"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 from 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?"
"I sent a report on my opinion to frontier HQ. No reply has yet been received. In any event, there are only six Merseian men-of-war here, none above Planet class, plus some unarmed cargo carriers told off to help them." Enriques smacked hand on knee. "Why am I arguing with you? At the very least, if you wanted to see me, you could have stayed aboard the Rieskessel."
"And afterward been given to the Merseians, sir?"
"Perhaps. The possibility should not have influenced you. Remember your oath."
Flandry made a circle around the room. His hands writhed behind his back. Dragoika laid fingers on sword hilt. "No," he said to her in Kursovikian. "No matter what happens."
He spun on his heel and looked straight at Enriques. "Sir, I had another reason. What I brought from Merseia is a list of numbers. You'd undoubtedly have passed them on. But they do need a direct check, to make sure I'm right about what they mean. And if I am right, whoever goes to look may run into a fight. A space battle. Escalation, which you're forbidden to practice. You couldn't order such a mission the way things have been set up to bind you. You'd have to ask for the authority. And on what basis? On my say-so, me, a baby ex-cadet, a mutineer, a traitor. You can imagine how they'd buckpass. At best, a favorable decision wouldn't come for weeks. Months, more likely. Meanwhile the war would drag on. Men would get killed. Men like my buddy, Jan van Zuyl, with his life hardly begun. With forty or fifty years of Imperial service in him."
Enriques spoke so softly that one heard the wind whittering off the sea, through the ancient streets outside. "Ensign van Zuyl was killed in action four days ago."
"Oh, no." Flandry closed his eyes.
"Conflict has gotten to the point where—we and the Merseians respect each other's base areas, but roving aircraft fight anyplace else they happen to meet."
"And still you let them search us." Flandry paused. "I'm sorry, sir. I know you hadn't any choice. Please let me finish. It's even possible my information would be discredited, never acted on. Hard to imagine, but . . . well, we have so many bureaucrats, so many people in high places like Lord Hauksberg who insists the enemy doesn't really mean harm . . . and Brechdan Ironrede, God, but he's clever . . . . I couldn't risk it. I had to work things so you, sir, would have a free choice."
"You?" Enriques raised his brows. "Ensign Dominic Flandry, all by himself?"
"Yes, sir. You have discretionary power, don't you? I mean, when extraordinary situations arise, you can take what measures are indicated, without asking HQ first. Can't you?"
"Of course. As witness these atmospheric combats." Enriques leaned forward, forgetting to stay sarcastic.
"Well, sir, this is an extraordinary situation. You're supposed to stay friends with the Kursovikians. But you can see I'm the Terran they care about. Their minds work that way. They're barbaric, used to personal leadership; to them, a distant government is no government; they feel a blood obligation to me—that sort of thing. So to preserve the alliance, you must deal with me. I'm a renegade, but you must."
"And so?"
"So if you don't dispatch a scout into space, I'll tell the Sisterhood to dissolve the alliance."
"What?" Enriques started. Dragoika bristled.
"I'll sabotage the whole Terran effort," Flandry said. "Terra has no business on Starkad. We've been trapped, conned, blued and tattooed. When you present physical evidence, photographs, measurements, we'll all go home. Hell, I'll give you eight to one the Merseians go home as soon as you tell old Runei what you've done. Get your courier off first, of course, to make sure he doesn't use those warships to blast us into silence. But then call him and tell him."
"There are no Terran space combat units in this system."
Flandry grinned. The blood was running high in him. "Sir, I don't believe the Imperium is that stupid. There has to be some provision against the Merseians suddenly marshaling strength. If nothing else, a few warcraft orbiting 'way outside. We can flit men to them. A round-about course, so the enemy'll think it's only another homebound ship. Right?"
"Well—" Enriques got up. Dragoika stayed where she was, but closed hand on hilt. "You haven't yet revealed your vast secret," the admiral declared.
Flandry recited the figures.
Enriques stood totem-post erect. "Is that everything?"
"Yes, sir. Everything that was needed."
"How do you interpret it?"
Flandry told him.
Enriques was still for a long moment. The Tigeries growled in Shiv Alley. He turned, went to the window, stared down and then out at the sky.
"Do you believe this?" he asked most quietly.
"Yes, sir," Flandry said. "I can't think of anything else that fits, and I had plenty of time to try. I'd bet my life on it."
Enriques faced him again. "Would you?"
"I'm doing it, sir."
"Maybe. Suppose I order a reconnaissance. As you say, it's not unlikely to run into Merseian pickets. Will you come along?"
A roar went through Flandry's head. "Yes, sir!" he yelled.
"Hm. You trust me that much, eh? And it would be advisable for you to go: a hostage for your claims, with special experience which might prove useful. Although if you didn't return here, we could look for trouble."
"You wouldn't need Kursoviki any longer," Flandry said. He was beginning to tremble.
"If you are truthful and correct in your assertion." Enriques was motionless a while more. The silence grew and grew.
All at once the admiral said, "Very good, Ensign Flandry. The charges a
gainst you are held in abeyance and you are hereby re-attached temporarily to my command. You will return to Highport with me and await further orders."
Flandry saluted. Joy sang in him. "Aye, aye, sir!"
Dragoika rose. "What were you saying, Dommaneek?" she asked anxiously.
"Excuse me, sir, I have to tell her." In Kursovikian: "The misunderstanding has been dissolved, for the time being anyhow. I'm leaving with my skipper."
"Hr-r-r." She looked down. "And then what?"
"Well uh, then we'll go on a flying ship, to a battle which may end this whole war."
"You have only his word," she objected.
"Did you not judge him honorable?"
"Yes. I could be wrong. Surely there are those in the Sisterhood who will suspect a ruse, not to speak of the commons. Blood binds us to you. I think it would look best if I went along. Thus there is a living pledge."
"But—but—"
"Also," Dragoika said, "this is our war too. Shall none of us take part?" Her eyes went back to him. "On behalf of the Sisterhood and myself, I claim a right. You shall not leave without me."
"Problems?" Enriques barked.
Helplessly, Flandry tried to explain.
Chapter Seventeen
The Imperial squadron deployed and accelerated. It was no big force to cast out in so much blackness. True, at the core was the Sabik, a Star-class, what some called a pocket battleship; but she was old and worn, obsolete in several respects, shunted off to Saxo as the last step before the scrap orbit. No one had really expected her to see action again. Flanking her went the light cruiser Umbriel, equally tired, and the destroyers Antarctica, New Brazil, and Murdoch's Land. Two scoutships, Encke and Ikeya-Seki, did not count as fighting units; they carried one energy gun apiece, possibly useful against aircraft, and their sole real value lay in speed and maneuverability. Yet theirs was the ultimate mission, the rest merely their helpers. Aboard each of them reposed a document signed by Admiral Enriques.
At first the squadron moved on gravitics. It would not continue thus. The distance to be traversed was a few light-days, negligible under hyperdrive, appalling under true velocity. However, a sudden burst of wakes, outbound from a large orbit, would be detected by the Merseians. Their suspicions would be excited. And their strength in the Saxonian System, let alone what else they might have up ahead, was fully comparable to Captain Einarsen's command. He wanted to enter this water carefully. It was deep.
But when twenty-four hours had passed without incident, he ordered the New Brazil to proceed at superlight toward the destination. At the first sign of an enemy waiting there, she was to come back.
Flandry and Dragoika sat in a wardroom of the Sabik with Lieutenant (j.g.) Sergei Karamzin, who happened to be off watch. He was as frantic to see new faces and hear something new from the universe as everyone else aboard. "Almost a year on station," he said. "A year out of my life, bang, like that. Only it wasn't sudden, you understand. Felt more like a decade."
Flandry's glance traveled around the cabin. An attempt had been made to brighten it with pictures and home-sewn draperies. The attempt had not been very successful. Today the place had come alive with the thrum of power, low and bone-deep. A clean tang of oil touched air which circulated briskly again. But he hated to think what this environment had felt like after a year of absolutely eventless orbit. Dragoika saw matters otherwise, of course; the ship dazzled, puzzled, frightened, delighted, enthralled her, never had she known such wonder! She poised in her chair with fur standing straight and eyes bouncing around.
"You had your surrogates, didn't you?" Flandry asked. "Pseudosensory inputs and the rest."
"Sure," Karamzin said. "The galley's good, too. But those things are just medicine, to keep you from spinning off altogether." His young features hardened. "I hope we meet some opposition. I really do."
"Myself," Flandry said, "I've met enough opposition to last me for quite a while."
His lighter kindled a cigarette. He felt odd, back in horizon blue, jetflares on his shoulders and no blaster at his waist: back in a ship, in discipline, in tradition. He wasn't sure he liked it.
At least his position was refreshingly anomalous. Captain Einarsen had been aghast when Dragoika boarded—an Iron Age xeno on his vessel? But the orders from Enriques were clear. This was a VIP who insisted on riding along and could cause trouble if she wasn't humored. Thus Ensign Flandry was appointed "liaison officer," the clause being added in private that he'd keep his pet savage out of the way or be busted to midshipman. (Nothing was said on either side about his being technically a prisoner. Einarsen had received the broadcast, but judged it would be dangerous to let his men know that Merseians were stopping Terran craft. And Enriques' message had clarified his understanding.) At the age of nineteen, how could Flandry resist conveying the impression that the VIP really had some grasp of astronautics and must be kept posted on developments? So he was granted communication with the bridge.
Under all cheer and excitement, a knot of tension was in him. He figured that word from the New Brazil would arrive at any minute.
"Your pardon," Dragoika interrupted. "I must go to the—what you say—the head." She thought that installation the most amusing thing aboard.
Karamzin watched her leave. Her supple gait was not impeded by the air helmet she required in a Terran atmosphere. The chief problem had been coiling her mane to fit inside. Otherwise her garments consisted of a sword and a knife.
"Way-hay," Karamzin murmured. "What a shape! How is she?"
"Be so good as not to talk about her like that," Flandry rapped.
"What? I didn't mean any harm. She's only a xeno."
"She's my friend. She's worth a hundred Imperial sheep. And what she's got to face and survive, the rest of her life—"
Karamzin leaned across the table. "How's that? What sort of cruise are we on, anyway? Supposed to check on something the gatortails might have out in space; they didn't tell us more."
"I can't, either."
"I wasn't ordered to stop thinking. And you know, I think this Starkad affair is a blind. They'll develop the war here, get our whole attention on this sinkhole, then bang, they'll hit someplace else."
Flandry blew a smoke ring. "Maybe." I wish I could tell you. You have no military right to know, but haven't you a human right?
"What's Starkad like, anyway? Our briefing didn't say much."
"Well—" Flandry hunted for words. They were bloodless things at best. You could describe, but you could not make real: dawn white over a running sea, slow heavy winds that roared on wooded mountainsides, an old and proud city, loveliness on a shadowy ocean floor, two brave races, billions of years since first the planet coalesced, the great globe itself . . . . He was still trying when Dragoika returned. She sat down quietly and watched him.
"—and, uh, a very interesting paleolithic culture on an island they call Rayadan—"
Alarms hooted.
Karamzin was through the door first. Feet clattered, metal clanged, voices shouted, under the shrill woop-woop-woop that echoed from end to end of the long hull. Dragoika snatched the sword off her shoulder. "What's happening?" she yelled.
"Battle stations." Flandry realized he had spoken in Anglic. "An enemy has been . . . sighted."
"Where is he?"
"Out there, put away that steel. Strength and courage won't help you now. Come." Flandry led her into the corridor.
They wove among men who themselves pelted toward their posts. Near the navigation bridge was a planetary chartroom equipped for full audiovisual intercom. The exec had decided this would serve the VIP and her keeper. Two spacesuits hung ready. One was modified for Starkadian use. Dragoika had gotten some drill with it en route to the squadron, but Flandry thought he'd better help her before armoring himself. "Here; this fastens so. Now hold your breath till we change helmets on you . . . . Why did you come?"
"I would not let you fare alone on my behalf," Dragoika said after her faceplate was closed.
"Now hear this. Now hear this. Captain to all officers and men. The New Brazil reports two hyperdrives activated as she approached destination. She is returning to us and the bogies are in pursuit. We shall proceed. Stand by for hyperdrive. Stand by for combat. Glory to the Emperor."
Flandry worked the com dials. Turning in on a bridge viewscreen, he saw space on his own panel, black and star-strewn. Briefly, as the quantum field built up, the cosmos twisted. Compensators clicked in and the scene grew steady; but now Sabik outran light and kilometers reeled aft more swiftly than imagination could follow. The power throb was a leonine growl through every cell of his body.
"What does this mean?" Dragoika pressed close to him, seeking comfort.
Flandry switched to a view of the operations tank. Seven green dots of varying size moved against a stellar background. "See, those are our ships. The big one, that's this." Two red dots appeared. "Those are the enemy, as near as we can tell his positions. Um-m-m, look at their size. That's because we detect very powerful engines. I'd say one is roughly equal to ours, though probably newer and better armed. The other seems to be a heavy destroyer."
Her gauntlets clapped together. "But this is like magic!" she cried with glee.
"Not much use, actually, except to give a quick overall picture. What the captain uses is figures and calculations from our machines."
Dragoika's enthusiasm died. "Always machines," she said in a troubled voice. "Glad I am not to live in your world, Dommaneek."
You'll have to, I'm afraid, he thought. For a while, anyway. If we live.
He scanned the communications office. Men sat before banks of meters, as if hypnotized. Occasionally someone touched a control or spoke a few words to his neighbor. Electromagnetic radio was mute beyond the hull. But with hyperdrive going, a slight modulation could be imposed on the wake to carry messages. Sabik could transmit instantaneously, as well as receive.
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