Poul Anderson - The Stars are also Fire

VIP免费

2024-12-20 0 0 798.33KB 230 页 5.9玖币

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen

property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor

the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work of fiction. AH the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, or

are used fictitiously.

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE

Cover an by Vincent DiFate

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN: 0-812-53022-5

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94-7020

First edition: August 1994

First mass market edition: October 1995

Printed in the United States of America 09876543

TO LARRY AND MARILYN NIVEN

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For advice, information, suggestions, encouragement, and much else I am indebted to Karen Anderson

(first and foremost as always), Gregory Benford, CJ. Cherryh, Larry J. Friesen, Robert Gleason,

Alan Jeffery, Mike Resnick, and S.M. Stirling. They are not responsible for any errors or other

infelicities that remain in this book, but without them there would have been many more.

It is clear that I have also drawn on the thoughts of Freeman Dyson, Hans Moravec, Roger Penrose,

Gun-ther S. Stent, and Frank J. Tipler, Again, nothing bad is their fault, the more so since I

have often contradicted this or that in their writings. For that matter, some of their own ideas

disagree with each other. All are immensely interesting and reach for the very heart of truth.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

(Some minor figures are omitted)

Aiant: A husband of Lilisaire.

Annie: Former wife of lan Kenmuir.

Anson Beynac: Oldest child of Dagny and Edmond

Beynac. Carla Beynac: Sixth child of Dagny and Edmond

Beynac. Dagny Beynac: An engineer, later an administrator,

eventually a political leader on Luna in early days;

her download. Edmond Beynac: A geologist, husband of Dagny

Beynac. Francis Beynac: Fourth child of Dagny and Edmond

Beynac. Gabrielle Beynac: Second child of Dagny and Edmond

Beynac. Helen Beynac: Fifth child of Dagny and Edmond

Beynac. Sigurd Beynac: Third child of Dagny and Edmond

Beynac.

Bolly: A henchman of Bruno. Bornay: Son of Lilisaire and Caraine. Brandir: Lunarian name of Anson

Beynac. Bruno: Mayor of Overburg in Bramland. Caraine: A husband of Lilisaire. Mary Carfax: Alias

of a sophotect in Lilisaire's serv-

ice.

Delgado: An officer of the Peace Authority. Diddyboom: Pet name given Dagny by Guthrie. Dagny

Ebbesen: A granddaughter and protegee of

Anson Guthrie; after her marriage, Dagny Beynac.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Erann: A grandson of Brandir.

Etana: A Lunarian space pilot.

Eyrnen: A Lunarian bioengineer, son of Jinann.

Eythtt: A henchman of Lilisaire.

Fernando: A priest and leader among the Drylanders.

Fia: Lunarian name of Helen Beynac.

James Fong: An officer of the Peace Authority.

Miguel Fuentes: An engineer on Luna in early days.

Lucrezia Gambetta: Second governor general of Luna for the World Federation.

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (1 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

Petras Gedminas: An engineer on Luna in early days.

Anson Guthrie: Co-founder and chief of Fireball Enterprises; his download.

Juliana Guthrie: Wife of Anson Guthrie and co-founder of Fireball Enterprises.

Zaid Hakim: An agent of the Ministry of Environment of the World Federation.

Einar Haugen: Fourth governor general of Luna for the World Federation.

Stepan Huizinga: A leader among the Terran Moondwellers in early days.

Ilitu: A Lunarian geologist.

Inalante: Mayor of Tychopolis, a son of Kaino.

Iscah: A metamorph of Chemo type in Los Angeles.

Ivala: A wife of Brandir.

Eva Jannicki: A spacefarer for Fireball Enterprises.

Daniel Janvier: President of the World Federation at the time of the Lunar crisis.

Jinann: Lunarian name of Carla Beynac.

Charles Jomo: A mediator in East Africa.

Ka'eo: One of the Keiki Mqana.

Kaino: Lunarian name of Sigurd Beynac.

Aleka Kame: A member of the Lahui Kuikawa, serving as liaison with the Keiki Moana and other

metamorphs.

lan Kenmuir: An Earth-born space pilot of the Venture.

Lilisaire: A Lunarian magnate of the Republic era.

Matthias: Lodgemaster (Rydberg) of the Fireball Trothdom.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Lucas Mthembu: Birth name of Venator.

Dolores Nightborn: An alias of Lilisaire.

Niolente: A Lunarian magnate of the Selenarchy era, leader of the movement against incorporation

of Luna in the World Federation.

Manyane Nkuhlu: A spaceman for Fireball Enterprises.

Irene Norton: Alias used by Aleka Kame.

Antonio Oliveira: A spaceman for Fireball Enterprises?

Joe Packer: An engineer on Luna in early days.

Sam Packer: A consorte of the Fireball Trothdom.

Rinndalir: A Lunarian magnate of the Selenarchy era, co-leader of the exodus to Alpha Centauri.

Larf Rydberg: A spaceman for Fireball Enterprises, son of Dagny Ebbesen and William Thurshaw.

Vila Rydberg: Wife of Lars Rydberg.

Sandhu: A guru at P raj rial oka.

Soraya: A metamorph of Titan type in Los Angeles.

Mohandas Sundaram: A colonel of the Peace Authority on Luna.

Alice Tarn: Anglo version of "Aleka Kame."

Temerir: Lunarian name of Francis Beynac.

The Teramind: The apex of the cybercosm.

William Thurshaw: Youthful lover of Dagny Ebbesen.

Tuori: A wife of Brandir.

Uncans: Pet name given Guthrie by Dagny.

Valanndray: A Lunarian engineer of the Venture.

Venator: A synnoiont and officer of the intelligence corps of the Peace Authority.

Verdea: Lunarian name of Gabrielle Beynac.

Yuri Volkov: A former lover of Aleka Kame.

Jaime Wahly Medina: Third governor general of Luna for the World Federation.

Leandro Wahl y Vrribe: Son of Jaime Wahl.

Rita Vrribe de Wahl: Wife of Jaime Wahl.

Pilar Wahly Vrribe: Daughter of Jaime Wahl.

Zhao Haifeng: First governor general of Luna for the World Federation.

What did you see, Proserpina,

When you were down in the dark?

Why speak you not of that hollow realm

Where the puzzled, quiet shades

Half-dreaming drift through starlessness

And you were their captive queen,

Now when we welcome you back to earth

For as long as you may abide?

The nieadows blossom beneath your feet,

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (2 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

The world is awash with light,

But the springtime grass has roots thafreach

To trouble the bones below.

Is this why you walk among us mute,

Is this the gift of your love,

To save us from knowing what you have known,

Until you descend again?

—Salerianus,

Quaestiones, II, i, 1-16

Long afterward, there came to Alpha Centauri the news of what had happened on Earth and around

Sol. How that news came, breaking the silence that had been laid upon it, is another story. At the

time, few dwellers on Demeter gave it much heed, disturbing though it was. They were in the course

of departure from the world their forebears had made home, for in less than a hundred years it

must perish. However, one among them was a philosopher.

His young son found him deep in thought and asked why. Because he would not lie to a child, he

explained that word lately received from the Mother Star troubled him. "But don't be afraid," he

added. "This is nothing that will touch us for a very long while, if it ever does."

"What is it?" inquired the boy.

"I'm sorry, I can't quite tell you," said the philosopher. "Not because it's a secret any longer,

but because it goes too far back," and because ultimately it was too subtle.

"Can't you tell me anyway?" urged his son.

With an effort, the father put disquiet aside. Truly, four and a third light-years distant, they

need have no immediate fears about the matter, or so he supposed. He smiled. "First you must know

some history, and you have barely begun to study that."

2 POOL ANDERSON

"It jumbles together in my head," the boy complained.

"Yes, a big load for a small head to take in," the philosopher agreed. He reached a decision. His

child wanted to be with him. Furthermore, if he took this chance to describe certain key factors,

a realization of their importance might dawn for the poy, and that might someday make a

difference. "Well, sit down beside me and we'll talk," he invited. "We'll look at the beginnings

of what you're wondering about. Would you like that?

"We could start anywhere and anywhen. Creatures not yet human, taming fire. The first machines,

the first scientists, the early explorers—or spaceships, genetics, cybernetics, nanotechnology—But

we'll start with Anson Guthrie."

The boy's eyes widened.

"Always remember, he was just another man," the philosopher said. "Never imagine him as anything

else. He'd hate that. You see, he loves freedom, and freedom means having no masters except our

own consciences and common sense.

"He did do more than most of us. You remember how it was his Fireball Enterprises that opened up

space for everybody. Many governments didn't like having a private company that powerful, nearly a

nation itself. But he didn't interfere much with them; he didn't want their sort of power. It was

enough that his followers were loyal to him and he to them.

"This might have changed after he died. Luckily, before then he'd been downloaded. The pattern of

his mind, memories, style of thinking, were mapped into a neural network. And so his personality

went on, in machine bodies, as the chief of Fireball."

"Aw, it's not like that," the boy protested.

"I'm sorry," his father apologized. "Often I'm vague about how much of your education you've quite

grasped, as young as you are. You're right, the truth is endlessly more complicated. I don't

pretend to

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 3

know everything about it. I don't believe anybody does.

"But let's go on. Of course you have learned how the Lunarians came to be. Human genes needed

changing, if human beings were to live, really live and have children, on Earth's Moon. What you

may not have heard much about is the other metamorphs, the other life forms that got changed too,

many different new kinds of plants and animals and even people. You may not have heard anything

about the Keiki Moana."

The boy frowned, searching memory. "They—they helped Anson Guthrie once—they swam?"

"Yes. Intelligent seals," his father said. The boy had encountered full-sensory recordings of the

ordinary species. "They lived with a few humans like dear friends, or more than friends." The

philosopher paused. "But I'm getting ahead of myself. That community wasn't founded until after

the exodus."

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (3 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

"What's that?"

"Oh, you haven't met the word? Doubtless it is rather archaic. In this case, 'exodus' means when

Guthrie led our ancestors to Demeter."

The boy nodded eagerly. "An* the an—ancestors of the Lunarians who live in our asteroids. They all

had logo."

"Not strictly true. Probably they could have stayed. But they wouldn't have been happy, the way

everything was changing and Fireball itself soon to be no more."

"Because of the machines?"

"No, that isn't right either. Drfn't forget, people have had machines of one kind or another for

ages. They made the machines better and better, till at last they began to build robots, which can

be programmed to do things without a person in control. And then finally they built sophotects,

machines that can think and know that they think, like you and me."

Now the boy's voice took on the least tinge of fear.

4 POUL ANDERSQN

"But the so-pho-tects, they made themselves better yet, didn't they?"

His father put an arm around his shoulders. "Don't be afraid. They have no wish to harm us.

Besides, they're far away at Sol. Yes, Earth has come to depend on the cybercosm, all those

wonderful machines working and . . . thinking. . . together. That's made Earth very different from

what we have here—"

The philosopher stopped, knowing how readily dim fears arise in children and grow until they leap

forth as nightmares. Already he had softened his utterances. He did not know what the cybercosm

portended for humankind. Nobody did, maybe not even itself. Let him set the little heart beside

him at rest, as well as he could.

"But it's still Earth, the Earth you've been told about," he said. "The countries are still all in

the World Federation, and the Peace Authority keeps them peaceful, and no one has to be hungry or

fall sick or go in fear." He wondered how much softening was in that sentence, for indeed he spoke

of a world so distant that np ship had borne any of his kind across the space between since

Guthrie spent the whole wealth of Fireball to bring a handful of colonists here. Communication

with it had virtually ceased. "And we are just as different, in our own ways, from what Earth once

was," he finished.

The boy's mother came into the room. "Bedtime," she told him. "Kiss Daddy goodnight."

The philosopher stayed behind, meditating. A violet dusk filled the old-style windows, for the

companion sun was aloft, remote in its orbit. Presently he rose and went to his desk. He wished to

record whatever ideas occurred to him while the news was fresh. As yet they were unclear, but he

hoped that eventually he could write something useful, a letter to the man his son would be. Piece

by slow piece, he entered:

"Few of us will ever fully understand what has come to pass—perhaps none, "as strange as it was

and is.

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 5

Surely we cannot foresee how far or how mightily the aftermath will reach, whether out among the

comets or onward to trouble the stars. A man and a woman searched back through time, bewildered,

hunted, alone. Two lives met across death and centuries. To ask what it meant is meaningless.

There is no destiny. But sometimes there is bravery."

i-tilisaire, Wardress of Mare Orientate and the Cordillera, at Zamok Vysoki, summons the captain

lan Kenmuir, wheresoever he be. Come, I have need of you.

From Luna her message rode carrier beams through relays circling millions of kilometers apart,

until it reached the communications center on Ceres. Then the hunt began.

Out here in the deeps, vessels seldom kept unbroken contact with any traffic control station. The

computer on the big asteroid knew only that Kenmuir's ship had been active among the moons of

Jupiter these past seventeen months. It flashed a question to its twin on Himalia, tenth from the

planet. Shunted through another relay, the answer spent almost an hour in passage. The ship had

left the Jovian realm eleven daycycles earlier, inbound for a certain minor body.

Given the flight plan Kenmuir had registered, calculating the direction of a laser beam that would

intercept him was the work of a microsecond or less. It required no awareness, merely power over

numbers. Within that vast net which was the cybercosm, robotic functions like this were more

automatic than were the human brainstem's regulation of breath and heartbeat. The minds of the

machines were elsewhere.

Yet the cybercosm was always One.

The ship received. "A message for the captain," she said.

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (4 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

POUL ANDERSON

Kenmuir and Valanndray were playing double chaos. Fractals swirled through the viewtank before

them, in every color and in shapes beyond counting. Guided more by intuition than reason, fingers

stroked keyboards. Forms changed, flowed, swept toward a chosen attractor, tumbled away as the

opponent threw in a new function. Caught in their game, the players breathed quickly and shallowly

of air that they had ordered to be cool, with a tang of pine. They ignored the cabin-wide

audiovisual recording at their backs, a view from the Andes, rock and sky and snowdrift on a

shrill wind.

The ship spoke.

"Halt play!" snapped Kenmuir. The contest for a stable configuration froze in place.

He spent a moment beneath Valanndray's gaze before he decided, "I'll take it at the console. No

offense meant. It may be a private matter." Belatedly he realized that the apology would have gone

better had he expressed it in Lunarian.

He felt relieved when his passenger replied, in Anglo at that, "Understood. Secrecy is precious by

scarcity, nay?" If the tone was a bit sardonic,.no harm. The two men had been getting along

reasonably well, but tension was bound to rise on a long mission, and more than once they Bad

skirted a fight. After all, they were not of the same species.

Or maybe that saved them, Kenmuir thought flittingly, as he had often thought before. A pair of

Terran males like him, weeks or months on end with no other company, would either have to become

soul-brothers or else risk flying at one another's throats. A pair of Lunarians like

Valanndray—well, alterations made in ancient genes had not brought forth any race of saints. But

neither of this team found his companion growing maddeningly predictable.

Kenrhuir doubted that their occasional encounters with sophotects had soothed them. An inorganic

intelligence—a machine with consciousness, if you

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 9

wanted to think of it in those terms—was too alien to them both.

He shrugged the reflection off and walked out into the passageway.

The ship murmured around him, sounds of ventilation, chemical recycling, self-maintenance of the

whole structure. There went no sound or shiver of acceleration; the deck was as steady beneath his

feet, at one-sixth of Earth weight, -as if he were on the Moon. The corridor flickered with a

chromatic abstraction, Valanndray's choice. When it was Ken-muir's turn to decorate, he usually

picked a scene from his native world, contemporary, historical, or fantasy.

Where his path descended, he used the fixed ladder rather than the conveyor. Anything to help

himself stay in trim. The command cabin lay near the center of the spheroidal hull. Its interior

displayed ambient space, a representation better than reality. Solar radi ance was muted lest it

blind. Star images were bright ened to overcome shipboard lighting. Unwinking, they beswarmed the

dark, white, amber, coal-red, steel-blue, the galactic belt icy among them. Jupiter glowed like a

lamp, the sun was a tiny disc rimmed with fire-tongues. Kenmuir settled at the main control board.

"Screen the message," he ordered.

His voice sounded too loud in the encompassing silence. For an instant, bitterness woke anew.

Command cabin! Control board! He told the ship where and how to go; she did the rest. And hers was

a narrowly limited mind. A higher-order sophotect would not have needed anything from him. He knew

of no emergency that even this craft couldn't handle by herself, unless it be something that

destroyed her utterly.

His glance swung over the stars of the southern sky and came to a stop at Alpha Centauri. Longing

shook him. Yonder they dwelt, the descendants of those who had followed Anson Guthrie to a new

world, and so

POUL ANDERSON

tremendous a voyage would scarcely be repeated ever again. From here, at least. Maybe their own

descendants would find ways to farther suns. They must, if they were to outlive their doomed

planet. But that wreck would not come for lifetimes yet, and meanwhile, meanwhile—

"Pull yourself together, old fool," Kenmuir muttered. Self-pity was contemptible. He did get to

fare through space, and the worlds that swung around Sol should have grandeurs enough for any man.

Let him thank Lilisaire for that.

Wryness bent his lips upward. Gratitude was irrelevant. The Lunarians had their reasons for

keeping as much human staff of both races in their space operations as possible. He, Terran,

served a genuine purpose, less as a transporteer who could tolerate higher accelerations than they

could than as advisor, trouble-shooter, partner of the engineers whom he brought to their work. A

sophotect with similar capabilities wouldn't necessarily do better, he told himself fiercely; and

if he depended on life-support systems, why, a machine had its requirements too.

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (5 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

The thoughts had flashed through him in a fraction of a second. The message grabbed his attention.

Its few words rammed into him. He sat for a while dumbstruck.

Lilisaire wanted him back. At once.

He had expected some communication about the job ahead. To read it in isolation had been an

impulse, irrational, a sudden desire to escape for five or ten minutes. Such feelings grew in you

on a twenty-four-month tour of duty.

But Lilisaire wanted him straight back.

"Easy, lad, easy," he whispered. Put down love and lust and all other emotions entangled around

her. Think. She was not calling him to her for his personal sweet sake. He could guess what the

crisis might be, but not what help he might give. The matter must be grave, for her to interrupt

this undertaking on which

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 11

he was embarked. However mercurial some of the Lunarian magnates were, they all took their Venture

most seriously. An alliance of entrepreneurs was their solitary last hope of maintaining an active

presence in deep space.

Absently, as a nearly automatic accompaniment to thought, he evoked a scan of his destination. It

was now about six million kilometers away. At her present rate of braking, the ship would get

there in one more daycycle.

Magnified and enhanced, the image of the asteroid swam in the viewtank as>a rough oblong lump,

murky reddish, pocked with craters shadow-limned against harsh sunlight. Compared to the lesser

Jovian moons where Valanndray, with Kenmuir's assistance, had led machines in the labor of

development, this was a

pygmy.

However, a robotic prospector had found resources worth extracting, not ices and organics but

ferrous and actinide ores. A work gang was waiting for human direction—robots, of course, not

sophotects: mindless, unaware, though versatile and adaptable. Skilled vision identified a landing

field, a cluster of shelters, glints off polished metal skins.

Nearby loomed the skeletal form of a shield generator, big enough for its electrodynamic fields to

fend particle radiation not merely off a spacecraft, but off an entire mining plant. Nevertheless

it was small, when he compared those that had let him visit Ganymede and return alive.

A visit, and brief. The settlers there were sophotects, for only machines could function in such

an environment and only machines that thought, that were aware, could cope with its often terrible

surprises. In law the big inner satellites of Jupiter were territory of the World Federation Space

Service. In practice they belonged to the cybercosm.

Kenmuir dismissed the recollection and stood up. His heart thudded. To be with Lilisaire again,

soon,

POUL ANDERSON

soon! Well, if his feelings were like a boy's, he could keep his words a man's. He went back to

the recreation room.

Valanndray was still there, toying with orbital mechanics variations. He turned to confront the

pilot. His face, fine-boned, ivory-pale, lifted ten centimeters above Kenmuir's. On this crossing

he had laid flath-boyancy aside and clothed his litheness in a coverall; but it was of deep-blue

perlux, and phosphorescent light-points blinked in the fabric. Recorded snow blew behind him,

recorded wind beneath the musical voice: "So, Captain?"

Kenmuir halted. Tall for an Earthling, he had long ceased letting Lunarian height overawe him. "A

surprise. You won't like it, I'm afraid." He recited the message. Within him, it sang.

Valanndray stood motionless. "In truth, a reversal," he said at length, tonelessly. "What propose

you to do?"

"Set you off with the supplies and equipment, and make for Luna. What else?"

"Abandonment, then."

"No, wait. Naturally, we'll call in and explain the situation, if they don't already know at

headquarters."

The big oblique eyes narrowed. "Nay. The Federals would retrieve it and learn."

Irritation stirred. Kenmuir had simply wanted to be tactful. Their months together had given him

an impression that his associate was in some ways, down below the haughtiness, quite woundable.

Valanndray might have felt hurt that the other man was so ready to leave him behind.

Just the same, Kenmuir had grown tired of hearing coldly hostile remarks about the World

Federation, and this one was ridiculous. Granted, Lunarians had not rejoiced when their world came

back under the general government of humankind. Resentment persisted in many, perhaps most, to

this day. But—name of reason!—how long before they were born had the

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (6 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 13

change taken place? And their wish for "independence" was flat-out wrong. What nation-states bred

while they existed, as surely as contaminated water bred sickness, had been war.

"The message went inH clear because it must, if we were to read it," Kenmuir said. "We don't have

cryptographic equipment aboard, do we? Very well, it's in the databases now. Who cares? If

somebody does notice it, will he send for the Peace Authority? I hardly think the lady Lilisaire

is plotting rebellion."

Recognizing his sarcasm, he made haste to adopt mildness: "Yes, we'll notify the Venture, though I

daresay she has already. It ought to dispatch another ship and teammate for you. Within a week or

two, I should imagine."

He was relieved to see no anger. Instead, Valanndray regarded the spacefarer as if studying a

stranger. He saw a man drably clad, lean to the point of gauntness, with big bony hands, narrow

face and jutting nose, grizzled sandy hair cut short, lines around the mouth and crow's-feet at

the gray eyes. The look made Kenmuir feel awkward. He was amply decisive when coping with nature,

space, machines, .but when it came to human affairs he could go abruptly shy.

"The lords of the Venture will be less than glad," Valanndray said.

Kenmuir shaped a smile. "That's obvious. Upset plans, extra cost." When everything was marginal to

begin with, he thought. The associated companies and < colonists didn't really compete with

the Space Service ; and its sophotects. They couldn't. What kept them going was, basically,

subsidy, from the former aristocratic families and from lesser Lunarians who traded sk with

them out of Lunarian pride. And still their | enterprises were dying away, dwindling like the

num-4; bers of the Lunarians themselves. ... * He forced matter-of-factness: "But

the lady Lilisaire, she's a power among them, maybe more than you or I know." His pulse hammered

anew.

POUL ANDERSON

Valanndray spread his fingers. A Terran would have shrugged shoulders. "She can prevail over them,

yes. Go you shall, Captain."

"I, I'm sorry," Kenmuir said.

"You are not," Valanndray retorted. "You could protest this order. But nay, go you will, and at

higher thrust than a single Earth gravity."

Why that grim displeasure? He and Kenmuir had shaken down into an efficient partnership, which

included getting along with one another's peculiarities. A newcomer would need time to adjust. But

the Earthman felt something else was underlying.

Jealousy, that Lilisaire wanted Kenmuir and not him, though Kenmuir was an alien employee and

Valanndray kin to her, a member of her phyle? How well the pilot knew that tomcat Lunarian vanity;

how well he had learned to steer clear of it.

Or a different kind of jealousy? Kenmuir pushed the question away. Just once had Valanndray seemed

to drop an erotic hint Kenmuir promptly changed the subject, and it arose no more. Quite possibly

he had misunderstood. Who of his species had ever seen the inmost heart of a Lunarian? In any

case, they had a quivira to ease them. Kenmuir did not know what pseudo-experiences Valanndray

induced for himself in the dream box, nor did the Earthman talk about his own.

"If you loathe the idea, you can come back with me," he said. "You're entitled." On the Moon,

obligations between underlings and overlings had their strength, but it was the strength of a

river, form and force incessantly changeable.

Valanndray shook his head. Long platinum locks fell aside from ears that were not convoluted like

Kenmuir's. "Nay. I have sunken my mind in yonder asteroid for weeks, hypertext, simulations, the

whole of available knowledge about it. None can readily replace me. Were I to forsake it, that

would leave the Federation so much the richer, so much the more powerful, than my folk."

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 15

Kenmuir recalled conversations they had had, and dealings he had had with others, on Luna, Mars,

the worldlets of the Belt, moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Few they were, those Lunarian spacefarers

and colonists, reckoned against Terrankind. Meager their wealth was, reckoned against that which

the machines held in the name of Terrankind. But if they leagued in anger and raised all the

resources at their beck, it could bring a catastrophe like none that history knew.

No, hold on. He was being fantastical. Ignore Valanndray's last words. No revolt was brewing. War

was a horror of the far past, like disease. "That's right loyal of you," Kenmuir replied.

"I hold my special vision of the future," Valanndray told him. "Come the time, I want potency in

council. Here I gain a part of it." The admission was thoroughly Lunarian. "I regret losing your

help, in this final phase of our tour, but go, Captain, go."

"Uh, whatever the reason the lady's recalling me, it must be good. For the good of—of Luna—"

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (7 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

Valanndray laughed. Kenmuir flushed. The good of Luna? Hardly a Lunarian concept. At most, the

good of the phyle. Still, that could entail benefit for the entire race.

"As for me," Valanndray said, "I will think on this. We can finish our game later. Until

evenwatch, Captain." He laid right palm on left breast, courtesy salute, and strolled out the

door.

Kenmuir stood a while alone. Lilisaire, Lilisaire!

But why did she want unimportant him at her side?

Because of the Habitat? Remote and preoccupied as he had been, he had caught only fugitive

mentions of that project. It seemed the Federation government was definitely going to go through

with it. That would rouse fury on Luna—a feat of engineering that would make mass immigration from

Earth possible—but what in the manifold cosmos could he do?

What should he do? He was no rebel, no ideologue, nothing but a plain and peaceful man who worked

in the Venture of Luna because it had some berths for

POUL ANDERSON

Terrans who would rather be out among the stars than anywhere else.

Let him shoot a beam to Ceres and ask for an update on Solar System news, with special reference

to the Habitat.

No. A chill traversed him. That call, hard upon what had just passed, might draw notice. Or it

might not. But if the cybercosm, ceaselessly scanning its databases in search of significant

correlations, turned this one up—

Then what? He did not, repeat not, intend anything illegal.

Still, best if he didn't get that update. Wait till he reached Luna, maybe till he and Lilisaire

were secluded.

Kenmuir realized that he was bound for his stateroom.

To reach it felt almost like a homecoming. This space was his, was him. Most of his recreations he

pursued elsewhere, handball in the gym, figurine sculpture in the workshop, whatever. Here he went

to be himself. From the snip's database he retrieved any books and dramas, music and visual art,

that he wished. He thought his thoughts and relived his memories, uninterrupted, unseen if maybe

he breathed a name or beat a fist into an open hand. A few flat pictures clung to the bulkheads.

They showed the Highland moor of his childhood; the Grand Canyon of the Colorado as photographed

by him; his parents, years dead; Dagny Beynac, centuries dead.. . .

From a cabinet he took a bottle and poured a short brandy. He wasn't given to solitary drinking,

or indulgence in glee or brainstir or other intoxicants. He severely rationed both his time in the

quivira and the adventures he dreamed there. He had learned the hard way that he must. Now,

though, he wanted to uncoil.

He took his chair, leaned back, put feet on desk. The position was more relaxing under full Earth

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 17

weight. Yes, bound for Luna, he would most certainly go at that acceleration or better.

Lilisaire's words implied he was free to squander the energy. So he wouldn't need the centrifuge

to maintain muscle tone. Of course, he would keep up his martial arts and related exercises. As

for the rest of his hours, he could read, play some favorite classic shows, and—and, right now,

call up Bach's Second Brandenburg Concerto. His tastes ran to the antique.

As the notes marched forth, as the liquor smoldered across tongue and into bloodstream, his eyes

sought the portrait of Dagny Beynac and lingered. Always her figure had stood heroic before him.

He wasn't sure why. Oh, he knew what she did, he had read three biographies and found remembrances

everywhere on Luna; but others had also been great. Was it her association with Anson Guthrie? Or

was it, in part, that she resembled his mother a little?

For the thousandth time, he considered her. The picture had been taken when she was in early

middle age. She stood tall for an Earthborn woman, 180 centimeters, against the background of a

conservatory where flowers grew extravagant under Lunar gravity. A sari and shawl clothed a form

robust, erect, deep-bosomed. He knew from recordings that her gait was free-striding. Her features

were a bit too strong for conventional beauty, broad across the high cheekbones, with slightly

curved nose, full mouth, and rounded chin. Eyes wide-set and sea-blue looked straight from beneath

hair that was thick and red, with overtones of bronze and gold, in bangs across the forehead and

waves down to the jawline. After half a lifespan of sun and weather and radiation, her skin

remained fair. He had heard her voice. It was low, with a trace of burr—"whisky tenor," she called

it.

If her spirit, like Guthrie's, had stayed in the world until this day, what might the two of them

not have wrought? But no, she ordered oblivion for herself. And she knew best. Surely, in her

wisdom, she did.

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (8 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

Hard to believe that once she too was young,

FOUL ANDERSON

confused, helpless. Kenmuir found his imagination slipping pastward, as if he could see her then.

It was a refuge from the present and the future. In the teeth of all fact and logic, he felt

himself headed for worse trouble than anybody awaited.

The Mother of the Moon

It was always something of an event, reported in the local news media, when Anson and Juliana

Guthrie .visited Aberdeen, Washington. Self-made billionaires weren't an everyday sight,

especially in a small seaport, twice especially after the lumbering that had been the mainstay of

adjacent Hoquiam dwindled away. Not that this pair made a production of their status. On the

contrary, they took ordinary accommodations and throughout a stay—usually brief, for their

business would recall them—^they avoided public appearances as much as possible. Dignitaries and

celebrities who tried for their company got more or less politely brushed off. Instead, the

Guthries were together with the Stambaughs and, later, the Ebbesens. This too caused wonderment.

What could they have in common with people who worked hard to earn a humble living?

"We hit it off, we enjoy each other, that's all," Guthrie once told a reporter. "My wife and I

aren't silver-spoon types either, you know. Our backgrounds aren't so different from these folks'.

We've known 'em for years now, and old friends are best, like old shoes, eh?" Those friends said

much the same to anyone who asked. The community learned to accept the situation. As the political

climate changed, envy of them diminished.

The relationship came to seem truly remarkable when the Guthries bet all they had on the Bowen

laser launcher and founded Fireball Enterprises. Their fail-

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 19

ure would have been almost as spectacular as their success was, if less meaningful. But after

seven years their company dominated space activity near Earth and was readying ships to go harvest

the wealth of the Solar System. Nevertheless they returned to Aberdeen every once in a while and

were guests in the same small houses.

At last they even invited young Dagny Ebbesen to come along with them up the coast for a little

vacation. Centuries later, lan Kenmuir could conjecture more shrewdly than her neighbors ever did

what the real reason was and what actually went on.

In the beginning the girl drew strength and comfort more from the woman. Toward the end, though,

Juliana drew her husband aside and murmured, "She needs to talk privately with you. Take her for a

walk. A long one."

"Huh?" Anson raised his shaggy brows. "What makes you think so?"

"I don't think it, I feel it," Juliana replied. "She's fond of me; she worships you."

He harked back to their own daughter—she was in Quito, happily married, but he remembered certain

desperate confidences—and after a moment nodded. "Okay. I dunno as how I rate that, but okay."

When he rumbled to Dagny, "Hey, you're looking as peaked as Mount Rainier. Let's get some salt air

in you and some klicks behind you," she came aglow.

The resort was antiquated, shingle-walled cottages among trees. Across the crumbling road that ran

past it, evergreen forest gloomed beneath a silver-gray sky and soughed in the wind. A staircase

led down a bluff to a beach that right and left outreached vision. Below the heights and above the

clear sand, driftwood lay tumbled, huge bleached logs, lesser fragments of trees and flotsam. Surf

brawled white. Beyond it the waves surged in hues of iron. Where they hit a reef, they fountained.

A few gulls rode the wind, which skirled bleak, bearing odors of sea and bite of spindrift. At

POOL ANDERSON

this fall of the year and in these hard times, Guthrie's party had the place to themselves.

He and the girl turned north. For a while they trudged in silence. They made an odd pair, not only

because of age. He was big and burly, his blunt visage furrowed beneath thinning reddish hair. Her

own hair, uncovered, tossed in elflocks as the single brightness to see. Thus far she still walked

slim and light-foot, her condition betrayed by no more than a fullness gathering in the breasts.

Whenever she crossed a sprawl of kelp she popped a bladder or two under her heel. When she spied

an intact sand dollar, she picked it up with a coo of pleasure. She was, after all, just sixteen.

"Here." She thrust it into Guthrie's hand. "For you, Uncans."

He accepted while asking, "Don't you want it yourself, a souvenir?"

She flushed. Her glance dropped. He barely heard: "Please. You and . .. and Auntie—something to

'member me by."

"Well, thanks, Didd>4>oom." He gave her hand a quick squeeze, let go again, and dropped the disc

into a jacket pocket. "Muchas gracias. Not that we're about to forget you anyhow."

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (9 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt

The pet names blew away on the wind as though the wind were time, names from long ago when she

toddled laughing to him and hadn't quite mastered "Uncle Anson." They walked for another span,

upon the wet strip where the sea had packed and smoothed and darkened the sand. Water hissed from

the breakers to lap near their feet.

"Please don't thank me!" she cried suddenly.

He threw her a pale-blue glance. "Why shouldn't I?"

Tears glimmered. "You've done so much for me, and I, I've never done anything for you. Can't I

even give you a shell?"

"Of course you can, honey, and we'll give it a good home," he answered. "If you think you owe

Juliana

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 21

and me something, pay the debt forward; give somebody else who needs it a leg up someday." He

paused. "But you don't owe, not really. We've gotten plenty enjoyment out of our honorary status.

In fact, to us, for all practical purposes, you're family."

"Why?" she half challenged, half appealed. "What reason for it, ever?"

"Well," he said carefully, "I'm auld acquaintance with your parents, you know. Your mother since

she was a sprat, and when your dad-to-be married her, I was delighted at what a catch she'd made.

Juliana agreed." He ventured a grin. "I expected she'd call him a dinkum cobber, till she reminded

me Aussies these days don't talk like that unless they're conning a tourist."

"But we, we're nobody."

"Nonsense. Your sort doesn't take handouts, nor need them. If I gave a bit of help, it was a

business proposition."

Already in her life she knew otherwise. Helen Stambaugh's father had been master of a fishing boat

till the fisheries failed. Guthrie put up the capital, as a silent partner, for him to start over

with a charter cruiser that went up to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and around among the islands.

For a while he prospered modestly. Sigurd Ebbesen, immigrant from Norway, became his mate, then

presently his son-in-law, and then, with a further financial boost from Guthrie, a second partner

captaining a second boat. But the venture collapsed when the North American economy in general

did. The old man was able to take an austere retirement. Sigurd survived only because Guthrie

persuaded various of his associates and employees that this was a pleasant way to spend some

leisure time. However, Dagny, first child of two, must act as bull cook when school was out. She

graduated to deckhand, then mate-cum-engineer, still unpaid, her eyes turned starward each night

that was unclouded.

"No," she protested. "Not business, not really. You, you're just p-plain good—"

POUL ANDERSON

Her stammer ended. She swallowed a ragged breath, knuckled her eyes, and walked faster.

Guthrie matched the pace. He allowed her a hundred meters of quietness, except for the wind and

surf and sea-mews, before he laid a hand on her shoulder and said, "Friends are friends. I don't

gauge anybody's worth by their bank accounts. Been poor too damn often, myself, for that."

She jarred to a stop. *Tm sorry! I didn't mean—"

"Sure." A smile creased his face. "I know you that well, at least." He sighed "Wish it was better.

If I could've seen you folks more than in far-apart snatches—" It trailed away.

She mustered the calm, though fists clenched at her sides, to look straight at him and say almost

levelly, "Then maybe you could've steered me off this mess I've gotten myself into? Is that what

you're thinking, Uncans? Prob'ly you're right."

Again he smiled, one-sidedly. "You didn't get into it all by yourself, muchacha. You had

enthusiastic help."

The color came and went in her cheeks. "Don't hate him. Please don't. He never would have if I—I

hadn't—"

Guthrie nodded. "Yeah. I understand. Also, when the word got to me, I looked into the situation a

bit. Love and lust and more than a little rebellion, right? By all accounts, Bill Thurshaw's a

decent boy. Bright, too. I figure 1*11 hire an eye kept on him, and if he shows promise—But that's

for later. Right now, you are too young, you two, to get married. It'd be flybait for a thousand

assorted miseries, till you broke up; and your kid would suffer worst."

Steadier by the minute, she asked him: "Then what should I do?"

"piat's what we brought you here to decide," he reminded her.

"Dad and Nfother—"

"They're adrift with a broken rudder, poor souls. Yes, they'll stand by you whatever you choose,

what-

THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE 23

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/De...%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txt (10 of 230) [2/1/2004 4:17:59 AM]

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Anderson,%20Poul%20-\%2020%20Novels/Stars%20Are%20Also%20Fire,%20The.txtNOTE:Ifyoupurchasedthisbookwithoutacoveryoushouldbeawaretha thisbookisstolenproperty.Itwasreportedas"unsoldanddestroyed"tothepublisher,andneithertheauthornorthepublisherhasre...

展开>> 收起<<

Poul Anderson - The Stars are also Fire.pdf

共230页,预览46页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Poul Anderson - The Stars are also Fire

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: