“And what use will they be?” said Trolwen. “Oh, yes, we have enough to make Salmenbrok well-nigh impregnable. Which means, we could hole up here and let the enemy ring us in till we starve.”
“Speak not to me of starving.” Van Rijn fished in his pouch, extracted a dry bit of cheese, and regarded it mournfully. “To think, this was not so long ago a rich delicious Swiss. Now, not to rats would I offer it.” He stuffed it into his mouth and chewed noisily. “My problem of belly stoking is worse than yours. Imprimis, the high boiling point of water here makes this a world of very bad cooks, with no idea about controlled temperatures. Secundus, did your porters haul me through the air, all that long lumpy way from Mannenach, to let me hunger into death?”
“I could wish we’d left you down there!” flared Trolwen.
“No,” said Tolk. “He and his friends have striven, Flockchief.”
“Forgive me,” said Trolwen contritely. “It was only… I got the news… the Lannachska have just destroyed Eiseldrae.”
“An empty town, nie?”
“A holy town. And they set afire the woods around it.” Trolwen arched his back.’ This can’t go on! Soon, even if we should somehow win, the land will be too desolated to support us.”
“I think still you can spare a few forests,” said Van Rijn. “This is not an overpopulated country.”
“See here,” said Trolwen in a harshening tone, “I’ve borne with you so far. I admit you’re essentially right: that to fare out with all our power, for a decisive battle with the massed enemy, is to risk final destruction. But to sit here, doing nothing but make little guerrilla raids on their outposts, while they grind away our nation — that is to make certain we are doomed.”
“We needed time,” said Van Rijn. “Time to modify the extra field pieces, making up for what we lost at Mannenach.”
“Why? They’re not portable, without trains. And to make matters worse that motherless Delp has torn up the rails!”
“Oh, yes, they are portable. My young friend Wace has done a little redesigning. Knocked down, with females and cubs to help, everyone carrying a single small piece or two — we can tote a heavy battery of weapons, by damn!”
“I know. You’ve explained all this before. And I repeat: what will we use them against? If we set them up at some particular spot, the Lannachska need only avoid that spot. And we can’t stay very long in any one place, because our numbers eat it baren.” Trolwen drew a breath. “I did not come here to argue, Eart’a. I came from the General Council of Lannach, to tell you that Salmenbrok’s food is exhausted — and so is the army’s patience. We must go out and fight!”
“We shall,” said Van Rijn imperturbably. “Come, I will go talk at these puff-head councilors.”
He stuck his head in the door: “Wace, boy, best you start to pack what we have. Soon we transport it.”
“I heard you,” said the younger man.
“Good. You make the work here, I make the politicking, so it goes along fine, nie?” Van Rijn rubbed shaggy fists, beamed, and shuffled off with Trolwen and Tolk.
Wace stared after him, into the blind fog-wall. “Yes,” he said. “That’s how it has been. We work, and he talks. Very equitable!”
“What do you mean?” Sandra raised her head from the table at which she sat marking gun parts with a small paintbrush. A score of females were working beside her.
“What I said. I wonder why I don’t say it to his face. I’m not afraid of that fat parasite, and I don’t want his mucking paycheck any more.” Wace waved at the mill and its sooty confusion. “Do this, do that, he says, and then strolls off again. When I think how he’s eating food which would keep you alive—”
“You do not understand?” She stared at him for a moment. “No, I think maybe you have been too busy, all the time here, to stop and think. And before then, you were a small-job man without the art of government, not?”
“What do you mean?” he echoed her. He regarded her with eyes washed-out and bleared by fatigue.
“Maybe later. Now we must hurry. Soon we will leave this town, and everything must be set to go.”
This time she had found a place for her hands, in the ten or fifteen Earth-days since Mannenach. Van Rijn had demanded that everything — the excess war materiel, which there had luckily not been room enough to take down to battle — be made portable by air. That involved a certain amount of modification, so that the large wooden members could be cut up into smaller units, for reassembly where needed. Wace had managed that. But it would all be one chaos at journey’s end, unless there was a system for identifying each item. Sandra had devised the markings and was painting them on.
Neither she nor Wace had stopped for much sleep. They had not even paused to wonder greatly what use there would be for their labor.
“Old Nick did say something about attacking the Fleet itself,” muttered Wace. “Has he gone uncon? Are we supposed to land on the water and assemble our catapults?”
“Perhaps,” said Sandra. Her tone was serene. “I do not worry so much any more. Soon it will be all decided because we have food for just four Earth-weeks or less.”
“We can last at least two months without eating at all,” he said.
“But we will be weak.” She dropped her gaze. “Eric—”
“Yes?” He left his mill-powered obsidian-toothed circular saw, and came over to stand above her. The dull rush light caught drops of fog in her hair, they gleamed like tiny jewels.
“Soon… it will make no matter what I do… there will be hard work, needing strength and skill I have not… maybe fighting, where I am only one more bow, not a very strong bow even.” Her fingernails whitened where she gripped her brush. “So when it comes to that, I will eat no more. You and Nicholas take my share.”
“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.”