Dark Foundations (58 page)

“Rather you than me. The whole lot give me the creeps. Can't put my finger on it though.”

“A widespread observation. Do you have anything else for me?”

“Two chambers have just been built at the base. We don't know what they're for. They wouldn't say.” Eric unrolled the plans and pointed out the features. “We weren't allowed to take a good look at them. One, dug into rock, is just outside the existing structure. The other's near a rear door. It has reinforced walls, and it's lockable.”

Vero checked the dimensions.
A chamber for a baziliarch
,
as Azeras predicted, and a pen for a Krallen pack
. “Are they empty?”

“So far.”

“Anything else?”

“Just this. They want us all clear of the base by tomorrow night. A landing's scheduled at midnight. The cargo manifest has not been declared.”

Is this the baziliarch being delivered?
“Well done.”

Eric rose to leave. “Need anything else, Mr. V.?”

“No, thank you.” Vero began looking at the schematic map of the Isterrane foundation levels on the wall. “I have a welcome to prepare.”

That evening, Merral had a call from Isabella, who was working late in her office. She wore an immaculately pressed white blouse with an elegant gold chain and had an air of being someone very important.

After some conversational preliminaries that were at least polite, Isabella asked, “How are the dealings with the ambassadors going?”

“Well, interesting. We're making progress.”

“That is so noncommittal. So typically Merral.”

Merral forced himself to smile. “I'm learning what our ancestors call diplomacy.”

“I gather they want a treaty. It's going to be on the broadcast in an hour's time.”

“I wasn't aware that the treaty is public knowledge.”

“It is. You think we should accept?”

“You can ask me that, but I can't answer.”

“Of course,” she replied wearily. “You have to be diplomatic. But what's the alternative? Permanent isolation? Another incursion? We have problems. We are a planet waiting for a catastrophe to happen.”

“So you are positive about the treaty?”

“Merral, I believe that these people can offer us so much,” she said, a glint of excitement in her eyes. “Our society has only known the rule of the Assembly with all its limitations. These people have been free—free to investigate wherever and whatever. What they can teach us is beyond imagining.”

“There are certainly great opportunities,” Merral replied slowly. He was anxious not to say anything that might provoke a flare-up of warfare with Isabella, but felt troubled by her uncritical enthusiasm.

“Oh, Merral, you are still so cautious,” Isabella replied, her voice full of reproof. “I was really calling to say that I'm going to Langerstrand myself.”

“
You
are?” Suddenly, Merral felt that he ought to warn her.

“Don't sound so surprised! Yes, to help with the program they've set up at the base. I will be the Ynysmant delegate. Enatus approved it. I don't know how he will manage without me, poor little thing.” She paused. “Merral, you're frowning. Don't you think I should go?”

“Well, I am . . . less enthusiastic about these people. I don't have a good feeling about them.”

“A
feeling
?” She gave a little snort. “A prejudice, that's all. They are just fundamentally different to us. And being fundamentally different is not the same as being wrong.”

“I know.”

“They could have seized Farholme by force, you know. But they haven't.”

“True.” In one part of Merral's mind a voice said,
Warn her
,
stop her from going,
but in another, a different voice said,
Don't waste your energy
;
it's her choice
. In the end he tried to compromise. “Do you have to go?”

“Yes. You can't stop me. I have as much right as you to go.”

“But . . .”

“But what?”

I give up
. “Nothing. Go to Langerstrand. It's your choice.”

21

T
he following day the team to visit the
Dove of Dawn
was taken by the shuttle from Langerstrand up to the orbiting parent vessel. The team had been drawn from various sources and included a number of engineers whom Perena recommended.

Shortly after the
Dove
shuttle took off, Merral had another meeting with the ambassadors. As Hazderzal talked about the economic basis of the Dominion worlds Merral found his attention wandering.

Afterward, as they took refreshments, Tinternli, who wore a long, red dress of a smooth fine-textured cloth that seemed to sway with a life of its own, came over to Merral.

“Commander,” she said, “I could see that you found that tiresome. Would you walk with me outside?”

Merral agreed and in the noontide sun they strolled out of the building and up a low rise overlooking the newly completed liaison base.

“Let us sit down,” she said and lowered herself onto a carpet of soft heather.

Merral sat facing her.

“Tell me what I am seeing,” she said, sweeping strands of hair from her face and shading her eyes.

Merral noticed that she didn't seem to sweat.
Elegance
—
that's the word
. He pointed out the Edelcet Marshes, Hereza Crags, and Mount Adaman glinting hazily in the midday sun, before turning to the bare headland around them. “I apologize for this. One day it will be forested.”

“You would wish to be back in Forestry?” Tinternli's voice seemed full of sympathy.

Despite all his suspicions, Merral warmed to her. “Very much.”

“Then you are wise. There is far more to life than war and even diplomacy.” Her smile seemed queenly. “But your return to the Forestry you love may be arranged. Not all our worlds are as fine as Khalamaja and even there, there is work to do. Forestry is not a profession that flourishes in worlds at war. You have skills we need and can use.” Her smile seemed to radiate tenderness. “Why, Commander—or should I say, Forester—we have whole planets that could be yours.”

At the words
whole planets
Merral felt a novel thrill. Images unfolded in his mind of worlds bursting to overflowing with an almost infinite variety of forests planted and nurtured by him. The vision was so compelling in its beauty and splendor that his heart swelled with a fierce longing. He trembled and was suddenly aware that Tinternli looked at him inquiringly.

“An attractive offer,” he said.
And it is.

“It can be yours, if you'd cooperate.” The words were gentle.

The images returned. Merral saw arid dusty landscapes of rock and dirt turn before his eyes into swathes of woodlands in a thousand shades of green, full of broad-trunked oaks, lofty elms, light and airy poplars, towering firs, and a hundred other species. He gasped at the extraordinary loveliness of it all.

It's a temptation,
said a faint voice in his head.

Don't be silly,
a second voice said.
Temptations are to do with power and sex, not trees.

A temptation can be about anything
, replied the first voice.

But this is about doing good,
countered the second voice,
making dead planets live.

Suddenly, Merral came to a realization. “I don't want whole worlds,” he said, the force of his words startling him and dispelling the vision. “Ambassador, it seems to me that there are limits to what we can be. I would prefer to work in a little area and know it well, than to work on a vast area and never really master it. We must choose depth or breadth, and I choose depth.”

He paused. “In other words, I just want my job back.”

Tinternli stared at him, a look of rebuke in her brown eyes. “Oh, the great weakness of the Assembly. You don't want enough. You are content with gardens when you could have forests, with lakes when you could have oceans, with hills when you could have mountains.” Beneath the sweetness of her words he heard the bitter tang of contempt.

“Maybe, Ambassador, that is the ultimate difference between us. We try to limit our desires to what the Most High wants us to have. You set no such limits.”

“Perhaps so,” she said and looked away.

Merral felt a sudden need to challenge the woman who had tempted him in this way. “Ambassador Tinternli, we believe in the Three-in-One. You believe in . . . what?”

She pouted. “We emphasize the One; you, the Three-in-One; Is the math that different?”

“We trust in the Lamb—the One who died, rose, and will return in power.”

At this Tinternli adjusted her dress, tilted her head, and wound her fingers in her hair. “Good words. The Assembly does a fine line in words.” Her voice was gentle, almost sorrowful. “But let me be honest with you, Merral. This
return
. Long years have passed since that belief was formulated.” She bent down, picked up some sand, and let the grains slip slowly through her long fingers. “Thirteen . . . thousand . . . years. . . .” The way she stretched the words seemed to bring home to Merral an awesome immensity of time. “And has he been seen?” she asked, her brown eyes seeming to stare into him. “In all that time? In all those long years?”

As Merral hesitated, the words came to him. “Ambassador Tinternli, I am a forester, not a theologian. But I know forests do not grow overnight. Oaks take centuries. The test of whether a forester has created a living forest will be generations away. And if it is so for trees, why might it not be even more so for worlds and cultures? God's time is surely the right time, however long it is.”

“As ever, fine words. But, Commander, you are right—there are differences between us. But—and we will not say it openly to your people—the biggest is this: we do not have your confidence. We see no sign of a divinely ordained finish to history. It is open-ended.” Her voice was stronger now. “The future is ours to seize and ours to make of it what we choose. That is what once made us the Freeborn and what makes us the Dominion now.”

Troubled by her words, Merral fell silent and bent down to pick up a small stone as if by some action he could hide his consternation. As he did, Ringell's identity disk swung forward so that it slipped out of his shirt.

“That disk,” Tinternli said, a sharp, almost hissing edge to her voice. “It is odd.”

Merral quickly slipped it back out of sight. “It's an heirloom.” He knew that he sounded defensive.

“It looks like . . . an ancient military identity disk.”

“Well, it's something like that. We don't use them today. Do you?”

“But your last war was a very long time ago . . . against our people.”

“I'm sorry. It's a bit thoughtless of me wearing it, isn't it? But it was given me by an old man who is now dead. So, I wear it.”

“And whose name is on it? May I see?” Tinternli asked. In her brown eyes Merral saw a seething brew of fear and anger.

She knows
.
She may not be able to read my thoughts, but she has guessed whose name is on the disk.

He shook his head as he rose. “It has already caused enough embarrassment. I would prefer to forget it. Anyway, I think it's time to return.”

Without a word, she followed him back to the center.