Fire Time

SIX

Anu was a few hours under the horizon and Bel quite low above. Light streamed yellow under the trees along Campbell Street. Where it passed through the translucent leaves of jackfruit, it flecked the shade beneath with spots of coral. The air lay quietly cooling, hill of spicy autumn fragrances from across the river. Several children played hopscotch on the pavement. Their shouts flew thin and sweet to Ian Sparling’s ears. A bicyclist dodged around them. Otherwise nobody was in sight. The laboratories and industries whose low, garden-surrounded buildings lined this thoroughfare were closed for the evening, their workers at home or—a few score—outside the mayor’s house to see the Earthlings come forth and hope for a scrap of news.

Actually, that first conference was finished. The Hanshaws had invited participants to stay for dinner. Sociability might ease a little of the stress between them. Sparling had excused himself on the ground that his wife would be disappointed if he didn’t return for a special dish she’d prepared. He suspected Hanshaw knew it was a lie, but he didn’t care. By taking the rear exit to an alley, and thence a roundabout way home, he avoided questions from the crowd.

Pipe cold between teeth, fists jammed into pockets, he scissored space with his legs, scarcely aware of the world. Fingers must close on his arm and shake before he noticed. But then he saw Jill Conway. He stopped. The blood quickened and sang in him.

“Wow,” she said. “What’s the hurry? You’re traveling like the devil to a tax collector’s wake.” Scant mirth was in her tone, and after a second she added, “Bad. huh?”

“I shouldn’t—” He nearly lost his pipe, crammed it away, and swallowed before he demanded, “What’re you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

He stared at her slendemess. Light ran down the street and struck gold from her hair. “Huh? But why—?” No, obviously she didn’t wait for me. Just for a chance to talk to me. Sparling collected himself. “How did you know when or where?”

“I asked Olga Hanshaw to phone me as soon as the official discussion ended. She wasn’t forbidden to, and she feels she owes me a favor.” Jill had rescued the couple’s youngest child from drowning a couple of years before. This was the first time Sparling had heard of her claiming any reward. “Don’t mention it, please, Ian.”

“No,” he promised at once; then: But God did request we keep things confidential till he’s planned how to tell Primavera and… the whole Gathering. Then: Well, I won’t go back on my word to Jill. I can’t. It’s harmless. If anybody on this planet can be trusted, she can. She should’ve been invited to sit in on the conference. Though that would’ve roused jealousies, and distracted me—or inspired me— Throttle that nonsense! he ordered himself. You old fool!

“As for how I knew where to wait,” Jill told him, “why, I know you. Campbell to Riverside and on home. Right?”

He attempted a smile. “Am I that transparent?”

“No.” She regarded his gaunt features carefully “No, you’re a mighty private person. However, chances were you’d leave early; you’re never much for polite banalities. You’d choose a route which avoided people. At this hour, it has to be this way. Primavera isn’t exactly a labyrinth.” Her voice snapped: “You know my methods, Watson. Apply them!”

He couldn’t but chuckle and shake his head. “Why not loosen your collar?” Jill suggested. “You don’t have to choke any more to impress the Navy with our earnestness. Besides, that cowlick of yours spoils the effect.”

“Well—okay.” When he had done, she took his arm again, tucked hers beneath, and started them off in the free-swinging stride they both favored.

“What happened?” she asked after a while.

“I’m not supposed to—”

“Yeh, yeh, yeh. You’re not under oath of secrecy, are you? I’ll give you my promise if you like, not to let anything go any further.” She was silent for a space, during which he heard their boots thud and felt her touch. When she spoke anew, it was most softly. “Yes, Ian, I am presuming, I am begging for a privilege. But I’ve got a brother in the Navy. And Larreka’s always been like a second father to me. The night he stayed at my house… hardest to take was the way he kept working to crack jokes, tell anecdotes, whatever he hoped might amuse me. I wanted to cry. Except naturally he’d’ve known what that meant, and soldiers’ daughters don’t show grief.”

“The legionary tradition,” he said for lack of better words. “It’d be dangerous to morale if allowed. We’re different, we humans.”

“Not that different. And if I knew what—The sooner I know, the sooner I can start thinking about something real to do, not sit inside myself and gnaw my guts.”

He must look at her then, less far downward than a man of his height need do with the run of women. Her blue gaze was steady, yet she smiled no more and the level sunbeams caught sparks in her lashes.

“You win,” he rasped. “Though you won’t like the news.”

“I didn’t expect to. Oh, Ian, you’re such a laren!” The word meant, approximately, “good trooper,” overtones of kindliness as well as strength and fidelity. She let go his arm and took his hand. He checked a wish to squeeze back. No use, worse than useless, to let her guess how she had altogether gripped him. But he could keep a very gentle hold, couldn’t he?

They reached the landing and turned north onto Riverside, a road cut from the left bank of the Jayin. On their right, trees screened them from view of town, a long row of deep-rooted swordleaf, preserved amidst this terrestrialized ecology to be a windbreak when tornados whirled out of the west. Opposite, the stream flowed broad, murmurous, evening ablaze upon it. Snags and shoals made ripples; an ichthy would leap in a gleam of silver and a clear splash; rocket flies darted brilliant. On the farther shore, native pastureland rolled’ into blue remoteness—tawny turfoflia, scarlet firebloom, scattered trees crowned with copper or brass. In the middle distance a flock of owas grazed, and the larger els individually, six-legged kine in a peacefulness that Sparling wished Constable could have painted.

Here the air was cooler still, damp, breezy, many-scented. Westward under sinking Bel, a few clouds glowed orange. Elsewhere the sky stood unutterably clear. A ghostly, waning Caelestia drew eastward. Beneath, so high as to be only a pair of wings, hovered a saru. It did not stoop on any of the iburu which flapped along lower down; maybe it waited for easier prey than those big bronzy-green ptenoids. A cantor sat on a bough, small, gray-feathered, fearless, and sang its autumn song.

Sparling remembered how Jill had continued the work of her mentor, old Jim Hashimoto, on the many functions of song in the cantor and related species, for her first serious research project, and how she’d run whooping across his sight in the joy of a breakthrough idea. Had that been when he first—No, probably not. She was a long-legged youngster then, six or seven years older than his, merely one of three kids born to the Conways. Since, Alice had married Bill Phillips, and Donald had followed Becky to college on Earth till the Navy pulled him in…

“We’ll soon be at your place, Ian,” Jill warned. “Unless you want to stop and talk.”

“No, let’s get it over with,” he said, called back. “Not much to tell, anyhow.”

“I don’t suppose the ships brought mail?”

“No. At least, nobody mentioned any. Captain Dejerine, their top man, did promise regular communications will be maintained. If nothing else, his courier boats will carry civilian messages, too.”

“What’re they here for?”

“That was announced yesterday, right after they first established contact. To protect us from possible Naqsan attack.”

“Ridiculous, I’d say. Wouldn’t you? Ridiculous as the whole war.”

“Maybe not.”

“Well, if their presence would guarantee the supplies we need—for your kind of work in particular—I’d be duly grateful. But no, the word is that the war effort will take nearly all shipping, and doubtless assorted key items as well. Captain Whosie confirmed it today. Didn’t he? You wouldn’t look so fierce otherwise.”

Sparling jerked a nod.

Jill studied his countenance again before she said:

“The news was worse yet. Right?”

“Right,” came from him. “They’re supposed to build a base here. For reconnaissance operations. Which means depots, backup facilities, and a local war industry to save on interstellar transportation. Dejerine has orders to mobilize everything we’ve got that isn’t required for our survival. Effective immediately, we must justify whatever of our production we consume rather than stockpile for the Navy.”

Jill halted. And he did. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

He let the stiffness slump out of his shoulders.

She caught both his hands. “Your cement plant?” she asked raggedly. “You can’t keep on making concrete for your dams?”

“That’s right.” He heard how flat his voice fell. “It’s requisitioned for the base.”

“Couldn’t you explain?”

“We tried, for our different projects. Me, I pointed out how flooding of valleys by melted snowpack has always been a major factor in wrecking civilization in South Beronnen, and if we could prevent it this periastron, then we could hope—Hell, why am I telling you? Dejerine asked when the floods’ll start. I gave him our estimate—he’ll surely have my files checked out—and he said that in five years the war should be over and we can carry on the same as before.”

“You mean he’s never heard of lead time? He thinks you can build a set of dams in high country, with native labor and a miser’s consignment of machinery, by rubbing a lamp?”

Sparling grimaced. “He and his fellows weren’t unsympathetic. They’re not evil men, nor stupid. We’re free to protest and petition to Earth, they said, and they won’t necessarily argue against us. That’ll depend on what they decide after reviewing matters for themselves. Meanwhile, they have their orders.” He drew breath. “God asked them, what about military assistance to the, Gathering? Dejerine said no. He’s been strictly and specifically instructed to stay out of local disputes. That includes us, he said. We must not risk equipment which may be valuable to the war effort, or risk getting his force embroiled, diverted from its task. Besides, a Parliamentary commission has declared that our past ‘interference’ should be investigated, since it looks very much like ‘cultural imperialism.’ ”

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 ‘noninterference’ 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 lunatics.”

“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 birdlike 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 fourwingers, 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—lan, 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’ll 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 stem 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 Ishtarian. 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 Ishtarian literature, or…

“Hello,” she said. “What happened?” Her English kept a trace of Brazilian accent. Once he had learned Portugese 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.”