Two-Bit Heroes Read online

  Chapter One

  In Tuvin Province they serve you chocolate in the morning. It comes in little round cups with flat bottoms and no handles, and people drink it, by and large, outside their homes—in the markets, in sidewalk stalls, on the narrow balconies of the whitewashed houses. It's a warm and sunny place, being north, and all those chocolate drinkers sit there in the mornings with their hats on. Taking in the illusory peace of Ivory's fresh new day. Before they all rush out to swindle and cheat the competition.

  That's a generalization, of course, and an unfair one. Particularly coming from me, and considering all I saw and did in that province. Looking back now, it's amazing the amount of trouble I got into there, and have always seemed to get into on Ivory in general. It never happened to me anyplace else. It seems to be what my teachers on Athena would call "an interactive effect." But I acquired a taste for morning chocolate in Tuvin Province, and a taste for Trouble, too. Although I wouldn't expect anyone else to understand about the latter, except for one or two of the Cormallons.

  But by all means, let us be chronological. I had just passed my twenty-fifth standard birthday. I had returned to Ivory for the second time in my life. And I was standing alone in the hills of Cormallon, a long hike from the main house, picking cherries for that night's dessert.

  It was a cool day for early summer, but being a barbarian I wore a sun hat anyway. Just then I'd taken it off—a round straw thing that came to a peak in the middle—and was filling it with black-red cherries. The morning sky was a long, glorious blue dome and the wind was gentle, and somewhere around the forty-fourth cherry I was deciding how pain between the shoulder blades could come between

  one's intellectual appreciation of the day and the actual joy of it, when I heard the distant whirr of an aircar.

  If you know me, you'll know there was no horse nearby to be frightened of it. I was only mildly curious myself, being safe behind the Cormallon barrier. I held my heavy straw hat in both hands and waited, and a few minutes later a car I'd never seen before landed on the hilltop.

  Kylla came out. She was dressed conservatively (for Kylla) in a shimmering blue and gold robe, with long gold hoops in her ears and her mass of black hair pulled back by a blue and gold thong. No gold swirl on her cheeks; she must have been in a hurry. She jogged down the hill and grabbed me and spun me around.

  "Theo, Theo, Theo," she said happily.

  Really, it had only been four days since we'd seen each other.

  "Lysander gave me an extra hundred in gold for shopping," she said.

  So that explained it.

  "And now you can come with me," she added. "Ran said you were going to town today anyway."

  "When did you talk to Ran?" I asked.

  "Half an hour ago, on the Net from the capital. He said you had to go in today to talk to some hateful man from the Athenan embassy. Darling, they're not giving you trouble over your citizenship, are they?"

  "No, nothing like that. Just a routine visit. —How did you get the hundred in gold?" I asked, knowing that would divert her.

  She smiled widely. "Every time he looks at Shez his heart just melts into a puddle." Shez was her baby girl Scheherazade, currently at the stage where she could stand up if she held onto something.

  "Where is the little monarch? Didn't you bring her with you?"

  "She's up at the house, Theo dear, waiting for her aunt to come back and change. So give me a cherry, and get into the car."

  I gave her a handful, which is the world's usual response to Kylla, and got in.

  * * *

  On the way to the house she said, "Theo, you have to tell me when the wedding is. How can I prepare if I don't know?"

  "Must you always ask this, Ky? You'll be the first to find out, I promise."

  All right, I was having a few second thoughts. That's not the same as cold feet. I was young and in love and wondering about the wisdom of settling down for life with a man who, by the standards of his own government, was running a criminal organization. And that was only one of the lesser problems you dealt with when you dealt with Ran.

  All this attention to a wedding I was still not entirely sure was going to take place was getting on my nerves.

  "Well, what stage are you at?" asked Kylla, never one to leave anything alone she took an interest in. "Have you exchanged marriage-cakes yet? There was a full-moon-and-a-half last week."

  Leave it to Kylla the Relentless. "I'm not supposed to tell you that," I said.

  "Nonsense. It's a modern world, Theodora. —Heavens, you should know that. You're an outlander. And don't be put off by those stories about not making the cake if you're menstruating. Just lie and say you aren't. It's hard enough going four consecutive months without that, too."

  There is, in case you have not noticed, no stopping our Kylla. Certainly she had had no difficulty in marrying the husband of her choice, in spite of the fact that the Shikrons and the Cormallons had been enemies for the last three centuries. Today they were allies. And so far as I knew, her husband still didn't know that she smoked a pipe. Perhaps someday when she was a respected postmenopausal grandmother she would reveal to him that she liked to sit with her legs up. I wouldn't count on the pipe part coming out even after her death.

  But you know, in spite of Kylla's inability to take a straight line when a curved one was available, I think Ly-sander understood in the main what he was getting when he married her. Nor have I heard any complaints.

  My own potential wedding was another matter entirely.

  "Where does all this pressure come from?" I asked. "Neither Ran nor I have said a word about marriage to anybody, I swear, and we've got three thousand tabals worth of gifts up at the house."

  "How many have you sent back?" she asked swiftly.

  Good point. "All right, we haven't gone out of our way to deny it."

  She snorted and banked the car; we were coming in toward the main house. Below us the pavilions and garden were spread out in early summer flowers. "When the first of Cormallon disappears from the planet to go after a young lady—leaving House affairs in the hands of two barely adequate cousins—it may be assumed that his intentions are serious. When he returns again with said young lady, it may be assumed he was successful." She was silent for a moment as she curved in to land; Ky took risks, but she was actually a magnificent flyer. We touched ground like thistle, and she powered down. "So unless you've got a more plausible story for me to spread—"

  "What about my being here to finish my doctoral research?"

  She snorted again. No Ivoran took a story like that seri-

  ously, which was a pity, because it only showed how far off Athenan Outer Security was when they thought it was believable. I did try to straighten them out—well, you'll hear more about that later.

  "Look," I said, pointing to the great entranceway as we got out. The door that would open only for a Cormallon was standing wide, and Herel the cook was on the top step supporting Shez, who stood very shakily. She wore a crimson robe with black borders and her big dark eyes were shining. "Mama," she called. She kicked out one leg and would have gone over if Herel hadn't been holding both her arms. "Mama" and two or three other words were about all Shez said that anyone could translate, although she talked a lot.

  We went up the steps to greet them, and Herel gave Shez to her mother, and I gave Herel my hatful of cherries.

  Five hours later Kylla dropped me off in front of the Athenan embassy. I went up the steps under the white statue of Pallas Athene, armored and with an owl on her breastplate. Her face was clear and expressionless in a mode that was meant to suggest rationalism but always reminded me of insipidity. This is not meant as some symbolic comment on Athenan society; it's just a statue.

  I knew the front lobby v
ery well by now—indeed, I'd known it on a more continuous basis during my first, involuntary containment on Ivory. I walked over the floor's eight-sectored wheel of colored marble, each sector representing one of the great branches of knowledge, and showed my pass to the duty guard.

  He compared it to a list. "Room 805," he said. At least in the Athenan embassy there was never any surprise at my height and coloring. I took the stairs—a little exercise being welcome after my long flight in with Kylla from Cormallon—and knocked on a door at the end of a quiet corridor.

  This is going to be hard to explain to anyone who is not as socially detached as I am. I have no great loyalty to Pyrene, the place where I was born and escaped from. I have no great loyalty to Athena. I have no great loyalty to Ivory, either, although when my marriage to Ran became

  official my citizenship would be Ivoran. Still I suppose, if pinned down, the place whose ideals were closest to my own was Athena. As far as I am concerned, any society that glorifies the scientific method is worthy of respect, regardless of its parochial views in other matters.

  Nevertheless, the rules and procedures of Athena often seemed incredibly childish to me.

  What I did from time to time, therefore, was to visit this certain gentleman whose name had been given to me back at the university, and tell him what was going on on Ivory. For a long time I told myself that I wasn't a spy. Eventually I realized that this was pretty much what spies did. They related moderately uninteresting facts, most of which were not classified.

  I wasn't even completely honest with the Athenans, because they had no idea that Ran was well aware of my trips to the embassy and what they entailed. He was mildly interested, but no more. Like most of his countrymen he had no conception of what Athena or Pyrene thinks of as "patriotism." In terms of identity, Ivorans feel a sense of natural superiority over outworlders; but they have no particular attachment to the government in the capital, which they consider an endurable nuisance, put there to collect taxes and make their lives difficult. Some of the higher ranges of the aristocracy, the ones eligible for the throne, saw things differently; but they were an exception. I hadn't felt equal to trying to make this understood to the Athenan officials—I suspected they would look at it as a security breach. As though Ran ever gave anyone information that wasn't wrung from him at virtual gunpoint—well, all married people have qualities that irritate their partners.

  You see, it was this outworld understanding of Ivory that I was working to improve. I didn't know any great military secrets—I'm by no means sure that there were any to know—but I was in a unique position to make Ivoran thought processes more clear to Athenan ones. There was a lot the two worlds could have done, if only they weren't always stumbling and offending each other. Studying magic was only the beginning.

  Not that it wasn't an uphill job. * * *

  I pushed open the door of 805 and found a small room with a desk, three chairs, and two men—neither of whom I knew.

  "I beg your pardon," I said. "I must have the wrong place."

  "Who are you looking for?" asked the one behind the desk. He was relatively young, dark-haired, and well-dressed in the current Athenan mode I'd left behind a few months ago. The other man had a gray beard and slightly more conservative clothes; although he sat in a visitor's chair his posture was relaxed, even a touch lordly. I had the sense at once that his rank was superior to the other man's.

  The question gave me pause. The person I reported to was the officer of Athenan Outer Security. I wasn't at all sure he wanted to have somebody wandering the halls looking for him under that title. As for his listed official title, I didn't know what it was. His first name was Samuel; possibly not that helpful, but the best I could do.

  "Is Samuel around here?" I asked.

  They glanced at each other. "Samuel's been recalled," said the man at the desk. "May I ask your name?"

  Well, it was no great secret. "Theodora of Pyrene."

  "Then you're in the right place," he said. "Come in."

  I came in, not very happily, and took the third seat. The man at the desk smiled. "I'm Thomas Cashin. I'll be taking Samuel's place here."

  "I hope he's well?" I asked.

  "Illness in the family," said Thomas Cashin. Every single person who leaves the embassy before his time does so because of illness in the family.

  "I see," I said.

  Thomas Cashin opened a folder and, looking down at it, said, "I've been bringing myself up to date on your career. You've gotten around a bit, haven't you? Left Pyrene at first opportunity, changed citizenship to Athenan, left Athena at first opportunity…"

  "That was an accident. You must have that in your records. And my citizenship's still Athenan."

  "For the moment, yes. Tell me, does your husband have any idea you report back to another government?"

  "No," I lied firmly. If I couldn't explain that one to Samuel, I wasn't even going to attempt it with this one. As for

  my in-between state, partway from engaged to married, it was even more complicated and none of his business.

  "He doesn't ask you where you go when you come here?"

  "I'm a free individual. I go where I want. He doesn't check on me."

  "And yet you stated, in an interview dated 8.923 standard, that women on Ivory are not given equal opportunity with men. You stated then that you considered Ivory 'primitive' in this regard." His head dipped over the folder at the appropriate spots; "8.923," and "primitive." Nothing like getting your facts straight while missing the main point.

  "That's true," I said, "but it's not the whole story. Women in the lower classes scramble for a living right with the men, out of necessity. At the higher levels they're usually kept out of any profession that requires public access. After all, in a society where murder is a game, the producers of the next generation have to be kept out of the line of fire. And when the families tend to be businesses, that's a hard business decision."

  I used the same tone I used to use in class discussions. It goes over better with my fellow Athenans, who look contemptuous when you raise your voice.

  "But your husband is of the nobility—"

  "Gentry, maybe," I corrected. "Or high bourgeois. We're not one of the Six Families. His grandmother was noble," I added helpfully.

  "Whatever he is, he's not 'scrambling for a living,' as you put it—"

  "Oh, he's not?"

  "—and yet you say you wander around freely."

  "My case is different."

  "Yes," he said, and now the slightest tinge of contempt edged into his voice. "The cards." His head dipped over the folder again.

  I decided to wait until he asked a question before I responded. I was tempted to get up and leave, but why disrupt my plans because of one thick-headed official?

  The cards used to be a big secret, but now that I'm not the only one who can use them it's just another chapter of history.

  He said with stronger contempt, "Tarot cards," and I

  controlled the reflex to correct him. "You assisted your husband in his family business by reading Tarot cards."

  I still waited. We were getting close to the sore point.

  "Sorcery," he said. "Magic. Apparently you want the Athenan government, the most rational, reasonable body of people in the universe,"—arguable—"to believe in this con game put forth by the citizens of Ivory, that they can work magic."

  Not all of them, I thought, but still didn't correct him. "Well?" he said.

  "Well what?"

  "What do you have to say?"

  "I'm sorry, did you have a question?"

  He closed the folder with a slam. "I have a question. You're damned right I have a question. How can you expect to sell us this mass of nonsense without a shred of evidence to support—"

  "There's evidence. There's plenty of evidence. What we don't have is a theory."

  "Oh? I thought you presented this story of alien gene-tampering—" He reopened the folder and started flipping through papers, not finding
what he was looking for.

  "That was just the favorite theory of a friend of mine. Nobody really knows. / don't know, all right?" This particular line of questioning rubbed me a little raw, for reasons that went beyond lack of courtesy.

  I was irritated, if the truth be known, not only by his obtuseness (his barbarian obtuseness, my reflexes kept saying) but by my own personal neurosis. The fact was that the magic of Ivory had been a thorn in my side ever since I'd learned it was real. Oh, it didn't bother the Cormallons— as far as Ran was concerned, you did this and this and you got electricity; you did that and that and you got magic; what was the fuss about? But it went against my entire understanding of the universe. Of course, the more the years went by, the more I had to admit my understanding of the universe was probably pretty flawed. But it had served me well in other times and places, and besides, the scientific method (and I will stick by this ship no matter how it rocks) has been the greatest step in human freedom and clear-thinking ever made. That results can be replicated by experimentation has made all the difference between

  truth and a good colorful myth. —I like myths, mind you, but they should know their place.

  And then came Ran. I could deal with his disruption of my personal code (stealing is always wrong, sex is essentially boring) but none of that bothered me as much as his casual use of magic. The most irritating thing is that eventually—and I have to believe this—the magic of Ivory will be incorporated into the "scientific" view of the universe as we know it on Athena. It will probably take a battery of scientists and several cooperative sorcerers both on- and off-planet to determine under what conditions this thing we call magic works. But it will happen eventually.

  The hardest part will be the cooperative sorcerer. Knowing Ivory as I do, I will be long dead by the time this happens. You see why I'm annoyed? Other people will know the answer. I just happen to be living at the wrong time. Oh, yes, I'm grateful that I got free of charge things past philosophers would've given years off their lives to know; I understand the composition of the stars. But it's not fair!

  Could I make any of this clear to the successor to the post of officer of Outer Security? No.