Had to take a position before the Guild released the story on its own.

He wasn’t a bad man. He told himself he wasn’t a bad man. He was walking a narrow line between a Pilots’ Guild that wouldn’t scruple to use the story against everything their hopes rested on, and a council skittish of opposing them too radically… and now Ian had gone and put himself in the middle of what, God help him, he’dplanned.

Because he knew and the committee knew there were inhabitants in that area of the island, non-technological as they needed, as they’d wanted the first contact to be, not to bring them face-to-face with the savviest politicians and the most advanced technology on the planet… but he hadn’t on any terms wanted Ian in the middle of that encounter.

Pardino was saying something about the patch on channel B, and he couldn’t but think how the Guild was going to be monitoring their transmissions the instant they realized there was something happening. Everything they said, everything Ian said, was going to the Guild the same as it went to them, bet on it.

“ Pat,” Pardino said, obscuring what he wanted to hear, Ian’s voice, “ Pat, the boy’s resourceful, he’s being clever, he’s not hurt, they’re not threatening him, whatever’s happened. He talks, but they can’t suspect there’s a pickup, they haven’t got radio. He said he’s got the volume down so they can’t hear, but he’s not that far away. The batteries are good for at least four days solid, he says don’t come after the guy, they’re not threatening him. You copy, Pat?“

“Yeah. Yes, I understand you. I want the transmissions, dammit.”

“You’ve got everything we have.”

Pardino signed off with that, as if it made anything better than it was; but, He’s resourceful, Pardino had said, too, and Patton clutched that thought to himself when Pardino went out and left him a quiet, static-ridden breathing.

Then Ian’s voice, saying, out of breath, “ It’s still all right, don’t worry, he’s just afraid someone’s following us. We’re in a cave in the rocks. He keeps touching my arm, very gentle, like he’s trying to get me to be quiet, he talks to me and I act like I’m answering him.”

The other voice came back then, a low, quiet burr.

“ He’s at least a head taller than me,” Ian’s voice said, “ mostly like us, but incredibly strong. His skin is black as space, his eyes are narrow and his nose is kind of arched, flat to the face, he frowns, you can tell that.…”

The other voice again. A pause, then:

“He’s talking to me, I guess you can hear that, real quiet, like he’s trying to tell me everything’s all right.”

Ian’s voice was shaking. Patton felt the fear in his son, felt the strain telling on him, and Ian’s breaths were short and desperate. He knotted his hands together and knew the Guild was recording by now, every desperate minute, to play back to the council and the station at large.

Ian wasn’t the type to crack, he knew his son. Ian was doing all right emotionally. It was the physical stress or a physical constraint that was putting that quaver into lan’s voice, but others might not think so.

He punched in his wife’s office number, before the news could go out. He said it the way Pardino had said it, just, “Joy, Ian’s in a little trouble, don’t panic, but they’ve got a contact down there and Ian’s met it.”

“ A contact,” Joy said, on the other end of the line.

“What do you mean, they’ve got a contact? Is he all right? Pat? Is he all right?”

“So far he’s fine,” Patton said. “We can hear him, he’s got his radio open, I’ve got him on the other channel. Turn on your B.”

“ I’ve got it,” Joy said, “ I’ve got it.”

“— a little out of breath,” Ian was saying, and coughed. “ My legs are wobbly. I’m not acclimated down here. I’d say we’re a couple klicks from the base, don’t know how to judge it. There’s like trees around here, kind of soft-trunked, big flat leaves, there’s like a lot of moss, there’s got to be water near here, I’d think, it’s all soft-leaved stuff…”

God, Patton thought, the boy was still observing, still was sending back his damn botany notes, but it was the native he wanted to know about.

He heard the creature talking again, he heard Joy ask, “ Is that one of them?” and he muttered, “So far there’s just one of them. Walked right through the perimeter alarm and accosted Ian. Ian ordered the rescue party back. He apparently wasn’t feeling threatened.”

“ Sir,” his secretary’s voice broke in, on override. “ Vordict’s calling in, says it’s urgent, about your son, sir.”

The Guild hadheard. The Guild was going to raise bloody hell about the situation and play hard politics with the electorate. He wasn’t ready for this. He had a son in trouble down there and Vordict, damn him, wanted to make an issue of what they all sensibly knew had been inevitable from the hour they reached this star, all to read him might-have-beens.

“ He wants to keep moving,” Ian’s faint voice said. “ He wants us to walk again. I’m cold, I’m out of breath, excuse the shakes.…”

“Put him on,” he told his secretary, regarding Vordict, and told Joy, “It’s Vordict. I’ve got to talk to him. Ian can’t hear us. But whatever he’s found down there, it’s not hostile, it’s all right…”

Ian gasped, a short, small intake of breath, and Patton’s heart froze.

Ian said, long-distance, “ I lost my balance, is all. It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t anybody do anything stupid.”

Patton wished the Guild would take that to heart.

“ Patton,” came the voice from the other channel. “ Patton, you’ve forced this, this is on your head, it’s your son in danger, and you knew damned well there was a settlement close to the base. I have the documents. I have the witness. You knew before you made the drop there, tell me otherwise, and be advised I intend to take this before the council.”

VI

« ^ »

There was no offer of resistance, no threat, no weapon, and thus far the luck had been with the effort. Perhaps the moon-man sensed so and made no resistance to his kidnapping. Or perhaps malicious chance was running otherwise and everything only seemed this easy.

Manadgi did not reckon himself a superstitious man, nor a gullible one, or he tried not to be. Anything that proceeded this easily with so much force available to the other side, he greatly distrusted.

But the moon-man, at least a head shorter than he, seemed a fragile creature, easily out of breath, quickly winded on the mildest climb. The creature’s pale complexion turned paler still, and at times it staggered, but it never ceased to try to walk with him.

It might be he had put it in fear of its life. It might be it was simply the disposition of moon-folk to be acquiescent, for reasons such folk understood, but he could not persuade himself to trust that chance, no more than he could entirely persuade himself that the clockwork machines were harmless to intruders.

He walked and walked, and the moon-man stumbled along beside him, muttering to himself so constantly he began to wonder if the creature was habitually that addled or somehow injured in its wits. He had found it sitting in front of a square of grass, plucking stems and talking to itself, while poking at a black box full of buttons that perhaps made sense, but about what business he could not determine.

Perhaps it was mad. Perhaps all moon-folk were—along with those furious early pursuers that had given chase and then given up.

Or perhaps they were, after all, frail and gentle folk who could not even resist the kidnapping of one of their number—