The Star Fox

Membranes dimmed those eyes. The golden head drooped. “But always in your history was honor and admiration among enemies,” the music protested.

“Oh, yes, that. Look, I’m glad to shake your hand.” Oddly, it was no lie, and when the four slim fingers coiled around his Heim did not let go at once. “But I can’t surrender to you, even verbally,” he said. “I guess my own instincts won’t let me.”

“No, now, often have men—”

“I tell you, this isn’t something that can be put in words. I can’t really feel what you said, about humans being naturally horrible to Aleriona. No more can you feel what I’m, getting at. But you did give me some rough idea. Maybe I could give you an idea of … well, what it’s like to be a man whose people have lost their homes.”

“I listen.”

“But I’d have to show you. The symbols, the—You haven’t any religion as humans understand it, you Aleriona, have you? That’s one item among many. If I showed you some things you could see and touch, and tried to explain what they stand for, maybe—Well, how about it? Shall we take a run to Bonne Chance?”

Cynbe withdrew a step. Abruptly he had gone catlike.

Heim mocked him with a chopping gesture. “Oh, so you’re scared I’ll try some stunt? Bring guards, of course. Or don’t bother, if you don’t dare.” He half turned. “I’d better get back to my own sort.”

“You play on me,” Cynbe cried.

“Nah. I say to hell with you, nothing else. The trouble is, you don’t know what you’ve done on this planet. You aren’t capable of knowing.”

“Arvan!” Heim wasn’t sure how much was wrath in that explosion and how much was something else. “I take your challenge. Go we this now.”

A wave of weakness passed through Heim. Whew! So I did read his psychology right. Endre couldn’t do better. The added thought came with returning strength. “Good,” he accepted shakily. “Because I am anxious for you to realize as much as possible. As you yourself said, you could be a powerful influence for helping Earth, if the war goes against us. Or if your side loses—that could happen, you know; our Navy’s superior to yours, if only we can muster the guts to use it—in that case, I’d have some voice in what’s to be done about Alerion. Let’s take Vadász along. You remember him, I’m sure.”

“Ye-e-es. Him did I gaintell in your party, though scant seemed he to matter. Why wish you him?”

“He’s better with words than I am. He could probably make it clearer to you.” He speaks German, and I do a little. Cynbe knows English, French, doubtless some Spanish—but German?

The admiral shrugged and gave an order. One soldier saluted and went out ahead of the others, who accompanied the leaders—down the hall, into the morning, across the field to a military flyer. Cynbe stopped once, that he might slip contacts over eyeballs evolved beneath a red coal of a sun.

Vadász waited with his guards. He looked small, hunched, and defeated. “Gunnar,” he said dully, “what’s this?”

Heim explained. For a moment the Hungarian was puzzled. Then hope lit in his visage. “Whatever your idea is, Gunnar, I am with you,” he said, and masked out expression, Half a dozen troopers took places at the rear of the vehicle. Cynbe assumed the controls. “Put us down in the square,” Heim suggested, “and we’ll stroll around”

“Strange are your ways,” Cynbe cantillated. “We thought you were probed and understood, your weakness and shortsightedness in our hands, but then Fox II departed. And now—”

“Your problem is, sir, that Aleriona of any given class, except no doubt your own, are stereotypes,” Vadász said. “Every human is a law to himself.” Cynbe made no reply. The flyer took off. It landed minutes later. The party debarked. Silence dwelt under an enormous sky. Fallen leaves covered the pavement and overflowed the dry fountain, where Lamontagne’s effigy still stood proud. A storm had battered the market booths, toppled café tables and chairs, ripped the gay little umbrellas. Only the cathedral rose firm. Cynbe moved toward it. “No,” Heim said, “let’s make that the end of the tour.”

He started in the direction of the river. Rubbish rustled from his boots, echoes flung emptily back from walls. “Can’t you see what’s wrong?” he asked. “Men lived here.”

“Hence-driven are they,” Cynbe answered. “Terrible to me Aleriona is an empty city. And yet, Gunnar Heim, was this a … a dayfly. Have you such rage that the less than a century is forsaken?”

“It was going to grow,” Vadász said.

Cynbe made an ugly face.

A small huddle of bones lay on the sidewalk. Heim pointed. “That was somebody’s pet dog,” he said. “It wondered where its gods had gone, and waited for them, and finally starved to death. Your doing.”

“Flesh do you eat,” Cynbe retorted.