Hornbeck occupied a plateau jutting from a lower flank of Mount Nivis. North beyond a forest climbed the heights, up to where whiteness forever gleamed. In the west also the horizon was ridged, but to east and south vision met just sky at the end of plowlands. The gray stone manor house stood a little apart from a thorp of lesser dwellings and other buildings. Here was the origin of the Falkayn domain, in timber and iron; though its enterprises had since spread planetwide, here was still its heart.
Walking along a road that wound among the fields, he saw them empty at this season, stubble and bare brown soil except when cattle in pastures cropped the last Earthside grass which autumn had left. The day was clear, windless, and cool; so great a silence filled it that the scrunch of his boots on gravel seemed mysteriously meaningful. Far overhead a steelwing hovered, alert for prey. No cars flew by to trouble it, nor did any move across the ground. The whole settlement had withdrawn: sending few messages to the outside world and those curt; sending few of its members there and those, closemouthed, on the briefest of errands; inviting no visitors—as if in preparation for onslaught.
Which it would soon undergo, in a form more dangerous to it than physical attack, Falkayn thought.
He and his mother had come forth, this morning after his arrival, to talk together away from last night's loving turmoil. But for half an hour they walked speechless. After the years that had passed, he could not be sure what she was thinking. He himself found he could not dwell on plans. His body was too busy remembering.
Athena Falkayn finally took the word. She was a tall woman, still handsome and vigorous, white hair falling thick past her shoulders. Like her son, she wore a coverall ornamented by the family patch; but she had added a necklace of fallaron amber.
"David, dear, I was too happy to see you again, too horrified at the risks you've run and then realizing you did come through them safe—I couldn't say this erenow. Why are you really here?"
"I told you," he answered.
"Yes. To take over from Michael, as is your right."
"And my duty."
"No, David. You know better. John and Vicky"—her remaining two children, living elsewhere—"and their spouses are perfectly competent. For that matter, I was essentially in charge after your father died, Michael being away so much with his naval work. Or have you grown so foreign to us that you don't believe we can cope?"
Falkayn winced and rubbed his face. It was gaunt from days of hard traveling, living off the country; his party had not dared fly. "Never," he replied. "But with my, well, my experience—"
"Could you not have applied that more usefully in space, helping organize the war effort?" The glance she sent on high, where ships patrolled, was like a shaken fist.
"I doubt it," he said roughly. "Do you suppose the Commonwealth government would have any part of me? As for van Rijn—well, maybe I've made a bad mistake. Or maybe not. But . . . look, Hermes has always been at peace. The rough and tumble of history is unreal to you—to everybody living on this planet—no more than a set of names and dates we learn as children, and forget afterward because they mean nothing to us. I, though, I've seen war, tyranny, conquest, upheaval, among scores of races. It made me visit sites on Earth, from Jericho and Thermopylae to Hiroshima and Vladivostok, only there were more of them in between than anybody could have time for . . . . I know something about how these horrors work. Not much—the League's got plenty of people as well informed as I am or better—but I can claim more understanding than most Hermetians."
He gripped her arm. "Before I go on, please let some air into this vacuum I've been talking in," he craved. "Tell me what the situation is. I heard mention of a social revolution sponsored by the occupation authorities, but no details. Everybody yesterday was excited and—Lord, it did get to be one hooraw of a sentimental occasion, didn't it? Plus the cursing of traitors who've stirred up the Travers. It can't be as simple as that."
"No, 'tis not," Athena agreed. "Maybe you can see a pattern, different from what I fear I see."
"Tell me."
"Well, I'm a light-year from having all the facts, and I may be shading those I do have, according to my own biases. You should talk to others, consult news records—"
"Yes, of course." Falkayn laughed sadly. "Mother, I'm fifty years old. Uh, that's forty-five Hermetian."
Her smile responded in the same mood. "And I can't feel, I suppose I can believe but I can't feel it's been that long since the doctor laid you down on my stomach and I heard what a fine pair of lungs you had."
They walked on. The road was interrupted by a plank bridge crossing the Hornbeck itself. They halted at the middle and leaned on the rail, looking down through the water to the stones on the bottom which it made ripply. The current clucked.
"Well," she said in a low monotone, "you know the Baburites came into this system and announced we were their protectorate. They meant to take our few warships, but Michael led those out.
"Michael," she said again after a second, in pride and mourning.
Wyvernflies danced above the brook, golden on gauzy wings.
"I imagine Lady Sandra needed a moonful of nerve then," she continued. "The fleet gone, her oldest son with it—what an excuse to depose her. She must have stood up to those creatures and made them see that she alone could maintain a government, that otherwise they'd inherit anarchy on a planet about which they were nigh totally ignorant. Which was true. Her purpose is to save our lives, our way of living, as many and as much as she can. If she has to compromise, well, I at least will thank her for whatever she can keep."
Falkayn nodded. "You're wise, Mother. Listening to some of those hotheads last night . . . Help me tell them there's nothing romantic about war and politics."
Athena sent her gaze toward a glacier which gleamed under the snows of Mount Nivis. "Soon afterward, the Baburites brought in oxygen-breathing mercenaries, mostly human," she said. "Happens I've a little information about those, because the Duchess asked me to get folk I could trust to make inquiries, since businesses of our domain would inevitably be dealing with the occupiers and Lady Sandra knew I've always been close to our chief Followers.
"The humans and nonhumans are both a motley lot, recruited over a period of years—from the broken, the embittered, the greedy, the outlawed, the amoral, the heedless adventurous."
Falkayn nodded. Expanding through space with the speed and blindness of a natural force, Technic civilization had bred many such. "Recruitment alone must have required quite an organization, backed by plenty of resources," he said.
"'Tis plain," Athena answered. "I suppose their upper-echelon officers knew part of the truth; but the ranks weren't told. The story they were handed was this: A consortium of investors, who wanted to stay anonymous, was quietly preparing a free-lance army, crack troops who'd hire out at high prices wherever they might. That might be on behalf of societies which found themselves meeting a threat like the Shenna; or it might be to assist would-be imperialists venturing outside of known space. There was a strong hint that the Ymirites in particular were interested in that and would find oxygen-breathing auxiliaries useful on smaller worlds—for instance, to exact tribute in the form of articles manufactured to order."
Falkayn let a corner of his mouth bend upward. "I almost have to, no, I do have to admire their audacity," he said. "Ymir was a natural choice, however; it's a favorite object of superstition."
Because we know hardly a byte about it, he recalled. Our name for a giant planet, dwarfing Babur, whose inhabitants are traveling and colonizing through space but apparently uninterested in any close contact with us—or else have decided we're too hopelessly alien.
"I wonder why you, the League, got no inkling of all that recruitment," Athena said. "The best estimate I can make, from what reports of conversations I've gathered—and, yes, between us, interrogations of a few kidnapped soldiers—some small guerrilla activity has begun, we disown it publicly but word does filter back to us—" She drew breath. "Never mind. Mainly, my folk have counted the occupying troops as well as possible. They number about a million. Other information suggests that about as many more are being held in reserve."
Falkayn whistled.
And yet—"It's quite understandable why no intelligence of it reached us," he told her. "A couple of million individuals, collected piecemeal in tens of thousands of places on dozens of planets, they don't amount to a particularly noticeable statistic. Intrigues are forever going on anyway.
"Maybe agents of one or two companies did get some intimations. But if so, they or their bosses didn't see fit to pass the information on to the rest of us and push for a full investigation. Communication between members of the League is not what it used to be."
Space is too big, and we too divided.
Athena sighed. "I've gathered that.
"Well. The soldiers were warned they'd be in isolation for years. But the accumulating pay was excellent, and apparently some fairly lavish recreational facilities were provided, everything from beer halls and brothels to multi-sense library service. And of course the planet where they were sent had its natural wonders to explore, grim though 'twas, marginally terrestroid, hot, wet, perpetually clouded."
"Clouds?" Falkayn said. "Oh, yes. So nobody who wasn't cleared for Top Secret could figure out where it is."
"Its name among them was Pharaoh. Conveys that aught to you?"
"No."
"Maybe 'tis outside of known space altogether."
"Hm, I doubt that. Explorers keep expanding known space, and might well come upon it. I'd guess Pharaoh was visited once and is down in the catalogues with a number, not a name, as a not particularly interesting globe, compared to most others . . . . Okay. The army lived and trained there, till lately it shipped out and found it was working for Babur against the Commonwealth and possibly against the League. Has that shaken morale?"
"I really know not. My folk—like all true Hermetians—haven't gotten exactly intimate with them. My impression is that most of them still feel entirely confident. If anything, they're glad to lash out at a Technic civilization that kicked them aside. Surely the Merseians among them are. If any individuals do have qualms, military discipline keeps them quiet. That's a highly disciplined outfit."
Athena bowed her head. "I'm afraid I can't tell you more about them," she finished.
Falkayn laid his hand over hers, where it rested on the rail, and squeezed hard. "Judas priest, Mother, what are you apologizing for? You've missed your career. You should've been in charge of Nick van Rijn's intelligence corps."
Meanwhile he could not help thinking what an epic the gathering of the host was. Somebody very high-powered had been at work.
"Let's go on," Athena said. "I need to exercise the misery out of me."
Falkayn flinched as he matched his pace to hers. "Yes, it must be a foretaste of hell, having to sit helpless day after day while—Am I correct in thinking the Baburites originally promised no interference in our domestic affairs?"
"More or less."
"And then, once they were firmly based here, they reneged; and they've been pouring in additional troops, stationed over the entire planet, to deter revolt."
"Right. They planted a High Commissioner on us who's going ahead mostly as he pleases. If Lady Sandra gives him not a minimum of cooperation, 'tis plain he'll depose her and put us completely under martial law. But the poor brave lass stays on, with Christ knows how many struggles, in hopes of preserving some representation for Kindred, Followers, and loyal Travers . . . some part of our institutions."
"At the same time, by remaining Duchess, she does give a certain cachet of legitimacy to his decrees . . . . Well, who am I to criticize? I'm not there on the throne. Tell me about this High Commissioner."
"Nobody knows much. His name is Benoni Strang. That means naught to you either, not? Well, he claims being Hermetian, Traver born and raised. I did manage to have birth and school records checked, and they bear that out. Bad experiences early in life seem to have turned him into a revolutionary. But instead of becoming a Liberation Fronter, he went offplanet—got a scholarship from Galactic Developments to study Xenology—and nobody here heard a word about him for the next three decades, even his relatives, till suddenly he reappeared among the Baburites. He's very familiar with them, belike as much as is possible for an oxygen breather. But he's also been in topflight human circles; he's sophisticated."
Falkayn frowned across the fields. A loperjack padded from a hedge and over the stubble, small furry shape whose freedom was untouched by ships and soldiers. "And he's taking this chance to get revenge. Or to right old wrongs, he'd say. Same thing. Does the Liberation Front cheer him on?"
"Not really," Athena said. "Their leader, Christa Broderick, made a televised speech after the Commissioner proclaimed his intention of putting through basic social reforms. She welcomed that. Quite a few Libbies promptly resigned, declaring they're Hermetians first. And later, he's made no effort to enlist her organization as such; he's bypassing it entirely. She's grown resentful. Censorship won't allow her to denounce him openly, but her public silence indicates how she now stands. His Traver supporters are moving to form a new party."
"I'm not surprised at Strang's action," Falkayn observed. "He wouldn't want a strong native group for an ally. He'd have to give it a voice, and the voice wouldn't always echo his. If you plan to restructure a society, you start by atomizing it."
"He's said, through the throne, there'll be a Grand Assembly to draft a new constitution—as our present constitution provides for, you know—as soon as suitable procedures for the election of delegates can be set up."
"Ye-ih. That means as soon as he can rig it, without being too blatant about the fact that everything's happening under Baburite missile launchers. Do you know what changes he plans to make?"
"Naught's been definitely promised yet save 'an end to special privilege.' But we're hearing so much about one 'proposal' that I'm sure 'tis scheduled to be enacted. The domains will be 'democratized' and will conduct all their operations through a central trade authority."
"A good, solid basis for a totalitarian state," Falkayn said. "Mother, I did do right to come back."
She regarded him for a while before she asked, "What do you intend?"
"I'll have to learn more and think a lot before I can get specific," he replied. "Basically, though, I'll take over the presidency of this domain as I'm entitled to, and then organize resistance among the rest."
Appalled, she protested, "You'll be jailed the minute you reveal yourself!"
"Will I? Unlikely. I'll come onstage with fanfare. What have I done that was illegal? Nobody can prove how or when I arrived here. I could have been meditating in a backcountry hermitage since before the war. And . . . the Shenna episode made me a standard-model hero. Never mind modesty—the fact has often been a damned nuisance—but a fact it is. If Strang's proceeding as warily as you tell, he won't move against me without gross provocation, which I won't give. I believe I can rally the Kindred and Followers, get them out of their demoralization, and appeal also to plenty of Travers. When the Grand Assembly is called, we'll pull some weight in it. Probably not much, but some. We may at least be able to preserve elementary civil liberties, and keep Hermes enough of a symbol of that that the Commonwealth can't bargain us away."
"I'm afraid you're overoptimistic, David," Athena warned.
"I know I am," he answered grayly. "At best, I'll hate the next few years, or however long the war lasts—separated from Coya and our kids, with the same emptiness in their lives—
"But I've got to try, don't I? We can only lose all hope by giving up all hope."
Falkayn had left Adzel and Chee in the woods before he hiked the last several kilometers to the manor. Among his earliest concerns was to get them safely tucked away without too many people learning about them, even at Hornbeck.
Athena had been able to arrange it immediately. When the Baburites made known their intention to occupy, Duchess Sandra had distributed among trustworthy households those Supermetals personnel she had evacuated from Mirkheim. Athena took charge of Henry Kittredge, the ground operations chief. She sent him to a hunting lodge off in the wilderness. None but she and a few ultratrusted underlings who brought him his necessities knew he was there. He was delighted when the Wodenite and the Cynthian were guided—on their impellers, after dark—to keep him company.
In the morning, the three of them settled down for intensive talk. Kittredge sat on the porch of the log cabin, Chee perched on a chair beside his, Adzel lay at ease on the ground outside with his head rearing above the rail. Sunlight streamed past surrounding trees, turning vivid what leaves remained, yellow, russet, white, blue. Animal life made occasional remote drummings and flutings that drifted through speckled shadows. Otherwise the air was quiet, pungent, a little chilly.
"Books, music tapes, television," Kittredge said. "Chatter whenever somebody brought me more grub. It got lonesome. Worse, it got boring. I've caught myself wishing something would happen, anything, good or bad."
"Could you not take recreation in the forest?" Adzel asked.
"I've never dared go far. I might get lost, or come to grief in a hundred unpredictable ways. This planet is too unlike mine."
Chee flicked ashes off her cigarette at the end of its holder. "Vixen has a human-habitable hemisphere," she said, "including woodlands."
"But not like these, except in superficial appearance," Kittredge replied. "Hell, you know that, as many worlds as you've seen." Wistfully: "Me, I'd settle for just seeing Vixen again, and never stirring my butt off it anymore."
"Nor the rest of you, I presume," Chee muttered.
"I sympathize," Adzel said gently. "Home is home, no matter how stern."
"Vixen's a better place to live than it was," Kittredge said with an upsurge of pride. "Our share in Supermetals has paid for founding a net of weather stations, which we badly needed, and—Well, we've gained that much, whatever becomes of Mirkheim in the future."
Chee stirred restlessly. "It may make a difference in determining what gets done with Mirkheim if Adzel and I can continue our mission," she declared. "Have you any notion of how we might get a ship?"
Kittredge shrugged. "Sorry, none. No doubt it'll depend on how things are going elsewhere."
"You must have some idea about that," Adzel urged. "You've spent considerable time here watching broadcasts, and must also have talked to Hermetians at length viva voce."
Kittredge raised his brows. "Talked how?"
"Never mind him," Chee advised. "He gets that way occasionally."
"Well, I'm a total foreigner to this planet," Kittredge said. "And you two, what do you know about it, starting with its type of society?"
"A fair amount," Adzel assured him. "David Falkayn discussed it with us, over and over. He had to."
"Yes, I suppose he would," Kittredge said compassionately. "Well, then, as near as I can discover, the Baburites, through their human honcho, intend to mount a revolution on Hermes—from the top, though doubtless they expect to get support from the bottom. The whole scheme of law and property is to be revised, the aristocracy abolished, a 'participatory republic' established, whatever that means."
Adzel straightened his neck and Chee sat stiffly upright with her whiskers dithering. "Chu-wai?" she exclaimed. "Why in cosmos would the Baburites care what kind of government Hermes has, as long as they're in control?"
"I think they intend to stay in control," Kittredge answered. "Also after the war—for which purpose they'll have to have a pro-Babur native regime, since otherwise too much of their strength would be tied down here." He tugged his chin. "I figure this takeover of theirs is not just to forestall the Commonwealth's doing the same thing."
"Which was a poison-blooded lie from the first," Chee snapped. "The Commonwealth never had any such intention, and the Baburites can't be too stupid to know that."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure. Van Rijn would have gotten at least an intimation, and told us. Besides, we come straight from the Solar System. We've seen what disarray the war effort is in there—military unpreparedness, political uproar, a substantial party howling in terror for peace at whatever cost . . . The Commonwealth is not and never has been in shape to practice imperialism."
"Then why in the name of all that's crazy did the Baburites invade Hermes? And why do they want to keep it in the empire they'd build around Mirkheim?"
"That is a mystery," Adzel said, "among other mysteries, largest of which is the reason for Babur's launching a campaign of conquest in the first place. What does it hope to gain? As a world, a sophont species, it can only suffer a net loss by replacing peaceful trade with armed subjugation. Napoleon himself remarked that one can do everything with bayonets except sit on them. Of course, there may be a small dominant class on Babur which stands to make a profit—Hro-o-oh!"
He bounded to his feet. Chee snatched for the blaster she wore holstered. A car had appeared above the trees.
"Easy, easy," Kittredge laughed, getting up himself. "It's lugging in extra supplies to feed you two."
Adzel eased. Chee did so more slowly, as she inquired, "Isn't that a bit risky? An occupation patrol might notice."
"I asked the same question," Kittredge assured her. "The Lady Falkayn said the family's always let its servants use this lodge when they're off duty if it's not otherwise in demand. Nothing unusual about them flitting here for a few hours."
The car landed in the open before the cabin and the pilot got out. Kittredge recoiled. "I don't know him!" Chee's hand snaked toward her gun.
"I'm a friend," the stranger called. "Lady Athena sent me. I've brought your food." He approached, short, stocky, weatherbeaten, plainly clad, with a slightly rolling gait. "My name's Sam Romney, from Longstrands."
Introductions were made and hands shaken. Kittredge fetched beer and everybody settled down.
"I'm a fisherman," Romney related. "An independent shipowner, but I've done most of my business with the Falkayns, we've gotten pretty close, and in fact, uh, a lad of yours from Mirkheim is currently being supercargo on a herder of mine out at sea. The Hornbeck pantries can't supply a bonzer your size, Adzel, not without making a conspicuous hole on the shelves. So last night Lady Athena sent a messenger asking me to come with a lot, explaining roughly how matters stand. She also thinks, and I believe she's right, she thinks it might be useful, when nobody knows what'll happen next, it might be useful for you to have outside contacts."
"Perhaps," Chee muttered, coiled herself on a cushion, and started a fresh cigarette. Whatever harm had been done, was done.
Adzel gave the newcomer a searching look. "Excuse me," he said, "but are you of the Traver class?"
"Sure am," Romney replied.
"I do not mean to impugn your loyalty, sir, but I had been given to understand that considerable conflict exists on Hermes."
"The Travers on this manor can be trusted," Kittredge pointed out. "Otherwise I'd've been clutched weeks ago."
"Yes, of course, the phenomenon of the faithful retainer is reasonably general," Adzel said. "And obviously Captain Romney is on our side. I merely wonder how many more like him there are."
The seaman spat. "I don't know," he admitted. "That's one hell-wicked thing about having the enemy amongst us, we can't speak our minds out loud any longer. But I can tell you this, plenty Travers never swallowed that Liberation Front crock. Like me. I begrudge not the Kindred and the Followers an atom. Their ancestors earned it, and if they maintain it not, they can still lose it, fair and square. Besides, once a government starts dividing property up, where does it stop? I worked hard for what I have, and I mean for my youngsters to have it after me—not a cluttle of zeds who can't be bothered to do anything for themselves save fart in unison when their glorious leader says to."
He took out a pipe and tobacco pouch. "Also this," he continued, "several Libbies have told me, because you know people will talk now and then regardless, confidential-like, several Libbies have told me they're not happy either. They want not change pushed down everybody's throats by those creepie-crawlies; and Babur's using a traitor like Strang to do it makes the whole affair stink worse. And they, the Libbies, that is, they've not been invited into any conferences. Strang's given them a glop of praise for the, what's he say, the noble ideals they've long upheld—ptui!—he's given them a few fine words, like a bone thrown to a yellow dog, but that's been it."
Having stuffed his pipe, he applied fire before he ended: "Oh, we've got a fair-sized minority of yellow dogs, who're overjoyed at the prospects before 'em. I'll say to her credit, Christa Broderick, the Libbie leader, Christa Broderick's not among those. But what means that, save that the only thing she has left to lead is a powerless rump of the old organization? Maybe the Duchess will keep some small voice when the Grand Assembly gathers. But not Broderick, no, not Broderick."
Adzel met Chee's eyes. "Partner," he said, "I suspect we had better make sure that before he reveals himself or does anything else irrevocable, David talks with Lady Sandra."