Flandry of Terra
Page 3
No Nyanzan was ever far from his aqualung. They seemed to have developed a more advanced model here than any Flandry had seen elsewhere: a transparent helmet and a small capacitance-battery device worn on the back, which electrolyzed oxygen directly from the water and added enough helium from a high-compression tank to dilute. By regulating the partial pressures of the gases, one could go quite deep.
This was only a short swim, as casual as a Terran’s stroll across the bridgeway. Slanting through clear greenish coolth, Flandry saw that Jairnovaunt was large-sunken domes and towers gleamed farther than his vision reached. Work went on: a cargo submarine, with a score of human midges flitting about it, discharged kelpite bales into a warehouse tube. But there were also children darting among the eerie spires and grottos of a coraloid park, an old man scattered seeds for a school of brilliant-striped little fish, a boy and a girl swam hand in hand through voiceless wonder.
When he reached the long white hall of the Commander, Jairnovaunt’s hereditary chief executive, Flandry was still so bemused by the waving, fronded formal gardens that he scarcely noticed how graceful the portico was. Even the airlock which admitted him blended into the overall pattern, a curiously disturbing one to the Terran mind, for it contrasted delicate traceries and brutal masses as if it were the ocean itself.
When the water had been pumped out, an airblast dried them, Flandry’s shimmerite clothes as well as Tessa’s sleek skin. They stepped into a hallway muraled with heroic abstractions.
Beyond two guards bearing the ubiquitous harpoon rifles, and beyond an emergency bulkhead, the passage opened on a great circular chamber lined with malachite pillars under a clear dome. Some twoscore Nyanzans stood about. Their ages seemed to range upward from 20 or so; some wore only a ‘lung, others a light-colored shirt and kilt; all bore dignity like a mantle. Quite a few were women, gowned and plumed if they were clothed at all, but otherwise as free and proud as their men.
Tessa stepped forward and saluted crisply. “The Lightmistress of Little Skua, returning from The Kraal as ordered, sir.”
Commander Inyanduma III was a powerfully built, heavy-faced man with graying woolly hair: his medallion of rank was tattooed, a golden Pole Star bright on his brows. “Be welcome,” he said, “and likewise your guest. He is now ours. I call his name holy.”
The Terran flourished a bow. “An honor, sir. I am Captain Dominic Flandry, Imperial Navy. Lightmistress Hoorn was gracious enough to conduct me here.”
He met the Commander’s eyes steadily, but placed himself so he could watch Tessa on his edge of vision. Inyanduma tipped an almost imperceptible inquiring gesture toward her. She nodded, ever so faintly, and made a short-lived O with thumb and forefinger. I’d already wormed out that she went to The Kraal on official business, remembered Flandry, but she wouldn’t say what and only now will she even admit it succeeded. Too secret to mention on her ship’s radiophone! As human beings, we enjoyed each other’s company, traveling here. But as agents of our kings-?
Inyanduma swept a sailor’s muscular hand about the room. “You see our legislative leaders, Captain. When the Lightmistress ‘phoned you were hither-bound, we supposed it was because of his Excellency’s slaying, which had been broadcast ‘round the globe. It’s a grave matter, so I gathered our chiefs of council, from both the House of Men and the Congress of Women.”
A rustling and murmuring went about the green columns, under the green sea. There was withdrawal in it, and a sullen waiting. These were not professional politicians as Terra knew the breed. These were the worthies of Jairnovaunt: aristocrats and shipowners, holding seats ex officio, and a proportion of ships’ officers elected by the commons. Even the nobles were functional-Tessa Hoorn had inherited not the right but the duty to maintain lightships and communications about the reefs called Little Skua. They had all faced more storms and underwater teeth than they had debate.
Flandry said evenly: “My visit concerns worse than a murder, sir and gentles. A resident might be killed by any disgruntled individual, that’s an occupational hazard. But I don’t think one living soul hated Bannerji personally. And that’s what’s damnable!”
“Are you implying treason, sir?” rumbled Inyanduma.
“I am, sir. With more lines of evidence than one. Could anybody direct me to a family named Umbolu?”
It stirred and hissed among the councillors of Jairnovaunt. And then a young man trod forth-a huge young man with a lion’s gait, cragged features and a scar on one cheek. “Aye,” he said so it rang in the hall. “I hight Derek Umbolu, captain of the kraken-chaser Bloemortein. Tessa, why brought you a damned Impy hither?”
“Belay!” rapped Inyanduma. “We’ll show courtesy here.”
Tessa exclaimed to the giant: “Derek, Derek, he could have flown to us in an hour! And we meditate nay rebellion-” Her voice trailed off; she stepped back from his smoldering gaze, her own eyes widening and a hand stealing to her mouth. The unspoken question shivered, Do we?
“Let ‘em keep ‘way from us!” growled Derek Umbolu. “We’ll pay the tribute and hold to the bloody Pax if they’ll leave us and our old ways ‘lone. But they don’t!”
Flandry stepped into collective horror. “I’m not offended,” he said. “But neither do I make policy. Your complaints against the local administration should be taken to the provincial governor-“
“Yon murdering quog!” spat Derek. “I’ve heard about Brae, and more.”
Since Flandry considered the description admirable (he assumed a quog was not a nice animal) he said hastily: “I must warn you against lese majeste. And now let’s get to my task. It’s not very pleasant for me either. Captain Umbolu, are you related to an Imperial marine named Thomas?”
“Aye. I’ve a younger brother who ‘listed for a five-year hitch.”
Flandry’s tones gentled. “I’m sorry. It didn’t strike me you might be so closely related, Thomas Umbolu was killed in action on Brae.”
Derek closed his eyes. One great hand clamped on the hilt of his sheath knife till blood trickled from beneath the nails. He looked again at the world and said thickly: “You came here swifter than the official news, Captain.”
“I saw him die,” said Flandry. “He went like a brave man.”
“You’ve nay crossed space just to tell a colonial that much.”
“No,” said Flandry. “I would like to speak alone with you sometime soon. And with his other kin.”
The broad black chest pumped air, the hard fingers curved into claws. Derek Umbolu rasped forth: “You’ll nay torment my father with your devilments, nor throw shame on us with your secrecy. Ask it out here, ‘fore ‘em al|.”
Flandry’s shoulder muscles tightened, as if expecting a bullet. He looked to the Commander. Inyanduma’s starred face was like obsidian. Flandry said: “I have reason to believe Thomas Umbolu was implicated in a treasonable conspiracy. Of course, I could be wrong, in which case I’ll apologize. But I must first put a great many questions. I am certainly not going to perform before an audience. I’ll see you later.”
“You’ll leave my father be or I’ll kill you!”
“Belay!” cried Inyanduma. “I said he was a guest.” More softly: “Go, Derek, and tell Old John what you must.”
The giant saluted, wheeled, and stalked from the room. Flandry saw tears glimmer in Tessa’s eyes. The Commander bowed ponderously at him. “Crave your pardon, sir. He’s a stout heart… surely you’ll find nay treason in his folk… but the news you bore was harsh.”
Flandry made some reply. The gathering became decorous, the Lightmasters and Coast-watchers offered him polite conversation. He felt reasonably sure that few of them knew about any plottings: revolutions didn’t start that way.
Eventually he found himself in a small but tastefully furnished bedroom. One wall was a planetary map. He studied it, looking for a place called Uhunhu. He found it near the Sheikhdom of Rossala, which lay north of here; if he read the symbols aright, it was a permanently submerged area.
V
The inner moon, though smaller, raised the largest tides, up to nine times a Terrestrial high; but it moved so fast, five orbits in two of Nyanza’s 30-hour days, that the ebb was spectacularly rapid. Flandry heard a roar through his wall, switched on the transparency, and saw water tumbling white from dark rough rock. It was close to sunset, he had sat in his thoughts for hours. A glance at the electric ephemeris over his bunk told him that Loa, the outer satellite, would not dunk the hall till midnight. And that was a much weaker flow, without the whirlpool effects which were dangerous for a lower-case lubber like himself.
He stubbed out his cigarette and sighed. Might as well get the nasty part over with. Rising, he shucked all clothes but a pair of trunks and a ‘lung; he put on the swimshoes given him and buckled his guns-they were safely waterproof-into their holsters. A directory-map of the immediate region showed him where Captain John Umbolu lived. He recorded a message that business called him out and his host should not wait dinner: he felt sure Inyanduma would be more relieved, than offended. Then he stepped through the airlock. It closed automatically after him.
Sunset blazed across violet waters. The white spume of the breakers was turned an incredible gold; tide pools on the naked black skerry were like molten copper. The sky was deep blue in the east, still pale overhead, shading to a clear cloudless green where the sun drowned. Through the surfs huge hollow crashing and grinding, Flandry heard bells from one of the many rose-red spires… or did a ship’s bell ring among raking spars, or was it something he had heard in a dream once? Beneath all the noise, it was unutterably peaceful.
No one bothered with boats for such short distances. Flandry entered the water at a sheltered spot, unfolded the web feet in his shoes, and struck out between the scattered dome-and-towered reefs. Other heads bobbed in the little warm waves, but none paid him attention. He was glad of that. Steering a course by marked buoys, he found old Umbolu’s house after a few energetic minutes.
It was on a long thin rock, surrounded by lesser stones on which a murderous fury exploded. The Terran paddled carefully around, in search of a safe approach. He found it, two natural breakwaters formed by gaunt rusty coraloid pinnacles, with a path that led upward through gardens now sodden heaps until it struck the little hemisphere. Twilight was closing in, slow and deeply blue; an evening planet came to white life in the west.
Flandry stepped onto the beach under the crags. It was dark there. He did not know what reflex of deadly years saved him. A man glided from behind one of the high spires and fired a harpoon. Flandry dropped on his stomach before he had seen more than a metallic glitter. The killing missile hissed where he had been.
“If you please!” He rolled over, yanking for his sleepy-needle gun. A night-black panther shape sprang toward him. His pistol was only half unlimbered when the hard body fell upon his. One chopping, wrist-numbing karate blow sent the weapon a-clatter from his grasp. He saw a bearded, hating face behind a knife.
Flandry blocked the stab with his left arm. The assassin pulled his blade back. Before it could return, Flandry’s thumb went after the nearest eye. His opponent should have ignored that distraction for the few necessary moments of slicing time-but, instead, grabbed the Terran’s wrist with his own free hand. Flandry’s right hand was still weak, but he delivered a rabbit punch of sorts with it and took his left out of hock by jerking past his enemy’s thumb. Laying both hands and a knee against the man’s knife arm, he set about breaking same.
The fellow screeched, writhed, and wriggled free somehow. Both bounced to their feet. The dagger lay between them. The Nyanzan dove after it. Flandry put his foot on the blade. “Finders keepers,” he said. He kicked the scrabbling man behind the ear and drew his blaster.
The Nyanzan did not stay kicked. Huddled at Flandry’s knees, he threw a sudden shoulder block. The Terran went over on his backside. He glimpsed the lean form as it rose and leaped; it was in the water before he had fired.
After the thunder-crash had echoed to naught and no body had emerged, Flandry retrieved his needler. Slowly, his breathing and pulse eased. “That,” he confessed aloud, “was as ludicrous a case of mutual ineptitude as the gods of slapstick ever engineered. We both deserve to be tickled to death by small green centipedes. Well… if you keep quiet about it, I will.”
He squinted through the dusk at the assassin’s knife. It was an ordinary rustproof blade, but the bone hilt carried an unfamiliar inlaid design. And had he ever before seen a Nyanzan with a respectable growth of beard?
He went on up the path and pressed the house bell. The airlock opened for him and he entered.
The place had a ship’s neatness, and it was full of models, scrimshaw, stuffed fish, all the sailor souvenirs. But emptiness housed in it. One old man sat alone with his dead; there was no one else.
John Umbolu looked up through dim eyes and nodded. “Aye,” he said, “I ‘waited you, Captain. Be welcome and be seated.”
Flandry lowered himself to a couch covered with the softscaled hide of some giant swimming thing John Umbolu had once hunted down. The leather was worn shabby. The old man limped to him with a decanter of imported rum. When they had both been helped, he sat himself in a massive armchair and their goblets clinked together. “Your honor and good health, sir,” said John Umbolu.
Flandry looked into the wrinkled face and said quietly: “Your son Derek must have told you my news.”
“I’ve had the tidings,” nodded Umbolu. He took a pipe from its rack and began to fill it with slow careful motions. “You saw him die, sir?”
“He held my hand. His squad was ambushed on a combat mission on Brae. He… it was soon over.”
“Drowning is the single decent death,” whispered the Nyanzan. “My other children, all but Derek, had that much luck.” He lit his pipe and blew smoke for a while. “I’m sorry Tom had to go yon way. But it is kind of you to come tell me of it.”
“He’ll be buried with full military honors,” said Flandry awkwardly. If they don’t have so many corpses they just bulldoze them under. “Or if you wish, instead of the battle-casualty bonus you can have his ashes returned here.”
“Nay,” said Umbolu. His white head wove back and forth. “What use is that? Let me have the money, to build a reef beacon in his name.” He thought for a while longer, then said timidly: “Perchance I could call further on your kindness. Would you know if… you’re’ware, sir, soldiers on leave and the girls they meet… it’s possible Tom left a child somewhere… “
“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t know how to find out about that.”
“Well, well, I expected nay more. Derek must be wed soon then, if the name’s to live.”
Flandry drew hard on a cigarette, taken from a waterproof case. He got out: “I have to tell you what your son said as he lay dying.”
“Aye. Say forth, and fear me nay. Shall the fish blame the hook if it hurts him a little?”
Flandry related it. At the end, the old man’s eyes closed, just as Derek’s had done, and he let the empty glass slip from his fingers.
Finally: “I know naught of this. Will you believe that, Captain?”
“Yes, sir,” Flandry answered.
“You fear Derek may be caught in the same net?”
“I hope not.”
“I too. I’d nay have any son of mine in a scheme that works by midnight murder-whatever they may think of your Empire. Tom… Tom was young and didn’t understand what was involved. Will you believe that too?” asked John Umbolu anxiously. Flandry nodded. The Nyanzan dropped his head and cupped his hands about the pipe bowl, as if for warmth. “But Derek… why, Derek’s in the Council. Derek would have open eyes-Let it nay be so!”
Flandry left him with himself for a time, then: “Where might any young man .. , first have encountered the agents of such a conspiracy?”
“Who kn
ows, sir? ‘Fore his growth is gained, an Umbolu boy has shipped to all ports of the planet. Or there are always sailors from every nation on Nyanza, right here in Jairnovaunt.”
Flandry held out the knife he had taken. “This belongs to a bearded man,” he said. “Can you tell me anything about it?”
The faded eyes peered close. “Rossala work.” It was an instant recognition, spoken in a lifeless voice. “And the Rossala men flaunt whiskers.”
“As I came ashore here,” said Flandry, “a bearded person with this knife tried to kill me. He got away, but-“
He stopped. The old sea captain had risen. Flandry looked up at an incandescent mask of fury, and suddenly he realized that John Umbolu was a very big man.
Gigantic fists clenched over the Terran’s head. The voice roared like thunder, one majestic oath after the next, until rage at last found meaningful words. “Sneak assassins on my very ground! ‘Gainst my guest! By the blazing bones of Almighty God, sir, you’ll let me question every Rossalan in Jairnovaunt and flay yon one “live!”
Flandry rose too. An upsurging eagerness tingled in him, a newborn plot. And at the same tune-Warily, child, warily.’ You’ll not get cooperation at this counter without some of the most weasel-like arguments and shameless emotional buttonpushing in hell’s three-volume thesaurus.
Well, he thought, that’s what I get paid for.
VI
Hours had gone when he left the house. He had eaten there, but sheer weariness dragged at him. He swam quite slowly back to the Commander’s rock. When he stood on it, he rested for a while, looking over the sea.