The older boarder had a thick brown beard as opposed to Hunnar’s red one. Ethan left Ta-hoding guarding his useless helm as he joined Hunnar, Elfa, Skua, and several others in confronting their visitor.
The peculiar, thick accent was easier to understand up close than when shouted over a distance between two moving craft. “I am Corfu. Formerly Corfu of Kerkoinhar.”
“Never heard of it.” Hunnar’s admission was echoed by his companions.
“Few have.” The older Tran did not seem troubled by the slight. “It was a good place to live and prosper. Only, Corfu did not prosper with it. There was a disagreement involving ethics. It was said that I cheated a relative of the Landgrave. It was said that I did not. In such a confrontation I was bound to lose. I was exiled.
“I am just a merchant, not a hunter. Exile is hard on a merchant whose property has been confiscated. Yet despite the fate my enemies intended for me I survived—and found a place here.” He gestured toward the city as they turned toward a dock and the towing skimmer maneuvered them in close.
“Yingyapin. Not much to look upon now, but that will change. Is changing.”
“A lot of construction going on, but none of it what you’d call impressive,” September commented thoughtfully.
Corfu glanced at the giant in surprise, studying his face carefully. “You speak our language without a translating device.”
Their visitor wasn’t the only one who was surprised. In addition to skimmers and beamers this Tran also knew what a translator was and spoke of it as though he was familiar with it. Was there any advanced technology they hadn’t been given access to?
“Humans are not supposed to speak Tran except through such machines.”
“Is that what your human friends have told you?” Ethan asked him.
Corfu’s attention switched to him. “And another who speaks.” He studied the humans who had gathered around him. “How many of you speak Tran?”
Ethan cursed himself for speaking. He’d been doing it for more than a year and it was a natural reaction, but on reflection he realized he should have let September do all the talking. It would have been better to keep their linguistic talents a secret. Too late now. This Corfu looked sharp enough to figure out that those humans not wearing translators were the ones likely to be fluent in his language.
Still, Milliken Williams kept his hands at his sides and their captor seemed content to let the matter pass as he extolled the virtues of his new home.
“It is not impressive, true, but one day all will bow before its Landgrave. You are looking at the most important city in the world.”
“There are no important cities anymore,” Hunnar informed him. “There is only the Union.”
“The Union? What foolish talk is this? There are no unions among Tran.”
“There are now. The city-states of Wannome, Moulokin, Poyolavomaar, Arsudun, and many others are joining together to form a great Union so that we may join with our human friends and others in the greater union of the night sky.”
“Ah, you are talking of membership in the Commonwealth.” Corfu smiled.
Ethan thought he was beyond shock. He was wrong. “How do you come to know of the Commonwealth?”
Corfu looked smug. “We, too, have our friends. I am not displeased to hear of this Union between your city-states. I welcome it. It will make our administration of Tran-ky-ky that much easier.”
“If you think you’re going to conquer the world with a couple of skimmers, a few beamers, and one cannon you’re badly mistaken,” Ethan told him.
Hunnar nodded in the direction of the merchant’s uneasy bodyguard. “Especially not with the likes of that for your army.”
Corfu nodded at the speaker. “By your bearing you are a noble, I see. I have had my fill of nobles, Redbeard. When we of Yingyapin take power, we will do away with them. A new order will arise in place of the old, one founded on ability instead of false aristocracy.”
Hunnar growled and displayed his long canines. “I earned my knighthood, as did every knight of Wannome.”
The merchant wasn’t impressed. “Influence begets training; birthright, education. Heredity counts. And you may kill me if you wish.” He didn’t turn to face Grurwelk Seesfar, who held a knife concealed in one paw and had been slipping up behind him. She hesitated.
“If I do not return unharmed to my companions, they will destroy this wonderful vessel and everyone aboard. Your human friends will tell you what our weapons can do.”
“We already know.” Hunnar glared at Seesfar, who backed off but kept the knife in her fist. Then he indicated the city beyond the dock. “I see nothing to fear here, no irresistible army, no relentless ranks of warriors.”
Corfu smiled at some secret thought. “We will conquer without the need of an army. We do not need to fight. Indeed, we will conquer without recourse to these light weapons.”
“How do you stand the heat here?” Ethan asked him. “I wouldn’t think any Tran would find this land a comforting place to live.”
“You think this is too warm? I find it pleasing myself.”
“So you are diseased in body as well as in mind,” Elfa commented.
Corfu’s smile faded slightly. “Think you so? Soon you will see.”
Milliken Williams stepped forward. “Listen, on behalf of my colleagues I demand to know …”
The much bigger Tran caught him across the face with a powerful backhand, sending the schoolteacher staggering backward. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Cheela Hwang was at his side instantly. Several of the Slanderscree’s sailors tensed but Hunnar gestured for them to stay where they were. Corfu ignored the threatening body language and glared down at Williams. There was no doubt the merchant was enjoying himself.
“You demand nothing here, little human. You are not my superior. We use your technology, but we are not afraid of you. You are not gods; only people like us who have lived longer. So you have a little more knowledge and much more metal. We make use of your knowledge, we make use of your metal and your machines, but that does not mean we need always make use of you.” He turned and stalked off toward the quarterdeck, indifferent to the hostile stares that followed him, unconcerned as to whether anyone might chose to put a spear through his spine.
Ethan leaned over the rail and stared at the crowd that had gathered to inspect the icerigger. They were no more impressive up close than they’d been from a distance; a poverty-stricken, tired group of migrants. They didn’t look like conquerors. They looked beaten.
Hunnar joined him. “I know this is a strange place, but something here speaks to me besides the unavoidable decrepitude. Everything here is different.” He nodded toward the crowd. “So many different costumes. If you listen to them speak you hear not one odd accent but many.”
Having concluded his inspection of the quarterdeck, Corfu rejoined them. “You observe accurately, noble. What you must realize is that until recently Yingyapin was far poorer than this.
“It could have been otherwise had we founded a city elsewhere. There are better harbors waiting to be developed, richer land to cultivate. Here there is little of that. But this city is founded on something else: hope. The kind of hope that sustained me in my time of troubles. It was hope that brought me to this place and hope that has kept me here.” He made a sweeping gesture.
“All you see before you fled troubles in their homelands. Some are outcasts, some criminals, others simply poor. That is why you hear so many dialects, why you see so many different modes of dress. Yingyapin is a refuge for the dispossessed and displaced, for those who have left poverty and disappointment behind.”
“Looks to me like they’ve just exchanged their old disappointments and poverty for new.”
“Do not forget hope, human.”
“What hope?” Hunnar gestured toward the ramshackle buildings. “I see naught but destitution and aimlessness.”
Corfu waxed unexpectedly eloquent. “Sometimes hope is not like a fine hide o
r a good sword. It is not always what you can hold in the palm of your hand or feel beneath your feet. For all that, in our case it is intangible yet still has weight. Our hope is as real and solid—” and he chuckled at some private joke—“as the ice of Tran-ky-ky. When it is held up before you to marvel at, you will understand. Then you will not be so quick to disparage the judgment of the poor wretches you now see before you. A wise Tran measures his decisions on all the facts.”
“The fact is that we have been kidnapped by pirates,” Hunnar snapped.
“If you choose to join us all of your goods and property will be returned to you,” Corfu replied unexpectedly. “Even unto this grand vessel. Nor will you be harmed in any way. We seek allies, not enemies.” He raised a paw to forestall Hunnar’s instinctive protest.
“I know what you are about to say. It has been said before by those equally as proud and foolish. Wait and see what is offered before you refuse your cooperation.” His tone darkened as he turned to face Ethan.
“As for you and your kind, you cannot join us because we have already joined you.”
Ethan wasn’t given a chance to delve into the meaning of this enigmatic comment. A loading ramp slid from the dock onto the deck of the icerigger. The ramp crew had been forced to improvise, never having had to deal with a ship the size of the Slanderscree. Ethan noted that the cannon-armed skimmer continued to float off to one side. Its crew hadn’t relaxed their vigilance one iota.
Escaping from this place wasn’t going to be easy. And what was all this talk of joining? What was there here to join that could possibly appeal to the likes of Hunnar Redbeard and Elfa Kurdagh-Vlata? Corfu told them they’d find out.
The merchant chivaned down the iced ramp, returned soon with a ragtag, poorly disciplined guard to escort a dozen representatives from the ship into the city.
Yingyapin did not benefit from close inspection. If anything, Hunnar’s and the other Trans’ opinion of it fell a notch. It remained a puzzling, unimpressive collection of falling-down structures cobbled hastily together out of broken, undressed rock. The least building in Wannome would have seemed a masterpiece of the mason’s art compared to any edifice in Yingyapin. Only the squat, ugly pile at the southern end of town looked like it could survive a strong wind. Corfu called it the palace.
Only half a dozen Tran guarded the visitors, but each was armed with a hand beamer. They were slightly better clad than their urban compatriots and they handled the advanced weapons as though they knew exactly how to use them. September was certain they hadn’t merely acquired a few minutes casual instruction in their use. They’d been drilled. Any attempt to overpower them and take their weapons would have been suicidal. Far too soon to give thought to such extremes.
Even the renegade former Resident Commissioner, Jobius Trell, whose plans had depended so much on his Arsudinian allies, hadn’t trusted his native friends with advanced weapons. Clearly someone hereabouts felt differently.
A pair of tall Tran hefting traditional weapons flanked the nondescript entrance to the palace. The lack of a heavy guard was itself instructive. They were marched through the dingy, badly lit structure until they emerged into a larger chamber only slightly better illuminated than the hallway they’d employed to reach it. The decor was unimpressive and reflective of the general poverty of the community—with one notable exception.
Suspended from the ceiling two thirds of the way down the room was a meter-wide, self-powered lighting fixture. It might have been transposed straight from a modest auditorium on a far-distant Earth. Its presence in that crumbling bastion of barbarian penury was as unexpected as a conservationist’s triody in a hunter’s igloo.
Seated on a throne hammered together out of scrap sheet metal was a twisted little Tran whom Ethan first took for a juvenile but who on closer inspection was revealed to be only an extremely short adult.
“All bow,” Corfu grandly declared, “in the presence of Massul fel-Stuovic, first emperor of all Tran-ky-ky!”
IX
ETHAN DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER their guards would have shot Hunnar, Elfa, or any of the other Tran in the visiting party for laughing, but all of them somehow managed to restrain their instinctive reaction to this astonishing pronouncement. Even the acerbic and combative Seesfar restricted herself to a single sharp bark of amusement.
By the look of him Massul fel-Stuovic wasn’t emperor of anything. Any one of them, including the ladies of the group, could have beaten him up without strain.
Corfu frowned and lifted the muzzle of his own beamer. “All will bow.”
September shrugged indifferently. “What the hell. It’s only a gesture. Not much point in getting shot over a gesture.” He bent from the waist. Ethan and Milliken mimicked the movement.
Their Tran companions were not as ready to comply. Corfu aimed his beamer between Hunnar’s legs and scorched the floor with a single shot. Hunnar’s expression tightened, but he held his ground. The merchant was about to fire again when the diminutive ruler tiredly waved a paw.
“It doesn’t matter, Corfu. Leave it be. What good to kill a potential convert?”
Corfu’s gaze narrowed as he stared at Hunnar Redbeard. “Not this one, I think. Too stubborn to save himself.”
“Stubbornness can give way to fanaticism, and if channeled, that can be useful.” Massul waved a second time.
The merchant hesitated, his eyes locked with Hunnar’s. Then he shrugged as if it were of no consequence and re-holstered his weapon. “As you command, my lord.”
“There are no emperors on Tran-ky-ky.” Elfa didn’t request permission to speak. “There never have been and never will there be.”
“Never is a long time, female.”
“Besides, we’ve already unified four major city-states and are preparing to accommodate more in a union of our own making. We have no need of would-be emperors.”
“A union, you say? Good news, if true. It makes our own work that much easier.” The emperor appeared no more distressed by this news of a competing planet-wide government than had Corfu. On the contrary, it was a development he seemed to welcome.
“Just what is your ‘work’?” Ethan asked him.
Massul studied him out of small, sharp eyes: “Curious, you humans. Always asking questions. When you’re not giving orders.”
Suaxus-dal-Jagger was craning his neck to examine the hall with exaggerated interest. “Where are the banners, the insignia of family? What kind of court is this?”
“A new kind,” the emperor informed him. “One based on achievement instead of nobility. I do not count myself the product of an ancient line. I merely have been fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. As have many of us.” He gestured casually in Corfu’s direction. The merchant acknowledged the gesture with a nod. Even here, in the castle’s inner sanctum, the wind penetrated sufficiently to ruffle the fur and dan of the visiting Tran.
“Words do not make a ruler,” Hunnar snapped.
“Truly. Only deeds make rulers. One cannot achieve great things without proper preparation. We are in the process of preparing. The results will become apparent to all Tran soon enough.” He looked past him. “What I do not understand,” he said, addressing himself to Hunnar and Elfa, “is what a grand vessel crewed by warriors like yourselves is doing convoying a group of humans to this part of the world.”
“We are friends,” Elfa replied simply.
Cheela Hwang stepped forward and spoke through her translator. “We have come to observe an anomalous meteorological phenomenon. The air here is much warmer than it should be. Surely you have noticed.”
“You do not find our climate to your liking?” Massul was clearly amused. “I thought you humans preferred warmer weather.”
That was as much as an outright confession that the emperor and his people were being aided directly by a group of people operating illegally on Tran-ky-ky, Ethan thought.
“Yes, we do. We prefer much hotter temperatures than you. That’s not what w
e’re concerned about,” Hwang explained. “The weather here shouldn’t be this warm. The upper part of the ice sheet hereabouts is melting.”
“Not only the upper,” Massul informed her, not in the least perturbed by the thought, “but from below as well.”
“Then you must know what’s going on here,” Williams blurted, “and yet it doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“Why should it bother us? Everything changes sooner or later.”
“Yes, but in the case of your world it should be later. Ten to twenty thousand years later, according to our calculations. Something is very wrong here.”
“No!” Massul leaned forward. “Nothing is wrong here—except you. You should not be here. Something will have to be done about that. Everything else here is very right.”
Dal-Jagger leaned over to whisper in Hunnar’s ear. “My lord, I am not afraid of these light weapons. No matter how efficient the spear it must still be wielded with courage and daring. We can take this lot without much trouble.”
Hunnar turned his squire down. “There may be others watching us armed with similar devices, or machines we know nothing about. We do not yet know enough to risk all. Hold.”
Dal-Jagger stood back, disappointed but obedient. September had overheard and now bent over the squire. “Answers first, then fighting. If I’m going to get shot, I don’t want to go down full of unanswered questions. Time enough later for grand gestures. Let’s make sure we know the reason for them before we go making ’em.” The squire nodded reluctantly.
“Something else that interests me.” September addressed himself to Ethan while Hunnar and Elfa talked to Massul. “I’m still not sure who’s master here; emperor or merchant. Corfu lets his emperor do all the talking, but when he has something to say he says it and doesn’t ask permission. Doesn’t look to me much like your usual Landgrave-noble relationship, even if he did back off on shooting Hunnar. Maybe he’s got reasons for keeping himself in the background. Sometimes the people with the real power aren’t the ones you see on the tridee. They’re the ones to whom real power’s more important than ego-boosting. They hang in the background and shun the publicity. In that respect, based on what we’ve seen this past year or so, the Tran ain’t that much different from the rest of us.”