Orion Shall Rise (74 page)

Robra sunna Stam, the
Buffalo’s
mate, spoke. “Best we come down to about two thousand,” he suggested. “To make sure the men aren’t blown sideways, to the wrong side of the town walls.”

“Aye.” The skipper nodded his helmeted head. “Two thousand, so be it.”

Their voices seemed oddly loud up here, where only the wind and a creak of rigging had broken silence. The sky around the rovers was dusky immensity, tinged red gold in the east. Dew lay on the gallery deck. But when the long wooden horns blew signals, it was somehow not an interruption, nor was the distant shouting of orders from other vessels, thud of crew feet, clatter of windlasses and hand-operated compressor pumps. To a Sky Man, those sounds belonged in the upper air.

Five great craft spiraled smoothly downward. The first sunrays flashed off gilt figureheads, bold on sharp gondola prows, and rioted along the extravagant designs painted on gas bags. Sails and rudders were unbelievably white across the last western darkness.

“Hullo, there,” said Loklann. He had been studying the harbor through his telescope. “Something new. What could it be?”

He offered the tube to Robra, who held it to his remaining eye. Within the glass circle lay a stone dock and warehouses, centuries old, from the days of the Perio’s greatness. Less than a fourth of their capacity was used now. The normal clutter of wretched little fishing craft, a single coasting schooner … and yes, by Oktai the Stormbringer, a monster thing, bigger than a whale, seven masts that were impossibly tall!

“I don’t know.” The mate lowered the telescope. “A foreigner? But where from? Nowhere in this continent—”

“I never saw any arrangement like that,” said Loklann. “Square sails on the topmasts, fore-and-aft below.” He stroked his short beard. It burned like spun copper in the morning light; he was one of the fair-haired blue-eyed men, rare even among the Sky People and unheard of elsewhere. “Of course,” he said, “we’re no experts on water craft. We only see them in passing.” A not unamiable contempt rode his words: sailors made good slaves, at least, but naturally the only fit vehicle for a fighting man was a rover abroad and a horse at home.

“Probably a trader,” he decided. “We’ll capture it if possible.”

He turned his attention to more urgent problems. He had no map of S’ Antón, had never even seen it before. This was the farthest south any Sky People had yet gone plundering, and almost as far as any had ever visited; in bygone days aircraft were still too primitive and the Perio too strong. Thus Loklann must scan the city from far above, through drifting white vapors, and make his plan on the spot. Nor could it be very complicated, for he had only signal flags and a barrel-chested hollerer with a megaphone to pass orders to the other vessels.

“That big plaza in front of the temple,” he murmured. “Our contingent will land there. Let the
Stormcloud
men tackle that big building east of it … see … it looks like a chief’s dwelling. Over there, along the north wall, typical barracks and parade ground—
Coyote
can deal with the soldiers. Let the
Witch of Heaven
men land on the docks, seize the seaward gun emplacements and that strange vessel, then join the attack on the garrison.
Fire Elk’s
crew should land inside the east city gate and send a detachment to the south gate, to bottle in the civilian population. Having occupied the plaza, I’ll send reinforcements wherever they’re needed. All clear?”

He snapped down his goggles. Some of the big men crowding about him wore chain armor, but he preferred a cuirass of hardened leather, Mong style; it was nearly as strong and a lot lighter. He was armed with a pistol, but had more faith in his battle ax. An archer could shoot almost as fast as a gun, as accurately—and firearms were getting fabulously expensive to operate as sulfur sources dwindled.

He felt a tightness which was like being a little boy again, opening presents on Midwinter Morning. Oktai knew what treasures he would find, of gold, cloth, tools, slaves, of battle and high deeds and eternal fame. Possibly death. Someday he was sure to die in combat; he had sacrificed so much to his josses, they wouldn’t grudge him war-death and a chance to be reborn as a Sky Man.

“Let’s go!” he said.

He sprang up on a gallery rail and over. For a moment the world pinwheeled; now the city was on top and now again his
Buffalo
streaked past. Then he pulled the ripcord and his harness slammed him to steadiness. Around him, air bloomed with scarlet parachutes. He gauged the wind and tugged a line, guiding himself down.

Don Miwel Carabán, calde of S’ Antón d’ Inio, arranged a lavish feast for his Maurai guests. It was not only that this was a historic occasion, which might even mark a turning point in the long decline. (Don Miwel, being that rare combination, a practical man who could read, knew that the withdrawal of Perio troops to Brasil twenty years ago was not a “temporary adjustment.” They would never come back. The outer provinces were on their own.) But the strangers must be convinced that they had found a nation rich, strong, and basically civilized, that it was worthwhile visiting the Meycan coasts to trade, ultimately to make alliance against the northern savages.

The banquet lasted till nearly midnight. Though some of the old irrigation canals had choked up and never been repaired, so that cactus and rattlesnake housed in abandoned pueblos, Meyco Province was still fertile. The slant-eyed Mong horsemen from Tekkas had killed off innumerable peons when they raided five years back; wooden pitchforks and obsidian hoes were small use against saber and arrow. It would be another decade before population had returned to normal and the periodic famines resumed. Thus Don Miwel offered many courses, beef, spiced ham, olives, fruits, wines, nuts, coffee, which last the Sea People were unfamiliar with and didn’t much care for, et cetera. Entertainment followed—music, jugglers, a fencing exhibition by some of the young nobles.

At this point the surgeon of the
Dolphin,
who was rather drunk, offered to show an Island dance. Muscular beneath tattoos, his brown form went through a series of contortions which pursed the lips of the dignified Dons. Miwel himself remarked, “It reminds me somewhat of our peons’ fertility rites,” with a strained courtesy that suggested to Captain Ruori Rangi Lohannaso that peons had an altogether different and not very nice culture.

The surgeon threw back his queue and grinned. “Now let’s bring the ship’s wahines ashore to give them a real hula,” he said in Maurai-Ingliss.

“No,” answered Ruori. “I fear we may have shocked them already. The proverb goes, ‘When in the Solmon Islands, darken your skin.’”

“I don’t think they know how to have any fun,” complained the doctor.

“We don’t yet know what the taboos are,” warned Ruori. “Let us be as grave, then, as these spike-bearded men, and not laugh or make love until we are back on shipboard among our wahines.”

“But it’s stupid! Shark-toothed Nan eat me if I’m going to—”

“Your ancestors are ashamed,” said Ruori. It was about as sharp a rebuke as you could give a man whom you didn’t intend, to fight. He softened his tone to take out the worst sting, but the doctor had to shut up. Which he did, mumbling an apology and retiring with his blushes to a dark corner beneath faded murals.

Ruori turned back to his host. “I beg your pardon, S’ñor,” he said, using the local tongue. “My men’s command of Spañol is even less than my own.”

“Of course.” Don Miwel’s lean black-clad form made a stiff little bow. It brought his sword up, ludicrously, like a tail. Ruori heard a smothered snort of laughter from among his officers. And yet, thought the captain, were long trousers and ruffled shirt any worse than sarong, sandals, and clan tattoos? Different customs, no more. You had to sail the Maurai Federation, from Awaii to his own N’Zealann and west to Mlaya, before you appreciated how big this planet was and how much of it a mystery.

“You speak our language most excellently, S’ñor,” said Doñita Tresa Carabán. She smiled. “Perhaps better than we, since you studied texts centuries old before embarking, and the Spañol has changed greatly since.”

Ruori smiled back. Don Miwel’s daughter was worth it. The rich black dress caressed a figure as good as any in the world; and, while the Sea People paid less attention to a woman’s face, he saw that hers was proud and well formed, her father’s eagle beak softened to a curve, luminous eyes and hair the color of midnight oceans. It was too bad these Meycans—the nobles, at least—thought a girl should be reserved solely for the husband they eventually picked for her. He would have liked her to swap her pearls and silver for a lei and go out in a ship’s canoe, just the two of them, to watch the sunrise and make love.

However—

“In such company,” he murmured, “I am stimulated to learn the modern language as fast as possible.”

She refrained from coquetting with her fan, a local habit the Sea People found alternately hilarious and irritating. But her lashes fluttered. They were very long, and her eyes, he saw, were gold-flecked green.

“You are learning cab’llero manners just as fast, S’ñor,” she said.

“Do not call our language ‘modern,’ I pray you,” interrupted a scholarly-looking man in a long robe. Ruori recognized Bispo Don Carlos Ermosillo, a high priest of that Esu Carito who seemed cognate with the Maurai Lesu Haristi. “Not modern, but corrupt. I too have studied ancient books, printed before the War of Judgment. Our ancestors spoke the true Spañol. Our version of it is as distorted as our present-day society.” He sighed. “But what can one expect, when even among the well born, not one in ten can write his own name?”

“There was more literacy in the high days of the Perio,” said Don Miwel. “You should have visited us a hundred years ago, S’ñor Captain, and seen what our race was capable of.”

“Yet what was the Perio itself but a successor state?” asked the Bispo bitterly. “It unified a large area, gave law and order for a while, but what did it create that was new? Its course was the same sorry tale as a thousand kingdoms before, and therefore the same judgment has fallen on it.”

Doñita Tresa crossed herself. Even Ruori, who held a degree in engineering as well as navigation, was shocked. “Not atomics?” he exclaimed.

“What? Oh. The old weapons, which destroyed the old world. No, of course not.” Don Carlos shook his head. “But in our more limited way, we have been as stupid and sinful as the legendary forefathers, and the results have been parallel. You may call it human greed or el Dío’s punishment as you will; I think the two mean much the same thing.”

Ruori looked closely at the priest. “I should like to speak with you further, S’ñor,” he said, hoping it was the right title. “Men who know history, rather than myth, are rare these days.”

“By all means,” said Don Carlos. “I should be honored.”

Doñita Tresa shifted on light, impatient feet. “It is customary to dance,” she said.

Her father laughed. “Ah, yes. The young ladies have been getting quite impatient, I am sure. Time enough to resume formal discussions tomorrow, S’ñor Captain. Now let the music begin.”

He signalled. The orchestra struck up. Some instruments were quite like those of the Maurai, others wholly unfamiliar. The scale itself was different … They had something like it in Stralia, but—a hand fell on Ruori’s arm. He looked down at Tresa. “Since you do not ask me to dance,” she said, “may I be so immodest as to ask you?”

“What does ‘immodest’ mean?” he inquired.

She blushed and tried to explain, without success. Ruori decided it was another local concept which the Sea People lacked. By that time the Meycan girls and their cavaliers were out on the ballroom floor. He studied them for a moment. “The motions are unknown to me,” he said, “but I think I could soon learn.”

She slipped into his arms. It was a pleasant contact, even though nothing would come of it. “You do very well,” she said after a minute. “Are all your folk so graceful?”

Only later did he realize that was a compliment for which he should have thanked her; being an Islander, he took it at face value as a question and replied, “Most of us spend a great deal of time on the water. A sense of balance and rhythm must be developed or one is likely to fall into the sea.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, stop,” she laughed. “You’re as solemn as S’ Osé in the cathedral.”

Ruori grinned back. He was a tall young man, brown as all his race but with the gray eyes which many bore in memory of Ingliss ancestors. Being a N’Zealanner, he was not tattooed as lavishly as some Federation men. On the other hand, he had woven a whalebone filigree into his queue, his sarong was the finest batik, and he had added thereto a fringed shirt. His knife, without which a Maurai felt obscenely helpless, was in contrast: old, shabby until you saw the blade, a tool.

“I must see this god, S’ Osé,” he said. “Will you show me? Or no, I would not have eyes for a mere statue.”

“How long will you stay?” she asked.

“As long as we can. We are supposed to explore the whole Meycan coast. Hitherto the only Maurai contact with the Merikan continent has been one voyage from Awaii to Calforni. They found desert and a few savages. We have heard from Okkaidan traders that there are forests still farther north, where yellow and white men strive against each other. But what lies south of Calforni was unknown to us until this expedition was sent out. Perhaps you can tell us what to expect in Su-Merika.”

“Little enough by now,” she sighed, “even in Brasil.”

“Ah, but lovely roses bloom in Meyco.”

Her humor returned. “And flattering words in N’Zealann,” she chuckled.

“Far from it. We are notoriously straightforward. Except, of course, when yarning about voyages we have made.”

“What yarns will you tell about this one?”

“Not many, lest all the young men of the Federation come crowding here. But I will take you aboard my ship, Doñita, and show you to the compass. Thereafter it will always point toward S’ Antón d’ Inio. You will be, so to speak, my compass rose.”

Somewhat to his surprise, she understood, and laughed. She led him across the floor, supple between his hands.