Persis closed her eyes and strained fingers together. The blood had left her face.
“Well?” Brummelmann growled. “Well, what have you to say for yourself?”
Flandry leaned against the bulkhead. He didn’t know if his legs would upbear him. “I … can say … that bastard Brechdan thinks of everything.”
“You expected you could fool me? You thought I would do your traitor’s work? No, no!”
Flandry looked from him, to the mate, to Persis. Weakness vanished in rage. But his brain stayed machine precise. He lowered the hand which held the flimsy. “I’d better tell you the whole truth,” he husked.
“No, I don’t want to hear, I want no secrets.”
Flandry let his knees go. As he fell, he yanked out his blaster. The torch flame boomed blue where he had been. His own snap shot flared off that tool. The mate yowled and dropped the red-hot thing. Flandry regained his feet. “Get rid of your wrench,” he said.
It clattered on the deck. Brummelmann backed off, past his mate who crouched and keened in pain. “You cannot get away,” he croaked. “We are detected by now. Surely we are. You make us turn around, a warship comes after.”
“I know,” Flandry said. His mind leaped as if across ice floes. “Listen. This is a misunderstanding. Lord Hauksberg’s been fooled. I do have information, and it does have to reach Admiral Enriques. I want nothing from you but transportation to Highport. I’ll surrender to the Terrans. Not to the Merseians. The Terrans. What’s wrong with that? They’ll do what the Emperor really wants. If need be, they can turn me over to the enemy. But not before they’ve heard what I have to tell. Are you a man, Captain? Then behave like one!”
“But we will be boarded,” Brummelmann wailed.
“You can hide me. A thousand possible places on a ship. If they have no reason to suspect you, the Merseians won’t search everywhere. That could take days. Your crew won’t blab. They’re as alien to the Merseians as they are to us. No common language, gestures, interests, anything. Let the greenskins come aboard. I’ll be down in the cargo or somewhere. You act natural. Doesn’t matter if you show a bit of strain. I’m certain everybody they’ve checked has done so. Pass me on to the Terrans. A year from now you could have a knighthood.”
Brummelmann’s eyes darted back and forth. The breath rasped sour from his mouth.
“The alternative,” Flandry said, “is that I lock you up and assume command.”
“I … no—” Tears started forth, down into the dirty beard. “Please. Too much risk—” Abruptly, slyly, after a breath: “Why, yes. I will. I can find a good hiding spot for you.”
And tell them when they arrive, Flandry thought. I’ve got the upper hand and it’s worthless. What am I to do?
Persis stirred. She approached Brummelmann and took his hands in hers. “Oh, thank you,” she caroled.
“Eh? Ho?” He gawped at her.
“I knew you were a real man. Like the old heroes of the League, come back to life.”
“But you—lady—”
“The message doesn’t include a word about me,” she purred. “I don’t feel like sitting in some dark hole.”
“You … you aren’t registered aboard. They will read the list. Won’t they?”
“What if they do? Would I be registered?”
Hope rushed across Flandry. He felt giddy with it. “There are some immediate rewards, you see,” he cackled.
“I—why, I—” Brummelmann straightened. He caught Persis to him. “So there are. Oh, ho, ho! So there are!”
She threw Flandry a look he wished he could forget.
He crept from the packing case. The hold was gut-black. The helmet light of his spacesuit cast a single beam to guide him. Slowly, awkward in armor, he wormed among crates to the hatch.
The ship was quiet. Nothing spoke but powerplant, throttled low, and ventilators. Shadows bobbed grotesque where his beam cut a path. Orbit around Starkad, awaiting clearance to descend—must be. He had survived. The Merseians had passed within meters of him, he heard them talk and curled finger around trigger; but they had gone again and the Rieskessel resumed acceleration. So Persis had kept Brummelmann under control; he didn’t like to think how.
The obvious course was to carry on as he had outlined, let himself be taken planetside and turn himself in. Thus he would be certain to get his message through, the word which he alone bore. (He had wondered whether to give Persis those numbers, but decided against it. A list for her made another chance of getting caught; and her untrained mind might not retain the figures exactly, even in the subconscious for narcosynthesis to bring forth.) But he didn’t know how Enriques would react. The admiral was no robot; he would pass the information on to Terra, one way or another. But he might yield up Flandry. He would most likely not send an armed scout to check and confirm, without authorization from headquarters. Not in the face of Hauksberg’s message, or the command laid on him that he must take no escalating action save in response to a Merseian initiative.
So at best, the obvious course entailed delay, which the enemy might put to good use. It entailed a high probability of Brechdan Ironrede learning how matters stood. Max Abrams (Are you alive yet, my father?) had said, “What helps the other fellow most is knowing what you know.” And, finally, Dominic Flandry wasn’t about to become a God damned pawn again!
He opened the hatch. The corridor stretched empty. Unhuman music squealed from the forecastle. Captain Brummelmann was in no hurry to make planetfall, and his crew was taking the chance to relax.
Flandry sought the nearest lifeboat. If anyone noticed, well, all right, he’d go to Highport. But otherwise, borrowing a boat would be the smallest crime on his docket. He entered the turret, dogged the inner valve, closed his faceplate, and worked the manual controls. Pumps roared, exhausting air. He climbed into the boat and secured her own airlock. The turret’s outer valve opened automatically.
Space blazed at him. He nudged through on the least possible impetus. Starkad was a huge wheel of darkness, rimmed with red, day blue on one edge. A crescent moon glimmered among the stars. Weightlessness caught Flandry in an endless falling.
It vanished as he turned on interior gravity and applied a thrust vector. He spiraled downward. The planetary map was clear in his recollection. He could reach Ujanka without trouble—Ujanka, the city he had saved.
16
Dragoika flowed to a couch, reclined on one elbow, and gestured at Flandry. “Don’t pace in that caged way, Domma-neek,” she urged. “Take ease by my side. We have scant time alone together, we two friends.”
Behind her throaty voice, up through the window, came the sounds of feet shuffling about, weapons rattling, a surflike growl. Flandry stared out. Shiv Alley was packed with armed Kursovikians. They spilled past sight, among gray walls, steep red roofs, carved beams: on into the Street Where They Fought, a cordon around this house. Spearheads and axes, helmets and byrnies flashed in the harsh light of Saxo; banners snapped to the wind, shields bore monsters and thunderbolts luridly colored. It was no mob. It was the fighting force of Ujanka, summoned by the Sisterhood. Warriors guarded the parapets on Seatraders’ Castle and the ships lay ready in Golden Bay.
Lucifer!
Flandry thought, half dismayed. Did I start this?
He looked back at Dragoika. Against the gloom of the chamber, the barbaric relics which crowded it, her ruby eyes and the striped orange-and-white fur seemed to glow, so that the curves of her body grew disturbingly rich. She tossed back her blonde mane, and the half-human face broke into a smile whose warmth was not lessened by the fangs. “We were too busy since you came,” she said. “Now, while we wait, we can talk. Come.”
He crossed the floor, strewn with aromatic leaves in his honor, and took the couch by hers. A small table in the shape of a flower stood between, bearing a ship model and a flagon. Dragoika sipped. “Will you not share my cup, Dom-maneek?”
“Well … thanks.” He couldn’t refuse, though Starkadian wine tasted grim
on his palate. Besides, he’d better get used to native viands; he might be living off them for a long while. He fitted a tube to his chowlock and sucked up a bit.
It was good to wear a regular sea-level outfit again, air helmet, coverall, boots, after being penned in a spacesuit. The messenger Dragoika sent for him, to the Terran station in the High Housing, had insisted on taking back such a rig.
“How have you been?” Flandry asked lamely.
“As always. We missed you, I and Ferok and your other old comrades. How glad I am the Archer was in port.”
“Lucky for me!”
“No, no, anyone would have helped you. The folk down there, plain sailors, artisans, merchants, ranchers, they are as furious as I am.” Dragoika erected her tendrils. Her tail twitched, the winglike ears spread wide. “That those vaz-gira-dek would dare bite you!”
“Hoy,” Flandry said. “You have the wrong idea. I haven’t disowned Terra. My people are simply the victims of a lie and our task is to set matters right.”
“They outlawed you, did they not?”
“I don’t know what the situation is. I dare not communicate by radio. The vaz-Merseian could overhear. So I had your messenger give our men a note which they were asked to fly to Admiral Enriques. The note begged him to send a trustworthy man here.”
“You told me that already. I told you I would make quite plain to the vaz-Terran, they will not capture my Domma-neek. Not unless they want war.”
“But—”
“They don’t. They need us worse than we need them, the more so when they failed to reach an accord with the vaz-Siravo of the Zletovar.”
“They did?” Flandry’s spirit drooped.
“Yes, as I always said would happen. Oh, there have been no new Merseian submarines. A Terran force blasted the Siravo base, when we vaz-Kursovikian were unable to. The vaz-Merseian fought them in the air. Heaven burned that night. Since then, our ships often meet gunfire from swimmers, but most of them get through. They tell me combat between Terran and Merseian has become frequent—elsewhere in the world, however.”
Another step up the ladder, Flandry thought. More men killed, Tigeries, seafolk. By now, I suppose, daily. And in a doomed cause.
“But you have given me small word about your deeds,” Dragoika continued. “Only that you bear a great secret. What?”
“I’m sorry.” On an impulse, Flandry reached out and stroked her mane. She rubbed her head against his palm. “I may not tell even you.”
She sighed. “As you wish.” She picked up the model galley. Her fingers traced spars and rigging. “Let me fare with you a ways. Tell me of your journey.”
He tried. She struggled for comprehension. “Strange, that yonder,” she said. “The little stars become suns, this world of ours shrunk to a dustmote; the weirdness of other races, the terrible huge machines—” She clutched the model tight. “I did not know a story could frighten me.”
“You will learn to live with a whole heart in the universe.” You must.
“Speak on, Domma-neek.”
He did, censoring a trifle. Not that Dragoika would mind his having traveled with Persis; but she might think he preferred the woman to her as a friend, and be hurt.
“—trees on Merseia grow taller than here, bearing a different kind of leaf—”
His wristcom buzzed. He stabbed the transmitter button. “Ensign Flandry.” His voice sounded high in his ears. “Standing by.”
“Admiral Enriques,” from the speaker. “I am approaching in a Boudreau X-7 with two men. Where shall I land?”
Enriques in person? My God, have I gotten myself caught in the gears!
“A-a-aye, aye, sir.”
“I asked where to set down, Flandry.”
The ensign stammered out directions. A flitter, as his letter had suggested, could settle on the tower of Dragoika’s house. “You see, sir, the people here, they’re—well, sort of up in arms. Best avoid possible trouble, sir.”
“Your doing?”
“No, sir. I mean, not really. But, well, you’ll see everyone gathered. In combat order. They don’t want to surrender me to … uh … to anyone they think is hostile to me. They threaten, uh, attack on our station if—Honest, sir, I haven’t alienated an ally. I can explain.”
“You’d better,” Enriques said. “Very well, you are under arrest but we won’t take you into custody as yet. We’ll be there in about three minutes. Out.”
“What did he say?” Dragoika hissed. Her fur stood on end.
Flandry translated. She glided from her couch and took a sword off the wall. “I’ll call a few warriors to make sure he keeps his promise.”
“He will. I’m certain he will. Uh … the sight of his vehicle might cause excitement. Can we tell the city not to start fighting?”
“We can.” Dragoika operated a communicator she had lately acquired and spoke with the Sisterhood centrum across the river. Bells pealed forth, the Song of Truce. An uneasy mutter ran through the Tigeries, but they stayed where they were.
Flandry headed for the door. “I’ll meet them on the tower,” he said.
“You will not,” Dragoika answered. “They are coming to see you by your gracious permission. Lirjoz is there, he’ll escort them down.”
Flandry seated himself, shaking his head in a stunned fashion.
He rocketed up to salute when Enriques entered. The admiral was alone, must have left his men in the flitter. At a signal from Dragoika, Lirjoz returned to watch them. Slowly, she laid her sword on the table.
“At ease,” Enriques clipped. He was gray, bladenosed, scarecrow gaunt. His uniform hung flat as armor. “Kindly present me to my hostess.”
“Uh … Dragoika, captain-director of the Janjevar va-Radovik … Vice Admiral Juan Enriques of the Imperial Terrestrial Navy.”
The newcomer clicked his heels, but his bow could have been made to the Empress. Dragoika studied him a moment, then touched brow and breasts, the salute of honor.
“I feel more hope,” she said to Flandry.
“Translate,” Enriques ordered. That narrow skull held too much to leave room for many languages.
“She … uh … likes you, sir,” Flandry said.
Behind the helmet, a smile ghosted at one corner of Enriques’ mouth. “I suspect she is merely prepared to trust me to a clearly defined extent.”
“Won’t the Admiral be seated?”
Enriques glanced at Dragoika. She eased to her couch. He took the other one, sitting straight. Flandry remained on his feet. Sweat prickled him.
“Sir,” he blurted, “please, is Donna d’Io all right?”
“Yes, except for being in a bad nervous state. She landed soon after your message arrived. The Rieskessel’s captain had been making one excuse after another to stay in orbit. When we learned from you that Donna d’Io was aboard, we said we would loft a gig for her. He came down at once. What went on there?”
“Well, sir—I mean, I can’t say. I wasn’t around, sir. She told you about our escape from Merseia?”
“We had a private interview at her request. Her account was sketchy. But it does tend to bear out your claims.”
“Sir, I know what the Merseians are planning, and it’s monstrous. I can prove—”
“You will need considerable proof, Ensign,” Enriques said bleakly. “Lord Hauksberg’s communication laid capital charges against you.”
Flandry felt nervousness slide from him. He doubled his fists and cried, with tears of rage stinging his eyes: “Sir, I’m entitled to a court-martial. By my own people. And you’d have let the Merseians have me!”
The lean visage beneath his hardly stirred. The voice was flat. “Regulations provide that personnel under charges are to be handed over to their assigned superiors if this is demanded. The Empire is too big for any other rule to work. By virtue of being a nobleman, Lord Hauksberg holds a reserve commission, equivalent rank of captain, which was automatically activated when Commander Abrams was posted to him. Until you are detached fr
om your assignment, he is your senior commanding officer. He declared in proper form that state secrets and his mission on behalf of the Imperium have been endangered by you. The Merseians will return you to him for examination. It is true that courts-martial must be held on an Imperial ship or planet, but the time for this may be set by him within a one-year limit.”
“Will be never! Sir, they’ll scrub my brain and kill me!”
“Restrain yourself, Ensign.”
Flandry gulped. Dragoika bared teeth but stayed put. “May I hear the exact charges against me, sir?” Flandry asked.
“High treason,” Enriques told him. “Mutiny. Desertion. Kidnapping. Threat and menace. Assault and battery. Theft. Insubordination. Shall I recite the entire bill? I thought not. You have subsequently added several items. Knowing that you were wanted, you did not surrender yourself. You created dissension between the Empire and an associated country. This, among other things, imperils his Majesty’s forces on Starkad. At the moment, you are resisting arrest. Ensign, you have a great deal to answer for.”
“I’ll answer to you, sir, not to … to those damned gatortails. Nor to a Terran who’s so busy toadying to them he doesn’t care what happens to his fellow human beings. My God, sir, you let Merseians search Imperial ships!”
“I had my orders,” Enriques replied.
“But Hauksberg, you rank him!”
“Formally and in certain procedural matters. He holds a direct Imperial mandate, though. It empowers him to negotiate temporary agreements with Merseia, which then become policy determinants.”
Flandry heard the least waver in those tones. He pounced. “You protested your orders, sir. Didn’t you?”
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