XIV

From the ground, Arinnian hailed Eyath. “Hoy-ah! Come on, down and get inside.” He grinned as he added in Anglic, “We Important Executives can’t stall around.”

She wheeled once more. Sunlight from behind turned her wings to a bronze fringed by golden haze. She could be the sun itself, he thought, or the wind, or everything wild and beautiful above this ferroconcrete desert. Then she darted at the flitter, braked in a brawl of air, and stood before him.

Her gaze fell troubled on the torpedo shape looming at his back. “Must we travel in that?” she asked.

“When we have to bounce around half a planet, yes,” he replied. “You’ll find it isn’t bad. Especially since the hops don’t take long. Less than an hour to St. Li.” To Tabby. “Here, give me your hand.”

She did. The fingers, whose talons could flay him, were slim and warm, resting trustfully between his. He led her up the gangway. She had flown in vehicles often before, of course, but always “eyeball” cars, frail and slow for the sake of allowing the cabins to be vitryl bubbles.

“This is a problem the choths like Stormgate, members mostly hunters, are going to have to overcome,” he said. “Claustrophobia. You limit your travel capabilities too much when you insist on being surrounded by transparency.”

Her head lifted. “If Vodan can suffer worse, I am ashamed I hung back, Arinnian.”

“Actually, I hope you’ll come to see what Vodan sees. He loves it in space, doesn’t he?”

“Y-yes. He’s told me that. Not to make a career of, but we do want to visit other planets after the war.”

“Let’s try today to convince you the journey as well as the goal is something special… M-m-m, do you know, Eyath, two congenial couples traveling together — Well. Here we are.”

He assisted her into harness in the copilot’s seat, though she was his passenger. “Ordinarily this wouldn’t be needful,” he explained. “The flitter’s spaceable — you could reach Morgana easily, the nearer planets if necessary — so it has counter-acceleration fields available, besides interior weight under free fall. But we’ll be flying high, in the fringes of atmosphere, not to create a sonic boom. And while nothing much seems to be going on right now in the war, and we’ll have a canopy of fortress orbits above us, nevertheless—”

She brushed her crest across his shoulder. “Of course, Arinnian,” she murmured.

He secured himself, checked instruments, received clearance, and lifted. The initial stages were under remote control, to get him past that dance of negagrav projections which guarded the spaceport. Beyond, he climbed as fast as the law allowed, till in the upper stratosphere he fed his boat the power calculated to minimize his passage time.

“O-o-o-oh,” Eyath breathed.

They were running quietly. The viewscreens gave out-locks in several directions. Below, Avalon was silver ocean. Around were purple twilight, sun, moon, a few stars: immensity, cold and serene.

“You must’ve seen pictures,” Arinnian said.

“Yes. They’re not the same.” Eyath gripped his arm. “Thank you, dear galemate.”

And I’m bound for Tabby, to tell of a battle plan that may well work, that’ll require we work together. How dare I be this happy?

They flew on in the Ythrian silence which could be so much more companionable than human chatter.

There was an overcast at their destination; but when they had pierced its fog they found the sky pearl-gray, the waters white-laced indigo, the island soft green. The landing field was small, carved on the mountainside a few kilometers from the compound where Tabitha dwelt. When Chris called ahead she had promised to meet him.

He unharnessed with fingers that shook a little. Not stopping to help Eyath, he hastened to the airlock. It had opened and the gangway had extruded. A breeze ruffled his hair, warm, damp, perfumed by the janie planted around the field. Tabitha stood near, waving at him.

That was her left hand. Her right clasped the Terran’s.

After half a minute she called, “Do you figure to stand there all day, Chris?”

He came down. They two released each other and extended their hands, human fashion. Meanwhile her foot caressed Rochefort’s. She was wearing nothing but a few designs in body paint. They included the joyous banality of a heart pierced by an arrow.

Arinnian bowed. “We have an urgent matter to discuss,” he said in Planha. “Best we flit straight to Draun’s house.”

As a matter of fact, Tabitha’s partner and superior officer was waiting in her home. “Too many youngsters and retainers at mine,” he grunted. “Secrecy must be important, or you’d simply have phoned — though we do see a rattlewing lot of you.”

“These are always my welcome guests,” the woman said stiffly.

Arinnian wondered if the tension he felt was in the atmosphere or his solitary mind. Draun, lean, scarred, had not erected feathers; but he sat back on tail and alatans in a manner suggesting surliness, and kept stroking a dirk he wore. Tabitha’s look seemed to dwell upon Rochefort less meltingly than it had done at the field, more in appeal.

Glancing around, Arinnian found the living room little changed. Hitherto it had pleased him. She had designed the house herself. The ceiling, a fluoropanel, was low by Ythrian standards, to make the overall proportions harmonious. A few susin mats lay on a floor of polished oak, between large-windowed copperwood walls, beneath several loungers, end tables, a stone urn full of blossoms. While everything was clean-scrubbed, her usual homely clutter was strewn about, here a pipe rack and tobacco jar, there a book, yonder the shipmodel she was building.

Today, however, he saw texts to inform a stranger about Avalon, and a guitar which must have been lately ordered since she didn’t play that instrument. The curtain had not been drawn across the doorway to her sleeping room; Arinnian glimpsed a new wood-and-leather-frame bed, double width.

Eyath’s wing touched him. She didn’t like Draun. He felt the warmth that radiated from her.

“Yes,” he said. “We do have to keep the matter below ground.” His gaze clanged on Rochefort’s. “I understand you’ve been studying Planha. How far along are you?”

The Terran’s smile was oddly shy for an offplanet enemy who had bedazzled a girl sometimes named Hrill. “Not very,” he admitted. “I’d try a few words except you’d find my accent too atrocious.”

“He’s doing damn well,” Tabitha said, and snuggled.

His arm about her waist, Rochefort declared: “I’ve no chance of passing your plans on to my side, if that’s what’s worrying you, Citizen — uh, I mean Christopher Holm. But I’d better make my position clear. The Empire is my side. When I accepted my commission, I took an oath, and right now I’ve no way to resign that commission.”

“Well said,” Eyath told him. “So would my betrothed avow.”

“What’s honor to a Terran?” Draun snorted. Tabitha gave him a furious look. Before she could reply, Rochefort, who had evidently not followed the Planha, was proceeding:

“As you can see, I… expect I’ll settle on Avalon after the war. Whichever way the war goes. But I do believe it can only go one way. Christopher Holm, besides falling in love with this lady, I have with her planet. Could I possibly make you consider accepting the inevitable before the horror comes down on Tabby and Avalon?”

“No,” Arinnian answered.

“I thought not” Rochefort sighed. “Okay, I’ll take a walk. Will an hour be long enough?”

“Oh, yes,” Eyath said in Anglic.

Rochefort smiled. “I love your whole people.”

Eyath nudged Arinniaiu “Do you need me?” she asked. “You’re going to explain the general idea. I’ve heard that.” She made a whistling noise found solely in the Avalonian dialect of Planha — a giggle. “You know how wives flee from their husbands’ jokes.”