Poul Anderson - The Long Way Home

Briefly, his mind would not accept it. The weary groove of futility was worn so deep that he could not climb out. He stared, open-mouthed, hearing the words as if from far away:

“... She was sitting on a bridgeway, rather dazed, when picked up. Post-anesthetic reaction, she’s coming out of it already. There was no deep mental probing done, I’m sure, perhaps only a mild narcosynthesis—no harm done at all that I can see. She’s been unconscious all the time, doesn’t know a thing. I’m sending her over now.” Chanthavar grinned.

The impact trickled slowly through the barriers of craziness. Langley knelt, wanting to cry or pray or both, but nothing would come out.” Then he began to laugh.

The hysteria had faded by the time she entered. But it was the most natural thing in the world to embrace her. She held him close, shaking with reaction.

Finally they sat together on a couch, holding hands. She told him what she could. “I was seized, carried into the ship, someone pointed a stun gun at me and then there’s nothing more. The next thing I remember is sitting on the bridgeway bench, being carried along. I must have been put onto it, led there in a sleep-walking state, and left. I felt dizzy. Then a policeman came and took me to Minister Chanthavar’s office. He asked me questions, had me given a medical checkup, and said nothing seemed wrong. So he sent me back here.”

“I don’t get it,” said Langley. “I don’t understand it at all.”

“Minister Chanthavar said apparently I was taken on the chance I might be of value... when they failed to get you. I was kept unconscious so I wouldn’t be able to identify anybody, asked a few simple questions under narcosynthesis, and released when it was clear I could be of no help.” She sighed, smiling a little tremulously at him. “I’m glad they let me go.” He knew she didn’t mean it only for herself.

He swallowed the drink he had prepared and sat without speaking for a while. His mind felt oddly clarified, but the past hours of nightmare underlay it.

So this was what it meant. This was what Sol and Centauri stood for, a heartless power game, where no one counted, no act was too vile. A stiffened robot of a civilization which should have been long in its grave but walked with corruption under its armor; a brawling, killing barbarism, stagnant and sterile even as it boasted of virility; a few ambitious men, and a billion harmless humans turned into radioactive gas. The moment one side felt it had an advantage, it would be on the other’s back, and the struggle would lay planets waste. This was what he was supposed to sanction.

He still knew little about the Society; they were surely no collection of pure-minded altruists. But it did seem that they were neutral, that they had no lunacies about empire. Surely they knew more of the galaxy, had a better chance of finding him some young world where he could again be a man.

His choice was clear. It would run him through a gamut of death, but there are worse things than extinction.

He looked at the clean profile of the girl beside him. He wanted to ask her what she thought, what she desired. He hardly knew her at all. But he couldn’t, with the listening mechanical ears. He would have to decide for her.

She met his gaze with calm green eyes. “I wish you’d tell me what’s going on, Edwy,” she said. “I seem to be as exposed as you in any case, and I’d like to know.”

He gave in and told her of Saris Hronna and the hunt for him. She grasped the idea at once, nodded without excitement, and refrained from asking him if he knew an answer or what he intended to do. “It is a very large thing,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Langley. “And it’s going to get a lot bigger before long.”

There might be eyes as well as ears in the walls. Langley went to bed shortly after sunset. Spy-beams went right through the communicator, Valti had said, but he wore his pajamas anyway; blankets were no longer in use. He lay for an hour, threshing about as if unable to get to sleep. Then he commanded loud music. The recorded caterwauling should drown out a low-pitched conversation.

He hoped the stomach-knotting tension in him didn’t show on his face.

Scratching, as if after an itch, he pressed the stud. Then he struck a cigarette and lay waiting.

The tiny voice was a vibration inside him, he thought about sonic beams heterodyned and focused on his skull-bones. It was distorted, but he’d know Valti’s phrasing anywhere:

“Ah, Captain Langley. You do me an unprecedented honor. It is a pleasure even to be routed out of a snug bed to hear you. May I advise that you speak with your lips closed? The transmission will be clear enough.”

“All right.” There was one hopeless question which had to be asked. “I’m prepared to bargain with you—but do you have Blaustein and Matsumoto?”

“I do not, captain. Will you take my word for that?”

“I... reckon so. O. K. I’ll tell you where I think Saris is -mind you, it’s only an informed guess—and I’ll help you find him if possible. In return, I want your best efforts to rescue my friends, together with the money, protection, and transportation you offered, both for myself and one other person, a slave girl who’s in this apartment with me.”

It was hard to make out whether the exultation which must be leaping through that gross form had entered the voice: “Very good, captain. I assure you you will not regret this. Now as to practical considerations, you must be removed without trace.”

“I’m not sure just how that little thing’s going to be done, Valti. I think I’m more or less under house arrest.”

“Nevertheless, you shall get out tonight. Let me think- In two hours, you and the girl will stroll out onto the balcony. For Father’s sake, make it look natural! Remain there, in plain sight from above, no matter what happens.”

“O. K. Two hours—2347 by my clock, right? See you!”

Now it was to wait. Langley got out another cigarette and lay as if listening to the music. Two hours! I’ll be one gray-haired wreck before then .

So much could go wrong. The variable-frequency radiation of the communicator was supposedly undetectable, but maybe not. The rescue attempt might go sour. Chanthavar might suddenly get fed up and haul him off for inquisition. Valti might be betrayed by spies within his own ranks. Might, might, might! Animals are luckier than man, they don’t worry.

Time crawled, it took forever to get by a minute. Langley swore, went into the living room, and dialed for a book. Basic modern physics—at the rate time was going, two hours would be enough to get a Ph. D. He grew suddenly aware that he had been staring at the same scanned page for fifteen minutes. Hastily he dialed the next. Even if it wasn’t registering he ought to look as if it were.

The text mentioned a name, Ynsen, credited with first giving Riemannian space—they called it “Sarlennian” now —a physical meaning. After a minute, he guessed the original form. Einstein! So something had survived of his own age, however corrupted. He smiled, feeling a sadness within himself, and wondered what a historical novel laid in the Twenty-first Century would read like. Probably concern the struggle between Lincoln and Stalin for control of the Lunar rocket bases—the hero would scoot around on his trusty bicycle- No, there wasn’t any such novel. His age was all but forgotten, its details long eaten away by time. A few archaeologists might be interested, no one else. Imagine a first-dynasty Egyptian brought to New Washington, 2047 a. d. He’d be a nine days” wonder, but how many people would care?

He looked at the clock, and felt his belly muscles tighten. Twenty minutes to go.