by drugs), since the nuclear family continues to be the building block
of their civilization.
“As producers, merchants, engineers, industrialists, even occasional
spacefarers, they flourish, and are on the whole well content.
“But the cosmos of Lannach is crumbling. Either the Great Flock must
remain primitive, poor, powerless, prey to storm and famine, pirates and
pestilence, or it must modernize–with all that that implies, including
earning the cost of the capital goods required. How shall a folk do this
who spend half their lives migrating, mating, or living off nature’s
summertime bounty? Yet not only is their whole polity founded upon that
immemorial cycle. Religion, morality, tradition, identity itself are.
Imagine a group of humans, long resident in an unchanged part of Terra,
devout churchgoers, for whom the price of progress was that they destroy
every relic of the past, embrace atheism, and become homosexuals who
reproduce by ectogenesis. For many if not all Lannachska, the situation
is nearly that extreme.
“In endless variations around the planet, the same dream is being
played. But precisely because the Great Flock has changed more than
other nations of its kind, it feels the hurt most keenly, is most
divided against itself and embittered vat the outside universe.
“No wonder if revolutionary solutions are sought. Economic, social,
spiritual secession, a return to the ways of the ancestors; shouts of
protest against ‘discrimination,’ demands for ‘justice,’ help, subsidy,
special consideration of every kind; political secession, no more taxes
to the planetary peace authority or the Imperium; seizure of power over
the whole sphere, establishment of a sovereign autarky–these are among
the less unreasonable ideas afloat.
“There is also Alatanism. The Ythrians, not terribly far away as
interstellar distances go, have wings. They should sympathize with their
fellow flyers on Diomedes more than any biped ever can. They have their
Domain, free alike of Empire and Roidhunate, equally foreign to both.
Might it not, are its duty and destiny not to welcome Diomedes in?
“The fact that few Ythrian leaders have even heard of Diomedes, and none
show the least interest in crusading, is ignored. Mystiques seldom
respond to facts. They are instruments which can be played on … ”
Twice had the sun come from the mountains and returned behind them.
“Goodbye, then,” Kossara said.
Flandry could find no better words than “Goodbye. Good luck,” hoarse out
of the grip upon his gullet.
She regarded him for a moment, in the entryroom where they stood. “I do
believe you mean that,” she whispered.
Abruptly she kissed him, a brief brush of lips which exploded in his
heart. She drew back before he could respond. During another instant she
poised, upon her face a look of bewilderment at her own action.
Turning, she twisted the handle on the inner airlock valve. He took a
following step. “No,” she said. “You can’t live out there, remember?”
Her body prepared before she left Dennitza, she closed the portal on
him. He stopped where he was. Pumps chugged until gauges told him the
chamber beyond was now full of Diomedean air.
The outer valve opened. He bent over a viewscreen. Kossara’s tiny image
stepped forth onto the mountainside. A car awaited her. She bounded into
it and shut its door. A minute later, it rose.
Flandry sought the control cabin, where were the terminals of his most
powerful and sensitive devices. The car had vanished above clouds.
“Pip-ho, Chives,” he said tonelessly. A hatch swung wide. His Number Two
atmospheric vehicle glided from the hold. It looked little different
from the first, its engine, weapons, and special equipment being
concealed in the teardrop fuselage. It disappeared more slowly, for the
Shalmuan pilot wanted to stay unseen by the woman whom he stalked. But
at last Flandry sat alone.
She promised she’d help me. What an inexperienced liar she is.
He felt no surprise when, after a few minutes, Chives’ voice jumped at
him: “Sir! She is descending … She has landed in the forest beside a
river. I am observing through a haze by means of an infrared ‘scope. Do
you wish a relay?”
“Not from that,” Flandry said. Too small, too blurry. “From her
bracelet.”
A screen blossomed in leaves and hasty brown water. Her right hand