The Spirit of Dorsai Page 2

  She stirred, pushed the empty cup from her and rose. Time to begin the day—her control bracelet chimed with the note of an incoming call.

  She thumbed the bracelet's com button. The cover over the phone screen on the kitchen wall slid back and the screen itself lit up with the heavy face of Piers van der Lin. That face looked out and down at her, the lines that time had cut into it deeper than she had ever seen them. A sound of wheezing whistled and sang behind the labor of his speaking.

  "Sorry, Amanda," his voice was hoarse and slow with both age and illness. "Woke you, didn't I?"

  "Woke me?" She felt a tension in him and was suddenly alert. "Piers, it's almost daybreak You know me better than that. What is it?"

  "Bad news, I'm afraid…" his breathing, like the faint distant music of war-pipes, sounded between words. "The invasion from Earth is on its way. Word just came. Coalition first-line troops—to reach the planet here in thirty-two hours."

  "Well, Cletus told us it would happen. Do you want me down in town?"

  "No," he said.

  Her voice took on an edge in spite of her best intentions.

  "Don't be foolish, Piers," she said. "If they can take away the freedom we have here, then the Dorsai ceases to exist—except for a name. We're all expendable."

  "Yes," he said, wheezing, "but you're far down on the list. Don't be foolish, yourself, Amanda. You know what you're worth to us."

  "Piers, what do you want me to do?"

  He looked at her with a face carved by the same years that had touched her so lightly.

  "Cletus just sent word to Eachan Khan to hold himself out from any resistance action here. That leaves us back where we were to begin with in a choice for a Commander for the district. I know,

  Betta's about due-"

  "That's not it." She broke in. "You know what it is. You ought to. I'm not that young any more. Does the district want someone who might fold up on them?"

  "They want you, at any cost You know that," Piers said, heavily. "Even Eachan only accepted because you asked someone else to take it. There's no one in the district, no matter what their age or name, who won't jump when you speak No one else can say that. What do you think they care about the fact you aren't what you were, physically? They want you."

  Amanda took a deep breath. She had had a feeling in her bones about this. He was going on.

  "I've already passed the word to Arvid Johnson and Bill Athyer—those two Cletus left behind to organize the planet's defense. With Betta as she is, we wouldn't have called on you if there was any other choice—but there isn't, now—"

  "All right," said Amanda. There was no point in trying to dodge what had to be. Fal Morgan would have to be left empty and unprotected against the invaders. That was simply the way of it. No point, either, in railing against Piers. His exhaustion under the extended asthmatic attack was plain. "I'll be glad to if I'm really needed, you know that. You've already told Johnson and Athyer I'll do it?"

  "I just said I'd ask you."

  "No need for that. You should know you can count on me. Shall I call and tell them it's settled?"

  "I think… they'll be contacting you."

  Amanda glanced at her bracelet. Sure enough, the tiny red phone light on it was blinking—signalling another call in waiting. It could have begun that blinking any time in the last minute or so; but she should have noticed it before this.

  "I think they're on line now," she said. "I'll sign off. And I'll take care of things, Piers. Try and get some sleep."

  "I'll sleep… soon," he said. "Thanks, Amanda."

  "Nonsense." She broke the connection and touched the bracelet for the second call. The contrast was characteristic of this Dorsai world of theirs—sophisticated com equipment built into a house constructed by hand, of native timber and stone. The screen grayed and then came back into color to show an office room all but hidden by the largeboned face of a blond-haired man in his middle twenties. The single barred star of a vice-marshall glinted on the collar of his grey field uniform. Above it was a face that might have been boyish once, but now had a stillness to it, a quiet and waiting that made it old before its time.

  "Amanda ap Morgan?"

  "Yes," said Amanda. "You're Arvid Johnson?"

  "That's right," he answered. "Piers suggested we ask you to take on the duty of Commander of Foralie District."

  "Yes, he just called."

  "We understand," Arvid's eyes in the screen were steady on her, "your great-granddaughter's pregnant—"

  "I've already told Piers I'd do it." Amanda examined Arvid minutely. He was one of the two people on which they must all depend—with Cletus Grahame gone. "If you know this district, you know there's no one else for the job. Eachan Khan could do it, but apparently that son-in-law of his just told him to keep himself available for other things."

  "We know about Cletus asking him to stay out of things," said Arvid. "I'm sorry it has to be you—"

  "Don't be sorry," said Amanda. "I'm not doing it for you. We're all doing it for ourselves."

  "Well, thanks anyway." He smiled, a little wearily.

  "As I say, it's not a matter for thanks."

  "Whatever you like."

  Amanda continued to examine him closely, across the gulf of the years separating them. What she was seeing, she decided, was that new certainty that

  was beginning to be noticeable in the Dorsai around Cletus. There was something about Arvid that was as immovable as a mountain.

  "What do you want me to do first?" she asked.

  "There's to be a meeting of all district commanders of this island at South Point, at 0900 this morning. We'd like you here. Also, since Foralie's the place Cletus is going to come back to—if he comes back— you can expect some special attention; and Bill and I would like to talk to you about that. We can arrange pickup for you from the Foralie Town airpad, if you'll be waiting there in an hour."

  Amanda thought swiftly.

  "Make it two hours. I've got things to do first."

  "All right. Two hours, then, Foralie Town air-pad."

  "Don't concern yourself!" said Amanda. "I'll remember."

  She broke the connection. For a brief moment more she sat, turning things over in her mind. Then she rang Foralie homestead, home of Cletus and Melissa Grahame.

  There was a short delay, then the narrow-boned face of Melissa—Eachan Khan's daughter, now Cletus' wife—took shape under touseled hair on the screen. Melissa's eyelids were still heavy with sleep.

  "Who—oh, Amanda," she said.

  "I've just been asked to take over district command, from Piers," Amanda said. "The invasion's on its way and I've got to leave Fal Morgan in an hour for a meeting at South Point. I don't know when or if I'll be back Can you take Betta?"

  "Of course." Melissa's voice and face were coming awake as she spoke. "How close is she?"

  "Any time."

  "She can ride?"

  "Not horseback Just about anything else."

  Melissa nodded.

  "I'll be over in the skimmer in forty minutes." She looked out of the screen at Amanda. "I know— you'd rather I moved in with her there. But I can't leave Foralie, now. I promised Cletus."

  "I understand," said Amanda. "Do you know yet when Cletus will be back?"

  "No. Any time—like Betta." Her voice thinned a little. "I'm never sure."

  "No. Nor he, either, I suppose." Amanda watched the younger woman for a second. "I'll have Betta ready when you get here. Goodby."

  "Goodby."

  Amanda broke contact and set about getting Betta up and packed. This done, there was the house to be organized for a period of perhaps some days without inhabitants. Betta sat bundled in a chair in the kitchen, waiting, as Amanda finished programming the automatic controls of the house for the interval.

  "You can call me from time to time at Foralie," Betta said.

  "When possible," said Amanda.

  She glanced over and saw the normally open, friendly face of her great-grand
daughter, now looking puffy and pale above the red cardigan sweater enveloping her. Betta was more than capable in ordinary times; it was only in emergencies like this that she had a tendency to founder. Amanda checked her own critical frame of mind. It was not easy for Betta, about to have a child with her husband, father and brother all off-planet, in combat, and—the nature of war being what it was—the possibility existing that none of them might come back to her. There were only three men at the moment, left in the house of ap Morgan, and only two women; and now one of those two, Amanda, herself, was going off on a duty that could end in a hangman's rope or a firing squad. For she did not delude herself that the Earth-bred Alliance and Coalition military would fight with the same restraint toward civilians the soldiers of the younger worlds showed.

  But it would not help to fuss over Betta now. It would help none of them—there was an approaching humming noise outside the house that crescendoed to a peak just beyond the kitchen door, and stopped.

  "Melissa," said Betta.

  "Come on," Amanda said.

  She led the way outside. Betta followed, a little clumsily, and Melissa with Amanda helped her into the open cockpit of the ducted fan skimmer.

  "I'll check up on you when I have time," Amanda said, kissing her great-granddaughter briefly. Betta's arms tightened fiercely around her.

  "Mandy!" The diminutive of her name which only the young children normally used and the sudden desperate appeal in Betta's voice sent a surge of empathy arcing between them. Over Betta's shoulder, Amanda saw the face of Melissa, calm and waiting. Unlike Betta, Melissa came into her own in a crisis-it was in ordinary times that the daughter of Eachan Khan fumbled and lost her way.

  "Never mind me," said Amanda, "I'll be all right. Take care of your own duties."

  With strength, she freed herself and waved them off. For a second more she stood, watching their skimmer hum off down the slope. Betta's farewell had just woken a grimness in her that was still there. Melissa and Betta. Either way, being a woman who was useful half the time was no good. Life required you to be operative at all hours and seasons.

  That was the problem with a talisman-name like her own. She who would own it must be operative in just that way, at all times. "When someone of that capability should be born into the family, she could release the name of Amanda, which she had so far refused to every female child in the line. As she refused it to Betta for this child. And yet… and yet, it was not right to lock up the name forever. As each generation moved farther away from her own time, it and the happenings connected with it would then become more and more legendary, more and more unreal…

  She put the matter for the thousandth time from her mind and turned back to buttoning up Fal Morgan. Passing down the long hall, she let her fingers trail for a second on its dark wainscotting. Almost, she could feel a living warmth in the wood, the heart of the house beating. But there was nothing more she could do to protect it now. In the days to come, it, too, must take its chances.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was on her own skimmer, headed downslope toward Foralie Town. At her back was an overnight bag, considerably smaller than the one they had packed for Betta. Under her belt was a heavy energy pistol on full charge and in perfect order. In the long-arm boot of the skimmer was an ancient blunderbus of a pellet shotgun, its clean and decent barrel replaced minutes before by one that was rusted and old, but workable. As she reached the foot of the slope and started the rise to the ridge, her gaze was filled by the mountains and Fal Morgan moved for the moment into the back of her mind.

  The skimmer hummed upslope, only a few feet above the ground. Out from under the spruce and pine, the highland sun was brilliant. The thin earth cover, broken by outcroppings of granite and quartz was brown, sparsely covered by tough green grasses. The air was cold and light, yet unwarmed by the sun. She felt it deep in her lungs when she breathed. The wine of the morning, her own mother had called air like this, nearly a century ago.

  She mounted to the crest of the ridge and the mountains stood up around her on all sides, shoulder to shoulder like friendly giants, as she topped the ridge and headed down the further slope to Foralie, now visible, distant and small by the river bend, far below. The sky was brilliantly clear with the hew day. Only a small, stray cloud, here and there, graced its perfection. The mountains stood, looking down. There were people here who were put off by their bare rock, their remote and icy summits, but she herself found them honest—secure, strong and holding, brothers to her soul.

  A deep feeling moved in her, even after all these years. Even more than for the home she had raised, she had found in herself a love for this world. She loved it as she loved her children, her children's children and her three husbands—each different, each unmatchable in its own way.

  She had loved it, not more, but as much as she had loved her first-born, Jimmy, all the days of his life. But why should she love the Dorsai so much? There had been mountains in Wales—fine mountains. But when she had first come here after her second husband's death, something about this land, this planet, had spoken to her and claimed her with a voice different from any she had ever heard before. She and it had strangely become joined, beyond separation. A strange, powerful, almost aching affection had come to bind her to it. Why should just a world, a place of ordinary water and land and wind and sky, be something to touch her so deeply?

  But she was sliding swiftly now, down the gentler, longer curve of the slope that led to Foralie Town. She could see the brown track of the river road, now, following the snake of blue water that wound away to the east and out between a fold in the mountains, and in its other direction from the town, west and up until it disappeared in the rocky folds above, where its source lay in the water of permanent ice sheets at seventeen thousand feet. Small clumps of the native softwood trees moved and passed like shutters between her and sight of the town below as she descended. But at this hour she saw no other traffic about. Twenty minutes later, she came to the road and the river below the town, and turned left, upstream toward the buildings that were now close.

  She passed out from behind a clump of small softwoods and slid past the town manufactory and the town dump, which now separated her from the river and the wharf that let river traffic unload directly to the manufactory. The manufactory itself was silent and inactive, at this early hour. The early sun winked on the rubble of refuse, broken metal and discarded material of all kinds, in the little hollow below the exhaust vent of the manufactory's power unit.

  The Dorsai was a poor world in terms of arable land and most natural resources; but it did supply petroleum products from the drowned shorelines of the many islands that took the place of continents on the watery planet. So crude oil had been the fuel chosen for the power generator at the manufactory, which had been imported at great cost from Earth. The tools driven by that generator were as sophisticated as any found on Earth, while the dump was as primitive as any that pioneer towns had ever had. Like her Fal Morgan and the communications equipment within its wall.

  She stopped the skimmer and got off, walking a dozen feet or so back into the brush across the road from the dump. She took the heavy energy handgun from her belt and hung it low on the branch of a sapling, where the green leaves all about would hide it from anyone not standing within arm's reach of it. She made no further effort to protect it. The broad arrow stamped on its grip, mark of the ap Morgans, would identify it to anyone native to this world who might stumble across it.

  She returned to the skimmer, just as a metal door in the side of the manufactory slid back with a rattle and a bang. Jhanis Bins came out, wheeling a dump carrier loaded with silvery drifts of fine metallic dust.

  Amanda walked over to him as he wheeled the carrier to the dump and tilted its contents onto the rubble inches below the exhaust vent. He jerked the carrier back on to the roadway and winked at Amanda. Age and illness had wasted him to a near skeleton, but there was still strength in his body, if little endurance. Above the old knife-scar laying al
l the way across his eyes held a sardonic humor.

  "Nickel grindings?" asked Amanda, nodding at what Jhanis had just dumped.

  "Right," he said. There was grim humor in his voice as well as his eyes. "You're up early."

  "So are you," she said.

  "Lots to be done." He offered a hand. "Amanda."

  She took it.

  "Jhanis."

  He let go and grinned again.

  "Well, back to work Luck Commander, ma'm."

  He turned the carrier back toward the manufactory.

  "News travels fast," she said.

  "How else?" he replied, over his shoulder, and went inside. The metal door rolled on its tracks, slamming shut behind him.

  Amanda remounted the skimmer and slide it on into town. As she came to a street of houses just off the main street, she saw Bhaktabahadur Rais, sweeping the path between the flowers in front of his house, holding the broom awkwardly but firmly in the clawed arthritic fingers of the one hand remaining to him. The empty sleeve of the other arm was pinned up neatly just below the shoulder joint. The small brown man smiled warmly as the skimmer settled to the ground when Amanda stopped its motors opposite him. He was no bigger than a twelve-year boy, but in spite of having almost as many years as Amanda, he moved as lightly as a child.

  He carried the broom to the skimmer, leaned it against his shoulder and saluted. There was an impish sparkle about him.

  "All right, Bhak," said Amanda. "I'm just doing what I'm asked. Did the young ones and their Ancients get out of town?"

  He sobered.

  "Piers sent them out two days ago," he said. "You didn't know?"