But eventually everyone died. No pilot survived. Information telemetry went back to Almira, so there was a record, but no fighters or pilots of the first wave returned.
The boojum lived.
Its course toward Almira did not alter.
The second wave of Almiran fighters held its position, waiting for counsel, waiting for orders, waiting.
The third and final wave sat on the ground.
"I won"t say that"s what we expected would happen, but it was certainly a possibility we feared." Dr.
Epsleigh turned away from the information screens. The others in the room were quiet, deadly silent, as an occasional sob escaped. Faces set in grim lines. Tears pooled in more than a few eyes.
"Now what?" said Tanzin quietly.
Morgan asked, "Will we join the second wave of fighters?"
Most of the hundred pilots in the briefing hall nodded. Weight shifted. Chairs sc.r.a.ped noisily. Noses were blown into handkerchiefs.
Holt said, "What is the plan now?"
"Bad odds I can live with," said Amaranth, stretching his ma.s.sive arms, joints cracking. "a.s.sured mortality does not thrill me."
Dr. Epsleigh surveyed the room. "I"ve conferred with the Princess Elect and every strategist, no matter how oddball, we can round up." Given time, we might be able to rig heavier armaments, plan incredibly Byzantine strategies. There is no time," She stopped.
"So?" said Tanzin.
"We"re open to ideas." Dr. Epsleigh looked around the room again, scrutinizing each face in turn.
The silence seemed to dilate endlessly.
Until Morgan Kai-Anila cleared her throat. "An idea," she said. Everyone stared at her. "Not me." She slowly pointed. "Him."
And everyone stared at Holt.
"I don"t think it will work," said Holt stubbornly.
"Have you got a better idea?" Morgan said.
The young man shook his head in apparent exasperation. "It"s like a bunch of kids trying to mount a colonization flight. They borrow their uncle"s barn and start building a starship back behind the house."
Morgan said, "I hope my suggested plan is a bit more realistic."
"Hope? That machine out there just killed a whole borking planet!"
The woman said stiffly, "I know my plan has a chance."
"But how much of one?"
"Holt, can you come up with better?" Tanzin looked at him questioningly-almost, Holt thought, accusingly. He said nothing, only slowly shook his head no. "In the final seconds before a combat run,"
Tanzin said, "you"ve got to choose a course." She shrugged. "If Occam"s razor says your only option is faith, then that"s what you fly with. Okay?" With her one good eye, she surveyed the others.
"All right, then." Morgan looked over at Dr. Epsleigh. The four of them had adjourned to a smaller office to consult.
"Can you arrange transport? The fighters would be faster, but I doubt there"s any place close to set down."
Dr. Epsleigh punched one final key on the desk terminal. "It"s already done. There"ll be a windhover waiting as soon as you get outside. Is it necessary you all go?"
"I really would like to accompany Holt," said Morgan. She glanced at Tanzin.
"I may as well stay here. If this c.o.c.kamamie plan works, I can start the preparations from this end. Just keep me linked and informed."
Dr. Epsleigh said, "I"ll get a larger transport dispatched to follow you north. If you can make progress and see some future in continuing this scheme, the transport will have plenty of s.p.a.ce for your, um, friends."
"Are the villagers expecting us in North Terrea?" asked Holt.
Dr. Epsleigh nodded. Her tousled black hair fell into her eyes. She shook it back and blinked. Evidently she had been awake for a long time. "They"re under a most extreme request to cooperate. I don"t think you"ll have any difficulty. Besides, you"re the fair-haired local boy who made good, true?"
"See?" Morgan smiled tiredly and took Holt"s arm. "You can come home again."
"Well," said Morgan, "I admit it"s not the sort of jewel that Oxmare is." North Terrea sat in awesome desolation in the middle of a cold and windswept semi-arctic plain. The town was surrounded by ore processors, rolling mills, cracking towers flaring jets of flame, and all manner of rusting heavy machinery.
"It"s grown since I was last here," observed Holt.
"What brought colonists here first?" Morgan began to decelerate the windhover. The craft skimmed along two meters above frozen earth.
Holt shrugged. "Molybdenum, adamantium, t.i.tanium, it"s hard to say. These plains used to be one of the "Reen"s great hunting preserves. That ended quickly. North Terrea was built in a day or so, the "Reee were driven off, the game mostly left of its own accord. That which stayed either got shot by human hunters or was poisoned by industrial chemicals."
"Self-interest run rampant," mused Morgan. "Did no one ever try to put the brakes on?"
"I suspect a few did." Holt looked vague, almost wistful. "I don"t think they got too far. There were livings to be made here, fortunes to be wrested from the ground." His tone turned angry and he looked away from her to the fast-expanding image of North Terrea.
"I"m sorry," she said, words almost too soft to hear.
They were indeed expected. A small group of townspeople waited for them as Morgan set the windhover down at North Terrea"s tiny landing field. At first Morgan couldn"t tell the gender of the members of the welcoming party. Dressed in long fur coats, they were obscured by falling snow. The great, light flakes drifted slowly down like leaves from autumn trees.
Morgan cat the windhover"s fans and opened the hatch to a nearly palpable miasma of ice-cold industrial stench. She squinted against, the flakes tickling her face and realized that some of the greeters wore thick beards. Presumably they were the men.
"I hope those coats are synthetics," said Holt, as much to himself as to Morgan, "or dyed skelk."
"I think they are," said Morgan, avoiding pa.s.sing an expert opinion. They don"t have any of the quality and gloss my parents" coats do, she carefully did not say aloud.
The greeting party trudged toward them across the landing pad, packed snow squeaking beneath their boots. Holt and Morgan climbed out of the c.o.c.kpit and down past the ticking, cooling engine sounds.
"Holt, my boy," said the man in the forefront, opening his arms for an embrace. Holt ignored the gesture and stood quietly, arms at his sides. The man tried to recover by gesturing expansively. "It"s been a while since we"ve seen you, son."
"Haven"t the checks been arriving?" asked Holt.
"Punctually, my boy," said the man. "Our civic fortunes rise with boring regularity, thanks to you and that fey ship of yours." He turned to address Morgan. "I forget my manners. I"m Kaseem MacDonald, the mayor hereabouts. The "cast from Wolverton informed us you"d be Morgan Kai-Anila, true?"
Morgan inclined her head slightly.
"We"ve certainly heard of you," said the mayor. "We"re all great fans."
Morgan again nodded modestly.
"There isn"t much to do of a winter night other than to keep tabs on the narrowcast and see what fighters like you and our boy here are doing." Mayor MacDonald chuckled and clapped Holt on the shoulder.
"Sure hope you two never have to go up against each other.""
Holt spoke in a low voice. "I think there are arrangements for refueling us?"
"Plenty of time for that," said the mayor, his head bobbing jovially as if it were on a spring. "Our grounders"ll tank you up again during the feast. Heh, grounders." He chuckled again. "We even pick up the talk from the "casts."
"What feast?" asked Holt and Morgan, almost together.
"We don"t have time to fool around," said Morgan.
"I believe the message from the capital was a priority request," said Holt.
The other North Terreans looked on. Morgan didn"t think they looked either particularly happy or hospitable. Mayor MacDonaid showed teeth when he grinned. "You need sustenance just as much as the windhover does. Besides, you can meet some of my local supporters and I know they"d love to meet you. I"m running for re-election again, you know."
"We can"t do it," said Holt. "There"s no time."
"I"m not saying a long dinner," said the mayor. "Just time to eat and say h.e.l.lo to the folks and be seen.
Everybody can use a little reminder of where those venture investment checks come from."
"No," said Morgan. "I don"t think so. We"ve got to-"
The mayor interrupted her smoothly. "-to get some nourishment and relaxation before continuing whatever your urgent mission is."
"No."
"Yes," sad the major "It"s necessary. You"d be shocked, I"m sure, to learn how erratic the ground crew here can be when they aren"t working refreshed and rested."
Morgan said, "Why, this is-"
This time it was Holt who interrupted her. "We"ll take refreshment," he said, his gaze locked on the mayor"s. "It will be a brief delay "
Mayor MacDonald beamed. "I"m sure your refueling will be as brief, and extremely complete and efficient."
Holt glanced at Morgan and smiled coldly at the mayor. "Then let"s be about it."
The mayor waved toward the terminal building. "It isn"t far, and warm transport awaits."
As the group trudged off across the field, it seemed to Morgan that she was feeling something like a sense of capture. The fur-coated North Terreans surrounding her reminded Morgan of great sullen animals. Their fur might be synthetic fiber, but it still stank in the moist fog that hung low over the town.
Starships descending atop stilts of flame.
Cargoes of frozen optimists being sledded into chromed defrosting centers.
Towns and villages carved out of tundra winterscapes.
The occasional city erected in the somewhat more temperate equatorial belt.
A developing world torn from wilderness.
The triumph of a people.
Heaps of slain "Reen piled beyond the revetments of a fort constructed from ice blocks.
Morgan stared at the towering starships. "That"s not right," she said bemusedly. "The big ships stayed in orbit. The shuttles brought the pa.s.sengers and supplies down. Then the larger vessels were disa.s.sembled and ferried down to be used as raw materials. I learned all that when I was three."
"It"s artistic license," Holt answered, his own gaze still fixed on the scene of the slaughtered "Reen.
"Historical accuracy is not the virtue most prized in North Terrea." In the fresco in front of him, the attackers had outnumbered the beleaguered humans by at least ten to one.
"It"s not that good, just as art," said Morgan. The mayor"s circular dining room was lined with the sequence of historical frescoes. "And it really doesn"t trigger my appet.i.te."
Other dinner guests were filtering into the room and beginning to sit at the semi-circular tables. The mayor was off in the kitchen on some unspecified errand. Holt said, "The good people of North Terrea are pragmatists. When the community decided to pay lip service to culture and proclaim a painter laureate, the choice of frescoes in here rather than any other medium was because the plaster would lend an additional layer of insulation."
"Laying it on with a trowel, eh, boy?" said Mayor MacDonald, coming up behind them. "I hope you both are hungry." Without his long fur coat, the mayor looked almost as bulky, dark signs of hirsuteness curling from sleeve-ends and at his collar. The blue-black beard curled down to mid-sternum. "Skelk steaks, snow oysters, my wife"s preserves from last green season, shrake liver pate, barley gruel; let me tell you, it"s one extravagant meal."
"We"re grateful," said Morgan. "Can we start soon?"
"In a blink, my dear." Both Morgan and Holt felt a heavy, mayoral hand descend on a shoulder. Mayor MacDonald raised his voice and said, "All right, friends, citizens, guild-mates. On behalf of all of us who make up the populace of North Terrea, I want to welcome formally our guests; Holt, here, wise I know you all remember fondly"-his hand clamped down, long, powerful fingers paternally crashing Holt"s clavicle-"and Morgan Kai-Anila, the splendid contract pilot so many of us have watched and admired on late-night battlecasts." Warned by the look on Holt"s face, Morgan had tensed her shoulder muscles.
It was still difficult not to wince.
The scattering of applause around the dining room did not seem over-enthusiastic.
"Our boy here," continued the mayor, "and his friend, are just pa.s.sing through. As best I can figure, they"re heading off on some solemn but secret mission for our kin down in Wolverton. Naturally we here in North Terrea are delighted to lend whatever aid we can in this mysterious activity."
Neither Holt nor Morgan decided to pick up the cue.
"Now I have a theory," said Mayor MacDonald, "that all this has something to do with the rumors about someone attacking our neighbor world toward the sun. If that"s so, then we all can wish only the best fortune to these two, Pilots Calder and Kai-Anila."
The applause was a bit more prolonged this time.