Glory (27 page)

“Now then,” the astronomer began pedantically, “Buele has received a radio message that the
Gloria Coelis
is now well established in orbit and will begin unloading without delay.”

Eliana said, “Will one of the Starmen come here, Cousin?”

“Yes. The commander informs us that he will visit us here at Einsamberg, mynheera.”

“Not the physician?”

“We must deal with the Goldenwing’s master, mynheera.”

“Of course, Cousin,” Eliana said. “Was Ian able to receive that message as well as we?”

“I fear so, mynheera,” Osbertus said. He looked expectantly at the head of the ramp. “Clavius? Is he not coming?’*

“Clavius is helping Klemmer with repairs to Volkenretier,” Tiegen Roark said.

From the sill where he stood, Osbertus could see the electric arc-lights in the field where the dirigible lay moored. Otto Klemmer and the house kaffirs, with Black Clavius’ assistance, were at work on the airship. The occasional hard flurries of icy rain did nothing to discourage Klemmer, who was achingly anxious to return to Voertrekkerhoem and explain himself to The Voerster.

“Well, so be it. It is Clavius’ loss,” Osbertus said peevishly. “I would have imagined that after ten years he would be anxious to see a Goldenwing. But who can understand the ways of the kaffir?”

He arranged the academic robe he had chosen to wear and addressed himself to Broni. “What we shall do is this, mynheera Cousin. I have the telescope aimed at the spot on the western horizon where the Goldenwing will appear. Once that takes place, I shall start the clockwork and the telescope should track the object until it disappears in the east. The Goldenwing will be in sight for approximately twenty-one minutes. Then we must wait for an hour and some until it appears again. You might be able to see the cargo vehicles separating and beginning their descent to Voersterstaad. Am I understood, Cousin?”

“For God’s sake, Osbertus. The Voertrekkersdatter is not a child,” Roark said irritably.

The Healer was having serious second thoughts about his decision to come to Einsamberg with Eliana and the others. He had made a
political
decision on the basis of what he felt for the girl--and for her mother. Which had been a very stupid thing to do. Tiegen Roark had not achieved his present position in life by being rash or stupid. His second thoughts were being joined by third and fourth thoughts. All of them told him that he was in great danger, and he had put himself in this position for the sake of a woman who was far above him in the Voertrekker scheme of things. A woman he could not touch, and dare not dream of.

“She looks like a child, Brother Healer,” Buele said, grinning foolishly.

The physician flushed with anger.

“Don’t be impertinent, Buele,” Osbertus said swiftly. To Roark, he said, “Bring Broni over here, please, Healer.”

They settled Broni comfortably at the telescope. When she put her eye to the eyepiece, Buele asked, “Can you see anything, Sister?”

“Buele!”
Healer Roark quivered with indignation.

“I can see stars,” Broni said. “Very bright.”

Osbertus craned to look up at the sky over Einsamberg. The clouds were broken, their edges gleaming with the light of the Giants Wallenberg and deKlerk. Osbertus examined his watch, a heavy gold timepiece that had come to Voerster aboard the
Milagro
. Voertrekker families tended to hoard heirlooms. Unchanging things reinforced their illusion of the strength of Voertrekker society.

“It is almost time, Broni,” he said anxiously. “Look carefully. Tell me when you see the Goldenwing and I will set the clockwork.”

Tiegen Roark whispered to Eliana, “Mynheera, I disapprove of the Voertrekkersdatter sitting in an open window in this freezing weather.”

“Hush, Tiegen. Let it be.”

Roark frowned and helped himself to a toddy from the tray on the table. He rubbed nervously at his duelling scar. The damned thing itched whenever he was emotionally distraught. Even the lightness of socially sanctioned, deliberate self-disfigurement was brought into question by his act of rebellion in following Eliana Ehrengraf Voerster.

From below, in the field where the damaged dirigible was moored, came the sound of Black Clavius’ balichord. He was serenading the kaffirs helping Otto Klemmer repair the airship. The melody was pure and melancholy in the frigid mountain air. Blues. A kaffir lament. Eliana was listening intently. It disturbed Tiegen to see her moved by kaffir music.

He tried to imagine Eliana Ehrengraf’s true life--the secret, personal life of a beautiful, passionate woman condemned to the coldness of a Voertrekker political marriage. He was overwhelmed by the wave of near grief that flooded over him. It was known that Eliana’s moods affected those around her. What a dreadful power that was, Tiegen Roark thought. The more so for being unsought and unwanted.

She suddenly became aware of what she was doing and the mood in the tower room changed.

Osbertus Kloster left off frowning and began fairly to dance with excitement. “There, there it is, Broni! Can you see it?”

“Oh, Cousin! Mother! I can see it! It is so beautiful!”

Broni saw a glittering, flashing butterfly against the star-shot dark. She could hear the telescope clockwork starting and feel the instrument move to keep the golden vision in sight.

Against the starry background,
Glory
climbed into Voerster’s sky, her furled sails and embracing masts and yards shimmered with light as the sun-angle changed.

Broni said excitedly, “Oh, mynheera, do look!”

Eliana took her daughter’s place at the eyepiece and drew in her breath. The image was far clearer and larger than it had been through the large telescope at Sternhoem. The Goldenwing was close, so close that it seemed she could reach out and pluck the beautiful thing from the sky. She had not expected to be so deeply moved.

The
Gloria Coelis
flashed in the high brilliance of the white Luyten sun. Her spars and rigging seemed to shimmer with light. As a child, Eliana Ehrengraf had been told that the Goldenwings were the most beautiful constructs of man. She believed it now.

“Mother? Mynheera? Isn’t she lovely?”

Broni’s questioning voice brought Eliana back to present reality. “Yes, Broni. Lovely.” She stepped away from the telescope and let Broni return.

As the girl watched, cargo sleds and mules began to slide from the
Gloria Coelis’
ventral bay. One after another they emerged from the Goldenwing’s belly, flashed retrofire, and fell behind her.

Broni pushed away from the telescope, horrified.

“Mother, mynheera, she is making babies! She will die, Mother! She will die....’“

Eliana caught the girl in her arms.

“Broni, no, she won’t die, my love. She is of
Earth
, not of Voerster, Broni, my sweet love...”

Osbertus Kloster cursed himself for an old fool. He might have known she would see the cargo sleds separating, and as a native of this benighted planet what else would she think but that the beautiful sky-creature was another necrogene?

“What you see are not her children, Broni. They are only landing sleds. She is a machine, Cousin, not an animal. Look again. She is much closer to us now.”

What a world we live in,
Osbertus thought
. A world where the giving of one life means the relinquishing of another
. “Look and see, Broni.”

The girl returned to the eyepiece and stared open-mouthed. The large “children” had fallen far behind the Goldenwing. Another, smaller object separated from it and drifted across the sky beside it

The Voertrekkersdatter had seen Duncan Kr and Anya Amaya begin the reentry that would bring them to Einsamberg.

At the crest of the ridge to the west of the valley of Einsarntal, Eigen Fontein and his brother stood in the mountain darkness and studied the activity on the floor of the valley. They could hear, faintly, the music of a balichord. From time to time figures below crossed in front of the bonfires that had been lighted at a safe distance from the crippled airship.

“A kaffir’s playing,” Georg Fontein said. “He’s good.”

Eigen spat into the brittle grass. He was far more interested in the manor house and how well defended it might be. When old Vikter had returned from Voersterstaad after Deorbit Day, there had been rumors that a lowland Ehrengraf bride might soon be coming to Winter. As the heir, Eigen had assumed the lowlander would be his.

Eigen’s rudimentary nictitating membrane flashed to and fro across his pallid eyes. He was very angry. He had been angry since his father had returned, grinning like a cheet in estrus, from a second visit to the lowlands. He had been to Pretoria whence he had come with a signed marriage contract--a contract pledging himself in marriage to the daughter of Ian Voerster.

The news had enraged Eigen Fontein. A young bride might mean other heirs. It was intolerable. His reaction had been to set out on this expedition. He intended to take Einsamberg--the girl Broni’s dowry--for himself and perhaps destroy the scheme his father and The Voerster had agreed upon.

Georg Fontein followed his elder brother cautiously. Eigen was in the process of doing something very stupid, and very dangerous. There must be, he reasoned, a way in which he, Georg, could benefit from his duel-scarred brother’s rashness.

Georg, the thoughtful one, had suggested a possible reason for their parent’s lunacy. “The girl is frail,” Georg said. “No matter what they say, she’s sickly. Old Vikter intends to use the Law of Tribe to get himself something far better than Broni Voerster.”

The Law of Tribe was simple and primal, designed for a colony world with a limited gene pool. It was a law out of the Dark Age immediately following the Rebellion. But like all Voertrekker laws, once written, it remained in the books as a religious canon and a part of the legal code.

Simply stated, the Law declared that once a tribe betrothed a female, the prospective groom had a right to expect a healthy and umblemished woman for his bed. If one was not forthcoming, the groom’s family-had the right, in his name and in the name of the Tribe, to claim from the unsuitable female’s family another, more worthy conjugal mate, and to keep her until she supplied him with a healthy child. The choice was unlimited and unrestricted. A sister, wife, or even mother could be required to copulate with the disappointed groom until an heir was delivered.

“The old hornhead has seen Eliana Ehrengraf,” Georg Fontein said with a leer. “The Law of Tribe will give her to him. What do you think of that? You’ve seen The Voerster’s woman. Wouldn’t you like to explore under her skirt yourself? The old man has diddled you, elder brother.”

Eigen scowled at the distant balichord. He was thinking that it was an unbelievable stroke of luck to find the Voerster women here at Einsamberg. If the Law of Tribe worked for his bastard of a father, it would work as well for Eigen Fontein of Winter.

Kopje, one of the
lumpen
Eigen always brought along on hunting and whoring expeditions, was listening to the galena-powered radio. There had been feeble, hard-to-hear messages originating from Einsamberg Kraal all day. Georg said the people in the house were communicating with the syndicate in the Goldenwing that crossed the sky west to east every ninety or so minutes. If so, they were breaking the Voertrekker-Praesident’s own law--the one enacted in the Kongresshalle years ago, after the
Nepenthe
had come and gone. It was written that only officials of the Voertrekker State might communicate with offworlders. It was all very interesting to Eigen. Was it possible that his hunt would net him a sled filled with who-knew-what treasures from a Goldenwing?

Another of the
lumpen
came pounding up the hill from the camp below. “Look, Eigen-sah,
look
!”

The brilliant star they had been watching was racing across the sky as before. Within minutes it transited the Plough and the Hanged Man. When Georg asked for the field glasses he was rewarded with a snarl from Eigen, who was using them.

‘There, again!” the
lumpe
said. “See, it is breaking in pieces!”

Eigen watched the cargo panniers separate from the gemlike object in the binoculars’ field. He watched as the smaller points of light fell behind to form a string of golden beads.

“Let me look, Brother,” Georg insisted.

Eigen slammed the glasses against his brother’s chest and ran back down the hill toward the camp.

Georg raised the binoculars as the racing light crossed the zenith. He could make out some details. The object in orbit around Voerster resembled a golden dragonfly. He was impressed by its jewelled beauty. As he watched, another, smaller object separated and began to descend. Across the sky now were displayed the Goldenwing, a string of golden beads, and the last object to separate, smaller than the others. All crossed the sky with distance widening among them. Georg watched until they had vanished beyond the black shadow of the Grimsel mountain crags to the east.

Georg considered, as had his brother only moments before, what of value there might be within those golden droplets in the sky. Every mynheer on Voerster had heard since childhood of the vast treasure expended when the Goldenwing
Nostromo
departed with orders to replenish Voerster’s livestock and who knew what else. The Voerster must, at this very moment, be totting up the cost to the government of Voerster of the shipment that seemed about to arrive.

From the Fontein camp came Eigen’s shouted order: .”Make ready! We will take the manor house tonight!”

Georg shivered with an apprehension he had never before experienced. The lights in the sky, he thought, will change my world.

The storms that had troubled the Grassersee now had moved west to the shores of Amity Bay in longitude fifteen degrees. At Voertrekkerhoem, rain fell in torrents as the line squalls swept across the flatlands between the Voertrekker-Praesident’s estate and the city of Voersterstaad. The grasses lay crushed under the deluge and the land drank in the rain thirstily. When these storms were past, the grasses would grow wings and fly on the Nachtebrise, replenishing the savannah with fodder for the herds of wild ebray. And the ebray would multiply, the richness of their diet encouraging multiple births, so that the feral cheet and other predators would have a surfeit of prey animals for the approaching winter.