Poul Anderson: The Day of Their Return

“Firstling, if you want to be worthy of leading your own world, you must begin by dismissing the pleasant illusions. Don’t take my word, either. Study. Inquire. Go see for yourself. Do your personal thinking. But always follow the truth, wherever it goes.”

“Like that Ythrian?” Tatiana murmured.

“No, the entire Domain of Ythri,” Desai told her. “Erannath was my agent, right. But he was also theirs. They sent him by prearrangement: because in his very foreignness, his conspicuousness and seeming detachment, he could learn what Terrans might not.

“Why should Ythri do this?” he challenged. “Had we not fought a war with them, and robbed them of some of their territory?

“But that’s far in the past, you see. The territory is long ago assimilated to us. Irredentism is idiocy. And Terra did not try to take over Ythri itself, or most of its colonies, in the peace settlement. Whatever the Empire’s faults, and they are many, it recognizes certain limits to what it may wisely do. “Merseia does not.

“Naturally, Erannath knew nothing about Aycharaych when he arrived here. But he did know Aeneas is a key planet in this sector, and expected Merseia to be at work somewhere underground. Because Terra and Ythri have an overwhelming common interest—peace, stability, containment of the insatiable aggressor—and because the environment of your world suited him well, he came to give whatever help he could.”

Desai cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t intend that long a speech. It surprised me too. I’m not an orator, just a glorified bureaucrat. But here’s a matter on which billions of lives depend.”

“Did you find his body?” Ivar asked without tone.

“Yes,” Desai said. “His role is another thing we cannot make public: too revealing, too provocative. In fact, we shall have to play down Merseia’s own part, for fear of shaking the uneasy peace.

“However, Erannath went home on an Imperial cruiser; and aboard was an honor guard.”

“That’s good,” Ivar said after a while.

“Have you any plans for poor Jaan?” Tatiana asked.

“We will offer him psychiatric treatment, to rid him of the pseudo-personality,” Desai promised. “I am told that’s possible.”

“Suppose he refuses.”

“Then, troublesome though he may prove—because his movement won’t die out quickly unless he himself denounces it—we will leave him alone. You may disbelieve this, but I don’t approve of using people.”

Desai’s look returned to Ivar. “Likewise you, Firstling,” he said. “You won’t be coerced. Nobody will pressure you. Rather, I warn you that working with my administration, for the restoration of Aeneas within the Empire, will be hard and thankless. It will cost you friends, and years of your life that you might well spend more enjoyably, and pain when you must make the difficult decision or the inglorious compromise. I can only hope you will join us.”

He rose. “I think that covers the situation for the time being,” he said. “You have earned some privacy, you two. Please think this over, and feel free to call on me whenever you wish. Now, good day, Prosser Thane, Firstling Frederiksen.” The High Commissioner of the Terran Empire bowed. “Thank you.”

Slowly, Ivar and Tatiana rose. They towered above the little man, before they gave him their hands.

“Probably we will help,” Ivar said. “Aeneas ought to outlive Empire.”

Tatiana took the sting out of that: “Sir, I suspect we owe you more thanks than anybody will ever admit, least of all you.”

As Desai closed the door behind him, he heard the tadmouse begin singing.

Jaan walked forth alone before sunrise.

The streets were canyons of night where he often stumbled. But when he came out upon the wharf that the sea had lapped, heaven enclosed him.

Behind this wide, shimmering deck, the town was a huddle turned magical by moonlight. High above lifted the Arena, its dark strength frosted with radiance. Beneath his feet, the mountain fell gray-white and shadow-dappled to the dim shield of the waters. North and east stood Ilion, cloven by the Linn-gleam.

Mostly he knew sky. Stars thronged a darkness which seemed itself afire, till they melted together in the cataract of the Milky Way. Stateliest among them burned Alpha and Beta Crucis; yet he knew many more, the friends of his life’s wanderings, and a part of him called on them to guide him. They only glittered and wheeled. Lavinia was down and Creusa hastening to set. Low above the barrens hung Dido, the morning star.

Save for the distant falls it was altogether still here, and mortally cold. Outward breath smoked like wraiths, inward breath hurt.

—Behold what is real and forever, said Caruith.

—Let me be, Jaan said. You are a phantom. You are a lie.

—You do not believe that. We do not.

—Then why is your chamber now empty, and I alone in my skull?

—The Others have won—not even a battle, if we remain steadfast; a skirmish in the striving of life to become God. You are not alone.

—What should we do?

—Deny their perjuries. Proclaim the truth.

—But you are not there! broke from Jaan. You are a branded part of my own brain, hissing at me; and I can be healed of you.

—Oh, yes, Caruith said in terrible scorn. They can wipe the traces of me away; they can also geld you if you want to become domesticated, return to making shoes. Those stars will shine on.

—Our cause in this generation, on this globe, is broken, Jaan pleaded. We both know that. What can we do but go wretched, mocked, reviled, to ruin the dreams of a last faithful few?

—We can uphold the truth, and die for it.

—Truth? What proves you are real, Caruith?

—The emptiness I would leave behind me, Jaan.

And that, he thought, would indeed be there within him, echoing “Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless” until his second death gave him silence.

—Keep me, Caruith urged, and we will die only once, and it will be in the service of yonder suns.

Jaan clung to his staff. Help me. No one answered save Caruith.

The sky whitened to eastward and Virgil came, the sudden Aenean dawn. Everywhere light awoke. Whistles went through the air, a sound of wings, a fragrance of plants which somehow kept roots in the desert. Banners rose above the Arena and trumpets rang, whatever had lately been told.

Jaan knew: Life is its own service. And I may have enough of it in me to fill me. I will go seek the help of men.

He had never before known how steep the upward path was.