Harvest of Stars (39 page)

That called forth a laugh. Ease off, girl. The exotic always appealed, and no doubt she was on the rebound from Valencia. Let that lesson stay with her. Admittedly Rinndalir had depths beneath the glittering surface. Just what were they, though? Keep watchful, ready to jump.

And don’t remain passive. Give him back some of his own. For openers, what to wear?

She spent a considerable time on that. The wardrobe bestowed on her included things she hadn’t yet used. She chose the slinkiest, an ankle-length tigryl gown cut low, its skirt slit up the right side. Silvery slippers. No jewelry except her academy ring, taken from her pocket kit. Her hands were big for a woman’s, well fitted to the heavy gold circlet and inlaid star. Cosmetics were in the bathroom. Thus far she hadn’t availed herself of them, but now, a few careful touches, plus a dab of the right perfume.

Then it was to wait, and wait. She screened a recording of an Earthside
The Tempest
which she liked, but found that it wasn’t registering on her.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, maybe? No, that would go too near the bone.

A servant appeared at last, to escort her ceremonially. He bowed her through a door of the Pagoda and closed it behind her.

Brilliance erupted in a million colors. This turret jutting into space was one synthetic diamond, faceted inside and out. She could not look at the blaze where the sun shone through, but everywhere else was flash and sparkle, changeable at every least motion she made. Rinndalir approached over the glassy-polished floor, in close-fitting black. Rainbows played across the whiteness of face and hands, shimmered on the pale hair, danced about his feet.

“Welcome anew,” he murmured. Unthinkingly, she offered him her arm. He held his above. Fingertips barely touched her hand. She felt each one of them. She’d granted him superior status. What of it? He smiled and guided her to a table. Wine and hors d’oeuvres were on it. Light filled the crystal. He poured. “Your Terrestrial custom,” he said, as he gave her a goblet. “Would you fain propose a toast?”

Impulse grabbed. “To our partnership!” Rims sang when they met. It was a noble wine, no, regal, imperial.

They continued standing, Lunarian style, as they drank and talked. “I am happy about this,” he told her. “Before, we were not free to deal with you as we wished, Niolente and I. Henceforth, I trust, you shall in truth be a partner. May I say a friend?”

“Yes, por favor, do.” She mustn’t let it overwhelm her. Hold steady. Speak out. “But if, if I am to be—I need to know more.”

He nodded. “Undeniably. You could not earlier because we did not ourselves. Forgive my frankness. At the start we must gather what evidence we were able that would confirm or disconfirm your story. It seemed plausible, but it could have been part of a scheme. Unless that began to look likely, we would not subject you to the horror and indignity of a deep quiz.”

Which they could have done with impunity. How could she have taken revenge, or gotten any redress afterward unless that was their whim? “K-kind of you.”

He grinned. “Precautionary. Why raise needless antagonism?”

Emboldened, she replied, “Lunarian thinking, that. Wise, of course. But as for this having been an elaborate hoax—bueno, I suppose that was Lunarian thinking too.”

“We have the reputation of being intriguers,” he agreed, unabashed. “Remember, Niolente and I must convince not only ourselves of your bona fides, but a sufficiency among the Selenarchs, and they would speculate about
us
. Then we must negotiate, while collecting more intelligence about your enemies. You would not have understood our ways. This is not your civilization. Had we let you follow along, simply explaining matters as they developed
would have been a serious drain on time and energy, and probably an impossible task.”

Kyra stiffened a bit. “I would not have gone hysterical on you.”

“Nay,” he answered softly. “I am sure of that now. But remember, you came to us a stranger. How could we tell? You are as foreign to us as we are to you.”

“I wonder about that.” She took a deeper draught than was right for a drink like this. It hallowed her palate and sent rainbows into her bloodstream, akin to those that glorified Rinndalir. Might there be something in it, a drug to which he was accustomed or immune? No matter. She’d recognize intoxication if it started, and curb herself. “What have you arranged to do? Soon. You know we can’t dawdle.”

He sighed. “Pity to spoil this hour with business.”

Was that also how a Lunarian thought? “Get it over with and then we can relax and enjoy.”

“Suspense adds savor. However, since you feel otherwise, here is the plan, sparely sketched. Tomorrow the Selenarchy will declare all Fireball properties on the Moon sequestered, pending investigation of this alleged terrorist crisis, which we have come to suspect is false. Your officers in Port Bowen will protest but not resist; we have sounded out the key ones.”

“Why not just tell them the truth?”

“Would they keep secrecy? Some would disbelieve, others be uncertain. The natural thing to do would be to send Quito a query. You have been urging swift, decisive action. That requires surprise.”

“I think you underestimate our folk. But they aren’t yours, are they? What’ll you do next?”

“We, Pilot Davis. You are vital to us. The sequestration covers our rear and gives us authority to commandeer spaceships. You will pilot a force of us to Lagrange-Five. There you will be our liaison.”

“Wow-w-w!” she shouted inadequately. He laughed into her joy. Almost, she seized him and kissed him.

She braked her impulse in time. That effort brought feelings under control. They throbbed undwindled, but
did not clamor thought out of awareness. “What kind of ship? A torch’d be too much to expect from luck. Wouldn’t make much difference anyway. Your men couldn’t stand a one-
g
boost for the, m-m, about three and a half hours it’d take. At least, not if they want to arrive in shape to do anything worthwhile.”

“We will be a picked troop. We can endure two Lunar gravities for the six hours necessary.”

Thrill: “You’re coming in person? Yes, you would. … What kinds of ship are available? How many will you be?”

“You see, you are a full comrade in the emprise,” he purred. “Ten plus yourself should suffice. In port are several vessels, but only one of them, a Narwhal, has enough couches plus sufficient delta v. Can you handle such a craft?”

Kyra shook her head. “I can, but no go. Sure, she’s a passenger carrier for Earth and ambient space, but her drive isn’t meant for a boost period that long. We’d either have to spend time we can’t well afford on trajectory, or risk burnout and, at best, guarantee rousing suspicion at the other end. Also, we’d have precious little reaction mass reserve if somebody comes after us in a torch.” Her mind sped, an excitement like surfing on a really big one. “There’s a Dolphin, of course, always is, rescue craft. Four couches, but I won’t need any. You’ll have to settle for that size team.”

“We shall,” he replied instantly. “I had in mind a rather large group because it could make itself difficult to subdue, should matters go awry for us. Now we must see to it that they do not.”

“We can’t just leap inboard and lift off, you know,” Kyra warned. “She’s kept pretty well ready, considering her main purpose, but some preparations are needed, and then how do you explain taking her out when we haven’t got an emergency?”

“That will all be taken care of beforehand.”

“How?”

“I have agents in the Fireball organization.”

I, he said. The implications were disquieting.

Perhaps he read it on her. He spoke fast. “The port
technicians will soon receive instructions, seemingly from Quito. That is in the net on standby; I need merely key in the precise details. This change of plans that you urge—let me think. … Ah, yes. We Lunarians wish to send inspectors up to a relay satellite we are considering replacing, but suddenly find we have problems with our own spacecraft suitable for the task. As a courtesy, Fireball will take them. Since they are four, not ten, and a Dolphin is more maneuverable than a Narwhal, and traffic patterns show no significant probability of accidents in this vicinity at present, that is the ship to use.”

Kyra frowned. “I know who’ll wonder real hard about that.”

“My agents will make certain that this message and the consequent preparatory work do not come to the attention of any such persons.”

Tricks, diversions, beguilements—“You can’t make that liftoff invisible, nor the fact right afterward that she’s not really making for any Lunar satellite.”

“By then, the sequestration will have happened, including communications. Ground crews will not yet know of it. Officers will be in polite custody. Once the ship is aloft, that can be revealed to all personnel, but for the next—fifteen hours, shall we say?—no communication will go out of Port Bowen that our agents have not checked, or constructed themselves. I repeat, at Lagrange-Five we require surprise.”

Kyra whistled. “That’s a mighty big bite you’re taking. What if we fail?”

Rinndalir chuckled. “The consequences will be diplomatically interesting. But we, the Selenarchs of sovereign Luna, need no more fear effective punishment than do the Avantist masters of North America.”

“Still … I see why you had to work this quietly, take this long. Making arrangements for something so big—” Abruptly she had scant comfort from the wine. “Why do your consortes go along with it? What’s in it for them? For
you
, sir?”

He turned grave. “That is somewhat of a philosophical question, Pilot Davis. We can try to discuss it later, if you
wish. Let me simply declare now that our relationship with Guthrie’s Fireball has been generally satisfactory. Who knows what pseudo-Guthrie might provoke?”

That reassured, at least to the point where she could smile and reply, “Which is what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

“Indeed.” His voice briskened. “Shall we finish the practicalities? Our expeditionary force will have an authorization apparently issued by Fireball’s director here. Devising and encoding that took some expert time also. It will be beamed to the colony shortly before we dock. It states that we are a mission sent in a preliminary way to look at the possibility of establishing a Lunarian enterprise station at the one-sixth gravity level there.”

Kyra frowned. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Nay,” Rinndalir admitted with a grin, “but the Security Police ought not to know that, and the regular staff should see no reason not to receive us. Lunarians do have a name for waywardness, but never for endangering an environment in space.” His gaze pierced her, his tone slowed and deepened. “Once we are inside, what happens will depend very largely on you, Pilot Davis. I assume you know who can lead us to Guthrie, and can persuade that person to do so.”

“I … think I can—” It exploded: “And then the whole rotten conspiracy crashes!”

He lifted a diamond-aureoled hand. “Not quite that dramatically, I fear. We had best not carry him in triumph through the colony, but smuggle him out. Otherwise the Security Police might find means to halt us and suppress all news. Or else imagine what some individual fanatic might do. Any attempt—firearms discharged—need I say further? And afterward … we must consider what is wisest, in conference with Guthrie himself. His enemies are desperate, and not stupid. North America wavers on the verge of civil war. Millions of lives could be at risk.”

Fleetingly she wondered whether he cared about that. But no. Unworthy thought. He was more Faust than Mephistopheles, she must believe. And he had engineered the great adventure that should bring liberation.

She shifted her goblet into her left hand and thrust out her right. “Muy bien!” she cried.

His clasp was warm, and he smiled into her eyes. His were big, oblique, the gray of a northern sea or of fine steel. “So be it,” he said. “Drain your glass and I will refill both and we will drink to chaos.”

She obeyed. While he poured she asked, “Chaos?”

“In the scientific sense,” he answered. “An ordering of infinitely wonderful, unforeseeable manifoldness.” After a moment: “But also in the older sense. I do not think that once this is over we can return to our familiar universe. Siva is the Destroyer. But he is, as well, the Creator Anew.”

They drank, and nibbled the refreshments, and admired the play of light, and talked of much. Later she saw that he had revealed essentially nothing of what his motives and his colleagues’ were. Perhaps her oversight was due to a growing happiness, perhaps his skill. He did, for instance, give her what seemed like a glimpse of his heart.

“Yes, here on Luna we have grandeur to undertake, making this world over to please ourselves, and otherwise every illusion we may desire. When our ingenuity runs dry, that of the machines will be unbounded. Yet to what end? The future is theirs. Unless we—It would not be the first rebellion that raised hope out of hopelessness, through chaos.” He sheered from the subject and fashioned a merry jest.

Beneath the entrancement, she heard herself wonder if he truly was Faust. If not, what? A trickster god, Raven, Coyote? Or Loki?

Most of this was over the dinner table, to which he presently led her. It was in a room of blue twilight. Fragrances drifted, and music. How had he discovered that she loved the Air on a G String? The meal was superb, a series of small courses, each a masterpiece. Realities interwove the conversation, details, ideas, many of which he evoked from her. They gave it direction and meaning, a sharing of purpose; but always pleasures came back, humor, lines of poetry, remembrances. She fell into telling him about her past, from Toronto Compound and Russia
on to the comets and planets. His questions and comments, out of his foreignness, were often astonishingly enlightening. She had never before thought about matters in that way. Only afterward did she reckon up how little he told her in return.

The waiters had brought their coffee and liqueurs and vanished. They were alone together. “You are a rather remarkable being, Pilot Davis,” he said.

Not person, being. The connotations, in a Lunarian mind—“Por favor, lord Rinndalir, I am Kyra.”