Harvest of Stars (27 page)

“I should garage our car straightaway.”

“Kind of bright-colored,” Farnum agreed. “Bring ’er around. I’ll go open up. You go on in, señorita. Don’t fret about what the neighbors may have noticed. We’re good at minding our own business in these parts.”

Kyra entered. A plump woman met her and said, “Bienvenida, guest,” unemphatically but as though she meant it. Neither man nor wife resembled a heroic resistance fighter. Nor did this room, its well-worn furniture and rather banal pictures on the textiled walls, seem like a den for desperados. Of course, that was how it ought to be. Savory scents drifted from the kitchen, where Kyra spied a cooking console that must be fifty years or more old.

Soon the four of them were seated over drinks before dinner. Farnum had provided a magnificent homebrew beer. When Kyra complimented him, he replied, “We keep as much of the real world going here as we can.”

“You want to bring back more of it, for everybody, don’t you?” Kyra asked.

Farnum frowned. “Let’s not talk politics,” his wife said mildly. Her gaze was unblinking on Kyra.

“Best we go directly to business, however,” Valencia responded. “You may know something important or have some ideas we two don’t.”

“Go ahead.” Farnum might have been calling for the next deal at a poker table.

“I can’t say much, but you’re probably aware the government’s raised a full-scale hunt for something it hasn’t described very closely.”

Anne Farnum grimaced. “How could we not have heard? Those lies about fanatics—Why? What are they after?”

“Could there be something real behind the stories?” Valencia murmured.

“No!” Farnum’s fist smote his chair arm.

Maybe, Kyra thought, he denied what he didn’t want to believe. Not that the junta or most of those who secretly trained in hopes of someday fighting—not that they were monsters. But it would be strange if every last person among them was emotionally disciplined. Also, revolutionary movements didn’t survive for years, biding their time, unless they imagined they had a reasonable prospect of success. That surely meant covert support from abroad, exiled North Americans, foreign governments that had their own motives …

“Apologies,” Valencia said with his best, somehow heart-storming smile. “I felt I had to inquire, but was confident what the answer would be. You in your turn will accept us as basically decent, won’t you?

“Muy bien, we two are conveying, shall I say, one of those objects the Sepo are after. We have to get it out of range, soon. The best arrangement I could make on short notice was for transport on a big yacht, a hydrofoil, the
Gentlemen Adventurers own. Reciprocity between brotherhoods, you know; the Sally Severins have done them favors in the past, and my superiors decided this job was worth calling in the debt.”

Kyra drew a tingly mouthful from her stein. She admired how smoothly Valencia talked around all but the absolute minimum of facts that mattered. Why had the comandantes of his outfit made such an investment? They weren’t exactly idealistic. Obviously, they knew that if they helped Guthrie now when he needed it, they’d be amply repaid, not just in cash but in Fireball’s good will.

Cold: But then they shared knowledge of the real situation. Either Esther Blum had explained it to them—perforce, because she lacked the money to pay for a serious rescue effort—or, once she told Valencia, he contacted them and they authorized this requisition. Yes, he’d had time in his hotel room last night before she arrived. He could have done it before releasing Guthrie to overhear.

Whichever, too cracking many were in on the truth. In principle, it ought to be spread around, but in practice, everybody who knew was an added danger. Valencia wouldn’t betray. No, not he! And he must expect none of his lodgemasters would. But could you be sure? Besides, the Sepo were bound to know more about the brotherhoods than they let on. If clues pointed that way, they might well consider it worth their while to break through any trap they had been patiently constructing, to capture and deep-quiz whomever could lead them onward.

A quick liftoff was necessary, yes.

Amidst the blood that thudded in her ears, she heard Valencia continue: “On our way down today we were road-blocked—got by, but I think we’d be lepton to proceed to San Francisco as we’d planned. Could you put me in touch with the Gentlemen on a secure line? And do you think their crew could put to sea tomorrow, and a boat from here take us out to meet them, fairly safely?”

The Farnums exchanged a look. They pondered. After a minute she said, “If they have clearance to go as of today, yes, it should be all right tomorrow. The captain can tell
the harbor police he was delayed by family trouble or something. And you, Jim, you can call in and tell the company you won’t report for work. We can make up a nice reason.”

Her husband tugged his beard. “I’ll have to figure a rendezvous point,” he said. “This coast isn’t much patrolled, but what with the government gone a-jet, we don’t want to take any worse chance than we have to of a cutter or an amphiflitter noticing us and stopping by, inquisitive-like. I’ll check on what movements of theirs have been observed lately.”

He, a simple fishpoke? The underground—nothing spectacular, plain folk like this, wide-scattered but in touch, each doing his or her small service when called upon—Kyra thought of a coiled snake. A boot heel could crush its head, if a man knew where it lay; but if he did not, it awaited its moment to strike, and meanwhile its tongue flickered, tasting the air that he troubled.

“Bueno, is that settled for now?” exclaimed Anne Farnum. “Let’s eat before dinner cooks to death.”

Over the meal they talked about the weather, the sports news, local incidents, anything trivial. You didn’t want to learn more than you must, Kyra realized. Not long afterward she was ready for the spare bed to which the wife showed her. Valencia and the Farnums stayed up. Waking at sunrise, Kyra wondered if they had gotten any sleep at all.

A
NOTHER SUNSET LAID
fire across great waters and died away. The dusk that followed was brief. When Kyra entered the observation cabin after dinner, night was already upon the Pacific half of the planet.

Aboard a vessel that would take you from the mainland to Hawaii in thirty-odd hours, you didn’t stand out on deck. This cabin was almost as good, sunken but the sill of
its canopy at head level. Very little spray had marred the clarity of the hyalon, as well streamlined and windscreened as the
Caravel
was, as smoothly as she bounded over the waves on flexing planes. Kyra scarcely noticed her own responses to the motion, except as a sense of oneness with machine and sea.

Having the cabin to herself, she darkened it and let her pupils widen to drink the scene. The riding lights were out of her view and the radar invisible. She saw only the topside, a dim and rhythmically surging whiteness. Beyond ran ocean. It sheened changeably, like a thousand black leopards a-chase; close by, she glimpsed swirls of lacy foam. The engine throbbed. The waves made torrent sounds, undertone to the wind. Overhead, sky-glow was about as slight as it ever got on Earth. Against that swarthiness she could make out perhaps a thousand stars and a ghost of the Milky Way.

A grand sight, with the peace of strength in it. Too bad the jefe couldn’t enjoy this, she thought. Again he lay locked in a screened and secret compartment. She dared not bring him out before she must. The Gentlemen Adventurers were simply repaying a favor; they had signed no contract. If the
Caravel’s
crew learned what it actually was that they smuggled along, temptation—whopping reward, pardon for past crimes, lucrative sinecure in government—might prove too much for one among them. Or the captain might think he’d been deceived into taking a monstrous risk for no real profit, and avenge it.

She’d merely been able to whisper a few words to Guthrie, which he maybe didn’t hear through his wrapping, in transit between the car and Farnum’s boat. How long could he endure near-total sensory deprivation before his mind began to spin apart? Her spell had been miserable enough, and she supposed it was the same for Valencia, after a guard cutter dashed over the horizon and radioed an order to stop. There’d been time to stash them in a pair of the lockers for contraband, but duration stretched horribly in blindness while the hydrofoil was being ran-sacked. Less than three hours? Was that possible?

Bueno, the ordeal lay behind her and a repeat search was
unlikely. Kyra returned her soul to the sea. She couldn’t reach far, though. However hard she ignored it, anxiety leashed her.

A soft footfall brought her glance around. Her pulse jumped. The shadow that came to stand beside her was Valencia.

“Buenas tardes,” he said as quietly as he had arrived. “Do I disturb you?”

“No,” she answered. “Not at all. A lovely night.”

“True. But we must go to space for a real sight of the stars.”

“Oh, a vivifer—”

“You know better than I how much that is not the same.” He paused. “Or do you? We soon take our blessings for granted, we humans. Often we forget they are blessings.”

She had not imagined she would ever feel compassion for him. “Have you never been there?”

“Briefly on. the Moon. A tourist, restricted and shepherded.”

“You wanted to become a spacer,” she knew.

“Always.”

Impulse closed her fingers around his hand for a moment. “You’re not alone. Even among Fireball children—Precious few openings, and steadily fewer.”

“Yes, yes, I quite understand,” he snapped. “I don’t pity myself.” His tone took on its usual impersonal courtesy. “My apologies, Pilot Davis, for interrupting you here. I have some news, but if you’d rather wait to discuss it, morning should be soon enough.”

She forced a smile. “Don’t leave me in suspense.”

“Muy bien. I have just had a talk with the captain, and failed to persuade him. He will not wait to take us or anyone else off from Hawaii to refuge. He’ll debark us where we want and set home immediately. I think he’s uneasy about us, and I can’t blame him. He did offer to call his comandante and let me request different orders, but that would be ridiculously risky.”

“Of course.” Kyra remembered they must watch their language. Anyplace aboard could be bugged. “We touched
on this that night in Portland, but only in passing. Do you think you could take whoever might need it into hiding?”

“I told you I’m not familiar with Hawaii, it’s another area where I’ve simply been a tourist. My brotherhood has little if anything to do with the Honolulu Kings. But … if you’ll advise me—”

“I don’t know any holes to vanish into.”

“We can talk about where you’ve been, what you’ve seen and heard. That’s information. Those other people should have more. Probably then I can keep us under cover for a while, not in any one spot but shifting about. Not a very long while if we’re hunted by professionals, and no guarantees whatsoever, but I’ll try my best.”

“We may not be in a position to renew your contract when it expires.”

His smile glistened fleetingly in the night-veiled face. Eyes and jewel caught starlight. “I’ll trust you to make it retroactive afterward.”

“Mil gracias, Nero.” Again she caught his hand, this time with both of hers and not letting go.

“Loco scheme,” he grumbled. Or, no, did he tease her? “The plug-in part, maybe, just barely. But the neosophs—” He broke off.

She noticed how her grasp clung and how softly he returned the pressure. “Don’t you see, it’s our best bet because it
is
wild?”

At any rate, so Guthrie deemed. “We’ve got to diddle not only the dicks but my altered ego,” he had said. “Kamehameha will be closely secured, since he knows what I’d most like is to get back into space. Therefore the smart thing for me to do is try slipping into a free country on Earth. Therefore the Sepo will concentrate on holding me inside Union borders till they can find me. Well, anti-Guthrie knows how I think and feel, but he doesn’t know how I was warned, how my escape was engineered, who my companions are, or what they’re capable of. Accordingly, chilluns, the most obvious move for us to make becomes the least obvious and gives us our best chance. It’s not the kind of odds you could live by making book on, but we’ll play them.”

“And being wild, it appeals to you,” Valencia told Kyra. The waves laughed around them both. “Bueno, I confess it does to me also.”

She decided she’d better release his hand, and did, and wondered why. “We’ll bring it off, Nero.” The words shivered.

“Would you care to start telling me about your Hawaiian furloughs?” he asked. What was that, wariness or practicality or what?

“I suppose I can.”

“Not a briefing or a strategy session. We needn’t spoil this night.” And it might be counterproductive, or dangerous if they had listeners, she thought. Now why did that idea seem ungracious? “Only reminisce, if you will.”

Guilt left her. “Oh, dear, where should I begin?” she jested.

“Wherever you like.” He leaned elbows on sill and gazed outward. Light from sky and sea limned his profile against the dark. “Possibly at a sight like this?”

“M-m, I recall a time—” She imitated his stance. Their elbows touched, a nexus of warmth in sea-cool air. “A friend and I, we’d arranged for a ride in an outrigger canoe—”

He led her on. Sometimes he related experiences he had had; his too could be gentle. Though he asked for nothing intimate, memories welled up that she came near to sharing. She took the impulse out in discourse of blossoms, rain forest, merriments, sand and surf and the bright small lives around a coral reef. Presently she was speaking of the Keiki Moana. Why not? They were off limits to outsiders, but everybody knew of them and had seen documentaries or read books. Everybody knew as well that Fireball occasionally allowed its folk to call on its wards.

“—swimming close to the raft when a pair of dolphins—O-o-oh!”

Still full, the Moon rose aft. Sudden silver flew across the ocean to cast halos upon heads. Kyra felt herself lean against Valencia and lay an arm around his waist.

He tautened. “Ah, Pilot Davis—”

“Outrageously beautiful,” she said from down in her throat.