Free World without Stars by Poul Anderson Page A

fast over the water. Except for creak and splash of oars, soft thutter of a coxswain’s drum, an occasional low-voiced
     command, it was too silent for my liking. Torches lit the deck built across the twin hulls. But when Rorn and I stood at the
     rail, we looked into murk. Even with goggles, we saw only the galaxy and its wave-splintered glade; the accompanying canoes
     were too far out.
    Rorn’s gaunt features were shadow and flicker beside me. “We’re facing something more powerful than you maybe realize,” he
     said.
    I rested my hand on my gun butt. Its knurls comforted me. “How so?” I asked.
    “Those boats which first came, and ran away. They must have been from the place we’re headed for now. What’s its name again?”
    “Prasiyo, I think.”
    “Well, obviously they simply chanced on us, in the course of fishing or whatever. The crews were ordinary unspecialized Niao,
     we saw that. But they didn’t take the responsibility of meeting us. No, they reported straight back to Prasiyo. Now normally,
     you know, given a generally human-type instinct pattern, a technological-geographical situation like this one makes for individualism.”
    I nodded. Tyranny gets unstable when a cheap boat can pace a warship and there’s a wilderness for dissatisfied people to vanish
     into. The Niao had not fled us because of timidity. Their harrying of the Azkashi proved otherwise. So the Niao must
like
being subservient.
    “Nevertheless,” Rorn continued, “it took some while before this delegation arrived. That means it had to be organized. Authorized.
     Which means word had to get back to a distant front office.”
    “Now that needn’t take long, given telepathy.”
    “My exact point. The masters therefore debated the matter at length and took their time preparing to contact us. There’s also
     the business of the Yonder language having been preserved so long and carried so far. What these clues point to is: we’re
     on the marches of a very big and very old empire.”
    I was surprised. Rorn hadn’t seemed capable of reasoning so clearly. “Makes a good working hypothesis, anyhow,” I said. “Well,
     if we can get them to help us, fine. They’ll have more resources, more skills of the kind we need, than the Pack does. Of
     course, first we have to get Hugh back into camp with us.”
    Rorn spat.
    “You don’t like him, do you?” I asked.
    “No. A loudmouthed oaf.”
    “He’s your crewfellow,” I reminded him.
    “Yes, yes. I know. But if matters should come to a pass—if we can only save ourselves, the whole remaining lot of us, by abandoning
     him—it won’t weigh on my conscience.”
    “How would you like to be on the receiving end of that philosophy?” I snapped. “We orbit or crash together!”
    Rorn was taken aback. “I didn’t mean—Captain, please don’t think I—”
    Ghostlike in his robes and hat, Gianyi glided to me. “I have thought you might be shown the ship,” he offered.
    We were both relieved at the interruption, as well as interested in a tour, and followed him around the deck. The cabin assigned
     us was pretty bare. The others, for Gianyi and three more Niao of similar rank, were a curious blend of austere furnishing
     with ornate painted and carved decoration. I noticed that two symbols recurred. One was a complicatedknot, the other a sort of double swastika with a circle superimposed. I asked about them.
    Gianyi bowed deep. “The knot is the emblem of the Ai Chun,” he said.
    “And this?”
    He traced a sign on his breast. “The
miaicho
bound fast by the power of the solar disc.”
    A few minutes later, I observed that helmsmen and lookouts wore broad hats with that second insigne on them. I asked why.
     Gianyi said it was protection against the miaicho.
    Rorn was quick to understand. He pointed at the immense spiral in heaven. “That?”
    “Yes,” Gianyi said. “Its banefulness is great when there is no sun at the same time. We would not have crossed the water