Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of the Intelligence Corps, Imperial Terrestrial Navy continues to fight, usually against the Merseians, who plot to overthrow the Terran Empire and replace it with their own. If Flandry's fight is not always the elusive Good Fight, at least it's usually the best possible fight that circumstances allow.
There's a greater fight: against the fall of the Terran Empire and the Long Night which will fall across the known region of the galaxy. But the Empire is fatally flawed, its fall is inevitable, and that fight cannot be won. Time is always on entropy's side, and social systems built by humans and other sentient beings have their own entropy.
That's on a galactic scale. On a smaller, human (or other sentient being's) scale, Flandry can win, though his victory may come with a price. Sometimes that price is one which Flandry would not have paid, if he had any choice...
I've covered this ground in introductions to previous volumes in the Technic Civilization series, and I don't want to rehash the basics of Flandry's universe yet again. But I did want to give a short orientation to the reader who picks up this volume without having read its predecessors.
Now, onto fights which can be won (but, don't forget, sometimes with a price). This volume of the unified Technic Civilization series begins with Flandry visiting a planet and finding that he's walked into a trap. The planet's ruling class has what looks like a foolproof way of keeping the masses—and Flandry—in line. However, foolproof doesn't mean Flandryproof. The planet has a Plague of Masters, but Flandry is the cure for that plague. And watch for a mention of a now legendary historical figure named van Rijn.
This episode of Flandry's illustrious career doesn't have galactic implications: just one planet under a tyranny, one inhabited planet among millions, out of touch with other worlds and likely to go on as it has even after the Empire falls. The inhabitants of the planet would have a different perspective, of course. And it hardly needs mentioning that the reader will get a first-class action yarn. But if a larger perspective is desired, Hunters of the Sky Cave delivers that in spades.
This novel-length Flandry was my introduction to Captain Sir Dominic Flandry when I read a shorter version in Amazing Stories a few decades ago. It was also my introduction to Flandry's frequent adversary, Aycharaych, a mysterious alien with telepathic powers, working with (but not quite for) the Merseians. This time, we learn that Aycharaych has a passion for the 20th century composer Richard Strauss, and the tone poem Death and Transfiguration in particular. One is tempted to speculate on that choice, since Strauss is known not only for his music (particularly since 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was nearly a decade in the future when this novel was published) but also for his coziness with the Nazis, which might be compared to Aycharaych's alliance with the Merseians. And the subject matter of the tone poem might be compared with what the reader finally will learn about Aycharaych and his people...
But Aycharaych is not the only fascinating alien in town. Chives, Flandry's valet-cum-butler, has a large part here (and will reappear in the two yarns which follow). This omnicompotent chap seems to be P. G. Wodehouse's immortal Jeeves reincarnated in an alien body, this time with an employer who isn't an upper class twit. There are also the Ymirites, very unusual beings who evolved on a gas giant and have colonized Jupiter, whose crushing pressure, poisonous (to humans) atmosphere, and temperatures far colder than anywhere on Earth are as a spring day to them. And check out the colorful non-humans in Flandry's task force near the end of the novel.
There's no shortage of action, either. Plus memorable observations from Flandry, such as, "I don't want to die so fast I can't feel it. I want to see death coming, and make the stupid thing fight for every centimeter of me." Or, "Let civilization hang together long enough for Dominic Flandry to taste a few more vintages, ride a few more horses, kiss a lot more girls and sing another ballad or two. That would suffice. At least, it was all he dared hope for."
The shortest yarn here, "The Warriors from Nowhere" is the earliest of these tales to be written. It appeared in that notable sf adventure pulp, Planet Stories, in 1954, under the more pulpish title of "The Ambassadors of Flesh" and with an equally pulpish cover by the late, great Kelly Freas. The version here was somewhat rewritten by Poul Anderson when it first appeared in 1979, but the headlong action typical of Planet still remains, with Chives again being conspicuously indispensible. ("One of nature's noblemen," Flandry calls him.)
Then comes the longest episode, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows. Flandry and Aycharaych have their final showdown, and we finally learn the secret of the latter's homeworld, Chereion—and also learn just how tragic a figure Aycharaych is. Without giving away too much of what is a pivotal episode in Flandry's part of the Technic Civilization saga, I'll only say that Aycharaych has long been playing with sentient beings as if they were pieces on a cosmic chessboard, and this time two of the pieces had too much importance to Flandry—and Aycharaych is going to pay. Go read the story.
Flandry will return (Admiral Flandry, that is) in the next and final volume of the Technic Civilization saga, Flandry's Legacy, which will also contain stories set long after Flandry had left the stage. There's one story set during the Long Night, plus three more tales set in the time when galactic civilization is beginning to rise again. But there's plenty of Flandry in the book. Not to mention Chives. And Flandry isn't going to let a little thing such as being promoted to Admiral keep him stuck behind a desk—but I'll save that for next time.
In the meantime, I should mention that the online version of this book has a bonus: "Lurex and Gold," another of Sandra Miesel's essays on the Technic Civilization universe, which is far more perceptive and gracefully written than this introduction.
—Hank Davis, 2010
THE
PLAGUE OF
MASTERS
—————————
I
First he was aware of rain. Its noise filled the opened airlock chamber, a great slow roar that reverberated through the spaceship's metal. Light struck outward, glinted off big raindrops crowded together in their falling. Each globule shone quicksilver. But just beyond that curtain was total night. Here and there in blackness a lamp could be seen, and a watery glimmer reflected off the concrete under its pole. The air that gusted into the lock chamber was as warm as wet, and full of strange smells; Flandry thought some were like jasmine and some like rotting ferns, but couldn't be sure.
He tossed his cigarette to the deck and ground it under his heel. The hooded raincape which he slipped on seemed useless in such weather. Diving suit might help, he grumbled to himself. All his careful elegance had gone for naught: from the peaked cap with the sunburst of Empire, down past flowing silkite blouse and embroidered blue doublet, red sash with the fringed ends hanging just so, to sleek white trousers tucked in soft but shiny leather halfboots. He pressed a control button and descended from the lock. As he reached ground, the ladder retreated, the valve closed, lights went out in the ports of the flitter. He felt very much alone.
The rain seemed even louder here in the open. It must be striking on foliage crowding every side of the field. Flandry heard water gurgle in gutters and drains. He could make out several buildings now, across the width of concrete, and started toward them. He hadn't gone far when half a dozen men approached from that direction. It must be the receiving committee, he thought, and halted so that they might be the ones coming to him. Imperial prestige and so forth, what?
As they neared, he saw they were not an especially tall race. He, who was about three-fourths caucasoid, topped the biggest by half a head. But they were wide-shouldered and well-muscled, walking lithely. A nearby lamp showed them to be tawny brown of skin, with black hair banged across the forehead and falling past the ears, a tendency toward almond eyes and flattish noses. They wore a simple uniform: green pocketed kilt of waterproof synthetic, sandals on their feet, a medallion around each neck. They moved with a confident semi-military stride, and haughtiness marked the beardless faces. Yet they were armed only with truncheon and dagger.
Odd. Flandry noted the comforting weight of the blaster at his own hip.
The squad reached him and deployed. There had been another man with them. One of the squad continued to hold a gracefully shaped umbrella over this one's head. It was a head shaven smooth, with a symbol tattooed on the brow in fluorescing gold. The man was short and slender, but seemed athletic. Hard to judge his age; the face was unlined, but sharper and with more profile than the others, a sensitive mouth and disconcertingly steady eyes. He wore a robe which flared outward from the shoulders (held by a yoke, Flandry judged, to permit free air circulation around the body) and fell in simple white folds to the ankles. On its breast was the image of a star.
He regarded Flandry for several seconds before speaking, in archaic and thickly accented Anglic: "Welcome to Unan Besar. It is long since an... outsider... has been on this planet."
The newcomer sketched a bow and answered in Pulaoic, "On behalf of His Majesty and all the peoples of the Terran Empire, greetings to your world and yourself. I am Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of the Imperial Navy." Intelligence Corps, field division, he did not add.
"Ah. Yes." The other man seemed glad to slip back into his own language. "The dispatcher did mention to me that you spoke our tongue. You honor us by taking the trouble to learn."
Flandry shrugged. "No trouble. Neural educator, don't y' know. Doesn't take long. I got the implantation from a Betelgeusean trader on Orma, before I came here."
The language was musical, descended from Malayan but influenced by many others in the past. The ancestors of these people had left Terra to colonize New Djawa a long time ago. After the disastrous war with Gorrazan, three centuries back and a bit, some of those colonists had gone on to Unan Besar, and had been isolated from the rest of the human race ever since. Their speech had evolved along its own track.
Flandry was more interested in the reaction of the robed man. His beautifully curved lips drew taut, for just an instant, and a hand curved its fingers to claws before withdrawing into the wide sleeve. The others stood impassive, rain running off their shoulders, but their eyes never left Flandry.
The robed man exclaimed, "What were you doing on Orma? It's no planet of the Empire. We're beyond the borders of any empire!"
"More or less." Flandry made his tone careless. "Terra is a couple of hundred light-years away. But you must be aware how indefinite interstellar boundaries are—how entire hegemonies can interpenetrate. As for Orma, well, why shouldn't I be there? It has a Betelgeusean trading base, and Betelgeuse is friendly to Terra."
"The real question," said the other, hardly audible above the rainfall, "is why you should be here."
And then, relaxing, donning a smile: "But no matter. You are most welcome, Captain. Permit self-introduction. I am Nias Warouw, director of the Guard Corps of the Planetary Biocontrol."
Chief of detectives, translated Flandry. Or... chief of military intelligence? Why else should the Emperor's representative—as they must figure I am—be met by a policeman rather than the head of government?
Unless the police are the government.
Warouw startled him by switching briefly to Anglic: "You might call me a physician."
Flandry decided to take things as they came. As the tourist in the sultan's harem said. A folk out of touch for three hundred years could be expected to develop some strange customs.
"Do you always get these rains?" He drew his cloak tighter. Not that it could prevent his collar from wilting. He thought of Terra, music, perfumed air, cocktails at the Everest House with some bit of blonde fluff, and wondered dismally why he had ever come to this sinkhole planet. It wasn't as if he had orders.
"Yes—normally about nightfall in these latitudes," said Warouw.
Unan Besar has a mere ten-hour rotation period, thought Flandry. They could easily have waited another five of those hours, till their one and only spaceport came around into daylight again. I'd have been glad to stay in orbit. They kept stalling me long enough as it was; and then suddenly their damn dispatcher ordered me down on the instant. Five extra hours—why, I could have spent them cooking myself a really decent dinner, and eating it at a decent speed, instead of gobbling a sandwich. What kind of manners is this, anyhow?
I think they wanted me to land in darkness and rain.
Why?
Warouw reached beneath his robe and took out a vial. It held some large blue pills. "Are you aware of the biochemical situation here?" he asked.
"The Betelgeuseans mentioned something about it, but they weren't too clear or thorough on the subject."
"They wouldn't be. Having a nonhuman immunochemistry, they are not affected, and thus are not very interested. But to us, Captain, the very air of this planet is toxic. You have already absorbed enough to cause death in a few days."
Warouw smiled sleepily. "Of course, we have an antitoxin," he went on. "You will need one of these pills every thirty or so of our days while remaining here, and a final dose before you leave."
Flandry gulped and reached for the vial. Warouw's movement of withdrawal was snake smooth. "Please, Captain," he murmured. "I shall be happy to give you one now. But only one at a time. It is the law, you understand. We have to keep a careful record. Can't be careless, you know."
The Terran stood motionless for what seemed a long while. At last he grinned, without much jollity. "Yes," he said, "I believe I do understand."
II
The spaceport was built on a hill, a hundred jungled kilometers from the planet's chief city, for the benefit of the Betelgeuseans. A few ancient Pulaoic ships were also kept at that place, but never used.
"A hermit kingdom," the bluefaced skipper had growled to Flandry in the tavern on Orma. "We don't visit them very often. Once or twice a standard year a trading craft of ours stops by." The Betelgeuseans were ubiquitous throughout this sector of space. Flandry had engaged passage on one of their tramp ships, as the quickest way to get from his completed assignment on Altai to the big Imperial port at Spica VI. There he would catch the Empress Maia, which touched on the homeward leg of her regular cruise. He felt he deserved to ride back to Terra on a luxury liner, and he was an accomplished padder of expense accounts.
"What do you trade for?" he asked. It was idle curiosity, filling in time until the merchant ship departed this planet. They were speaking Alfzarian, which scratched his throat, but the other being had no Anglic.
"Hides, natural fibers, and fruits, mostly. You've never eaten modjo fruit? Humans in this sector think it's quite a delicacy; me, I wouldn't know. But I guess nobody ever thought to take some as far as Terra. Hm-m-m." The Betelgeusean went into a commercial reverie.
Flandry sipped raw local brandy and said, "There are still scattered independent colonies left over from the early days. I've just come from one, in fact. But I've never heard of this Unan Besar."
"Why should you? Doubtless the astronautical archives at sector HQ, even at Terra, contain mention of it. But it keeps to itself. And it's of no real importance, even to us. We sell a little machinery and stuff there; we pick up the goods I mentioned; but it amounts to very little. It could amount to more, I think, but whoever controls the planet doesn't want that."
"Are you sure?"
"It's obvious. They have one wretched little spaceport for the whole globe. Antiquated facilities, a few warehouses, all stuck way to chaos out in the woods—as if spaceships were still spewing radiation! Traders aren't permitted to go anywhere else. They aren't even furnished a bunkhouse. So naturally, they only stay long enough to discharge a consignment and load the exchange cargo. They never meet anyone except a few officials. They're not supposed to speak with the native longshoremen. Once or twice I've tried that, in private, just to see what would happen. Nothing did. The poor devil was so frightened that he ran. He knew the law!"
"Hm." Flandry rubbed his chin. Its scratchiness reminded him he was due for his bimonthly dose of antibeard enzyme, and he shifted to stroking his mustache. "I wonder they even let you learn their language."
"That happened several generations ago, when our traders first made contact. Anglic was inconvenient for both parties—Oh, yes, a few of their aristocrats know Anglic. We sell them books, newstapes, anything to keep their ruling class up to date on what's happening in the rest of the known galaxy. Maybe the common people on Unan Besar are rusticating. But the overlords are not."
"What are they doing, then?"
"I don't know. From space, you can see it's a rich world. Backward agricultural methods, odd-looking towns, but crammed with natural resources."
"What sort of planet is it? What type?"
"Terrestroid. What else?"
Flandry grimaced and puffed a cigarette to life. "You know how much that means!"
"Well, then, it's about one A.U. from its sun. But that's an F2 star, a little more massive than Sol, so the planet's sidereal period is only nine months and its average temperature is higher than Terra or Alfzar. No satellites. Very little axial tilt. About a ten-hour rotation. A trifle smaller than Terra, surface gravity oh-point-eight gee. As a consequence, fewer uplands: smaller continents, lots of islands, most areas rather low and swampy. Because of the weaker gravity and higher irradiation, it actually has less hydrosphere than Terra. But you'd never know that, what with shallow seas and heavy clouds everywhere you look.... Uh, yes, there's something the matter with its ecology also. I forget what, because it doesn't affect my species, but humans need to take precautions. Can't be too serious, though, or the place wouldn't have such a population. I estimate a hundred million inhabitants—and it was only colonized three centuries ago."
"Well," said Flandry, "people have to do something in their spare time."
He smoked slowly, thinking. The self-isolation of Unan Besar might mean nothing, except to its dwellers. On the other hand, he knew of places where hell's own kettle had simmered unnoticed for a long time. It was hard enough—impossible, actually—to keep watch on those four million suns estimated to lie within the Imperial sphere itself. Out here on the marches, where barbarism faded into unknownness, and the agents of a hostile Merseia prowled and probed, any hope of controlling all situations grew cold indeed.
Wherefore the thumb-witted guardians of a fat and funseeking Terra had stopped even trying, thought Flandry. They should make periodic reviews of the archives, sift every Intelligence report, investigate each of a billion mysteries. But that would require a bigger Navy, he thought, which would require higher taxes, which would deprive too many Terran lordlings of a new skycar and too many of their mistresses of a new syntha-gem bracelet. It might even turn up certain facts on which the Navy would have to act, which might even (horrors!) lead to full-scale fighting somewhere....
Ah, the devil with it, he thought. I've just come from a mission the accounts of which, delicately exaggerated, will make me a celebrity at Home. I have several months' unspent pay waiting. And speaking of mistresses—
But it is not natural for a human planet to cut itself off from humanity. When I get back, I'd better file a recommendation that this be checked up on.
Though I'm hardly naive enough to think that anyone will act on my bare suspicion.
"Where," said Captain Flandry, "can I rent a space flitter?"
III
The aircar was big, modern, and luxuriously outfitted. A custom job from Betelgeuse, no doubt. Flandry sat among deadpan Guard Corpsmen who said never a word, beside Warouw who was almost as quiet. Rain and wind were noisy as the car got under way, but when it slanted toward Kompong Timur, the weather had cleared. Flandry looked down upon a sprawling constellation of lights. He could see that the city borders faded into a broad lake, and that it was everywhere threaded with canals, which shimmered under mercury and neon glare. An experienced eye recognized certain other signs, such as the clustering of radiance near the central and tallest buildings, the surrounding zones of low roofs and infrequent lamps. That usually meant slums, which in turn suggested a concentration of wealth and power among the few.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To an interview. The governing board of Biocontrol is most anxious to meet you, Captain." Warouw lifted one eyebrow. It gave his smooth oval face a flicker of sardonicism. "You are not weary, I trust? What with the short day and night here, our people have gotten into the habit of taking several naps throughout the rotation period, rather than one long rest. Perhaps you feel ready for bed?"
Flandry tapped a cigarette on one thumbnail. "Would it do me much good to say yes?"
Warouw smiled. The air car glided down to a landing terrace, high on one of the biggest buildings—a structure important enough to have been erected on a piece of solid land, rather than on the piles driven into mud which upheld most of the city.
As Flandry stepped out, the Guards closed in around him. "Call off the Happiness Boys, will you?" he snapped. "I want a quiet smoke." Warouw jerked his head. The silent men withdrew, but not very far. Flandry walked across the terrace to its rail.
Clouds banked high on the eastern horizon. Lightning flickered in their depths. Overhead, the sky was clear, though a dim violet haze wavered among unearthly star-patterns—fluorescence in the upper atmosphere, due to the hidden but brilliant sun. Flandry identified the red spark of Betelgeuse, and yellow Spica, with a certain wistfulness. God knew if he'd ever drink beer again on any planet of either. He had stumbled into something unmerciful.
This building must be a hundred meters square. It rose in many tiers, pagoda fashion, the curved roofs ending in elephant heads whose tusks were lamps. The rail beneath Flandry's hand was sculptured scaly. The dome which topped the whole enormous edifice was created with an arrogant image: the upraised foot of some bird of prey, talons grasping at heaven. The walls were gilt, dazzling even at night. From this terrace it was a fifty-meter drop to the oily waters of a major canal. On the other side rose a line of palaces. They were airy, colonnaded structures, their roofs leaping gaily upward, their walls painted with multi-armed figures at play. Lights glowed from several; Flandry heard twanging minor-key music.
Even here, in the city's heart, he thought he could smell the surrounding jungle.
"If you please." Warouw bowed at him.
Flandry took a final drag on his cigarette and followed the other man. They went through an archway shaped like the gaping mouth of a monster and down a long red hall beyond. Several doors stood open to offices, where kilted men sat tailorwise on cushions and worked at low desks. Flandry read a few legends: Interisland Water Traffic Bureau, Syncretic Arbitration Board, Seismic Energy Commission—yes, this was the seat of government. Then he was in an elevator, purring downward. The corridor into which he was finally guided stretched black between whitely fluorescing pillars.
At its end, a doorway opened on a great blue room. It was almost hemispherical, with an outsize window overlooking the night of Kompong Timur. To right and left stood banks of machinery: microfiles, recorders, computers, communicators. In the center was a table, black wood inlaid with native ivory. Behind it sat the overlords of Unan Besar.
Flandry stepped closer, studying them from the camouflage of a nonchalant grin. Cross-legged on a padded bench, all twenty had shaven heads and white robes like Warouw, the same tattooed mark on their brows. It was a gold circle with a cross beneath and an arrow slanting upward. The breast insignia varied—a cogwheel, a triode circuit diagram, an integral dx, conventionalized waves and grain sheafs and thunderbolts—the heraldry of a government which at least nominally emphasized technology.
Mostly, these men were older than Nias Warouw, and not in such good physical shape. The one who sat in the middle must be the grand panjandrum, Flandry thought: a petulant fat face, and the vulture-claw sign of mastery on his robe.
Warouw had been purringly urbane, but there was no mistaking the hostility of these others. Here and there a cheek gleamed with sweat, eyes narrowed, fingers drummed the tabletop. Flandry made the muscles around his shoulderblades relax. It was no easy job, since the knife-wielding Strength Through Joy squad stood immediately behind him.
The silence stretched.
Someone had to break it. "Boo," said Flandry.
The man at the center stirred. "What?"
"A formula of greeting, your prominence," bowed Flandry.
"Address me as Tuan Solu Bandang." The fat man switched eyes toward Warouw. "Is this the, ah, the Terran agent?"
"No," snorted Flandry, "I'm a cigar salesman." But he didn't snort it very loudly, or in Pulaoic.
"Yes, Tuan." Warouw inclined his head briefly above folded hands.
They continued to stare. Flandry beamed and pirouetted for them. He was worth looking at, he assured himself smugly, being of athletic build (thanks to calisthenics, which he loathed but forced himself to keep up) and high-boned, straight-nosed, aristocratic features (thanks to one of Terra's most fashionable biosculptors). His eyes were gray, his brown hair cut close about the ears in Imperial style but sleek on top.
Bandang pointed uneasily. "Take that, ah, gun from him," he ordered.
"Please, Tuan," said Flandry. "It was bequeathed me by my dear old grandmother. It still smells of lavender. If anyone demanded it from me, my heart would be so broken I'd blow his guts out."
Someone else turned purple and said shrilly. "You foreigner, do you realize where you are?"
"Let him keep it if he insists, Tuan," said Warouw indifferently. He met Flandry's gaze with the faintest of smiles and added: "We should not disfigure this reunion moment with quarrels."
A sigh went down the long table. Bandang pointed to a cushion on the floor. "Sit."
"No, thank you." Flandry studied them. Warouw seemed the most intelligent and formidable of the lot, but after their initial surprise, they had all settled back into a disquieting habitual scornfulness. Surely the only firearm in the whole room didn't count for that little!
"As you wish." Bandang leaned forward, assuming unctuousness. "See here, ah, Captain—you'll understand, I trust, how... how... delicate? Yes, how delicate a matter this is. I'm, ah, sure your discretion—" His voice trailed off in a smirk.
"If I'm causing any trouble, Tuan, I apologize," said Flandry. "I'll be glad to depart at once." And how!
"Ah... no. No, I fear that isn't er, practicable. Not for the present. My implication is quite simple actually, and I, ah, have no doubt that a man of your obvious sophistication can, er, grasp?—yes, can grasp the situation." Bandang drew a long breath. His colleagues looked resigned. "Consider this planet, Captain: its people, its culture, isolated and autonomous for more than four hundred years." (That would be local years, Flandry reminded himself, but still, a long time.) "The, ah, distinctive civilization which has inevitably developed—the special values, beliefs, customs, ah, and... achievements—the socioeconomic balance—cannot lightly be upset. Not without, er, great suffering. And loss. Irreparable loss."
Having an inside view of the Empire, and unprejudiced eyes, Flandry could understand the reluctance of some worlds to have anything to do with same. But there was more here than a simple desire to preserve independence and dignity. If these characters had any knowledge at all of what was going on elsewhere in the universe—and certainly they did—then they would know that Terra wasn't a menace to them. The Empire was old and sated; except when driven by military necessity, it didn't want any more real estate. Something big and ugly was being kept hidden on Unan Besar.
"What we, ah, wish to know," continued Bandang, "is, er, do you come here with official standing? And if so, what message do you convey from your, um, respected superiors?"
Flandry weighed his answer, thinking of knives at his back and night beyond the windows. "I have no message, Tuan, other than friendly greetings," he said. "What else can the Imperium offer until we are able to get to know your people better?"
"But you have come here under orders, Captain? Not by chance?"
"My credentials are in my spaceship, Tuan." Flandry hoped his commission, his field agent's open warrant, and similar flashy documents might impress them. For an unofficial visitor could end up in a canal with his throat cut, and no one in all the galactic vastness would care.
"Credentials for what?" It was a nervous croak from the end of the table.
Warouw scowled. Flandry could sympathize with the Guard chief's annoyance. This was no way to conduct an interrogation. Biocontrol was falling all over its own flat feet: crude bluster and cruder insinuation. To be sure, they were amateurs at this job—Warouw was their tame professional—but the lowest-echelon politician in the Empire would have had more understanding of men, and made a better attempt at questioning such a quasi-prisoner.
"If the Tuan pleases," Warouw interposed, "we seem to be giving Captain Flandry an unfortunate impression of ourselves. May my unworthy self be permitted to discuss the situation with him privately?"
"No!" Bandang stuck his head forward, like a flabby bull. "Let's have none of your shilly-shally. I'm a man of few words, yes, few words and—Captain, I, ah, trust you'll realize... will not take offense... we bear responsibility for an entire planet and—ah—well, as a man of sophistication, you will not object to narcosynthesis?"
Flandry stiffened. "What?"
"After all—" Bandang wet his lips. "You come unheralded... ah... without the expected, er, preliminary fanfare or—Conceivably you are a mere imposter. Please! Please do not resent my, um, necessary entertaining of the possibility. If you actually are an official, ah, delegate—or agent—naturally, we will wish to ascertain—"
"Sorry, Tuan," said Flandry. "I've been immunized to truth drugs."
"Oh? Oh. Oh, yes. Well, then... we do have a hypnoprobe—yes, Colleague Warouw's department is not altogether behind the times. He obtains goods on order from the Betelgeuseans.... Ah, I realize that a hypnoprobing is, er, an uncomfortable experience—"
To put it mildly, thought the Terran. His spine crawled. I see. They really are amateurs. Nobody who understood politics and war would be so reckless. Mind-probing an Imperial officer! As if the Empire could let anyone live who heard me spill half of what I know. Yes, amateurs.
He stared into the eyes of Warouw, the only man who might realize what this meant. And he met no pity, only a hunter's wariness. He could guess Warouw's calculations:
If Flandry has chanced by unofficially, on his own, it's simple. We kill him. If he's here as an advance scout, it becomes more complicated. His "accidental" death must be very carefully faked. But at least we'll know that Terra is interested in us, and can start taking measures to protect our great secret.
The worst of it was, they would learn that this visit had indeed been Flandry's own idea, and that if he died on Unan Besar a preoccupied Service wouldn't make any serious investigation.
Flandry thought of wines and women and adventures yet to be undertaken. Death was the ultimate dullness.
He dropped a hand to his blaster. "I wouldn't try that, sonny boy," he said.
From the corner of an eye, he saw one of the Guards glide forward with a raised truncheon. He sidestepped, hooked a foot before the man's ankles, shoved, and clipped behind the ear with his free hand as the body fell. The Guard hit the floor and stayed there.
His comrades growled. Knives flashed clear. "Stop!" yelled an appalled Bandang. "Stop this instant!" But it was Warouw's sharp whistle, like a man calling a dog to heel, which brought the Guards crouching in their tracks.
"Enough," said Warouw. "Put that toy away, Flandry."
"But it's a useful toy." The Terran skinned teeth in a grin. "I can kill things with it."
"What good would that do you? You would never get off this planet. And in thirty days—two Terrestrial weeks, more or less—Watch."
Ignoring stunned governors and angry Guards, Warouw crossed the floor to a telecom screen. He twirled the dials. Breath wheezed from the Biocontrol table; otherwise the room grew very quiet.
"It so happens that a condemned criminal is on public exhibition in the Square of the Four Gods." Warouw flicked a switch. "Understand, we are not inhuman. Ordinary crime is punished less drastically. But this man is guilty of assault on a Biocontrol technicial. He reached the state of readiness for display a few hours ago."
The screen lit up. Flandry saw an image of a plaza surrounded by canal water. A statue loomed in each corner, male figures dancing with many arms radiating from their shoulders. In the middle stood a cage. A placard on it described the offense. A naked man lay within.
His back arched, he clawed the air and screamed. It was as if his ribs must break with the violence of breath and heartbeat. Blood trickled out of his nose. His jaw had dislocated itself. His eyes were blind balls starting from the sockets.
"It will progress," said Warouw dispassionately. "Death in a few more hours."
From the middle of nightmare, Flandry said, "You took his pills away."
Warouw turned down the dreadful shrieking and corrected: "No, we merely condemned him not to receive any more. Of course, an occasional criminal under the ban prefers to commit suicide. This man gave himself up, hoping to be sentenced to enslavement. But his offense was too great. Human life on Unan Besar depends on Biocontrol, which must therefore be inviolable."
Flandry took his eyes from the screen. He had thought he was tough, but this was impossible to watch. "What's the cause of death?" he asked without tone.
"Well, fundamentally the life which evolved on Unan Besar is terrestroid, and nourishing to man. But there is one phylum of airborne bacteria that occurs everywhere on the planet. The germs enter the human bloodstream, where they react with certain enzymes normal and necessary to us and start excreting acetylcholine. You know what an overly high concentration of acetylcholine does to the nervous system."
"Yes."
"Unan Besar could not be colonized until scientists from the mother planet, New Djawa, had developed an antitoxin. The manufacture and distribution of this antitoxin is the responsibility of Biocontrol."
Flandry looked at the faces behind the table. "What happens to me in thirty days," he said, "would not give you gentlemen much satisfaction."
Warouw switched off the telecom. "You might kill a few of us before the Guards overcame you," he said. "But no member of Biocontrol fears death."
Bandang's sweating countenance belied him. But others looked grim, and a fanatic's voice whispered from age-withered lips: "No, not as long as the holy mission exists."
Warouw extended his hand. "So give me that gun," he finished, almost lightly.
Flandry fired.
Bandang squealed and dove under the table. But the blaster bolt had gone by him anyway. It smote the window. Thunder crackled behind it.
"You fool!" shouted Warouw.
Flandry plunged across the floor. A Guard ran to intercept him. Flandry stiff-armed the man and sprang to the tabletop. An overlord grabbed at him. Teeth crunched under Flandry's boot. He leapfrogged a bald head and hit the floor beyond.
A thrown dagger went past his cheek. The broken window gaped before him. He sprang through the hole and hit the roof underneath. It slanted steeply downward. He rolled all the way, tumbled from the edge, and straightened out as he fell toward the canal.
IV
The water was dirty. As he broke its surface, he wondered for one idiotic moment what the chances were of salvaging his clothes. They had cost him a pretty sum. Then alien smells filled his nostrils, and he struck out in search of darkness.
Dreamlike in this hunted moment, a boat glided past. Its stem and stern curved upward, extravagantly shaped, and the sides were gay with tiny electric lamps. A boy and girl snuggled in the waist under a transparent canopy. Their kilts and Dutch boy bob seemed the universal style here for both sexes, but they had added bangles and had painted intricate designs on their skins. Music caterwauled from a radio. Rich kids, no doubt. Flandry sank back under water as the boat came near. He felt its propeller vibrations in ears and flesh.
When his head came up again, he heard a new sound. It was like a monstrous gong, crashing from some loudspeaker on the golden pagoda. An alarm! Warouw's corps would be after him in minutes. Solu Bandang might be content to wait, expecting the Terran to die in two weeks—but Nias Warouw wanted to quiz him. Flandry kicked off his boots and began swimming faster.
Lights blazed overhead at the intersection of the next canal. Every one seemed focused on him. There was a thick traffic of boats, not only pleasure craft but water buses and freight carriers. Pedestrians crowded the narrow walks that ran along the housefronts, and the high bridges crossing the waterways. The air was full of city babble. Flandry eased up against the weed-grown brick of an embankment.
Four young men stood on the walk opposite. They were muscular, the look of illiterate commoners in their mannerisms and the coarse material of their kilts. But they talked with animation, gesturing, possibly a little drunk. Another man approached. He was a small fellow, distinguished only by robe and shaven pate. But the four big ones grew still the moment they saw him. They backed against the wall to let him go by and bent their heads over folded hands. He paid no attention. When he was gone, it took them a few minutes to regain their good humor.
So, thought Flandry.
The chance he had been waiting for came, a freight boat putt-putting close to the canal bank in the direction he wanted. Flandry pushed away from the bricks, seized a rope bumper hung from the rail, and snuggled close to the hull. Water streamed silkily around his body and trailing legs. He caught smells of tar and spice. Somewhere above, the steersman tapped a gamelan and crooned to himself.
Within two kilometers, the boat reached an invisible boundary common to most cities. On one side of a cross-canal, an upper-class apartment house lifted tiers of delicate red columns toward a gilt roof. On the other side there was no solid land, only endless pilings to hold structures above the water. There the lamps were few, with darknesses between, and the buildings crouched low. Flandry could just see that those warehouses and tenements and small factories were not plastifaced like the rich part of town. This was all sheet metal and rough timber, thatch roofs, dim light glowing through little dirty-paned windows. He saw two men pad by with knives in their hands.
The truckboat continued, deeper into slum. Now that the great gong was stilled and the heavy traffic left behind, it was very quiet around Flandry. He heard only a muted background growl of distant machines. But if the canals had been dirty before, they were now disgusting. Once something brushed him in the night; with skin and nose he recognized it as a corpse. Once, far off, a woman screamed. And once he glimpsed a little girl, skipping rope all alone under a canalside lamp. Its harsh blue glow was as solitary as a star. Darkness enclosed the child. She didn't stop jumping as the boat passed, but her eyes followed it with a hag's calculation. Then Flandry was beyond her and had lost her.
About time to get off, he thought.
Suddenly the stillness and desertion were broken. It began as a faint irregular hooting, which drew closer. Flandry didn't know what warned him—perhaps the way the truck pilot stopped musicking and revved up the motor. But his nerves tingled and he knew: School's out.
He let go the bumper. The boat chugged on in haste, rounded a corner and was gone. Flandry swam through warm slimy water till he grasped a ladder. It led up to a boardwalk, which fronted a line of sleazy houses with tin sides and peaked grass roofs and lightless windows. The night was thick and hot and stinking around him, full of shadows. No other human stirred. But the animal hooting came nearer.
After a moment, their hides agleam in the light of one lamp twenty meters away, the pack swam into sight. There were a dozen, about the size and build of Terrestrial sea lions. They had glabrous reptile skins, long necks and snaky heads. Tongues vibrated between rows of teeth. Tasting the water? Flandry didn't know how they had traced him. He crouched on the ladder, the canal lapping about his ankles, and drew his gun.
The swimmers saw him, or smelled him, and veered. Their high blasts of sound became a shrill ululation. Give tongue, the fox is gone to earth!
As the nearest of them surged close, Flandry's blaster fired. Blue lightning spat in the dark, and a headless body rolled over. He scrambled up onto the walk.
The beasts kept pace as he ran, reaching up to snap at his feet. The planks resounded. He fired again, and missed. Once he stumbled, hit a corrugated metal wall, and heard it boom.
Far down the canal, engines whined and the fierce sun of a searchlight waxed in his eyes. He didn't need to be told it was a police boat, tracking him with the help of the swimmers. He stopped before a doorway. The animals churned the water below the pier. He felt its piles tremble from the impact of heavy bodies. Their splashing and whistling filled his skull. Where to go, what to do?—Yes. He turned the primitive doorknob. Locked of course. He thumbed his blaster to narrow beam and used it as a cutting torch, with his body between the flame and the approaching speedboat.
There! The door opened under his pressure. He slipped through, closed it, and stood in the dark. An after-image of the gunbeam still flickered across his blindness, and his pulse was loud.
Got to get out of here, he thought. The cops won't know offhand precisely where I went, but they'll check every door in this row and find the cut lock.
He could just make out a gray square of window across the room, and groped toward it. Canal water dripped off his clothes.
Feet pattered on bare boards. "Who goes?" An instant later, Flandry swore at himself for having spoken. But there was no answer. Whoever else was in this room—probably asleep till he came—was reacting to his intrusion with feline presence of mind. There was no more noise.
He barked his shins on a low bedstead. He heard a creak and saw an oblong of dull shimmering light appear. A trapdoor in the floor had been opened. "Stop!" he called. The trapdoor was darkened with a shadow. Then that was gone too. Flandry heard a splash below. He thought he heard the unknown start swimming quickly away. The trapdoor fell down again.
It had all taken a bare few seconds. He grew aware of the animals, hooting and plunging outside. The unknown had nerve, to dive into the same water as that hell-pack! And now engine-roar slowed to a whine, a sputter, the boat had arrived. A voice called something, harsh and authoritative.
Flandry's eyes were adapting. He could see that this house—cabin, rather—comprised a single big room. It was sparsely furnished: a few stools and cushions, the bed, a brazier and some cooking utensils, a small chest of drawers. But he sensed good taste. There were a couple of exquisitely arabesqued wooden screens; and he thought he could identify fine drawing on a scroll which decorated one wall.
Not that it mattered! He stepped to the window on the side through which he had come. Several Guards crouched in the boat, flashing its searchlight around. A needle gun was mounted on its prow, but otherwise the men were armed only with their knives and nightsticks. There might be another boatload along soon, but for the moment—
Flandry set his blaster to full power, narrow beam, and opened the door a crack. I couldn't get more than one or two men at this range, he calculated, and the others would radio HQ that they'd found me. But could be I can forestall that with some accurate shooting. Very accurate. Fortunately, I count marksmanship among my many superiorities.
The weapon blazed.
He chopped the beam down, first across cockpit and dashboard to knock out the radio, then into the hull itself. The Guards bellowed. Their searchlight swung blindingly toward him and he heard needles thunk into the door panels. Then the boat was pierced. It filled and sank like a diving whale.
The Guards had already sprung overboard. They could come up the ladder, dash at their quarry, and be shot down. Wherefore they would not come very fast. They'd most likely swim around waiting for reinforcements. Flandry closed the door with a polite "Auf Wiedersehen" and hurried across the room. There was no door on that side, but he opened a window, vaulted to the boardwalk beneath, and loped off fast and quietly. With any luck, he'd leave men and seal-hounds milling about under the place he'd just quitted until he was safely elsewhere.
At the end of the pier, a bridge arched across to another row of shacks. It wasn't one of the beautiful metallic affairs in the center part of town. This bridge was of planks suspended from vine cables. But it had a grace of its own. It swayed under Flandry's tread. He passed the big pillars anchoring the suspension at the far end—
One brawny arm closed around his neck. The other hand clamped numbingly on his gun wrist. A bass voice told him, very low, "Don't move, outlander. Not till Kemul says you can."
Flandry, who didn't wish a fractured larynx, stood deathstill. The blaster was plucked from his hand. "Always wanted one of these," the mugger chuckled. "Now, who in the name of fifty million devils are you, and what d' you mean breaking into Luang's crib that way?"
The pressure tightened around his throat. Flandry thought in bitterness, Sure, I get it. Luang escaped down the trap and fetched help. They figured I'd have to come in this direction, if I escaped at all. I seemed worth catching. This ape simply lurked behind the pillar waiting for me.
"Come now." The arm cut off all breath. "Be good and tell Kemul." Pressure eased a trifle.
"Guards—Biocontrol agents—back there," rattled Flandry.
"Kemul knows. Kemul isn't blind or deaf. A good citizen should hail them and turn you over to them. Perhaps Kemul will. But he is curious. No one like you has ever been seen on all Unan Besar. Kemul would like to hear your side of the tale before he decides what to do."
Flandry relaxed against a bare chest solid as a wall. "This is hardly the place for long stories," he whispered. "If we could go somewhere and talk—"
"Aye. If you will behave." Having tucked the blaster in his kilt, Kemul patted Flandry in search of other goods. He removed watch and wallet, released the Terran, and stepped back, tigerishly fast, ready for counterattack.
Vague greasy light fell across him. Flandry saw a giant by the standards of any planet, an ogre among these folk: 220 centimeters high, with shoulders to match. Kemul's face had from time to time been slashed with knives and beaten with blunt instruments; his hair was grizzled; but still he moved as if made of rubber. He wore body paint that wove a dozen clashing colors together. A kris was thrust in the garish batik of his kilt.
He grinned. It made his ruined countenance almost human. "Kemul knows a private spot," he offered. "We can go there if you really want to talk. But so private is it, even the house god wears a blindfold. Kemul must blindfold you too."
Flandry massaged his aching neck. "As you will." He studied the other man a moment before adding, "I had hoped to find someone like you."
Which was true enough. But he hadn't expected to meet Kompong Timur's underworld at such a severe disadvantage. If he couldn't think of something to bribe them with—his blaster had been the best possibility, and it was gone now—they'd quite likely slit his weasand. Or turn him over to Warouw. Or just leave him to die screaming, a couple of weeks hence.
V
Boats clustered around a long two-story building which stood by itself in the Canal of the Fiery Snake. Everywhere else lay darkness, the tenements of the poor, a few sweatshop factories, old warehouses abandoned to rats and robbers. But there was life enough on the first floor of the Tavern Called Swampman's Ease. Its air was thick with smoke, through which grinned jack-o'-lantern lights, and with the smells of cheap arrack and cheaper narcotics. Freightboat crewmen, fishers, dock wallopers, machine tenders, hunters and loggers from the jungle, bandits, cutpurses, gamblers, and less identifiable persons lounged about on the floor mats: drinking, smoking, quarreling, plotting, rattling dice, watching a dancer swing her hips to plang of gamelan and squeal of flute and thump-thump of a small drum. Occasionally, behind a beaded curtain, one of the joy girls giggled. High on her throne, Madame Udjung watched with jet eyes nearly buried in fat. Sometimes she spoke to the noseless daggerman who crouched at her feet in case of trouble, but mostly she drank gin and talked to the ketjil bird on her wrist. It was not large, but its tail swept down like a rain of golden fire and it could sing in a woman's voice.
Flandry could hear enough of the racket to know he was in some such place. But there were probably a hundred like it, and his eyes had only been unbandaged when he reached this second-floor room. Which was not the sort of layout he would have expected. It was clean, and much like the one he'd blundered onto earlier: simple furnishings, a decorative scroll, a couple of screens, a shallow bowl holding one stone and two white flowers. A glowlamp in the hand of a small, blindfolded wooden idol on a shelf showed that every article was of exquisite simplicity. One window stood open to warm breezes, but incense drowned the garbage smell of the canal.
Kemul tossed Flandry a kilt, which the Terran was glad enough to belt around his middle. "Well," said the giant, "what are his things worth after they've been cleaned, Luang?"
The girl studied the clothes Flandry had been forced to take off. "All synthetic fiber... but never have color and fineness like this been seen on Unan Besar." Her voice was husky. "I should say they are worth death in the cage, Kemul."
"What?"
Luang threw the garments to the floor and laughed. She sat on top of the dresser, swinging bare feet against its drawers. Her kilt was dazzling white, her only ornament the ivory inlay on her dagger hilt. Not that she needed more. She wasn't tall, and her face had never been sculpted into the monotonous beauty of all rich Terran women. But it was a vivid face, high cheekbones, full mouth, delicately shaped nose, eyes long and dark under arched brows. Her bobbed hair was crow's-wing color, her complexion dull gold, and her figure reminded Flandry acutely that he had been celibate for months.
"Reason it out, mugger," she said with a note of affectionate teasing. She took a cigarette case from her pocket and offered it to the Terran. Flandry accepted a yellow cylinder and inhaled. Nothing happened. Luang laughed again and snapped a lighter for him and herself. She trickled smoke from her nostrils, as if veiling her expression. Flandry tried it and choked. If this was tobacco, then tobacco on Unan Besar had mutated and crossed itself with deadly nightshade.
"Well, Captain, as you style yourself," said Luang, "what do you suggest we do with you?"
Flandry regarded her closely, wishing the local costume weren't quite so brief. Dammit, his life depended on cool thinking. "You might try listening to me," he said.
"I am. Though anyone who breaks in on my rest as you did—"
"I couldn't help that!"
"Oh, the trouble you caused isn't held against you." Luang raised her feet to the dresser top, hugged her legs and watched him across rounded knees. "On the contrary, I haven't had so much fun since One-Eyed Rawi went amok down on Joy Canal. How those fat frumps squealed—and dove into the water in all their finery!" Malice faded and she sighed. "It ended unhappily, though, when poor old Rawi must needs be killed. I hope this adventure doesn't end likewise."
"I hope so too," Flandry agreed. "Let's work together very hard to prevent any such outcome."
Kemul, who was hunkered on the floor, snapped his fingers. "Ah! Kemul understands!"
She smiled. "What do you mean?"
"About his clothes and other valuables. They would be noticed, Luang, and Biocontrol would ask questions, and might even trace them back to us. And if it turned out we had failed to give Biocontrol this man they were hunting, it would be the cage for both of us."
"Congratulations," said Flandry.
"Best we surrender him at once." Kemul shifted uneasily on his haunches. "There might even be a reward."
"We shall see." Luang inhaled thoughtfully—and, to the Terran, most distractingly. "Of course," she mused, "I had best go back to my other place soon. The Guard Corps must be swarming all over it. They'll establish my identity from fingerprints." She looked at Flandry through drooping lashes. "I could tell them that when you broke in, I was frightened and escaped through the trap and don't know anything about the affair."
He leaned against the wall near the window. It was very dark outside. "But I have to make it worth your while to take the risk they won't believe you, eh?" he said.
She made a face. "Poo! That's no risk. Whoever heard of a Guard able to think past the end of his own snout? The real danger would come later, in keeping you hidden, outworld man. Swamp Town is full of eyes. It would be expensive, too."
"Let's discuss the matter." Flandry took another puff of his cigarette. It wasn't so bad the second time; probably his taste buds were stunned. "Let's get acquainted, at least. I've told you I'm an Imperial officer, and explained a little of what and where the Empire is nowadays. So let me learn something about your own planet. Check my deductions against the facts for me, will you?
"Biocontrol manufactures the antitoxin pills and distributes them through local centers, right?" She nodded. "Every citizen gets one, every thirty days, and has to swallow it there on the spot." Again she nodded. "Obviously, even infants must have a ration in their milk. So every person on this world can be fingerprinted at birth. The prints are kept in a central file, and automatically checked every time anyone comes in for his pill. Thus no one gets more than his ration. And anyone in trouble with the law had better surrender very meekly to the Guards... or he won't get the next dose." This time her nod included a faint, derisive smile.
"No system ever worked so well that there wasn't some equivalent of an underworld," Flandry continued. "When the authorities began to get nasty, I struck out for the slums, where I figured your criminal class must center. Evidently I was right about that. What I don't yet know, though, is why as much freedom as this is allowed. Kemul, for example, seems to be a full-time bandit; and you, m'lady, appear to be a, ahem, private entrepreneur. The government could control your people more tightly than it does."
Kemul laughed, a gusty noise overriding that mumble and tinkle which seeped through the floorboards. "What does Biocontrol care?" he said. "You pay for your medicine. You pay plenty, each time. Oh, they make some allowance for hardship cases, where such can be proven, but that puts you right under the Guards' nosy eye—" Wow! thought Flandry. "Or a slave owner gets a reduction on the pills he buys for his folk. Bah! Kemul would rather slash his own belly like a free man. So he pays full price. Most people do. So Biocontrol gets its money. How that money is earned in the first place, Biocontrol doesn't care."
"Ah." Flandry stroked his mustache. "A single tax system."
The socioeconomics of it became obvious enough now. If every person, with insignificant exceptions, had to pay the same price for life every two weeks, certain classes were placed at a severe disadvantage. Men with large families, for example: they'd tend to put the kids to work as young as possible, to help meet the bills. This would mean an ill-educated younger generation, still less able to maintain its place on the economic ladder. Poor people generally would suffer; any run of hard luck would land them in the grip of the loan sharks for life. The incentive toward crime was enormous, especially when there was no real policing.
Over lifetimes, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. At last a small class of billionaires—merchants, big manufacturers and landholders—lorded it over a beaten-down peasantry and a turbulent city proletariat. These distinctions became hereditary, simply because no one ever got far enough ahead to rise above his father's status.... If there had been contact with other planets, the necessities of interstellar competition would have forced Unan Besar into a more efficient pattern. But except for the occasional unimportant visit of a strictly segregated Betelgeusean trader, Unan Besar had been isolated these past three centuries.
Flandry realized he was oversimplifying. A planet is a world, as big and diverse as ever Terra was. There had to be more than one social structure, and within any sub-culture there must be individuals who didn't fit the pattern. Luang, for instance; he didn't know quite what to make of her. But no matter for now. He was in Kompong Timur, where life was approximately as he had deduced.
"I take it, then, that failure to respect Biocontrol personnel is the only serious crime here," he said.
"Not quite." Kemul's fist clenched. "Biocontrol is chummy with the rich. Burgle a rich man's house and see what happens. Ten years in the quarries, if you're lucky. Enslavement, more likely."
"Only if you are caught," purred Luang. "I remember once—But that was then."
"I see why Guards don't bother carrying firearms," said Flandry.
"They do in this section of town." Kemul looked still grimmer. "And they go in teams. And still they're apt to end up floating in the canal, with none to say who did it to them. So many people might, you see. Not so much for the money they have. But might be a husband, after some rich boy come slumming saw his wife and ordered her aboard his boat. Or a palace servant, whipped once too often. Or a sometime engineer, what lost his post and sank down to our level, because he'd not wink at a defective load of cement. Cases like that."
"He speaks of people he knows," said Luang. "He hasn't imagination enough to invent examples." Her tone remained bantering.
"But most times," Kemul finished doggedly, "the Guards don't come into Swamp Town. No reason for it. We buy our pills and stay out of the palace section. What we do to each other, nobody cares."
"Have you never thought of—" Flandry groped in his Pulaoic vocabulary, but couldn't find any word for revolution. "You commoners and paupers outnumber the ruling class. You have weapons, here and there. You could take over, you know."
Kemul blinked. Finally he spat. "Ah, what use has Kemul for fancy eats and a fancy harem? Kemul does well enough."
Luang caught Flandry's real meaning. He saw that she was a little shocked; not that she found any sacredness in the existing order of things, but the idea of complete social change was too radical. She lit another cigarette from the butt of the first and fumed a while with eyes closed, forehead bent on her knees. When she glanced up again, she said:
"I remember now, outworld man. Things I have read in books. Even a few very old ones, that Biocontrol must think were all burned long ago. Unlike most, I know how the masters first came to power. And we can't overthrow them. At least, not without dying." She stretched like a cat. "And life amuses me."
"I realize Biocontrol has the sole knowledge of how to manufacture the antitoxin," Flandry said. "But once you stood over their technicians with a gun—"
"Listen to me," said Luang. "When Unan Besar was first colonized, Biocontrol was merely one arm of the government. Troubles came that I don't quite know about: foolishness and corruption. Biocontrol was staffed by men who were very clever and... what word?... saintly? They wanted the best for this planet, so they issued a proclamation calling for a certain program of reform. The rest of the government didn't like this. But Biocontrol was standing by the great vats where the antitoxin is made. The process must be watched all the time, you understand, or it goes bad. One man, pulling the wrong switch, can ruin an entire batch. Biocontrol could not be attacked without danger of wrecking those vats. The people were afraid they would get no more medicine. They forced the government men to lift the siege of Biocontrol, and yield.
"Then Biocontrol was the whole government. They said they would not rule forever, only long enough to establish the best social order for Unan Besar. One that was carefully planned and would endure."
"I see." Flandry spoke with a coyote grin. "They were scientists, and wanted a rationalized civilization. Probably they subscribed to some version of Psychotechnocracy. It was a popular theory in those days. When will the intellectuals learn that scientific government is a contradiction in terms? Since people didn't fit into this perfect scheme—and the scheme being perfect by definition, this must be the fault of the people—Biocontrol never did find an occasion to give up its power. After a few generations, it evolved into an old-fashioned oligarchy. Such governments always do."
"Not quite." He wasn't sure how closely the girl had followed him. Perforce he used many Anglic words, hoping Pulaoic had cognates. But her gaze was steady on him and she spoke with almost a scholar's detachment. "Biocontrol was forever Biocontrol. I mean, they have always recruited promising boys and trained them to tend the vats. Only after a long period of service, rising from grade to grade, can a member hope to get on the governing board."
"So... it is still a rule by technicians," he said. "Odd. The scientific mentality isn't well suited to governing. I'd expect Biocontrol would hire administrators, who would eventually make all the real decisions."
"That did happen once, about two hundred years ago," she said. "But a dispute arose. The corps of hireling experts started giving orders independently. Several Biocontrol people realized that Biocontrol had become a mere figurehead. One of them, Weda Tawar—there are statues to him all over the planet—waited until his turn to go on watch. Then he threatened to destroy the vats, unless the hireling corps surrendered itself to him. His fellow conspirators had already seized the few spaceships and were prepared to blow them up. Every human on Unan Besar would have died. The hirelings capitulated.
"Since then, Biocontrol has done its own governing. And during his novitiate, every member is trained and sworn to destroy the vats—and, thus, all the people—if the power of his fellowship is threatened."
That explains the general sloppiness, Flandry thought. There's no bureaucracy to control things like slums and crime rates. By the same token, Biocontrol itself no longer exists for any reason except to man the brewery and perpetuate its own meaningless power.
"Do you think they actually would carry out their threat, if it came to that?" he asked.
"Many of them, at least," said Luang. "They are very harshly trained as boys." She. shivered. "It's not a risk to take, outworld man."
Kemul stirred on the floor. "Enough of this buttertonguing!" he grumbled. "We've still not learned what you really came here for."
"Or why the Guards want you," said Luang.
It grew most quiet. Flandry could hear the lapping of oily water against the piles below him. He thought he could hear thunder, far out over the jungle. Then someone cursed down in the tavern, there was a scuffle, a joy girl screamed and a body splashed in the canal. Only a minor argument: the loser could be heard swimming away, and the music resumed.
"They want me," said Flandry, "because I can destroy them."
Kemul, who had ignored the fight under his broad bottom, half rose. "Don't joke Kemul!" he gasped. Even Luang's cool eyes widened, and she lowered her feet to the floor.
"How would you like to be free men?" Flandry asked. His gaze returned to Luang. "And women," he added. "Obviously."
"Free of what?" snorted Kemul.
"Most obviously... Oh. Yes. How would you like to be done with Biocontrol? To get your antitoxin free, or for a very low price that anyone can afford? It's possible, you know. You're being outrageously overcharged for the stuff, as a form of taxation which, I'm sure, has been screwed higher each decade."
"It has," said Luang. "But Biocontrol possesses the vats, and the only knowledge of their use."
"When Unan Besar was colonized," Flandry said, "this whole sector was backward and anarchic. The pioneers seem to have developed some elaborate process, probably biosynthetic, for preparing the antitoxin. A process which even in that day would have been clumsy, old-fashioned. Any decent laboratory—on Spica VI, for instance—can now duplicate any organic molecule. The apparatus is simple and foolproof, the quantity that can be manufactured is unlimited."
Luang's lips parted to show small white teeth. "You want to go there," she whispered.
"Yes. At least, that's what Brothers Bandang and Warouw are afraid I want to. Not a bad idea, either, Mitsuko Laboratories on Spica VI would pay me a handsome commission for calling as juicy a market as Unan Besar to their attention. Hm, yes-s-s," said Flandry dreamily.
Kemul shook his head till the gray hair swirled. "No! Kemul doesn't have it badly, the way things are. Not badly enough to risk the cage for helping you, Kemul says turn him in, Luang."
The girl studied Flandry for a long minute. Her face was not readable. "How would you get off this planet?" she asked.
"Details." Flandry waved a hand in an airy gesture.
"I thought so. If you don't know, how can we? Why should we hazard anything, least of all our lives?"
"Well—" Flandry flexed his arms, trying to work out some of the tension that stiffened them and made his voice come out not quite natural. "Well, we can discuss that later."
She blew smoke. "For you," she said, "will there be a later?"
He donned the smile which had bowled over female hearts from Scotha to Antares. "If you wish it, my lady."
She shrugged. "I might. If you make it worth the risk and trouble. But Kemul already took everything you were carrying. What can you buy your next thirty days with?"
That was a good question.
VI
The part of Swamp Town between Lotus Flower Canal, the great spice warehouse of Barati & Sons, the Canal of the Drowned Drunkard, and those miserable tenement rafts where Kompong Timur faded into unreclaimed watery wastes was ruled by Sumu the Fat. Which is to say, every resident with a noticeable income—artisan, rentier, joy girl, bazaar keeper, freight hauler, priest, wizard, coiner, et multifarious cetera—paid regular tribute to him. It was shrewdly calculated according to ability to pay, so no one resented it dangerously. Sumu even made some return. His bully boys kept rival gangs out of the district; sometimes they caught lone-wolf robbers and made examples of them. He was an excellent fence for goods stolen from other parts of town. With his connections, he could even help a legitimate merchant make an extra profit, or find a buyer for the daughter of some impoverished man who didn't know where his next pill was coming from. In such cases, Sumu didn't charge an exorbitant commission. He offered rough-and-ready justice to those who wanted to lay their quarrels before him. Every year at the Feast of Lanterns, he bore the whole expense of decorating the quarter and went about giving candy to small children.
In short, he was hated no more than any other overlord would have been.
Wherefore Sumu's man Pradjung, making his regular rounds to collect the tribute, was distressed to hear that a new storyteller had been operating on Indramadju Square for two whole days without so much as a by-your-leave.
Pradjung, who was of ordinary size but notoriously good with a knife, went thither. It was a clear day. The sun stood high and white in a pale sky. Sheet metal walls, canal water, even thatch and wood cast back its radiance until all things swam in that fierce light, wavered with heat haze but threw hard blue shadows. Far off above the roofs, Biocontrol Pagoda reared as if molten, too dazzling to look at. Sound of squalling voices and rumbling motors seemed baked out of the air; women squatted in doorways nursing their babies and gasping. As he hurried past the booths of listless potters, Pradjung heard his own sandals go slap-slap on planks where tar bubbled.
He crossed a suspension bridge to the hummock where Indramadju Square had been constructed, so long ago that the stone dragons on the central fountain were weathered into pug dogs. The fountain was dry, its plumbing had been stolen generations back, but fruit and vegetable vendors from the outlying paddy-farms still brought their produce here to sell. Their booths surrounded the square with thatch and tiny red flags. Because it was cooler here than many other places, and the chance of stealing an occasional modjo not too bad, children and idlers could always be found by the score. Which made it a good location for storytellers.
The new one sat under the basin. He had the usual fan in one hand and the usual bowl set out for contributions. But nothing else about him was normal. Pradjung must push through a crowd six deep before he could even see the man.
Then he gaped. He had never known anyone like this. The fellow was tall, reasonably young, and very well-muscled. But his skin was pale, his face long, his nose a jutting beak, his eyes deepset and of altogether wrong shape. He had hair on his upper lip, which was uncommon but not unknown; however, this mustache was brown, like the close-cropped hair peeping from beneath his turban. He spoke with a strong, unidentifiable accent, and had none of the traditional storyteller mannerisms. Yet he was outrageously at ease.
Which well he might be, for he spoke not of the Silver Bird or Polesotechnarch Van Rijn or any ancient themes known everywhere by heart. He told new stories, most of them indecent and all impudently funny. The crowd shrieked laughter.
"—Now after this long and mighty career, warring in the air for his country, Pierre the Fortunate was granted leave to come home and rest. No honor, no reward was considered too great for this prince among pilots." The storyteller glanced modestly downward. "But I am a poor man, O gentle and generous people. Weariness overwhelms me."
Money tinkled into his bowl. After pouring it into a bulging purse, the storyteller leaned back, lit a cigarette, swigged from a wineskin, and resumed: "The home of Pierre the Fortunate was called Paris and was the richest, most beautiful of cities. There, and there alone, had men altogether mastered the arts of pleasure: not mere wallowing in quantity, but the most subtle refinements, the most elegant and delicious accompaniments. For example, the tale is told of a stranger from an uncouth land called Texas, who was visiting in Paris—"
"Hold!"
Pradjung muscled past the inner circle and confronted the newcomer. He heard a growl behind him, and touched his knife. The noise subsided to angry mutters. A few people on the fringes began to drift away, elaborately inconspicuous.
"What is your name, stranger, and where are you from?" snapped Pradjung.
The storyteller looked up. His eyes were an eerie gray color.
"That's no way to begin a friendship," he reproved.
Pradjung flushed. "Do you know where you are? This is Sumu's territory, may his progeny people the universe. Who told an outland wretch like you to set up shop?"
"None told me not to."
The answer was soft enough for Pradjung to concede—after all, the storyteller was earning at a rate which promised a good rakeoff—"New arrivals of good will are never unwelcome. But my master Sumu must decide. He will surely fine you for not coming to him at once. But if you are courteous to him and—ahem!—his faithful men, I do not think he will have you beaten."
"Dear me, I hope not." The storyteller rose to his feet. "Come, then, take me to your leader."
"You could show his men the politeness they deserve, and gain friends," Pradjung said, glancing at the full purse.
"Of course." The storyteller raised his wineskin. "Your very good health, sir." He took a long drink and hung the skin on his back.
"What of our story?" cried some rustic, too indignant to remember Pradjung's knife.
"I fear I am interrupted," said the stranger.
The crowd made a sullen way. Pradjung was feeling surly enough himself, now, but held his peace. Wait till they came to Sumu.
The great man dwelt in a wooden house unpretentious on the outside, except for its dimensions and the scarfaced guards at every door. But the interior was so full of furniture, drapes, rugs, incense burners, caged songbirds, aquaria, and assorted crockery that you could easily get lost. The harem wing was said to possess a hundred inmates, though not always the same hundred. What most impressed a visitor was the air conditioning system, bought at fabulous expense in the palace section of town.
Sumu lolled in a silkite campaign chair, riffling through some papers with one hand and scratching his belly with the other. A pot of sweet black herb tea and a bowl of cookies stood in easy reach. Two daggermen squatted behind him, and he personally packed a gun. It was an archaic snubnosed chemical weapon throwing lead slugs, but it would kill you as dead as any blaster.
"Well?" Sumu raised his bulldog face and blinked nearsightedly.
Pradjung shoved the storyteller forward with a rough hand. "This outland sarwin has been narrating on Indramadju for two days, tuan. See how plump his purse has grown! But when I asked him to come pay his respects to my noblest of masters, he refused with vile oaths until I compelled him at dagger point."
Sumu peered at the stranger and inquired mildly, "What is your name, and where are you from?"
"Dominic is my name." The tall man shifted in Pradjung's grip, as if uneasy.
"A harsh sound. But I asked where you were from."
"Pegunungan Gradjugang—ouch!—It lies beyond the Tindjil Ocean."
"Ah. So." Sumu nodded wisely. One knew little about the dwellers on other continents. Their overlords sometimes came here, but only by air and only to visit the overlords of Kompong Timur. Poor folk rarely traveled far. One heard that strange ways of life had grown up under alien conditions. Doubtless generations of poor diet and insufficient sunlight had bleached this man's people. "Why did you not seek me out as soon as you arrived? Anyone could have told you where I live."
"I did not know the rule," said Dominic pettishly. "I thought I was free to earn a few honest coins."
"More than a few, I see," Sumu corrected. "And is it honest to deny me my right? Well, ignorance may pass for an excuse this time. Let us count what you have gotten thus far today. Then we can decide on a proper weekly sum for you to contribute, as well as the fine for not reporting immediately."
Pradjung grinned and snatched after Dominic's purse. The tall man stepped back and cast it himself into Sumu's lap. "Here, tuan," he exclaimed. "Don't trust this ugly man. He has reptile eyes. Count the coins yourself. But this is not one day's take. It's two days, yes, and a good part of one night. Ask in the square. They'll tell you how long I worked."
"Will they tell how much else you have hidden about you, begetter of worms?" sneered Pradjung. "Off with your garments! A fortune could lie in that turban."
Dominic backed further. Pradjung signaled to the daggermen, who closed in on the storyteller and seized his arms. As he went to his knees, lest bones break, Pradjung kicked him in the stomach. "Strip," said Pradjung. Sumu continued sorting coins into his sarong.
Dominic groaned. There proved to be nothing in his kilt except himself, but wound into the turban was a package. Pradjung unfolded it before Sumu's eyes. An awed silence fell on the room.
The wrapping was a blouse: some fabric hitherto unheard of, colored like the palest dawn, fine enough to fold into cubic centimeters but utterly wrinkleproof. Inside the package lay a multiple-dialed watch of incredibly beautiful workmanship, and a wallet not made from leather or any recognized plastic. The wallet held cards and money, whose papery substance was equally strange, whose engraving was lovely but whose legends were in a peculiar form of the alphabet and an altogether foreign language.
VII
Sumu made a sign against evil. "Nine sticks of incense to the gods at Ratu Temple!" He swung on Dominic, who had been released and knelt shuddering. "Well?"
"Tuan!" Dominic flopped on his face. "Tuan, take all my cash!" he wailed. "I am a poor man and the humblest of your slaves. Give me back those valueless trinkets bequeathed me by my poor old mother!"
"Valueless, I think not." Sumu mopped the sweat of excitement from his forehead. "We shall have a little truth out of you, storyteller."
"Before the Three Headed One himself, you have the truth!"
"Come now," said Sumu in his kindliest tone. "I am not cruel. I should not like to have you questioned. Especially since I would have to entrust the questioning to Pradjung, who seems to have taken a dislike to you."
Pradjung licked his lips. "I know these stubborn cases, mighty master," he said. "It may take me a while. But he will still be able to talk when he decides to. Come along, you!"
"Wait, wait, wait," said Sumu. "Not that quickly. Give him a few swats of the cane across his feet and see if his tongue loosens. Every man deserves a chance to be heard, Pradjung."
Dominic beat his brow against the floor. "It is a family secret, nothing but a family secret," he begged. "Your nobleness could not profit by hearing it."
"If that is so, rest assured I shall keep your secret inviolate," promised Sumu magnanimously. "Anyone here who cannot keep a secret goes straight into the canal."
Pradjung, who saw an opportunity slipping past, seized the bastinado and applied it. Dominic cried out. Sumu told Pradjung to stop, and offered Dominic wine.
Eventually the story came out.
"My brother George found the ship," Dominic said between gulps for air and gulps of drink. His hands trembled. "He was a timber cruiser, and often went far into the mountains. In one deep, misty ravine, he found a spaceship."
"A ship from the stars?" Sumu made violent signs and promised another dozen joss sticks. He had heard of the Betelgeuseans, of course, in a vague way, and even seen a few of their goods. But nonetheless he bore a childhood of myth about the Ancestors, the Stars, and the Monsters, which a sketchy education had not removed.
"Just so, tuan. I do not know if the vessel came from the Red Star, whence they say Biocontrol receives visitors on certain nights, or from some other. It might even have been from Mother Terra, for this shirt fits me. It must have crashed out of control long ago, long ago. Jungle had covered it, but could not destroy the metal. Wild animals laired within. Doubtless they had eaten the bones of the crew, but they could not open the hatches to the holds. Those were not locked, however, only dogged shut. So my brother George went down and saw wonders beyond reckoning—"
It took half an hour to elaborate on the wonders.
"Of course, he could not carry such things on his back," said Dominic. "He took only these articles, for proof, and returned home. It was his thought that he and I should raise enough money somehow for vehicles to get the cargo out. How, I knew not, for we were poor. But surely we would never tell our overlord, who would take all the treasure for himself! Long we discussed the matter in secret. George never told me where the ship lay." Dominic sighed. "He knew me well. I am not a resolute man. The secret was safest with him."
"Well?" Sumu dithered in his chair. "Well? What happened?"
"Ah, what happens all too often to poor folk. I was a tenant farmer of Proprietor Kepuluk. George, as I told you, was a timber cruiser for the master's lumbering operations. Because of our scheming to get money, we neglected our work. Frequently our overseers reproved us with a touch of the electrostick. But the dream we had would not let us rest in peace. George was at last dismissed. He brought his family to live with me. But my plot of ground was so small it would barely support my own wife and children. We went swiftly into debt to Proprietor Kepuluk. George had a young and beautiful wife, whom Kepuluk seized for the debt. Then George went amok and fell upon Kepuluk. It took six men to drag him away."
"So Djordju is dead?" cried an appalled Sumu.
"No. He was sentenced to enslavement. Now he toils as a field hand on one of Kepuluk's plantations. Of course, my farm was taken from me, and I must make my way as best I could. I found places for the women and children, then set out alone."
"Why?" demanded Sumu.
"What was there for me in Pegunungan Gradjugang, except a lifetime's toil for barely enough wages to buy my pills? I had always had a talent for storytelling, so I yarned my way to the ocean. There I got a scullery job on a watership bound for this continent. From Tandjung Port I came afoot to Kompong Timur. Here, I thought, I could make a living—even save a little money—and inquire with great discretion, until at last—"
"Yes? Yes? Speak up!"
Pradjung reached for the cane again, but Sumu waved him back. Dominic sighed heartbreakingly. "My tale is ended, tuan."
"But your plan! What is it?"
"Ah, the gods hate me. It seemed easy enough, once. I would find a patron, a kind man who would not begrudge me a good payment and a position in his household, in exchange for what I could tell him. He must be rich, of course. Rich enough to buy George from Kepuluk and outfit an expedition under George's guidance. Oh, my lord—" Dominic lifted streaming eyes—"do you perchance know of some wealthy man who would listen to my tale? If you could arrange it for me, I would reward you with half of what I was paid myself."
"Be still," commanded Sumu.
He lay back in his chair, thinking furiously. In the end: "Perhaps your luck has turned, Dominic. I have some small savings of my own, and am always ready to venture what I can afford in the hope of an honest profit."
"Oh, my lord!"
"You need not kiss my feet yet. I have made no promises. But let us take our ease and share a midday meal. Afterward we can talk further."
The talk stretched on. Sumu had learned caution. But Dominic had answers for all questions; "I have had two years now, largest of masters, to think this out."
An expedition into the mountains would be costly. It should not be outfitted here in Kompong Timur. That would not only add the expense of transporting equipment across the ocean, but would attract far too much notice. (Sumu agreed. Some palace-dwelling sarwin like Nias Warouw would hear about it, investigate, and claim a major share of the loot.) Nor was it a good idea to use the primitive banking facilities of Unan Besar: too traceable. No, the cash itself must be smuggled out of town, across the lake and down the Ukong River to Tandjung, where Sumu's trusty men would take it across the ocean in their baggage. Once arrived in Pegunungan Gradjugang, they would pose as entrepreneurs hoping to establish a hardwood trade with the Selatan Islands, a market which the local bigwigs had neglected. They would buy a few experienced slaves as assistants, who would just happen to include Djordju. Then in secret, Djordju would guide Sumu's representatives to the ship.
The new hardwood company would buy some thousands of hectares from the immense Kepuluk holdings, and also acquire the flyers, junglecats, and similar machinery needed to exploit a forest. That would be expensive, but it couldn't be helped; any other way, Kepuluk would smell a rat. But thereafter, under cover of their logging operations, the expedition could plunder the ship at leisure. Doubtless its cargo should be sold very gradually, over a period of years, so as to avoid undue attention and to keep up the price of such exotic stuffs.
"I see." Sumu wiped curry from his chins, belched, and called for a girl to pick his teeth. "Yes. Good."
"George is a very resolute man," said Dominic. "His hope was always to lift our family out of tenantdom. He would die before telling anyone where the ship lies, unless I persuade him first." Slyly: "If Proprietor Kepuluk does not remember his face, I alone could identify my dear brother among all the plantation slaves."
"Yes, yes, yes," snapped Sumu. "I am a fair man. Ask anyone if I am not fair. You and Djordju shall have proper shares in the loot. Enough to go into business, under my protection. But now, about the cost—"
That night Dominic stayed in the house of Sumu. He was, in fact, a guest for several days. His chamber was pleasant, though it lacked windows, and he had enough company, for it opened directly on a barrackroom where the bachelor daggermen lived. No one got past that room without a key to the automatic lock, which Dominic didn't ask for. He messed with the daggermen, traded jokes, told them stories, and gambled. Cards on Unan Besar had changed faces, but were still essentially the same old pack of fifty-two. Dominic taught the boys a game called poker. They seized on it avidly, even though he won large amounts from them. Not that he cheated—that would have been fatal, under so many experienced eyes. He simply understood the game better. The daggermen accepted the fact, and were willing to pay for instruction. It would take many years to get back from neophytes elsewhere all that Dominic eventually won, but the Pulaoic mentality was patient.
Sumu shared that patience. He did not rush into Dominic's project, but made inquiries. A thornfruit dealer was located who had bought occasional shipments originating on Proprietor Kepuluk's holdings in Pegunungan Gradjugang. Hm, yes, they were mountaineers and forest dwellers there mostly, weren't they? The climate made them pale-skinned, if that hadn't simply been genetic drift. Sumu had no idea what genetic drift might be: the term impressed him enough that he didn't stop to ask exactly how light a complexion was meant. He was shrewd, but no intellectual heavyweight. He was convinced.
The investment was considerable, a hundred thousand silvers to start with. Two men were needed to lift the chest holding it. Those were Pradjung and a butcher boy named Mandau, both tough and strong and utterly reliable—especially since Pradjung still spat at Dominic's name. They would accompany the chest and the storyteller to Tandjung, where several others traveling by more open routes would meet them on the ship Sekaju.
About this time, when Dominic was again interviewed, he voiced a mild complaint at his detention and said he was due for his pill. Also, was it fitting that a loyal (however humble) servant of the famous Sumu went about in these dirty old clothes? Sumu shrugged and allowed Dominic to go, accompanied by a daggerman just in case. Dominic was in a happy mood. He spent a long time shopping for garments, while the daggerman yawned and sweated. Dominic made up for it by buying them both large quantities of wine. Afterward the luckless daggerman admitted he'd been too tired and drunk when Dominic went off to get his pill. He stayed in the tavern and never actually saw the storyteller go to the district dispensary. But Dominic soon came back to him and the fun resumed.
The next night had been set for departure. Dominic whiled the hours away with a new game. As the bravos came into the bunkroom for their naps, one by one during the course of the day, Dominic bet them he could make five pat five-card poker hands out of any twenty-five cards. He let his incredulous friends provide the pack, shuffle, and deal. Once or twice he lost, but the net sum he tucked away in several already fat purses was rather fantastic. Next day a bully who had once studied some arithmetic figured out that the odds in Dominic's favor had been about fifty to one. By then Dominic was gone.
He left the house after sunset. Rain sluiced from a hidden sky, roaring on the canal surface and drowning distant lamps. A speedboat waited with Pradjung, Mandau, and the chest of silvers. Dominic kissed Sumu's unclipped toenails and embarked. The boat slipped into darkness.
Several days previously, Dominic had proposed a route of his own as the least dangerous way out of town. Sumu had grinned and told him to stick to his storytelling. Dominic became so insistent that Sumu was forced to explain in detail precisely why a route down Burning Torch Canal and so out into the lake would attract less notice.
Now, when the boat planed close to the Bridge Where Amahai Wept, Dominic said a polite, "Excuse me." He reached across the cockpit and switched off motor and headlights.
"What in all hells—!" Pradjung leaped to his feet. Dominic slid back the canopy. Rain cataracted hot and heavy upon them. The boat glided toward a halt.
Pradjung snatched for the revolver Sumu had lent him. Dominic, timid spinner of yarns, failed to cower as expected. The chopping motion of his hand was instantaneous. A hard edge smacked on Pradjung's wrist. The gun clattered free.
The boat went slowly under the Bridge Where Amahai Wept. Someone leaped from the span. The deck thundered beneath that gorilla impact. Mandau snarled and tried to grapple. Kemul the mugger brushed his arms aside, put Mandau across one knee, broke his back, and threw him overboard.
Pradjung had drawn a knife. He stabbed underhanded at Dominic's belly. But Dominic wasn't there any more. He was a few centimeters to one side. His left wrist struck out, deflecting the blade. His right hand took Pradjung's free arm and spun the daggerman around. They fell together, but Dominic had the choking hold. After a few seconds, Pradjung turned blue and lay quietly.
Dominic got off. Kemul picked up the bravo. "No, wait," protested Dominic, "he's still alive—" Kemul threw Pradjung into the canal. "Oh, well," said Dominic and gunned the engine.
Headlights strengthened from behind, through the rain. "Kemul thinks Sumu had you followed," said the mugger. "It would make sense. Now they want to catch up with us and find why your lights went out. Shall we fight?"
"Can you lift a chest with a hundred thousand silvers?" asked Captain Sir Dominic Flandry.
Kemul whistled. Then: "Yes, Kemul can carry it a ways."
"Good. We needn't fight."
Flandry steered close to the left pier. As they went by a ladder, Kemul stepped off with the chest under one arm. Flandry revved the motor and went over the side. Treading water in the dark, he watched the second boat pursue his own out of sight.
Half an hour later, he stood in Luang's quarters above the Tavern Called Swampman's Ease and gestured at the open chest. "A hundred thousand," he said grandly. "Plus a good bit extra I made gambling. And a firearm, which I understand is hard for commoners to come by." It was thrust firmly into his own belt.
The girl lit a cigarette. "Well," she said, "the usual black market price for a pill is two thousand." She put a vial on the table. "Here are ten capsules. You have credit with me for forty more."
The lamp in the hooded god's hands threw soft coppery light across her. She wore a little paint on the amber skin, which was not her custom, luminous blue outlining eyes and breasts. There was a red blossom in her hair. For all its coolness, he thought her voice was not entirely level.
"When the boy brought us your note," said Kemul, "it seemed foolishness to wait in ambush where you desired. Even though we were surprised to hear from you at all. When you first left us to win your fortune, Kemul thought you a dead man already."
"You have more than common luck, I think." Luang frowned at her cigarette, avoiding Flandry's look. "In the past two or three days, there have been public announcements in the name of Nias Warouw. A reward is offered for you dead and a bigger one for you alive. The loudspeaker boats have not yet gotten as far as Sumu's district. It's plain to see, nobody who heard the criers had chanced to spy you, or knew you were with him. But he must soon have realized."
"I made the swindle move as fast as possible," Flandry said. The air was so hot and damp that he hoped they wouldn't notice the sweat on him was suddenly rather cold. "I'm an experienced con man. It's half my profession, one way or another. To be sure, I was a bit nervous about pulling a Spanish Prisoner here. You must have some home-grown version. But with refinements—" He broke off. They didn't follow his words, full of Anglic phrases as was necessary. "What do I owe you for my shirt and watch and wallet? It was good of you to give them back to me for a stake."
"Nothing," said Kemul. "They were useless to us, as Luang explained."
The girl bit her lip. "I hated for you to go out like that—all alone—" She put the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled so hard that her cheeks filled with shadow. Abruptly and roughly: "You are very clever, Terra man. I never had allies, except Kemul. They always betray you. But I think you could be a profitable associate."
"Thanks," said Flandry.
"One question yet. I forgot to ask you before. You knew Biocontrol makes all the antitoxin. What gave you the idea you could get any from us?"
Flandry yawned. He felt tired after all the strain and watchfulness. It was good to lounge back on the bed and look up at Luang, where she paced back and forth. "I felt confident someone would have some extras for sale," he answered. "Human cussedness is bound to find ways, when anything as valuable as this drug is to be had. For instance, armed raids on dispensaries, by masked men. Or the hijacking of shipments. Not often, I suppose, but it must happen occasionally. Or... well, there must be hunters, sailors, prospectors, and so on... men who have legitimate reasons for not coming near a dispensary every thirty days, and are allowed an advance supply of antitoxin. Once in a while they will be murdered, or robbed, or will die naturally and be stripped. Or simple corruption: a local dispenser juggles his records and peddles a few extra pills. Or he is bribed or blackmailed into doing it."
Luang nodded. "Yes," she said, "you are wise in such matters." With a sudden, odd defiance: "I get some capsules myself, now and then, from a certain dispenser. He is a young man."
Flandry chuckled. "I'm sure he gets more than value in return."
She stubbed out her cigarette with a savage gesture. Kemul rose, stretching. "Time for Kemul's nap," he said. "Around sunrise we can talk of what's to be done. The Captain is wily, Luang, but Kemul thinks best he be gotten out of Kompong Timur and used elsewhere for a time. Till Warouw and Sumu forget him."
Her nod was curt. "Yes. We will talk about it tomorrow."
"Good rest, Luang," said Kemul. "Are you coming, Captain? Kemul has an extra bed."
"Good rest, Kemul," said Luang.
The giant stared at her.
"Good rest," she repeated.
Kemul turned to the door. Flandry couldn't see his face; not that Flandry particularly cared to, just then. "Good rest," said Kemul, barely audible, and went out.
Someone laughed like a raucous bird, down in the joyhouse. But the rain was louder, filling all the night with a dark rushing. Luang did not smile at Flandry. Her mouth held a bitterness he did not quite understand, and she switched off the light as if it were an enemy.
VIII
Two thousand kilometers north of Kompong Timur, a mountain range heaved itself skyward. It was dominated by Gunung Utara, which was also a city.
The morning after he arrived, Flandry stepped out on the ledge fronting his hostel. Behind him, a tunnel ran into black basalt, looping and twisting and branching, for it was an ancient fumarole. Rooms had been excavated along that corridor; airblowers and fluorescent tubes had been installed; plastisurfacing and tapestries softened bare rock. Most of the city was built into such natural burrows, supplemented with artificial caves—up and down the slopes of Gunung Utara.
Flandry could just see the cliff behind him, and about ten meters downward where the ledge tumbled below his feet. Otherwise his world was thick white mist. It distorted sounds; he heard machines and voices as if from far away and from impossible directions. The air was thin and cool, his breath smoked. He shivered and drew tighter about him the hooded cloak which local people added to kilt, stockings, and shirt. After all, they lived a good 2,500 meters above sea level.
There was a rumbling underfoot, deeper than any engine, and the ground quivered a little. Gunung Utara dreamed.
Flandry lit an atrocious native cigarette. Luang had promptly sold all his Terran supply. Presently he would go look for some breakfast. Food in the lowlands had been heavy on rice and fish, but Luang said meat was cheaper in the mountains. Bacon and eggs? No, that would be too much to hope for. Flandry sighed.
It had been a pleasant trip here, though. Extremely pleasant, on admirably frequent occasions. The girl had not merely sent him off to hide, but come along herself, with Kemul at heel. They had been ferried across the lake at night by someone who would keep his mouth shut. At the depot on the far side, she engaged a private cabin on one of the motorized rafts which plied the Ukong River. He stayed inside that, and she spent most of her time with him, while the raft chugged them slowly northeast to Muarabeliti. (Kemul slept outside the door, and said little in waking hours, spending most of his time with a marijuana pipe.) There they could have gotten an airliner, but since that was only for the wealthy, it seemed safer to go by monorail. Not that they jammed themselves into a third-class car like ordinary peasants; they got a compartment, suitable conveyance for petty bourgeoisie. Across a continent of jungle, plantation, and drowned lowland, Flandry had once more paid less attention to the scenery than a dutiful tourist should. And now they were holed up in Gunung Utara until the heat went off, with Biocontrol certain that Flandry must be dead.
And then?
He heard the lightest clack of shoes on stone and turned around. Luang emerged from the tunnel. She had yielded to this climate with a flame-red tunic and purple tights, but the effect was still remarkable, even before breakfast. "You should have called me, Dominic," she said. "I rapped on Kemul's door, but he is still snoring." She yawned, curving her back and raising small fists into the fog. "This is no town for long naps. Here men work hard and wealth flows quickly. It has grown much since I visited it last, and that was only a few years ago. Let me get well established, and I can hope to earn—"
"Oh, no, you don't!" Somewhat to his own astonishment, Flandry discovered that he retained a few absurd prejudices. "Not while we're partners."
She laughed, deep in her throat, and took his arm. It was not a very gentle gesture, though. She was curt and fierce with him, and would never say much about herself. "As you wish. But what then shall we do?"
"Live quietly. We've more than enough funds."
She let him go and snatched a cigarette out of a pocket. "Bah! Gunung Utara is rich, I tell you! Lead, silver, gems, I know not what else. Even a common miner may go prospecting and gain a fortune. It's soon taken from him. I want to do some of the taking."
"It is quite safe for me to show myself?" he asked cautiously. .
She looked at him. With his beard still inhibited, he needed only to shave his upper lip each day. Dye had blackened his hair, whose shortness he explained to the curious as due to a bout of jungle fungus, and contact lenses made his eyes brown. The harsh sunlight had already done the same for his skin. There remained his height and the unPulaoic cast of his face, but enough caucasoid genes floated around in the population that such features, though rare, were not freakish. "Yes," she said, "if you remember that you are from across the ocean."
"Well, the chance must be taken, I suppose, if you insist on improving the shining hour with racketeering." Flandry sneezed. "But why did we have to come here, of all drizzly places?"
"I told you a dozen times, fool. This is a mining town. New men arrive each day from all over the planet. No one notices a stranger." Luang drew smoke into her lungs, as if to force out the mist. "I like not the god-hated climate myself, but it can't be helped."
"Oh, right-o." Flandry glanced up. A light spot showed in the east, where sun and wind were breaking the mists. A warm planet like Unan Besar could expect strong moist updrafts, which would condense into heavy clouds at some fairly constant altitude. Hereabouts, that was the altitude at which the mines happened to lie. The area was as foggy as a politician's brain.
It seemed reckless to build a town right into a volcano. But Luang said Gunung Utara was nearly extinct. Smoldering moltenness deep underneath it provided a good energy source, and thus another reason for this settlement; but the crater rarely did more than growl and fume. It was unusually active at the present time. There was even a lava flow. But the same engineers whose geophysical studies proved there would never again be a serious eruption, had built channels for such outpourings.
As the fog lightened, Flandry could see the ledge below this one, and the head of a crazily steep trail which wound down past tunnel mouths. He caught a sulfurous whiff.
"We should find it interesting for a while," he said. "But what do we do afterward?"
"Go back to Kompong Timur, I suppose. Or anywhere else in the world that you think there may be a profit. Between us we will always do well."
"That's just it." He dropped his cigarette butt and ground it under his sandal. "Here I am, the man who can free your whole people from Biocontrol—I don't believe in false modesty, or even in true modesty—"
"Biocontrol never troubled me very much." Her tone grew sharp. "Under a new arrangement... oh, yes, I can easily foresee what an upheaval your cheap antitoxin would bring... would I survive?"
"You could prosper in any situation, my dear." Flandry's grin died away. "Until you get old."
"I don't expect to reach old age," she snapped, "but if I do, I'll have money hoarded to live on." The clouds rifted, and one sunbeam dashed itself blindingly along the mountainside. Far down the slope, among ledges and crags and boulders, a rolling road was being installed to carry ore from a minehead to a refinery. Antlike at this distance, men crawled about moving rock by hand. Flandry had no binoculars, but he knew very well how gaunt those men were, how often they lost footing and went over a cliff, how their overseers walked among them with electric prods. But still the sunbeam raced downward, splitting the fog like a burning lance, until it touched the valley under the mountain. Impossibly green that valley was, green fire streaked with mist and streams, against the bare red and black rock which surrounded it. Down there, Flandry knew, lay rice paddies, where the wives and children of the construction gang stooped in the mud as wives and children had since the Stone Age. Yet once upon a time, for a few generations, it wasn't done this way.
He said, "The hand labor of illiterates is so cheap, thanks to your precious social system, that you're sliding back from the machine era. In another several centuries, left to yourselves, you'll propel your rafts with sweeps and pull wagons with animals."
"You and I will be soundly asleep in our graves then, Dominic," said Luang. "Come, let's find a tea house and get some food."
"Given literacy," he persisted, "machines can work still cheaper. Faster, too. If Unan Besar was exposed to the outside universe, labor such as those poor devils are doing would be driven off the market in one lifetime."
She stamped her foot and flared: "I tell you, I don't care about them!"
"Please don't accuse me of altruism. I just want to get home. These aren't my people or my way of life... good God, I'd never find out who won this year's meteor ball pennant!" Flandry gave her a shrewd glance. "You know, you'd find a visit to some of the more advanced planets interesting. And profitable. D' you realize what a novelty you'd be to a hundred jaded Terran nobles, any of whom could buy all Unan Besar for a yo-yo?"
Her eyes lit up momentarily. Then she laughed and shook her head. "Oh, no, Dominic! I see your bait and I won't take your hook. Remember, there is no way off this planet."
"Come, now. My own spaceship is probably still at the port, plus several left over from pioneering days, plus the occasional Betelgeusean visitor. A raid on the place—or, more elegantly, the theft of a ship—"
"And how long until you returned with a cargo of capsules?"
Flandry didn't answer. They had been through this argument before. She continued, jetting smoke between phrases like a slender dragon: "You told me it would take several days to reach Spica. Then you must get the ear of someone important, who must come investigate and satisfy himself you are right, and go back, and report to his superiors, who will wrangle a long time before authorizing the project. And you admitted it will take time, perhaps many days, to discover exactly what the antitoxin is and how to duplicate it. Then it must be produced in quantity, and loaded aboard ships, and brought here, and—Oh, by every howling hell, you idiot, what do you think Biocontrol will do meanwhile? They will destroy the vats the moment they know you have escaped. There is no reserve supply worth mentioning. No one here could hope to live more than a hundred of our days, unless he barricaded himself in a dispensary. Your precious Spicans would find a planetful of bones!"
"You could escape with me," he said, chiefly to test her reaction.
It was as he had hoped: "I don't care what happens to all these stupid people, but I won't be a party to murdering them!"
"I understand all that," he said hastily. "We've been over this ground often enough. But can't you see, Luang, I was only talking in general terms. I didn't mean anything as crude as an open breakaway. I'm sure I can find a way to slip off without Biocontrol suspecting a thing. Smuggle myself aboard a Betelgeusean ship, for instance."
"I've known Guards, some of whom have been on spaceport duty. They told me how carefully the Red Star folk are watched."
"Are you sure Biocontrol will pull the switch?"
"Sure enough. They can take a final dose of medicine and flee in the other ships."
"If those were sabotaged, though—?"
"Oh, not every man of them would ruin the world for sheer spite. Perhaps not even most. Especially if it meant their own deaths. But they all stand watches at the vats... and Dominic, all it needs is one fanatic, and there is more than one. No!" Luang discarded her cigarette and took his arm again, digging sharp nails into his flesh. "If ever I find you scheming any such lunacy, I will tell Kemul to break your neck. Now I am starving, and this is also the day when I should get my pill."
Flandry sighed.
He let her go first down the ladder to the trail. They walked precariously, unused to such steepness, and entered the crowds at lower levels. An engineer, in gaily embroidered tunic and the arrogance of a well-paid position, had a way cleared for him by two brawny miners. A yellow-robed priest walked slowly, counting his beads and droning a charm; from a cave mouth several meters above the path, a wrinkled wizard in astrological cloak made faces at him. A vendor cried his wares of fruit and rice, carried up from the valley at the ends of a yoke. A mother screamed and snatched her child from the unfenced edge of a precipice. Another woman squatted in a tunnel entrance and cooked over a tiny brazier. A third stood outside a jabbering joy cave and propositioned a gaping yokel from some jungle village. A smith sang invocations as he thrust a knife blade into the tempering solenoid. A rug seller sat in a booth and called his bargains to every passerby. High overhead, a bird of prey soared among the last ragged mists. Sunlight struck its wings and made them gold.
From a vantage point Flandry could see how the city came to an end and the raw mountain slope stretched northward: cinders, pinnacles, and congealed lava flows. Across a few kilometers of wasteland he spied a concrete dyke, banking the magma channel. Smoke hazed it, as the liquid rock oozed downward and froze. Above all tiers of city and all naked scours lifted the volcanic cone. The wind was blowing its vapors away, which was one thing to thank the lean cold wind for.
"Oh. This is the dispensary. I may as well get my medicine now."
Flandry stopped under the Biocontrol insigne. Actually, he knew, Luang had a couple of days' grace yet, but the law permitted that much overlap. He also knew she had illicit pills and didn't really need to buy her ration—but only a dead man could fail to do so without drawing the instant notice of the authorities. He accompanied her through the rock-hewn entrance.
The office beyond was small, luxuriously furnished in the low-legged cushions-and-matting style of Unan Besar. A door led to the living quarters which went along with this job; another door was built like a treasury vault's. Behind a desk sat a middle-aged man. He wore a white robe with an open hand pictured on the breast, and his pate was shaven; but the golden brand was not on his brow, for employees like him were not ordained members of Biocontrol.
"Ah." He smiled at Luang. Most men did. "Good day. I have not seen you before, gracious lady."
"My friend and I are newly arrived." With her to look at, Flandry didn't think the dispenser would notice him much. She counted ten silvers, the standard price, down on the table. The dispenser didn't check them for genuineness, as anyone else would have. If you passed bad money to Biocontrol, you'd be in trouble enough the next time! He activated a small electronic machine. Luang put her hands flat on a plate. The machine blinked and hummed, scanning them.
Flandry could imagine the system for himself. Her print pattern was flashed by radio to a central electronic file in Kompong Timur. In seconds the file identified her, confirmed that she was indeed ready for her ration, established that she was not wanted by the Guards, made the appropriate addition to her tape, and sent back its okay. As the machine buzzed, Luang removed her hands from it. The dispenser took her money and went to the vault, which scanned his own fingers and opened for him. He came back without the coins, the door closed again, he gave Luang a blue capsule.
"One moment, my dear, one moment. Allow me." He bustled over to fill a beaker with water. "There, now it will go down easier. Eh-h-h?" Flandry doubted if he was as attentive to the average citizen. At least, not judging from the way he used the opportunity to do a little pinching.
"Where are you staying in our city, gracious lady?" he beamed.
"For now, noble sir, at the Inn of the Nine Serpents." Luang was plainly unhappy at having to linger—but, equally plainly, you were never impolite to a dispenser. In law he had no rights over you. In practice, it was not unknown for a dispenser to block the signaler, so that GHQ never recorded a given visit, and then hand his personal enemy a capsule without contents.
"Ah, so. Not the best. Not the best. Not suitable at all for a damsel like yourself. I must think about recommending a better place for you. Perhaps we could talk it over sometime?"
Luang fluttered her lashes. "You honor me, sir. Alas, business compels me to hurry off. But... perhaps, indeed, later—?" She left while he was still catching his breath.
Once outdoors, she spat. "Ugh! I'll want some arrack in my tea, to get the taste out!"
"I should think you would be used to that sort of thing," said Flandry.
He meant it in all thoughtless innocence, but she hissed like an angry snake and jerked free of him. "What the blue deuce?" he exclaimed. She slipped into the crowd. In half a minute, he had lost sight of her.
IX
He checked his stride. Chattering brown people thronged by, forcing him off the trailstreet and onto a detritus slope. After some while, he realized he was staring past the stone wall which kept these rocks off terraces below, downward to an ore processing plant. Its stack drooled yellow smoke, as if ambitious to be a volcano too. Nothing about it merited Flandry's unbroken attention.
Well, he thought in a dull and remote fashion, I still haven't had my breakfast.
He began trudging over the scree, paralleling the trail but in no mood to go back and jostle his way along it. The downslope on the other side of the low wall became steeper as he went, until it was a cliff dropping fifty meters to the next level of dwellings. Stones scrunched underfoot. The mountain filled half his world with black massiveness, the other half was sky.
His first dismay—and, yes, he might as well admit it, his shock of pity for Luang and loneliness for himself—had receded enough for him to start calculating. Trouble was, he lacked data. If the girl had simply blown a gasket when he touched some unsuspected nerve, that was one thing. He might even use the reconciliation to advance his argument again, about escaping from Unan Besar. But if she had dropped him for good and all, he was in a bad situation. He couldn't guess if she had or not. A man thought he understood women, more or less, and then somebody like Luang showed up.
Of course, if the worst comes to the worst—but that's just what it's likely to do—
Hoy! What's this?
Flandry stopped. Another man had left the trail and was walking across the slope. A boy, rather: couldn't be more than sixteen, with so round a face and slender a body. He looked as if he hadn't eaten lately and had hocked everything but his kilt. Yet that was of shimmery velvety cloth, not cheap at all. Odd.
Something about his blind purposefulness jabbed understanding into Flandry. The Terran began to run. The boy sprang up on the wall. He stood there a moment, gazing into the wan sky of Unan Besar. Sunlight flooded across him. Then he jumped.
Flandry did a belly whopper across the wall and caught an ankle. He almost went over too. "Oof!" he said, and lay draped with the boy squirming and swinging at the end of his arm. When his breath returned, he hauled his burden back over and dumped it on the ground. The boy gave one enormous shudder and passed out.
A crowd was gathering, quite agog. "All right," panted Flandry, "all right, the show's over. I thank you for your kind attention. Anyone who wishes to pass the hat is free to do so." A Guard shoved through. No mistaking that green kilt and medallion, the knife and club, or the built-in swagger.
"What's this?" he said, in the manner of policemen the universe over.
"Nothing," said Flandry. "The boy got a little reckless and nearly had an accident."
"So? Looked to me as if he jumped."
"Only a game. Boys," said Flandry with sparkling wit, "will be boys."
"If he's contracted or enslaved, suicide would be an evasion of obligations and attempted suicide would rate a flogging."
"No, he's free. I know him, Guardsman."
"Even a free man has no right to jump within city limits. He might have hit somebody underneath him. He'd have made a mess for someone to clean up, that's certain. Both of you come with me now, and we'll look into this."
Flandry's spine tingled. If he got himself arrested on so much as a malicious mopery charge, that was the end of the party. He smiled and reached inside his kilt pocket. "I swear it was only a near accident, Guardsman," he said. "And I'm a busy man." He extracted one of his purses. "I haven't time to argue this officially. Why don't you... ah... take ten silvers and go settle any claims there may be? It would be so much easier all around."
"What? Do you mean—"
"Quite right. The aggrieved parties ought to have at least two goldens between them. You know this city, Guardsman, and I'm a newcomer. You can find who deserves the payment. I beg you, do not burden my soul with debts I cannot settle." Flandry thrust the coins into his hand.
"Ah. Ah, yes." The Guard nodded. "Yes, it would be best that way, wouldn't it? Seeing that no actual damage was done."
"I am always pleased to meet a man of discretion." Flandry bowed. The Guard bowed. They parted with murmurs of mutual esteem. The crowd lost interest and continued on its various ways. Flandry knelt beside the boy, who was coming to, and cradled the dark head in his arms.
"Take it easy, son," he advised.
"Oa-he, tuan, why did you stop me?" A shaken whisper. "Now I must nerve myself all over again."
"Ridiculous project," snorted Flandry. "Here, can you get up? Lean on me."
The boy staggered to his feet. Flandry supported him. "When was your last meal?" he inquired.
"I don't remember." The boy knuckled his eyes, like a small child.
"Well, I was on my way to breakfast, which by now is more like luncheon. Come join me."
The thin body stiffened. "A man of Ranau takes no beggar's wage."
"I'm not offering charity, you gruntbrain. I want to feed you so you can talk rationally, which is the only way I can learn whether you're the person I want to hire for a certain job."
Flandry looked away from the sudden, bitterly resisted tears. "Come!" he snapped. His guess had been right, the youngster was out of work and starving. A stranger to this area: obviously so, from the intricate foreign pattern of his batik and from his dialect. Well, an outlander might prove of some use to a stranded Imperialist.
A tea house wasn't far off. At this sunny time of day, most of its customers sat on a ledge outside beneath giant red parasols, and looked down on a ravine full of clouds. Flandry and the boy took cushions at one table. "Tea with a jug of arrack to lace it," Flandry told the waiter. "And two of your best rijstaffels."
"Two, sir?"
"To begin with, anyhow." Flandry offered the boy a cigarette. It was refused. "What's your name, younker?"
"Djuanda, son of Tembesi, who is chief ecologist on the Tree Where the Ketjils Nest, which is in Ranau." The head bowed above folded hands. "You are kind to a stranger, tuan."
"I'm one myself." Flandry lit his own tobacco and reached for his tea cup as it arrived. "From, ah, Pegunungan Gradjugang, across the Tindjil Ocean. Name's Dominic. I came here in hopes of my fortune."
"Half the world does, I think." Djuanda slurped his tea in the approved Pulaoic manner. His voice had strengthened already, which underlined the anger in it. "So half the world are fools."
"Commoners have become rich men here, I am told."
"One in a million, perhaps... for a while... until he loses it to a cheat. But the rest? They rot their lungs in the mines, and their wives and children cough like amphibians in the rice paddies, and at the end they are so far in debt they must become slaves. Oh, tuan, the sun hates Gunung Utara!"
"What brought you, then?"
Djuanda sighed. "I thought the Trees of Ranau were not high enough."
"Eh?"
"I mean... it is a saying of my folk. A tree which grows too high will topple at last. Surulangun Ridge is the earth-buried bole of such a tree. It fell a thousand years ago, three hundred meters tall, and the forest still bears the scars of its falling, and the Ridge is still hot from its slow decay. The old people made a parable of it, and told us not to strive beyond reason. But I always thought—how splendid the great tree must have been while it lived!"
"So you ran away from home?"
Djuanda looked at the fists clenched in his lap. "Yes. I had a little money, from my share of our trade with outland merchants. It got me passage here. Tuan, believe I never scorned my folk. I only thought they were too stiff in their ways. Surely modern engineering skills could be of value to us. We might build better houses, for example. And we ought to start industries which would bring more cash money to Ranau, so we could buy more of what the merchants offered—not merely toys and baubles, but better tools. This I told my father, but he would not hear of it, and at last I departed without his blessing."
Djuanda glanced up again, anxious to justify himself. "Oh, I was not altogether foolish, tuan. I had written to the mine chiefs here, offering myself as an engineer apprentice. One of them had written back, agreeing to give me a position. I knew it would be humble, but I could learn in it. So I thought."
"Have a drink," said Flandry, sloshing arrack into his guest's cup. "What happened?"
Djuanda demurred. It took several minutes and numerous sips of the now high-octane tea before he broke down and admitted he'd been played for a sucker. The job was as advertised—but he had to buy equipment like respirators out of the company slop chest, at a staggering markup. Before long he was in debt. Someone took him out on a bender to forget his troubles, and steered him into a clip joint. What with one thing and another, Djuanda lost what he had, borrowed from a loan shark to recoup, lost that too, and finally faced the prospect of crawling back to the loan shark to borrow ten silvers for his next pill.
"Couldn't you write home for help?" Flandry asked.
The immature face grew stiff with pride. "I had defied my father's will, tuan. In the hearing of all our Tree, I said I was now a man able to look after myself. Did I not at least make my own way home again, his dignity would suffer as much as mine. No. I found another eager young man, the gods be pitiful toward him, who wanted my position and could pay me somewhat for it. I sold all I owned. It was still not enough. I went to the dispenser and told him he could keep my last pill, recording it as issued to me, for fifty goldens. He would only give me five." (Black market resale value, one hundred goldens, Flandry remembered. The poor rube from Ranau had had no concept of haggling.) "So I could not buy passage home. But at least I now had enough to clear my name from debt. I flung the coins in the moneylender's face. Then for days I tried to find other work, any work, but it was only offered to me if I would become a slave. No man of Ranau has ever been a slave. I went forth at last to die honorably. But you came by, tuan. So I suppose the gods do not want me yet," finished Djuanda naively.
"I see." To cover his own need for a thinking space, as well as the boy's, Flandry raised his cup. "Confusion to moneylenders!"
"Damnation to Biocontrol," said Djuanda, with a slight hiccough.
"What?" Flandry set down his own cup and stared.
"Nothing!" Fear rose in the dark liquid eyes. "Nothing, tuan! I said not a word!"
This might bear further investigation, Flandry thought with excitement. I was wondering what the hell to do about this lad—couldn't have him tagging along with his big wet ears a-flap in the breeze—not when my scalp is still wanted—But this makes him, perhaps, a lucky find. The first I've heard who's said anything against Biocontrol itself. He's too young to have thought of it on his own. So... somewhere in his home town, at least one older person—probably more—has daydreamed about a revolution—
The soup arrived. Djuanda forgot his terrors in attacking it. Flandry poured more liquor and ate at a calmer pace. While they waited for the main course, he said conversationally, "I've never heard of Ranau. Tell me about it...."
A rijstaffel, properly made, is a noble dish requiring a couple of hours to eat. Then there was sherbet, with more tea and arrack. And a pair of strolling dancers came up to earn a few coppers by entertaining the wealthy man. And another jug of arrack seemed indicated. And there was a never ending string of toasts to drink.
The white sun climbed to the zenith and toppled. Shadows rose under the mountain. When the sun went behind the crater, the sky was still blue, but it duskened rapidly and the evening star was kindled over eastern ridges. A low cold wind piped along ashen slopes, whipping the first streamers of cloud before it.
Flandry stood up, relieving cramped muscles in a giant yawn. "We'll go back to my room," he suggested. Djuanda, unhardened to drinking, gave him a blurry look. Flandry laughed and tossed the boy his cloak. "Here, better put this on. You look as if you can stand an overnight nap. We'll talk further after sunrise." It seemed as good a way as any of putting Djuanda on the shelf while he assessed his own situation with respect to Luang. (And to Kemul. Never forget those enormous strangler's hands.) Alcohol glowed along Flandry's veins, but his new confidence could also be justified logically. If Luang had indeed decided to hate him—or even if she remained too stubborn about an escape attempt—Djuanda offered a ready-made entree to Ranau. What hints he had gotten suggested to Flandry that Ranau could prove useful. Very useful, perhaps.
Below the retaining wall, where shadows had already engulfed the slopes, lamps were twinkling to life. But fog rose up, to blur and finally smother those tiny strewn stars. Flandry guided a somewhat wobbly Djuanda, who sang songs, up the sharp trail toward the Inn of the Nine Serpents. Having negotiated the last ladder and crossed the terrace, he went down the fumarole to his door. It had an ancient type of lock, he must grope for his key... no, wait, it wasn't locked after all, so his companions must be in there expecting his return.... With a split second's hesitation, Flandry opened the door and stepped through.
Two green-kilted men snatched at his arms. Across the chamber, Flandry saw a dozen more. Kemul and Luang sat with ankles lashed together. Flandry got one look at the girl's face turned toward his. "Get out!" he heard her scream. A Guard smacked his stick against her temple. She sagged into Kemul's lap. The mugger roared.
Nias Warouw leaned against the farther wall, smoking an outplanet cigarette and smiling.
Flandry had barely glimpsed the men closing in on either side. His reaction was too fast for thought. Spinning on his heel, he drove stiff-held fingers into the throat before him. It was one way to break your hand, unless you struck your enemy with a vector precisely normal to the skin. Flandry opened the throat and tore the windpipe across.
The other man was upon his back. Arms closed around the Terran's neck. Flandry's head was already down, chin protecting larynx. He dropped straight through the hug, hit the floor and rolled over.
The Guard backed into the doorway. His knife gleamed forth. The rest of Warouw's troop stalked closer, their own blades drawn.
Flandry bounced to his feet, reached in his shirt, and yanked out the pistol he had captured.
He didn't waste his breath crowing. Not when knives and clubs could be hurled from every side. He shot.
Four men went down in as many explosions. The others milled back. Flandry's eyes searched through a reeking haze of cordite. Where was their chief now—? Warouw looked out from behind one of the rough pillars upholding the ceiling. Still he smiled. Flandry fired and missed. Warouw's right hand emerged, with a modern Betelgeusean blaster.
Flandry didn't stop for heroics. He didn't even stop to make a conscious decision. His chance of hitting Warouw with his own clumsy weapon was negligible. A single wide-beam low-energy blaster shot couldn't possibly miss. It would roll him screaming on the floor. Later, if he wanted to take the trouble, Warouw could have his seared prisoner treated in some hospital.
The Guard at the door was down with a slug in his chest. The door stood open. Flandry went through it.
As he burst out on the terrace again, Warouw was close behind. The rest of the Guards swarmed shouting in their wake. The dusk was cool and blue, almost palpable, surrounding all things and drowning them. Mist and smoke hung in it. Flandry bounded down the ladder to the trailstreet.
There went a rumbling through air and earth. Briefly, flame gushed in the sky. From an open doorway came the sound of crockery falling and smashing; a woman ran out with a scream. Flandry glimpsed several men halted in their tracks, looking up toward the crater. Their bodies were shadows in this vague twilight, but the gleam of a lamp touched white eyeballs. Further down the trail, the barely visible mass of the crowds had stopped seething. Their mutter lifted between black walls.
Gunung Utara was angry.
Warouw paused only an instant at the foot of the ladder. Then a flashbeam sprang from his left hand and speared Flandry. The Terran whirled, dashed from the light, over the pebbles to the retaining wall. He heard footfalls rattle behind him.
At this point, he remembered, the downslope beyond the wall was steep and rugged. He made out a boulder, and leaped from the wall to its top. Another shock went through the ground. The boulder stirred beneath him and he heard lesser stones grind valleyward. Warouw's flash darted from the wall, here, there, hunting him. Where to go? He could see naught but darkness and thickening fogs. No, wait... was that another jut of rock, two meters away? No time to wonder. He sprang. Almost, he missed, and heard below him the shifting of debris which would cut his feet to rags if he landed in it. He grasped an invisible roughness, pulled himself up on top of the crag, spied another mass below him, and jumped to that.
Warouw's light bobbed in pursuit.
Flandry realized he was cutting across town. He didn't know how long he sprang from coign to coign. It was all mist and darkness. Somehow he crossed another safety wall, landed on a terrace, scrambled to the trail beneath, and sped among emptied caves.
Panther to his mountain goat, Warouw followed. Once in a while, for a fractional second, his light picked out the Terran.
Then Flandry was beyond the city. The trail petered out. He ran across a bare slope, over black cinders and among crags like tall ghosts.
He could just see how sharply the ground rose on his left, almost a cliff, up to the crater rim. Gunung Utara thundered. Flandry felt the noise in his teeth and marrow. Cinders shifted, dust filled his nostrils. Somewhere a boulder went hurtling and bouncing down toward the valley. Smoke boiled from the crater, a solid column three kilometers high, lit from beneath with dull flickering red.
Flandry looked back. The flashbeam jiggled in a gloom where streamers of mist seemed to glow white. He lurched onward. A few times he stumbled, teetered on the uneasy slope, and heard a roar as the scree slid downward. No use heading that way, unless he wanted to die in chunks. He sobbed for air, his lungs were twin deserts and his gullet afire.
A sheer wall rose before him. He ran into it and stared stupidly for seconds before he comprehended. The magma dyke. Yes. Yes, that was it. Must be some way up... here, a ladder, iron rungs set into the concrete....
He stood on a railed platform and looked down into the channel. The molten rock threw gusts of heat and poison gas at him. It growled and glowed, ember colored, but he thought he could see tiny flames sheet back and forth across its current. If he wasn't crazy. If he wasn't dreaming.
There was no way to go from here. No bridge, no catwalk to the other side. Not even a flat top on the levee itself. Only the platform, where the engineers could stand to check the stone river. Why should there be more? Flandry leaned on the rail and fought to breathe.
A voice from below, hardly discernible through racing blood and the snarl of Gunung Utara—but cool, almost amused: "If you wish to immolate yourself in the lava, Captain, you still have time. Or you can stay there, holding us off, till the fumes have overcome you. Or, of course, you can surrender now. In that case, the persons who assisted you will not be put in the cage."
Flandry croaked, "Will you let them go?"
"Come, come," chided Warouw. "Let us be sensible. I promise nothing except to spare them the ultimate punishment."
Somewhere in the pounding weariness of his brain, Flandry thought that he should at least make an epigram. But it was too much like work. He threw his gun into the lava. "I'll be down in a minute," he sighed.
X
Awakening was slow, almost luxurious until he realized the aches and dullnesses in him. He sat up with a groan which turned into an obscenity.
But the chamber was large and cool. Its view of gardens, pools, and small arched bridges was very little spoiled by a wrought-iron grille set in the window frame. A clean outfit of kilt and sandals lay waiting next to the low bedstead. An alcove behind a screen held a bathroom, complete with shower.
"Well," murmured Flandry to himself, as he let hot needles of water wash some of the stiffness out, "it's the minimum decent thing they can do for me... after last night." That memory brought a shiver, and he hurriedly continued his graveyard whistling: "So let's hope they do the most. Breakfast, dancing girls, and a first-class one-way ticket to Terra."
Not that they had tortured him. Warouw wasn't that crude. Flandry hoped. Most of the physical suffering had been due his own exhaustion. They didn't let him sleep, but hustled him straight to a highspeed aircar and questioned him all the way to wherever-this-was. Thereafter they continued the grilling, established that he was indeed immune to any drug in their inquisitorial pharmacopeia, but did their best to break his will with his own sheer grogginess. Flandry was on to that method, having applied it himself from time to time; he'd been able to cushion the worst effects by relaxation techniques.
Still, it had been no fun. He didn't even remember being conducted to this room when the party broke up.
He examined himself in the mirror. His dyed hair was showing its natural hue at the roots, his mustache was noticeable again, and the high cheekbones stood forth under a skin stretched tight. Without their lenses, his eyes revealed their own color, but more washed out than normal. I was interrogated a long time, he thought. And then, of course, I may easily have slept for twenty hours.
He was scarcely dressed when the door opened. A pair of Guards glowered at him. There were truncheons in their hands. "Come," snapped one. Flandry came. He felt inwardly lepidopteral. And why not? For a captain's lousy pay, did the Imperium expect courage too?
He seemed to be in a residential section—rather luxurious, its hallways graciously decorated, servants scurrying obsequiously about—within a much larger building. Or... not exactly residential. The apartments he glimpsed didn't look very lived in. Transient, yes, that must be it. A hostel for Biocontrol personnel whose business brought them here. He began to realize precisely where he must be, and his scalp prickled.
At the end of the walk, he was shown into a suite bigger than most. It was fitted in austere taste: black pillars against silvery walls, black tables, one lotus beneath a scroll which was a calligraphic masterpiece. An archway opened on a balcony overlooking gardens, a metal stockade, jungled hills rolling into blue distances. Sunlight and birdsong came through.
Nias Warouw sat on a cushion before a table set for breakfast. He gestured at the Guards, who bowed very low and departed. Flandry took a place opposite their master. Warouw's short supple body was draped in a loose robe which showed the blaster at his hip. He smiled and poured Flandry's tea with his own hands.
"Good day, Captain," he said, "I trust you are feeling better?"
"Slightly better than a toad with glanders," Flandry admitted.
A servant pattered in, knelt, and put a covered dish on the table. "May I recommend this?" said Warouw. "Filet of badjung fish, lightly fried in spiced oil. It is eaten with slices of chilled coconut—so."
Flandry didn't feel hungry till he began. Then he became suddenly sharkish. Warouw crinkled his face in a still wide smile and heaped the Terran's plate with rice, in which meat and baked fruits were shredded. By the time a platter of tiny omelets arrived, Flandry's animal needs were satisfied enough that he could stop and ask for the recipe.
Warouw gave it to him. "Possibly the aspect of your wideranging career most to be envied by a planet-bound individual such as myself, Captain," he added, "is the gastronomical. To be sure, certain crops of Terran origin must be common to a great many human-colonized planets. But soil, climate, and mutation doubtless vary the flavors enormously. And then there are the native foods. Not to mention the sociological aspect: the local philosophy and practice of cuisine. I am happy that our own developments apparently find favor with you."
"Ummm, grmff, chmp," said Flandry, reaching for seconds.
"I myself could wish for more intercourse between Unan Besar and the rest of the galaxy," said Warouw. "Unfortunately, that is impracticable." He poured himself a cup of tea and sipped it, watching the other man with eyes as alert as a squirrel's. He had not eaten heavily.
The Terran finished in half an hour or so. Not being accustomed from boyhood to sit cross-legged, he sprawled on the floor in his relaxation. Warouw offered him Spican cigarillos, which he accepted like his soul's salvation.
Inwardly, he thought: This is an old gimmick. Make things tough for your victim, then quickly ease off the pressure and speak kindly to him. It's broken down a lot of men. As for me... I'd better enjoy it while it lasts.
Because it wasn't going to.
He drew blessedly mild smoke into his throat and let it tickle his nose on the way out. "Tell me, Captain, if you will," said Warouw, "what is your opinion of the Terran poet L. de le Roi? I have gotten a few of his tapes from the Betelgeuseans, and while of course a great many nuances must escape me—"
Flandry sighed. "Fun is fun," he said, "but business is business."
"I don't quite understand, Captain."
"Yes, you do. You set an excellent table, and I'm sure your conversation is almost as cultural as you believe. But it's hard for me to expand like a little flowerbud when I don't know what's happening to my friends."
Warouw stiffened, it was barely perceptible, and the first syllable or two of his answer was ever so faintly off key. However, it came smoothly enough, with an amiable chuckle: "You must allow me a few items in reserve, Captain. Accept my word that they are not at the moment suffering at the hands of my department, and let us discuss other things."
Flandry didn't press his point. It would only chill the atmosphere. And he wanted to do as much probing as he could while Warouw was still trying the benevolent uncle act.
Not that anything he learned would help him much. He was thoroughly trapped, and in a while he might be thoroughly destroyed. But action, any action, even this verbal shadowboxing, was one way to avoid thinking about such impolite details.
"Professionally speaking," he said, "I'm interested to know how you trapped me."
"Ah." Warouw gestured with his own cigarillo, not at all loath to expound his cleverness. "Well, when you made your... eh... departure in Kompong Timur, it might have been the hysterical act of a fool who had simply blundered onto us. If so, you were not to be worried about. But I dared not assume it. Your whole manner indicated otherwise—not to mention the documents, official and personal, which I later studied on your ship. Accordingly, my working hypothesis was that you had some plan for surviving beyond the period in which your first antitoxin dose would be effective. Was there already an underground organization of extraplanetary agents, whom you would seek out? I admit the search for such a group took most of my time for numerous days."
Warouw grimaced. "I pray your sympathy for my plight," he said. "The Guards have faced no serious task for generations. No one resists Biocontrol! The Guards, the entire organization, are escorts and watchdogs at best, idiots at worst. Ignoring the proletariat as they do, they have no experience of the criminal subtleties developed by the proletariat. With such incompetents must I chase a crafty up-to-date professional like yourself."
Flandry nodded. He'd gotten the same impression. Modern police and intelligence methodology—even military science—didn't exist on Unan Besar. Poor, damned Nias Warouw, a born detective forced to re-invent the whole art of detection!
But he had done a disquietingly good job of it.
"My first break came when a district boss named Sumu—ah, you remember?" Warouw grinned. "My congratulations, Captain. He was unwilling to admit how you had taken him, but afraid not to report that he had unwittingly entertained a man of your description. I forced the whole tale from him. Delicious! But then I began to think over the datum it presented. It took me days more; I am not used to such problems. In the end, however, I decided that you would not have carried out so risky an exploit except for money, which you doubtless needed to buy illegal antitoxin. (Oh, yes, I know there is some. I have been trying to tighten up controls on production and distribution. But the inefficiency of centuries must be overcome.) Well, if you had to operate in such fashion, you were not in touch with a secret organization. Probably no such organization existed! However, you must have made some contacts in Swamp Town."
Warouw blew smoke rings, cocked his head at the trill of a songbird, and resumed: "I called for the original reports on the case. It was established that in fleeing us you had broken into the establishment of a certain courtesan. She had told the Guards that she fled in terror and knew nothing else. There had been no reason to doubt her. Nor was there now, a priori, but I had no other lead. I ordered her brought in for questioning. My squad was told she had left several days before, destination unknown. I ordered that a watch be kept on her antitoxin record. When she appeared at Gunung Utara, I was informed. I flew there within the hour.
"The local dispenser remembered her vividly, and had a recollection of a tall man with her. She had told him where she was staying, so we checked the inn. Yes, she had been careless enough to tell the truth. The innkeeper described her companions, one of whom was almost certainly you. We arrested her and the other man in their rooms and settled back to await you."
Flandry sighed. He might have known it. How often had he told cubs in the Service never to underestimate an opponent?
"You almost escaped us again, Captain," said Warouw. "A dazzling exhibition, though not one that I recommend you repeat. Even if, somehow, you broke loose once more, all aircars here are locked. The only other way to depart is on foot, with 400 kilometers of dense rain forest to the nearest village. You would never get there before your antitoxin wore off."
Flandry finished his cigarillo and crushed it with regret. "Your only reason for isolating this place that much," he said, "is that you make the pills here."
Warouw nodded. "This is Biocontrol Central. If you think you can steal a few capsules for your jungle trip, I suppose you can try. Pending distribution, they are kept in an underground vault protected by identification doors, automatic guns, and—as the initial barrier—a hundred trusted Guards."
"I don't plan to try," said Flandry.
Warouw stretched; muscles flowed under his hairless brown skin. "There is no harm in showing you some of the other sections, though," he said. "If you are interested."
I'm interested in anything which will postpone the next round of unfriendliness, acknowledged Flandry. Aloud: "Of course. I might even talk you into dropping your isolationist policy."
Warouw's smile turned bleak. "On the contrary, Captain," he said, "I hope to prove to you that there is no chance of its being dropped, and that anyone who tries to force the issue is choosing a needlessly lingering form of suicide. Come, please."
XI
Two Guards padded silently behind, but they were no more heeded than Warouw's blaster. The chief took Flandry's arm with a delicate, almost feminine gesture and led him down a hall and a curving ramp to the garden. Here it was cool and full of green odors. Immense purple blooms drooped overhead, scarlet and yellow flowerbeds lined the gravel walks like a formal fire, water plashed high out of carved basins and went rilling under playfully shaped bridges, ketjils were little gold songsparks darting in and out of willow groves. Flandry paid more attention to the building. He was being led across from one wing to the center. It reared huge, the changing styles of centuries discernible in its various parts. Warouw's goal was obviously the oldest section: a sheer black mountain of fused stone. Guards at the doors and robot guns on the battlements.
An attendant in an anteroom bowed low and issued four suits. They were coveralls, masked and hooded, of a transparent flexiplast which fitted comfortably enough, though Warouw must leave off his robe. Gloves, boots, and snouted respirators completed the ensemble.
"Germs in there?" asked Flandry.
"Germs on us." For a moment, the nightmare of a dozen generations looked out of Warouw's eyes. He made a sign against evil. "We dare not risk contaminating the vats."
"Of course," suggested Flandry, "you could produce a big enough reserve supply of antitoxin to carry you through any such emergency."
Warouw's worldliness returned. "Now, Captain," he laughed, "would that be practical politics?"
"No," admitted Flandry. "It could easily lead to Biocontrol having to work for a living."
"You never gave the impression of possessing any such peasantish ideal."
"Fate forbid! My chromosomes always intended me for a butterfly, useful primarily as an inspiration to others. However, you must admit a distinction between butterflies and leeches."
Since Flandry had used the name of equivalent native insects, Warouw scowled. "Please, Captain!"
The Terran swept eyes across one horrified attendant and two indignant Guards. "Ah, yes," he said, "Little Eva and the Sunshine Twins. Sorry, I forgot about them. Far be it from me to do away with anyone's intellectual maidenhead."
Warouw put his hands to a scanner. The inner door opened for his party and they entered a sterilizing chamber. Beyond its UV and ultrasonics, another door led them into a sort of lobby. A few earnest young shavepates hurried here and there with technical apparatus. They gave the sense of a task forever plagued by clumsy equipment and clumsier organization. Which was to be expected, of course. Biocontrol was not about to modernize its plant. And, like all hierarchies not pruned by incessant competition, Biocontrol had proliferated its departments, regulations, chains of command, protocols, office rivalries, and every other fungus Flandry knew so well on Terra.
A creaky old slideramp bore Warouw's group up several floors. Two purely ornamental Guards lounged on blast rifles outside a gilded door of vast proportions. Several men cooled their heels in the room beyond, waiting for admission to the main office. Warouw brushed past them, through a small auxiliary sterilizing chamber and so into the sanctum.
Solu Bandang himself sat among many cushions. He had removed his flexisuit but not donned a robe again. His belly sagged majestically over his kilt. He looked up, heavy-lidded, and whined, "Now what is the meaning of this? What do you mean? I gave no appointment to—Oh. You."
"Greeting, Tuan," said Warouw casually. "I had not expected to find you on duty."
"Yes, it is my turn, my turn again. Even the highest office, ah, in the... the world, this world... does not excuse a man from a tour of—Necessary to keep one's finger on the pulse, Captain Flandry," said Bandang. "Very essential. Oh, yes, indeed."
The desk didn't look much used. Flandry supposed that the constant presence of some member of the governing board was a survival of earlier days when Biocontrol's stranglehold wasn't quite so firm.
"I trust, ah, you have been made to... see the error of your ways, Captain?" Bandang reached for a piece of candied ginger. "Your attitude has, I hope, become—realistic?"
"I am still arguing with our guest, Tuan," said Warouw.
"Oh, come now!" said Bandang. "Come now! Really, Colleague, this is deplorable, ah, dilatoriness on your part. Explain to the Captain, Warouw, that we have methods to persuade recalcitrants. Yes, methods. If necessary, apply those methods. But don't come in here disturbing me! He's not in my department. Not my department at all."
"In that case, Tuan," said Warouw, his exasperation hardly curbed, "I beg you to let me proceed with my work in my own fashion. I should like to show the Captain one of our vats. I think it might prove convincing. But of course, we need your presence to get into that section."
"What? What? See here, Warouw, I am a busy man. Busy, do you hear? I have, er, obligations. It is not my duty to—"
"Perhaps," snapped Warouw, "the Tuan feels he can take care of the situation single-handed, when the outworlders arrive?"
"What?" Bandang sat up straight, so fast that his jowls quivered. The color drained from them. "What's that? Do you mean there are outworlders? Other, that is, than the Betelgeuseans—uncontrolled outworlders, is that, ah, is that—"
"That is what I have to find out, Tuan. I beg you for your kind assistance."
"Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, at once. Immediately!" Bandang rolled to his feet and fumbled at his hung-up flexisuit. The two Guards hastened to assist him in donning it.
Warouw checked an electronic bulletin board. "I see Genseng is on watch at Vat Four," he said. "We'll go there. You must meet Colleague Genseng, Flandry."
The Terran made no answer. He was considering what he had seen. Bandang was a fat fool, but without too many illusions. His horror at the idea of out-planet visitors proved he knew very well what Flandry had already deduced:
God, what an overripe plum! If only the pills could come from somewhere else, this Biocontrol boobocracy and its comic opera Guards wouldn't last a week.
If any adventurers do learn the truth, they'll swarm here from a score of planets. Unan Besar is rich. I don't know how much of that wealth is locked in Biocontrol vaults, but it must be plenty. Enough to make the fortune of an experienced fighting man (like me) who'd serve as a revolutionary officer for a share in the loot.
Unless the revolution happens too fast to import filibusters. I suspect that would be the actual case. The people of Unan Besar would rip their overlords apart bare-handed. And, of course, the real money to be made here is not from plundering, but from selling cheap antitoxin without restrictions.... Which is less my line of work than a spot of piracy would be. But I'd still like to get that juicy commission from Mitsuko Laboratories.
The lightness faded in him, less because he remembered his immediate problems than because of certain other recollections. The man who screamed and died in a cage where the stone gods danced. Swamp Town, and humans turned wolf to survive. Hungry men chipping a mountainside by hand, women and children in rice paddies. Djuanda, with nothing left him but pride, leaping off the wall. Luang's eyes, seen across the room where she sat bound. The Guard who struck her with a club.
Flandry had no patience with crusaders, but there are limits to any man's endurance.
"Come, then," puffed Bandang. "Yes, Captain, you really must see our production facilities. A, ah, an achievement. A most glorious achievement, as I am sure you will agree, of our, ah, pioneering ancestors. May their, their work... ever remain sacred and undefiled, their blood remain, er, pure."
Behind the plump back, Warouw winked at Flandry.
Passing through the office sterilizer, and the waiting technicians who bowed to Bandang, the conducted tour took a slideway down corridors where faded murals depicted the heroic founders of Biocontrol in action. At the slideway's end, a glassed-in catwalk ran above a series of chambers.
They were immense. Up here near the ceilings, Flandry saw technicians down on the floor scuttle like bugs. Each room centered on a gleaming alloy vat, ten meters high and thirty in diameter. With the pipes that ran from it like stiff tentacles, with the pumps and stirrers and testers and control units and meters clustered around, it could have been some heathen god squatting amidst attendant demons. And on more than one face, among the men who went up and down the catwalks, Flandry thought he recognized adoration.
Warouw said in a detached tone: "As you may know, the process of antitoxin manufacture is biological. A yeast-like native organism was mutated to produce, during fermentation, that inhibitor which prevents the bacterial formation of acetylcholine. The bacteria themselves are destroyed within a few days by normal human antibodies. So, if you left this planet, you would need one final pill to flush out the infection. Thereafter you would be free of it. But as long as you are on Unan Besar—each breath you take, each bite you eat or drop you drink, maintains an equilibrium concentration of germs in your system.
"Unfortunately, these omnipresent germs kill the yeast itself. So it is critically important to keep this place sterile. Even a slight contamination would spread like fire in dry grass. The room where it occurred would have to be sealed off, everything dismantled and individually sterilized. It would take a year to get back in operation. And we would be lucky to have only one vat idled."
"A molecular synthesizing plant could turn out a year's biological production in a day, and sneer at germs," said Flandry.
"No doubt. No doubt, Captain," said Bandang. "You are very clever in the Empire. But cleverness isn't all, you know. Not by any means. There are other virtues. Ah... Warouw, I think you should not have called the circumstance of, um, easy contamination... unfortunate. On the contrary, I would call it most fortunate. A, ah, a divine dispensation, bringing about and protecting the, er, social order most suitable for this world."
"A social order which recognizes that worthiness is heritable, and allows every blood line to find its natural status under the benevolent guardianship of a truly scientific organization whose primary mission has always been to preserve the genetic and cultural heritage of Unan Besar from degradation and exploitation by basically inferior outsiders," droned Flandry.
Bandang looked surprised. "Why, Captain, have you come to so good an understanding already?"
"Here is Vat Four," said Warouw.
In each chamber, a stairway, also glassed in, led down from the catwalk. Flandry was taken along this one. It ended at a platform several meters above the floor, where a semi-circular board flashed with lights and quivered with dials. Flandry realized the instruments must report on every aspect of the vat's functioning. Underneath them was a bank of master controls for emergency use. At the far left projected a long double-pole switch, painted dead black. A light at its end glowed like a red eye.
The man who stood motionless before the board would have been impressive in his white robe. Seen kilted through a flexisuit, he was much too thin. Every rib and vertebra could be counted. When he turned around, his face was a skull in sagging skin. But the eyes lived; and, in an eerie way, the glowing golden brand.
"You dare—" he whispered. Recognizing Bandang: "Oh. Your pardon, Tuan." His scorn was hardly veiled. "I thought it must be some fool of a novice who dared interrupt a duty officer."
Bandang stepped back. "Ah... really, Genseng," he huffed. "You go too far. Indeed you do. I, ah, I demand respect. Yes."
The eyes smoldered at them. "I am duty officer here until my relief arrives." The murmur of pumps came more loudly through the glass cage than Genseng's voice. "You know the Law."
"Yes. Yes, indeed. Of course. But—"
"The duty officer is supreme at his station, Tuan. My decisions may not be questioned. I could kill you for a whim, and the Law would uphold me. Holy is the Law."
"Indeed. Indeed." Bandang wiped his countenance. "I too... after all. I too have my watches to stand—"
"In an office," sneered Genseng.
Warouw trod cockily to the fore. "Do you remember our guest, Colleague?" he asked.
"Yes." Genseng brooded at Flandry. "The one who came from the stars and leaped out the window. When does he go in the cage?"
"Perhaps never," said Warouw. "I think he might be induced to cooperate with us."
"He is unclean," mumbled Genseng. The hairless skull turned back toward the dance of instruments, as if beauty dwelt there alone.
"I thought you might wish to demonstrate the controls to him."
"S-s-s-so." Genseng's eyes filmed over. He stood a long while, moving his lips without sound. At last: "Yes, I see."
Suddenly his gaze flamed at the Terran. "Look out there," the parchment voice ordered. "Watch those men serving the vat. If any of them makes an error—if any of a hundred possible errors are made, or a thousand possible misfunctions of equipment occur—the batch now brewing will spoil and a million people will die. Could you bear such a burden?"
"No," said Flandry, as softly as if he walked on fulminate.
Genseng swept one chalky hand at the panel. "It is for me to see the error or the failure on these dials, and correct it in time with these master controls. I have kept track. Three hundred and twenty-seven times since I first became a duty officer, I have saved a batch from spoiling. Three hundred and twenty-seven million human lives are owed me. Can you claim as much, outworlder?"
"No."
"They owe more than their lives, though," said Genseng somberly. "What use is life, if all that life is for should be lost? Better return the borrowed force at once, unstained, to the most high gods, than dirty it with wretchedness like your own, outworlder. Unan Besar owes its purity to me and those like me. The lives we have given, we can take again, to save that purity."
Flandry pointed to the black switch and asked very low, "What does that connect to?"
"There is a nuclear bomb buried in the foundations of this castle," Genseng breathed. "Any duty officer can detonate it from his station. All are sworn to do so, if the holy mission should ever fail."
Flandry risked cynicism: "Though of course a reserve stock of medicine, and enough spaceships for Biocontrol to escape in, are kept available."
"There are those who would do such a thing," sighed Genseng. "Even here the soul-infection lingers. But let them desert, then, to their own damnation. I can at least save most of my people."
He turned back to his panel with a harsh movement. "Go!" he yelled.
Bandang actually ran back up the stairs.
Warouw came last, smiling. Bandang mopped his face, which poured sweat. "Really!" puffed the governor. "Really! I do think... honorable retirement... Colleague Genseng does appear to, ah, feel his years—"
"You know the Law, Tuan," said Warouw unctuously. "No one who wears the Brand may be deposed, except by vote of his peers. You couldn't get enough votes to do it, and you would anger the whole extremist faction." He turned to Flandry. "Genseng is a somewhat violent case, I admit. But there are enough others who feel like him, to guarantee that this building would go sky-high if Biocontrol ever seemed seriously threatened."
Flandry nodded. He'd been a bit skeptical of such claims before. Now he wasn't.
"I don't know what good this has done," said Bandang softly.
"Perhaps the Captain and I might best discuss that," bowed Warouw.
"Perhaps. Good day, then, Captain." Bandang raised one fat hand in a patronizing gesture. "I trust we shall meet again... ah... elsewhere than the cage? Of course, of course! Good day!" He wobbled quickly down the catwalk.
Warouw conducted Flandry at a slower pace. They didn't speak for minutes, until they had turned back their flexisuits and were again in the garden and the blessed sane sunlight.
"What do you actually want to convince me of, Warouw?" asked the Terran then.
"Of the truth," said the other man. Banter had dropped from him; he looked straight ahead, and his mouth was drawn downward.
"Which is short-sighted self-interest utilizing fanaticism to perpetuate itself... and fanaticism running away with self-interest," said Flandry in a sharp tone.
Warouw shrugged. "You take the viewpoint of a different culture."
"And of most of your own people. You know that as well as I. Warouw, what have you to gain by the status quo? Are your money, your fancy lodging, your servants, that important to you? You're an able chap. You could gain all you now have, and a lot more besides, in the modern galactic society."
Warouw glanced back at the two Guards and answered softly: "What would I be there, another little politician making dirty little compromises—or Nias Warouw whom all men fear?"
He jumped at once to a discourse on willow cultivation, pointing out with expert knowledge the local evolution of the original imported stock, until they were again at Flandry's room.
The door opened. "Go in and rest a while," said Warouw. "Then think whether to cooperate freely or not."
"You've been harping for some time on the need for my cooperation," said Flandry. "But you've not made it clear what you want of me."
"First, I want to know for certain why you came here," Warouw met his eyes unblinkingly. "If you do not resist it, a light hypnoprobing will get that out of you quite easily. Then you must help me prepare false evidence of your own accidental death, and head off any Terran investigation. Thereafter you will be appointed my special assistant—for life. You will advise me on how to modernize the Guard Corps and perpetuate this world's isolation." He smiled with something like shyness. "I think we might both enjoy working together. We are not so unlike, you and I."
"Suppose I don't cooperate," said Flandry.
Warouw flushed and snapped: "Then I must undertake a deep hypnoprobing and drag your information out of you. I confess I have had very little practice with the instrument since acquiring it. Even in skilled hands, you know, the hypnoprobe at full strength is apt to destroy large areas of cerebral cortex. In unskilled hands—But I will at least get some information out of you before your mind evaporates!"
He bowed. "I shall expect your decision tomorrow. Good rest."
The door closed behind him.
Flandry paced in silence. He would have traded a year of life for a pack of Terran cigarets, but he hadn't even been supplied with locals. It was like a final nail driven into his coffin.
What to do?
Cooperate? Yield to the probe? But that meant allowing his mind to ramble in free association, under the stimulus of the machine. Warouw would hear everything Flandry knew about the Empire in general and Naval Intelligence in particular. Which was one devil of a lot.
In itself, that would be harmless—if the knowledge stayed on this planet. But it was worth too much. A bold man like Warouw was certain to exploit it. The Merseians, for instance, would gladly establish a non-interfering protectorate over Unan Besar—it would only tie down a cruiser or two—in exchange for the information about Terran defenses which Warouw could feed them in shrewd driblets. Or better, perhaps, Warouw could take a ship himself and search out those barbarians with spacecraft Flandry knew of: who would stuff the vessel of Warouw with loot from Terran planets which he could tell them how to raid.
Either way, the Long Night was brought that much closer.
Of course, Dominic Flandry would still be alive, as a sort of domesticated animal. He couldn't decide if it was worth it or not.
Thunder rolled in the hills. The sun sank behind clouds which boiled up to cover the sky. A few fat raindrops smote a darkening garden.
I wonder if I get anything more to eat today, thought Flandry in his weariness.
He hadn't turned on the lights. His room was nearly black. When the door opened, he was briefly dazzled. The figure that stepped through was etched against corridor illumination like a troll.
Flandry retreated, fists clenched. After a moment he realized it was only a Biocontrol uniform, long robe with flaring shoulders. But did they want him already? His heart thuttered in anticipation.
"Easy, there," said a vaguely familiar voice.
Lightning split heaven. In an instant's white glare, Flandry made out shaven head, glowing brand, and the broken face of Kemul the mugger.
XII
He sat down. His legs wouldn't hold him.
"Where in the nine foul hells is your light switch?" grumbled the basso above him. "We've little enough time. They may spare you if we are caught, but the cage for Kemul. Quick!"
The Terran got shakily back on his feet. "Stay away from the window," he said. A dim amazement was in him, that he could speak without stuttering. "I'd hate for some passerby to see us alone together. He might misunderstand the purity of our motives. Ah." Light burst from the ceiling.
Kemul took a rich man's garments from under his robe and tossed them on the bed: sarong, curly-toed slippers, blouse, vest, turban with an enormous plume. "Best we can do," he said. "Biocontrol disguise and a painted brand would not go for you. Your scalp would be paler than your face, and your face itself sticking out for all to see. But some great merchant or landowner, come here to talk of some policy matter—Also, speaking earnestly with you as we go, Kemul will not have to observe so many fine points of politeness and rule which he never learned."
Flandry tumbled into the clothes. "How'd you get in here at all?" he demanded.
Kemul's thick lips writhed upward. "That is another reason we must hurry, you. Two dead Guards outside." He opened the door, stooped, and yanked the corpses in. Their necks were broken with one karate chop apiece. A firearm would have made too much noise, Flandry thought in a daze. Even a cyanide needler with a compressed air cartridge would have to be drawn and fired, which might give time for a warning to be yelled. But a seeming Biocontrol man could walk right past the sentries, deep in meditation, and kill them in one second as they saluted him. That ability of Kemul's must have counted for enough that his cohorts (who?) sent him in rather than somebody of less noticeable appearance.
"But how'd you get this far, I mean?" Flandry persisted a trifle wildly.
"Landed outside the hangar, as they all do. Said to the attendant, Kemul was here from Pegunungan Gradjugang on urgent business and might have to depart again in minutes. Walked into the building, cornered a Guard alone in a hall, wrung from him where you were being kept, threw the body out a window into some bushes. Once or twice a white-robe hailed Kemul, but he said he was in great haste and went on."
Flandry whistled. It would have been a totally impossible exploit on any other world he had ever seen. The decadence of Biocontrol and its Guard Corps was shown naked by this fact of an enemy walking into their ultimate stronghold without so much as being questioned. To be sure, no one in all the history of Unan Besar had ever dreamed of such a raid; but still—
But still it was a fantastic gamble, with the odds against it mounting for each second of delay.
"I sometimes think we overwork Pegunungan Gradjugang." Flandry completed his ensemble. "Have a weapon for me?"
"Here." Kemul drew out of his robe a revolver as antiquated as the one liberated from Pradjung (how many eons ago?). The same gesture showed his Terran blaster in an arm sheath. "Hide it. No needless fighting."
"Absolutely! You wouldn't believe how meek my intentions are. Let's go."
The hall was empty. Flandry and Kemul went down it, not too fast, mumbling at each other as if deep in discourse. At a cross-corridor they met a technician, who bowed his head to Kemul's insigne but couldn't entirely hide astonishment. The technician continued the way they had come. If he passed Flandry's closed door and happened to know that two Guards were supposed to be outside—
The hall debouched in a spacious common room. Between its pillars and gilded screens, a dozen or so off-duty Biocontrol people sat smoking, reading, playing games, watching a taped dance program. Flandry and Kemul started across toward the main entrance. A middle-aged man with a Purity Control symbol on his robe intercepted them.
"I beg your pardon, Colleague," he bowed. "I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before, though I thought I knew all full initiates." His eyes were lively with interest. A tour of duty here must be a drab chore for most personnel, any novelty welcomed. "And I had no idea we were entertaining a civilian of such obvious importance."
Flandry bent his own head above respectfully folded hands, hoping the plume would shadow his face enough. A couple of men, cross-legged above a chessboard, looked up in curiosity and kept on looking.
"Ameti Namang from beyond the Tindjil Ocean," growled Kemul. "I just came with Proprietor Tasik here. Been on special duty for years."
"Er... your accent... and I am sure I would remember your face from anywhere—"
Having sidled around to Kemul's other side, so that the giant cut off view of him, Flandry exclaimed in a shocked stage whisper: "I beg you, desist! Can't you tell when a man's been in an accidental explosion?" He took his companion's elbow. "Come, we mustn't keep Tuan Bandang waiting."
The stares which followed him were like darts in his back.
Rain beat heavily on the roof of the verandah beyond. Lamplight glowed along garden paths, but even on this round-the-clock planet they weren't frequented in such weather. Flandry glanced behind, at the slowly closing main doors. "In about thirty seconds," he muttered, "our friend will either shrug off his puzzlement with a remark about the inscrutable ways of his superiors... or will start seriously adding two and two. Come on."
They went down the staircase. "Damn!" said Flandry. "You forgot to bring rain capes. Think a pair of drowned rats can reclaim your aircar?"
"With a blaster, if need be," snapped Kemul. "Stop complaining. You've at least been given a chance to die cleanly. It was bought for you at the hazard of two other lives."
"Two?"
"It wasn't Kemul's idea, this, or his wish."
Flandry fell silent. Rain struck his face and turned his clothes sodden. The path was like a treadmill, down which he walked endlessly between wet hedges, under goblin lamps. He heard thunder again, somewhere over the jungle.
Sudden as a blow, the garden ended. Concrete glimmered in front of a long hemicylindrical building. "Here's where everybody lands," grunted Kemul. He led the way to the office door. A kilted civilian emerged and bobbed the head to him. "Where's my car?" said Kemul.
"So soon, tuan? You were only gone a short while—"
"I told you I would be. And you garaged my car anyhow? You officious dolt!" Kemul shoved with a brutal hand. The attendant picked himself up and hurried to the hangar doors.
Whistles skirled through the rain-rushing. Flandry looked back. Mountainous over all bowers and pools, the Central blinked windows to life like opening eyes. The attendant paused to gape. "Get moving!" roared Kemul.
"Yes, tuan. Yes, tuan." A switch was pulled, the doors slid open. "But what is happening?"
I don't know, Flandry thought. Maybe my absence was discovered. Or else somebody found a dead Guard. Or our friend in the common room got suspicious and called for a checkup. Or any of a dozen other possibilities. The end result is still the same.
He slipped a hand inside his blouse and rested it on the butt of his gun.
Lights went on in the hangar. It was crowded with aircars belonging to men serving their turns here. The attendant stared idiotically around, distracted by whistles and yells and sound of running feet. "Now, let's see, tuan, which one is yours? I don't rightly recall, I don't—"
Four or five Guards emerged from the garden path into the lamplight of the field. "Get the car, Kemul," rapped Flandry. He drew his revolver and slipped behind the shelter of a door. The attendant's jaw dropped. He let out a squeak and tried to run. Kemul's fist smote at the base of his skull. The attendant flew in an arc, hit, skidded across concrete, and lay without breathing.
"That was unnecessary," said Flandry. It wrenched within him: Always the innocent get hurt worst.
The mugger was already among the cars. The squad of Guards broke into a run. Flandry stepped from behind his door long enough to fire several times. One man spun around on his heel, went over backward, and raised himself on all fours with blood smeared over his chest. The others scattered. And they bawled for help.
Flandry took another peek. The opposite side of the landing field was coming alive with Guards. Through their shouts and the breaking of branches under their feet, through the rain, boomed Warouw's voice: "Surround the hangar. Squads Four, Five, Six, prepare to storm the entrance. Seven, Eight, Nine, prepare to fire on emerging vehicles." He must be using a portable amplifier, but it was still like hearing an angered god.
Kemul grunted behind Flandry, shoving parked craft aside to clear a straight path for his own. As the three assault squads started to run across the concrete, Flandry heard him call: "Get in, quick!"
The Terran sent a dozen shots into the nearing troop, whirled, and jumped. Kemul was at the controls of one vehicle, gunning the motor. He had left the door to the pilot section open. Flandry got a foot in it as the car spurted forward. Then they struck the Guards entering the hangar.
Somebody shrieked. Somebody else crunched beneath the wheels, horribly. One man seized Flandry's ankle. Almost, the Terran was pulled loose. He shot, missed, and felt his antique weapon jam. He threw it at the man's contorted brown face. The car jetted antigrav force and sprang upward. Flandry clung to the doorframe with two hands and one foot. He kicked with the captured leg. His enemy hung on, screaming. Somehow Flandry found strength to raise the leg until it pointed almost straight out, then bring it down again to bash his dangling burden against the side.
The Guard let go and fell a hundred meters. Flandry toppled back into the control section.
"They'll have an armed flyer after us in sixty seconds," he gasped. "Gimme your place!"
Kemul glared at him. "What do you know about steering?"
"More than any planet hugger. Get out! Or d' you want us to be overhauled and shot down?"
Kemul locked eyes with Flandry. The wrath in his gaze was shocking. A panel cut off the rear section; this was a rich man's limousine, though awkward and underpowered compared to the Guard ships Flandry had ridden. The panel slid back. Luang leaned into the pilot compartment and said, "Let him have the wheel, Kemul. Now!"
The mugger spat an oath, but gave up his seat. Flandry vaulted into it. "I don't imagine this horse cart has acceleration compensators," he said. "So get astern and buckle down tight!"
He concentrated for a moment on the controls. It was an old-fashioned, unfamiliar make of car, doubtless unloaded by some wily Betelgeusean trader. But having handled many less recognizable craft before, and being in peril of his life, Flandry identified all instruments in a few seconds.
Outside was darkness. Rain whipped the windshield. He saw lightning far off to the left. Making a spiral, he searched with his radar for pursuit. Biocontrol Central glittered beneath him. His detector beeped and registered another vessel on a collision path. The autopilot tried to take over. Flandry cut it out of the circuit and began to climb.
His track was a long slant bearing toward the storm center. The radar on this medieval galley wouldn't show what was behind him, but doubtless the Guard car had him spotted and was catching up fast. A whistling scream reminded Flandry he hadn't slid the door shut. He did so, catching a few raindrops on his face. They tasted of wind.
Up and up. Now the lightning flashes were picking out detail for him, cumulus masses that rolled and reared against heaven and dissolved into a cataract at their base. Gusts thrummed the metal of the car. Its controls bucked. Thunder filled the cabin.
With maximum speed attained. Flandry cut the drive beams, flipped 180 degrees around with a lateral thrust, and went back on full power. An instant he hung, killing velocity. Then he got going downward.
At a kilometer's distance, the other vehicle came into view: a lean shark shape with twice his speed. It swelled monstrously to his eye. There were about ten seconds for its pilot to react. As Flandry had expected, the fellow crammed all he had into a sidewise leap, getting out of the way. Even so, Flandry shot past with about one meter to spare.
Gauging the last possible instant of deceleration was a matter of trained reflex. When he applied the brake force, Flandry heard abused frames groan, and he was almost thrown into his own windshield. He came to a halt just above the tossing jungle crowns. At once he shifted to a horizontal course. Faster than any man not trained in space would have dared—or been able—he flew, his landing gear centimeters from the uppermost leaves. Now and then he must veer, barely missing a higher than average tree. He plunged into the wild waterfall of the storm center, and saw lightning rive one such tree not ten meters away.
But up in the sky, his pursuer, having lost speed and course and object, must be casting about in an ever more desperate search for him.
Flandry continued skimming till he was on the other side of the rain. Only then, a good fifty kilometers from Biocontrol Central, did he venture to rise a little and use his own radar again. It registered nothing. Tropical stars bloomed in the violet night haze. The air alone had voice, as he slipped through it.
"We're the one that got away," he said.
He regained altitude and looked back into the main section. Kemul sagged in his chair. "You could have crashed us, you drunken amokker!" choked the big man. Luang unstrapped herself and took out a cigarette with fingers not quite steady. "I think Dominic knew what he did," she answered.
Flandry locked the controls and went back to join them, flexing sore muscles. "I think so too," he said. He flopped down beside Luang. "Hi, there."
She gave him an unwavering look. The cabin light was lustrous on her dark hair and in the long eyes. He saw developing bruises where the violence of his maneuvers had thrown her against the safety belt. But still she regarded him, until at last he must shift uneasily and bum a cigarette, merely to break that silence.
"Best you pilot us now, Kemul," she said.
The mugger snorted, but moved forward as she desired. "Where are we going?" Flandry asked.
"Ranau," said Luang. She took her eyes from him and drew hard on her cigarette. "Where your friend Djuanda is."
"Oh. I believe I see what happened. But tell me."
"When you escaped from the inn, all those imbecilic Guards went whooping after you," she said, unemotional as a history lesson. "Djuanda had been behind you when you entered, and had stayed in the corridor during the fight. No one noticed him. He was intelligent enough to come in as soon as they were all gone, and release us."
"No wonder Warouw despises his own men," said Flandry. "Must have been disconcerting, returning to find the cupboard bare like that. Though he coolly led me to believe you were still his prisoners. Go on, what did you do next?"
"We fled, of course. Kemul hot-wired a parked aircar. Djuanda begged us to save you. Kemul scoffed at the idea. It looked impossible to me too, at first. It was bad enough being fugitives, who would live only as long as we could contrive to get illicit pills. But three people, against the masters of a planet—?"
"You took them on, though." Flandry brought his lips so close to her ear that they brushed her cheek. "I've no way to thank you for that, ever."
Still she gazed straight before her, and the full red mouth shaped words like a robot: "Chiefly you should thank Djuanda. His life was a good investment of yours. He insisted we would not be three alone. He swore many of his own people would help, if there was any hope at all of getting rid of Biocontrol. So... we went to Ranau. We spoke to the boy's father, and others. In the end, they provided this car, with plans and information and disguises such as we would need. Now we are bound back to them, to see what can be done next."
Flandry looked hard at her in his turn. "You made the final decision, to rescue me, Luang," he said. "Didn't you?"
She stirred on the seat. "What of it?" Her voice was no longer under absolute control.
"I'd like to know why. It can't be simple self-preservation. On the contrary. You got black market antitoxin before; you could have kept on doing so. When my knowledge was wrung out of me, Warouw would understand you were no danger to him. He wouldn't have pressed the hunt for you. You could probably even snare some influential man and tease him into getting you pardoned. So—if we're going to work together, Luang—I want to know why you chose it."
She stubbed out her cigarette. "Not for any of your damned causes!" she snarled. "I don't care about a hundred million clods, any more than I ever did. It was only... to rescue you, we must have help in Ranau, and those oafs would only help as part of a plot to overthrow Biocontrol. That's all!"
Kemul hunched his great shoulders, turned around and rumbled, "If you don't stop baiting her, Terran, Kemul will feed you your own guts."
"Close your panel," said Luang.
The giant averted his face again, sucked in a long breath, and slid shut the barrier between him and the others.
Wind lulled around the flyer. Flandry turned off the lights and saw stars on either side. It was almost as if he could reach out and pluck them.
"I'll answer no more impertinent questions," said Luang. "Is it not enough that you have gotten your own way?"
He caught her to him and her own question went unanswered.
XIII
Ranau lay on a northeasterly jut of the continent, with Kompong Timur a good thousand kilometers to the southwest. Intervening swamp and mountain, lack of navigable rivers, before all the standoffishness of its people, made it little frequented. A few traders flew in during the year, otherwise the airstrip was hardly used. It was still dark when Flandry's car set down. Several impassive men with phosphorescent globes to light their way met him, and he was horrified to learn it was ten kilometers' walk to the nearest dwelling.
"We make no roads under the Trees," said Tembesi, Djuanda's father. And that was that.
Dawn came while they were still afoot. As the spectacle grew before him, Flandry's life added one more occasion of awe.
The ground was low, wet, thickly covered with a soft and intensely green moss-like turf. It sparkled with a million water drops. Fog rolled and streamed, slowly breaking up as the sun climbed. The air was cool, and filled the nostrils with dampness. His tread muffled and upborne by the springy growth, his companions unspeaking and half blurred in the mist, Flandry moved through silence like a dream.
Ahead of him, rising out of a fog bank into clear sky, were the Trees of Ranau.
There were over a thousand, but only a few could be seen at one time. They grew too far apart, a kilometer or more between boles. And they were too big.
Hearing Djuanda tell of them, mentioning an average height of two hundred meters and an estimated average age of ten thousand Terrestrial years, Flandry had imagined the redwoods he knew from home. But this was not Terra. The great Trees were several times as thick in proportion—incredibly massive, organic mountains with roots like foothills. They shot straight up for fifty meters or so, then began to branch, broadest at the bottom, tapering to a spire. The slim higher boughs would each have made a Terran oak; the lowest were forests in themselves, forking again and yet again, the five-pointed leaves (small, delicately serrated, green on top but with a golden underside of nearly mirror brightness) outnumbering the visible stars. Even given the lower gravity of Unan Besar, it was hard to imagine how branches so huge could support their own weight. But they had cores with a strength approximating steel, surrounded by a principal thickness of wood as light as balsa, the whole armored in tough gray bark. Tossing in the gentle winds which prevailed here, the upper leaves reflected sunlight downward off their shiny sides, so that the lower foliage was not shadowed to death.
No matter explanations. When Flandry saw the grove itself, filling the sky, sunlight winking and shivering and running like flame in the crowns, he merely stood and looked. The others respected his need. For long, the whole party remained silent where it was.
When they resumed—passing through a stand of tall frond trees without even noticing—the Terran found tongue once more: "I understand your people are freeholders. That's rare, isn't it?"
Tembesi, who was a big stern-faced man, replied slowly: "We are not quite what you think. Early in the history of this planet, it became clear that the free yeoman was doomed. The large plantations were underselling him, so he was driven to subsistence farming, with the price of antitoxin too high for him to afford improvements. Let him have one bad year, and he must sell land to the plantation owner, just to pay for survival. Presently his farm became too small to support him, he fell into the grip of the moneylenders, in the end he was fortunate if he became a tenant rather than a slave.
"Our own ancestors were peasants whose leaders foresaw the loss of land. They sold what they had and moved here. There were certain necessities of survival as free men. First, some means of getting cash for antitoxin and tools. Yet, second, not enough wealth to excite the greed of the great lords, who could always find a pretext to dispossess their inferiors. Third, remoteness from the corruption and violence of the cities, the countryside's ignorance and poverty. Fourth, mutual helpfulness, so that individual misfortunes would not nibble away the new community as the old had been destroyed.
"These things were found among the Trees."
And now they left the minor forest and approached the holy grove. It was not as dark under one of the giants as Flandry had expected. The overshadowing roof of leaves twinkled, flashed, glittered, so that sunspecks went dancing among the shades. Small animals scurried out of the way, around the nearest root which heaved its gray wall up from the pseudomoss. Redbreasted fluter birds and golden ketjils darted in and out of the foliage overhead; their song drifted down through a distant, eternal rustle, that was like some huge waterfall heard across many leagues of stillness. Close to a Tree, you had no real sense of its height. It was too enormous: simply there, blocking off half the world. Looking ahead, down the clear shadowy sward, you got a total effect, arched and whispering vaults full of sun, upheld by columns that soared. The forest floor was strewn with tiny white blossoms.
Djuanda turned worshipful eyes from Flandry and said, reddening: "My father, I am ashamed that ever I wished to change this."
"It was not an ill-meant desire," said Tembesi. "You were too young to appreciate that three hundred years of tradition must hold more wisdom than any single man." His gray head inclined to the Terran. "I have yet to offer my thanks for the rescuing of my son, Captain."
"Oh, forget it," muttered Flandry. "You helped rescue me, didn't you?"
"For a selfish purpose. Djuanda, your elders are not quite such doddering old women as you believed. We also want to change the life of the Trees—more than you ever dreamed."
"By bringing the Terrans!" The boy's voice cracked loud and exultant across the quiet.
"Well... not exactly," demurred Flandry. He glanced about at the rest. Eager Djuanda, firm Tembesi, sullen Kemul, unreadable Luang holding his arm... he supposed they could be relied on. The others, though, soft-spoken men with lithe gait and bold gaze, he didn't know about. "Uh, we can't proceed too openly, or word will get back to Biocontrol."
"That has been thought of," said Tembesi. "All whom you see here are of my own Tree—or clan, if you prefer, since each Tree is the home of a single blood-line. I have talked freedom with them for a long time. Most of our folk can be trusted equally well. Timidity, treachery, or indiscretion might make a few dangerous, but they are very few."
"It only takes one," humphed Kemul.
"How could a traitor get word to the outside?" replied Tembesi. "The next regular trade caravan is not due for many weeks. I have taken good care that no one will depart this area meanwhile. Our few aircraft are all under guard. To go on foot would require more than thirty days to the next communication center... hence, would be impossible."
"Unless the local dispenser advanced a few pills, given a reasonable-sounding pretext," said Flandry. "Or—wait—the dispenser is in radio touch with Biocontrol all the time!"
Tembesi's chuckle was grim. "Hereabouts," he said, "unpopular dispensers have long tended to meet with accidents. They fall off high branches, or an adderkop bites them, or they go for a walk and are never seen again. The present appointee is my own nephew, and one of our inner-circle conspirators."
Flandry nodded, unsurprised. Even the most villainous governments are bound to have a certain percentage of decent people in them—who, given a chance, often become the most effective enemies of the regime.
"We're safe for a while, I suppose," he decided. "Doubtless Warouw will check the entire planet, hoping to pick up my trail. But he's not likely to think of trying here until a lot of other possibilities have failed."
Djuanda's enthusiasm broke loose again: "And you will free our people!"
Flandry would have preferred a less melodramatic phrasing, but hadn't the heart to say so. He addressed Tembesi: "I gather you aren't too badly off here. And that you're conservative. If Unan Besar is opened to free trade, a lot of things are going to change overnight, including your own ways of life. Is it worth that much to you to be rid of Biocontrol?"
"I asked him the same question," said Luang. "In vain. He had already answered it for himself."
"It is worth it," Tembesi said. "We have kept a degree of independence, but at a cruel cost of narrowing our lives. For we seldom, if ever, have money to undertake new things, or even to travel outside our own land. A Tree will not support many hundred persons, so we must limit the children a family may have. A man is free to choose his life work—but the choice is very small. He is free to speak his mind—but there is little to speak about. And always we must pay our hard-won silvers for pills which cost about half a copper to produce; and always we must dread that some overlord will covet our country and find ways to take it from us; and always our sons must look at the stars, and wonder what is there, and grow old and die without having known."
Flandry nodded again. It was another common phenomenon: revolutions don't originate with slaves or starveling proletarians, but with men who have enough liberty and material well-being to realize how much more they ought to have.
"The trouble is," he said, "a mere uprising won't help. If the whole planet rose against Biocontrol, it would only die. What we need is finesse."
The brown faces around him hardened, as Tembesi spoke for all: "We do not wish to die uselessly. But we have discussed this for years, it was a dream of our fathers before us, and we know our own will. The People of the Trees will hazard death if they must. If we fail, we shall not wait for the sickness to destroy us, but take our children in our arms and leap from the uppermost boughs. Then the Trees can take us back into their own substance, and we will be leaves in the sunlight."
It wasn't really very cold here, but Flandry shivered.
They had now reached a certain bole. Tembesi stopped. "This we call the Tree Where the Ketjils Nest," he said, "the home of my clan. Welcome, liberator."
Flandry looked up. And up. Plastic rungs had been set into the ancient rough bark. At intervals a platform, ornamented with flowering creepers, offered a breathing spell. But the climb would be long. He sighed and followed his guide.
When he reached the lowest branch, he saw it stretch like a road, outward and curving gradually up. There were no rails. Looking down, he spied earth dizzily far beneath him, and gulped. This close to the leaves, he heard their rustling loud and clear, everywhere around; they made a green gloom, unrestful with a thousand flickering candle-flames of reflection. He saw buildings along the branch, nestled into its forks or perched on swaying ancillary limbs. They were living houses, woven together of parasitic grasses like enormous reeds rooted in the bark—graceful domes and hemicylinders, with wind flapping dyed straw curtains in their doorways. Against the trunk itself stood a long peak-roofed structure of blossoming sod.
"What's that?" asked Flandry.
Djuanda said in an awed whisper, almost lost under the leaf-voices: "The shrine. The gods are there, and a tunnel cut deep into the wood. When a boy is grown, he enters that tunnel for a night. I may not say more."
"The rest are public buildings, storehouses and processing plants and so on," said Tembesi with an obvious desire to turn the conversation elsewhere. "Let us climb further, to where people dwell."
The higher they ascended, the more light and airy it became. There the buildings were smaller, often gaily patterned. They stood in clusters where boughs forked; a few were attached to the main trunk. The dwellers were about, running barefoot along even the thin and quivering outermost parts as if this were solid ground. Only very young children were restricted, by leash or wattle fence. Physically, this tribe was no different from any other on Unan Besar; their costume varied in mere details of batik; even most of the homely household tasks their women carried out, or the simple furniture glimpsed through uncurtained doorways, was familiar. Their uniqueness was at once more subtle and more striking. It lay in dignified courtesy, which glanced at the newcomers with frank interest but did not nudge or stare, which softened speech and made way for a neighbor coming down a narrow limb. It lay in the attitude toward leaders like Tembesi, respectful but not subservient; in laughter more frequent and less shrill than elsewhere; in the plunk of a samisen, as a boy sat vine-crowned, swinging his feet over windy nothingness and serenading his girl.
"I see flats of vegetables here and there," Flandry remarked. "Where are the big crops you spoke of, Djuanda?"
"You can see one of our harvesting crews a few more boughs up, Captain."
Flandry groaned.
The sight was picturesque, though. From the outer twigs hung lichenoid beards, not unlike Spanish moss. Groups of men went precariously near, using hooks and nets to gather it in. Flandry felt queasy just watching them, but they seemed merry enough at their appalling work. The stuff was carried down by other men to a processing shed, where it would yield the antipyretic drug (Unan Besar had more than one disease!) which was the chief local cash crop.
There were other sources of food, fiber, and income. Entire species of lesser trees and bushes grew on the big ones; mutation and selection had made them useful to man. Semi-domesticated fowl nestled where a share of eggs could be taken. Eventually, branches turned sick; pruning them, cutting them up, treating the residues, amounted to an entire lumber and plastics industry. Bark worms and burrowing insects were a good source of protein, Flandry was assured—though admittedly hunting and fishing down in the ground was more popular.
It was obvious why the planet had only this one stand of titans. The species was moribund, succumbing to a hundred parasitic forms which evolved faster than its own defenses. Now man had established a kind of symbiosis, preserving these last few: one of the rare cases where he had actually helped out nature. And so, thought Flandry, even if I'm not much for bucolic surroundings myself, I've that reason also to like the people of Ranau.
Near the very top, where branches were more sparse and even the bole swayed a little, Tembesi halted. A plank platform supported a reed hut overgrown with purple-blooming creepers. "This is for the use of newly wed couples, who need some days' privacy," he said. "But I trust you and your wife will consider it your own, Captain, for as long as you honor our clan with your presence."
"Wife?" Flandry blinked. Luang suppressed a grin. Well... solid citizens like these doubtless had equally well-timbered family lives. No reason to disillusion them. "I thank you," he bowed. "Will you not enter with me?"
Tembesi smiled and shook his head. "You are tired and wish to rest, Captain. There are food and drink within for your use. Later we will pester you with formal invitations. Shall we say tonight, an hour after sunset—you will dine at my house? Anyone can guide you there."
"And we'll hear your plans!" cried Djuanda.
Tembesi remained calm; but it flamed in his eyes. "If the Captain so desires."
He bowed. "Good rest, then. Ah—friend Kemul—you are invited to stay with me."
The mugger looked around. "Why not here?" he said belligerently.
"This cabin only has one room."
Kemul stood hunched, legs planted wide apart, arms dangling. He swung his hideous face back and forth, as if watching for an attack. "Luang," he said, "why did we ever snag the Terran?"
The girl struck a light to her cigarette. "I thought it would be interesting," she shrugged. "Now do run along."
A moment more Kemul stood, then shuffled to the platform's edge and down the ladder.
Flandry entered the cabin with Luang. It was cheerfully furnished. The floorboards rocked and vibrated; leaves filled it with an ocean noise. "Cosmos, how I can sleep!" he said.
"Aren't you hungry?" asked Luang. She approached an electric brazier next to a pantry. "I could make you some dinner." With a curiously shy smile: "We wives have to learn cooking."
"I suspect I'm a better cook than you are," he laughed, and went to wash up. Running water was available, though at this height it must be pumped from a cistern thirty meters below. There was even a hot tap. Djuanda had mentioned an extensive use of solar cells in this community as its prime energy source. The Terran stripped off his bedraggled finery, scrubbed, flopped on the bed, and tumbled into sleep.
Luang shook him awake hours later. "Get up, we'll be late for supper." He yawned and slipped on a kilt laid out for him. To hell with anything else. She was equally informal, except for a blossom in her hair. They walked out on the platform.
A moment they paused, then, to look. There weren't many more branches above them; they could see through the now faintly shining leaves to a deep blue-black sky and the earliest stars. The Tree foamed with foliage on either hand and below. It was like standing above a lake and hearing the waters move. Once in a while Flandry glimpsed phosphor globes, hung on twigs far underfoot. But such lighting was more visible on the next Tree, whose vast shadowy mass twinkled with a hundred firefly lanterns. Beyond was the night.
Luang slipped close to him. He felt her shoulder as a silken touch along his arm. "Give me a smoke, will you?" she asked. "I am out."
"'Fraid I am too."
"Damn!" Her curse was fervent.
"Want one that bad?"
"Yes. I do not like this place."
"Why, I think it's pleasant."
"Too much sky. Not enough people. None of them my kind of people. Gods! Why did I ever tell Kemul to intercept you?"
"Sorry now?"
"Oh... no... I suppose not. In a way. Dominic—" She caught his hand. Her own fingers were cold. He wished he could make out her expression in the dusk. "Dominic, have you any plans at all? Any hopes?"
"As a matter of fact," he said, "yes."
"You must be crazy. We can't fight a planet. Not even with this ape-folk to help. I know a city, in the opposite hemisphere—or even old Swamp Town, I can hide you there forever, I swear I can—"
"No," he said. "It's good of you, kid, but I'm going ahead with my project. We won't need you, though, so feel free to take off."
Fear edged her tone, for the first time since he had met her: "I do not want to die of the sickness."
"You won't. I'll get clean away, with no suspicion of the fact—"
"Impossible! Every spaceship on this planet is watched!"
"—or else I'll be recaptured. Or, more likely, killed. I'd prefer being killed, I think. But either way, Luang, you've done your share and there's no reason for you to take further risks. I'll speak to Tembesi. You can get a car out of here tomorrow morning."
"And leave you?"
"Uh—"
"No," she said.
They stood unspeaking a while. The Tree soughed and thrummed.
Finally she asked, "Must you act tomorrow already, Dominic?"
"Soon," he replied. "I'd better not give Warouw much time. He's almost as intelligent as I am."
"But tomorrow?" she insisted.
"Well—no. No, I suppose it could wait another day or two. Why?"
"Then wait. Tell Tembesi you have to work out the details of your scheme. But not with him. Let's be alone up here. This wretched planet can spare an extra few hours till it is free—without any idea how to use freedom—can it not?"
"I reckon so."
Flandry dared not be too eager about it, or he might never get up courage for the final hazard. But he couldn't help agreeing with the girl. One more short day and night? Why not? Wasn't a man entitled to a few hours entirely his own, out of the niggardly total granted him?
XIV
Among other measures, Nias Warouw had had a confidential alarm sent all dispensers, to watch for a fugitive of such and such a description and listen (with judicious pumping of the clientele) for any rumors about him. Despite a considerable reward offered, the chief was in no hopes of netting his bird with anything so elementary.
When the personal call arrived for him, he had trouble believing it. "Are you certain?"
"Yes, tuan, quite," answered the young man in the telecom screen. He had identified himself by radio-scanned fingerprints and secret number as well as by name; in the past, hijacker gangs seeking pills for the black market had sometimes used false dispensers. This was absolutely Siak, stationed in Ranau. "He is right in this community. Being as isolated as we are, the average person here knows him only as a visitor from across the sea. So he walks about freely."
"How did he happen to come, do you know?" asked Warouw, elaborately casual.
"Yes, tuan, I have been told. He befriended a youth of our clan in Gunung Utara. The boy released some prisoners of yours; then, with the help of certain local people, they contrived Flandry's escape from Biocontrol Central."
Warouw suppressed a wince at being thus reminded of two successive contretemps. He went on the offensive with a snap: "How do you know all this, dispenser?"
Siak wet his lips before answering nervously, "It seems Flandry hypnotized the boy with gaudy daydreams of seeing Mother Terra. Through the boy, then, Flandry's criminal friends met several other youths of Ranau—restless and reckless—and organized them into a sort of band for the purpose of liberating Flandry and getting him off this planet. Of course, it would be immensely helpful to have me as part of their conspiracy. The first boy, who is a kinsman of mine, sounded me out. I realized something was amiss and responded as he hoped to his hints, in order to draw him out. As soon as I appeared to be of one mind with them, they produced Flandry from the woods and established him in a house here. They claim he is an overseas trader scouting for new markets.... Tuan, we must hurry. They have something afoot already. I do not know what. Neither do most of the conspirators. Flandry says that no man can reveal, by accident or treachery, what he has not been told. I only know they do have some means, some device, which they expect to prepare within a very short time. Hurry!"
Warouw controlled a shudder. He had never heard of any interstellar equivalent of radio. But Terra might have her military secrets. Was that Flandry's trump card? He forced himself to speak softly: "I shall."
"But tuan, you must arrive unobserved. Flandry is alert to the chance of being betrayed. With the help of his rebel friends, he must have established a dozen boltholes. If something goes wrong, they will blast down the vault, take a large stock of antitoxin, and escape through the wilderness to complete their apparatus elsewhere. In that case, I am supposed to cooperate with them and pretend to you that I was overpowered. But it would make no difference if I resisted, would it, tuan?"
"I suppose not." Warouw stared out a window, unheeding of the bright gardens. "Judging from your account, a few well-armed men could take him. Can you invite him to your house at a given time, where we will be in ambush?"
"I can do better than that, tuan. I can lead your men to his own house, to await his return. He has been working constantly at the Tree of the Gnarly Boughs, which has a little electronic shop. But in his guise as a trader, he has been asked to dine at noon with my uncle Tembesi. So he will come back to his guest house shortly before, to bathe and change clothes."
"Hm. The problem is to get my people in secretly." Warouw considered the planetary map which filled one wall of his office. "Suppose I land a car in the woods this very day, far enough out from your settlement not to be seen. My men and I will march in afoot, reaching your dispensary at night. Can you then smuggle us by byways to his house?"
"I... I think so, tuan, if there are only a few of you. Certain paths, directly from limb to limb rather than along the trunk, are poorly lighted and little frequented after dark. The cabin he uses is high up on the Tree Where the Ketjils Nest, isolated from any others.... But tuan, if there can merely be three or four men with you... it seems dangerous."
"Bah! Not when each man has a blaster. I do not want a pitched battle with your local rebels, though; the more quietly this affair is handled, the better. So I will leave most of my crew with the aircar. When we have Flandry secured, I will call the pilot to come get us. The rest of the conspiracy can await my leisure. I doubt if anyone but the Terran himself represents any real danger."
"Oh, no, tuan!" exclaimed Siak. "I was hoping you would understand that, and spare the boys. They are only hot-headed, there is no real harm in them—"
"We shall see about that, when all the facts become known," said Warouw bleakly. "You may expect reward and promotion, dispenser... unless you bungle something so he escapes again, in which case there will be no sparing of you."
Siak gulped. Sweat glistened on his forehead.
"I wish to all the gods there were time to think out a decent plan," said Warouw. He smiled in wryness. "But as it is, I have not even time to complain about the shortness of time." Leaning forward, like a cat at a mousehole: "Now, there are certain details I must know, the layout of your community and—"
XV
As they neared the heights, the sun—low above gleaming crowns—struck through an opening in those leaves which surrounded her and turned Luang's body to molten gold. Flandry stopped.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Just admiring, my sweet." He drew a lungful of dawn air and savored the sad trilling of a ketjil. There may not be another chance.
"Enough," grumbled Kemul. "On your way, Terran."
"Be still!" The girl stamped her foot.
Kemul dropped a hand to his blaster and glared out of red eyes. "You have had plenty of time with her, Terran," he said. "Any more stalling now, and Kemul will know for a fact you are afraid."
"Oh, I am," said Flandry, lightly but quite honestly. His pulse hammered; he saw the great branch, the leaves that flickered around it, the score of men who stood close by, with an unnatural sharpness. "Scared spitless."
Luang snarled at the mugger: "You do not have to go up there and face blaster fire!"
Seeing the ugly face, as if she had struck it and broken something within, Flandry knew a moment's pain for Kemul. He said in haste: "That's my own orders, darling. I thought you knew. Since you insisted on waiting this close to the scene of action, I told him to stand by and protect you in case things got nasty. I won't hear otherwise, either."
She bridled. "Look here, I have always taken care of myself and—"
He stopped her words with a kiss. After a moment's rigidity, she melted against him.
Letting her go, he swung on his heel, grabbed a rung, and went up the bole as fast as he could. Her eyes pursued him until the leaves curtained her off. Then he climbed alone, among murmurous mysterious grottos.
Not quite alone, he told his fears. Tembesi, Siak, young Djuanda, and their comrades came behind. They were lifetime hunters, today on a tiger hunt. But their number and their archaic chemical rifles were of small account against blaster flames.
Well, a man could only die once.
Unfortunately.
The taste of Luang lingered on his mouth. Flandry mounted a final ladder to the platform, which swayed in morning wind. Before him was the cabin. It looked like one arbor of purple flowers. He stepped to the doorway, twitched the drape aside, and entered.
Because the truncheons whacking from either side were not unexpected, he dodged them. His movement threw him to the floor. He rolled over, sat up, and looked into the nozzles of energy guns.
"Be still," hissed Warouw, "or I will boil your eyes with a low beam."
A disgruntled club wielder peered out a vine-screened window. "Nobody else," he said.
"You!" Another Guard kicked Flandry in the ribs. "Was there not a woman with you?"
"No—no—" The Terran picked himself up, very carefully, keeping hands folded atop his head. His gray eyes darted around the hut. Siak had given him a report on the situation, after leaving Warouw here to wait, but Flandry required precise detail.
Two surly Guards posted at the door, sticks still in hand and blasters holstered. Two more, one in each corner, out of jump range, their own guns drawn and converging on him. Warouw close to the center of the room, and to Flandry: a small, deft, compact man with a smile flickering on his lips, wearing only the green kilt and medallion, a blaster in his clutch. The brand of Biocontrol smoldered on his brow like yellow fire.
It was now necessary to hold all their attention for a few seconds. Tembesi's men could climb over the supporting branches rather than up the ladder, and so attain this platform unobserved from the front of the cabin. But it had a rear window too.
"No," said Flandry, "there isn't anyone with me. Not just now. I left her at—Never mind. How in the name of all devils and tax collectors did you locate me so fast? Who tipped you?"
"I think I shall ask the questions," said Warouw. His free hand reached into a pocket and drew forth the flat case of a short-range radiocom. "The girl does not matter, though. If she arrives in the next several minutes, before the car does, we can pick her up too. Otherwise she can wait. Which will not be for long, Captain. A carful of well-armed men is out in the jungle. When they arrive, I will leave them in charge of the local airstrip—and dispensary, in case your noble young morons retain any ideas about raiding it. Then she can give herself up, or wait for a search party to flush her out of hiding, or run into the jungle and die. That last would be a cruel waste of so much beauty, but I do not care immensely."
He was about to thumb the radiocom switch and put the instrument to his lips. Flandry said with great clearness and expression—rather proud of rendering it so well in Pulaoic—"Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill: Halloo, halloo, loo loo!"
"What?" Warouw exclaimed.
"Take heed o' the foul fiend," cried Flandry: "obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom's acold."
He twirled once around, laughing, and saw that he had all their eyes. A Guard made signs against evil. Another whispered, "He is going amok, tuan!"
The Terran flapped his arms. "This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet," he crowed: "he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth." He burst into song:
"Swithold footed thrice the old;
He met the nightmare and her nine-fold—"
"Be still!" Warouw stuck the radiocom back in his pocket, advanced, and thrust expert fingers at Flandry's solar plexus.
Flandry didn't remain in the path of that blow. He tumbled on his back, just in front of the chief. His feet came up, hard, into the groin. As Warouw lurched forward on top of him, driven by the kick as much as the pain, Flandry got the man's gun wrist between two arms and broke the blaster loose. No chance to use it—the effort sent it across the floor, out of reach.
He clutched Warouw against him, shouted, and wondered icily if the Guards would incinerate their own boss to get him.
The four sprang toward the grappling pair.
A rifle cracked at the rear window. A Guard fell backward, brains splashed from his skull. Tembesi fired again. One of the other Guards managed to shoot. Flame engulfed Tembesi. The whole rear wall went up in smoke and thunder. But even as the ecologist died, the room was exposed to outside view. Guns barked from a dozen surrounding boughs.
Flandry saw the last Guard crash to the boards. Fire sheeted up in the flimsy roof. He relaxed his hold on Warouw, preparatory to hustling the man out of the burning hut.
Warouw yanked his left arm free. His fist struck the angle of Flandry's jaw.
For a moment, the Terran sagged among whirling ringing darknesses. Warouw scrambled clear of him, snatched up his blaster, and bounded to the doorway.
As he emerged, a voice from the leaves cried, "Halt where you are!" Warouw showed his teeth and fired full power into that foliage. The Tree man screamed and fell dead off his branch.
Warouw yanked the radiocom from his pocket. A gun spoke. The instrument shattered in his hand. He looked at his bleeding palm, wiped it, fired a thunderbolt in return, and sped for the ladder. Bullets smote the planks near his feet. The hunters hoped for a disabling shot. But they dared not risk killing him. The whole object had been to lure him here and take him alive.
As he reeled from the cabin, Flandry saw Warouw go over the platform edge. The Terran hefted the blaster he himself had picked up, drew a long breath, and forced clarity back into his head. Someone has to get him, he thought in an odd unemotional fashion, and as I'm the only one on my side who knows much about the care and feeding of spitguns, I seem elected.
He swarmed down the ladder. "Back!" he called, as supple bodies slipped along the branches on either side of him. "Follow me at a distance. Kill him if he kills me, but hold your fire otherwise."
He set his weapon to full-power needle beam, gaining extreme range at the cost of narrowing his radius of destruction to a centimeter or so. If Warouw wasn't quite as handy with pencil shots, there might be a chance to cripple him without suffering much harm from his own diffuse fire. Or there might not.
Down the holy Tree!
Flandry burst into view of the bough where Luang waited. Warouw confronted her and Kemul. Their hands were in the air; he had taken them by surprise. Warouw backed toward the next set of rungs. "Just keep your places and do not follow me," he panted.
Flandry broke through the leaf cover overhead. Warouw saw him, whipped around and raised gun.
"Get him, Kemul!"shouted Luang.
The giant shoved her behind him and pounced. Warouw glimpsed the motion, turned back, saw the mugger's gun not quite out of its holster, and fired. Red flame enveloped Kemul. He roared, once, and fell burning from the limb.
Having thus been given an extra few seconds, Flandry leaped off the bole rungs onto the bough. Warouw's muzzle whirled back to meet him. Flandry's blazed first. Warouw shrieked, lost his gun, and gaped at the hole drilled through his hand.
Flandry whistled. The riflemen of Ranau came and seized Nias Warouw.
XVI
Dusk once more. Flandry emerged from the house of Tembesi. Weariness lay heavy upon him.
Phosphor globes were kindling up and down the Tree Where the Ketjils Nest, and its sister Trees. Through the cool blue air, he could hear mothers call their children home. Men hailed each other, from branch to branch, until the voices of men and leaves and wind became one. The first stars quivered mistily in the east.
Flandry wanted silence for a while. He walked the length of the bough, and of lesser ones forking from it, until he stood on a narrow bifurcation. Leaves still closed his view on either hand, but he could look straight down to the ground, where night rose like a tide, and straight up to the stars.
He stood a time, not thinking of much. When a light footfall shivered the limb beneath him, it was something long expected.
"Hullo, Luang," he said tonelessly.
She came to stand beside him, another slim shadow. "Well," she said, "Kemul is buried now."
"I wish I could have helped you," said Flandry, "but—"
She sighed. "It was better this way. He always swore he would be content to end in a Swamp Town canal. If he must lie under a blossoming bush, I do not think he would want anyone but me there to wish him good rest."
"I wonder why he came to my help."
"I told him to."
"And why did you do that?"
"I don't know. We all do things without thinking, now and then. The thinking comes afterward. I will not let it hurt me." She took his arm. Her hands were tense and unsteady. "Never mind Kemul. Since you have stopped working on him, I take it you have succeeded with Warouw?"
"Yes," said Flandry.
"How did you do it? Torture?" she asked casually.
"Oh, no," he said. "I didn't even withhold medical care for his injuries: which are minor, anyhow. I simply explained that we had a cage for him if he didn't cooperate. It took a few hours' argument to convince him we meant it. Then he yielded. After all, he's an able man. He can leave this planet—he'd better!—and start again elsewhere, and do rather well, I should think."
"Do you mean to let him go?" she protested.
Flandry shrugged. "I had to make the choice as clear-cut as possible—between dying of the sickness, and starting afresh with a substantial cash stake. Though I wonder if the adventurous aspect of it didn't appeal to him most, once I'd dangled a few exotic worlds before his imagination."
"What of that carful of men out in the forest?"
"Warouw's just called them on the dispenser's radiocom, to come and get me. They're to land on the airstrip—change of plan, he said. Djuanda, Siak, and some others are waiting there, with blasters in their hands and revenge in their hearts. It won't be any problem."
"And then what is to happen?"
"Tomorrow Warouw will call Biocontrol. He'll explain that he has me secure, and that some of my co-conspirators spilled enough of what I'd told them for him to understand the situation pretty well. He and some Guards will take me in my own flitter to Spica, accompanied by another ship. En route he'll hypnoprobe me and get the full details. Tentatively, his idea will be to sabotage the flitter, transfer to the other craft, and let mine crash with me aboard. Somewhat later, he and the Guards will land. They'll tell the Imperial officials a carefully doctored story of my visit, say they're returning what they believe was a courtesy call, and be duly shocked to learn of my ‘accidental' death. In the course of all this, they'll drop enough false information to convince everyone that Unan Besar is a dreary place with no trade possibilities worth mentioning."
"I see," nodded the girl. "You only sketched the idea to me before. Of course, the ‘Guards' will be Ranau men, in uniforms lifted from the car crew; and they will actually be watching Warouw every second, rather than you. But do you really think it can be done without rousing suspicion?"
"I know damn well it can," said Flandry, "because Warouw has been promised the cage if Biocontrol does sabotage the Central prematurely. He'll cooperate! Also, remember what slobs the Guard Corps are. A half-witted horse could cheat them at pinochle. Bandang and the other governors shouldn't be hard to diddle either, with their own trusted Nias Warouw assuring them everything is lovely."
"When will you come back?" she asked.
"I don't know. Not for a good many days. We'll take along enough scientific material for the antitoxin to be synthesized, of course... and enough other stuff to convince the Imperial entrepreneurs that Unan Besar is worth their attention. A large supply of pills will have to be made ready, ships and ships full. Because naturally Biocontrol Central will be destroyed when they arrive, by some idiot like Genseng. But the merchant fleet will know where all the dispensaries are, and be ready to supply each one instantly. It will all take a while to prepare, though."
Flandry sought yellow Spica in the sky, which was now quickening with stars. Here they called Spica the Golden Lotus, doubtless very poetic and so on. But he felt his own depression and tiredness slide away as he thought of its colony planet, bright lights, smooth powerful machines, sky-high towers—his kind of world! And afterward there would be Home....
Luang sensed it in him. She gripped his arm and said almost in terror: "You will come back, will you not? You will not just leave everything to those merchants?"
"What?" He came startled out of his reverie. "Oh. I see. Well, honestly, darling, you've nothing to be afraid of. The transition may be a little violent here and there. But you're welcome to remain at Ranau, where things will stay peaceful, until you feel like a triumphal return to Kompong Timur. Or like getting passage to the Imperial planets—"
"I don't care about that!" she cried. "I want your oath you will return with the fleet."
"Well—" He capitulated. "All right. I'll come back for a while."
"And afterward?"
"Look here," he said, alarmed, "I'm as mossless a stone as you'll find in a universe of rolling. I mean, well, if I tried to stay put anywhere, I'd be eating my fingernails in thirty days and eating the carpet in half a year. And, uh, my work isn't such that any, well, any untrained person could—"
"Oh, never mind." She let his arm go. Her voice was flat among the leaves. "It doesn't matter. You need not return at all, Dominic."
"I said I'd do that much," he protested rather feebly.
"It doesn't matter," she repeated. "I never asked for more than a man could give."
She left him. He stared after her. It was hard to tell in the dimness, but he thought she bore her head high. Almost, he followed, but as she vanished among leaves and shadows he decided it was best not to. He stood for a time under the stars, breathing the night wind. Then faintly across ten kilometers, he heard the crash and saw the flare of guns.
HUNTERS
OF THE SKY
CAVE
—————————
I
It pleased Ruethen of the Long Hand to give a feast and ball at the Crystal Moon for his enemies. He knew they must come. Pride of race had slipped from Terra, while the need to appear well-bred and sophisticated had waxed correspondingly. The fact that spaceships prowled and fought, fifty light-years beyond Antares, made it all the more impossible a gaucherie to refuse an invitation from the Merseian representative. Besides, one could feel delightfully wicked and ever so delicately in danger.
Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, allowed himself a small complaint. "It's not that I refuse any being's liquor," he said, "and Ruethen has a chef for his human-type meals who'd be worth a war to get. But I thought I was on furlough."
"So you are," said Diana Vinogradoff, Right Noble Lady Guardian of the Mare Crisium. "Only I saw you first."
Flandry grinned and slid an arm about her shoulders. He felt pretty sure he was going to win his bet with Ivar del Bruno. They relaxed in the lounger and he switched off the lights.
This borrowed yacht was ridiculously frail and ornate; but a saloon which was one bubble of clear plastic, ah! Now in the sudden darkness, space leaped forth, crystal black and a wintry blaze of stars. The banded shield of Jupiter swelled even as they watched, spilling soft amber radiance into the ship. Lady Diana became a figure out of myth, altogether beautiful; her jewels glittered like raindrops on long gown and heaped tresses. Flandry stroked his neat moustache. I don't suppose I look too hideous myself, he thought smugly, and advanced to the attack.
"No... please... not now," Lady Diana fended him off, but in a promising way. Flandry reclined again. No hurry. The banquet and dance would take hours. Afterward, when the yacht made its leisured way home towards Terra, and champagne bubbles danced in both their heads.... "Why did you say that about being on furlough?" she asked, smoothing her coiffure with slim fingers. Her luminous nail polish danced about in the twilight like flying candle flames.
Flandry got a cigarette from his own shimmerite jacket and inhaled it to life. The glow picked out his face, long, narrow, with high cheekbones and gray eyes, seal-brown hair and straight nose. He sometimes thought his last biosculp had made it too handsome, and he ought to change it again. But what the devil, he wasn't on Terra often enough for the girls to get bored with his looks. Besides, his wardrobe, which he did take pains to keep fashionable, was expensive enough to rule out many other vanities.
"The Nyanza business was a trifle wearing, y'know," he said, to remind her of yet another exploit of his on yet another exotic planet. "I came Home for a rest. And the Merseians are such damnably strenuous creatures. It makes me tired just to look at one, let alone spar with him."
"You don't have to tonight, Sir Dominic," she smiled. "Can't you lay all this feuding aside, just for a little while, and be friends with them? I mean, we're all beings, in spite of these silly rivalries."
"I'd love to relax with them, my lady. But you see, they never do."
"Oh, come now! I've talked to them, often, and—"
"They can radiate all the virile charm they need," said Flandry. For an instant his light tone was edged with acid. "But destroying the Terrestrial Empire is a full-time job."
Then, quickly, he remembered what he was about, and picked up his usual line of banter. He wasn't required to be an Intelligence agent all the time. Was he? When a thousand-credit bet with his friend was involved? Ivar del Bruno had insisted that Lady Diana Vinogradoff would never bestow her favors on anyone under the rank of earl. The challenge was hard to refuse, when the target was so intrinsically tempting, and when Flandry had good reason to be complacent about his own abilities. It had been a hard campaign, though, and yielding to her whim to attend the Merseian party was only a small fraction of the lengths to which he had gone.
But now, Flandry decided, if he played his cards right for a few hours more, the end would be achieved. And afterwards, a thousand credits would buy a really good orgy for two at the Everest House.
Chives, valet cum pilot cum private gunman, slipped the yacht smoothly into berth at the Crystal Moon. There was no flutter of weight change, though deceleration had been swift and the internal force-field hard put to compensate. Flandry stood up, cocked his beret at a carefully rakish angle, swirled his scarlet cloak, and offered an arm to Lady Diana. They stepped through the airlock and along a transparent tube to the palace.
The woman caught a delighted gasp. "I've never seen it so close up," she whispered. "Who ever made it?"
The artificial satellite had Jupiter for background, and the Milky Way and the huge cold constellations. Glass-clear walls faced infinity, curving and tumbling like water. Planar gravity fields held faceted synthetic jewels, ruby, emerald, diamond, topaz, massing several tons each, in orbit around the central minaret. One outward thrust of bubble was left at zero gee, a conservatory where mutant ferns and orchids rippled on rhythmic breezes.
"I understand it was built for Lord Tsung-Tse about a century back," said Flandry. "His son sold it for gambling debts, and the then Merseian ambassador acquired it and had it put in orbit around Jupiter. Symbolic, eh?"
She arched questioning brows, but he thought better of explaining. His own mind ran on: Eh, for sure. I suppose it's inevitable and so forth. Terra has been too rich for too long: we've grown old and content, no more high hazards for us. Whereas the Merseian Empire is fresh, vigorous, disciplined, dedicated, et tedious cetera. Personally, I enjoy decadence; but somebody has to hold off the Long Night for my own lifetime, and it looks as if I'm elected.
Then they neared the portal, where a silver spiderweb gate stood open. Ruethen himself greeted them at the head of an iridescent slideramp. Such was Merseian custom. But he bowed in Terran style and touched horny lips to Lady Diana's hand. "A rare pleasure, I am certain." The bass voice gave to fluent Anglic an indescribable nonhuman accent.
She considered him. The Merseian was a true mammal, but with more traces of reptile ancestry than humankind: pale green skin, hairless and finely scaled; a low spiny ridge from the head down along the backbone to the end of a long thick tail. He was broader than a man, and would have stood a sheer two meters did he not walk with a forward-stooping gait. Except for its baldness and lack of external ears, the face was quite humanoid, even good-looking in a heavy rough way. But the eyes beneath the overhanging brow ridges were two small pits of jet. Ruethen wore the austere uniform of his class, form-fitting black with silver trim. A blaster was belted at his hip.
Lady Diana's perfectly sculptured mouth curved in a smile. "Do you actually know me, my lord?" she murmured.
"Frankly, no." A barbaric bluntness. Any nobleman of Terra would have been agile to disguise his ignorance. "But while this log does burn upon the altar stone, peace-holy be it among us. As my tribe would say in the Cold Valleys."
"Of course you are an old friend of my escort," she teased. Ruethen cocked an eye at Flandry. And suddenly the man sensed tautness in that massive frame. Just for a moment, then Ruethen's whole body became a mask. "We have met now and then," said the Merseian dryly. "Welcome, Sir Dominic. The cloakroom slave will furnish you with a mind-screen."
"What?" Despite himself, Flandry started.
"If you want one." Ruethen bared powerful teeth at Lady Diana. "Will my unknown friend grant me a dance later?"
She lost her own coolness for a second, then nodded graciously. "That would be... . unique experience, my lord," she said.
It would, at that. Flandry led her on into the ballroom. His mind worried Ruethen's curious offer, like a dog with a bone. Why—?
He saw the gaunt black shape among the rainbow Terrans, and he knew. It went cold along his spine.
II
He wasted no time on excuses but almost ran to the cloakroom. His feet whispered along the crystalline floor, where Orion glittered hundreds of light-years beneath. "Mind-screen," he snapped.
The slave was a pretty girl. Merseians took pleasure in buying humans for menial jobs. "I've only a few, sir," she said. "His lordship told me to keep them for—"
"Me!" Flandry snatched the cap of wires, transistors, and power cells from her hesitant fingers. Only when it was on his head did he relax. Then he took out a fresh cigarette and steered through lilting music towards the bar. He needed a drink, badly.
Aycharaych of Chereion stood beneath high glass pillars. No one spoke to him. Mostly the humans were dancing while nonhumans of various races listened to the music. A performer from Lulluan spread heaven-blue feathers on a small stage, but few watched that rare sight. Flandry elbowed past a Merseian who had just drained a two-liter tankard. "Scotch," he said. "Straight, tall, and quick."
Lady Diana approached. She seemed uncertain whether to be indignant or intrigued. "Now I know what they mean by cavalier treatment." She pointed upward. "What is that thing?"
Flandry tossed off his drink. The whisky smoked down his throat, and he felt his nerves ease. "I'm told it's my face," he said.
"No, no! Stop fooling! I mean that horrible wire thing."
"Mind-screen." He held out his glass for a refill. "It heterodynes the energy radiation of the cerebral cortex in a random pattern. Makes it impossible to read what I'm thinking."
"But I thought that was impossible anyway," she said, bewildered. "I mean, unless you belong to a naturally telepathic species."
"Which man isn't," he agreed, "except for rare cases. The nontelepath develops his own private ‘language,' which is gibberish to anyone who hasn't studied him for a long time as a single individual. Ergo, telepathy was never considered a particular threat in my line of work, and you've probably never heard of the mind-screen. It was developed just a few years ago. And the reason for its development is standing over there."
She followed his eyes. "Who? That tall being in the black mantle?"
"The same. I had a brush with him, and discovered to my... er... discomfiture, shall we say?... that he has a unique gift. Whether or not all his race does, I couldn't tell you. But within a range of a few hundred meters, Aycharaych of Chereion can read the mind of any individual of any species, whether he's ever met his victim before or not."
"But—why, then—"
"Exactly. He's persona non grata throughout our territory, of course, to be shot on sight. But as you know, my lady," said Flandry in a bleak tone, "we are not now in the Terrestrial Empire. Jupiter belongs to the Dispersal of Ymir."
"Oh," said Lady Diana. She colored. "A telepath!"
Flandry gave her a lopsided grin. "Aycharaych is the equivalent of a gentleman," he said. "He wouldn't tell on you. But I'd better go talk to him now." He bowed. "You are certain not to lack company. I see a dozen men converging here already."
"So there are." She smiled. "But I think Aycharaych—how do you pronounce it, that guttural ch baffles me—I think he'll be much more intriguing." She took his arm.
Flandry disengaged her. She resisted. He closed a hand on her wrist and shoved it down with no effort. Maybe his visage was a fake, he told himself once in a while, but at least his body was his own, and the dreary hours of calisthenics had some reward. "I'm sorry, my lady," he said, "but I am about to talk shop, and you're not initiated in the second oldest profession. Have fun."
Her eyes flared offended vanity. She whirled about and welcomed the Duke of Mars with far more enthusiasm than that foolish young man warranted. Flandry sighed. I suppose I owe you a thousand credits, Ivar. He cocked his cigarette at a defiant angle, and strolled across the ballroom.
Aycharaych smiled. His face was also closely humanoid, but in a bony, sword-nosed fashion; the angles of mouth and jaw were exaggerated into Vs. It might almost have been the face of some Byzantine saint. But the skin was a pure golden hue, the brows were arches of fine blue feathers, the bald skull carried a feather crest and pointed ears. Broad chest, wasp waist, long skinny legs were hidden by the cloak. The feet, with four clawed toes and spurs on the ankles, showed bare.
Flandry felt pretty sure that intelligent life on Chereion had evolved from birds, and that the planet must be dry, with a thin cold atmosphere. He had hints that its native civilization was incredibly old, and reason to believe it was not a mere subject of Merseia. But beyond that, his knowledge emptied into darkness. He didn't even know where in the Merseian sphere the sun of Chereion lay.
Aycharaych extended a six-fingered hand. Flandry shook it. The digits were delicate within his own. For a brutal moment he thought of squeezing hard, crushing the fine bones. Aycharaych stood a bit taller than he, but Flandry was a rather big human, much broader and more solid.
"A pleasure to meet you again, Sir Dominic," said Aycharaych. His voice was low, sheer beauty to hear. Flandry looked at rust-red eyes, with a warm metallic luster, and released the hand.
"Hardly unexpected," he said. "For you, that is."
"You travel about so much," Aycharaych said. "I was sure a few men of your corps would be here tonight, but I could not be certain of your own whereabouts."
"I wish I ever was of yours," said Flandry ruefully.
"Congratulations upon your handling of l'affaire Nyanza. We are going to miss A'u on our side. He had a certain watery brilliance."
Flandry prevented himself from showing surprise. "I thought that aspect of the business had been hushed up," he said. "But little pitchers seem to have big ears. How long have you been in the Solar System?"
"A few weeks," said Aycharaych. "Chiefly a pleasure trip." He cocked his head. "Ah, the orchestra has begun a Strauss waltz. Very good. Though of course Johann is not to be compared to Richard, who will always be the Strauss."
"Oh?" Flandry's interest in ancient music was only slightly greater than his interest in committing suicide. "I wouldn't know."
"You should, my friend. Not even excepting Xingu, Strauss is the most misunderstood composer of known galactic history. Were I to be imprisoned for life with only one tape, I would choose his Death and Transfiguration and be satisfied."
"I'll arrange it," offered Flandry at once.
Aycharaych chuckled and took the man's arm. "Come, let us find a more peaceful spot. But I pray you, do not waste so amusing an occasion on me. I own to visiting Terra clandestinely, but that part of it was entirely for the easement of my personal curiosity. I had no intention of burgling the Imperial offices—"
"Which are equipped with Aycharaych alarms anyway."
"Telepathizing detectors? Yes, so I would assume. I am a little too old and stiff, and your gravity a little too overpowering, to indulge in my own thefts. Nor have I the type of dashing good looks needed, I am told by all the teleplays, for cloak and dagger work. No, I merely wished to see the planet which bred such a race as yours. I walked in a few forests, inspected certain paintings, visited some chosen graves, and returned here. Whence I am about to depart, by the way. You need not get your Imperium to put pressure on the Ymirites to expel me; my courier ship leaves in twenty hours."
"For where?" asked Flandry.
"Hither and yon," said Aycharaych lightly.
Flandry felt his stomach muscles grow hard. "Syrax?" he got out.
They paused at the entrance to the null-gee conservatory. A single great sphere of water balanced like silver at its very heart, with fern jungle and a thousand purple-scarlet blooms forming a cavern around it, the stars and mighty Jupiter beyond. Later, no doubt, the younger and drunker humans would be peeling off their clothes and going for a free-fall swim in that serene globe. But now only the music dwelt here. Aycharaych kicked himself over the threshold. His cloak flowed like black wings as he arrowed across the bubble-dome. Flandry came after, in clothes that were fire and trumpeting. He needed a moment before he adjusted to weightlessness. Aycharaych, whose ancestors once whistled in Chereion's sky, appeared to have no such trouble.
The nonhuman stopped his flight by seizing a bracken frond. He looked at a violet burst of orchids and his long hawk-head inclined. "Black against the quicksilver water globe," he mused; "the universe black and cold beyond both. A beautiful arrangement, and with that touch of horror necessary to the highest art."
"Black?" Flandry glanced startled at the violet flowers. Then he clamped his lips.
But Aycharaych had already grasped the man's idea. He smiled. "Touché. I should not have let slip that I am colorblind in the blue wavelengths."
"But you see further into the red than I do," predicted Flandry.
"Yes. I admit, since you would infer so anyhow, my native sun is cooler and redder than yours. If you think that will help you identify it, among all the millions of stars in the Merseian sphere, accept the information with my compliments."
"The Syrax Cluster is middle Population One," said Flandry. "Not too suitable for your eyes."
Aycharaych stared at the water. Tropical fish were visible within its globe, like tiny many-colored rockets. "It does not follow I am going to Syrax," he said tonelessly. "I certainly have no personal wish to do so. Too many warcraft, too many professional officers. I do not like their mentality." He made a freefall bow. "Your own excepted, of course."
"Of course," said Flandry. "Still, if you could do something to break the deadlock out there, in Merseia's favor—"
"You flatter me," said Aycharaych. "But I fear you have not yet outgrown the romantic view of military politics. The fact is that neither side wants to make a total effort to control the Syrax stars. Merseia could use them as a valuable base, outflanking Antares and thus a spearhead poised at that entire sector of your empire. Terra wants control simply to deny us the cluster. Since neither government wishes, at present, to break the nominal state of peace, they maneuver about out there, mass naval strength, spy and snipe and hold running battles... but the game of all-out seizure is not worth the candle of all-out war."
"But if you could tip the scales, personally, so our boys lost out at Syrax," said Flandry, "we wouldn't counter-attack your imperial sphere. You know that. It'd invite counter-counter-attack on us. Heavens, Terra itself might be bombed! We're much too comfortable to risk such an outcome." He pulled himself up short. Why expose his own bitterness, and perhaps be arrested on Terra for sedition?
"If we possessed Syrax," said Aycharaych, "it would, with 71 per cent probability, hasten the collapse of the Terran hegemony by a hundred years, plus or minus ten. That is the verdict of our military computers—though I myself feel the faith our High Command has in them is naïve and rather touching. However, the predicted date of Terra's fall would still lie 150 years hence. So I wonder why your government cares."
Flandry shrugged. "A few of us are a bit sentimental about our planet," he answered sadly. "And then, of course, we ourselves aren't out there being shot at."
"That is the human mentality again," said Aycharaych. "Your instincts are such that you never accept dying. You, personally, down underneath everything, do you not feel death is just a little bit vulgar, not quite a gentleman?"
"Maybe. What would you call it?"
"A completion."
Their talk drifted to impersonalities. Flandry had never found anyone else whom he could so converse with. Aycharaych could be wise and learned and infinitely kind when he chose: or flick a whetted wit across the pompous face of empire. To speak with him, touching now and then on the immortal questions, was almost like a confessional—for he was not human and did not judge human deeds, yet he seemed to understand the wishes at their root.
At last Flandry made a reluctant excuse to get away. Nu, he told himself, business is business. Since Lady Diana was studiously ignoring him, he enticed a redhaired bit of fluff into an offside room, told her he would be back in ten minutes, and slipped through a rear corridor. Perhaps any Merseian who saw him disappear wouldn't expect him to return for an hour or two; might not recognize the girl when she got bored waiting and found her own way to the ballroom again. One human looked much like another to the untrained nonhuman eye, and there were at least a thousand guests by now.
It was a flimsy camouflage for his exit, but the best he could think of.
Flandry re-entered the yacht and roused Chives. "Home," he said. "Full acceleration. Or secondary drive, if you think you can handle it within the System in this clumsy gold-plated hulk."
"Yes, sir. I can."
At faster-than-light, he'd be at Terra in minutes, rather than hours. Excellent! It might actually be possible to arrange for Aycharaych's completion.
More than half of Flandry hoped the attempt would fail.
III
It happened to be day over North America, where Vice Admiral Fenross had his offices. Not that that mattered; they were like as not to work around the clock in Intelligence, or else Flandry could have gotten his superior out of bed. He would, in fact, have preferred to do so.
As matters worked out, however, he created a satisfactory commotion. He saved an hour by having Chives dive the yacht illegally through all traffic lanes above Admiralty Center. With a coverall over his party clothes, he dove from the airlock and rode a grav repulsor down to the 40th flange of the Intelligence tower. While the yacht was being stopped by a sky monitor, Flandry was arguing with a marine on guard duty. He looked down the muzzle of a blaster and said: "You know me, Sergeant. Let me by. Urgent."
"I guess I do know your face, sir," the marine answered. "But faces can be changed and nobody gets by me without a pass. Just stand there while I buzzes a patrol."
Flandry considered making a jump for it. But the Imperial Marines were on to every kick of judo he knew. Hell take it, an hour wasted on identification—Wait. Memory clicked into place. "You're Mohandas Parkinson," said Flandry. "You have four darling children, your wife is unreasonably monogamous, and you were playing Go at Madame Cepheid's last month."
Sergeant Parkinson's gun wavered. "Huh?" he said. Then, loudly, "I do' know whatcher talking about!"
"Madame Cepheid's Go board is twenty meters square," said Flandry, "and the pieces are live girls. In the course of a game—Does that ring a bell, sergeant? I was there too, watching, and I'm sure your wife would be delighted to hear you are still capable of such truly epic—"
"Get on your way, you... blackmailer!" choked Parkinson. He gulped and added, "Sir."
Captain Flandry grinned, patted him on his helmet, holstered his weapon for him, and went quickly inside.
Unlike most, Fenross had no beautiful receptionist in his outer office. A robovoice asked the newcomer's business. "Hero," he said blandly. The robot said Admiral Fenross was occupied with a most disturbing new development. Flandry said he was also, and got admission.
Hollow-cheeked and shaky, Fenross looked across his desk. His eyes were not too bloodshot to show a flick of hatred. "Oh," he said. "You. Well, Captain, what interrupts your little tête-à-tête with your Merseian friends?"
Flandry sat down and took out a cigarette. He was not surprised that Fenross had set spies on him, but the fact was irritating nonetheless. How the devil did this feud ever get started? he wondered. Is it only that I took that girl... what was her name, anyway? Marjorie? Margaret?... was it only that I once took her from him when we were cadets together? Why, I did it for a joke. She wasn't very good-looking in spite of everything biosculp could do.
"I've news too hot for any com circuit," he said. "I just now—"
"You're on furlough," snapped Fenross. "You've got no business here."
"What? Look, it was Aycharaych! Himself! At the Crystal Moon!"
A muscle twitched in Fenross' cheek. "I can't hear an unofficial report," he said. "All ruin is exploding beyond Aldebaran. If you think you've done something brilliant, file an account in the regular channels."
"But—for God's sake!" Flandry sprang to his feet. "Admiral Fenross, sir, whatever the hell you want me to call you, he's leaving the Solar System in a matter of hours. Courier boat. We can't touch him in Ymirite space, but if we waylaid him on his way out—He'll be tricky, the ambush might not work, but name of a little green pig, if we can get Aycharaych it'll be better than destroying a Merseian fleet!"
Fenross reached out a hand which trembled ever so faintly, took a small pillbox and shook a tablet loose. "Haven't slept in forty hours," he muttered. "And you off on that yacht.... I can't take cognizance, Captain. Not under the circumstances." He glanced up again. Slyness glistened in his eyes. "Of course," he said, "if you want to cancel your own leave—"
Flandry stood a moment, rigid, staring at the deskbound man who hated him. Memory trickled back: After I broke off with her, yes, the girl did go a bit wild. She was killed in an accident on Venus, wasn't she... drunken party flying over the Saw... yes, I seem to've heard about it. And Fenross has never even looked at another woman.
He sighed. "Sir, I am reporting myself back on active duty."
Fenross nodded. "File that with the robot as you leave. Now I've got work for you."
"But Aycharaych—"
"We'll handle him. I've got a more suitable assignment in mind." Fenross grinned, tossed down his pill and followed it with a cup of water from the desk fountain. "After all, a dashing field agent ought to dash, don't you think?"
Could it be just the fact that he's gotten more rank but I've had more fun? wondered Flandry. Who knows? Does he himself? He sat down again, refusing to show expression.
Fenross drummed the desk top and stared at a blank wall. His uniform was as severe as regulations permitted—Flandry's went in the opposite direction—but it still formed an unnecessarily gorgeous base for his tortured red head. "This is under the strictest secrecy," he began in a rapid, toneless voice. "I have no idea how long we can suppress the news, though. One of our colonies is under siege. Deep within the Imperial sphere."
Flandry was forced to whistle. "Where? Who?"
"Ever heard of Vixen? Well, I never had either before this. It's a human-settled planet of an F6 star about a hundred light-years from Sol, somewhat north and clockwise of Aldebaran. Oddball world, but moderately successful as colonies go. You know that region is poor in systems of interest to humans, and very little explored. In effect, Vixen sits in the middle of a desert. Or does it? You'll wonder when I tell you that a space fleet appeared several weeks ago and demanded that it yield to occupation. The ships were of exotic type, and the race crewing them can't be identified. But some, at least, spoke pretty good Anglic."
Flandry sat dead still. His mind threw up facts, so familiar as to be ridiculous, and yet they must now be considered again. The thing which had happened was without precedent.
An interstellar domain can have no definite borders; stars are scattered too thinly, their types too intermingled. And there are too many of them. In very crude approximation, the Terrestrial Empire was a sphere of some 400 light-years diameter, centered on Sol, and contained an estimated four million stars. But of these less than half had even been visited. A bare 100,000 were directly concerned with the Imperium, a few multiples of that number might have some shadowy contact and owe a theoretical allegiance. Consider a single planet; realize that it is a world, as big and varied and strange as this Terra ever was, with as many conflicting elements of race and language and culture among its natives; estimate how much government even one planet requires, and see how quickly a reign over many becomes impossibly huge. Then consider, too, how small a percentage of stars are of any use to a given species (too hot, too cold, too turbulent, too many companions) and, of those, how few will have even one planet where that species is reasonably safe. The Empire becomes tenuous indeed. And its inconceivable extent is still the merest speck on one outlying part of one spiral arm of one galaxy; among a hundred billion or more great suns, those known to any single world are the barest, tiniest handful.
However—attack that far within the sphere? No! Individual ships could sneak between the stars easily enough. But a war fleet could never come a hundred light-years inward from the farthest Imperial bases. The instantaneous "wake" of disturbed space-time, surging from so many vessels, would be certain of detection somewhere along the line. Therefore—
"Those ships were built within our sphere," said Flandry slowly. "And not too many parsecs from Vixen."
Fenross sneered. "Your genius dazzles me. As a matter of fact, though, they might have come further than usual, undetected, because so much of the Navy is out at Syrax now. Our interior posts are stripped, some completely deserted. I'll agree the enemy must base within several parsecs of Vixen. But that doesn't mean they live there. Their base might be a space station, a rogue planet, or something else we'll never find; they could have sent their fleet to it a ship at a time, over a period of months."
Flandry shook his head. "Supply lines. Having occupied Vixen, they'll need to maintain their garrison till it's self-sufficient. No, they have a home somewhere in the Imperial sphere, surely in the same quadrant. Which includes only about a million stars! Say, roughly, 100,000 possibilities, some never even catalogued. How many years would it take how many ships to check out 100,000 systems?"
"Yeh. And what would be happening meanwhile?"
"What has?"
"The Vixenites put up a fight. There's a small naval base on their planet, unmanned at present, but enough of the civilian population knew how to make use of its arsenal. They got couriers away, of course, and Aldebaran Station sent what little help it could. When last heard from, Vixen was under siege. We're dispatching a task force, but it'll take time to get there. That wretched Syrax business ties our hands. Reports indicate the aliens haven't overwhelming strength; we could send enough ships to make mesons of them. But if we withdrew that many from Syrax, they'd come back to find Merseia entrenched in the Cluster."
"Tie-in?" wondered Flandry.
"Who knows? I've got an idea, though, and your assignment will be to investigate it." Fenross leaned over the desk. His sunken eyes probed at Flandry's. "We're all too ready to think of Merseia when anything goes wrong," he said bleakly. "But after all, they live a long ways off. There's another alien power right next door... and as closely interwoven with Merseia as it is with us."
"You mean Ymir?" Flandry snorted. "Come now, dear chief, you're letting your xenophobia run away with you."
"Consider," said Fenross. "Somebody, or something, helped those aliens at Vixen build a modern war fleet. They couldn't have done it alone: we'd have known it if they'd begun exploring stellar space, and knowledge has to precede conquest. Somebody, very familiar with our situation, has briefed the aliens on our language, weapons, territorial layout—the works. Somebody, I'm sure, told them when to attack: right now, when nearly our whole strength is at Syrax. Who? There's one item. The aliens use a helium-pressure power system like the Ymirites. That's unmistakable on the detectors. Helium-pressure is all right, but it's not as convenient as the hydrogen-heavy atom cycle; not if you live under terrestroid conditions, and the aliens very definitely do. The ships, their shape I mean, also have a subtly Ymirite touch. I'll show you pictures that have arrived with the reports. Those ships look as if they'd been designed by some engineer more used to working with hydro-lithium than steel."
"You mean the Ymirites are behind the aliens? But—"
"But nothing. There's an Ymirite planet in the Vixen system too. Who knows how many stars those crawlers have colonized... stars we never even heard about? Who knows how many client races they might lord it over? And they travel blithely back and forth, across our sphere and Merseia's and—Suppose they are secretly in cahoots with Merseia. What better way to smuggle Merseian agents into our systems? We don't stop Ymirite ships. We aren't able to! But any of them could carry a force-bubble with terrestroid conditions inside.... I've felt for years we've been too childishly trustful of Ymir, It's past time we investigated them in detail. It may already be too late!"
Flandry stubbed out his cigarette. "But what interest have they got in all this?" he asked mildly. "What could any oxygen-breathing race have that they'd covet—or bribe them with?"
"That I don't know," said Fenross. "I could be dead wrong. But I want it looked into. You're going back to Jupiter, Captain. At once."
"What?"
"We're chronically undermanned in this miserable stepchild of the service," said Fenross. "Now, worse than ever. You'll have to go alone. Snoop around as much as you can. Take all the time you need. But don't come back without a report that'll give some indication—one way or another!"
Or come back dead, thought Flandry. He looked into the twitching face across the desk and knew that was what Fenross wanted.
IV
He got Chives out of arrest and debated with himself whether to sneak back to Ruethen's party. It was still going on. But no. Aycharaych would never have mentioned his own departure without assuming Flandry would notify headquarters. It might be his idea of a joke—it might be a straightforward challenge, for Aycharaych was just the sort who'd enjoy seeing if he could elude an ambush—most likely, the whole thing was deliberate, for some darkling purpose. In any event, a junior Intelligence officer or two could better keep tabs on the Chereionite than Flandry, who was prominent. Having made arrangements for that, the man took Chives to his private flitter.
Though voluptuous enough inside, the Hooligan was a combat boat, with guns and speed. Even on primary, sub-light drive, it could reach Jupiter in so few hours that Flandry would have little enough time to think what he would do. He set the autopilot and bade Chives bring a drink. "A stiff one," he added.
"Yes, sir. Do you wish your whites laid out, or do you prefer a working suit?"
Flandry considered his rumpled elegance and sighed. Chives had spent an hour dressing him—for nothing. "Plain gray zip-suit," he said. "Also sackcloth and ashes."
"Very good, sir." The valet poured whisky over ice. He was from Shalmu, quite humanoid except for bald emerald skin, prehensile tail, one-point-four meter height, and details of ear, hand, and foot. Flandry had bought him some years back, named him Chives, and taught him any number of useful arts. Lately the being had politely refused manumission. ("If I may make so bold as to say it, sir, I am afraid my tribal customs would now have a lack of interest for me matched only by their deplorable lack of propriety."
Flandry brooded over his drink awhile. "What do you know about Ymir?" he asked.
"Ymir is the arbitrary human name, sir, for the chief planet of a realm—if I may use that word advisedly—coterminous with the Terrestrial Empire, the Merseian, and doubtless a considerable part of the galaxy beyond."
"Don't be so bloody literal-minded," said Flandry. "Especially when I'm being rhetorical. I mean, what do you know about their ways of living, thinking, believing, hoping? What do they find beautiful and what is too horrible to tolerate? Good galloping gods, what do they even use for a government? They call themselves the Dispersal when they talk Anglic—but is that a translation or a mere tag? How can we tell? What do you and I have in common with a being that lives at a hundred below zero, breathing hydrogen at a pressure which makes our ocean beds look like vacuum, drinking liquid methane and using allotropic ice to make his tools?
"We were ready enough to cede Jupiter to them: Jupiter-type planets throughout our realm. They had terrestroid planets to offer in exchange. Why, that swap doubled the volume of our sphere. And we traded a certain amount of scientific information with them, high-pressure physics for low-pressure, oxygen metabolisms versus hydrogen... but disappointingly little, when you get down to it. They'd been in interstellar space longer than we had. (And how did they learn atomics under Ymirite air pressure? We don't ask it!) They'd already observed our kind of life throughout... how much of the galaxy? We couldn't offer them a thing of importance, except the right to colonize some more planets in peace. They've never shown as much interest in our wars—the wars of the oxygen breathers on the pygmy planets—as you and I would have in a fight between two ant armies. Why should they care? You could drop Terra or Merseia into Jupiter and it'd hardly make a decent splash. For a hundred years, now, the Ymirites have scarcely said a word to us. Or to Merseia, from all indications. Till now.
"And yet I glanced at the pictures taken out near Vixen, just before we left. And Fenross, may he fry, is right. Those blunt ships were made on a planet similar to Terra, but they have Ymirite lines... the way the first Terran automobiles had the motor in front, because that was where the horse used to be.... It could be coincidence, I suppose. Or a red herring. Or—I don't know. How am I supposed to find out, one man on a planet with ten times the radius of Terra? Judas!" He drained his glass and held it out again.
Chives refilled, then went back to the clothes locker. "A white scarf or a blue?" he mused. "Hm, yes, I do believe the white, sir."
The flitter plunged onward. Flandry needed a soberjolt by the time he had landed on Ganymede.
There was an established procedure for such a visit. It hadn't been used for decades, Flandry had to look it up, but the robot station still waited patiently between rough mountains. He presented his credentials, radio contact was made with the primary planet, unknown messages travelled over its surface. A reply was quick: yes, Captain, the governor can receive you. A spaceship is on its way, and will be at your disposal.
Flandry looked out at the stony desolation of Ganymede. It was not long before a squat, shimmering shape had made grav-beam descent. A tube wormed from its lock to the flitter's. Flandry sighed. "Let's go," he said, and strolled across. Chives trotted after with a burden of weapons, tools, and instruments—none of which was likely to be much use. There was a queasy moment under Ganymede's natural gravity, then they had entered the Terra-conditioned bubble.
It looked like any third-class passenger cabin, except for the outmoded furnishings and a bank of large viewscreens. Hard to believe that this was only the material inner lining of a binding-force field: that that same energy, cousin to that which held the atomic nucleus together, was all which kept this room from being crushed beneath intolerable pressure. Or, at the moment, kept the rest of the spaceship from exploding outward. The bulk of the vessel was an alloy of water, lithium, and metallic hydrogen, stable only under Jovian surface conditions.
Flandry let Chives close the airlock while he turned on the screens. They gave him a full outside view. One remained blank, a communicator, the other showed the pilot's cabin.
An artificial voice, ludicrously sweet in the style of a century ago, said: "Greeting, Terran. My name, as nearly as it may be rendered in sonic equivalents, is Horx. I am your guide and interpreter while you remain on Jupiter."
Flandry looked into the screen. The Ymirite didn't quite register on his mind. His eyes weren't trained to those shapes and proportions, seen by that weirdly shifting red-blue-brassy light. (Which wasn't the real thing, even, but an electronic translation. A human looking straight into the thick Jovian air would only see darkness.) "Hello, Horx," he said to the great black multi-legged shape with the peculiarly tendrilled heads. He wet his lips, which seemed a bit dry. "I, er, expect you haven't had such an assignment before in your life."
"I did several times, a hundred or so Terra-years ago," said Horx casually. He didn't seem to move, to touch any controls, but Ganymede receded in the viewscreens and raw space blazed forth. "Since then I have been doing other work." Hesitation. Or was it? At last: "Recently, though, I have conducted several missions to our surface."
"What?" choked Flandry.
"Merseian," said Horx. "You may enquire of the governor if you wish." He said nothing else the whole trip.
Jupiter, already big in the screen, became half of heaven. Flandry saw blots march across its glowing many-colored face, darknesses which were storms that could have swallowed all Terra. Then the sight was lost, he was dropping through the atmosphere. Still the step-up screens tried loyally to show him something: he saw clouds of ammonia crystals, a thousand kilometers long, streaked with strange blues and greens that were free radicals; he saw lightning leap across a purple sky, and the distant yellow flare of sodium explosions. As he descended, he could even feel, very dimly, the quiver of the ship under enormous winds, and hear the muffled shriek and thunder of the air.
They circled the night side, still descending, and Flandry saw a methane ocean, beating waves flattened by pressure and gravity against a cliff of black allotropic ice, which crumbled and was lifted again even as he watched. He saw an endless plain where things half trees and half animals—except that they were neither, in any Terrestrial sense—lashed snaky fronds after ribbon-shaped flyers a hundred meters in length. He saw bubbles stream past on a red wind, and they were lovely in their myriad colors and they sang in thin crystal voices which somehow penetrated the ship. But they couldn't be true bubbles at this pressure. Could they?
A city came into view, just beyond the dawn line. If it was a city. It was, at least, a unified structure of immense extent, intricate with grottos and arabesques, built low throughout but somehow graceful and gracious. On Flandry's screen its color was polished blue. Here and there sparks and threads of white energy would briefly flash. They hurt his eyes. There were many Ymirites about, flying on their own wings or riding in shell-shaped power gliders. You wouldn't think of Jupiter as a planet where anything could fly, until you remembered the air density; then you realized it was more a case of swimming.
The spaceship came to a halt, hovering on its repulsor field. Horx said: "Governor Thua."
Another Ymirite squatted suddenly in the outside communication screen. He held something which smoked and flickered from shape to shape. The impersonally melodious robot voice said for him, under the eternal snarling of a wind which would have blown down any city men could build: "Welcome. What is your desire?"
The old records had told Flandry to expect brusqueness. It was not discourtesy; what could a human and an Ymirite make small talk about? The man puffed a cigarette to nervous life and said: "I am here on an investigative mission for my government." Either these beings were or were not already aware of the Vixen situation; if not, then they weren't allies of Merseia and would presumably not tell. Or if they did, what the devil difference? Flandry explained.
Thua said at once, "You seem to have very small grounds for suspecting us. A mere similarity of appearances and nuclear technology is logically insufficient."
"I know," said Flandry. "It could be a fake."
"It could even be that one or a few Ymirite individuals have offered advice to the entities which instigated this attack," said Thua. You couldn't judge from the pseudo-voice, but he seemed neither offended nor sympathetic: just monumentally uninterested. "The Dispersal has been nonstimulate as regards individuals for many cycles. However, I cannot imagine what motive an Ymirite would have for exerting himself on behalf of oxygen breathers. There is no insight to be gained from such acts, and certainly no material profit."
"An aberrated individual?" suggested Flandry with little hope. "Like a man poking an anthill—an abode of lesser animals—merely to pass the time?"
"Ymirites do not aberrate in such fashion," said Thua stiffly.
"I understand there've been recent Merseian visits here."
"I was about to mention that. I am doing all I can to assure both empires of Ymir's strict neutrality. It would be a nuisance if either attacked us and forced us to exterminate their species."
Which is the biggest brag since that fisherman who caught the equator, thought Flandry, or else is sober truth. He said aloud, choosing his words one by one: "What, then, were the Merseians doing here?"
"They wished to make some scientific observations of the Jovian surface," said Thua. "Horx guided them, like you. Let him describe their activities."
The pilot stirred in his chamber, spreading black wings. "We simply cruised about a few times. They had optical instruments, and took various spectroscopic readings. They said it was for research in solid-state physics."
"Curiouser and curiouser," said Flandry. He stroked his moustache. "They have as many jovoid planets in their sphere as we do. The detailed report on Jovian conditions which the first Ymirite settlers made to Terra, under the treaty, has never been secret. No, I just don't believe that research yarn."
"It did seem dubious," agreed Thua, "but I do not pretend to understand every vagary of the alien mind. It was easier to oblige them than argue about it."
Chives cleared his throat and said unexpectedly: "If I may take the liberty of a question, sir, were all these recent visitors of the Merseian species?"
Thua's disgust could hardly be mistaken: "Do you expect me to register insignificant differences between one such race and another?"
Flandry sighed. "It looks like deadlock, doesn't it?" he said.
"I can think of no way to give you positive assurance that Ymir is not concerned, except my word," said Thua. "However, if you wish you may cruise about this planet at random and see if you observe anything out of the ordinary." His screen went blank.
"Big fat chance!" muttered Flandry. "Give me a drink, Chives."
"Will you follow the governor's proposal?" asked Horx.
"Reckon so." Flandry flopped into a chair. "Give us the standard guided tour. I've never been on Jupiter, and might as well have something to show for my time."
The city fell behind, astonishingly fast. Flandry sipped the whisky Chives had gotten from the supplies they had along, and watched the awesome landscape with half an eye. Too bad he was feeling so sour; this really was an experience such as is granted few men. But he had wasted hours on a mission which any second-year cadet could have handled... while guns were gathered at Syrax and Vixen stood alone against all hell... or even while Lady Diana danced with other men and Ivar del Bruno waited grinning to collect his bet. Flandry said an improper word. "What a nice subtle bed of coals for Fenross to rake me over," he added. "The man has a genius for it." He gulped his drink and called for another.
"We're rising, sir," said Chives much later.
Flandry saw mountains which trembled and droned, blue mists that whirled about their metallic peaks, and then the Jovian ground was lost in darkness. The sky began to turn blood color. "What are we heading for now?" he asked. He checked a map. "Oh, yes, I see."
"I venture to suggest to the pilot, sir, that our speed may be a trifle excessive," said Chives.
Flandry heard the wind outside rise to a scream, with subsonic undertones that shivered in his marrow. Red fog flew roiled and tattered past his eyes. Beyond, he saw crimson clouds the height of a Terrestrial sierra, with lightning leaping in their bellies. The light from the screens washed like a dull fire into the cabin.
"Yes," he muttered. "Slow down, Horx. There'll be another one along in a minute, as the story has it—"
And then he saw the pilot rise up in his chamber, fling open a door, and depart. An instant afterward Flandry saw Horx beat wings against the spaceship's furious slipstream; then the Ymirite was whirled from view. And then Chives saw the thing which hung in the sky before them, and yelled. He threw his tail around Flandry's waist while he clung with hands and legs to a bunk stanchion.
And then the world exploded into thunder and night.
V
Flandry awoke. He spent centuries wishing he hadn't. A blurred green shape said: "Your aneurine, sir."
"Go 'way," mumbled Flandry. "What was I drinking?"
"Pardon my taking the liberty, sir," said Chives. He pinned the man's wrists down with his tail, held Flandry's nose with one hand and poured the drug down his mouth with the other. "There, now, we are feeling much better, aren't we?"
"Remind me to shoot you, slowly." Flandry gagged for a while. The medicine took hold and he sat up. His brain cleared and he looked at the screen bank.
Only one of the viewers still functioned. It showed thick, drifting redness, shot through with blues and blacks. A steady rough growling, like the breakup of a polar ice pack, blasted its way through the ultimate rigidity of the force bubble—God, what must the noise be like outside? The cabin was tilted. Slumped in its lower corner, Flandry began to glide across the floor again; the ship was still being rolled about. The internal gravity field had saved their lives by cushioning the worst shock, but then it had gone dead. He felt the natural pull of Jupiter upon him, and every cell was weary from its own weight.
He focused on a twisted bunkframe. "Did I do that with my own little head?"
"We struck with great force, sir," Chives told him. "I permitted myself to bandage your scalp. However, a shot of growth hormone will heal the cuts in a few hours, sir, if we escape the present dilemma."
Flandry lurched to his feet. His bones seemed to be dragging him back downward. He felt the cabin walls tremble and heard them groan. The force bubble had held, which meant that its generator and the main power plant had survived the crash. Not unexpectedly; a ship like this was built on the "fail safe" principle. But there was no access whatsoever from this cabin to the pilot room—unless you were an Ymirite. It made no difference whether the ship was still flyable or not. Human and Shalmuan were stuck here till they starved. Or, more likely, till the atomic-power plant quit working, under some or other of the buffets this ship was receiving.
Well, when the force-field collapsed and Jovian air pressure flattened the cabin, it would be a merciful death.
"The hell with that noise," said Flandry. "I don't want to die so fast I can't feel it. I want to see death coming, and make the stupid thing fight for every centimeter of me."
Chives gazed into the sinister crimson which filled the last electronic window. His slight frame stooped, shaking in the knees; he was even less adapted to Jovian weight than Flandry. "Where are we, sir?" he husked. "I was thinking primarily about what to make for lunch, just before the collision, and—"
"The Red Spot area," said Flandry. "Or, rather, the fringe of it. We must be on an outlying berg, or whatever the deuce they're called."
"Our guide appears to have abandoned us, sir."
"Hell, he got us into this mess. On purpose! I know for a fact there's at least one Ymirite working for the enemy—whoever the enemy is. But the information won't be much use if we become a pair of grease spots."
The ship shuddered and canted. Flandry grabbed a stanchion for support, eased himself down on the bunk, and said, very quickly, for destruction roared around him:
"You've seen the Red Spot from space, Chives. It's been known for a long time, even before space travel, that it's......ass of aerial pack ice. Lord, what a fantastic place to die! What happens is that at a certain height in the Jovian atmosphere, the pressure allows a red crystalline form of ice—not the white stuff we splash whisky onto, or the black allotrope down at the surface, or the super-dense variety in the mantle around the Jovian core. Here the pressure is right for red ice, and the air density is identical, so it floats. An initial formation created favorable conditions for the formation of more... so it accumulated in this one region, much as polar caps build up on cozier type planets. Some years a lot of it melts away—changes phase—the Red Spot looks paler from outside. Other years you get a heavy pile-up, and Jupiter seems to have a moving wound. But always, Chives, the Red Spot is a pack of flying glaciers, stretching broader than all Terra. And we've been crashed on one of them!"
"Then our present situation can scarcely be accidental, sir," nodded Chives imperturbably. "I daresay, with all the safety precautions built into this ship, Horx thought this would be the only way to destroy us without leaving evidence. He can claim a stray berg was tossed in our path, or some such tale." Chives sniffed. "Not sportsmanlike at all, sir. Just what one would expect of......ative."
The cabin yawed. Flandry caught himself before he fell out of the bunk. At this gravity, to stumble across the room would be to break a leg. Thunders rolled. White vapors hissed up against crimson in the surviving screen.
"I'm not on to these scientific esoterica," said Flandry. His chest pumped, struggling to supply oxygen for muscles toiling under nearly three times their normal weight. Each rib felt as if cast in lead. "But I'd guess what is happening is this. We maintain a temperature in here which for Jupiter is crazily high. So we're radiating heat, which makes the ice go soft and—We're slowly sinking into the berg." He shrugged and got out a cigarette.
"Is that wise, sir?" asked Chives.
"The oxygen recyclers are still working," said Flandry. "It's not at all stuffy in here. Air is the least of our worries." His coolness cracked over, he smote a fist on the wall and said between his teeth: "It's this being helpless! We can't go out of the cabin, we can't do a thing but sit here and take it!"
"I wonder, sir." Slowly, his thin face sagging with gravity, Chives pulled himself to the pack of equipment. He pawed through it. "No, sir. I regret to say I took no radio. It seemed we could communicate through the pilot." He paused. "Even if we did find a way to signal, I daresay any Ymirite who received our call would merely interpret it as random static."
Flandry stood up, somehow. "What do we have?" A tiny excitement shivered along his nerves. Outside, Jupiter boomed at him.
"Various detectors, sir, to check for installations. A pair of spacesuits. Sidearms. Your burglar kit, though I confess uncertainty what value it would have here. A microrecorder. A—"
"Wait a minute!"
Flandry sprang towards his valet. The floor rocked beneath him. He staggered towards the far wall. Chives shot out his tail and helped brake the man. Shaking, Flandry eased himself down and went on all fours to the corner where the Shalmuan squatted.
He didn't even stop to gibe at his own absent-mindedness. His heart thuttered. "Wait a minute, Chives," he said. "We've got an airlock over there. Since the force-bubble necessarily reinforces its structure, it must still be intact; and its machinery can open the valves even against this outside pressure. Of course, we can't go through ourselves. Our space armor would be squashed flat. But we can get at the mechanism of the lock. It also, by logical necessity, has to be part of the Terra-conditioned system. We can use the tools we have here to make a simple automatic cycle. First the outer valve opens. Then it shuts, the Jovian air is exhausted from the chamber and Terrestrial air replaces same. Then the valve opens again... and so on. Do you see?"
"No, sir," said Chives. A deadly physical exhaustion filmed his yellow eyes. "My brain feels so thick... I regret—"
"A signal!" yelled Flandry. "We flush oxygen out into a hydrogen-cum-methane atmosphere. We supply an electric spark in the lock chamber to ignite the mixture. Whoosh! A flare! Feeble and blue enough—but not by Jovian standards. Any Ymirite anywhere within tens of kilometers is bound to see it as brilliant as we see a magnesium torch. And it'll repeat. A steady cycle, every four or five minutes. If the Ymirites aren't made of concrete, they'll be curious enough to investigate... and when they find the wreck on this berg, they'll guess our need and—"
His voice trailed off. Chives said dully, "Can we spare the oxygen, sir?"
"We'll have to," said Flandry. "We'll sacrifice as much as we can stand, and then halt the cycle. If nothing has happened after several hours, we'll expend half of what's left in one last fireworks." He took an ultimate pull on his cigarette, ground it out with great care, and fought back to his feet. "Come on, let's get going. What have we to lose?"
The floor shook. It banged and crashed outside. A fog of free radicals drifted green past the window, and the red iceberg spun in Jupiter's endless gale.
Flandry glanced at Chives. "You have one fault, laddy," he said, forcing a smile to his lips. "You aren't a beautiful woman." And then, after a moment, sighing: "However, it's just as well. Under the circumstances."
VI
—And in that well-worn nick of time, which goes to prove that the gods, understandably, love me, help arrived. An Ymirite party spotted our flare. Having poked around, they went off, bringing back another force-bubble ship to which we transferred our nearly suffocated carcasses. No, Junior, I don't know what the Ymirites were doing in the Red Spot area. It must be a dank cold place for them too. But I had guessed they would be sure to maintain some kind of monitors, scientific stations, or what have you around there, just as we monitor the weather-breeding regions of Terra.
Governor Thua didn't bother to apologize. He didn't even notice my valet's indignant demand that the miscreant Horx be forthwith administered a red-ice shaft, except to say that future visitors would be given a different guide (how can they tell?) and that this business was none of his doing and he wouldn't waste any Ymirite's time with investigations or punishment or any further action at all. He pointed out the treaty provision, that he wasn't bound to admit us, and that any visits would always be at the visitor's own risk.
The fact that some Ymirites did rescue us proves that the conspiracy, if any, does not involve their whole race. But how highly placed the hostile individuals are in their government (if they have anything corresponding to government as we know it)—I haven't the groggiest.
Above summary for convenience only. Transcript of all conversation, which was taped as per ungentlemanly orders, attached.
Yes, Junior, you may leave the room.
Flandry switched off the recorder. He could trust the confidential secretary, who would make a formal report out of his dictation, to clean it up. Though he wished she wouldn't.
He leaned back, cocked feet on desk, trickled smoke through his nostrils, and looked out the clear wall of his office. Admiralty Center gleamed, slim faerie spires in soft colors, reaching for the bright springtime sky of Terra. You couldn't mount guard across 400 light-years without millions of ships; and that meant millions of policy makers, scientists, engineers, strategists, tacticians, coordinators, clerks... and they had families, which needed food, clothing, houses, schools, amusements... so the heart of the Imperial Navy became a city in its own right. Damn company town, thought Flandry. And yet, when the bombs finally roared out of space, when the barbarians howled among smashed buildings and the smoke of burning books hid dead men in tattered bright uniforms—when the Long Night came, as it would, a century or a millennium hence, what difference? —something of beauty and gallantry would have departed the universe.
To hell with it. Let civilization hang together long enough for Dominic Flandry to taste a few more vintages, ride a few more horses, kiss a lot more girls and sing another ballad or two. That would suffice. At least, it was all he dared hope for.
The intercom chimed. "Admiral Fenross wants to see you immediately, sir."
"Now he tells me," grunted Flandry. "I wanted to see him yesterday, when I got back."
"He was busy then, sir," said the robot, as glibly as if it had a conscious mind. "His lordship the Earl of Sidrath is visiting Terra, and wished to be conducted through the operations center."
Flandry rose, adjusted his peacock-blue tunic, admired the crease of his gold-frogged white trousers, and covered his sleek hair with a jewel-banded officer's cap. "Of course," he said, "Admiral Fenross couldn't possibly delegate the tour to an aide."
"The Earl of Sidrath is related to Grand Admiral the Duke of Asia," the robot reminded him.
Flandry sang beneath his breath, "Brown is the color of my true love's nose," and went out the door. After a series of slideways and gravshafts, he reached Fenross' office.
The admiral nodded his close-cropped head beyond the desk. "There you are." His tone implied Flandry had stopped for a beer on the way. "Sit down. Your preliminary verbal report on the Jovian mission has been communicated to me. Is that really all you could find out?"
Flandry smiled. "You told me to get an indication, one way or another, of the Ymirite attitude, sir," he purred. "That's what I got: an indication, one way or another."
Fenross gnawed his lip. "All right, all right. I should have known, I guess. Your forte never was working with an organization, and we're going to need a special project, a very large project, to learn the truth about Ymir."
Flandry sat up straight. "Don't," he said sharply.
"What?"
"Don't waste men that way. Sheer arithmetic will defeat them. Jupiter alone has the area of a hundred Terras. The population must be more or less proportional. How are our men going to percolate around, confined to the two or three spaceships that Thua has available for them? Assuming Thua doesn't simply refuse to admit any further oxygen-breathing nuisances. How are they going to question, bribe, eavesdrop, get a single piece of information? It's a truism that the typical Intelligence job consists of gathering a million unimportant little facts and fitting them together into one big fact. We've few enough agents as is, spread ghastly thin. Don't tie them up in an impossible job. Let them keep working on Merseia, where they've a chance of accomplishing something!"
"And if Ymir suddenly turns on us?" snapped Fenross.
"Then we roll with the punch. Or we die." Flandry shrugged and winced; his muscles were still sore from the pounding they had taken. "But haven't you thought, sir, this whole business may well be a Merseian stunt—to divert our attention from them, right at this crisis? It's exactly the sort of bear trap Aycharaych loves to set."
"That may be," admitted Fenross. "But Merseia lies beyond Syrax; Jupiter is next door. I've been given to understand that his Imperial Majesty is alarmed enough to desire—" He shrugged too, making it the immemorial gesture of a baffled underling.
"Who dropped that hint?" drawled Flandry. "Surely not the Earl of Sidrath, whom you were showing the sights yesterday while the news came in that Vixen had fallen?"
"Shut up!" Almost, it was a scream. A jag of pain went over Fenross' hollowed countenance. He reached for a pill. "If I didn't oblige the peerage," he said thickly, "I'd be begging my bread in Underground and someone would be in this office who'd never tell them no."
Flandry paused. He started a fresh cigarette with unnecessary concentration. I suppose I am being unjust to him, he thought. Poor devil. It can't be much fun being Fenross.
Still, he reflected, Aycharaych had left the Solar System so smoothly that the space ambush had never even detected his boat. Twenty-odd hours ago, a battered scoutship had limped in to tell the Imperium that Vixen had perforce surrendered to its nameless besiegers, who had landed en masse after reducing the defenses. The last dispatch from Syrax described clashes which had cost the Terrans more ships than the Merseians. Jupiter blazed a mystery in the evening sky. Rumor said that after his human guests had left, Ruethen and his staff had rolled out huge barrels of bitter ale and caroused like trolls for many hours; they must have known some reason to be merry.
You couldn't blame Fenross much. But would the whole long climb of man, from jungle to stars, fall back in destruction—and no single person even deserve to have his knuckles rapped for it?
"What about the reinforcements that were being sent to Vixen?" asked Flandry.
"They're still on their way." Fenross gulped his pill and relaxed a trifle. "What information we have, about enemy strength and so on, suggests that another standoff will develop. The aliens won't be strong enough to kick our force out of the system—"
"Not with Tom Walton in command. I hear he is." A very small warmth trickled into Flandry's soul.
"Yes. At the same time, now the enemy is established on Vixen, there's no obvious way to get them off without total blasting—which would sterilize the planet. Of course, Walton can try to cut their supply lines and starve them out; but once they get their occupation organized, Vixen itself will supply them. Or he can try to find out where they come from, and counter-attack their home. Or perhaps he can negotiate something. I don't know. The Emperor himself gave Admiral Walton what amounts to carte blanche."
It must have been one of his Majesty's off days, decided Flandry. Actually doing the sensible thing.
"Our great handicap is that our opponents know all about us and we know almost nothing about them," went on Fenross. "I'm afraid the primary effort of our Intelligence must be diverted towards Jupiter for the time being. But someone has to gather information at Vixen too, about the aliens." His voice jerked to a halt.
Flandry filled his lungs with smoke, held it a moment, and let it out in a slow flood. "Eek," he said tonelessly.
"Yes. That's your next assignment."
"But... me, alone, to Vixen? Surely Walton's force carries a bunch of people."
"Of course. They'll do what they can. But parallel operations are standard espionage procedure, as even you must know. Furthermore, the Vixenites made the dramatic rather than the logical gesture. After their planet had capitulated, they got one boat out, with one person aboard. The boat didn't try to reach any Terrestrial ship within the system. That was wise, because the tiny force Aldebaran had sent was already broken in battle and reduced to sneak raids. But neither did the Vixenite boat go to Aldebaran itself. No, it came straight here, and the pilot expected a personal audience with the Emperor."
"And didn't get it," foretold Flandry. "His Majesty is much too busy gardening to waste time on a mere commoner representing a mere planet."
"Gardening?" Fenross blinked.
"I'm told his Majesty cultivates beautiful pansies," murmured Flandry.
Fenross gulped and said in great haste: "Well, no, of course not. I mean, I myself interviewed the pilot, and read the report carried along. Not too much information, though helpful. However, while Walton has a few Vixenite refugees along as guides and advisors, this pilot is the only one who's seen the aliens close up, on the ground, digging in and trading rifle shots with humans; has experienced several days of occupation before getting away. Copies of the report can be sent after Walton. But that first-hand knowledge of enemy behavior, regulations, all the little unpredictable details... that may also prove essential."
"Yes," said Flandry. "If a spy is to be smuggled back on to Vixen's surface. Namely me."
Fenross allowed himself a prim little smile. "That's what I had in mind."
Flandry nodded, unsurprised. Fenross would never give up trying to get him killed. Though in all truth, Dominic Flandry doubtless had more chance of pulling such a stunt and getting back unpunctured than anyone else.
He said idly: "The decision to head straight for Sol wasn't illogical. If the pilot had gone to Aldebaran, then Aldebaran would have sent us a courier reporting the matter and asking for orders. A roundabout route. This way, we got the news days quicker. No, that Vixenite has a level head on his shoulders."
"Hers," corrected Fenross.
"Huh?" Flandry sat bolt upright.
"She'll explain any details," said Fenross. "I'll arrange an open requisition for you: draw what equipment you think you'll need. And if you survive, remember, I'll want every millo's worth accounted for. Now get out and get busy! I've got work to do."
VII
The Hooligan snaked out of Terran sky, ran for a time on primary drive at an acceleration which it strained the internal grav-field to compensate for, and, having reached a safe distance from Sol, sprang over into secondary. Briefly the viewscreens went wild with Doppler effect and aberration. Then their circuits adapted to the rate at which the vessel pulsed in and out of normal space-time-energy levels; they annulled the optics of pseudo-speed, and Flandry looked again upon cold many-starred night as if he were at rest.
He left Chives in the turret to make final course adjustments and strolled down to the saloon. "All clear," he smiled. "Estimated time to Vixen, thirteen standard days."
"What?" The girl, Catherine Kittredge, half rose from the luxuriously cushioned bench. "But it took me a month the other way, an' I had the fastest racer on our planet."
"I've tinkered with this one," said Flandry, "Or, rather, found experts to do so." He sat down near her, crossing long legs and leaning an elbow on the mahogany table which the bench half-circled. "Give me a screwdriver and I'll make any firearm in the cosmos sit up and speak. But space drives have an anatomy I can only call whimsical."
He was trying to put her at ease. Poor kid, she had seen her home assailed, halfway in from the Imperial marches that were supposed to bear all the wars; she had seen friends and kinfolk slain in battle with unhuman unknowns, and heard the boots of an occupying enemy racket in once-familiar streets; she had fled to Terra like a child to its mother, and been coldly interviewed in an office and straightway bundled back on to a spaceship, with one tailed alien and one suave stranger. Doubtless an official had told her she was a brave little girl and now it was her duty to return as a spy and quite likely be killed. And meanwhile rhododendrons bloomed like cool fire in Terra's parks, and the laughing youth of Terra's aristocracy flew past on their way to some newly opened pleasure house.
No wonder Catherine Kittredge's eyes were wide and bewildered.
They were her best feature, Flandry decided: large, set far apart, a gold-flecked hazel under long lashes and thick dark brows. Her hair would have been nice too, a blonde helmet, if she had not cut it off just below the ears. Otherwise she was nothing much to look at—a broad, snub-nosed, faintly freckled countenance, generous mouth and good chin. As nearly as one could tell through a shapeless gray coverall, she was of medium height and on the stocky side. She spoke Anglic with a soft regional accent that sounded good in her low voice; but all her mannerisms were provincial, fifty years out of date. Flandry wondered a little desperately what they could talk about.
Well, there was business enough. He flicked buttons for autoservice. "What are you drinking?" he asked. "We've anything within reason, and a few things out of reason, on board."
She blushed. "Nothin', thank you," she mumbled.
"Nothing at all? Come, now. Daiquiri? Wine? Beer? Buttermilk, for heaven's sake?"
"Hm?" She raised a fleeting glance. He discovered Vixen had no dairy industry, cattle couldn't survive there, and dialed ice cream for her. He himself slugged down a large gin-and-bitters. He was going to need alcohol—two weeks alone in space with Little Miss Orphan!
She was pleased enough by discovering ice cream to relax a trifle. Flandry offered a cigarette, was refused, and started one for himself. "You'll have plenty of time to brief me en route," he said, "so don't feel obliged to answer questions now, if it distresses you."
Catherine Kittredge looked beyond him, out the viewscreen and into the frosty sprawl of Andromeda. Her lips twitched downward, ever so faintly. But she replied with a steadiness he liked: "Why not? 'Twon't bother me more'n sittin' an' broodin'."
"Good girl. Tell me, how did you happen to carry the message?"
"My brother was our official courier. You know how 'tis on planets like ours, without much population or money: whoever's got the best spaceship gets a subsidy an' carries any special dispatches. I helped him. We used to go off jauntin' for days at a time, an'—No," she broke off. Her fists closed. "I won't bawl. The aliens forced a landin'. Hank went off with our groun' forces. He didn't come back. Sev'ral days after the surrender, when things began to settle down a little, I got the news he'd been killed in action. A few of us decided the Imperium had better be given what information we could supply. Since I knew Hank's ship best, they tol' me to go."
"I see." Flandry determined to keep this as dry as possible, for her sake. "I've a copy of the report your people made up, of course, but you had all the way to Sol to study it, so you must know more about it than anyone else off Vixen. Just to give me a rough preliminary idea, I understand some of the invaders knew Anglic and there was a certain amount of long-range parleying. What did they call themselves?"
"Does that matter?" she asked listlessly.
"Not in the faintest, at the present stage of things, except that it's such a weary cliché to speak of Planet X."
She smiled, a tiny bit. "They called themselves the Ardazirho, an' we gathered the ho was a collective endin'. So we figure their planet is named Ardazir. Though I can't come near pronouncin' it right."
Flandry took a stereopic from the pocket of his iridescent shirt. It had been snapped from hiding, during the ground battle. Against a background of ruined human homes crouched a single enemy soldier. Warrior? Acolyte? Unit? Armed, at least, and a killer of men.
Preconceptions always got in the way. Flandry's first startled thought had been Wolf! Now he realized that of course the Ardazirho was not lupine, didn't even look notably wolfish. Yet the impression lingered. He was not surprised when Catherine Kittredge said the aliens had gone howling into battle.
They were described as man-size bipeds, but digitigrade, which gave their feet almost the appearance of a dog's walking on its hind legs. The shoulders and arms were very humanoid, except that the thumbs were on the opposite side of the hands from mankind's. The head, arrogantly held on a powerful neck, was long and narrow for an intelligent animal, with a low forehead, most of the brain space behind the pointed ears. A black-nosed muzzle, not as sharp as a wolf's and yet somehow like it, jutted out of the face. Its lips were pulled back in a snarl, showing bluntly pointed fangs which suggested a flesh-eater turned omnivore. The eyes were oval, close set, and gray as sleet. Short thick fur covered the entire body, turning to a ruff at the throat; it was rusty red.
"Is this a uniform?" asked Flandry.
The girl leaned close to see. The pictured Ardazirho wore a sort of kilt, in checkerboard squares of various hues. Flandry winced at some of the combinations: rose next to scarlet, a glaring crimson offensively between two delicate yellows. "Barbarians indeed," he muttered. "I hope Chives can stand the shock." Otherwise the being was dressed in boots of flexible leather and a harness from which hung various pouches and equipment. He was armed with what was obviously a magnetronic rifle, and had a wicked-looking knife at his belt.
"I'm not sure," said the girl. "Either they don't use uniforms at all, or they have such a variety that we've not made any sense of it. Some might be dressed more or less like him, others in a kind o' tunic an' burnoose, others in breastplates an' fancy plumed helmets."
"Him," pounced Flandry. "They're all male, then?"
"Yes, sir, seems that way. The groun' fightin' lasted long enough for our biologists to dissect an' analyze a few o' their dead. Accordin' to the report, they're placental mammals. It's clear they're from a more or less terrestroid planet, probably with a somewhat stronger gravity. The eye structure suggests their sun is bright, type A5 or thereabouts. That means they should feel pretty much at home in our badlands." Catherine Kittredge shrugged sadly. "Figure that's why they picked us to start on."
"They might have been conquering for some time," said Flandry. "A hot star like an A5 is no use to humans; and I imagine the F-type like yours is about as cool as they care for. They may well have built up a little coterminous kingdom, a number of B, A, and F suns out in your quadrant, where we don't even have a complete astronomical mapping—let alone having explored much... Hm. Didn't you get a chance to interrogate any live prisoners?"
"Yes. 'Twasn't much use. Durin' the fightin', one of our regiments did encircle a unit o' theirs an' knock it out with stun beams. When two o' them woke up an' saw they were captured, they died."
"Preconditioning," nodded Flandry. "Go on."
"The rest didn't speak any Anglic, 'cept one who'd picked up a little bit. They questioned him." The girl winced. "I don't figure 'twas very nice. The report says towards the end his heart kept stoppin' an' they'd revive it, but at last he died for good... Anyway, it seems a fair bet he was tellin' the truth. An' he didn't know where his home star was. He could understan' our coordinate system, an' translate it into the one they used. But that was zeroed arbitrarily on S Doradus, an' he didn't have any idea about the coordinates of Ardazir."
"Memory blank." Flandry scowled. "Probably given to all the enlisted ranks. Such officers as must retain full information are conditioned to die on capture. What a merry monarch they've got." He twisted his moustache between nervous fingers. "You know, though, this suggests their home is vulnerable. Maybe we should concentrate on discovering where it is."
The girl dropped her eyes. She lost a little color. "Do you think we can, my lord?" she whispered. "Or are we just goin' to die too?"
"If the mission involves procedures illegal or immoral, I should have no trouble." Flandry grinned at her. "You can do whatever honorable work is necessary. Between us, why, God help Ardazir. Incidentally, I don't rate a title."
"But they called you Sir Dominic."
"A knighthood is not a patent of nobility. I'm afraid my relationship to the peerage involves a bar sinister. You see, one day my father wandered into this sinister bar, and—" Flandry rambled on, skirting the risqué, until he heard her laugh. Then he laughed back and said: "Good girl! What do they call you at home? Kit, I'll swear. Very well, we're off to the wars, you the Kit and I the caboodle. Now let's scream for Chives to lay out caviar and cheeses. Afterwards I'll show you to your stateroom." Her face turned hot, and he added, "Its door locks on the inside."
"Thank you," she said, so low he could scarcely hear it. Smoky lashes fluttered on her cheeks. "When I was told to come—with you—I mean, I didn't know—"
"My dear girl," said Flandry, "credit me with enough experience to identify a holstered needle gun among more attractive curves beneath that coverall."
VIII
There was always something unreal about a long trip through space. Here, for a time, you were alone in the universe. No radio could outpace you and be received, even if unimaginable distance would not soon have drowned it in silence. No other signal existed, except another spaceship, and how would it find you unless your feeble drive-pulsations were by the merest chance detected? A whole fleet might travel many parsecs before some naval base sensed its wake with instruments; your one mote of a craft could hurtle to the ends of creation and never be heard. There was nothing to be seen, no landscape, no weather, simply the enormous endless pageantry of changing constellations, now and then a cold nebular gleam between flashing suns, the curdled silver of the Milky Way and the clotted stars near Sagittarius. Yet you in your shell were warm, dry, breathing sweet recycled air; on a luxury vessel like the Hooligan, you might listen to recorded Lysarcian bells, sip Namorian maoth and taste Terran grapes.
Flandry worked himself even less mercifully than he did Chives and Kit. It was the hard, dull grind which must underlie all their hopes: study, rehearsal, analysis of data, planning and discarding and planning again, until brains could do no more and thinking creaked to a halt. But then recreation became pure necessity—and they were two humans with one unobtrusive servant, cruising among the stars.
Flandry discovered that Kit could give him a workout, when they played handball down in the hold. And her stubborn chess game defeated his swashbuckling tactics most of the time. She had a puckish humor when she wasn't remembering her planet. Flandry would not soon forget her thumbnail impression of Vice Admiral Fenross: "A mind like a mousetrap, only he ought to let some o' those poor little mice go." She could play the lorr, her fingers dancing over its twelve primary strings with that touch which brings out the full ringing resonance of the secondaries; she seemed to know all the ballads from the old brave days when men were first hewing their home out of Vixen's wildness, and they were good to hear.
Flandry grew slowly aware that she was the opposite of bad-looking. She just hadn't been sculpted into the monotonously aristocratic appearance of Terra's high-born ladies. The face, half boyish, was her own, the body full and supple where it counted. He swore dismally to himself and went on a more rigorous calisthenic program.
Slowly the stars formed new patterns. There came a time when Aldebaran stood like red flame, the brightest object in all heaven. And then the needle-point of Vixen's sun, the star named Cerulia, glistened keen and blue ahead. And Flandry turned from the viewscreen and said quietly: "Two more days to go. I think we'll have captain's dinner tonight."
"Very good, sir," said Chives. "I took it upon myself to bring along some live Maine lobster. And I trust the Liebfraumilch '51 will be satisfactory?"
"That's the advantage of having a Shalmuan for your batman," remarked Flandry to Kit. "Their race has more sensitive palates than ours. They can't go wrong on vintages."
She smiled, but her eyes were troubled.
Flandry retired to his own cabin and an argument. He wanted to wear a peach-colored tunic with his white slacks; Chives insisted that the dark blue, with a gold sash, was more suitable. Chives won, naturally. The man wandered into the saloon, which was already laid out for a feast, and poured himself an aperitif. Music sighed from the recorder, nothing great but sweet to hear.
A footfall came lightly behind him. He turned and nearly dropped his glass. Kit was entering in a sheer black dinner gown; one veil the color of fire flickered from her waistline. A filigree tiara crowned shining hair, and a bracelet of Old Martian silver coiled massive on her wrist.
"Great hopping electrons," gasped Flandry. "Don't do such things without warning! Where did the paintbrush come from to lay on the glamour that thick?"
Kit chuckled and pirouetted. "Chives," she said. "Who else? He's a darlin'. He brought the jew'lry along, an' he's been makin' the dress at odd moments this whole trip."
Flandry shook his head and clicked his tongue. "If Chives would accept manumission, he could set himself up in business, equipping lady spies to seduce poor officers like me. He'd own the galaxy in ten years."
Kit blushed and said hastily: "Did he select the tape too? I always have loved Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto."
"Oh, is that what it is? Nice music for a sentimental occasion, anyway. My department is more the administration of drinks. I prescribe this before dinner: Ansan aurea. Essentially, it's a light dry vermouth, but for once a non-Terran soil has improved the flavor of a Terran plant."
She hesitated. "I don't—I never—"
"Well, high time you began." He did not glance at the viewscreen, where Cerulia shone like steel, but they both knew there might not be many hours left for them to savor existence. She took the glass, sipped, and sighed.
"Thank you, Dominic. I've been missin' out on such a lot."
They seated themselves. "We'll have to make that up, after this affair is over," said Flandry. A darkening passed through him, just long enough to make him add: "However, I suspect that on the whole you've done better in life than I."
"What do you mean?" Her eyes, above the glass, reflected the wine's hue and became almost golden.
"Oh... hard to say." His mouth twisted ruefully upward. "I've no romantic illusions about the frontier. I've seen too much of it. I'd a good deal rather loll in bed sipping my morning chocolate than bounce into the fields before dawn to cultivate the grotch or scag the thimbs or whatever dreary technicalities it is that pioneers undergo. And yet, well, I've no illusions about my own class either, or my own way of life. You frontier people are the healthy ones. You'll be around—most of you—long after the Empire is a fireside legend. I envy you that."
He broke off. "Pardon me. I'm afraid spiritual jaundice is an occupational disease in my job."
"Which I'm still not sure what it—Oh, dear." Kit chuckled. "Does alcohol act that fast? But really, Dominic, I wish you'd talk a little about your work. All you've said is, you're in Naval Intelligence. I'd like to know what you do."
"Why?" he asked.
She flushed and blurted: "To know you better."
Flandry saw her confusion and moved to hide it from them both. "There's not a lot to tell. I'm a field agent, which means I go out and peek through windows instead of sitting in an office reading the reports of window peekers. Thanks to the circumstance that my immediate superior doesn't like me, I spend most of my working time away from Terra, on what amounts to a roving commission. Good old Fenross. If he was ever replaced by some kindly father-type who dealt justly with all subordinates, I'd dry up and blow away."
"I think that's revoltin'." Anger flashed in her voice.
"What? The discrimination? But my dear lass, what is any civilization but an elaborate structure of special privileges? I've learned to make my way around among them. Good frogs, d'you think I want a nice secure desk job with a guaranteed pension?"
"But still, Dominic—a man like you, riskin' his life again an' again, sent almost alone against all Ardazir... because someone doesn't like you!" Her face still burned, and there was a glimmer of tears in the hazel eyes.
"Hard to imagine how that could be," said Flandry with calculated smugness. He added, lightly and almost automatically: "But after all, think what an outrageous special privilege your personal heredity represents: so much beauty, charm, and intelligence lavished on one little girl."
She grew mute, but faintly she trembled. With a convulsive gesture, she tossed off her glass.
Easy, boy, thought Flandry. A not unpleasurable alertness came to life. Emotional scenes are the last thing we want out here. "Which brings up the general topic of you," he said in his chattiest tone. "A subject well worth discussing over the egg flower soup which I see Chives bringing in... or any other course, for that matter. Let's see, you were a weather engineer's assistant for a living, isn't that right? Sounds like fun, in an earnest high-booted way." And might prove useful, added that part of him which never took a vacation.
She nodded, as anxious as he to escape what they had skirted. They took pleasure in the meal, and talked of many things. Flandry confirmed his impression that Kit was not an unsophisticated peasant. She didn't know the latest delicious gossip about you-know-who and that actor. But she had measured the seasons of her strange violent planet; she could assemble a machine so men could trust their lives to it; she had hunted and sported, seen birth and death; the intrigues of her small city were as subtle as any around the Imperial throne. Withal, she had the innocence of most frontier folk—or call it optimism, or honor, or courage—at any rate, she had not begun to despair of the human race.
But because he found himself in good company, and this was a special occasion, he kept both their glasses filled. After a while he lost track of how many times he had poured.
When Chives cleared the table and set out coffee and liqueur, Kit reached eagerly for her cup. "I need this," she said, not quite clearly, "'Fraid I had too much to drink."
"That was the general idea," said Flandry. He accepted a cigar from Chives. The Shalmuan went noiselessly out. Flandry looked across the table. Kit sat with her back to the broad viewscreen, so that the stars were jewels clustered around her tiara.
"I don't believe it," she said after a moment.
"You're probably right," said Flandry. "What don't you believe?"
"What you were sayin'... 'bout the Empire bein' doomed."
"It's better not to believe that," he said gently.
"Not because o' Terra," she said. She leaned forward. The light was soft on her bare young shoulders. "The little bit I saw there was a hard blow. But Dominic, as long's the Empire has men like, like you—we'll take on the whole universe an' win."
"Blessings," said Flandry in haste.
"No." Her eyes were the least bit hazed, but they locked steadily with his. She smiled, more in tenderness than mirth. "You won't wriggle off the hook with a joke this time, Dominic. You gave me too much to drink, you see, an'—I mean it. A planet with you on its side has still got hope enough."
Flandry sipped his liqueur. Suddenly the alcohol touched his own brain with its pale fires, and he thought, Why not be honest with her? She can take it. Maybe she even deserves it.
"No, Kit," he said. "I know my class from the inside out, because it is my class and I probably wouldn't choose another even if some miracle made me able to. But we're hollow, and corrupt, and death has marked us for its own. In the last analysis, however we disguise it, however strenuous and hazardous and even lofty our amusements are, the only reason we can find for living is to have fun. And I'm afraid that isn't reason enough."
"But it is!" she cried.
"You think so," he said, "because you're lucky enough to belong to a society which still has important jobs uncompleted. But we aristocrats of Terra, we enjoy life instead of enjoying what we're doing... and there's a cosmos of difference.
"The measure of our damnation is that every one of us with any intelligence—and there are some—every one sees the Long Night coming. We've grown too wise; we've studied a little psycho-dynamics, or perhaps only read a lot of history, and we can see that Manuel's Empire was not a glorious resurgence. It was the Indian summer of Terran civilization. (But you've never seen Indian summer, I suppose. A pity: no planet has anything more beautiful and full of old magics.) Now even that short season is past. Autumn is far along; the nights are cold and the leaves are fallen and the last escaping birds call through a sky which has lost all color. And yet, we who see winter coming can also see it won't be here till after our lifetimes... so we shiver a bit, and swear a bit, and go back to playing with a few bright dead leaves."
He stopped. Silence grew around them. And then, from the intercom, music began again, a low orchestral piece which spoke to deep places of their awareness.
"Excuse me," said Flandry. "I really shouldn't have wished my sour pessimism on you."
Her smile this time held a ghost of pity. "An' o' course 'twouldn't be debonair to show your real feelin's, or try to find words for them."
"Touché!" He cocked his head. "Think we could dance to that?"
"The music? Hardly. The Liebestod is background for somethin' else. I wonder if Chives knew."
"Hm?" Flandry looked surprised at the girl.
"I don't mind at all," she whispered. "Chives is a darlin'."
Suddenly he understood.
But the stars were chill behind her. Flandry thought of guns and dark fortresses waiting for them both. He thought of knightly honor, which would not take advantage of the helplessness which is youth—and then, with a little sadness, he decided that practical considerations were what really turned the balance for him.
He raised the cigar to his mouth and said softly, "Better drink your coffee before it gets cold, lass."
With that the moment was safely over. He thought he saw disappointed gratitude in Kit's hurried glance, but wasn't sure. She turned around, gazing at the stars merely to avoid facing him for the next few seconds.
Her breath sighed outward. She sat looking at Cerulia for a whole minute. Then she stared down at her hands and said tonelessly: "Figure you're right 'bout the Empire. But then what's to become o' Vixen?"
"We'll liberate it, and squeeze a fat indemnity out of Ardazir," said Flandry as if there were no doubt.
"Uh-uh." She shook her head. Bitterness began to edge her voice. "Not if 'tisn't convenient. Your Navy might decide to fight the war out where 'tis. An' then my whole planet, my people, the little girl next door an' her kitten, trees an' flowers an' birds, why, 'twill just be radioactive ash blowin' over dead gray hills. Or maybe the Imperium will decide to compromise, an' let Ardazir keep Vixen. Why not? What's one planet to the Empire? A swap might, as you say, buy them peace in their own lifetimes. A few million human bein's, that's nothin', write them off in red ink." She shook her head again in a dazed way. "Why are we goin' there, you an' I? What are we workin' for? Whatever we do can come to nothin', from one stroke of a pen in some bored bureaucrat's hand. Can't it?"
"Yes," said Flandry.
IX
Cerulia, being a main-sequence star, did not need vastly more mass than Sol to shine more fiercely. Vixen, the fourth planet out, circled its primary in one and a half standard years, along such an orbit that it received, on the average, about as much radiation as Terra.
"The catch lies in that word ‘average,'" murmured Flandry.
He floated in the turret with Chives, hands on the control panel and body weightless in a cocoon of pilot harness. To port, the viewscreens were dimmed, lest the harsh blue sun burn out his eyes. Elsewhere, distorted constellations sprawled stark against night. Flandry picked out the Jupiter-type planet called Ogre by the humans of Vixen: a bright yellow glow, its larger moons visible like sparks. And what were its Ymirite colonists thinking?
"Ogre's made enough trouble for Vixen all by itself," complained Flandry. "Its settlers ought to be content with that and not go plotting with Ardazir. If they are, I mean." He turned to Chives. "How's Kit taking this free-fall plunge?"
"I regret to say Miss Kittredge did not look very comfortable, sir," answered the Shalmuan. "But she said she was."
Flandry clicked his tongue. Since the advent of gravity control, there had been little need for civilians ever to undergo weightlessness; hence Kit, susceptible to it, didn't have the training that would have helped. Well, she'd be a lot sicker if an Ardazirho missile homed on the Hooligan. Nobody ever died of space nausea: no such luck!
Ardazir would undoubtedly have mounted tight guard over conquered Vixen. Flandry's detectors were confirming this. The space around the planet quivered with primary-drive vibrations, patrolling warcraft, and there must be a network of orbital robot monitors to boot. A standard approach was certain to be spotted. There was another way to land, though, if you were enough of a pilot and had enough luck. Flandry had decided to go ahead with it, rather than contact Walton's task force. He couldn't do much there except report himself in... and then proceed to Vixen anyway, with still more likelihood of detection and destruction.
Engines cold, the Hooligan plunged at top meteoric velocity straight towards her goal. Any automaton was sure to register her as a siderite, and ignore her. Only visual observation would strip that disguise off; and space is so vast that even with the closest blockade, there was hardly a chance of passing that close to an unwarned enemy. Escape from the surface would be harder, but this present stunt was foolproof. Until you hit atmosphere!
Flandry watched Vixen swelling in the forward viewscreens. To one side Cerulia burned, ominously big. The planet's northern dayside was like a slice of incandescence; polarizing telescopes showed bare mountains, stony deserts, rivers gone wild with melted snows. In the southern hemisphere, the continents were still green and brown, the oceans deeply blue, like polished cobalt. But cloud banded that half of the world, storms marched roaring over hundreds of kilometers, lightning flared through rain. The equator was hidden under a nearly solid belt of cloud and gale. The northern aurora was cold flame; the south pole, less brilliant, still shook great banners of light into heaven. A single small moon, 100,000 kilometers from the surface, looked pale against that luminance.
The spaceship seemed tomb silent when Flandry switched his attention back to it. He said, just to make a noise, "And this passes for a terrestroid, humanly habitable planet. What real estate agents they must have had in the pioneer days!"
"I understand that southern Cerulia IV is not unsalubrious most of the year, sir," said Chives. "It is only now, in fact, that the northern part becomes lethal."
Flandry nodded. Vixen was the goat of circumstance: huge Ogre had exactly four times the period, and thus over millions of years resonance had multiplied perturbation and brought the eccentricity of Vixen's orbit close to one-half. The planet's axial inclination was 24°, and northern midsummer fell nearly at periastron. Thus, every eighteen months, Cerulia scorched that hemisphere with fourfold the radiation Terra got from Sol. This section of the orbit was hastily completed, and most of Vixen's year was spent in cooler regions. "But I daresay the Ardazirho timed their invasion for right now," said Flandry. "If they're from an A-type star, the northern weather shouldn't be too hard on them."
He put out his final cigarette. The planet filled the bow screen. Robot mechanisms could do a lot, but now there must also be live piloting... or a streak in Vixen's sky and a crater blasted from its rock.
At the Hooligan's speed, she crossed the tenuous upper air layers and hit stratosphere in a matter of seconds. It was like a giant's fist. Flandry's harness groaned as his body hurtled forward. There was no outside noise, yet, but the flitter herself shrieked in metallic pain. The screens became one lurid fire, air heated to incandescence.
Flandry's arm trembled with weight. He slammed it down on the drive switches. Chives' slight form could not stir under these pressures, but the green tail darted, button to dial to vernier. Engines bellowed as they fought to shed velocity. The vessel glowed red; but her metal was crystallized to endure more than furnace heat. Thunder banged around her, within her. Flandry felt his ribs shoved towards his lungs, as direction shifted. Still he could only see flame outside. But his blurring eyes read instruments. He knew the vessel had levelled off, struck denser atmosphere, skipped like a stone, and was now rounding the planet in monstrous shuddering bounces.
First then did he have time to reactivate the internal compensators. A steady one gee poured its benediction through him. He drew uneven breath into an aching chest. "For this we get paid?" he mumbled.
While Chives took over, and the thermostat brought the turret near an endurable temperature, Flandry unbuckled and went below to Kit's stateroom. She lay unstirring in harness, a trickle of blood from the snub nose. He injected her with stimulol. Her eyes fluttered open. Briefly, she looked so young and helpless that he must glance away. "Sorry to jolt you back to consciousness in this fashion," he said. "It's bad practice. But right now, we need a guide."
"O' course." She preceded him to the turret. He sat down and she leaned over his shoulder, frowning at the viewscreens. The Hooligan burrowed into atmosphere on a steep downward slant. The roar of cloven air boomed through the hull. Mountains rose jagged on a night horizon. "That's the Ridge," said Kit. "Head yonder, over Moonstone Pass." On the other side, a shadowed valley gleamed with rivers, under stars and a trace of aurora. "There's the Shaw, an' the King's Way cuttin' through. Land anywhere near, 'tisn't likely the boat will be found."
The Shaw belied its name; it was a virgin forest, 40,000 square kilometers of tall trees. Flandry set his craft down so gently that not a twig was broken, cut the engines and leaned back. "Thus far," he breathed gustily, "we is did it, chillun!"
"Sir," said Chives, "may I once again take the liberty of suggesting that if you and the young lady go off alone, without me, you need a psychiatrist."
"And may I once again tell you where to stick your head," answered Flandry. "I'll have trouble enough passing myself off as a Vixenite, without you along. You stay with the boat and keep ready to fight. Or, more probably, to scramble out of here like an egg."
He stood up. "We'd better start now, Kit," he added. "That drug won't hold you up for very many hours."
Both humans were already dressed in the soft green coveralls Chives had made according to Kit's description of professional hunters. That would also explain Flandry's little radio transceiver, knife and rifle; his accent might pass for that of a man lately moved here from the Avian Islands. It was a thin enough disguise... but the Ardazirho wouldn't have an eye for fine details. The main thing was to reach Kit's home city, Garth, undetected. Once based there, Flandry could assess the situation and start making trouble.
Chives wrung his hands, but bowed his master obediently out the airlock. It was midwinter, but also periastron; only long nights and frequent rains marked the season in this hemisphere. The forest floor was thick and soft underfoot. Scant light came through the leaves, but here and there on the high trunks glowed yellow phosphorescent fungi, enough to see by. The air was warm, full of strange green scents. Out in the darkness there went soft whistlings, callings, creakings, patterings, once a scream which cut off in a gurgle, the sounds of a foreign wilderness.
It was two hours' hike to the King's Way. Flandry and Kit fell into the rhythm of it and spoke little. But when they finally came out on the broad starlit ribbon of road, her hand stole into his. "Shall we walk on?" she asked.
"Not if Garth is fifty kilometers to go," said Flandry. He sat down by the road's edge. She lowered herself into the curve of his arm.
"Are you cold?" he asked, feeling her shiver.
"'Fraid," she admitted.
His lips brushed hers. She responded shyly, unpracticed. It beat hiking. Or did it? I never liked hors d'oeuvres alone for a meal, thought Flandry, and drew her close.
Light gleamed far down the highway. A faint growl waxed. Kit disengaged herself. "Saved by the bell," murmured Flandry, "but don't stop to wonder which of us was." She laughed, a small and trembling sound beneath unearthly constellations.
Flandry got up and extended his arm. The vehicle ground to a halt: a ten-car truck. The driver leaned out. "Boun' for Garth?" he called.
"That's right." Flandry helped Kit into the cab and followed. The truck started again, its train rumbling for 200 meters behind.
"Goin' to turn in your gun, are you?" asked the driver. He was a burly bitter-faced man. One arm carried the traces of a recent blaster wound.
"Figure so," Kit replied. "My husban' an' I been trekkin' in the Ridge this last three months. We heard 'bout the invasion an' started back, but floods held us up—rains, you know—an' our radio's given some trouble too. So we aren't sure o' what's been happenin'."
"Enough." The driver spat out of the window. He glanced sharply at them. "But what the gamma would anybody be doin' in the mountains this time o' year?"
Kit began to stammer. Flandry said smoothly, "Keep it confidential please, but this is when the cone-tailed radcat comes off the harl. It's dangerous, yes, but we've filled six caches of grummage."
"Hm... uh... yeh. Sure. Well, when you reach Garth, better not carry your gun yourself to the wolf headquarters. They'll most likely shoot you first an' ask your intentions later. Lay it down somewhere an' go ask one o' them would he please be so kind as to come take it away from you."
"I hate to give up this rifle," said Flandry.
The driver shrugged. "Keep it, then, if you want to take the risk. But not aroun' me. I fought at Burnt Hill, an' played dead all night while those howlin' devils hunted the remnants of our troop. Then I got home somehow, an' that's enough. I got a wife an' children to keep." He jerked his thumb backward. "Load o' rare earth ore this trip. The wolves'll take it, an' Hobden's mill will turn it into fire-control elements for 'em, an' they'll shoot some more at the Empire's ships. Sure, call me a quislin'—an' then wait till you've seen your friends run screamin' down your street with a pack o' batsnakes flappin' an' snappin' at them an' the wolves boundin' behind laughin'. Ask yourself if you want to go through that, for an Empire that's given us up already."
"Has it?" asked Flandry. "I understood from one 'cast that there were reinforcements coming."
"Sure. They're here. One o' my chums has a pretty good radio an' sort o' followed the space battle when Walton's force arrived, by receivin' stray messages. It petered out pretty quick, though. What can Walton do, unless he attacks this planet, where the wolves are now based, where they're already makin' their own supplies an munitions? An' if he does that—" The headlight reflections shimmered off sweat on the man's face. "No more Vixen. Just a cinder. You pray God, chum, that the Terrans don't try to blast Ardazir off Vixen."
"What's happening, then, in space?" asked Flandry.
He didn't expect a coherent reply. To the civilian, as to the average fighter, war is one huge murky chaos. It was a pure gift when the driver said: "My chum caught radio 'casts beamed at us from the Terran fleet. The wolves tried to jam it, of course, but I heard, an' figure 'tis mostly truth. Because 'tis bad enough! There was a lot o' guff about keepin' up our courage, an' sabotagin' the enemy, an'—" The driver rasped an obscenity. "Sorry, ma'm. But wait till you see what 'tis really like aroun' Garth an' you'll know how I feel about that idea. Admiral Walton says his fleet's seized some asteroid bases an' theirs isn't tryin' to get him off 'em. Stalemate, you see, till the wolves have built up enough strength. Which they're doin', fast. The reason the admiral can't throw everything he's got against them in space is that he has to watch Ogre too. Seems there's reason to suspect Ymir might be in cahoots with Ardazir. The Ymirites aren't sayin'. You know what they're like."
Flandry nodded. "Yes. ‘If you will not accept our word that we are neutral, there is no obvious way to let you convince yourselves, since the whole Terran Empire could not investigate a fraction of Dispersal territory. Accordingly, we shall not waste our time discussing the question.'"
"That's it, chum. You've got the very tone. They might be honest, sure. Or they might be waitin' for the minute Walton eases up his watch on 'em, to jump him."
Flandry glanced out. The stars flashed impersonally, not caring that a few motes of flesh named them provinces for a few centuries. He saw that part of this planet's sky had no stars, a hole into forever. Kit had told him it was called the Hatch. But that was only a nearby dark nebula, not even a big one. The clear white spark of Rigel was more sinister, blazing from the heart of Merseia's realm. And what of Ogre, tawny above the tree?
"What do you think will happen?" Kit's voice could scarcely be heard through the engine grumble.
"I don't even dare guess," said the driver. "Maybe Walton'll negotiate something—might leave us here, to become wolf-cattle, or might arrange to evacuate us an' we can become beggars on Terra. Or he might fight in space... but even if he doesn't attack their forts here on Vixen, we'll all be hostages to Ardazir, won't we? Or the Ymirites might... No, ma'm, I'm just drivin' my truck an' drawin' my pay an' feedin' my family. Shorter rations every week, it seems. Figure there's nothin' else any one person can do. Is there?"
Kit began to cry, a soft hopeless sobbing on Flandry's shoulder. He laid an arm around her and they sat thus all the way to Garth.
X
Night again, after a short hot winter day of thunderstorms. Flandry and Emil Bryce stood in the pit blackness of an alley, watching a nearly invisible street. Rain sluiced over their cloaks. A fold in Flandry's hood was letting water trickle in, his tunic was soaked, but he dared not move. At any moment now, the Ardazirho would come by.
The rain roared slow and heavy, down over the high-peaked roofs of Garth, through blacked-out streets and gurgling into the storm drains. All wind had stopped, but now and then lightning glared. There was a brief white view of pavement that shimmered wet, half-timbered houses with blind shutters crowded side by side, a skeletal transmitter tower for one of the robotic weather-monitor stations strewn over the planet. Then night clamped back down, and thunder went banging through enormous hollow spaces.
Emil Bryce had not moved for half an hour. But he really was a hunter by trade, thought Flandry. The Terran felt an unreasonable resentment of Bryce's guild. Damn them, it wasn't fair, in that trade they stood waiting for prey since they were boys—and he had to start cold. No, hot. It steamed beneath his rain cape.
Feet resounded on the walk. They did not have a human rhythm. And they did not smack the ground first with a boot-heel, but clicked metal-shod toes along the pavement. A flashbeam bobbed, slashing darkness with a light too blue and sharp for human comfort. Watery reflections touched Bryce's broad red face. His mouth alone moved, and Flandry could read fear upon it. Wolves!
But Bryce's dart gun slithered from under this cloak. Flandry eased steel knucks onto one hand. With the other, he gestured Bryce back. He, Flandry, must go first, pick out the precise enemy he wanted—in darkness, in rain, and all their faces nonhuman. Nor would uniforms help; the Ardazirho bore such a wild variety of dress.
But... Flandry was trained. It had been worth a rifle, to have an excuse for entering local invader headquarters. Their garrison in Garth was not large: a few hundred, for a city of a quarter million. But modern heavy weapons redressed that, robotanks, repeating cannon, the flat announcement that any town where a human uprising actually succeeded would be missiled. (The glassy crater which had been Marsburg proved it.) The Garth garrison was there chiefly to man observation posts and anti-spacecraft defenses in the vicinity; but they also collected firearms, directed factories to produce for their army, prowled in search of any citizens with spirit left to fight. Therefore, Flandry told himself, their chief officer must have a fair amount of knowledge—and the chief officer spoke Anglic, and Flandry had gotten a good look at him while surrendering the rifle, and Flandry was trained to tell faces apart, even nonhuman faces—
And now Clanmaster Temulak, as he had called himself, was going off duty, from headquarters to barracks. Bryce and others had been watching the Ardazirho for weeks. They had told Flandry that the invaders went on foot, in small armed parties, whenever practicable. Nobody knew quite why. Maybe they preferred the intimacy with odors and sounds which a vehicle denied; it was known they had better noses than man. Or perhaps they relished the challenge: more than once, humans had attacked such a group, been beaten off and hunted down and torn to pieces. Civilians had no chance against body armor, blast-weapons, and reflexes trained for combat.
But I'm not a civilian, Flandry told himself, and Bryce has some rather special skills.
The quarry passed by. Scattered flashbeam light etched the ruffled, muzzled heads against flowing dimness. There were five. Flandry identified Temulak, helmeted and corseleted, near the middle. He glided out of the alley, behind them.
The Ardazirho whipped about. How keen were their ears? Flandry kept going. One red-furred alien hand dropped towards a holstered blaster. Flandry smashed his steel-knuckled fist at Temulak's face. The enemy bobbed his head, the knucks clanged off the helmet. And light metal sheathed his belly, no blow would have effect there. The blaster came out. Flandry chopped down his left palm, edge on, with savage precision. He thought he felt wristbones crack beneath it. Temulak's gun glattered to the pavement. The Ardazirho threw back his head and howled, ululating noise hurled into the rain. And HQ only half a kilometer away, barracks no further in the opposite direction—
Flandry threw a karate kick to the jaw. The officer staggered back. But he was quick, twisting about to seize the man's ankle before it withdrew. They went down together. Temulak's right hand still hung useless, but his left snatched for Flandry's throat. The Terran glimpsed fingernails reinforced with sharp steel plectra. He threw up an arm to keep his larynx from being torn. Temulak howled again. Flandry chopped at the hairy neck. The Ardazirho ducked and sank teeth into Flandry's wrist. Anguish went like flame along the nerves. But now Temulak was crouched before him. Flandry slammed down a rabbit punch. Temulak slumped. Flandry got on his back and throttled him.
Looking up, gasping, the man saw shadows leap and yell in the glow of the dropped flashlight. There had been no way to simply needle Temulak. He was wanted alive, and Flandry didn't know what anaesthetics might be fatal to an Ardazirho. But Bryce had only to kill the guards, as noiselessly as possible. His airgun spat cyanide darts, quick death for any oxygen breather. And his skilled aim sent those darts into exposed flesh, not uselessly breaking on armor. Two sprawled in the street. Another had somehow jumped for Bryce's throat. The hunter brought up one boot. It clanged on a breastplate, but sheer force sent the alien lurching backward. Bryce shot him. By then the last one had freed his blaster. It crashed and blazed through rain. Bryce had already dropped. The ion bolt sizzled where he had been. Bryce fired, missed, rolled away from another blast, fired again and missed. Now howling could be heard down the street, as a pack of invaders rallied to come and help.
Flandry reached across Temulak's gaunt body, picked up the Clanmaster's gun, and waited. He was nearly blind in this night. The other Ardazirho's blaster flamed once more. Flandry fired where it showed. The alien screamed, once, and thudded to the street. Scorched hair and meat smoked sickly in the wet air.
"Out o' here!" gasped Bryce. He sprang erect. "They're comin'! An' they'll track us by scent—"
"I came prepared for that," said Flandry. A brief hard grin peeled his teeth. He let Bryce pick up Temulak while he got a flat plastibottle from his tunic. He turned a pressure nozzle and sprayed a liter of gasoline around the area. "If their noses are any good for several minutes after this, I give up. Let's go."
Bryce led the way, through the alley to the next street, down a block of horribly open paving, then hand-over-hand across a garden wall. No private human vehicles could move after dark without being shot at from the air, but it wasn't far to the underground hideout. In fact, too close, thought Flandry. But then, who on Vixen had any experience with such operations? Kit had looked up those friends in Garth who smuggled her out, and they had led Flandry straight to their bitter little organization. It expedited matters this time, yes, but suppose the Ardazirho had supplied a ringer? Or... it was only a matter of time before they started questioning humans in detail, under drugs and duress. Then you needed cells, changing passwords, widely scattered boltholes, or your underground was done for.
Flandry stumbled through drenched flowerbeds. He helped Bryce carry Temulak down into the hurricane cellar: standard for every house in Garth. A tunnel had been dug from this one; its door, at least, was well concealed. Flandry and Bryce groped for several hundred meters to the other end. They emerged beneath a house whose address they should not have been permitted to know.
Judith Hurst turned about with a small shriek when the cellar door opened. Then dim light picked out Bryce's heavy form, and Temulak still limp in the hunter's arms. Flandry came behind, shedding his cape with a relieved whistle. "Oh," gasped Judith. "You got him!"
Bryce's eyes went around the circle of them. A dozen men stood with taut brown faces in the light of a single small fluoro. Their shadows fell monstrous in the corners and across the window shutters. Knives and forbidden guns gleamed at their belts. Kit was the only person seated, still slumped in the dull sadness of stimulol reaction.
"Damn near didn't," grunted Bryce. "Couldn't have, without the captain here. Sir Dominic, I apologize for some things I'd been thinkin' lately 'bout Terra."
"An' I." Judith Hurst trod forward, taking both the Navy man's hands. She was among the few women in the underground, and Flandry thought it a crime to risk such looks being shot up. She was tall, with long auburn hair and skin like cream; her eyes were sleepy brown in a full, pouting face; her figure strained at shorts and bolero. "I never thought I'd see you again," she said. "But you've come back with the first real success this war's had for us."
"Two swallows do not make a drinking bout," warned Flandry. He gave her his courtliest bow. "Speaking of which, I could use something liquid, and cannot imagine a more ornamental cupbearer. But first, let's deal with friend Temulak. This way, isn't it?"
As he passed Kit, her exhausted eyes turned up to him. Slow tears coursed down her face. "Oh, Dominic, you're alive," she whispered. "That makes everything else seem like nothin'." She rose to wobbly legs. He threw her a preoccupied smile and continued on past, his brain choked with technicalities.
Given a proper biopsych lab, he could have learned how to get truth out of Temulak with drugs and electronics. But now he just didn't have enough data on the species. He would have to fall back on certain widely applicable, if not universal, rules of psychology.
At his orders, an offside room in the cellar had been provided with a comfortable bed. He stripped Temulak and tied him down, firmly, but using soft bonds which wouldn't chafe. The prisoner began to stir. By the time Flandry was through and Temulak immobile, the gray alien eyes were open and the muzzle wrinkled back over white teeth. A growl rumbled in Temulak's throat.
"Feeling better?" asked the man unctuously.
"Not as well as I shall when we pull you down in the street." The Anglic was thickly accented, but fluent, and it bore a haughtiness like steel.
"I shudder." Flandry kindled a cigarette. "Well, comrade, if you want to answer some questions now, it will save trouble all around. I presume, since you're alive, you've been blanked of your home sun's coordinates. But you retain clues." He blew a thoughtful smoke ring. "And, to be sure, there are the things you obviously do know, since your rank requires it. Oh, all sorts of things, dear heart, which my side is just dying to find out." He chuckled. "I don't mean that literally. Any dying will be done by you."
Temulak stiffened. "If you think I would remain alive, at the price of betraying the orbekh—"
"Nothing so clear-cut."
The red fur bristled, but Temulak snarled: "Nor will pain in any degree compel me. And I do not believe you understand the psycho-physiology of my race well enough to undertake total reconditioning."
"No," admitted Flandry, "not yet. However, I haven't time for reconditioning in any event, and torture is so strenuous... besides offering no guarantee that when you talk, you won't fib. No, no, my friend, you'll want to spill to me pretty soon. Whenever you've had enough, just call and I'll come hear you out."
He nodded to Dr. Reineke. The physician wheeled forth the equipment he had abstracted from Garth General Hospital at Flandry's request. A blindfolding hood went over Temulak's eyes, sound-deadening wax filled his ears and plugged his nose, a machine supplied him with intravenous nourishment and another removed body wastes. They left him immobile and, except for the soft constant pressure of bonds and bed, sealed into a darkness like death. No sense impressions could reach him from outside. It was painless, it did no permanent harm, but the mind is not intended for such isolation. When there is nothing by which it may orient itself, it rapidly loses all knowledge of time; an hour seems like a day, and later like a week or a year. Space and material reality vanish. Hallucinations come, and the will begins to crumble. Most particularly is this true when the victim is among enemies, tensed to feel the whip or knife which his own ferocious culture would surely use.
Flandry closed the door. "Keep a guard," he said. "When he begins to holler, let me know." He peeled off his tunic. "From whom can I beg something dry to wear?"
Judith gave his torso a long look. "I thought all Terrans were flabby, Sir Dominic," she purred. "I was wrong about that too."
His eyes raked her. "And you, my dear, make it abundantly plain that Vixenites are anything but," he leered.
She took his arm. "What do you plan to do next?"
"Scratch around. Observe. Whip this maquisard outfit into something efficient. There are so many stunts to teach you. To name just one, any time you've no other amusement, you can halt work at a war factory for half a day with an anonymous telecall warning that a time bomb's been planted and the staff had better get out. Then there's all the rest of your planet to organize. I don't know how many days I'll have, but there's enough work to fill a year of 'em." Flandry stretched luxuriously, "Right now, though, I want that drink I spoke of."
"Here you are, sir." Bryce held out a flask.
Judith flicked a scowl at him. "Is that white mule all you can offer the captain?" she cried. Her hair glowed along her back as she turned to smile again at Flandry. "I know you'll think I'm terribly forward, but I have two bottles o' real Bourgogne at my house. 'Tis only a few blocks from here, an' I know a safe way to go."
Oh-oh! Flandry licked his mental chops. "Delighted," he said.
"I'd invite the rest o' you," said Judith sweetly, "but 'tisn't enough to go aroun', an' Sir Dominic deserves it the most. Nothin's too good for him, that's what I think. Just nothin' at all."
"Agreed," said Flandry. He bowed good night and went out with her.
Kit stared after them a moment. As he closed the door, he heard her burst into weeping.
XI
Three of Vixen's 22-hour rotation periods went by, and part of a fourth, before the message came that Temulak had broken. Flandry whistled. "It's about time! If they're all as tough as that—"
Judith clung to him. "Do you have to go right now, darlin'?" she murmured. "You've been away so much... out prowlin', spyin', an' the streets still full o' packs huntin' for whoever attacked that squad—I'm terrified for you."
Her look was more inviting than anxious. Flandry kissed her absent-mindedly. "We're patriots and all that sort of rot," he said. "I could not love you so much, dear, et cetera. Now do let go." He was out the door before she could speak further.
The way between her house and the underground's went mostly from garden to garden, but there was a stretch of public thoroughfare. Flandry put hands in pockets and sauntered along under rustling feather palms as if he had neither cares nor haste. The other humans about, afoot or in groundcars, were subdued, the pinch of hunger and shabbiness already upon them. Once a party of Ardazirho whirred past on motor unicycles; their sharp red muzzles clove the air like prows, and they left a wake of frightened silence behind them. The winter sun burned low to northwest, big and dazzling white in a pale sky, among hurried stormclouds. When Flandry let himself into the cellar, only Emil Bryce and Kit Kittredge were there. The hunter lounged on guard. From the closed door behind him came howling and sobbing. "He babbled he'd talk," said Bryce. "But can you trust what he says?"
"Interrogation is a science too," answered Flandry. "If Temulak is enough like a human to break under isolation, he won't be able to invent consistent lies fast enough when I start throwing questions at him. Did you get that recorder I wanted?"
"Here." Kit picked it up. She looked very small and alone in all the shadows. Sleeplessness had reddened her eyes. She brought the machine to Flandry, who met her several meters from Bryce. She leaned towards him on tiptoe and whispered shakily: "What will you do now?"
Flandry studied her. He had gotten to know her well on the journey here, he thought. But that was under just one set of conditions—and how well does one human ever know another, in spite of all pretentious psychology? Since capturing the Ardazirho, he had only seen her on a single brief visit to this cellar. They had had a few moments alone, but nothing very personal was said. There had been no time for it. He saw how she trembled.
"I'm going to quiz brother Temulak," he told her. "And afterwards I could use some dinner and a stiff drink."
"With Judith Hurst?" It startled him, how ferociously she spat it out.
"Depends," he said in a careful tone.
"Dominic—" She hugged herself, forlornly, to stop shivering. Her gaze blurred, seeing his. "Don't. Please don't make me do... what I don't want—"
"We'll see." He started towards the inner door. Kit began to cry, hopelessly this time.
Bryce got up. "Why, what all's the matter?" he asked.
"She's overtired." Flandry opened the door.
"Worse'n that." The hunter looked from him to the girl and back again. Resentment smouldered in his growl: "Maybe it's none o' my business—"
"It isn't." Flandry stepped through, closing the door behind him.
Temulak lay shuddering and gasping. Flandry set up the recorder and unplugged the Ardazirho's ears. "Did you want to speak to me?" he asked mildly.
"Let me go!" shrieked Temulak. "Let me go, I say! Zamara shammish ni ulan!" He opened his mouth and howled. It was so much like a beast that a crawling went along Flandry's spine.
"We'll see, after you've cooperated." The man sat down.
"I never thought... you gray people... gray hearts—" Temulak whimpered. He dribbled between his fangs.
"Good night, then," said Flandry. "Sweet dreams."
"No! No, let me see! Let me smell! I will... zamara, zamara—"
Flandry began to interrogate.
It took time. The basic principle was to keep hitting, snap out a question, yank forth the answer, toss the next question, pounce on the smallest discrepancies, always strike and strike and strike with never a second's pause for the victim to think. Without a partner, Flandry was soon tired. He kept going, on cigarettes and nerves; after the first hour, he lost count of time.
In the end, having a full tape, he relaxed a moment. The air was nearly solid with smoke. Sweat felt sticky under his clothes. He puffed yet another cigarette and noticed impersonally the shakiness of his hand. But Temulak whined and twitched, beaten close to mindlessness by sheer psychic exhaustion.
The picture so far was only a bare outline, thought Flandry in a dull far-off way. How much could be told in one night of an entire world, its greatness and rich variety, its many peoples and all their histories? How much, to this day, do we really know about Terra? But the tape held information worth entire ships.
Somewhere there was a sun, brighter even than Cerulia, and a planet called Ardazir by its principal nation. ("Nation" was the Anglic word; Flandry had an impression that "clan alliance" or "pack aggregate" might more closely translate orbekh.) Interplanetary travel had been independently achieved by that country. Then, some fifteen standard years ago, gravitics, superlight pseudo-speeds, the whole apparatus of the modern galaxy, had burst upon Ardazir. The war lords (chiefs, speakers, pack leaders?) of Urdahu, the dominant orbekh, had promptly used these to complete the subjugation of their own world. Then they turned outward. Their hungers ravened into a dozen backward systems, looting and enslaving; engineers followed, organizing the conquered planets for further war.
And now the attack on the human empire had begun. The lords of Urdahu assured their followers that Ardazir had allies, mighty denizens of worlds so alien that there could never be any fear of attack—though these aliens had long been annoyed by humankind, and found in Ardazir an instrument to destroy and replace the Terran Empire... Temulak had not enquired more deeply, had not thought much about it at all. The Ardazirho seemed, by nature, somewhat more reckless and fatalistic than men, and somewhat less curious. If circumstances had provided a chance for adventure, glory, and wealth, that was enough. Precautions could be left in care of the orbekh's wise old females.
Flandry smoked in a thick silence. If Ymir were, indeed, behind Ardazir—it would be natural for Ymir to cooperate temporarily with Merseia, whip-sawing Terra between the Syrax and Vixen crises. Maybe Merseia was next on Ymir's list. Thereafter Ardazir would hardly prove troublesome to wreck.
But what grudge could Ymir have against oxygen breathers, or even against Terra alone? There had been some small friction, yes, inevitably—but nothing serious, surely the monsters rubbed each other more raw than... And yet Horx did his level best to kill me. Why? What could he have been hired with? What material thing from a terrestroid planet would not collapse in his hands on Jupiter? What reason would he have, except orders from his own governor, who was carrying out a policy hatched on Ymir itself... ?
Flandry clenched a fist. There was an answer to that question, but not one he dared rely on without further proof. He bent his mind back towards practicalities. Mostly the tape held such details: the number of Ardazirho ships and troops in this system, recognition signals, military dispositions across Vixen, the layout of forts and especially of the great headquarters den; the total population of Ardazir, resources, industry, army and navy... Temulak was not in on many state secrets, but he had enough indications to give Flandry gooseflesh. Two million or so warriors occupied Vixen; a hundred million were still at home or on the already conquered planets, where war materiel was being rapidly stockpiled; officers had all been informed that there were plenty of other vulnerable Imperial outposts, human colonies or the home worlds of Terran-allied species... Yes, Ardazir was surely planning to strike elsewhere within the Empire, and soon. Another one or two such blows, and the Imperial Navy must surrender Syrax to Merseia, turn inward and defend the mother planet. At which point—
Not true that an army marches on its stomach, thought Flandry. It needs information even more than food. Marches on its head. Which, no doubt, is why the Imperial High Command has so many flat-heads.
He chuckled. Bad as it was, the joke strengthened him. And he was going to need strength.
"Will you let me see?" asked Temulak in a small, broken voice.
"I will deprive you no longer of my beauty," said Flandry. He unhooded the rufous head and drew his wax plugs from the nose. Temulak blinked dazedly into smoke and one dull light. Flandry uncoupled the machines which had kept him alive. "You'll remain our guest, of course," he said. "If it turns out you prevaricated, back you go in the dark closet."
Temulak bristled. His teeth snapped together, missing the man's arm by a centimeter.
"Naughty!" Flandry stepped back. "For that, you can stay tied up for a while."
Temulak snarled from the cot: "You gray-skinned hairless worm, if you think your valkuza's tricks will save you from the Black People—I myself will rip out your gullet and strangle you with your own bowels!"
"And foreclose my mortgage," said Flandry. He went out, closing the door behind him.
Bryce and Kit started. They had fallen asleep in their chairs. The hunter rubbed his eyes. "God o' the galaxy, you been at it a long time!" he exclaimed.
"Here." Flandry tossed him the tape spool. "This has to reach Admiral Walton's fleet. It's necessary, if not quite sufficient, for your liberation. Can do?"
"The enemy would pick up radio," said Bryce doubtfully. "We still got a few spaceships hid, but Kit's was the fastest. An' since then, too, the wolf space guard's been tightened till it creaks."
Flandry sighed. "I was afraid of that." He scribbled on a sheet of paper. "Here's a rough map to show you where my personal flitter is. D'you know this tune?" He whistled. "No? That proves you've a clean mind. Well, learn it." He rehearsed the Vixenite till he was satisfied. "Good. Approach the flitter whistling that, and Chives won't shoot you without investigation. Give him this note. It says for him to take the tape to Walton. If anything can run that blockade without collecting a missile, it's Chives in the Hooligan."
Kit suppressed a gasp. "But then you, Dominic—no escape—"
Flandry shrugged. "I'm much too tired to care about aught except a nice soft bed."
Bryce, sticking the spool under his tunic, grinned: "Whose?"
Kit stood as if struck.
Flandry nodded slightly at her. "That's the way of it." He glanced at his chrono. "Close to local midnight. Shove off, Bryce, lad. But stop by and tell Dr. Reineke to shift his apparatus and the prisoner elsewhere. It's always best to keep moving around, when you're being searched for. And nobody, except the pill peddler and whoever helps him, is to know where they stash Temulak next. All clear?"
"Dominic—" Kit closed her fists till the knuckles stood white. She stared down at the floor; he could only see her short bright hair.
He said gently: "I have to sleep or collapse, lass. I'll meet you at noon by the Rocket Fountain. I think we've a few private things to discuss."
She turned and fled upstairs.
Flandry departed too. The night sky was aflicker with aurora; he thought he could hear its ionic hiss in the city's blacked-out silence. Once he scrambled to a rooftop and waited for an Ardazirho patrol to go by. Wan blue light glimmered off their metal and their teeth.
Judith made him welcome. "I've been so worried, darlin'—"
He considered her a while. Weariness dragged at him. But she had put out a late supper, with wine and a cold game bird, as she knew he liked it; and her hair glowed red by candlelight. Sleep be damned, Flandry decided. He might be permanently asleep tomorrow.
He did nap for a few morning hours, and went out before noon. Explorers' Plaza had been a gay scene once, where folk sat leisurely in the surrounding gardens, sipping coffee and listening to harp trees in the wind and watching life stream past. Now it was empty. The metal fountain itself, in the form of an ancient space rocket, still jetted many-colored heatless fires from its tail; but they seemed pale under the gloomy winter sky.
Flandry took out a cigarette, sat down on the fountain rim and waited. A few preliminary raindrops kissed his half lifted face.
A military truck careened out of a deserted street and ground to a halt. Three Ardazirho leaped from the cab. Kit was with them. She pointed at Flandry. Lightning blinked immediately overhead, and sudden thunder swamped her words. But the tone was vindictive.
"Halt, human!"
It must have been the only Anglic phrase any of the three invaders knew. They bayed it again and yet again as Flandry sprang to the plaza. He ducked and began to run, zigzagging.
No shots were fired. An Ardazirho yelped glee and opened the truck body. Wings snapped leathery. Flandry threw a glance behind. A score of meter-long snake bodies were streaming upward from the truck. They saw him, whistled and stooped.
Flandry ran. His heart began to pump, the wildness of irrational uncontrollable terror. The batsnakes reached him. He heard teeth click together behind his nape. A lean body coiled on his right arm. He jerked the limb up, frantic. Wings resisted him. Fangs needled into his flesh. The rest of the pack whirled and dived and whipped him with their tails.
He started to run again. The three Ardazirho followed, long bounds which took them over the ground faster than a man could speed. They howled, and there was laughter in their howling. The street was empty, resounding under boots. Shuttered windows looked down without seeing. Doors were closed and locked.
Flandry stopped. He spun around. His right arm was still cumbered. The left dived beneath his tunic. His needler came out. He aimed at the nearest of the laughing ruddy devils. A batsnake threw itself on his gun hand. It bit with trained precision, into the fingers. Flandry let the weapon fall. He snatched after the snake—to wring just one of their damned necks—!
It writhed free. Its reptile-like jaws grinned at him. Then the Ardazirho closed in.
XII
Most of the year, Vixen's northern half was simply desert, swamp, or prairie, where a quick vegetative life sprang up and animals that had been estivating crept from their burrows. The arctic even knew snow, when winter-long night had fallen. But in summer the snows melted to wild rivers, the rivers overflowed and became lakes, the lakes baked dry. Storms raged about the equator and into the southern hemisphere, as water precipitated again in cooler parts. Except for small seas dreary amidst salt flats, the north blistered arid. Fires broke loose, the pampas became barren again in a few red days. Under such erosive conditions, this land had no mountains. Most of it was plain, where dust and ash scoured on a furnace wind. In some places rose gnarled ranges, lifeless hills, twisted crags, arroyos carved by flash floods into huge earth scars.
The Ardazirho had established their headquarters in such a region, a little below the arctic circle. Thousands of lethal kilometers made it safe from human ground attack, the broken country was camouflage and protection from spaceships. Not that they tried to conceal their fortress absolutely. That would have been impossible. But it burrowed deep into the range and offered few specific targets.
Here and there Flandry saw a warship sitting insolently in the open, a missile emplacement, a detector station, a lookout tower black and lean against the blinding sky. Outer walls twisted through gullies and over naked ridges; Ardazirho sentries paced them, untroubled by dry cruel heat, blue-white hell-glare, pouring ultraviolet radiation. But mostly, the fortress went inside the hills, long vaulted tunnels where boots clashed and voices echoed from room to den-like room. Construction had followed standard dig-in methods; prodigal use of atomic energy to fuse the living rock into desired patterns, then swift robotic installation of the necessary mechanisms. But the layout was rougher, more tortuous, less private, than man or Merseian would have liked. The ancestral Ardazirho had laired in caves and hunted in packs.
Flandry was hustled into a small room equipped as a laboratory. A pair of warriors clamped him in place. A grizzled technician began to prepare instruments.
Often, in the next day or two, Flandry screamed. He couldn't help it. Electronic learning should not go that fast. But finally, sick and shaking, he could growl the Urdahu language. Indeed, he thought, the Ardazirho had been thoroughly briefed. They understood the human nervous system so well that they could stamp a new linguistic pattern on it in mere hours, and not drive the owner insane.
Not quite.
Flandry was led down endless booming halls. Their brilliant bluish fluorescence hurt his eyes; he must needs squint. Even so, he watched what passed. It might be a truckload of ammunition, driven at crazy speed by a warrior who yelped curses at foot traffic. Or it might be a roomful of naked red-furred shapes: sprawled in snarling, quarrelsome fellowship; gambling with tetrahedral dice for stakes up to a year's slavery; watching a wrestling match which employed teeth and nails; testing nerve by standing up in turn against a wall while the rest threw axes. Or it might be a sort of chapel, where a single scarred fighter wallowed in pungent leaves before a great burning wheel. Or it might be a mess hall and a troop lying on fur rugs, bolting raw meat and howling in chorus with one who danced on a monstrous drumhead.
The man came at last to an office. This was also an artificial cave, thick straw on the floor, gloom in the corners, a thin stream of water running down a groove in one wall. A big Ardazirho lay prone on a hairy dais, lifted on both elbows to a slanting desktop. He wore only a skirt of leather strips, a crooked knife, and a very modern blaster. But the telescreen and intercom before him were also new, and Flandry's guards touched their black noses in his presence.
"Go," he said in the Urdahu. "Wait outside." The guards obeyed. He nodded at Flandry. "Be seated, if you wish."
The human lowered himself. He was still weak from what he had undergone, filthy, ill-fed, and ragged. Automatically he smoothed back his hair, and thanked human laziness for its invention of long-lasting antibeard enzyme. He needed such morale factors.
His aching muscles grew tight. Things were in motion again.
"I am Svantozik of the Janneer Ya," said the rough voice. "I am told that you are Captain Dominic Flandry of Terran Naval Intelligence. You may consider my status approximately the same."
"As one colleague to another," husked Flandry, "will you give me a drink?"
"By all means." Svantozik gestured to the artesian stream.
Flandry threw him a reproachful look, but needed other things too badly to elaborate. "It would be a kindly deed, and one meriting my gratitude, if you provided me at once with dark lenses and cigarettes." The last word was perforce Anglic. He managed a grin. "Later I will tell you what further courtesies ought to be customary."
Svantozik barked laughter. "I expected your eyes would suffer," he said. "Here." He reached in the desk and tossed over a pair of green polarite goggles, doubtless taken off a Vixenite casualty. Flandry put them on and whistled relief. "Tobacco is forbidden," added Svantozik. "Only a species with half-dead scent organs could endure it."
"Oh, well. There was no harm in asking." Flandry hugged his knees and leaned back against the cave wall.
"None. Now, I wish to congratulate you on your daring exploits." Svantozik's smile looked alarming enough, but it seemed friendly. "We searched for your vessel, but it must have escaped the planet."
"Thanks," said Flandry, quite sincerely. "I was afraid you would have gotten there in time to blast it." He cocked his head. "In return... see here, my friend [literally: croucher-in-my-blind], when dealing with my species, it is usually better to discourage them. You should have claimed you had caught my boat before it could escape, manufacturing false evidence if necessary to convince me. That would make me much more liable to yield my will to yours."
"Oh, indeed?" Svantozik pricked up his ears. "Now among the Black People, the effect would be just opposite. Good news tends to relax us, make us grateful and amenable to its bearer. Bad tidings raise the quotient of defiance."
"Well, of course it is not that simple," said Flandry. "In breaking down the resistance of a man, the commonest technique is to chivvy him for a protracted time, and then halt the process, speak kindly to him—preferably, get someone else to do that."
"Ah." Svantozik drooped lids over his cold eyes. "Are you not being unwise in telling me this—if it is true?"
"It is textbook truth," said Flandry, "as I am sure whatever race has instructed you in the facts about Terra's Empire will confirm. I am revealing no secret. But as you must be aware, textbooks have little value in practical matters. There is always the subtlety of the individual, which eludes anything except direct intuition based on wide, intimate experience. And you, being nonhuman, cannot ever have such an experience of men."
"True." The long head nodded. "In fact, I remember now reading somewhat of the human trait you mention... but there was so much else to learn, prior to the Great Hunt we are now on, that it had slipped my memory. So you tantalize me with a fact I could use—if I were on your side!" A sudden deep chuckle cracked in the ruffed throat. "I like you, Captain, the Sky Cave eat me if I do not."
Flandry smiled back. "We could have fun. But what are your intentions towards me now?"
"To learn what I can. For example, whether or not you were concerned in the murder of four warriors in Garth and the abduction of a fifth, not long ago. The informant who led us to you has used hysterics—real or simulated—to escape detailed questioning so far. Since the captured Ardazirho was a Clan-master, and therefore possessed of valuable information, I suspect you had a hand in this."
"I swear upon the Golden Ass of Apuleius I did not."
"What is that?"
"One of our most revered books."
"The Powers only hunt at night," quoted Svantozik. "In other words, oaths are cheap. I personally do not wish to hurt you unduly, being skeptical of the value of torture anyhow. And I know that officers like you are immunized to the so-called truth sera. Therefore, reconditioning would be necessary: a long, tedious process, the answers stale when finally you wanted to give them, and you of little further value to us or yourself." He shrugged. "But I am going back to Ardazir before long, to report and wait reassignment. I know who will succeed me here: an officer quite anxious to practice some of the techniques which we have been told are effective on Terrans. I recommend you cooperate with me instead."
This must be one of their crack field operatives, thought Flandry, growing cold. He did the basic Intelligence work on Vixen. Now, with Vixen in hand, he'll be sent to do the same job when the next Terran planet is attacked. Which will be soon!
Flandry slumped. "Very well," he said in a dull tone. "I captured Temulak."
"Ha!" Svantozik crouched all-fours on the dais. The fur stood up along his spine, the iron-colored eyes burned. "Where is he now?"
"I do not know. As a precaution, I had him moved elsewhere, and did not inquire the place."
"Wise," Svantozik relaxed. "What did you get from him?"
"Nothing. He did not crack."
Svantozik stared at Flandry. "I doubt that," he said. "Not that I scorn Temulak—a brave one—but you are an extraordinary specimen of a civilization older and more learned than mine. It would be strange if you had not—"
Flandry sat up straight. His laughter barked harsh. "Extraordinary?" he cried bitterly. "I suppose so... the way I allowed myself to be caught like a cub!"
"‘No ground is free of possible pits,'" murmured Svantozik. He brooded a while. Presently: "Why did the female betray you? She went to our headquarters, declared you were a Terran agent, and led our warriors to your meeting place. What had she to gain?"
"I don't know," groaned Flandry. "What difference does it make? She is wholly yours now, you know. The very fact she aided you once gives you the power to make her do it again—lest you denounce her to her own people." Svantozik nodded, grinning. "What do her original motives matter?" The man sagged back and picked at the straw.
"I am interested," said Svantozik. "Perhaps the same process may work again, on other humans."
"No." Flandry shook his head in a stunned way. "This was personal. I suppose she thought I had betrayed her first—Why am I telling you this?"
"I have been informed that you Terrans often have strong feelings about individuals of the opposite sex," said Svantozik. "I was told it will occasionally drive you to desperate, meaningless acts."
Flandry passed a tired hand across his brow. "Forget it," he mumbled. "Just be kind to her. You can do that much, can you not?"
"As a matter of fact—" Svantozik broke off. He sat for a moment, staring at emptiness.
"Great unborn planets!" he whispered.
"What?" Flandry didn't look up.
"No matter," said Svantozik hastily. "Ah, am I right in assuming there was a reciprocal affection on your part?"
"It is no concern of yours!" Flandry sat up and shouted it. "I will hear no more! Say what else you will, but keep your filthy snout out of my own life!"
"So," breathed Svantozik. "Yes-s-s-s.... Well, then, let us discuss other things."
He hammered at Flandry a while, not with quite the ruthlessness the human had shown Temulak. Indeed, he revealed a kind of chivalry: there was respect, fellow feeling, even an acrid liking in him for this man whose soul he hunted. Once or twice Flandry managed to divert the conversation—they spoke briefly of alcoholic drinks and riding animals; they traded some improper jokes, similar in both cultures.
Nevertheless, Svantozik hunted. It was a rough few hours.
At last Flandry was taken away. He was too worn to notice very much, but the route did seem devious. He was finally pushed into a room, not unlike Svantozik's office, save that it had human-type furniture and illumination. The door clashed behind him.
Kit stood waiting.
XIII
For a moment he thought she would scream. Then, very quickly, her eyes closed. She opened them again. They remained dry, as if all her tears had been spent. She took a step toward him.
"Oh, God, Kit," he croaked.
Her arms closed about his neck. He held her to him. His own gaze flickered around the room, until it found a small human-made box with a few controls which he recognized. He nodded to himself, ever so faintly, and drew an uneven breath. But he was still uncertain.
"Dominic, darlin'—" Kit's mouth sought his.
He stumbled to the bunk, sat down and covered his face. "Don't," he whispered. "I can't take much more."
The girl sat down beside him. She laid her head on his shoulder. He felt how she trembled. But the words came in glorious anticlimax: "That debuggin' unit is perfectly good, Dominic."
He wanted to lean back and shout with sudden uproarious mirth. He wanted to kick his heels and thumb his nose and turn handsprings across the cell. But he held himself in, letting only a rip of laughter come from lips which he hid against her cheek.
He had more than half expected Svantozik to provide a bugscrambler. Only with the sure knowledge that any listening devices were being negated by electronic and sound-wave interference, would even a cadet of Intelligence relax and speak freely. He suspected, though, that a hidden lens was conveying a silent image. They could talk, but both of them must continue to pantomime.
"How's it been, Kit?" he asked. "Rough?"
She nodded, not play-acting her misery at all. "But I haven't had to give any names," she gulped. "Not yet."
"Let's hope you don't," said Flandry.
He had told her in the hurricane cellar—how many centuries ago?... "This is picayune stuff. I'm not doing what any competent undercover agent couldn't: what a score of Walton's men will be trying as soon as they can be smuggled here, I've something crazier in mind. Quite likely it'll kill us, but then again it might strike a blow worth whole fleets. Are you game, kid? It means the risk of death, or torture, or life-long slavery on a foreign planet. What you'll find worst, though, is the risk of having to sell out your own comrades, name them to the enemy, so he will keep confidence in you. Are you brave enough to sacrifice twenty lives for a world? I believe you are—but it's as cruel a thing as I could ask of any living creature."
"They brought me straight here," said Kit, holding him. "I don't think they know quite what to make o' me. A few minutes ago, one o' them came hotfootin' here with the scrambler an' orders for me to treat you..." a slow flush went over her face, "....indly. To get information from you, if I could, by any means that seemed usable."
Flandry waved a fist in melodramatic despair, while out of a contorted face his tone came levelly: "I expected something like this. I led Svantozik, the local snooper-in-chief, to think that gentle treatment from one of my own species, after a hard grilling from him, might break me down. Especially if you were the one in question. Svantozik isn't stupid at all, but he's dealing with an alien race, us, whose psychology he knows mainly from sketchy secondhand accounts. I've an advantage: the Ardazirho are new to me, but I've spent a lifetime dealing with all shapes and sizes of other species. Already I see what the Ardazirho have in common with several peoples whom I hornswoggled in the past."
The girl bit her lip to hold it steady. She looked around the stone-walled room, and he knew she thought of kilometers of tunnel, ramparts and guns, wolfish hunters, and the desert beyond where men could not live. Her words fell thin and frightened: "What are we goin' to do now, Dominic? You never told me what you planned."
"Because I didn't know," he replied. "Once here, I'd have to play by ear. Fortunately, my confidence in my own ability to land on my feet approaches pure conceit, or would if I had any faults. We're not doing badly, Kit. I've learned their principal language, and you've been smuggled into their ranks."
"They don't trust me yet."
"No. I didn't expect they would—very much.... But let's carry on our visual performance. I wouldn't flipflop over to the enemy side just because you're here, Kit; but when I am badly shaken, I lose discretion and ordinary carefulness. Svantozik will accept that."
He gathered her back to him. She responded hungrily. He felt so much of himself return to his abused being that his brain began to spark, throwing up schemes and inspecting them, discarding them and generating new ones, like a pyrotechnic display, like merry hell.
He said at last, while she quivered on his lap: "I think I have a notion. We'll have to play things as they lie, and prearrange a few signals, but here's what we'll try for." He felt her stiffen in his embrace. "Why, what's the matter?"
She asked, low and bitter: "Were you thinkin' o' your work all the time—just now?"
"Not that alone." He permitted himself the briefest grin. "Or, rather, I enjoyed my work immensely."
"But still—Oh, never mind. Go on." She slumped.
Flandry scowled. But he dared not stop for side issues. He said: "Tell Svantozik, or whoever deals with you, that you played remorseful in my presence, but actually you hate my inwards, and my outwards too, because—uh—"
"Judith!" she snarled.
He had the grace to blush. "I suppose that's as plausible a reason as any, at least in Ardazirho eyes."
"Or human. If you knew how close I was to—No. Go on."
"Well, tell the enemy that you told me you'd betrayed me in a fit of pique, and now you regretted it. And I, being wildly in love with you—which again is highly believable—" She gave his predictable gallantry no response whatsoever. "I told you there was a possible escape for you. I said this: The Ardazirho are under the impression that Ymir is behind them. Actually, Ymir leans toward Terra, since we are more peace-minded and therefore less troublesome. The Ymirites are willing to help us in small ways; we keep this fact secret because now and then it saves us in emergencies. If I could only set a spaceship's signal to a certain recognition pattern, you could try to steal that ship. The Ardazirho would assume you headed for Walton's fleet, and line out after you in that direction. So you could give them the slip, reach Ogre, transmit the signal pattern, and request transportation to safety in a force-bubble ship."
Her eyes stretched wide with terror. "But if Svantozik hears that—an' 'tisn't true—"
"He won't know it's false till he's tried, will he?" answered Flandry cheerfully. "If I lied, it isn't your fault. In fact, since you hastened to tattle, even about what looked like an escape for you, it'll convince him you're a firm collaborationist."
"But—no, Dominic. 'Tis... I don't dare—"
"Don't hand me that, Kit. You're one girl in ten to the tenth, and there's nothing you won't dare."
Then she did begin to sob.
After she had gone, Flandry spent a much less happy time waiting. He could still only guess how his enemy would react: an experienced human would probably not be deceived, and Svantozik's ignorance of human psychology might not be as deep as hoped. Flandry swore and tried to rest. The weariness of the past days was gray upon him.
When his cell door opened, he sprang up with a jerkiness that told him how thin his nerves were worn.
Svantozik stood there, four guards poised behind. The Ardazirho officer flashed teeth in a grin. "Good hunting, Captain," he greeted. "Is your den comfortable?"
"It will do," said Flandry, "until I can get one provided with a box of cigars, a bottle of whisky, and a female."
"The female, at least, I tried to furnish," riposted Svantozik.
Flandry added in his suavest tone: "Oh, yes, I should also like a rug of Ardazirho skin."
One of the guards snarled. Svantozik chuckled. "I too have a favor to ask, Captain," he said. "My brothers in the engineering division are interested in modifying a few spaceships to make them more readily usable by humans. You understand how such differences as the location of the thumb, or that lumbar conformation which makes it more comfortable for us to lie prone on the elbows than sit, have influenced the design of our control panels. A man would have trouble steering an Ardazirho craft. Yet necessarily, in the course of time, if the Great Hunt succeeds and we acquire human subjects—we will find occasion for some of them to pilot some of our vehicles. The Kittredge female, for example, could profitably have a ship of her own, since we anticipate usefulness in her as a go-between among us and the human colonists here. If you would help her—simply in checking over one of our craft, and drawing up suggestions—"
Flandry grew rigid. "Why should I help you at all?" he said through clenched jaws.
Svantozik shrugged. "It is very minor assistance. We could do it ourselves. But it may pass the time for you." Wickedly: "I am not at all sure that good treatment, rather than abuse, may not be the way to break down a man. Also, Captain, if you must have a rationalization, think: here is a chance to examine one of our vessels close up. If later, somehow, you escape, your own service would be interested in what you saw."
Flandry stood a moment, altogether quiet. Thought lanced through him. Kit told. Svantozik naturally prefers me not to know what she did tell. So he makes up this story—offers me what he hopes I'll think is a God-sent opportunity to arrange for Kit's escape—
He said aloud, urbanely: "You are most kind, my friend of the Janneer Ya. But Miss Kittredge and I could not feel at ease with ugly guards like yours drooling over our shoulders."
He got growls from two warriors that time. Svantozik hushed them. "That is easily arranged," he said. "The guards can stay out of the control turret."
"Excellent. Then, if you have some human-made tools—"
They went down hollow corridors, past emplacements where artillery slept like nested dinosaurs, across the furious arctic day, and so to a spaceship near the outworks. Through goggles, the man studied her fiercely gleaming shape. About equivalent to a Terran Comet class. Fast, lightly armed, a normal complement of fifteen or so, but one could handle her if need be.
The naked hills beyond wavered in heat. When he had stepped through the airlock, he felt dizzy from that brief exposure.
Svantozik stopped at the turret companionway. "Proceed," he invited cordially. "My warriors will wait here until you wish to return—at which time you and the female will come dine with me and I shall provide Terran delicacies." Mirth crossed his eyes. "Of course, the engines have been temporarily disconnected."
"Of course," bowed Flandry.
Kit met him as he shut the turret door. Her fingers closed cold on his arm. "Now what'll we do?" she gasped.
"Easy, lass." He disengaged her. "I don't see a bugscrambler here." Remember, Svantozik thinks I think you are still loyal to me. Play it, Kit, don't forget, or we're both done! "There are four surly-looking guards slouched below," he said. "I don't imagine Svantozik will waste his own valuable time in their company. A direct bug to the office of someone who knows Anglic is more efficient. Consider me making obscene gestures at you, O great unseen audience. But is anyone else aboard, d'you know?"
"N-no—" Her eyes asked him, through fear: Have you forgotten? Are you alerting them to your plan?
Flandry wandered past the navigation table to the main radio transceiver. "I don't want to risk someone getting officious," he murmured. "You see, I'd first like to peek at their communication system. It's the easiest thing to modify, if any alterations are needed. And it could look bad, unseen audience, if we were surprised at what is really a harmless inspection." I trust, he thought with a devil's inward laughter, that they don't know I know they know I'm actually supposed to install a password circuit for Kit.
It was the sort of web he loved. But he remembered, as a cold tautening, that a bullet was still the ultimate simplicity which clove all webs.
He took the cover off and began probing. He could not simply have given Kit the frequencies and wave shapes in a recognition signal: because Ardazirho equipment would not be built just like Terran, nor calibrated in metric units. He must examine an actual set, dismantle parts, test them with oscilloscope and static meters—and, surreptitiously, modify it so that the required pattern would be emitted when a single hidden circuit was closed.
She watched him, as she should if she expected him to believe this was her means of escape. And doubtless the Ardazirho spy watched too, over a bugscreen. When Flandry's job was done, it would be Svantozik who took this ship to Ogre, generated the signal, and saw what happened.
Because on the question of whose side the Ymirite Dispersal truly was on, overrode everything else. If Flandry had spoken truth to Kit, the lords of Urdahu must be told without an instant's pause.
The man proceeded, making up a pattern as he went and thinking wistfully how nice it would be if Ymir really did favor Terra. Half an hour later he resealed the unit. Then he spent another hour ostentatiously strolling around the turret examining all controls.
"Well," he said at last, "we might as well go home, Kit."
He saw the color leave her face. She knew what the sentence meant. But she nodded. "Let's," she whispered.
Flandry bowed her through the door. As she came down the companionway, the guards at its base got up. Their weapons aimed past her, covering Flandry, who strolled with a tigerish leisure.
Kit pushed through the line of guards. Flandry, still on the companionway, snatched at his pocket. The four guns leaped to focus on him. He laughed and raised empty hands. "I only wanted to scratch an itch," he called.
Kit slipped a knife from the harness of one guard and stabbed him in the ribs.
Flandry dived into the air. A bolt crashed past him, scorching his tunic. He struck the deck with flexed knees and bounced. Kit had already snatched the rifle from the yelling warrior she had wounded. It thundered in her hand, point-blank. Another Ardazirho dropped. Flandry knocked aside the gun of a third. The fourth enemy had whipped around towards Kit. His back was to Flandry. The man raised the blade of his hand and brought it down again, chop to the skull-base. He heard neckbones splinter. The third guard sprang back, seeking room to shoot. Kit blasted him open. The first one, stabbed, on his knees, reached for a dropped rifle. Flandry kicked him in the larynx.
"Starboard lifeboat!" he rasped.
He clattered back into the turret. If the Ardazirho watcher had left the bugscreen by now, he had a few minutes' grace. Otherwise, a nuclear shell would probably write his private doomsday. He snatched up the navigator's manual and sprang out again.
Kit was already in the lifeboat. Its small engine purred, warming up. Flandry plunged through the lock, dogged it behind him. "I'll fly," he panted. "I'm more used to non-Terran panels. You see if you can find some bailing out equipment. We'll need it."
Where the devil was the release switch? The bugwatcher had evidently quit in time, but any moment now he would start to wonder why Flandry and Party weren't yet out of the spaceship—
There! He slapped down a lever. A hull panel opened. Harsh sunlight poured through the boat's viewscreen. Flandry glanced over its controls. Basically like those he had just studied. He touched the Escape button. The engine yelled. The boat sprang from its mother ship, into the sky.
Flandry aimed southward. He saw the fortress whirl dizzily away, fall below the horizon. And still no pursuit, not even a homing missile. They must be too dumbfounded. It wouldn't last, of course.... He threw back his head and howled out all his bottled-up laughter, great gusts of it to fill the cabin and echo over the scream of split atmosphere.
"What are you doin'?" Kit's voice came faint and frantic. "We can't escape this way. Head spaceward before they overhaul us!"
Flandry wiped his eyes. "Excuse me," he said. "I was laughing while I could." Soberly: "With the blockade, and a slow vessel never designed for human steering, we'd not climb 10,000 kilometers before they nailed us. What we're going to do is bail out and let the boat continue on automatic. With luck, they'll pursue it so far before catching up that they'll have no prayer of backtracking us. With still more luck, they'll blow the boat up and assume we were destroyed too."
"Bail out?" Kit looked down at a land of stones and blowing ash. The sky was like molten steel. "Into that?" she whispered.
"If they do realize we jumped," said Flandry, "I trust they'll figure we perished in the desert. A natural conclusion, I'm sure, since our legs aren't so articulated that we can wear Ardazirho spacesuits." He grew grimmer than she had known him before. "I've had to improvise all along the way. Quite probably I've made mistakes, Kit, which will cost us a painful death. But if so, I'm hoping we won't die for naught."
XIV
Even riding a grav repulsor down, Flandry felt how the air smote him with heat. When he struck the ground and rolled over, it burned his skin.
He climbed up, already ill. Through his goggles, he saw Kit rise. Dust veiled her, blown on a furnace wind. The desert reached in withered soil and bony crags for a few kilometers beyond her, then the heat-haze swallowed vision. The northern horizon seemed incandescent, impossible to look at.
Thunder banged in the wake of the abandoned lifeboat. Flandry stumbled toward the girl. She leaned on him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I think I twisted an ankle."
"And scorched it, too, I see. Come on lass, not far now."
They groped over tumbled gray boulders. The weather monitor tower rippled before their eyes, like a skeleton seen through water. The wind blasted and whined. Flandry felt his skin prickle with ultraviolet and bake dry as he walked. The heat began to penetrate his bootsoles.
They were almost at the station when a whistle cut through the air. Flandry lifted aching eyes. Four torpedo shapes went overhead, slashing from horizon to horizon in seconds. The Ardazirho, in pursuit of an empty lifeboat. If they had seen the humans below—No. They were gone. Flandry tried to grin, but it split his lips too hurtfully.
The station's equipment huddled in a concrete shack beneath the radio transmitter tower. The shade, when they had staggered through the door, was like all hopes of heaven. Flandry uncorked a water bottle. That was all he had dared take out of the spaceboat supplies; alien food was liable to have incompatible proteins. His throat was too much like a mummy's to talk, but he offered Kit the flask and she gulped thirstily. When he had also swigged, he felt a little better.
"Get to work, wench," he said. "Isn't it lucky you're in Vixen's weather engineering department, so you knew where to find a station and what to do when we got there?"
"Go on," she tried to laugh. It was a rattling in her mouth. "You built your idea aroun' the fact. Let's see, now, they keep tools in a locker at every unit—" She stopped. The shadow in this hut was so deep, against the fury seen through one little window, that she was almost invisible to him. "I can tinker with the sender, easily enough," she said. Slow terror rose in her voice. "Sure, I can make it 'cast your message, 'stead o' telemeterin' weather data. But... I just now get to thinkin'... s'pose an Ardazirho reads it? Or s'pose nobody does? I don't know if my service is even bein' manned now. We could wait here, an' wait, an'—"
"Easy." Flandry came behind her, laid his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. "Anything's possible. But I think the chances favor us. The Ardazirho can hardly spare personnel for something so routine and, to them, unimportant, as weather adjustment. At the same time, the human engineers are very probably still on the job. Humanity always continues as much in the old patterns as possible, people report to their usual work, hell may open but the city will keep every lawn mowed... Our real gamble is that whoever spots our call will have the brains, and the courage and loyalty, to act on it."
She leaned against him a moment. "An' d'you think there's a way for us to be gotten out o' here, under the enemy's nose?"
An obscure pain twinged in his soul. "I know it's unfair, Kit," he said. "I myself am a hardened sinner and this is my job and so on, but it isn't right to hazard all the fun and love and accomplishment waiting for you. It must be done, though. My biggest hope was always to steal a navigation manual. Don't you understand, it will tell us where Ardazir lies!"
"I know." Her sigh was a small sound almost lost in the boom of dry hot wind beyond the door. "We'd better start work."
While she opened the transmitter and cut out the meter circuits, Flandry recorded a message: a simple plea to contact Emil Bryce and arrange the rescue from Station 938 of two humans with vital material for Admiral Walton. How that was to be done, he had no clear idea himself. A Vixenite aircraft would have little chance of getting this far north undetected and undestroyed. A radio message—no, too easily intercepted, unless you had very special apparatus—a courier to the fleet—and if that was lost, another and another—
When she had finished, Kit reached for the second water bottle. "Better not," said Flandry. "We've a long wait."
"I'm dehydrated," she husked.
"Me too. But we've no salt; heat stroke is a real threat. Drinking as little as possible will stretch our survival time. Why the devil aren't these places air conditioned and stocked with rations?"
"No need for it. They just get routine inspection... at midwinter in these parts." Kit sat down on the one little bench. Flandry joined her. She leaned into the curve of his arm. A savage gust trembled in the hut walls, the window was briefly blackened with flying grit.
"Is Ardazir like this?" she wondered. "Then 'tis a real hell for those devils to come from."
"Oh, no," answered Flandry. "Temulak said their planet has a sane orbit. Doubtless it's warmer than Terra, on the average, but we could stand the temperature in most of its climatic zones, I'm sure. A hot star, emitting strongly in the UV, would split water molecules and kick the free hydrogen into space before it could recombine. The ozone layer would give some protection to the hydrosphere, but not quite enough. So Ardazir must be a good deal drier than Terra, with seas rather than oceans. At the same time, judging from the muscular strength of the natives, as well as the fact they don't mind Vixen's air pressure, Ardazir must be somewhat bigger. Surface gravity of one-point-five, maybe. That would retain an atmosphere similar to ours, in spite of the sun."
He paused. Then: "They aren't fiends, Kit. They're fighters and hunters. Possibly they've a little less built-in kindliness than our species. But I'm not even sure about that. We were a rambunctious lot too, a few centuries ago. We may well be again, when the Long Night has come and it's root, hog, or die. As a matter of fact, the Ardazirho aren't even one people. They're a whole planetful of races and cultures. The Urdahu conquered the rest only a few years ago. That's why you see all those different clothes on them—concession to parochialism, like an ancient Highland regiment. And I'll give odds that in spite of all their successes, the Urdahu are not too well liked at home. Theirs is a very new empire, imposed by overwhelming force; it could be split again, if we used the right tools. I feel almost sorry for them, Kit. They're the dupes of someone else—and Lord, what a someone that is! What a genius!"
He stopped, because the relentless waterless heat had shrivelled his gullet. The girl said, low and bitter: "Go on. Sympathize with Ardazir an' admire the artistry o' this X who's behind it all. You're a professional too. But my kind o' people has to do the dyin'."
"I'm sorry." He ruffled her hair.
"You still haven't tol' me whether you think we'll be rescued alive."
"I don't know." He tensed himself until he could add: "I doubt it. I expect it'll take days, and we can only hold out for hours. But if the ship comes—no, damn it, when the ship comes!—that pilot book will be here."
"Thanks for bein' honest, Dominic," she said. "Thanks for everything."
He kissed her, with enormous gentleness.
After that they waited.
The sun sank. A short night fell. It brought little relief, the wind still scourging, the northern sky still aflame. Kit tossed in a feverish daze beside Flandry. He himself could no longer think very clearly. He had hazed recollections of another white night in high-altitude summer—but that had been on Terra, on a cool upland meadow of Norway, and there had been another blonde girl beside him—her lips were like roses....
The whistling down the sky, earthshaking thump of a recklessly fast landing, feet that hurried over blistering rock and hands that hammered on the door, scarcely reached through the charred darkness of Flandry's mind. But when the door crashed open and the wind blasted in, he swam up through waves of pain. And the thin face of Chives waited to meet him.
"Here, sir. Sit up. If I may take the liberty—"
"You green bastard," croaked Flandry out of nightmare, "I ordered you to—"
"Yes, sir. I delivered your tape. But after that, it seemed advisable to slip back and stay in touch with Mr. Bryce. Easy there, sir, if you please. We can run the blockade with little trouble. Really, sir, did you think natives could bar your own personal spacecraft? I shall prepare medication for the young lady, and tea is waiting in your stateroom."
XV
Fleet Admiral Sir Thomas Walton was a big man, with gray hair and bleak faded eyes. He seldom wore any of his decorations, and visited Terra only on business. No sculp, but genes and war and unshed tears, when he watched his men die and then watched the Imperium dribble away what they had gained, had carved his face. Kit thought him the handsomest man she had ever met. But in her presence, his tongue locked with the shyness of an old bachelor. He called her Miss Kittredge, assigned her a private cabin in his flagship, and found excuses to avoid the officer's mess where she ate.
She was given no work, save keeping out of the way. Lonely young lieutenants buzzed about her, doing their best to charm and amuse. But Flandry was seldom aboard the dreadnought.
The fleet orbited in darkness, among keen sardonic stars. Little could actively be done. Ogre must be watched, where the giant planet crouched an enigma. The Ardazirho force did not seek battle, but stayed close to Vixen where ground support was available and where captured robofactories daily swelled its strength. Now and then the Terrans made forays. But Walton hung back from a decisive test. He could still win—if he used his whole strength and if Ogre stayed neutral. But Vixen, the prize, would be a tomb.
Restless and unhappy, Walton's men muttered in their ships.
After three weeks, Captain Flandry was summoned to the admiral. He whistled relief. "Our scout must have reported back," he said to his assistant. "Now maybe they'll take me off this damned garbage detail."
The trouble was, he alone had been able to speak Urdahu. There were a hundred Ardazirho prisoners, taken off disabled craft by boarding parties. But the officers had destroyed all navigational clues and died, with the ghastly gallantry of preconditioning. None of the enlisted survivors knew Anglic, or cooperated with the Terran linguists. Flandry had passed on his command of their prime tongue, electronically; but not wishing to risk his sanity again, he had done it at the standard easy pace. The rest of each day had been spent interrogating—a certain percentage of prisoners were vulnerable to it in their own language. Now, two other humans possessed Urdahu: enough of a seedbed. But until the first spies sent to Ardazir itself got back, Flandry had been left on the grilling job. Sensible, but exhausting and deadly dull.
He hopped eagerly into a grav scooter and rode from the Intelligence ship to the dreadnought. It was Nova class; its hull curved over him, monstrous as a mountain, guns raking the Milky Way. Otherwise he saw only stars, the distant sun Cerulia, the black nebula. Hard to believe that hundreds of ships, with the unchained atom in their magazines, prowled for a million kilometers around.
He entered the No. 7 lock and strode quickly towards the flag office. A scarlet cloak billowed behind him; his tunic was peacock blue, his trousers like snow, tucked into half-boots of authentic Cordovan leather. The angle of his cap was an outrage to all official dignity. He felt like a boy released from school.
"Dominic!"
Flandry stopped. "Kit!" he whooped.
She ran down the corridor to meet him, a small lonely figure in brief Terran dress. Her hair was still a gold helmet, but he noted she was thinner. He put hands on her shoulders and held her at arm's length. "The better to see you with," he laughed. And then, soberly: "Tough?"
"Lonesome," she said. "Empty. Nothin' to do but worry." She pulled away from him. "No, darn it, I hate people who feel sorry for themselves. I'm all right, Dominic." She looked down at the deck and knuckled one eye.
"Come on!" he said.
"Hm? Dominic, where are you goin'? I can't—I mean—"
Flandry slapped her in the most suitable place and hustled her along the hall. "You're going to sit in on this! It'll give you something to hope for. March!"
The guard outside Walton's door was shocked. "Sir, my orders were to admit only you."
"One side, junior." Flandry picked up the marine by the gun belt and set him down a meter away. "The young lady is my portable expert on hyper-squidgeronics. Also, she's pretty." He closed the door in the man's face.
Admiral Walton started behind his desk. "What's this, Captain?"
"I thought she could pour beer for us," burbled Flandry.
"I don't—" began Kit helplessly. "I didn't mean to—"
"Sit down." Flandry pushed her into a corner chair. "After all, sir, we might need first-hand information about Vixen." His eyes clashed with Walton's. "I think she's earned a ringside seat," he added.
The admiral sat unmoving a moment. Then his mouth crinkled. "You're incorrigible," he said. "And spare me that stock answer, ‘No, I'm Flandry.' Very well, Miss Kittredge. You understand this is under top security. Captain Flandry, you know Commander Sugimoto."
Flandry shook hands with the other Terran, who had been in charge of the first sneak expedition to Ardazir. They sat down. Flandry started a cigarette. "D'you find the place all right?" he asked.
"No trouble," said Sugimoto. "Once you'd given me the correlation between their astronomical tables and ours, and explained the number system, it was elementary. Their star's not in our own catalogues, because it's on the other side of that dark nebula and there's never been any exploration that way. So you've saved us maybe a year of search. Incidentally, when the war's over the scientists will be interested in the nebula. Seen from the other side, it's faintly luminous: a proto-sun. No one ever suspected that Population One got that young right in Sol's own galactic neighborhood! Must be a freak, though."
Flandry stiffened, "What's the matter?" snapped Walton.
"Nothing, sir. Or maybe something. I don't know. Go on, Commander."
"No need to repeat in detail," said Walton. "You'll see the full report. Your overall picture of Ardazirho conditions, gained from your interrogations, is accurate. The sun is an A4 dwarf—actually no more than a dozen parsecs from here. The planet is terrestroid, biggish, rather dry, quite mountainous, three satellites. From all indications—you know the techniques, sneak landings, long-range telescopic spying, hidden cameras, random samples—the Urdahu hegemony is recent and none too stable."
"One of our xenologists spotted what he swore was a typical rebellion," said Sugimoto. "To me, his films are merely a lot of red hairy creatures in one kind of clothes, firing with gunpowder weapons at a modern-looking fortress where they wear different clothes. The sound track won't mean a thing till your boys translate for us. But the xenologist says there are enough other signs to prove it's the uprising of a backward tribe against more civilized conquerors."
"A chance, then, to play them off against each other," nodded Flandry. "Of course, before we can hope to do that, Intelligence must first gather a lot more information. Advertisement."
"Have you anything to add, Captain?" asked Walton. "Anything you learned since your last progress report?"
"No, sir," said Flandry. "It all hangs together pretty well. Except, naturally, the main question. The Urdahu couldn't have invented all the modern paraphernalia that gave them control of Ardazir. Not that fast. They were still in the early nuclear age, two decades ago. Somebody supplied them, taught them, and sent them out a-conquering. Who?"
"Ymir," said Walton flatly. "Our problem is, are the Ymirites working independently, or as allies of Merseia?"
"Or at all?" murmured Flandry.
"Hell and thunder! The Ardazirho ships and heavy equipment have Ymirite lines. The governor of Ogre ties up half our strength simply by refusing to speak. A Jovian colonist tried to murder you when you were on an official mission, didn't he?"
"The ships could be made that way on purpose, to mislead us," said Flandry. "You know the Ymirites are not a courteous race: even if they were, what difference would it make, since we can't investigate them in detail? As for my little brush with Horx—"
He stopped. "Commander," he said slowly, "I've learned there are jovoid planets in the system of Ardazir. Is any of them colonized?"
"Not as far as I could tell," said Sugimoto. "Of course, with that hot sun... I mean, we wouldn't colonize Ardazir, so Ymir—"
"The sun doesn't make a lot of difference when atmosphere gets that thick," said Flandry. "My own quizzing led me to believe there are no Ymirite colonies anywhere in the region overrun by Ardazir. Don't you think, if they had interests there at all, they'd live there?"
"Not necessarily." Walton's fist struck the desk. "Everything's ‘not necessarily,'" he growled like a baited lion. "We're fighting in a fog. If we made an all-out attack anywhere, we'd expose ourselves to possible Ymirite action. This fleet is stronger than the Ardazirho force around Vixen—but weaker than the entire fleet of the whole Ardazirho realm—yet if we pulled in reinforcements from Syrax, Merseia would gobble up the Cluster! But we can't hang around here forever, either, waiting for somebody's next move!"
He stared at his big knobby hands. "We'll send more spies to Ardazir," he rumbled. "Of course some'll get caught, and then Ardazir will know we know, and they'll really exert themselves against us.... By God, maybe the one thing to do is smash them here at Vixen, immediately, and then go straight to Ardazir and hope enough of our ships survive long enough to sterilize the whole hell-planet!"
Kit leaped to her feet. "No!" she screamed.
Flandry forced her down again. Walton looked at her with eyes full of anguish. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I know it would be the end of Vixen. I don't want to be a butcher at Ardazir either... all their little cubs, who never heard about war—But what can I do?"
"Wait," said Flandry. "I have a hunch."
Silence fell, layer by layer, until the cabin grew thick with it. Finally Walton asked, most softly: "What is it, Captain?"
Flandry stared past them all. "Maybe nothing," he said. "Maybe much. An expression some of the Ardazirho use: the Sky Cave. It's some kind of dark hole. Certain of their religions make it the entrance to hell. Could it be—I remember my friend Svantozik too. I surprised him, and he let out an oath which was not stock. Great unborn planets. Svantozik ranks high. He knows more than any other Ardazirho we've met. It's little enough to go on, but... can you spare me a flotilla, Admiral?"
"Probably not," said Walton. "And it couldn't sneak off. One ship at a time, yes, we can get that out secretly. But several.... The enemy would detect their wake, notice which way they were headed, and wonder. Or wouldn't that matter in this case?"
"I'm afraid it would." Flandry paused. "Well, sir, can you lend me a few men? I'll take my own flitter. If I'm not back soon, do whatever seems best."
He didn't want to go. It seemed all too likely that the myth was right and the Sky Cave led to hell. But Walton sat watching him, Walton who was one of the last brave and wholly honorable men in all Terra's Empire. And Kit watched him too.
XVI
He would have departed at once, but a stroke of luck—about time, he thought ungratefully—made him decide to wait another couple of days. He spent them on the Hooligan, not telling Kit he was still with the fleet. If she knew he had leisure, he would never catch up on some badly needed sleep.
The fact was that the Ardazirho remained unaware that any human knew their language, except a few prisoners and the late Dominic Flandry. So they were sending all messages in clear. By now Walton had agents on Vixen, working with the underground, equipped to communicate undetected with his fleet. Enemy transmissions were being monitored with growing thoroughness. Flandry remembered that Svantozik had been about to leave, and requested a special lookout for any information on this subject. A scanner was adjusted to spot that name on a recording tape. It did so; the contents of the tape were immediately relayed into space; and Flandry listened with sharp interest to a playback.
It was a normal enough order, relating to certain preparations. Mindhunter Svantozik of the Janneer Ya was departing for home as per command. He would not risk being spotted and traced back to Ardazir by some Terran, so would employ only a small ultra-fast flitter. (Flandry admired his nerve. Most humans would have taken at least a Meteor class boat.) The hour and date of his departure were given, in Urdahu terms.
"Rally 'round," said Flandry. The Hooligan glided into action.
He did not come near Vixen. That was the risky business of the liaison craft. He could predict the exact manner of Svantozik's takeoff: there was only one logical way. The flitter would be in the middle of a squadron, which would roar spaceward on a foray. At the right time, Svantozik would give his own little boat a powerful jolt of primary drive; then, orbiting with cold engines away from the others, let distance accumulate. When he felt sure no Terran had spied him, he would go cautiously on gravs until well clear—then switch over into secondary and exceed the velocity of light. So small a craft, so far away from Walton's bases, would not be detected: especially with enemy attention diverted by the raiding squadron.
Unless, to be sure, the enemy had planted himself out in that region, with foreknowledge of Svantozik's goal and sensitive pulse-detectors running wide open.
When the alarm buzzed and the needles began to waver, Flandry allowed himself a yell. "That's our boy!" His finger stabbed a button. The Hooligan went into secondary with a wail of abused converters. When the viewscreens had steadied, Cerulia was visibly dimming to stern. Ahead, outlined in diamond constellations, the nebula roiled ragged black. Flandry stared at his instruments. "He's not as big as we are," he said, "but travelling like goosed lightning. Think we can overhaul short of Ardazir?"
"Yes, sir," said Chives. "In this immediate volume of space, which is dustier than average, and at these pseudo-speeds, friction becomes significant. We are more aerodynamic than he. I estimate twenty hours. Now, if I may be excused, I shall prepare supper."
"Uh-uh," said Flandry emphatically. "Even if he isn't aware of us yet, he may try evasive tactics on general principles. An autopilot has a randomizing predictor for such cases, but no poetry."
"Sir?" Chives raised the eyebrows he didn't have.
"No feel... intuition... whatever you want to call it. Svantozik is an artist of Intelligence. He may also be an artist at the pilot panel. So are you, little chum. You and I will stand watch and watch here. I've assigned a hairy great CPO to cook."
"Sir!" bleated Chives.
Flandry winced. "I know. Navy cuisine. The sacrifices we unsung heroes make for Terra's cause—"
He wandered aft to get acquainted with his crew. Walton had personally chosen a dozen for this mission: eight humans; a Scothanian, nearly human-looking but for the horns in his yellow hair; a pair of big four-armed gray-furred shaggy-muzzled Gorzuni; a purple-and-blue giant from Donarr, vaguely like a gorilla torso centauroid on a rhinoceros body. All had Terran citizenship, all were career personnel, all had fought with every weapon from axe to operations analyzer. They were as good a crew as could be found anywhere in the known galaxy. And far down underneath, it saddened Flandry that not one of the humans, except himself, came from Terra.
The hours passed. He ate, napped, stood piloting tricks. Eventually he was close upon the Ardazirho boat, and ordered combat armor all around. He himself went into the turret with Chives.
His quarry was a squat, ugly shape, dark against the distant star-clouds. The viewscreen showed a slim blast cannon and a torpedo launcher heavier than most boats that size would carry. The missiles it sent must have power enough to penetrate the Hooligan's potential screens, make contact, and vaporize the target in a single nuclear burst.
Flandry touched a firing stud. A tracer shell flashed out, drawing a line of fire through Svantozik's boat. Or, rather, through the space where shell and boat coexisted with differing frequencies. The conventional signal to halt was not obeyed.
"Close in," said Flandry. "Can you phase us?"
"Yes, sir." Chives danced lean triple-jointed fingers over the board. The Hooligan plunged like a stooping osprey. She interpenetrated the enemy craft, so that Flandry looked for a moment straight through its turret. He recognized Svantozik at the controls, in person, and laughed his delight. The Ardazirho slammed on pseudo-deceleration. A less skillful pilot would have shot past him and been a million kilometers away before realizing what had happened. Flandry and Chives, acting as one, matched the maneuver. For a few minutes they followed every twist and dodge. Then, grimly, Svantozik continued in a straight line. The Hooligan edged sideways until she steered a parallel course, twenty meters off.
Chives started the phase adjuster. There was an instant's sickness while the secondary drive skipped through a thousand separate frequency patterns. Then its in-and-out-of-space-time matched the enemy's. A mass detector informed the robot, within microseconds, and the adjuster stopped. A tractor beam clamped fast to the other hull's sudden solidity. Svantozik tried a different phasing, but the Hooligan equalled him without skipping a beat.
"Shall we lay alongside, sir?" asked Chives.
"Better not," said Flandry. "They might choose to blow themselves up, and us with them. Boarding tube."
It coiled from the combat airlock to the other hull, fastened leech-like with magnetronic suckers, and clung. The Ardazirho energy cannon could not be brought to bear at this angle. A missile flashed from their launcher. It was disintegrated by a blast from the Hooligan's gun. The Donarrian, vast in his armor, guided a "worm" through the boarding tube to the opposite hull. The machine's energy snout began to gnaw through metal.
Flandry sensed, rather than saw, the faint ripple which marked a changeover into primary drive. He slammed down his own switch. Both craft reverted simultaneously to intrinsic sublight velocity. The difference of fifty kilometers per second nearly ripped them across. But the tractor beam held, and so did the compensator fields. They tumbled onward, side by side.
"He's hooked!" shouted Flandry.
Still the prey might try a stunt. He must remain with Chives, parrying everything, while his crew had the pleasure of boarding. Flandry's muscles ached with the wish for personal combat. Over the intercom now, radio voices snapped: "The worm's pierced through, sir. Our party entering the breach. Four hostiles in battle armor opposing with mobile weapons—"
Hell broke loose. Energy beams flamed against indurated steel. Explosive bullets burst, sent men staggering, went in screaming fragments through bulkheads. The Terran crew plowed unmercifully into the barrage, before it could break down their armor. They closed hand to hand with the Ardazirho. It was not too uneven a match in numbers: six to four, for half Flandry's crew must man guns against possible missiles. The Ardazirho were physically a bit stronger than humans. That counted little, when fists beat on plate. But the huge Gorzuni, the barbarically shrill Scothanian with his wrecking bar of collapsed alloy, the Donarrian happily ramping and roaring and dealing buffets which stunned through all insulation—they ended the fight. The enemy navigator, preconditioned, died. The rest were extracted from their armor and tossed in the Hooligan's hold.
Flandry had not been sure Svantozik too was not channeled so capture would be lethal. But he had doubted it. The Urdahu were unlikely to be that prodigal of their very best officers, who if taken prisoner might still be exchanged or contrive to escape. Probably Svantozik had simply been given a block against remembering his home sun's coordinates, when a pilot book wasn't open before his face.
The Terran sighed. "Clear the saloon, Chives," he said wearily. "Have Svantozik brought to me, post a guard outside, and bring us some refreshments." As he passed one of the boarding gang, the man threw him a grin and an exuberant salute. "Damn heroes," he muttered.
He felt a little happier when Svantozik entered. The Ardazirho walked proudly, red head erect, kilt somehow made neat again. But there was an inward chill in the wolf eyes. When he saw who sat at the table, he grew rigid. The fur stood up over his whole lean body and a growl trembled in his throat.
"Just me," said the human. "Not back from the Sky Cave, either. Flop down." He waved at the bench opposite his own chair.
Slowly, muscle by muscle, Svantozik lowered himself. He said at last, "A proverb goes: ‘The hornbuck may run swifter than you think.' I touch the nose to you, Captain Flandry."
"I'm pleased to see my men didn't hurt you. They had particular orders to get you alive. That was the whole idea."
"Did I do you so much harm in the Den?" asked Svantozik bitterly.
"On the contrary. You were a more considerate host than I would have been. Maybe I can repay that." Flandry took out a cigarette. "Forgive me. I have turned the ventilation up. But my brain runs on nicotine."
"I suppose—" Svantozik's gaze went to the viewscreen and galactic night, "you know which of those stars is ours."
"Yes."
"It will be defended to the last ship. It will take more strength than you can spare from your borders to break us."
"So you are aware of the Syrax situation." Flandry trickled smoke through his nose. "Tell me, is my impression correct that you rank high in Ardazir's space service and in the Urdahu orbekh itself?"
"Higher in the former than the latter," said Svantozik dully. "The Packmasters and the old females will listen to me, but I have no authority with them."
"Still—look out there again. To the Sky Cave. What do you see?"
They had come so far now that they glimpsed the thinner part of the nebula, which the interior luminosity could penetrate, from the side. The black cumulus shape towered ominously among the constellations; a dim red glow along one edge touched masses and filaments, as if a dying fire smouldered in some grotto full of spiderwebs. Not many degrees away from it, Ardazir's sun flashed sword blue.
"The Sky Cave itself, of course," said Svantozik wonderingly. "The Great Dark. The Gate of the Dead, as those who believe in religion call it...." His tone, meant to be sardonic, wavered.
"No light, then? Is it black to you?" Flandry nodded slowly. "I expected that. Your race is red-blind. You see further into the violet than I do: but in your eyes, I am gray and you yourself are black. Those atrociously combined red squares in your kilt all look equally dark to you." The Urdahu word he used for "red" actually designated the yellow-orange band; but Svantozik understood.
"Our astronomers have long known there is invisible radiation from the Sky Cave, radio and shorter wavelengths," he said. "What of it?"
"Only this," said Flandry, "that you are getting your orders from that nebula."
Svantozik did not move a muscle. But Flandry saw how the fur bristled again, involuntarily, and the ears lay flat.
The man rolled his cigarette between his fingers, staring at it. "You think the Dispersal of Ymir lies behind your own sudden expansion," he said. "They supposedly provided you with weapons, robot machinery, knowledge, whatever you needed, and launched you on your career of conquest. Their aim was to rid the galaxy of Terra's Empire, making you dominant instead among the oxygen breathers. You were given to understand that humans and Ymirites simply did not get along. The technical experts on Ardazir itself, who helped you get started, were they Ymirite?"
"A few," said Svantozik. "Chiefly, of course, they were oxygen breathers. That was far more convenient."
"You thought those were mere Ymirite clients, did you not?" pursued Flandry. "Think, though. How do you know any Ymirites actually were on Ardazir? They would have to stay inside a force-bubble ship all the time. Was anything inside that ship, ever, except a remote-control panel? With maybe a dummy Ymirite? It would not be hard to fool you that way. There is nothing mysterious about vessels of that type, they are not hard to build, it is only that races like ours normally have no use for such elaborate additional apparatus—negagrav fields offer as much protection against material particles, and nothing protects against a nuclear shell which has made contact.
"Or, even if a few Ymirites did visit Ardazir... how do you know they were in charge? How can you be sure that their oxygen-breathing ‘vassals' were not the real masters?"
Svantozik laid back his lip and rasped through fangs: "You flop bravely in the net, Captain. But a mere hypothesis—"
"Of course I am hypothesizing." Flandry stubbed out his cigarette. His eyes clashed so hard with Svantozik's, flint gray striking steel gray, that it was as if sparks flew. "You have a scientific culture, so you know the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred. Well, I can explain the facts much more simply than by some cumbersome business of Ymir deciding to meddle in the affairs of dwarf planets useless to itself. Because Ymir and Terra have never had any serious trouble. We have no interest in each other! They know no terrestroid race could ever become a serious menace to them. They can hardly detect a difference between Terran and Merseian, either in outward appearance or in mentality. Why should they care who wins?"
"I do not try to imagine why," said Svantozik stubbornly. "My brain is not based on ammonium compounds. The fact is, however—"
"That a few individual Ymirites, here and there have performed hostile acts," said Flandry. "I was the butt of one myself. Since it is not obvious why they would, except as agents of their government, we have assumed that that was the reason. Yet all the time another motive was staring us in the face. I knew it. It is the sort of thing I have caused myself, in this dirty profession of ours, time and again. I have simply lacked proof. I hope to get that proof soon.
"When you cannot bribe an individual—blackmail him!"
Svantozik jerked. He raised himself from elbows to hands, his nostrils quivered, and he said roughly: "How? Can you learn any sordid secrets in the private life of a hydrogen breather? I shall not believe you even know what that race would consider a crime."
"I do not," said Flandry. "Nor does it matter. There is one being who could find out. He can read any mind at close range, without preliminary study, whether the subject is naturally telepathic or not. I think he must be sensitive to some underlying basic life energy our science does not yet suspect. We invented a mind-screen on Terra, purely for his benefit. He was in the Solar System, on both Terra and Jupiter, for weeks. He could have probed the inmost thoughts of the Ymirite guide. If Horx himself was not vulnerable, someone close to Horx may have been. Aycharaych, the telepath, is an oxygen breather. It gives me the cold shudders to imagine what it must feel like, receiving Ymirite thoughts in a protoplasmic brain. But he did it. How many other places has he been, for how many years? How strong a grip does he have on the masters of Urdahu?"
Svantozik lay wholly still. The stars flamed at his back, in all their icy millions.
"I say," finished Flandry, "that your people have been mere tools of Merseia. This was engineered over a fifteen-year period. Or even longer, perhaps. I do not know how old Aycharaych is. You were unleashed against Terra at a precisely chosen moment—when you confronted us with the choice of losing the vital Syrax Cluster or being robbed and ruined in our own sphere. You, personally, as a sensible hunter, would cooperate with Ymir, which you understood would never directly threaten Ardazir, and which would presumably remain allied with your people after the war, thus protecting you forever. But dare you cooperate with Merseia? It must be plain to you that the Merseians are as much your rivals as Terra could ever be. Once Terra is broken, Merseia will make short work of your jerry-built empire. I say to you, Svantozik, that you have been the dupe of your overlords, and that they have been the helpless, traitorous tools of Aycharaych. I think they steal off into space to get their orders from a Merseian gang—which I think I shall go and hunt!"
XVII
As the two flitters approached the nebula, Flandry heard the imprisoned Ardazirho howl. Even Svantozik, who had been here before and claimed hard agnosticism, raised his ruff and licked dry lips. To red-blind eyes, it must indeed be horrible, watching that enormous darkness grow until it had gulped all the stars and only instruments revealed anything of the absolute night outside. And ancient myths will not die: within every Urdahu subconscious, this was still the Gate of the Dead. Surely that was one reason the Merseians had chosen it for the lair from which they controlled the destiny of Ardazir. Demoralizing awe would make the Packmasters still more their abject puppets.
And then, on a practical level, those who were summoned—to report progress and receive their next instructions—were blind. What they did not see, they could not let slip, to someone who might start wondering about discrepancies.
Flandry himself saw sinister grandeur: great banks and clouds of blackness, looming in utter silence on every side of him, gulfs and canyons and steeps, picked out by the central red glow. He knew, objectively, that the nebula was near-vacuum even in its densest portions: only size and distance created that picture of caverns beyond caverns. But his eyes told him that he sailed into Shadow Land, under walls and roofs larger than planetary systems, and his own tininess shook him.
The haze thickened as the boats plunged inward. So too did the light, until at last Flandry stared into the clotted face of the infra-sun. It was a broad blurred disc, deep crimson, streaked with spots and bands of sable, hazing at the edges into impossibly delicate coronal arabesques. Here, in the heart of the nebula, dust and gas were condensing, a new star was taking shape.
As yet it shone simply by gravitational energy, heating as it contracted. Most of its titanic mass was still ghostly tenuous. But already its core density must be approaching quantum collapse, a central temperature of megadegrees. In a short time (a few million years more, when man was bones and not even the wind remembered him) atomic fires would kindle and a new radiance light this sky.
Svantozik looked at the instruments of his own flitter. "We orient ourselves by these three cosmic radio sources," he said, pointing. His voice fell flat in a stretched quietness. "When we are near the... headquarters... we emit our call signal and a regular ground-control beam brings us in."
"Good." Flandry met the alien eyes, half frightened and half wrathful, with a steady compassionate look. "You know what you must do when you have landed."
"Yes." The lean grim head lifted. "I shall not betray anyone again. You have my oath, Captain. I would not have broken troth with the Packmasters either, save that I think you are right and they have sold Urdahu."
Flandry nodded and clapped the Ardazirho's shoulder. It trembled faintly beneath his hand. He felt Svantozik was sincere, though he left two armed humans aboard the prize, just to make certain the sincerity was permanent. Of course, Svantozik might sacrifice his own life to bay a warning—or he might have lied about there being only one installation in the whole nebula—but you had to take some risks.
Flandry crossed back to his own vessel. The boarding tube was retracted. The two boats ran parallel for a time.
Great unborn planets. It had been a slim clue, and Flandry would not have been surprised had it proved a false lead. But... it has been known for many centuries that when a rotating mass has condensed sufficiently, planets will begin to take shape around it.
By the dull radiance of the swollen sun, Flandry saw his goal. It was, as yet, little more than a dusty, gassy belt of stones, strung out along an eccentric orbit in knots of local concentration, like beads. Gradually, the forces of gravitation, magnetism, and spin were bringing it together; ice and primeval hydrocarbons, condensed in the bitter cold on solid particles, made them unite on colliding, rather than shatter or bounce. Very little of the embryo world was visible: only the largest nucleus, a rough asteroidal mass, dark, scarred, streaked here and there by ice, crazily spinning; the firefly dance of lesser meteors, from mountains to dust motes, which slowly rained upon it.
Flandry placed himself in the turret by Chives. "As near as I can tell," he said, "this is going to be a terrestroid planet."
"Shall we leave a note for its future inhabitants, sir?" asked the Shalmuan, dead-pan.
Flandry's bark of laughter came from sheer tension. He added slowly, "It does make you wonder, though, what might have happened before Terra was born—"
Chives held up a hand. The red light pouring in turned his green skin a hideous color. "I think that is the Merseian beam, sir."
Flandry glanced at the instruments. "Check. Let's scoot."
He didn't want the enemy radar to show two craft. He let Svantozik's dwindle from sight while he sent the Hooligan leaping around the cluster. "We'd better come in about ten kilometers from the base, to be safely below their horizon," he said. "Do you have them located, Chives?"
"I think so, sir. The irregularity of the central asteroid confuses identification, but.... Let me read the course, sir, while you bring us in."
Flandry took the controls. This would come as close to seat-of-the-pants piloting as was ever possible in space. Instruments and robots, faster and more precise than live flesh could ever hope to be, would still do most of the work; but in an unknown, shifting region like this, there must also be a brain, continuously making the basic decisions. Shall we evade this rock swarm at the price of running that ice cloud?
He activated the negagrav screens and swooped straight for his target. No local object would have enough speed to overcome that potential and strike the hull. But sheer impact on the yielding force field could knock a small vessel galley west, dangerously straining its metal.
Against looming nebular curtains, Flandry saw two pitted meteors come at him. They rolled and tumbled, like iron dice. He threw in a double vector, killing some forward velocity while he applied a "downward" acceleration. The Hooligan slid past. A jagged, turning cone, five kilometers long, lay ahead. Flandry whipped within meters of its surface. Something went by, so quickly his eyes registered nothing but an enigmatic firestreak. Something else struck amidships. The impact rattled his teeth together. A brief storm of frozen gases, a comet, painted the viewscreens with red-tinged blizzard.
Then the main asteroid swelled before him. Chives called out figures. The Hooligan slipped over the whirling rough surface. "Here!" cried Chives. Flandry slammed to a halt. "Sir," added the Shalmuan. Flandry eased down with great care. Silence fell. Blackness lowered beyond the hull. They had landed.
"Stand by," said Flandry. Chives' green face grew mutinous. "That's an order," he added, knowing how he hurt the other being, but without choice in the matter. "We may possibly need a fast get-away. Or a fast pursuit. Or, if everything goes wrong, someone to report back to Walton."
"Yes, sir." Chives could scarcely be heard. Flandry left him bowed over the control panel.
His crew, minus the two humans with Svantozik, were already in combat armor. A nuclear howitzer was mounted on the Donarrian's centauroid back, a man astride to fire it. The pieces of a rocket launcher slanted across the two Gorzunis' double shoulders. The Scothanian cried a war chant and swung his pet wrecking bar so the air whistled. The remaining five men formed a squad in one quick metallic clash.
Flandry put on his own suit and led the way out.
He stood in starless night. Only the wan glow from detector dials, and the puddle of light thrown in vacuum by a flashbeam, showed him that his eyes still saw. But as they adjusted, he could make out the very dimmest of cloudy red above him, and blood-drop sparks where satellite meteors caught sunlight. The gravity underfoot was so low that even in armor he was near weightlessness. Yet his inertia was the same. It felt like walking beneath some infinite ocean.
He checked the portable neutrino tracer. In this roil of nebular matter, all instruments were troubled, the dust spoke in every spectrum, a million-year birth cry. But there was clearly a small nuclear-energy plant ahead. And that could only belong to one place.
"Join hands," said Flandry. "We don't want to wander from each other. Radio silence, of course. Let's go."
They bounded over the invisible surface. It was irregular, often made slick by frozen gas. Once there was a shudder in the ground, and a roar travelling through their bootsoles. Some giant boulder had crashed.
Then the sun rose, vast and vague on the topplingly near horizon, and poured ember light across ice and iron. It climbed with visible speed. Flandry's gang released hands and fell into approach tactics: dodge from pit to crag, wait, watch, make another long flat leap. In their black armor, they were merely a set of moving shadows among many.
The Merseian dome came into view. It was a blue hemisphere, purple in this light, nestled into a broad shallow crater. On the heights around there squatted negafield generators, to maintain a veil of force against the stony rain. It had been briefly turned off to permit Svantozik's landing: the squat black flitter sat under a scarp, two kilometers from the dome. A small fast warcraft—pure Merseian, the final proof—berthed next to the shelter, for the use of the twenty or so beings whom it would accommodate. The ship's bow gun was aimed at the Ardazirho boat. Routine precaution, and there were no other defenses. What had the Merseians to fear?
Flandry crouched on the rim and tuned his radio. Svantozik's beam dispersed enough for him to listen to the conversation: "—no, my lords, this visit is on my own initiative. I encountered a situation on Vixen so urgent that I felt it should be made known to you at once, rather than delaying to stop at Ardazir—" Just gabble, bluffing into blindness, to gain time for Flandry's attack.
The man checked his crew. One by one, they made the swab-O sign. He led them forward. The force field did not touch ground; they slithered beneath it, down the crater wall, and wormed towards the dome. The rough, shadow-blotted rock gave ample cover.
Flandry's plan was simple. He would sneak up close to the place and put a low-powered shell through. Air would gush out, the Merseians would die, and he could investigate their papers at leisure. With an outnumbered band, and so much urgency, he could not afford to be chivalrous.
"—thus you see, my lords, it appeared to me the Terrans—"
"All hands to space armor! We are being attacked!"
The shout ripped at Flandry's earphones. It had been in the Merseian Prime language, but not a Merseian voice. Somehow, incredibly, his approach had been detected.
"The Ardazirho is on their side! Destroy him!"
Flandry hit the ground. An instant later, it rocked. Through all the armor, he felt a sickening belly blow. It seemed as if he saw the brief thermonuclear blaze through closed lids and a sheltering arm.
Without air for concussion, the shot only wiped out Svantozik's boat. Volatilized iron whirled up, condensed, and sleeted down again. The asteroid shuddered to quiescence. Flandry leaped up. There was a strange dry weeping in his throat. He knew, with a small guiltiness, that he mourned more for Svantozik of the Janneer Ya than he did for the two humans who had died.
"—attacking party is about sixteen degrees north of the sunrise point, 300 meters from the dome—"
The gun turret of the Merseian warship swivelled about.
The Donarrian was already a-gallop. The armored man on his back clung tight, readying his weapon. As the enemy gun found its aim, the nuclear howitzer spoke.
That was a lesser blast. But the sun was drowned in its noiseless blue-white hell-dazzle. Half the spaceship went up in a fiery cloud, a ball which changed from white to violet to rosy red, swelled away and was lost in the nebular sky. The stern tottered, a shaken stump down which molten steel crawled. Then, slowly, it fell. It struck the crater floor and rolled earthquaking to the cliffs, where it vibrated and was still.
Flandry opened his eyes again to cold wan light. "Get at them!" he bawled.
The Donarrian loped back. The Gorzuni were crouched, their rocket launcher assembled in seconds, its chemical missile aimed at the dome. "Shoot!" cried Flandry. It echoed in his helmet. The cosmic radio noise buzzed and mumbled beneath his command.
Flame and smoke exploded at the point of impact. A hole gaped in the dome, and air rushed out. Its moisture froze; a thin fog overlay the crater. Then it began to settle, but with slowness in this gravitational field, so that mists whirled around Flandry's crew as they plunged to battle.
The Merseians came swarming forth. There were almost a score, Flandry saw, who had had time to throw on armor after being warned. They crouched big and black in metal, articulated tail-plates lashing their boots with rage. Behind faceless helmets, the heavy mouths must be drawn into snarls. Their hoarse calls boomed over the man's earphones.
He raced forward. The blast from their sidearms sheeted over him. He felt heat glow through insulation, his nerves shrank from it. Then he was past the concerted barrage.
A dinosaurian shape met him. The Merseian held a blaster, focused to needle beam. Its flame gnawed at Flandry's cuirass. The man's own energy gun spat—straight at the other weapon. The Merseian roared and tried to shelter his gun with an armored hand. Flandry held his beam steady. The battle gauntlet began to glow. The Merseian dropped his blaster with a shriek of anguish. He made a low-gravity leap towards his opponent, whipped around, and slapped with his tail.
The blow smashed at Flandry. He went tumbling across the ground, fetched against the dome with a force that stunned him, and sagged there. The Merseian closed in. His mighty hands snatched after the Terran's weapon. Flandry made a judo break, yanking his wrist out between the Merseian's fingers and thumb. He kept his gun arm in motion, till he poked the barrel into the enemy's eye slit. He pulled the trigger. The Merseian staggered back. Flandry followed, close in, evading all frantic attempts to break free of him. A second, two seconds, three, four, then his beam had pierced the thick super-glass. The Merseian fell, gruesomely slow.
Flandry's breath was harsh in his throat. He glared through the drifting red streamers of fog, seeking to understand what went on. His men were outnumbered still, but that was being whittled down. The Donarrian hurled Merseians to earth, tossed them against rocks, kicked and stamped with enough force to kill them through their armor by sheer concussion. The Gorzuni stood side by side, a blaster aflame in each of their hands; no metal could long withstand that concentration of fire. The Scothanian bounced, inhumanly swift, his wrecking bar leaping in and out like a battle axe—strike, pry, hammer at vulnerable joints and connections, till something gave way and air bled out. And the humans were live machines, bleakly wielding blaster and slug gun, throwing grenades and knocking Merseian weapons aside with karate blows. Two of them were down, dead; one slumped against the dome, and Flandry heard his pain over the radio. But there were more enemy casualties strewn over the crater. The Terrans were winning. In spite of all, they were winning.
But—
Flandry's eyes swept the scene. Someone, somehow, had suddenly realized that a band of skilled space fighters was stealing under excellent cover towards the dome. There was no way Flandry knew of to be certain of that, without instruments he had not seen planted around. Except—
Yes. He saw the tall gaunt figure mounting a cliff. Briefly it was etched against the bloody sun, then it slipped from view.
Aycharaych had been here after all.
No men could be spared from combat, even if they could break away. Flandry bounded off himself.
He topped the ringwall in three leaps. A black jumble of rocks fell away before him. He could not see any flitting shape, but in this weird shadowy land eyes were almost useless at a distance. He knew, though, which way Aycharaych was headed. There was only one escape from the nebula now, and the Chereionite had gotten what information he required from human minds.
Flandry began to travel. Leap—not high, or you will take forever to come down again—long, low bounds, with the dark metallic world streaming away beneath you and the firecoal sun slipping towards night again: silence, death, and aloneness. If you die here, your body will be crushed beneath falling continents, your atoms will be locked for eternity in the core of a planet,
A ray flared against his helmet. He dropped to the ground, before he had even thought. He lay in a small crater, blanketed with shadow, and stared into the featureless black wall of a giant meteor facing away from the sun. Somewhere on its slope—
Aycharaych's Anglic words came gentle, "You can move faster than I. You could reach your vessel before me and warn your subordinate. I can only get in by a ruse, of course. He will hear me speak on the radio in a disguised voice of things known only to him and yourself, and will not see me until I have been admitted. And that will be too late for him. But first I must complete your life, Captain Flandry."
The man crouched deeper into murk. He felt the near-absolute cold of the rock creep through armor and touch his skin. "You've tried often enough before," he said.
Aycharaych's chuckle was purest music. "Yes, I really thought I had said farewell to you, that night at the Crystal Moon. It seemed probable you would be sent to Jupiter—I have studied Admiral Fenross with care—and Horx had been instructed to kill the next Terran agent. My appearance at the feast was largely sentimental. You have been an ornament of my reality, and I could not deny myself a final conversation."
"My friend," grated Flandry, "you're about as sentimental as a block of solid helium. You wanted us to know about your presence. You foresaw it would alarm us enough to focus our attention on Syrax, where you hinted you would go next—what part of our attention that superb red-herring operation had not fastened on Ymir. You had our Intelligence men swarming around Jupiter and out in the Cluster, going frantic in search of your handiwork: leaving you free to manipulate Ardazir."
"My egotism will miss you," said Aycharaych coolly. "You alone, in this degraded age, can fully appreciate my efforts, or censure them intelligently when I fail. This time, the unanticipated thing was that you would survive on Jupiter. Your subsequent assignment to Vixen has, naturally, proven catastrophic for us. I hope now to remedy that disaster, but—" The philosopher awoke. Flandry could all but see Aycharaych's ruddy eyes filmed over with a vision of some infinitude humans had never grasped. "It is not certain. The totality of existence will always elude us: and in that mystery lies the very meaning. How I pity immortal God!"
Flandry jumped out of the crater.
Aycharaych's weapon spat. Flame splashed off the man's armor. Reflex—a mistake, for now Flandry knew where Aycharaych was, the Chereionite could not get away—comforting to realize, in this querning of worlds, that an enemy who saw twenty years ahead, and had controlled whole races like a hidden fate, could also make mistakes.
Flandry sprang up onto the meteor. He crashed against Aycharaych.
The blaster fired point-blank. Flandry's hand chopped down. Aycharaych's wrist did not snap across, the armor protected it. But the gun went spinning down into darkness. Flandry snatched for his own weapon. Aycharaych read the intention and closed in, wrestling. They staggered about on the meteor in each other's arms. The sinking sun poured its baleful light across them: and Aycharaych could see better by it than Flandry. In minutes, when night fell, the man would be altogether blind and the Chereionite could take victory.
Aycharaych thrust a leg behind the man's and pushed. Flandry toppled. His opponent retreated. But Flandry fell slowly enough that he managed to seize the other's waist. They rolled down the slope together. Aycharaych's breath whistled in the radio, a hawk sound. Even in the clumsy spacesuit, he seemed like water, nearly impossible to keep a grip on.
They struck bottom. Flandry got his legs around the Chereionite's. He wriggled himself on to the back and groped after flailing limbs. A forearm around the alien helmet—he couldn't strangle, but he could immobilize and—his hands clamped on a wrist. He jerked hard.
A trill went through his radio. The struggle ceased. He lay atop his prisoner, gasping for air. The sun sank, and blackness closed about them.
"I fear you broke my elbow joint there," said Aycharaych. "I must concede."
"I'm sorry," said Flandry, and he was nothing but honest. "I didn't mean to."
"In the end," sighed Aycharaych, and Flandry had never heard so deep a soul-weariness, "I am beaten not by a superior brain or a higher justice, but by the brute fact that you are from a larger planet than I and thus have stronger muscles. It will not be easy to fit this into a harmonious reality."
Flandry unholstered his blaster and began to weld their sleeves together. Broken arm or not, he was taking no chances. Bad enough to have that great watching mind next to his for the time needed to reach the flitter.
Aycharaych's tone grew light again, almost amused: "I would like to refresh myself with your pleasure. So, since you will read the fact anyway in our papers, I shall tell you now that the overlords of Urdahu will arrive here for conference in five Terran days."
Flandry grew rigid. Glory blazed within him. A single shellburst, and Ardazir was headless!
Gradually the stiffness and the splendor departed. He finished securing his captive. They helped each other up. "Come along," said the human. "I've work to do."
XVIII
Cerulia did not lie anywhere near the route between Syrax and Sol. But Flandry went home that way. He didn't quite know why. Certainly it was not with any large willingness.
He landed at Vixen's main spaceport. "I imagine I'll be back in a few hours, Chives," he said. "Keep the pizza flying." He went lithely down the gangway, passed quarantine in a whirl of gold and scarlet, and caught an airtaxi to Garth.
The town lay peaceful in its midsummer. Now, at apastron, with Vixen's atmosphere to filter its radiation, the sun might almost have been Sol: smaller, brighter, but gentle in a blue sky where tall white clouds walked. Fields reached green to the Shaw; a river gleamed; the snowpeaks of the Ridge hovered dreamlike at world's edge.
Flandry looked up the address he wanted in a public telebooth. He didn't call ahead, but walked through bustling streets to the little house. Its peaked roof was gold above vine-covered walls.
Kit met him at the door. She stood unmoving a long time. Finally she breathed: "I'd begun to fear you were dead."
"Came close, a time or two," said Flandry awkwardly.
She took his arm. Her hand shook. "No," she said, "Y-y-you can't be killed. You're too much alive. Oh, come in, darlin'!" She closed the door behind him.
He followed her to the living room and sat down. Sunlight streamed past roses in a trellis window, casting blue shadows over the warm small neatness of furnishings. The girl moved about, dialling the public pneumo for drinks, chattering with frantic gaiety. His eyes found it pleasant to follow her.
"You could have written," she said, smiling too much to show it wasn't a reproach. "When the Ardazirho pulled out o' Vixen, we went back to normal fast. The mailtubes were operatin' again in a few hours."
"I was busy," he said.
"An' you're through now?" She gave him a whisky and sat down opposite him, resting her own glass on a bare sunbrowned knee.
"I suppose so." Flandry took out a cigarette. "Until the next trouble comes."
"I don't really understan' what happened," she said. "'Tis all been one big confusion."
"Such developments usually are," he said, glad of a chance to speak impersonally. "Since the Imperium played down all danger in the public mind, it could hardly announce a glorious victory in full detail. But things were simple enough. Once we'd clobbered the Ardazirho chiefs at the nebula, everything fell apart for their planet. The Vixen force withdrew to help defend the mother world, because revolt was breaking out all over their little empire. Walton followed. He didn't seek a decisive battle, his fleet being less than the total of theirs, but he held them at bay while our psychological warfare teams took Ardazir apart. Another reason for avoiding open combat as much as possible was that we wanted that excellent navy of theirs. When they reconstituted themselves as a loose federation of coequal orbekhs, clans, tribes, and what have you, they were ready enough to accept Terran supremacy—the Pax would protect them against one another!"
"As easy as that." A scowl passed beneath Kit's fair hair. "After all they did to us, they haven't paid a millo. Not that reparations would bring back our dead, but—should they go scot free?"
"Oh, they ransomed themselves, all right." Flandry's tone grew sombre. He looked through a shielding haze of smoke at roses which nodded in a mild summer wind. "They paid ten times over for all they did at Vixen: in blood and steel and agony, fighting as bravely as any people I've ever seen for a cause that was not theirs. We spent them like wastrels. Not one Ardazirho ship in a dozen came home. And yet the poor proud devils think it was a victory!"
"What? You mean—"
"Yes. We joined their navy to ours at Syrax. They were the spearhead of the offensive. It fell within the rules of the game, you see. Technically, Terra hadn't launched an all-out attack on the Merseian bases. Ardazir, a confederacy subordinate to us, had done so! But our fleet came right behind. The Merseians backed up. They negotiated. Syrax is ours now." Flandry shrugged. "Merseia can afford it. Terra won't use the Cluster as an invasion base. It'll only be a bastion. We aren't brave enough to do the sensible thing; we'll keep the peace, and to hell with our grandchildren." He smoked in short ferocious drags. "Prisoner exchange was a condition. All prisoners, and the Merseians meant all. In plain language, if they couldn't have Aycharaych back, they wouldn't withdraw. They got him."
She looked a wide-eyed question.
"Never mind," said Flandry scornfully. "That's a mere detail. I don't suppose my work went quite for nothing. I helped end the Ardazir war and the Syrax deadlock. I personally, all by myself, furnished Aycharaych as a bargaining counter. I shouldn't demand more, should I?" He dropped his face into one hand. "Oh, God, Kit, how tired I am!"
She rose, went over to sit on the arm of his chair, and laid a palm on his head. "Can you stay here an' rest?" she asked softly.
He looked up. A bare instant he paused, uncertain himself. Then rue twisted his lips upwards. "Sorry. I only stopped in to say goodbye."
"What?" she whispered, as if he had stabbed her. "But, Dominic—"
He shook his head. "No," he cut her off. "It won't do, lass. Anything less than everything would be too unfair to you. And I'm just not the forever-and-ever sort. That's the way of it."
He tossed off his drink and rose. He would go now, even sooner than he had planned, cursing himself that he had been so heedless of them both as to return here. He tilted up her chin and smiled down into the hazel eyes. "What you've done, Kit," he said, "your children and their children will be proud to remember. But mostly... we had fun, didn't we?"
His lips brushed hers and tasted tears. He went out the door and walked down the street again, never looking back.
A vague, mocking part of him remembered that he had not yet settled his bet with Ivar del Bruno. And why should he? When he reached Terra, he would have another try. It would be something to do.
THE
WARRIORS FROM NOWHERE
—————————
"Crime," said Captain Dominic Flandry of the Terran Empire's Naval Intelligence Corps, "is entirely a matter of degree. If you shoot your neighbor in order to steal his property, you are a murderer and a thief, subject to enslavement. If, however, you gather a band of lusty fellows in the name of honor and glory, knock off a couple of million people, take their planet, and hit up the survivors for taxes, you are a great conqueror, a hero, a statesman, and your name goes down in the history books. Sooner or later, this inconsistency seeps into the national consciousness and produces a desire for universal peace. That in turn brings about what is known as decadence, especially among philosophers who never had to do any of the actual fighting. The Empire is in this condition, of which the early stages are the most agreeable period of a civilization to live in—somewhat analogous to a banana just starting to show brown spots. I fear, however, that by now we are just a bit overripe."
He was not jailed for his remarks because he made them in private, sitting on the balcony of a rented lodge on Varrak's southern continent and finishing his usual noontime breakfast. His flamboyantly pajamaed legs were cocked up on the rail. Sighting over his coffee cup and between his feet, he saw a mountainside drop steeply down to green sun-flooded wilderness. That light played over a lean, straight-boned face and a long hard body which made him look like anything but an officer of a sated imperium. But then, his business was a strenuous one these days.
His current mistress offered him a cigarette and he inhaled it into lighting. She was a stunning blonde named Ella Mclntyre, whom he had bought a few weeks previously in Fort Lone, the planet's one city. He had learned that she was of the old pioneer stock, semi-aristocrats who had fallen on times so bad that at last they had chosen by lot some of their number to sell as "voluntary" slaves. That kind of sacrifice was not in accordance with law or custom on Terra, but Terra was a long way off and its tributaries necessarily had a great deal of local autonomy. Flandry had wangled an invitation to the private auction and decided she would be a good investment. She could have far worse owners than himself, and when he resold her—at a profit—he'd make sure the next one was a decent sort too.
He sipped, wiped his mustache, and drew breath to continue his musings. An apologetic cough brought his head around. His valet, the only other being in the lodge, had emerged from it. This was a native of Shalmu, remarkably humanoid, short, slender, with hairless green skin, prehensile tail, and impeccable manners. Flandry had dubbed him Chives and taught him things which made him valuable in more matters than laying out a dress suit.
"Pardon me, sir," he said. His Anglic was as nearly perfect as vocal organs allowed. "Admiral Fenross is calling from the city."
Flandry swore. "Fenross! What's he doing on this planet? Tell him to—no, never mind, it's anatomically impossible." He sought the study, frowning. He wasted no love on his superior, and vice versa, but Fenross wouldn't contact a man on furlough, especially in person, unless it was urgent.
The screen held a gaunt, sharp countenance with dark-shadowed eyes. Red hair was dank with sweat. "There you are!" the admiral exclaimed. "Code 770." When Flandry had set the scrambler: "All leaves cancelled. Get busy at once." His voice broke across. "Though God knows what you or anyone can do. But it means all our heads."
Flandry took a drag of smoke that sucked in his cheeks. "What do you mean, sir?"
"The sack of Fort Lone was more than a raid—"
"What sack?"
"You mean you don't know?"
"Haven't tuned the telly for a week, sir. I'd better occupation." Beneath the drawl, the carefully casual manner, Flandry's skin prickled.
Fenross snarled something and said thickly, "Well, then, for your information, Captain, yesterday a barbarian force streaked in, shot out what defenses the town had, landed, looted, put the place to the torch, and were gone again in three hours from first contact. They also took about a thousand captives, mostly women. No Naval base here, you know, as thinly populated as this globe is. By the time word had gotten to the nearest patrol force and it had arrived, they were untraceable."
"You happened to be with it, sir, and have taken charge?" Flandry asked. He knew the answer; he was merely stalling while his mind regained balance and got into karate stance.
Barbarians—Beyond this Taurian sector of the Empire lay the wild stars, ungarrisoned, virtually unexplored; and among them prowled creatures who had gotten spaceships and nuclear weapons too soon. Raids and punitive expeditions had often gone back and forth across the marches. But an assault on Varrak? Hard to believe. Predators go for fat and easy prey.
"Of course I was, and have, you jigglebrain," Fenross snapped. "After we cleared up that last business, I didn't set my trajectory for the nearest vacation area. As undermanned as we are out here—Now we'll have to fight."
"I, sir?" Flandry couldn't resist saying. "That's the combat services' department, I'm told. Why pick on me?"
"You and every other man in the sector. Listen." Fenross seemed almost to lean out of the screen. "The bandits have not been identified, though mainly they look human. And... among the people they kidnapped is her Highness, Lady Megan of Luna, the favorite granddaughter of the Emperor himself!"
Not a muscle stirred in Flandry's visage, save to form a long, low whistle; but his belly tautened till it hurt. "Any clues at all?"
"Well, one officer did manage to lie hidden in the ruins and take a holofilm, just a few minutes' worth. Otherwise we've only the accounts of demoralized civilians, practically worthless." Fenross paused. Obviously it hurt him to add: "Maybe it's luck that you were here. We do need you."
"I should say you do, dear chief." Modesty was not a failing of Flandry's, nor would he pass by a chance to twit his superior when he couldn't be punished for it. "All right, I'll flit directly over. Cheers."
He cut the circuit and returned to the balcony. Chives was clearing away the breakfast dishes; Ella was nervously pacing. "So long, children," the man said. "I'm on my way."
Eyes like blued silver sought him. "What has happened?" the girl asked, all at once gone calm.
Flandry gave her a smile of sorts. "I've just been handed a chance for either a triumph that may earn me a fortune, or a failure that may earn me burial in a barbarian's barnyard. If a bookmaker quotes you odds of ten to one on the latter, bet your life savings, because he's ripe for the plucking."
It was like a scene from some mythic hell, save that its kind had been enacted much too many times in history.
Against a background of shattered walls and jumping flames, men crowded, surged, shouted, laughed—big men in helmet, cuirass, kilt, some carrying archaic swords as well as modern small arms. The picture was focused on an ornamental terrace above the central plaza. There huddled a dozen young women, stripped alike of clothing and hope, weeping, shuddering, or lost in an apathy of despair. Elsewhere, others were being led off to a disc-shaped vessel, doubtless a tender to an orbiting mother ship; still others were being herded through the swarm toward the upper level. It was a hastily conducted sale. Silver, gold, gems, the plunder of the city, were tossed at a gnomish unhuman figure that squatted there and pushed each purchase downstairs to a grinning conqueror.
The film ended. Flandry looked through the transparency in the undamaged, commandeered office where he sat, out over desolation. Smoke still made an acrid haze in what had been Fort Lone. Imperial marines stood guard, a relief station dispensed food and medical help, a pair of corvettes hung in the sky and heavier battlecraft swung beyond its blueness—all of which was rather too late to do much good.
"Well," rasped Fenross, "what do you make of it?"
Flandry replayed, stopped motion, and turned the enlarger knob, till a holographic image stood big and grotesque before him. "Except for this dwarf creature," he replied, "I'd say they were all of human race."
"Of course—" The admiral sounded as if he barely stopped himself from finishing, "—idiot!" After a moment: "Could they be from some early colony out in these parts that reverted to barbarism... during the Troubles, perhaps? I don't believe complete records are left on every attempt at emigration and settlement made during the Breakup, but we do know quite a few were less than successful. Could such a retrograded people have worked their way back up to a point where they could start reduplicating some of the ancestral technology, before outgrowing the wild ways they'd acquired meanwhile?"
"I wonder," Flandry said. "The spacecraft in the film is an odd design. I think there are some societies within the Merseian hegemony that employ more or less the same type, but it's not what I'd expect barbarians imitating our boats to have."
Fenross gulped. His fingernails whitened where he gripped the table edge. "If the Merseians are behind this—"
Flandry gestured at the dwarf. "Tall, dark, and handsome there may provide a clue to their origin. I don't know. That's for data retrieval in the nearest well-stocked xenological archive to tell us, and I'm afraid it is not very near at all."
He leaned back, tugged his chin, and continued low-voiced, "But I must say the pattern of this raid is strange in every respect. Varrak's well inside the border, with only a small area that's been worth colonizing, thus not an especially tempting mark. Plenty of better prospects lie closer to the Wilderness. Then too, the raiders knew exactly how to neutralize the defenses; it was done with almost unnecessary precision, scanty as they were. And, of course, the raid collared the princess. Suggests inside help, eh?"
"I thought of that, naturally," Fenross grunted. "I'm setting up a quiz of every survivor of the security force. If narco indicates anything suspicious about anybody, we'll give him the hypnoprobe."
"I suspect it's wasted effort, sir. The bandit chief is too smooth an operator to leave clues of that kind. If he had collaborators here, they left with his lads and we'll list them as ‘missing, presumed killed in action.' But what's the story on her Highness?"
Fenross groaned. "She was making a tour of the marches, according to a couple of servants who escaped. Officially it was an inspection, actually it seems to've been for thrills. How could those muck-heads on Terra conceivably have allowed it?" His fist struck the table, then he sighed: "Well, I've heard she has the Emperor around her little finger."
I suppose even the hardest old son of a bitch must have a sentimental streak, perhaps mushier than in most of us, Flandry thought. Also, his newly and forcibly acceded Majesty has so much else to worry about, one can understand how he could be wheedled into supposing a region was safe that never caused him trouble before, and indeed gave him support.
"Anyhow," Fenross went on, "she traveled incognito, as simply a nouveau riche tourist, and her staff included a crack secret service detail. No use, it turned out. The raiders blasted their way into the hotel where she was staying, gunned down her guards, and made off with her and most of her attendants."
"Again," said Flandry, "they appear to have had inside information. I'd hypothesize they got her itinerary beforehand, on Terra itself or early during the trip. The looting here was a sideline and a red herring. That includes the picturesque little bit of salacity we've seen filmed. There wasn't time to sell off any substantial fraction of an estimated thousand prisoners, but it's the kind of thing that barbarians are popularly supposed to do."
"I'm inclined to agree," Fenross said slowly. "I'm also afraid, however, that some powerful people in this sector will not. They'll demand that whole task forces be sent to scour the Wilderness before their own precious interests suffer attack; and they've got the influence to have their demands met."
Flandry nodded. "Exactly," he replied. He took forth a cigarette. "What's your guess at the real motive? Ransom?"
"Probably, and I hope to God the kidnappers only want money. But—you know as well as I, barbarian kings and the like may be rough, but they're seldom stupid. I'm afraid her ransom will be concessions we can ill afford. If they are barbarians we're dealing with. If they're really, let's say, the Merseians—That hardly bears thinking about, does it?"
"I can't see the Emperor—the present one, at any rate—selling out the Empire, even to get his favorite granddaughter back."
"No... no.... But he'll be distraught when he hears, I suppose. It may go ill with officers like you and me, who were on the scene or near it." Fenross' head bobbed up and down. "Yes, I'm quite sure it will."
Flandry scowled. He was fond of living. "Somehow I doubt the operation was mounted just to get rid of you, or even of me, sir. The political purpose—"
"I haven't had a chance to wonder about that yet," Fenross snapped. "I doubtless won't get one, either. Too much else on hand. Setting up intensive studies here—probably useless, I know, but they must be carried out. Contacting commands throughout the sector. Getting an Intelligence operation mounted that'll go through the whole adjacent Wilderness, and in among the Merseians, and—" He lifted haunted eyes to meet Flandry's. "I'm an administrator, that's what I am, a bloody damned administrator, understaffed and swamped. You're the dashing, glamorous field agent, independent to the brink of insubordination, aren't you? Aren't you? Well, don't just sit there! Get going!"
"I might do something unorthodox, sir, without checking with you first," Flandry was careful to warn. "Time could be short and you preoccupied. For the proverbial covering of my own rear end, may I have a roving commission, duly entered in the data bank? And I'll also need clearance and code for instant access to any information whatsoever."
Fenross' desperation was made plain when he mumbled, "All right, you slippery bastard, you'll have 'em, and God help us both if you misuse the authority. Now go away and start whatever you have in mind." He retained the coolness not to ask what that might be.
Flandry rose. "It might stimulate my wits if a small reward were offered, sir," he said mildly.
The lodge was as good a place as any to commence work. Like all capital ships, the dreadnaught now in orbit around Varrak bore very complete electronic files of Intelligence material pertinent to the sector of her assignment, as well as much else. The special receiver which he had brought back with him, responding to his properly identified requisition, gave him any displays he called for that were available; when he demanded printouts, those were on sheets that would crumble within the hour. In dressing gown and slippers, he sat perusing records of which many had cost lives, of which some were worth an empire. Chives kept him supplied with coffee and cigarettes.
Near dawn of the planet's thirty-one-hour day, Ella stole up behind him and laid a hand on his head. "Aren't you ever coming in to sleep, Nick?" she asked. He had encouraged her to address him familiarly, but this was the first time she had yet done so.
"Not for a while," he answered curtly, without glancing at her. "I'll load up on stim instead, if need be. I'm on the track of a hunch; and if it's right, we're on mighty short rations of time."
She nodded, light sliding down unbound tresses, and settled herself quietly onto a couch. After a while the sun rose.
"Stars and planets and little pink asteroids," muttered Flandry all at once. "I may have an answer. The infotrieve is a splendid invention, if you're on the seeking rather than the hiding end of things."
She regarded him in continued silence. He got up, moved his cramped limbs about, rumpled his seal-brown hair. "The answer could be wrong," he said aloud, only half to her. "If it's right, the danger is the same, or perhaps more. Talking about sticking your head in a lion's mouth—when the lion has halitosis—"
He began to pace. "Chives is a handy fellow with a spacecraft, a gun, or a set of burglar's tools; but I need a different kind of help as well."
"Can I give it, Nick?" Ella asked low. "I'd be glad to. You've been good to me. I never quite expected that."
He regarded her a moment. She rose to stand before him, tall and lithe, descendant of those who made a home for themselves on a hostile world and even turned a small part of it into a bit of Terra—"My dear," he replied, "can you shoot?"
"I used to hunt axhorns in the mountains," she told him.
"Then... what'd you say if I set you free? Not just that, but hunted up what I could of your other kinfolk who had to be sold, and acquired them and manumitted them and provided a bit of a grubstake? The reward should cover that, with a trifle to spare for my next poker game."
She had never wept before in his presence. "I, I, I have no words."
He held her close. "The price is a considerable risk of losing everything," he murmured. "Of death, or torture, or degradation, or whatever horror you dare imagine, or maybe some that you can't. We're dealing with an utterly monstrous ego. If power corrupts, the prospect of it can do worse."
She lifted her tear-wet face to his. "You're... going too... aren't you?" she breathed. Stepping back, straightening: "No, don't you dare leave me behind!"
His laugh was shaken, but he slapped her in a not very brotherly fashion. "All right, macushla. You can come out on the target range and prove what you claimed about your shooting while Chives packs."
The boat Flandry chose was no match in any respect—speed, armament, comfort—for his private speedster; but the latter was afar, and this one was an agile fighter. In her, it was a three-day flit to Vor. After they had rehearsed what must be done as best they could, he spent the time amusing himself and his companions. There might not be another chance.
Vor had been discovered early in the age of exploration by Cynthians, but colonized by humans, like Varrak. More terrestroid, it had become populous and wealthy, and was a natural choice of capital for the duke who governed the Taurian Sector. Less grandiose than Terrans, but perhaps more energetic, its inhabitants eventually found themselves dominant in what was almost an empire within the Empire, their ruler sitting high in the councils of the Imperium.
Flandry left Chives in charge of the boat at Gloriana spaceport, and slipped the portmaster a substantial bribe in case he should need cooperation. He and Ella took a flittercab into the city and got a penthouse in one of its better hotels. He never stinted himself when he was on expense account, but this time the penthouse had a sound business reason. You could land on the roof, should a quick getaway become necessary.
Having settled in, he phoned the ducal palace and got through to a secretary in charge of appointments. "This is Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of his Majesty's Naval Intelligence Corps," he announced to the face in the screen with a pomposity equal to its effeminacy. "I have official business to conduct at his Grace's earliest convenience."
"I am afraid, Sir Dominic, that his Grace is engaged until—" A buzz sounded near the secretary's elbow. "Excuse me, sir." He turned and conferred over a sonic-shielded instrument out of the scanner field. When he resumed the earlier conversation, he was obsequious. "Of course, Sir Dominic. His Grace will be pleased to see you at 1400 tomorrow."
"Good," said Flandry. "I'll bring a lollipop for you." He switched off and laughed into Ella's astonishment: "Usually in this business one doesn't want fame, but sometimes the fact that one has a certain amount of it can be used. Pretty Boy there was being monitored, as I'd expected. He was informed that my presence is urgently desired at the palace. No doubt the idea is to find out whether I nourish any suspicions, and, if I do, to allay them."
Night had fallen. They had not yet turned on the lights, for the one great moon of Vor was in the wall transparency, its radiance making the roof garden outside into a sight of elven beauty. Ella also became dreamlike, quicksilver amidst shadow. But he saw how she bit her lip. "That doesn't sound good for us," she whispered.
"It sounds very much as though my notion is right. Look here." Flandry leaned back in his chair, confronted her where she hunched on a sofa, and bridged his fingers. He had been over this ground a dozen times already, but he liked to hear himself talk, and besides, it might soothe the poor, lonely, brave girl.
"The Corps is highly efficient if you point it in the right direction," he said. "In this case, the kidnapping was so designed that Fenross is pointed in a hundred different directions. He's forced to tackle the hopeless job of investigating uncounted barbarian worlds and the very Roidhunate of Merseia. But I, having a nasty suspicious mind, thought that our own space might harbor persons who wouldn't mind having the Emperor's favorite granddaughter for a house guest.
"That alien-type spaceship was a clue toward Merseia, but I didn't like it. Merseia's too far from here for it to be a likely influence on any local barbarians; and if the operation was Merseian, why such a blatant signature on it? Likewise, ordinary buccaneers would not have come to Varrak in the first place if they had any understanding of the economics of their trade, and could scarcely have garnered such accurate information in the second place. But who then were the raiders, and who led them?
"That gnome creature gave me a hunch. He was obviously in some position of authority, or he wouldn't have been demanding loot in exchange for those girls. The pirates could simply have taken the women for themselves; it'd have made an equally effective charade. The files held no information on a race of that description, but I did find out that Duke Alfred of Tauria has a number of aliens in his household, some from regions little known or unknown.
"Let's make it a working hypothesis that those humans were also Alfred's folk, in operatic garb. What then?
"Well, my guess is that before long, word will come from what purports to be a barbarian king: he's got Princess Megan, and her ransom will be a goodly chunk of this sector. The Emperor will scarcely yield, but in his grief and outrage he'll want nothing but war. However, we're spread too thin, our internal peace is still too precarious, for him to dare bring the whole Navy to bear, or even a substantial part of it—especially when no one knows yet where the enemy lives. Duke Alfred is responsible for Tauria. He'll offer to mobilize its strength, to assume most of the burden. Mobilization en masse can't take place overnight, and under any other circumstances would rouse such suspicion that he'd instantly be replaced, with all his senior officers. But as matters stand, he'll be cheered on, given every possible assistance... and presently be ready to declare himself an independent monarch. I'm afraid that the key people in too many units will see too much gain for themselves to refuse his leadership. I'm also afraid the cost of crushing him will be too great. Probably, after some fighting, he'll get his wish. And so the Empire—human civilization—loses another prime bulwark.
"At least," finished Flandry, "that's how I'd work the swindle."
Ella shivered. "War," she said; her voice wavered. "Cities going up in flame. Deaths in the millions. Looting, enslaving—No!"
"Of course," he reminded her, "we need proof. I've left my suspicions in the appropriate data bank, in case we don't return, but saw no point in telling Fenross just yet. He'd surely consider them fantastic; he has an exaggerated opinion of our aristocracy. Besides, if I'm right, the Taurian divisions of the Corps are riddled with Alfred's agents; you don't start a coup like this on the impulse of a moment. So you and I are here to infiltrate right back."
She nodded, mute, and hugged herself as if caught in a winter wind. He rose, went to her, urged her gently to her feet, held her close and stroked her hair. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I needn't have repeated all this to you, eh? It only told you once again what an utter bastard I am, using a beautiful young girl for a chess piece. What can I say except that I'm on the board too, and—"
She lifted her countenance toward his. Moonlight glimmered off tears, but somehow she smiled. "Y-y-you're a nice bastard," she said.
He laughed, a bit wistfully, before he completed his sentence: "—and we ought to have several hours ahead of us to spend as we like. Hmmm?"
—Afterward they stood watch and watch. It was good that they did. Between midnight and morning, Ella shook Flandry awake. Silently, she pointed at the optic wall. A flitter was landing on the roof.
He glided up and sought the weapons laid nearby. "Quick reaction," he said low. "I did expect his Grace would wait to receive me first. Let's hope this means he's rattled."
Ella cradled a slugthrowing rifle in her arms. Slowly moving, the moon still cast her into white, unreal relief. Her tone was steady. "Could they be innocent?"
"If so, they haven't had the courtesy to call ahead, which by itself makes me dislike them," he answered. "Here, take the rest of your gear. Come on back to the corner. Be ready to use the sofa for a shield."
Three murky forms emerged and approached the wall. Moonbeams glittered on metal in their hands. "They look like hirelings, not regular militiamen," Flandry observed. He felt quite cool, now that action was upon him. "Well, the underworld always has been a recruiting source for revolutionaries. Let's see what they do."
One man bore no gun, but a thing that Flandry soon recognized as a high-powered portable drill with a head of synthetic diamond. On his back was a tank. The bit made the lowest of whines as it went through the wall. He retracted it and brought a hose around from the tank. "Sleepy gas," Flandry said. "They want us for interrogation. But we'd never live to dine out on the experience afterward."
He and Ella had masks against the contingency, but he saw no point in donning them. Nor was he in a position to conduct a quiz himself. He gave the woman her instructions and aimed his blaster. As the nozzle of the hose came through the hole, the weapon cracked. A blue-white lightning bolt pierced the wall and the intruder went down. Ella's rifle barked next to his ear, dropping the one on the right at the same time. They never knew which of them took the third, a second later; both shots struck home.
The flitter did not stir. Flandry clicked his tongue. "Nobody left at the controls," he said. "Rank amateurism."
He went outside to make sure the three were dead and to search for any clues. There were none to speak of, though he strengthened his impression that these had been civilians. Returning, he found Ella motionless, staring down at her weapon. "I never fired at a sophont before," she said thinly. "I never killed a man before."
He kissed her. The lips beneath his were cold and dry. "Don't let it bother you," he counselled. "Occupational hazard in their profession, as in mine. Remember, we're trying to head off the killing of millions of innocents." He moved toward the phone. "It'd be in character for an officer of Intelligence not to want the police in, and I have the authority to order that." He punched a key. "Night manager, please.... Hello. I'm afraid we've a bit of a mess in our place. Can you have somebody come clean up?"
The audience hall was cathedral-vaulted and ornate. Its present master had not changed it, but his more austere personality showed in the relatively streamlined ceremonies at court, and in the black-uniformed guardsmen who stood ranked along the walls. Flandry's dress garb, like the gown and veil of the young woman who followed him, outshone the appearance of the man on the throne.
Duke Alfred was big, his frame running to paunchiness in middle age but still basically muscular, his blocky, gray-bearded face devoid of humor but alive with pride. His dossier had given Flandry a distinct idea that here was a dangerous person. Yet when the latter had snapped a salute and identified himself, Alfred said graciously enough: "At ease, Captain, and welcome in your own right as well as on his Majesty's service. Who is your company?"
"A token of esteem for your grace," Flandry replied. Alfred's glance dropped to the control bracelet on Ella's wrist which marked and sealed her status as property. "Ella is her name, and I've found her satisfying. Now—well, I may have to trouble you a fair amount in line of duty, and wouldn't want you to feel I was being arrogant, so—" He spread his palms and grinned his smarmiest grin.
"Well. Well, well." Alfred stroked his beard. "Let us see." Shyly, Ella lowered her veil. Appreciation kindled on his countenance. "Very good, Captain. I thank you indeed." He gestured. "Let her be well quartered." With a leer: "We'll soon get acquainted, girl, you and I."
She smiled and curtsied in half frightened, half servile fashion. She was quite an actress, as Flandry had learned when he tested her on the trip here. A gigantic, four-armed Gorzunian slave led her out, toward the harem.
"And what is your errand?" Alfred asked Flandry. "I've heard of you. You wouldn't be sent on any trifling matter."
"The details are for no ears but your Grace's and your most trusted officers'," was the reply. "However, thus far I have no details, and see no harm in confessing before this assembly that I'm on rather a fishing expedition." He went on to spin a plausible tale of Merseian agents, some of human race, at large in the outer provinces for the purpose of reviving discord, and the need to track them down. Having described the incident of the previous night, he attributed it to the machinations of the opposition, implying quite clearly that his role was partly that of decoy. The bodies were now in charge of the local Corps office, in hopes that they could be identified and thus provide a lead. Nowhere did he mention Varrak, or Ella's marksmanship.
"I've no direct knowledge of subversive activity," Alfred said after expressing appropriate shock, "but you shall certainly have every cooperation we can give you. What are your immediate needs?"
"Nothing at once, thank you, your Grace. I'll just be sniffing around. If something comes up—" Et cetera, et cetera, until dismissal.
The ducal palace was part of a castle, a fortress within an outer wall of fused stone, raised during the Troubles. By the time Flandry got to the outer gate, his spine was a-tingle. Alfred was not about to let him go freely hither and yon. There would surely be another attempt to capture him for hypnoprobing, to determine what his mission really was. When he disappeared—forever—the Merseian agents he had invented would be the obvious culprits. And this time the Duke would scarcely trust hired thugs.
Flandry checked with the commandant of Intelligence for Vor, since he knew Alfred's men would verify whether or not he did. He was unsurprised, though saddened, to hear that no progress had been made on tracking down those who dispatched his attackers. So here, at least, the dry rot had entered his own service.... Back in the penthouse, he changed into loose civilian dress. It concealed the weapons and kit he secured under its blouse.
In the hotel restaurant he ate a solitary supper, thinking much about Ella, and dawdled over his liqueur. Two men who had entered soon after him and taken a corner table idled too, but somewhat awkwardly. He studied them without seeming to do so. One was small and clever-looking, the other big and rangy and with a military bearing—doubtless from the household guards, out of uniform for this occasion. He would do.
At last Flandry got up and sauntered out to the ground-level street. A good many people were around, afoot, under gaudy lights and luminescent elways. (He remembered how moonbeams washed across Ella.) His shadows mingled with the crowd. He would have shaken them easily enough, but that wasn't his intention. Let him give them every break instead; they were hard-working chaps and deserved a helping hand.
He hailed a flittercab. Such vehicles were not autopiloted in Gloriana. "Know any good dives?" he asked fatuously as he climbed in. "You know, girls, dope, anything goes, but not too expensive."
"I wouldn't be much of a cabdriver if I didn't, would I, sir?" the man replied, and took off for a less respectable part of town. He landed on the twenty-fifth flange of a tall building, beneath a garish flickersign. Another taxi came down behind his.
Flandry spent a while in the bar, amused at the embarrassment of his followers, and then picked a girl, a slim creature with an insolent red mouth. She snuggled against him as they went down the corridor. A door opened for them and they passed through.
"Sorry, sister," Flandry murmured. He pulled out his stun pistol and let her have a medium beam. As she collapsed, he eased her onto the bed. She'd be unconscious for hours. He tucked a decent sum of money into her bodice and stood waiting, weapon in hand.
It was not long before the door opened again. The two men were there. Had they bribed the madam or threatened her? In any event, this had looked like an excellent opportunity to carry out their assignment. Flandry's stunner dropped the smaller one.
The big fellow took him by surprise, pouncing like a cat. A skilled twist sent the gun clattering free against the wall. Flandry drove a knee upward. Pain lanced through him as it hit body armor. The guardsman got a hold which should have pinioned him. Flandry broke free with a trick he knew, delivered a karate chop, and added a rabbit punch. The guardsman fell.
For a moment Flandry hesitated, panting. He had no use for the short one, whom it might be safest to kill. However—He settled for giving both a calculated jolt which ought to keep them unconscious for hours. Thereafter he opened the window and stepped out onto the emergency landing. With his pocket phone he summoned another cab. It came to hover before him on its gravs, and the driver looked out into the muzzle of a blaster.
"We've three sleepers to get rid of," said Flandry cheerfully. The girl must be included, since her slack body—after she was much overdue for reappearance—would raise an alarm, as her mere absence would not. "Give a hand, friend, unless you want to add a corpse to the museum."
He had the appalled man lug his victims out into the vehicle and fly him well beyond the city. They descended on a meadow in a patch of woods. Flandry stunned the driver and laid all four out under a tree. He tucked a goodly tip in the cabbie's tunic.
Now to work! He stripped the guardsmen naked and tossed the clothes of the smaller one into the taxi. The big one he measured in detail with his identification kit, and bundled up the garb of him, complete with wallet and documents. Wildflowers grew round about, long-stemmed and white-petaled. Flandry folded all four pairs of hands on breasts and put a flower in each. "Requiescant in pace," he intoned. The sleepers wouldn't wake till perhaps noon, and had a long hike to the nearest place where they could call for help. The nakedness of the guardsmen would probably cause further delay. By the time they could report in, the affair ought to be finished, one way or another.
Flandry returned in the cab. At the edge of town, he abandoned it and got a different one, which brought him to the spaceport. He was sure that a ducal agent or two would be watching his spacecraft. If so, that person saw him go aboard, presumably without seeing the bundle under his cloak. He got immediate clearance from the portmaster's office and lifted into space. His idea was that the opposition would guess he'd been scared off and was at least going to conduct his business from a safe distance. If so, splendid; he always preferred to be underestimated.
Once in orbit, he and Chives got busy disguising him. Much can be done with responsiplast on the face, contact lenses with holographic retinal patterns, false fingerprints, and the rest. Possibly more can be done by sheer theater, and Flandry had paid attention to the ways his man walked and sat and gestured. The effect wouldn't pass a close examination, but he was gambling that there wouldn't be any. When he got through, he was Lieutenant Roger Bargen of the ducal household guards.
Chives took the boat planetside again, deftly evading Traffic Control's monitors, and landed near a village some fifty kilometers from Gloriana. Dawn was not far off. Flandry walked in and caught the morning monorail to the city.
When he entered the castle, he did not report to his colonel. That would have been what he mildly termed a tactical error. It was pretty clear, though, that Bargen's assignment had been secret, none of his fellows aware of it. Therefore, if they saw him scurrying around the place, too busy for conversation, they wouldn't suppose aught was amiss. To be sure, the deception could last only a few hours; but Flandry didn't think he'd need more.
In fact, he reflected, I bet my life I won't.
Ella the slave, who had been Ella Mclntyre and a free hillwoman of Varrak, was shocked to her guts by the harem. Incense gagged her, music scratched at her nerves, velvyl hangings in gloomy colors seemed to close in everywhere around. She prayed the Duke would not send for her that night. If he did—well, that was part of the price. However, he did not.
The inmates had a dormitory, a suite of rooms for games and relaxation, and nonhuman servants. They numbered about a score, and few of them said much to the new arrival as she prowled about; she sensed wariness in some, hostility in others, outright dread in a few. Among the worst horrors of slavery is what it does to the spirit of the enslaved.
But she had to make friends, fast. The harem, where seclusion and secrecy were the natural order of things, was the logical place for hiding a female prisoner. Within its own walls, though, it must be the most gossipy of little worlds. She picked an alert-looking girl with wide bright eyes, wandered up to her, and smiled shyly. "Hello," she said. "I'm Ella."
The other arched her brows. "Well. How did you get here?"
"I'm......resent. What's it like here? Please."
"Oh, nothing too dreadful, dear. Terribly boring most of the time." Ella shuddered at the thought of years lost thus, but smiled in meek gratitude. The other girl wanted to know everything she could tell about the outside—everything, anything—and this took several hours. Meanwhile several more women gathered to listen and comment.
Finally conversation drifted the way Ella had hoped it might. Yes, she was told, something strange had lately occurred. The entire western end of the suite was now closed off, with household troopers keeping watch. They were normal males, but television monitors kept them proper, damn it. Somebody or something new must be housed there, and speculation ran wild as to the who or the what or the why.
Ella masked her tension with an effort that only her muscles could measure. "Have you any ideas?" she asked brightly.
"Many," said her first acquaintance. "They're all wrong, I'm sure. His Grace has funny tastes. But you'll find that out, my dear."
Ella bit her lips.
That night she could not sleep. The blackness was thick and strangling. She wanted to scream and run, break free, run among the stars until she was back in her loved, lost greenwood hills. A lifetime without seeing the sun or feeling a wind kiss her cheeks! She thrashed wearily about and wondered why she had ever agreed to Flandry's proposal.
But if he lived and came to her, she could now tell him what he needed to know. If he lived. And even if he did, this was the middle of a fortress. He'd die under hypnoprobe and she under nerve-lash. God, let me sleep. Only for an hour.
In the morning, fluorotubes gave her a cold dawn. She used the swimming pool without pleasure and ate breakfast without tasting and wondered if she looked as haggard as she felt.
When she left the mess, a scaled hand touched her shoulder. She whirled about with a little shriek and looked into a scaly, beaky countenance. Somehow it made the question sibilant: "You are the new concubine?"
She tried to answer but her throat tightened up.
"Come." The being turned and strode off. Numbly, she followed. The chatter in the harem died as she went by, eyes grew wide and faces pale, here and there a finger traced a furtive religious sign. She was not being summoned for the master's sport.
At the end of a hall was a door, where two men stood uniformed and armed. She thought in her fear that they glanced at her with pity. The door opened at the nonhuman's gestures. He waved her through. As he also passed by, the door closed behind him.
The room beyond was small and nearly bare. It held a chair with straps and wires and a switchboard; she recognized the electronic torture machine which leaves no marks on the flesh. In a chair more peculiarly shaped crouched another being that was not human. Its small hunched body was wrapped in gorgeous robes, and great lusterless eyes regarded her from a hairless bulge of head.
"Sit down," the creature ordered. A thin hand waved her to the electronic seat. Helpless, she obeyed. Through the stammering of her heart, she heard: "I want to discourse with you. You will do best not to lie." The voice was high and squeaky, but there was nothing ridiculous about the goblin who spoke. "For your information, I am Sarlish of Jagranath, which lies beyond the Empire, and his Grace's chief Intelligence officer. Thus you see this is no routine matter. You were brought here by a man of whom I have suspicions. Why?"
"As... a gift... sir," she whispered. Her tongue felt like a block of dried wood.
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," remarked Sarlish surprisingly. "I did not learn of it until an hour ago, or I would have investigated sooner. You are a slave born?"
"N-no, sir. For debt—He bought me and—"
"Where are you from?"
I must not tell! "I was born on... on Freya—"
"Unlikely, I think. It is unfortunate that I cannot hypnoprobe you at once. That would leave you in no fit state for his Grace tonight, should you be innocent. However—" Sarlish stroked his meager chin contemplatively. "Yes. Sufficient pain will disorganize your mind until questioning will bring out inconsistencies. Should there be any, we can go on to the probe. Let us get you secured." He gestured to the other, different alien.
That being hulked forward. Ella leaped up with a yell of raw terror—and rage, rage. The creature snatched for her. She dodged and drove a kick at his midriff. He grunted and stepped back, unharmed. She plunged for the door. As it opened, the rough hands closed on her arm. Whirling, she jabbed fingers at his eyes. He ululated and backed away.
"Ah-h-h," breathed Sarlish. He drew a stunner and took judicious aim.
"Not recommended, comrade," said a voice from the doorway.
Sarlish jumped from his seat and whirled about, to confront a blaster. The guards who lay at the newcomer's feet had quietly been stunned. "Bargen!" shrilled Sarlish, and dropped his weapon. Then, slowly: "No. Captain Flandry, is it not?"
"In person, and right in the traditional nick of time." The injured being lurched toward the Terran. Flandry slew him with a narrow beam. Sarlish scuttled forward at fantastic speed, between the man's legs, and brought him down. Ella bounded over him and caught the gnome with a flying tackle. Sarlish hissed and clawed. She struck him on the jaw with her fist, in sheer self-defense. The thin neck twisted back with a snapping noise. Sarlish kicked once and was still.
"Good show, girl!" Flandry scrambled to his feet. In a sweeping motion, he peeled off his face mask. "Too hot in this flinkin' thing. All right, did you find our princess?"
"This way." A far-off part of Ella watched, surprised, the swiftness and gladness with which she responded. She bent and took up a guardsman's blaster. "I'll show you. But can we—?"
"Not by ourselves. I got at a phone a few minutes ago and gave Chives a radio buzz. Though how he's going to locate us exactly in this warren, I don't know. Couldn't say much, you realize, necessarily using code. I simply had to assume you'd succeeded—" Flandry swerved around a bevy of screaming girls. "Hoo-ee! No wonder the harem attendants are nonhuman!"
Ella pointed to a blank wall. "She must be behind there. No other possibility, as far as I could learn. We'll have to go around, into the next hall—"
"And get shot on the way? No, thanks!" Flandry began assembling scattered furniture into a rough barricade before the wall. "Cut our way through, will you?"
Plastic bubbled and smoked as Ella's flame attacked it. Flandry went on: "I bluffed my way into this quarter by saying I had to fetch someone. One of the ladies told me where you'd been taken. Doubtless the only reason I made it this far is that no man would dare come in unless he had orders from Alfred himself. But now there's hell to pay and no pitch hot. I only hope Chives can track us before he gets blown out of the sky." He looked along the barrel of his blaster, down the arched length of the corridor to the chamber beyond. "Hang on, here we go."
A squad of guards had burst into sight. Flandry set his weapon to needle beam. That gave maximum range, provided you had the skill to hit a target at such a distance. A man toppled. A curtain of fire raged in response. The heat of it scorched his face through the gaps in his defense. He picked off another man, and another. But the rest were zigzagging, belly-flopping, coming into wide-beam range, where a single shot could fry him. "Get that wall open, will you?" he cried.
"Done!" Ella dodged as the circle she had cut collapsed outward. Droplets of molten plastic seared her skin. The barricade burst into flame. She tumbled through the hole, heedless of its hot edges. Flandry followed.
Beyond, a young woman crouched against the opposite wall. Terror contorted her features. She was dark and rather pretty, but a resemblance to the Imperial grandfather was in her bones. "Lady Megan?" snapped Flandry.
"Yes, yes," she whimpered. "Who are you?"
"At your service, your Highness—I hope." Flandry sent a wide beam through the hole. A man screamed forth his agony. The Terran had a moment to wonder how many brave folk—probably including Ella and himself—would be dead because a spoiled darling had wanted an excursion.
The door swung open. Ella let loose a blast. More screams followed, and horrible smoke. Flandry heaved a divan up against the door. That was cut-rate protection, good only for minutes.
Sweating, blackened, blistered, his countenance turned back to the princess. "I take it you know the Duke had you kidnapped, your Highness?" he asked.
"Yes, but he wasn't going to hurt me," she wailed.
"So you think. I happen to know he intended to kill you." That was less than true, but served Flandry's purpose. In the unlikely event that he survived, Megan wouldn't get him in trouble for endangering her life. In fact, she began to babble about a reward. He hoped she would remember afterward, if there was an afterward.
He had one advantage. The Duke could not use heavy stuff without losing his hostage and, incidentally, creating a sensation throughout Gloriana. But—he passed out three gas masks.
The outer wall glowed. Blasters were cutting a fresh circle from it, big enough to let through a dozen men at a time. Doubtless they'd wear armor.
The air was thick and bitter, hot and stinking. Flandry grinned lopsidedly and laid an arm about Ella's waist. "Well, sweetheart," he said, "it was a fairly spectacular try." Her hand reached briefly up to stroke his hair.
Something bellowed. Walls and floor trembled. He heard the rumble and crash of falling masonry. A storm of gunfire awoke.
"Chives!" whooped Flandry.
"Wha-what?" gasped Megan.
"We're getting what we ordered, salade d'Alfred au Chives," burbled Flandry. "You must meet Chives, your Highness. One of nature's noblemen. He—how in this especial hell did he do it?"
A volcano growl came, and silence.
Flandry removed the divan and risked a glance into the corridor. Daylight poured through its ruined walls. The place had taken the full impact of a Naval blaster cannon, and the attacking troopers had ceased to exist. Hovering alongside was the speedster.
"Chives," said Flandry in awe, "merely swooped up to the fortress under full drive, blew his way past the defenses, and opened up on the Duke's men here."
The airlock swung wide. A green head looked out. "I would recommend haste, sir," said the Shalmuan. "The alarm is out, and they do have warcraft."
Flandry helped the women cross over. The airlock hissed shut behind them. Chives had already returned to the pilot room. The boat took off with a thunderbolt of cloven air for her wake.
Flandry sought his valet. "How did you find us?" he mumbled. "I didn't even know where the harem was myself when I called you."
"Why, sir, you must be in great need of rest and tea, if you do not see the obvious," Chives replied. "I assumed there would be some objection to the removal of her Highness and combat would ensue. Energy beams ionize the air. I employed the radiation detectors."
Flandry nodded and turned his attention to the viewscreens and instruments. A light cruiser showed against the receding brilliance of the planet. "That chap," he fretted; and then: "No. The vectors and distances... we're leaving him and his missiles behind. This can has legs. We'll make it back to Varrak all right."
"In that case, sir," Chives said, "I will turn control over to the autopilot."
He departed for the galley. Flandry sought the main cabin, where Ella strove to soothe a hysterical Megan. For a moment, as the blonde woman looked up at him, he saw utter glory.
He found a cigarette, lighted it and drew deep. "Relax," he advised, "and bathe—all of us bathe." A scowl crossed his brow. "We'll worry later about the possibility that Alfred, now he's exposed, will try to rebel anyway. He couldn't succeed, but it might prove expensive for us—give Merseia an opening, or—"
Chives appeared, a loaded tray in his hands. "I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "As I approached the castle, I monitored the bands of individually worn radio transceivers, and learned that the Duke was personally directing the assault on you. I fear I took the liberty of disintegrating his Grace. Does her Highness take sugar or lemon in her tea?"
A
KNIGHT OF
GHOSTS
AND
SHADOWS
—————————
——————————————
To my lady Dorothea of Paravel
and Hal Ravn her lord
(Dorothy and Wilson Heydt)
——————————————
A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS
AND SHADOWS
How shall we tell it, brothers, the tale of Bodin's raid? Whence can we draw the words of wrath and sorrow, the words of valor and vengeance? Who today is a poet such as Andrei Simich, singer of heroes?
For Andrei, words ran to command, baying and belling like a pack of hounds in pursuit through mountains where echoes fly. The words of Andrei thundered like tundra beneath a herd of gromatz, shrieked like wind around the wings of the orlik as it stoops upon its prey, roared like a dyavo hunting—then sounded low and sweet, whether deadly as the call of a vilya or innocent as the song of a guslar in springtime.
Human and zmay together thrilled at the lays of Andrei when he celebrated the olden heroes, Yovan Matavuly who led the Founders the long lightless way to this our Morning Star, Toman Obilich who slew wild Vladimir on the crown of the Glacier, Gwyth who dared the storms of the Black Ocean, Stefan Miyatovich—great ancestor of Gospodar Bodin—who in the depths of the Night Years cast back the reavers from our very homes. Ah, well could Andrei Simich have sung the deeds of Bodin!
But his voice is departed. That the glory of Bodin Miyatovich go not from memory, let us find what poor plain words we may.
***
I
Every planet in the story is cold—even Terra, though Flandry came home on a warm evening of northern summer. There the chill was in the spirit.
He felt a breath of it as he neared. Somehow, talk between him and his son had drifted to matters Imperial. They had avoided all such during their holiday.
Terra itself had not likely reminded them. The globe hung beautiful in starry darkness, revealed by a viewscreen in the cabin where they sat. It was almost full, because they were accelerating with the sun behind them and were not yet close enough to start on an approach curve. At this remove it shone white-swirled blue, unutterably pure, near dewdrop Luna. Nothing was visible of the scars that man had made upon it.
And the saloon was good to be in, bulkheads nacreous gray, benches padded in maroon velvyl, table of authentic teak whereon stood Scotch whisky and everything needed for the use thereof, warm and flawlessly recycled air through which gamboled a dance tune and drifted an odor of lilacs. The Hooligan, private speedster of Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, was faster, better armed, and generally more versatile than any vessel of her class had a moral right to be; but her living quarters reflected her owner's philosophy that, if one is born into an era of decadence, one may as well enjoy it while it lasts.
He leaned back, inhaled deeply of his cigarette, took more smokiness in a sip from his glass, and regarded Dominic Hazeltine with some concern. If the frontier was truly that close to exploding—and the boy must go there again... "Are you sure?" he asked. "What proved facts have you got—proved by yourself, not somebody else? Why wouldn't I have heard more?"
His companion returned a steady look. "I don't want to make you feel old," he said; and the knowledge passed through Flandry that a lieutenant commander of Naval Intelligence, twenty-seven standard years of age, wasn't really a boy, nor was his father any longer the boy who had begotten him. Then Hazeltine smiled and took the curse off: "Well, I might want to, just so I can hope that at your age I'll have acquired, let alone kept, your capacity for the three basic things in life."
"Three?" Flandry raised his brows.
"Feasting, fighting, and—Wait; of course I haven't been along when you were in a fight. But I've no doubt you perform as well as ever in that department too. Still, you told me for the last three years you've stayed in the Solar System, taking life easy. If the whole word about Dennitza hasn't reached the Emperor—and apparently it's barely starting to—why should it have come to a pampered pet of his?"
"Hm. I'm not really. He pampers with a heavy hand. So I avoid the court as much as politeness allows. This indefinite furlough I'm on—nobody but him would dare call me back to duty, unless I grow bored and request assignment—that's the only important privilege I've taken. Aside from the outrageous amount of talent, capability, and charm with which I was born; and I do my best to share those chromosomes."
Flandry had spoken lightly in half a hope of getting a similar response. They had bantered throughout their month-long jaunt, whether on a breakneck hike in the Great Rift of Mars or gambling in a miners' dive in Low Venusberg, running the rings of Saturn or dining in elegance beneath its loveliness on Iapetus with two ladies expert and expensive. Must they already return to realities? They'd been more friends than father and son. The difference in age hardly showed. They bore well-muscled height in common, supple movement, gray eyes, baritone voice. Flandry's face stood out in a perhaps overly handsome combination of straight nose, high cheekbones, cleft chin—the result of a biosculp job many years past, which he had never bothered to change again—and trim mustache. His sleek seal-brown hair was frosted at the temples; when Hazeltine accused him of bringing this about by artifice, he had grinned and not denied it. Though both wore civilian garb, Flandry's iridescent puff-sleeved blouse, scarlet cummerbund, flared blue trousers, and curly-toed beefleather slippers opposed the other's plain coverall.
Broader features, curved nose, full mouth, crow's-wing locks recalled Persis d'Io as she had been when she and Flandry said farewell on a planet now destroyed, he not knowing she bore his child. The tan of strange suns, the lines creased by squinting into strange weathers, had not altogether gone from Hazeltine in the six weeks since he reached Terra. But his unsophisticated ways meant only that he had spent his life on the fringes of the Empire. He had caroused with a gusto to match his father's. He had shown the same taste in speech—
("—an itchy position for me, my own admiral looking for a nice lethal job he could order me to do," Flandry reminisced. "Fenross hated my guts. He didn't like the rest of me very much, either. I saw I'd better produce a stratagem, and fast."
("Did you?" Hazeltine inquired.
("Of course. You see me here, don't you? It's practically a sine qua non of a field agent staying alive, that he be able to outthink not just the opposition, but his superiors."
("No doubt you were inspired by the fact that ‘stratagem' spelled backwards is ‘megatarts.' The prospect of counting your loose women by millions should give plenty of incentive."
(Flandry stared. "Now I'm certain you're my bairn! Though to be frank, that awesomely pleasant notion escaped me. Instead, having developed my scheme, I confronted a rather ghastly idea which has haunted me ever afterward: that maybe there's no one alive more intelligent than I.")
—and yet, and yet, an underlying earnestness always remained with him.
Perhaps he had that from his mother: that, and pride. She'd let the infant beneath her heart live, abandoned her titled official lover, resumed her birthname, gone from Terra to Sassania and started anew as a dancer, at last married reasonably well, but kept young Dominic by her till he enlisted. Never had she sent word back from her frontier home, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded put down the barbarians of Scotha and was knighted for it, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded rescued the new Emperor's favorite granddaughter—and headed off a provincial rebellion and was summoned Home to be rewarded. Nor had her son, who always knew his father's name, called on him until lately, when far enough along in his own career that nepotism could not be thought necessary.
Thus Dominic Hazeltine refused the offer of merry chitchat and said in his burred un-Terran version of Anglic, "Well, if you've been taking what amounts to a long vacation, the more reason why you wouldn't have kept trace of developments. Maybe his Majesty simply hasn't been bothering you about them, and has been quite concerned himself for quite some while. Regardless, I've been yonder and I know."
Flandry dropped the remnant of his cigarette in an ash-taker. "You wound my vanity, which is no mean accomplishment," he replied. "Remember, for three or four years earlier—between the time I came to his notice and the time we could figure he was planted on the throne too firmly to have a great chance of being uprooted—I was one of his several right hands. Field and staff work both, specializing in the problem of making the marches decide they'd really rather keep Hans for their Emperor than revolt all over again. Do you think, if he sees fresh trouble where I can help, he won't consult me? Or do you think, because I've been utilizing a little of the hedonism I fought so hard to preserve, I've lost interest in my old circuits? No, I've followed the news, and an occasional secret report."
He stirred, tossed off his drink, and added, "Besides, you claim the Gospodar of Dennitza is our latest problem child. But you've also said you were working Sector Arcturus: almost diametrically opposite, and well inside those vaguenesses we are pleased to call the borders of the Empire. Tell me, then—you've been almighty unspecific about your operations, and I supposed that was because you were under security, and didn't pry—tell me, as far as you're allowed, what does the space around Arcturus have to do with Dennitza? With anything in the Taurian Sector?"
"I stayed mum because I didn't want to spoil this occasion," Hazeltine said. "From what Mother told me, I expected fun, when I could get a leave long enough to justify the trip to join you; but you've opened whole universes to me that I never guessed existed." He flushed. "If I ever gave any thought to such things, I self-righteously labeled them ‘vice.'"
"Which they are," Flandry put in. "What you bucolic types don't realize is that worthwhile vice doesn't mean lolling around on cushions eating drugged custard. How dismal! I'd rather be virtuous. Decadence requires application. But go on."
"We'll land now, and I'll report back," Hazeltine said. "I don't know where they'll send me next, and doubtless won't be free to tell you. While the chance remains, I'll be honest. I came here wanting to know you as a man, but also wanting to, oh, alert you if nothing else, because I think your brains will be sorely needed, and it's damn hard to communicate through channels."
Indeed, Flandry admitted.
His gaze went to the stars in the viewscreeen. Without amplification, few that he could see lay in the more or less 200-light-year radius of that rough and blurry-edged spheroid named the Terran Empire. Those were giants, visible by virtue of shining across distances we can traverse, under hyperdrive, but will never truly comprehend; and they filled the merest, tiniest fragment of the galaxy, far out in a spiral arm where their numbers were beginning to thin toward cosmic hollowness. Yet this insignificant Imperial bit of space held an estimated four million suns. Maybe half of those had been visited at least once. About a hundred thousand worlds of theirs might be considered to belong to the Empire, though for most the connection was ghostly tenuous.... It was too much. There were too many environments, races, cultures, lives, messages. No mind, no government could know the whole, let alone cope.
Nevertheless that sprawl of planets, peoples, provinces, and protectorates must somehow cope, or see the Long Night fall. Barbarians, who had gotten spaceships and nuclear weapons too early in their history, prowled the borders; the civilized Roidhunate of Merseia probed, withdrew a little—seldom the whole way—waited, probed again.... Rigel caught Flandry's eye, a beacon amidst the great enemy's dominions. The Taurian Sector lay in that direction, fronting the Wilderness beyond which dwelt the Merseians.
"You must know something I don't, if you claim the Dennitzans are brewing trouble," he said. "However, are you sure what you know is true?"
"What can you tell me about them?" Hazeltine gave back.
"Hm? Why—um, yes, that's sensible, first making clear to you what information and ideas I have."
"Especially since they must reflect what the higher-ups believe, which I'm not certain about."
"Neither am I, really. My attention's been directed elsewhere, Tauria seeming as reliably under control as any division of the Empire."
"After your experience there?"
"Precisely on account of it. Very well. We'll save time if I run barefoot through the obvious. Then you needn't interrogate me, groping around for what you may not have suspected hitherto."
Hazeltine nodded. "Besides," he said, "I've never been in those parts myself."
"Oh? You mentioned assignments which concerned the Merseia-ward frontier and our large green playmates."
"Tauria isn't the only sector at that end of the Empire," Hazeltine pointed out.
Too big, this handful of stars we suppose we know... "Ahem." Flandry took the crystal decanter. A refill gurgled into his glass. "You've heard how I happened to be in the neighborhood when the governor, Duke Alfred of Varrak, kidnapped Princess Megan while she was touring, as part of a scheme to detach the Taurian systems from the Empire and bring them under Merseian protection—which means possession. Chives and I thwarted him, or is ‘foiled' a more dramatic word?
"Well, then the question arose, what to do next? Let me remind you, Hans had assumed, which means grabbed, the crown less than two years earlier. Everything was still in upheaval. Three avowed rivals were out to replace him by force of arms, and nobody could guess how many more would take an opportunity that came along, whether to try for supreme power or for piratical autonomy. Alfred wouldn't have made his attempt without considerable support among his own people. Therefore, not only must the governorship change, but the sector capital.
"Now Dennitza may not be the most populous, wealthy, or up-to-date human-colonized planet in Tauria. However, it has a noticeable sphere of influence. And it has strength out of proportion, thanks to traditionally maintaining its own military, under the original treaty of annexation. And the Dennitzans always despised Josip. His tribute assessors and other agents he sent them, through Duke Alfred, developed a tendency to get killed in brawls, and somehow nobody afterward could identify the brawlers. When Josip died, and the Policy Board split on accepting his successor, and suddenly all hell let out for noon, the Gospodar declared for Hans Molitor. He didn't actually dispatch troops to help, but he kept order in his part of space, gave the Merseians no opening—doubtless the best service he could have rendered.
"Wasn't he the logical choice to take charge of Tauria? Isn't he still?"
"In spite of Merseians on his home planet?" Hazeltine challenged.
"Citizens of Merseian descent," Flandry corrected. "Rather remote descent, I've heard. There are humans who serve the Roidhunate, too, and not every one has been bought or brainscrubbed; some families have lived on Merseian worlds for generations."
"Nevertheless," Hazeltine said, "the Dennitzan culture isn't Terran—isn't entirely human. Remember how hard the colonists of Avalon fought to stay in the Domain of Ythri, way back when the Empire waged a war to adjust that frontier? Why should Dennitzans feel brotherly toward Terrans?"
"I don't suppose they do." Flandry shrugged. "I've never visited them either. But I've met other odd human societies, not to speak of nonhuman. They stay in the Empire because it gives them the Pax and often a fair amount of commercial benefit, without usually charging too high a price for the service. From what little I saw and heard in the way of reports on the Gospodar and his associates, they aren't such fools as to imagine they can stay at peace independently. Their history includes the Troubles, and their ancestors freely joined the Empire when it appeared."
"Nowadays Merseia might offer them a better deal."
"Uh-uh. They've been marchmen up against Merseia far too long. Too many inherited grudges."
"Such things can change. I've known marchmen myself. They take on the traits of their enemies, and eventually—" Hazeltine leaned across the table. His voice harshened. "Why are the Dennitzans resisting the Emperor's decree?"
"About disbanding their militia?" Flandry sipped. "Yes, I know, the Gospodar's representatives here have been appealing, arguing, logrolling, probably bribing, and certainly making nuisances of themselves on governmental levels as high as the Policy Board. Meanwhile he drags his feet. If the Emperor didn't have more urgent matters on deck, we might have seen fireworks by now."
"Nuclear?"
"Oh, no, no. Haven't we had our fill of civil war? I spoke metaphorically. And... between us, lad, I can't blame the Gospodar very much. True, Hans' idea is that consolidating all combat services may prevent a repetition of what we just went through. I can't say it won't help; nor can I say it will. If nothing else, the Dennitzans do nest way out on a windy limb. They have more faith in their ability to protect themselves, given Navy support, than in the Navy's ability to do it alone. They may well be right. This is too serious a matter—a whole frontier is involved—too serious for impulsive action: another reason, I'm sure, why Hans has been patient, has not dismissed the Gospodar as governor or anything."
"I believe he's making a terrible mistake," Hazeltine said.
"What do you think the Dennitzans have in mind, then?"
"If not a breakaway, and inviting the Merseians in—I'm far from convinced that that's unthinkable to them, but I haven't proof—if not that, then insurrection... to make the Gospodar Emperor."
Flandry sat still for a while. The ship murmured, the music sang around him. Terra waxed in his sight
Finally, taking forth a fresh cigarette, he asked, "What gives you that notion? Your latest work didn't bring you within a hundred parsecs of Dennitza, did it?"
"No." Hazeltine's mouth, which recalled the mouth of Persis, drew into thinner lines than ever hers had done. "That's what scares me. You see, we've collected evidence that Dennitzans are engineering a rebellion on Diomedes. Have you heard of Diomedes?"
"Ye-e-es. Any man who appreciates your three primaries of life ought to study the biography of Nicholas van Rijn, and he was shipwrecked there once. Yes, I know a little. But it isn't a terribly important planet to this day, is it? Why should it revolt, and how could it hope to succeed?"
"I wasn't on that team myself. But my unit was carrying out related investigations in the same sector, and we exchanged data. Apparently the Diomedeans—factions among them—hope the Domain of Ythri will help. They've acquired a mystique about the kinship of winged beings.... Whether the Ythrians really would intervene or not is hard to tell. I suspect not, to the extent that'd bring on overt conflict with us. But they might well use the potentiality, the threat, to steer us into new orbits.... We've barely started tracing the connections."
Flandry scowled. "And those turn out to be Dennitzan?"
"Correct. Any such conspiracy would have to involve members of a society with spaceships—preferably humans—to plant and cultivate the seed on Diomedes, and maintain at least enough liaison with Ythri that the would-be rebels stay hopeful. When our people first got on the track of this, they naturally assumed the humans were Avalonian. But a lucky capture they made, just before I left for Sol, indicated otherwise. Dennitzan agents, Dennitzan."
"Why, on the opposite side of Terra from their home?"
"Oh, come on! You know why. If the Gospodar's planning an uprising of his own, what better preliminary than one in that direction?" Hazeltine drew breath. "I don't have the details. Those are, or will be, in the reports to GHQ from our units. But isn't something in the Empire always going wrong? The word is, his Majesty plans to leave soon for Sector Spica, at the head of an armada, and curb the barbarians there. That's a long way from anyplace else. Meanwhile, how slowly do reports from an obscure clod like Diomedes grind their way through the bureaucracy?"
"When a fleet can incinerate a world," Flandry said bleakly, "I prefer governments not have fast reflexes. You and your teammates could well be quantum-hopping to an unwarranted conclusion. For instance, those Dennitzans who were caught, if they really are Dennitzans, could be freebooters. Or if they have bosses at home, those bosses may be a single clique—may be, themselves, maneuvering to overthrow the Gospodar—and may or may not have ambitions beyond that. How much more than you've told me do you know for certain?"
Hazeltine sighed. "Not much. But I hoped—" He looked suddenly, pathetically young. "I hoped you might check further into the question."
Chives entered, on bare feet which touched the carpet soundlessly though the gee-field was set at Terran standard. "I beg your pardon, sir," he addressed his master. "If you wish dinner before we reach the landing approach zone, I must commence preparations. The tournedos will obviously require a red wine. Shall I open the Chateau Falkayn '35?"
"Hm?" Flandry blinked, recalled from darker matters. "Why... um-m... I'd thought of Beaujolais."
"No, sir," said Chives, respectfully immovable. "I cannot recommend Beaujolais to accompany a tournedos such as is contemplated. And may I suggest drinking and smoking cease until your meal is ready?"
Summer evening around Catalina deepened into night. Flandry sat on a terrace of the lodge which the island's owner, his friend the Mayor Palatine of Britain, had built on its heights and had lent to him. He wasn't sleepy; during the space trip, his circadian rhythm had slipped out of phase with this area. Nor was he energetic. He felt—a bit sad?—no, pensive, lonesome, less in an immediate fashion than as an accumulation from the years—a mood he bad often felt before and recognized would soon become restlessness. Yet while it stayed as it was, he could wonder if he should have married now and then. Or even for life? It would have been good to help young Dominic grow.
He sighed, twisted about in his lounger till he found a comfortable knees-aloft position, drew on his cigar and watched the view. Beneath him, shadowy land plunged to a bay and, beyond, the vast metallic sheet of a calm Pacific. A breeze blew cool, scented with roses and Buddha's cup. Overhead, stars twinkled forth in a sky that ranged from amethyst to silver-blue. A pair of contrails in the west caught the last glow of a sunken sun. But the evening was quiet. Traffic was never routed near the retreats of noblemen.
How many kids do I have? And how many of them know they're mine? (I've only met or heard of a few.) And where are they and what's the universe doing to them?
Hm. He pulled rich smoke across his tongue. When a person starts sentimentalizing, it's time either to get busy or to take antisenescence treatments. Pending this decision, how about a woman? That stopover on Ceres was several days ago, after all. He considered ladies he knew and decided against them, for each would expect personal consideration—which was her right, but his mind was still too full of his son. Therefore: Would I rather flit to the mainland and its bright lights, or have Chives phone the nearest cepheid agency?
As if at a signal, his personal servant appeared, a Shalmuan, slim kilt-clad form remarkably humanlike except for 140 centimeters of height, green skin, hairlessness, long prehensile tail, and, to be sure, countless more subtle variations. On a tray he carried a visicom extension, a cup of coffee, and a snifter of cognac. "You have a call, sir," he announced.
How many have you filtered out? Flandry didn't ask. Nor did he object. The nonhuman in a human milieu—or vice versa—commonly appears as a caricature of a personality, because those around him cannot see most of his soul. But Chives had attended his boss for years. "Personal servant" had come to mean more than "valet and cook"; it included being butler of a household which never stayed long in a single place, and pilot, and bodyguard, and whatever an emergency might require.
Chives brought the lounger table into position, set down the tray, and disappeared again. Flandry's pulse bounced a little. In the screen before him was the face of Dominic Hazeltine. "Why, hello," he said. "I didn't expect to hear from you this soon."
"Well"—excitement thrummed—"you know, our conversation—When I came back to base, I got a chance at a general data scanner, and keyed for recent material on Dennitza. A part of what I learned will interest you, I think. Though you'd better act fast."
II
Immediately after the two Navy yeomen who brought Kossara to the slave depot had signed her over to its manager and departed, he told her: "Hold out your left arm." Dazed—for she had been whisked from the ship within an hour of landing on Terra, and the speed of the aircar had blurred the enormousness of Archopolis—she obeyed. He glanced expertly at her wrist and, from a drawer, selected a bracelet of white metal, some three centimeters broad and a few millimeters thick. Hinged, it locked together with a click. She stared at the thing. A couple of sensor spots and a niello of letters and numbers were its only distinctions. It circled her arm snugly though not uncomfortably.
"The law requires slaves to wear this," the manager explained in a bored tone. He was a pudgy, faintly greasy-looking middle-aged person in whose face dwelt shrewdness.
That must be on Terra, trickled through Kossara's mind. Other places seem to have other ways. And on Dennitza we keep no slaves....
"It's powered by body heat and maintains an audiovisual link to a global monitor net," the voice went on. "If the computers notice anything suspicious—including, of course, any tampering with the bracelet—they call a human operator. He can stop you in your tracks by a signal." The man pointed to a switch on his desk. "This gives the same signal."
He pressed. Pain burned like lightning, through flesh, bone, marrow, until nothing was except pain. Kossara fell to her knees. She never knew if she screamed or if her throat had jammed shut.
He lifted his hand and the anguish was gone. Kossara crouched shaking and weeping. Dimly she heard: "That was five seconds' worth. Direct nerve stim from the bracelet, triggers a center in the brain. Harmless for periods of less than a minute, if you haven't got a weak heart or something. Do you understand you'd better be a good girl? All right, on your feet."
As she swayed erect, the shudders slowly leaving her, he smirked and muttered, "You know, you're a looker. Exotic; none of this standardized biosculp format. I'd be tempted to bid on you myself, except the price is sure to go out of my reach. Well... hold still."
He did no more than feel and nuzzle. She endured, thinking that probably soon she could take a long, long, long hot shower. But when a guard had conducted her to the women's section, she found the water was cold and rationed. The dormitory gaped huge, echoing, little inside it other than bunks and inmates. The mess was equally barren, the food adequate but tasteless. Some twenty prisoners were present. They received her kindly enough, with a curiosity that sharpened when they discovered she was from a distant planet and this was her first time on Terra. Exhausted, she begged off saying much and tumbled into a haunted sleep.
The next morning she got a humiliatingly thorough medical examination. A psychotech studied the dossier on her which Naval Intelligence had supplied, asked a few questions, and signed a form. She got the impression he would have liked to inquire further—why had she rebelled?—but a Secret classification on her record scared him off. Or else (because whoever bought her would doubtless talk to her about it) he knew from his study how chaotic and broken her memories of the episode were, since the hypnoprobing on Diomedes.
That evening she couldn't escape conversation in the dormitory. The women clustered around and chattered. They were from Terra, Luna, and Venus. With a single exception, they had been sentenced to limited terms of enslavement for crimes such as repeated theft or dangerous negligence, and were not very bright or especially comely. "I don't suppose anybody'll bid on me," lamented one. "Hard labor for the government, then."
"I don't understand," said Kossara. Her soft Dennitzan accent intrigued them. "Why? I mean, when you have a worldful of machines, every kind of robot—why slaves? How can it... how can it pay?"
The exceptional woman, who was handsome in a haggard fashion, answered. "What else would you do with the wicked? Kill them, even for tiny things? Give them costly psychocorrection? Lock them away at public expense, useless to themselves and everybody else? No, let them work. Let the Imperium get some money from selling them the first time, if it can."
Does she talk like that because she's afraid of her bracelet? Kossara wondered. Surely, oh, surely we can complain a little among ourselves! "What can we do that a machine can't do better?" she asked.
"Personal services," the woman said. "Many kinds. Or... well, economics. Often a slave is less efficient than a machine, but needs less capital investment."
"You sound educated," Kossara remarked.
The woman sighed. "I was, once. Till I killed my husband. That meant a life term like yours, dear. To be quite safe, my buyer did pay to have my mind corrected." A sort of energy blossomed in look and tone. "How grateful I am! I was a murderess, do you hear, a murderess. I took it on myself to decide another human being wasn't fit to live. Now I know—" She seized Kossara's hands. "Ask them to correct you too. You committed treason, didn't you say? Beg them to wash you clean!"
The rest edged away. Brain-channeled, Kossara knew. A crawling went under her skin. "Wh-why are you here?" she stammered. "If you were bought—"
"He grew tired of me and sold me back. I'll always long for him... but he had the perfect right, of course." The woman drew nearer. "I like you, Kossara," she whispered. "I do hope we'll go to the same place."
"Place?"
"Oh, somebody rich may take you for a while. Likelier, though, a brothel—"
Kossara yanked free and ran. She didn't quite reach a toilet before she vomited. They made her clean the floor. Afterward, when they insisted on circling close and talking and talking, she screamed at them to leave her alone, then enforced it with a couple of skilled blows. No punishment followed. It was dreadful to know that a half-aware electronic brain watched every pulsebeat of her existence, and no doubt occasionally a bored human supervisor examined her screen at random. But seemingly the guardians didn't mind a fight, if no property was damaged. She sought her bunk and curled up into herself.
Next morning a matron came for her, took a critical look, and nodded. "You'll do," she said. "Swallow this." She held forth a pill.
"What's that?" Kossara crouched back.
"A euphoriac. You want to be pretty for the camera, don't you? Go on, swallow." Remembering the alternative, Kossara obeyed.
As she accompanied the matron down the hall, waves of comfort passed through her, higher at each tide. It was like being drunk, no, not drunk, for she had her full senses and command of her body... like having savored a few glasses with Mihail, after they had danced, and the violins playing yet... like having Mihail here, alive again.
Almost cheerfully, in the recording room she doffed her gray issue gown, went through the paces and said the phrases designed to show her off, as instructed. She barely heard the running commentary:
"Kossara Vymezal [mispronounced, but a phonetic spell-out followed], human female, age twenty-five, virgin, athletic, health and intelligence excellent, education good though provincial. Spirited, but ought to learn subordination in short order without radical measures. Life sentence for treason, conspiracy to promote and aid rebellion. Suffers from hostility to the Imperium and some disorientation due to hypnoprobing. Neither handicap affects her wits or basic emotional stability. Her behavior on the voyage here was cold but acceptable.
"She was born on the planet Dennitza, Zoria III in the Taurian Sector. [A string of numbers] Her family is well placed, father being a district administrator. [Why no mention of the fact Mother was a sister of Bodin Miyatovich, Gospodar and sector governor? O Uncle, Uncle...] As is the rule there, she received military training and served a hitch in the armed forces. She has a degree in Xenology. Having done field work on planets near home, several months ago she went to Diomedes [a string of numbers]—quite remote, her research merely a disguise. Most of the report on her has not been made available to us; and as said, she herself is confused and largely amnesiac about this period. Her main purpose was to help instigate a revolt. Before much harm was done, she was detected, arrested, interrogated, and sentenced by court-martial. There being little demand for slaves in that region, and a courier ship returning directly to Terra, she was brought along.
"We rate her unlikely to be dangerous, given the usual precautions, and attractive both physically and personally—"
The camera projected back the holograms it had taken, for its operator's inspection, and Kossara looked upon her image. She saw a big young woman, 177 centimeters tall, a bit small in the bosom but robust in shoulders, hips, and long free-striding legs, skin ivory-clear save for a few freckles and the remnant of a tan. The face was wide, high in the cheekbones, snub in the nose, full in the mouth, strong in chin and jawline. Large blue-green eyes stood well apart beneath dark brows and reddish-brown bangs; that hair was cropped below the ears in the manner of both sexes on Dennitza. When she spoke, her voice was husky.
"—will be sullen unless drugged, but given the right training and conditions, ought to develop a high sexual capacity. A private owner may find that kindness will in due course make her loyal and responsive—"
Kossara slipped dreamily away from the words, the room, Terra... the whole way home. To Mihail? No, she couldn't quite raise him from the dust between the stars—even now, she dared not. But, oh, just a few years ago, she and Trohdwyr...
{She had a vacation from her studies at the Shkola plus a furlough from her ground defense unit in the Narodna Voyska. Ordinarily she would have spent as much of this time as he could spare with her betrothed. But a space force had been detected within a few light-years of the Zorian System which might intend action on behalf of some other claimant to the Imperium than Hans Molitor whom the Gospodar supported, or might use such partisanship as an excuse for brigandage. Therefore Bodin Miyatovich led some of the Dennitzan fleet out to warn off the strangers, and if necessary fight them off. Mihail Svetich, engineer on a Meteor-class torpedo craft, had kissed Kossara farewell.
Rather than fret idle in Zorkagrad, she flitted to her parents' home. Danilo Vymezal, voivode of the Dubina Dolyina, was head of council, chief magistrate, and military commander throughout a majestic country at the northern rim of the Kazan. Soon after she reached the estate, Kossara said she wished for a long hunt. Her father regarded her for a moment before he nodded. "That will do you good," he said. "Who would you like for a partner? Trohdwyr?"
She had unthinkingly supposed she would go alone. But of course he was right; only fools went by themselves so far into wilderness that no radio relay could pass on a distress call from a pocket transceiver. The old zmay was welcome company, not least because he knew when to be silent.
They took an aircar to a meadow on the unpeopled western slope and set forth afoot. The days and nights, the leagues and heights, wind, rain, sun, struggle, and sleep were elixir. More than once she had a clear shot at a soaring orlik or a bull yelen poised on a crag, and forbore; those wings or those horns were too splendid across the sky. But at last it was sweet fire in the blood to stand before a charging dyavo, feel the rifle surge back against her shoulder, see fangs and claws fall down within a meter of her.
Trohdwyr reproved: "You were reckless, Dama."
"He came at me from his den," Kossara retorted.
"After you saw the entrance and took care to make much noise in the bushes. Deny it not. I have known you longer than your own memory runs. You learned to walk by clinging to my tail for safety. If I lose you now, your father will dismiss me from his service, and where then shall a poor lorn dodderer go? Back to his birth village to become a fisher again, after these many years? Have mercy, Dama."
She chuckled. They set about making camp. This was high in the bowl of the Kazan, where that huge crater bit an arc from the Vysochina. The view could not have been imagined by anyone who had not seen it, save God before He willed it.
Though treeless, the site bore a dense purple sward of mahovina, springy underfoot and spicy to smell, studded by white and gold wildflowers; and a nearby canebrake rustled in the breeze. Eastward the ringwall sloped down to timberline. Beyond, yellow beams of evening fell on a bluish mistiness of forest, as far as sight could reach, cloven by a river which gleamed like a drawn blade. Westward, not far hence, the rim stood shadowy-sharp athwart rough Vysochina hills. Behind them the snowpeaks of the Planina Byelogorski lifted sungold whiteness into an absolute azure. The purity of sky was not marred by a remote northward thread of smoke from Vulkana Zemlya.
The air grew cold soon after the sun went behind the mountains, cold as the brook which bubbled iron-tasting from a cleft in the crater's lip. Kossara hunched into her jacket, squatted down, held palms forth to the fire. Her breath drifted white through the dusk that rose from the lowlands.
Before he put their meat on a spit above coals and dancing flamelets, Trohdwyr drew a sign and spoke a few words of Eriau. Kossara knew them well: "Aferdhi of the Deeps, Blyn of the Winds, Haawan who lairs on the reefs, by this be held afar and trouble us not in our rest." Hundreds of kilometers and a long lifetime from the Black Ocean, he remained an old-fashioned pagan ychan. Early in her teens, eager in her faith, Kossara had learned it was no use trying to make an Orthochristian of him.
Surely the Pantocrator didn't mind much, and would receive his dear battered soul into Heaven at the last.
She had never thought of him as a zmay. Not that the word had any particularly bad overtones. Maybe once it had been a touch contemptuous, four hundred years ago when the first immigrants arrived from Merseia; but later it came to mean simply a Dennitzan of such ancestry. (Did the growth of their original planet into a frightening rival of Terra have anything to do with that?) However, from him and his family she had learned Eriau—rather, the archaic and mutated version they spoke—at the same time as she was learning Serbic from her parents and Anglic from a governess. When finally prevailed upon to stop scrambling these three into a private patois, she kept the habit of referring to Trohdwyr's people by their own name for themselves, "ychani": "seekers."
For he had been close to the center of her child-universe. Father and Mother were at its very heart, naturally, and so for a while were a doll named Lutka, worn into shapelessness, and a cat she called Butterfeet. Uncle Bodin approached them when he and Aunt Draga visited, or the Vymezals went to Zorkagrad and he took her to the zoo and the merrypark. Three younger siblings, two brothers and a sister, orbited like comets, now radiant with love, now off into outer darkness. Trohdwyr never shone quite as brightly as any of these; but the chief gamekeeper to three generations of her house moved in an unchangeable path, always there for her to reach when she needed him.
"Kraich." Having started dinner cooking, he settled back on the tripod of clawed feet and massive tail. "You've earned a double drink this evening, Dama. A regular sundowner, and one for killing the dyavo." He poured into cups from a flask of shlivovitza. "Though I must skin the beast and carry the hide," he added.
The hoarse basso seemed to hold a note of genuine complaint. Startled, Kossara peered across the fire at him.
To a dweller in the inner Empire, he might have been any Merseian. No matter how anthropoid a xenosophont was, the basic differences usually drowned individuality unless you knew the species well. Trohdwyr roughly resembled a large man—especially in the face, if you overlooked endless details of its heavy-boned, brow-ridged, wide-nosed, thin-lipped construction. But he had no external earflaps, only elaborately contoured holes in the skull. Totally hairless, his skin was pale green and faintly scaled. A sierra of low triangular spines ran from the top of his forehead, down his back to the tail's end. When he stood, he leaned forward, reducing his effective height to tall-human; when he walked, it was not on heels and soles but on his toes, in an alien rhythm. He was warm-blooded; females of his race gave live birth; but he was no mammal—no kind of animal which Terra had ever brought forth.
By a million signs Kossara knew him for Trohdwyr and nobody else, as she knew her kinfolk or Mihail. He had grown gaunt, deep furrows lay in his cheeks, he habitually spurned boots and trousers for a knee-length tunic with many pockets, he wore the same kind of curve-bladed sheath knife with knuckleduster handle which he had given her and taught her to use, years before....
"Why, I'll abandon it if you want," she said, thinking, Has time begun to wear him down? How hurtful to us both.
"Oh, no, no, Dama. No need." Trohdwyr grew abashed. "Forgive a gaffer if he's grumpy. I was—well, today I almost saw you ripped apart. There I stood, you in my line of fire, and that beast—Dama, don't do such things."
"I'm sorry," Kossara said. "Though I really don't believe I was taking too big a chance. I know my rifle."
"I too. Didn't you learn from me?"
"But those were lightweight weapons. Because I was a girl? Today I had a Tashta, the kind they've issued me in the Voyska. I was sure it could stop him." Kossara gazed aside, downslope toward the bottom of the Kazan, which night had already filled. "Besides," she added softly, "I needed such a moment. You're right, I did provoke the dyavo to attack."
"To get away from feeling helpless?" Trohdwyr murmured.
"Yes." She could never have opened thus to any human except Mihail, maybe not even to him; but over the years the ychan had heard confessions which she did not give her priest. "My man's yonder." She flung a hand toward the first stars as they twinkled forth, white upon violet above the lowlands. "I have to stay behind in my guard unit—when Dennitza will never be attacked!"
"Thanks to units like yours, Dama," Trohdwyr said.
"Nevertheless, he—" Kossara took her drink in a gulp. It burned the whole way down, and the glow spread fast to every part of her. She held the cup out for a refill. "Why does it matter this much who's Emperor? All right, Josip was foul and his agents did a great deal of harm. But he's dead now; and the Empire did survive him; and I've heard enough from my uncle to know that what really keeps it going is a lot of nameless little officials whose work outlasts whole dynasties. Then why do we fight over who'll sit crowned in Archopolis for the next few years?"
"You are the human, Dama, not I," said Trohdwyr. After a minute: "Yet I can think how on Merseia they would be glad to see another Terran Emperor whose spirit is fear or foolishness. And... we here are not overly far from Merseia."
Kossara shivered beneath the stars and took a strong sip.
"Well, it'll get settled soon," she declared. "Uncle Bodin told me he's sure it will be. This thing in space is a last gasp. Soon"—she lifted her head—"Mihail and I can travel," exploring together the infinite marvels on worlds that circle new suns.
"I hope so, Dama, despite that I'll miss you. Have plenty of young, and let them play and grow around me on the manor as you did, will you?"
Exalted by the liquor—how the smell of the roasting meat awakened hunger!—she blurted: "He wanted me to sleep with him before he left. I said no, we'll wait till we're married. Should I have said yes? Tell me, should I have?"
"You are the human," Trohdwyr repeated. "I can simply answer, you are the voivode's daughter and the Gospodar's niece. But I remember from my cubhood—when folk still lived in Old Aferoch, though already then the sea brought worse and worse floods—a female ychan of that town. I knew her somewhat, since a grown cousin of mine used to come in from our village, courting her—"
The story, which was of a rivalry as fierce as might have stood between two men of different clans in early days on Dennitza, but which ended after a rescue on the water, was oddly comforting: almost as if she were little again, and Trohdwyr rocked her against his warm dry breast and rumbled a lullaby. That night Kossara slept well. Some days afterward she returned happily to Dubina Dolyina. When her leave was up, she went back to Zorkagrad.
There she got the news that Mihail Svetich had been killed in action.
But standing before the slave shop's audiovisual recorders, Kossara did not think of this, nor of what had happened to Trohdwyr himself on cold Diomedes. She remained in that one evening out of the many they had had together.}
The chemical joy wore off. She lay on her bunk, bit her pillow and fought not to yell.
A further day passed.
Then she was summoned to the manager's office. "Congratulations," be said. "You've been bought, luckier than you deserve."
It roared in her. Darkness crossed her eyes. She swayed before his desk. Distantly she heard:
"A private gentleman, and he must really have liked what he saw in the catalogue, because he outbid two different cepheid houses. You can probably do well for yourself—and me, I'll admit. Remember, if he sells you later, he may well go through me again instead of making a deal directly. I don't like my reputation hurt, and I've got this switch here—Anyhow, you'll be wise if you show him your appreciation. His name is Dominic Flandry, he's a captain of Naval Intelligence, a knight of the Imperium, and, I'll tell you, a favorite of the Emperor. He doesn't need a slave for his bed. Gossip is, he's tumbled half the female nobility on Terra, and commoner girls past counting. Like I said, he must think you're special. The more grateful you act, the better your life is likely to be.... On your way, now. A matron will groom and gown you."
She also provided a fresh euphoriac. Thus Kossara didn't even mind that the servant who came to fetch her was hauntingly like and unlike an ychan. He too was bald, green, and tailed; but the green was grass-bright, without scales, the tail thin as a cat's, the posture erect, the height well below her own, the other differences unredeemable. "Sir Dominic saw fit to dub me Chives," he introduced himself. "I trust you will find his service pleasant. Indeed, I declined the manumission he offered me, until the law about spy bracelets went into effect on Terra. May I direct you out?"
Kossara went along through rosiness, into an aircar, on across the city and an ocean, eventually to an ornate house on an island which Chives called Catalina. He showed her to a suite and explained that her owner was busy elsewhere but would presently make his wishes known. Meanwhile these facilities were hers to use, within reason.
Kossara fell asleep imagining that Mihail was beside her.
III
It was official: the Emperor Hans would shortly leave Terra, put himself at the head of an armada, and personally see to quelling the barbarians—war lords, buccaneers, crusaders for God knew what strange causes—who still harassed a Sector Spica left weak by the late struggle for the Imperial succession. He threw a bon voyage party at the Coral Palace. Captain Sir Dominic Flandry was among those invited. Under such circumstances, one comes.
Besides, Flandry reflected, I can't help liking the old bastard. He may not be the best imaginable thing that could happen to us, but he's probably the best available.
The hour was well after sunset in this part of Oceania. A crescent moon stood high to westward; metrocenter star-points glinted across its dark side. The constellations threw light of their own onto gently rolling waves, argent shimmer on sable. Quietness broke where surf growled white against ramparts. There walls, domes, towers soared aloft in a brilliance which masked off most of heaven.
When Flandry landed his car and stepped forth, no clouds of perfume (or psychogenic vapors, as had been common in Josip's reign) drifted from the palace to soften salt odors. Music wove among mild breezes, but formal, stately, neither hypersubtle nor raucous. Flandry wasn't sure whether it was composed on a colony planet—if so, doubtless Germania—or on Terra once, to be preserved through centuries while the mother world forgot. He did know that a decade ago, the court would have snickered at sounds this fusty-archaic.
Few servants bowed as he passed among fellow guests, into the main building. More guardsmen than formerly saluted. Their dress uniforms were less ornate than of yore and they and their weapons had seen action. The antechamber of fountains hadn't changed, and the people who swirled between them before streaming toward the ballroom wore clothes as gorgeous as always, a rainbow spectacle. However, fantastic collars, capes, sleeves, cuffs, footgear were passé. Garb was continuous from neck or midbreast to soles, and, while many men wore robes rather than trousers, every woman was in a skirt.
A reform I approve of, he thought. I suspect most ladies agree. The suggestive rustle of skillfully draped fabric is much more stimulating, really, and easier to arrange, than cosmetics and diadems on otherwise bare areas of interest. For that matter, though it does take more effort, a seduction is better recreation than an orgy.
There our good Hans goes too far. Every bedroom in the palace locked!
Ah, well. Conceivably he wants his entourage to cultivate ingenuity.
Crown Prince Dietrich received, a plain-faced middle-aged man whose stoutness was turning into corpulence. Though he and Flandry had worked together now and then in the fighting, his welcome was mechanical. Poor devil, he must say a personal hello to each of three or four hundred arrivals important enough to rate it, with no drug except stim to help him. Another case of austere principles overdone, Flandry thought. The younger brother, Gerhart, was luckier tonight, already imperially drunk at a wallside table with several cronies. However, he looked as sullen as usual.
Flandry drifted around the circumference of the ballroom. There was nothing fancy about the lighting, save that it was cast to leave unobscured the stars in the vitryl dome overhead. The floor sheened with diffracted reflections from several score couples who swung through the decorous measures of a quicksilver. He hailed acquaintances when he glimpsed them, but didn't stop till he had reached an indoor arbor where champagne was available. A goblet of tickle in his hand, roses around him, a cheerful melody, a view of pretty women in motion—life could be worse.
It soon was. "Greetin', Sir Dominic."
Flandry turned, and bowed in dismay to the newcomer beneath the leaves. "Aloha, your Grace."
Tetsuo Niccolini, Duke of Mars, accepted a glass from the attendant behind the table. It was obviously not his first. "Haven't seen you for some while," he remarked. "Missed you. You've a way o' puttin' a little spark into a scene, dull as the court is these days." Shrewdly: "Reason you don't come often, what?"
"Well," Flandry admitted, "his Majesty's associates do tend to be a bit earnest and firm-jawed." He sipped. "Still, my impression is, your Grace spends a fair amount of time here regardless."
Niccolini sighed. He had never been more than a well-meaning fop; but in these last years, when antisenescence and biosculp could no longer hold wrinkles, baldness, feebleness at bay, he had developed a certain wry perspective. Unfortunately, he remained a bore.
Shadows of petals stirred across a peacock robe as he lifted his drink. "D'you think I should go to my ancestral estates and all that rubbish, set up my own small court along lines I like, eh? No, m'boy, not feasible. I'd get nothin' but sycophants, who'd pluck me while they smiled. My real friends, who put their hearts into enjoyin' life, well, they're dead or fled or sleepin' in an oldster's bed." He paused. "'Sides, might's well tell you, H.M. gave me t'understand—he makes himself very clear, ha?—gave me t'understand, he'd prefer no Duke o' Mars henceforth visit the planet 'cept for a decent minimum o' speeches an' dedications."
Flandry nodded. That makes sense, flickered through him. The Martians [nonhumans; colonists by treaty arrangement in the time of the Commonwealth; glad to belong to it, but feeling betrayed when it broke down and the Troubles came; dragooned into the Empire] are still restless. Terra can best control them by removing the signs of Terran control. I suspect, after poor tottery Tetty is gone, Hans will buy out his heirs with a gimcrack title elsewhere and a lot of money and make a Martian the next Duke—who may not even know he's a puppet.
At least, that's what I'd consider doing.
"But we're in grave danger o' seriousness," Niccolini interrupted himself. "Where've you been? Busy at what? Come, come, somethin' amusin' must've happened."
"Oh, just knocking around with a friend." Flandry didn't care to get specific. One reason why he had thus far declined promotion to admiral was that then he'd be too conspicuous, too eagerly watched and sought after, while he remained near the Emperor. He liked his privacy. As a hanger-on who showed no further ambitions—and could therefore in time be expected to lose his energetic patron's goodwill—he drew scant attention.
"Or knockin' up a friend? Heh, heh, heh." The Duke nudged him. "I know your sort o' friends. How was she?"
"In the first place, she was a he," Flandry said. Until he could escape, he might as well reconcile himself to humoring a man who had discovered the secret of perpetual adolescence. "Of course, we explored. Found a new place on Ganymede which might interest your Grace, the Empress Wu in Celestial City."
"No, no." Niccolini waggled his head and free hand. "Didn't y'know? I never go anywhere near Jupiter. Never. Not since the La Reine Louise disaster."
Flandry cast his mind back. He couldn't identify—Oh, yes. It had happened five years ago, while he was out of the Solar System. Undeterred by civil war, a luxury liner was approaching Callisto when her screen field generators failed. The trapped radiation which seethes around the giant planet, engulfing its inner moons, killed everybody aboard; no treatment could restore a body burned by so much unfelt fire.
Nothing of the kind had happened for centuries of exploration and colonization thereabouts. Magnetohydrodynamic shields and their backups were supposed to be invulnerable to anything that wouldn't destroy a vehicle or a settlement anyway. Therefore, sabotage? The passenger list had included several powerful people. A court of inquiry had handed down the vaguest finding of "cumulative negligence."
"My poor young nephew, that I inherited the Dukedom from, was among the casualties," Niccolini droned on. "That roused the jolly old instinct o' self-preservation, I can tell yon. Too blinkin' many hazards as is. Not that I flatter myself I'm a political bull's-eye. Still, one never knows, does one? So tell me 'bout this place you found. If it sounds intriguin', I'll see 'bout gettin' a sensie."
Flandry was saved by a courier in Imperial livery who entered the arbor and bowed. "A thousand pardons, your Grace," she said. "Sir Dominic, there is an urgent message for you. Will you please follow me?"
"With twofold pleasure," Flandry responded, for she was young and well-formed. He couldn't quite place her accent, though he guessed she might be from some part of Hermes. Even when hiring humans, the majordomos of the new Emperor's various households were under orders to get as many non-Terrans as was politic.
Whoever the summons was from, and whether it was terrible or trivial, he was free of the Duke before he could otherwise have disengaged. The noble nodded a vague response to his apology and stood staring after him, all alone.
His Imperial Majesty, High Emperor Hans Friedrich Molitor, of his dynasty the first, Supreme Guardian of the Pax, Grand Director of the Stellar Council, Commander-in-chief, Final Arbiter, acknowledged supreme on more worlds and honorary head of more organizations than any man could remember, sat by himself in a room at the top of a tower. It was sparsely furnished: a desk and communicator, a couch upholstered in worn but genuine horse-hide, a few straightbacked chairs and the big pneumatic that was his. The only personal items were a dolchzahn skin on the floor, from Germania; two portraits of his late wife, in her youth and her age, and one of a blond young man; a model of the corvette that had been his first command. A turret roof, beginning at waist height, was currently transparent, letting this eyrie overlook an illuminated complex of roofs, steeples, gardens, pools, outer walls, attendant rafts, and finally the night ocean.
The courier ushered Flandry through the door and vanished as it closed behind him. He saluted and snapped to attention. "At ease," the Emperor grunted. "Sit. Smoke if you want."
He was puffing a pipe whose foulness overcame the air 'fresher. In spite of the blue tunic, white trousers, and gold braid with nebula and three stars of a grand admiral, plus the pyrocrystal ring of Manuel the Great, he was not very impressive to see. Yet meditechnics could not account for so few traces of time. The short, stocky frame had grown a kettle belly, bags lay beneath the small dark eyes, the hair was thin and gray on the blocky head: nothing that could not easily be changed by the biocosmetics he scorned to use. Nor had he ever troubled about his face, low forehead, bushy brows, huge Roman nose, heavy jowls, gash of a mouth between deep creases, prow of a chin.
"Thank you, your Majesty." Flandry settled his elegance opposite, flipped out a cigarette case which was a work of art and, at need, a weapon, and established a barrier against the reek around him.
"No foolish formalities," growled the rusty, accented basso. "I must make my grand appearance, and empty chatter will rattle for hours, and at last when I can go I'm afraid I'll be too tired for a nice new wench who's joined the collection, no matter how much I need a little fun."
"A stim pill?" Flandry suggested.
"No. I take too many as is. The price to the body mounts, you know. And... barely six years on the throne have I had. The first three, fighting to stay there. I need another twenty or thirty for carpentering this jerry-built, dry-rotted Empire into a thing that might last a few more generations, before I can lay down my tools." Hans chuckled coarsely. "Well, let the tool for pretty Thressa wait, recharging, till tomorrow night. You should see her, Dominic, my friend. But not to tell anybody. By herself she could cause a revolution."
Flandry grinned. "Yes, we humans are basically sexual beings, aren't we, sir? If we can't screw each other physically, we'll do it politically."
Hans laughed aloud. He had never changed from a boy who deserted a strait-laced colonial bourgeois home for several years of wild adventure in space, the youth who enlisted in the Navy, the man who rose through the ranks without connections or flexibility to ease his way.
But he had not changed either from the hero of Syrax, where the fleet he led flung back the Merseians and forced a negotiated end to a short undeclared war which had bidden fair to grow. Nor had he changed from the leader who let his personnel proclaim him Emperor—himself reluctantly, less from vainglory than a sense of workmanship, when the legitimate order of succession had dissolved in chaos and every rival claimant was a potential disaster.
A blunt pragmatist, uncultured and unashamed of it, shrewd rather than intelligent, he either appalled Manuel Argos or won a grudging approval, in whatever hypothetical hell or Valhalla the Founder dwelt. The question was academic. His hour was now. How long that hour would be, and what the consequences, were separate puzzles.
Mirth left. He leaned forward. The pipe smoldered between hairy hands clenched upon his knees. "I talk too much," he said, a curious admission from the curtest of the Emperors. Flandry understood, though. Few besides him were left, maybe none, with whom Hans dared talk freely. "Let us come to business. What do you know about Dennitza?"
Inwardly taken aback, Flandry replied soft-voiced, "Not much, sir. Not much about the whole Taurian Sector, in spite of having had the good luck to be there when Lady Megan needed help. Why ask me?"
Hans scowled. "I suppose you do know how the Gospodar, my sector governor, is resisting my defense reorganization. Could be a simple difference of judgment, yes. But—now information suggests he plans rebellion. And that—where he is—will involve the Merseians, unless he is already theirs."
Flandry's backbone tingled. "What are the facts, sir?"
"A wretched planet in Sector Arcturus. Diomedes, it's called. Natives who want to break away and babble of getting Ythrian help. Human agents among them. We would expect such humans would be from the Domain, likeliest Avalon—not true? But our best findings say the Ythrians hold no wish to make trouble for us. And our people discover those humans are Dennitzan. Only one was captured alive, and they had some problems with the hypnoprobing, but it does appear she went to Diomedes under secret official orders."
Hans sighed. "Not till yesterday did this reach me through the damned channels. It never would have before I left, did I not issue strictest orders about getting a direct look at whatever might possibly point to treason. And—Gott in Himmel, I am swamped, on top of all else! My computer screens out lèse-majesté cases and the rest of such piddle. Nevertheless—"
Flandry nodded. "Aye, sir. You can't give any single item more than a glance. And even if you could pay full attention, you can't send the big clumsy Imperial machine barging into Tauria, disrupting our whole arrangement there, on the basis of a few accusations. Especially in your absence."
"Yes. I must go. If we don't reorder Sector Spica, the barbarians will soon ruin it. But meanwhile Tauria may explode. You see how an uprising in Sector Arcturus would be the right distraction for a traitor Dennitzan before he rebels too."
"Won't Intelligence mount a larger operation?"
"Ja, ja, ja. Though the Corps is still in poor shape, after wars and weedings. Also, it has much other business. And Dominic, just the Corps by itself is too huge for me to know, for me to control as I should. I need—I am not sure what I need or if it can be had."
Flandry foreknew: "You want me to take a hand, sir?"
"Yes." The wild boar eyes were sighted straight on him. "In your olden style. A roving commission, and you report directly to me. Plenipotentiary authority."
Flandry's pulse broke into a canter. He kept his tone level. "Quite a solo, sir."
"Co-opt. Hire. Bribe. Threaten. Whatever you see fit."
"The odds will stay long against my finding out anything useful—at least, anything the Corps can't, quicker and better."
"You are not good at modesty," Hans said. "Are you unwilling?"
"N-n-no, sir." Surprised, Flandry realized he spoke truth. This could prove interesting. In fact, he knew damn well it would, for he had already involved himself in the affair. His motivation was half curiosity, half kindliness—he thought at the time—though probably, down underneath, the carnivore which had been asleep in him these past three years had roused, pricked up its ears, snuffed game scent on a night breeze. Was that always my real desire? Not to chase down enemies of the Empire so I could go on having fun in it, but to have fun chasing them down?
No matter. The blood surged. "I'm happy to accept, sir, provided you don't expect much. Uh, my authority, access to funds and secret data and whatnot... better be kept secret itself."
"Right." Hans knocked the dottle from his pipe, a ringing noise through a moment's silence. "Is this why you refused admiral's rank? You knew sneaking off someday on a mission would be easier for a mere captain."
Flandry shrugged. "If you'll tip the word to—better be none less than Kheraskov—I'll contact him as soon as may be and make arrangements."
"Have you any idea how you will begin?" Hans asked, relaxing a trifle.
"Well, I don't know. Perhaps with that alleged Dennitzan agent. What became of her, did you say?"
"How can I tell? I saw a précis of many reports, remember. What difference, after the 'probe wrung her dry?"
"Sometimes individuals count, sir." Excitement in Flandry congealed to grimness. I should think the fact she's a niece of the Gospodar—a fact available in the material on her that my son could freely scan from a data bank—would be worth mentioning to the Emperor. I should think such a hostage would not be sold for a slave, forced into whoredom except for the chance that I learned about her when she was offered for sale.
Better not tell Hans. He'd only be distracted from the million things he's got to do. And anyhow... something strange here. I prefer to keep my mouth shut and my options open.
"Proceed as you wish," the other said. "I know you won't likely get far. But I can trust you will run a strong race."
His glance went to the picture of the young man. His face sagged. Flandry could well-nigh read his mind: Ach, Otto! If you had not been killed—if I could bring you back, yes, even though I must trade for you dull Dietrich and scheming Gerhart both—we would have an heir to trust.
The Emperor straightened in his seat. "Very well," he rapped. "Dismissed."
The festival wore on. Toward morning, Flandry and Chunderban Desai found themselves alone.
The officer would have left sooner, were it not for his acquired job. Now he seemed wisest if he savored sumptuousness, admired the centuried treasures of static and fluid art which the palace housed, drank noble wines, nibbled on delicate foods, conversed with witty men, danced with delicious girls, finally brought one of these to a pergola he knew (unlocked, screened by jasmine vines) and made love. He might never get the chance again. After she bade him a sleepy goodbye, he felt like having a nightcap. The crowd had grown thin. He recognized Desai, fell into talk, ended in a small garden.
Its base was cantilevered from a wall, twenty meters above a courtyard where a fountain sprang. The waters, full of dissolved fluorescents, shone under ultraviolet illumination in colors more deep and pure than flame. Their tuned splashing resounded from catchbowls to make an eldritch music. Otherwise the two men on their bench had darkness and quiet. Flowers sweetened an air gone slightly cool. The moon was long down; Venus and a dwindling number of stars gleamed in a sky fading from black to purple, above an ocean coming all aglow.
"No, I am not convinced the Emperor does right to depart," Desai said. The pudgy little old man's hair glimmered white as his tunic; chocolate-hued face and hands were nearly invisible among shadows. He puffed on a cigarette in a long ivory holder. "Contrariwise, the move invites catastrophe."
"But to let the barbarians whoop around at will—" Flandry sipped his cognac and drew on his cigar, fragrances first rich, then pungent. He'd wanted to end on a relaxing topic. Desai, who had served the Imperium in many executive capacities on many different planets, owned a hoard of reminiscences which made him worth cultivating. He was on Terra for a year, teaching at the Diplomatic Academy, before he retired to Ramanujan, his birthworld.
The military situation—specifically, Hans' decision to go—evidently bothered him too much for pleasantries. "Oh, yes, that entire frontier needs restructuring," he said. "Not simple reinforcement. New administrations, new laws, new economics: ideally, the foundations of an entire new society among the human inhabitants. However, his Majesty should leave that task to a competent viceroy and staff whom he grants extraordinary powers."
"There's the problem," Flandry pointed out. "Who's both competent and trustworthy enough, aside from those who're already up to their armpits in alligators elsewhere?"
"If he has no better choice," Desai said, "his Majesty should let the Spican sector be ravaged—should even let it be lost, in hopes of regaining the territory afterward—anything, rather than absent himself for months. What ultimate good can he accomplish yonder if meanwhile the Imperium is taken from him? The best service he can render the Empire is simply to keep a grip on its heart. Else the civil wars begin again."
"I fear you exaggerate," Flandry said, though he recalled how Desai was always inclined to understate things. And Dennitzans on Diomedes... "We seem to've pacified ourselves fairly well. Besides, why refer to civil wars in the plural?"
"Have you forgotten McCormac's rebellion, Sir Dominic?"
Scarcely, seeing I was involved. Flandry winced at a memory. Lost Kathryn, as well as the irregular nature of his actions at the time, made him glad the details were still unpublic. "No. But that was, uh, twenty-two years ago. And amounted to what? An admiral who revolted against Josip's sector governor for personal reasons. True, this meant he had to try for the crown. The Imperium could never have pardoned him. But he was beaten, and Josip died in bed." Probably poisoned, to be sure.
"You consider the affair an isolated incident?" Desai challenged in his temperate fashion. "Allow me to remind you, please—I know you know—shortly afterward I found myself the occupation commissioner of McCormac's home globe, Aeneas, which had spearheaded the uprising. We came within an angstrom there of getting a messianic religion that might have burst into space and torn the Empire in half."
Flandry took a hard swallow from his snifter and a hard pull on his cigar. Well had he studied the records of that business, after he encountered Aycharaych who had engineered it.
"The thirteen following years—seeming peace inside the Empire, till Josip's death—they are no large piece of history, are they?" Desai pursued. "Especially if we bear in mind that conflicts have causes. A war, including a civil war, is the flower on a plant whose seed went into the ground long before... and whose roots reach widely, and will send up fresh growths.... No, Sir Dominic, as a person who has read and reflected for most of a lifetime on this subject, I tell you we are well into our anarchic phase. The best we can do is minimize the damage, and hold outside enemies off until we win back to a scarred kind of unity."
"‘Our' anarchic phase?" Flandry questioned.
Desai misheard his emphasis. "Or our interregnum, or whatever you wish to call it. Oh, we may not always fight over who shall be Emperor; we can find plenty of bones to contend about. And we may enjoy stretches of peace and relative prosperity. I hoped Hans would provide us such a respite."
"No, wait, you speak as if this is something we have to go through, willy-nilly."
"Yes. For about eighty more years, I think—though of course modern technology, nonhuman influences, the sheer scale of interstellar dominion may affect the time-span. Basically, however, yes, a universal state—and the Terran Empire is the universal state of Technic civilization—only gives a respite from the wars and horrors which multiply after the original breakdown. Its Pax is no more than a subservience enforced at swordpoint, or today at blaster point. Its competent people become untrustworthy from their very competence; anyone who can make a decision may make one the Imperium does not like. Incompetence grows with the growing suspiciousness and centralization. Defense and civil functions alike begin to disintegrate. What can that provoke except rebellion? So this universal state of ours has ground along for a brace of generations, from bad to worse, until now—"
"The Long Night?" Flandry shivered a bit in the gentle air.
"I think not quite yet. If we follow precedent, the Empire will rise again... if you can label as ‘rise' the centralized divine autocracy we have coming. To be sure, if the thought of such a government does not cheer you, then remember that that second peace of exhaustion will not last either. In due course will come the final collapse."
"How do you know?" Flandry demanded.
"The cycle fills the history, yes, the archeology of this whole planet we are sitting on. Old China and older Egypt each went thrice through the whole sorry mess. The Western civilization to which ours is affiliated rose originally from the same kind of thing, that Roman Empire some of our rulers have liked to hark back to for examples of glory. Oh, we too shall have our Diocletian; but scarcely a hundred years after his reconstruction, the barbarians were camping in Rome itself and making emperors to their pleasure. My own ancestral homeland—but there is no need for a catalogue of forgotten nations. For a good dozen cases we have chronicles detailed to the point of nausea; all in all, we can find over fifty examples just in the dust of this one world.
"Growth, until wrong decisions bring breakdown; then ever more ferocious wars, until the Empire brings the Pax; then the dissolution of that Pax, its reconstitution, its disintegration forever, and a dark age until a new society begins in the ruins. Technic civilization started on that road when the Polesotechnic League changed from a mutual-aid organization of free entrepreneurs to a set of cartels. Tonight we are far along the way."
"You've discovered this yourself?" Flandry asked, not as skeptically as he could have wished he were able to.
"Oh, no, no," Desai said. "The basic analysis was made a thousand years ago. But it's not comfortable to live with. Prevention of breakdown, or recovery from it, calls for more thought, courage, sacrifice than humans have yet been capable of exercising for generation after generation. Much easier first to twist the doctrine around, use it for rationalization instead of rationality; then ignore it; finally suppress it. I found it in certain archives, but you realize I am talking to you in confidence. The Imperium would not take kindly to such a description of itself."
"Well—" Flandry drank again. "Well, you may be right. And total pessimism does have a certain bracing quality. If we're doomed to tread out the measure, we can try to do so gracefully."
"There is no absolute inevitability." Desai puffed for a minute, his cigarette end a tiny red pulsar. "I suppose, even this late in the game, we could start afresh if we had the means—more importantly, the will. But in actuality, the development is often aborted by foreign conquest. An empire in the anarchic phase is especially tempting and especially prone to suffer invaders. Osmans, Afghans, Moguls, Manchus, Spaniards, British—they and those like them became overlords of cultures different from their own, in that same way.
"Beyond our borders, the Merseians are the true menace. Not a barbarian rabble merely filling a vacuum we have left by our own political machinations—not a realistic Ythri which sees us as its natural ally—not a pathetic Gorrazani remnant—but Merseia. We harass and thwart the Roidhunate everywhere, because we dare not let it grow too strong. Besides eliminating us as a hindrance to its dreams, think what a furtherance our conquest would be!
"That's why I dread the consequences of the Emperor's departure. Staying home, working to buttress the government and armed force, ready to stamp fast on every attempt at insurrection, he might keep us united, uninvadable, for the rest of his life. Without his presence—I don't know."
"The Merseians would have to be prepared to take quick advantage of any revolt," Flandry argued. "Assuming you're right about your historical pattern, are they aware of it? How common is it?"
"True, we don't have the knowledge to say how far it may apply to nonhumans, if at all," Desai admitted. "We should. In fact, it was Merseia, not ourselves, that set me on this research—for the Merseians too must have their private demons, and think what a weapon it would be for our diplomacy to have a generalized mechanic for them as well as us!"
"Hm?" said Flandry, surprised afresh. "Are you implying perhaps they already are decadent? That's not what one usually hears."
"No, it isn't. But what is decadence to a nonhuman? I hope to do more than read sutras in my retirement; I hope to apply my experience and my studies to thought about just such problems." The old man sighed. "Of necessity, this assumes the Empire will not fall prey to its foes before I've made some progress. That may be an unduly optimistic assumption... considering what a head start they have in the Roidhunate where it comes to understanding us."
"Are you implying they know this theory of human history which you've been outlining to me?"
"Yes, I fear that at least a few minds among them are all too familiar with it. For example, after considering the episode for many years, I think that when Aycharaych tried to kindle a holy war of man against man, starting on Aeneas, he knew precisely what he was doing."
Aycharaych. The chill struck full into Flandry. He raised his eyes to the fading stars. Sol would soon drive sight away from them, but they would remain where they were, waiting.
"I have often wondered what makes him and his kind serve Merseia," Desai mused. "Genius can't really be conscripted. The Chereionites surely have something to win for themselves. But what—from an alien species, an alien culture?"
"Aycharaych's the only one of them I've ever actually met," Flandry said. "I've sometimes thought he's an artist."
"An artist of espionage and sabotage, whose materials are living beings? Well, conceivably. If that's all, he is no more to be envied than you or I."
"Why?"
"I'm not sure I can make the reason clear to you, or even very clear to myself. We have not had the good fortune to be born in an era when our society offers us something transcendental to live and die for." Desai cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to read you a lecture."
"No, I thank you," Flandry said. "Your ideas are quite interesting."
IV
The Hooligan sprang from Terra, pierced the sky, and lined out for deep space. A steady standard gravity maintained by her interior fields gave no hint of furious acceleration toward regions sufficiently distant that she could go into hyperdrive and outpace light. Nor did her engine energies speak above an almost subliminal whisper and quiver through the hull. But standing in the saloon before its big viewscreen, Kossara watched the planet shrink, ever faster, a cloudy vastness, a gibbous globe of intricate blue and white, an agate in a diamondful jewel box.
At the back of her mind she wished she could appreciate this sight for which she had left the stateroom assigned her. Terra, Manhome, Maykasviyet; and sheer loveliness—But her heart knocked, her nails bit into wet palms though her tongue was dry and thick, she smelled her harsh sweat.
Yet when her owner entered, calm crystallized in her. By nature and training she met crises coolly, and here was the worst since—As far as she knew, nobody else was aboard but him and his servant. If she could, somehow, kill them—or hogtie the funny, kindly Shalmuan—maybe before he took her—
No. Not unless he grew altogether slack; and she sensed alertness beneath his relaxed manner. He was tall and well built and moved like a hunting vilya. Handsome too, she admitted to herself; then scorn added that anybody could be handsome who bought a biosculpture. A loose lace-trimmed blouse and flowing trousers gathered above sandals matched, in their sheen of expensive fabric, the knee-length gown she had chosen out of the wardrobe she found in her quarters.
"Good day, Donna Vymezal," the man said, and bowed.
What to do? She jerked a nod.
"Permit self-introduction," he went on. "Hardly to your surprise, I am Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Intelligence Corps of his Majesty's Navy." He gestured at a bench curved around two sides of a table. "Won't you be seated?"
She stood her ground.
Flandry smiled, placed hands on hips, and drawled: "Please listen. I have no intention of compelling you. None. Not that you don't inspire certain daydreams, Donna. And not that I couldn't make you like it. Drugs, you know. But vanity forbids. I've never needed force or pharmacopoeia, even on those few young ladies I had occasion to buy in the past. Have you noticed your cabin door locks on the inside?"
Strength went from Kossara. She stumbled backward, fell to the bench, rested head in hands while whirling and darkness passed through her.
Presently she grew aware that Flandry stood above. His fingers kneaded her neck and shoulders. As she looked up, he stroked her hair. She gasped and drew aside.
He stepped back. "No offense, Donna." Sternly: "See here, we've a bundle to discuss, none of it very amusing. Do you want a stim pill—or what, to make you operational?"
She shook her head. After two tries, she husked forth, "Nothing, thank you. I am all right now."
"Drink? The liquor cabinet is reasonably well stocked. I'm for Scotch."
"Nothing," she whispered, dreading in spite of his words what might be in a glass he gave her.
He seemed to guess that, for he said, "You'll have to take from my galley in due course if not sooner. We've a long trip ahead of us."
"What?... Well, a little wine, please."
He got busy, while she worked to loosen muscles and nerves. When he sat down, not too close, she could meet his eyes. She declined the cigarette he offered, but the claret was marvelous. He streamed smoke from his nostrils before saying, deliberately:
"You might recollect who else was bidding on you." She felt her face blaze. "And I didn't spend quite a lot of beer money out of chivalry. Your virtue is safe as long as you want it to be—while I'm your owner. But I need your cooperation in some rather larger matters. Understood?"
She gulped. "If I can... help you, sir—"
"In exchange for manumission and a ticket to Dennitza? Maybe. I haven't the legal right to free you, seeing what you were convicted of. I'd have to petition for a decree. Or I could simply order you to go back where you came from and enjoy yourself." He saw her glance fall to the slave bracelet. "Yes, now we're clear of Terra, I'm permitted to take that off you. But I haven't a key for it, and my tools would damage it, which'd put us through a certain amount of bureaucratic rain dance if we return there. Never mind. Beyond range of the comnet, it's inert." Flandry grinned. "If I were indeed a monster of lust, rather than a staid and hardworking monster, I'd still have taken you into space before commencing. The idea of an audience at any arbitrary time doesn't appeal. Let them invent their own techniques."
Loathing tightened Kossara's throat. "The Terran way of life."
Flandry regarded her quizzically. "You don't have a high opinion of the Empire, do you?"
"I hate it. I would die—be tortured—yes, go into a brothel, if I could pull the rotten thing down around me." Kossara tossed off her wine.
Flandry refilled the glass. "Better be less outspoken," he advised. "I don't mind, but various of my fellow Imperialists might."
She stared. The real horror of her situation shocked home. "Where are we bound?"
"Diomedes, for openers at any rate." He nodded. "Yes, I'm investigating what went on, what is going on, whether it threatens the Empire, and how to prevent same."
Kossara rallied. "You have the records of my... arrest and interrogation, then," she said fast. "I have no further information. Less, actually, because the hypnoprobe blanked out related memories, including those from Dennitza. What's left is bits, blurry and jumbled together, like barely remembered dreams. So how can I help you—supposing I wanted to?"
"Oh, background and such." Flandry's tone was casual. "Give me the rest of your biography. Explain what your people have against the Imperium. I'll listen. Who knows, you may convert me. I won't hurry you. There's an unsanctified amount of information pumped into the data banks aboard, which I need to study en route. And we've time. Seventeen standard days to destination."
"No more?" In spite of everything, astonishment touched her.
"This boat has legs, albeit not as well turned as yours. Do ease off, Donna. Your culture has a soldierly orientation, right? Consider me your honorable enemy, if nothing else, and the pair of us conducting a parley."
She found little to say. He talked for two, mostly appealing to her xenological interests with tales of sophonts he had met. All were fascinating. A few eventually made her laugh.
Books, musical pieces, shows were available by the thousands, in playback or printout. Kossara grew restless anyhow. Flandry had withdrawn immediately after the first breakfast of the voyage (following a nightwatch wherein she slept unexpectedly well) to concentrate on his briefing material. Interstellar space, seen in the optical-compensating screens, was utter splendor; but however fast the Hooligan drove, those immensities changed too slowly for perception. She exercised, prowled around, tried out different hobby kits, at last sought Chives. He was in the galley fixing lunch. "Can I help you?" she offered.
"I regret not, Donna," the Shalmuan answered. "While I have no wish to deprecate your culinary gifts, you can see that Sir Dominic does not willingly trust this excellent chef-machine to prepare his meals, let alone comparative strangers."
She stared at the open-faced sandwiches growing beneath his fingers. Anchovies and pimentos lay across slices of hard-boiled egg on fresh-made mayonnaise, caviar and lemon peel complemented paté de foie gras, cucumber and alfalfa sprouts revitalized cheddar cheese in the dignity of its age... "No, I couldn't do that," she admitted. "You must be a genius."
"Thank you, Donna. I endeavor to give satisfaction. Although, in candor, Sir Dominic provided my initial training and the impetus to develop further."
Kossara drew a long breath. A chance to learn about him? "You were his slave, you said. How did that happen, if I may ask?"
Chives spoke imperturbably, never breaking the rhythm of his work. "My planet of origin has no technologically advanced society, Donna. His late Majesty Josip appointed a sector governor who organized a slave trade in my people, chiefly selling to the barbarians beyond the limes. The charges against those captured for this purpose were, shall we say, arguable; but no one argued. When that governor met with misfortune, his successor attempted to right matters. However, this was impossible. Not even victims still within the Empire could be traced, across thousands of worlds. Sir Dominic merely chanced upon me in a provincial market.
"I was not prepossessing, Donna. My owner had put me up for sale because he doubted I could survive more labor in his mercury mine. Sir Dominic did not buy me. He instigated a game of poker which lasted several days and left him in possession of mine and workers alike."
Chives clicked his tongue. "My former master alleged cheating. Most discourteous of him, especially compared to Sir Dominic's urbanity in inviting him out. The funeral was well attended by the miners. Sir Dominic arranged for their repatriation, but kept me since this was far from Shalmu and, besides, I required a long course of chelating drugs to cleanse my system. Meanwhile he employed me in his service. I soon decided I had no wish to return to a society of... natives... and strove to make myself valuable to him."
Head cocked, chin in hand, tail switching, Chives studied the lunch layout. "Yes, I believe this will suffice. Akvavit and beer for beverages, needless to say. Since you wish occupation, Donna, you may assist me in setting the table."
She scarcely heard. "Moze, if he's a decent man," she blurted, "how can he work for an Empire that lets things like, like your case happen?"
"I have oftener heard Sir Dominic described in such terms as—ah—for example, a slightly overexcited gentleman once called him a cream-stealing tomcat with his conscience in his balls, if you will pardon the expression, Donna. The fact is, he did cheat in that poker game. But as for the Empire, like the proverbial centenarian I suggest you consider the alternative. You will find tableware in yonder cabinet."
Kossara bit her lip and took the hint.
"To the best of my admittedly circumscribed knowledge," Chives said after silver, china, and glass (not vitryl) stood agleam upon snowy linen, "your folk have, on the whole, benefited from the Empire. Perhaps I am misinformed. Would you care to summarize the history for me while the spiced meatballs are heating?"
His slim emerald form squatted down on the deck. Kossara took a bench, stared at her fists resting knotted on her lap, and said dully:
"I don't suppose the details, six hundred years of man on Dennitza, would interest anybody else. That is how long since Yovan Matavuly led the pioneers there. They were like other emigrant groups at the time, hoping not alone for opportunity, room to breathe, but to save traditions, customs, language, race—ethnos, identity, their souls if you like—everything they saw being swallowed up. They weren't many, nor had the means to buy much equipment. And Dennitza... well, there are always problems in settling a new planet, physical environment, biochemistry, countless unknowns and surprises that can be lethal—but Dennitza was particularly hard. It's in an ice age. The habitable areas are limited. And in those days it was far from any trade routes, had nothing really to attract merchants of the League—"
Speaking of the ancestors heartened her. She raised head and voice. "They didn't fall back to barbarism, no, no. But they did, for generations, have to put aside sophisticated technology. They lacked the capital, you see. Clan systems developed; feuding, I must admit; a spirit of local independence. The barons looked after their own. That social structure persisted when industrialism began, and affected it." Quickly: "Don't think we were ever ignorant yokels. The Shkola—university and research centrum—is nearly as old as the colony. The toughest backwoodsman respects learning as much as he does marksmanship or battle bravery."
"Do you not have a Merseian element in the population?" Chives asked.
"Yes. Merseian-descended, that is, from about four hundred years ago. You probably know Merseia itself was starting to modernize and move into space then, under fearful handicaps because of that supernova nearby and because of the multi-cornered struggle for power between Vachs, Gethfennu, and separate nations. The young Dennitzan industries needed labor. They welcomed strong, able, well-behaved displaced persons."
"Do such constitute a large part of your citizenry, Donna?"
"About ten percent of our thirty million. And twice as many human Dennitzans live outsystem; since our industry and trade got well underway, we've been everywhere in that part of space. So what is this nonsense I hear about us being Merseian-infiltrated?"
Yet we might be happier in the Roidhunate, Kossara added.
Chives recalled her: "I have heard mention of the Gospodar. Does my lady care to define his functions? Is he like a king?"
"M-m-m, what do you mean by ‘king'? The Gospodar is elected out of the Miyatovich family by the plemichi, the clan heads and barons. He has supreme executive authority for life or good behavior, subject to the Grand Court ruling on the constitutionality of what he does. A Court verdict can be reversed by the Skuptshtina—Parliament, I suppose you would say, though it has three chambers, for plemichi, commons, and ychani... zmayi... our nonhumans. Domestic government is mainly left to the different okruzhi—baronies? prefectures?—which vary a lot. The head of one of those may inherit office, or may be chosen by the resident clans, or may be appointed by the Gospodar, depending on ancient usage. He—such a nachalnik, I mean—he generally lets townships and rural districts tend their own affairs through locally elected councillors."
"The, ah, ychani are organized otherwise, I take it."
Kossara gave Chives a look of heightened respect. "Yes. Strictly by clans—or better say Vachs—subject only to planetary law unless there's some special fealty arrangement. And while you can find them anywhere on Dennitza, they concentrate on the eastern seaboard of Rodna, the main continent, in the northern hemisphere. Because they can stand cold better than humans, they do most of the fishing, pelagiculture, et cetera."
"Nevertheless, I presume considerable cultural blending has taken place."
"Certainly—"
Recollection rushed in of Trohdwyr, who died on Diomedes whither she was bound; of her father on horseback, a-gallop against a windy autumn forest, and the bugle call he blew which was an immemorial Merseian war-song; of her mother cuddling her while she sang an Eriau lullaby, "Dwynafor, dwynafor, odhal tiv," and then laughing low, "But you, little sleepyhead, you have no tail, do you?"; of herself and Mihail in an ychan boat on the Black Ocean, snowfall, ice floes, a shout as a sea beast magnificently broached to starboard; moonlit gravbelt flight over woods, summer air streaming past her cheeks, a campfire glimpsed, a landing among great green hunters, their gruff welcome; and, "I'm not hungry," Kossara said, and left the saloon before Chives or, worse, Flandry should see her weep.
V
Flandry's office, if that was the right name for it, seemed curiously spare amidst the sybaritic arrangements Kossara had observed elsewhere aboard. She wondered what his private quarters were like. But don't ask. He might take that as an invitation. Seated in front of the desk behind which he was, she made her gaze challenge his.
"I know this will be painful to you," he said. "You've had a few days to rest, though, and we must go through with it. You see, the team that 'probed you appears to have made every imaginable blunder and maybe created a few new ones." She must have registered her startlement, for he continued, "Do you know how a hypnoprobe works?"
Bitterness rose in her. "Not really," she said. "We have no such vile thing on Dennitza."
"I don't approve either. But sometimes desperation dictates."
Flandry leaned back in his chair, ignited a cigarette, regarded her out of eyes whose changeable gray became the hue of a winter overcast. His tone remained soft: "Let me explain from the ground up. Interrogation is an unavoidable part of police and military work. You can do it on several levels of intensity. First, simple questioning; if possible, questioning different subjects separately and comparing their stories. Next, browbeating of assorted kinds. Then torture, which can be the crude inflicting of pain or something like prolonged sleep deprivation. The trouble with these methods is, they aren't too dependable. The subject may hold out. He may lie. If he's had psychosomatic training, he can fool a lie detector; or, if he's clever, he can tell only a misleading part of the truth. At best, procedures are slow, especially when you have to crosscheck whatever you get against whatever other information you can find.
"So we move on to narcoquiz, drugs that damp the will to resist. Problem here is, first, you often get idiosyncratic reactions or nonreactions. People vary a lot in their body chemistry, especially these days when most of humanity has lived for generations or centuries on worlds that aren't Terra. And, of course, each nonhuman species is a whole separate bowl of spaghetti. Then, second, your subject may have been immunized against everything you have in your medicine chest. Or he may have been deep-conditioned, in which case no drug we know of will unlock his mind."
Between the shoulderblades, Kossara's back hurt from tension. "What about telepathy?" she snapped.
"Often useful but always limited," Flandry said. "Neural radiations have a low rate of information conveyance. And the receiver has to know the code the sender is using. For instance, if I were a telepath, and you concentrated on thinking in Serbic, I'd be as baffled as if you spoke aloud. Or worse, because individual thought patterns vary tremendously, especially in species like ours which don't normally employ telepathy. I might learn to read your mind—slowly, awkwardly, incompletely at best—but find that everybody else's was transmitting gibberish as far as I was concerned. Interspecies telepathy involves still bigger difficulties. And we know tricks for combatting any sort of brain listener. A screen worn on the head will heterodyne the outgoing radiation in a random fashion, make it absolutely undecipherable. Or, again, training, or deep conditioning, can be quite effective."
He paused. Wariness crossed his mobile countenance. "There are exceptions to everything," he murmured, "including what I've said. Does the name Aycharaych mean anything to you?"
"No," she answered honestly. "Why?"
"No matter now. Perhaps later."
"I am a xenologist," Kossara reminded him. "You've told me nothing new."
"Eh? Sorry. Unpredictable what somebody else does or does not know about the most elementary things, in a universe where facts swarm like gnats. Why, I was thirty years old before I learned what the Empress Theodora used to complain about."
She stared past his smile. "You were going to describe the hypnoprobe."
He sobered. "Yes. The final recourse. Direct electronic attack on the brain. On a molecular level, bypassing drugs, conditionings, anything. Except—the subject can have been preconditioned, in his whole organism, to die when this happens. Shock reaction. If the interrogation team is prepared, it can hook him into machines that keep the vital processes going, and so have a fair chance of forcing a response. But his mind won't survive the damage."
He ground his cigarette hard against the lip of an ash-taker before letting the stub be removed. "You weren't in that state, obviously." His voice roughened. "In fact, you had no drug immunization. Why weren't you narcoed instead of 'probed? Or were you, to start with?"
"I don't remember—" Astounded, Kossara exclaimed, "How do you know? About me and drugs, I mean? I didn't myself!"
"The slave dealer's catalogue. His medic ran complete cytological analyses. I put the data through a computer. It found you've had assorted treatments to resist exotic conditions, but none of the traces a psychimmune would show."
Flandry shook his head, slowly back and forth. "An overzealous interrogator might order an immediate 'probe, instead of as a last resort," he said. "But why carry it out in a way that wiped your associated memories? True, such things do happen occasionally. For instance, a particular subject might have a low threshold of tolerance; the power level might then be too high, and disrupt the RNA molecules as they come into play under questioning. As a rule, though, permanent psychological effects—beyond those which bad experiences generally leave—are rare. A competent team will test the subject beforehand and establish the parameters."
He sighed. "Well, the civil war and aftermath lopped a lot off the top, in my Corps too. Coprolite-brained characters who'd ordinarily have been left in safe routineering assignments were promoted to fill vacancies. Maybe you had the bad luck to encounter a bunch of them."
"I am not altogether sorry to have forgotten," Kossara mumbled.
Flandry stroked his mustache. "Ah... you don't think you've suffered harm otherwise?"
"I don't believe so. I can reason as well as ever. I remember my life in detail till shortly before I left for Diomedes, and I'm quite clear about everything since they put me aboard ship for Terra."
"Good." Flandry's warmth seemed genuine. "There are enough unnecessary horrors around, without a young and beautiful woman getting annulled."
He rescued me from the slime pit, she thought. He has shown me every kindness and courtesy.
Thus far. He admits—his purpose is to preserve the Empire.
"What pieces do you recall, Kossara?" Flandry had not used her first name before.
She strained fingers against each other. Her pulse beat like a trapped bird. No. Don't bring them back. The fear, the hate, the beloved dead.
"You see," he went on, "I'm puzzled as to why Dennitza should turn against us. Your Gospodar supported Hans, and was rewarded with authority over his entire sector. Granted, that's laid a terrible work load on him if he's conscientious. But it gives him—his people—a major say in the future of their region. A dispute about the defense mechanisms for your home system and its near neighbors... well, that's only a dispute, isn't it, which he may still have some hope of winning. Can't you give me a better reason for him to make trouble? Isn't a compromise possible?"
"Not with the Imperium!" Kossara said out of upward-leaping rage.
"Between you and me, at least? Intellectually? Won't you give me your side of the story?"
Kossara's blood ebbed. "I... well, speaking for myself, the fighting cost me the man I was going to marry. What use an Empire that can't keep the Pax?"
"I'm sorry. But did any mortal institution ever work perfectly? Hans is trying to make repairs. Besides, think. Why would the Gospodar—if he did plan rebellion—why would he send you, a girl, his niece, to Diomedes?"
She summoned what will and strength she had left, closed her eyes, searched back through time.
{Bodin Miyatovich was a big man, trim and erect in middle age. He bore the broad, snub-nosed, good-looking family face, framed in graying dark-blond hair and close-cropped beard, tanned and creased by a lifetime of weather. He eyes were beryl. Today he wore a red cloak over brown tunic and breeks, gromatz leather boots, customary knife and sidearm sheathed on a silver-studded belt
Dyavo-like, he paced the sun deck which jutted from the Zamok. In gray stone softened by blossoming creepers, that ancestral castle reared walls, gates, turrets, battlements, wind-blown banners (though the ultimate fortress lay beneath, carved out of living rock) above steep tile roofs and pastel-tinted half-timbered stucco of Old Town houses. Thence Zorkagrad sloped downward; streets changed from twisty lanes to broad boulevards; traffic flitted around geometrical buildings raised in modern materials by later generations. Waterborne shipping crowded docks and bay. Lake Stoyan stretched westward over the horizon, deep blue dusted with glitter cast from a cloudless heaven. Elsewhere beyond the small city, Kossara could from this height see cultivated lands along the shores: green trees, hedges, grass, and yellowing grain of Terran stock; blue or purple where native foliage and pasture remained; homes, barns, sheds, sunpower towers, widely spaced; a glimpse of the Lyubisha River rolling from the north as if to bring greeting from her father's manse. Closer by, the Elena flowed eastward, oceanward; barges plodded and boats danced upon it. Here in the middle of the Kazan, she could not see the crater walls which those streams clove. But she had a sense of them, ramparts against glacier and desert, a chalice of warmth and fertility.
A breeze embraced her, scented by flowers, full of the sweet songs of guslars flitting ruddy to and from their nests in the vines. She sat back in her chair and thought, guilty at doing so, what a pity to spend such an hour on politics.
Her uncle's feet slammed the planks. "Does Molitor imagine we'll never get another Olaf or Josip on the throne?" the Gospodar rumbled. "A clown or a cancer... and, once more, Policy Board, Admiralty, civil service bypassed, or terrorized, or corrupted. If we rely on the Navy for our whole defense, what defense will we have against future foolishness or tyranny? Let the foolishness go too far, and we'll have no defense at all."
"Doesn't he speak about preventing any more civil wars?" Kossara ventured.
Bodin spat an oath. "How much of a unified command is possible, in practical fact, on an interstellar scale? Every fleet admiral is a potential war lord. Shall we keep nothing to set against him?" He stopped. His fist thudded on a rail. "Molitor trusts nobody. That's what's behind this. So why should I trust him?"
He turned about. His gaze smoldered at her. "Besides," he said, slowly, far down in his throat, "the time may come... the time may not be far off... when we need another civil war."}
"No—" she whispered. "I can't remember more than... resentment among many. The Narodna Voyska has been a, a basic part of our society, ever since the Troubles. Squadron and regimental honors, rights, chapels, ceremonies—I'd stand formation on my unit's parade ground at sunset—us together, bugle calls, volley, pipes and drums, and while the flag came down, the litany for those of our dead we remembered that day—and often tears would run over my cheeks, even in winter when they froze."
Flandry smiled lopsidedly. "Yes, I was a cadet once." He shook himself a bit. "Well. No doubt your militia intertwines with a lot of civilian matters, social and economic. For instance, I'd guess it doubles as constabulary in some areas, and is responsible for various public works, and—yes. Disbanding it would disrupt a great deal of your lives, on a practical as well as emotional level. His Majesty may not appreciate this enough. Germania doesn't contain your kind of society, and though he's seen a good many others, between us, I wouldn't call him a terribly imaginative man.
"Still, I repeat, negotiations have not been closed. And whatever their upshot, don't you yourself have the imagination to see he means well? Why this fanatical hatred of yours? And how many Dennitzans share it?"
"I don't know," Kossara said. "But personally, after what men of the Empire did to, to people I care about—and later to me—"
"May I ask you to describe what you recall?" Flandry answered. She glared defiance. "You see, if nothing else, maybe I'll find out, and be able to prove to their superiors, those donnickers rate punishment for aggravated stupidity."
He picked up a sheaf of papers on his desk and riffled them. The report on me must have violated my privacy more than I could ever do myself, she thought in sudden weariness. All right, let me tell him what little I can.
{A cave in the mountains near Salmenbrok held the sparse gear which kept her and her fellows alive. They stood around her on a ledge outside, but except for Trohdwyr shadowy, no real faces or names upon them any more. Cliffs and crags loomed in darkling solidity, here and there a gnarled tree or a streak of snow tinged pink by a reddish sun high in a purple heaven. The wind thrust slow, strong, chill; it had not only an odor but a taste like metal. A cataract, white and green half a kilometer away, boomed loud through thick air that also shifted the pitch and timbre of every sound. Huddled in her parka, she felt how Diomedes drew on her more heavily than Dennitza, nearly two kilograms added to every ten.
Eonan of the Lannachska poised almost clear in her mind. Yellow eyes aglow, wings unfurled for departure, he said in his shrill-accented Anglic: "You understand, therefore, how these things strike at the very life of my folk? And thus they touch our whole world. We thought the wars between Flock and Fleet were long buried. Now they stir again—"
{Both moons were aloft and near the full, copper-colored, twice the seeming size of Mesyatz (or Luna), one slow, one hasty across a sky where few stars blinked and those in alien constellations. The night cold gnawed. Flames sputtered and sparked. Their light fetched Trohdwyr from darkness, where he sat on feet and tail in the cave mouth, roasting meat from the ration box. The smoke bore a sharp aroma. He said to Kossara and her fellow humans: "It's not for an old zmay to tell you wise heads how to handle a clutch of xenos. I'm here as naught but my lady's servant and bodyguard. However, if you want to keep peace among the natives, why not bring some Ythrians to explain Ythri really has no aim of backing any rebellion-minded faction?"
Steve Johnson—no! Stefan Ivanovich. Why in the name of madness should she think of him as Steve Johnson?—replied out of the face she could not give a shape: "That'd have to be arranged officially. The resident can't on his own authority. He'd have to go through the sector governor. And I'm not sure if the sector governor wants Ythri—or Terra—to know how bad the situation is on Diomedes."
"Besides," added -?-, "the effects aren't predictable, except they'd be far-reaching. We do have a full-scale cultural crisis here. Among nonhumans, at that."
"Still," said a third man (woman? And was his/her nose really flat, eyes oblique, complexion tawny?) "whatever instincts and institutions they have, I think we can credit them—enough of them—with common sense. What we will need, however, is a least a partial solution to the Flock's difficulties. Otherwise, dashing their hopes of Ythrian help could drive them to... who knows what?" (If those features were not a mere trick of tattered memory, well, maybe this was a non-Dennitzan whom Uncle Bodin or his agents had engaged.)
"Yes," Kossara opined, "the trick will be to stay on top of events."
Was that the very night when the Imperial marines stormed them?
***
{Or another night? Trohdwyr shouted, "Let go of my lady!" In the gloom he snatched forth his knife. A stun pistol sent him staggering out onto the ledge, to collapse beneath the moons. After a minute, quite deliberately, the marine lieutenant gave him a low-powered blaster shot in the belly.
No surprise that Kossara didn't remember the fight which killed her companions. She knew only Trohdwyr, stirring awake again. His guts lay cooked below his ribs. After she tore loose from the grip upon her and fell to her knees beside him, she caught the smell. "Trohdwyr, dragan!" He coughed, could not speak, maybe could not know her through the pain that blinded him. She raised his head, hugged it close, felt the blunt spines press into her breasts. "Dwynafor, dwynafor, odhal tiv," she heard herself crazily croak.
A man dragged her away. "Come along." She turned on him, spitting, fingers rigid for a karate attack. Another man got a lock on her from behind. The first cuffed her till the world rocked. "All that fuss over a xeno," he complained, and booted Trohdwyr for a while. She couldn't tell whether the ychan felt the blows; but his body jerked like a dropped puppet.
{The office was cramped, its air stale. The commander of Intelligence said, "Nothing slow and easy for you, Vymezal. Treason's too urgent a matter; and traitors deserve no careful handling."
"I am not—"
"We'll soon find out. Take her away, O'Brien. I want her prepared for hypnoprobing."
{Downward whirl through shrieks, thunders, flashes, pain and pain, down toward emptiness, but oh, she cannot reach blessed cool nothing; eternity has her.
The Golden Face, the cinnabar eyes, an indigo plume above, a voice of mercy: "Rest, Kossara. Sleep. Forget." No more.
{She was still dazed, numb, when the drumhead court-martial condemned her to life enslavement.}
Flandry considered the papers in his hands. Her few dry words appeared to have turned him as impersonal, for he said in the same tone, expressionless, "Thank you. Not much left in your mind, is there? No explanation of your hatred for the Empire."
"What do you mean?" exploded from her. "After what I told!"
"Please," he said. "You're a bright, educated, reasonably objective person. Taking your memories as correct—which they may not be; you could be recalling pieces of delirium—you should be able to entertain the possibility that you and your friends had the bad luck to meet fools and brutes such as infest every outfit. You should consider using established procedures to have them identified, traced, penalized. Unless, of course, you're so set in your attitude that this business seems typical, mere confirmation of what you already knew."
He glanced up. "Have you been told exactly what's in this report on you? The Intelligence report, that is."
"No," she got forth.
"I didn't expect you would. It's secret. Let me give you a summary." His vision skimmed the sheets he flipped through as he recited:
"Overtly, you and your attendant Trohdwyr arrived at Thursday Landing for a duly approved xenological research project on behalf of your, um, Shkola, among the Diomedeans of the Sea of Achan area. The declared motivation was that Dennitzans have lately opened trade with a comparable species near home, and want an idea of what to expect from continued impact of high-technology civilization on them. Quite normal. The Imperial resident provided you the customary assistance. He and his household depose that you were a charming guest who gave them no hint of bad intentions. However, you were soon off for the field. They never saw you again.
"Meanwhile, Naval Intelligence was busy throughout that part of space. There was reason to suspect some kind of hostile operation, taking advantage of widespread disorganization caused by the war and not yet amended. Diomedes was certainly a trouble spot, secessionism steadily gaining strength in a principal society of the planet. Those revolutionaries seemed to hope for Ythrian support.
"But other, more reliable sources indicated Ythri had nothing to do with this. Then who were the humans known, from loyal native witnesses, to be active on Diomedes? If not Avalonians, working for the Domain they live in, who?
"With the help of informers, Intelligence agents tracked down a group of these subversives to a mountain hideout. Seeing what they took for a Merseian, they leaped to conclusions... not unjustified, it turned out. The gang resisted arrest and, except for you, perished in the fire fight. Blasters in an enclosed space like a cave—the marines were wearing combat armor and your companions were not. The fact that the suspects fought, under those circumstances, seems to prove they were as fanatical as your psychograph says you are.
"Hypnoprobed, you revealed you were the deputy of your uncle the Gospodar, come to check on the progress. His idea was that Dennitzans posing as Avalonians could incite an uprising on Diomedes. This by itself would draw Imperial attention there. The apparent likelihood of Ythri being behind it would decoy considerable of our armed strength, too. Then at the right moment—you quoted your uncle simply as speaking of a ‘lever' to use on the Imperium, for getting concessions. But you spilled your belief—and you ought to know—that, if events broke favorably, he'd seize the chance to rebel. Depending on circumstances, he'd either try for the throne, or carry out the same plan as the late Duke Alfred was nursing along, to rip a sizable region loose from the Empire and place it under Merseian protection.
"Which, of course"—Flandry lifted his gaze again—"would give the Roidhunate a bridgehead right in that frontier. Do you wonder that the treatment you got was rough?"
Kossara sprang from her chair. "How crazy do you think we are?" she yelled.
"We're bound for Diomedes to find out," he said.
"Why not straight to Dennitza like an honest man?"
"Others will, never fear. Detective work on an entire nation, or just on its leaders, takes personnel and patience. A singleton like me does best vis-a-vis a small operation, as I suppose the one on Diomedes necessarily is."
Flandry's eyes narrowed. "If you want your liberty back, my dear, rather than being resold when I decide you're not worth your keep, you will cooperate," he said. "Think of it not as betraying your folk, but as helping save them from disastrously wrong-headed adventurers.
"We have a libraryful of material on Diomedes aboard. Study it. Ponder it. Something may jog your memory; a lot that you've forgotten is probably not irretrievably lost. Or you should be able to make deductions—you're a smart girl—deductions about likely rendezvous points remaining, where we can snare more agents. Or, better yet, I'd guess: Diomedeans involved in the movement, never identified by our people, they should recognize you, if you show yourself in the proper ways. They should make contact and—do you see?"
"Yes!" she screamed. "And I won't!"
She fled.
The man sat quiet for a while before he said to the empty air, "Very well, if you wish, Chives will bring you your meals in your cabin."
VI
As Flandry conned the Hooligan, Diomedes grew huge in the screens before him. Too heavily clouded for oceans and continents to show as anything but blurs, the dayside glowed amber-orange, with tinges of rose and violet, under the light of a dull sun. The nighted part gave pale whiteness back to moons and stars, reflections off ice and snow. When Kossara last came here, equinox was not long past; now absolute winter lay upon fully half the planet
Flandry's attention was concentrated on piloting. Ordinarily he would have left that to the automatics, or to Chives if no ground-control facilities existed. But this time he must use both skill and the secret data he had commandeered back on Terra to elude the Imperial space sentries.
Most were small detector-computer units in orbit, such as supervised traffic around any world of the Empire which got any appreciable amount of it, guarding against smugglers, hostiles, recklessness, or equipment failures. Flandry had long since rigged his speedster to evade them without much effort, given foreknowledge of their paths. But surely the unrest on Diomedes, the suspicion of outside interference, had caused spacecraft to be added. Sneaking past these required an artist. He enjoyed it.
Just the same, somewhere at the back of awareness, memory rehearsed what he had learned about his goal. Pictures and passages of text flickered by:
"Among the bodies which men have named Diomedes—among all the planets we know—in many respects, this one is unique.
"Though not unusually old, the system is metal-poor. To explain that, Montoya suggested chemical fractionation of the original cloud of dust and gas by the electromagnetic action of a passing neutron star.... As a result, while Diomedes has a mass of 4.75 Terra, the low net density gives it a surface gravity of only 1.10 standard. However, so large an object was bound to generate an extensive atmosphere. Between gravitational potential resulting from a diameter twice Terran, and low temperature and irradiation resulting from the G8 sun, much gas was retained. Life has modified it. Today mean sea-level pressure is 6.2 bars; the partial pressures of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide are about the same as on Terra, the rest of the air consisting chiefly of neon....
"Through some cosmic accident, the spin axis of Diomedes, like that of Uranus in the Solar System, lies nearly in the orbital plane. The arctic and antarctic circles thus almost coincide with the equator. In the course of a year 11 percent longer than Terra's, practically the whole of each hemisphere will be sunless for a period ranging from weeks to months. Chill even in summer, land and sea become so frigid in winter that all but highly specialized life-forms must either hibernate or migrate....
"Progressive autochthonous cultures had brought Stone Age technology, the sole kind possible for them, to an astonishing sophistication. Once contacted by humans, they were eager to trade, originally for metals, subsequently for means to build modern industries of their own. Diomedes offers numerous organic substances, valuable for a variety of purposes, cheaper to buy from natives than to synthesize....
"The biochemistry producing these compounds is only terrestroid in the most general sense. It consists of proteins in water solution, carbohydrates, lipids, etc. But few are nourishing to humans and many are toxic. They permeate the environment. A man cannot survive a drink of water or repeated breaths of air, unless he has received thorough immunization beforehand. (Of course, that includes adaptation to the neon, which otherwise at this concentration would have ill effects too.) Short-term visitors prefer to rely on their basic antiallergen, helmets, protective clothing, and packaged rations.
"The Diomedean must be similarly careful about materials from offplanet. In particular, most metals are poisonous to him. That he can use copper and iron anyway, as safely as we use beryllium or plutonium, is a tribute to his intelligence. But the precautions by themselves have inevitably joined those factors which force radical change upon ancient customs. Some cultures have adjusted without extreme stress. Others continue to suffer upheaval. Injustice and alienation bring dissension and violence...."
Although, Flandry thought, if we Imperials packed up our toys and went home, everybody here would soon be a great deal worse off. There've been too many irreversible changes.
You can't even sit still in this universe and not make waves.
The sun was never down in summer; but Diomedes' 12 1/2 hour rotation spun it through a circle. At the point in space and time where Hooligan landed, sharply rising mountains to the south concealed the disc.
The saloon was warm and scented. Nevertheless, what he saw in the screen made Flandry grimace and give an exaggerated shiver. "Brrr! No wonder climes like this foster Spartan virtues. The inhabitants have to be in training before they can emigrate and dispossess whoever lives on desirable real estate."
"You can't appreciate, can you, here is home for the Lannachska that they only want to keep unruined," Kossara said.
Couldn't she recognize a joke? Maybe not. She'd held aloof since he interviewed her, studying as he urged but saying nothing about what meaning she drew from it.
What a waste, Flandry sighed. We could have had a gorgeous voyage, you and I.
His gaze lingered on her. A coverall did not hide the fullness of a tall and supple body. Blue-green eyes, mahogany locks, strongly sculptured countenance had begun to haunt his reveries, and in the last few nightwatches his dreams. Did she really speak in the exact husky contralto of Kathryn McCormac?...
She sensed his regard, flushed, and attacked: "We are on Lannach, are we not? I think I recall several of these peaks."
Flandry nodded and gave his attention back to the view. "Yes. Not far south of Sagna Bay." He hoped she'd admire how easily he'd found a particular site on the big island, nothing except maps and navigation to guide him down through the stormy atmosphere. But she registered unmixed anger. Well, I suppose I shouldn't object to that, seeing how carefully I fueled it.
Concealed by an overhanging cliff, the ship stood halfway up a mountain, with an overlook down rugged kilometers to a horizon-gleam which betokened sea. Clouds towered in amethyst heaven, washed by faint pink where lightning did not flicker in blue-black caverns. Crags, boulders, waterfalls reared above talus slopes and murky scraps. Thin grasslike growth, gray thornbushes, twisted low trees grew about; they became more abundant as sight descended toward misty valleys, until at last they made forest. Wings cruised on high, maybe upbearing brains that thought, maybe simple beasts of prey. Faint through the hull sounded a yowl of wind.
"Very well," Kossara said grimly. "I'll ask the question you want me to ask. Why are we here? Aren't you supposed to report in at Thursday Landing?"
"I exercised a special dispensation I have," Flandry said. "The Residency doesn't yet know we've come. In fact, unless my right hand has lost its cunning, nobody does."
At least I get a human startlement out of her. He liked seeing expressions cross her face, like clouds and sunbeams on a gusty spring day. "You see," he explained, "if subversive activities are going on, there's bound to be a spy or two around Imperial headquarters. News of your return would be just about impossible to suppress. And since you're in the custody of a Naval officer, it'd alarm the outfit we're after.
"Whereas, if you suddenly reappear by yourself, right in this hotspot, you'll surprise them. They won't have time to get suspicious, I trust. They'll make you welcome—"
"Why should they?" Kossara interrupted. "They'll wonder how I got back."
"Ah, no. Because they won't know you were ever gone."
She stared. Flandry explained: "Your companions died. If rebel observers learned that you lived, they learned nothing else. No matter how idiotically my colleagues behaved toward you, I'm sure they followed doctrine and let out no further information. You vanished into their building, and that was that. You were brought from there to the spaceship in a sealed vehicle, weren't you?... Yes, I knew it.... The Corpsmen had no reason to announce you'd been condemned and deported, therefore they did not.
"Accordingly, the rest of the gang—human if any are left on Diomedes, and most certainly a lot of natives—have no reason to suppose you haven't just been held incommunicado. In fact, that would be a much more logical thing to do than shipping you off to Terra for purchase by any blabbermouth."
She frowned, less in dislike of him than from being caught up, willy-nilly, by the intellectual problem which his planned deception presented. "But wasn't it a special team that caught and, and processed me? They may well have left the planet by now."
"If so, you can say they gave you in charge of the Intelligence agents stationed here semi-permanently. In fact, that's the safest thing for you to maintain in any event, and quite plausible. We'll work out a detailed story for you. I have an outline already, subject to your criticism. You wheedled a measure of freedom for yourself. That's plausible too, if you don't mind pretending you became the mistress of a bored, lonely commander. At last you managed to steal an aircar. I can supply that; we have two in the hold, one a standard civilian convertible we can set for Diomedean conditions. You fled back here, having enough memories left to know this is where your chances are best of being found by your organization."
She tensed again, and stretched the words out: "What will you do meanwhile?"
Flandry shrugged. "Not having had your preventive-medical treatment, I'm limited in my scope. Let's consult. Tentatively, I've considered making an appearance in a persona I've used before, a harmlessly mad Cosmenosist missionary prospecting for customers on yet another globe. However, I may do best to stay put aboard ship, following your adventures till the time looks ripe for whatever sort of action seems indicated."
Her starkness deepened. "How will you keep track of me?"
From his pocket Flandry took a ring. On its gold band sparkled what resembled a sapphire. "Wear this. If anybody asks, say you got it from your jailer-lover. It's actually a portable transmitter, same as your bracelet was on Terra but with its own power source."
"That little bit of a thing?" She sounded incredulous. "Needing no electronic network around? Reaching beyond line-of-sight? And not detectable by those I spy on?"
Flandry nodded. "It has all those admirable qualities."
"I can't believe that."
"I'm not at liberty to describe the principle. Anyway, nobody ever told me. I've indulged in idle speculations about modulated neutrino emission, but they're doubtless wildly wrong. What I do know is that the thing works." Flandry paused. "Kossara, I'm sorry, but under any circumstances... before I can release you, before I can even land you again on a prime world like Terra, you'll have to have wiped from your memory the fact that such gadgets exist. The job will be painless and very carefully done."
He held out the ring. She half reached for it, withdrew her hand, flickered her glance about till it came to rest on his, and asked most softly: "Why do you think I'll help you?"
"To earn your liberty," he answered. Each sentence wrenched at him. "Defect, and you're outlaw. What chance would you have of getting home? The orbital watch, the surface hunt would be doubled. If you weren't caught, you'd starve to death after you used up your human-type food.
"And consider Dennitza. Your kin, your friends, small children in the millions, the past and present and future of your whole world. Should they be set at stake, in an era of planet-smasher weapons, for a political point at best, the vainglory of a few aristocrats at worst? You know better, Kossara."
She stood still for a long while before she took the ring from him and put it on her bridal finger.
"Given the support of a dense atmosphere," said a text, "the evolution of large flying organisms was profuse. At last a particular species became fully intelligent.
"Typical of higher animals on Diomedes, it was migratory. Homeothermic, bisexual, viviparous, it originally followed the same reproductive pattern as its less developed cousins, and in most cultures still does. In fall a flock moves to the tropics, where it spends the winter. The exertion during so long a flight causes hormonal changes which stimulate the gonads. Upon arrival, there is an orgy of mating. In spring the flock returns home. Females give birth shortly before the next migration, and infants are carried by their parents. Mothers lactate like Terran mammals, and while they do, will not get pregnant. In their second year the young can fly independently, they have been weaned, their mothers are again ready to breed.
"This round formed the basis of a civilization centered on the islands around the Sea of Achan. The natives built towns, which they left every fall and reentered every spring. Here they carried on sedentary occupations, stoneworking, ceramics, carpentry, a limited amount of agriculture. The real foundation of their economy was, however, herding and hunting. Except for necessary spurts of activity, in their homelands they were an easygoing folk, indolent, artistic, ceremonious, matrilineal—since paternity was never certain—and loosely organized into what they called the Great Flock of Lannach.
"But elsewhere a different practice developed. Dwelling on large oceangoing rafts, fishers and seaweed harvesters, the Fleet of Drak'ho ceased migrating. Oars, sails, nets, windlasses, construction and maintenance work kept the body constantly exercised; year-round sexuality, season-free reproduction, was a direct consequence. Patriarchal monogamy ensued. The distances traveled annually were much less than for the Flock, and home was always nearby. It was possible to accumulate heavy paraphernalia, stores, machines, books. While civilization thus became more wealthy and complex than anywhere ashore, the old democratic organization gave way to authoritarian aristocracy.
"Histories roughly parallel to these have taken place elsewhere on the globe. But Lannach and Drak'ho remain the most advanced, populous, materially well-off representatives of these two strongly contrasted life-orderings. When they first made contact, they regarded each other with mutual horror. A measure of tolerance and cooperation evolved, encouraged by offplanet traders who naturally preferred peaceful conditions. Yet rivalry persisted, sporadically flaring into war, and of late has gained new dimensions.
"At the heart of the dilemma is this: that Lannachska culture cannot assimilate high-energy technology, in any important measure, and survive.
"The Drak'ho people have their difficulties, but no impossible choices. Few of them today are sailors. However, fixed abodes ashore are not altogether different from houses on rafts aforetime. Regular hours of work are a tradition, labor is still considered honorable, mechanical skills and a generally technophilic attitude are in the social atmosphere which members inhale from birth. Though machinery has lifted off most Drak'hoans the toil that once gave them a humanlike libido, they maintain it by systematic exercise (or, in increasingly many cases, by drugs), since the nuclear family continues to be the building block of their civilization.
"As producers, merchants, engineers, industrialists, even occasional spacefarers, they flourish, and are on the whole well content.
"But the cosmos of Lannach is crumbling. Either the Great Flock must remain primitive, poor, powerless, prey to storm and famine, pirates and pestilence, or it must modernize—with all that that implies, including earning the cost of the capital goods required. How shall a folk do this who spend half their lives migrating, mating, or living off nature's summertime bounty? Yet not only is their whole polity founded upon that immemorial cycle. Religion, morality, tradition, identity itself are. Imagine a group of humans, long resident in an unchanged part of Terra, devout churchgoers, for whom the price of progress was that they destroy every relic of the past, embrace atheism, and become homosexuals who reproduce by ectogenesis. For many if not all Lannachska, the situation is nearly that extreme.
"In endless variations around the planet, the same dream is being played. But precisely because the Great Flock has changed more than other nations of its kind, it feels the hurt most keenly, is most divided against itself and embittered at the outside universe.
"No wonder if revolutionary solutions are sought. Economic, social, spiritual secession, a return to the ways of the ancestors; shouts of protest against ‘discrimination,' demands for ‘justice,' help, subsidy, special consideration of every kind; political secession, no more taxes to the planetary peace authority or the Imperium; seizure of power over the whole sphere, establishment of a sovereign autarchy—these are among the less unreasonable ideas afloat.
"There is also Alatanism. The Ythrians, not terribly far away as interstellar distances go, have wings. They should sympathize with their fellow flyers on Diomedes more than any biped ever can. They have their Domain, free alike of Empire and Roidhunate, equally foreign to both. Might it not, are its duty and destiny not to welcome Diomedes in?
"The fact that few Ythrian leaders have even heard of Diomedes, and none show the least interest in crusading, is ignored. Mystiques seldom respond to facts. They are instruments which can be played on...."
Twice had the sun come from the mountains and returned behind them.
"Goodbye, then," Kossara said.
Flandry could find no better words than "Goodbye. Good luck," hoarse out of the grip upon his gullet.
She regarded him for a moment, in the entryroom where they stood. "I do believe you mean that," she whispered.
Abruptly she kissed him, a brief brush of lips which exploded in his heart. She drew back before he could respond. During another instant she poised, upon her face a look of bewilderment at her own action.
Turning, she twisted the handle on the inner airlock valve. He took a following step. "No," she said. "You can't live out there, remember?" Her body prepared before she left Dennitza, she closed the portal on him. He stopped where he was. Pumps chugged until gauges told him the chamber beyond was now full of Diomedean air.
The outer valve opened. He bent over a viewscreen. Kossara's tiny image stepped forth onto the mountainside. A car awaited her. She bounded into it and shut its door. A minute later, it rose.
Flandry sought the control cabin, where were the terminals of his most powerful and sensitive devices. The car had vanished above clouds. "Pip-ho, Chives," he said tonelessly. A hatch swung wide. His Number Two atmospheric vehicle glided from the hold. It looked little different from the first, its engine, weapons, and special equipment being concealed in the teardrop fuselage. It disappeared more slowly, for the Shalmuan pilot wanted to stay unseen by the woman whom he stalked. But at last Flandry sat alone.
She promised she'd help me. What an inexperienced liar she is.
He felt no surprise when, after a few minutes, Chives' voice jumped at him: "Sir! She is descending.... She has landed in the forest beside a river. I am observing through a haze by means of an infrared 'scope. Do you wish a relay?"
"Not from that," Flandry said. Too small, too blurry. "From her bracelet."
A screen blossomed in leaves and hasty brown water. Her right hand entered. Off the left, which he could not see, she plucked the ring, which he glimpsed before she tossed it into the stream.
"She is running for cover beneath the trees, sir," Chives reported.
Of course, replied the emptiness in Flandry. She thinks that, via the ring, I've seen what she's just done, in the teeth of every pledge she gave me. She thinks that now, if she moves fast, she can vanish into the woods—make her own way afoot, find her people and not betray them, or else die striving.
Whereas in fact the ring was only intended to lull any fears of surveillance she might have after getting rid of it—only a circlet on her bridal finger—and Chives has a radio resonator along to activate her bracelet—the slave bracelet I told her would be blind and deaf outside of Terra.
"I do not recommend that I remain airborne, sir," Chives said. "Allow me to suggest that, as soon as the young lady has passed beyond observing me, I land likewise and follow her on the ground. I will leave a low-powered beacon to mark this site. You can flit here by gravbelt and retrieve the vehicles, sir. Permit me to remind you to wear proper protection against the unsalubrious ambience."
"Same to you, old egg, and put knobs on yours." Flandry's utterance shifted from dull to hard. "I'll repeat your orders. Trail her, and call in to the recorder cum relay 'caster I'll leave here, in whatever way and at whatever times seem discreet. But ‘discretion' is your key word. If she appears to be in danger, getting her out of it—whether by bringing me in to help or by taking action yourself—that gets absolute priority. Understand?"
"Yes, sir." Did the high, not quite human accent bear a hint of shared pain? "Despite regrettable tactical necessities, Donna Vymezal must never be considered a mere counter in a game." That's for personnel and planets, the anonymous billions—and, savingly, for you and me, eh, Chives? "Will you proceed to the Technic settlement when your preparations are complete?"
"Yes," Flandry said. "Soon. I may as well."
VII
Where the equator crossed the eastern shoreline of a continent men called Centralia, Thursday Landing was founded. Though fertile by Diomedean standards, the country had few permanent residents. Rather, migration brought tides of travelers, northward and southward alternately, to their ancestral breeding grounds. At first, once the sharpest edge was off their sexual appetites, they had been glad to hunt and harvest those things the newcomers wanted from the wilderness, in exchange for portable trade goods. Later this business grew more systematized and extensive, especially after a large contingent of Drak'ho moved to these parts. Descending, Flandry saw a fair-sized town.
Most was man-built, blocky interconnected ferrocrete structures to preserve a human-suitable environment from monstrous rains and slow but ponderous winds. He glimpsed a park, vivid green beneath a vitryl dome, brightened by lamps that imitated Sol. Farther out, widely spaced in cultivated fields, stood native houses: tall and narrow, multiply balconied, graceful of line and hue, meant less to resist weather than to accept it, yielding enough to remain whole. Watercraft, ranging from boats to floating communities, crowded the harbor as wings did the sky.
Yet Flandry felt bleakness, as if the cold outside had reached in to enfold him. Beyond the fluorescents, half the world he saw was land, hills, meadows, dwarfish woods, dim in purple and black twilight, and half was bloodily glimmering ocean. For the sun stood barely above the northern horizon, amidst sulfur-colored clouds. At this place and season there was never true day or honest night.
Are you getting terracentric in your dotage? he gibed at himself. Here's a perfectly amiable place for beings who belong in it.
His mood would not go away. Nevertheless it does feel unreal somehow, a scene from a bad dream. The whole mission has been like that. Everything shadowy, tangled, unstable, nothing what it seems to be... nor anybody who doesn't carry secrets within secrets....
Myself included. He straightened in the pilot chair. Well, that's what I'm paid for. I suppose these blue devils of mine come mainly from guilt about Kossara, fear of what may happen to her. O God Who is also unreal, a mask we put on emptiness, be gentle to her. She has been hurt so much.
Ground Control addressed him, in Anglic though not from a human mouth. He responded, and set Hooligan down on the spacefield as directed. The prospect of action heartened him. Since I can't trust the Almighty not to soldier on the job, let me start my share now.
He had slipped back into space from Lannach, then returned openly. The sentinel robots detected him, and an officer in a warship demanded identification before granting clearance, at a distance from the planet which showed a thoroughness seldom encountered around fifth-rate outpost worlds. No doubt alarm about prospective rebellion and infiltration had caused security to be tightened. Without the orbital information he possessed, not even a vessel as begimmicked as his could have neared Diomedes unbeknownst.
The image of the portmaster appeared in a comscreen. "Welcome, sir," he said. "Am I correct that you are alone? The Imperial resident has been notified of your coming and invites you to be his house guest during your stay. If you will tell me where your accommodation lock is—frankly, I have never seen a model quite like yours—a car will be there for you in a few minutes."
He was an autochthon, a handsome creature by any standards. The size of a short man, he stood on backward-bending, talon-footed legs. Brown-furred, the slim body ran out in a broad tail which ended in a fleshy rudder; at its middle, arms and hands were curiously anthropoid; above a massive chest, a long neck bore a round head—high, ridged brow, golden eyes with nictitating membranes, blunt-nosed black-muzzled face with fangs and whiskers suggestive of a cat, no external ears but a crest of muscle on top of the skull. From his upper shoulders grew the bat wings, their six-meter span now folded. He wore a belt to support a pouch, a brassard of authority, and, yes, a crucifix.
I'd better stay in character from the beginning. "Many thanks, my dear chap," Flandry replied in his most affected manner. "I say, could you tell the chauffeur to come aboard and fetch my bags? Deuced lot of duffel on these extended trips, don't y' know." He saw the crest rise and a ripple pass along the fur, perhaps from irritation at his rudeness in not asking the portmaster's name.
The driver obeyed, though. He was a husky young civilian who bowed at sight of Flandry's gaudy version of dress uniform. "Captain Ahab Whaling?"
"Right." Flandry often ransacked ancient books. He had documentation aboard for several different aliases. Why risk alerting someone? The more everybody underestimated him, the better. Since he wanted to pump this fellow, he added, "Ah, you are—?"
"Diego Rostovsky, sir, handyman to Distinguished Citizen Lagard. You mentioned baggage?... Jumping comets, that much?... Well, they'll have room at the Residency."
"Nobody else staying there, what?"
"Not at the moment. We had a bunch for some while, till about a month ago. But I daresay you know that already, seeing as how you're Intelligence yourself." Rostovsky's glance at the eye insigne on Flandry's breast indicated doubt about the metaphorical truth of it.
However, curiosity kept him friendly. When airlocks had decoupled and the groundcar was moving along the road to town, he explained: "We don't fly unnecessarily. This atmosphere plays too many tricks.... Uh, they'll be glad to meet you at the Residency. Those officers I mentioned were too busy to be very good company, except for—" He broke off. "Um. And, since they left, the isolation and tension... My master and his staff have plenty to keep them occupied, but Donna Lagard always sees the same people, servants, guards, commercial personnel and their families. She's Terran-reared. She'll be happy for news and gossip."
And you judge me the type to furnish them, Flandry knew. Excellent. His gaze drifted through the canopy, out over somber fields and tenebrous heaven. But who was that exception whom you are obviously under orders not to mention?
"Yes, I imagine things are a bit strained," he said. "Though really, you need have no personal fears, need you? I mean, after all, if some of the tribes revolted, an infernal nuisance, 'speci'lly for trade, but surely Thursday Landing can hold out against primitives."
"They aren't exactly that," was the answer. "They have industrial capabilities, and they do business directly with societies still further developed. We've good reason to believe a great many weapons are stashed around, tactical nukes among them. Oh, doubtless we could fend off an attack and stand siege. The garrison and defenses have been augmented. But trade would go completely to pieces—it wouldn't take many rebels to interdict traffic—which'd hurt the economy of more planets than Diomedes.... And then, if outsiders really have been the, uh, the—"
"Agents provocateurs," Flandry supplied. "Or instigators, if y' prefer. Either way; I don't mind."
Rostovsky scowled. "Well, what might their bosses do?"
Martin Lagard was a small prim man in a large prim office. When he spoke, in Anglic still tinged by his Atheian childhood, both his goatee and the tip of his nose waggled. His tunic was of rich material but unfashionable cut, and he had done nothing about partial baldness.
Blinking across his desk at Flandry, who lounged behind a cigarette, the Imperial resident said in a scratchy voice, "Well, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Whaling, but frankly puzzled as to what may be the nature of your assignment. No courier brought me any advance word." He sounded hurt.
I'd better soothe him. Flandry had met his kind by the scores, career administrators, conscientious but rule-bound and inclined to self-importance. Innovators, or philosophers like Chunderban Desai, were rare in that service, distrusted by their fellows, destined either for greatness or for ruin. Lagard had advanced methodically, by the book, toward an eventual pension.
He was uncreative but not stupid, a vital cog of empire. How could a planetful of diverse nonhumans be closely governed by Terra, and why should it be? Lagard was here to assist Imperials in their businesses and their problems; to oversee continuous collection of information about this world and put it in proper form to feed the insatiable data banks at Home; to collect from the natives a modest tribute which paid for their share of the Pax; to give their leaders advice as occasion warranted, and not use his marines to see that they followed it unless he absolutely must; to speak on their behalf to those officials of the Crown with whom he dealt; to cope.
He had not done badly. It was not his fault that demons haunted the planet which were beyond his capability of exorcising, and might yet take possession of it.
"No, sir, they wouldn't give notice. Seldom do. Abominably poor manners, but that's policy for you, what?" Flandry nodded at his credentials, where they lay on the desk. "'Fraid I can't be too explicit either. Let's say I'm on a special tour of inspection."
Lagard gave him a close look. Flandry could guess the resident's thought: Was this drawling clothes horse really an Intelligence officer at work, or a pet relative put through a few motions to justify making an admiral of him? "I will cooperate as far as possible, Captain."
"Thanks. Knew y' would. See here, d'you mind if I bore you for a few ticks? Mean to say, I'd like to diagram the situation as I see it. You correct me where I'm wrong, fill in any gaps, that kind of thing, eh? You know how hard it is to get any proper overview of matters. And then, distances between stars, news stale before it arrives, n'est-ce pas?"
"Proceed," Lagard said resignedly.
Flandry discarded his cigarette, crossed legs and bridged fingers. No grav generator softened the pull of Diomedes.
He let his added weight flow into the chair's crannies of softness, as if already wearied. (In actuality he did his calisthenics under two gees or more, because thus he shortened the dreary daily time he needed for keeping fit.) "Troublemakers afoot," he said. "Distinct possibility of hostiles taking advantage of the disorganization left by the recent unpleasantness—whether those hostiles be Merseian, Ythrian, barbarian, Imperials who want to break away or even overthrow his Majesty—right? You got hints, various of those troublemakers were active here, fanning flames of discontent and all that sort of nonsense, How'd they get past your security?"
"Not my security, Captain," Lagard corrected. "I've barely had this post five years. I found the sentinel system in wretched condition—expectable, after the Empire's woes—and did my best to effect repairs. I also found our civil strife was doing much to heighten resentment, particularly in the Great Flock of Lannach. It disrupted offplanet commerce, you see. The migrant societies have become more dependent on that than the sedentary ones like Drak'ho which have industry to produce most of what they consume. But please realize, a new man on a strange world needs time to learn its ins and outs, and develop workable programs."
"Oh, quite." Flandry nodded. "At first you'd see no reason to screen visitors from space. Rather, you'd welcome 'em. They might help restore trade, what? Very natural. No discredit to you. At last, however, clues started trickling in. Not every transient was spending his stay in the outback so benignly. Right?
"You asked my Corps to investigate. That likewise takes time. We too can't come cold onto a planet and hope for instant results, y' know. Ah, according to my briefing, it was sector HQ you approached. Terra just got your regular reports."
"Of course," Lagard said. "Going through there would have meant a delay of months."
"Right, right. No criticism intended, sir," Flandry assured him. "Still, we do like to keep tabs at Home. That's what I'm here for, to find out what was done, in more detail than the official report"—which was almighty sketchy—"could render. Or, you could say, my superiors want a feel of how the operation went."
Lagard gave the least shrug.
"Well, then," Flandry proceeded. "The report does say a Commander Bruno Maspes brought an Intelligence team, set up shop in Thursday Landing, and got busy interrogating, collating data, sending people out into the field—the usual intensive job. They worked how long?"
"About six months."
"Did you see much of them?"
"No. They were always occupied, often all away from here at once, sometimes away from the whole system. Personnel of theirs came and went. Even those who were my guests—" Lagard stopped. "You'll forgive me, Captain, but I'm under security myself. My entire household is. We've been forbidden to reveal certain items. This clearance of yours does not give you power to override that."
Ah-ha. It tingled in Flandry's veins. His muscles stayed relaxed. "Yes, yes. Perfectly proper. You and yours were bound to spot details—f'r instance, a xenosophont with odd talents—" Look at his face! Again, ah-ha.—"which ought not be babbled about. Never fret, I shan't pry.
"In essence, the team discovered it wasn't humans of Ythrian allegiance who were inciting to rebellion and giving technical advice about same. It was humans from Dennitza."
"So I was told," Lagard said.
"Ah... during this period, didn't you entertain a Dennitzan scientist?"
"Yes. She and her companion soon left for the Sea of Achan, against my warnings. Later I was informed that they turned out to be subversives themselves." Lagard sighed. "Pity. She was a delightful person, in her intense fashion."
"Any idea what became of her?"
"She was captured. I assume she's still detained."
"Here?"
"Seems unlikely. Maspes and his team left weeks ago. Why leave her behind?"
What would I have done if they were around yet? Flandry wondered fleetingly. Played that hand in style, I trust. "They might have decided that was the easiest way to keep the affair under wraps for a bit," he suggested.
"The Intelligence personnel now on Diomedes are simply those few who've been stationed among us for years. I think I'd know if they were hiding anything from me. You're free to talk to them, Captain, but better not expect much."
"Hm." Flandry stroked his mustache. "I s'pose, then, Maspes felt he'd cleaned out the traitors?"
"He said he had a new, more urgent task elsewhere. Doubtless a majority of agents escaped his net, and native sympathizers may well keep any humans among them fed. But, he claimed, if we monitor space traffic carefully, they shouldn't rouse more unrest than we can handle. I hope he was right."
"You're trying to defuse local conflicts, eh?"
"What else?" Lagard sounded impatient. "My staff and I, in consultation with loyal Diomedeans, are hard at work. A fair shake for the migrants is not impossible to achieve, if the damned extremists will let us alone. I'm afraid I'll be a poor host, Captain. Day after tomorrow—Terran, that is—I'm off for Lannach, to lay certain proposals before the Commander of the Great Flock and his councillors. They feel a telescreen is too impersonal."
Flandry smiled. "Don't apologize, sir. I'll be quite happy. And, I suspect, only on this planet a few days anyhow, before bouncing on to the next. You and Maspes seem offhand to've put on a jolly good show."
Gratified, visions of bonuses presumably dancing through his head, the resident beamed at him. "Thank you. I'll introduce you around tomorrow, and you can question or look through the files as you wish, within the limits of security I mentioned. But first I'm sure you'd like to rest. A servant will show you to your room. We'll have apéritifs in half an hour. My wife is eager to meet you."
VIII
At dinner Flandry laid on the wit and sophistication he had preprogrammed, until over the liqueurs Susette Kalehua Lagard sighed, "Oh, my, Captain Whaling, how marvelous you're here! Nobody like you has visited us for ages—they've all been provincials, or if not, they've been so ghastly serious, no sensitivity in them either, except a single one and he wasn't human—Oh!" Her husband had frowned and nudged her. She raised fingers to lips. "No, that was naughty of me. Please forget I said it."
Flandry bowed in his chair. "Impractical, I fear, Donna. How could I forget anything spoken by you? But I'll set the words aside in my mind and enjoy remembering the music." Meanwhile alertness went electric through him. This warm, well-furnished, softly lighted room, where a recorded violin sang and from which a butler had just removed the dishes of an admirable rubyfruit soufflé, was a very frail bubble to huddle in. He rolled curaçao across his tongue and reached for a cigarette.
She fluttered her lashes. "You're a darling." She had had a good bit to drink. "Isn't he, Martin? Must you really leave us in less than a week?"
Flandry shrugged. "Looks as if Distinguished Citizen Lagard hasn't left me much excuse to linger, alas."
"Maybe we can find something. I mean, you can exercise judgment in your mission, can't you? They wouldn't send a man like you out and keep a leash on him."
"We'll see, Donna." He gave a look of precisely gauged meaningfulness. She returned it in kind. The wine had not affected her control in that respect.
His inner excitement became half sardonicism, half a moderately interested anticipation. She was attractive in a buxom fashion, to which her low-cut shimmerlyn gown lent an emphasis that would have raised brows at today's Imperial court—the court she had never seen. Jewels glinted in black hair piled about a round brown countenance. Vivacity had increased in her throughout the meal, till her conversation sounded less platitudinous than it was.
Flandry knew her as he knew her husband, from uncounted encounters: the spouse of an official posted to a distant world of nonhumans. Occasionally such a pair made a team. But oftener the member who did not have the assignment was left to the dismal mercies of a tiny Imperial community, the same homes, bodies, words, games, petty intrigues and catfights for year after year. He or she might develop an interest in the natives, get into adventures and fascinations, even contribute a xenological study or a literary translation. Lady Susette lacked the gift for that. Since she had had no children when she arrived, there would be none for the rest of Lagard's ten-year hitch. The immunizations which let her walk freely outdoors on Diomedes were too deep-going for her organism to accept an embryo, and it would be too dangerous to have them reversed before she departed. What then was Susette Kalehua Lagard, daughter of prosperous and socially prominent Terrans, to do while she waited?
She could terminate the marriage. But a man who had gotten resident's rank was a fine catch. He could expect a subsequent commissionership on a prime human-colonized planet like Hermes, where plenty of glamour was available; in due course, he should become a functionary of some small importance on Terra itself, and perhaps receive a minor patent of nobility. She must feel this was worth her patience. Her eyes told Flandry she did have a hobby.
"Well, if our time's to be short, let's make it sweet," she said. "May I—we call you Ahab? We're Susette and Martin."
"I'm honored." Flandry raised his glass in salute. "And refreshed. Folk on Terra have gotten stiffish these past few years, don't y' know. Example set by his Majesty and the inner circle."
"Indeed?" Lagard asked. "Nuances don't reach us here. I'd have thought—with due reverence—the present Emperor would be quite informal."
"Not in public," Flandry said. "Career Navy man of Germanian background, after all. I see us generally heading into a puritanical period." Which, if Desai is right, is not the end of decadence, but rather its next stage. "Luckily, we've plenty of nooks and crannies for carrying on in the grand old tradition. In fact, disapproval lends spice, what? I remember a while ago—"
His risqué reminiscence had happened to somebody else and the event had lacked several flourishes he supplied. He never let such nigglements hinder a story. It fetched a sour smile from Lagard but laughter and a blush down to the décolletage from Susette.
The staff, assistants, clerks, technical chiefs, Navy and marine personnel, were harried but cooperative, except when Flandry heard: "Sorry, sir. I'm not allowed to discuss that. If you want information, please apply at Sector HQ. I'm sure they'll oblige you there."
Yes, they'll oblige me with the same skeleton account that Terra got. I could make a pest of myself, but I doubt if the secret files have ever contained any mention of what I'm really after. I could check on the whereabouts of Commander Maspes & Co., and make a long trip to find them—no, him, for probably the team's dispersed... ah, more probably yet, the files will show orders cut for them similar to those in Captain Whaling's papers, and the men have vanished... maybe to bob up again eventually, maybe never, depending on circumstances.
More deceptions, more phantoms.
He sauntered into the civilian part of town and was quickly on genial terms with factors and employees. Most of them found their work stimulating—they liked the Diomedeans—but were starved for new human contact. And none were under security. The trouble was, there had been no need for it. They knew a special Intelligence force came to search out the roots of the unrest which plagued them in their business. They totally approved, and did not resent not being invited to meet the investigators save for interviews about what they themselves might know. None had seen the entire team together; when not in the field, it kept apart, officers in the Residency, enlisted men in a separate barrack. Yes, rumor said it included a xeno or two. What of that?
Otherwise the community had only heard Lagard's brief announcement after the group was gone. ".... am not at liberty to say more than that human traitors have been trying to foment a rebellion among the Lannachska. Fortunately, the vast majority of the Great Flock stayed loyal and sensible. And now the key agents have been killed or captured. A few may still be at large, and information you may come upon concerning these should be reported immediately. But I don't expect they can do serious harm any longer, and I intend to proceed, with your cooperation, to remove the causes of discontent...."
The next Diomedean day, Flandry donned a heated coverall and a dome helmet with an air recycler, passed through pressure change in a lock, and circulated among natives in their part of town. Most knew Anglic and were willing to talk; but none had further news. He wasn't surprised.
Finding a public phone booth, he took the opportunity to call Chives when nobody who chanced to observe him was likely to wonder what a solitary operative was doing there. He used a standard channel but a language he was sure had never been heard on this world. The nearest comsat bucked his words across the ocean to Lannach where, he having paid for the service, they were broadcast rather than beamed. The relay unit he had left under the cliff made contact with the Shalmuan's portable.
"Yes, sir, at present the young lady is eating rations taken from her car before she abandoned it. They should last her as far as the sea, for she is setting a hard pace despite the overgrowth and rugged topography. I must confess I have difficulty following, since I consider it inadvisable to go aloft on my gravbelt. I feel a certain concern for her safety. A fall down a declivity or a sudden tempest could have adverse effects, and she does not let caution delay her."
"I think she can manage," Flandry said. "In any event, you can rescue her. What worries me is what may happen after she gets where she's going. Another twenty-four hours, did you estimate? I'd better try to act fast myself, here."
Susette didn't wish to lose time either. Three hours after she and Flandry had seen Lagard off, she was snuggled against him whispering how wonderful he had been.
"You're no slouch on the couch yourself, m'love," he said, quite honestly. "More, I hope?"
"Yes. As soon and often as you want. And do please want."
"Well, how about a breather first, and getting acquainted? A girl who keeps a bedside beer cooler is a girl whose sound mind I want to know as well as her delectable body." Warm and wudgy, she caressed him while he leaned over to get bottles for them, and stayed in the circle of his free arm when they leaned back against the pillows.
Too bad this can't be a simple romp for me, he thought. It deserves that. And by the way, so do I. Kossara was making chastity come hard.
He savored the chill brisk flavor while his glance roved about. The resident's lady had a private suite where, she hinted, the resident was an infrequent caller. This room of it was plushly carpeted, draped, furnished, in rose and white. An incense stick joined its fragrance to her own. A dressing table stood crowded with perfumes and cosmetics. Her garments sheened above his, hastily tossed over a chair. In that richness, her souvenirs of Home—pictures, bric-a-brac, a stuffed toy such as she would have given to a child—seemed as oddly pathetic as the view in the window was grim. Hail dashed against vitryl, thicker and harder than ever fell on Terra, picked out athwart blue-black lightning-jumping violence by an ember sunbeam which stabbed through a rent in the clouds. Past every insulation and heaviness came a ghost of the wind's clamor.
Kossara... Yes, Chives is right to fret about her while she struggles through yonder wildwood.
Susette stroked his cheek. "Why do you look sad all of a sudden?" she asked.
"Eh?" He started. "How ridiculous. ‘Pensive' is the word, my imp. Well, perhaps a drop of melancholy, recalling how I'll have to leave you and doubtless never see you again."
She nodded. "Me too. Though are you sure we won't—we can't?"
If I keep any control over events, yes, absolutely! Not that you aren't likable; but frankly, in public you're a bore. And what if Kossara found out?
Why should I care?
Well, she might accept my sporting as such. I get the impression hers is a double-standard society. But I don't believe she'd forgive my cuckolding a man whose salt I've eaten. To plead I was far from unique would get me nowhere. To plead military necessity wouldn't help either; I think she could see (those wave-colored eyes) that I'd have performed the same service free and enjoyed every microsecond.
Hm. The problem is not how to keep a peccadillo decently veiled in hypocrisy. The problem is what to do about the fact that I care whether or not Kossara Vymezal despises me.
"Can't we?" Susette persisted. "The Empire's big, but people get around in it."
Flandry pulled his attention back to the task on hand. He hugged her, smiled into her troubled gaze, and said, "Your idea flatters me beyond reason. I'd s'posed I was a mere escapade."
She flushed. "I supposed the same. But—well—" Defiantly: "I have others. I guess I always will, till I'm too old. Martin must suspect, and not care an awful lot. He's nice to me in a kind of absent-minded way, but he's overworked, and not young, and—you know what I mean. Diego, Diego Rostovsky, he's been the best. Except I know him inside out by now, what there is to know. You come in like a fresh breeze—straight from Home!—and you can talk about things, and make me laugh and feel good, and—" She leaned hard on him. Her own spare hand wandered. "I'd never have thought... you knew right away what I'd like most. Are you a telepath?"
No, just experienced and imaginative. Aycharaych is the telepath. "Thank you for your commendation," Flandry said, and clinked his bottle on hers.
"Then won't you stay a while extra, Ahab, and return afterward?"
"I must go whither the vagaries of war and politics require, amorita. And believe me, they can be confoundedly vague." Flandry took a long drink to gain a minute for assembling his next words. "F'r instance, the secrecy Commander Maspes laid on you forces me to dash on to Sector HQ as soon's I've given Diomedes a fairly clean bill of health—which I've about completed. My task demands certain data, you see. Poor communications again. Maspes tucked you under a blanket prohibition because he'd no way of knowing I'd come here, and I didn't get a clearance to lift it because nobody back Home knew he'd been that ultracautious." If I produced the Imperial writ I do have, that might give too much away.
Susette's palm stopped on his breast. "Why, your heart's going like a hammer," she said.
"You do that to a chap," he answered, put down his bottle and gathered her to him for an elaborate kiss.
Breathlessly, she asked, "You mean if you had the information you wouldn't be in such a hurry? You could stay longer?"
"I should jolly well hope so," he said, running fingers through her hair. "But what's the use?" He grinned. "Never mind. In your presence, I am not prone to talk shop."
"No, wait." She fended him off, a push which was a caress. "What do you need to know, Ahab?"
"Why—" He measured out his hesitation. "Something you're not allowed to tell me."
"But they'd tell you at HQ."
"Oh, yes. This is a miserable technicality."
"All right," Susette said fast "What is it?"
"You might—" Flandry donned enthusiasm. "Darling! You wouldn't get in trouble, I swear. No, you'd be expediting the business of the Empire."
She shook her head and giggled. "Uh-uh. Remember, you've got to spend the time you gain here. Promise?"
"On my honor" as a double agent.
She leaned back again, her beer set aside, hands clasped behind her neck, enjoying her submission. "Ask me anything."
Flandry faced her, arms wrapped around drawn-up knees. "Mainly, who was with Maspes? Nonhumans especi'lly. I'd better not spell out the reason. But consider. No mind can conceive, let alone remember, the planets and races we've discovered in this tiny offside corner of the solitary galaxy we've explored a little bit. Infiltration, espionage—such things have happened before."
She stared. "Wouldn't they check a memory bank?"
Memory banks can have lies put into them, whenever we get a government many of whose officials can be bought, and later during the confusion of disputed succession, civil war, and sweeping purges. Those lies can then wait, never called on and therefore never suspected, till somebody has need for one of them. "Let's say no system is perfect, 'cept yours for lovemaking. Terra itself doesn't have a complete, fully updated file. Regional bitkeepers don't try; and checking back with Terra seldom seems worth the delay and trouble."
"Golloo!" She was more titillated than alarmed. "You mean we might've had an enemy spy right here?"
"That's what I'm s'posed to find out, sweetling."
"Well, there was only a single xeno on the team." She sighed. "I'd hate to believe he was enemy. So beautiful a person. You know, I daydreamed about going to bed with him, though of course I don't imagine that'd have worked, even if he did look pretty much like a man."
"Who was he? Where from?"
"Uh—his name, Ay... Aycharaych." She handled the diphthongs better than the open consonants. "From, uh, he said his planet's called Chereion. Way off toward Betelgeuse."
Further, Flandry thought amidst a thrumming.
This time he didn't bother to conceal his right name or his very origin. And why should he? Nobody would check on a duly accredited member of an Imperial Intelligence force—not that the files in Thursday Landing would help anyway—and he could read in their minds that none had ever heard of an obscure world within the Roidhunate—and the secrecy command would cover his trail as long as he needed, after he'd done his damage and was gone.
When at last, maybe, the truth came out: why, our people who do know a little something about Chereion would recognize that was where he glided from, as soon as they heard his description, regardless of whether he'd given a false origin or not. He might as well amuse himself by leaving his legal signature.
Which I'd already begun to think I saw in this whole affair. Dreams and shadows and flitting ghosts—
"He's about as tall as you are," Susette was saying, "skinny—no, I mean fine-boned and lean—except for wide shoulders and a kind of jutting chest. Six fingers to a hand, extra-jointed, ambery nails; but four claws to a foot and a spur behind, like a sort of bird. And he did say his race comes from a, uh, an analogue of flightless birds. I can't say a lot more about his body, because he always wore a long robe, though usually going barefoot. His face... well, I'd make him sound ugly if I spoke about a dome of a brow, big hook nose, thin lips, pointed ears, and of course all the, the shapes, angles, proportions different from ours. Actually, he's beautiful. I could've spent days looking into those huge red-brown whiteless eyes of his, if he'd let me. His skin is deep gold color. He has no hair anywhere I saw, but a kind of shark-fin crest on the crown of his head, made from dark-blue feathers, and tiny feathers for eyebrows. His voice is low and... pure music."
Flandry nodded. "M-hm. He stayed in your house?"
"Yes. We and the servants were strictly forbidden to mention him anywhere outside. When he visited the building his team had taken over—or maybe left town altogether; I can't say—he'd put on boots, a cowl, a face mask, like he came from someplace where men cover up everything in public; and walking slow, he could make his gait pass for human."
"Did you get any hints of what he did?"
"No. They called him... . consultant." Susette sat upright. "Was he really a spy?"
"I can identify him," Flandry said, "and the answer is no." Why should he spy on his own companions—subordinates? And he didn't bring them here to collect information, except incidentally. I'm pretty sure he came to kindle a war.
"Oh, I'm glad," Susette exclaimed. "He was such a lovely guest. Even though I often couldn't follow his conversation. Martin did better, but he'd get lost too when Aycharaych started talking about art and history—of Terra! He made me ashamed I was that ignorant about my own planet. No, not ashamed; really interested, wanting to go right out and learn if only I knew how. And then he'd talk on my level, like mentioning little things I'd never much noticed or appreciated, and getting me to care about them, till this dull place seemed full of wonder and—"
She subsided. "Have I told you enough?" she asked.
"I may have a few more questions later," Flandry said, "but for now, yes, I'm through."
She held out her arms. "Oh, no, you're not, you man, you! You've just begun. C'mere."
Flandry did. But while he embraced her, he was mostly harking back to the last time he met Aycharaych.
IX
{That was four years ago, in the planet-wide winter of eccentrically orbiting Talwin. Having landed simultaneously from the warships which brought them hither, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry and his opposite number, Qanryf Tachwyr the Dark, were received with painstaking correctness by the two commissioners of their respective races who administered the joint Merseian-Terran scientific base. After due ceremony, they expressed a wish to dine privately, that they might discuss the tasks ahead of them in frankness and at leisure.
The room for this was small, austerely outfitted as the entire outpost necessarily was. Talwin's system coursed through the Wilderness, that little-explored buffer zone of stars between Empire and Roidhunate; it had no attraction for traders; the enterprise got a meager budget. A table, some chairs and stools, a sideboard, a phone were the whole furniture, unless you counted the dumbwaiter with sensors and extensible arms for serving people who might not wish a live attendant while they talked.
Flandry entered cheerily, 0.88 gee lending bounce to his gait. The Merseian officer waited, half dinosaurian despite a close-fitting silver-trimmed black uniform, bold against snowfields, frozen river, and shrunken sun in crystalline sky which filled a wall transparency behind him.
"Well, you old rascal, how are you?" The man held forth his hand in Terran wise. Tachwyr clasped it between warm dry fingers and leathery palm. They had no further amicable gesture to exchange, since Flandry lacked a tail.
"Thirsty," Tachwyr rumbled. They sought the well-stocked sideboard. Tachwyr reached for Scotch and Flandry for telloch. They caught each other's glances and laughed, Merseian drumroll and human staccato. "Been a long while for us both, arrach?"
Flandry noted the inference, that of recent years Tachwyr's work had brought him into little or no contact with Terrans, for whatever it might be worth. Likely that wasn't much. The Empire's mulish attitude toward the aggrandizement of the Roidhunate was by no means the sole problem which the latter faced. Still, Tachwyr was by way of being an expert on Homo sapiens; so if a more urgent matter had called him—To be sure, he might have planned his remark precisely to make his opponent think along these lines.
"I trust your wives and children enjoy good fortune," Flandry said in polite Eriau.
"Yes, I thank the God." The formula being completed, Tachwyr went on: "Chydhwan's married, and Gelch has begun his cadetship. I presume you're still a bachelor?" He must ask that in Anglic, for his native equivalent would have been an insult. His jet eyes probed. "Aren't you the gaudy one, though? What style is that?"
The man extended an arm to show off colors and embroideries of his mufti. The plumes bobbed which sprang from an emerald brooch holding his turban together. "Latest fashion in Dehiwala—on Ramanujan, you know. I was there a while back. Garb at home has gotten positively drab." He lifted his glass. "Well, tor ychwei."
"Here's to you," the Merseian responded in Anglic. They drank. The telloch was thick and bitter-fiery.
Flandry looked outdoors. "Brrr!" he said. "I'm glad this time I won't need to tramp through that."
"Khraich? I'd hoped we might go on a hunt."
"Don't let me stop you. But if nothing else, my time here is limited. I must get back. Wouldn't have come at all except for your special invitation."
Tachwyr studied Flandry. "I never doubted you are busy these days," he said.
"Yes, jumping around like a probability function in a high wind."
"You do not seem discouraged."
"N-no." Flandry sipped, abruptly brought his gaze around, and stated: "We're near the end of our troubles. What opposition is left has no real chance."
"And Hans Molitor will be undisputed Emperor." Tachwyr's relaxation evaporated. Flandry, who knew him from encounters both adversary and half friendly since they were fledglings in their services, had rather expected that. A big, faintly scaled hand clenched on the tumbler of whisky. "My reason why I wanted this meeting."
"Your reason?" Flandry arched his brows, though he knew Tachwyr felt it was a particularly grotesque expression.
"Yes. I persuaded my superiors to send your government—Molitor's—the proposal, and put me in charge of our side. However, if you had not come yourself, I imagine the conference would have proved as empty as my datholch claimed it would, when I broached the idea to him."
I can't blame the good datholch, Flandry thought. It does seem ludicrous on the face of it: discussions between Intelligence officers of rank below admiral or fodaich, who can't make important commitments—discussions about how to "resolve mutual difficulties" and assure the Imperium that the Roidhunate has never had any desire to interfere in domestic affairs of the Empire—when everybody knows how gleefully Merseian agents have swarmed through every one of our camps, trying their eternally damnedest to keep our family fight going.
Of course, Molitor's people couldn't refuse, because this is the first overt sign that Merseia will recognize him rather than some rival as our lord, and deal with his agents later on, about matters more real than this farce.
The intention is no surprise, when he's obviously winning. The surprise was the form the feeler took—and Tachwyr's note to me. Neither action felt quite Merseian.
Therefore I had to come.
"Let me guess," Flandry said. "You know I'm close to his Majesty and act as an odd-job man of his. You and your team hope to sound out me and mine about him."
Tachwyr nodded. "If he's to be your new leader, stronger than the past several, we want to know what to expect."
"You must have collected more bits of information on him than there are stars in the galaxy. And he's not a complex man. And no individual can do more than throw a small extra vector or two in among the millions that whipsaw such a big and awkward thing as the Empire toward whatever destiny it's got."
"He can order actions which have a multiplier effect, for war or peace between our folk."
"Oh, come off it, chum! No Merseian has a talent for pious wormwords. He only sounds silly when he tries. As far as you are concerned vis-á-vis us, diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means." Flandry tossed off his drink and poured a refill.
"Many Terrans disagree," Tachwyr said slowly.
"My species also has more talent than yours for wishful thinking," Flandry admitted. He waved at the cold landscape. "Take this base itself. For two decades, through every clash and crisis, a beacon example of cooperation. Right?" He leered. "You know better. Oh, doubtless most of the scientists who come here are sincere enough in just wanting to study a remarkable xenological development. Doubtless they're generally on good personal terms. But they're subsidized—they have their nice safe demilitarization—for no reason except that both sides find it convenient to keep a place for secret rendezvous. Neutral domains like Betelgeuse are so public, and their owners tend to be so nosy."
He patted the Merseian's back. "Now let's sit down to eat, and afterward serious drinking, like the cordial enemies we've always been," he urged. "I don't mind giving you anecdotes to pad out your report. Some of them may even be true."
The heavy features flushed olive-green. "Do you imply our attempt—not at final disengagement, granted, but at practical measures of mutual benefit—do you imply it is either idiotic or else false?"
Flandry sighed. "You disappoint me, Tachwyr. I do believe you've grown stuffy in your middle age. Instead of continuing the charade, why not ring up your Chereionite and invite him to join us? I'll bet he and I are acquainted too."
{The sun went down and night leaped forth in stars almost space-bright, crowding the dark, making the winter world glow as if it had a moon. "May I turn off the interior lights?" Aycharaych asked. "The outside is too glorious for them."
Flandry agreed. The hawk profile across the table from him grew indistinct, save for great starlight-catching eyes. The voice sang and purred onward, soft as the cognac they shared, in Anglic whose accent sounded less foreign than archaic.
"I could wish your turban did not cover a mindscreen and powerpack, my friend. Not merely does the field make an ugliness through my nerves amidst this frozen serenity; I would fain be in true communion with you." Aycharaych's chuckle sounded wistful. "That can scarcely be, I realize, unless you join my cause."
"Or you mine," Flandry said.
"And each of your men who might know something I would like to learn is likewise screened against me. Does not that apparatus on their heads make sleep difficult? I warn you in any case, wear the things not overmany days at a stretch. Even for a race like yours, it is ill to keep the brain walled off from those energies which inspirit the universe, behind a screen of forces that themselves must roil your dreams."
"I see no reason for us to stay."
Aycharaych inhaled from his glass. He had not touched the liquor yet. "I would be happy for your company," he said. "But I understand. The consciousness that dreary death will in a few more decades fold this brightly checkered game board whereon you leap and capture—that keeps you ever in haste."
He leaned back, gazed out at a tree turned into a jewel by icicles, and was quiet awhile. Flandry reached for a cigarette, remembered the Chereionite disliked tobacco smoke, and soothed himself with a swallow.
"It may be the root of your greatness as a race," Aycharaych mused. "Could a St. Matthew Passion have welled from an immortal Bach? Could a Rembrandt who knew naught of sorrow and had no need for steadfastness in it have brought those things alive by a few daubs of paint? Could a Tu Fu free of loss have been the poet of dead leaves flying amidst snow, cranes departing, or an old parrot shabby in its cage? What depth does the foreknowledge of doom give to your loves?"
He turned his head to face the man. His tone lightened: "Well. Now that poor mortified Tachwyr is gone—most mightily had he looked forward to the sauce which gloating would put on his dinner!—we can talk freely. How did you deduce the truth?"
"Part hunch," Flandry confessed. "The more I thought about that message, the more suggestions of your style I found. Then logic took over. Plain to see, the Merseians had some ulterior motive in asking for a conference as nugatory per se as this. It could be just a signal to us, and an attempt at sounding out Molitor's prospective regime a bit. But for those purposes it was clumsy and inadequate. And why go to such trouble to bring me here?
"Well, I'm not privy to high strategic secrets, but I'm close enough to him that I must have a fair amount of critical information—the kind which'll be obsolete inside a year, but if used promptly could help Merseia keep our kettle longer on the boil, with that much more harm to us. And I have a freer hand than anybody else who's so well briefed; I could certainly come if I chose. And an invitation from Tachwyr could be counted on to pique my curiosity, if nothing else.
"The whole idea was yours, wasn't it?"
Aycharaych nodded, his crest a scimitar across the Milky Way. "Yes," he said. "I already had business in these parts—negotium perambulans in tenebris, if you like—and saw nothing to lose in this attempt. At least I have won the pleasure of a few hours with you."
"Thanks. Although—" Flandry sought words. "You know I put modesty in a class with virginity, both charming characteristics which should be gotten rid of as fast as puberty allows. However... why me, Aycharaych? Do you relish the fact I'll kill you, regretfully but firmly, the instant a chance appears? In that respect, there are hundreds like me. True, I may be unusual in having come close, a time or two. And I can make more cultured noises than the average Navy man. But I'm no scholar, no esthete—a dilettante; you can do better than me."
"Let us say I appreciate your total personality." The smile, barely visible, resembled that upon the oldest stone gods of Greece. "I admire your exploits. And since we have interacted again and again, a bond has formed between us. Deny not that you sense it."
"I don't deny. You're the only Chereionite I've ever met—" Flandry stopped.
After a moment he proceeded: "Are you the only Chereionite anybody has ever met?"
"Occasional Merseians have visited my planet, even resided there for periods of study," Aycharaych pointed out.
Yes. Flandry remembered one such, who had endangered him here upon Talwin; how far in the past that seemed, and how immediately near! I realize why the coordinates of your home are perhaps the best-kept secret in the Roidhunate. I doubt if a thousand beings from offworld know; and in most of them, the numbers have been buried deep in their unconsciousness, to be called forth by a key stimulus which is also secret.
Secret, secret... What do we know about you that is substance and not shadow?
The data fled by, just behind his eyes.
Chereion's sun was dim, as Flandry himself had discovered when he noticed Aycharaych was blind in the blue end of the spectrum though seeing farther into the red than a man can. The planet was small, cold, dry—deduced from Aycharaych's build, walk, capabilities, preferences—not unlike human-settled Aeneas, because he could roam freely there and almost start a holy war to split the Empire, nineteen years ago.
In those days he had claimed that the enigmatic ruins found upon many worlds of that sort were relics of his own people, who ranged and ruled among the stars in an era geologically remote. He claimed.... He's as big a liar as I am, when either of us wants to be. If they did build and then withdraw, why? Where to? What are they upon this night?
Dismiss the riddles. Imperial Intelligence knew for certain, with scars for reminders, he was a telepath of extraordinary power. Within a radius of x meters, he could read the thoughts of any being, no matter how alien, using any language, no matter how foreign to him. That had been theoretically impossible. Hence the theory was crudely modified (there is scant creativity in a waning civilization) to include suggestions of a brain which with computerlike speed and capacity analyzed the impulses it detected into basic units (binary?), compared this pattern with the one which its own senses and knowledge presented, and by some incredible process of trial and error synthesized in seconds a code which closely corresponded to the original.
It did not seem he could peer far below the surface thoughts, if at all. That mattered little. He could be patient; or in a direct confrontation, he had skill to evoke the memories he wanted. No wonder that the highest Merseian command paid heed to him. The Empire had never had a more dangerous single enemy.
Single—
Flandry grew aware of the other's luminous regard. "'Scuse me," he said. "I got thinking. Bad habit."
"I can guess what." Aycharaych's smile continued. "You speculate whether I am your sole Chereionite colleague."
"Yes. Not for the first time." Flandry drank again. "Well, are you? What few photographs or eyewitness accounts we've garnered, of a Chereionite among outsiders—never more than one. Were all of them you?"
"You don't expect me to tell you. I will agree to what's obvious, that partakers in ephemeral affairs, like myself, have been rare among my race. They laid such things aside before your kind were aught but apes."
"Why haven't you?"
"In action I find an art; and every art is a philosophical tool, whereby we may seek to win an atom deeper into mystery."
Flandry considered Aycharaych for a silent span before he murmured: "I came on a poem once, in translation—it goes back a millennium or more—that's stayed with me. Tells how Pan—you know our Classical myths—Pan is at a riverside, splashing around, his goat hoofs breaking the lilies, till he plucks a reed and hollows it out, no matter the agony it feels; then the music he pipes forth enchants the whole forest. Is that what you think of yourself as doing?"
"Ah, yes," Aycharaych answered, "you have the last stanza in mind, I believe." Low:
"Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain—
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river."
Damn! Flandry thought. I ought to stop letting him startle me.
"My friend," the other went on gently, "you too play a satanic role. How many lives have you twisted or chopped short? How many will you? Would you protest me if the accidents of history had flung Empire rather than Roidhunate around my sun? Or if you had been born into those humans who serve Merseia? Indeed, then you might have lived more whole of heart."
Anger flared. "I know," Flandry snapped. "How often have I heard? Terra is old, tired, corrupt, Merseia is young, vigorous, pure. Thank you, to the extent that's true, I prefer my anomie, cynicism, and existential despair to counting my days in cadence and shouting huzza—worse, sincerely meaning it—when Glorious Leader rides by. Besides... the device every conqueror, yes, every altruistic liberator should be required to wear on his shield... is a little girl and her kitten, at ground zero."
He knocked back his cognac and poured another. His temper cooled. "I suspect," he finished, "down inside, you'd like to say the same."
"Not in those terms," Aycharaych replied. "Sentimentality ill becomes either of us. Or compassion. Forgive me, are you not drinking a trifle heavily?"
"Could be."
"Since you won't get so drunk I can surreptitiously turn off your mindscreen, I would be grateful if you stay clear-headed. The time is long since last I relished discourse of Terra's former splendors, or even of her modern pleasures. Come, let us talk the stars to rest."}
In the morning, Flandry told Susette he must scout around the globe a few days, using certain ultrasensitive instruments, but thereafter he would return.
He doubted that very much.
X
Shadow and thunder of wings fell over Kossara. She looked up from the rolling, tawny-begrown down onto which she had come after stumbling from the forest. Against clouds and the plum-colored sky beyond, a Diomedean descended. She halted. Weariness shivered in her legs. Wind slithered around her. It smelled of damp earth and, somehow, of boulders.
An end to my search. Her heart slugged. But what will I now find? Comrades and trust, or a return to my punishment?
The native landed, a male, attired in crossbelts and armed with a knife and rifle. He must have been out hunting, when he saw the remarkable sight of a solitary human loose in the wilds, begrimed, footsore, mapless and compassless. He uttered gutturals of his own tongue.
"No, I don't speak that," Kossara answered. The last water she had found was kilometers behind. Thirst roughened her throat. "Do you know Anglic?"
"Some bit," the native said. "How you? Help?"
"Y-yes. But—" But not from anybody who'll think he should call Thursday Landing and inquire about me. During her trek she had sifted the fragments of memory, over and over. A name and nonhuman face remained. "Eonan. Bring me Eonan." She tried several different pronunciations, hoping one would be recognizable.
"Gairath mochra. Eonan? Wh... what Eonan? Many Eonan."
There would be, of course. She might as well have asked a random Dennitzan for Andrei. However, she had expected as much. "Eonan who knows Kossara Vymezal," she said. "Find. Give Eonan this." She handed him a note she had scrawled. "Money." She offered a ten-credit bill from the full wallet Flandry had included in her gear. "Bring Eonan, I give you more money."
After repeated trials, she seemed to get the idea across, and an approximation of her name. The hunter took off northward. God willing, he'd ask around in the bayshore towns till he found the right person; and while this would make the dwellers curious, none should see reason to phone Imperial headquarters. God willing. She ought to kneel for a prayer, but she was too tired; Mary who fled to Egypt would understand. Kossara sat down on what resembled pale grass and wasn't, hugged herself against the bitter breeze and stared across treelessness beneath a wan sun.
Have I really won through?
If Eonan still had his life and liberty, he might have lost heart for his revolution—if, in truth, he had ever been involved; she had nothing more than a dream-vision from a cave. Or if he would still free his people from the Empire, he might be the last. Or if cabals and guerrillas remained, he might not know where they hid. Or if he brought her to them, what could she hope for?
She tossed her head. A chance to fight. Maybe to win home in the end, likelier to die here: as a soldier does, and in freedom.
Drowsiness overflowed. She curled herself as best she could on the ground. Heavy garments blunted its hardness, though she hated the sour smell they'd gotten. To be clean again... Flandry had saved her from the soiling which could never be washed off. He had that much honor—and, yes, a diamond sort of mercy. If she'd done his bidding, tried her best to lead him to whatever was left of her fellows, he would surely have sent her back, manumitted—he'd have the prestige for such a favor to be granted him—unscathed—No! Not whole in her own honor! And release upon a Dennitza lashed to the Empire would be a cruel joke.
Then rest while you can, Kossara. Sleep comes not black, no, blue as a summer sky over the Kazan, blue as the cloak of Mary.... Pray for us, now and in the hour of our death.
A small callused hand shook her awake. Hunger said louder than her watch what a time had passed while the sun brooded nightless. She stared into yellow eyes above a blunt muzzle and quivering whiskers. Half open, bat wings made a stormcloud behind. He carried a blaster.
His face—She sat up, aware of ache, stiffness, cold. "Eonan?"
"Torcha tracked me." Apart from the piping accent, mostly due to the organs of speech, his Anglic came fluent. "But you do not know him, do you?"
She struggled to her feet. "I don't know you either, quite," she got out. "They made me forget."
"Ungn-n-n." He touched the butt of the gun, and his crest erected. Otherwise he stood in taut quietness. She saw he had arrived on a gravsled, no doubt to carry her.
Resolution unfroze him. "I am Eonan Guntrasson, of the Wendru clan in the Great Flock of Lannach. And you are Kossara Vymezal, from the distant planet Dennitza."
Gladness came galloping, and every weakness fled. "I know that, barem! And you dared meet me? Then we are not finished yet!"
Eonan drew the membranes over his eyes. "We?"
"The revolution. Yours and mine." She leaned down to grip his upper shoulders. Beneath fur and warmth, the flight muscles stood like rock.
"I must be careful." His tone underlined it. "Torcha said you promised him a reward for fetching me. I paid him myself, not to have him along. Best we go aside and... talk. First, in sign of good faith, let me search you."
The place he chose was back in the highlands. Canyon walls rose darkly where a river rang; fog smoked and dripped till Kossara was soaked with chill; at moments when the swirling grayness parted, she glimpsed the black volcanic cone of Mount Oborch.
On the way, Eonan had fed her from a stock of preserved Terran food, and explained he was the factor for Nakamura & Malaysia in the area where he dwelt. This gave him wide contacts and sources of information, as well as an easy excuse to travel, disappearing into the hinterland or across the sea whenever he wished. Thursday Landing had no suspicion of his clandestine activities. He would not speak about those until she related her story in full.
Then he breathed, "E-e-e-ehhh," and crouched in thought on the gravsled bench. Finally, sharply: "Well, your Terran officer has likeliest concluded you slipped off in search of the cloudflyers—the, keh, the underground. A spacecraft was seen to lift from hereabouts not many sunspins ago. When I heard, I wondered what that meant."
"I imagine he went to warn the resident and start a hunt for me," Kossara said. "He did threaten to, if I deserted." Anxiety touched her. "Yes, and a tightened space watch. Have I caused us trouble?"
"We shall see. It may have been worth it in all events. To learn about that spy device is no slight gain. We shall want your description of the place where you threw the ring away. Perhaps we can safely look for it and take it to study."
"Chances are he's recovered it. But Eonan!" Kossara twisted around toward him. "How are you doing here? How many survive? With what strength, what plans? How can I help?"
Again the third lids blurred his gaze. "Best I keep still. I am just a link. They will answer you in the nest where I have decided to take you."
The hideout was high in a mountainside. Approaching, Kossara felt her eardrums twinge from pressure change and cold strike deep. Snowpeaks, glaciers, ravines, cliffs, crags reached in monstrous confusion between a cloud ocean which drowned the lower slopes, and a sky whose emptiness the sun only seemed to darken. Silence dwelt here, save for air booming over the windshield and a mutter of native language as Eonan radioed ahead.
Why am I not happy? she wondered. I am about to rejoin my comrades and regain my past—my purpose. What makes me afraid?
Eonan finished. "Everything will be ready," he informed her. Was he as tense as he looked? She must have come to know Diomedeans well enough during her stay that she could tell; but that had been robbed from her. What had he to fear?
"I suppose," she ventured, "this is headquarters for the entire mission. They tucked it away here to make it undiscoverable."
"Yes. They enlarged a cave."
She recalled another cave, where she and Trohdwyr and a few more had huddled. "Were we—those who died when I was captured—were we out in the field—liaison with freedom fighters whose homes were below timber-line? Maybe we were betrayed by one of them"—she grimaced—"who'd been caught at sabotage or whatever, and interrogated."
"That sounds plausible."
"But then nobody except us was destroyed! Am I right? Is the liberation movement still healthy?"
"Yes."
Puzzlement: "Why didn't I tell the Impies about our main base when they put me under hypnoprobe?"
"I do not know," Eonan said impatiently. "Please be quiet. I must bring us in on an exact course, or they will shoot."
As the sled glided near, Kossara spied the defense, an energy cannon. It was camouflaged, but military training had enhanced her natural ability to notice things. A great steel door in the bluff behind it would go unseen from above, should anyone fly across this lofty desert. Instruments—infrared sensors, neutrino detectors, magnetometers, gravitometers, atmosphere sniffers, a hundred kinds of robot bloodhound—would expose the place at once. But who would think to come searching?
The door swung aside. The sled passed through and landed in a garage among several aircars. Here were warmth, echoes, a sudden brilliance of light better suited for eyes human or Merseian. Kossara shed her parka before she stepped off. Her pulse raced.
Four stood waiting. Three were men. She was not surprised to see the last was a big green heavy-tailed person, though her heart said O Trohdwyr—and for an instant tears stung and blurred.
She rallied herself and walked toward them. Her boots thudded on the floor; Eonan's claws clicked. Those in front of her were simply clad, shirts, trousers, shoes on the men, a tunic on the zmay. She had expected them to be armed, as they were.
It flashed: Why did I think zmay, not ychan? And: They aren't Dennitzans! None of them!
She slammed to a halt. The men differed widely, genes from every breed of mankind scrambled in chance combinations. So they could be from Terra—or a colony within the Empire—or—
Eonan left her side. The Merseian drew his pistol. "Hold," he rapped. "You are under arrest."
He called himself Glydh of the Vach Rueth, nicknamed Far-Farer, an afal of his navy's Intelligence corps. His immediate assistant was a lanky, sallow, long-nosed man, introduced as Muhammad Snell but addressed by the superior officer as Kluwych. In the middle of wreck, Kossara could flickeringly wonder if the Eriau name had been given him by his parents, when he was born somewhere in the Roidhunate.
They took her to an office. On the way she passed through such space and among such personnel that she estimated the latter numbered about twenty, two or three of them Merseian by species, the rest human. That was probably all there were on Diomedes: sufficient to keep scores of native dupes like Eonan going, who in their turn led thousands.
Though are they dupes? she thought drearily. Merseia would like to see them unchained from the Empire.
No. That isn't true. Merseia doesn't give a curse. They're cheap, expendable tools.
The office was cramped and bleak. "Sit," Glydh ordered, pointing to a chair. He took a stool behind a desk. Snell settled on the left; his eyes licked her, centimeter by centimeter and back again.
"Khraich." Glydh laid his hands flat on the desktop, broad and thick, strangler's hands. "An astonishing turn of events. What shall we do with you?" His Anglic was excellent.
"Isn't this, uh, Captain Flandry more urgent, sir?" his subordinate asked.
"Not much, I believe," Glydh said. "True, from Vymezal's account via Eonan, he appears to be capable. But what can he know? That she defected, presumably joining a remnant of the underground if she didn't perish en route." He pondered. "Maybe he isn't capable, at that—since he let her go, trusting her mere self-interest to keep her on his side."
Hoy? Chives said Flandry is famous.—No. How many light-years, how many millions of minds can fame cover before it spreads vanishingly thin?
"Of course, we will have our cell in Thursday Landing keep him under surveillance, and alert our agents globally if he leaves there," Glydh continued. "But I doubt he represents more than a blind stab on the part of somebody in the opposition. I don't think he is worth the risk of trying to kidnap, or even kill."
"We may find out otherwise, sir, when we interrogate Vymezal in detail," said the man. He moistened his lips.
"Maybe. I leave that to you. Co-opt what helpers you need."
"Um-m-m... procedures? Treatment? Final disposition?"
"No!" Kossara heard the yell and felt the leaping to her feet, as if from outside her body. This was not real, could not be, must not be, God and saints, no. "I am not a, a Terran agent—I came here to—at least I'm a prisoner of war!"
"Sit!" Glydh's roar, and the gunshot slap of palm on desk, flung her back like a belly blow. She heard his basso through fever-dream distances and humming: "Don't babble about military conventions. You are a slave, property we have acquired. If you do what you are told, there need not be pain. Else there will be, until you are broken to obedience. Do you hear me?"
Snell's fingers twisted together. He breathed fast. "Sir," he said, "it could be a long while before we get a chance to send a report offplanet and ask for instructions about her. So we have to use our own judgment, don't we?"
"Yes," Glydh answered.
"Well, considering what was originally intended for her, and the reason—sir, not a woman among us in this whole region—"
Glydh shrugged. His tone was faintly contemptuous. "Quiz her out first under narco. Afterward do what you like, short of disfiguring damage. Remember, we may find use for her later, and the nearest biosculp laboratory is parsecs hence."
I will make them kill me! Even as she plunged toward Snell, fingernails out to hook his eyeballs, Kossara knew Glydh would seize her and not let her die.
The explosion threw her against a wall. It made a drum of her skull. The floor heaved and cracked. Snell went over backward. Glydh flailed about to keep his balance.
Faintly through the brief deafness that followed, she heard screams, running, bang and hiss of firearms. Ozone drifted acrid to her nostrils, smoke, smells of roastedness.
She was already out of the office, into the central chamber beyond. At its far end, through the passageway which gave on the garage, she saw how the main door lay blown off its trunnions, crumpled and red-hot. Beyond was the ruin of the cannon. Men boiled around or sprawled unmoving.
Enormous shone the bulk of a suit of combat armor. Bullets whanged off it, blaster bolts fountained. The wearer stood where he was, and his own weapon scythed.
As she broke into view—"Kossara!" Amplified from the helmet, his voice resounded like God's. His free hand reached beneath a plate that protected his gravbelt. He rose and moved slowly toward her. Survivors fled.
Fingers closed on her arm. Around her shoulder she saw Glydh. He swung her before his body. "That's not nice," the oncoming invader pealed. He spun his blaster nozzle to needle beam, aimed, and fired.
Glydh's brow spurted steam, brains, blood, shattered bone across Kossara. She knew a heartbeat's marvel at that kind of precision shooting. But then the heavy corpse bore her down. Her head struck the floor. Lightning filled the universe.
The armored man reached her, stood over her, shielded her. A spacecraft's flank appeared in the entry. It had sprouted a turret, whose gun sprayed every doorway where an enemy might lurk. Kossara let darkness flow free.
XI
A breath of air cool, pine-scented; all noises gone soft; a sense of muted energies everywhere around; a lessened weight—Kossara opened her eyes. She lay in bed, in her cabin aboard the Hooligan. Flandry sat alongside. He wore a plain coverall, his countenance was haggard and the gray gaze troubled. Nonetheless he smiled. "Hello, there," he murmured. "How do you feel?"
Drowsy, altogether at ease, she asked, "Have we left Diomedes?"
"Yes. We're bound for Dennitza." He took her right hand between both of his. "Now listen. Everything is all right. You weren't seriously harmed, but on examination we decided we'd better keep you under sleep induction awhile, with intravenous feeding and some medication. Look at your left wrist." She did. It was bare. "Yes, the bracelet is off. As far as I'm concerned, you're free, and I'll take care of the technicalities as soon as possible. You're going home, Kossara."
Examination—She dropped her glance. A sheer nightgown covered her. "I'm sorry I never thought to bring anything more decorous for you to sleep in," Flandry said. He appeared to be summoning courage. "Chives did the doctoring, the bathing, et cetera. Chives alone." His mouth went wry. "You may or may not believe that. It's true, but hell knows how much I've lied to you."
And I to you, she thought.
He straightened in the chair and released her. "Well," he said, "would you like a spot of tea and accompaniments? You should stay in bed for another watch cycle or two, till you get your strength back."
"What happened... to us?"
"We'd better postpone that tale. First you should rest." Flandry rose. Almost timidly, he gave her hair a stroke. "I'll go now. Chives will bring the tea."
Wakefulness returned. When the Shalmuan came to retrieve her tray, Kossara sat propped against pillows, ready for him. "I hope the refreshments were satisfactory, Donna," he said. "Would you care for something more?"
"Yes," she replied. "Information."
The slim form showed unease. "Sir Dominic feels—"
"Sir Dominic is not me." She spread her palms. "Chives, how can I relax in a jigsaw puzzle? Tell me, or ask him to tell me, what went on in that den. How did you find me? What did you do after I lost consciousness? Why?"
Chives reached a decision. "Well, Donna, we trust that in view of results obtained, you will pardon certain earlier modifications of strict veracity which Sir Dominic deemed essential. The ring he gave you was a mere ring; no such device exists as he described, at least within the purview of Technic civilization." She choked. He continued: "Sir Dominic, ah, has been known to indulge in what he describes as wistful fantasizing relevant to his occupation. Instead, the bracelet you wore was slave-driven from an external source of radiated power."
"Slave-driven. A very good word." And yet Kossara could feel no anger. She imitated it as a duty. Had they given her a tranquilizing drug which had not completely worn off?
"Your indignation is natural, Donna." Chives' tail switched his ankles. "Yet allow me to request you consider the total situation, including the fact that those whom you met were not noble liberators but Merseian operatives. Sir Dominic suspected this from the start. He believed that if you reappeared, they were sure to contact you, if only to find out what had transpired. He saw no method short of the empirical for convincing you. Furthermore, admiration for your honesty made him dubious of your ability knowingly to play a double role.
"Hence I trailed you at a discreet distance while he went to Thursday Landing to investigate other aspects of the case. Albeit my assignment had its vexations, I pinpointed the spot where you were brought and called Sir Dominic, who by then had returned to Lannach. Underground and surrounded by metal, your bracelet was blocked from us. We concluded immediate attack was the most prudent course—for your sake particularly, Donna. While Sir Dominic flitted down in armor, I blasted the cannon and entrance. Shortly afterward I landed to assist and, if you will excuse my immodesty, took the single prisoner we got. The rest were either dead or, ah, holed up sufficiently well that we decided to content ourselves with a nuclear missile dispatched through the entrance.
"The resultant landslide was somewhat spectacular. Perhaps later you will be interested to see the movie I took.
"Ah... what he has learned has made Sir Dominic of the opinion that we must speed directly to Dennitza. Nevertheless, I assure you he would in all events have seen to your repatriation at the earliest feasible date."
Chives lifted her tea tray. "This is as much as I should tell you at the present stage, Donna. I trust you can screen whatever you wish in the way of literary, theatrical, or musical diversion. If you require assistance of any kind, please call on the intercom. I will return in two hours with a bowl of chicken soup. Is that satisfactory?"
Stars filled the saloon viewscreen behind Flandry's head. The ship went hush-hush-hush, on a voyage which, even at her pseudospeed, would take a Terran month. The whisky he had poured for them glowed across tongue and palate.
"It's a foul story," he warned.
"Does evil go away just because we keep silent?" Kossara answered. Inwardly: How evil are you, you claw of the Empire?—but again without heat, a thought she felt obliged to think.
After all, his lean features looked so grim and unhappy, across the table from her. He shouldn't chain-smoke the way he did; anticancer shots, cardiovascular treatments, lungflushes, and everything, it remained a flagellant habit. One could serve a bad cause without being a bad man. Couldn't one?
He sighed and drank. "Very well. A sketch. I got a lot of details from a narcoquiz of our prisoner, but most are simply that, details, useful in hunting down the last of his outfit if and when that seems worthwhile. He did, though, confirm and amplify something much more scary."
Memory prodded her with a cold finger. "Where is he?"
"Oh, I needled him and bunged him out an airlock." Flandry observed her shock. His tone changed from casual to defensive. "We were already in space; this business doesn't allow delays. As for turning him over to the authorities when we arrive—there may not be any authorities, or they may be in full revolt, Merseian-allied. At best, the fact he was alive could trickle across to enemy Intelligence, and give them valuable clues to what we know. This is how the game's played, Kossara." He trailed out smoke before he added, "Happens his name was Muhammad Snell."
Blood beat in temples and cheeks. "He got no chance—I don't need avengers."
"Maybe your people will," he said quietly.
After a second he leaned forward, locked eyes with her, and continued: "Let's begin explanations from my viewpoint. I want you to follow my experiences and reasoning, in hopes you'll then accept my conclusions. You're an embittered woman, for more cause than you know right now. But I think you're also intelligent, fair-minded, yes, tough-minded enough to recognize truth, no matter what rags it wears."
Kossara told herself she must be calm, watchful, like a cat—like Butterfeet when she was little.... She drank. "Go on."
Flandry filled his lungs. "The Gospodar, the Dennitzans in general are furious at Hans' scheme to disband their militia and make them wholly dependent on the Navy," he said. "After they supported him through the civil war, too! And we've other sources of friction, inevitable; and thoughts of breaking away or violently replacing the regnant Emperor are no longer unthinkable. Dennitza has its own culture, deep-rooted, virile, alien to Terra and rather contemptuous thereof—a culture influenced by Merseia, both directly and through the, uh, zmay element in your population.
"Aye, granted, you've long been in the forefront of resistance to the Roidhunate. However, such attitudes can change overnight. History's abulge with examples. For instance, England's rebellious North American colonies calling on the French they fought less than two decades before; or America a couple of centuries later, allied first with the Russians against the Germans, then turning straight around and—" He stopped. "This doesn't mean anything to you, does it? No matter. You can see the workings in your own case, I'm sure. Dennitza is where your loyalties lie. What you do, whom you support, those depend on what you judge is best for Dennitza. Right? Yes, entirely right and wholesome. But damnably misleadable."
"Are you, then, a Terran loyalist?" she demanded.
He shook his head. "A civilization loyalist. Which is a pretty thin, abstract thing to be; and I keep wondering whether we can preserve civilization or even should.
"Well. Conflict of interest is normal. Compromise is too, especially with as valuable a tributary as Dennitza—provided it stays tributary. Now we'd received strong accusations that Dennitzans were engineering revolt on Diomedes, presumably in preparation for something similar at home. His Majesty's government wasn't about to bull right in. That'd be sure to bring on trouble we can ill afford, perhaps quite unnecessarily. But the matter had to be investigated.
"And I, I learned a Dennitzan girl of ranking family had been caught at subversion on Diomedes. Her own statements out of partial recollections, her undisguised hatred of the Imperium, they seemed to confirm those accusations. Being asked to look into the questions, what would I do but bring you along?"
He sighed. "A terrible mistake. We should've headed straight for Dennitza. Hindsight is always keen, isn't it, while foresight stays myopic, astigmatic, strabismic, and drunk. But I haven't even that excuse. I'd guessed at the truth from the first. Instead of going off to see if I could prove my hunch or not—" His fist smote the table. "I should never have risked you the way I did, Kossara!"
She thought, amazed, He is in pain about that. He truly is.
"A-a-ah," Flandry said. "I'm a ruthless bastard. Better hunter than prey, and have we any third choice in these years? Or so I thought. You... were only another life."
He ground out his cigarette, sprang from the bench, strode back and forth along the cabin. Sometimes his hands were gripped together behind him, sometimes knotted at his sides. His voice turned quick and impersonal:
"You looked like a significant pawn, though. Why such an incredibly bungled job on you? Including your enslavement on Terra. I'd have heard about you in time, but it was sheer luck I did before you'd been thrown into a whorehouse. And how would your uncle the Gospodar react to that news if it reached him?
"Might it be intended to reach him?
"Oh, our enemies couldn't be certain what'd happen; but you tilted the probabilities in their favor. They must've spent considerable time and effort locating you. Flandry's Law: ‘Given a sufficiently large population, at least one member will fit any desired set of specifications.' The trick is to find that member."
"What?" Kossara exclaimed. "Do you mean—because I was who I was, in the position I was—that's why Dennitza—" She could speak no further.
"Well, let's say you were an important factor," he replied. "I'm not sure just how you came into play, though I can guess. On the basis of my own vague ideas, I made a decoy of you in the manner you've already heard about. That involved first deliberately antagonizing you on the voyage; then deliberately gambling your life, health, sanity—"
He halted in midstride. His shoulders slumped. She could barely hear him, though his look did not waver from hers: "Every minute makes what I did hurt worse."
She wanted to tell him he was forgiven, yes, go take his hands and tell him; but no, he had lied too often. With an effort, she said, "I am surprised."
His grin was wry. "Less than I am." Returning, he flopped back onto the bench, crossed ankle over thigh till he peered across his knee at her, swallowed a long draught from his glass, took out his cigarette case; and when the smoke was going he proceeded:
"Let's next assume the enemy's viewpoint, i.e. what I learned and deduced.
"They—a key one of them, anyhow—he realizes the Terran Empire is in an era when periods of civil war are as expectable as bouts of delirium in chronic umwi fever. I wasn't quite aware of the fact myself till lately. A conversation I had set me thinking and researching. But he knew right along, my opponent. At last I see what he's been basing his strategy on for the past couple of decades. Knowing him, if he believes the theory, I think I will. These days we're vulnerable to fratricide, Kossara. And what better for Merseia, especially if just the right conflict can be touched off at just the right moment?
"We've been infiltrated. They've had sleepers among us for... maybe a lifetime... notably in my own branch of service, where they can cover up for each other... and notably during this past generation, when the chaos first of the Josip regime, then the succession struggle, made it easier to pass off their agents as legitimate colonial volunteers.
"The humans on Diomedes, brewing revolution with the help of a clever Alatanist pitch—thereby diverting some of our attention to Ythri—they weren't Dennitzans. They were creatures of the Roidhunate, posing as Dennitzans. Oh, not blatantly; that'd've been a giveaway. And they were sincerely pushing for an insurrection, since any trouble of ours is a gain for them. But a major objective of the whole operation was to drive yet another wedge between your people and mine, Kossara."
Frost walked along her spine. She stared at him and whispered: "Those men who caught me—murdered Trohdwyr—tortured and sentenced me—they were Merseians too?"
"They were human," Flandry said flatly, while he unfolded himself into a more normal posture. "They were sworn-in members of the Imperial Terran Naval Intelligence Corps. But, yes, they were serving Merseia. They arrived to ‘investigate' and thus add credence to the clues about Dennitza which their earlier-landed fellows had already been spreading around.
"Let the Imperium get extremely suspicious of the Gospodar—d'you see? The Imperium will have to act against him. It dare not stall any longer. But this action forces the Gospodar to respond—he already having reason to doubt the goodwill of the Terrans—"
Flandry smashed his cigarette, drank, laid elbows on table and said most softly, his face near hers:
"He'd hear rumors, and send somebody he could trust to look into them. Aycharaych—I'll describe him later—Aycharaych of the Roidhunate knew that person would likeliest be you. He made ready. Your incrimination, as far as Terra was concerned—your degradation, as far as Dennitza was concerned—d'you see? Inadequate by themselves to provoke war. Still, remind me and I'll tell you about Jenkins' Ear. Nations on the brink don't need a large push to send them toppling.
"I've learned something about how you were lured, after you reached Diomedes. The rest you can tell me, if you will. Because when he isn't weaving mirages, Aycharaych works on minds. He directed the blotting out of your memories. He implanted the false half-memories and that hate of the Empire you carry around. Given his uncanny telepathic capabilities, to let him monitor what drugs, electronics, hypnotism are doing to a brain, he can accomplish what nobody else is able to.
"But I don't think he totally wiped what was real. That'd have left you too unmistakably worked over. I think you keep most of the truth in you, disguised and buried."
The air sucked between her teeth. Her fists clenched on the table. He laid a hand across them, big and gentle.
"I hope I can bring back what you've lost, Kossara." The saying sounded difficult. "And, and free you from those conditioned-reflex emotions. It's mainly a matter of psychotherapy. I don't insist. Ask yourself: Can you trust me that much?"
XII
Sickbay was a single compartment, but astonishingly well equipped. Kossara entered with tightness in her gullet and dryness on her tongue. Flandry and Chives stood behind a surgical table. An electronic helmet, swiveled out above the pillow, crouched like an ugly arachnoid. The faint hum of driving energies, ventilation, service and life-support devices, seemed to her to have taken on a shrill note.
Flandry had left flamboyancy outside. Tall in a plain green coverall, he spoke unsmiling: "Your decision isn't final yet. Before we go any further, let me explain. Chives and I have done this sort of thing before, and we aren't a bad team, but we're no professionals."
This sort of thing—Muhammad Snell must lately have lain on that mattress, in the dream-bewildered helplessness of narco, while yonder man pumped him dry and injected the swift poison. Shouldn't I fear the Imperialist? Dare I risk becoming the ally of one who treated a sentient being as we do a meat animal?
I ought to feel indignation. I don't, though. Nor do I feel guilty that I don't.
Well, I'm not revengeful, either. At least, not very much. I do remember how Trohdwyr died because he was an inconvenience; I remember how Mihail Svetich died, in a war Flandry says our enemies want to kindle anew.
Flandry says—She heard him from afar, fast and pedantic. Had he rehearsed his speech?
"This is not a hypnoprobe here, of course. It puts a human straight into quasisleep and stimulates memory activity, after a drug has damped inhibitions and emotions. In effect, everything the organism has permanently recorded becomes accessible to a questioner—assuming no deep conditioning against it. The process takes more time and skill than an ordinary quiz, where all that's wanted is something the subject consciously knows but isn't willing to tell. Psychiatrists use it to dig out key, repressed experiences in severely disturbed patients. I've mainly used it to get total accounts, generally from cooperative witnesses—significant items they may have noticed but forgotten. In your case, we'd best go in several fairly brief sessions, spaced three or four watches apart. That way you can assimilate your regained knowledge and avoid a crisis. The sessions will give you no pain and leave no recollection of themselves."
She brought her whole attention to him. "Do you play the tapes for me when I wake?" she asked.
"I could," he replied, "but wouldn't you prefer I wiped them? You see, when our questions have brought out a coherent framework of what was buried, a simple command will fix it in your normal memory. By association, that will recover everything else. You'll come to with full recall of whatever episode we concentrated on."
His eyes dwelt gravely upon her. "You must realize," he continued, "your whole life will be open to us. Well try hard to direct our questioning so we don't intrude. However, there's no avoiding all related and heavily charged items. You'll blurt many of them out. Besides, we'll have to feel our way. Is such-and-such a scrap of information from your recent, bad past—or is it earlier, irrelevant? Often we'll need to develop a line of investigation for some distance before we can be sure.
"We're bound to learn things you'll wish we didn't. You'll simply have to take our word that we'll keep silence ever afterward... and, yes, pass no judgment, lest we be judged by ourselves.
"Do you really want that, Kossara?"
She nodded with a stiff neck. "I want the truth."
"You can doubtless learn enough for practical purposes by talking to the Gospodar, if he's alive and available when we reach Dennitza. And I make no bones: one hope of mine is gaining insight into the modus operandi of Merseian Intelligence, a few clear identifications of their agents among us... for the benefit of the Empire.
"I won't compel you," Flandry finished. "Please think again before you decide."
She squared her shoulders. "I have thought." Holding out her hand: "Give me the medicine."
The first eventide, her feet dragged her into the saloon. Flandry saw her disheveled, drably clad, signs of weeping upon her, against the stars. She had long been in her own room behind a closed door.
"You needn't eat here, you know," he said in his gentlest tone.
"Thank you, but I will," she answered.
"I admire your courage more than I have words to tell, dear. Come, sit down, take a drink or three before dinner." Since he feared she might refuse, lest that seem to herself like running away from what was in her, he added, "Trohdwyr would like a toast to his manes, wouldn't he?"
She followed the suggestion in a numb way. "Will the whole job be this bad?" she asked.
"No." He joined her, pouring Merseian telloch for them both though he really wanted a Mars-dry martini. "I was afraid things might go as they went, the first time, but couldn't see any road around. You did witness Trohdwyr's murder, he suffered hideously, and he'd been your beloved mentor your whole life. The pain wasn't annulled just because your thalamus was temporarily anesthetized. Being your strongest lost memory, already half in consciousness, it came out ahead of any others. And it's still so isolated it feels like yesterday."
She settled wearily back. "Yes," she said. "Before, everything was blurred, even that. Now... the faces, the whole betrayal—"
{Nobody died in the cave except Trohdwyr. The rest stood by when a mere couple of marines arrived to arrest her. "You called them!" she screamed to the one who bore the name Steve Johnson, surely not his own. He grinned. Trohdwyr lunged, trying to get her free, win her a chance to scramble down the slope and vanish. The lieutenant blasted him. The life in his tough old body had not ebbed out, under the red moons, when they pulled her away from him.
Afterward she overheard Johnson: "Why'd you kill the servant? Why not take him along?"
And the lieutenant: "He'd only be a nuisance. As is, when the Diomedeans find him, they won't get suspicious at your disappearance. They'll suppose the Terrans caught you. Which should make them handier material. For instance, if we want any of those who met you here to go guerrilla, our contact men can warn them they've been identified through data pulled out of you prisoners."
"Hm, what about us four?"
"They'll decide at headquarters. I daresay they'll reassign you to a different region. Come on, now, let's haul mass." The lieutenant's boot nudged Kossara, where she slumped wrist-bound against the cold cave wall. "On your feet, bitch!"}
"His death happened many weeks ago," Flandry said. "Once you get more memories back, you'll see it, feel it in perspective—including time perspective. You'll have done your grieving... which you did, down underneath; and you're too healthy to mourn forever."
"I will always miss him," she whispered.
Flandry regarded ghosts of his own. "Yes, I know."
She straightened. He saw her features harden, as if bones lent strength to flesh. The blue-green eyes turned arctic. "Sir Dominic, you were right in what you did to Snell. Nobody in that gang was—is—fit to live."
"Well, we're in a war, we and they, the nastier for being undeclared," he said carefully. "What you and I must do, if we can, is keep the sickness from infecting your planet. Or to the extent it has, if I may continue the metaphor, we've got to supply an antibiotic before the high fever takes hold and the eruptions begin."
His brutal practicality worked as he had hoped, to divert her from both sorrow and rage. "What do you plan?" The question held some of the crispness which ordinarily was hers.
"Before leaving Diomedes," he said, "I contacted Lagard's field office on Lannach, transmitted a coded message for him to record, and showed him my authority to command immediate courier service. The message is directly to the Emperor. The code will bypass channels. In summary, it says, ‘Hold off at Dennitza, no matter what you hear, till I've collected full information'—followed by a synopsis of all I've learned thus far."
She began faintly to glow in her exhaustion. "Why, wonderful."
"M-m-m, not altogether, I'm afraid." Flandry let the telloch savage his throat. "Remember, by now his Majesty's barbarian-quelling on the Spican frontier. He'll move around a lot. The courier may not track him down for a while. Meantime—the Admiralty on Terra may get word which provokes it to emergency action, without consulting Emperor or Policy Board. It has that right, subject to a later court of inquiry. And I've no direct line there. Probably make no difference if I did. Maybe not even any difference what I counsel Hans. I'm a lone agent. They could easily decide I must be wrong."
He forced a level look at her. "Or Dennitza could in fact have exploded, giving Emperor and Admiralty no choice," he declared. "The Merseians are surely working that side of the street too."
"You hope I—we can get my uncle and the Skupshtina to stay their hands?" she asked.
"Yes," Flandry said. "This is a fast boat. However... we'll be a month in transit, and Aycharaych & Co. have a long jump on us."
{The resident and his lady made her welcome at Thursday Landing. They advised her against taking her research to the Sea of Achan countries. Unrest was particularly bad there. Indeed, she and her Merseian—pardon, her xenosophont companion—would do best to avoid migratory societies in general. Could they not gather sufficient data among the sedentary and maritime Diomedeans? Those were more intimate with modern civilization, more accustomed to dealing with offworlders, therefore doubtless more relevant to the problem which had caused her planetary government to send her here.
Striving to mask her nervousness, she met Commander Maspes and a few junior officers of the Imperial Naval Intelligence team that was investigating the disturbances. He was polite but curt. His attitude evidently influenced the younger men, who must settle for stock words and sidelong stares. Yes, Maspes said, it was common knowledge that humans were partly responsible for the revolutionary agitation and organization on this planet. Most Diomedeans believed they were Avalonians, working for Ythri. Some native rebels, caught and interrogated, said they had actually been told so by the agents themselves. And indeed the Alatanist mystique was a potent recruiter.... Yet how could a naïve native distinguish one kind of human from another? Maybe Ythri was being maligned.... He should say no more at the present stage. Had Donna Vymezal had a pleasant journey? What was the news at her home?
Lagard apologized that he must bar her from a wing of the Residency. "A team member, his work's confidential and—well, you are a civilian, you will be in the outback, and he's a xeno, distinctive appearance—"
Kossara smiled. "I can dog my hatch," she said; "but since you wish, I'll leash my curiosity." She gave the matter scant thought, amidst everything else.}
Flandry greeted her at breakfast: "Dobar yutro, Duma."
Startled, she asked, "You are learning Serbic?"
"As fast as operant conditioning, electronics, and the pharmacopoeia can cram it into me." He joined her at table. Orange juice shone above the cloth. Coffee made the air fragrant. He drank fast. She saw he was tired.
"I wondered why you are so seldom here when off duty," she said.
"That's the reason."
He gazed out at the stars. She considered him. After a while, during which her pulse accelerated, she said, "No, I mean, if you're studying, there is no need. You must know most of us speak Anglic. You need an excuse to avoid me."
It was his turn for surprise. "Eh? Why in cosmos would I that?"
She drew breath, feeling cheeks, throat, breasts redden. "You think I'm embarrassed at what you've learned of me."
"No—" He swung his look to her. "Yes. Not that I—Well, I try not to, and what comes out regardless shows you clean as... . knife blade—But of course you're full of life, you've been in love and—" Abruptly he flung his head back and laughed. "Oh, hellflash! I was afraid you would make me stammer like a schoolboy."
"I'm not angry. Haven't you saved me? Aren't you healing me?" She gathered resolution. "I did have to think hard, till I saw how nothing about me could surprise you."
"Oh, a lot could. Does." Their eyes met fully.
"Maybe you can equalize us a little," she said through a rising drumbeat. "Tell me of your own past, what you really are under that flexmail you always wear." She smiled. "In exchange, I can help you in your language lessons, and tell you stories about Dennitza that can't be in your records. The time has been lonely for me, Dominic."
"For us both," he said as though dazed.
Chives brought in an omelet and fresh-baked bread.
{From a dealer in Thursday Landing, Kossara rented an aircamper and field equipment, bought rations and guidebooks, requested advice. She needed information for its own sake as well as for cover. On the long voyage here—three changes of passenger-carrying freighter—she had absorbed what material on Diomedes the Shkola in Zorkagrad could supply. That wasn't much. It could well have been zero if the planet weren't unusual enough to be used as an interest-grabbing example in certain classes. She learned scraps of astronomy, physics, chemistry, topology, meteorology, biology, ethnology, history, economics, politics; she acquired a few phrases in several different languages, no real grasp of their grammar or semantics; her knowledge was a twig to which she clung above the windy chasm of her ignorance about an entire world.
After a few days getting the feel of conditions, she and Trohdwyr flew to Lannach. The resident had not actually forbidden them. In the towns along Sagna Bay, they went among the gaunt high dwellings of the winged folk, seeking those who understood Anglic and might talk somewhat freely. "We are from a planet called Dennitza. We wish to find out how to make friends and stay friends with a people who resemble you—"
Eonan the factor proved helpful. Increasingly, Kossara tried to sound him out, and had an idea he was trying to do likewise to her. Whether or not he was involved in the subversive movement, he could well fear she came from Imperial Intelligence to entrap comrades of his. And yet the name "Dennitza" unmistakably excited more than one individual, quick though the Diomedeans were to hide that reaction.
How far Dennitza felt, drowned in alien constellations! At night in their camper, she and Trohdwyr would talk long and long about old days and future days at home; he would sing his gruff ychan songs to her, and she would recite the poems of Simich that he loved: until at last an inner peace came to them both, bearing its gift of sleep.}
Flandry always dressed for dinner. He liked being well turned out; it helped create an atmosphere which enhanced his appreciation of the food and wine; and Chives would raise polite hell if he didn't. Kossara slopped in wearing whatever she'd happened to don when she got out of bed. Not to mock her mourning, he settled for the blue tunic, red sash, white trousers, and soft half-boots that were a human officer's ordinary mess uniform.
When she entered the saloon in evening garb, he nearly dropped the cocktail pitcher. Amidst the subdued elegance around her, she suddenly outblazed a great blue star and multitudinously lacy nebula which dominated the viewscreen. Burgundy-hued velvyl sheathed each curve of her tallness, from low on the bosom to silvery slippers. A necklace of jet and turquoise, a bracelet of gold, gleamed against ivory skin. Diamond-studded tiara and crystal earrings framed the ruddy hair; but a few freckles across the snub nose redeemed that high-cheeked, full-mouthed, large-eyed face from queenliness.
"Nom de Dieu!" he gasped, and there sang through him, Yes, God, Whom the believers say made all triumphant beauty. She breaks on me and takes me like a wave of sunlit surf. "Woman, that's not fair! You should have sent a trumpeter to announce you."
She chuckled. "I decided it was past time I do Chives the courtesy of honoring his cuisine. He fitted me yesterday and promised to exceed himself in the galley."
Flandry shook head and clicked tongue. "Pity I won't be paying his dishes much attention." Underneath, he hurt for joy.
"You will. I know you, Dominic. And I will too." She pirouetted. "This gown is lovely, isn't it? Being a woman again—" The air sent him an insinuation of her perfume, while it lilted with violins.
"Then you feel recovered?"
"Yes." She sobered. "I felt strength coming back, the strength to be glad, more and more these past few days." A stride brought her to him. He had set the pitcher down. She took both his hands—the touch radiated through him—and said gravely: "Oh, I've not forgotten what happened, nor what may soon happen. But life is good. I want to celebrate its goodness... with you, who brought me home to it. I can never rightly thank you for that, Dominic."
Nor can I rightly thank you for existing, Kossara. In spite of what she had let slip beneath the machine, she remained too mysterious for him to hazard kissing her. He took refuge: "Yes, you can. You can throw off your frontier steadfastness, foresight, common sense, devotion to principle, et cetera, and be frivolous. If you don't know how to frivol, watch me. Later you may disapprove to your heart's contempt, but tonight let's cast caution to the winds, give three-point-one-four-one-six cheers, and speak disrespectfully of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud."
Laughing, she released him. "Do you truly think we Dennitzans are so stiff? I'd call us quite jolly. Wait till you've been to a festival, or till I show you how to dance the luka."
"Why not now? Work up an appetite."
She shook her head. The tiara flung glitter which he noticed only peripherally because of her eyes. "No, I'd rip this dress, or else pop out of it like a cork. Our dances are all lively. Some people say they have to be."
"The prospect of watching you demonstrate makes me admit there's considerable to be said for an ice age."
Actually, the summers where she lived were warm. Farther south, the Pustinya desert was often hot. A planet is too big, too many-sided for a single idea like "glacial era" to encompass.
Through Flandry passed the facts he had read, a parched obbligato to the vividness breathing before him. He would not truly know her till he knew the land, sea, sky which had given her to creation; but the data were a beginning.
Zoria was an F8 sun, a third again as luminous as Sol. Dennitza, slightly smaller than Terra, orbiting at barely more than Terran distance from the primary, should have been warmer—and had been for most of its existence. Loss of water through ultraviolet cracking had brought about that just half the surface was ocean-covered. This, an axial tilt of 321/2°, and an 18.8-hour rotation period led to extremes of weather and climate. Basically terrestroid, organisms adapted as they evolved in a diversity of environments.
That stood them in good stead when the catastrophe came. Less than a million years ago, a shower of giant meteoroids struck, or perhaps an asteroid shattered in the atmosphere. Whirled around the globe by enormous forces, the stones cratered dry land—devastated by impact, concussion, radiation, fire which followed—cast up dust which dimmed the sun for years afterward. Worse were the ocean strikes. The tsunamis they raised merely ruined every coast on the planet; life soon returned. But the thousands of cubic kilometers of water they evaporated became a cloud cover that endured for millennia. The energy balance shifted. Ice caps formed at the poles, grew, begot glaciers reaching halfway to the equator. Species, genera, families died; fossil beds left hints that among them had been a kind starting to make tools. New forms arose, winter-hardy in the temperate zones, desperately contentious in the tropics.
Then piece by piece the heavens cleared, sunlight grew brilliant again, glaciers melted back. The retreat of the ice that men found when they arrived six hundred years later was a rout. The Great Spring brought woes of its own, storms, floods, massive extinctions and migrations to overthrow whole ecologies. In her own brief lifespan, Kossara had seen coastal towns abandoned before a rising sea.
Her birth country lay not far inland, though sheltered from northerly winds and easterly waters—the Kazan, Cauldron, huge astrobleme on the continent Rodna, a bowl filled with woods, farmlands, rivers, at its middle Lake Stoyan and the capital Zorkagrad. Her father was voivode of Dubina Dolyina province, named for the gorge that the Lyubisha River had cut through the ringwall on its way south from the dying snows. Thus she grew up child of a lord close to the people he guided, wilderness child who was often in town, knowing the stars both as other suns and as elven friends to lead her home after dark....
Flandry took her arm. "Come, my lady," he said. "Be seated. This evening we shall not eat, we shall dine."
{At last Eonan told Kossara about a person in the mountain community Salmenbrok who could give her some useful tidings. If she liked, he would take her and Trohdwyr on his gravsled—he didn't trust her vehicle in these airs—and introduce them. More he would not yet say. They accepted eagerly.
Aloft he shifted course. "I bespoke one in Salmenbrok because I feared spies overhearing," he explained. "The truth is, they are four in a cave whom we will visit. I have asked them about you, and they will have you as guests while you explore each other's intents."
She thought in unease that when the Diomedean went back, she and her companion would be left flightless, having brought no gravbelts along. The ychan got the same realization and growled. She plucked up the nerve to shush him and say, "Fine."
The two men and two women she met were not her kind. Racial types, accents, manners, their very gaits belied it. Eonan talked to them and her passionately, as if they really were Dennitzans who had come to prepare the liberation of his folk. She bided in chill and tension, speaking little and nothing to contradict, until he departed. Then she turned on them and cried, "What's this about?" Her hand rested on her sidearm. Trohdwyr bulked close, ready to attack with pistol, knife, tail, foot-claws if they threatened her.
Steve Johnson smiled, spread empty fingers, and replied, "Of course you're puzzled. Please come inside where it's warmer and we'll tell you." The rest behaved in equally friendly wise.
Their story was simple in outline. They too were Imperial subjects, from Esperance. That planet wasn't immensely remote from here. True to its pacifistic tradition, it had stayed neutral during the succession fight, declaring it would pledge allegiance to whoever gave the Empire peace and law again. (Kossara nodded. She had heard of Esperance.) But this policy required a certain amount of armed might and a great deal of politicking and intriguing abroad, to prevent forcible recruitment by some or other pretender. The Esperancians thus got into the habit of taking a more active role than hitherto. Conditions remained sufficiently turbulent after Hans was crowned to keep the habit in tune.
When their Intelligence heard rumors of Ythrian attempts to foment revolution on Diomedes, their government was immediately concerned. Esperance was near the border of Empire and Domain. Agents were smuggled onto Diomedes to spy out the truth—discreetly, since God alone knew what the effect of premature revelations might be. Johnson's party was such a band.
"Predecessors of ours learned Dennitzans were responsible," he said. "Not Avalonian humans serving Ythri, but Dennitzan humans serving their war lord!"
"No!" Kossara interrupted, horrified. "That isn't true! And he's not a war lord!"
"It was what the natives claimed, Mademoiselle Vymezal," the Asian-looking woman said mildly. "We decided to try posing as Dennitzans. Our project had learned enough about the underground—names of various members, for instance—that it seemed possible, granted the autochthons couldn't spot the difference. Their reaction to us does indicate they... well, they have reason to believe Dennitzans are sparking their movement. We've been, ah, leading them on, collecting information without actually helping them develop paramilitary capabilities. When Eonan told us an important Dennitzan had arrived, openly but with hints she could be more than a straightforward scientist—naturally, we grew interested."
"Well, you've been fooled," burst from Kossara. "I'm here to, to disprove those exact same charges against us. The Gospodar, our head of state, he's my uncle and he sent me as his personal agent. I should know, shouldn't I? And I tell you, he's loyal. We are!"
"Why doesn't he proclaim it?" Johnson asked.
"Oh, he is making official representations. But what are they worth? Across four hundred light-years—We need proof. We need to learn who's been blackening us and why." Kossara paused for a sad smile. "I don't pretend I can find out much. I'm here as a, a forerunner, a scout. Maybe that special Navy team working out of Thursday Landing—have you heard about them?—maybe they'll exonerate us without our doing anything. Maybe they already have. The commander didn't act suspicious of me."
Johnson patted her hand. "I believe you're honest, Mademoiselle," he said. "And you may well be correct, too. Let's exchange what we've discovered—and, in between, give you some outdoor recreation. You look space-worn."
The next three darkling springtime days were pleasant. Kossara and Trohdwyr stopped wearing weapons in the cave.}
Flandry sighed. "Aycharaych." He had told her something of his old antagonist. "Who else? Masks within masks, shadows that cast shadows.... Merseian operatives posing as Esperancians posing as Dennitzans whose comrades had formerly posed as Avalonians, while other Merseian creatures are in fact the Terran personnel they claim to be.... Yes, I'll bet my chance of a peaceful death that Aycharaych is the engineer of the whole diablerie."
He drew on a cigarette, rolled acridity over his tongue and streamed it out his nostrils, as if this mordant would give reality a fast hold on him. He and she sat side by side on a saloon bench. Before them was the table, where stood glasses and a bottle of Demerara rum. Beyond was the viewscreen, full of night and stars. They had left the shining nebula behind; an unlit mass of cosmic dust reared thunderhead tall across the Milky Way. The ship's clocks declared the hour was late. Likewise did the silence around, above the hum which had gone so deep into their bones that they heard it no more.
Kossara wore a housedress whose brevity made him all too aware of long legs, broad bosom, a vein lifting blue from the dearest hollow that her shoulderbones made at the base of her throat. She shivered a trifle and leaned near him, unperfumed now except for a sunny odor of woman. "Monstrous," she mumbled.
"N-no... well, I can't say." Why do I defend him? Flandry wondered, and knew: I see in my mirror the specter of him. Though who of us is flesh and who image? "I'll admit I can't hate him, even for what he did to you and will do to your whole people and mine if he can. I'll kill him the instant I'm able, but—Hm, I suppose you never saw or heard of a coral snake. It's venomous but very beautiful, and strikes without malice.... Not that I really know what drives Aycharaych. Maybe he's an artist of overriding genius. That's a kind of monster, isn't it?"
She reached for her glass, withdrew her hand—she was a light drinker—and gripped the table edge instead, till the ends of her nails turned white. "Can such a labyrinth of a scheme work? Aren't there hopelessly many chances for something to go wrong?"
Flandry found solace in a return to pragmatics, regardless of what bitterness lay behind. "If the whole thing collapses, Merseia hasn't lost much. Not Hans nor any Emperor can make the Terran aristocrats give up their luxuries—first and foremost, their credo that eventual accommodation is possible—and go after the root of the menace. He couldn't manage anything more than a note of protest and perhaps the suspension of a few negotiations about trade and the like. His underlings would depose him before they allowed serious talk about singeing the beard the Roidhun hasn't got."
His cigarette butt scorched his fingers. He tossed it away and took a drink of his own. The piratical pungency heartened him till he could speak in detachment, almost amusement: "Any plotter must allow for his machine losing occasional nuts and bolts. You're an example. Your likely fate as a slave was meant to outrage every man on Dennitza when the news arrived there. By chance, I heard about you in the well-known and deservedly popular nick of time—I, not someone less cautious—"
"Less noble," She stroked his arm. It shone inside.
Nonetheless he grinned and said, "True, I may lack scruples, but not warm blood. I'm a truncated romantic. A mystery, a lovely girl, an exotic planet—could I resist hallooing off—"
It jarred through him:—off into whatever trap was set by a person who knew me? His tongue went on. "However, prudence, not virtue, was what made me careful to do nothing irrevocable" to you, darling; I praise the Void that nothing irrevocable happened to you. "And we did luck out, we did destroy the main Merseian wart on Diomedes." Was the luck poor silly Susette and her husband's convenient absence? Otherwise I'd have stayed longer at Thursday Landing, playing sleuth—long enough to give an assassin, who was expecting me specifically, a chance at me.
No! This is fantastic! Forget it!
"Wasn't that a disaster to the enemy?" Kossara asked.
"'Fraid not. I don't imagine they'll get their Diomedean insurgency. But that's a minor disappointment. I'm sure the whole operation was chiefly a means to the end of maneuvering Terra into forcing Dennitza to revolt. And those false clues have long since been planted and let sprout; the false authoritative report has been filed; in short, about as much damage has been done on the planet as they could reasonably expect."
Anguish: "Do you think... we will find civil war?"
He laid an arm around her. She leaned into the curve of it, against his side. "The Empire seldom bumbles fast," he comforted her. "Remember, Hans himself didn't want to move without more information. He saw no grounds for doubting the Maspes report—that Dennitzans were involved—but he realized they weren't necessarily the Gospodar's Dennitzans. That's why I got recruited, to check further. In addition, plain old bureaucratic inertia works in our favor. Yes, as far as the problems created on Diomedes are concerned, I'm pretty sure we'll get you home in time."
"Thanks to you, Dominic." Her murmur trembled. "To none but you."
He did not remind her that Diomedes was not, could never have been the only world on which the enemy had worked, and that events on Dennitza would not have been frozen. This was no moment for reminders, when she kissed him.
Her shyness in it made him afraid to pursue. But they sat together a spell, mute before the stars, until she bade him goodnight
{On the tundra far north of the Kazan, Bodin Miyatovich kept a hunting lodge. Thence he rode forth on horseback, hounds clamorous around him, in quest of gromatz, yegyupka, or ice troll. At other times he and his guests boated on wild waters, skied on glacier slopes, sat indoors by a giant hearthfire talking, drinking, playing chess, playing music, harking to blizzard winds outside. Since her father bore her cradle from aircar to door, Kossara had loved coming here.
Though this visit was harshly for business, she felt pleasure at what surrounded her. She and her uncle stood on a slate terrace that jutted blue-black from the granite blocks of the house. Zoria wheeled dazzling through cloudless heaven, ringed with sun dogs. Left, right, and rearward the land reached endless, red-purple mahovina turf, wide-spaced clumps of firebush and stands of windblown plume, here and there a pool ablink. Forward, growth yielded to tumbled boulders where water coursed. In these parts, the barrens were a mere strip; she could see the ice beyond them. Two kilometers high, its cliff stood over the horizon, a worldwall, at its distance not dusty white but shimmering, streaked with blue crevasses. The river which ran from its melting was still swift when it passed near the lodge, a deep brawl beneath the lonesome tone of wind, the remote cries of a sheerwing flock. The air was cold, dry, altogether pure. The fur lining of her parka hood was soft and tickly on her cheeks.
The big man beside her growled, "Yes, too many ears in Zorkagrad. Damnation! I thought if we put Molitor on the throne, we'd again know who was friend and who foe. But things only get more tangled. How many faithful are left? I can't tell. And that's fouler than men becoming outright turncoats."
"You trust me, don't you?" Kossara answered in pride.
"Yes," Miyatovich said. "I trust you beyond your fidelity. You're strong and quick-witted. And your xenological background... qualifies you and gives you a cover story... for a mission I hope you'll undertake."
"To Diomedes? My father's told me rumors."
"Worse. Accusations. Not public yet. I actually had bloody hard work finding out, myself, why Imperial Intelligence agents have been snooping amongst us in such numbers. I sent men to inquire elsewhere and—Well, the upshot is, the Impies know revolt is brewing on Diomedes and think Dennitzans are the yeast. The natural conclusion is that a cabal of mine sent them, to keep the Imperium amused while we prepare a revolt of our own."
"You've denied it, I'm sure."
"In a way. Nobody's overtly charged me. I've sent the Emperor a memorandum, deploring the affair and offering to cooperate in a full-dress investigation. But guilty or not, I'd do that. How to prove innocence? As thin as his corps is spread, we could mobilize—on desert planets, for instance, without positive clues for them to find."
The Gospodar gusted a sigh. "And appearances are against us. There is a lot of sentiment for independence, for turning this sector into a confederacy free of an Empire that failed us and wants to sap the strength we survived by. Those could be Dennitzans yonder, working for a faction who plot to get us committed—who'll overthrow me if they must—"
"I'm to go search out the truth if I can," she knew. "Uncle, I'm honored. But me alone? Won't that be like trying to catch water in a net?"
"Maybe. Though at the bare least, you can bring me back... um... a feel of what's going on, better than anybody else. And you may well do more. I've watched you from babyhood. You're abler than you think, Kossara."
Miyatovich took her by the shoulders. Breath smoked white from his mouth, leaving frost in his beard, as he spoke: "I've never had a harder task than this, asking you to put your life on the line. You're like a daughter to me. I sorrowed nearly as much as you did when Mihail died, but told myself you'd find another good man who'd give you sound children. Now I can only say—go in Mihail's name, that your next man needn't die in another war."
"Then you think we should stay in the Empire?"
"Yes. I've made remarks that suggested different. But you know me, how I talk rashly in anger but try to act in calm. The Empire would have to get so bad that chaos was better, before I'd willingly break it. Terra, the Troubles, or the tyranny of Merseia—and those racists wouldn't just subject us, they'd tame us—I don't believe we have a fourth choice, and I'll pick Terra."
She felt he was right.}
A part of the Hooligan's hold had been converted to a gymnasium. Outbound, and at first on the flight from Diomedes, Flandry and Kossara used it at separate hours. Soon after her therapy commenced, she proposed they exercise together. "Absolutely!" he caroled. "It'll make calisthenics themselves fun, whether or not that violates the second law of thermodynamics."
In truth, it wasn't fun—when she was there in shorts and halter, sweat, laughter, herself—it was glory.
Halfway to Dennitza, he told her: "Let's end our psychosessions. You've regained everything you need. The rest would be detail, not worth further invasion of your privacy."
"No invasion," she said low. Her eyes dropped, her blood mounted. "You were welcome."
"Chives!" Flandry bellowed. "Get busy! Tonight we do not dine, we feast!"
"Very good, sir," the Shalmuan replied, appearing in the saloon as if his master had rubbed a lamp. "I suggest luncheon consist of a small salad and tea to drink."
"You're the boss," Flandry said. "Me, I can't sit still. How about a game of tennis, Kossara? Then after our rabbit repast we can snooze, in preparation for sitting up the whole nightwatch popping champagne."
She agreed eagerly. They changed into gym briefs and met below. The room was elastic matting, sunlamp fluorescence, gray-painted metal sides. In its bareness, she flamed.
The ball thudded back and forth, caromed, bounced, made them leap, for half an hour. At last, panting, they called time out and sought a water tap.
"Do you feel well?" She sounded anxious. "You missed an awful lot of serves." They were closely matched, her youth against his muscles.
"If I felt any better, you could turn off the ship's powerplant and hook me into the circuits," he replied.
"But why—?"
"I was distracted." He wiped the back of a hand across the salt dampness in his mustache, ran those fingers through his hair and recalled how it was turning gray. Decision came. He prepared a light tone before going on: "Kossara, you're a beautiful woman, and not just because you're the only woman for quite a few light-years around. Never fear, I can mind my manners. But I hope it won't bother you overmuch if I keep looking your way."
She stood quiet awhile, except for the rise and fall of her breasts. Her skin gleamed. A lock of hair clung bronzy to her right cheekbone. The beryl eyes gazed beyond him.
Suddenly they returned, focused, met his as sabers meet in a fencing match between near friends. Her husky voice grew hoarse and, without her noticing, stammered Serbic: "Do you mean—Dominic, do you mean you never learned, while I was under... I love you?"
Meteorstruck, he heard himself croak, "No. I did try to avoid—as far as possible, I let Chives question you, in my absence—"
"I resisted," she said in wonder, "because I knew you would be kind but dared not imagine you might be for always."
"I'd lost hope of getting anybody who'd make me want to be."
She came to him.
Presently: "Dominic, darling, please, no. Not yet."
"—Do you want a marriage ceremony first?"
"Yes. If you don't mind too much. I know you don't care, but, well, did you know I still say my prayers every night? Does that make you laugh?"
"Never. All right, we'll be married, and in style!"
"Could we really be? In St. Clement's Cathedral, by Father Smed who christened and confirmed me—?"
"If he's game, I am. It won't be easy, waiting, but how can I refuse a wish of yours? Forgive these hands. They're not used to holding something sacred."
"Dominic, you star-fool, stop babbling! Do you think it will be easy for me?"
XIII
The earliest signs of trouble reached them faintly across distance. Fifty astronomical units from Zoria and well off the ecliptic plane, the Hooligan phased out of hyperdrive into normal state. Engines idle, she drifted at low kinetic velocity among stars, her destination sun only the brightest; and instruments strained after traces.
Flandry took readings and made computations. His lips tightened. "A substantial space fleet, including what's got to be a Nova-class dreadnaught," he told Kossara and Chives. "In orbits or under accelerations that fit the pattern of a battle-ready naval force."
The girl clenched her fists. "What can have happened?"
"We'll sneak in and eavesdrop."
Faster-than-light pseudospeed would give them away to detectors. (Their Schrödinger "wake" must already have registered, but no commander was likely to order interception of a single small vessel which he could assume would proceed until routinely checked by a picket craft.) However, in these far regions they could drive hard on force-thrust without anybody observing or wondering why. Nearing the inner system, where ships and meters were thick, Flandry plotted a roundabout course. It brought him in behind the jovian planet Svarog, whose gravitational, magnetic, and radiation fields screened the emissions of Hooligan. Amidst all fears for home and kin, Kossara exclaimed at the majestic sight as they passed within three million kilometers—amber-glowing disc, swarming moons—and at the neatness wherewith the planet swung them, their power again turned off, into the orbit Flandry wanted, between its own and that of Perun to sunward.
"With every system aboard at zero or minimum, we should pass for a rock if a radar or whatever sweeps us," he explained. "And we'll catch transmissions from Dennitza—maybe intercept a few messages between ships, though I expect those'll be pretty boring."
"How I hope you are right," Kossara said with a forlorn chuckle.
He regarded her, beside him in the control cabin. Interior illumination was doused, heating, weight generator, anything which might betray. They hung loosely harnessed in their seats, bodies if not minds enjoying the fantasy state of free fall. As yet, cold was no more than a nip in the air Chives kept circulating by a creaky hand-cranked fan. Against the clear canopy, stars crowned her head. On the opposite side, still small at this remove, Zoria blazed between outspread wings of zodiacal light.
"They're definitely Technic warcraft," he said, while wishing to speak her praises. "The neutrino patterns alone prove it. From what we've now learned, closer in, about their numbers and types, they seem to match your description of the Dennitzan fleet, though there're some I think must belong to the Imperium. My guess is, the Gospodar has gathered Dennitza's own in entirety, plus such units of the regular Navy as he felt he could rely on. In short, he's reached a dangerous brink, though I don't believe anything catastrophic has happened yet."
"We are in time, then?" she asked gladly.
He could not but lean over and kiss her. "Luck willing, yes. We may need patience before we're certain."
Fortune spared them that. Within an hour, they received the basic information. Transmitters on Dennitza sent broadbeam rather than precisely lased 'casts to the telsats for relay, wasting some cheap energy to avoid the cost of building and maintaining a more exact system. By the time the pulses got as far as Hooligan, their dispersal guaranteed they would touch her; and they were not too weak for a good receiver-amplifier-analyzer to reconstruct a signal. The windfall program Flandry tuned in was a well-organized commentary on the background of the crisis.
It broke two weeks ago. (Maybe just when Kossara and I found out about each other? he wondered. No; meaningless; simultaneity doesn't exist for interstellar distances.) Before a tumultuous parliament, Bodin Miyatovich announced full mobilization of the Narodna Voyska, recall of units from outsystem duty, his directing the Imperial Navy command for Tauria to maintain the Pax within the sector, his ordering specific ships and flotillas belonging to it to report here for assignment, and his placing Dennitzan society on a standby war footing.
A replay from his speech showed him at the wooden lectern, carved with vines and leaves beneath outward-sweeping yelen horns, from which Gospodar had addressed Skupshtina since the days of the Founders. In the gray tunic and red cloak of a militia officer, knife and pistol on hips, he appeared still larger than he was. His words boomed across crowded tiers in the great stone hall, seemed almost to make the stained-glass windows shiver.
"—Intelligence reports have grown more and more disquieting over the past few months. I can here tell you little beyond this naked fact—you will understand the need not to compromise sources—but our General Staff takes as grave a view of the news as I do. Scouts dispatched into the Roidhunate have brought back data on Merseian naval movements which indicate preparations for action.... Diplomatic inquiries both official and unofficial have gotten only assurances for response, unproved and vaguely phrased. After centuries, we know what Merseian assurances are worth....
"Thus far I have no reply to my latest message to the Emperor, and can't tell if my courier has even caught up with him on the Spican frontier.... High Terran authorities whom I've been able to contact have denied there is a Merseian danger at the present time. They've challenged the validity of the information given me, have insisted their own is different and is correct....
"They question our motives. Fleet Admiral Sandberg told me to my face, when I visited his command post, he believes our government has manufactured an excuse to marshal strength, not against foreign enemies but against the Imperium. He cited charges of treasonous Dennitzan activity elsewhere in the Empire. He forbade me to act. When I reminded him that I am the sector viceroy, he declared he would see about getting me removed. I think he would have had me arrested then and there"—a bleak half-smile—"if I'd not taken the precaution of bringing along more firepower than he had on hand....
"He revealed my niece, Kossara Vymezal, whom I sent forth to track down the origin of those lies—he claimed she'd been caught at subversion, had confessed under their damnable mind-twisting interrogation—I asked why I was not informed at once, I demanded she be brought home, and learned—" He smote the lectern. Tears burst from his eyes. "She has been sold for a slave on Terra."
The assembly roared.
"Uyak Bodin, Uyak Bodin," Kossara herself wept. She lifted her hands to the screen as if to try touching him.
"Sssh," Flandry said. "This is past, remember. We've got to find out what's happening today and what brought it on."
She gulped, mastered her sobs, and gave him cool help. He had a fair grasp of Serbic, and the news analyst was competent, but as always, much was taken for granted of which a stranger was ignorant.
Ostensibly the Merseian trouble sprang from incidents accumulated and ongoing in the Wilderness. Disputes between traders, prospectors, and voortrekkers from the two realms had repeatedly brought on armed clashes. Dennitzans didn't react to overbearingness as meekly as citizens of the inner Empire were wont to. They overbore right back, or took the initiative from the beginning. Several actions were doubtless in a legal sense piracy by crews of one side or the other. Matters had sharpened during the civil war, when there was no effective Imperial control over humans.
Flandry had known about this, and known too that the Roidhunate had asked for negotiations aimed at solving the problem, negotiations to which Emperor Hans agreed on the principle that law and order were always worth establishing even with the cooperation of an enemy. The delegates had wrangled for months.
In recent weeks Merseia had changed its tack and made totally unacceptable demands—for example, that civilian craft must be cleared by its inspectors before entering the Wilderness. "They know that's ridiculous," Flandry remarked. "Without fail, in politics that kind of claim has an ulterior purpose. It may be as little as a propaganda ploy for domestic consumption, or as much as the spark put to a bomb fuse."
"A reason to bring their strength to bear—while most of the Empire's is tied up at Spica—and maybe denounce the Covenant of Alfzar and occupy a key system in the Wilderness?" Kossara wondered.
"Could be... if Merseia is dispatching warships in this direction," Flandry said. "The Imperium thinks not—thinks Dennitza concocted the whole business to justify mobilization. The Merseians would've been delighted to co-conspire, a behind-the-scenes arrangement with your uncle whereby they play intransigent at the conference. Any split among us is pure gain for them. From the Imperium's viewpoint, Dennitza has done this either to put pressure on it—to get the disbanding decree rescinded and other grievances settled—or else to start an out-and-out rebellion."
He puffed on his cigarette, latest of a chain. "From your uncle's viewpoint—I assume he was honest with you about his opinions and desires—if he believes Merseia may be readying for combat, he dare not fail to respond. Terra can think in terms of settling border disputes by negotiation, even after several battles. Dennitza, though, will be under attack. A tough, proud people won't sit still for being made pawns of. And given the accusations against them, the horrible word about you—how alienated must they not feel?"
The commentator had said: "Is it possible the connivance is between Emperor and Roidhun? Might part of a secret bargain be that Merseia rids the Imperium of troublesomely independent subjects? It would like to destroy us. To it, we are worse than a nuisance, we are the potential igniters of a new spirit within the Empire, whose future leadership may actually come from among us. On the Terran side, the shock of such an event would tend to unite the Empire behind the present bearer of the crown, securing it for him and his posterity...."
Flandry said: "I'm pretty sure that by now, throughout the Dennitzan sphere of influence, a majority favors revolution. The Gospodar's stalling, trying to bide his time in hopes the crisis will slack off before fighting starts. Wouldn't you guess so, love? I suspect, however, if it turns out he doesn't have to resist Merseia, he will then use his assembled power to try squeezing concessions from Terra. His citizens won't let him abstain—and I doubt if he wants to. And... any wrong action on the part of the Imperium or its Navy, or any wrong inaction, anywhere along the line, will touch off rebellion."
"We'll go straight to him—" she began.
Flandry shook his head. "Uh-uh. Most reckless thing we could do. Who supplied those Intelligence reports that scared Miyatovich and his staff—reports contradicted by findings of my Corps in separate operations? If the Merseian fleet is making ominous motions, is this a mere show for the Dennitzan scouts they knew would sneak into their space? How did the news about you get here so speedily, when the sale of one obscure slave never rated a word on any Terran newscast? Could barbarian activity in Sector Spica have been encouraged from outside, precisely to draw the Emperor there and leave his officers on this frontier to respond as awkwardly as they've done?"
He sighed. "Masks and mirages again, Kossara. The program we heard showed us only the skin across the situation. We can't tell what's underneath, except that it's surely explosive, probably poisonous. Zorkagrad must be acrawl with Merseian undercover men. I'd be astonished if some of them aren't high and trusted in the Gospodar's councils, fending off any information they prefer he doesn't get. Aycharaych's been at work for a long time."
"What shall we do?" she asked steadily.
Flandry's glance sought for Dennitza. It should be visible here, soft blue against black. But the brightnesses which burned were too many. "Suppose you and I pay a covert visit on your parents," he said. "From there we can send a household servant, seemingly on an ordinary errand, who can find a chance to slip your uncle a word. Meanwhile Chives lands at Zorkagrad port and takes quarters to be our contact in the city. Shalmuan spacers aren't common but they do exist—not that the average person hereabouts ever heard of Shalmu—and I'll modify one of our spare documentations to support his story of being an innocent entrepreneur just back from a long exploration, out of touch, in the Wilderness."
"It seems terribly roundabout," Kossara said.
"Everything is on this mission."
She smiled. "Well, you have the experience, Dominic. And it will give us a little time alone together."
XIV
First the planet loomed immense in heaven, clouds and ice lending it a more than Terran whiteness against which the glimpsed oceans became a dazzlingly deep azure. Then it was no longer ahead, it was land and sea far below. When Flandry and Kossara bailed out, it became a roar of night winds.
They rode their gravbelts down as fast as they dared, while the Hooligan vanished southward. The chance of their being detected was maybe slight, but not nonexistent. They need have no great fear of being shot at; as a folk who lived with firearms, the Dennitzans were not trigger-happy. However, two who arrived like this, in time of emergency, would be detained, and the matter reported to military headquarters. Hence Kossara had proposed descending on the unpeopled taiga north of the Kazan. The voivode of Dubina Dolyina must have patrols and instruments active throughout his district.
Even at their present distance from it, she and Flandry could not have left the vessel secretly in an aircraft. The captain of the picket ship which contacted Chives had settled for a telecom inspection of his papers, without boarding, and had cleared him for a path through atmosphere which was a reasonable one in view of his kinetic vector. Yet orbital optics and electronics must be keeping close watch until ground-based equipment could take over.
Hoar in moonlight, treetops rushed upward. The forest was not dense, though, and impact quickly thudded through soles. At once the humans removed their spacesuits, stopping only for a kiss when heads emerged from helmets. Flandry used a trenching tool to bury the outfits while Kossara restowed their packs. In outdoor coveralls and hiking boots, they should pass for a couple who had spent a furlough on a trip afoot. Before they established camp for what remained of the night, they'd better get several kilometers clear of any evidence to the contrary.
Flandry bowed. "Now we're down, I'm in your hands," he said. "I can scarcely imagine a nicer place to be."
Kossara looked around, filled her lungs full of chill sweet-scented air, breathed out, "Domovina"—home—and began striding.
The ground was soft and springy underfoot, mahovina turf and woodland duff. A gravity seven percent less than Terran eased the burden on backs. Trees stood three or four meters apart, low, gnarly, branches plumed blue-black, an equivalent of evergreens. Shrubs grew in between, but there was no real underbrush; moonlight and shadow dappled open sod. A full Mesyatz turned the sky nearly violet, leaving few stars and sheening off a great halo. Smaller but closer in than Luna, it looked much the same save for brilliance and haste. No matter countless differences, the entire scene had a familiarity eerie and wistful, as if the ghosts of mammoth hunters remembered an age when Terra too was innocent.
"Austere but lovely," the man said into silence. His breath smoked, though the season, late summer, brought no deep cold. "Like you. Tell me, what do Dennitzans see in the markings on their moon? Terrans usually find a face in theirs."
"Why... our humans call the pattern an orlik. That's a winged theroid; this planet has no ornithoids." A sad smile flickered over Kossara's night-ivory lips. "But I've oftener thought of it as Ri. He's the hero of some funny ychan fairy tales, who went to live on Mesyatz. I used to beg Trohdwyr for stories about Ri when I was a child. Why do you ask?"
"Hoping to learn more about you and yours. We talked a lot in space, but we've our lifetimes, and six hundred years before them, to explain if we can."
"We'll have the rest of them for that." She crossed herself. "If God wills."
They were laconic thereafter, until they had chosen a sleeping place and spread their bags. By then the crater wall showed dream-blue to south, and the short night of the planet was near an end. Rime glimmered. Flandry went behind a tree to change into pajamas. When he came back, Kossara was doing so. "I'm sorry!" he apologized, and wheeled about. "I forgot you'd say prayers."
She was quiet an instant before she laughed, unsteadily but honestly. "I was forgetful too. Well, look if you wish, darling. What harm? You must have seen the holograms...." She lifted her arms and made a slow turn before his eyes. "Do you like what you're getting?"
"Sun and stars—"
She stopped to regard him, as if unaware of chill. He barely heard her: "Would it be wrong? Here in these clean spaces, under heaven?"
He took a step in her direction, halted, and grinned his most rueful. "It would not be very practical, I'm afraid. You deserve better."
She sighed. "You are too kind to me, Dominic." She put on her bedclothes. They kissed more carefully than had been their way of late, and got into the bags that lay side by side in the heavy shadow of a furbark tree.
"I'm not sleepy," she told him after a few minutes.
"How could I be?" he answered.
"Was I wanton just now? Or unfair? That would be much worse."
"I was the Fabian this time, not you."
"The what?... Never mind." She lay watching the final stars and the first silvery flush before daybreak. Her voice stumbled. "Yes, I must explain. You could have had me if you'd touched me with a fingertip. You can whenever you ask, beloved. Chastity is harder than I thought."
"But it does mean a great deal to you, doesn't it? You're young and eager. I can wait awhile."
"Yes—I suppose that is part of what I feel, the wanting to know—to know you. You've had many women, haven't you? I'm afraid there's no mystery left for me to offer."
"On the contrary," he said, "you have the greatest of all. What's it like to be really man and wife? I think you'll teach me more about that than I can teach you about anything else."
She was mute until she could muster the shy words: "Why have you never married, Dominic?"
"Nobody came along whom I couldn't be happy without—what passes for happy in an Imperial Terran."
"Nobody? Out of hundreds to choose from?"
"You exaggerate.... Well, once, many years ago. But she was another man's, and left with him when he had to flee the Empire. I can only hope they found a good home at some star too far away for us to see from here."
"And you have longed for her ever since?"
"No, I can't say that I have in any romantic sense, though you are a lot like her." Flandry hesitated. "Earlier, I'd gotten a different woman angry at me. She had a peculiar psionic power, not telepathy but—beings tended to do what she desired. She wished on me that I never get the one I wanted in my heart. I'm not superstitious, I take no more stock in curses or spooks than I do in the beneficence of governments. Still, an unconscious compulsion—Bah! If there was any such thing, which I positively do not think, then you've lifted it off me, Kossara, and I refuse to pursue this morbid subject when I could be chattering about how beautiful you are."
At glaciation's midwinter, a colter of ice opened a gap in the Kazan ringwall. Melt-begotten, the Lyubisha River later enlarged this to a canyon. Weathering of mostly soft crater material lowered and blurred the heights. But Flandry found his third campsite enchanting.
He squatted on a narrow beach. Before him flowed the broad brown stream, quiet except where it chuckled around a boulder or a sandbar near its banks. Beyond, and at his back, the gorge rose in braes, bluffs, coombs where brooks flashed and sang, to ocherous palisades maned with forest. The same deep bluish-green and plum-colored leaves covered the lower slopes, borne on trees which grew taller than the taiga granted. Here and there, stone outcrops thrust them aside to make room for wild-flower-studded glades. A mild breeze, full of growth and soil odors, rustled through the woods till light and shadow danced. That light slanted from a sun a third again as bright as Sol is to Terra, ardent rather than harsh, an evoker of infinite hues.
Guslars trilled on boughs, other wings flew over in their hundreds, a herd of yelen led by a marvelously horned bull passed along the opposite shore, a riba hooked from the water sputtered in Flandry's frying pan while a heap of cloud apples waited to be dessert—no dismally predictable field rations in this meal. He gestured. "How well a planet does if left to its own devices," he remarked.
"Nature could take a few billion years for R & D," Kossara pointed out. "We mortals are always in a hurry."
He gave her a sharp look. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
"N-no. You echoed an idea I've heard before—coincidence, surely." He relaxed, threw a couple of sticks on the fire, turned the fillets over. "I am surprised your people haven't long since trampled this area dead. Such restraint seems downright inhuman."
"Well, the Dolyina has belonged to the Vymezals from olden time, and without forbidding visitors, we've never encouraged them. You've seen there are no amenities, and we ban vehicles. Besides, it's less reachable than many wild lands elsewhere—though most of those are more closely controlled."
Kossara hugged knees to chin. Her tone grew slow and thoughtful. "We Dennitzans are... are conservationists by tradition. For generations after the Founding, our ancestors had to take great care. They could not live entirely off native life, but what they brought in could too easily ruin the whole little-understood ecology. The... zemlyoradnik... the landsman learned reverence for the land, because otherwise he might not survive. Today we could, uh, get away with more; and in some parts of the planet we do, where the new industries are. Even there, law and public opinion enforce carefulness—yes, even Dennitzans who live in neighboring systems, the majority by now, even they generally frown on bad practices. And as for the Kazan, the cradle of mankind out here, haven't heartlands often in history kept old ways that the outer dominions forgot?"
Flandry nodded. "I daresay it helps that wealth flows in from outside, to support your barons and yeomen in the style to which they are accustomed." He patted her hand. "No offense, darling. They're obviously progressive as well as conservative, and less apt than most people to confuse the two. I don't believe in Arcadian Utopias, if only because any that might appear would shortly be gobbled up by somebody else. But I do think you here have kept a balance, a kind of inner sanity—or found it anew—long after Terra lost it."
She smiled. "I suspect you're prejudiced."
"Of course. Common sense dictates acquiring a good strong prejudice in favor of the people you're going to live among."
Her eyes widened. She unfolded herself, leaned on her knuckles toward him, and cried, "Do you mean you'll stay?"
"Wouldn't you prefer that?"
"Yes, yes. But I'd taken for granted—you're a Terran—where you go, I go."
Flandry said straight to her flushed countenance: "At the very least, I'd expect us to spend considerable time on Dennitza. Then why not all, or most? I can wangle a permanent posting if events work out well. Otherwise I'll resign my commission."
"Can you really settle down to a squire's life, a storm-bird like you?"
He laughed and chucked her under the chin. "Never fear. I don't imagine you're ambitious either to rise every dawn, hog the slops, corn the shuck, and for excitement discuss with your neighbors the scandalous behavior of Uncle Vanya when he lurched through the village, red-eyed and reeling from liter after liter of buttermilk. No, we'll make a topnotch team for Xenology, and for Intelligence when need arises." Soberly: "Need will keep arising."
Graveness took her too. "Imagine the worst, Dominic. Civil war again, Dennitza against Terra."
"I think then the two of us could best be messengers between Emperor and Gospodar. And if Dennitza does tear loose... it still won't be the enemy. It'll still deserve whatever we can do to help it survive. I'm not that fond of Terra anyway. Here is much more hope."
Flandry broke off. "Enough," he said. "We've had our minimum adult daily requirement of apocalypse, and dinner grows impatient."
The Vymezal estate lay sufficiently far inside the crater that the ringwall cut off little sky—but on high ground just the same, to overlook the river and great reaches of farm and forest. Conducted from an outer gate, on a driveway which curved through gardens and parkscape, Flandry saw first the tile roof of the manor above shading trees, then its half-timbered brick bulk, at last its outbuildings. Situated around a rear court, they made a complete hamlet: servants' cottages, garages, sheds, stables, kennels, mews, workshops, bakery, brewery, armory, recreation hall, school, chapel. For centuries the demesne must have brawled with life.
On this day it felt more silent and deserted than it was. While many of the younger adults were gone to their militia units, many folk of every other age remained. Most of them, though, went about their tasks curt-spoken; chatter, japes, laughter, song or whistling were so rare as to resound ghostly between walls; energy turned inward on itself and became tension. Dogs snuffed the air and walked stiff-legged, ready to growl.
At a portico, the gamekeeper who accompanied Flandry explained to a sentry: "We met this fellow on the riverside lumber road. He won't talk except to insist he has to see the voivode alone. How he got here unbeknownst I couldn't well guess. He claims he's friendly."
The soldier used an intercom. Flandry offered cigarettes around. Both men looked tempted but refused. "Why not?" he asked. "They aren't drugged. Nothing awful has happened since mobilization, right?" Radio news received on his minicom had been meager during the seven planetary days of march; entering inhabited country, he and Kossara had shunned its dwellers.
"We haven't been told," the ranger grated. "Nobody tells us a thing. They must be waiting—for what?"
"I'm lately back from an errand in the city," the guardsman added. "I heard, over and over—Well, can we trust those Impies the Gospodar called in along with our own ships? Why did he? If we've got to fight Terra, what keeps them from turning on us, right here in the Zorian System? They sure throw their weight around in town. What're you up to, Impie?"
A voice from the loudspeaker ended the exchange. Danilo Vymezal would see the stranger as requested. Let him be brought under armed escort to the Gray Chamber.
Darkly wainscoted and heavily furnished like most of the interior, smaller than average, that room must draw its name from rugs and drapes. An open window let in cool air, a glimpse of sunlight golden through the wings of a hovering chiropteroid. Kossara's father stood beside, arms folded, big in the embroidered, high-collared shirt and baggy trousers of his home territory. She resembled her uncle more, doubtless through her mother, but Flandry found traces of her in those weather-darkened craggy features. Her gaze could be as stern.
"Zdravo, stranac," Vymezal said, formal greeting, tone barely polite. "I am he you seek, voivode and nachalnik." Local aristocrat by inheritance, provincial governor by choice of Gospodar and popular assembly. "Who are you and what is your business?"
"Are we safe from eavesdroppers, sir?" Flandry responded.
"None here would betray." Scorn: "This isn't Zorkagrad, let alone Archopolis."
"Nevertheless, you don't want some well-intentioned retainer shouting forth what I'll say. Believe me, you don't."
Vymezal studied Flandry for seconds. A little wariness left him, a little eagerness came in. "Yes, we are safe. Three floors aloft, double-thick door, for hearing confidences." A haunted smile touched his lips. "A cook who wants me to get the father of her child to marry her has as much right to privacy as an admiral discussing plans for regional defense. Speak."
The Terran gave his name and rank. "My first news—your daughter Kossara is unharmed. I've brought her back."
Vymezal croaked a word that might be oath or prayer, and caught a table to brace himself.
He rallied fast. The next half-hour was furiously paced talk, while neither man sat down.
Flandry's immediate declaration was simple. He and the girl lacked accurate knowledge of how matters stood, of what might happen if her return was announced. She waited in the woods for him to fetch her, or guide Vymezal to her, depending on what was decided. Flandry favored the latter course—the voivode only, and a secret word to the Gospodar.
He must spell out his reasons for that at length. Finally the Dennitzan nodded. "Aye," he growled. "I hate to keep the tidings from her mother... from all who love her... but if she truly is witness to a galaxy-sized trick played on us—we'll need care, oh, very great care"—he clapped hand on sidearm—"till we're ready to kill those vermin."
"Then you agree Zorkagrad, the planet's government and armed service, must be infested with them?"
"Yes." Vymezal gnawed his mustache. "If things are as you say—you realize I'll see Kossara first, out of your earshot, Captain—but I've small doubt you're honest. The story meshes too well with too much else. Why is our crisis hanging fire? Why—Ha, no more gabble. Tomorrow dawn I'll send... hm, yes, Milosh Tesar, he's trusty, quick of wit and slow of mouth—I'll send him on a ‘family matter' as you suggest. Let me see... my wife's dowry includes property wherein her brother also has an interest—something like that."
"Kossara will have to lie low," Flandry reminded. "Me too. You can call me an Imperial officer who stopped off on his liberty to give you a minor message. Nobody will think or talk much about that. But you'd better squirrel me away."
"‘Squirrel?'" Vymezal dismissed the question. "I understand. Well, I've a cabin in the Northrim, stocked and equipped for times when I want to be unpestered a while. Includes a car. I'll flit you there, telling the household I'm lending it to you. They can't see us land at Kossara's hideout, can they?"
"No. We foresaw—" Flandry stopped, aware of how intent the stare was upon him. "Sir, I've told you she and I aim to get married."
"And aren't yet—and nobody wants a hedge-wedding, not I myself when I don't know you." The voivode sketched a grin. "Thanks, Captain. But if you've told me truth, she needs a marksman more than a chaperone. Anyhow, whatever's between you two must already have happened or not happened. Come, let's go."
XV
The year wanes rapidly on Dennitza. On the morning after Danilo Vymezal had shaken Flandry's hand, kissed Kossara's brow, and left them, they woke to frost on the windows and icy clearness outside. They spent much of the day scrambling around wooded steeps begun to flaunt hues that recalled fall upon ancient Manhome. Flocks of southbound yegyupka made heaven clangorous. Once they heard the cry of a vilya, and savage though the beast was, its voice sang wonderfully sweet. Firebush, spontaneously burning to ripen and scatter its seeds, spread faint pungency through the air. By a waterfall whose spray stung their skins with cold, they gathered feral walnuts. Regardless of what spun around the world beyond its frail blue roof, they often laughed like children.
At dusk they returned to the log building, cooked dinner together, sated huge appetites, and took brandy-laced coffee to the hearth, where they settled down on a shaggy rug, content to let the blaze they had kindled light the room for them. Red flames crackled jokelets of green and blue and yellow, sent warmth in waves, made shadows leap. The humans looked at each other, at the fire, back again, and talked about their tomorrows.
"—we'd better stay around the house hereafter," Flandry said. "Your father's man could scarcely have gotten an appointment today, but he should soon. Your uncle's aides can't all be traitors, assuming I'm right that some are. Two or three, in critical posts, are the most I'd guess possible. And they themselves will see no reason to stall his brother-in-law's personal business. In fact, that'd look too queer. So I expect we'll get word shortly; and Miyatovich may want us to move fast."
Highlights crossed Kossara's face above her cheekbones, shone in eyes, glowed in hair. "What do you think he'll do, Dominic?"
"Well, he's tough, smart, and experienced; he may have better ideas than I. But in his place, I'd manufacture an excuse to put myself somewhere more or less impregnable. Like your Nova-class warship; she's the biggest around, Dennitzan or Imperial, and the pride of your fleet damn well ought to have a solidly loyal crew. I'd get the most important persons, including us, there with me. And, oh, yes, a copy of the microfiles on everybody who might be involved in the plot, Imperial officers and locals who've worked themselves close to the Gospodar's hand in the past several years. A clever, widely traveled captain of Naval Intelligence, such as—ahem—could help me get a shrewd notion of whom to suspect. I'd order fleet dispositions modified accordingly, again on an unalarming pretext. When this was done, I'd have the appropriate arrests made, then broadcast a ‘hold everything' to the populace, then wait on the qui vive to see what the interrogators dig out."
Memory made Kossara wince. Flandry laid an arm about her shoulder. "We've a stiff way yet to go," he said, "but we should be home safe by blossom time."
She thawed, flowed into his embrace, and whispered, "Thanks to you."
"No, you. If you'd lacked courage to visit Diomedes, the strength to stay sane and fight on—Why quibble? We're both magnificent. The species has need of our chromosomes."
"Lots and lots of fat babies," she agreed. "But do you mean it about spring... we may have to wait that long?"
"I hope not. The creaking sound you hear is my gentlemanliness. I'm sitting on its safety valve, which is blistering hot."
She touched a corner of his smile. Her own look became wholly serious. "Are your jests always armor?" The question trembled. "Dominic, we may not live till spring."
"We'll take no chances, heart of mine. None. I plan for us to scandalize our respectable grandchildren."
"We'll have to take chances." She drew breath. "I can't become pregnant till my immunity treatment's reversed. Tonight—We'll not deceive Father and Mother. The first chaplain we find can marry us."
"But, uh, your cathedral wedding—"
"I've come to see how little it matters, how little the universe does, next to having you while I can. Tonight, Dominic. Now."
He seized her to him.
A flash went blue-white in the front windows.
They sprang up. The light had not been blinding, but they knew its color.
Flandry flung the door wide and himself out onto the porch. Cold poured over him, sharp liquid in his nostrils. Stars glinted countless. Between shadow-masses that were trees, he saw the craterside shelve away downward into the murk which brimmed its bowl. Distance-dwindled, a fireball yonder lifted and faded. The cloud pillar following appeared against a constellation just as the thunder rumbled faintly in his skull.
"That was home," Kossara said out of numbness.
"A tactical nuke, doubtless fired from an aircraft," responded a machine within Flandry.
The danger to her flogged him aware. He grabbed her arm. "Inside!" She staggered after him. He slammed the door and drew her against his breast. She clung, beginning to shudder.
"My love, my love, my love, we've got to get away from here," he said in a frantic chant. "They must have been after us."
"After you—" She tautened, freed herself, snapped at steadiness and caught it. Her eyes gleamed steel-dry. "Yes. But we'll take a few minutes to pack. Food, clothes, weapons."
Defiant, he also tried phoning the manor. Emptiness hummed reply. They trotted to the shed where the car was, stowed survival gear within, trotted back for more, boarded.
The cabin tumbled from sight. Flandry swept radar around the encompassing darkness. Nothing registered. A traffic safety unit wasn't much use here, of course, but at least this bubble carrying them had a prayer of crawling to safety before the military vessel that did the murder could find it.
If—"Wait a second," Flandry said.
"What?" Kossara asked dully.
He glanced at her, dim in star-glow and wanness off the control panel. She sat hunched into her parka, staring ahead through the canopy. The heater had not yet taken hold and the chill here was no honest outside freeze, but dank. Air muttered around the car body.
He dropped near treetop level and activated the optical amplifier. Its screen showed the wilderness as a gray jumble, above which he zigzagged in search of a secure hiding place. Though belike they had no immediate need of any—"I'll take for granted we were a principal target," he said, quick and toneless. "Snatching us from the household would be too revealing. But if the killers knew where we were, why not come directly to our lodge? If they even suspected we might be there, why not try it first? My guess is, they don't know it exists. However, we're safer in motion regardless."
She bit a knuckle till blood came forth, before she could say: "Everybody died on our account?"
"No, I think not. Your father, at least, had to be gotten rid of, since he knew the truth. And there was no being sure he hadn't told somebody else. I dare hope the enemy thinks we went out with him."
"How did they learn, Dominic?" Through the curbed hardness of her voice, he sensed dread. "Is Aycharaych in Zorkagrad?"
"Conceivable." Flandry's words fell one by one. "But not probable. Remember, we did consider the possibility. If we were to land on the taiga, Chives must proceed to the spaceport, simply to maintain our fiction. Wearing his mindscreen would make him overly conspicuous. Anyhow, Aycharaych wouldn't fail to check on each newcomer, and he knows both Chives and Hooligan by sight. I decided the odds were he went to Dennitza from Diomedes, but having made sure the mischief he'd started was proceeding along the lines he wanted, didn't linger. He's no coward, but he knows he's too valuable to risk in a merely warlike action—which this affair has to bring, and soon, or else his efforts have gone for naught. My guess was, he's hanging around Zoria in a wide orbit known only to a few of his most trusted chessmen."
"Yes, I remember now. Talk on. Please, Dominic. I have to be nothing except practical for a while, or I'll fall apart."
"Me too. Well, I still believe my assessment was confirmed when we made such trouble-free contact with your father. Chives had been in Zorkagrad for days. Aycharaych would have found him, read him, and prepared a trap to spring on us the minute we arrived. Anything else would have been an unnecessary gamble." Bleakness softened: "You know, I went into the manor house using every psychotrick they ever drilled into me to keep my knowledge of where you were out of conscious thought, and ready to swallow the old poison pill on the spot should matters go awry."
"What?" She turned her head toward him. "Why, you—you told me to leave the rendezvous if you didn't return by sunset—but—Oh, Dominic, no!"
Then she did weep. He comforted her as best he could. Meanwhile he found a place to stop, a grove on the rim beneath which he could taxi and be sheltered from the sky.
She gasped back to self-mastery and bade him tell her the rest of his thoughts. "I feel certain what caused the attack tonight was the capture of your father's courier," he said. "He must have been interrogated hastily. Aycharaych would have found out about our cabin, whether or not your father explicitly told his man. But a quick narcoquiz by nontelepaths—" He scowled into murk. "The problem is, what made the enemy suspicious of him? He wasn't carrying any written message, and his cover story was plausible. Unless—"
He leaned forward, snapped a switch. "Let's try for news."
"The next regular 'cast is in about half an hour," Kossara said in a tiny voice, "if that hasn't changed too."
He tuned in the station she named. Ballet dancers moved to cruelly happy music. He held her close and murmured.
A woman's countenance threw the program out. Terror distorted it. "Attention!" she screeched. "Special broadcast! Emergency! We have just received word from a spokesman of the Zamok—officers of the Imperial Navy have arrested Gospodar Miyatovich for high treason. Citizens are required to remain calm and orderly. Those who disobey can be shot. And... and weather satellites report a nuclear explosion in the Dubina Dolyina area—neighborhood of the voivode's residence—attempts to phone there have failed. The voivode was, is... the Gospodar's brother-in-law—No announcement about whether he was trying to rebel or—Stay calm! Don't move till we know more! Ex-except... the city police office just called in—blast shelters will be open to those who wish to enter. I repeat, blast shelters will be open—"
Repetition raved on for minutes. Beneath it, Flandry snarled, "If ever they hope to provoke their war, they've reckoned this is their last and maybe their best chance."
The newsroom vanished. "Important recorded announcement," said a man in Dennitzan uniform. "A dangerous agent of Merseia is at large in Zorkagrad or vicinity." What must be a portrait from some xenological archive, since it was not of Chives, flashed onto the screen. "He landed eight days ago, posing as a peaceful traveler. Four days ago" (the computer must redub every 18.8 hours) "he was identified, but fought his way free of arrest and disappeared. He is of this species, generally known as Shalmuan. When last seen he wore a white kilt and had taken a blaster from a patrolman after injuring the entire squad. I repeat, your government identifies him as a Merseian secret agent, extremely dangerous because of his mission as well as his person. If you see him, do not take risks. Above all, do not try talking with him. If he cannot safely be killed, report the sighting to your nearest military post. A reward of 10,000 gold dinars is offered for information leading to his death or capture. Dead or alive, he himself is worth a reward of 50,000—"
Air hissed between Kossara's teeth. Flandry sat moveless for minutes before he said stonily, "That's how. Somebody, in some fashion, recognized Chives. That meant I was around, and most likely you. That meant—any contact between your family and the Gospodar—yes."
Kossara wept anew, in sorrow and in rage.
Yet at the end it was she who lifted her head and said, hoarse but level-toned, "I've thought of where we might go, Dominic, and what we might try to do."
XVI
Clouds and a loud raw wind had blown in across the ocean. Morning along the Obala, the east coast of Rodna, was winterlike, sky the color of lead, sea the colors of iron and gunmetal. But neither sky nor sea was quiet. Beneath the overcast a thin smoky wrack went flying; surf cannonaded and exploded on reefs and beaches.
All Nanteiwon boats were in, big solid hulls moored behind the jetty or tied at the wharf. Above the dunes the fisher village huddled. Each house was long and wide as an ychan family needed, timbers tarred black, pillars that upheld the porch carved and brightly painted with ancestral symbols, blue-begrown sod roof cable-anchored against hurricanes, a spacious and sturdy sight. But there were not many houses. Beyond them reached the flatlands the dwellers cultivated, fields harvested bare and brown, trees a-toss by roadsides, on the horizon a vague darkening which betokened the ringwall of the Kazan. The air smelled of salt and distances.
Inside the home of Ywodh were warmth, sun-imitating fluorescents, musky odor of bodies, growls to drown out the piping at the windows. Some forty males had crowded between the frescoed walls of the mootroom, while more spilled throughout the building. They wore their common garb, tunic in bright colors thrown over sinewy green frame and secured by a belt which held the knuckleduster knife. But this was no common occasion. Perched on tails and feet, muscles knotted, they stared at the three on the honor-dais.
Two were human. One they knew well, Kossara Vymezal. She used to come here often with Trohdwyr, brother to Khwent, Yffal, drowned Qythwy.... How weary she looked. The other was a tall man who bore a mustache, frosted brown hair, eyes the hue of today's heaven.
Ywodh, Hand of the Vach Anochrin, steadcaptain of Nanteiwon, raised his arms. "Silence!" he called. "Hark." When he had his desire, he brought his gaunt, scarred bead forward and told them:
"You have now heard of the outrages done and the lies proclaimed. Between dawn, when I asked you to keep ashore today, and our meeting here, I was in phonetalk up and down the Obala. Not an ychan leader but swore us aid. We know what Merseian rule would bring.
"Let us know, too, how empty of hope is a mere rebellion against rebellion. We have boats, civilian aircars, sporting guns; a revolutionary government would have military flyers and armored groundcars, spacecraft, missiles, energy weapons, gases, combat shielding. The plotters have ignored us partly because they took for granted we care little about a change of human overlords and might welcome Merseians—untrue—but mainly because they see us as well-nigh powerless against their crews—true.
"Can we then do aught? These two have made me believe it. Rebellion can be forestalled. Yet we've netted a flailfish. We need care as much as courage.
"To most of us, what's gone on of late in Zorkagrad and in space has been troubling, even frightening, and not understandable, like an evil dream. Therefore we went about our work, trusting Gospodar Miyatovich and his councillors to do what was right for Dennitza. Last night's tale of his arrest as a traitor stunned us. We'd have stood bewildered until too late for anything—this was intended—had not Kossara Vymezal and Dominic Flandry come to us in our darkness.
"The whole planet must be in the same clubbed state, and likewise its fighting forces. What to do? Where is truth? Who is friend and who is foe? Everyone will think best he wait a few days, till he has more knowledge.
"In that brief span, a small band of well-placed illwishers, who know exactly what they are at, can put us on the tack they want, too hard over to come about: unless, in the same span, we go up against them, knowing what we do.
"This day, leaders will meet in Novi Aferoch and decide on a course for us. This morning along the Obala, other meetings hear what I tell you: Stand fast with your weapons, speak to no outsiders, keep ready to move."
Father. Mother. Ivan. Gyorgye. Little, little Natalie.
Mihail. Trohdwyr. And every soul who perished in our home, every living thing that did.
Father of Creation, receive them. Jesus, absolve them. Mary, comfort them. Light of the Holy Spirit, shine upon them forever.
I dare not ask for more. Amen.
Kossara signed herself and rose. The boulder behind which she had knelt no longer hid Nanteiwon. It looked very small, far down the beach between gray sea and gray sky. Lutka her doll and Butterfeet her cat might take shelter in those houses from the wind that blew so cold, so cold.
Strange she should think of them when their loss belonged to her childhood and most of her dead were not a day old. She turned from the village and walked on over the strand. It gritted beneath her boots. Often an empty shell crunched, or she passed a tangle of weed torn from the depths and left to dry out. On her right, a hedge of cane barred sight of autumn fields, rattling and clicking. Waves thundered in, rushed out, trundled hollowly back again. Wind shrilled, thrust, smacked her cheeks and laid bitterness across her lips.
Do I comprehend that they are gone?
If only things would move. They had hours to wait, safest here, before the ychan chiefs could be gathered together. Flandry had offered her medicines from his kit, for sleep, for calm and freedom from pain, but when she declined, he said, "I knew you would. You'll always earn your way," and when she told him she would like to go out for a while, he saw she needed aloneness. He saw deeper than most, did her Dominic, and covered the hurt of it with a jape. If only he did not see right past God. In time? I'll never preach at him, nor admit outright that I pray for him. But if we are given time—
They had had no end to their plans. A house in the Dubina Dolyina country, an apartment in Zorkagrad; they could afford both, and children should have elbow room for body and mind alike. Quests among the stars, wild beauties, heart-soaring moment of a new truth discovered, then return to the dear well-known. Service, oh, nothing too hazardous any more, staff rather than field Intelligence—nonetheless, swordplay of wits in the glad knowledge that this was for the future, not the poor wayworn Empire but a world he too could believe in, the world of their own blood. Ideas, investments, enterprises to start; the things they might undertake had sparkled from them like fireworks....
It had all gone flat and blurred, unreal. What she could still hold whole in her daze were the small hopes. She shows him an overlook she knows in the Vysochina highlands. He teaches her the fine points of winetasting. She reads aloud to him from Simich, he to her from Genji. They attend the opera in Zorkagrad. They join in the dances at a land festival. They sail a boat across Lake Stoyan to a cafe beneath flowering viyenatz trees on Garlandmakers' Island. They take their children to the zoo and the merrypark.
If we prevail.
She stopped. Her body ached, but she straightened, faced into the wind, and told it, We will. We will. I can borrow strength and clarity from his medicines. The repayment afterward will simply be a time of sleep, a time of peace. She wheeled and started back. As she fared, her stride lengthened.
Novi Aferoch climbed from the docks at the Elena River mouth, up a hill from whose top might be spied the ruins of Stari Aferoch when they jutted from the sea at low tide. There stood Council Hall, slate-roofed, heavy-timbered, colonnaded with carven water monsters. In the main chamber was a table made three hundred years ago from timbers out of Gwyth's ship. Around it perched the steadcaptains of the Obala. At its head stood their moot-lord Kyrwedhin, Hand of the Vach Mannoch, and the two humans.
A storm hooted and dashed rain on windowpanes. Inside, the air was blue and acrid from the pipes whereon many had been puffing. Anger smoldered behind obsidian eyes, but the leathery visages were moveless and not a tailtip twitched. These males had heard what the voivode's daughter had to tell, and roared their curses. The hour had come to think.
Kyrwedhin addressed them in quick, precise words. He was short for an ychan, though when he was younger it had not been wise to fight him. He was the wealthy owner of seareaping and merchant fleets. And... he held a degree from the Shkola, a seat in the Skupshtina, a close experience of great affairs.
"For myself I will merely say this," he declared in Eriau. (Flitting from Zorkagrad after receiving Ywodh's urgent, argot-phrased call, he had been pleased to learn Flandry was fluent in the language, at least its modern Merseian version. His own Serbic was excellent, his Anglic not bad, but that wasn't true of everybody here.) "The ideas of our Terran guest feel right. We in the House of the Zmayi have doubtless been too parochial where the Empire was concerned, too narrowly aimed at Dennitzan matters—much like the House of the Folk. However, we have always kept a special interest in our mother world, many of us have gone there to visit, some to study, and the inhabitants are our species. Thus we have a certain sense for what the Roidhunate may or may not do. And, while I never doubted its masters wish us harm, what news and clues have reached me do not suggest current preparations for outright war. For instance, I've corresponded for years with Korvash, who lately became Hand of the Vach Rueth there. If an attack on us were to be mounted soon, he would know, and he must be more cunning than I believe for this not to change the tone of his letters.
"No proof, I agree. A single bit of flotsam in the maelstrom. I will give you just one more out of many, given me by Lazar Ristich, voivode of Kom Kutchki. Like most members of the House of the Lords, he takes close interest in Imperial business and is familiar with several prime parts of the inner Empire; he had friends on Terra itself, where he's spent considerable time. He told me the story we heard about Kossara Vymezal could not be right. Whether truly accused because she belonged to an overzealous faction among us, or falsely accused for a twisted political reason elsewhere, a person of her rank would not be shipped off to shame like any common criminal. That could only happen through monumental incompetence—which he felt sure was unlikely—or as a deliberate provocation—which he felt sure the present Imperium itself would not give us, though a cabal within it might. He wanted to discuss this with her uncle. The Zamok kept putting him off, claiming the Gospodar was too busy during the crisis.
"Well, both Ristich and I know Bodin Miyatovich of old. Such was not his way. It had to be the doing of his staff. Expecting we'd get a chance at him somehow, soon—since he was never one to closet himself in an office—we did not press too hard. We should have. For now he is captive."
Kyrwedhin halted. The wind shrilled. Finally Kossara said, tone as uncertain as words, "I can't find out what's really happened to him. Do you know?"
"Nobody does except the doers," he answered. "There are—were—Imperial liaison officers about, and their aides. Bodin had explained publicly why he, as sector governor, called in chosen craft that serve the Emperor directly, as well as those of the Voyska. Besides their guns, should Merseia attack, he wanted to demonstrate our reluctance to break with Terra.
"Spokesmen for the Zamok—the Castle," he added to Flandry; "the executive center and those who work there—spokesmen for the Zamok have said they aren't sure either. Apparently a party of Imperials got Bodin alone, took him prisoner, and spirited him away to a ship of theirs. Which vessel is not revealed. None have responded to beamed inquiries."
"They wouldn't," Flandry observed.
Kyrwedhin nodded his serrated head. "Naturally not. Imperial personnel still on the ground deny any knowledge. Thus far we have nothing except the statement that a high Terran officer contacted Milutin Protich, informed him Bodin Miyatovich was under arrest for treason, and demanded Dennitza and its armed forces give immediate total obedience to Admiral da Costa. He's the ranking Imperial in the Zorian System at the moment, therefore can be considered the Emperor's representative."
"And who is, m-m, Milutin Protich?"
"A special assistant to the Gospodar. According to the announcement, he was the first important man in the Zamok whom the Terrans managed to get in touch with." Kyrwedhin pondered. "Yes-s-s. He isn't Dennitzan-born—from a nearby system where many families from here have settled. He arrived several years back, entered administrative service, did brilliantly, rose fast and far. Bodin had much faith in him."
Flandry drew forth a cigarette. "I take it everybody's been pretty well paralyzed throughout today," he said.
"Aye. We must decide what to do. And we've fiendish little information to go on, half of it contradicting the other half. Were the Imperialists essentially right to seize our Gospodar, or was this their next step in subjugating us, or even getting us destroyed? Should we declare independence—when Merseia lurks in the wings? The Imperials can't prevent that; our ships vastly outnumber theirs hereabouts. But if fighting starts, they could make us pay heavily."
"You Dennitzans, human and zmay—ychan—you don't strike me as hesitant people," Flandry remarked. "As we say in Anglic, ‘He who dithers is diddled.' The newscasts have been forgivably confused. But am I right in my impression that your parliament—Skupshtina—meets tomorrow?"
"Yes. In the Gospodar's absence, the Chief Justice will preside."
"Do you think the vote will go for secession?"
"I had no doubt of it... until I heard from Dama Vymezal and yourself."
The captains gripped their pipes, knife handles, the edge of the table, hard. They would have their own words to say later on; but what they heard in the next few minutes would be their compass.
"If you rise and tell them—" Flandry began,
Kossara cut him off. "No, dear. That's impossible."
"What?" He blinked at her.
She spoke carefully, clearly. The stim she had taken made vigor shine pale through flesh and eyes. "The Skupshtina's no controlled inner-Empire congress. It's about five hundred different proud individuals, speaking for as many different proud sections of land or walks of life. It's often turbulent—fights have happened, yes, a few killings—and tomorrow it'll be wild. Do you think our enemy hasn't prepared for the climax of his work? I know the Chief Justice; he's honest but aged. He can be swayed about whom he recognizes. And if somebody did get the floor, started telling the whole truth—do you imagine he'd live to finish?"
"She's right," Kyrwedhin said.
Flandry drew on his cigarette till his face creased before he replied, "Yes, I'd supposed something like that must be the case. Assassination's easy. A few concealed needle guns, spotted around—and as a backup, maybe, some thoroughly armed bully boys hidden away in buildings near the Capitol. If necessary, they seize it, proclaim themselves the Revolutionary Committee... and, given the spadework the enemy's done over the years, they can probably raise enough popular support to commit your people beyond any chance of turning back."
"If you have thought of this and not despaired," Kyrwedhin said, "you must have a plan."
Flandry frowned. "I'd rather hear what you have in mind. You know your establishment."
"But I am taken by surprise."
Kossara spoke against storm-noise: "I know. If you and I, Dominic—especially I—if we appear before them, suddenly, in person—why, killing us would be worse than useless."
Kyrwedhin's tail smacked the floor. "Yes!" he cried. "My thoughts were headed your same way. Though you can't simply walk in from Constitution Square. You'd never pass the Iron Portal alive. What you need is an escort, bodies both shielding and concealing you, on your way right into the Union Chamber."
"How?" snapped from a village chief.
Kossara had the answer: "Ychani have always been the Peculiar People of Dennitza. The House of the Zmayi has never entirely spoken for them; it's a human invention. If, in a desperate hour, several hundred Obala fishers enter Zorkagrad, march through Square and Portal into the Chamber, demanding their leaders be heard—it won't be the first time in history. The enemy will see no politic way to halt that kind of demonstration. They may well expect it'll turn to their advantage; outsiders would naturally think Merseian-descended Dennitzans are anti-Terran, right? Then too late—" She flung her hands wide, her voice aloft. "Too late, they see who came along!"
Beneath the surf of agreement, Flandry murmured to her: "My idea also. I kept hoping somebody would have a better one."
XVII
Just before their car set down, Flandry protested to Kossara, "God damn it, why does your parliament have to meet in person? You've got holocom systems. Your politicians could send and receive images... and we could've rigged untraceable methods to call them and give them the facts last night."
"Hush, darling." She laid a hand across his fist. "You know why. Electronics will do for ornamental relics. The Skupshtina is alive, it debates and decides real things, the members need intimacies, subtleties, surprises."
"But you, you have to go among murderers to reach them."
"And I fear for you," she said quietly. "We should both stop."
He looked long at her, and she at him, in the seat they shared. Beryl eyes under wide brow and bronze hair, strong fair features though her smile quivered the least bit, height, ranginess, fullness, the warmth of her clasp and the summery fragrance of herself: had she ever been more beautiful? The vitality that surged in her, the serenity beneath, were no work of a drug; it had simply let her put aside shock, exhaustion, grief for this while and be altogether Kossara.
"If there is danger today," she said, "I thank God He lets me be in it with you."
He prevented himself from telling her he felt no gratitude. They kissed, very briefly and lightly because the car was crammed with ychans.
It landed in a parking lot at the edge of Zorkagrad. None farther in could have accommodated the swarm of battered vehicles which was arriving. Besides, a sudden appearance downtown might have provoked alarm and a quick reaction by the enemy. A march ought to have a calming effect. Flandry and Kossara donned cowled cloaks, which should hide their species from a cursory glance when they were surrounded by hemianthropoid xenos, and stepped outside.
A west wind skirled against the sun, whose blaze seemed paled in a pale heaven. Clouds were brighter; they scudded in flocks, blinding white, their shadows sweeping chill across the world, off, on, off, on. Winged animals wheeled and thinly cried. Trees around the lot and along the street that ran from it—mostly Terran, oak, elm, beech, maple—cast their outer branches about, creaked, soughed Delphic utterances though tongue after fire-tongue ripped loose to scrittle off over the pavement. Rainpuddles wandered and wandered. All nature was saying farewell.
The ychans closed in around the humans. They numbered a good four hundred, chosen by their steadcaptains as bold, cool-headed, skilled with the knives, tridents, harpoons, and firearms they bore. Ywodh of Nanteiwon, appointed their leader by Kyrwedhin before the parliamentarian returned here, put them in battle-ready order. They spoke little and showed scant outward excitement, at least to human eyes or nostrils; such was the way of the Obala. They did not know the ins and outs of what had happened, nor greatly care. It was enough that their Gospodar had been betrayed by the enemy of their forefathers, that his niece had come home to speak truth, and that they were her soldiers. The wind snapped two standards in their van, star white on blue of Yovan Matavuly, ax red on gold of Gwyth.
"All set," Ywodh reported. A shout: "Forward!" He took the lead. Flandry and Kossara would fain have clasped hands as they walked, but even surrounded must clutch their cloaks tight against this tricksy air. The thud of their boots was lost amidst digitigrade slither and click. At first it was predictable they would encounter nobody. Here was a new district of private homes and clustered condominium units, beyond the scope of forcefield generators that offered the inner city some protection. Residents had sought safer quarters. An occasional militia squad, on patrol to prevent looting, observed the procession from a distance but did not interfere.
Farther on, buildings were older, higher, close-packed on streets which had narrowed and went snakily uphill: red tile roofs, stucco walls of time-faded gaudiness, signs and emblems hung above doorways, tenements, offices, midget factories, restaurants, taverns, amusements, a bulbous-domed parish church, a few big stores and tiny eccentric shops by the score, the kind of place that ought to have pulsed with traffic of vehicles and foot, been lively with movement, colors, gestures broad or sly, words, laughter, whistling, song, sorrow, an accordion or a fiddle somewhere, pungencies of roast corn and nuts for sale to keep the passerby warm, oddments in display windows, city men, landmen, offworlders, vagabonds, students, soldiers, children, grannies, the unforgettably gorgeous woman whom you know you will never glimpse again.... A few walkers stepped aside, a few standers poised in doorways or leaned on upper-story sills, warily staring. Now and then a groundcar detoured. A civilian policeman in brown uniform and high-crowned hat joined Ywodh; they talked; he consulted his superiors via minicom, stayed till an aircar had made inspection from above, and departed.
"This is downright creepy," Flandry murmured to Kossara. "Has everybody evacuated, or what?"
She passed the question on. Untrained humans could not have conveyed information accurately in that wise; but soon she told Flandry from Ywodh: "Early this morning—the organizers must have worked the whole night—an ispravka started against Imperial personnel. That's when ordinary citizens take direct action. Not a riot or lynching. The people move under discipline, often in their regular Voyska units; remember, every able-bodied adult is a reservist. Such affairs seldom get out of control, and may have no violence at all. Offenders may simply be expelled from an area. Or they may be held prisoner while spokesmen of the people demand the authorities take steps to punish them. A few ispravkai have brought down governments. In this case, what's happened is that Terrans and others who serve the Imperium were rounded up into certain buildings: hostages for the Gospodar's release and the good behavior of their Navy ships. The Zamok denounced the action as illegal and bound to increase tension, demanded the crowds disperse, and sent police. The people stand fast around those buildings. The police haven't charged them; no shots have yet been fired on either side."
"I've heard of worse customs," Flandry said.
Puzzled, she asked, "Shouldn't the plotters be pleased?"
Flandry shrugged. "I daresay they are. Still, don't forget the vast majority of your officials must be patriotic, and whether or not they prefer independence, consider civil war to be the final recourse. The top man among them issued that cease-and-desist order." He frowned. "But, um, you know, this nails down a lot of our possible helpers, both citizens and police. The enemy isn't expecting us. However, if too many parliament members refuse to board the secession railroad, he'll have a clear field for attempting a coup d'etat. Maybe the firebrand who instigated that, uh, ispravka is a Merseian himself, in human skin."
The wind boomed between walls.
A minor commotion occurred on the fringes of the troop. Word flew back and forth. "Chives!" Kossara gasped.
The ychans let him through. He also went cloaked to muffle the fact of his race from any quick glance. Emerald features were eroded from spare to gaunt; eyes were more fallow than amber; but when Flandry whooped and took him by the shoulders, Chives said crisply, "Thank you, sir. Donna Vymezal, will you allow me the liberty of expressing my sympathy at your loss?"
"Oh, you dear clown!" She hugged him. Her lashes gleamed wet. Chives suffered the gesture in embarrassed silence. Flandry sensed within him a deeper trouble.
They continued through hollow streets. A fighter craft passed low above chimneys. Air whined and snarled in its wake. "What've you been doing?" Flandry asked. "How'd you find us?"
"If you have no immediate statement or directive for me, sir," the precise voice replied, "I will report chronologically. Pursuant to instructions, I landed at the spaceport and submitted to inspection. My cover story was approved and I given license, under police registry, to remain here for a stated period as per my declared business. Interested in exotics, many townspeople conversed with me while I circulated among them in the next few planetary days. By pretending to less familiarity with Homo sapiens than is the case, I gathered impressions of their individual feelings as respects the present imbroglio. At a more convenient time, sir, if you wish, I will give you the statistical breakdown.
"I must confess it was a complete surprise when a Naval patrol entered my lodgings and declared an intention to take me in custody. Under the circumstances, sir, I felt conformity would be imprudent. I endeavored not to damage irreparably men who wore his Majesty's uniform, and in due course will return the borrowed blaster you observe me wearing. Thereupon I took refuge with a gentleman I suspected of vehement anti-Terran sentiments. May I respectfully request his name and the names of his associates be omitted from your official cognizance? Besides their hospitality and helpfulness toward me, they exhibited no more than a misguided zeal for the welfare of this planet, and indeed I was the occasion of their first overt unlawful act. They sheltered me only after I had convinced them I was a revolutionary for my own society, and that my public designation as a Merseian agent was a calumny which the Imperialists could be expected to employ against their kind too. They were persuaded rather easily; I would not recommend them for the Intelligence Corps. I got from them clothes, disguise materials, equipment convertible to surveillance purposes, and went about collecting data for myself.
"They do possess a rudimentary organization. Through this, via a phone call, my host learned that a large delegation of zmays was moving on the Capitol. Recalling Donna Vymezal's accounts of her background, and trusting she and you had not perished after all, I thought you might be here. To have this deduction confirmed was... most gratifying, sir."
Flandry chewed his lip for a while before he said, "Those were Imperials who came to arrest you? Not Dennitzans?"
"No, sir, not Dennitzans. There could be no mistake." Chives spoke mutedly. His thin green fingers hauled the cowl closer around his face.
"You went unmolested for days, and then in a blink—" Flandry's speech chopped off. They were at their goal.
Well into Old Town, the party passed between two many-balconied mansions, out onto a plateau of Royal Hill. Constitution Square opened before them, broad, slate-flagged, benches, flowerbeds, trees—empty, empty. In the middle was a big fountain, granite catchbasin, Toman Obilich and Vladimir locked in bronze combat, water dancing white but its sound and spray borne off by the wind. Westward buildings stood well apart, giving a view down across roofs to Lake Stoyan, metal-bright shimmer and shiver beyond the curve of the world. Directly across the square was the Capitol, a sprawling, porticoed marble mass beneath a gilt dome whose point upheld an argent star. A pair of kilometers further on, a rock lifted nearly sheer, helmeted with the battlements and banners of the Zamok.
Flandry's gaze flickered. He identified a large hotel, office buildings, cafes, fashionable stores, everything antiquated but dignified, the gray stones wearing well; how many Constitution Squares had he known in his life? But this lay deserted under wind, chill, and hasty cloud shadows. A militia squad stood six men on the Capitol verandah, six flanking the bottom of the stairs; their capes flapped, their rifles gleamed whenever a sunbeam smote and then went dull again. Aircraft circled far overhead. Otherwise none save the newcomers were in sight. Yet surely watchers waited behind yonder shut doors, yonder blank panes: proprietors, caretakers, maybe a few police—a few, since the turmoil was elsewhere in town and no disturbance expected here. Who besides? He walked as if through a labyrinth of mirages. Nothing was wholly what he sensed, except the blaster butt under his hand and a stray russet lock of Kossara's hair.
She had no such dreads. As they trod into the plaza, he heard her whisper, "Here we go, my brave beloved. They'll sing of you for a thousand years."
He shoved hesitation out of his mind and readied himself to fight.
But no clash came. Despite what they told him when the move was being planned, he'd more or less awaited behavior like that when a gaggle of demonstrators wanted to invade a legislative session on any human planet he knew—prohibition, resistance, then either a riot or one of the sides yielding. If officialdom conceded in order to avoid the riot, it would be grudgingly, after prolonged haggling; and whatever protesters were admitted would enter under strict conditions, well guarded, to meet indignant stares.
Dennitza, though, had institutionalized if not quite legalized procedures like the ispravka. Through the officer he met on the way, Ywodh had explained his band's intent. Word had quickly reached the Chief Justice. Four hundred zmays would not lightly descend on Zorkagrad, claiming to represent the whole Obala; they could be trusted to be mannerly and not take an unreasonable time to make their points; urged by Kyrwedhin, a majority in the third house of the Skupshtina endorsed their demand. No guns greeted them, aside from those of the corporal's guard at the entrance; and they bore their own arms inside.
Up the stairs—past armored doors that recalled the Troubles—through an echoful lobby—into a central chamber where the parliament in joint session waited—Flandry raked his glance around, seeking menaces to his woman and shelters for her.
The room was a half ellipsoid. At the far-end focus, a dais bore the Gospodar's lectern, a long desk, and several occupied chairs. To right and left, tiers held the seats of members, widely spaced. Skylights cast fleetingness of weather into steadiness of fluorescents, making the polished marble floor seem to stir. On gilt mural panels were painted the saints and heroes of Dennitza. The lawmakers sat according to their groupings, Lords in rainbow robes, Folk in tunics and trousers or in gowns, Zmayi in leather and metal. After the outdoors, Flandry breathed an air which felt curdled by fear and fury.
Banners dipped to an old man in black who sat behind the lectern. Slowly the fishers advanced, while unseen telescanners watched on behalf of the world. In the middle of the floor, the ychans halted. Silence encompassed them. Flandry's pulse thuttered.
"Zdravo," said the Chief Justice, and added a courteous Eriau "Hydhref." His hand forgot stateliness, plucked at his white beard. "We have... let you in... for unity's sake. My understanding is, your delegation wishes to speak relevantly to the present crisis—a viewpoint which might else go unheard. You in turn will, will understand why we must limit your time to fifteen minutes."
Ywodh bowed, palms downward, tail curved. Straightening, he let his quarterdeck basso roll. "We thank the assembly. I'll need less than that; but I think you'll then want to give us more." Flandry's eyes picked out Kyrwedhin. Weird, that the sole Dennitzan up there whom he knew should bear Merseian genes. "Worthies and world," Ywodh was saying, "you've heard many a tale of late: how the Emperor wants to crush us, how a new war is nearly on us because of his folly or his scheming to slough us off, how his agents rightly or wrongly charged the Gospodar's niece Kossara Vymezal with treason and—absolutely wrongly—sold her for a slave, how they've taken the Gospodar himself prisoner on the same excuse, how they must have destroyed the whole homestead of his brother-in-law the voivode of Dubina Dolyina to grind out any spark of free spirit, how our last choices left are ruin or revolution—You've heard this.
"I say each piece of it is false." He flung an arm in signal. With a showmanship that humans would have had to rehearse, his followers opened their ranks. "And here to gaff the lies is Kossara Vymezal, sister's daughter to Bodin Miyatovich our Gospodar!"
She bounded from among them, across the floor, onto the dais, to take her place between the antlers of the lectern. A moan lifted out of the benched humans, as if the fall wind had made entry; the zmayi uttered a surflike rumble. "What, what, what is this?" quavered the Chief Justice. Nobody paid him heed. Kossara raised her head and cried forth so the room rang:
"Hear me, folk! I'm not back from the dead, but I am back from hell, and I bear witness. The devils are not Terrans but Merseians and their creatures. My savior was, is, not a Dennitzan but a Terran. Those who shout, ‘Independence!' are traitors not to the Empire but to Dennitza. Their single wish is to set humans at each other's throats, till the Roidhun arrives and picks our bones. Hear my story and judge."
Flandry walked toward her, Chives beside him. He wished it weren't too disturbing to run. Nike of Samothrace had not borne a higher or more defenseless pride than she did. They took stance beneath her, facing the outer door. Her tones marched triumphant:
"—I escaped the dishonor intended me by the grace of God and the decency of this man you see here, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of his Majesty's service. Let me tell what happened from the beginning. Have I your leave, worthies?"
"Aye!"
Gunshots answered. Screams flew ragged. A blaster bolt flared outside the chamber.
Flandry's weapon jumped free. The tiers of the Skupshtina turned into a yelling scramble. Fifty-odd men pounded through the doorway. Clad like ordinary Dennitzans, all looked hard and many looked foreign. They bore firearms.
"Get down, Kossara!" Flandry shouted. Through him ripped: Yes, the enemy did have an emergency force hidden in a building near the square, and somebody in this room used a minicom to bring them. The Revolutionary Committee—they'll take over, they'll proclaim her an impostor—
He and Chives were on the dais. She hadn't flattened herself under the lectern. She had gone to one knee behind it, sidearm in hand, ready to snipe. The attackers were deploying around the room. Two dashed by either side of the clustered, bewildered fishers.
Their blaster beams leaped, convergent on the stand. Its wood exploded in flame, its horns toppled. Kossara dropped her pistol and fell back.
Chives pounced zigzag. A bolt seared and crashed within centimeters of him. He ignored it; he was taking aim. The first assassin's head became a fireball. The second crumpled, grabbed at the stump of a leg, writhed and shrieked a short while. Chives reached the next nearest, wrapped his tail around that man's neck and squeezed, got an elbow-beaking single-arm lock on another, hauled him around for a shield and commenced systematic shooting.
"I say," he called through the din to Ywodh, "you chaps might pitch in a bit, don't you know."
The steadcaptain bellowed. His slugthrower hissed. A male beside him harpooned a foeman's belly. Then heedless of guns, four hundred big seafarers joined battle.
Flandry knelt by Kossara. From bosom to waist was seared bloody wreckage. He half raised her. She groped after him with hands and eyes. "Dominic, darling," he barely heard, "I wish—" He heard no more.
For an instant he imagined revival, life-support machinery, cloning.... No. He'd never get her to a hospital before the brain was gone beyond any calling back of the spirit. Never.
He lowered her. I won't think yet. No time. I'd better get into that fight. The ychans don't realize we need a few prisoners,
Dusk fell early in fall. Above the lake smoldered a sunset remnant. Otherwise blue-black dimness drowned the land. Overhead trembled a few stars; and had he looked from his office window aloft in the Zamok, Flandry could have seen city lights, spiderwebs along streets and single glows from homes. Wind mumbled at the panes.
Finally granted a rest, he sat back from desk and control board, feeling his chair shape its embrace to his contours. Despite the drugs which suppressed grief, stimulated metabolism, and thus kept him going, weariness weighted every cell. He had turned off the fluoros. His cigarette end shone red. He couldn't taste the smoke, maybe because the dark had that effect, maybe because tongue and palate were scorched.
Well, went his clockwork thought, that takes care of the main business. He had just been in direct conversation with Admiral da Costa. The Terran commander appeared reasonably well convinced of the good faith of the provisional government whose master, for all practical purposes, Flandry had been throughout this afternoon. Tomorrow he would discuss the Gospodar's release. And as far as could be gauged, the Dennitzan people were accepting the fact they had been betrayed. They'd want a full account, of course, buttressed by evidence; and they wouldn't exactly become enthusiastic Imperialists; but the danger of revolution followed by civil war seemed past.
So maybe tomorrow I can let these chemicals drain out of me, let go my grip and let in my dead. Tonight the knowledge that there was no more Kossara reached him only like the wind, an endless voice beyond the windows. She had been spared that, he believed, had put mourning quite from her for the last span, being upheld by urgency rather than a need to go through motions, by youth and hope, by his presence beside her. Whereas I—ah, well, I can carry on. She'd've wanted me to.
The door chimed. What the deuce? His guards had kept him alone among electronic ghosts. Whoever got past them at last in person must be authoritative and persuasive. He waved at an admit plate and to turn the lights back on. Their brightness hurt his eyes.
A slim green form in a white kilt entered, bearing a tray where stood teapot, cup, plates and bowls of food. "Your dinner, sir," Chives announced.
"I'm not hungry," said the clockwork. "I didn't ask for—"
"No, sir. I took the liberty." Chives set his burden down on the desk. "Allow me to remind you, we require your physical fitness."
Her planet did. "Very good, Chives." Flandry got down some soup and black bread. The Shalmuan waited unobtrusively.
"That did help," the man agreed. "You know, give me the proper pill and I might sleep."
"You—you may not wish it for the nonce, sir."
"What?" Flandry sharpened his regard. Chives had lost composure. He stood head lowered, tail a-droop, hands hard clasped: miserable.
"Go on," Flandry said. "You've gotten me nourished. Tell me."
The voice scissored off words: "It concerns those personnel, sir, whom you recall the townsmen took into custody."
"Yes. I ordered them detained, well treated, till we can check them out individually. What of them?"
"I have discovered they include one whom I, while a fugitive, ascertained had come to Zorkagrad several days earlier. To be frank, sir, this merely confirmed my suspicion that such had been the case. I must have been denounced by a party who recognized your speedster at the port and obtained the inspectors' record of me. This knowledge must then have made him draw conclusions and recommend actions with respect to Voivode Vymezal."
"Well?"
"Needless to say, sir, I make no specific accusations. The guilt could lie elsewhere than in the party I am thinking of."
"Not measurably likely, among populations the size we've got." Beneath the drumhead of imposed emotionlessness, Flandry felt his body stiffen. "Who?"
Seldom did he see Chives' face distorted. "Lieutenant Commander Dominic Hazeltine, sir. Your son."
XVIII
Two militiamen escorted the prisoner into the office. "You may go," Flandry told them.
They stared unsurely from him, standing slumped against night in a window, to the strong young man they guarded. "Go," Flandry repeated. "Wait outside with my servant. I'll call on the intercom when I want you."
They saluted and obeyed. Flandry and Hazeltine regarded each other, mute, until the door had closed. The older saw an Imperial undress uniform, still neat upon an erect frame, and a countenance half Persis' where pride overmastered fear. The younger saw haggardness clad in a soiled coverall.
"Well," Flandry said at last. Hazeltine extended a hand. Flandry looked past it. "Have a seat," he invited. "Care for a drink?" He indicated bottle and glasses on his desk. "I remember you like Scotch."
"Thanks, Dad." Hazeltine spoke as low, free of the croak in the opposite throat. He smiled, and smiled again after they had both sat down holding their tumblers. Raising his, he proposed, "Here's to us. Damn few like us, and they're all dead."
They had used the ancient toast often before. This time Flandry did not respond. Hazeltine watched him a moment, grimaced, and tossed off a swallow. Then Flandry drank.
Hazeltine leaned forward. His words shook. "Father, you don't believe that vapor about me. Do you?"
Flandry took out his cigarette case. "I don't know what else to believe." He flipped back the lid. "Somebody who knew Chives and the Hooligan fingered him. The date of your arrival fits in." He chose a cigarette. "And thinking back, I find the coincidence a trifle much that you called my attention to Kossara Vymezal precisely when she'd reached Terra. I was a pretty safe bet to skyhoot her off to Diomedes, where she as an inconvenient witness and I as an inconvenient investigator could be burked in a way that'd maximize trouble." He puffed the tobacco into lighting, inhaled, streamed smoke till it veiled him, and sighed: "You were overeager. You should have waited till she'd been used at least a few days, and a reputable Dennitzan arranged for to learn about this."
"I didn't—No, what are you saying?" Hazeltine cried.
Flandry toyed with the case. "As was," he continued levelly, "the only word which could be sent, since the Gospodar would require proof and is no fool... the word was merely she'd been sold for a slave. Well, ample provocation. Where were you, between leaving Terra and landing here? Did you maybe report straight to Aycharaych?"
Hazeltine banged his glass down on the chair arm. "Lies!" he shouted. Red and white throbbed across his visage. "Listen, I'm your son. I swear to you by—"
"Never mind. And don't waste good liquor. If I'd settled on Dennitza as I planned, the price we'd've paid for Scotch—" Flandry gave his lips a respite from the cigarette. He waved it. "How were you recruited? By the Merseians, I mean. Couldn't be brainscrub. I know the signs too well. Blackmail? No, implausible. You're a bright lad who wouldn't get suckered into that first mistake they corral you by—a brave lad who'd sneer at threats. But sometime during the contacts you made in line of duty—"
Hazeltine's breath rasped. "I didn't! How can I prove to you, Father, I didn't?"
"Simple," Flandry said. "You must have routine narco immunization. But we can hypnoprobe you."
Hazeltine sagged back. His glass rolled across the floor.
"The Imperial detachment brought Intelligence personnel and their apparatus, you know," Flandry continued. "I've asked, and they can take you tomorrow morning. Naturally, any private facts which emerge will stay confidential."
Hazeltine raised an aspen hand. "You don't know—I—I'm deep-conditioned."
"By Terra?"
"Yes, of course, of course. I can't be 'probed... without my mind being... destroyed—"
Flandry sighed again. "Come, now. We don't deep-condition our agents against giving information to their own people, except occasional supersecrets. After all, a 'probe can bring forth useful items the conscious mind has forgotten. Don't fear if you're honest, son. The lightest treatment will clear you, and the team will go no further."
"But—oh, no-o-o—"
Abruptly Hazeltine cast himself on his knees before Flandry. Words burst from his mouth like the sweat from his skin. "Yes, then, yes, I've been working for Merseia. Not bought, nothing like that, I thought the future was theirs, should be theirs, not this walking corpse of an Empire—Merciful angels, can't you see their way's the hope of humankind too?—" Flandry blew smoke to counteract the reek of terror. "I'll cooperate. I will, I will. I wasn't evil, Dad. I had my orders about you, yes, but I hated what I did, and Aycharaych doubted you'd really be killed, and I knew I was supposed to let that girl be bought first by somebody else before I told you but when we happened to arrive in time I couldn't make myself wait—" He caught Flandry by the knees. "Dad, in Mother's name, let my mind live!"
Flandry shoved the clasp aside, rose, stepped a couple of meters off, and answered, "Sorry. I could never trust you not to leave stuff buried in your confession that could rise to kill or enslave too many more young girls." For a few seconds he watched the crouched, spastic shape. "I'm under stim and heavy trank," he said. "A piece of machinery. I've a far-off sense of how this will feel later on, but mostly that's abstract. However... you have till morning, son. What would you like while you wait? I'll do my best to provide it."
Hazeltine uncoiled. On his feet, he howled, "You cold devil, at least I'll kill you first! And then myself!"
He charged. The rage which doubled his youthful strength was not amok; he came as a karate man, ready to smash a ribcage and pluck out a heart.
Flandry swayed aside. He passed a hand near the other. Razor-edged, the lid of the cigarette case left a shallow red gash in the right cheek. Hazeltine whirled for a renewed assault. Flandry gave ground. Hazeltine followed, boxing him into a corner. Then the knockout potion took hold. Hazeltine stumbled, reeled, flailed his arms, mouthed, and caved in.
Flandry sought the intercom. "Come remove the prisoner," he directed.
Day broke windless and freezing cold. The sun stood in a rainbow ring and ice crackled along the shores of Lake Stoyan. Zorkagrad lay silent under bitter blue, as if killed. From time to time thunders drifted across its roofs, arrivals and departures of spacecraft. They gleamed meteoric. Sometimes, too, airships whistled by, armored vehicles rumbled, boots slammed on pavement. About noon, one such vessel and one such march brought Bodin Miyatovich home.
He was as glad to return unheralded. Too much work awaited him for ceremonies—him and Dominic Flandry. But the news did go out on the 'casts; and that was like proclaiming Solstice Feast. Folk ran from their houses, poured in from the land, left their patrols to shout, dance, weep, laugh, sing, embrace perfect strangers; and every church bell pealed.
From a balcony of the Zamok he watched lights burn and bob through twilit streets, bonfires in squares, tumult and clamor. His breath smoked spectral under the early stars. Frost tinged his beard. "This can't last," he muttered, and stepped back into the office.
When the viewdoor closed behind him, stillness fell except for chimes now muffled. The chill he had let in remained a while. Flandry, hunched in a chair, didn't seem to notice.
Miyatovich gave the Terran a close regard. "You can't go on either," he said. "If you don't stop dosing yourself and let your glands and nerves function normally, they'll quit on you."
Flandry nodded. "I'll stop soon." From caverns his eyes observed a phonescreen.
The big gray-blond man hung up his cloak. "I'll admit I couldn't have done what got done today, maybe not for weeks, maybe never, without you," he said. "You knew the right words, the right channels; you had the ideas. But we are done. I can handle the rest."
He went to stand behind his companion, laying fingers on shoulders, gently kneading. "I'd like to hide from her death myself," he said. "Aye, it's easier for me. I'd thought her lost to horror, and learned she was lost in honor. While if you and she—Dominic, listen. I made a chance to call my wife. She's at our house, not our town house, a place in the country, peace, woods, cleanness, healing. We want you there." He paused. "You're a very private man, aren't you? Well, nobody will poke into your grief."
"I'm not hiding," Flandry replied in monotone. "I'm waiting. I expect a message shortly. Then I'll take your advice."
"What message?"
"Interrogation results from a certain Mers—Roidhunate agent we captured. I've reason to think he has some critical information."
"Hoy?" Miyatovich's features, tired in their own right, kindled. He cast himself into an armchair confronting Flandry. It creaked beneath his weight.
"I'm in a position to evaluate it better than anyone else," the Terran persisted. "How long does da Costa insist on keeping his ships here ‘in case we need further help'?—Ah, yes, five standard days, I remember. Well, I'll doubtless need about that long at your house; I'll be numb, and afterward—
"I'll take a printout in my luggage, to study when I'm able. Your job meanwhile will be to... not suppress the report. You probably couldn't; besides, the Empire needs every drop of data we can wring out of what enemy operatives we catch. But don't let da Costa's command scent any special significance in the findings of this particular 'probe job."
The Gospodar fumbled for pipe and tobacco pouch. "Why?"
"I can't guarantee what we'll learn, but I have a logical suspicion—Are you sure you can keep the Dennitzan fleet mobilized, inactive, another couple of weeks?"
"Yes." Miyatovich grew patient. "Maybe you don't quite follow the psychology, Dominic. Da Costa wants to be certain we won't rebel. The fact that we aren't dispersing immediately makes him leery. He hasn't the power to prevent us from whatever we decide to do, but he thinks his presence as a tripwire will deter secessionism. All right, in five Terran days his Intelligence teams can establish it's a bogeyman, and he can accept my explanation that we're staying on alert for a spell yet in case Merseia does attack. He'll deem us a touch paranoid, but he'll return to base with a clear conscience."
"You have to give your men the same reason, don't you?"
"Right. And they'll accept it. In fact, they'd protest if I didn't issue such an order. Dennitza's lived too many centuries by the abyss; this time we nearly went over."
Miyatovich tamped his pipe bowl needlessly hard. "I've gotten to know you well enough, I believe, in this short while, that I can tell you the whole truth," he added. "You thought you were helping me smooth things out with respect to the Empire. And you were, you were. But my main reason for quick reconciliation is... to get the Imperials out of the Zorian System while we still have our own full strength."
"And you'll strike back at Merseia," Flandry said.
The Gospodar showed astonishment. "How did you guess?"
"I didn't guess. I knew—Kossara. She told me a lot."
Miyatovich gathered wind and wits. "Don't think I'm crazy," he urged. "Rather, I'll have to jump around like sodium in the rain, trying to keep people and Skupshtina from demanding action too loudly before the Terrans leave. But when the Terrans do—" His eyes, the color of hers, grew leopard-intent. "We want more than revenge. In fact, only a few of us like myself have suffered what would have brought on a blood feud in the old days. But I told you we live on the edge. We have got to show we aren't safe for unfriends to touch. Otherwise, what's next?"
"Nemo me impune lacessit," Flandry murmured.
"Hm?"
"No matter. Ancient saying. Too damned ancient; does nothing ever change at the heart?" Flandry shook his head. The chemical barriers were growing thin. "I take it, then, in the absence of da Costa or some other Imperial official—who'd surely maintain anything as atavistic as response to aggression is against policy and must in all events be referred to the appropriate authorities, in triplicate, for debate—in the absence of that, as sector governor you'll order the Dennitzan fleet on a retaliatory strike."
Miyatovich nodded. "Yes."
"Have you considered the consequences?"
"I'll have time to consider them further, before we commit. But... if we choose the target right, I don't expect Merseia will do more than protest. The fact seems to be, at present they are not geared for war with Terra. They were relying on a new civil war among us. If instead they get hit, the shock ought to make them more careful about the whole Empire."
"What target have you in mind?"
Miyatovich frowned, spent a minute with a lighter getting his pipe started, finally said, "I don't yet know. The object is not to start a war, but to punish behavior which could cause one. The Roidhunate couldn't write off a heavily populated planet. Nor would I lead a genocidal mission. But, oh, something valuable, maybe an industrial center on a barren metal-rich globe—I'll have the War College study it."
"If you succeed," Flandry warned, "you'll be told you went far beyond your powers."
"That can be argued. Those powers aren't too well defined, are they? I like to imagine Hans Molitor will sympathize." The Gospodar shrugged. "If not, what becomes of me isn't important. I'm thinking of the children and grandchildren."
"Uh-huh. Well, you've confirmed what—Hold on." The phone buzzed. Flandry reached to press accept. He had to try twice before he made it.
A countenance half as stark as his looked from the screen. "Lieutenant Mitchell reporting, sir. Hypnoprobing of the prisoner Dominic Hazeltine has been completed."
"Results?" The question was plane-flat.
"You predicted aright, sir. The subject was deep-conditioned." Mitchell winced at a recollection unpleasant even in his line of work. "I'd never seen or heard of so thorough a treatment. He went into shock almost at once. In later stages, the stimuli necessary were—well, he hasn't got a forebrain left to speak of."
"I want a transcript in full," Flandry said. "Otherwise, you're to seal the record, classified Ultimate Secret, and your whole team will keep silence. I'll give you a written directive on that, authorized by Governor Miyatovich."
"Yes, sir." Mitchell showed puzzlement. He must be wondering why the emphasis. Intelligence didn't make a habit of broadcasting what it learned. Unless—"Sir, you realize, don't you, this is still raw material? More incoherent than usual, too, because of the brain channeling. We did sort out his basic biography, details of his most recent task, that kind of thing. Offhand, the rest of what we got seems promising. But to fit the broken, scrambled association chains together, interpret the symbols and find their significance—"
"I'll take care of that," Flandry snapped. "Your part is over."
"Yes, sir." Mitchell dropped his gaze. "I'm... sorry... on account of the relationship involved. He really did admire you. Uh, what shall we do about him now?"
Flandry fell quiet. Miyatovich puffed volcanic clouds. Outside, the bells caroled. "Sir?"
"Let me see him," Flandry said.
Interlinks flickered. In the screen appeared the image of a young man, naked on a bed, arms spreadeagled to meet the tubes driven into his veins, chest and abdominal cavities opened for the entry of machines that kept most cells alive. He stared at the ceiling with eyes that never moved nor blinked. His mouth dribbled. Click, chug, it said in the background, click, chug. Flandry made a noise. Miyatovich seized his hand.
After a while Flandry stated, "Thank you. Switch it off."
They held Kossara Vymezal in a coldvault until the Imperials had left. This was by command of the Gospodar, and folk supposed the reason was she was Dennitza's, nobody else's, and said he did right. As many as were able would attend her funeral.
The day before, she was brought to the Cathedral of St. Clement, though none save kin were let near. Only the four men of her honor guard were there when Dominic Flandry came.
They stood in uniform of the Narodna Voyska, heads lowered, rifles reversed, at the corners of her bier. He paid them no more mind than he did the candles burning in tall holders, the lilies, roses, viyenatz everywhere between, their fragrance or a breath of incense or the somehow far-off sound of a priest chanting behind the iconostasis, which filled the cool dim air. Alone he walked over the stones to her. Evening sunlight slanted through windows and among columns, filtered to a domed ceiling, brought forth out of dusk, remote upon gold and blue, the Twelve Apostles and Christ Lord of All.
At first he was afraid to look, dreading less the gaping glaring hideousness he had last seen—that was only what violent death wrought—than the kind of rouged doll they made when Terran bodies lay in state. Forcing himself, he found that nothing more had been done than to cleanse her, close the eyes, bind the chin, gown and garland her. The divided coffin lid showed her down to the bosom. The face he saw was hers, hers, though color was gone and time had eased it into an inhuman serenity.
This makes me a little happier, dear, he thought. I didn't feel it was fitting that they mean to build you a big tomb on Founders' Hill. I wanted your ashes strewn over land and sea, into sun and wind. Then if ever I came back here I could dream every brightness was yours. But they understand what they do, your people. A corner of his mouth bent upward. It's I who am the sentimental old fool. Would you laugh if you could know?
He stooped closer. You believed you would know, Kossara. If you do, won't you help me believe too—believe that you still are?
His sole answer was the priest's voice rising and falling through archaic words. Flandry nodded. He hadn't expected more. He couldn't keep himself from telling her, I'm sorry, darling.
And I won't kiss what's left, I who kissed you. He searched among his languages for the best final word. Sayonara. Since it must be so. Stepping back a pace, he bowed three times very deeply, turned, and departed.
Bodin Miyatovich and his wife waited outside. The weather was milder than before, as if a ghost of springtime flitted fugitive ahead of winter. Traffic boomed in the street. Walkers cast glances at the three on the stairs, spoke to whatever companions they had, but didn't stop; they taught good manners on Dennitza.
Draga Miyatovich took Flandry by the elbow. "Are you well, Dominic?" she asked anxiously. "You've gone pale."
"No, nothing," he said. "I'm recovering fast, thanks to your kindness."
"You should rest. I've noticed you hour after hour poring over that report—" She saw his expression and stopped her speech.
In a second he eased his lips, unclamped his fists, and raised memory of what he had come from today up against that other memory. "I'd no choice," he said. To her husband: "Bodin, I'm ready to work again. With you. You see, I've found your target."
The Gospodar peered around. "What? Wait," he cautioned.
"True, we can't discuss it here," Flandry agreed. "Especially, I suppose, on holy ground... though she might not have minded."
She'd never have been vindictive. But she'd have understood how much this matters to her whole world: that in those broken mutterings of my son's I found what I thought I might find, the coordinates of Chereion, Aycharaych's planet.
XIX
The raiders from Dennitza met the guardians of the red sun, and lightning awoke.
Within the command bridge of the Vatre Zvezda, Bodin Miyatovich stared at a display tank. Color-coded motes moved around a stellar globe to show where each vessel of his fleet was—and, as well as scouts and instruments could learn, each of the enemy's—and what it did and when it died. But their firefly dance, of some use to a lifelong professional, bewildered an unskilled eye; and it was merely a sideshow put on by computers whose real language was numbers. He swore and looked away in search of reality.
The nearest surrounded him in metal, meters, intricate consoles, flashing signal bulbs, dark-uniformed men who stood to their duties, sat as if wired in place, walked back and forth on rubbery-shod feet. Beneath a hum of engines, ventilators, a thousand systems throughout the great hull, their curt exchanges chopped. To stimulate them, it was cool here, with a thunderstorm tang of ozone.
The Gospodar's gaze traveled on, among the viewscreens which studded bulkheads, overhead, deck—again, scarcely more than a means for keeping crew who did not have their ship's esoteric senses from feeling trapped. Glory brimmed the dark, stars in glittering flocks and Milky Way shoals, faerie-remote glimmer of nebulae and a few sister galaxies. Here in the outer reaches of its system, the target sun was barely the brightest, a coal-glow under Bellatrix. At chance moments a spark would flare and vanish, a nuclear burst close enough to see. But most were too distant; and never another vessel showed, companion or foe. Such was the scale of the battle.
And yet it was not large as space combats went. Springing from hyperdrive to normal state, the Dennitzan force—strong, but hardly an armada—encountered Merseian craft which sought to bar it from accelerating inward. As more and more of the latter drew nigh and matched courses with invaders, action spread across multimillions of kilometers. Hours passed before two or three fighters came so near, at such low relative speeds, that they could hope for a kill; and often their encounter was the briefest spasm, followed by hours more of maneuver. Those gave time to make repairs, care for the wounded, pray for the dead.
"They've certainly got protection," Miyatovich growled. "Who'd have expected this much?"
Scouts had not been able to warn him. The stroke depended altogether on swiftness. Merseian observers in the neighborhood of Zoria had surely detected the fleet's setting out. Some would have gone to tell their masters, others would have dogged the force, trying to learn where it was bound. (A few of those had been spotted and destroyed, but not likely all.) No matter how carefully plotted its course, and no matter that its destination was a thinly trafficked part of space, during the three-week journey its hyperwake must have been picked up by several travelers who passed within range. So many strange hulls together, driving so hard through Merseian domains, was cause to bring in the Navy.
If Miyatovich was to do anything to Chereion, he must get there, finish his work, and be gone before reinforcements could arrive. Scouts of his, prowling far in advance near a sun whose location seemed to be the Roidhunate's most tightly gripped secret, would have carried too big a risk of giving away his intent. He must simply rush in full-armed, and hope.
"We can take them, can't we?" he asked.
Rear Admiral Raich, director of operations, nodded.
"Oh, yes. They're outnumbered, outgunned. I wonder why they don't withdraw."
"Merseians aren't cowards," Captain Yulinatz, skipper of the dreadnaught, remarked. "Would you abandon a trust?"
"If my orders included the sensible proviso that I not contest lost cases when it's possible to scramble clear and fight another day—yes, I would," Raich said. "Merseians aren't idiots either."
"Could they be expecting help?" Miyatovich wondered. He gnawed his mustache and scowled.
"I doubt it," Raich replied. "We know nothing significant can reach us soon." He did keep scouts far-flung throughout this stellar vicinity, now that he was in it. "They must have the same information to base the same conclusions on."
Flandry, who stood among them, his Terran red-white-and-blue gaudy against their indigo or gray, cleared his throat. "Well, then," he said, "the answer's obvious. They do have orders to fight to the death. Under no circumstances may they abandon Chereion. If nothing else, they must try to reduce our capability of damaging whatever is on the planet."
"Bonebrain doctrine," Raich grunted.
"Not if they're guarding something vital," Miyatovich said. "What might it be?"
"We can try for captures," Yulinatz suggested: reluctantly, because it multiplied the hazard to his men.
Flandry shook his head. "No point in that," he declared. "Weren't you listening when he talked en route? Nobody lands on Chereion except by special permission which is damn hard to get—needs approval of both the regional tribune and the planet's own authorities, and movements are severely restricted. I don't imagine a single one of the personnel we're killing and being killed by has come within an astronomical unit of the globe."
"Yes, yes, I heard," Yulinatz snapped. "What influence those beings must have."
"That's why we've come to hit them," the Gospodar said in his beard.
Yulinatz's glance went to the tank. A green point blinked: a cruiser was suffering heavily from three enemy craft which paced her. A yellow point went out, and quickly another: two corvettes lost. His tone grew raw. "Will it be worth the price to us?"
"That we can't tell till afterward." Miyatovich squared his shoulders. "We could disengage and go home, knowing we've thrown a scare into the enemy. But we'd never know what opportunity we did or did not forever miss. We will proceed."
In the end, a chieftain's main duty is to say, "On my head be it."
"Gentlemen."
Flandry's word brought their eyes to him. "I anticipated some such quandary," he stated. "What we need is a quick survey—a forerunner to get a rough idea of what is on Chereion and report back. Then we can decide."
Raich snorted. "We need veto rights over the laws of statistics too."
"If the guard is this thick at this distance," Yulinatz added, "what chance has the best speedster ever built for any navy of getting anywhere near?"
Miyatovich, comprehending, swallowed hard.
"I brought along my personal boat," Flandry said. "She was not built for a navy."
"No, Dominic," Miyatovich protested.
"Yes, Bodin," Flandry answered.
Vatre Zvezda unleashed a salvo. No foes were close. None could match a Nova-class vessel. She was huge, heavy-armored, intricately compartmented, monster-powered in engines, weapons, shielding fields, less to join battle than to keep battle away from the command posts at her heart. Under present conditions, it was not mad, but it was unreasonable that she fired at opponents more than a million kilometers distant. They would have time to track those missiles, avoid them or blow them up.
The reason was to cover Hooligan's takeoff.
She slipped from a boat lock, through a lane opened momentarily in the fields, outward like an outsize torpedo. Briefly in her aft-looking viewscreens the dreadnaught bulked, glimmering spheroid abristle with guns, turrets, launch tubes, projectors, sensors, generators, snatchers, hatches, watchdomes, misshapen moon adrift among the stars. Acceleration dwindled her so fast that Yovan Vymezal gasped, as if the interior were not at a steady Dennitzan gravity but the full unbalanced force had crushed the breath from him.
In the pilot's chair, Flandry took readings, ran off computations, nodded, and leaned back. "We won't make approach for a good three-quarters of an hour," he said, "and nothing's between us and our nominal target. Relax."
Vymezal—a young cadre lieutenant of marines, Kossara's cousin and in a sturdy male fashion almost unendurably like her—undid his safety web. He had been invited to the control cabin as a courtesy; come passage near the enemy destroyer they were aimed at, he would be below with his dozen men, giving them what comfort he could in their helplessness, and Chives would be here as copilot. His question came hesitant, not frightened but shy: "Sir, do you really think we can get past? They'll know pretty soon we're not a torp, we're a manned vessel. I should think they won't be satisfied to take evasive action, they'll try for a kill."
"You volunteered, didn't you? After being warned this is a dangerous mission."
Vymezal flushed. "Yes, sir. I wouldn't beg off if I could. I was just wondering. You explained it's not necessarily a suicide mission."
The odds are long that it is, my boy.
"You said," the earnest voice stumbled on, "your oscillators are well enough tuned that you can go on hyperdrive deep into a gravity well—quite near the sun. You planned to make most of our transit that way. Why not start at once? Why first run straight at hostile guns? I'm just wondering, sir, just interested."
Flandry smiled. "Sure you are," he replied, "and I'm sorry if you supposed for a minute I suppose otherwise. The reason is simple. We've a high kinetic velocity right now with respect to Chereion. You don't lose energy of relativistic motion merely because for a while you quantum-hop around the light-speed limit. Somewhere along the line, we have to match our vector to the planet's. That's better done here, where we have elbow room, than close in, where space may be crammed with defenses. We gain time—time to increase surprise at the far end—by posing as a missile while we adjust our velocity. But a missile should logically have a target. Within the cone of feasible directions, that destroyer seemed like our best bet. Let me emphasize, the operative word is ‘bet.'"
Vymezal eased and chuckled. "Thank you, sir. I'm a dice addict. I know when to fade."
"I'm more a poker player." Flandry offered a cigarette, which was accepted, and took one for himself. It crossed his mind: how strange he should still be using the box which had snapped shut on his son, and give it no particular thought.
Well, why throw away a tool I'd want duplicated later? I've been taught to avoid romantic gestures except when they serve a practical demagogic purpose.
Vymezal peered ahead at the ruby sun. Yes, his profile against the star-clouds of Sagittarius was as much like Kossara's as young Dominic's had been like Persis'.
What can I write to Persis? Can I?
Maybe my gesture is to carry this cigarette case in my pocket for the rest of my days.
"What information have we?" the lieutenant almost whispered.
"Very little, and most we collected personally while we approached," Flandry said. "Red dwarf star, of course; early type, but still billions of years older than Sol or Zoria, and destined to outlive them. However, not unduly metal-poor," as Diomedes is where I put her at stake for no more possible win than the damned Empire. "Distribution of higher elements varies a good bit in both space and time. The system appears normal for its kind, whatever ‘normal' may mean: seven identified planets, Chereion presumably the only vitafer. We can't predict further; life has no such thing as a norm. I do expect Chereion will be, m-m, interesting."
And not an inappropriate place to leave my bones.
Flandry inhaled acridity and gazed outward. With all the marvels and mysteries yonder, he wasn't seeking death. In the last few weeks, his wounds had scarred over. But scar tissue is not alive. He no longer minded the idea of death.
He wished, though, it had been possible to leave Chives behind, and Kossara's cousin.
A magnifying screen emblazoned the Merseian destroyer, spearhead on a field of stars.
"Torpedo coming, sir," Chives stated. "Shall I dispose of it?" His fingers flicked across the gun control board before him. A firebolt sprang hell-colored. Detector-computer systems signaled a hit. The missile ceased accelerating. Either its drive was disabled or this was a programmed trick. In the second case, if Hooligan maintained the same vector, a moment's thrust would bring it sufficiently close that radiation from the exploding warhead could cripple electronics, leave her helpless and incidentally pass a death sentence on her crew.
"Keep burning till we're sure," Flandry ordered. That required a quick change of course. Engines roared, steel sang under stress, constellations whirled. He felt his blood tingle and knew he was still a huntsman.
Flame fountained. A crash went through hull and flesh. The deck heaved. Shouts came faintly from aft.
Gee-fields restabilized. "The missile obviously had a backup detonator," Chives said. "It functioned at a safe remove from us, and our force screens fended off a substantial piece of debris without harm. Those gatortails are often inept mechanicians, would you not agree, sir?" His own tail switched slim and smug.
"Maybe. Don't let that make you underestimate the Chereionites." Flandry studied the readouts before him.
His pulse lifted. They were matched to their goal world. A few minutes at faster-than-light would bring them there, and—
"Stand by," he called.
XX
The eeriest thing was that nothing happened.
The planet spun in loneliness around its ember sun. Air made a thin border to its shield, shading from blue to purple to the winter sky of space. Hues were iron-rusty and desert-tawny, overlaid by blue-green mottlings, hoar polar caps, fierce glint off the few shrunken seas which remained. A small, scarred moon swung near.
It had to be the world of Flandry's search. No other was possible. But who stood guard? War raved through outer space; here his detectors registered only a few automatic traffic-control stations in orbit, easily bypassed. Silence seeped through the hull of his vessel and filled the pilot's cabin.
Chives broke it: "Analysis indicates habitability for us is marginal, sir. Biotypes of the kind which appear to be present—sparsely—have adapted to existing conditions but could not have been born under them. Given this feeble irradiation, an immense time was required for the loss of so much atmosphere and hydrosphere." He paused. "The sense of age and desolation is quite overwhelming, sir."
Flandry, his face in the hood of a scannerscope, muttered, "There are cities. In good repair, fusion powerplants at work... though putting out very little energy for complexes their size.... The deserts are barren, the begrown regions don't look cultivated—too saline, I'd guess. Maybe the dwellers live on synthetic food. But why no visible traffic? Why no satellite or ground defenses?"
"As for the former, sir," Chives ventured, "the inhabitants may generally prefer a contemplative, physically austere existence. Did not Aycharaych intimate that to you on various occasions? And as for the latter question, Merseian ships have maintained a cordon, admitting none except an authorized few."
"That is"—the tingle in Flandry sharpened—"if an intruder like us ever came this close, the game would be up anyway?"
"I do not suggest they have no wiles in reserve, sir."
"Ye-e-es. The Roidhunate wouldn't keep watch over pure philosophers." Decision slammed into Flandry like sword into sheath. "We can't learn more where we are, and every second we linger gives them an extra chance to notice us and load a trap. We're going straight down!"
He gave the boat a surge of power.
Nonetheless, his approach was cautious. If naught else, he needed a while to reduce interior air pressure to the value indicated for the surface ahead of them. (Sounds grew muffled; pulse quickened; breast muscles worked enough to feel. Presently he stopped noticing much, having always taken care to maintain a level of acclimation to thin air. But he was glad that gravity outside would be weak, about half a gee.) Curving around the night hemisphere, he studied light-bejeweled towers set in the middle of rock and sand wastes, wondered greatly at what he saw, and devised a plan of sorts.
"We'll find us a daylit place and settle alongside," he announced on the intercom. "If they won't talk to us, we'll maybe go in and talk to them." For his communicator, searching all bands, had drawn no hint of—
No! A screen flickered into color. He looked at the first Chereionite face he could be certain was not Aycharaych's. It had the same spare beauty, the same deep calm, but as many differences of sculpture as between one human countenance and the next. And from the start, even before speech began, he felt... . heaviness: nothing of sardonic humor or flashes of regret.
"Take the conn, Chives," he directed. A whistling had begun, and the badlands were no longer before but below him. Hooligan was an easier target now than she had been in space; she had better be ready to dodge and strike back.
"You are not cleared for entry," said the screen in Eriau which was mellow-toned but did not sing like Aycharaych's. "Your action is forbidden under strict penalties, by command of the Roidhun in person, renewed in each new reign. Can you offer a justification?"
Huh? jabbed through Flandry. Does he assume this is a Merseian boat and...erseian man? "Em—emergency," he tried, too astonished to invent a glib story. He had expected he would declare himself as more or less what he was, and hold his destination city hostage to his guns and missiles. Whether or not the attempt could succeed in any degree, he had no notion. At best he'd thought he might bear away a few hints about the beings who laired here.
"Have you control over your course?" inquired the voice.
"Yes. Let me speak to a ranking officer."
"You will go approximately five hundred kilometers northwest of your immediate position. Prepare to record a map." The visage vanished, a chart appeared, two triangles upon it. "The red apex shows where you are, the blue your mandatory landing site, a spacefield. You will stay inboard and await instructions. Is this understood?"
"We'll try. We, uh, we have a lot of speed to kill. In our condition, fast braking is unsafe. Can you give us about half an hour?"
Aycharaych would not have spent several seconds reaching a decision. "Permitted. Be warned, deviations may cause you to be shot down. Proceed." Nor would he have broken contact with not a single further inquiry.
Outside was no longer black, but purple. The spacecraft strewed thunder across desert. "What the hell, sir?" Chives exploded.
"Agreed," said Flandry. His tongue shifted to an obscure language they both knew. "Use this lingo while that channel's open."
"What shall we do?"
"First, play back any pictures we got of the place we're supposed to go." Flandry's fingers brushed a section of console. On an inset screen came a view taken from nearby space under magnification. His trained eyes studied it and a few additional. "A spacefield, aye, standard Merseian model, terminal and the usual outbuildings. Modest-sized, no vessels parked. And way off in wilderness." He twisted his mustache. "You know, I'll bet that's where every visitor's required to land. And then he's brought in a closed car to a narrowly limited area which is all he ever sees."
"Shall we obey, sir?"
"Um, 'twould be a pity, wouldn't it, to pass by that lovely city we had in mind. Besides, they doubtless keep heavy weapons at the port; our pictures show signs of it. Once there, we'd be at their mercy. Whereas I suspect that threat to blast us elsewhere was a bluff. Imagine a stranger pushing into a prohibited zone on a normal planet—when the system's being invaded! Why aren't we at least swarmed by military aircraft?"
"Very good, sir. We can land in five minutes." Chives gave his master a pleading regard. "Sir, must I truly stay behind while you debark?"
"Somebody has to cover us, ready to scramble if need be. We're Intelligence collectors, not heroes. If I call you and say, ‘Escape,' Chives, you will escape."
"Yes, sir," the Shalmuan forced out. "However, please grant me the liberty of protesting your decision not to wear armor like your men."
"I want the full use of my senses." Flandry cast him a crooked smile and patted the warm green shoulder. "I fear I've often strained your loyalty, old chap. But you haven't failed me yet."
"Thank you, sir." Chives stared hard at his own busy hands. "I—endeavor... to give satisfaction."
Time swooped past.
"Attention!" cried from the screen. "You are off course! You are in absolutely barred territory!"
"Say on," Flandry jeered. He half hoped to provoke a real response. The voice only denounced his behavior.
A thump resounded and shivered. The tone of wind and engines ceased. They were down.
Flandry vaulted from his chair, snatched a combat helmet, buckled it on as he ran. Beneath it he already wore a mindscreen, as did everybody aboard. Otherwise he was attired in a gray coverall and stout leather boots. On his back and across his chest were the drive cones and controls of a grav unit. His pouchbelt held field rations, medical supplies, canteen of water, ammunition, blaster, slugthrower, and Merseian war knife.
At the head of his dozen Dennitzan marines, he bounded from the main personnel lock, along the extruded gangway, onto the soil of Chereion. There he crouched in what shelter the hull afforded and glared around, fingers on weapons.
After a minute or two he stepped forth. Awe welled in him.
A breeze whispered, blade-sharp with cold and dryness. It bore an iron tang off uncounted leagues of sand and dust. In cloudless violet, the sun stood at afternoon, bigger to see than Sol over Terra, duller and redder than the sun over Diomedes; squinting, he could look straight into it for seconds without being blinded, and through his lashes find monstrous dark spots and vortices. It would not set for many an hour, the old planet turned so wearily.
Shadows were long and purple across the dunes which rolled cinnabar and ocher to the near horizon. Here and there stood the gnawed stump of a pinnacle, livid with mineral hues, or a ravine clove a bluff which might once have been a mountain. The farther desert seemed utterly dead. Around the city, wide apart, grew low bushes whose leaves glittered in rainbows as if crystalline. The city itself rose from foundations that must go far down, must have been buried until the landscape eroded from around them and surely have needed renewal as the ages swept past
The city—it was not a giant chaos such as besat Terra or Merseia; nothing on Chereion was. An ellipse defined it, some ten kilometers at the widest, proportioned in a rightness Flandry had recognized from afar though not knowing how he did. The buildings of the perimeter were single-storied, slenderly colonnaded; behind them, others lifted ever higher, until they climaxed in a leap of slim towers. Few windows interrupted the harmonies of colors and iridescence, the interplay of geometries that called forth visions of many-vaulted infinity. The heart rode those lines and curves upward until the whole sight became a silent music.
Silent... only the breeze moved or murmured. A time passed beyond time.
"Milostiv Bog," Lieutenant Vymezal breathed, "is it Heaven we see?"
"Then is Heaven empty?" said another man as low.
Flandry shook himself, wrenched his attention away, sought for his purposefulness in the ponderous homely shapes of their armor, the guns and grenades they bore. "Let's find out." His words were harsh and loud in his ears. "This is as large a community as any, and typical insofar as I could judge." Not that they are alike. Each is a separate song. "If it's abandoned, we can assume they all are."
"Why would the Merseians guard... relics?" Vymezal asked.
"Maybe they don't." Flandry addressed his minicom. "Chives, jump aloft at the first trace of anything untoward. Fight at discretion. I think we can maintain radio contact from inside the town. If not, I may ask you to hover. Are you still getting a transmission?"
"No, sir." That voice came duly small. "It ceased when we landed."
"Cut me in if you do.... Gentlemen, follow me in combat formation. Should I come to grief, remember your duty is to return to the fleet if possible, or to cover our boat's retreat if necessary. Forward."
Flandry started off in flat sub-gee bounds. His body felt miraculously light, as light as the shapes which soared before him, and the air diamond clear. Yet behind him purred the gravity motors which helped his weighted troopers along. He reminded himself that they hugged the ground to present a minimal target, that the space they crossed was terrifyingly open, that ultimate purity lies in death. The minutes grew while he covered the pair of kilometers. Half of him stayed cat-alert, half wished Kossara could somehow, safely, have witnessed this wonder.
The foundations took more and more of the sky, until at last he stood beneath their sheer cliff. Azure, the material resisted a kick and an experimental energy bolt with a hardness which had defied epochs. He whirred upward, over an edge, and stood in the city.
A broad street of the same blue stretched before him, flanked by dancing rows of pillars and arabesque friezes on buildings which might have been temples. The farther he scanned, the higher fountained walls, columns, tiers, cupolas, spires; and each step he took gave him a different perspective, so that the whole came alive, intricate, simple, powerful, tranquil, transcendental. But footfalls echoed hollow.
They had gone a kilometer inward when nerves twanged and weapons snapped to aim. "Hold," Flandry said. The man-sized ovoid that floated from a side lane sprouted tentacles which ended in tools and sensors. The lines and curves of it were beautiful. It passed from sight again on its unnamed errand. "A robot," Flandry guessed. "Fully automated, a city could last, could function, for—millions of years?" His prosiness felt to him as if he had spat on consecrated earth.
No, damn it! I'm hunting my woman's murderers.
He trod into a mosaic plaza and saw their forms.
Through an arcade on the far side the tall grave shapes walked, white-robed, heads bare to let crests shine over luminous eyes and lordly brows. They numbered perhaps a score. Some carried what appeared to be books, scrolls, delicate enigmatic objects; some appeared to be in discourse, mind to mind; some went alone in their meditations. When the humans arrived, most heads turned observingly. Then, as if having exhausted what newness was there, the thoughtfulness returned to them and they went on about their business of—wisdom?
"What'll we do, sir?" Vymezal rasped at Flandry's ear.
"Talk to them, if they'll answer," the Terran said. "Even take them prisoner, if circumstances warrant."
"Can we? Should we? I came here for revenge, but—God help us, what filthy monkeys we are."
A premonition trembled in Flandry. "Don't you mean," he muttered, "what animals we're intended to feel like... we and whoever they guide this far?"
He strode quickly across the lovely pattern before him. Under an ogive arch, one stopped, turned, beckoned, and waited. The sight of gun loose in holster and brutal forms at his back did not stir the calm upon that golden face. "Greeting," lulled in Eriau.
Flandry reached forth a hand. The other slipped easily aside from the uncouth gesture. "I want somebody who can speak for your world," the man said.
"Any of us can that," sang the reply. "Call me, if you wish, Liannathan. Have you a name for use?"
"Yes. Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Imperial Navy of Terra. Your Aycharaych knows me. Is he around?"
Liannathan ignored the question. "Why do you trouble our peace?"
The chills walked faster along Flandry's spine. "Can't you read that in my mind?" he asked.
"Sta pakao," said amazement behind him.
"Hush," Vymezal warned the man, his own tone stiff with intensity; and there was no mention of screens against telepathy.
"We give you the charity of refraining," Liannathan smiled.
To and fro went the philosophers behind him.
"I... assume you're aware... a punitive expedition is on its way," Flandry said. "My group came to... parley."
Calm was unshaken. "Think why you are hostile."
"Aren't you our enemies?"
"We are enemies to none. We seek, we shape."
"Let me talk to Aycharaych. I'm certain he's somewhere on Chereion. He'd have left the Zorian System after word got beamed to him, or he learned from broadcasts, his scheme had failed. Where else would he go?"
Liannathan curved feathery brows upward. "Best you explain yourself, Captain, to yourself if not us."
Abruptly Flandry snapped off the switch of his mind-screen. "Read the answers," he challenged.
Liannathan spread graceful hands in gracious signal. "I told you, knowing what darkness you must dwell in, for mercy's sake we will leave your thoughts alone unless you compel us. Speak."
Conviction congealed in Flandry, iceberg huge. "No, you speak. What are you on Chereion? What do you tell the Merseians? I already know, or think I know, but tell me."
The response rang grave: "We are not wholly the last of an ancient race; the others have gone before us. We are those who have not yet reached the Goal; the bitter need of the universe for help still binds us. Our numbers are few, we have no need of numbers. Very near we are to those desires that lie beyond desire, those powers that lie beyond power." Compassion softened Liannathan's words. "Terran, we mourn the torment of you and yours. We mourn that you can never feel the final reality, the spirit born out of pain. We have no wish to return you to nothingness. Go in love, before too late."
Almost, Flandry believed. His sense did not rescue him; his memories did. "Yah!" he shouted. "You phantom, stop haunting!"
He lunged. Liannathan wasn't there. He crashed a blaster bolt among the mystics. They were gone. He leaped in among the red-tinged shadows of the arcade and peered after light and sound projectors to smash. Everywhere else, enormous, brooded the stillness of the long afternoon. The image of a single Chereionite flashed into sight, in brief white tunic, bearing though not brandishing a sidearm, palm uplifted—care-worn, as if the bones would break out from the skin, yet with life in flesh and great garnet eyes such as had never burned in those apparitions which were passed away. Flandry halted. "Aycharaych!"
He snatched for the switch to turn his mindscreen back on. Aycharaych smiled. "You need not bother, Dominic," he said in Anglic. "This too is only a hologram."
"Lieutenant," Flandry snapped over his shoulder, "dispose your squad against attack."
"Why?" said Aycharaych. The armored men gave him scant notice. His form glimmered miragelike in the gloom under that vaulted roof, where sullen sunlight barely reached. "You have discovered we have nothing to resist you."
You're bound to have something, Flandry did not reply. A few missiles or whatever. You're just unwilling to use them in these environs. Where are you yourself, and what were you doing while your specters held us quiet?
As if out of a stranger's throat, he heard: "Those weren't straightforward audiovisuals like yours that we met, were they? No reason for them to put on a show of being present, of being real, except that none of them ever were. Right? They're computer-generated simulacrums, will-o'-the-wisps for leading allies and enemies alike from the truth. Well, life's made me an unbeliever.
"Aycharaych, you are in fact the last Chereionite alive. The very last. Aren't you?"
Abruptly such anguish contorted the face before him that he looked away. "What did they die of?" he was asking. "How long ago?" He got no answer.
Instead: "Dominic, we share a soul, you and I. We have both always been alone."
For a while I wasn't; and now she is; she is down in the aloneness which is eternal. Rage ripped Flandry. He swung back to see a measure of self-command masking the gaunt countenance. "You must have played your game for centuries," he grated. "Why? And... whatever your reason to hide that your people are extinct... why prey on the living? You, you could let them in and show them what'd make your Chereionites the... Greeks of the galaxy—but you sit in a tomb or travel like a vampire—Are you crazy, Aycharaych? Is that what drives you?"
"No!"
Flandry had once before heard the lyric voice in sorrow. He had not heard a scream: "I am not! Look around you. Who could go mad among these? And arts, music, books, dreams—yes, more, the loftiest spirits of a million years—they lent themselves to the scanners, the recorders—If you could have the likenesses to meet whenever you would... of Gautama Buddha, Kung Fu-Tse, Rabbi Hillel, Jesus the Christ, Rumi... Socrates, Newton, Hokusai, Jefferson, Gauss, Beethoven, Einstein, Ulfgeir, Manuel the Great, Manuel the Wise—would you let your war lords turn these instruments to their own vile ends? No!"
And Flandry understood.
Did Aycharaych, half blinded by his dead, see what he had given away? "Dominic," he whispered hastily, shakily, "I've used you ill, as I've used many. It was from no will of mine. Oh, true, an art, a sport—yours too—but we had our services, you to a civilization you know is dying, I to a heritage I know can abide while this sun does. Who has the better right?" He held forth unsubstantial hands. "Dominic, stay. We'll think how to keep your ships off and save Chereion—"
Almost as if he were again the machine that condemned his son, Flandry said, "I'd have to lure my company into some kind of trap. Merseia would take the planet back, and the help it gives. Your shadow show would go on. Right?"
"Yes. What are a few more lives to you? What is Terra? In ten thousand years, who will remember the empires? They can remember you, though, who saved Chereion for them."
Candle flames stood around a coffin. Flandry shook his head. "There've been too many betrayals in too many causes." He wheeled. "Men, we're returning."
"Aye, sir." The replies shuddered with relief.
Aycharaych's eidolon brought fingers together as if he prayed. Flandry touched his main grav switch. Thrust pushed harness against breast. He rose from the radiant city, into the waning murky day. Chill flowed around him. Behind floated his robot-encased men.
"Brigate!" bawled Vymezal. "Beware!"
Around the topmost tower flashed a score of javelin shapes. Firebeams leaped out of their nozzles. Remote-controlled flyer guns, Flandry knew. Does Aycharaych still hope, or does he only want revenge? "Chives," he called into his sender, "come get us!"
Sparks showered off Vymezal's plate. He slipped aside in midair, more fast and nimble than it seemed he could be in armor. His energy weapon, nearly as heavy as the assailants, flared back. Thunders followed brilliances. Bitterness tinged air. A mobile blast cannon reeled in midflight, spun downward, crashed in a street, exploded. Fragments ravaged a fragile facade.
"Shield the captain," Vymezal boomed.
Flandry's men ringed him in. Shots tore at them. The noise stamped in his skull, the stray heat whipped over his skin. Held to his protection, the marines could not dodge about. The guns converged.
A shadow fell, a lean hull blocked off the sun. Flames leaped. Echoes toned at last to silence around smoking ruin down below. Vymezal shouted triumph. He waved his warriors aside, that Flandry might lead them through the open lock, into the Hooligan.
Wounded, dwindled, victorious, the Dennitzan fleet took orbits around Chereion. Within the command bridge, Bodin Miyatovich and his chieftains stood for a long while gazing into the viewscreens. The planet before them glowed among the stars, softly, secretly, like a sign of peace. But it was the pictures they had seen earlier, the tale they had heard, which made those hard men waver.
Miyatovich even asked through his flagship's rustling stillness: "Must we bombard?"
"Yes," Flandry said. "I hate the idea too."
Qow of Novi Aferoch stirred. Lately taken off his crippled light cruiser, he was less informed than the rest. "Can't sappers do what's needful?" he protested.
"I wish they could," Flandry sighed. "We haven't time. I don't know how many millennia of history we're looking down on. How can we read them before the Merseian navy arrives?"
"Are you sure, then, the gain to us can justify a deed which someday will make lovers of beauty, seekers of knowledge, curse our names?" the zmay demanded. "Can this really be the center of the opposition's Intelligence?"
"I never claimed that," Flandry said. "In fact, obviously not. But it must be important as hell itself. We here can give them no worse setback than striking it from their grasp."
"Your chain of logic seems thin."
"Of course it is! Were mortals ever certain? But listen again, Qow.
"When the Merseians discovered Chereion, they were already conquest-hungry. Aycharaych, among the ghosts those magnificent computers had been raising for him—computers and programs we today couldn't possibly invent—he saw they'd see what warlike purposes might be furthered by such an instrumentality. They'd bend it wholly to their ends, bring their engineers in by the horde, ransack, peer, gut, build over, leave nothing unwrecked except a few museum scraps. He couldn't bear the thought of that.
"He stopped them by conjuring up phantoms. He made them think a few million of his race were still alive, able to give the Roidhunate valuable help in the form of staff work, while he himself would be a unique field agent—if they were otherwise left alone. We may never know how he impressed and tricked those tough-minded fighter lords; he did, that's all. They believe they have a worldful of enormous intellects for allies, whom they'd better treat with respect. He draws on a micro part of the computers, data banks, stored knowledge beyond our imagining, to generate advice for them... excellent advice, but they don't suspect how much more they might be able to get, or by what means.
"Maybe he's had some wish to influence them, as if they learned from Chereion. Or maybe he's simply been biding his time till they too erode from his planet."
Flandry was quiet for a few heartbeats before he finished: "Need we care which, when real people are in danger?"
The Gospodar straightened, walked to an intercom, spoke his orders.
There followed a span while ships chose targets. He and Flandry moved aside, to stand before a screen showing stars that lay beyond every known empire. "I own to a desire for vengeance," he confessed. "My judgment might have been different otherwise."
Flandry nodded. "Me too. That's how we are. If only—No, never mind."
"Do you think we can demolish everything?"
"I don't know. I'm assuming the things we want to kill are under the cities—some of the cities—and plenty of megatonnage will if nothing else crumble their caverns around them." Flandry smote a fist hurtfully against a bulkhead. "I told Qow, we don't ever have more to go on than guesswork!"
"Still, the best guess is, we'll smash enough of the system—whether or not we reach Aycharaych himself—"
"For his sake, let's hope we do."
"Are you that forgiving, Dominic? Well, regardless, Intelligence is the balance wheel of military operations. Merseian Intelligence should be... not broken, but badly knocked askew.... Will Emperor Hans feel grateful?"
"Yes, I expect he'll defend us to the limit against the nobles who'll want our scalps." Flandry wolf-grinned. "In fact, he should welcome such an issue. The quarrel can force influential appeasers out of his regime.
"And... he's bound to agree you've proved your case for keeping your own armed forces."
"So Dennitza stays in the Empire—" Miyatovich laid a hand on his companion's shoulder. "Between us, my friend, I dare hope myself that what I care about will still be there when the Empire is gone. However, that scarcely touches our lifetimes. What do you plan to do with the rest of yours?"
"Carry on as before," Flandry said.
"Go back to Terra?" The eyes which were like Kossara's searched him. "In God's name, why?"
Flandry made no response. Shortly sirens whooped and voices crackled. The bombardment was beginning.
A missile sprang from a ship. Among the stars it flew arrow slim; but when it pierced air, hurricane furies trailed its mass. That drum-roar rolled from horizon to horizon beneath the moon, shook apart wind-carven crags, sent landslides grumbling to the bottoms of canyons. When it caught the first high dawnlight, the missile turned into a silver comet. Minutes later it spied the towers and treasures it was to destroy, and plunged. It had weapons ready against ground defenses; but only the spires reached gleaming for heaven.
The fireball outshone whole suns. It bloomed so tall and wide that the top of the atmosphere, too thin to carry it further, became a roof; therefore it sat for minutes on the curve of the planet, ablaze, before it faded. Dust then made a thick and deadly night above a crater full of molten stone. Wrath tolled around the world.
And more strikes came, and more.
Flandry watched. When the hour was ended, he answered Miyatovich: "I have my own people."
——————————————
In glory did Gospodar Bodin ride home.
Maidens danced to crown him with flowers. The songs of their joy rang from the headwaters of the Lyubisha to the waves of the Black Ocean, up the highest mountains and down the fairest glens; and all the bells of Zorkagrad pealed until Lake Stoyan gave back their music.
Springtime came, never more sweet, and blossoms well-nigh buried the tomb which Gospodar Bodin had raised for St. Kossara. There did he often pray, in after years of his lordship over us; and while he lived, no foeman troubled the peace she brought us through his valor. Sing, poets, of his fame and honor! Long may God give us folk like these!
And may they hearten each one of us. For in this is our hope.
Amen
CHRONOLOGY OF TECHNIC CIVILIZATION
COMPILED BY SANDRA MIESEL
The Technic Civilization series sweeps across five millennia and hundreds of light-years of space to chronicle three cycles of history shaping both human and non-human life in our corner of the universe. It begins in the twenty-first century, with recovery from a violent period of global unrest known as the Chaos. New space technologies ease Earth's demand for resources and energy permitting exploration of the Solar system.
Although Technic Civilization is extinct, another—and perhaps better—turn on the Wheel of Time has begun for our galaxy. The Commonalty must inevitably decline just as the League and Empire did before it. But the Wheel will go on turning as long as there are thinking minds to wonder at the stars.
***
Poul Anderson was consulted about this chart but any errors are my own.
Lurex and Gold: Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry Series
by Sandra Miesel
Science fiction critic Algis Budrys once speculated that "Dominic Flandry could have sprung from no union less than that of Diana the Huntress and David Niven, with all the early personality advantages one would derive from such a fortune."1 From his sleek seal-brown hair to his soft beefleather boots, Flandry is the epitome of rakish elegance, a devil in velvyl whose smile "had bowled over female hearts from Scotha to Antares." (The Plague of Masters, 1961, chapter 6) Poul Anderson's debonair Naval Intelligence agent exerts his agile body and nimble wits preserving the moribund Terran Empire a thousand years hence. As Flandry says, "What was the use of this struggle to keep a decaying civilization from being eaten alive, if you never got a chance at any of the decadence yourself?" ("The Game of Glory," 1958) His life is a glittering web woven of lurex and genuine gold.
Yet Flandry is a voluptuary with a conscience, a hedonist subject to bouts of *Angst*. "'We're hollow and corrupt,'" he says of his class, "'and death has marked us for its own. Ultimately, though we disguise it, however strenuous and hazardous our amusements are, the only reason we can find for living is to have fun. And I'm afraid that isn't reason enough.'" (Hunters of the Sky Cave, 1959 chapter 8) Flandry often broods over the price of his pleasures. He desperately needs to believe in the merit of the bargains he strikes to prolong the Empire's lifespan. He takes some grim satisfaction in tabulating the billions of man-years of peace his exploits have bought for others and in predicting that colonies he has saved will outlive the Empire. The last knight of Terra is a failed gentleman, but a species of gentleman nonetheless.
It is this combination of opposing traits that makes Flandry so memorable. His charm has a certain bittersweet "Gallic" flavor, a blend of cynicism and idealism. Initially, Anderson intended him to be a science fictional cousin of the Saint, not another James Bond. (Remember, Fleming's hero postdates Anderson's.) Moreover, the Terran officer's relationship with his intrepid alien servant Chives has faint traces of Bertie Wooster's with Jeeves or Lord Peter Wimsey's with Bunter.
But Anderson's restless imagination was not content to remain with his original premises. Fifteen years after the first Flandry story appeared, he shifted the series from template to developmental mode and transformed his hero into a futuristic Horatio Hornblower. The Terran is a born aristocrat and the Briton an incorrigible bourgeois but Ensign Flandry's rise is meant to match Midshipman Hornblower's.
Like C.S. Forester, Anderson was faced with the challenge of extrapolating his hero's youth from his maturity: seven stories about Captain Flandry (1951-61) precede Ensign Flandry (1966). Unlike Forester, he also had to expand and justify the imaginary universe which his hero inhabits and invent settings for his heroics. Most of the time Anderson manages to achieve psychological and historical consistency and accommodate scientific advances. This makes his Flandry cycle a more technically interesting example of series-writing than his David Falkayn cycle which appeared in correct chronological order.
Furthermore, since Flandry has survived through 28 of Anderson's first 32 years as a professional writer, these works record fluctuations in the author's sentiments and skills like annual growth rings on a tree. The Flandry saga exemplifies Anderson's adventure fiction and summarizes many of his own personal interests, opinions and tastes. The perceptive reader will recognize that Anderson is a scientifically educated man who reads history, favors limited government, delights in nature, adores women, and enjoys Mozart, Hiroshige, Scotch, and Alice in Wonderland.
Flandry's first home was in the pulp magazines alongside such bold adventurers as C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith and Leigh Brackett's Eric John Stark. The influence of these early peers lingers in his flamboyant garb and flair for melodrama. Nowadays, sf protagonists seldom worry about the tilt of their bonnets nor ride rockets to probable doom sipping Lapsang Soochong tea.
Flandry's earliest escapades, "Tiger by the Tail" (1951),''Honorable Enemies" (1951), and "Warriors from Nowhere" (1954), are simply entertainments. Their pseudo-medieval and quasi-Oriental settings are conventional; their casts of curvaceous ladies, brash barbarians, rotten noblemen, and alien menaces are drawn from the basic Planet Stories Repertory Company. (Special revisions for later reprints justify such matters as inhabited worlds around Betelgeuse.)
Against this background, Flandry's impudent roguery blazes up like a nova. Although his novelty failed to excite pulp readers (a group as tradition- bound as Kabuki fanciers), it laid the groundwork for his subsequent popularity. Thus "Tiger by the Tail" remains enjoyable while "Witch of the Demon Seas," its running mate from the very same issue of Planet Stories, is mercifully forgotten. "Tiger by the Tail" has survived changes in taste partly because it’s based on Mark Twain's "Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg."
A whole new audience was waiting for Flandry after the demise of the pulps, an audience with higher expectations of its amusements. By then Anderson's talent had matured. He was able to spin cleverer puzzles at longer lengths using stronger characters. For instance, compare Aycharaych's first appearance in "Honorable Enemies" with his next encore in Hunters of the Sky Cave. Eight years more writing experience had equipped the author to present his ambiguous villain more skillfully.
Anderson had also shaken off pulp conventions sufficiently to realize that aliens are not merely humans disguised with horns, tails, and tinted skins. He no longer copies past cultures as closely as he did in "Tiger by the Tail" where the Celtic and Nordic prototypes of the Scothani are perhaps too obvious despite rationalizations. The Ice People of "A Message in Secret" (1959), the hydrogen-breathing Ymirites and lupine Ardazirho of Hunters of the Sky Cave are more pleasingly original. The "otherness" of the latter two races is heightened by playing them off against the essentially American colonists of Vixen.
However, colonial societies can still be plausibly modeled on past historic ones, especially when a pattern of ethnic immigration is assumed. Anderson maintains that preserving a cultural, religious, or political heritage will motivate extrasolar colonization. Therefore he presents Boer-Bantus on Nyanza in "The Came of Glory," Russo-Mongols on Altai in "A Message in Secret," and Balinese-Indonesians on Unan Besar in The Plague of Masters. At this point, Anderson had not quite perfected his procedures: his repetitions are too neat, he arbitrarily borrows personal and geographical names, and he selective choices—the natives of Unan Besar could just as easily be Muslims than polytheists. But each planetary society is richly colorful and shows the regional differences appropriate to a world. None is in danger of being mistaken for the State of Delaware.
Furthermore, from the warm shallow seas of Nyanza to the wind-scourged deserts of Vixen, each people occupies a thoroughly realized environment complete with marvelous scenery. This is an arctic forest on Altai:
White slender trees with intricate, oddly geometric branches flashed like icicles, like jewels. Their thin, bluish leaves vibrated continuously. It seemed that they should tinkle, that the whole forest was glass. ("A Message in Secret," chapter 8)
Compare it with a stand of gigantic Trees on tropical Unan Besar:
The great Trees were . . . incredibly massive, organic mountains with roots like foothills. They shot straight up for fifty meters or so, then began to branch, broadest at the bottom, tapering to a spire. The slim higher boughs would each have made a Terran oak; the lowest were forests in themselves, forking again and yet again, the five-pointed leaves (small delicately serrated, green on top but with a golden underside of nearly mirror brightness) outnumbering the visible stars. (The Plague of Masters, chapter 13)
These stories demonstrate Anderson's growing fascination with extraterrestrial astrophysics and ecology as well as his ability to express it in hard data. (They coincide with his first major attempt at world-building, The Man Who Counts/War the Wing-Men, 1958.) Thereafter, each place Flandry visits is more exotically alien than the last.
The other development to be noted over the course of a decade is the deepening sense of melancholy that tinges the stories. (Anderson's series typically grow darker the longer he writes them.) To quote Budrys again, "The devil-may-care hero of the earliest stories became the socially conscious inner- directed man . . . the seeker-out-of-extracurricular adventure. . . . What he gave away prodigally in his first flush of manhood he regrets in his prime, and now he takes it." 2 Flandry's old sense of fun has not vanished—he could still trade quips with his own executioner—but he knows his former hopes for Terran Renaissance are vain. He and the Empire he serves have reached their autumn season. "'We who see winter coming can also see it won't be here till after our lifetimes . . . so we shiver a bit, and swear a bit, and go back to playing with a few bright dead leaves.'" (Hunters of the Sky Cave, chapter 8)
Finally, Anderson took an impulsive step that significantly altered the direction of the series. He tied Flandry's universe to that of his other popular character Nicholas van Rijn by mentioning the latter is a legendary folk hero on Unan Besar. (This is an appropriate place for van Rijn's reputation to survive since he is half-Indonesian.) Uniting these two blocks of stories gave Anderson the nucleus of a future history 5000 years long which now numbers more than 40 separate items including 13 full-length novels and 3 short novels. It is the most remarkable achievement of its kind in sf.
Since this splice was made in 1961, a preoccupation with the historical process itself has come to dominate the whole series. In the rise and fall of Technic civilization Anderson has found a theme engrossing enough to engage all his talents. It allows him to combine political, social, and philosophical commentary with scientific speculations. It also encourages him to go on designing worlds and cultures but adds the challenging constraint that these creations be mutually consistent. A few flaws have unavoidably crept into Anderson's scenario despite a voluminous set of background notes that "bulges out a looseleaf binder." As he explains; "Perfect consistency is possible only to God Himself, and a close study of Scripture will show that He doesn't always make it."3
Not only does cross-referencing amuse reader and writer alike, it also transmits information. Instead of mentioning Unan Besar's successful re-entry into Technic civilization, Anderson shows Flandry eating fish imported from Unan Besar in A Stone in Heaven 25 years after the events in The Plague of Masters. Genealogical references indicate whether characters met or shirked their duty to build a better universe for their offspring. Each time Anderson traces a family connection he proclaims his faith in the continuity of life: "children *are* the future." Note that he bridges the 700-year gap between his principal heroes with a bond of flesh. Van Rijn’s descendant Tabitha Falkayn has a brief affair with Flandry's ancestor Philippe Rochfort in The People of the Wind (1973).
Such attention to detail reflects the same spirit of craftsmanship that prompted medieval stonemason to carve the hidden parts of their work as carefully the visible ones. Consider an obscure bit of irony in Ensign Flandry: peacemongering Lord Hauksberg's name means "Hawk's Mountain." His policies are clearly doomed from the start because his title, Viscount of Ny Kalmar, and space yacht, the "Droning Margrete", point to the ill-fated Union of Kalmar established by medieval Danish queen Margaret I.
Anderson will always make allusions whether anyone notices or not. However, those who do notice leave the author pleasantly bemused and receptive to their suggestions. Several Flandry fans independently concluded that the lost colonists of Kirkasant in "Starfog" (1967) were descended from some of the McCormac exiles in The Rebel Worlds (1969). Their arguments persuaded Anderson to accept this unplanned connection as true.
History, politics, philosophy, the sciences—these are the factors shaping the final batch of Flandry tales and related works. The series has grown in scope and intricacy far beyond its frivolous origins, much to the surprise of the author himself. "That aimless, hedonistic boy who did them, in a hurry because he needed more beer, does seem rather a stranger now," says Anderson, echoing Flandry's own sentiments as he looks back across the same span of years at his younger self in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (1974).
World-building skills honed to unrivaled keenness over the decades have been lavished on these stories. The aliens are a roll call of wonders: the feline Tigeries and cetacean Seatrolls of Starkad (Ensign Flandry), the composite Didonians (The Rebel Worlds), and the lyncean Ramnuans (A Stone in Heaven. The three colonial planets are among Anderson's loveliest: snowy Slavic Dennitza (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows), ecologically sane Freehold ("Outpost of Empire," 1967), and austere Aeneas (The Rebel Worlds and The Day of Their Return, 1973). The last of these is especially note-worthy. It is a cool, dry globe ruled by mind and might, fittingly paired with a steamy hot, barbaric world called Dido. Aeneas has a tripartite social system on the traditional Indo-European model while the bizarre natives of Dido possess tripartite bodies. Compare this description of an Aenean landscape to the glimpses of Altai and Unan Besar quoted earlier:
The sun was almost down. Rays ran gold across the Antonine Seabed, making its groves and plantations a patchwork of bluish-green and shadows, burning on its canals, molten in the mists that curled off a salt marsh. Eastward, the light smote crags and cliffs where the ancient continental shelf of Ilion lifted a many-tiered, wind-worn intricacy of purple, rose, ocher, tawny, black up to a royal blue sky. (The Rebel Worlds, chapter 6)
But these novels subordinate aesthetic delights and even adventurousness to political observations. Ensign Flandry reflects the early stages of the Viet Nam War, The Rebel Worlds denounces radicalism, A Circus of Hells (1970) depicts the social impact of corruption, The Day of Their Return warns against charismatic movements, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows examines nationalism, and A Stone in Heaven exposes a would-be Hitler. Anderson regards politics as the cutting edge of history. Every situation, even something as petty as urban graft, is shown to have historical repercussions—there are no trivial deeds or minor events. Men forge their own tomorrows, blow by puny blow.
The tomorrows thus wrought take shapes both fair and foul. Technic Civilization is a western-flavored, technophilic global order that arises during the twenty-first century after an era of chaos. Discovery of faster-than-light travel soon permits interstellar exploration and colonization. Human expansion beyond Earth is known as the Breakup. Trade among colonial and alien societies is controlled by the merchant-adventurers of the Polesotechnic League under conditions reminiscent of the Europe: an Age of Exploration. Nicholas van Rijn and his protégé David Falkayn flourish late in this period just as civilization is beginning to break down under the pressure of institutionalized greed. The bloody Time of Troubles follows. Manuel Argos founds the Terran Empire—the Principate phase of Technic civilization—and restores galactic order. His empire expands (peacefully and otherwise) to embrace a sphere 400 light-years in diameter until it collides with a younger and fiercer Imperium, the Roidhunate of Merseia. Dominic Flandry is born late in the Principate and lives into the Interregnum that follows, ending his days as a trusted Imperial advisor. The Empire degenerates into a cruel Dominate and the Long Night Flandry has labored so hard to postpone falls at last. But eventually civilization will revive. A new cycle will commence.4
This is a plausible enough scenario despite its patchwork origins because Andersen sewed his imaginary future out of recurring motifs from the real past. His sound instincts for historical pattern-making were augmented after 1973 by the theories of historian and sf fan John K. Hord. Hord's system (as yet unpublished) is an attempt to go beyond Spengler and Toynbee by actually quantifying the historical process. He showed Anderson how well the Terran Empire fitted his model. Anderson enthusiastically resolved to make the fit even closer by altering dates and adopting Hord's terminology. The long conversation between Flandry and Chunderban Desai in Chapter Three of A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows summarizes Hord's scheme and A Stone in Heaven is dedicated to him.
Aside from this influence, Anderson has become much more specific in his use of historical analogies in the past decade. Originally, Terra and Merseia were generalized Old and New Empires. Gradually, they began to resemble Rome and Persia. Although the Merseians have Welsh-sounding names and the self-discipline of samurai, they are Sassanid Persians in their social and political arrangements, their hunters' ethos, their romantic masculinity, and their militant xenophobia. Transforming the hostile "gatortails" into complex beings who promise their cubs stars for playthings is a fine example of Anderson's ability to refine his starting materials. (cf. chapter 3 of Ensign Flandry. A Circus of Hells shows the danger of admiring Merseians too much.)
The Terran Empire's Roman aspects are more obvious. Terra's dynasties—the Argolids, Wangs, and Molitors—are roughly comparable to Rome's Julio-Claudians, Antonines, and Severi. The emperors Flandry serves correspond to specific Roman ones: Georgios is Marcus Aurelius, Josip is Commodus, Hans Molitor is Septimus Severus, Dietrich is Geta, and Gerhart is Caracalla. (Flandry himself has the cynical gallantry of a Byzantine aristocrat.) Terra and Merseia are doomed to exhaust each other as the Eastern Roman Empire and Sassanid Persia did. Does some future cognate of Islam await its turn on the galactic stage?
Yet however grand the scale of events he dramatizes, Anderson steadfastly treats history as the sum total of individual moral choices. He extols freedom, not mystical Necessity although he knows full well the grief free actions may breed. Every decision plants a seed that can bring forth fruits never foreseen. If Falkayn had not saved and humiliated the Merseians in "Day of Burning" (1967), they would not have survived to menace Flandry's society. But likewise, if Falkayn had not founded the colony of Avalon and his descendants successfully defended it against Terra in The People of the Wind, an Avalonian native would not have been on hand to save the Empire in The Day of Their Return.
Flandry, who is Falkayn's counterpart even to his initials, demonstrates this truth with even grimmer clarity. His biography is a record of choice and consequence, sin and retribution. The nexus points in his life inevitably involve women, "The aliens among us!" (A Circus of Hells, chapter 20). This dramatic pattern expresses the author's own admitted gynolatry. Mistreating women is one of the worst things he can imagine Flandry—or anyone else—doing. Note that the killing of little girls is the ultimate outrage throughout Anderson's work.
"Seeing the anguish upon her, Flandry knew in full what it meant to make an implement of a sentient being." (Ensign Flandry, chapter 13) These lines might apply to any number of Flandry's affairs. Maternal neglect explains but scarcely excuses his behavior. He is also a seducer, an exploiter, and a betrayer of women. Even his dangerous feud with his superior Fenross starts over a woman. Sadly, his best and bravest ladies lose the most because they care the most. Flandry's callousness towards Persis (Ensign Flandry) and Djana (A Circus of Hells) costs him both of his great loves, Kathryn (The Rebel Worlds ) and Kossura (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows), Eventually, after years of pointless dalliance with bored noblewomen and expensive whores, he finds a measure of peace with Miriam, the daughter of his old mentor Captain Abrams. She is one woman he never deceives (A Stone in Heaven).
Furthermore, there is also a malign influence overshadowing Flandry, insuring he reaps even more sorrow than he sows. This is his great nemesis Aycharaych,5 the agent and witness of his woes, This alien genius darkens Flandry's life for more than a decade before they meet in person. Merseian master-spy Aycharaych surely has a hand in the Starkad plot that brings Flandry and Persis together. Aycharaych's special mind-training techniques arm Djana with the power she uses to curse Flandry so effectively. The two agents clash repeatedly and inconclusively until Aycharaych's machinations destroy both Flandry's favorite child and intended bride. He then destroys what Aycharaych loves best and scars his own spirit with the fury of his vengeance.
Aycharaych claims kinship with his foe. "'Dominic, we share a soul, you and I. We have always been alone.'" (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, chapter 20. In a sense, the "Tom O'Bedlam" quote of the title applies to both beings.) But is the charge true? Granted that both enjoy their work and justify it by appealing to the value of the ends they seek. Nevertheless, Flandry still retains a sense of righteousness even when cataloging his own vices. Aycharaych's principles transcend the normal categories of good and evil. He is in fact the galaxy's most sublime sadist, virtuoso in an art "'whose materials are living beings.'" (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, chapter 3) His enthralling charm is satanic at the core.
Aycharaych, the last member of a supremely gifted Elder Race, guards his charnel homeworld Chereion. (Note the probably accidental associations in that name—Chiron, Charon, and carrion.) He kills without compunction to protect what is already dead. Aycharaych's depravity is best measured against the standards of a race as wise and ancient as his own—the Ice People of Altai. These beings are stewards of an evolving biosphere, not lifeless relics. They possess in truth the enlightenment he feigns.
Flandry's service to dying Terra is not really comparable. His true allegiance is to the Empire's Pax rather than to the Empire as such—he calls himself a "'civilization loyalist'", not an imperialist in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows (chapter 11). "Dead's dead," he says elsewhere, "My job is to salvage the living." (The Rebel Worlds, chapter 8) Human and other civilizations can survive Terra's fall. New births will surely follow her death as long as thinking beings endure.
Ironically, Aycharaych is defeated by qualities he disdains—physical force, emotional violence, moral principle. Try as he may, he cannot really appreciate the intensity of love, courage, loyalty, or self-sacrifice in lesser beings and so miscalculates at critical moments. This recalls Anderson's Operation Chaos (1971) in which an ordinary American couple defeats the hosts of Hell. Moreover, there is something of Faerie in Aycharaych's subtle beauty and artfulness. Like the elves of fable, he finds the weight of his centuries oppressive and wonders about the effect of mortality on men: "'What depth does the foreknowledge of doom give to your loves?'" (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, chapter 9) Anderson's judgment on the elves in The Broken Sword (1971) can be applied to Aycharaych: "'Happier are all men than the dwellers in Faerie—or the gods, for that matter, . . . Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness which can see naught above or beyond itself.'"
Failure and death are the only certainties in this universe. There is no lasting shield against the pitiless arrow of Time. Yet intelligent beings prove their worth by the manner in which they meet their fates. "'If we're doomed to tread out the measure, we can try to do so gracefully,'" says Flandry. (A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, chapter 3) The loom of history captures such experiences for us to share. No matter that here Anderson's threads happen to be imaginary rather than real. Whatever the scale—personal, dynastic, or cosmic—all the patterns he designs for his Technic Civilization tapestry convey the same message: "'We're mortal—which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful—but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?'" (Ensign Flandry, chapter 18)
So despite all his flaws and denials of virtue, this ill-starred knight, Dominic Flandry, is truly a hero. He accepts the terrible consequences of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. He trades his own peace of soul for other beings' happiness. Even Aycharaych admires his bold, unyielding spirit. "'Your instincts are such that you can never accept dying.'" (Hunters of the Sky Cave, chapter 2) Flandry has won the right to boast with Kipling's battered chevalier:
"Ay, they were strong, and the fight was long; But I paid as good as I got!"6
FOOTNOTES
1 "Galaxy Bookshelf," Galaxy. (June 1967), pp. 188-89. Flandry is actually the illegitimate son of an opera diva and a nobly-born space captain with antiquarian interests.
2 "Galaxy Bookshelf," Galaxy (February 1966), p. 139
3 These and other unattributed remarks are from personal communications between Anderson and Miesel.
4 For a detailed account of Technic history, see my essay "The Price of Buying Time" originally published by Ace Books, 1979, an Afterword to A Stone in Heaven, the next to last novel of the Flandry series. A Stone in Heaven is included in Flandry’s Legacy (Baen, 2011) and “The Price of Buying Time” is included with the ebook edition of Flandry’s Legacy.
5 These remarks incorporate some suggestions from critic Patrick McGuire.
6 "The Quest"