Poul Anderson - Poul Anderson - Sci-Fi Boxed Set

He began stuffing papers back into the briefcase. A polished boot hit him where it would do the most good and he skidded through the disorderly mass. "You unutterable fool!" raged the voice above him.

"You vould kick my friend, huh?" asked Dyann indignantly.

A revolver clanked from the colonel's belt. "That will do," he snapped. "Consider yourself under arrest."

Dyann's broad smooth shoulders sagged a little. "I am so sorry," she said meekly. "Let me help yust a litle." She stooped and picked up one of the unconscious men.

"March!" rapped the colonel.

"Yes, sir," whispered Dyann abjectly. Then, being almost next to him, she rammed her burden into his belly. He sat down with a thunderous oof and Dyann kicked him behind the ear.

"That vas fun," she grinned, picking up the revolver and sticking it into her belt. "Vat shall ve do now?"

* * * * *

"You," said Urushkidan acidly, "are a typical human."

Ray looked despairingly out of the brig at him. "What else could I do?" he asked wildly. "I couldn't fight a shipful of Jovians. It was all I could do to talk Dyann into surrendering."

"I mean in fighting in te first place," said Urushkidan. "I hear it started over a female. Why don't you lower animals habe a regular rutting season as we do on Uttu? Ten you could spend time tinking of someting else too, someting constructive."

"Well—" Ray couldn't suppress a wry smile, "those are constructive thoughts, of a sort. But what happened to Dyann?"

"Oh, tey questioned her, found she couldn't read, and let her go. But tey won't let her see you."

"I suppose Earth would raise more of a stink over her being arrested than it's worth to the Jovians. But what's her literacy got to do with it?"

"Te colonel's papers, you idiot. Tey are bery secret. Doubtless tey are information about Eart's defenses, obtained by his spies and to be brought home by him in person."

"But I didn't read them either!"

"You saw tem. Tey are implanted in your subconscious memories and a hypnotreatment could extract tem. An illiterate like Dyann lacks te word-gestalts, she would not remember eben subconsciously, but you—Well, tat is luck. Maybe Eart can sabe you."

"Oh, no!" Ray clutched his head. "They won't bother. They don't give a damn. I'm wanted back there, and old Vanbrugh will be only too pleased to see me get the works."

"Banbrugh—te Nort American Councillor?"

"Uh-huh." Ray leaned gloomily against the door. "I was just a plain ordinary engineer till Uncle Hosmer left me a million credits. Damn him, I hope he fries in hell."

"A man left you money and you don't like it?" Urushkidan's eyes bugged so they seemed in some danger of falling out. "Shalmuannusar, what did you do wit it?"

"I spent it. I spent damn near every millo in a year."

"On what ?"

"Oh, wine, women, song—the usual."

Urushkidan clapped his tentacles to his eyes and groaned. "A million credits!"

"It got me into high society," went on Ray. "I made out as if I had more than I did. I met Catherine Vanbrugh—that's the Councillor's daughter—and she got ideas that I might make a good fifth husband, or would it be the sixth? Well, she wasn't a bad-looking wench, and I—uh—well—about the time my money gave out and I went into debt, she was really after me. It was somewhat urgent. I skipped, of course. Old Vanbrugh got the cops after me. I barely escaped. He's got enough influence to—well, it boils down to the fact that the Jovians can do anything to me their little hearts desire."

He strained against the bars. "Can't you do anything, sir? Your fame is so illustrious. Can't you slip the word to somebody?"

The Martian puffed out his chest above his eyes and simpered. Then he said with mild regret, "No, I cannot entangle myself in te empirical. My domain is te beauty and purity of matematics alone. I adbise you to accept your fate wit philosophy. Perhaps I can lend you Ekbannutil's Treatise on te Unimportance of Temporal Sorrows . It has many consoling toughts."

He waved affably and waddled off. Ray sank to the bunk.

Presently a squad of soldiers arrived to escort him to the tender which would take him down to Ganymede. Colonel Roshevsky-Feldkamp was there, as stiff as ever, though the bandage behind his ear set his cap somewhat askew.

"Where am I going?" asked Ray.

"To Camp Muellenhoff, outside the city," said the Jovian with a hard satisfaction. "It is where we keep spies until we get ready to question and shoot them."

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It took Dyann Korlas about two Earth-days to decide that she didn't like Ganymede.

The Jovians had been very courteous, apologized in a stiff way for the unfortunate misunderstanding aboard ship, and assigned her a brawny young sergeant as guide. Their armament was much more in evidence and much more interesting than Earth's but granting that spaceships and atomic bombs and guided missiles were more effective than swords and bows and mounted lancers, they took all the fun out of war and left nothing to plunder. She missed the brawling mirth of the war-camps of Varann among these bleak-faced and endlessly marching men in their drab uniforms.

The civilians were almost as depressingly clad, and even more orderly and obedient than those of Earth. Only the arrogant, bemedaled officer caste had any touch of dash or glamor about it. The Terrestrial concept of sexual equality had been interesting, even exciting in a way, but these Jovians had inverted the natural order of things to a repulsive extent.

She had seen the sights, and those were impressive enough—the grim rocky face of Ganymede, with mighty Jupiter eternally high in the dusky heavens; the bustling, crowded, machine-crammed underground cities, level after level of apartments, farms, factories, shops, barracks—but Earth could show more. Her guide promised to take her to the other moons of the Jovian Confederacy but she felt as bored by the thought as he seemed to be.

She got the impression that she was hurried along, from sight to sight and speech to speech, without ever a chance to talk to anyone and find out what really was dreamed and striven for on this land. To be sure, the Jovians all talked endlessly about a superior way of life and their right to return to the green vales of Earth whence their forefathers had been cruelly made to flee. But if they were going to fight why didn't they just hop in their ships and go there?

The dictator's face seemed to be framed wherever she turned, a small and puffy-eyed man in an elaborate uniform. Martin Wilder the Great. Her guide the sergeant, one Robert Hamand, said in an awed tone that she might be introduced to the dictator. He looked hurt when she yawned.

And what had become of Ray? Hamand knew nothing and seemed to care less. The secret police officer had said he would be held for a short time as a lesson and then released but surely he'd look her up if he were free. She contrasted the Earthling's liveliness with the quiet men of Varann and thought that he would be an ornament to anyone's harem even if there couldn't be issue between the two species.

On the third day, as she got up, she decided to ask counsel of Ormun. She washed, singing a cheerful song of clattering swords and sundering skulls, stowed away a breakfast that would have sufficed two humans, and walked into the sitting room of the apartment assigned her.

Hamand was waiting, very straight and correct in his uniform. "Good day," he said, bowing from the waist. "Today we will go topside again and visit the Devil's Garden. Then at eleven forty-five proceed to Robinsburg where we will lunch until thirteen hundred and then go on to—"

"I must take an omen first," said Dyann.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You need not do so, you have done no wrong." Dyann prostrated herself before the god. Then, struck with a sudden thought, gestured at Hamand. "You too."