The Star Fox (22 page)

‘How’d that happen, anyway? We’ve had no real chance to talk.’

‘Bad luck, I hope. It is a uranium mine on the Côte Notre Dame. Not much uranium on Europe Neuve, you know, she is less dense than Earth. So to blow it up would be a good
frappement
– strike at Alerion. We took a sport submarine we found in Port Augustin, where the mountains come down to the Golfe des Dragons, and started. We knew the one thing those damned dryworlders do not have is submarine-detection equipment. But the mine was better guarded than we expected. When we surfaced to go ashore at night, a shell hit. Chemical
explosive only, or I would not sit here. Their troopers waited and got, you say, the drop. There was talk about shooting us for an example, or what is worse to squeeze information from us. But the new high commander heard and forbid. I think he has come to have charge of hunting you, my friend, so this also we must thank you for. We were going to Alerion. They spoke about prisoner exchange.’

‘I see.’

‘But you make stalls. It is news of Madelon you wish, no?’

‘Hell, I hate to get personal—Okay. We were in love, when I had a long sick leave on New Europe. Very innocent affair, I assure you. So damned innocent in fact, that I shied away a bit and—Anyhow, next time I came back she’d moved.’

‘Indeed so. To Cháteau St. Jacques. I thought always Pierre got her … on the rebound? Now and then she has laughed about the big
Norvègien
when she was a girl. Such laughter, half happy, half sad, one always makes of young memories.’ Irribarne’s gaze grew stiff. ‘Pierre is a good husband. They have four children.’

Heim flushed. ‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ he said around his pipe. ‘I couldn’t have married better than I did either. It was just – she was in trouble, and I hoped I could help. Old friendship, nothing else.’

He didn’t believe he was lying. A few thoughts had crossed his mind, but they were not unduly painful to bury. That Madelon had lived gladly, that she still lived, was enough.

‘You have that from us all,’ Irribarne said heartily. ‘Now tell me more before we return to the festival. I hear you are a private raider commissioned by France. But why has the Navy been so slow? When do they come?’

God help me
, Heim thought. I
wanted to spare them till tomorrow
.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘
Norn d’un chien!
’ Irribarne sat bolt upright. ‘What is it that you say?’

Slowly, Heim dragged the tale from himself: how it came about that the Deepspace Fleet lay chained and muzzled while Parliament wrangled, and quite possibly nothing except
Fox’s
buccaneering prevented a resumption of those talks which to Alerion were only a more effective kind of war.

‘
Mais
…
mais
…
mais
…
vous
–
cette astronef
—’
Irribarne checked his stutter, caught breath, and said carefully, ‘This ship has ranged in the Auroran System. Have you, yourself, taken no proof we live?’

‘I tried,’ Heim said. Back and forth he paced, smoke fuming, heels banging, big useless hands clasped behind his back till the nails stood white. The prisoners who went home with my prizes, they could have been interrogated. Not easily; Aleriona don’t respond like humans; but somebody could’ve ripped the truth from them! I guess nobody did.

‘I also made a pass by New Europe. Not hard to do, if you’re quick. Most of their defense satellites still aren’t equipped, and we detected no warships too close to outrun. So I got photographs, nice clear ones, showing plainly that only Coeur d’Yvonne was destroyed, that there never had been a firestorm across Garance. Sent them back to Earth. I suppose they convinced some people, but evidently not the right ones. Don’t forget, by now a lot of political careers are bound up with the peace issue. And even a man who might confess he was wrong and resign, if it involved just himself, will hesitate to drag his party down with him.

‘Oh, I’m sure sentiment has moved in our favor. It’d already begun to do so when I left. Not long after, at Staurn for munitions, I met some late-comers from Earth. They told me the will to fight was becoming quite respectable. But that was four months ago!’

He shifted his pipe, stopped his feet, and went on more evenly: ‘I can guess what the next line of argument has been for the appeasement faction. “Yes, yes,” they say, “maybe the New Europeans still are alive. So isn’t the most important thing to rescue them? We won’t do that by war. Alerion can wipe them out any time she chooses. We have to trade their planet for their lives.” That’s probably being said in Parliament tonight.’

Irribarne’s chin sank on his breast. ‘
Un demi million d’hommes
,’ he mumbled. Abruptly: ‘But they will die all the same. Can one not see that? We have only a few more weeks?’

‘What?’ Heim bellowed. His heart jolted him. ‘Is the enemy fixing to burn you out?’

That could be done quite easily
, he knew in horror.
A thousand or so megatons exploded at satellite height on a clear day will set a good part of a continent afire. Madelon!

‘No, no,’ the colonist said. They need for themselves the re
sources of the planet, in fortifying the system. A continental firestorm or a radioactive poisoning, that would make large trouble for them too. But the vitamin C.’

Piece by piece, the story came out. Never doubting Earth would hurry to their aid, the seaboard folk of Pays d’Espoir fled inland, to the mountains and forests of the Haute Garance. That nearly unmapped wilderness was as rich in game and edible vegetation as North America before the white man. With a high technology and no population pressure, the people were wealthy; hardly a one did not own hunting, fishing, and camping gear, as well as a flyer capable of going anywhere. Given a little camouflage and caution, fifty thousand scattered lodges and summer cottages were much too many for the Aleriona to find. On the rare occasions when they did find one, the inhabitants could resort to tent or cave or lean-to.

Portable chargers, equally able to use sunlight, wind, or running water, were also standard outdoor equipment, which kept up power cells. Ordinary miniature transceivers maintained a communications net. It did the enemy scant good to monitor. He had come with people that knew French, but his own ossified culture had not allowed for provincial dialect,
Louchèbème
, or Basque. The boldest men organized raids on him, the rest stayed hidden.

With little axial tilt, New Europe enjoys a mild and rainy winter in the temperate zone, even at fairly high altitudes. It seemed that the humans could hold out indefinitely.

But they were not, after all, on Earth. Life had arisen and evolved separately here, through two or three billion years. Similar conditions led to similar chemistry. Most of what a man needed he could get from native organisms. But similarity is not identity. Some things were lacking on New Europe, notably vitamin C. The escapers had packed along a supply of pills. Now the store was very low. Alerion held the farmlands where Terrestrial plants grew, the towns where the biochemical factories stood.

Scurvy is a slow killer, working its way through gums, muscles, digestion, blood, bones. Most often the victim dies of something else which he no longer has the strength to resist. But one way or another, he dies.

‘And they know it,’ Irribarne grated. Those devils, they know our human weakness. They need only wait.’ He lifted one fist. ‘Has Earth forgotten?’

‘No,’ Heim said. ‘It’d be bound to occur to somebody. But Earth’s so confused.’

‘Let us go there,’ Irribarne said. ‘I myself, all my men, we are witnesses. Can we not shame them till they move?’

‘I don’t know,’ Heim said in wretchedness. ‘We can try, of course. But – maybe I’m being paranoid – but I can still imagine the arguments. “Nothing except negotiation can save you. Alerion will not negotiate unless we make prompt concessions.”

‘I know damn well that once inside the Solar System,
Fox
won’t be allowed to leave again. The law, you see, only units under the Peace Authority can have nuclear weapons, or even weapon launchers, there. And we do. Our possession is legal now, on a technicality, but it won’t be when we enter Federation space.’

‘Can you not dismantle your armament?’

‘That’d take weeks. It’s been integrated with the ship. And – what difference? I tell you, your appearance on Earth might cost us the war. And
that
would set Alerion up to prepare the next aggression.’ Heim thought of Madelon. ‘Or so I believe. Could be wrong, I suppose.’

‘No, you are right,’ Irribarne said dully.

‘It might be the only way out. Surrender.’

‘There must be another! I will not be so fanatic that women and children surely die. But a risk of death, against the chance to keep our homes, yes, that is something we all accepted when we went into the
maquis
.’

Heim sat down, knocked out his pipe, and turned it over and over in his hands while he stared at the model of his first command. Inexplicably his emotions began to shift. He felt less heavy, there was a stirring in him, he groped through blackness toward some vague, strengthening glimmer.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘let’s try to reason this through.
Fox
is keeping the war alive by refusing to quit. As long as we’re out here fighting, the people at home who think like us can argue that Alerion is being whittled down at no cost to the taxpayer. And,
ja
, they can beat the propaganda drums, make big fat heroes of us, stir the old tribal emotions. They haven’t the political pull to make the Authority order the Navy to move; but they have enough to keep us from being recalled. I deduce this from the simple facts that the Navy has not moved and we have not been recalled.

‘Obviously that’s an unstable situation. It’s only kept going
this long, I’m sure, because France tied Parliament in legal knots as to whether or not there really was a war on. The deadlock will be resolved one way or another pretty soon. We want to tilt the balance our way.

‘Okay, one approach is for you people to let it be known you are alive – let it be known beyond any possible doubt – and also make it plain you are not going to surrender. You’ll die before you give in. The way to do that is … let me think, let me think … yes. We’ve got
Meroeth
. With some repairs, she can make the passage; or else we can make another capture. We stay here, though, ourselves. What we send is – not a handful of men – a hundred women and children.’ Heim’s palm cracked against his knee. There’s an emotional appeal for you!’

Irribarne’s eyes widened until they were rimmed with white. ‘
Comment?
You are crazy? You cannot land on Europe Neuve.’

The space defenses aren’t ready yet.’

‘But … no, they do have some detector satellites, and war-craft in orbit, and—’

‘Oh, it’s chancy,’ Heim agreed. He had no real sense of that. Every doubt was smothered in upsurging excitement. ‘We’ll leave
Fox
in space, with most of your men aboard. If we fail, she can snatch another prize and send your men back in that. But I think I have a way to get
Meroeth
down, and up again, and stay in touch meanwhile. We’ll need some computer work to make sure, but I think it might pan out. If not, well, you can show me how to be a guerrilla.’

‘Ah.’ Irribarne drew deeply on his cigar. ‘May I ask if this idea would seem so attractive, did it not offer a way to see Madelon?’

Heim gaped at him.

‘Pardon,’ Irribarne blurted. That was not badly meant. Old friendship, as you said. I like a loyal man.’ He extended his hand.

Heim took it and rose. ‘Come on,’ he said rather wildly. ‘We can’t do anything till tomorrow. Let’s get back to the party.’

E
LSEWHERE
Fox
plunged dark, every engine stilled, nothing but the minimum of life-support equipment in operation, toward the far side of the moon Diane. It was not garrisoned, and a diameter of 1275 kilometers makes a broad shield. Even so, the tender that went from her carried brave men. They might have been spotted by some prowling Aleriona warcraft, especially in the moments when they crammed on deceleration to make a landing. Once down on that rough, airless surface, they moved their boat into an extinct fumarole for concealment, donned space gear, and struck out afoot. Their trip around to the planet-facing hemisphere was a miniature epic; let it only be said that they completed their errand and got back. Rendezvous with the ship was much too risky to attempt. They settled in the boat and waited.

Not long after, a giant meteorite or dwarf asteroid struck New Europe, burning a hole across the night sky and crashing in the Ocèan du Destin a few hundred kilometers east of the Garance coast. A minor tidal wave shocked through the Baie des Pècheurs, banged watercraft against their docks at Bonne Chance, raced up the Bouches du Carsac, and was still observable – a rumbling foam-crested front, sleekly black under the stars – as far inland as the confluence of the River Bordes. Atmospherics howled in every Aleriona detector.

They faded; alerted flyers returned to berth; the night stillness resumed.

For all but the men aboard
Meroeth
.

When the fifty thousand tons to which she was grappled hit the outermost fringes of atmosphere, she let go and dropped behind. But she could not retreat far. Too many kilometers per second of velocity must be shed in too few kilometers of distance, before ablation devoured her. That meant a burst of drive forces, a blast of energies from a powerplant strained to its ultimate. The enemy’s orbital detection system was still inadequate; but it existed in part, and there were also instruments on the ground. Nothing could hide this advent – except the running, growing storm in the immediate neighborhood of a meteorite.

Radar would not pierce the ions which roiled at the stone’s face and streamed back aft. Optical and infrared pickups were blinded. Neutrino or gravitronic detectors aimed and tuned with precision might have registered something which was not of local origin. But who would look for a ship in the midst of so much fury? Air impact alone, at that speed, would break her hull into a thousand flinders, which friction would then turn into shooting stars.