Poul Anderson - The Long Way Home

Langley felt a stirring of interest. He’d heard something about the Society, but not enough. Valti led him to a divan and they sat down and whistled at a passing table for refreshments.

“I’m chief factor at Sol,” continued Valti. “You must come see our building sometime. Souvenirs of a hundred planets there, I’m sure it’ll interest you. But five thousand years’ worth of wandering, that is too much even for a trader. You must have seen a great deal, captain, a great deal. Ah, were I young again—”

Langley threw subtlety aside and asked a few straightforward questions. Getting information out of Valti took patience, you had to listen to a paragraph of self-pity to get a sentence worth hearing, but something emerged. The Society had existed for a thousand years or more, recruited from all planets, even non-human races: it carried on most of the interstellar trade there was, goods which were often from worlds unknown to this little section of the galaxy. Luxuries chiefly, exotic things, but there were also important industrial materials involved, an item which was growing as the civilized planets used up their own resources. For Society personnel, the great spaceships were home, men and women and children living their lives on them. They had their own laws, customs, language, they owed allegiance to no one else. “A civilization in its own right, Captain Langley, a horizontal civilization cutting across the proudly vertical ones rooted on the planets, and in its poor way outliving them all.”

“Haven’t you a capital—a government—”

“Details, my friend, details we can discuss later. Do come see me, I am a lonely old man. Perhaps I can offer you some small entertainment. Did you by any chance stop in the Tau Ceti system? No? That’s a shame, it would have interested you, the double ring system of Osiris and the natives of Horus and the beautiful, beautiful valleys of Ammon, yes, yes.” The names originally given to the planets had changed, also within the Solar System, but not so much that Langley could not recognize what mythical figures the discoverers had had in mind. Valti went on to reminisce about worlds he had seen in the lost lamented days of his youth, and Langley found it an enjoyable conversation.

“Ho, there!”

Valti jumped up and bowed wheezily. “My lord! You honor me beyond my worth. It has been overly long since I saw you.”

“All of two weeks,” grinned the blond giant in the screaming crimson jacket and blue trousers. He had a wine goblet in one brawny hand, the other held the ankles of a tiny, exquisite dancing girl who perched on his shoulder and squealed with laughter. “And then you diddled me out of a thousand solars, you and your loaded dice.”

“Most excellent lord, fortune must now and then smile even on my ugly face; the probability-distribution curve demands it.” Valti made washing motions with his hands. “Perhaps my lord would care for revenge some evening next week?”

“Could be. Whoops!” The giant slid the girl to earth and dismissed her with a playful thwack. “Run along, Thura, Kolin, whatever your name is. I’ll see you later.” His eyes were very bright and blue on Langley. “Is this the dawn man I’ve been hearing about?”

“Yes—my lord, may I present Captain Edward Langley? Lord Brannoch dhu Crombar, the Centaurian ambassador.”

So this was one of the hated and feared men from Thor. He and Valti were the first recognizably Caucasoid types the American had seen in this age: presumably their ancestors had left Earth before the races had melted into an almost uniform stock here, and possibly environmental factors had had something to do with fixing their distinctive features.

Brannoch grinned jovially, sat down, and told an uproariously improper story. Langley countered with the tale of the cowboy who got three wishes, and Brannoch’s guffaw made glasses tremble.

“So you still used horses?” he asked afterward.

“Yes, my lord. I was raised in horse country—we used them in conjunction with trucks. I was... going to raise them myself.”

Brannoch seemed to note the pain in the spaceman’s voice, and with a surprising tact went on to describe his stable at home. “I think you’d like Thor, captain,” he finished. “We still have elbow room. How they can breathe with twenty billion hunks of fat meat in the Solar System, I’ll never know. Why not come see us sometime?”

“I’d like to, my lord,” said Langley, and maybe he wasn’t being entirely a liar.

Brannoch sprawled back, letting his interminable legs stretch across the polished floor. “I’ve kicked around a bit, too,” he said. “Had to get out of the system a while back, when my family got the short end of a feud. Spent a hundred years external time knocking around, till I got a chance to make a comeback. Planetography’s a sort of hobby with me, which is the only reason I come to your parties, Valti, you kettle-bellied old fraud. Tell me, Captain, did you ever touch at Procyon?”

For half an hour the conversation spanned stars and planets. Something of the weight within Langley lifted. The vision of many-faced strangeness spinning through an endless outer dark was one to catch at his heart.

“By the way,” said Brannoch, “I’ve been hearing some rumors about an alien you had along, who broke loose. What’s the truth on that?”

“Ah, yes,” murmured Valti in his tangled beard. “I, too, have been intrigued, yes, a most interesting sort he seems to be. Why should he take such a desperate action?”

Langley stiffened. What had Chanthavar said—wasn’t the whole affair supposed to be confidential?

Brannoch would have his spies, of course; and seemingly Valti did, too. The American had a chilling sense of immense contending powers, a machine running wild and he caught in the whirling gears.

“I’d rather like to add him to the collection,” said Brannoch idly. “That is, not to harm him, just to meet the creature. If he really is a true telepath, he’s almost unique.”

“The Society would also have an interest in this matter,” said Valti diffidently. “The planet may have something to trade worth even such a long trip.”

After a moment, he added dreamily: “I think the payment for such information would be quite generous, captain. The Society has its little quirks, and the desire to meet a new race is one. Yes... there would be money in it.”

“Could be I’d venture a little fling myself,” said Brannoch. “Couple million solars—and my protection. These are troubled times, captain. A powerful patron isn’t to be sniffed at.”

“The Society,” remarked Valti, “has extraterritorial rights. It can grant sanctuary, as well as removal from Earth, which is becoming an unsalubrious place. And, of course, monetary rewards—three million solars, as an investment in new knowledge?”

“This is hardly the place to talk business,” said Brannoch. “But as I said, I think you might like Thor—or we could set you up anywhere else you chose. Three and a half million.”

Valti groaned. “My lord, do you wish to impoverish me? I have a family to support.”

“Yeah. One on each planet,” chuckled Brannoch.

Langley sat very still. He thought he knew why they all wanted Saris Hronna—but what to do about it?

Chanthavar’s short supple form emerged from the crowd. “Oh, there you are,” he said. He bowed casually to Brannoch and Valti. “Your servant, my lord and good sir.”

“Thanks, Channy,” said Brannoch. “Sit down, why don’t you?”

“No. Another person would like to meet the captain. Excuse us.”

When they were safely into the mob, Chanthavar drew Langley aside. “Were those men after you to deliver this alien up to them?” he asked. There was something ugly on his face.