Fire Time (10 page)

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 “non-interference” 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 fanatics.’

‘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 bipen!’

Sparling’s gaze followed her gesture. The animal which flew lumberingly from above the row of trees was less
bird-like than the other ptenoids in view. Instead of four legs and two wings, it had four wings and two legs – and endless further differences, from bone to feather-plant. He was familiar with the dipter, which dived after ichthyoids off the South Beronnen coast. But the majority of four-wingers, less successful than two-wingers, were confined to Haelen. He’d never seen a bipen before. It was a large and comely creature, plumage violet in the sunset rays.

‘They’re beginning to move north,’ Jill breathed. He glanced at her, saw how her eyes shone, and lost interest in the bipen. ‘I thought they would. Remains from the last cycle – shifts of storm belts – Ian, am I awful for being fascinated by what Anu passage does to the ecology?’

No, he wanted to say; you can do no wrong.

He couldn’t have voiced it thus, but he groped after a word more meaningful than ‘Certainly not.’ Her cry interrupted him. He cast his attention back skyward.

The saru which had been at hover descended. Its wings drove clawed feet and hooked beak; Sparling heard air whistle behind. He heard the impact which broke the bipen’s neck, and saw blood spray. The blood of ortho-Ishtarian life is purple, and wildly fluorescent. The saru labored off with the heavy catch it had made.

Jill choked. Again he glimpsed tears. She mastered them. ‘Bound to happen, I suppose,’ she mumbled. ‘Every thousand years. Maybe the species has even gotten dependent on this kind of thing.’ She turned to him. ‘But we don’t need to. Do we?’

He shook his head.

‘By God, and I mean the original,’ she went on between her teeth, ‘we will not quit.’ Gulping: ‘’Scuse me. I try to be brave and all, but – that poor birdling coming this far to die– Let’s give ’em hell, Ian. Thanks for everything. Good night.’ As she let him go and walked swiftly back, Bel went under the world-rim.

Sparling stayed where he was, loading his pipe, till she had gone from his view and for minutes after. Clouds darkened in a blue dusk, save where the moon tinged them. The early
stars trod forth, and mellowly shining Marduk. He thought how tormented that planet was by the storms Anu raised in its immense atmosphere. But across a few hundred million kilometers, nothing is visible except peace. The air around him grew cooler still, water clucked, smoke gave his mouth an acrid kiss.

Indeed, he thought, this moment and place were more serene than his birthland. No matter that Earth was blessed above Ishtar, except maybe in having brought forth man; the West Canadian coast and the Inland Passage were never like the Jayin Valley, they were clouded, wave-beaten, storm-swept, and upon a sunny day what you saw was a stern majesty.

Jill’s right. I have been lucky.
His daughter had said the same last year, when he took her on a cruise through the remembered country. Her college was in megalopolitan Rio de Janeiro.

Boyhood among trees and clean currents, because his father happened to be a space architect who commuted to Vancouver when he didn’t leave Earth entirely, his mother a programmer who could work right out of her house, and they between them able to afford Ocean Falls–
I’ve seen Welfare and the Backworld too,
he told Yuri Dejerine as he had not during the day’s discussions.
Don’t get me wrong, I sympathize, I agree those people deserve a better break.
And
as far as pride in being human goes, I was at the formative age of fifteen when Gunnar Heim brought us to our victory over Alerion. I don’t merely know, I feel what that meant.

But working outsystem as a young engineer, I met Naqsans, and Satan take it, they’re our kind. Then for the last twenty years I’ve been on Ishtar, this has become my world, here’s where my duty lies–

He shook himself. Past time to report in. His boots racketed.

Twilight was deepening toward night, more and more stars out, when he finished the short climb up Humboldt Street from Riverside and opened his gate. Window-gleams caught wilted roses and bald patches in grass. Terrestrial
plants didn’t give way to weeds if neglected. For that, some years would first have to pass, killing off imported earthworms and soil bacteria, restoring the original balance of acidity, nitrogen, and trace elements, letting native microbes rebuild humus. Untended exotics simply sickened and died.
I’ve got to fertilize, drain, whatever’s needful,
he thought.
When I get the chance. If I do.
No groundsmen were for hire in labor-short Primavera. Becky had handled the work.

Be honest. I could find the necessary hours if I wanted,
Sparling knew.
Truth is, I enjoy gardens but not their maintenance. Rather do carpentry for my fun, or whittle toys to give to kids human or lshtarian. And Rhoda has what Jill (Jill) calls a sere and withered thumb.

He walked in the front door. His wife laid down her book. He recognized a novel which had caused considerable excitement on Earth when he was there. The library had ordered a reel for making printouts. Curious about what went on in the novel nowadays, after its long eclipse, he kept intending to read this specimen. However, he always seemed too busy, or he was tired and preferred to relax with an old familiar like Kipling, or he was intrigued by a piece of lshtarian literature, or–

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘What happened?’ Her English kept a trace of Brazilian accent. Once he had learned Portuguese and they spoke it at home; but they’d drifted out of the habit and he lost his vocabulary.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you for a while,’ he grunted. Guilt reminded him weakly that she was no blabbermouth and Olga Hanshaw had been free to listen in. He replied that he was too worn out to discuss the miserable business any further – the more so when Rhoda, isolated in a minor supply-department position, would need everything explained at length which Jill saw on the instant.

‘It is not good,’ she said after watching his face.

‘No, not good.’ His lankiness flopped into a chair. A minimum he must reveal: ‘I’m leaving for Sehala tomorrow. Got to, uh, make liaison with the assembly while it stands. I expect I’ll be gone a few days.’

‘I see.’ She rose. ‘Do you care for a drink before dinner?’

‘Absolutely. Rum and a dash of lemon. About two fingers.’ He held them upright in a row.

When she smiled, a trace returned of that which had drawn him to a shy, studious girl he met on a job. She’d never been an unusual sight; he’d originally rated her at a millihelen, the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship. But he’d always been awkward with women; he saw he could have Rhoda Vargas if he wished, and she’d be a good partner; he proceeded systematically to fall in love. ‘I have been looking forward,’ she said.

Younger than he, she nonetheless showed more gray in her hair. The snub-nosed countenance had gone pudgy, as had the short body. Yet passing by on her way to the kitchen, she stroked a palm across his head, and he recalled their first years.

Alone, he puffed his pipe and wondered if Becky’s difficult birth had brought on the slow change. The doctor had said there was no point in cloning her a new uterus; she’d lose it afresh, and the baby too, next time. But they hadn’t been required to try for more children, had they? Did the loss inside carry some consequence too subtle for meditechnics to see? The blunt fact was, she remained gentle, popular in the community, an excellent cook, et cetera, et cetera, but drop by drop they came together less often, in spirit and in flesh.

Or,
he thought, not for the first occasion or the hundredth,
was the change mainly in me?
For his work had sent him adventuring across half the planet, while hers and the child kept her behind. He got the Earthside business trips, while she – who missed her kinfolk more than he did his, though she never complained – must settle for a few weeks every four years. On the other hand, she kept her human associations in Primavera, her interest in human creations, while his involvement steadily increased with Ishtarians and their minds.

Be the cause what it might, these days he felt little for her beyond a certain liking and compassion: a truth which he only had the heart – or the nerve – to tell himself. When his projects began to demand he spend most of his time here,
planning and directing, instead of in the field, his main emotion was resignation to dullness.

Until he grew fully aware of Jill Conway.

He tamped his pipe with his thumb, almost savoring the slight burn.

Rhoda brought in their drinks. ‘I’m glad you got away this early, dear,’ she said. ‘You have been straining too hard. I thought tonight, if you didn’t come in late, for dinner I would make something special.’

Captain Dejerine accepted happily an invitation to a day’s guided outing with a person who could explain what he saw. Besides a chance to start making friends in a community whose co-operation he needed and which he knew was hostile to his purposes, he welcomed the sheer recreation, after a wearying space journey. When the person whom Goddard Hanshaw mentioned turned out to be Jill Conway, his pleasure boosted to delight.

She called for him before Belrise, in the eerie red light of Anu low in the north. He and a few associates were temporarily lodged at the inn; most of the men must remain in orbit till their prefab shelters could be erected. He had been supplied a flywheeler. (‘Might as well do you the courtesy before you requisition it,’ Hanshaw had growled half amiably.) Jill’s was a great deal larger and livelier. He was appalled at the prospect of matching her driving style, but clenched his jaws and presently found himself enjoying the speed. By then they had crossed the river – on a small automatic ferry, since his machine lacked a skimmer – and were well into untouched Ishtarian countryside.