Falkayn decided he had better be courteous and meet the Imperial envoy-instructor at the air lock. He kept his blaster conspicuously on one hip.
Waiting, he could look up to the walls on the hillcrest. They were of dry-laid stone; water was too precious to use in mortar. Their battlements, and the gaunt towers at their corners, enclosed a few score woven houses. Haijakata was a mere trading center for the local farmers and for caravans passing through. A rather small garrison was maintained. The northern highlands had been cleared of those barbarian raiders who haunted most deserts, Gujgengi admitted, so Falkayn suspected the troops were quartered here mainly as a precaution against revolt. What little he had found out of Ikranankan history sounded turbulent.
Which is still another worry, he fretted. Old Nick isn't going to invest in expensive facilities unless there's a reasonably stable social order to keep the trade routes open. And the Katandaran Empire looks like the only suitable area on the whole planet. No trading post on Ikrananka, no commissions for me. What a jolly, carefree, swashbuckling life we explorers lead!
His gaze shifted to the oncoming party. There were a couple of dozen soldiers, in leather breastplates, armed to the teeth they didn't have with swords, knives, crossbows, and big ugly halberds. All wore the curlicue insigne of the Tirut phratry; everyone in the garrison did. At their head stalked Gujgengi. He was tall for an Ikranankan, skinny, his blue-black fur grizzled, a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched precariously on his beak. A scarlet robe swept to his feet, emblazoned with the crest of the Deodakh, the Imperial, phratry. At his tasseled belt hung a long snickersnee. Falkayn had not yet seen any native male without a weapon.
The human made the knee bend with arms crossed on breast that did duty here for a salaam. "To the most noble Gujgengi and his relatives, greeting," he intoned ritually. He'd never be able to pronounce this guttural language right. His speaking apparatus was not designed for it. And his grammar was still ramshackle. But by now he was reasonably fluent.
Gujgengi did not use the formula, "Peace between our kindred," but rather, "Let us talk," which implied there was a serious matter on hand that he hoped could be settled without bloodshed. And he made signs against evil, which he hadn't done of late.
"Honor my house," Falkayn invited, since the native tongue had no word for ship and "wagon" was ridiculous.
Gujgengi left his followers posted and stiffly climbed the ramp. "I do wish you would put in decent lighting," he complained. Since he saw no wavelength shorter than yellow, though his visual spectrum included the near infrared, the fluoros were dim to him; his horizontal-pupiled eyes had little dark adaptation, which was scarcely needed on the sunward hemisphere.
Falkayn guided him to the saloon. Gujgengi grumbled the whole way. This place was too hot, one might as well be in Subsolar country, and it stank and the air was wet and would Falkayn please quit breathing damp on him. Ikranankans didn't exhale water vapor. What their metabolism produced went straight into the bloodstream.
At the end, he stopped in the doorway, stiffened, and adjusted his glasses. "So you are in truth sheltering her!" he croaked.
Stepha reached for her saber. "Now, now, now," said Adzel, laying irresistible fingers around her arm. "Is that nice?"
"Be seated, most noble," said Falkayn. "Have a drink."
Gujgengi accepted some Scotch with ill-concealed eagerness. Ikranankans were quite humanlike in that respect. "I was given to understand you came in friendship," he said. "I trust this occurrence can be satisfactorily explained."
"Why, sure," Falkayn said, more heartily than he felt. "We saw this female of my race being chased by strangers who, as far as we could tell, were raiders. Naturally we supposed she was from our homeland."
Chee blew a smoke ring and added in her silkiest voice, "The more so when you, most noble, had never seen fit to tell us there was an old human settlement here."
"Ak-krrr," Gujgengi hemmed. "With so much else to teach you—"
"But surely you knew how interesting this one thing would be," Chee pursued.
"—at your own request—"
"Really, most noble, we are shocked and grieved."
"They merely form another phratry of soldiers—"
"Of considerable importance to the Empire, with which we were negotiating in good faith."
"She broke the Emperor's express command—"
"What command? That we be isolated? Now that, most noble, is another deplorable discovery. We begin to wonder how much faith has been kept with us. Perhaps we are not welcome here? We can withdraw, you know. We have no wish to force ourselves or our trade goods on anyone."
"No, no, no!" Gujgengi had inspected samples of everything from synthetic fabrics to chemical firearms. He breathed harder each time he thought about them. "It was only—"
"Though to be frank," Chee said, "the withdrawal cannot be permanent. Our people at home must be told about these Ershoka, and come arrange for their transportation to a more suitable clime. The overlords of Earth will not be pleased to learn that Katandara was keeping these unfortunates in concealment. Were they, perhaps, being mistreated? I am afraid that a very grave view will be taken of this affair."
Falkayn was too rocked back to enjoy the spectacle of Gujgengi's rout. He hadn't thought of the implications. Returning the Ershoka home—why, that'd blow the gaff clear to Andromeda! And he was supposed to keep his discoveries quiet!
Maybe—No. He looked at Stepha, seated proud and cat-lithe on the edge of her chair, the light glowing in her tresses and gray eyes, down the white curves of her, and knew he couldn't betray her with his silence. Anyhow, it would be useless. Once traders started coming here, they'd also learn the facts, and some conscientious bastard was certain to blab.
Gujgengi lifted his tumbler in a hand gone shaky, tilted his head back, and poured deftly into his open bill. "I ought to confer with the Emperor," he said. "I really ought to. But . . . under the circumstances . . . perhaps we can reach an understanding."
"I do hope so," said Adzel.
"The fact is," Gujgengi confessed, "shortly before you came, a—ak-krrr—a most unhappy situation arose. The Empire has been in the process of conquering Sundhadarta." No mealymouthed phrases about "pacification" in this language. "The key to that whole region is Rangakora city. Being strongly fortified, it was hard to take, so the Emperor dispatched a contingent of his own crack troops, the Ershoka, to help the storming, under High Guardsman—uk-k-k—"
"Bobert Thorn," said Stepha curtly, supplying the labials.
"They succeeded—"
"You might thank her," said Chee.
Gujgengi looked confused and needed another drink. "They succeeded," he managed to continue. "But then, uk, Ohertorn decided this could be the nucleus of a kingdom for himself. He and his men . . . well, they threw out our troops and took possession. There they have been ever since. We have, uk, not yet gotten them dislodged. Meanwhile the Ershoka still in the capital grow restless. And then you, of the same race, conceivably of the same phratry, appear! Do you wonder that the Emperor wished to, ak-krrr, proceed with, shall we say, circumspection?"
"Judas on a crutch!" said Falkayn indistinctly.
Stepha sat for a moment in a silence deepened by the rustle of air in ventilators, the impatient tap of Chee's cigarette holder on the table, and Gujgengi's asthmatic breathing. She scowled at the deck and tugged her chin. Abruptly she reached a decision, straightened, and said:
"Yes, truth, this has hurt the Ershoka in Katandara. They know they're under suspicion. Let the Emperor get too bloody suspicious, and he may even try to have 'em massacred. I don't think that'd be so wise of him—any bets who'd come out of the fracas alive?—but we don't want to rip the Empire apart. At the same time, we've got to look out for our own. So we heard rumors about these new-come strangers. Bound to happen, you know. Haijakatans would've carried the news around before the ban was laid on. Now and then, a planter may still sneak past the guard posts. We had to find out, in the Iron House, what these yarns meant. Else we'd be like blind men on a cliff trail. I reckoned to reach this place. My own idea, I true-speak you. None else knew. But a patrol eyeballed me."
Gujgengi did not seize on the obvious opportunity to bluster about loyalty and subordination. Or maybe there was no such chance. More and more during the weeks, Falkayn had gotten the impression that Ikranankans were loyal to their own blood kindred and anything else was a mere bond of convenience.
But wait!
Excited, he sprang up. Gujgengi reached for his sword, but the man only paced, back and forth, feet jarring on the deck, as he rattled out:
"Hey, this whole thing is a turn of magic for us." No word for good luck. "Your Emperor was wrong to suspect us. We're traders. Our interest lies in a secure realm that we can deal with. The weapons on this ship can blow down any wall ever built. We'll take Rangakora for him."
"No!" Stepha shouted. She boiled to her own feet, saber gleaming forth. "You filthy—"
Falkayn let her run down, in Adzel's grasp, before he asked, "Why, what's wrong? Aren't you on the Imperial side?"
"Before I let you kill a thousand Ershoka," she said between her teeth, "I'll—" and she was off again, in quite a long and anatomical catalogue of what she would do to David Falkayn.
"Oh, but honey chil'," he protested. "You don't understand. I'm not going to kill anybody. Just knock down a wall or two, and overawe the garrison."
"Then Jadhadi's soldiers will take care of them," she said bleakly.
"Uh-uh. We'll protect them. Make some arrangement."
"See here," Gujgengi objected, "the Emperor's prerogatives—"
Falkayn told him where the Emperor could store his prerogatives, but in Latin. In Katandaran he said, "An amnesty is our price for helping. With safeguards. I don't think it's too high. But that's for the Emperor to decide. We'll fly to him and discuss the matter."
"Now, wait!" Gujgengi cried. "You cannot—"
"Precisely how do you plan to stop us, sonny boy?" Chee leered.
Gujgengi fell back on argument. The Emperor would be displeased if his orders were flouted. There was no suitable place in Katandara for landing the ship. The populace was so uneasy that the sight could provoke a riot. Et cetera, et cetera.
"Best we compromise," Adzel whispered. "Arrogance breeds resistance."
After considerable haggling, Gujgengi agreed that, under the circumstances, the flitter might go. It was small, could dart in before many people saw it and sit unseen in the palace gardens. And indeed a message to Katandara by land would take an awkwardly long time.
"As well, at that, to keep the ship here," Chee remarked. "A reserve, in case you have trouble."
"In case we do?" Adzel pounced.
"You don't think I intend to go live in that dust pot of an atmosphere, do you? Not if I can help it. And I can play my tapes in peace while you and your cast-iron ear are gone."
"If you intend to play what, for lack of a suitably malodorous word, is called Cynthian music, then I will most certainly not be here."
"We'll take you home with us," Falkayn offered Stepha.
She had held oddly aloof, watching with the mask back in place. Now she hesitated. "You won't get into trouble, will you?" he asked.
"N-n-no," she said in Anglic, which Gujgengi didn't speak. "My barrack mates will have covered my disappearance, even if they didn't know the reason for it. Not hard to do, when these stupid Ikranankans think all Ershoka look alike. But we must be—I mean, we're confined to the city for the time being. I can't walk right in the gates, and if I arrived openly with you, I'd be watched." She pondered. "You land quick, right in front of the Iron House, and I can dash in. If they ask you why, afterward, tell them you mistook it for the palace."
"Why do you care if you're watched?"
"I don't like the idea." She grasped his hands and leaned close. "Please, David. You've been so good a friend till now."
"Well—"
She waggled her eyelashes. "I hope we can become still better friends."
"All right, dammit!"
Arrangements were quickly made. Falkayn changed into a warm tunic, trousers, and boots, with a white cloak and a bejeweled cap tilted rakishly across his brow to add class. Two guns snugged at his waist, blaster and stunner. Into a breast pocket he slipped a transceiver; the planet had sufficient ionosphere for radio to reach between here and Katandara. He stuffed a bag with extra gear and gifts for the Emperor. Adzel took no more than a communicator hung about his neck.
"We'll call in regularly, Chee," Falkayn said. "If you don't hear from either of us for eight hours straight, haul gravs and come a-running."
"I still don't know why you bother," the Cynthian grumbled. "That wretched female has already spoiled this whole mission."
"The secrecy angle? We may solve that somehow. At worst, even with competitors swarming in, Old Nick will get some good out of a stable Empire. And, uh, in any event we can't let bloodshed go on."
"Why not?" She gave up. "Very well, be off. I'll continue our sessions with Gujgengi. The more information we have, the better."
The Imperial agent had already gone back to town with his escort. But Haijakata's parapets were dark with natives clustered to see the takeoff.
"Oh-h-h!" Stepha gasped and clutched Falkayn's arm. He resisted the temptation to do some aerial acrobatics and lined off for Katandara, a little north of west. The preliminary survey had made excellent maps, and Gujgengi had identified points of interest on them.
Kilometer after kilometer, the Chakora fled beneath them. They rode in a humming bubble over endless red-green fields, tiny thorps, once a strung-out caravan of laden four-footed karikuts guarded by warriors on zandara-back. "Those must be Shekhej," Stepha remarked. "Their phratry does most of the hauling in these parts."
Adzel, squeezing the trio together by his bulk (not that Falkayn minded), asked, "Is every trade a family affair?"
"Why, yes," Stepha said. "You're born a Shekhej, you're a caravaneer. All Deodaka used to be hunters till they conquered Katandara; now they're officials. The Tiruts and others, like we Ershoka, are soldiers. The Rahinjis are scribes. And so it goes."
"But suppose one is born with the wrong sort of talent?"
"Oh, each phratry has lots of different things to do. The main job is the most honorable one. But somebody has to keep house, keep accounts, keep farms if the group owns any—everything. You'd not trust that to outsiders, would you?
"Also, a youth at the age when he's to begin learning the phratry secrets, he can be adopted into a different one if he wants and if it'll take him. That's one reason we Ershoka are so apart. We couldn't marry with any Ikranankans"—Stepha giggled and made a vulgar joke—"so we have to stay in the corps. On t' other hand, for that same reason, we know we can trust our young. They've no place else to go. So we initiate them early."
"I understand most phratries are very ancient."
"Yes. Kingdoms come and go, none last more'n a few generations, but a bloodline is forever."
Her words confirmed what Falkayn had already gathered. It bespoke an ingrained clannishness that worried him. If the attitude was instinctive, this was a poor world in which to set up operations. But if it could be altered—if the Ikranankans could be made to feel loyalty toward something larger than a cluster of families—
Katandara hove into view. The city lay no more than two hundred kilometers from Hajakata, which in turn was halfway to Rangakora. The Empire's great extent was west and south, through the fertile Chakora.
Winding from the northeast came the Yanjeh River, a silver gleam surrounded by a belt of vegetation that glowed against stark eastern hills and tawny western ranchlands. Where it ran down the former continental shelf and emptied into broad, muddy Lake Urshi, Katandara was built. That was an impressive city, which must house half a million. Whole civilizations had possessed it, one after the other, as Rome and Constantinople, Peking and Mexico City, had been possessed: each adding to walls and towers and buildings, until now the ramparts enclosed a sprawl built almost entirely in stone. Old were those stones, the hewn outlines crumbling, and old were the narrow streets that twisted between facades gray, square, and secretive. Only at the landward end, where the ground rose steeply, was there anything not scoured by millennia of desert sand—the works of the newest rulers, marble-veneered and dome-topped, roofed with copper and decorated with abstract mosaics. That section, like those of earlier overlords, had a wall of its own, to protect masters from people.
With a magnifying scanner, Stepha could point out details at such a distance that the flitter was yet unseen. Falkayn went into a dive. Air shrieked. The controls thrummed beneath his hands. At the last instant, he threw in reverse grav and came to a bone-jarring halt.
"Farewell, David . . . till we meet again." Stepha leaned over and brushed her lips across his. Blood beat high in her face. He caught the sweet wild odor of her hair. Then she was out the lock.
The Ershoka were barracked in a single great building near the palace. It fronted on a cobbled square, along with the homes of the wealthy. Like them, it was built around a courtyard and turned a blank entry to the world. But some memory of Earth lingered in peaked iron roof, gable ends carved into monster heads, even the iron doors. A few Ikranankans gaped stupefied at the flitter. So did the sentries at the barrack entrance, big bearded men in chain mail, helmets gilt and plumed, cloaks that the wind flung about in rainbow stripes. But at once their weapons snapped up and they shouted.
Stepha sped toward them. Falkayn took off. He had a last glimpse of her being hustled inside.
"Now ho for Ol' Massa's," he said. "Let's hope he asks questions first and shoots later."