Fire Time (14 page)

[The man, white-haired but still erect and bulky, wearing an old service tunic open at the neck, sprawls in an armchair opposite the moderator and leisurely puffs his pipe.]

OLAYA

–you don’t think the present situation is like the one you had to meet?

HEIM

Absolutely not. Alerion wanted mankind – and the Naqsans, for that matter, every other starfaring race, but we were the most prominent and therefore first on the list – Alerion wanted us out of space. In fact, I believe Alerion wanted us dead.

OLAYA

Why?

HEIM

Call it ideology. We don’t seem to be the only species cursed with that. The point is, Alerion’s objectives were unlimited, therefore Alerion was a mortal threat. We had to apply force to bring its rulers to their senses.

OLAYA

And you don’t feel this is true of Naqsa?

HEIM

I know it isn’t. When have those beings ever menaced Earth in any way? Unless you count sharp commercial competition, which certain Terrestrial interests would like to see removed.

OLAYA

Well, passing over the space fights, which I suppose could be ascribed to tension – passing over those, there was the business of Earth’s mission to the Naqsan part of Mundomar getting bombed, two years back. Zealots, perhaps–

HEIM

Hell, no. Naqsans don’t produce zealots.

OLAYA

Then covert official action, it was alleged.

HEIM

Sr Olaya, that bombing was carried out by Eleutherian agents to provoke fury on Earth. Which it did. The immediate result was that the Federation broke off discussions with the League on a joint expedition to the
galactic core; but no doubt the effect on the next Terrestrial by-elections was more significant.

OLAYA

Pardon me. Can you prove that statement?

HEIM

I have it from friends in New European Intelligence. Naturally, your government isn’t about to tell you.

OLAYA

Let’s return to the main subject. Do you feel we should abandon the Eleutherians to their fate?

HEIM

I’m surprised to hear a loaded question like that from you.

OLAYA

It isn’t really mine. I was quoting innumerable speeches and editorials.

HEIM
(after the briefest of smiles)

Well, please bear in mind, I speak as a private citizen of a foreign state. Thank whatever God there be, my government has had the wit to stay strictly neutral! Though I’d like to remind you, New Europe has offered to both sides its good offices–

OLAYA

Understood, Captain. I simply wondered what your personal opinion is. In view of the analogies between what you did and what Eleutheria is doing.

HEIM

I deny they are analogies. I told you before, Alerion threatened our existence and Naqsa does not. New Europe declared independence but has never grabbed off anybody else’s property.

OLAYA

Just the same–

HEIM

Okay, if you can stand listening to an old rule-of-thumb engineer who’s probably long since obsolete. Let me reemphasize, this is me speaking and nobody else.

First, yes, I admire the Eleutherians tremendously. What they’ve done is incredible. It’s more than reclaiming land, it’s reclaiming their own souls.

But second, the Naqsans on Tsheyakka – Mundomar – they’ve had their quieter heroisms. Haven’t they? And they are sentient creatures too. And they were there first, for whatever that counts.

I don’t think they can drive the Eleutherians off the planet. I don’t think the League actually wants them to. The original idea was sound. That globe has plenty of different environments. Two species can perfectly well colonize separate parts of it. Their peaceful interaction could benefit all concerned. Cultural hybrid vigor, you know.

Details can be bargained out. You may recall

Talleyrand’s formula, ‘an equality of dissatisfaction’. The trouble is, the Eleutherians won’t settle for it. For instance, by now they and various unpublicized Terrestrial backers of theirs have such investments in G’yaaru – Sigurdssonia, if you prefer – it’d be pretty damn inconvenient for them to disgorge. So they talk about it being vital to their security. Crap. Even though most of them sincerely believe this, crap. The only security between peoples is a common interest.

OLAYA

Then you blame the whole conflict on Eleutheria?

HEIM

Lord, no. Naqsans in their style are every bit as unreasonable as humans.

But, mainly, here is a dispute which could be worked out in some left-handed fashion, the way ‘Fifty-Four Forty or Fight’ once was, except that the great powers have let themselves get sucked in and–

Well, you tell me, Sr Olaya. Why the hell is the Peace Authority directed by the Parliament of the World Federation – what possible gain for the ordinary Earthman – why the hell are you underwriting Eleutherian imperialism? If the Eleutherians must conquer more territory, let them do it at their own risk.

(Embarkation of human marines on a transport shuttle. A band plays and amplified voices are singing.)

Sparling drove to Sehala in a groundcar. A flyer would have been too fast – he wanted a while alone to think – and a horse was no use on a world where only a few square kilometers grew plants which could properly feed it. The els was an occasional beast of burden or draught animal, though not very satisfactory, a sophont being bigger and stronger; but it reacted explosively to being ridden. The great valwas, sometimes domesticated, was never kept in times when fodder became scarce.

Usually Ishtarians were their own bearers. Traffic went brisk on the river highway, huge-muscled specialist porters, fleet specialist couriers, ranchers self-harnessed to wagons, load-free travelers. These were of many more races and nations than the one which dwelt in South Beronnen, from dour Haeleners to wandering semi-savages off the Ehur Islands near Valennen. Most went essentially unclothed, but the variety of plumes, jewelry, cloaks, blankets, harness, every sort of ornament and utility article, was bewildering. Boats, barges, oared galleys plied the water. The Gathering was in trouble, its hold had slipped on territory after territory, but its heartland was still a magnet for trade.

Yet Sparling saw a number of legionary patrols. For a long period, whatever legion had been rotated to Sehala – currently the Tamburu Strider – had not had much to do. Its functions had been civil, police and rescue work, arbitration of minor disputes, the public services it traditionally sponsored such as maintaining certain records or lighthouses. And the obvious duties of a police officer were few in a culture which, created in the first place by a species seldom violent, defined only a single criminal act: failure to obey the judgment of the jury that tried a lawsuit. Nor were firemen often needed, most construction being stone or adobe.

Now the Tamburu seemed as busy as when last it was
stationed on a march where brigandage or outright war on civilization was rife. Sparling knew why. More and more people were moving here from northerly parts, in the hope of getting established before the change of weather devastated their homes. With no true government, Beronnen lacked means to bar them. But, itself beginning to feel the scorch and the storms, it also lacked means to provide for them. A lucky few might find steady work, even start new enterprises or marry into landholding families. The rest–

These passersby were not the wholly cheerful, energetic beings whom Sparling had watched in years agone. Many, especially among the outlanders, looked shabby, hungry … desperate.

And yet the countryside still lay peaceful, rich, golden beneath blue heaven and towering clouds. He glimpsed large herds and clustered buildings on the ranches which were the foundation of this economy, this society. Further south, the cultivated region around Sehala had been harvested; orchards, stubblefields, reseeded plowlands did not show how scanty that harvest had been when Anu smoldered in the north.

He parked at an inn on the outskirts which had accommodations for humans. ‘If you don’t mind, guest-friend, I’d prefer coin to your paper,’ the landlord told him. ‘We’ve been getting enough clever counterfeits lately that I could have trouble buying anything with a bill. See, here’s a sample.’

To Sparling the imitation of Terrestrial money seemed crude. But the real thing had never been common outside Primavera. Besides, Ishtarians were frequently insensitive to nuances plain to an Earthling – and vice versa, of course.

‘All that foreign riffraff,’ the landlord grumbled. ‘Swindling, stealing, robbing; and if you catch them, what’s the use? Waste of time taking them to court. They don’t own aught to make restitution with. Their labor would be worthless. Excommunication wouldn’t hurt them, when no decent person wants their company in the first place. Beating’s not likely to teach a lesson, and juries don’t kill people who haven’t been
in contempt at least thrice. Yon homeless rascals need only disappear.’

He had listed the sanctions available. Imprisonment, except temporarily for detention, struck his folk as senseless spite, when humans described it; and Sparling thought no Ishtarian would ever grasp the idea of rehabilitation, being too appalled at what seemed a kind of psychic gelding. Maybe the Ishtarians were right.

He felt in his pocket and produced native coins, gold, silver, and bronze, ample for a short stay. The landlord didn’t bother to examine those. He could see at a glance they were the genuine article sold by reputable manufacturers. Nobody made a mint off his mint, but demand for new specie was always sufficient to support a few. Or, rather, there had been such a demand while the economy of the Gathering was expanding.

‘I’ll go into town and look about,’ the man remarked. ‘Quite a spell since I was here last.’ The reason was his work, which among other things required him to seek out native leaders for conference. Virtually none stayed in Sehala, except when an assembly met. This was not a capital city; in many human senses, it was not a city at all. It was merely the largest, most prosperous of the areas where certain activities and institutions concentrated, therefore usually the most convenient rendezvous. Sparling maintained that the South Beronnen phrase for those territories where civilization was represented in force had been mistranslated and should go into English as ‘the Gathering
at
Sehala’.

Both suns were still aloft, but an overcast had removed glare and a wind with a hint of rain to come blew cool off the river. He didn’t mind that, in the absence of streets, he must now walk a few kilometers. Indeed, he wanted to see for himself how matters stood these days. Humans who came here oftener were apt to be blind to many things beyond their special concerns. That was understandable. The concerns required close attention: for instance, working with scholars to understand an old chronicle, or talking with skippers to find out what they could tell of widely strewn countries. However–

The inn stood near the docks. It was typical of buildings where a fair number of people might stay, rising square and sheer around a central court which included a garden and a pond. The first four stories were mortared stone; the remaining eight, adobe with perdurable phoenix half-timbering, a surface varied enough to be pleasing despite the severe outline. That variation was increased by a cookhouse and storage shed; by covered ramps going up from the court; by balconies jutting forth on the outside from every room.

Good architecture, Sparling thought. The heavy walls gave insulation as well as strength. The patio was always cool and the central well gave, through the main gate, a stack effect which louvers on inside windows used to help keep rooms comfortable on a hot day. Balconies, and the battlemented flat roof, gave residents the sunshine their symbiotic plants required, while not exposing them to danger. For the building was more than a thousand years old; it had withstood attack in the last disaster time, and might have to do so again.

Its front entrance looked down a slope to the broad brown river, docks and warehouses, workers, ships which had not unloaded at Liwas on the delta but continued here, lesser craft of the inland waterways. Noise, shouts, thuds, creak of wheels and derrick cables, boom of barrels rolled over gangways, drifted to Sparling. The scene was small and leisured when he recalled, say, Havana. But here was the center of a civilization, the best hope of a race he believed might someday mean more to the galaxy than his. If the red curse could be lifted …

He started walking south. At first he was on a trail among fields. Unlike any case he knew of on Earth, towns in Beronnen fed themselves off agricultural hinterlands, actually traded their produce for meat and much else from the ranches. The latter held economic and social primacy. Several in these parts, between them, effectively owned Sehala.

Through Sparling’s mind passed a theory he had once heard Goddard Hanshaw advance. In younger days, the mayor had been a cultural xenologist. ‘I think we’ve got a
twofold reason why the rural sectors lord it over the urban. And no, I don’t mean the fact that most of the chieftains who make up an assembly of the Gathering are from cityless places. The Gathering is a historical newcomer. I mean the development of the mother civilization itself.

‘First, pastoralism seems to be more efficient on Ishtar than on Earth. Post-mammalian livestock gets more out of a hectare than cows or pigs can. And agriculture is less efficient. If nothing else, herders survive an Anu passage better than farmers; but also, those storms and floods and droughts every millennium have spoiled a lot of land for crops. Then too, I think probably herding is more congenial to the average Ishtarian temperament. (Though that’s a plain guess of mine – and maybe at heart most humans would rather be cowboys than nesters.)