“How goes it, boy?” boomed Van Rijn. He was gnawing a nitro-packed onion; the gauntness which had settled on Wace, even on Sandra, had not touched him. But then, thought Wace bitterly, the old blubberbucket didn’t work. All he did was stroll around and talk to the local bosses and complain that things weren’t proceeding fast enough.

“Slowly, sir.” The younger man bit back words he would rather have said. You bloated leech, do you expect to be carried home by my labor and my brains, and fob me off with another factor’s post on another hell-planet?

“It will have to be speeded, then,” said Van Rijn. “We cannot wait so long, you and me.”

Tolk glanced keenly at Angrek. The handicrafter was still trembling and whispering charms,. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“The… an influence.” Angrek covered his eyes. “Herald,” he stammered, “Guntra of the Enklann was here just now, and for a moment we… we desired each other.”

Tolk looked grave, but spoke without reproof. “It has happened to many. Keep it under control.”

“But what is it, Herald? A sickness? A judgment? What have I done?”

“These unnatural impulses aren’t unknown,” said Tolk. “They crop up in most of us, every once in a while. But of course, one doesn’t talk about it; one suppresses it, and does his or her best to forget it ever happened.” He scowled. “Lately there has been more of such hankering than usual. I don’t know why. Go back to your work and avoid females.”

Angrek drew a shaky breath, picked up his piece of wood, and nudged Wace. “I wanted your advice; the shape here doesn’t seem to me the best for its purpose—”

Tolk looked around. He had just come back from a prolonged journey, cruising over his entire homeland to bear word to scattered clans. “There has been much work done here,” he said.

“Ja” nodded Van Rijn complacently. “He is a talented engineer, him my young friend. But then, the factor on a new planet had pest-be-damned better be a good engineer.”

“I am not so well acquainted with the details of his schemes.”

“My schemes,” corrected Van Rijn, somewhat huffily. “I tell him to make us weapons. All he does then is make them.”

“All?” asked Tolk dryly. He inspected a skeletal framework. “What’s this?”

“A repeating dart-thrower; a machine gun, I call it. See, this walking beam turns this spurred fly wheel. Darts are fed to the wheel on a belt — s-s-so — and tossed off fast: two or three in an eye-wink, at least. The wheel is swivel-mounted to point in all directions. It is an old idea, really, I think Miller or de Camp or someone first built it long ago. But it is one hard damn thing to face in battle.”

“Excellent,” approved Tolk. “And that over there?”

“We call it a ballista. It is like the Drak’ho catapults, only more so. This throws large stones, to break down a wall or sink a boat. And here — -ja.” Van Rijn picked up the shield Guntra had brought. “This is not so good advertising copy, maybe, but I think it means a bit more for us than the other machineries. A warrior on the ground wears one on his back.”

“Mm-m-m… yes, I see where a harness would fit it would stop missiles from above, eh? But our warrior could not fly while he wore it.”

“Just so!” roared Van Rijn. “Just bloody-be-so! That is the troubles with you folk on Diomedes. Great balls of cheese! How you expect to fight a real war with nothing but all air forces, ha! Up here in Salmenbrok, I spend all days hammering into stupid officer heads, it is infantry takes and holds a position, by damn! And then officers have to beat it into the ranks, and practice them — gout of Judas! It is not time enough! In these few ten-days, I have to try make what needs years!”

Tolk nodded, almost casually. Even Trolwen had needed time and argument before he grasped the idea of a combat force whose main body was deliberately restricted to ground operations. It was too alien a concept. But the Herald said only: “Yes. I see your reasoning. It is the strong points which decide who holds Lannach, the fortified towns that dominate a countryside from which all the food comes. And to take the towns back, we will need to dig our way in.”

“You think smartly,” approved Van Rijn. “In Earth history, it took some peoples a long time to learn there is no victory in air power alone.”

“There are still the Drakska fire weapons,” said Tolk. “What do you plan to do about them? My whole mission, these past ten-days, has been largely to persuade the outlying septs to join us. I gave them your word that the fire could be faced, that we’d even have flame-throwers and bombs of our own. I’d better have been telling the truth.”

He looked about. The mill, converted to a crude factory, was too full of winged laborers for him to see far. Nearby, a primitive lathe, somewhat improved by Wace, was turning out spearshafts and tomahawk handles. Another engine, a whirling grindstone, was new to him: it shaped ax heads and similar parts, not as good as the handmade type but formed in wholesale lots. A drop hammer knocked off flint and obsidian flakes for cutting edges; a circular saw cut wooden members; a rope-twisting machine spun faster than the eye could follow. All of it was belt-powered from the great millwheels — all of it ludicrously haywired and cranky — but it spat forth the stuff of war faster than Lannach could use, filled whole bins with surplus armament.

“It is remarkable,” said Tolk. “It frightens me a little.”

“I make a new way of life here,” said Van Rijn expansively. “It is not this machine or that one which has already changed your history beyond changing back. It is the basic idea I have introduced: mass production.”

“But the fire—”

“Wace has also begun to make us fire weapons. Sulfur they have gathered from Mount Oborch, and there are oil pools from which we are getting nice arsonish liquids. Distillation, that is another art the Drak’ho have had and you have not. Now we will have some Molotov cocktails for our own selves.”

The human scowled. “But there is one thing true, my friend. We have not time to train your warriors like they should be to use this material. Soon I starve; soon your females get heavy and food must be stored.” He heaved a pathetic sigh. “Though I am long dead before you folks have real sufferings.”

“Not so,” said Tolk grimly. “We have almost half a year left before Birthtime, true. But already we are weakened by hunger, cold, and despair. Already we have failed to perform many ceremonies—”

“Blast your ceremonies!” snapped Van Rijn. “I say it is Ulwen town we should take first, where it sits so nice overlooking Duna Brae that all the hornbeasts live at. If we have Ulwen, you have eats enough, also a strong point easy to defend. But no, Trolwen and the Council say we must strike straight for Mannenach, leaving Ulwen enemy-held in our rear, and going down clear to Sanga Bay where their rafts can get at us. For why? So you can hold some blue-befungused rite there!”

“You cannot understand,” said Tolk gently. “We are too different. Even I, whose life’s work it has been to deal with alien peoples, cannot grasp your attitude. But our life is the cycle of the year. It is not that we take the old gods so seriously any more — but their rituals, the Tightness and decency of it all, the belonging—” He looked upward, into the shadow-hidden roof, where the wind hooted and rushed about the busy millwheels. “No, I don’t believe that ancestral ghosts fly out there of nights. But I do believe that when I welcome High Summer back at the great rite in Mannenach, as all my forebears have done for as long as there has been a Flock… then I am keeping the Flock itself alive.”

“Bah!” Van Rijn extended a dirt-encrusted hand to scratch the matted beard which was engulfing his face. He couldn’t shave or wash: even given anti-allergen shots, human skin wouldn’t tolerate Diomedean soap. “I tell you shy you have all this ritual. First, you are a slave to the seasons, more even than any farmer on Earth back in our old days. Second, you must fly so much, and leave your homes empty all the dark time up here, that ritual is your most precious possession. It is the only thing you have not weighing too much to be carried with you everywhere.”