voice, Goddard Hanshaw’s:
“Hi, there, you two. I thought you’d like an updating, though to tell the truth, very little about it is likable. We’re personally well, I hasten to say. But things are pretty much at a standstill, or “stand-off might be more accurate.
“Fact is, you’ve become a symbol, a rallying point, ie ne sais quo the hell to call you.
“The usual situation. People live their lives meekly, but all the while their anger concentrates, and at last it’s supersaturated and anything can make it crystallize out, rock hard. In the present case… well, I can’t say exactly what. News from the battlefront, which is stalemated again, except not quiet: instead, a meat grinder. And on top of that, two popular, valuable members of our community are barbarians’ pawns because of this same futile thing.
“Suddenly Primavera’s gone on strike. Every longtime resident, and even most short-contract workers, refusing any kind of co-operation whatsoever. They won’t as much as speak to a man in uniform or a ‘collaborator.’ Those who might prefer to behave differently, well, they don’t feel it’s worth becoming traitors in the eyes of their friends.
“Which is causing trouble aplenty, as you can guess. Captain Dejerine appeals to me damn near daily. By tacit consent, I’m the single Primaveran who can have to do with his command and stay kosher; it’s recognized that somebody must. He made a few arrests, but as soon as he saw they were considered an honor, he released the prisoners and dismissed the charges. He’s neither stupid nor wicked, you know. I fee! sorry for him. He asked rather pathetically to be informed the moment any news of you came in. We haven’t mentioned this communication line to him.
“Between us, I’m not sure the community is being wise. I have no notion what the resistance will lead to. Maybe we’ll get cancellation of the Navy project; or maybe our last funds will be cut off; who can tell? I did feel you should know how matters stand, in case you do any dickering on your own hook. And I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, don’t worry about us. As the saying goes, the situation is desperate but not serious. A vuestra salud. Next, here’s Rhoda.”
“Born dia, querido,” said the woman’s voice, and went on with a few endearments and wishes in Portuguese. Sparling clenched fists and jaws, and endured. “Jill,” Rhoda finished in English, “your parents, your sister, her family send their love.” Were those unshed tears in her voice? “I hope you will take mine, too. Live well. Thank you for what you are, what you do. I pray for your safe return. Good-by.”
Silence whirred. “That is the end,” Adissa reported. “Okay,” Sparling said mechanically. “We’ll sign off.” He sat for a while staring across the scorched mountains. Jill laid an arm around his waist. “You have a finer wife than you deserve,” she said.
“No,” he mumbled. “I mean, you’re clean and brave and—Look, we can’t yet do anything about anything, can we?” Is that the question of a coward? “In spite of my personal feelings,” he slogged on, “I share God’s doubts. A general strike against the Navy—the Peace Control—damnation, those men serve us all!”
“Don’t agonize,” she begged him. “Although—” When her words trailed off, he turned his head and saw the clear profile against raw rock and cruel air, framed in tresses which were held by the circlet that a soldier of a legion had given her. “I wonder why Dad or Mother or Alice—even Bill—weren’t on that tape,” she said into emptiness. “Do I know them too well?”
She squared her shoulders, “Now I’m being a worry machine myself,” she declared. “Hell with it. C’mon, hoofer, let’s get back down to the hall. But kiss me first.”
A while afterward, the time ended that had been theirs.
TWENTY
From his easternmost watchtower, Larreka squinted across the docks of Port Rua and the legion’s few ships at the hostile fleet standing into the bay. Fifty-eight lean hulls he counted—fifty-eight mainsails tinged red by the newly risen Rover. The Sun, not much higher, dazzled his eyes with long rays that splintered and showered off amethyst wavelets. He could barely make his tally, and doubted that the garrison artillery could strike home a stone or a fire arrow against that glare. The barbarians had no such handicap; and the wind, already hot, was behind them too. It fluttered and snapped the banner above him.
“Kaa-aa,” said Seroda, his adjutant. “Who’d have supposed they could muster that many?”
“Their chiefs a wily beast,” Larreka nodded. “He kept them in motion, in small groups, raiding amongst the islands and along the coasts. That way, we never got a real idea of the whole number of ’em. But he told their skippers to rendezvous at a particular time and place—I’d guess Plowshare Straits on Midsummer Day—and there they got their orders.” He tugged his whiskers. “Gr-r-nn, that can’t be his whole navy, not by a long cast. The bulk of it’s doubtless out blockading, in case anybody should try sending us help.”
“Then why are these here?”
“To cut us off. If we embarked on an unguarded bay, we’d have a fair chance of evading them at sea and getting home to fight on.” Larreka’s glance traveled across the town, low adobe buildings huddled together and painted in forlornly bright colors, to the river on which its western wall fronted, shallower now than erstwhile so that rocks glearned like basking monsters, and over the brown and black land enclosing the rest of the world. Dust devils were awhirl out there, dancers who related some violent dream. “Yes,” he said, “the campaign’s begun. Their foot should arrive shortly.”
In a moment he added, “Their top male is committing one foolishness, though. He’s forgotten the good old military principle: Always leave your opponent a line of retreat.”
“They must expect us to surrender eventually,” Seroda added.
“A retreat of sorts, yai? But, you see, it isn’t really. Those ships yonder say different. And in Valennen, especially these days, you can’t support a lot of idle prisoners. Either they massacre us or they put us to work—as slaves, scattered around the country, in mines and quarries, chained to wagons or plows or mill wheels—Me, I’d prefer the massacre.” Larreka ended on an oath, for he realized that he’d better assemble his troops while time remained and explain this to them. He hated making speeches.
After two sixty-fours in the legion, Seroda had no need to disclaim fear or lack of loyalty. He could say, “We might yet work out something. After all, it’d cost them plenty to take this post by force. They might still prefer to let us go.”
“In that case,” Larreka said, “it’s our reason for staying.”
Those barbarians whom the Zera Victrix killed in its last hours would not be available for an attack on Meroa and her children.
