Queen Of Air & Darkness Read online

  around big brains. If so, however, the owners looked nothing like men.

  Or angels, for that matter. Nothing! The most anthropoid

  reconstruction I've seen shows a kind of two-legged crocagator.

  "Wait, let me finish. The stories about the Outlings-oh, I've heard them

  too, plenty of them. I believed them when I was a kid -the stories tell

  how there're different kinds, some winged, some not, some half human,

  some completely human except maybe for being too handsome-It's

  fairyland from ancient Earth all over again. Isn't it? I got interested

  once and dug into the Heritage

  Library microfiles, and be damned if I didn't find almost the identical

  yarns, told by peasants centuries before spaceflight.

  "None of it squares with the scanty relics we have, if they are relics, or

  with the fact that no area the size of Arctica could spawn a dozen

  different intelligent species, or . . . hellfire, man, with the way your

  common sense tells you aborigines would behave when humans arrived!"

  Sherrinford nodded. "Yes, yes," he said. "I'm less sure than you that the

  common sense of nonhuman beings is precisely like our own. I've seen

  so much variation within mankind. But, granted, your arguments are

  strong. Roland's too few scientists have more pressing tasks than

  tracking down the origins of what is, as you put it, a revived medieval

  superstition."

  He cradled his pipe bowl in both hands and peered into the tiny hearth of

  it. "Perhaps what interests me most," he said softly, "is why-across that

  gap of centuries, across a barrier of machine civilization and its utterly

  antagonistic world view-no continuity of tradition whatsoever-why have

  hardheaded, technologically organized, reasonably well-educated

  colonists here brought back from its grave a belief in the Old Folk'"

  "I suppose eventually, if the University ever does develop the

  psychology department they keep talking about, I suppose eventually

  somebody will get a thesis out of your question." Dawson spoke in a

  jagged voice, and he gulped when Sherrinford replied:

  "I propose to begin now. In Commissioner Hauch Land, since that's

  where the latest incident occurred. Where can I rent a vehicle?"

  "Uh, might be hard to do-"

  "Come, come. Tenderfoot or not, I know better. In an economy of

  scarcity, few people own heavy equipment. But since it's needed, it can

  always be rented. I want a camper bus with a ground-effect drive suitable

  for every kind of terrain. And I want certain equipment installed which

  I've brought along, and the top canopy section replaced by a gun turret

  controllable from the driver's seat. But I'll supply the weapons. Besides

  rifles and pistols

  of my own, I've arranged to borrow some artillery from Christmas

  Landing's police arsenal."

  "Hoy? Are you genuinely intending to make ready for . . . a war . . .

  against a myth?"

  "Let's say I'm taking out insurance, which isn't terribly expensive,

  against a remote possibility. Now, besides the bus, what about a light

  aircraft carried piggyback for use in surveys?"

  "No." Dawson sounded more positive than hitherto. "That's asking for

  disaster. We can have you flown to a base camp in a large plane when

  the weather report's exactly right. But the pilot will have to fly back at

  once, before the weather turns wrong again. Meteorology's

  underdeveloped on Roland; the air's especially treacherous this time of

  year, and we're not tooled up to produce aircraft that can outlive every

  surprise." He drew breath. "Have you no idea of how fast a whirly-whirly

  can hit, or what size hailstones might strike from a clear sky, or-P Once

  you're there, man, you stick to the ground." He hesitated. "That's an

  important reason our information is so scanty about the outway and its

  settlers are so isolated."

  Sherrinford laughed ruefully. "Well, I suppose if details are what I'm

  after, I must creep along anyway."

  "You'll waste a lot of time," Dawson said. "Not to mention your client's

  money. Listen, I can't forbid you to chase shadows, but-"

  .

  The discussion went on for almost an hour. When the screen finally

  blanked, Sherrinford rose, stretched and walked toward Barbro. She

  noticed anew his peculiar gait. He had come from a planet with a fourth

  again of Earth's gravitational drag, to one where weight was less than

  half Terrestrial. She wondered if he had flying dreams.

  "I apologize for shuffling you off like that," he said. "I didn't expect

  to reach him at once. He was quite truthful about how busy he is. But

  having made contact, I didn't want to remind him overmuch of you. He

  can dismiss my project as a futile fantasy which I'll soon give- up. But he

  might have frozen completely, might even have put up obstacles before

  us, if he'd realized

  through you how determined we are."

  "Why should he care?" she asked in her bitterness.

  "Fear of consequences, the worse because it is unadmitted fear of

  consequences, the more terrifying because they are unguessable."

  Sherrinford's gaze went to the screen, and thence out the window to

  the aurora pulsing in glacial blue and white immensely far overhead. "I

  suppose you saw I was talking to a frightened man. Down underneath

  his conventionality and scoffing, he. believes in the Outlings-oh, yes,

  he believes."

  The feet of Mistherd flew over yerba and outpaced windblown

  driftweed. Beside him, black and misshapen, hulked Nagrim the nicor,

  whose earthquake weight left a swath of crushed plants. Behind,

  luminous blossoms of a firethorn shone through the twining, trailing

  outlines of Morgarel the wraith.

  Here Cloudmoor rose in a surf of hills and thickets. The air lay quiet,

  now and then carrying the distance-muted howl of a beast. It was

  darker than usual at winterbirth, the moons being down and aurora a

  wan flicker above the mountains on the northern world edge. But this

  made the stars keen, and their numbers crowded heaven, and Ghost

  Road shone among them as if it, like the leafage beneath, were paved

  with dew.

  "Yonder!" bawled Nagrim. All four of his arms pointed. The party had

  topped a ridge. Far off glimmered a spark. "Noah, hoah! Ull we right

  off stamp dem flat, or pluck derv apart slow?"

  We shall do nothing of the sort, bonebrain, Morgarel's answer slid

  through their heads. Not unless they attack us, and they will not unless

  we make them aware of us, and her command is that we spy out their

  purposes.

  "Gr-r-rum-m-m. I know deir aim. Cut down trees, stick plows in land,

  sow deir cursed seed in de clods and in deir shes. 'Less we drive dem

  into de bitterwater, and soon, soon, dey'll wax too strong for us."

  "Not too strong for the Queen!" Mistherd protested, shocked.

  Yet they do have new powers, it seems, Morgarel reminded

  him. Carefully must we probe them.

  "Den carefully can we step on dem?" asked Nagrim.

  The question woke a grin out of Mistherd's own uneasiness. He slapped

  the scaly back. "Don't talk, you," he said. "It hurts my ears. Nor

 
; think; that hurts your head. Come, run!"

  Ease yourself, Morgarel scolded. You have too much life in you,

  human-born.

  Mistherd made a face at the wraith, but obeyed to the extent of

  slowing down and picking his way through what cover the country

  afforded. For he traveled on behalf of the Fairest, to learn what had

  brought a pair of mortals questing hither.

  Did they seek that boy whom Ayoch stole? (He continued to weep for

  his mother, though less and less often as the marvels of Carheddin

  entered him.) Perhaps. A birdcraft had left them and their car at the

  now-abandoned campsite, from which they had followed an outward

  spiral. But when no trace of the cub had appeared inside a reasonable

  distance, they did not call to be flown home. And this wasn't because

  weather forbade the farspeaker waves to travel, as was frequently the

  case. No, instead the couple set off toward the mountains of

  Moonhorn. Their course would take them past a few outlying invader

  steadings and on into realms untrodden by their race.

  So this was no ordinary survey. Then what was it?

  Mistherd understood now why she who reigned had made her adopted

  mortal children learn, or retain, the clumsy language of their

  forebears. He had hated that drill, wholly foreign to Dweller ways. Of

  course, you obeyed her, and in time you saw how wise she had been ....

  -

  Presently he left Nagrim behind a rock-the nicor would only be useful

  in a fight-and crawled from bush to bush until he lay within man-

  lengths of the humans. A rainplant drooped over him, leaves soft on

  his bare skin, and clothed him in darkness. Morgarel floated to the

  crown of a shiverleaf, whose unrest would better conceal his flimsy

  shape. He'd not be much help either. And that was the most

  troublous, the almost appalling thing here. Wraiths

  were among those who could not just sense and send thoughts, but cast

  illusions. Morgarel had reported that this time his power seemed to

  rebound off an invisible cold wall around the car.

  Otherwise the male and female had set up no guardian engines and

  kept no dogs. Belike they supposed none would be needed, since they

  slept in the long vehicle which bore them. But such contempt of the

  Queen's strength could not be tolerated, could it?

  Metal sheened faintly by the light of their campfire. They sat on

  either side, wrapped in coats against a coolness that Mistherd, naked,

  found mild. The male drank smoke. The female stared past him into a

  dusk which her flame-dazzled eyes must see as thick gloom. The

  dancing glow brought her vividly forth. Yes, to judge from Ayoch's

  tale, she was the dam of the new cub.

  Ayoch had wanted to come too, but the Wonderful One forbade.

  Pooks couldn't hold still long enough for such a mission.

  The man sucked on his pipe. His cheeks thus pulled into shadow while

  the light flickered across nose and brow, he looked disquietingly like a

  shearbill about to stoop on prey.

  '-No, I tell you again, Barbro, I have no theories," he was saying.

  "When facts are insufficient, theorizing is ridiculous at best, misleading

  at worst."

  "Still, you must have some idea of what you're doing," she said. It was

  plain that they had threshed this out often before. No Dweller could be

  as persistent as she or as patient as he. "That gear you packed-that

  generator you keep running-"

  "I have a working hypothesis or two, which suggested what equipment

  I ought to take."

  "Why won't you tell me what the hypotheses are?"

  "They themselves indicate that that might be inadvisable at the

  present time. I'm still feeling my way into the labyrinth. And I haven't

  had a chance yet to hook everything up. In fact, we're really only

  protected against so-called telepathic influence-"

  "What?" She started. "Do you mean . . . those legends about how they

  can read minds too . . ." Her words trailed off and her gaze sought the

  darkness beyond his shoulders.

  He leaned forward. His tone lost its clipped rapidity, grew earnest and

  soft. "Barbro, you're racking yourself to pieces. Which is no help to

  Jimmy if he's alive, the more so when you may well be badly needed

  later on. We've a long trek before us, and you'd better settle into it."

  She nodded jerkily and caught her lip between her teeth for a moment

  before she answered, -'I'm trying."

  He smiled around his pipe. "I expect you'll succeed. You don't strike

  me as a quitter or a whiner or an enjoyer of misery."

  She dropped a hand to the pistol at her belt. Her voice changed; it

  came out of her throat like knife from sheath. "When we find them,

  they'll know what I am. What humans are."

  "Put anger aside also," the man urged. "We can't afford emotions. If

  the Outlings are real, as I told you I'm provisionally assuming, they're

  fighting for their homes." After a short stillness he added: "I like to

  think that if the first explorers had found live natives, men would not

  have colonized Roland. But too late now. We can't go back if we

  wanted to. It's a bitter-end struggle, against an enemy so crafty that

  he's even hidden from us the fact that he is waging war."

  "Is he? I mean, skulking, kidnapping an occasional child-"

  "That's part of my hypothesis. I suspect those aren't harassments,

  they're tactics employed in a chillingly subtle strategy."

  The fire sputtered and sparked. The man smoked awhile, brooding,

  until he went on:

  "I didn't want to raise your hopes or excite you unduly while you had

  to wait on me, first in Christmas Landing, then in Portolondon.

  Afterward we were busy satisfying ourselves that Jimmy had been

  taken further from camp than he could have wandered before

  collapsing. So I'm only now telling you how thoroughly I studied

  available material on the . . . Old Folk. Besides, at first I did it on the

  principle of eliminating every imaginable possibility, however absurd. I

  expected no result other than final disproof. But I went through

  everything, relics, analyses, histories, journalistic accounts,

  monographs; I talked to outwayers who happened to be

  in town and to what scientists we have who've taken any interest in

  the matter. I'm a quick study. I Hatter myself I became as expert as

  anyone-though God knows there's little to be expert on. Furthermore,

  I, a comparative stranger to Roland, maybe looked on the problem

  with fresh eyes. And a pattern emerged for me.

  "If the aborigines had become extinct, why hadn't they left more

  remnants? Arctica isn't enormous, and it's fertile for Rolandic life. It

  ought to have supported a population whose artifacts ought to have

  accumulated over millennia. I've read that on Earth, literally tens of

  thousands of paleolithic hand axes were found, more by chance than

  archaeology.

  "Very well. Suppose the relics and fossils were deliberately removed,

  between the time the last survey party left and the first colonizing

  ships arrived. I did find some support for that idea in the diaries of the

  original explorers. They were too pr
eoccupied with checking the

  habitability of the planet to make catalogues of primitive monuments.

  However, the remarks they wrote down indicate they saw much more

  than later arrivals did. Suppose what we have found is just what the

  removers overlooked or didn't get around to.

  "That argues a sophisticated mentality, thinking in long-range terms,

  doesn't it? Which in turn argues that the Old Folk were not mere

  hunters or neolithic farmers."

  "But nobody ever saw buildings or machines or any such thing," Barbro

  objected.

  "No. Most likely the natives didn't go through our kind of metallurgic-

  industrial evolution. I can conceive of other paths to take. Their full-

  Hedged civilization might have begun, rather than ended, in biological

  science and technology. It might have developed potentialities of the

  nervous system, which might be greater in their species than in man.

  We have those abilities to some degree ourselves, you realize. A

  dowser, for instance, actually senses variations in the local magnetic

  field caused by a water table. However, in us, these talents are

  maddeningly rare and tricky. So we took our business elsewhere. Who

  needs to be a

  telepath, say, when he has a visiphone? The Old Folk may have seen it

  the other way around. The artifacts of their civilization may have

  been, may still be unrecognizable to men."

  "They could have identified themselves to the men, though," Barbro

  said. "Why didn't they?"

  "I can imagine any number of reasons. As, they could have had a bad