Poul Anderson: The Day of Their Return

“No, no. We’d carry on more raids, get more recruits and popular support, gather strength enemy must reckon with. Meanwhile we’d hope for sympathy elsewhere in Empire bringin’ pressure on our behalf, or maybe fear of Ythri movin’ in.”

“Maybe,” Hedin grunted. After a moment: “I’ve heard rumors. Great bein’ with gold-bronze wings, a-flit in these parts. Ythrian agent? They don’t necessarily want what we do, Firstlin’.”

Ivar’s shoulders slumped. “No matter. We failed anyhow. I did.”

Hedin reached across to clap him on the back. “Don’t take that attitude. First, military leaders are bound to lose men and suffer occasional disasters. Second, you never were one, really. You just happened to get thrown to top of cards that God was shufflin’.” Softly: “For game of solitaire? I won’t believe it.” His tone briskened. “Firstlin’, you’ve got no right to go off on conscience spin. You and your fellows together made bad mistake. Leave it at that, and carry on. Aeneas does need you.”

“Me?” Ivar exclaimed. His self-importance had crumbled while he talked, until he could not admit he had ever seen himself as a Maccabee. “What in cosmos can I—”

Hedin lifted a gauntleted hand to quiet him. “Hoy. Follow me.”

They brought their stathas off the trail, and did not rejoin it for ten kilometers. What they avoided was a herd belonging to Hedin: Terran-descended cattle, gene-modified and then adapted through centuries—like most introduced organisms—until they were a genus of their own. Watchfires glimmered around their mass. Hedin didn’t doubt his men were loyal to him; but what they hadn’t noticed, they couldn’t reveal.

On the way, the riders passed a fragment of wall. Glass-black, seamless, it sheened above moonlight brush and sand. Near the top of what remained, four meters up, holes made an intricate pattern, its original purpose hard to guess. Now stars gleamed through.

Hedin reined in, drew a cross, and muttered before he went on.

Ivar had seen the rum in the past, and rangehands paying it their respects. He had never thought he would see the yeoman—well-educated, well-traveled, hardheaded master and councilor—do likewise.

After a cold and silent while, Hedin said half defensively, “Kind of symbol back yonder.”

“Well … yes,” Ivar responded.

“Somebody was here before us, millions of years ago. And not extinct natives, either. Where did they come from? Why did they leave? Traces have been found on other planets too, remember. Unreasonable to suppose they died off, no? Lot of people wonder if they didn’t go onward instead—out there.”

Hedin waved at the stars. Of that knife-bright horde, some belonged to the Empire but most did not. For those the bare eye could see were mainly giants, shining across the light-years which engulfed vision of a Virgil or a Sol. Between Ivar and red Betelgeuse reached all the dominion of Terra, and more. Further on, Rigel flashed and the Pleiades veiled themselves in regions to which the Roidhunate of Merseia gave its name for a blink of time. Beyond these were Polaris, once man’s lodestar, and the Orion Nebula, where new suns and worlds were being born even as he watched, and in billions of years life would look forth and wonder …

Hedin’s mask swung toward Ivar again. His voice was low but eerily intense. “That’s why we need you, Firstlin’. You may be rash boy, yes, but four hundred years of man on Aeneas stand behind you. We’ll need every root we’ve got when Elders return.”

Startled, Ivar said, “You don’t believe that, do you? I’ve heard talk; but you?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Hedin’s words came dwindled through the darkness. “I don’t know. Before war, I never thought about it. I’d go to church, and that was that.

“But since—Can so many people be entirely wrong? They are many, I’ll tell you. Off in town, at school, you probably haven’t any idea how wide hope is spreadin’ that Elders will come back soon, bearin’ Word of God. It’s not crank, Ivar. Nigh everybody admits this is hope, no proof. But could Admiral McCormac have headed their way? And surely we hear rumors about new prophet in barrens—

“I don’t know. I do think, and I tell you I’m not alone in it, all this grief here and all those stars there can’t be for nothin’. If God is makin’ ready His next revelation, why not through chosen race, more wise and good than we can now imagine? And if that’s true, shouldn’t prophet come first, who prepares us to be saved?”

He shook himself, as if the freeze had pierced his unheated garb. “You’re our Firstlin’,” he said. “We must keep you free. Four hundred years can’t be for nothin’ either.”

Quite matter-of-factly, he continued: “Tinerans are passin’ through, reported near Arroyo. I figure you can hide among them.”

Each nomad Train, a clan as well as a caravan, wandered a huge but strictly defined territory. Windhome belonged in that of the Brotherband. Ivar had occasionally seen its camps, witnessed raffish performances, and noticed odd jobs being done for local folk before it moved on, afterward heard the usual half-amused, half-indignant accusations of minor thefts and clever swindles, gossip about seductions, whispers about occult talents exercised. When he dipped into the literature, he found mostly anecdotes, picturesque descriptions, romantic fiction, nothing in depth. The Aenean intellectual community took little serious interest in the undercultures on its own planet. Despite the centuries, Dido still posed too many enigmas which were more fascinating and professionally rewarding.

Ivar did know that Trains varied in their laws and customs. Hedin led him across a frontier which had no guards nor any existence in the registries at Nova Roma, identified solely by landmarks. Thereafter they were in Waybreak country, and he was still less sure of what to expect than he would have been at home. The yeoman took a room in the single inn which Arroyo boasted. “I’ll stay till you’re gone, in case of trouble,” he said. “But mainly, you’re on your own from here.” Roughly: “I wish ’twere otherwise. Fare always well, lad.”

Ivar walked through the village to the camp. Its people were packing for departure. Fifty or so brilliantly painted carriages, and gaudy garb on the owners, made their bustle and clamor into a land of rainbowed storm in an otherwise drab landscape. Arroyo stood on the eastern slope of the hills, where scrub grew sparse on dusty ground to feed some livestock. The soil became more dry and bare for every kilometer that it hunched on downward, until at the horizon began the Ironland desert.

Scuttling about in what looked like utter confusion, men, women, and children alike threw him glances and shouted remarks in their own language that he guessed were derisive. He felt awkward and wholly alone among them—this medium-sized, whip-slim race of the red-brown skins and straight blue-black hair. Their very vehicles hemmed him in alienness. Some were battered old trucks of city make; but fantastic designs swirled across them, pennons blew, amulets dangled, wind chimes rang. Most were wagons, drawn by four to eight stathas, and these were the living quarters. Stovepipes projected from their arched roofs and grimy curtains hung in their windows. Beneath paint, banners, and other accessories, their panels were elaborately carved; demon shapes leered, hex signs radiated, animals real and imaginary cavorted, male and female figures danced, hunted, worked, gambled, engendered, and performed acts more esoteric.

A man came by, carrying a bundle of knives and swords wrapped in a cloak. He bounded up into the stairless doorway of one wagon, gave his load to a person inside, sprang down again to confront Ivar. “Hey-ah, varsiteer,” he said amicably enough. “What’d you like? The show’s over.”