The Man Who Counts

XIX

Approximately one tenth of the rafts lumbered out of the general confusion and assembled a few kilometers away. They were joined by such ice ships as were still in service. The decks of all were jammed with tensely waiting warriors. These were the vessels held by Lannach.

Another tenth or so still burned, or had been torn and beaten by stonefire until they were breaking up under Achan’s mild waves. These were the derelicts, abandoned by both nations. Among them were many dugouts, splintered, broken, kindled, or crewed only by dead Drak’honai.

The remainder drew into a mass around the admiral’s castle. This was no group of fully manned, fully equipped rafts and canoes; no crew had escaped losses, and a good many vessels were battered nearly into uselessness. If the Fleet could get half their normal fighting strength back into action, they would be very, very lucky.

Nevertheless, this would be almost three times as many units as the Lannachska now held in toto. The numbers of males on either side were roughly equal; but, with more cargo space, the Drak’honai had more ammunition. Each of their vessels was also individually superior: better constructed than an ice ship, better crewed than a captured raft.

In short, Drak’ho still held the balance of power.

As he helped Van Rijn down into a seized canoe, Tolk said wryly: “I’d have kept my armor on if I were you, Eart’a. You’ll only have to be laced back into it, when the truce ends.”

“Ah.” The merchant stretched monstrously, puffed out his stomach, and plumped himself down on a seat. “Let us suppose, though, the armistice does not break. Then I will have been wearing that bloody-be-smeared corset all for nothings.”

“I notice,” added Wace, “neither you nor Trolwen are cuirassed.”

The commander smoothed his mahogany fur with a nervous hand. “That’s for the dignity of the Flock,” he muttered. “Those muck-walkers aren’t going to think I’m afraid of them.”

The canoe shoved off, its crew bent to the oars, it skipped swiftly over wrinkled dark waters. Above it dipped and soared the rest of the agreed-on Lannacha guard, putting on their best demonstration of parade flying for the edification of the enemy. There were about a hundred all told. It was comfortlessly little to take into the angered Fleet.

“I don’t expect to reach any agreement,” said Trolwen. “No one can — with a mind as foreign as theirs.”

“The Fleet peoples are just like you,” said Van Rijn. “What you need is more brotherhood, by damn. You should bash in their heads without this race prejudice.”

“Just like us?” Trolwen bristled. His eyes grew flat glass-yellow. “See here, Eart’a—”

“Never mind,” said Van Rijn. “So they do not have a rutting season. So you think this is a big thing. All right. I got some thinkings to make of my own. Shut up.”

The wind ruffled waves and strummed idly on rigging . The sun struck long copper-tinged rays through scudding cloudbanks, to walk on the sea with fiery footprints. The air was cool, damp, smelling a little of salty life. It would not be an easy time to die, thought Wace. Hardest of all, though, to forsake Sandra, where she lay dwindling under the ice cliffs of Dawrnach. Pray for my soul, beloved, while you wait to follow me. Pray for my soul.

“Leaving personal feelings aside,” said Tolk, “there’s much in the commander’s remarks. That is, a folk with lives as alien to ours as the Drakska will have minds equally alien. I don’t pretend to follow the thoughts of you Eart’ska: I consider you my friends, but let’s admit it, we have very little in common. I only trust you because your immediate motive — survival — has been made so clear to me. When I don’t quite follow your reasoning, I can safely assume that it is at least well-intentioned.

“But the Drakska, now — how can they be trusted? Let’s say that a peace agreement is made. How can we know they’ll keep it? They may have no concept of honor at all, just as they lack all concept of sexual decency. Or, even if they do intend to abide by their oaths, are we sure the words of the treaty will mean the same thing to them as to us? In my capacity of Herald, I’ve seen many semantic misunderstandings between tribes with different languages. So what of tribes with different instincts?

“Or I wonder… can we even trust ourselves to keep such a pledge? We do not hate anyone merely for having fought us. But we hate dishonor, perversion, uncleanliness. How can we live with ourselves, if we make peace with creatures whom the gods must loathe?”

He sighed and looked moodily ahead to the nearing rafts.

Wace shrugged. “Has it occurred to you, they are thinking very much the same things about you?” he retorted.

“Of course they are,” said Tolk. “That’s yet another hailstorm in the path of negotations.”

Personally, thought Wace, I’ll be satisfied with a temporary settlement. Just let them patch up their differences long enough for a message to reach Thursday Landing. (How?) Then they can rip each other’s throats out for all I care.

He glanced around him, at the slim winged forms, and thought of work and war, torment and triumph — yes, and now and then some laughter or a fragment of song — shared. He thought of high-hearted Trolwen, philosophic Tolk, earnest young Angrek, he thought of brave kindly Delp and his wife Rondonis, who was so much more a lady than many a human female he had known. And the small furry cubs which tumbled in the dust or climbed into his lap… No, he told himself, I’m wrong. It means a great deal to me, after all, that this war should be permanently ended.

The canoe slipped in between towering raft walls. Drak’ho faces looked stonily down on it. Now and then someone spat into its wake. They were all very quiet.

The unwieldy pile of the flagship loomed ahead. There were banners strung from the mastheads, and a guard in bright regalia formed a ring enclosing the main deck. Just before the wooden castle, sprawled on furs and cushions, Admiral T’heonax and his advisory council waited. To one side stood Captain Delp with a few personal guards, in war-harness still sweaty and unkempt.

Total silence lay over them as the canoe came to a halt and made fast to a bollard. Trolwen, Tolk, and most of the Lannacha troopers flew straight up to the deck. It was minutes later, after much pushing, panting, and swearing, that the humans topped that mountainous hull.

Van Rijn glowered about him. “What for hospitality!” he snorted in the Drak’ho language. “Not so much as one little rope let down to me, who is pushing my poor old tired bones to an early grave all for your sakes. Before Heaven, it is hard! It is hard! Sometimes I think I give up, me, and retire. Then where will the galaxy be? Then you will all be sorry, when it is too late.”

T’heonax gave him a sardonic stare. “You were not the best-behaved guest the Fleet has had, Eart’ho,” he answered. “I’ve a great deal to repay you. Yes. I have not forgotten.”

Van Rijn wheezed across the planks to Delp, extending his hand. “So our intelligences was right, and it was you doing all the works,” he blared. “I might have been sure. Nobody else in this Fleet has so much near a gram of brains. I, Nicholas van Rijn, compliment you with regards.”

T’heonax stiffened and his councilors, rigid in braid and sash, looked duly shocked at this ignoring of the admiral. Delp hung back for an instant. Then he took Van Rijn’s hand and squeezed it, quite in the Terrestrial manner.

“Lodestar help me, it is good to see your villanous fat face again,” he said. “Do you know how nearly you cost me my… everything? Were it not for my lady—”

“Business and friendship we do not mix,” said Van Rijn airily. “Ah, yes, good Vrouw Rodonis. How is she and all the little ones? Do they still remember old Uncle Nicholas and the bedtime stories he was telling them, like about the—”

“If you please,” said T’heonax in an elaborate voice, “we will, with your permission, carry on. Who shall interpret? Yes, I remember you now, Herald.” An ugly look. “Your attention, then. Tell your leader that this parley was arranged by my field commander, Delp hyr Orikan, without even sending a messenger down here to consult me. I would have opposed it had I known. It was neither prudent nor necessary. I shall have to have these decks scrubbed where barbarians have trod. However, since the Fleet is bound by its honor — you do have a word for honor in your language, don’t you? — I will hear what your leader has to say.”

Tolk nodded curtly and put it into Lannachamael. Trolwen sat up, eyes kindling. His guards growled, their hands tightened on their weapons. Delp shuffled his feet unhappily, and some of T’heonax’s captains looked away in an embarrassed fashion.

“Tell him,” said Trolwen after a moment, with bitter precision, “that we will let the Fleet depart from Achan at once. Of course, we shall want hostages.”

Tolk translated. T’heonax peeled lips back from teeth and laughed. “They sit here with their wretched handful of rafts and say this to us?” His courtiers tittered an echo.

But his councilors, who captained his flotillas, remained grave. It was Delp who stepped forward and said: “The admiral knows I have taken my share in this war. With these hands, wings, this tail, I have killed enemy males; with these teeth, I have drawn enemy blood. Nevertheless I say now, we’d better at least listen to them.”

“What?” T’heonax made round eyes. “I hope you are joking.”

Van Rijn rolled forth. “I got no time for fumblydiddles,” he boomed. “You hear me, and I put it in millicredit words so some two-year-old cub can explain it to you. Look out there!” His arm waved broadly at the sea. “We have rafts. Not so many, perhaps, but enough. You make terms with us, or we keep on fighting. Soon it is you who do not have enough rafts. So! Put that in your pipe and stick it!”

Wace nodded. Good. Good, indeed. Why had that Drak’ho vessel run from his own lubber-manned prize? It was willing enough to exchange long-range shots, or to grapple sailor against sailor in the air. It was not willing to risk being boarded, wrecked, or set ablaze by Lannach’s desperate devils.

Because it was a home, a fortress, and a livelihood — the only way to make a living that this culture knew. If you destroyed enough rafts, there would not be enough fish-catching or fish-storing capacity to keep the folk alive. It was as simple as that.

“We’ll sink you!” screamed T’heonax. He stood up, beating his wings, crest aquiver, tail held like an iron bar. “We’ll drown every last whelp of you!”

“Possible so,” said Van Rijn. “This is supposed to scare us? If we give up now, we are done for anyhow. So we take you along to hell with us, to shine our shoes and fetch us cool drinks, nie?”

Delp said, with trouble in his gaze: “We did not come to Achan for love of destruction, but because hunger drove us. It was you who denied us the right to take fish which you yourselves never caught. Oh, yes, we did take some of your land too, but the water we must have. We can not give that up.”

Van Rijn shrugged. “There are other seas. Maybe we let you haul a few more nets of fish before you go.”

A captain of the Fleet said slowly: “My lord Delp has voiced the crux of the matter. It hints at a solution. After all, the Sea of Achan has little or no value to you Lannach’honai. We did, of course, wish to garrison your coasts, and occupy certain islands which are sources of timber and flint and the like. And naturally, we wanted a port of our own in Sagna Bay, for emergencies and repairs. These are questions of defense and self-suffiency, not of immediate survival like the water. So perhaps—”

“No!” cried T’heonax.

It was almost a scream. It shocked them into silence. The admiral crouched panting for a moment, then snarled at Tolk: “Tell your leader… I, the final authority… I refuse. I say we can crush your joke of a navy with small loss to ourselves. We have no reason to yield anything to you. We may allow you to keep the uplands of Lannach. That is the greatest concession you can hope for.”

“Impossible!” spat the Herald. Then he rattled the translation off for Trolwen, who arched his back and bit the air.

“The mountains will not support us,” explained Tolk more calmly. “We have already eaten them bare — that’s no secret. We must have the lowlands. And we are certainly not going to let you hold any land whatsoever, to base an attack on us in a later year.”

“If you think you can wipe us off the sea now, without a loss that will cripple you also, you may try,” added Wace.

“I say we can!” stormed T’heonax. “And will!”

“My lord—” Delp hesitated. His eyes closed for a second. Then he said quite dispassionately: “My lord admiral, a finish fight now would likely be the end of our nation. Such few rafts as survived would be the prey of the first barbarian islanders that chanced along.”

“And a retreat into The Ocean would certainly doom us,” said T’heonax. His forefinger stabbed. “Unless you can conjure the trech and the fruitweed out of Achan and into the broad waters.”

“That is true, of course, my lord,” said Delp.

He turned and sought Trolwen’s eyes. They regarded each other steadily, with respect.

“Herald,” said Delp, “tell your chief this. We are not going to leave the Sea of Achan. We cannot. If you insist that we do so, we’ll fight you and hope you can be destroyed without too much loss to ourselves. We have no choice in that matter.

“But I think maybe we can give up any thought of occupying either Lannach or Holmenach. You can keep all the solid land. We can barter our fish, salt, sea harvest, handicrafts, for your meat, stone, wood, cloth, and oil. It would in time become profitable for both of us.”

“And incidental,” said Van Rijn, “you might think of this bit too. If Drak’ho has no land, and Lannach has no ships, it will be sort of a little hard for one to make war on another, nie? After a few years, trading and getting rich off each other, you get so mutual dependent war is just impossible. So if you agree like now, soon your troubles are over, and then comes Nicholas van Rijn with Earth trade goods for all, like Father Christmas my prices are so reasonable. What?”

“Be still!” shrieked T’heonax.

He grabbed the chief of his guards by a wing and pointed at Delp. “Arrest that traitor!”

“My lord—” Delp backed away. The guard hesitated. Delp’s warriors closed in about their captain, menacingly. From the listening lower decks there came a groan.

“The Lodestar hear me,” stammered Delp, “I only suggested… I know the admiral has the final say—”

“And my say is, ‘No.’ ” declared T’heonax, tacitly dropping the matter of arrest. “As admiral and Oracle, I forbid it. There is no possible agreement between the Fleet and these… these vile… filthy, dirty, animal—” He dribbled at the lips. His hands curved into claws, poised above his head.

A rustle and murmur went through the ranked Drak’honai. The captains lay like winged leopards, still cloaked with dignity, but there was terror in their eyes. The Lannachska, ignorant of words but sensitive to tones, crowded together and gripped their weapons more tightly.

Tolk translated fast, in a low voice. When he had finished, Trolwen sighed.

“I hate to admit it,” he said, “but if you turn that marswa’s words around, they are true. Do you really, seriously think two races as different as ours could live side by side? It would be too tempting to break the pledges. They could ravage our land while we were gone on migration, take all our towns again… or we could come north once more with barbarian allies, bought with the promise of Drak’ho plunder — We’d be back at each other’s throats, one way or another, in five years. Best to have it out now. Let the gods decide who’s right and who’s too depraved to live.”

Almost wearily, he bunched his muscles, to go down fighting if T’heonax ended the armistice this moment.

Van Rijn lifted his hands and his voice. It went like a bass drum, the length and breath and depth of the castle raft. And nocked arrows were slowly put back into their quivers.

“Hold still! Wait just a bloody minute, by damn. I am not through talking yet.”

He nodded curtly at Delp. “You have some sense, you. Maybe we can find a few others with brains not so much like a spoonful of moldy tea sold by my competitors. I am going to say something now. I will use Drak’ho language. Tolk, you make a running translation. This no one on the planet has heard before. 1 tell you Drak’ho and Lannacha are not alien! They are the same identical stupid race!”

Wace sucked in his breath. “What?” he whispered in Anglic. “But the breeding cycles—”

“Kill me that fat worm!” shouted T’heonax.

Van Rijn waved an impatient hand at him. “Be quiet, you. I make the talkings. So! Sit down, both you nations, and listen to Nicholas van Rijn!”