A man stepped through, at once closing the door behind him. Though the outside air that came along was cold as well as ferric-harsh, no one would ordinarily have worn a nightmask. He doffed his and she saw the bony middleaged features of Gabriel Stewart. They had last been together on Dido. His work was to know the Hamilcar region backwards and forwards, guide scientific parties and see to their well-being.
“Why … why … hello,” she said helplessly.
“Draw your blinds,” he ordered. “I’d as soon not be glimpsed from beneath.”
She stared. Her backbone pringled. “Are you in trouble, Gabe?”
“Not officially—yet.”
“I’d no idea you were on Aeneas. Why didn’t you call?”
“Calls can be monitored. Now cover those windows, will you?”
She obeyed. Stewart removed his outer garments. “It’s good to see you again,” she ventured.
“You may not think that after I’ve spoken my piece.” He unbent a little. “Though maybe you will. I recall you as bold lass, in your quiet way. And I don’t suppose Firstlin’ of Ilion made you his girl for nothin’.”
“Do you have news of Ivar?” she cried. “ ’Fraid not. I was hopin’ you would … Well, let’s talk.”
He refused wine but let her brew a pot of tea. Meanwhile he sat, puffed his pipe, exchanged accounts of everything that had happened since the revolution erupted. He had gone outsystem, in McCormac’s hastily assembled Intelligence corps, and admitted ruefully that meanwhile the war was lost in his own bailiwick. As far as he could discover, upon being returned after the defeat, some Terran agent had not only managed to rescue the Admiral’s wife from Snelund—a priceless bargaining counter, no doubt—but while on Dido had hijacked a patriot vessel whose computer held the latest codes … “I got wonderin’ about possibility of organizin’ Didonians to help fight on, as guerrillas or even as navy personnel. At last I hitched ride to Aeneas and looked up my friend—m-m, never mind his name; he’s of University too, on a secondary campus. Through him, I soon got involved in resistance movement.”
“There is one?”
He regarded her somberly. “You ask that, Ivar Frederiksen’s bride to be?”
“I was never consulted.” She put teapot and cups on a table between them, sank to the edge of a chair opposite his, and stared at the fingers wrestling in her lap. “He—It was crazy impulse, what he did. Wasn’t it?”
“Maybe then. Not any longer. Of course, your dear Commissioner Desai would prefer you believe that.”
Tatiana braced herself and met his look. “Granted,” she said, “I’ve seen Desai several times. I’ve passed on his remarks to people I know—not endorsin’ them, simply passin’ them on. Is that why I’m ostracized? Surely University folk should agree we can’t have too much data input.”
“I’ve queried around about you,” Stewart replied. “It’s curious kind of tension. Outsider like me can maybe identify it better than those who’re bein’ racked. On one hand, you are Ivar Frederiksen’s girl. It could be dangerous gettin’ near you, because he may return any day. That makes cowardly types ride clear of you. Then certain others—Well, you do have mana. I can’t think of better word for it. They sense you’re big medicine, because of bein’ his chosen, and it makes them vaguely uncomfortable. They aren’t used to that sort of thing in their neat, scientifically ordered lives. So they find excuses to themselves for postponin’ any resumption of former close relations with you.
“On other hand"—he trailed a slow streamer of smoke—"you are, to speak blunt, lettin’ yourself be used by enemy. You may think you’re relayin’ Desai’s words for whatever those’re worth as information. But mere fact that you will receive him, will talk civilly with him, means you lack full commitment And this gets you shunned by those who have it. Cut off, you don’t know how many already do. Well, they are many. And number grows day by day.”
He leaned forward. “When I’d figured how matters stand, I had to come see you, Tatiana. My guess is, Desai’s half persuaded you to try wheedlin’ Frederiksen into surrender, if and when you two get back in touch. Well, you mustn’t. At very least, hold apart from Impies.” Starkly: “Freedom movement’s at point where we can start makin’ examples of collaborators. I know you’d never be one, consciously. Don’t let yon Desai bastard snare you.”
“But,” she stammered in her bewilderment, “but what do you mean to do? What can you hope for? And Ivar—he’s nothin’ but young man who got carried away—fugitive, completely powerless, if, if, if he’s still alive at all—”
“He is,” Stewart told her. “I don’t know where or how, or what he’s doin’, but he is. Word runs too widely to have no truth behind it.” His voice lifted. “You’ve heard also. You must have. Signs, tokens, precognitions … Never mind his weaklin’ father. Ivar is rightful leader of free Aeneas—when Builders return, which they will, which they will. And you are his bride who will bear his son that Builders will make more than human.”
Belief stood incandescent in his eyes.
XIII
South of the Green Bowl, hills climbed ever faster. Yet for a while the stream continued to flow peaceful. Ivar wished his blood could do likewise.
Seeking tranquillity, he climbed to the foredeck for a clear view across night. He stopped short when he spied others on hand than the lookout who added eyes to the radar.
Through a crowd of stars and a torrent of galaxy, Creusa sped past Lavinia. Light lay argent ashore, touching crests and crags, swallowed by shadows farther down. It shivered and sparked on the water, made ghostly the sails which had been set to use a fair wind. That air murmured cold through quietness and a rustle at the bows.
Fore and aft, separated by a few kilometers for safety, glowed the lights of three companion vessels. No few were bound this way, to celebrate the Season of Returnings.
Ivar saw the lookout on his knees under the figurehead, and a sheen off Erannath’s plumage, and Riho Mea and Iang Weii in their robes. Captain and chaplain were completing a ritual, it seemed. Mute, now and then lifting hands or bowing heads, they had watched the moons draw near and again apart.
“Ah,” Mea gusted. The crewman rose.
“I beg pardon,” Erannath said. “Had I known a religious practice was going on, I would not have descended here. I stayed because that was perhaps less distracting than my takeoff would have been.”
“No harm done,” Mea assured him. “In fact, the sight of you coming down gave one extra glory.”
“Besides,” Iang said in his mild voice, “though this is something we always do at certain times, it is not strictly religious.” He stroked his thin white beard. “Have we Kuang Shih religion, in the same sense as the Christians or Jews of the Ti Shih or the pagans of the tineran society? This is one matter of definition, not so? We preach nothing about gods. To most of us that whole subject is not important. Whether or not gods, or God, exist, is it not merely one scientific question—cosmological?”
“Then what do you hunt after?” the Ythrian asked.
“Allness,” the chaplain replied. “Unity, harmony. Through rites and symbols. We know they are only rites and symbols. But they say to the opened mind what words cannot. The River is ongoingness, fate; the Sun is life; Moons and Stars are the transhuman.”
“We contemplate these things,” Riho Mea added. “We try to merge with them, with everything that is.” Her glance fell on Ivar. “Ahoa, Sir Mariner,” she called. “Come, join our party.”
Iang, who could stay solemn longer than her, continued: “Our race, or yours, has less gift for the whole ch’an—understanding—than the many-minded people of the Morning Star. However, when the Old Shen return, mankind will gain the same immortal singleness, and have moreover the strengths we were forced to make in ourselves, in order to endure being alone in our skulls.”