They did. Erannath’s gaze lingered on the Firstling. “I have not hitherto observed your breed fare thus,” he said.
“I—wanted a change—” Ivar faltered.
“He hasn’t told exactly why, and no need for you to, either,” Mikkal declared. “But see here, Aeronaut, your remark implies you have been observing, and pretty extensively too. Unless you’re given to reckless generalization, which I don’t believe your kind is.”
Expressions they could not read rippled across the feathers. “Yes,” the Ythrian said after a moment, “I am interested in this planet. As an Avalonian, I am naturally familiar with humans, but of a rather special sort. Being on Aeneas, I am taking the opportunity to become acquainted, however superficially, with a few more.”
“U-u-uh-huh.” Mikkal lounged crosslegged, smoking, idly watching the sky, while he drawled. “Somehow I doubt they’ve heard of you in Nova Roma. The occupation authorities have planted their heaviest buttocks on space traffic, in and out. Want to show me your official permit to flit around? As skittery as the guiders of our Terran destinies are nowadays, would they give a visitor from our esteemed rival empire the freedom of a key near-the-border world? I’m only fantasizing, but it goes in the direction of you being stranded here. You came in during the revolt, let’s suppose, when that was easy to do unbeknownst, and you’re biding your time till conditions ease up enough for you to get home.”
Ivar’s fingers clenched on his gunstock. But Erannath sat imperturbable. “Fantasize as you wish,” he said dryly, “if you grant me the same right.” Again his eyes smote the Firstling.
“Well, our territory doesn’t come near Nova Roma,” Mikkal continued. “We’d make you welcome, if you care to roll with us as you’ve probably done already in two or three other Trains. Your songs and stories should be uncommon entertaining. And . . . maybe when we reach the green and start giving shows, we can work you into an act.”
Fraina gasped. Ivar smiled at her. “Yes,” he whispered, “without that weed in him—unless he was in camp— Mikkal wouldn’t have nerve to proposition those claws and dignity, would he?” Her hair tickled his face. She squeezed his hand.
“My thanks,” Erannath said. “I will be honored to guest you, for a few days at least. Thereafter we can discuss further.”
He went high above them, hovering, soaring, wheeling in splendor, while they rode back across the tilted land.
“What is he?” Fraina asked. Hoofbeats clopped beneath her voice. A breeze bore smoky orders of starkwood. They recalled the smell of the Ythrian, as if his forefathers once flew too near their sun.
“A sophont,” Mikkal said redundantly. He proceeded: “More bright and tough than most. Maybe more than us. Could be we’re stronger, we humans, simply because we outnumber them, and that simply because of having gotten the jump on them in space travel and, hm, needing less room per person to live in.”
“A bird?”
“No,” Ivar told her. “They’re feathered, yes, warm-blooded, two sexes. However, you noticed he doesn’t have a beak, and females give live birth. No lactation—no milk, I mean; the lips’re for getting the blood out of prey.”
“You bespoke an empire, Mikkal,” she said, “and, ye-ih, I do remember mentions aforetime. Talk on, will you?”
“Let Rolf do that,” the man suggested. “He’s schooled. Besides, if he has to keep still much longer, he’ll make an awful mess when he explodes.”
Ivar’s ears burned. True, he thought. But Fraina gave him such eager attention that he plunged happily forward.
“Ythri’s planet rather like Aeneas, except for havin’ cooler sun,” he said. “It’s about a hundred light-years from here, roughly in direction of Beta Centauri.”
“That’s the Angel’s Eye,” Mikkal interpolated.
Don’t tinerans use our constellations? Ivar wondered. Well, we don’t use Terra’s; our sky is different. “After humans made contact, Ythrians rapidly acquired modem technology,” he went on. “Altogether variant civilization, of course, if you can call it civilization, they never havin’ had cities. Nonetheless, it lent itself to spacefarin’, same as Technic culture, and in tune Ythrians began to trade and colonize, on smaller scale than humans. When League fell apart and Troubles followed, they suffered too. Men restored order at last by establishin’ Terran Empire, Ythrians by their Domain. It isn’t really an empire, Mikkal. Loose alliance of worlds.