The Final Planet Read online

  “You’re a good soldier and a superb woman,” he whispered into her ear. She smiled at him through tears of self-satisfaction.

  It’s all your fault, Your Eminence, ma’am, if I fall in love with every woman on this planet.

  11

  O’Neill pounded his fist with rage on the map table. “Damn!” The maps fell on the floor. Wearily he picked them up and rearranged them. Spread out before him was the map of Zylong with detailed drawings of the fort and its location. Hyperion was the perfect place to stay until the Iona crowd either landed themselves or gave him the signal to return. The food was good, quarters were comfortable, the garrison friendly; he saw Marjetta every day. What could be better?

  The fort was at the end of a spit that jutted into the ocean at the very bottom of the continent. The ground inside was covered with a green, grasslike growth immune to the action of salt water and air. On one ocean side, large greenhouses enclosed flowering plants and acres of jarndt. A desalinating plant kept the fort and its produce well supplied with water. Hyperion could get along without the rest of Zylong very well.

  Beyond the fort, on the opposite side, were the metal mines that Hyperion was supposed to protect, staffed, O’Neill was told, mostly by some hordi.

  “Slave labor,” he had muttered.

  “Who isn’t in this sick world,” his woman, standing very close to him now, replied.

  “’Tis a powerful place you have here,” O’Neill had commented to the fort’s Commander after his tour of the settlement.

  “We may have to survive for a time on our own.” Quars, the genial Commander, a handsome man in his middle forties with a big chest and a trim waist, waved his hands in a gesture of indifference. “As a man of your cultivation and experience must have perceived, the City is on the edge of anarchy.”

  “Indeed,” Seamus murmured. Quars was a lot like Carmody, playing the bluff-soldier role, but shrewd and well educated.

  “Whoever wins up there, and I hope it is someone more competent than the superannuated ninnies who are now in charge, will need this post. Our minerals are essential. They will, if it comes to it, have to deal with us on our terms.”

  “So that’s why a man of your experience and intelligence accepted assignment here at this distant command?” If it came to flattery, Seamus was as good as the best of them.

  “With relief. I did all I could to get it.” He filled Seamus’s la-ir goblet. “I had no desire to follow in Narth’s footsteps.”

  “They would have thrown you out?” Seamus sipped the drink contentedly. A proper woman and a proper bottle, what more did a man want in the world? Especially when, for all practical purposes, the TPS Iona no longer existed.

  “I wasn’t going to take the chance.” The man’s deep laughter boomed as he drained his goblet and refilled it. “Besides, I don’t want to be an emperor. It would be a very short life.”

  “You may have to contend with him anyway.” Seamus drained his goblet too. No heathen would drink him under the table.

  “Only if he could capture this post, which he could never do.” Quars waved his hands proudly. “No one could capture it.”

  “And when would you be after expecting this revolution?” Seamus was becoming a wee bit dizzy, but he was in better control than the Commander.

  “The next Festival might be the time.” He sighed negligently. “The frenzy is worse each year. Fortunately we are unaffected by it down here. Even if we didn’t have…”

  Quars’s voice trailed off. Drunk or not, there were some secrets, probably the most important ones, the ones that Seamus most needed to know if Iona was ever to rediscover him, that Quars was not going to spill to the friendly alien visitor.

  “What causes the frenzy?” Seamus tried to make the question sound casual.

  Quars refilled Seamus’s goblet with the lovely pink liquid, so much like ice cream with a kick to it. Seamus thought he could see a woman’s image in it. Margie, of course. Lovely woman, even if a bit too pushy. Ah, no, it couldn’t be the Lady Cardinal? Sure what would she be doing, lurking in a man’s drink?

  “I think it’s obvious, just what a man of your sophistication would expect it to be, a massive and dangerous allergic reaction. The fools developed a new strain of jarndt some years ago. It was supposed to produce much greater harvests on the same acreage of land. As if we didn’t have enough of the stuff already. The Festivals were wild enough anyway. At first no one noticed that they became much wilder. Then we made ourselves so heavily dependent on the new strain of crop that there was fear of changing back. My theory is that with each succeeding year the population becomes more sensitive to whatever gets into the air at harvest time.”

  “An interesting theory.”

  “It’s more than theory, man. We don’t have the new strain of jarndt here and we don’t have the frenzy either. Is that not the next thing to a controlled experiment?”

  “Ah, ’tis. And you don’t celebrate the Festival down here the way they do up in the City?”

  The Commander swayed. “You mean the orgy? I put an end to that as soon as I came. Nonsense. The women hated it. Not while I’m Commander. One of the reasons they need us up there,” he chuckled complacently, “is that we supply them with the antidote.”

  “Do you now?”

  “We do. And keep a supply here, just in case the need arises, interesting chemical compound, the molecules of our little pills blend … but I won’t bore you with it.…” And the poor man passed out.

  Seamus stood up uncertainly. Ah, ’twas a grand evening altogether.

  “You two are worse than two adolescent boys,” Quars’s lovely wife appeared on schedule. “Drinking and bragging and trying to impress one another.”

  She arranged her husband’s body on the couch, more amused than angry at their antics.

  Sure if she were mine, I wouldn’t want anyone else pawing her. Not at all, at all. If I had a proper woman … musha, I do have a proper woman; the only trouble is that just now I can’t remember her name. And I think she’s trying to give herself to me and I’m not sure I want her just yet.

  “Sure himself is a grand man,” Seamus eased toward the door with artificial steadiness. “But he’s not the drinker I am. Wasn’t I after drinking him under the table?”

  “That’s no great accomplishment. I can do it too.” She smiled complacently. “Now you’d better get back to your Marjetta, before you’re as unconscious as he is.”

  THAT is the woman’s name.

  “I don’t sleep with the woman; mind you, she’s a delicious morsel, but there’s no reason to rush into anything.”

  “Yes.” She sat on the couch and took her husband’s head in her lap. “They say you don’t sleep with her. You outworlders are a strange lot. We are supposed to practice celibacy and avoid it as much as we can. You don’t have to be celibate, I gather, and yet you practice it. How do you explain that?”

  There had to be something wrong with her logic, but Seamus’s brain was not functioning all that well. Besides, marriage with a proper woman was a serious business, not something to rush into.

  “Ah, we’re all a little bit strange when it comes to sex, aren’t we now?”

  The woman considered him carefully. “I suppose so.… There, there my dear—” she patted her husband’s skull “—you’ll be all right in the morning. Well, in the afternoon.”

  Seamus beat a dignified retreat. To his own bed in the guest officer’s room. Not to Margie’s.

  So, all in all, it’s a good life. A lovely woman on the beach in the day—with all her clothes on, mind you, none of this heathen nude swimming—and good drink at night. What more could a man want?

  There were problems, of course, but they were his fault, not the fort’s. Margie was the most serious of them. From contempt for O’Neill she had turned to worship. Now that would have been fine, he supposed, but like a lot of other women in his life, she seemed to think that worship gave her the right to be amused at him. So now the woman lau
ghed at him whenever they were together, even when he was not trying to be funny, which was most of the time.

  “Yes, Geemie, I want to live now.” Noisy laughter. “Yes, I’ve changed my mind. Is that not permitted?” Great hilarity. “Are you responsible?” More raucous sounds. “Well, who else would be?”

  You kiss a woman a few times in the middle of the desert and she thinks she’s as good as married you.

  She was still certainly the proper woman for my life, but there was no reason for rushing, now was there?

  Scared of the woman? Me, Seamus Finnbar O’Neill?

  Yes, YOU.

  Well, she is quite a handful, isn’t she?

  See what I mean!

  Furthermore, as though that delicious handful of woman was not enough to have on his mind, there was the problem of his troops.

  The struggles on the desert had made them “his,” not quite like his platoon of Wild Geese perhaps, but still a brave band of young warriors for whom he was personally responsible. Yet they were up to something, and that pretty little child Retha was up to her lovely neck in scheming. They hadn’t told him about their plots, which was bad enough, and they were probably going to inform him soon, which was worse.

  Still, both Margie and the troops were tolerable problems, even enjoyable if you wanted to push the point. At least he had people about whom to be concerned again, people that unaccountably seemed even to love him, one way or another.

  Ah, ‘tis the way that’s the problem, don’t you see? The woman wants to get me into bed and the troops want to get me into a revolution. And all I am is a simple poet and an occasional spy.

  I could tolerate the uncertainty for a while longer. Lounging on the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met eases the pain of ambiguity. If you take my meaning …

  Just as Seamus was beginning to settle in and get his thinking organized, the “Fourth Secretary” appeared with his staff—to the ill-concealed chagrin of Quars. The staff were police types, obviously, despite their army uniforms. Quars’s reaction was one of frigid politeness. He wanted no part of the Committee, but he had to deal with them as long as they were the authority at the other end of the continent. O’Neill wondered how he would choose between Narth and the Secretary.

  The point of the visit, O’Neill was informed by the oily little gombeen man, was that the Committee had assigned him the great honor of “personally escorting the Honored Guest and the brave Captain” (a promotion, O’Neill noticed) back to the City after their “terrible ordeal.” Lieutenant Retha (another promotion) could lead the rest of the troops back when they were fully recovered.

  Quars didn’t like the idea, not at all, at all. But he knew an ultimatum when he heard one. The Fourth Secretary was the first Zylongi for whom O’Neill felt an intense dislike. The oily, genial man was a type the Tarans knew well—a crooked, dishonest politician.

  “What do you think?” Margie asked anxiously as they looked out of the huge window of the Commander’s apartment and watched the blue-robed Secretary ride into the parade grounds accompanied by his forty heavily armed “staff.”

  O’Neill said, “I think they may have a hovercraft transport that is a little bit bigger than they’re letting on. Those horses have come no more than a day’s march.”

  “What do they want?”

  “Us, probably.”

  So he was in the chart room trying to figure a way out. The alternatives were not attractive. Marjetta joined him at the map-littered table. Since the episode of intimacy he shared with her on the desert, he had adopted a playful attitude—patting whatever part of her anatomy presented itself, hugging and kissing her a couple of times a day, and leaving it at that. She did not seriously object, only routinely remonstrated, “Geemie, stop it.” Then more of her laughter.

  “Am I that funny?” he demanded.

  “Yes, you are.” And she laughed even more loudly.

  On this occasion he swatted her delectable backside. After the “Stop it, Geemie” and some nearly hysterical giggles, she added, “One of our ‘friends’ is outside.”

  “Can’t we go anywhere without them? Your Fourth Secretary is not my idea of a nice man,” O’Neill said.

  “It is said that he is the one who really runs the Committee.” Marjetta shuddered. “I cannot stand the way he looks at me.”

  Seamus hadn’t noticed that. Look at my woman, will you? Well, we’ll see about that.

  “Let’s not give him time to look. Here, take a good look at this map.” He pulled out a detailed map of the southern half of the continent. “Let me ask you something first. Are you sure you want to escape from these guys? It means you’ll be outlawed. If they allow you to get back to the City, there might be a way for the condemnation to be neutralized by your friends in high places. But your chances of ever getting back to the City in the company of the Fourth Secretary and his henchmen are pretty remote. My way carries a lot of risk, probably more danger, and a slow death if it doesn’t work.”

  “If it is your idea, Geemie, it will work.”

  I wish I had that much confidence. If only she didn’t think that I was better than I really am.

  “Look at the south,” O’Neill whispered. “The continent tapers off to a point here at Fort Hyperion. The mountains are still high—you can see that snow-capped peak out the window of the Commander’s office. There’s a low pass that leads into the jungle just beyond the first set of foothills. The River flows north from close to where we are to the edge of the Zylong plateau, where it branches east at the Great Waterfall. We know the hordi won’t cross the River even when it is narrow, as it is at this end. The jungle west of it, along the coast, should be clear of hordi all the way up.”

  “I see all these things, Geemie, but what are we supposed to do?”

  “Sure, we’ll be leaving here at sunset the day after tomorrow with the Fourth Secretary. By midnight we’ll be about here, halfway to where I bet they’ve stored their large transport, just opposite the low pass. We’ll take our leave of them and cut out for the mountains and the high jungle. It shouldn’t take more than a day and a half or two days. We’ll have to slog through a bit of hordi jungle to get across the River. I don’t imagine Narth will have many of his hordi this far south; we can probably avoid the wild ones. Then we’ll follow the River to the Great Lake, make some kind of raft and float across it up to the waterfall—you’ll be one of the few Zylongi to see it. We’ll manage to get down to the low jungle and across it to my spacecraft, then fix the radio so that we can broadcast to the City on enough frequencies so that the whole City knows we’re out there. The Committee will have to bring us back heroes.”

  “Seamus O’Neill, you are mad,” she said admiringly, her brown eyes shining.

  “I’ve been told that, woman. The point is, will you do it?” he demanded.

  “I will.” She took his hand firmly and squeezed it.

  Standing up, he took her other hand and drew her toward him. As their lips touched, she pulled away.

  Now the woman is turning skittish on me. What’s going on?

  “Seamus, don’t. Please.” She meant it. Reluctantly he let her go. “Please, do not look so crestfallen. I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I like you very much—who would not? I will follow you to the end of this planet, but there can be nothing between us. I have made my decision. I must go back to the City and take command of the Young Ones. We have to save our people. I know they are not much, but they are eager to make things different. There are many more good ones, like Ornigon and Samaritha, who want new lives. They must be free. I do not want to lead. I have done my best to avoid it; now I have no choice. It is not your fight.”

  “Some people have made it my fight without asking me,” he said hotly. “I’ve got nowhere else to go; I’ve got friends here—the only friends I’ve had for a long time. I’m staying.”

  What am I saying these things for? he asked himself. They’re all lies, except that I got
caught up in a conflict I had tried to avoid. Sure the woman’s turned my head altogether.

  “Do not say that just for me,” she warned him stiffly.

  “Woman, you’re being an idjit. I’m not saying it just for you. I’m after telling you it’s for Sammy and Ernie and Horor and the little girl those so-and-so’s killed, and for Pojoon and Retha.”

  There was a long pause. “Are you sure?” she said softly.

  “You’d try the patience of a saint, woman. Yes, I’m sure.”

  “I never thought you were a saint, Seamus O’Neill.” She kissed him like no saint had ever been kissed. Her lips tasted much better than they had in the desert, her hair smelled like the jungle flowers. Her firm, young breasts were a torment to his body. He dug his fingers into the strong muscles of her buttocks.

  Now might be the time to make her his own. Sure what was the point in waiting any longer? All right, the woman was a handful, but so what? Her breasts fit nicely into his hands too. She was much too strong, but Tarans liked strong women, didn’t they?

  No, there was no point in waiting at all. And it was cool and quiet here in the chart room. To hell with the spy outside. I want her.

  He began to ease her toward a chair in the corner. The beach might be better, but the beach was far away and now was the time.

  Drawing away, she whispered, “Will you help me steal the tranquillity pills?”

  12

  “Huh?” said Seamus, his romantic illusions shattered. While he was thinking grand and passionate thoughts, the woman was planning a theft. He released her and watched her modestly rearrange her robe.

  “They keep them in the vault. They make them down here, you know. Quars is a scientist as well as a soldier. That’s why they didn’t feed him into one of the vats. He’s too valuable. We will take only enough for one Festival day. We can’t leave them without any. Horor and Yens pleaded with me to do it. I refused, but now I must. Retha has convinced me. She says that if you saved our lives it must be for a purpose.” The words tumbled out recklessly, her passion turned from him to her newfound cause.