Orion Shall Rise Read Online Free Page A

and bucked. As hands and feet danced through the rhythms of control, he laughed for delight. This was not the little propeller-driven sparrow, half wood and canvas, which had taken him from Beynac to Bordeu; this was a falcon, as good as anything the Maurai themselves possessed. The alloys in it were worth a Captain’s ransom, and it burned fuel in torrents, hence few of its kind existed on Earth – but it could outpace sound or ascend to Skyholm. It traveled unarmed, for what could attack it? Not that it would see use in war; it was too valuable. If Iern went into combat, he would fly a machine scarcely better than the one which belonged to the estate.
    Across his mind flickered a question about how that would feel. The Espaynian conflict had occurred before his birth, and he had been an adolescent Cadet during the Italyan campaign. Would there be more affrays? The Domain had failed to keep Lonzo de Zamora from bringing most of Iberya under his Zheneralship, but later it did check his son’s ambition to get control of the western Mediterr Sea. … Iern hoped the peace would endure. He didn’t relish the idea of killing men. He didn’t even hunt –
    A voice in his earphones recalled him. ‘What was that, Lieutenant? You sounded amused.’
    ‘Oh. Oh, nothing,’ he answered. A blush went warm over his cheeks. It wasn’t professional to admit enjoyment of a dangerous mission. Hastily: ‘I hear a bit of static. How are you receiving from my instruments?’
    ‘Satisfactory. We now have three more units on the fringes and are receiving from them too, so we’re beginning to get a picture. Take heed.’ Aloft in the aerostat, with the Domain’s single powerful computer, the analysis officer rapped forth a series of technicalities and figures.
    Iern scowled. ‘Not enough, not enough information by a dozen bowshots.’
    ‘Of course. Your assignment –’
    ‘Listen,’ Iern interrupted. ‘I expected this. By the time we’ve learned what we need to know, being cautious, the brute will’ve reached land. No, I’ll make for its middle instead. I recommend my fellow pilots dive at least halfway into the cyclone pattern, atappropriate altitudes, from where they are.’
    ‘Lieutenant?’
    ‘You will transmit my recommendation, Major.’ Iern knew his teammates would follow it; pride of self as well as the honor of the Corps commanded them. ‘I am about to accelerate. Prepare for a high rate of input.
    Did he hear a gulp? ‘Very good, Lieutenant.’
    A glow as from wine mounted within Iern. In the present kind of situation, a Stormrider awing outranked everybody but the Captain of Skyholm. This was his first exercise of that authority. It felt almost like having his first woman.
    And here was his first proper foe, too! He had plunged into wild weather often before, but simply for practice and to collect data for the forecasters and scientists. A storm so great that men fought against it came but twice or thrice in a career.
    From beneath his fingers on the controls, power surged. The jet-plane short upward on a slant that pressed Iern into the leather of his seat. Ten kilometers high, he throttled back, tilted over, and peered downward while he circled. His enemy filled most of his vision with rolling, lightning-shot murk, though eastward across the curve of the world he glimpsed open water and the shores he hoped to help save. The sight had a wild magnificence, but to dawdle over it would be treason to his cause.
    Radar beams probed from the craft. Infrared sensors converted radiation into measurements. A television camera relayed an optical image to flesh out what Iern saw through his calibrated magnifiers and described in semimathematical language. (A recent addition to the arsenal, that television, a scarce and expensive import from the Maurai – but he blessed the commerce which had brought it to Uropa.)
    Though he had located the eye of the storm, he had yet to map it. ‘I am ready to descend,’ he