The Rebel Worlds

His heart skipped a beat. “And something about the territory?”

“Less’n I’d wish. My work was mainly in Gaetulia. However, I did have my first season in this general area, more for trainin’ than research. Point is, we’ve got a fair chance of findin’ Didonians that’ve met humans; and the local culture is reasonably high; and if we do come on an entity that knows one of our pidgins, it’ll be a version I can talk, and I should be able to understand their lingo after a little practice.” The black brows knitted. “I’ll not hide from you, better if we’d come down west of the Maurusians, and not just “cause that’d shorten our march. They have some wild and mean dwellers. However, maybe I can bargain for an escort to the other side.”

“Good. You didn’t perchance find a trail for us?”

“Why, yes. That’s what I was mainly searchin’ for. We wouldn’t make a kilometer ’fore sundown through muscoid and arrowbush, not if we exhausted our blasters burnin’ them. I’ve found one just a few meters from the swamp edge, aimed more or less our way.”

“Sizzle it,” Flandry said, “but I wish we were on the same side, you and I!”

“We are,” she smiled. “What can you do but surrender at Port Frederiksen?”

His failure rose in him, tasting of vomit. “Doubtless nothing. Let’s get loaded and start.” He turned on his heel and left her, but could not escape the look that followed him. It burned between his shoulderblades.

The stuff from the boat weighed heavily on men who must also take turns carrying the wounded on improvised stretchers. Besides food, changes of clothing, utensils, handguns, ammunition, ripped-off plastic sheeting for shelters, and other necessities, Flandry insisted on taking the three spacesuits. Havelock ventured to protest: “If the captain please, should we lug them? The impellers could be handy for sending scouts aloft, but they aren’t good for many kilometers in planet gravity, nor will their radios reach far. And I don’t imagine we’ll meet any critters that we have to wear armor to fight.”

“We may have to discard things,” Flandry admitted, “but I’m hoping for native porters. We’ll tote the suits a ways, at least.”

“Sir, the men are dead on their feet as is!”

Flandry stared into the blond young face. “Would you rather be dead on your back?” he snapped. His eyes traversed the weary, dirty, stoop-shouldered creatures for whom he was responsible. “Saddle up,” he said. “Lend me a hand, Citizen Havelock. I don’t intend to carry less than anybody else.”

A sighing went among them through the thin sad rain, but they obeyed.

The trail proved a blessing. Twigs and gravel mixed into its dirt — by Didonians, Kathryn said — gave a hard broad surface winding gradually through inwalling forest toward higher country.

Dusk fell, layer by layer. Flandry made the group continue, with flashbeams to show the way. He pretended not to hear the sotto voce remarks behind his back, though they hurt. Night fell, scarcely cooler than day, tomb black, full of croakings and distant cries, while the men lurched on.

After another nightmare hour, Flandry called a halt. A brook ran across the trail. High trees surrounded and roofed a tiny meadow. His light flew about, bringing leaves and eyes briefly out of murk. “Water and camouflage,” he said. “What do you think, my lady?”

“Good,” she said.

“You see,” he tried to explain, “we have to rest, and daybreak will be soon. I don’t want us observed from the air.”

She didn’t reply. I rate no answer, who lost my ship, he thought.

Men eased off their burdens. A few munched food bars before collapsing into sleep with their fellows. The medical officer, Felipe Kapunan, said to Flandry, “No doubt the captain feels he should take first watch. But I’ll be busy the next hour or two, seeing to my patients. Dressings need change, they could use fresh enzymes, anti-radiation shots, pain killers — the standard stuff, no help necessary. You may as well rest, sir. I’ll call you when I finish.”

His last sentence was scarcely heard. Flandry went down and down into miraculous nothingness. His last knowledge was that the ground cover — carpet weed, Kathryn named it, despite its being more suggestive of miniature red-brown sponges — made a damp but otherwise gentle mattress.

The doctor shook him awake as promised and offered him a stimpill. Flandry gulped it. Coffee would have been welcome, but he dared not yet allow a campfire. He circled the meadow, found a seat between two enormous roots, and relaxed with his back against the bole. The rain had paused.

Dawn was stealthy on Dido. Light seemed to condense in the hot rank air, drop by drop, like the mists whose tendrils crawled across the sleepers. Except for the clucking brook and drip of water off leaves, a great silence had fallen.

A footstep broke it. Flandry started to rise, his blaster half out of the sheath. When he saw her, he holstered the weapon and bowed around his shivering heart. “My lady. What … what has you awake this early?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Too much to think ’bout. Mind if I join you?”

“How could I?”

They sat down together. He contrived his position so that it was natural to watch her. She looked into the jungle for a space. Exhaustion smudged her eyes and paled her lips.

Abruptly she faced back to him. “Talk with me, Dominic Flandry,” she pleaded. “I think ’bout Hugh … now I can hope to meet him again … Can I stay with him? Wouldn’t there always be that between us?”

“I said,” a cosmic cycle ago, “that if he’d, well, let a girl like you get away from him, for any cause, he’s an idiot.”

“Thanks.” She reached across and squeezed his hand. He felt the touch for a long while afterward. “Shall we be friends? First-name friends?”

“I’d love that.”

“We should make a little ceremony of it, in the Aenean way.” Her smile was wistful. “Drink a toast and — But later, Dominic, later.” She hesitated. “The war’s over for you, after all. You’ll be interned. No prison; a room in Nova Roma ought to do. I’ll come visit when I can, bring Hugh when he’s free. Maybe we’ll talk you into joinin’ us. I do wish so.”

“First we’d better reach Port Frederiksen,” he said, not daring anything less banal.

“Yes.” She leaned forward. “Let’s discuss that. I told you I need conversation. Poor Dominic, you save me from captivity, then from death, now ’tis got to be from my personal horrors. Please talk practical.”

He met the green eyes in the wide strong face. “Well,” he said, “this is quite a freakish planet, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “They think it started out to be Venus type, but a giant asteroid collided with it. Shock waves blew most of the atmosphere off, leavin’ the rest thin enough that chemical evolution could go on, not too unlike the Terran — photosynthesis and so forth, though the amino acids that developed happened to be mainly dextro- ’stead of levorotatory. Same collision must’ve produced the extreme axial tilt, and maybe the high rotation. ’Cause of those factors, the oceans aren’t as inert as you might ’spect on a moonless world, and storms are fierce. Lot of tectonic activity: no s’prise, is it? That’s believed to be the reason we don’t find traces of past ice ages, but do find eras of abnormal heat and drought. Nobody knows for sure, though. In thousands of man-lifetimes, we’ve barely won a glimpse into the mysteries. This is a whole world, Dominic.”

“I understand that,” he said. “Uh, any humanly comfortable areas?”

“Not many. Too hot and wet. Some high and polar regions aren’t as bad as this, and Port Frederiksen enjoys winds off a cold current. The tropics kill you in a few days if you’re not protected. No, we don’t want this planet for ourselves, only for knowledge. It belongs to the autochthons anyway.” Her mood turned suddenly defiant: “When Hugh’s Emperor, he’ll see that all autochthons get a fair break.”