A meteor split the sky with noiseless lightning. Juchi seemed to take that as a signal. He began talking. His voice was like ice, toning as it contracted in midnight cold: not altogether a human voice. Flandry began to understand what a Shaman was, and why he presided over the northland tribes. Few men were able to master the Dwellers’ language and deal with them. Yet trade and alliance-metal given for organic fuel and curious plastic substances; mutual defense against the Kha Khan’s sky raiders-was a large part of the Tebtengri strength.
One of the beings made answer. Juchi turned to Flandry. “I have said who you are and whence you come. They are not surprised. Before I spoke your need, he said their, I do not know just what the word means, but it has something to do with communication-he said they could reach Terra itself, as far as mere distance was concerned, but only through… dreams?”
Flandry stiffened. It could be. It could be. How long had men been hunting for some faster-than-light equivalent of radio? A handful of centuries. What was that, compared to the age of the universe? Or even the age of Altai? He realized, not simply intellectually but with his whole organism, how old this planet was. In all that time-
“Telepathy?” he blurted. “I’ve never heard of telepathy with so great a range!”
“No. Not that, or they would have warned us of this Merseian situation before now. It is nothing that I quite understand.” Juchi spoke with care: “He said to me, all the powers they possess look useless in this situation.”
Flandry sighed. “I might have known it. That would have been too easy. No chance for heroics.”
“They have found means to live, less cumbersome than all those buildings and engines were,” said Juchi. “They have been free to think for I know not how many ages. But they have therefore grown weak in sheerly material ways. They help us withstand the aggressions from Ulan Baligh; they can do nothing against the might of Merseia.”
Half seen in red moonlight, one of the autochthones spoke.
Juchi: “They do not fear racial death. They know all things must end, and yet nothing ever really ends. However, it would be desirable that their lesser brethren in the ice forests have a few more million years to live, so that they may also evolve toward truth.”
Which is a fine, resounding ploy, thought Flandry, provided it be not the simple fact.
Juchi: “They, like us, are willing to become clients of the Terrestrial Empire. To them, it means nothing; they will never have enough in common with men to be troubled by any human governors. They know Terra will not gratuitously harm them-whereas Merseia would, if only by provoking that planet-wide battle of space fleets you describe. Therefore, the Cold People will assist us in any way they can, though they know of none at present.”
“Do these two speak for their whole race?” asked Flandry dubiously.
“And for the forests and the lakes,” said Juchi.
Flandry thought of a life which was all one great organism, and nodded. “If you say so, I’ll accept it. But if they can’t help—”
Juchi gave an old man’s sigh, like wind over the acrid waters. “I had hoped they could. But now-Have you no plan of your own?”
Flandry stood a long time, feeling the chill creep inward. At last he said: “If the only spaceships are at Ulan Baligh, then it seems we must get into the city somehow, to deliver our message. Have these folk any means of secretly contacting a Betelgeusean?”
Juchi inquired. “No,” he translated the answer. “Not if the traders are closely guarded, and their awareness tells them that is so.”
One of the natives stooped forward a little, above the dull blue fire, so that his face was illuminated. Could as human an emotion as sorrow really be read into those eyes? Words droned. Juchi listened.
“They can get us into the city, undetected, if it be a cold enough night,” he said. “The medusae can carry us through the air, actually seeing radar beams and eluding them. And, of course, a medusa is invisible to metal detectors as well as infra-red scopes.” The Shaman paused. “But what use is that, Terra man? We ourselves can walk disguised into Ulan Baligh.
“But could we fly—?” Flandry’s voice trailed off.
“Not without being stopped by traffic control officers and investigated.”
“S-s-so.” Flandry raised his face to the glittering sky. He took the moonlight full in his eyes and was briefly dazzled. Tension tingled along his nerves.
“We’ve debated trying to radio a Betelgeusean ship as it takes off, before it goes into secondary drive.” He spoke aloud, slowly, to get the hammering within himself under control. “But you said the Tebtengri have no set powerful enough to broadcast that far, thousands of kilometers. And, of course, we couldn’t beamcast, since we couldn’t pinpoint the ship at any instant.”
“True. In any event, the Khan’s aerial patrols would detect our transmission and pounce.”
“Suppose a ship, a friendly spaceship, came near this planet without actually landing… could the Ice Dwellers communicate with it?”
Juchi asked; Flandry did not need the translated answer: “No. They have no radio sets at all. Even if they did, their ‘casting would be as liable to detection as ours. And did you not say yourself, Orluk, all our messages must be kept secret, right to the moment that the Terran fleet arrives in strength? That Oleg Khan must not even suspect a message has been sent?”
“Well, no harm in asking.” Flandry’s gaze continued to search upward, till he found Betelgeuse like a torch among the constellations. “Could we know there was such a ship in the neighborhood?”
“I daresay it would radio as it approached… notify Ulan Baligh spaceport-” Juchi conferred with the nonhumans. “Yes. We could have men, borne by medusae, stationed unnoticeably far above the city. They could carry receivers. There would be enough beam leakage for them to listen to any conversation between the spaceship and the portmaster. Would that serve?”
Flandry breathed out in a great freezing gust. “It might.”
Suddenly, and joyously, he laughed. Perhaps no such sound had ever rung across Tengri Nor. The Dwellers started back, like frightened small animals. Juchi stood in shadow. For that instant, only Captain Dominic Flandry of Imperial Terra had light upon him. He stood with his head raised into the copper moonlight, and laughed like a boy.
“By Heaven,” he shouted, “we’re going to do it!”
X
An autumn gale came down off the pole. It gathered snow on its way across the steppe, and struck Ulan Baligh near midnight. In minutes, the steep red roofs were lost to sight. Close by a lighted window, a man saw horizontal white streaks, whirling out of darkness and back into darkness. If he went a few meters away, pushing through drifts already knee-high, the light was gone. He stood blind, buffeted by the storm, and heard it rave.
Flandry descended from the upper atmosphere. Its cold had smitten so deep he thought he might never be warm again. In spite of an oxygen tank, his lungs were starving. He saw the blizzard from above as a moon-dappled black blot, the early ice floes on Ozero Rurik dashed to and fro along its southern fringe. A cabling of tentacles meshed him, he sat under a giant balloon rushing downward through the sky. Behind him trailed a flock of other medusae, twisting along air currents he could not feel to avoid radar beams he could not see. Ahead of him was only one, bearing a Dweller huddled against a cake of ice; for what lay below was hell’s own sulfurous wind to the native.
Even Flandry felt how much warmer it was, when the snowstorm enclosed him. He crouched forward, squinting into a nothingness that yelled. Once his numbed feet, dangling down, struck a rooftree. The blow came as if from far away. Palely at first, strengthening as he neared, the Prophet’s Tower thrust its luminous shaft up and out of sight.