Here, at thirty degrees north, the Absolute Winter lasted one-sixth of the year — a shade over two Terrestrial months — and it was only (!) a few weeks’ flight to the equatorial breeding grounds and back during that time. Therefore the Lannachska were a fairly cultivated people. The Drak’honai were originally from even farther south -

But you could only do so much without metals. Of course, Diomedes had abundant magnesium, beryllium, and aluminum, but what use was that unless you first developed electrolytic technology, which required copper or silver?

Delp cocked his head. “You mean it’s always equinox on your Eart’?”

“Well, not quite. But by your standards, very nearly!”

“So that’s why you haven’t got wings. The Lodestar didn’t give you any, because you don’t need them.”

“Uh… perhaps. They’d have been no use to us, anyway. Earth’s air is too thin for a creature the size of you or me to fly under its own power.”

“What do you mean, thin? Air is… is air.”

“Oh, never mind. Take my word for it.”

How did you explain gravitational potential to a nonhuman whose mathematics was about on Euclid’s level? You could say: “Look, if you go sixty-three hundred kilometers upward from the surface of Earth, the attraction has dropped off to one-fourth; but you must go thirteen thousand kilometers upward from Diomedes to diminish its pull on you correspondingly. Therefore Diomedes can hold a great deal more air. The weaker solar radiation helps, to be sure, especially the relatively less ultraviolet. But on the whole, gravitational potential is the secret.

“In fact, so dense is this air that if it held proportionate amounts of oxygen, or even of nitrogen, it would poison me. Luckily, the Diomedean atmosphere is a full seventy-nine per cent neon. Oxygen and nitrogen are lesser constituents: their partial pressures do not amount to very much more than on Earth. Likewise carbon dioxide and water vapor.”

But Wace said only: “Let’s talk about ourselves. Do you understand that the stars are other suns, like yours, but immensely farther away; and that Earth is a world of such a star?”

“Yes. I’ve heard the philosophers wonder — I’ll believe you.”

“Do you realize what our powers are, to cross the space between the stars? Do you know how we can reward you for your help in getting us home, and how our friends can punish you if you keep us here?”

For just a moment, Delp spread his wings, the fur bristled along his back and his eyes became flat yellow chips. He belonged to a proud folk.

Then he slumped. Across all gulfs of race, the human could sense how troubled he was:

“You told me yourself, Eart’ho, that you crossed The Ocean from the west, and in thousands of obdisai you didn’t see so much as an island. It bears our own explorings out. We couldn’t possibly fly that far, carrying you or just a message to your friends, without some place to stop and rest between times.”

Wace nodded, slowly and carefully. “I see. And you couldn’t take us back in a fast canoe before our food runs out.”

“I’m afraid not. Even with favoring winds all the way, a beat is so much slower than wings. It’d take us half a year or more to sail the distance you speak of.”

“But there must be some way—”

“Perhaps. But we’re fighting a hard war, remember. We can’t spare much effort or many workers for your sake.

“I don’t think the Admiralty even intends to try.”

To the south was Lannach, an island the size of Britain. From it Holmenach, an archipelago, curved northward for some hundreds of kilometers, into regions still wintry. Thus the islands acted as boundary and shield: defining the Sea of Achan, protecting it from the great cold currents of The Ocean.

Here the Drak’honai lay.

Nicholas van Rijn stood on the main deck of the Gerunis, glaring eastward to the Fleet’s main body. The roughly woven, roughly fitted coat and trousers which a Sailmaker had thrown together for him irritated a skin long used to more expensive fabrics. He was tired of sugar-cured ham and brandied peaches — though when such fare gave out, he would begin starving to death. The thought of being a captured chattel whose wishes nobody need consult was pure anguish. The reflection on how much money the company must be losing for lack of his personal supervision was almost as bad.

“Bah!” he rumbled. “If they would make it a goal of their policy to get us home, it could be done.”

Sandra gave him a weary look. “And what shall the Lannachs be doing while the Drak’honai bend all their efforts to return us?” she answered. “It is still a close thing, this war of theirs. Dra’ho could lose it yet.”

“Satan’s hoof-and-mouth disease!” He waved a hairy fist in the air. “While they squabble about their stupid little territories, the Solar Spice Liquors is losing a million credits a day!”

“The war happens to be a life-and-death matter for both sides,” she said.

“Also for us. Nie?” He fumbled after a pipe, remembered that his meerschaums were on the sea bottom, and groaned. “When I find who it was stuck that bomb in my cruiser—” It did not occur to him to offer excuses for getting her into this. But then, perhaps it was she who had indirectly caused the trouble. “Well,” he finished on a calmer note, “it is true we must settle matters here, I think. End the war for them so they can do important business like getting me home.”

Sandra frowned across the bright sun-blink of waters. “Do you mean help the Drak-honai? I do not care for that so much. They are the aggressors. But then, they saw the wives and little ones hungry—” She signed. “It is hard to unravel. Let such be so, then.”

“Oh, no!” Van Rijn combed his goatee. “We help the other side. The Lannachska.”

“What!” She stood back from the rail and dropped her jaw at him. “But… but—”

“You see,” explained Van Rijn, “I know a little something about politics. It is needful for an honest businessman seeking to make him a little hard-earned profit, else some louse-bound politician comes and taxes it from him for some idiot school or old-age pension. The politics here is not so different from what we do out in the galaxy. It is a culture of powerful aristocrats, this Fleet, but the balance of power lies with the throne — the Admiralty. Now the admiral is old, and his son the crown prince has more to say than is rightful. I waggle my ears at gossip — they forget how much better we hear than they, in this pea-soup-with-sausages atmosphere. I know. He is a hard-cooked one, him that T’heonax.

“So we help the Drak’honai win over the Flock. So what? They are already winning. The Flock is only making guerrilla now, in the wild parts of Lannach. They are still powerful, but the Fleet has the upper hand, and need only maintain status quo to win. Anyhow, what can we, who the good God did not offer wings, do at guerrillas? We show T’heonax how to use a blaster, well, how do we show him how to find somebodies to use it on?”

“Hm-m-m… yes.” She nodded, stiffly. “You mean that we have nothing to offer the Drak’honai, except trade and treaty later on, if they get us home.”

“Just so. And what hurry is there for them to meet the League? They are natural wary of unknowns like us from Earth. They like better to consolidate themselves in their new conquest before taking on powerful strangers, nie? I hear the scuttled butt, I tell you; I know the trend of thought about us. Maybe T’heonax lets us starve, or cuts our throats. Maybe he throws our stuff overboard and says later he never heard of us. Or maybe, when a League boat finds him at last, he says ja, we pulled some humans from the sea, and we was good to them, but we could not get them home in time.”

“But could they — actually? I mean, Freeman van Rijn, how would you get us home, with any kind of Diomedean help?”