Star Ways (eBook)

Poul Anderson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
200 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-110031-2 (ISBN)

Infos

They answer to no planet. They bow to no authority. They are the Nomads-the Vikings of the void.

 For generations, the star-roaming clans have carved out a life of fierce independence among the galaxies, their mighty ships the only home they've ever known. At their annual secret gathering, grizzled captain Joachim brings a chilling warning: five of their ships have vanished without a trace, swallowed by a silent, unseen enemy in a desolate sector of space. This was no accident. It was a message.

 Meanwhile, back on Earth, stone-cold bureaucrat Trevelyan Micah sees the Nomads as an unruly threat to galactic stability. But when a terrifying pattern emerges-identical, impossible life forms sprouting across unrelated worlds-he's forced into an uneasy alliance with the very people he scorns. The two mysteries are one and the same, pointing to an intelligence far beyond human understanding.

 At the heart of the storm is Sean, a young Nomad scarred by loss, who finds himself drawn to the enigmatic Ilaloa-a woman whose haunting beauty hides a secret that could either save them all or doom them.

 Caught between a silent, expanding alien force and a paranoid Earth government ready to shoot first and ask questions later, the Nomads must fight a war on two fronts. Can a band of outcasts uncover the galaxy's darkest secret before they are crushed into oblivion? Can humanity face the unknown without destroying itself first?

 Dive into a classic space opera where the greatest frontier isn't space-it's survival.

Textauszug

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

SECRET WAR?

 

There was nobody else on the boat. They had all swarmed off to pitch their booths and mingle with the rest, to frolic and fight and transact hard-headed business. Peregrine Joachim Henry's footsteps echoed hollow between the bare metal walls as he entered the airlock. The boat was a forty-meter column of steely comfortlessness, standing among its fellows at the end of Nomad Valley. The temporary village had mushroomed a good two kilometers from the boats.
      Ordinarily, Joachim would have been down there, relaxed and genial; but he was a captain, and the Captain's Council was meeting. And this was no assembly to miss, he thought. Not with the news he had to give them.
      He took the gravity shaft, floating along the upward beam to the top bunk-room where he had his box. Emerging, he crossed the floor, opened the chest. Joachim decided that a shave was in order, and ran the depilatory quickly over his face.
      He didn't usually bother with regalia--like all Nomads, he wore any outfit he cared to, or went nude, on a voyage. Visits to planetary surfaces didn't ordinarily require him to dress formally; but the uniform was expected of him.
      “We're a hidebound bunch, really,” he reflected aloud as he glanced in the mirror. It showed him a stocky man of medium height, dark-skinned, with grizzled hair and squinted gray eyes in a mesh of crow's-feet. The face was blunt and battered, crossed with deep lines, but it wasn't old. He was in early middle age--sixty-five years--but there was vitality in him. The kilt, with its red-black-and-green Peregrine tartan, was tight around his waist. Had the damn thing shrunk? No, he was afraid he had expanded. Not much, but Jere would have kidded him about it, and then let out the garment for him.
      Jere. It was fifteen years now since she had made the Long Trip. And the children were grown and married. Well-- He went on dressing. Over his light shirt he slipped an elaborately embroidered vest, with the Joachim coat of arms woven into the pattern. His sleeve bore the insignia of rank--captain--and service--astrogation. Buskins went on the legs; pouch and holstered gun at the waist, and plumed bonnet on the close-cropped head. Because it was hereditary and expected of him, he wore the massive gold necklace and its diamond-crusted pendant. A purple and scarlet cloak flapped over his shoulders, gauntlets on his hands.
      Joachim crossed the bunkroom and went down the shaft, out the airlock, and down the retractable gangway ladder again. A dim path wound up from the valley and he took it, moving with a slightly rolling, bear like gait. The sky was utterly blue overhead; sunlight spilled on the wide green sweep of land; wind brought him the faint crystal laughter of a bellbird. No doubt of it, man wasn't built to sit in a metal shell and hurry from star to star. It wasn't strange that so many had dropped out of Nomad life. Who had that girl been--Sean's girl, from Nerthus--?
      “Salute, Hal,” said a voice behind him.
      He turned. “Oh, Laurie. Haven't seen you for long.”
      Vagabond MacTeague Laurie, a walking rainbow in his uniform, fell into step beside Joachim. “Just got in yesterday,” he explained. “We're the last, I suppose, and we carried word from the Wayfarer and the Pilgrim that they couldn't make it this year. So this one reckons all the ships are accounted for by now--anyway, Traveler Thorkild said he was calling the meeting for today.”
      “Must be. We spoke to the Vagrant out near Canopus, and they weren't coming. Had some kind of deal on; I suppose a new planet with trading possibilities, and they want to get there before anybody else does.”      MacTeague whistled. “They're really going far afield. What were you doing out that way?”
      “Just looking around,” said Joachim innocently. “Nothing wrong in that. Canopus is still free territory; no ship has a claim on it yet.”
      “Why go on a jump when you've got all the trade you could want right in your own territory?”
      “I suppose your crew agrees with you?”
      “Well, most of them. We've got some, of course, that keep hollering for 'new horizons,' but so far they've been voted down. But--hmmm.” MacTeague's eyes narrowed. “If you've been prowling around Canopus, Hal, then there's money out there.”
      The Captains' Hall stood near the edge of a bluff. More than two centuries ago, when the Nomads found Rendezvous and chose it for their meeting place, they had raised the Hall. Two hundred years of rain, wind, and sunlight had fled; and still the Hall was there. It might be standing when all the Nomads were gone into darkness.
      Man was a small and hurried thing; his spaceships spanned the light-years, and his feverish death-driven energy made the skies of a thousand worlds clangorous with his works--but the old immortal dark reached farther than he could imagine.
      The other captains were also arriving, a swirl of color and rumble of voices. There were only about thirty this rendezvous--four ships had reported they wouldn't be coming, and then there were the missing ones. The captains were all past their youth, some of them quite old.
      Each Nomad ship was actually a clan--an exogamous group claiming a common descent. There were, on the average, some fifteen hundred people of all ages belonging to each vessel, with women marrying into their husbands' ships. The captaincy was hereditary, each successor being elected from the men in that family, if any were qualified.
      But names cut across ships. There had only been sixteen families in the Traveler I, which had started the whole Nomad culture, and adoption had not added a great many more. Periodically, when the vessels grew overcrowded, the younger people would get together and found a new one, with all the Nomads helping -to build them a ship. That was the way the fleet had expanded. But the presidency of the Council was hereditary with the Captain of the Traveler--third of that name in the three hundred years since the undying voyage began--and he was always a Thorkild.
      Wanderer, Gypsy, Hobo, Voyageur, Bedouin, Swagman, Trekker, Explorer, Troubadour, Adventurer, Sundowner, Migrant - Joachim watched the captains go in, and wondered at the back of his mind what the next ship would do for a name. There was a tradition which forbade using a name not taken from some human language.
      When everyone else had entered, Joachim mounted the porch himself and walked into the Hall. It was a big and goodly place, its pillars and paneling carved with intricate care, hung with tapestries and polished metal reliefs. Whatever you could say against the Nomads, you had to admit they were good at handicrafts.
      Joachim sank into his chair at the table, crossed his legs, and fumbled for his pipe. By the time he had lit up and was emitting cheerful blue clouds, Traveler Thorkild Helmuth was calling the meeting to order. Thorkild was a tall, gaunt, and stern-faced man, white of hair and beard, stiffly erect in his carved dark wood seat.
      “In the name of Cosmos, rendezvous,” he began formally. Joachim didn't pay much attention to the ritual that followed.
      “All ships except five are now present or accounted for,” concluded Thorkild, “and therefore I call this meeting to discuss facts, determine policy, and make proposals to lay before the voters. Has anyone a matter to present?”
      There was, as usual, quite a bit, none of it very important. The Romany wanted a territory extending fifty light-years about Thossa to be recognized as her own--no other Nomad ship to trade, exploit, build, organize, or otherwise make use of said region without permission of the assignee. This was on grounds of the Romany's having done most of the exploration thereabouts. After some discussion, that was granted.
      The Adventurer wished to report that the Shan of Barjaz-Kaui on Davenigo, otherwise known as Ettalume IV, had laid a new tax on traders. The planet being known to the Coordination Service, it wasn't possible for Nomads to overthrow the Shan by violence; but with some help, it might be possible to subvert his government and get a friendlier prince. Was anyone interested? Well, the Bedouin might be; they could talk it over later.
      The Stroller had had more direct difficulties with the Cordys. It seemed the ship had been selling guns to a race who weren't supposed to be ready for such technology, and Coordination Service had found out about it. All Nomads had better watch their step for a while.
      The Fiddlefoot was going to Spica, where she intended to barter for Solarian products, and wanted to know if anyone cared to buy a share in her enterprise. ...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.6.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch
• ISBN-10: 0-00-110031-9 / 0001100319
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-110031-2 / 9780001100312