Poul Anderson: The Day of Their Return

Ivar glanced aloft, as if to see a metal teardrop pounce. An ula flapped by. Pride struggled with panic: “They want me mighty badly, huh?”

“Well, you’re Firstlin’ of Ilion.”

Honesty awoke. Ivar bit his lip. “I … I’m no serious menace. I bungled my leadership. No doubt I was idiot to try.”

“I don’t know enough to gauge,” Hedin replied judiciously. “Just that Feo Astaff asked if I could coalsack you from Terrans, because you and friends had had fight with marines. Since, you and I’ve gotten no proper chance to talk. I could just sneak you your rations at night, not dare linger. Nor have newscasts said more than there was unsuccessful assault on patrol. Never mentioned your name, though I suppose after this search they’ll have to.”

The mask muffled his features, but not the eyes he turned to his companion. “Want to tell me now?” he asked.

“W-well, I—”

“No secrets, mind. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered our spoor and won’t be suspected, interrogated. Still, what can we rely on altogether?”

Ivar slumped. “I’ve nothin’ important to hide, except foolishness. Yes, I’d like to tell you, Yeoman.”

The story stumbled forth, for Hedin to join to what he already knew about his companion.

Edward Frederiksen had long been engaged in zoological research on Dido when he married Lisbet Borglund. She was of old University stock like him; they met when he came back to deliver a series of lectures. She followed him to the neighbor world. But even in Port Frederiksen, the heat and wetness of the thick air were too much for her.

She recovered when they returned to Aeneas, and bore her husband Ivar and Gerda. They lived in a modest home outside Nova Roma; both taught, and he found adequate if unspectacular subjects for original study. His son often came along on field trips. The boy’s ambitions presently focused on planetology. Belike the austere comeliness of desert, steppe, hills, and dry ocean floors brought that about—besides the hope of exploring among those stars which glittered through their nights.

Hugh McCormac being their uncle by his second marriage, the children spent frequent vacations at Windhome. When the Fleet Admiral was on hand, it became like visiting a hero of the early days, an affable one, say Brian McCormac who cast out the nonhuman invaders and whose statue stood ever afterward on a high pillar near the main campus of the University.

Aeneas had circled Virgil eight times since Ivar’s birth, when Aaron Snelund became Governor of Sector Alpha Crucis. It circled twice more—three and a half Terran years—before the eruption. At first the developed worlds felt nothing worse than heightened taxes, for which they got semi-plausible explanations. (Given the size of the Empire, its ministers must necessarily have broad powers.) Then they got the venal appointees. Then they began to hear what had been going on among societies less able to resist and complain. Then they realized that their own petitions were being shunted aside. Then the arrests and confiscations for “treason” started. Then the secret police were everywhere, while mercenaries and officials freely committed outrages upon individuals. Then it became plain that Snelund was not an ordinary corrupt administrator, skimming off some cream for himself, but a favorite of the Emperor, laying grandiose political foundations.

All this came piecemeal, and folk were slow to believe. For most of them, life proceeded about as usual. If times were a bit hard, well, they would outlast it, and meanwhile they had work to do, households and communities to maintain, interests to pursue, pleasures to seek, love to make, errands to run, friends to invite, unfriends to snub, plans to consider, details, details, details like sand in an hourglass. Ivar did not enroll at the University, since it educated its hereditary members from infancy, but he began to specialize in his studies and to have off-planet classmates. Intellectual excitement outshouted indignation.

Then Kathryn McCormac, his father’s sister, was taken away to Snelund’s palace; and her husband was arrested, was rescued, and led the mutiny.

Ivar caught fire, like most Aenean youth. His military training, hitherto incidental, became nearly the whole. But he never got off the planet, and his drills ended when Imperial warcraft hove into the skies.

The insurrection was over. Hugh McCormac and his family had led the remnants of his fleet into the deeps outside of known space. Because the Jihannath crisis was resolved, the Navy available to guard the whole Empire, the rebels would not return unless they wanted immolation.

Sector Alpha Crucis in general, Aeneas in particular, was to be occupied and reconstructed.

Chaos, despair, shortages which in several areas approached famine, had grown throughout the latter half of the conflict. The University was closed. Ivar and Gerda went to live with their parents in poverty-stricken grandeur at Windhome, since Edward Frederiksen was now Firstman of Ilion. The boy spent most of the time improving his desertcraft. And he gained identification with the Landfolk. He would be their next leader.

After a while conditions improved, the University reopened—under close observation—and he returned to Nova Roma. He was soon involved in underground activity. At first this amounted to no more than clandestine bitching sessions. However, he felt he should not embarrass bis family or himself by staying at the suburban house, and moved into a cheap room in the least desirable part of the Web. That also led to formative experiences. Aeneas had never had a significant criminal class, but a petty one burgeoned during the war and its aftermath. Suddenly he met men who did not hold the laws sacred.

(When McCormac rebelled, he did it in the name of rights and statutes violated. When Commissioner Desai arrived, he promised to restore the torn fabric.)

Given a conciliatory rule, complaints soon became demands. The favorite place for speeches, rallies, and demonstrations was beneath the memorial to Brian McCormac. The authorities conceded numerous points, reasonable in themselves—for example, resumption of regular mail service to and from the rest of the Empire. This led to further demands—for example, no government examination of mail, and a citizens’ committee to assure this—which were refused. Riots broke out. Some property went up in smoke, some persons down in death.

The decrees came: No more assemblies. The monument to be razed. The Landfolk, who since the Troubles had served as police and military cadre, to disband all units and surrender all firearms, from a squire’s ancestral cannon-equipped skyrover to a child’s target pistol given last Founder’s Day.

“We decided, our bunch, we’d better act before ’twas too late,” Ivar said. “We’d smuggle out what weapons we could, ahead of seizure date, and use them to grab off heavier stuff. I had as much knowledge of back country as any, more than most; and, of course, I am Firstlin’. So they picked me to command our beginnin’ operation, which’d be in this area. I joined my mother and sister at Windhome, pretendin’ I needed break from study. Others had different cover stories, like charterin’ an airbus to leave them in Avernus Canyon for several days’ campout. We rendezvoused at Helmet Butte and laid our ambush accordin’ to what I knew about regular Impy patrol routes.”

“What’d you have done next, if you’d succeeded?” Hedin asked.

“Oh, we had that planned. I know couple of oases off in Ironland that could support us, with trees, caves, ravines to hide us from air search. There aren’t that many occupation troops to cover this entire world.”

“You’d spend your lives as outlaws? I should think you’d soon become bandits.”