“Don’t be a fool,” he said hoarsely.
She sat up straight, turned around and glared at him. Her pale cheeks reddened. “Do you not be the fool, Eric Wace,” she snapped. “If I can give you and him just one extra week where you are strong — where your hunger does not keep you from even thinking clearly — then it will be myself I save too, perhaps. And if not, I have only lost one or two worthless weeks. Now get back to your machine!”
He watched her, for some small while, and his heart thuttered. Then he nodded and returned to his own work.
And down the trails to an open place of harsh grass, where the Council sat on a cliff s edge, Van Rijn picked his steadily swearing way.
The elders of Lannach lay like sphinxes against a skyline gone formless gray, and waited for him. Trol-wen went to the head of the double line, Tolk remained by the human.
“In the name of the All-Wise, we are met,” said the commander ritually. “Let sun and moons illumine our minds. Let the ghosts of our grandmothers lend us their guidance. May I not shame those who flew before me, nor those who come after.” He relaxed a trifly. “Well, my officers, it’s decided we can’t stay here. I’ve brought the Eart’a to advise us. Will you explain the alternatives to him?”
A gaunt, angry-eyed old Lannacha hunched his wings and spat: “First, Flockchief, why is he here at all?”
“By the commander’s invitation,” said Tolk smoothly.
“I mean… Herald, let’s not twist words. You know what I mean. The Mannenach expedition was undertaken at his urging. It cost us the worst defeat in our history. Since then, he has insisted our main body stay here, idle, while the enemy ravages an undefended land. I don’t see why we should take his advice.”
Trolwen’s eyes were troubled. “Are there further challenges?” he asked, in a very low voice.
An indignant mumble went down the lines. “Yes yes… yes… let him answer, if he can.”
Van Rijn turned turkey red and began to swell like a frog.
“The Eart’a has been challenged in Council,” said Trolwen. “Does he wish to reply?”
He sat back then, waiting like the others.
Van Rijn exploded.
“Pest and damnation! Four million worms cocoon-ing in hell! How long am I to be saddled with stupid ungratefuls? How many politicians and brass hats have You Up There plagued this universe with?” He waved his fists in the air and screamed. “Satan and sulfur! It is not to be stood! If you are all so hot to make suicides for yourselves, why does poor old Van Rijn have to hold on to your coat tails all the time? Perbacco, you stop insulting me or I stuff you down your own throats!” He advanced like a moving mountain, roaring at them. The nearest councilors flinched away.
“Eart’a… sir… officer… please!” whispered Trolwen.
When he had them sufficiently browbeaten, Van Rijn said coldly: “All rights. I tell you, by damn. I give you good advices and you stupid them up and blame me — but I am a poor patient old man, not like when I was young and strong no, I suffer it with Christian meekness and keep on giving you good advices.
“I warned you and I warned you, do not hit Mannenach first, I warned you. I told you the rafts could come right up to its walls, and the rafts are the strength of the Fleet. I got down on these two poor old knees, begging and pleading with you first to take the key upland towns, but no, you would not listen to me. And still we had Mannenach, but the victory was stupided away… oh, if I had wings like an angel, so I could have led you in person! I would be cock-a-doodle-dooing on the admiral’s masthead this moment, by holy Nicolai miter! That is why you take my advices, by damn — no, you take my orders! No more backward talking from you, or I wash my hands with you and make my own way home. From now on, if you want to keep living, when Van Rijn says frog, you jump. Understanding?”
He paused. He could hear his own asthmatic wheezes… and the far unhappy mumble of the camp, and the cold wet clinking of water down alien rocks nothing more in all the world.
Finally Trolwen said in a weak voice: “If… if the challenge is considered answered… we shall resume our business.”
No one spoke.
“Will the Eart’a take the word?” asked Tolk at last. He alone appeared self-possessed, in the critical glow of one who appreciates fine acting.
“Ja. I will say, I know we cannot remain here any more. You ask why I kept the army on leash and let Captain Delp have his way.” Van Rijn ticked it off on his fingers. “Imprimis, to attack him directly is what he wants: he can most likely beat us, since his force is bigger and not so hungry or discouraged. Secundus, he will not advance to Salmenbrok while we are all here, since we could bushwhack him; therefore, by staying put the army has gained me a chance to make ready our artillery pieces. Tertius, it is my hope that by all this delay while I had the mill going, we have won the means of victory.”
“What?” It barked from the throat of a councilor who forgot formalities.
“Ah.” Van Rijn laid a finger to his imposing nose and winked. “We shall see. Maybe now you think even if I am a pitiful old weak tired man who should be in bed with hot toddies and a good cigar, still a Polesotechnic merchant is not just to sneeze at. So? Well, then. I propose we all leave this land and head north.”
A hubbub broke loose. He waited patiently for it to subside.
“Order!” shouted Trolwen. “Order!” He slapped the hard earth with his tail. “Quiet, there, officers! Eart’a, there has been some talk of abandoning Lannach altogether — more and more of it, indeed, as our folk lose heart. We could still reach Swampy Kilnu in time to… to save most of our females and cubs at Birthtime. But it would be to give up our towns, our fields and forests — everything we have, everything our forebears labored for hundreds of years to create — to sink back into savagery, in a dark fever-haunted jungle, to become nothing — I myself will die in battle before making such a choice.”
He drew a breath and hurled out: “But Kilnu is, at least, to the south. North of Achan, there is still ice!”
“Just so,” said Van Rijn.
“Would you have us starve and freeze on the Dawrnach glaciers? We can’t land any further south than Dawrnach; the Fleet’s scouts would be certain to spot us anywhere in Holmenach. Unless you want to fight the last fight in the archipelago — ?”
“No,” said Van Rijn. “We should sneak up to this Dawrnach place. We can pack a lunch — take maybe a ten-days’ worth of food and fuel with us, as well as the armament — nie?”
“Well… yes… but even so — Are you suggesting we should attack the Fleet itself, the rafts, from the north? It would be an unexpected direction. But it would be just as hopeless.”
“Surprise we will need for my plan,” said Van Rijn. “Ja. We cannot tell the army. One of them might be captured in some skirmish and made to tell the Drak’honai. Best maybe I not even tell you.”
“Enough!” said Trolwen. “Let me hear your scheme.”
Much later: “It won’t work. Oh, it might well be technically feasible. But it’s a political impossibility.”
“Politics!” groaned Van Rijn. “What is it this time?.”
“The warriors… yes, and the females too, even the cubs, since it would be our whole nation which goes to Dawrnach. They must be told why we do so. Yet the whole scheme, as you admit, will be ruined if one person falls into enemy hands and tells what he knows under torture.”