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thought he saw a birth of hatred.
    It mattered nothing to the Stormrider, then.

CHAPTER TWO
    ‘Orion shall rise.’
    Terai Lohannaso first heard those words from a small girl, bereaved and embittered in the home she was about to leave, under a snowpeak in a land where he was an unwelcome alien. He was never sure afterward why they haunted him. It was not in his nature to brood, and while he always hated to bring sorrow upon others, he recognized that often there was a blunt necessity for action.
    Maybe it was because he had known her father, seen him die, and been the one who came to tell her mother what had happened. Maybe it was because the sad little scene triggered within him an awareness of which he was not quite aware, memories of things done and seen and heard about, which at their times had seemed mere flashes, but taken together pointed toward something that might prove terrible. In any event, during the years that followed he often harked back to that moment, and beyond it to Launy Birken.
    The two men had been acquainted before the Power War. This was not strange. Terai was skippering a tramp freighter based at Awaii; Launy was part owner of a factory, modest-sized but innovative, producing electronic gear that found a market also in the Maurai Federation.
    Like many of her kind, Terai’s ship would sail through the narrows past Vittohrya, a town more cultural and political than mercantile, to Seattle. (Folk in the Northwest Union had had no qualms about rebuilding on former sites, even before the radioactivity had become unmeasurably slight. In such cases, the community was apt to preserve its name better than did those which had not been hit.) Upon docking, his supercargo sent messages to whatever people were appropriate. When Launy received an order, he would bring the consignment himself from his hinterland village, and stay tomake sure it got properly stowed. Then he and Terai went out for dinner and an evening’s drinking. He spoke no Maurai, but his companion was fluent in Unglish. Eventually Terai met Launy’s wife as well.
    The fact that the men had served on opposite sides in the recent conflict put no constraint on their friendliness. The Whale War had been undeclared and short, the aims of either party strictly limited, and a chivalric code prevailed.
    Terai, eighteen years of age and newly enlisted in the Federation Navy, won a medal when he took charge of his dismasted, burning frigate after all officers perished at the Battle of the Farallones, and kept her afloat under a jury rig the whole way back to Hilo Bay. He always remembered how the nearest of the victorious Union vessels hove to and sent men to help put out the fire, who expressed regrets that they could do no more than that because they must pursue fleeing Maurai units.
    As for Launy, he, somewhat older, had captained one of the privateers that brought commerce to a standstill throughout the eastern Pacific Ocean. With her diesel auxiliary and lavish armament, his craft captured nine merchantmen, plundered them, and sent them to the bottom; but first he transferred their crews, not forgetting ship’s cats. Fascinated by Maurai culture, he treated his ‘guests’ with good cheer equal to any they would have offered in their homes.
    Thus the two could respect and like each other.
    Once or twice they did argue the rights and wrongs of their causes. The last such discussion before the next war occurred in quiet, wainscotted surroundings, a dining room in the Seattle chapter house of Launy’s Wolf Lodge.
    He had invited Terai there for a gourmet meal and a look at something of what his civilization had accomplished, besides manufacture, trade, and exploration. The chamber was large, high-ceilinged, the tables spaced well apart and bearing snowy linen, fine china, ivory utensils. Flames danced in a stone fireplace but were only decorative; electric heating staved off the cold while wind hooted and rain dashed against glass. Likewise