Anderson, Poul - For Love and Glory

178 Pages·2016·1.21 MB·English

by  Anderson Poul

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A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK

Editorial Reviews
FromPublishers Weekly
Hugo and Nebula award winner Anderson (Mother of Kings) incorporates two stories he wrote for the
Asimov's Universe series into this absorbing posthumous novel, a fast-paced space opera that never lets
the reader forget that aliens are alien. At a time when nearly immortal humans have colonized the galaxy,
various space-faring species commingle freely and the residents of Earth have become as alien to other
humans as trueETs , an astronomical event that may affect all existence is about to take place.
Unfortunately, only one set of aliens knows what that event is and their ruling dictatorship is hell-bent on
keeping it that way.LissaWindholm , an Earth woman with a spirit of adventure men find attractive, is
determined to uncover the mystery and share the knowledge with everyone.Lissa and her partner Karl, a
tyrannosaurus-like scientist, make some startling archeological discoveries on the planetJonna about
beings known as the Forerunners, but a psychologically scarred starship captain and an impressively
ancient and profit-minded human rogue have other plans for the relics. Moving from one key sequence to
another,Andersonomits much of the buildup and back story customary for such epic-scale SF, yet his
protagonists and the worlds they explore always feel rich and real. FYI:Andersondied in 2001.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
FromBooklist
Based in part on short stories set in "Isaac's Universe" (the Isaac in question would be Asimov),For
Love and Glory is about exploration and the discovery of relics of an ancientspacefaring race. On the
planetJonna , humanLissaWindholm and herGargautuan partner Karl find evidence of the Forerunners,
who predate any other life in the universe, andwhose previously discovered relics have revolutionized
entire fields of science. Enter fortune huntersTorstenHebo andDzesi , who want to claim... read more
--This text refers to theHardcover edition.
BY POULANDERSON
FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
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Alight in the Void
All One Universe
The Armies of Elfland
The Boat of a Million Years
Conan the Rebel
The Dancer from Atlantis
The Day of Their Return
Explorations
The Fleet of Stars
For Love and Glory
Genesis
Going for Infinity
Harvest of Fire
Harvest the Stars
Hoka!(withGordon R. Dickson)
Kinship with the Stars
A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows
The Long Night
The Longest Voyage
Maurai and Kith
A Midsummer Tempest
Mother of Kings
No Truce with Kings
Operation Chaos
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Operation Luna
Past Times
The Saturn Game
The Shield of Time
Starfarers
The Stars Are Also Fire
Tales of theFlyingMountains
There Will Be Time
The Time Patrol
War of the Gods

This is a work of fiction.
All the characters and events portrayed in this novel
areeither fictitious or are used fictitiously.

FOR LOVE AND GLORY
Copyright © 2003 by the Trigonier Trust

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book,
orportions thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Book design by Jane Adele Regina

A Tor Book
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Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175Fifth Avenue
New York,NY10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson, Poul, 1926-2001.
For love and glory / Poul Anderson.—1sted .
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates Book.”ISBN: 0-312-87449-9
1. Antiquities—Collection and preservation—Fiction. 2. Life on other planets—Fiction.
3. Women archaeologists—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3551.N378F62003 813’.54—dc21
2002040942

First Edition: March 2003
Printed in theUnited States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
TO GEOFF KIDD

forhelp above and beyond
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thecall of friendship

Contents
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A dozen years ago, the late Isaac Asimov created a science fictional cosmos to serve as a narrative
background for other writers. It was interesting to see how differently they handled it while trying to stay
consistent with the premises. I contributed to two of the ISAAC’S UNIVERSE volumes,The
Diplomacy Guild (1990) andPhases in Chaos (1991). Now Janet Asimov andeditor Martin Greenberg
have graciously given me leave to incorporate these stories in an independent novel.
It has turned out independent indeed. The concept of several intelligent spacefaring species,who come
upon relics of unknown predecessors, is still there, but that is scarcely unique in our literature. Otherwise
little remains except that pair ofepisodes, much altered. To avoid conflict with anything in the original
series or constraining any future volumes, the history, the races involved, the individual characters, most
place names, and the general course of events have all been changed. This tale stands entirely on its own.
Still, I wish to acknowledge my debt to Isaac, Janet, and Marty.
—POUL ANDERSON
I
AT first sight Lissa thought it was an island—a strange one, yes, but this whole world was strange to her.
Then as she and Karl came out of the woodland and went on toward the river, she knew it could not be.
It lay in midstream, dully iridescent, about twenty meters long, perhaps a fourth as wide, curving up to a
gently rounded top one meter or so above the water. Someone or something had made it.
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But there were no native sophonts anywhere around this star.Scant though exploration had been in the
seven Terran years since the system was first visited, that much was certain.
So who, and when, and why?
She halted. “What the chaos? Have you any idea what that might be?”
Karl stopped too. “None,” he said. “I do not recall any such artifact from my experience or other
sources of information.A slight resemblance to some dwellings of the Orcelin civilization.” The tip of his
tail gestured at the camp near the shore. “Obviously it is not the work of yonder persons. I presume they
are studying it. They may have learned something.”
The translator clinging to Lissa’s backpack rendered his answer into flat-voiced Anglay. He could follow
her words readily enough. If he had tried to utter them the result would have been grotesque. For her
part, she could not hear most of his language, let alone pronounce those trills, whistles, and supersonic
melodies. Once it had struck her funny that such a huge creature should have so thin a voice. But that
was in her silly girlhood. She had since met beings much more paradoxical and less comprehensible, and
learned that to them humans were likewise.
[12]She did still sometimes wonder whether Karl—her name for him, honoring a friend at home—really
spoke as academically as the device rendered it. He was a scientist, but also a top-class waymate. Yet
she would never understand the nuances of his personality, nor he hers. They could never be more than
comrades.
“Let’s have a better look.” She unsheathed her optic, raised it to her eyes, and activated it. His keener
vision had already made out what she now did. The surface was not actually smooth, it was subtly,
bewilderingly complex. Increasing the magnification gave small help. Noontide shadows were too short
to bring out enough relief.
The idea struck her like a fist. Her hands dropped. “Forerunner work?” she cried.
Amidst the tumult in her head she felt that the translator’s level tone was, for once, conveying an
emotion.Calm. “I immediately suspected so.” Somebody with Karl’s size and strength might not be very
excitable. Interested, yes; delighted, maybe; but free of the chills that ran up her spine, out to the ends of
her fingers.
Steadiness returned. She lifted the optic again.
Two beings poised on the thing, with a variety of instruments set forth. One was a male human, the other
an anthropard from Rikha or a Rikhan colony. She watched them come to full alertness, peer her way,
and hasten down the whaleback curve. Their boat lay alongside, tethered by a geckofoot grapnel. They
got in, cast off, and motored toward the land.
Lissa swung her gaze about and found their camp, which from here was half screened by brush. She put
her optic back.
“Do you recognize either of them?” asked Karl.
“No,” she said, “nor why they haven’t been in touch.” She scowled as she started off again. “We’ll find
out. We’d better.”
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The camp amounted to three dome shelters. But the vehicle standing by was no ordinary flyer adapted
for this planet. Twice the size, it was clearly capable not simply of flitting through atmosphere, hovering,
vertical landings and takeoffs, but of making[13]orbit. Indeed, when last she and Karl heard from
headquarters, personnel had detected a small spaceship circling farther out than theirs in a sharply canted
plane. Apparently those who had been aboard would rather not be noticed.
Otherwise the landscapelay primeval, hills rolling low in the east and on either side of the valley, thickly
wooded. The vegetation was unlike any she knew of anywhere else, curiously shaped boles and boughs,
foliage in shades of dark yellow and brown, eerie blossoms—another world, after all. Animal life was as
alien and as abundant; the sky was full of wings and clamor. The fundamental biochemistry resembled
hers in a number of ways, and the basis of life itself was microbial here too. But that was due to the
working of the same natural laws on more or lessEarthlike planets. How many centuries until the biology
of even this single continent would be even sketchily charted?
Depends partly on how much of an effort scientifically oriented sophonts feel is worth making, passed
banally through her mind. The galaxy’s so huge, so various, and always so mysterious.
Odd, how high and steep the riverbanks were. In fact, it flowed at the bottom of a rocky canyon.
Farther inland, its sides were low, begrown to the very edge of the water. Only as she neared did she see
that here the stream had broadened to almost a kilometer.
She reviewed the local geography as scanned by a satellite. Flowing westward, the river became wider
still. Fifty kilometers hence its estuary was salt marshland. There it emptied into a channel that in turn led
to an ocean.
Evidently local topography had made it cut this gorge. Hadn’t that taken time on a geological scale? But
the rock wasn’t wind-sculpted, merely littered with boulders where ledges and cracks offered resting
places.
Nor was the ground above richly forested, like upstream. A strip of thin, poor, rocky soil reached back
some fifty meters from either verge. Tough-looking, deep-rooted little bushes stood sparsely,
interspersed with lesser plants that she guessed were[14]evanescent opportunists. She saw just a few tiny
animals scuttering between, though winged creatures continued plentiful. The camp was at the edge of the
semi-desert, half surrounded by fairly large shrubs, trees behind it.
One of countless puzzles.... At the moment, she had too much else to think about. Surely in due course
somebody would reason this out.
She eased her pace. In spite of a noticeably denser atmosphere and higher partial pressure of oxygen, in
spite of her being in athletic condition and having trained beforehand, a surface gravity fifteen percent
above Earth normal added nine kilos to her weight.
Karl slowed to match her. By his standards, he was taking baby steps. Carrying nearly all their field
equipment on his back, as well as his own mass, he seemed to move effortlessly.
With him at her side she’d scarcely need the pistol at her hip. Not that she supposed the pair ahead of
her had violent intentions.Still, however mild-mannered, Karl was bound to be a trifle overawing.
Looming a meter above her, he was not wholly unlike a, well, a tyrannosaur.Longer arms, yes, and
four-fingered hands; short muzzle, big green eyes, tall ears, gray skin; the taloned feet bare rather than
booted. His many-pocketed coverall resembled hers, though open in back for a formidable tail.