Introduction
Jerry Pournelle has a Ph.D. in physics, among other things. And back in the 1980s, brainstorming with some other knowledgeable and imaginative people, he created an imaginary but plausible star system. It was centered on a white dwarf, one of whose planets was a brown dwarf circled by a large habitable moon. The geophysical complexities of that system resulted in very peculiar living conditions for the life forms that evolved there, and the humans who migrated there. Conditions that include several variations of night and day, variations in both intensity and length, resulting in extreme weather fluctuations. Fun to play with in writing, but I wouldn't care to live there.
Next, Jerry and friends gave the colonists a history, rooted in an earlier series of stories by Pournelle and Niven. A history no kinder to the immigrants than the planet was. After writing it all up, they sent it to some science-fiction authors, inviting them to write stories set on that world, for a series of shared-world anthologies: War World One through at least Five.
When you set up a shared universe like that, you leave enough slack for your authors to postulate conditions of their own within the broader context, and this creates potentials for embarrassment. Thus in the first volume, one story included, peripherally, a Finnish colony named "Novy Finlandia." The story was a dandy, but the name of the colony? Novy is Russian, and Finlandia is latinized Swedish. And the Finns are language proud, and Russia is their traditional enemy. Historically the Finns have borrowed words from German (during the Middle Ages), the Swedes (through much of their history), Latin (via the medieval church), and most recently English. But not Russian. The name "Novy Finlandia" was going to irritate just about any Finn, or Finnish-American, who read it.
I mentioned this to the editor, and he told me if they got another manuscript dealing with "Novy Finlandia," he'd let me see it during the editing process.
So guess what. There was one volume the editing of which was turned over to someone else. And it included a story in which the focus was "Finns" from "Novy Finlandia"—New Finland. I won't enumerate the flubs; the author batted zero, starting with his Finns having Russian names and speaking their "Finnish dialect of Russian." In fact, the story would have been fine—if he'd simply called his characters Russian, and his colony, say, Novy Oksko. The author was, in fact, a skilled story spinner with a good sense of people. But he was new to the print media; his previous credits were as a screenplay writer.
So when the original editor invited me to write a story for volume 4, I said sure, providing I could set it in "Uusi Suomi" (Finnish for "New Finland"). I also wanted to ignore the geographic location implied in the offending story. If those were permissible, I told him, I could get the earlier boo-boos to make sense. And the editor, bless his heart, said "great; go ahead."
So here's what I came up with. I hope you like it.
Fedor Demidov sat with a book open in his lap, watching out the window as the railroad coach rocked and swayed its slow way up a grade. The terrain and forest outside could have been approximated in numerous places in his native Novy Rossiya: high hills that by some would be called mountains, and forest largely of the common Haven "pine." To his practiced eye, the area they were crossing had been clearcut about, oh, eighty Terran years previously, and the replacement stand thinned at about age fifty, for pulpwood and fuel. In states like Novy Finlandia—Uusi Suomi; he'd have to watch himself on that. In states like Uusi Suomi, where forest was plentiful, forest thinnings, logging debris and sawmill waste were the usual fuel in rural villages. In fact, they were much used in towns as well. Electricity was cheap enough, but electric cookstoves were very expensive.
There was a patter of quiet Finnish conversations in the car, which was mostly empty. Uusi Suomi's Foreign Ministry had reserved it for two small groups of technical people: the one Demidov was with, and one made up of mining engineers, including a consultant from New Nevada. From the far end of the car, the consultant was holding forth loudly. Demidov allowed it to annoy him; the man was arrogant and offensive, as well as loud.
They were in the second of the two passenger cars. Demidov had the impression that the other was empty, except for the conductor who apparently had an office compartment in it. The rest of the train was of log cars; he could see them out the window, rounding a curve his own car had rounded moments earlier. They'd picked them up from different sidings along the line, and would leave them at the next sawmill they came to. On iron-poor Haven where forest too was not abundant, lumber was valuable, and the management of forests quite technical and organized.
A voice began to speak from the loudspeaker at one end of the car, but he paid it little heed. It was in Finnish, a language in which he knew only a few polite phrases learned especially for this trip. Its rapid, tonal staccato and grammatical inflections hid even the scattered technical words it had in common with Russian and Americ.
Demidov glanced at Anna Vuorinen, the young interpreter in the seat facing his, and her stricken expression jerked his attention. She stared toward the loudspeaker behind him, and he turned as if looking might enlighten him. Virtually every other person in the coach was looking that way too, he realized now, and the conversations had died.
He turned back to the young woman as the speaker went silent. "What was it, Anna?" he asked in quiet Russian.
"Pirates," she said. "Extra-atmospheric fighter craft have been reported from several locations, and have engaged military aircraft near Fort Kursk."
Engaged! That meant destroyed; extra-atmospheric fighters would be infinitely superior to anything any state of Haven could put in the air. For a moment, resentment flared in Demidov. Not at the pirates, but at the Imperium that had left the planet undefended. Pirates were an aberration, but there had always been such predators, among humans. And the Imperium knew it. Yet some wretched bureaucrats in—what? The Ministry of State? Of War? Some faceless imperial bureaucrats had decided that the forty or so million citizens on Haven were not worth a squadron to protect them.
He overlooked that he was a bureaucrat himself. A bureaucrat was always the other person, usually someone you didn't know.
And Anna Vuorinen's husband was an officer in the Finnish air force. She'd mentioned that while they were getting acquainted at the Ministry of Forests the day before. So it was hardly surprising that the news had shaken her. But the border of Uusi Suomi was two thousand kilometers from Fort Kursk, and there were various places in the vast Shangri-La Valley that offered better looting.
He was thinking of pointing that out, when the conductor entered the car, a blocky man, gray of hair and mustache. He walked past the seated Demidov and his interpreter, stopping close ahead to talk to Veikko Ikola, Demidov's guide and principal host on this trip. Ikola lacked a doctorate, but as a silviculturist, an ecological engineer specializing in the management of forests, his reputation was international. He was said to look through the innumerable apparencies and recognize the key relevancies, then formulate working solutions more surely than anyone else in the profession. Which was why Demidov was there—to visit representative sites on the ground, ask questions, and hopefully learn.
Ikola's conversation with the conductor was in Finnish of course, but he glanced at the Russian while they spoke. Then the conductor went on to talk to the man in charge of the group around the mining consultant from New Nevada.
Ikola stepped over and sat down next to Anna Vuorinen, across from Demidov. Although the Finn read technical papers in Americ well enough, in general conversation he used it clumsily, having particular difficulty following it when spoken. Thus the interpreter.
"Perhaps," Ikola said through her, "you would prefer to return to Hautaharju. Considering the pirate raid." On a world like Haven, with little or no high-tech military capacity, a mere raid by space pirates could be far more devastating than an earnest war between local states. "Our train will lay over at Tammipuro, where we will eat while it recharges its storage batteries. There will he a southbound train there. We can go back on it."
"Do you consider that there is danger to your country?" Demidov asked. "Or to mine?"
Ikola shrugged and answered, this time in Americ. "Probably not. It is hard to know."
Demidov nodded. "I prefer to continue. I traveled 620 kilometers by rail, plus whatever we have come today. I would not care to return with nothing accomplished."
Ikola nodded, and returned to his seat across the aisle, where Demidov's two other hosts sat, the tall and massive Reino Dufva, and the similarly tall but rangy Kaarlo Lytikäinen.
By now the conductor had finished what he'd had to say to the other group. The mining engineer, Migruder was his name, Carney Migruder, was laughing, a loud braying laugh that grated Demidov's nerves like fingernails on chalkboard. The laugh ended with a long string of "huh huh huhs," releasing the Russian, and he glanced again at Anna Vuorinen. An attractive young woman, though not actually pretty.
More interesting to him was her background. Her Finnish name had come with marriage. Her background was as Russian as his own, though very different. Her spoken Russian was soft, the effect of having begun life among the peasant sectarians of "Pikku Venäjä." They were descendants of Russian religious deportees forcibly relocated on Haven more than five hundred years earlier. Entirely enclosed within the borders of Uusi Suomi, the sectarians remained calmly unabsorbed, culturally and linguistically. There was constant attrition, of course, of young people in reaction to the rigid rules of the sect. They went to the towns or to Russian-speaking states, and were assimilated. Anna's parents had broken away late, she'd said; they'd been nearly thirty, with three living children.
But the community remained closed, impenetrable from the outside, and the Finns had never tried to Finnicize them. The Pikku Venäläiset were hard working and productive, and used their land well. That was good enough for the Finns.
Demidov had asked her to speak the dialect for him, and had understood only a little of it. It was quaint to an extreme. According to her it was not greatly changed from the mother tongue, at least in vocabulary and grammar. They still read the ancient bible—in Cyrillic!—chanted prayers and hymns from ancient books, and recited a catechism centuries old. Apparently even pronunciations had not changed much; according to Anna, speech still largely fitted the ancient spellings.
Knowing it, though, had made it easy for her to learn the modern speech of Novy Rossiya, she'd told him. Certainly she spoke modern Russki fluently, despite her light accent.
Veikko Ikola watched the village of Tammipuro appear through the trees. Actually, the first he saw of it was the railroad siding with its loaded and unloaded strings of log cars. The village itself was almost like forest, its gravel streets lined with trees. Though not pines. Its trademark was its steelwood trees, the tammi in Tammipuro. He knew the place well enough, and a number of others more or less like it.
The morning was far enough along that they left their overcoats in the luggage rack when they got off the train. The local tavern doubled as the dining room for the railroad, and for whatever locals chose to eat out. At this particular hour there were no other dining guests. As was customary, the passengers would sit at a long trestle table set up for them. Nor was there a charge; meals were covered in their fare.
There was no menu. They simply needed to wait till the food was ready. Some of the men went to the taproom, but Ikola sat down at the long trestle table and waited. He preferred to do his drinking in more intimate situations, with one or two friends in private conversation, or with Toini, his wife, at supper. Dufva and Lytikäinen too abstained. Lytikäinen because his temper, never the best, was inversely correlated with his blood alcohol. That was how Lytikäinen himself put it. Ikola thought the problem was psychological; the forest supervisor could get disagreeable just drawing the stopper.
Minutes later the mining experts returned with a large pitcher of beer and a liter of whiskey, "bourbon" imported from New Nevada. The loud consultant had bought it. Migruder was his name, Ikola recalled, Carney Migruder, a rather large burly man looking not quite solid but not flabby either.
As usual the tavernkeeper had the radio on. The station played peasant music almost continually, energetic music you could dance to. There was room to dance in the dining room. Sawmill workers would dance there, and the forest workers when they were in town, with their wives and girlfriends, or with each other if they had none there. But just now the railroad passengers had the place to themselves. During trueday the forest workers were away in the woods, working shift and shift, six hours on and six off through four cycles, spending their off time collapsed on their bunks. Busses brought them to town for dim-day and true night, when woods work was unsafe or impossible. Ikola knew their life first hand; he'd lived it. Had grown up in a village much like Tammipuro, as had Dufva and Lytikäinen. You needed the practical experience to be accepted into the forestry curricula at the university.
Migruder stood up, cleared his throat to draw their attention, then held his glass high. "Here's to Novy Finlandia!" he said loudly in Americ. "Long may she—do whatever it is she does!" He laughed then like a jackass, loudly and without humor.
Except for Migruder's laughter, the people there were silent as stone. Ikola had seen Lytikäinen stiffen, and had put a hand on his arm. The Nevadan was an official guest, invited by the Minerals Ministry to help evaluate some iron ore deposits in the upper foothills. Small concentrated deposits, typical of those developed volcanically, and potentially very valuable on iron-poor Haven.
The men from Minerals who accompanied the Nevadan raised their glasses stony faced. Migruder's mining expertise, Ikola told himself, must be very good indeed for them to put up with him. It was hard to believe that someone who found such pleasure in mindfuck, could do good work. He wondered if the man was married, and if so, what kind of husband he was, what kind of father.
Novy Finlandia! That was deliberate, thought Demidov. Migruder was either pathologically vicious or had a death wish. Or both.
Demidov knew more history than most Haveners. He was an avid reader, an accumulator of knowledge. Back on Terra, the Finns had had a long record of resistance, more or less successful resistance, to Russian dominance. Something that some Terran Russians—intellectuals and ruling circles—had found exasperating, and resented.
After the CoDominium was established, no Terran state was independent. So in Finland, the original Finland, a corporation was founded that sold shares in a new colony. In the worldwide depression of the time, however, even 7,000 shareholders were limited in what they could pay for. Thus the Finns settled for a place in Haven. Had chosen a place with much forest—hardly surprising, considering Finnish skills and traditions—and nearly six centuries ago had emigrated, moving families, livestock, and equipment.
They'd named their corporation Uusi Suomi Yhtiö—"New Finland, Limited." But some CoDominium bureaucrat, no doubt a Russian, had quietly entered it into the records as Novy Finlandia, the first word Russian, the second latinized Swedish. And once in the CoDominium computers that way, it was not only official. From there it got into all official and commercial computers and onto all map updates for Haven. Which was as close to being graven in stone on Mount Sinai as you could get. Of course, when the CoDominium collapsed, all that became null, and the Empire, when it arrived, accepted the name Uusi Suomi as official. But old habits die hard, and among other Haveners, "Novy Finlandia" was still common, if offensive usage.
The Finns, one of the most language-proud peoples, had resented it intensely at first, and still were sensitive about it. It would no doubt have been more acceptable had it been in Americ: "New Finland." But in Russian!
Another part of the original contract was that Uusi Suomi's territorial integrity was legally protected. But as with most of their contracts, the CoDominium ignored this one too. After BuReloc, the Bureau of Relocation, was established and forced deportations began, dissident Russians of various stripes were deported to Haven. Most went to mining districts, to work and die as forced laborers. Others were unloaded on the two established Russian colonies to accommodate as best they could; Demidov's ancestry included such deportees. But a shipload of religious dissidents had been unloaded in "Novy Finlandia."
It seemed doubtful that CoDo officialdom planned it that way. Aside from "trivial" matters—matters not coming before high-level officials—it seemed doubtful to Demidov that the CoDominium had gone out of its way to do vicious things, things not substantially profitable to one of its power factions. More probably some mid-level apparatchik had arranged it with the ship's captain out of spite. Tradition had it that shiploads of deportees had been put down nowhere near the site officially specified, for nothing more than a case of good whiskey, from someone who wanted slave labor and didn't have pull with BuReloc.
To make it worse, the newcomers had arrived in early winter with nothing to live on and little to make a living with. While the Finns themselves were still struggling to survive. At once there'd been a schism of sorts among the Finns, between those who wanted to leave the 2,800 newcomers to die, and those who refused to. The colony's council had voted to help them—indeed such help had already begun, unofficially—but the vote had been close. And the decision had held a proviso: aid to the Russians would come from a special fund of provisions: those who didn't wish to, need not give.
Fortunately the newcomers were mostly farmers, people with knowledge and skills, even with some tools. They could contribute effective muscle and work, though nothing of food, medicines, or initial shelter. At the end of the first years-long winter, nearly 1,200 still lived. But among those Finns who'd helped, the winter's death toll, not to mention other suffering, had been notably worse than among those who hadn't. The rift it had opened between the halukkait, "the willing," and the sydämettömiä, "the heartless," had taken several generations and the blurring of gradual intermarriage to close.
The fact that both the name Novy Finlandia and the burden of unwanted dependents were Russian, tied the two together in the psyche of the Finns. Migruder, Demidov told himself, was prodding a very sore spot.
The music was interrupted in mid-line by a voice in dry staccato Finnish, and it seemed to him it was something he should know about. He turned to Anna Vuorinen, questioningly. Her words in Russian, were soft, almost murmured, her eyes unfocused. "They say a Finnish squadron, the seventh Air Reconnaissance Squadron, has been attacked by the pirates, and most of it destroyed."
There'd been much more to the report than that. Apparently the information about the Finnish Squadron had preempted her attention. He didn't know if that was her husband's unit or not, but thought it must be. Judging from her face, her eyes. She excused herself then and left the table, which seemed to answer his unasked question.
He had another, and turned to Ikola with it. "Have the pirates visited Uusi Suomi, then?"
The Finn shook his head. "That squadron was on"—he groped for the Americ words—"it had our duty for the Council, at Sabbad."
Demidov nodded. Detached service in the south. The new Council of States had instituted an air patrol to discourage the corsairs that occasionally pillaged towns along the southern coast. The biplanes and triplanes they put in the air would mean little to space pirates though.
"And her husband was with the destroyed squadron?"
The Finn pursed his lips. "I think. From the way Anna react."
The food had been brought to their table more in the manner of a boarding house than a restaurant. It was plain but good, the sort of meal a solid working-class family might eat at home. Eating, Ikola told himself, served the additional function here of keeping Migruder's mouth occupied. Afterward the cook himself brought out individual bowls of a sweet but spicy dessert, and served each person himself.
When they'd finished, they reboarded the train. Both Demidov and Migruder had wanted to continue to their original destination, the town of Rajakuilu in the northeast corner of the country.
There were more than enough seats on the car. No one needed to sit beside anyone, or even across from anyone if they wanted to be alone. And indeed, most did sit alone. Why, Ikola asked himself, isn't everyone talking about the pirates? The place should be a-buzz. Yet he felt no urge himself to talk about it. Perhaps because so little was known—the skimpiest of information and no rumors at all.
One man was talking though. At the far end of the car, Migruder sat wearying his interpreter with his usual loud Americ. His monolog was rich in idiom and slang, well beyond Ikola's ability to follow, even had he been in the mood. It seemed to be something derogatory about someone.
One of the men from the Minerals Ministry passed on his way to the restroom. On his return, Ikola reached and touched his arm. "Sit," he invited, gesturing toward the seat opposite. The man hesitated, then sat.
"What do you know about Migruder?" Ikola asked.
The man shrugged, his face a grimace. "He is famous for his ability. As well as his character or lack of it. The Ministry studied the records of all the experts on Haven, and Migruder seems to be the best of them. We'll just have to put up with him for a few days."
"It's surprising someone hasn't killed him."
The man nodded. "His father is Baron Migruder of New Reno, very rich and influential. They fight like two land gators over a dead goat. The old man has disinherited him, or that's the report we have, but protects him nonetheless." The Ministry man shrugged and started to stand.
Just then Migruder hurried past him, headed for the restrooms at the end of the car.
Demidov still sat across from Anna Vuorinen, across the aisle from Ikola. And guessed it was Migruder that Ikola talked about with the Minerals official. What else? He looked at the young woman. "What did they say?" he asked.
She looked at him woodenly, and he realized she didn't know, hadn't listened. She must have been thinking about her husband, wondering if he was dead or alive. "Excuse me," he said. "I didn't mean to intrude on your thoughts. My question was idle curiosity."
She nodded slightly, then seemed to blank him out, her focus turning inward.
They rolled past a recent clearcutting, thick with seedlings knee high to a man, and lovely to Demidov's eyes. Haven pine produced two crops of tiny winged seeds in the long summer, the first remaining in the tough leathery pods. If a summer fire killed the stand, the pods, chemically changed by the heat, opened and released the seed onto the ash, where it germinated to produce a virtual carpet of seedlings. The later seed crop was born in pods much more fragile, which opened in winter storms. The spring thaw worked the seeds down into the needle litter. If fire then burned through before the early crop matured, the crowns might burn and the trees be killed, but of the needle litter, only the top centimeter or two were dry enough to burn. Last year's late crop, stimulated by the heat, germinated quickly then; at least what was left of it did.
In which case the new stand was often patchy and more or less thin and limby, but nature cared little about form factor or coarse knots, only presence and energy gradients. The trick in management was to use such general knowledge, along with the specifics of local conditions, to harvest the mature stand and obtain a new one without fire. The Finns, Ikola in particular, were masters at it, which was why Demidov had come.
The loudspeaker sounded again. This time it wasn't the conductor's voice. He'd been sitting in his compartment listening to the radio, apparently, and switched on the speaker so the passengers could hear. It began in mid-sentence. Demidov watched as the woman listened. Her face paled almost to chalk, then the color returned to it as the report ended. Tears began to run down her face.
"Excuse me," she whispered and getting up, hurried toward the restrooms. Ikola had been watching; he came over and sat where she had. "Radio gave names of dead flyers," he said. "One was Luutnantti Eino Vuorinen. I think her husband."
Demidov felt his own throat constrict, and his eyes burned. For an embarrassed moment he thought he might weep. That would never do! He didn't know the woman well enough for that. What would Ikola think?
Through the long slow hours of early morning, most of the passengers dozed intermittently. The car rocked and swayed, the seemingly endless forest slid slowly past, and reading led easily to drowsiness. There were occasional short stops to pick up and drop off strings of log cars.
Migruder was the exception; he spent much of the next several hours in one or the other of the car's two restrooms, emerging more and more haggard. It seemed to Ikola that the tavernkeeper or cook in Tammipuro must have overheard the man's insulting toast, and prepared a dessert portion especially for him. That would explain the personal service.
Toward midmorning, some of them adjusted their seats into beds, took their pillows from the overhead, and lay down to sleep. Even Migruder lay down between trips to the restroom.
The next news bulletin was switched into the speaker almost from the first word; The intruders had nuked Hell's-A-Comin' and Castell City! The mushroom cloud at Hell's-A-Comin' could be seen from Nothing Ventured, 215 kilometers away. Unofficial reports were that the intruders were not pirates! Supposedly, satellite transmissions had shown the ship to be a Sauron heavy cruiser!
Saurons! A chill rucked Ikola's skin. Talk of Saurons on Haven drove the report of nukings into the background. If Saurons had come . . . If Saurons had come, the Empire had lost, and they faced a new empire, a Sauron empire, that would make their old troubles seem trivial.
On the other hand—for unofficial report, read "rumor." Of course, rumors could be true; that was eighty percent of their fascination, but more often than not—
Drowsing was over with; no one was sleepy anymore. Nor likely to become so, Demidov thought. The conductor let the radio play continuously now. At least it wasn't dance music; under the circumstances it wouldn't have been appropriate. This was old music in the classical vein, played on an orchestral synthesizer. Dark music. He didn't recognize it; perhaps it was Finnish. Men adjusted their beds back into seats. Still nothing much was said for a few minutes. People began to draw together, talking sporadically in undertones. Lytikäinen and Dufva drifted over to sit again by Ikola.
Demidov looked openly at Anna Vuorinen. Her eyes occupied dark depressions in a pale face. He thought to start a conversation with her; it might draw her out of herself and her shock. But be could think of nothing. Partly it seemed too little was known, and the Saurons—the Saurons might be only a rumor. And partly—if it was true, it was too big and too new to confront all at once.
Even so, he found himself speaking. "Mrs. Vuorinen, do you know what music that is?" Inane! he told himself. You're being inane!
"It is 'Lemminkäinen in Tuonela.' "
"Thank you." He hesitated. "Was lieutenant Eino Vuorinen . . . ?"
"My husband."
"I am terribly sorry."
"Thank you. Feel sorry for yourself." She said it almost bitterly, as if she held him somehow accountable. Then spoke further, contrite and clarifying: "It is kind of you to say so. But I feel—" She shrugged, a shrug that was half shudder. "I think our troubles are just beginning."
He turned inward, wondering if they were. There was no proof, only the rumors. He'd demoted the reports of nukings to rumors now, too, along with the Saurons.
But only for a moment, because the music was interrupted by another report from Hautaharju. The interpreter listened without changing expression. As if nothing more could affect her now. When it was done, she translated for Demidov without his asking. "Falkenberg has been destroyed by a nuclear explosion. Other places have been attacked by powerful weapons, believed to be orbital weapons. There has been a massive explosion at the power plant near Lermontovgrad, not nuclear, but a fire is said to be raging there, sending a smoke plume toward the east. It is thought to be radioactive." Her mouth twisted as if in cynicism. "People are warned to get out of its way."
As if they could, most of them, Demidov thought.
He tried to read then, but repeatedly found himself without a clue as to what his eyes had just passed over. He had to look again at the cover: Physiological characteristics of the roots of pine seedlings in the Atlas foothills of . . . He set it aside. It seemed to belong to a time past. Not long past, but past and now irrelevant. It seemed to him the days of managing forests for the export market were gone. They'd been there when the train had left Hautaharju, twelve hours earlier, but now they were finished. At any rate they were if the Saurons had come.
The conductor entered the car and walked along the aisle, speaking directly instead of through the speaker. He stopped by Demidov's seat and repeated in halting Americ: "We come to Sahakylä soon. We stop there. Eat and charge batteries."
Demidov wondered if Migruder was well enough to eat now. Or if he'd eat if he was well enough. It seemed doubtful he'd offer his foolish toast again. He looked backward out the window. Rounding one of the innumerable curves was the long string of log cars they'd gathered. And would no doubt leave at the place they were coming to.
"What is the town again?" he asked Anna Vuorinen.
"Sahakylä," she said. Then surprising him added, "Saha means sawmill, and kylä is village, Sahakylä." As if knowing, he might better remember. Or as if, with the world coming apart, he'd never leave this country, and had best start learning the language.
The thought triggered chills almost too intense to bear. Was that it? he thought, and it seemed to him the answer was yes.
When they left the railway car at Sahakylä, Migruder looked pale but generally recovered. In the dining hall, however, though he bought another bottle, he drank quietly, moodily. To Ikola it felt that what the man had on his mind was not the bombings nor the rumor of Saurons, but what had been done to him at Tammipuro. His mood seemed not one of worry or shock, but of smoldering resentment. Ikola was glad the man wasn't his responsibility.
He sat down across from Demidov. The Russian had impressed him at first as someone who perhaps thought of himself as more refined than other people. His hands were small for his size, and rather slender. But he'd comported himself courteously and thoughtfully at all times.
"What you think of news today?" Ikola asked quietly in Americ.
"I think—" Demidov began slowly, "I think it may be the end of things as we've known them. The end of civilized life for humans on Haven."
The Finn raised an eyebrow. "On Haven were terrible times before. After wars destroyed CoDominium, and Haven left by itself. Our ancestors fell to—" He groped. "Primitive. We have come back long way. Come back again if need."
The Russian shook his head. "If the Saurons have come, it will mean worse than primitivism. It will mean slavery!"
The Finn's eyes were calm but intent. "What will you do then, if Saurons are here?"
Demidov sighed and shook his head. "What can one do? Expend one's life as best one can."
"Expend?"
Demidov looked to Anna Vuorinen and spoke in Russian. "If the Saurons have indeed come, they will make slaves of people. And if they've come here, it means they've defeated the Empire. That is hard to believe, but perhaps they have done it. Then one can either be their slave, or one can expend his life with honor, and die fighting."
The interpreter didn't begin translating till after Demidov had finished, as if she was looking at the situation for the first time. When she'd repeated it in Finnish, Ikola peered at the Russian curiously.
"Only those two alternatives, you think?"
Anna passed his words on. "What else?" the Russian asked.
"Seventeen standard years ago when the Marines were pulled off Haven," Ikola replied, "the Empire was still very powerful. There were wars of secession, but the Navy was large—immense—and loyal."
His Finnish was flowing more slowly than it might have, and Anna kept pace not many words behind.
"Sauron was also powerful," he went on, "but not nearly so large. And if the Empire was beset by wars of secession, the Sauron slave worlds were less than loyal to their masters. They might, perhaps, fear to revolt, but surely they would do such sabotage as they could. Do you really believe the Saurons could have defeated the Empire?"
"Obviously the Saurons believed they could. And if they are here—" The Russian's shrug was different than the Finn's had been, more expressive. "They must have."
"You asked for another alternative," Ikola countered. "I think there is one. A second explanation for the Saurons being here, if they are, and a third alternative for us. Seventeen standard years is not so long. Would it be long enough for the Saurons to defeat the Imperial Fleet, and the Imperial Marines? I think of the young Finns who joined the 77th. They were roughnecks, most of them, and adventurous. And mostly they were not the big-mouths, while those who were, were more as well. They were the youths who liked brawls, and who more often than not won their fights. I think the same was true in other states, and probably on other worlds.
"And when, after training, they came home on leave, they had changed. They were still tough, but proud with a different pride than before. Pride in their regiment, their division. And they walked differently, moved differently. They even spoke politely to their parents! They knew discipline. In a tavern they might not show it, but they knew discipline where it counted."
He paused to let the interpreter catch up, for as he'd warmed to his subject, he'd spoken faster. Now he changed tack.
"Suppose the Navy beat the Saurons. What do you suppose would happen then?"
Demidov frowned, pursed his lips. "If they defeated them, really defeated them—They would surely destroy Sauron, their home world. And everyone on it. But to do that, they'd have to destroy the Sauron fleet, first."
Ikola nodded, saying nothing, leaving Demidov to carry his thoughts further.
The Russian shrugged again. "I suppose the Saurons, what were left of them, would scatter. And the Fleet would pursue them, try to eradicate them to the last ship, the last man. And woman." He frowned. "What you want me to say is that the Saurons who've come here, if they have come here, are a ship of refugees."
Ikola nodded. "It seems more probable. The alternative, if the Saurons are really here—the alternative is that in just seventeen years they have destroyed the Imperial Fleet. And in those same seventeen years have spread through the entire Empire, occupying every world to the last. And this world would be the very last, or one of them.
"I do not think all that could happen in seventeen years."
The two men hadn't realized that the rest of the table had fallen silent and was listening, the Finns to Ikola and to Anna's translation of the Russian, Migruder to his own interpreter.
It was Migruder who interrupted, his laugh half bark, half sneer. "Shit!" he said. "Saurons! No Saurons would waste their time with a crummy back-water world like this! Some pansy saw something and panicked. Over the radio. Some other pansies heard him squawk, and they panicked. Now you sad sacks of shit are flapping around ready to suicide."
Lytikäinen was sitting on the same side of the table as Migruder. He stood abruptly, his chair clattering backward onto the pine floor, and with two quick strides had the Nevadan by the hair, even as the man turned in his seat. Lytikäinen jerked him backward, and Migruder's chair went over, Migruder in it. The man scrambled to his feet ready to fight, but the massive Dufva was between the two, keeping them apart. Lytikäinen he'd shoved sharply backward, sending him staggering. Migruder's shirt he'd gripped with a massive left hand, twisted, and jerked him close. The Nevadan looked paralyzed.
"We will be polite here," he said in ponderous Americ. With a grin, his face in Migruder's. Demidov, himself startled breathless, realized he'd misread the quiet, smiling logging engineer. The man was not placid, simply amiable. He'd probably smile at you even while throwing you through the wall. Seemingly Migruder realized this too, realized something at any rate, realized that this man could gobble up both Lytikäinen and himself with little effort. He snarled non-verbally as Dufva freed him, and straightened his shirt. His interpreter had retrieved Migruder's chair and stood it up again.
The man from Minerals was on his feet too, tightlipped. Demidov suspected the man would like to have done what Lytikäinen had, but still he was responsible for Migruder's mission here. Now it would be a miracle if the man didn't head back for Hautaharju; this could even result in a break in diplomatic relations. On the other hand there was no point in anyone's raising hell with Lytikäinen; the damage was already done. Demidov was glad he wasn't involved.
That's when the music was interrupted with another report. Morgan, Migruder's interpreter, gave the outlanders a running translation into Americ. "This is Radio Metsäjoki. We have just received a report from Weather Service radio on Iron Hill, broadcasting on emergency backup power. Severe explosions have erupted in the power plant at Kivikuilu. There is fire there, and heavy smoke, presumably radioactive, is drifting down the canyon toward the capital. Extra-atmospheric fighter craft have attacked both the city and the military base south of it. Great explosions have occurred over the government district and the military base. The very air appeared to explode; the center of the city has been flattened. Of the government district and the apartment blocks around it, hardly a wall is standing. There is no sign of anyone left alive.
"Immediately after we received the preceding report, the Weather Service personnel reported that a fighter craft was circling their installation. Transmission then cut off.
"We will try to keep you informed of anything further that happens. Meanwhile we return you to our music program."
Someone—the cook or the tavernkeeper—turned the volume well down then, and for a long moment the room was silent. Demidov looked around at the Finns. None were moving, though he could hear someone's labored breathing above the muted music. It was as if they'd been turned to stone. Then Migruder began to chuckle, the sound escalating, becoming a laugh, at first harsh and bitter, then loud, uncontrolled, as if driven by some psychotic mirth.
Demidov stared. He expected someone to strike the man, but no one moved. When Migruder had choked back his laughter, he spoke: "You Finns! You goddamm ridiculous people! Now you see how weak you are! You're fucked now, fucked good!"
He looked around leering. Then Demidov was surprised to find himself speaking, his voice loud in the stillness. "Migruder, you are a fool!"
Migruder's head jerked to stare at him.
"Think man!" Demidov went on. "Where have you been all day? Haven't you been listening? Do you believe the Saurons make war only on people you don't like? They've already destroyed the planet's major military bases. Now they destroy the minor ones. They're also destroying the power-generating plants of the planet, and the governing capacity. What do you think is left of your father's barony? Of the government district at New Reno? Of New Reno itself?
"Your father can't protect you from this. He can't buy you out of it. You're in a foreign land a thousand kilometers from home, except now you don't have a home. You're alone here in the midst of a people you've insulted repeatedly."
Migruder's eyes bulged, not with rage, but seemingly in shock. The man is insane, Demidov realized. Truly insane. He's been walking around with insanity seething just below the surface, for god knows how long.
The Nevadan turned abruptly and strode toward the door. No one tried to stop him.
The rest waited for dinner. The cook continued cooking and when the food was ready, the tavernkeeper served them. The only things unusual about it were the quiet, and that two of the Finnish passengers went to the kitchen and helped bring out the food.
The food, it seemed to Demidov, was as good as it would otherwise have been. He even enjoyed it in a detached sort of way: ate detachedly, tasted detachedly, and watched those around him detachedly. He didn't wonder about his father in Novy Petrograd, or his brothers or sisters; he knew. Knew all he needed to.
A question did occur to him though, and when he'd finished his main course, he turned to Anna Vuorinen. "I have a question for Herra Ikola." He looked at the Finn. "If the nuclear plant has been destroyed, how are the locomotive's storage batteries being recharged?"
"Beginning here at Sahakylä, the railroad's power comes from the dam at Rajakuilu. The power for the whole northeastern part of the country does." Ikola raised his voice then, enough to get everyone's attention. "Who here wishes to return south?" He didn't say south to Hautaharju; just south.
Three of the four men from Minerals raised their hands. Probably they felt compelled to seek their families. Demidov didn't know whether to be surprised or not when Anna Vuorinen didn't raise her hand. He was definitely surprised when Migruder's interpreter didn't; he'd been sure the man was from New Nevada, and south was the direction of home for him. Perhaps, Demidov thought, he intended to wait and see what Migruder wished to do.
Ikola's home was south too, in Hautaharju, but he hadn't raised his hand. Demidov thought he knew why: Ikola had mentioned that his wife worked in the Agriculture Ministry, and that they lived in an apartment almost across the street from it. At home or at work, she'd have died. Of course, there might be children . . .
"There is a reserve armory at Metsäjoki," the Finn went on. "There will be infantry weapons there, including mortars and rockets, along with officers and noncoms. And field rations for two months. Field radios too, for as long as their batteries last. It will take about fifteen hours to get there by train. Or perhaps only eight or ten, if the conductor decides we need not stop for log cars." He turned to the conductor. "Personally, I think it would be futile to haul logs. Perhaps later, if it should turn out that the Saurons are just a rumor."
The conductor said nothing. Shortly the engineer came in to say that the batteries were recharged. Walking to the train, Demidov spoke again to Ikola through Anna Vuorinen: "You never told me your alternative to slavery or dying in combat."
"Ah," said the Finn. "The other is to survive free. Survive and wait." His eyes were hard. "I've read considerable history, of both Haven and Earth. The Russian people, like the Finns, are good at surviving, at outlasting oppression."
Demidov said nothing more as they walked. He was digesting Ikola's answer.
Migruder stayed on the northbound train, drinking. Demidov suspected that Morgan hadn't said anything to him about going south. Meanwhile the conductor had decided to follow standard practice; they stopped several times to drop off empties and take on cars of logs.
It seemed to Demidov that what had happened at Hautaharju had caught up with Ikola. Early on, the Finn had gone to the restrooom and not reappeared for quite a while. When he did, his eyelids were swollen and spongy looking, his face pasty pale. Now he sat as if dead, his features slack, and he did not talk at all. Even Lytikäinen and Dufva left him to himself.
Vuorinen gave Demidov his first Finnish lesson: "olen, I am; olet, you are; hän on, he or she is . . ." The language, Vuorinen told him, was so conservative, a modern Finn could read the ancient books. It came, she said, from the tradition of learning ancient verse verbatim, and from pronouncing everything the way it was spelled. Perhaps, thought Demidov. But at a deeper level it came from valuing the old, even while adapting to and living with the new.
Six hours after they'd left Sahakylä, the conductor announced they were approaching the village of Susilähde, where they would eat again. About time, Demidov thought; his stomach had been grumbling. "Susilähde." Susi, Anna told him, was Finnish for stobor, although on Earth it had meant a different pack-hunting animal. Lähde meant a spring of water. He sat repeating the name to himself, to the measure of the wheels clicking over the expansion joints in the rails.
It was near noon when they arrived, noon in a forty-hour day, and it was warm, nearly hot. Walking down the graveled street in the rays of Byers' Sun, Demidov sweated. Migruder hadn't gotten off the train with them; hadn't eaten since Tammipuro, and presumably had puked up that. Or had it been nothing more than diarrhea? As he walked, Demidov drilled the verb to be: olen, olet, hän on, se on; olemme, olette . . .
Inside the tavern was half dark. No light burned. The place seemed deserted. Demidov looked in past Ikola, who'd led off from the train and stood just inside the doorway. The Finn called a halloo in Finnish, and the tavernkeeper came in from a back room. Then they all entered. "We cannot cook," the tavernkeeper said simply. "There is no electricity."
"No electricity?" Ikola sounded more vexed than surprised. "Those Sauron bastards! There won't be any at the railroad either then. The engineer won't be able to recharge the batteries."
Anna interpreted for Demidov while the others cursed or stood silent.
"How did it happen?" Demidov asked, and Anna passed his question on.
"It's damned obvious!" Ikola said angrily. "The Sauron sons of bitches have bombed the dam at Rajakuilu! They can't leave anything alone! They want to send us back to the stone age!"
He turned to the tavernkeeper. "When did this happen?"
"Less than an hour ago."
"Can you feed us cold food?"
"Limppu and butter, cold boiled eggs, some cold meat . . . I might as well use the meat up; there's no refrigeration now. Uno and Arvo are digging a cold hole on the shady side of the tavern, like in the old days. When they're done, I can keep things in it. But not frozen; not in summer."
They went to the table and sat down in the half-dark. There were only seven of them now, the three Finnish forestry people plus one from the Minerals Ministry, along with Anna Vuorinen, Demidov, and Migruder's interpreter, Morgan. The tavernkeeper, who'd sent his cook home, went into the kitchen and clattered around. Meanwhile there was no radio—no music, no news bulletins.
The conductor came stamping in. "There is no power!" he said. "I cannot recharge the batteries!"
"Tell us something we don't know," growled Lytikäinen, and gestured at the wooden chandelier, lightless overhead.
"How far can we go on the charge left in the batteries?" Ikola asked.
The conductor shook his head. "I don't know. Not all the way to Metsäjoki though, I think. The engineer should he here soon. He'll at least have some idea."
They ate in a silence broken only once, by the tavernkeeper. "You really think they've blown up the dam?" he asked Ikola.
"I don't know it," Ikola answered, "but I feel sure of it. I've never heard of the power failing in Koillinen Province before. Not along the railroad, anyway."
The cook stared thoughtfully at an upper corner of the room, then brightened. "When I was a boy, there was a big wood range in the kitchen here, and a tall, wood-burning oven. My father made me split wood for them each day. I think they may be in Pesonen's old barn. I could move them back in here." He paused. "But it wouldn't be worthwhile if the trains don't run. I wonder if they cut up the old wood-burning engines for scrap?"
Perhaps, Demidov thought, the dam wasn't blown up. Perhaps somehow the power line was broken. True it was underground, but there might have been a landslide somewhere along the line, or a torrent. He shook his head. No. The dam is blown up.
The engineer came in then, swearing. "Saatana! Those bastards have really done it to us! Now I can't recharge the batteries!"
"How close to Metsäjoki can we get without a recharge?" Ikola asked.
"What's the point of going to Metsäjoki?" the engineer countered. "There won't be any electricity there either. Take my word for it."
"The point is the reserve armory there."
The engineer said nothing for a long half minute. "You think the Saurons will come even here? To Koillinen Province?"
"Maybe, maybe not; we need to be prepared." Ikola repeated his question then, "How far can we get?"
"I'm not sure. We might get halfway."
"That's a lot closer than this," Lytikäinen said.
"Shit." The engineer looked dejected. "I'm only two standard years short of my pension. And now this! And Erkki"—he indicated the conductor—"is almost as close."
"Four and a half," the conductor said. He looked as if he hadn't considered that aspect of it before. "Those rotten bastards!"
The room was quiet then, except for the sounds of tableware and eating. When they were done, they left, but not until Lytikäinen and the conductor had each bought a liter of whiskey. Demidov wondered if the tavernkeeper would be paid for their meals, now that the trains had stopped. He also wondered if it would make any difference. Would the economy continue in some sort of clumsy fashion, adjusting as it went?
The sun shone as if nothing had happened. The radio had said the radioactive plume from the power plant was drifting south. At least they didn't have that to worry about. At least not yet.
Partway to the train they met Migruder coming down the street. He was drunk and looked truculent. The rest went on while Ikola, Dufva, and Morgan tried to talk the Nevadan into turning around and going back to the train. Anna Vuorinen waited nearby in the shade of a steelwood tree. When Migruder insisted on eating first, Dufva and Morgan started with him to the tavern. They'd grab something he could eat on the train, Dufva said. Ikola and Demidov, with Vuorinen, began sauntering back toward the railroad.
They were eighty meters from the train when Ikola heard the howl of a fighter's heavy engines. Instinctively, without ever having heard the sound before, he sprinted for the cover of a cluster of trees near the street, the others a jump behind. A series of explosions stunned them, and the locomotive and passenger cars split apart where they stood, pieces of debris raining down for ten seconds or more.
Ikola was up and running again. After their heads cleared, Demidov and Vuorinen dashed after him.
Indeed the stone age! They were even destroying the railroad rolling stock.
They didn't find actual bodies, only what was left of them: the engineer's in the wreckage of the locomotive cab, the conductor's in the first car, Lytikäinen's and the man from Minerals in the second. By that time Dufva and Morgan had run up too, and within minutes there were some hundred townspeople as well. And Migruder. The Nevadan looked sober now, Ikola thought, sober and full of anger. Somehow Ikola's own anger had receded. Migruder! I should tell him he saved our lives, Ikola told himself. He'd really he mad then.
Susilähde had a reserve rifle platoon, with its own small armory that held nothing heavier than rifles. One of its radiomen called battalion headquarters at Metsäjoki. The armory there was intact; presumably the Saurons hadn't recognized it.
Within the hour, Ikola, a captain in the reserves, had signed out several surplus packsacks, canteens and sleeping bags from the supply sergeant, along with five assault rifles, magazine belts, and an automatic pistol. All of them, including Vuorinen, had worn heavy woods boots when they'd left Hautaharju. The tavernkeeper provided them with potatoes and turnips and a large block of cheese. It was 130 kilometers to Metsäjoki, with no guarantee what they'd find there, but there were two small villages along the way, and some logging camps. With luck they wouldn't have to sleep out in the chill of dimday or the hard cold of true night.
Ikola had given one of the packs to Migruder and one to Morgan. Migruder was grimly determined to walk the thousand or so kilometers to New Reno. Like the others, he had a small stock of groceries, but supplemented with two liters of whiskey. He'd had a revolver in his luggage all along, and had salvaged it from the wreckage. Now it rode in its holster at his waist.
Finally they started for the railroad again: Ikola, Dufva, Demidov, and Anna Vuorinen. And Morgan; Morgan was going with the Finns. His mother had been Finnish—it was she who'd taught him the language—and he'd had a bellyful of Migruder.
They didn't know what the world situation would be when they arrived at Metsäjoki.
Migruder too walked to the railroad, but apart from the others and somewhat behind them. When they reached the right-of-way, Ikolo told the others to go on, he'd catch up with them. Then he waited till Migruder arrived.
"Migruder," he said.
The Nevadan didn't answer, merely stopped and scowled.
"Good luck," Ikola said in Americ, and held out his hand.
Migruder stared for a moment, first at the hand, then into Ikola's face and his hostility seemed to fade. Nonetheless he turned without answering or meeting Ikola's proffered hand. He simply showed his broad back and started south along the right-of-way past the string of log cars on the siding. Ikola watched him go, then turning, strode north past the wreckage.
The others had gone only a little way. glancing back. Now they stopped to wait. Ikola caught up with them, and together they hiked north along the tracks, past the railyard and into the forest.