The star fox, p.19
The Star Fox, page 19
“Fox will make a covering raid when I send word.”
“What? She is that close, undetected? How the devil? And how can a maser beam find her when Aleriona radar can’t?”
“My engineer is off explaining the setup to your technical staff. Let us stick to the tactical side for now. The diversion should be ample. One well-armed ship, striking by surprise, can raise all kinds of hell. Once Meroeth’s in space, Fox will escort her to the limit. According to all our information—from instruments, radio monitor, captured documents, and so forth; we’ve got a man who can puzzle out the language if you give him time—most of the enemy strength here is chasing through the Auroran System and beyond, looking for me. So we ought to be out of danger well before they can bring more power to bear against us than Fox can handle.”
The colonel frowned. “You juggle too many unknowns for my taste.”
“Or mine,” Heim said dryly. “But one way to clear away some of ’em is obvious. Let me go along with your delegation to the Aleriona. They won’t know I’m not just another colonist. But I know them pretty well. I ought to, after so many years sparring with them. I also have a professional Navy eye, which they won’t be expecting. Endre should come too. He’s got a poet’s grasp of non-human psychologies.
Between us, we can not only help you make a better deal, but carry back a lot of useful information to base our specific plans on.”
“M-m-m … well—” De Vigny pondered a moment. Then, crisply: “So be it. Time is short, and we do not really have much to lose. This, then, is the schedule as I understand it We begin at once to arrange evacuation. During the next few days, the people chosen can flit in by ones and twos. We must also load supplies, and must not be observed doing it. But my men .can run a cargo tube from the forest to one of your locks below water, without exposing it to the sky.
“Meanwhile I establish radio contact with the Aleriona and ask for a parley. They will doubtless agree, especially since their new chief of naval operations seems, from Lieutenant Irribarne’s account, to be a rather decent fellow. I daresay they will receive our representatives already tomorrow.
“If we can reach an agreement, cessation of guerrilla operations and perhaps the supplying of some engineers in exchange for vitamins—good. Whether that works out or not, the delegation returns here.
“Then your ship attacks to get this transport safely away. “After that, if we are provided with the capsules, you continue your warfare in space as long as possible. If not, and if we cannot steal them, I call the enemy again and offer an end to your activities, provided he supplies us. This he is virtually sure to accept.
“At large cost or small, we shall have gained time, during which we hope Earth will come to help. Am I right?”
Heim nodded and got out his pipe. “That’s the idea,” he said.
De Vigny’s nostrils dilated. “Tobacco? One had almost I forgotten.”
Heim chuckled and threw the pouch on the desk. De Vigny picked up a little bell and rang it. And aide-de-camp materialized in the tent entrance, saluting. “Find me a pipe,” de Vigny said. “And, if the captain does not object, you may find one for yourself too.”
“At once, my colonel!” The aide dematerialized.
“Well.” De Vigny unbent a trifle. “Thanks are a poor thing, I monsieur. What can New Europe do for you?” ^ Heim grew conscious of Vadász’s half jocose, half sympathetic regard, blushed, and said roughly, “I have an old friend on this planet, who’s now Jean Irribarne’s sister-in-law. See to it that she and her family are among the evacuees.”
“Pierre will not go when other men stay,” the Basque said gently.
“But they shall most certainly come here if you wish,” de Vigny said. He rang for another aide. “Lieutenant, why do you not go with Major Legrand to my own flyer? It has a set which can call to anywhere in the Haute Garance. If you will tell the operator where they are, your kin—” .When that was done, he said to Heim and Vadász, “I shall be most busy today, it is plain. But let us relax until after lunch. We have many stories to trade.”
And so they did.
When at last de Vigny must dismiss them, Heim and Vadász were somewhat at loose, ends. There was little to see. Though quite a few men were camped around the lake, the shelters were scattered and hidden, the activity unobtrusive. Now and then a flyer came by, as often as not weaving between tree trunks under the concealing foliage. Small radars sat in camouflage, watching for the unlikely appearance of an Aleriona vessel. The engineers could not install their loading tube to the ship before night, unless one of the frequent fogs rose to cover their work. Men sat about yarning, gambling, doing minor chores. All were eager to talk with the Earthlings, but the Earthlings soon wearied of repeating themselves. Toward noon a degree of physical tiredness set in as well. They had been up for a good eighteen hours.
Vadász yawned. “Let us go back to our tent,” he suggested. “This planet has such an inconvenient rotation. You must sleep away a third of the daylight and be awake two thirds of the night.”
“Oh, well,” Heim said. “It wouldn’t be colonizable otherwise.”
“What? How?”
“You don’t know? Well, look, it has only half Earth’s mass, and gets something over 85 percent of the irradiation. The air would’ve bled away long ago, most of it, except that air loss is due in large part to magnetic interaction with charged particles from the sun. Even a G5 star like Aurore spits out quite a bit of stuff. But slow spin means a weak magnetic field.”
“Another thanks due to Providence,” the Hungarian said thoughtfully.
“Huh!” Heim snorted. “Then we’ve got to blame Providence for Venus keeping too much atmosphere. It’s a simple matter of physics. The smaller a planet is, and the closer to its sun, the less difference of angular momentum between the inner and outer sections of the dust cloud that goes to form it. Therefore, the less rotation.”
Vadász clapped his shoulder. “I do not envy you your philosophy, my friend. God is good. But we are in mortal danger of becoming serious. Let us, I say, return to the tent, where I have a flask of brandy, and—”
They were not far from it then, were crossing a meadow where flame-colored blossoms nodded in the golden grass. Jean Irribarne stepped from under the trees. “Ah,” he hailed, “vous voilà. I have looked for you.”
“What about?” Heim asked.
The lieutenant beamed. “Your friends are here.” He turned and called, “ ’Allo-o-o!”
They came out into the open, six of them. The blood left Heim’s heart and flooded back. He stood in a sunlit darkness that whirled.
She approached him timidly. Camp clothes, faded and shapeless, had today been exchanged for a dress brought along to the woods and somehow preserved. It fluttered light and white around her long-legged slenderness. Aurore had bleached the primly braided brown hair until it was paler than her skin; but still it shone, and one lock blew free above the heart-shaped face. Her eyes were violet.
“Madelon,” he croaked.
“Gunnar.” The handsome woman took both his hands. “C’est si ban te voir encore. Bienvenu.”
“A nej—” the breath rasped into him. He pulled back his shoulders. “I was surprised,” he said limpingly. “Your daughter looks so much like you.”
“Pardon?” the woman struggled with long unused English.
Her husband, an older and heavier version of Jean, interpreted while he shook Heim’s hand. Madelon laughed. “Oui, oui, tout le monde le dit. Quand j’etais jeune, peutêtre. Danielle, je voudrais que tu fasses la connaissance de mon vieil ami Gunnar Heim.”
“Je suis très honorée, monsieur.” She could scarcely be heard above the wind as it tossed the leaves and made light and shadow dance behind her. The fingers were small and cool in Heim’s, quickly withdrawn.
In some vague fashion he met teenage Jacques, Cecile, and Yves. Madelon talked a lot, without much but friendly banalities coming through the translations of the Irribarae brothers. All the while Danielle stood quiet. But at parting, with promises of a real get-together after sleep, she smiled at him.
Heim and Vadász watched them leave, before going on themselves. When the forest had closed upon her, the minstrel whistled. “Is that indeed the image of your one-time sweetheart, yonder girl?” he asked.
“More or less,” Heim said, hardly aware that he talked to anyone else. “There must be differences, I suppose. Memory plays tricks.”
“Still, one can see what you meant by—Forgive me, Gunnar, but may I advise that you be careful? There are so many years to stumble across.”
“Good Lord!” Heim exploded angrily. “What do you take me for? I was startled, nothing else.”
“Well, if you are certain … You see, I would not wish to—”
“Shut up. Let’s find that brandy.” Heim led the way with tremendous strides.
V
Day crept toward evening. But life kept its own pace, which can be a fast one in time of war. At sunset Heim found himself on a ness jutting into the lake, alone with Danielle.
He was not sure how. There had been the reunion and a meal as festive as could be managed, in the lean-to erected near the Irribarne flyer. Champagne, which he had taken care to stow aboard Meroeth, flowed freely. Stiffness dissolved in it. Presently they sprawled on the grass, Vaduz’s guitar rang and most voices joined his. But Heim and Made-Ion kept somewhat apart, struggling to talk, and her oldest daughter sat quietly by.
They could not speak much of what had once been. Heim did not regret that, and doubted Madelon did. Meeting again like this, they saw how widely their ways had parted; now only a look, a smile, a bit of laughter could cross the distance between. She was an utterly good person, he thought, but she was not Connie or even Jocelyn. And, for that matter, he was not Pierre.
So they contented themselves with trading years. Hers had been mild until the Aleriona came. Pierre, the engineer, built dikes and power stations while she built their lives. Thus Heim found himself relating the most. It came natural to make the story colorful.
His eyes kept drifting toward Danielle.
Finally—this was where the real confusion began as to what had happened—the party showed signs of breaking up. He wasn’t sleepy himself, though the wine bubbled in his head, and his body demanded exercise. He said something about taking a stroll. Had he invited the girl along, or had she asked to come, or had Madelon, chuckling low in the way he remembered, sent them off together with a remark about his needing a guide? Everybody had spoken, but between his bad French and hammering pulse he wasn’t sure who had said what. He did recall that the mother had given them a little push toward the deeper forest, one hand to each.
Song followed them a while (“Aupres de ma blonde, qu’il fait ban, fait ban, fait ban—”), but by the time they reached the lakeshore they heard simply a lap-lap of wavelets, rustic of leaves, flute of a bird. Aurore was going down behind the western peaks, which stock black against a cloud bank all fire and gold. The same long light made a molten bridge on the water, from the sun toward him and her. But eastward fog was rolling, slow as the sunset, a topaz wall that of the top broke into banners of dandelion yellow in a sky still clear with day. The breeze cooled his skin.
He saw her clasp arms together. “Avez-vous froid, mademoiselle?” he asked, much afraid they would have to go back. She smiled even before he took off his cloak, probably at what he was doing to her language. He threw it over her shoulders. When his hands brushed along her neck, he felt his sinews go taut and withdrew in a hurry.
“Thank you.” She had a voice too light for English or Norwegian, which turned French into song. “But will you not be cold?”
“No. I am fine.” (Damn! Did fin have the meaning he wanted?) “I am—” He scratched around for words. “Too old and … poilu? … too old and hairy to feel the weather.”
“You are not old, Monsieur Captain,” she said gravely.
“Ha!” He crammed fists into pockets. “What age have you? Nineteen? I have a daughter that which she—I have a daughter a few years less.”
“Well—” She laid a finger along her jaw. He thought wildly what a delicate line that bone made, over the small chin to a gentle mouth; and, yes, her nose tipped gaily upward, with some freckles dusted across the bridge. “I know you are my mother’s age. But you do not look it, and what you have done is more than any young man could.”
“Thanks. Thanks. Nothing.”
“Mother was so excited when she heard,” Danielle said. “I think Father got a little jealous. But now he likes you.”
“Your father is a good man.” It was infuriating to be confined to this first-grade vocabulary.
“May I ask you something, monsieur?” “Ask me anybody.” The one rebellious lock of hair had gotten free again.
“I have heard that we who go to Earth do so to appeal for help. Do you really think we will matter that much?”
“Well, uh, well, we had a necessity to come here. That is to say, we have now made establish communication from your people to mine in space. So we can also take people like you away.”
A crease of puzzlement flitted between her brows. “But they have spoken of how difficult it was to get so big a ship down without being seen. Could you not better have taken a little one?”
“You are very clever, mademoiselle, but—” Before he could construct a cover-up, she touched his arm (how lightly!) and said:
“You came as you did, risking your life, for Mother’s sake. Is that not so?”
“Uh, uh, well, naturally I thought over her. We are old friends.”
She smiled. “Old sweethearts, I have heard. Not all the knights are dead, Captain. I sat with you today, instead of joining in the music, because you were so beautiful to watch.”
His heart sprang until he realized she had been using the second person plural. He hoped the sunset light covered the hue his face must have. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “your mother and I are friends. Only friends.”
“Oh, but of course. I understand. Still, it was so good of you, everything you have done for us.” The evening star kindled above her head. “And now you will take us to Earth. I have dreamed about such a trip since I was a baby.”
There was an obvious opening to say that she was more likely to make Earth sit up and beg than vice versa, but he could only hulk over her, trying to find a graceful way of putting it She sighed and looked past him.
“Your men too, they are knights,” she said. “They have not even your reason to fight for New Europe. Except perhaps Monsieur Vadász?”
“No, Endre has no one here,” Heim said. “He is a troubadour.”
“He sings so wonderfully,” Danielle murmured. “I was listening all the time. He is a Hungarian?”
“By birth. Now he has no home.” Endre, you’re a right buck, but this is getting to be too much about you. “I have—have—When you arrive on Earth, you and your family use my home. I come when I can and take you in my ship.”
She clapped her hands. “Oh, wonderful!” she caroled. “Your daughter and I, we shall become such good friends. And afterward, a voyage on a warship—What songs of victory we will sing, homeward bound!”
“Well—um—We return to camp now? Soon is dark.” Under the circumstances, one had better be as elaborately gentlemanly as possible.
Danielle drew the cloak tight around her. “Yes, if you wish.” He wasn’t sure whether that showed reluctance or not. But as she started walking immediately, he made no comment, and they spoke little en route.
The party was indeed tapering off. Heim’s and Danielle’s return touched off a round of good-nights. When she gave him back his cloak, he dared squeeze her hand. Vadász kissed it, with a flourish.
On their way back through leafy blue twilight, the minstrel said, “Ah, you are the lucky one still.”
“What do you mean?” Heim snapped.
“Taking the fair maiden off that way. What else?”
“For God’s sake!” Heim growled. “We just wanted to stretch our legs. I don’t have to rob cradles yet.”
“Are you quite honest, Gunnar? … No, wait, please don’t tie me in a knot. At least, not in a granny knot. It is only that Mlle. Irribarne is attractive. Do you mind if I see her?”
“What the’ blaze have I got to say about that?” Heim retorted out of his anger. “But listen, she’s the daughter of a friend of mine, and these colonial French have a medieval notion of what’s proper. Follow me?”
“Indeed. No more need be said.” Vadász whistled merrily the rest of the way. Once in his sleeping bag, he drowsed off at once. Heim had a good deal more trouble doing so.
Perhaps for that reason, he woke late and found himself alone in the tent. Probably Diego was helping de Vigny’s sappers and Endre had wandered off—wherever. It was not practical for guerrillas to keep a regular mess, and the campstove, under a single dim light, showed that breakfast had been prepared. Heim fixed his own, coffee, wildfowl, and a defrosted chunk of the old and truly French bread which is not for tender gums. Afterward he washed, depilated the stubble on his face, shrugged into some clothes, and went outside.
No word for me, evidently. If any comes, it’ll keep. I feel restless. How about a swim? He grabbed a towel and started off.
Diane was up. Such light as came through the leaves made the forest a shifting bewilderment of black and white, where his flash-beam bobbed lonely. The air had warmed and cleared. He heard summery noises, whistles, chirps, croaks, flutters, none of them quite like home. When he emerged on the shore, the lake was a somehow bright sable, each little wave tipped with moonfire. The snowpeaks stood hoar be-nearth a universe of stars. He remembered the time on Staurn when he had tried to pick out Achernar; tonight he could do so with surety, for it burned great in this sky. His triumph, just about when Danielle was being born—“Vous n’etes pas vieux, Monsieur le Capitaine.”
