Free The Avatar by Poul Anderson Page A

thespringwater, the night was growing still as it grew old. “Why are you in rebellion?” she asked. “Sure, and I hunger to explore yonder suns myself. But you have
Chinook,
that you got remodeled and crewed for the same purpose.”
    “Yeah, after the alien ship passed through the Phoebean gate. Have you forgotten, though? Only a watchship was around, to see what precise guidepath she followed—which, actually, only a couple of specialist officers did. Damn them, they didn’t release the information except to their high command, and the Union government promptly declared it super top secret. Don Pedro himself—the Señor, the head of the Rueda clan and combine—he’s never managed to pry the data loose. If the rest of the crew hadn’t babbled, maybe you and I would still not know that an outworld vessel ever did come by.
    “Oh, yes,” Brodersen went on, out of the acridness in his gullet; “I could see the reasoning. Why, I could agree, sort of, would you believe? We’d no idea what kind of beings were at the far end of that gate. We couldn’t let any random team charge through, to raise any possible kind of havoc. That had to include me and my company. When I commissioned
Chinook, I
did it on sheer hope, that the official expedition would come back bearing good news, so the government could freely let responsible private parties go. Or else, if the expedition did not come back, the Union Council would some year let me make a second attempt. At that, I kept her fully stocked, so I could take off too fast for a politician or bureaucrat to get my clearance cancelled.
    “And God damn it,
Emissary
did return! And they’re suppressing the fact! They want to kill our chance for going, ever—”
    He slumped. “Hell and damnation,” he said, “you’ve heard me drone on, over and over, about what’s common knowledge. Last time we met, you heard me talk about my earliest suspicions. Today you heard me rant about what’s happened since. Why do you put up with my repeating like this?”
    She laid her head against his shoulder. “Because you have the need, my dear, my dear,” she answered. After a moment: “But tell me next, what was the need in you to charge forward like O’Shaughnessy’s bull? You steer yourself well. Why could you not be patient and cunning, till at last you held the truth gathered between your fingers for a noose to do hangman’s justice?”
    More than the words, her tone calmed him. “Well,” he said,“I’d already compromised myself to a degree. Then I trusted Aurelia Hancock too much, and look what happened.”
    “You could have outwaited that. How many years, or millions of years, blew by while the Others were growing into the galaxy and we abiding blind on our single globe? Would a few more matter?”
    “They will to the
Emissary
crew,” he grated. “You know that the mate, if he’s alive, is family to me. And another is a, a good friend of mine. Not to mention the rest. They have their rights too.”
    “Aye. Yet against this you surely set the welfare of Lis and Barbara and Mike, to say naught of hundreds who get their livelihood from Chehalis.” Caitlín gripped his nearest hand. “Dan, dearest, something beyond is driving you. What might that be? Yes, many a time you’ve told me how marvelous it will be for humans to have the freedom of the stars, more than fire or writing or the end of disease. And have I differed with you? But why this terrible haste, at whatever cost? We’ll die, darling, old and wicked if I have my desire, before we’ve known all there is to know here on Demeter by herself.”
    He knotted his fists while his mind groped for clarity. “Pegeen, on Earth I saw too much of what big, passionate convictions do to people, especially when governments have them. Then I started reading history, and found what horrors they’ve brought in the past. That made me swear I’d stay objective. If nothing else, I figured I could keep from orating at everybody