Read Online Fire Time by Poul Anderson - Free Book Online
Authors: Poul Anderson
Tags: Science-Fiction
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grow progressively worse – just as the hottest time of an ordinary year comes after the summer solstice and may last beyond the autumnal equinox.
All in all, it is thus for about one century out of ten that nature on Ishtar is in turmoil. …
Having no large moon, the planet precesses slowly.Through this past geological era, the inclinations of orbits and spin axes have made Ishtar’s northern hemisphere bear the brunt. If periastron occurs at midwinter, Anu will be ca. 26° from the north celestial pole; if at midsummer, ca. 28°. This means that these colatitudes get the maximum exposure. Their temperatures rise well above the ‘theoretical’, with everything that implies. At their antipodes, a third of the globe never sees Anu during this time, not until it is swiftly moving away. Although the passing star is probably responsible for the lack of ice caps at either pole, the antarctic continent remains bleak. We could wish for a more reasonable energy distribution; but the universe has never shown much interest in being reasonable. …
The book fell on Dejerine’s lap. He woke merely to enter his bed.
V
Its Tassu garrison would not yield Tarhanna to siege before they had plucked the leaves of their manes and shaved the turf of their pelts to eat – and then not until they had burned what strength that last starvation ration gave them. Belike many would still try to lift ax or pike when the legionaries broke down undefended gates. Knowing this, a regiment of the Zera Victrix moved north with engines trundling among them for the demolition of walls: ballistas, trebuchets, testudo-roofed ram.
Larreka wouldn’t have ordered that,
Arnanak thought in glee.
He’s too wise.
But Larreka had gone South-Over-Sea. His vice commandant, Wolua, was less patient, less able to foresee possible countermoves. Arnanak had hoped his enemies would seek to regain the town quickly, and laid plans for this. When he was sure, his couriers went out; drums cast word across canyons; and where they would notbe seen by outland forelopers, smoke signals puffed by day and beacon fires flashed by night.
Wolua was no fool. It was merely that two or three hundred years in service seemed to have made his thinking run in deep channels, not become free-ranging like Larreka’s. As he led his force up the road, he kept a web of scouts far-flung on either side of the Esali. The Tassui had nothing to match that corps – chosen and trained for fleetness, schooled to read maps and use compasses, equipped with telescopes, portable heliographs, bottles of tiny bluesmoke bugs which were not found in Valennen, even magical voice-casters from Humanworld in the hands of a few key officers. The scouts did not simply prevent an adversary from surprising their main body; they found and killed hostile counterparts, to keep foes in the dark about their own side.
Or thus it had been until lately. Arnanak had a new response.
Small, swiftly scuttering, his dauri were not likely to be seen; if seen, they would likely be taken for animals; if a legionary who saw one chanced to know a little Tassu folklore, the most he would likely think was: ‘Holy Sun, those stories may be true! Maybe there
are
spooks in the Stark-lands, that get down here sometimes … yes, doesn’t the legend say they come in numbers as harbingers of the thousand-yearly destruction–?’
Arnanak’s grasp of their whistling, trilling speech was not firm. Nor could they move as fast as the legionary out-runners. But they told him what he needed to learn. He knew the size and composition of the force from Port Rua, he knew day by day where it was, and on this basis he could direct his plan of battle.
He stood waiting to call the charge. Beside him was Kusarat, the Overling of Sekrusu. News of the capture of Tarhanna had decided that powerful but hitherto unsure chief, and he had lately arrived at the head of three hundred armed oathgivers. They were very welcome, as much for their example as
All in all, it is thus for about one century out of ten that nature on Ishtar is in turmoil. …
Having no large moon, the planet precesses slowly.Through this past geological era, the inclinations of orbits and spin axes have made Ishtar’s northern hemisphere bear the brunt. If periastron occurs at midwinter, Anu will be ca. 26° from the north celestial pole; if at midsummer, ca. 28°. This means that these colatitudes get the maximum exposure. Their temperatures rise well above the ‘theoretical’, with everything that implies. At their antipodes, a third of the globe never sees Anu during this time, not until it is swiftly moving away. Although the passing star is probably responsible for the lack of ice caps at either pole, the antarctic continent remains bleak. We could wish for a more reasonable energy distribution; but the universe has never shown much interest in being reasonable. …
The book fell on Dejerine’s lap. He woke merely to enter his bed.
V
Its Tassu garrison would not yield Tarhanna to siege before they had plucked the leaves of their manes and shaved the turf of their pelts to eat – and then not until they had burned what strength that last starvation ration gave them. Belike many would still try to lift ax or pike when the legionaries broke down undefended gates. Knowing this, a regiment of the Zera Victrix moved north with engines trundling among them for the demolition of walls: ballistas, trebuchets, testudo-roofed ram.
Larreka wouldn’t have ordered that,
Arnanak thought in glee.
He’s too wise.
But Larreka had gone South-Over-Sea. His vice commandant, Wolua, was less patient, less able to foresee possible countermoves. Arnanak had hoped his enemies would seek to regain the town quickly, and laid plans for this. When he was sure, his couriers went out; drums cast word across canyons; and where they would notbe seen by outland forelopers, smoke signals puffed by day and beacon fires flashed by night.
Wolua was no fool. It was merely that two or three hundred years in service seemed to have made his thinking run in deep channels, not become free-ranging like Larreka’s. As he led his force up the road, he kept a web of scouts far-flung on either side of the Esali. The Tassui had nothing to match that corps – chosen and trained for fleetness, schooled to read maps and use compasses, equipped with telescopes, portable heliographs, bottles of tiny bluesmoke bugs which were not found in Valennen, even magical voice-casters from Humanworld in the hands of a few key officers. The scouts did not simply prevent an adversary from surprising their main body; they found and killed hostile counterparts, to keep foes in the dark about their own side.
Or thus it had been until lately. Arnanak had a new response.
Small, swiftly scuttering, his dauri were not likely to be seen; if seen, they would likely be taken for animals; if a legionary who saw one chanced to know a little Tassu folklore, the most he would likely think was: ‘Holy Sun, those stories may be true! Maybe there
are
spooks in the Stark-lands, that get down here sometimes … yes, doesn’t the legend say they come in numbers as harbingers of the thousand-yearly destruction–?’
Arnanak’s grasp of their whistling, trilling speech was not firm. Nor could they move as fast as the legionary out-runners. But they told him what he needed to learn. He knew the size and composition of the force from Port Rua, he knew day by day where it was, and on this basis he could direct his plan of battle.
He stood waiting to call the charge. Beside him was Kusarat, the Overling of Sekrusu. News of the capture of Tarhanna had decided that powerful but hitherto unsure chief, and he had lately arrived at the head of three hundred armed oathgivers. They were very welcome, as much for their example as
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