Short Fiction - Poul Anderson (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📗

Anson, who once told you something on a sunny day down by Zamanaui River.” He could guess what the something had been. Well, it seemed to happen to all Earthmen sooner or later, and it meant the end of the old unregenerate days. He sighed, a little wistfully.

“But what did you want me for?” asked Ellen. She stood before Anse in her short, close-fitting tunic, the raindrops glittering in her heavy coppery hair, and he thought wryly that the question was in one sense superfluous. But in another sense, and with time so desperately short⁠—

“You’re the only one of us who can plot a course for the rocket,” he said. “Alonzo here, or almost anyone, should be able to pilot it, but you’re the only one who can take it to the Star Ship. So that, of course, is why Carson and Volakech were after you, and why we had to have you too. If we can get into the citadel, capture the rocket and get up to the Star Ship, it’ll be easy to overthrow Volakech. But if he gets there first, all Khazak couldn’t win against him.”

She nodded, slowly and wearily. Her gray eyes were haunted. “I wonder if it matters who gets there,” she said. “I wonder why we’re fighting and killing each other. Over who shall sit on the throne of an obscure city-state on an insignificant planet? Over the exact disposition to be made of one little spaceship? It isn’t worth it.” She looked around at the sprawled corpses, lying on the bloody cobblestones with rain falling in their gaping mouths, and shuddered. “It isn’t worth that.”

“There’s more to it than that,” said Janazik bleakly. “Masefield Carson and his friend⁠—his puppet, I think⁠—Volakech would use the ship to bring all the world under their rule. Then they would mold it into a pattern suited for conquering a small empire among the neighboring stars.”

“Volakech always talked that way, before his first revolution,” said Ellen. “And Carse used to say⁠—but that can’t be right! He can’t have meant it. And even if he did⁠—what of it? Is it worth enough for brothers to slay each other over?”

“Yes.” Janazik’s voice was pitiless. “Shall the freemen of Khazak become the regimented hordes of a tyrant? Let all this world be blown asunder first!”

“Shall the innocent folk of the other stars become his victims?” urged Alonzo. “Shall Khazak become a menace to the Galaxy, one which must be destroyed⁠—or must itself destroy? Shall there be war with⁠—Earth herself?”

“To Shantuzik with that,” growled Anse. “These are our enemies, to be fought and beaten. Out there is the great civilization of the Galaxy, and they would keep us from it for generations yet, and make it in the end our foe. And Volakech is a murderer with no right to the throne of Krakenau. I say let’s get at his liver!”

“Well⁠—” Ellen looked away. When she turned back, there was torment in her eyes, but her voice was low and steady: “I’m with you in whatever you plan. But on one condition. Carse is not to be harmed.”

“Not harmed!” exploded Janazik. “Why, that dirty traitor deserves⁠—”

“He is still my brother,” said Ellen. “When Volakech is beaten, he will not be able to do any more harm, and he will see that he was wrong.” Her eyes flashed coldly. “Whoever hurts Carse will have me for blood-enemy!”

“As you will,” shrugged Anse, trying to hide the pain in his heart. “But now.⁠ ⁠… Our plan is to storm the citadel. We can’t hope to take it, but we’ll keep the garrison busy. Meanwhile a few of us break in, get the rocket, and take it back out here, where you will have an orbit plotted⁠—”

“I can’t make one that quickly. And who can pilot it well enough to land it here without cracking it up?”

They looked at each other, and then eyes turned to Gonzales Alonzo. He smiled mirthlessly. “I can try,” he said. “But I’m only an engineer; I never imagined I’d have to fly the thing. Chiang Ching-Wei was supposed to be the pilot, but he’s a prisoner now.”

“If we smash the rocket⁠—well, then we smash it,” said Anse heavily. “It’ll mean a long and hard war against Volakech from outside, and he’ll have all the advantages of the new weapons. We may never overthrow him before he gets another boat built. Still⁠—we’ll just have to try.”

Ellen said quietly: “I can pilot it.”

“You!”

“Of course. I’ve been working on the second boat from the beginning. I know it as well as anyone, every seam and rivet and wiring diagram. I was aboard when Chiang took her on a practice run only a few days ago. I’ll fly it for you!”

“You can’t⁠—we have to fight our way into the castle itself, the very heart of Volakech’s power⁠—you’d be killed!”

“It’s the best chance. If you think we can get in at all, I stand as good a chance of living through it as anyone else.”

“She’s right,” said Janazik. “And while we waste time here arguing, the citadel is getting ready. Come on!”

Automatically, Anse broke into movement, trotting along beside Janazik, and the army formed its ranks and followed them.

He had time for a few hurried words with Ellen, whispered as they went up the hill: “Stay close by me. There’ll be a small group of us getting in, picked fighters, and we’ll make a ring about you.”

“Of course,” she nodded. Her gray eyes shone, and she was breathing quickly. “I begin to see why you were a rover all those years, Anse. It’s mad and desperate and terrible⁠—but before Cosmos, we’re alive!”

“Most recruits are frightened green before their first battle,” he said. “You have a warrior’s heart, Ellen⁠—” He broke off, hearing the banality of his own words.

“Listen, my dearest,” he said then, quickly. “We may not come alive through all this. But remember what I did say, down by the river that day. I love you.”

She was silent. He went on, fumbling for words: “You