The saturn game the coll.., p.80
The Saturn Game: The Collected Short Stories Volume 3,
p.80
His instrument flashed green. Okay, Erakoum’s button was transmitting, therefore unharmed and worth salvaging. If only she herself—
He tensed. The breath rattled in his lungs. Did he know she was dead?
He lowered the helmet over his temples. His hands shook, giving him trouble in making the connections. He pressed the switch. He willed to perceive—
Pain twisted like white-hot wires, strength ebbed and ebbed, soft waves of nothingness flowed ever more often, but still Erakoum defied. The slit of sky that she could see, from where she lay unable to creep further, was full of wind.… She shocked to complete awareness. Again she sensed Hugh’s presence.
“Broken bones, feels like. Heavy blood loss. She’ll die in a few more hours. Unless you give her first aid, Jan. Then she ought to last till we can fly her to Port Kato for complete attention.”
“Oh, I can do sewing and bandaging and splinting, whatever, yes. And nedolor’s an analgesic stimulant for dromids too, isn’t it? And simply a drink of water could make the whole difference; she must be dehydrated. But how to reach her?”
“Your ouranid can lift her up, after you’ve inflated him.”
“You can’t be serious! A’i’ach’s hurt, convalescent—and Erakoum tried to kill him!”
“That was mutual, right?”
“Well—”
“Jan, I’m not going to abandon her. She’s down in a grave, who used to run free, and the touch of me she’s getting is more to her than I could have imagined. I’ll stay till she’s rescued, or else I’ll stay till she dies.”
“No, Hugh, you mustn’t. The storm.”
“I’m not trying to blackmail you, dearest. In fact, I won’t blame your ouranid much if he refuses. But I can’t leave Erakoum. I just plain can’t.”
“I…I have learned something about you.… I will try.”
A’i’ach had not understood his Jannika. It was not believable that helping a Beast could help bring peace. That creature was what it was, a slaughterer. And yet, yet, once there had been no trouble with the Beasts, once they had been the animals which most interested and entertained the People. He himself remembered songs about their fleetness and their fires. In those lost days they had been called the Flame Dancers.
What made him yield to her plea was unclear in his spirit. She had probably saved his life, at hazard to her own, and this was an overpowering new thought to him. He wanted greatly to maintain his union with her, which enriched his world, and therefore hesitated to deny a request that seemed as urgent as hers. Through the union, she helmeted, he believed he felt what she did when she said, with water running from her eyes, “I want to heal what I have done—”and that kind of feeling was transcendent, like the Shining Time, and was what finally decided him.
She assisted him from the thing-which-bore-her and payed out a tube. Through the latter he drank gas, a wind-rush of renewed life. His injuries twinged when his globe expanded, but he could ignore that.
He needed her anchoring weight to get across the ground to the ravine. Fingers and tendrils intertwined, they nevertheless came near being carried away. Had he let himself swell to full size, he could have lifted her. Air harried and hooted, snatched at him, wanted to cast him among thorns—how horrible the ground was!
How much worse to descend below it. He throbbed to an emotion he scarcely recognized. Had she been in rapport, she could have told him that the English word for it was “terror.” A human or a dromid who felt it in that degree would have recoiled from the drop. A’i’ach made it a force blowing him onward, because this too raised him out of himself.
At the edge, she threw her arms around him as far as they would go, laid her mouth to his pelt, and said, “Good luck, dear A’i’ach, dear brave A’i’ach, good luck, God keep you.” Those were the noises she made in her language. He did not recognize the gesture either.
A cylinder she had given him to hold threw a strong beam of light. He saw the jagged slope tumble downward underneath him, and thought that if he was cast against that, he was done for. Then his spirit would have a fearful journey, with no body to shelter it, before it reached Beyond—if it did, if it was not shredded and scattered first. Quickly, before the churning airs could take full hold of him, he jetted across the brink. He contracted. He sank.
The dread as gloom and walls closed in was like no other carouse in his life. At its core, he felt incandescently aware. Yes, the human had brought him into strange skies.
Through the dankness he caught an odor more sharp. He steered that way. His flash picked out the Beast, sprawled on sharp talus, gasping and glaring. He used jets and siphon to position himself out of reach and said in what English he had, “I haff ch’um say-aff ee-you.”
—From the depths of her deathplace, Erakoum looked up at the Flyer. She could barely make him out, a big pale moon behind a glare of light. Amazement heaved her out of a drowse. Had her enemy pursued her down here in his ill-wishing?
Good! She would die in battle, not the torment which ripped her. “Come on and fight,” she called hoarsely. If she could sink teeth in him, get a last lick of his blood—The memory of that taste was like sweet lightning. During the time afterward which refused to end, she had thought she would be dead already if she had not swallowed those drops.
Their wonder-working had faded out. She stirred, seeking a defensive posture. Agony speared through her, followed by night.
When she roused, the Flyer still waited. Amidst a roaring in her ears, she heard, over and over, “I haff ch’um say-aff ee-you.”
Human language? This was the being that the humans favored as they did her. It had to be, though the ray from its head was hidden by the ray from its tendrils. Could Hugh have been bound all the while to both?
Erakoum strove to form syllables never meant for her mouth and throat. “Ha-watt-tt you ha-wannit? Gho, no bea haiar, gho.”
The Flyer made a response. She could no more follow that than he appeared to have followed hers. He must have come down to make sure of her, or simply to mock her while she died. Erakoum scrabbled weakly after a spear. She couldn’t throw one, but—
From the unknownness wherein dwelt the soul of Hugh, she suddenly knew: He wants to save you.
Impossible. But…but there the Flyer was. Half-delirious, Erakoum could yet remember that Flyers were seldom that patient.
What else could befall but death? Nothing. She lay back on the rock shards. Let the Flyer be her doom or be her Mardudek. She had found the courage to surrender.
The shape hovered. Her hair sensed tiny gusts, and she thought dimly that this must be a difficult place for him too. Speech burst and skirled. He was trying to explain something, but she was too hurt and tired to listen. She folded her hands around her muzzle. Would he appreciate that gesture?
Maybe. Hesitant, he neared. She kept motionless. Even when his tendrils brushed her, she kept motionless.
They slipped across her body, got a purchase, tightened. Through the haze of pain, she saw him swelling. He meant to lift her—up to Hugh?
When he did, her knife wounds opened and she shrieked before she swooned.
Her next knowledge was of lying on turf under a hasty, red-lit sky. A human crouched above her, talking to a small box that replied in the voice of Hugh. Behind, the Flyer lay shrunken, clutching a bush. Storm brawled; the first stinging raindrops fell.
In the hidden way of hunters, she knew that she was dying. The human might staunch those cuts and stabs, but could not give back what was lost.
Memory—what she had heard tell, what she had briefly tasted herself—“Blood of the Flyer. It will save me. Blood of the Flyer, if he will give.” She was not sure whether she spoke or dreamed it. She sank back into the darkness.
When she surfaced anew, the Flyer was beside her, embracing her against the wind. The human was carefully using a knife on a tendril. The Flyer brought the tendril in between Erakoum’s fangs. As the rain’s full violence began, she drank.—
A double sunrise was always lovely.
Jannika had delayed telling Hugh her news. She wanted to surprise him, preferably after his anxiety about his dromid was past. Well, it was; Erakoum would be hospitalized several days in Port Kato, which ought to be an interesting experience for all concerned, but she would get well. A’i’ach had already rejoined his Swarm.
When Hugh wakened from the sleep of exhaustion which followed his bedside vigil, Jannika proposed a dawn picnic, and was touched at how fast he agreed. They flitted to a place they knew on the sea cliffs, spread out their food, and sat down to watch.
At first Argo, the stars, and a pair of moons were the only lights. Slowly heaven brightened, the ocean shimmered silver beneath blue, Phrixus and Helle wheeled by the great planet. Wild songs went trilling through air drenched with an odor of roanflower, which is like violets.
“I got the word from the Center,” she declared while she held his hand. “It’s definite. The chemistry was soon unraveled, given the extra clue we had from the reviving effect of blood.”
He turned about. “What?”
“Manganese deficiency,” she said. “A trace element in Medean biology, but vital, especially to dromids and their reproduction—and evidently to something else in ouranids, since they concentrate it to a high degree. Hansonia turns out to be poorly supplied with it. Ouranids, going west to die, were removing a significant percentage from the ecology. The answer is simple. We need not try to change the ouranid belief. Temporarily, we can have a manganese supplement made up and offer it to the dromids. In the long run, we can mine the ore where it’s plentiful and scatter it as a dust across the island. Your friends will live, Hugh.”
He was quiet for a time. Then—he could surprise her, this son of an outback miner—he said: “That’s terrific. The engineering solution. But the bitterness won’t go away overnight. We won’t see any quick happy ending. Maybe not you and me, either.” He seized her to him. “Damnation, though, let’s try!”
UNTITLED LIMERICK
An astronomer’s swift limousine
went through a red light in Racine
He was going so fast
that the light which he passed,
through Doppler effect, showed as green.
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Also by Poul Anderson
SCIENCE FICTION
The Psychotechnic League
1. Star Ways (also known as The Peregrine) (1956)
2. The Snows of Ganymede (1958)
3. Virgin Planet (1959)
4. Cold Victory (1982)
5. Starship (1982)
Polesotechnic League
1. Trader to the Stars (1964)
2. The Trouble Twisters (features David Falkayn, not Van Rijn) (1966)
3. Satan’s World (1969)
4. The Earth Book of Stormgate (1978)
5. The Man Who Counts (revised and edited version of War of the Wing-Men) (1958)
6. Mirkheim (1977)
7. The People of the Wind
Terran Empire period of Dominic Flandry
1. Ensign Flandry (1966)
2. A Circus of Hells (1970)
3. The Rebel Worlds (1969)
4. The Day of Their Return (1973)
5. Agent of the Terran Empire (1965
6. Flandry of Terra (1965)
7. A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (1974)
8. A Stone in Heaven (1979)
9. The Game of Empire (1985)
10. The Long Night
11. Let the Spacemen Beware (1963)
Time Patrol
1. The Shield of Time (1990)
2. Time Patrol (2006).
History of Rustum
1. Orbit Unlimited (1961)
2. New America (1982)]
Maurai
1. Maurai and Kith (1982
2. Orion Shall Rise (1983)
Kith
Starfarers (1998)
Harvest of Stars
1. Harvest of Stars (1993)
2. The Stars Are Also Fire (1994)
3. Harvest the Fire (1995)
4. The Fleet of Stars (1997)
Hoka (with Gordon R. Dickson)
1. Earthman’s Burden (1957)
2. Star Prince Charlie (1975)
3. Hoka! (1983)
Operation Otherworld
1. Operation Chaos (1971)
2. Operation Luna (1999)
Other SF
Vault of the Ages (1952)
Brain Wave (1954)
Question and Answer (also known as Planet of No Return) (1954)
No World of Their Own (1955)
The Long Way Home (1958)
War of Two Worlds (1959)
The Enemy Stars (1959)
The High Crusade (1960)
Twilight World (1961)
After Doomsday (1962)
The Makeshift Rocket (1962)
Shield (1962)
Three Worlds to Conquer (1964)
The Corridors of Time (1965)
The Star Fox (1965)
World Without Stars (1966)
Tau Zero (1970)
The Byworlder (1971)
The Dancer from Atlantis (1971)
There Will Be Time (1972)
Fire Time (1974)
The Winter of the World (1975)
The Avatar (1978)
The Boat of a Million Years (1989)
The Saturn Game (1989) –
The Longest Voyage (1991)
Genesis (2000)
For Love and Glory (2003)
FANTASY
King of Ys (with Karen Anderson)
1. Roma Mater (1986)
2. Gallicenae (1987)
3. Dahut (1987)
4. The Dog and the Wolf (1988)
Other Fantasy
Three Hearts and Three Lions (1953)
The Broken Sword (1954, revised in 1971)
Hrolf Kraki’s Saga (1973)
A Midsummer Tempest (1974)
The Merman’s Children (1979)
The Devil’s Game (1980)
War of the Gods (1997)
Mother of Kings (2001)
Acknowledgments
The following people helped make this book possible.
Technical help was provided by Dave Grubbs and Alice Lewis.
Proofreading was done by David Anderson, Ann Broomhead, Jim Burton, David Cantor, Lis Carey, Anne Crimmins, Gay Ellen Dennett, Suford Lewis, Tony Lewis, Mark Olson, Priscilla Olson, Joe Ross, Jean Rossner, Sharon Sbarsky, and Tim Szczesuil.
A further round of proofing was then done by Suford Lewis, Jean Rossner and Sharon Sbarsky.
Dave Grubbs then did the final proofing of the book
Alice Lewis did her magic in producing the dust jacket.
Special thanks to Tom Easton for his introduction to the book and Karen Anderson who provided another nifty picture of Poul Anderson.
Rick Katze, editor
May 2010
Poul Anderson (1926 – 2001)
Poul William Anderson was born in Pennsylvania to Scandinavian parents. His family lived for a time in Denmark but moved back to the United States after the outbreak of the Second World War. They settled in Minnesota, where Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota.
Anderson began writing while still an undergraduate and published his first story in 1947. He was active throughout the second half of the twentieth century, producing such classic works as the Dominic Flandry books and The High Crusade, and winning multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. He has served as President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. In 1998 he was named an SFWA Grand Master. He collaborated regularly with wife, Karen, and their daughter is married to noted SF writer Greg Bear. Poul Anderson died in July 2001.
For more information see www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/anderson_poul
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Trigonier Trust 2010
All rights reserved.
The right of Poul Anderson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10942 1
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Poul Anderson, The Saturn Game: The Collected Short Stories Volume 3
