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Giernas nodded sympathetically. Hunter-gatherers like these usually had ways of keeping their birthrates low-low by the standards of the ancient world, of course. They had to, since a woman couldn't handle more than one child too young to walk; not when she had to hunt edible plants every day, and move camp, too, and carry gear besides. So they made sure she had three or four years between kids; via a low-fat diet that lowered fertility, prolonged breast-feeding that did the same, taboos on sex for nursing mothers, sometimes abortion or infanticide, or a lot of kids just plain died of one thing or another in the hungry parts of the year.
The Tartessians had been peasant farmers for thousands of years. They bred a lot faster, since they lived in settled villages. Before the Event they'd also died a lot faster than hunters, particularly their children. Now they had lots of food, and pretty good preventative medicine, thanks to Isketerol and Queen Rosita, who'd been Registered Nurse Rosita Menendez before the Event. Not many of their women died of childbed fever any more, and ninety percent of their kids were going to live to have kids of their own. When the average woman had eight or nine, that added up pretty damned fast. The same thing was happening in Alba, and in the Republic. Even if they didn't get any more people from their homeland, the Tartessian settlement here in California could double in numbers every twenty years, while the locals declined.
"Tell him again that we can do something about the smallpox," Giernas said.
The chief grunted, thought for several minutes in stony silence, absently scratching at his head. Giernas sighed mentally; there would be another long siege against lice. What was the old joke? At least our fleas and nits will mourn the passing of the human race…
"Will you fight for us?" the chief asked.
"Pete, I don't think we've got any choice," Sue said. "Unless we're going to turn around and run like hell, right now."
Giernas swallowed. Leaving most of the people in this part of the continent to die off, and a nest of Tartessians here where nobody suspects. We might not make it back to tell anyone, either. He looked over to where his wife and child sat.
"Honey?" he said softly. "What do you want to do?"
Spring Indigo gripped her son tightly, but her voice was steady. "The Tartessians are Eagle People enemies. How could I not stand beside my man, as my sister says?" A smile: "I know you will fight with a strong heart, Pete."
Giernas nodded. A Cloud Shadow woman adopted her husband's feuds as her own; and Spring Indigo was just plain brave besides. Throw that into the scale, then. He just plain didn't want to look into those dark lioness eyes and say he was going to skedaddle.
"Eddie?" he asked; no doubt there.
"I say fight, if there's anything we can do." A shrug and a grin: "They've got to have more gold in that fort than we can carry. You're the boss here, though."
Hmmm. Eddie's shed a lot of that bull-at-a-gate berserker stuff. Prudence rubbed off, evidently.
"Jaddi?"
The Fiernan-born girl nodded crisply. "Fight," she said. "It is evil, what they do here. I don't want Moon Woman to turn away from me when I ride the Swan."
Giernas sighed. "Okay, let's see what we can do. For starters, we have to make Spring Indigo and young Jared safe." As safe as we can, gnawed at him.
The chief spoke. Sue and Jaditwara and Tidtaway consulted.
"He says the Tartessians come to collect their tribute soon, so we have to make up our minds, or some tribes at least will be their dogs for the sake of the cow-medicine they bring with them."
Giernas started to nod, then froze. A thought struck him, like the sun rising early over the low distant line of the Sierras to the east. Slowly, he began to grin.
CHAPTER TEN
September, 10 A.E.-Troy
September, 10 A.E.-O'Rourke's Ford, east of Troy
October, 10 A.E.-Bay of Biscay
September, 10 A.E.-near Hattusas, Kingdom of Haiti-land
October, 10 A.E.-Bay of Biscay
September, 10 A.E.-Hattusas, Kingdom of Haiti-land
October, 10 A.E.-Off the coast of northwestern Iberia
In the long run, I think Mesopotamia may be our Japan," Ian Arnstein said into the microphone.
He was a very tall man, towering for this era: four inches over six feet, still lanky in late middle age, with a bushy beard turning gray among the original dark russet brown-one that he'd worn before the Event, when he was a professor of classical history from Southern California. What hair was left on the sides and rear of his head was the same color. By a sport of chromosomes, his face was of a type common in Anatolia even in the twentieth; beak-nosed, rather full in the lips, with large expressive dark eyes.
"Ian?" his wife said, through the earphones he was wearing, asking for clarification.
Doreen Arnstein was hundreds of miles away in the Hittite capital of Hattusas. Ian Arnstein listened to the boom of a ca
"I think I may have been too sanguine about the Babylonians," Ian said. "Yeah, it's going to handicap them not having much in the way of timber or minerals besides oil, but neither does Japan-and look how fast they picked up Western Civ's tricks. They've got a big population, a fairly sophisticated culture of their own, they're organized, and now they're run by a really smart, determined guy with a wife from Nantucket, whose kids are going to be educated in our schools. That means for the next two generations, they're going to make a really impassioned effort to catch up with us."
"We can worry about that after we've won this war," Doreen said. "They'll be aiming at a moving target anyway. How are things going?"
"Not so great," Ian said. "King Alaksandrus is holding steady-well, he doesn't really have much choice, now-but Major Chong isn't sure how much longer we can hold out."
"I told you you should have gotten out on the last flight, dammit, Ian!"
Ian sighed and shook his head. "Alaksandrus might have given up if I'd done that," he said. "Then Walker and his Ringapi would be whooping their way to Hattusas by now. You've done fine handling the Hittites." Who fortunately had institutions that didn't make dealing with a woman disgraceful. "Anyway, is David there?"
Their son was. When he had concluded the personal matters, the Republic's Councilor for Foreign Affairs sat back with a sigh.
"Bye," he said at last. "Stay well."
A hesitation at the other end of the circuit, and his wife's voice: "You too. The children need their father."
"I know-" he began; then his voice rose to a squeak. "Children? Plural?"
"If everything keeps on track… about nine months after that last evening before you got yourself trapped there in Troy VII. Serendipity."
"Why the hell didn't you tell me earlier?" he said, fighting down an irrational rush of anger.
"I didn't want to joggle your elbow with worries. Then. Now I don't want you feeling free to be a martyr."
He sighed. "Martyrhood doesn't attract me," he said. "Love you."
"You too, Ian. Come back to us."
I fully intend to do my best, he thought as he took off the earphones. Then:
"World's too damned big," he muttered to himself, pushing away personal considerations and looking at the map pi