Poul Anderson - A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

Flandry’s attention was concentrated on piloting. Ordinarily he would have left that to the automatics, or to Chives if no ground-control facilities existed. But this time he must use both skill and the secret data he had commandeered back on Terra, to elude the Imperial space sentries.

Most were small detector-computer units in orbit, such as supervised traffic around any world of the Empire which got any appreciable amount of it, guarding against smugglers, hostiles, recklessness, or equipment failures. Flandry had long since rigged his speedster to evade them without much effort, given foreknowledge of their paths. But surely the unrest on Diomedes, the suspicion of outside interference, had caused spacecraft to be added. Sneaking past these required an artist. He enjoyed it.

Just the same, somewhere at the back of awareness, memory rehearsed what he had learned about his goal. Pictures and passages of text flickered by:

“Among the bodies which men have named Diomedes—among all the planets we know—in many respects, this one is unique.

“Though not unusually old, the system is metal-poor. To explain that, Montoya suggested chemical fractionation of the original cloud of dust and gas by the electromagnetic action of a passing neutron star … As a result, while Diomedes has a mass of 4.75 Terra, the low net density gives it a surface gravity of only 1.10 standard. However, so large an object was bound to generate an extensive atmosphere. Between gravitational potential resulting from a diameter twice Terran, and low temperature and irradiation resulting from the G8 sun, much gas was retained. Life has modified it. Today mean sea-level pressure is 6.2 bars; the partial pressures of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide are about the same as on Terra, the rest of the air consisting chiefly of neon …

“Through some cosmic accident, the spin axis of Diomedes, like that of Uranus in the Solar System, lies nearly in the orbital plane. The arctic and antarctic circles thus almost coincide with the equator. In the course of a year 11 percent longer than Terra’s, practically the whole of each hemisphere will be sunless for a period ranging from weeks to months. Chill even in summer, land and sea become so frigid in winter that all but highly specialized life-forms must either hibernate or migrate …

“Progressive autochthonous cultures had brought Stone Age technology, the sole kind possible for them, to an astonishing sophistication. Once contacted by humans, they were eager to trade, originally for metals, subsequently for means to build modern industries of their own. Diomedes offers numerous organic substances, valuable for a variety of purposes, cheaper to buy from natives than to synthesize …

“The biochemistry producing these compounds is only terrestroid in the most general sense. It consists of proteins in water solution, carbohydrates, lipids, etc. But few are nourishing to humans and many are toxic. They permeate the environment. A man cannot survive a drink of water or repeated breaths of air, unless he has received thorough immunization beforehand. (Of course, that includes adaptation to the neon, which otherwise at this concentration would have ill effects too.) Short-term visitors prefer to rely on their basic antiallergen, helmets, protective clothing, and packaged rations.

“The Diomedean must be similarly careful about materials from offplanet. In particular, most metals are poisonous to him. That he can use copper and iron anyway, as safely as we use beryllium or plutonium, is a tribute to his intelligence. But the precautions by themselves have inevitably joined those factors which force radical change upon ancient customs. Some cultures have adjusted without extreme stress. Others continue to suffer upheaval. Injustice and alienation bring dissension and violence … ”

Although, Flandry thought, if we Imperials packed up our toys and went home, everybody here would soon be a great deal worse off. There’ve been too many irreversible changes. You can’t even sit still in this universe and not make waves.

The sun was never down in summer; but Diomedes’ 12.5-hour rotation spun it through a circle. At the point in space and time where Hooligan landed, sharply rising mountains to the south concealed the disc.

The saloon was warm and scented. Nevertheless, what he saw in the screen made Flandry grimace and give an exaggerated shiver. “Brrr! No wonder climes like this foster Spartan virtues. The inhabitants have to be in training before they can emigrate and dispossess whoever lives on desirable real estate.”

“You can’t appreciate, can you, here is home for the Lannachska that they only want to keep unruined,” Kossara said.

Couldn’t she recognize a joke? Maybe not. She’d held aloof since he interviewed her, studying as he urged but saying nothing about what meaning she drew from it.

What a waste, Flandry sighed. We could have had a gorgeous voyage, you and 1.

His gaze lingered on her. A coverall did not hide the fullness of a tall and supple body. Blue-green eyes, mahogany locks, strongly sculptured countenance had begun to haunt his reveries, and in the last few nightwatches his dreams. Did she really speak in the exact husky contralto of Kathryn McCormac? …

She sensed his regard, flushed, and attacked: “We are on Lannach, are we not? I think I recall several of these peaks.”

Flandry nodded and gave his attention back to the view. “Yes. Not far south of Sagna Bay.” He hoped she’d admire how easily he’d found a particular site on the big island, nothing except maps and navigation to guide him down through the stormy atmosphere. But she registered unmixed anger. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t object to that, seeing how carefully I fueled it.

Concealed by an overhanging cliff, the ship stood halfway up a mountain, with an overlook down rugged kilometers to a horizon-gleam which betokened sea. Clouds towered in amethyst heaven, washed by faint pink where lightning did not flicker in blue-black caverns. Crags, boulders, waterfalls reared above talus slopes and murky scraps. Thin grasslike growth, gray thornbushes, twisted low trees grew about; they became more abundant as sight descended toward misty valleys, until at last they made forest. Wings cruised on high, maybe upbearing brains that thought, maybe simple beasts of prey. Faint through the hull sounded a yowl of wind.

“Very well,” Kossara said grimly. “I’ll ask the question you want me to ask. Why are we here? Aren’t you supposed to report in at Thursday Landing?”

“I exercised a special dispensation I have,” Flandry said. “The Residency doesn’t yet know we’ve come. In fact, unless my right hand has lost its cunning, nobody does.”

At least I get a human startlement out of her. He liked seeing expressions cross her face, like clouds and sunbeams on a gusty spring day. “You see,” he explained, “if subversive activities are going on, there’s bound to be a spy or two around Imperial headquarters. News of your return would be just about impossible to suppress. And since you’re in the custody of a Naval officer, it’d alarm the outfit we’re after.

“Whereas, if you suddenly reappear by yourself, right in this hotspot, you’ll surprise them. They won’t have time to get suspicious, I trust. They’ll make you welcome—”

“Why should they?” Kossara interrupted. “They’ll wonder how I got back.”

“Ah, no. Because they won’t know you were ever gone.”

She stared. Flandry explained: “Your companions died. If rebel observers learned that you lived, they learned nothing else. No matter how idiotically my colleagues behaved toward you, I’m sure they followed doctrine and let out no further information. You vanished into their building, and that was that. You were brought from there to the spaceship in a sealed vehicle, weren’t you? … Yes, I knew it … The Corpsmen had no reason to announce you’d been condemned and deported, therefore they did not.