Orion Shall Rise (65 page)

Walking toward them, Iern was not afraid. He had even set aside his grief over Jori. There was too much else to do. Never had he been at a higher pitch of aliveness, though the note that keened through him was winter-cold. His mind seemed to observe each last detail that heightened senses brought in – scuffed gray tiles underfoot; smudges on dull-green walls; off-white ceiling and pure-white fluorescent plates; whirr, breeze, chemical whiffs from ventilator grilles; the sharp smell and salt of his dried sweat; Ronica glimpsed beside him, head aloft, and her rangy gait – Ronica, who was surely torn and tormented beyond anything he had felt, but they could not now pause to deal with that, either –

As above, the guards sat at a table by the outer door, which was fully swung back. Today, when work had been suspended, the valve beyond was shut, a great oblong sheen of steel. These sentries were both men, both known to Iern and Ronica. Alfri Levayn, the younger, slim, dark, bespectacled, wore a gaudy shirt but read a book that was probably weighty. Torel Hos, balding and kettle-bellied in a dun coverall, puffed a cigar. He was the one who called, ‘Hey, what’s the word?’

‘True about the nukes,’ Ronica told them.

‘Um.’ Torel took the cigar stub from his mouth and looked gloomily at the lit end. ‘Well, the Mong did invade us.’

As the newcomers reached the table, he gave them a scrutiny that
became careful. ‘You two seem mighty shook up,’ he said. ‘And you’ve been sweating like mules. How come?’

‘The news was a shock, and the auditorium was packed beyond what the air conditioning can handle,’ Ronica replied.

Alfri laid his book down. The title showed:
A Short History of the East Roman Empire
. ‘I knew such weapons must have been built,’ he said dispassionately. ‘Only a few, of course, because no more could be spared from Orion. But it was not conceivable to me that there were none. What astonishes me is that the Maurai and the Mong ever assumed otherwise, that they failed completely to allow for it.’

‘I suppose they did allow for it as best they were able, but figured they must take the risk or see us win for certain,’ Torel guessed. To Iern and Ronica: ‘How’d the assembly go? Is it over yet? I haven’t seen or heard anybody except you guys.’

‘We left before it ended,’ Iern said. ‘The audience seemed enthusiastic. But it had developed into an oratory session. Ronica doesn’t care for that, and as for me, I have no business in your Northwestern politics, do I? It struck us that this is an ideal opportunity to check out some details about the ship.’

‘What?’ Torel said. ‘I thought everybody had the day off, except poor slobs like us.’

‘Correct. Which means no horde of workers to push through and engineers to argue with.’

Alfri’s eyes narrowed behind the spectacles. ‘Wait a little,’ he objected. ‘They’d be working on the rest of the fleet.
Orion Two is
finished.’

‘Yes, yes. But don’t you realize cut-and-try modifications are being made all the time, searching for improvement? The simulator has convinced me we could do better with the piloting-power interface. Too late to modify this ship, but Ronica and I will examine her again with these new ideas in mind, to see what we can propose for later models.’

‘We’ll be testing various controls,’ the woman added. ‘Strictly dry-run, of course. Don’t worry when the “Systems Active” sign goes on.’ She gestured toward an inset glass panel.

‘M-m, this
is
irregular,’ Alfri demurred.

‘Oh, balls, you know us,’ she said. ‘We have our passes on us, if you must see them.’

‘Our orders – Uh, Miz Birken, I’m not questioning your competence or anything like that, but we were informed that operations are
postponed till tomorrow, and the rule
is
that no one ever goes in except in regular line of duty or on a special pass.’

‘Yeh, yeh,’ Torel agreed. ‘You understand, don’t you, folks? No offense. If something should go wrong, Alfri and me’d be in the manure, and you too.’

Iern had hoped to avoid this, but known he might well encounter it. Ordinarily Norrfolk abided by the spirit rather than the letter of any policy, and the spirit tended to be whatever a given individual felt it ought to be. But in the present crisis, and with the outcome of twenty years under the lash of a dream dependent on yonder solitary vessel –

He and Ronica had discussed the problem on their way down. They could make no real plan, but they could think what the likeliest of the contingencies were, and arrange signals.

‘I’ll refer them to our chief!’
he said fast and harshly, in Francey. She returned a tiny nod.

‘What’s that?’ Torel inquired.

Iern shrugged. ‘I was swearing in my native language. Not at you, you have your duty, but at the stupid situation. Rainier Abron personally approved our suggestion. In the excitement, he didn’t write anything down. Try calling him at his office or his quarters, will you?’

‘Sure,’ Torel said. ‘I am sorry about this, Astronaut Ferlay.’ He settled himself before a telephone on the table.

‘No use anybody getting mad,’ Ronica said. Smiling, she hunkered on her heels.

‘Er, here, wouldn’t you like this chair?’ asked Alfri, and rose in haste.

‘No, thanks. I’m comfortable. Do sit. While we wait, Iern and I can describe the meeting to you, if you want.’

Alfri resumed his seat. ‘Probably no need as far as I am concerned,’ he said moodily. ‘I can guess. In fact, I volunteered for this assignment today, when I could have gone.’

‘Hm-m. And you’d been taking for granted we had killer nukes and would use them if hard pressed. What are you, precognitive?’

‘No. In my leisure, a student of history. My people tend to be. They’ve endured so much of it.’

‘Your people?’

‘Yesterday evening Rabbi Kemmer went about lamenting. He called for atonement, he recited Kaddish for the slain Mong. Others of us, like me, remembered Joshua; and the Captivity; the
Maccabees; and the destruction of the Temple; the Khazars; and the Holocaust; Ben-Gurion; and – It went on, Miz Birken, it went on in my mind. This is in the nature of things. The trick is to survive. In spirit still more than body.’

‘Then you’re glad we have the weapons?’

‘Of course not. The point is that we do, and Orion is saved.’ Alfri winced. ‘As for whether or not we should have built and used them –I’m weak and selfish enough to thank God that that wasn’t my decision to make.’

Torel put the telephone in its cradle. ‘I can’t raise Dr. Abron either place,’ he said. ‘Probably the, uh, rally hasn’t let out. Do you want to wait, or what?’

Iern glanced at a clock on the wall. In … seventeen minutes Wairoa should open the portal. ‘We may as well wait,’ he replied.

Alfri beamed. ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘At a time like this, it’ll be especially nice to have such good company.’

– ‘Oh, yes, the Domain is really something,’ Ronica declared. ‘I do recommend you visit it yourselves
if
you ever can. Not just monuments and quaint folkways, either. Some mighty jolly places. That dancing song, Iern, how’s it go?’ Her voice lilted Francey to a melody she probably improvised:
‘The alarm will be startling. If we’re ready, close to them, I think we can overcome. Try for a grip from behind and get their pistols
.’

The Clansman forced a smile. ‘You know I can’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow,’he said. ‘But if you’ll endure my croaking –
You take the younger man, I the older. Be sure that neither can reach a rifle
.’

Unspoken was the likely fate of Wairoa.

Alfri winced. ‘You’re right, sir,’ he agreed. ‘You can’t.’

‘The dance
is
easy to learn, and fun.’ Rising, Ronica took his hand. ‘C’mon, I’ll show you.’

‘Some fellows have all the luck,’ Torel grumbled.

‘Oh, I’ll teach you next,’ she promised. ‘Meanwhile stand aside and watch. Over there is a good vantage point.’ She indicated the opposite side of the corridor.

‘We’re not supposed to leave –’

‘Pooh! Scat.’ She leaned above the table and pulled lightly on what was left of his hair. With a sheepish grin, he got up and ambled off as directed. Iern accompanied him. Ronica guided Alfri to the middle of the floor.

‘Have a care, sir,’ he called to Iern. ‘I’m falling in love with your lady.’

Torel gave the flyer a sidewise look. ‘You’re pretty glum, yourself,’ he remarked. ‘And tense.’

‘It’s hard not to be,’ Iern said. ‘I’m glad Ronica can snatch a little enjoyment out of this mess.’

One minute.… I used to think she had no acting talent. Will she tease me if I mention it, tell me to beware?…

Ronica executed a few kicks. ‘La, la, la, la,’she warbled. ‘Like that. Do you see? Now we start back to back.’

‘Shucks, I’d rather be seeing you,’ Alfri laughed.

She fluttered her lashes. ‘The second measure is more interesting. Okay, dosey-do.’ She slipped behind him. ‘La, la, la.’

Time!

‘La, la, la, kick,’ she sang. ‘Oops, you got my ankle there. No harm done. Let’s take it over.’

Well, exact synchrony wasn’t possible. Was it? Or has something gone awry?

‘La, la-’

The horn sounded.

It was a deep, brazen roar, blasting out of a loudspeaker – out of loudspeakers placed everywhere – ringing, echoing, snarling down the corridors under the mountain, a warning, a call to battle, Orion shall rise!

Torel lurched, planted his legs wide, and stood dumbfounded. He would only remain so for a second. Iern cast himself at the blocky form. He might have delivered a deadly blow, but had decided he couldn’t. Torel was a decent man, a husband and father. Iern attacked him at his back. His right arm threw a lock on both of his opponent’s. His left hand darted to unsnap the holster.

Torel bellowed. Bull-strong, he wrenched loose and went for the sidearm himself. Iern got him again, but in a grip that immobilized the pilot too. They stamped and swayed about. The trumpet clamored around them.

Ronica’s voice cut through the noise. ‘Hold! Not a move. You’re covered.’

She had used the instant of Alfri’s paralysis to release and snatch his weapon and skip beyond his clutch, back toward the table where the rifles were. He stood as if she had clubbed him. ‘Stop that, Torel,’ she yelled. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

The older man sagged. Slowly, he raised his hands. Iern took the pistol and went to join Ronica.

‘Yes, this is a hijack,’ she said. ‘Please don’t make us shoot you. We’d try not to kill, but we might not succeed.’

‘Ronica,’ Alfrigasped. ‘No, no, not you, no.’

‘Yes. Go ahead, run off and tell. But be sure to remind ’em that anybody who comes after us will die. We’d rather take time to prepare properly for liftoff, but if the door cracks, we’ll assume there’s a party headed in equipped to stop us, like by shooting a rocket into the drive assembly, and we’ll launch on the spot. They’ll get the blast right in their faces, and the radiation will spew out here. You savvy?’

‘I do,’ Torel groaned, ‘yeh, I do, you –’ The rest was anguished obscenity.

‘Go!’ Iern interrupted, and fired a shot for emphasis. The men turned and ran. Twice Alfri cast glances back over his shoulder.

Iern yanked the telephone cord free. Ronica took both rifles. They sped to the inner door. He pulled the switch to Open 5; the valve would close itself after five minutes. It retracted with torturer slowness.

‘I hope,’ Ronica said, almost too faintly to hear through the alarm, ‘I hope … nobody … thinks to cut off power to this section. The door couldn’t shut, the catch pit couldn’t work, the contamination would be horrible.’

‘They should have thought of that before they fired on the Mong,’ Iern answered.

The steel mass had withdrawn to a point where he could slip past. Ronica followed.

Tail-heavy as she was, the ship required no support. Scaffolding for workers was gone. What replaced it was the access frame, its semicircular lattice movable on wheels and adjustable by motors to make any part of the hull reachable. Recollection jarred Iern: once the crew was aboard, that structure was supposed to be dismantled and removed before liftoff. What damage would its flying fragments wreak, white-hot or molten or vaporized, neutron-blasted into filthy new isotopes? Plik’s Angley drawled within him:
Too bloody bad
.

He and Ronica stepped onto a platform. He thumbed a switch on a post and the gangway slid forward along its runners.

The spearhead nose of the ship loomed before him. Light was everywhere, a candent blaze, cold as the air that eddied over his sweat-drenched garments. He could see nothing beyond. In this
muffling place the alarm sounded remote, like a trumpeter blowing defiance on the rampart of the world.

The boarding platform stopped a few centimeters short of the crew entry lock. That was closed, but a key hung on the post. Iern brought it against the center of the circular valve and twisted its head. Magnetic fields intermeshed; a servomotor started; outer and inner valves swung aside. An identical device was within.

Iern put a hand on Ronica’s hip, wondering if he would ever embrace it again as it deserved to be embraced, and urged her to the airlock chamber. She hefted the firearms she carried, seemed ready to throw them away, then kept them.
Respect for the craftsmanship,
he thought. He gave her the pistol he had carried. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but do secure them.’

She nodded. ‘I’ll take the first engineer’s station.’

‘Not necessary when we’re just bound straight up. I’d rather have you beside me.’

She passed her lips over his and crawled through. He came after. Crouched in the narrow space, he reached across to the control switch on the frame and set it for retraction. The valves he made fast behind him.

The pilots’ cabin was forward of the space he entered, which held seats for passengers – scientists, engineers,
whose day I am certainly spoiling,
he thought. He climbed the rungs provided for vertical position and weightlessness, into the compartment and the left-hand seat. Lying on his back, knees above head, he buckled himself to thick-padded resilience. The smell of the leather brought memories alive, Grandfather Mael’s easy chair, where he sat while he told a little boy stories of elves who lived in the dolmens and came forth at dusk to dance by the light of Ileduciel.… Through the window before him Iern looked onward and onward, the length of a monstrous tunnel, but in the glare around him he could not be sure whether he saw any sky at the end.