The Star Fox

His heart thuttered, but he could only find flat words: “Let’s get ashore.” Even in seven tenths of Terrestrial gravity, it was a somewhat comical effort to reach the emergency escape lock without falling. When the four men were crowded inside, clothes bundled on their necks, he dogged the inner door and cranked open the outer one. Water poured icily through. He kicked to the surface and swam as fast as possible toward land. Moonlight glimmered on the guns of the men who stood there waiting for him.

IV

The tent was big. The trees that surrounded it were taller yet. At the top of red-brown trunks, they fountained in branches whose leaves overarched and hid the pavilion under cool sun-flecked shadows. Their foliage was that greenish gold hue the native “grasses” shared, to give the Garance country its name. Wind rustled them. Through the open flap, Heim could look down archways of forest to the lake. It glittered unrestfully, outward past the edge of vision. Here and there lay a wooded island, otherwise the only land seen in that direction was the white-crowned sierra. Blue with distance, the peaks jagged into a deep blue sky.

Aurore was not long up. The eastern mountains were still in shadow, the western ones still faintly flushed. They would remain so for a while; New Europe takes more than seventy-five hours to complete a rotation. The sun did not look much different from Earth’s: about the same apparent size, a little less bright, its color more orange than yellow. Heim had found Vadász in the dews at dawn, watching the light play in the mists that streamed over the lake, altogether speechless.

That time was ended. So too was the hour when Colonel .Robert de Vigny, once constabulary commandant, now beret-crowned king of the maquis, returned to headquarters. (He had not been directing a raid, but finding some technicians and arranging for their transportation to the Ravignac lodge, where a major hydroelectric generator needed repairs. Of such unglamorous detail work is survival made.) Ended even was the first gladness of reunion, with Irribarne who had been lost, with Vadász after a year and Heim after a generation. “Eon, passons aux affaires sirieuses,” he said, and sat down behind his desk.

Vadász found a chair, slumped low, and stared at his boots. Heim kept his feet, met the green gaze, but found no words. “You tell him, Jean,” he mumbled at length. “My French is shot to hell.”

De Vigny stiffened himself, like a man expecting a blow. He was grizzled and not tall, but his back was rifle straight and the face might have belonged to a Trajan. “Continuez,” he said without tone. The Basque snapped to attention. “Repos,” de Vigny invited, but Irribarne seemed unable to stand at ease while the news jerked out of him.

At the end, the colonel remained expressionless. One hand drummed a little on the desktop. “So,” he said most quietly, in French. “Earth has abandoned us.”

“Not all Earth!” Vadász exclaimed.

“No, true, you are here.” The mask dissolved; one could see muscles tighten along jaws and mouth, calipers deepen on either side of the gray toothbrush mustache, a pulse at the base of the throat. “And, I gather, at considerable risk. What is your plan, Captain Heim?” Now the privateer found words more easily. He stayed with English, though, which de Vigny could follow. “As I explained to Lieutenant Irribarne, Earth needs to be convinced of two things. First, that you people survive; second, that you won’t go along with any appeasement that costs you your homes. Well, the men of yours who’re now in space, on my ship, might be a clinching proof of the first point. But men have always bragged about how hard they’ll fight, so any such claims they may make could be discounted.”

“And rightly so,” de Vigny remarked. “One has often in history heard nations declare they will fight to the last man, but none have ever done it. And there has never been any question of fighting to the last woman and child. If Earth does not soon come to help, I shall most certainly try to save us by making whatever bargain I can with Alerion.”

“I’m coming to that,” Heim said. “If we can send some of your women and children, it’ll make the whole thing more real to the average Earth-dweller. They’d be a powerful help to the faction there which does want victory. Three ways: plain old emotional appeal; living proof that standing up to Alerion doesn’t necessarily mean total disaster; and, well, a woman who says her people don’t want to surrender is more convincing than a man. The balance of opinion at home seems to be pretty delicate. They might be enough by themselves to tip it.”

“They might. You deal in hypotheses, Monsieur Captain. I must deal with the reality that we shall soon be getting sick.”

“If they also carried word you aren’t about to—what then?”

“Hein?” De Vigny balled his fist. “What do you propose?”