The People of the Wind

X

Ferune of Mistwood reported in at Gray, arranged his affairs and said his goodbyes within a few days.

To Daniel Holm: “Luck be your friend, First March-warden.”

The man’s mouth was stretched and unsteady. “You must have more time than — than—”

Ferune shook his head. The crest drooped ragged; most feathers that remained to him were lusteriess white; he spoke in a mutter. His grin had not changed. “No, I’m afraid the medics can’t stimulate regeneration in this case. Not when every last cell got blasted. Pity the Imperials didn’t try shooting us full of mercury vapor. But you’d find that inconvenient.”

Yes, you’ve more tolerance for heavy metals than humans do, went uselessly through Holm, but less for hard radiation. The voice trudged on: “As is, I am held together by drugs and baling wire. Most of those who were with me are already dead, I hear. But I had to get my powers and knowledge transferred to you, didn’t I, before I rest?”

“To me?” the man suddenly couldn’t hold back. “Me who killed you?”

Ferune stiffened. “Come off that perch, Daniel Holm. If I thought you really blame yourself, I would not have left you in office — probably not alive; anyone that stupid would be dangerous. You were executing my plan, and bloody-gut well it worked too, kh’hng?”

Holm knelt and laid his head on the keelbone. It was sharp, when flesh had melted from above, and the skin was fever-hot and he could feel how the heart stammered. Ferune shifted to handstance. Wings enfolded the man and lips kissed him. “I flew higher because of you,” Ferune said. “If war allows, honor us by coming to my rite. Fair winds forever.”

He left. An adjutant helped him into a car and took him northward, to the woodlands of his choth and to Wharr who awaited him.

“Permit me to introduce myself. I am Juan de Jesus Cajal y Palomares of Nuevo Mexico, commanding His Imperial Majesty’s naval forces in the present campaign. You have my word as a Terran officer that the beam is tight, the relays are automatic, this conversation will be recorded but not monitored, and the tape will be classified secret.”

The two who looked out of the screens were silent, until Cajal grew overaware of the metal which enclosed him, background pulse of machinery and slight chemical taint in the air blown from ventilators. He wondered what impression he was making on them. There was no way to tell from the old Ythrian — Liaw? Yes, Liaw — who evidently represented civil authority. That being sat like a statue of grimness, except for the smoldering yellow eyes. Daniel Holm kept moving, cigar in and out of his mouth, fingers drumming desktop, tic in the left cheek. He was haggard, unkempt, stubbly, grimy, no hint of Imperial neatness about him. But he scarcely seemed humble.

He it was who asked at length: “Why?”

“¿Por que?” responded Cajal in surprise. “Why I had a signal shot down to you proposing a conference? To discuss terms, of course.”

“No, this secrecy. Not that I believe you about it, or anything else.”

Cajal felt his cheeks redden. I must not grow angry. “As you wish, Admiral Holm. However, please credit me with some common sense. Quite apart from the morality of letting the slaughter and waste of wealth proceed, you must see that I would prefer to avoid further losses. That is why we’re orbiting Avalon and Morgana at a distance and have made no aggressive move since battle tapered off last week. Now that we’ve evaluated our options, I am ready to talk; and I hope you’ve likewise done some hard thinking. I am not interested in pomp or publicity. Such things only get in the way of reaching practical solutions. Therefore the confidential nature of our parley. I hope you’ll take the chance to speak as frankly as I mean to, knowing your words need not commit you.”

“Our word does,” Holm said;

“Please,” Cajal urged. “You’re angry, you’d kill me were you able, nevertheless you’re a fellow professional. We both have our duties, however distasteful certain of them may be.”

“Well, get on with it, then. What d’you want?”

“To discuss terms, I said. I realize we three alone can’t authorize or arrange the surrender, but—”

“I think you can,” Liaw interrupted: a low, dry, harshly accented Anglic. “If you fear court-martial afterward, we will grant you asylum.”

Cajal’s mouth fell open. “What are you saying?”

“We must be sure this is no ruse. I suggest you bring your ships one at a time into close orbit, for boarding. Transportation home for the crews will be made available later.”

“Do you… do you—” Cajal swallowed. “Sir, I’m told your proper title translates more or less into ‘Judge’ or ‘Lawspeaker.’ Judge, this is no time for humor.”

“If you don’t want to give in,” Holm said, “what’s to discuss?”

“Your capitulation, por Dios!” Cajal’s fist smote the arm of his chair. “I’m not going to play word games. You’ve delayed us too long already. But your fleet has been smashed. Its fragments are scattered. A minor detachment from our force can hunt them down at leisure. We control all space around you. You’ve no possibility of outside help. Whatever might recklessly be sent from other systems would be annihilated in detail; and the admiralties there know it. If they go anywhere with what pitiful strength they have, it’ll be to Quetlan.” He leaned forward. “We’d hate to bombard your planet. Please don’t compel us to.”

“Go right ahead,” Holm answered. “Our interceptor crews would enjoy the practice.”

“But — are you expecting blockade runners to — to — Oh, I know how big a planet is. I know an occasional small craft could sneak past our detector grids, our patrols and stations. But I also know how very small such craft must be, and how very occasional their success.”

Holm drew savagely on his cigar before he stabbed it into its smoke. “Yes, sure,” he snapped. “Standard technique. Eliminate a space fleet, and its planet has to yield or you’ll pound it into radioactive slag. Nice work for a man, that, hunh? Well, my colleagues and I saw this war coming years back. We knew we’d never have much of a navy by comparison, if only because you bastards have so much more population and area behind you. But defense — Admiral, you’re at the end of a long line of communication and supply. The border worlds aren’t geared to produce anything like the amount of stuff you require; it, has to come from deeper in the Empire. We’re here, set up to make everything necessary as fast as necessary. We can’t come after you. But we can bugger well swamp whatever you throw at us.”

“Absolutely?”

“Okay, once in a great while, by sheer luck, you doubtless could land a warhead, and it might be big and dirty. We’d weather that, and the home guard has decontamination teams. Chances of its hitting anything important are about like drawing three for a royal flush. No ship of yours can get close enough with an energy projector husky enough to pinken a baby’s bottom. But there’re no size and mass limits on our ground-based photon weapons; we can use whole rivers to cool their generators while their snouts whiff you out of our sky. Now tell me why in flaming chaos we should surrender.”

Cajal sat back. He felt as if struck from behind.

“No harm in learning what conditions you meant to offer,” Liaw said, toneless.

Face saving? Those Ythrians are supposed to be satanically proud, but not to the point of lunacy. Hope knocked in Cajal. “Honorable terms, of course,” he said. “Your ships must be sequestered, but they will not be used against Ythri and personnel may go home, officers to keep their sidearms. Likewise for your defensive facilities. You must accept occupation and cooperate with the military government, but every effort will be made to respect your laws and customs, individuals will have the right to petition for redress of grievances, and Terran violators of the statutes will be punished as severely as Avalonian. Actually, if the population behaves correctly, I doubt if a large percentage will ever even see an Imperial marine.”

“And after the war?”

“Why, that’s for the Crown to decide, but I presume you’ll be included in a reorganized Sector Pacis, and you must know Governor Saracoglu is efficient and humane. Insofar as possible, the Empire allows home rule and the continuation of local ways of life.”

“Allows. The operative word. But let it pass. Let us assume a degree of democracy. Could we stop immigrants from coming until they outvoted us?”

“Well… well, no. Citizens are guaranteed freedom of movement. That’s one of the things the Empire is for. Confound it, you can’t selfishly block progress just because you prefer archaism.”

“There is no more to discuss. Good day, Admiral.”

“No, wait! Wait! You can’t — condemn your whole people to war by yourselves!”

“If the Khruaths and the Parliament change their views, you will be informed.”

“But listen, you’re letting them die for nothing,” Cajal said frantically. “This frontier is going to be straightened out. You, the whole Domain of Ythri have no power to stop that. You can only prolong the murderous, maiming farce. And you’ll be punished by worse peace terms than you could have had. Listen, it’s not one-sided. You’re coming into the Empire. You’ll get trade, contact, protection. Cooperate now and I swear you’ll start out as a chartered client state, with all the privileges that means. Within years, individuals will be getting Terran citizenship. Eventually the whole of Avalon could become part of Greater Terra. For the love of God, be realistic!”

“We are,” said Liaw.

Holm leered. Both screens blanked.

Cajal sat for minutes, staring. They can’t have been serious. They can’t. Twice he reached toward his intercom. Have them called; maybe this was some childish insistence that the Empire beg them to negotiate…

His hand drew back. No. I am responsible for our own dignity.

Decision came. Let Plan Two be set in train. Leave the calculated strength here to invest Avalon. Comparatively little would be required. The sole real purpose was to keep this world’s considerable resources from flowing to Ythri and these bases from menacing Cajal’s lines back to the Empire. Siege would tie up more men and vessels than occupation would have done, but he could spare them.

The important thing was not to lose momentum. Rather, his freed ships must be off immediately to help in simultaneous assaults on Khrau and Hru. He’d direct the former himself, his second in command the latter. What they had learned here would be quite helpful.

And he was sure of quick victories yonder. Intelligence had failed to learn the extent of Avalonian arming, but not to discover the fact itself; that could not be concealed. By the same token, he knew that no other planet of the Domain had had a Daniel Holm nagging it over the years to build against this storm. He knew that the other Ythrian colonial fleets were small and poorly coordinated, the worlds unarmed.

Quetlan, the home sun, was more formidable. But let him rip spectacularly enough through the spaces between, and he dared hope his enemies would have the wisdom to capitulate before he stabbed them in the heart.

And afterward a few distorted molecules, recording the armistice, will give us Avalon. Very well. Better than fighting… Do they know this? Do they merely want to keep, for a few weeks more, the illusion of freedom? Well, I hope the price they’ll be charged for that — levies, restrictions, revisions of their whole society, that might otherwise have been deemed unnecessary — I hope they won’t find the price unendurably steep — because endure it they must.

Before sunrise, Ferune departed Mistwood.

That day his home country bore its name well. Fog blew cold, wet, and bunding off the sea. Smokiness prowled the glooms around thick boles of hammerbranch, soaring trunks of lightningrod; moisture dripped from boughs onto fallen leaves, and where it struck a pool which had formed among the ringed stems of a sword-of-sorrow, it made a tiny glass chiming. But deeper inland, where Old Avalon remained, a boomer tree frightened beasts that might have grazed on it, and this noise rolled beneath the house of Ferune and echoed off the hanging shields of his ancestors.

Wings gathered. A trumpet sounded through night. Forth came his sons to meet their chothmates. They carried the body on a litter between them. His uhoths fluttered about, puzzled at his quietness. His widow led the way. Flanking were his daughters, their husbands and grown children, who bore lit torches.

Wings beat. The flight cut upward. When it rose past the fog, this was turned to blue-shadowed white under an ice-pale eastern lightening. Westward over sea, the last stars glimmered in royal purple.

Still the folk mounted, until they were near the top of what unaided flesh could reach. Here the airs whittered thin and chill; but on the rim of a twilit world, the snowpeaks of the Weathermother were kindled by a yet bidden sun.

All this while the flight beat north. Daniel Holm and his family, following in heavy garments and breathing masks, saw wings glow across heaven in one tremendous spearhead. They could barely make out the torchflames which streamed at its point, as sparks like the waning stars. More clearly came the throb from under those pinions. Apart from that, silence was total.

They reached wilderness, a land of crags, boulders, and swift-running streams. There the sons of Ferune stopped. Wings outspread, they hovered on the first faint warmth of morning, their mother before them. Around circled their near kin; and in a wheel, the choth surrounded these. And the sun broke over the mountains.

To Ferune came the new Wyvan of Mistwood. Once more he blew the horn, and thrice he called the name of the dead. Wharr swept by, to kiss farewell. Then the Wyvan spoke the words of the New Faith, which was two thousand years old.

“High flew your spirit on many winds; but downward upon you at last came winging God the Hunter. You met Him in pride, you fought Him well, from you He has honor. Go hence now, that which the talons left, be water and leaves, arise in the wind; and spirit, be always remembered.”

His sons tilted the litter. The body fell, and after it the torches. Wharr slanted off in the beginning measures of the sky dance. A hundred followed her.

Hanging afar, between emptiness and immensity, Daniel Holm said to Christopher: “And that Terran thought we’d surrender.”