Poul Anderson - Flandry 04 - Let the Spacemen Beware

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THE NIGHT FACE

originally published as

Let the Spacemen Beware.t'

INTRODUCTION

WORD

in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion

of brief quotations in a review, without permission in

writing from the publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance

to actual persons, living or dead, is purely

coincidental.

An ACE Book

Second Ace Edition: February 1978

Cover art by Michael Whelan

Printed in U.S.A.

INTRODUCTION

At first this was a novelette called "A Twelvemonth

and a Day." I revised and expanded it for

book publication, whereupon the then editor stuck it

with the ridiculous title Let the Spacemen Beware.t

My thanks to Jim Baen, now in charge, for recognizing

that readers have more intelligence than they

were once given credit for having. In return, I admit

that he's probably right in considering the original

name too cumbersome; hence the new one.

Otherwise the tale is unchanged. It can stand

alone, without reference to anything else. However,

you' may be interested to know that it does fit into the

same "future history" as the Polesotechnic League

and the Terran Empire. Nicholas van Rijn, David

Falkayn, Christopher Holm, Dominic Flandry, and

quite a few more characters lived in its past. Now the

Empire has fallen, the Long Night descended upon

that tiny fraction of the galaxy which man once

explored and colonized. Like Romano-Britons after

the last legion had withdrawn, people out in the

former marches of civilization do not even know

what is happening at its former heart. They have the

THE NIGHT FACE

physical capability of going there and finding out,

but are too busy surviving. They are also, all unawares,

generating whole new societies of their own.

I do not, myself, believe that history will necessarily

repeat itself to this extent. Nor do I deny that it

might. Nobody knows. Equally uncertain, at the

present state of our knowledge, is the validity of

some assumptions about human genetics and

psychobiology which I made for narrative purposes.

Here is just a story which I hope you will enjoy.

--Poul Anderson

THE

NIGHT

FACE

TmQuetzal did not leave orbit and swing toward the

planet until she got an allclear from the boat which

had gone ahead to make arrangements. Even then

her approach was cautious, as was fitting in a region

as little known as this. Miguel Tolteca expected he

would have a couple of hours free to watch the

scenery unfold.

He was not exactly a sybarite, but he liked to do

things in style. First he dialed PP, IV^C¥ on his

stateroom door, lest some friendly soul barge in to

pass the time of day. Then he put Castellani's Symphony

No. 2 in D Minor with Subsonics on the

tapester, mixed himself a rum and conchoru, converted

the bunk to a lounger, and sat back with his

free hand on the controls of the exterior scanner. Its

THE NIGHT FACE

screen grew black and full of wintry unwinking

stars. He searched in a clockwise direction until

Gwydion swam into view, a tiny disc upon darkness,

the clearest blue he had ever seen.

The door chimed. "Oa," called Tolteca through

the corn-unit, irritated, "can you not read?"

"My mistake," said the voice of Raven. "I

thought you were the chief of the expedition."

Tolteca swore, folded the lounger into a chair, and

stepped across the little room. A slight, momentary

change in weight informed him that the Quetzal had

put on a spurt of extra acceleration. Doubtless to

dodge some meteorite swarm, the engineer part of

him thought. They'd be more common here than

around Nuevamerica, this being a newer system

.... Otherwise the pseudogee field held firm.

The spaceship was a precision instrument.

He opened the door. "Very well, Commandant."

He pronounced the hereditary tide with a curtness

that approached insult. "What is so urgent?"

Raven stood still for an instant, observing him.

Tolteca was a young man, middling tall, with wide,

stiffly held shoulders. His face was thin and sharp,

under brown hair drawn back into the short queue

customary on his planet, and the eyes were levelly

aimed. However much the United Republics of

Nuevamerica made of their shiny new democracy, it

meant something to stem from one of their old professional

families. He wore the uniform of the Argo

Astrographical Company, but that was only a simple,

pleasing version of his people's everyday garb:

THE NIGHT FACE

blue tunic, gray culottes, white stockings, and no

insignia.

Raven came in and closed the door. "By

chance," he said, his tone mild again, "one of my

men overheard some of yours dicing to settle who

should debark first after you and the ship's captain."

"Well, that sounds harmless enough," said

Tolteca sarcastically. "Do you expect us to observe

any official pecking order?"

"No. What-um-puzzled me was, nobody mentioned

my own detachment."

Tolteca raised his brows. "You wanted your men

to sit in on the dice game?"

"According to what my soldier reported to me,

there seems to be no doctrine for planetfall and

afterward."

"Well," said Tolteca, "as a simple courtesy to

out hosts, Captain Utiel and I--and you, if you

wish--will go out first to greet them. There's to be

quite a welcoming committee, we're told. But

beyond that, good ylem, Commandant, what difference

does it make who comes down the gangway in

what order?"

Raven fell motionless again. It was the common

habit of Lochlanna aristocrats. They didn't stiffen at

critical instants. They rarely showed any physical

rigidity; but their muscles seemed to go loose and

their eyes glazed over with calculation. Tolteca

sometimes thought that that alone made them so

alien that the Namerican Revolution had always

been inevitable.

THE NIGHT FACE

Finally--thirty seconds later, but it seemed

longer--Raven said, "I can see how this misunderstanding

occurred, Sir Engineer. Your people

have developed several unique institutions in the

fifty years since gaining independence, and have

forgotten some of our customs. Certainly the concept

of exploration, even treaty-making, as a strictly

private, commercial enterprise, is not Lochlanna.

We have been making unconscious assumptions

about each other. The fact that our two groups have

kept so much apart on this voyage has helped maintain

those errors. I offer apology."

It was not relevant, but Tolteca was driven to

snap, "Why should you apologize to me? I'm doubtless

also to blame."

Raven smiled. "But I am a Commandant of the

Oakenshaw Ethnos ."

As if that bland purr had attracted him, a cat stuck

his head out of the Lochlanna's flowing surcoat

sleeve. Zio was a Siamese tom, big, powerful, and

possessed of a temper like mercury fulminate. His

eyes were cold blue in the brown mask. "Mneow-rr,"

he said remindingly. Raven scratched him

under the chin. Zio tilted back his head and raced his

motor.

Tolteca gulped down an angry retort. Let the fellow

have his superiority complex. He struck a

cigarette and smoked in short hard puffs. "Never

mind that," he said. "What's the immediate problem?"

"You must correct the wrong impression among

your men. My troop goes out first."

THE NIGHT FACE

"What? If you think--"

"In combat order. The spacemen will stand by to

lift ship if anything goes awry. When I signal, you

and Captain Utiel may emerge and make your

speeches. But not before."

For a space Tolteca could find no words. He could

only stare.

Raven waited, impassive. He had the Lochlanna

build, the result of many generations on a planet with

one-fourth again the standard surface gravity.

Though tall for one of his own race, he was barely of

average Namerican height. Thick-boned and

thick-muscled, he moved like his cat, a gait which

had always appeared slippery and sneaking to Tolte-ca's

folk. His head was typically long, with the

expected disharmony of broad face, high cheekbones,

hook nose, sallow skin which looked youthful

because genetic drift had eliminated the beard.

His hair, close cropped, was a cap of midnight, and

his brows met above the narrow green eyes. His

clothes were not precisely gaud.v, but the republican

simplicity of Neuvamerica found them barbaric--high-collared

blouse, baggy blue trousers tucked

into soft half boots, surcoat embroidered with twined

snakes and flowers, a silver dragon brooch. Even

aboard ship, Raven wore dagger and pistol.

"By all creation," whispered Tolteca at last. "Do

you think we're on one of your stinking campaigns

of conquest?"

"Routine precautions," said Raven.

"But, the first expedition here was welcomed

like--like-Our own advance boat, the pilot, he was

feted till he could hardly stagger back aboard!"

THE NIGHT FACE

Raven shrugged, earning an indignant look from

Zio. "They've had almost one standard year to think

over what the first expedition told them. We're a

long way from home in space, and even longer in

time. It's been twelve hundred years since the

breakup of the Commonwealth isolated them. The

whole Empire rose and fell while they were alone on

that one planet. Genetic and cultural evolution have

done strange work in shorter periods."

Tolteca dragged on his cigarette and said roughly,

"Judging by the data, those people think more like

Namericans than you do."

"Indeed?"

"They have no armed forces. No police, even, in

the usual sense; public service monitors is the best

translation of their word. No---well, one thing we

have to find out is the extent to which they do have a

government. The first expedition had too much else

to learn, to establish that clearly. But beyond doubt,

they haven't got much."

"Is this good?"

"By my standards, yes. Read our Constitution."

"I have done so. A noble document for your

planet." Raven paused, scowling. "If this Gwydion

were remotely like any other lost colony I've ever

heard of, there would be small reason for worry.

Common sense alone, the knowledge that overwhelming

power exists to avenge any treachery toward

us, would stay them. But don't you see, wen

there is no evidence of internecine strife, even of

crime--and yet they are obviously not simple

chil

THE NIGHT FACE

dren of nature--I can't guess what their common

sense is like."

"I can," clipped Tolteca, "and if your bully boys

swagger down the gangway first, aiming guns at

people with flowers in their hands, I know what that

common sense will think of us."

Raven's smile was oddly charming on that gash of

a mouth. "Credit me with some tact. We will make a

ceremony of it."

"Looking ridiculous at best--they don't wear

uniforms on Gwydion--and transparent at

worst-

for they're no fools. Your suggestion is declined."

"But I assure you--"

"No, I said. Your men will debark individually,

and unarmed."

Raven sighed. "As long as we are exchanging

reading lists, Sir Engineer, may I recommend the

articles of the expedition to you?"

"What are you hinting at now?"

"The Quetzal," said Raven patiently, "is bound

for Gwydion to investigate certain possibilities and,

if they look hopeful, to open negotiations with the

folk. Admittedly you are in charge of that. But for

obvious reasons of safety, Captain Utiel has the last

word while we are in space. What you seem to have

forgoUen is that once we have made planetfall, a

similar power becomes mine."

"Oa! If you think you can sabotage--"

"Not at all. Like Captain Utiel, I must answer for

my actions at home, if you should make any complaint.

However, no Lochlanna officer would

THE NIGHT FACE

sume my responsibility if he were not given corresponding

authority."

Tolteca nodded, feeling sick. He remembered

now. It hadn't hitherto seemed important. The Company's

operations took men and valuable ships ever

deeper into this galactic sector, places where humans

had seldom or never been even at the height of the

empire. The hazards were unpredictable, and an

armed guard on every vessel was in itself a good

idea. But then a few old women in culottes, on the

Policy Board, decided that plain Namericans

weren't good enough. The guard had to be soldiers

born and bred. In these days of spreading peace,

more and more Lochlanna units found themselves at

loose ends and hired out to foreigners. They kept

pretty much aloof, on ship and in camp, and so far it

hadn't worked out badly. But the Quetzal . . .

"If nothing else," said Raven, "I have my own

men to think of, and their families at home."

'ZBut not the future of interstellar relations?"

"If those can be jeopardized so easily, they don't

seem worth caring about. My orders stand. Please

instruct your men accordingly."

Raven bowed. The cat slid from his nesting place,

dug claws in the coat, and sprang up on the man's

shoulder. Tolteca could have sworn that the animal

sneered. The door closed behind them.

Tolteca stood immobile for a while. The music

reached a crescendo, reminding him that he had

wanted to enjoy approach. He glanced back at the

screen. The ship's curving path had brought the sun

THE NIGHT FACE

Ynis into scanner view. Its .radiance stopped down

by the compensator circuits, it spread corona and

great wings of zodiacal light like nacre across the

stars. The prominences must also be spectacular, for

it was an F8 with a mass of about two Sols and a

corresponding luminosity of almost fourteen. But at

its distance, 3.7 Astronomical Units, only the disc of

the photosphere could be seen, covering a bare ten

minutes of arc. All in all, a most .ordinary main

sequence star. Tolteca twisted dials until he found

Gwydion again.

The planet had gained apparent size, though he

still saw it as little more than a chipped turquoise

coin. The cloud bands and aurora should soon become

visible. No continents, however. While the

first expedition had reported Gwydion to be terres-troid

in astonishing detail, it was about ten percent

smaller and denser than Old Earth--to be expected

of a younger world, formed when there were more

heavy atoms in the universe--and thus possessed

less total land area. What there was was divided into

islands and archipelagos. Broad shallow oceans

made the climate mild from pole to pole. Here came

its moon, 1600 kilometers in diameter, 96,300

kilometers in orbital radius, swinging from behind

the disc like a tiny hurried firefly.

Tolteca considered the backdrop of the scene with

a sense of eeriness. This close, the Nebula's immense

cloud of dust and gas showed only as a region

where stars were fewer and paler than elsewhere.

Even nearby Rho Ophiuchi was blurred. Sol, of

THE NIGHT FACE

course, was hidden from telescopes as well as from

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摘要：

THENIGHTFACEoriginallypublishedasLettheSpacemenBeware.t'Copyright(c),1963byAceBooks,Inc.INTRODUCTIONCopyright(c),1978byPoulAndersonWORDCopyright(c),1978bySandraMieselAllrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorbyanymeans,exceptfortheinclusionofbriefquotationsinareview,withoutpermissi...

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