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Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson's victory became classic in the annals of warfare.
Chapter 9
Diana's visitor surprised her. She had met Cynthians before, as ubiquitous as their species was, but not
often, and never this person. For a moment she and he exchanged appraising looks. It was a male, she
saw. If he had been wearing much more than a pouch and his silky white fur, she could not have been
sure; the secondary sexual characteristics were few. Bipedal, though with arms nearly as long as his legs,
he stood about ninety centimeters tall. Toes and the six fingers on either hand were almost equally
prehensile. A bushy tail lifted up behind the round head and its pointed ears. Blunt-muzzled and
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long-whiskered, the face sported a natural blue-gray mask around luminous emerald-hued eyes. His
voice was high-pitched, its Anglic clear though apt to come trilling and hissing through the pointed teeth.
"You are milady Crowfeather?" he said. "Permit self-introduction. I hight Shan U of Lulach. Is your
Wodenite companion present?"
"No," she replied. "I don't know when he'll be back. What can I do for you?"
"Perhaps it is I who can do you a favor, milady. I have heard your partnership is in search of Ancient
relics."
Diana decided this was understandable. She was merely one more human, but Axor inevitably
generated gossip. "Well, yes. So far we've drawn blank. The public database screened no thin' for us that
looked the least bit promisin'. He went off today to talk with the local priest of his church, in case the
padre had heard of anything. I gather the parish takes in a big territory." She smiled wryly. "No doubt the
two of them'll go on to every sort of theological shop talk."
"You cannot expect to find much information recorded about a planet when most of its land is
wilderness that does not sustain colonists," declared Shan U. "Prospectors, timber cruisers, and other
nonscientific explorers have scant incentive to go to the trouble of preparing scientific reports. The
geographical separation of communities hinders the dissemination of locally available information." He
arched his tail. "Ah, but it may be that I can put you in the way of some clues."
The heart sprang in Diana's breast. "You can? What? How?"
"Peace, I pray you. I am not, myself, qualified to be your guide. I am the captain of a riverboat. It will
shortly be departing for Lulach. Now plying the great stream, year after year, one is bound to hear many
a tale, and I recollect mentions, now and then, of impressive ruins glimpsed. Rumors about you and,
especially, your companion having trickled as far as the waterfront, I thought I should come urge you to
seek farther for informants."
"Oh? Where?"
"Why, along the river itself. Lulach alone holds many a merchant who has traveled widely over this
planet, many a searcher for natural wealth who has adventured deep into the wildernesses. And beyond
Lulach Well, at any rate, I can convey you that far, and back again afterward if you discover zero there
and decide not to range more widely. Would you like to inspect my vessel?"
"Where is it?"
"In the valley, at Paz de la Frontera, the head of navigation."
Diana's consideration was brief. If nothing else, she was sick of the cheap hotel where she and Axor
had taken lodgings. At first she had enjoyed wandering around Aurea, seeing what there was to see and,
as opportunity offered, asking about inexplicable structures. Now she had used those activities up, and
had been sitting boredly in her room watching a teleplay. The latter end of this past couple of weeks had
become wearisome.
In fact, she had begun regretting her refusal of Gatto's offer. Her immediate reason for that had been
the fact that here she and Axor were on Daedalus; once they left it, they would probably not be able to
return for a long time, if ever. Why not stay and investigate as originally planned? She was confident that
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the commandant would still be willing to arrange berths, if Daedalus turned out to be a blind
alley though while she waited for a ship, she might have trouble fending him off. The past several days
had almost brought her to the point of thus swallowing her pride and making her appeal. What a waste of
time, when there was that unfinished expedition on Imhotep to start all over again!
Her second reason for staying had, as Gatto guessed, been the desire, against every reasonable hope,
to learn what had become of Targovi. As the initial exuberance of freedom damped down, she had more
and more felt anger and grief on his behalf gnaw at her. Here was a chance to forget them for a while,
and maybe even accomplish something.
"Sure," she caroled. "Just a minute."
Having recorded a message for Axor, she skinned out of her clothes and into brief shorts and skimpy
blouse. The lowlands were hot in summer. To her belt she attached purse and knife. She kicked her bare
feet into sandals. "Let's go, Joe."
Air traffic was under pettifogging emergency restrictions, but a train system, built in pioneer days, still
ran, and a station lay near the hotel. As the car they had boarded whirred up off the ground and started
downhill above the guide cable, Diana and Shan U settled into a seat. She took the window side and
kept her gaze outward, upon the landscape. Unoffended, he stuffed a pipe with dried leaves that smelled
like warm saddle leather when he lit them, and conversed.
"The Highroad River has always been a main artery of travel," he said in answer to a remark of hers. "It
should become still more so in the present situation. Roads between the settlements along it range from
wretched to nonexistent, and as for flight, why, now the very omnibuses are subject to endless, arbitrary
inspections, delays, and other such nuisances. Boats remain free of this. Should you find that you do wish
to go to Lulach, my Waterblossom is no speedster, I grant you, but the fare is modest, accommodations [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]