"Well, Your Excellency, I was only there a few days, and quite busy most of them." Flandry seated himself and leaned forward. "About my assignment."
"Of course, of course," Snelund said. "But grant me a moment first." His geniality was replaced by an appearance of concern. His tone sharpened. "Have you fresh news of the Merseian situation? We're as worried about that as anyone in the Empire, despite our own current difficulties. Perhaps more worried than most. Transfer of units to that border has gravely weakened this. Let war break out with Merseia, and we could be depleted still further—an invitation to the barbarians. That's why McCormac's rebellion must be suppressed immediately, no matter the cost."
Flandry realized: I'm being stalled. "I know nothing that isn't public, sir," he said at a leisured rate. "I'm sure Ifri HQ gets regular couriers from the Betelgeusean marches. The information gap is in the other direction, if I may use a metaphor which implies that gaps aren't isotropic."
Snelund laughed. "Well spoken, Commander. One grows starved for a little wit. Frontiers are traditionally energetic but unimaginative."
"Thank you, Your Excellency," Flandry said. "I'd better state my business, though. Will the governor bear with me if I sound long-winded? Necessary background . . . especially since my assignment is indefinite, really just to prepare a report on whatever I can learn . . . ."
Snelund lounged back. "Proceed."
"As a stranger to these parts," Flandry said pompously, "I had to begin with studying references and questioning a broad spectrum of people. My application for an interview with you, sir, would have been cancelled had it turned out to be needless. For I do see how busy you are in this crisis. As matters developed, however, I found I'd have to make a request of you. A simple thing, fortunately. You need only issue an order."
"Well?" Snelund invited.
He's relaxed now, Flandry judged: takes me for the usual self-important favorite nephew, going through a charade to furnish an excuse for my next promotion.
"I would like to interview the Lady McCormac," he said.
Snelund jerked upright where he sat.
"My information is that she was arrested together with her husband and has been detained in Your Excellency's personal custody," Flandry said with a fatuous smile. "I'm sure she has a good many valuable data. And I've speculated about using her as a go-between. A negotiated settlement with her husband—"
"No negotiation with a traitor!" Snelund's fist smote a chair arm.
How dramatic, Flandry thought. Aloud: "Pardon me, sir. I didn't mean he should get off scot free, simply that—Well, anyhow, I was surprised to discover no one has questioned the Lady McCormac."
Snelund said indignantly, "I know what you've heard. They gossip around here like a gaggle of dirty-minded old women. I've explained the facts to Admiral Pickens' chief Intelligence officer, and I'll explain them again to you. She appears to have an unstable personality, worse even than her husband's. Their arrest threw her into a completely hysterical condition. Or 'psychotic' might not be too strong a word. As a humane gesture, I put her in a private room rather than a cell. There was less evidence against her than him. She's quartered in my residential wing because that's the sole place where I can guarantee her freedom from bumbling interruptions. My agents were preparing to quiz McCormac in depth when his fellow criminals freed him. His wife heard, and promptly attempted suicide. My medical staff has had to keep her under heavy sedation ever since."
Flandry had been told otherwise, though no one dared give him more than hearsay. "I beg the governor's pardon," he said. "The admiral's staff suggested perhaps I, with a direct assignment, might be allowed where they aren't."
"Their men have met her twice, Commander. In neither case was she able to testify."
No, it isn't hard to give a prisoner a shot or a touch of brainshock, when you have an hour or two advance notice. "I see, Your Excellency. And she hasn't improved?"
"She's worsened. On medical advice, I've banned further visits. What could the poor woman relate, anyway?"
"Probably nothing, Your Excellency. However, you'll appreciate, sir, I'm supposed to make a full report. And as my ship will soon be leaving with the fleet," unless I produce my authority to detach her, "this may be my lone chance. Couldn't I have a few minutes, to satisfy them on Terra?"
Snelund bristled. "Do you doubt my word, Commander?"
"Oh, no, Your Excellency! Never! This is strictly pro forma. To save my, uh, reputation, sir, because they'll ask why I didn't check this detail also. I could go there straight from here, sir, and your medics could be on hand to keep me from doing any harm."
Snelund shook his head. "I happen to know you would. I forbid it."
Flandry gave him a reproachful stare.
Snelund tugged his chin. "Of course, I sympathize with your position," he said, trading a scowl for a slight smile. "Terra is so far away that our reality can only come through as words, photographs, charts. Um-m-m . . . . Give me a number where you can be contacted on short notice. I'll have my chief doctor inform you when you can go to her. Some days she's more nearly sane than others, though at best she's incoherent. Will that do?"
"Your Excellency is most kind," Flandry beamed.
"I don't promise she'll be available before you depart," Snelund cautioned. "Small time remains. If not, you can doubtless see her on your return. Though that will hardly be worth the trouble, will it, after McCormac has been put down?"
"Pro forma, Your Excellency," Flandry repeated. The governor recorded a memorandum, including a phone exchange which would buck a message on to Asieneuve, and Flandry took his leave with expressions of mutual esteem.
He got a cab outside the palace and made sure he was heard directing it to the shuttleport. It was no secret that he'd been on the ground these past several days; his job required that. But the fainéant impression he wanted to give would be reinforced if he took the first excuse to return to his vessel. Ascetical though his cabin there might be, it was a considerable improvement on the flea circus dormitory which was the best planetside quarters a late arrival like him had been able to obtain. Catawrayannis was overflowing at the hatches with spacemen and marines, as ship after ship made rendezvous.
"Why here?" he had asked Captain Leclerc, the member of Admiral Pickens' staff to whom he actually reported. "Ifri is HQ."
Leclerc shrugged. "The governor wants it this way."
"But he can't—"
"He can, Flandry. I know, the Naval and civilian provincial commands are supposed to be coordinate. But the governor is the Emperor's direct representative. As such, he can invoke Imperial authority when he wants. It may get him into the kettle on Terra afterward, but that's afterward. On the spot, the Navy had better heed him."
"Why the order, though? Ifri has the main facilities. It's our natural center and starting point."
"Well, yes, but Llynathawr doesn't have Ifri's defenses. By our presence, we guard against any revengeful raids McCormac may plan. It makes a degree of sense, even. Knocking out the sector capital—or preferably occupying it—would put him a long way toward control of the entire region. Once we get started, he'll be too busy with us to think about that, although naturally we will leave some protection." Leclerc added cynically: "While they wait, our men on liberty will enjoy a good, expensive last fling. Snelund's careful to stay popular in Catawrayannis."
"Do you really think we should charge out for an immediate full-dress battle?"
"Governor's directive again, I hear. It certainly doesn't fit Admiral Pickens' temperament. Left alone, I'm convinced he'd see what could be done first by dickering and small-scale shooting . . . rather than maybe end up bombarding Imperial worlds into radioactive rubbish. But the word is, we've got to blast the infection before it spreads." Leclerc grimaced. "You're an insidious one. I've no business talking like this. Let's take up your business!"
—When he stepped out at the terminal, Flandry received the not unexpected information that he must wait a couple of hours f
or a seat on a ferry to Satellite Eight, where he could summon his gig. He phoned the dormitory and had his luggage shunted to him. Since this consisted merely of one handbag, already packed, he didn't bother to check it, but carried it along into a refresher booth. From there he emerged in drab civvies, with a hooded cloak and slouching gait and bag turned inside out to show a different color. He had no real reason to think he had been followed, but he believed in buying insurance when it was cheap. He took a cab to an unpretentious hotel, thence another into Lowtown. The last few blocks he walked.
Rovian had found a rooming house whose clientele were mostly nonhumans: unchoosy ones. He shared his kennel with a betentacled hulk from an unpronounceable planet. The hulk reeked of exuded hydrogen sulfide but was personally decent enough; among other sterling qualities, it did not know the Eriau language. It rippled on its bunk when Flandry entered, mushed an Anglic greeting, and returned to contemplation of whatever it contemplated.
Rovian stretched all six limbs and yawned alarmingly. "At last!" he said. "I thought I would rot."
Flandry sat down on the floor, which carried no chairs, and lit a cigarette more against the stench than because he wanted one. "How goes the ship?" he asked in the principal Merseian tongue.
"Satisfactorily," Rovian answered likewise. "Some were curious at the exec absenting himself before the captain returned. But I passed it off as needful to our supplying and left Valencia in charge. Nothing can really happen while we idle in orbit, so no great comment followed."
Flandry met the slit-pupilled eyes. You seem to know more about what your human shipmates think than a xeno should, he did not say. I don't pretend to understand what goes on in your brain. But . . . I have to rely on somebody. Sounding you out while we traveled, as well as might be, I decided you're least improbably the one.
"I didn't ask you to locate a den, and tell me where, and wait, for sport," he declared with the explicitness required by Eriau grammar. "My idea was that we'd need privacy for laying plans. That's been confirmed."
Rovian cocked his ears.
Flandry described his session with the governor. He finished: "No reasonable doubt remains that Snelund is lying about Lady McCormac's condition. Gossip leaks through guards and servants, out of the private apartments and into the rest of the palace. Nobody cares, aside from malicious amusement. He's packed the court, like the housecarls and the residencies, with his own creatures. Snooping around, getting sociable with people off duty, I led them to talk. Two or three of them got intoxicated till they said more than they would have normally." He didn't mention the additives he had slipped into their drinks.
"Why don't the regular Intelligence officers suspect?" Rovian inquired.
"Oh, I imagine they do. But they have so much else to deal with, so obviously vital. And they don't think she can tell anything useful. And why collide with the governor, risking your career, for the sake of the arch-rebel's wife?"
"You wish to," Rovian pounced.
"Kraich." Flandry squinted into the smoke he was blowing. It curled blue-gray across what sunlight straggled through a window whose grime seemed of geologic age. The rotten-egg gas was giving him a headache, unless that was due to the general odor of decay. Faintly from outside came traffic rumble and an occasional raucous cry.
"You see," he explained, "I'm on detached service. My nose isn't committed to any of the numberless grindstones which must be turned before a Naval expedition can get under way. And I have more background on Aaron Snelund than provincial officers do, even in my own corps and in his own preserve. I've been free and able to sit and wonder. And I decided it wasn't logical he should keep Kathryn McCormac locked away simply for the purpose the court is sniggering about. The admiral's staff may think so, and not care. But I doubt if he's capable of feeling more than a passing attraction for any fellow creature. Why not turn her over for interrogation? She might know a little something after all. Or she might be handy in dealing with her husband."
"Scarcely that," Rovian said. "His life is already forfeit."
"Uh-huh. Which is why my harried colleagues didn't check further. But—oh, I can't predict—her, in exchange for various limited concessions on his part—her, persuading him to give up—Well, I suppose it takes a cold-blooded bastard like me to consider such possibilities. The point is, we can't lose by trying her out, and might gain a trifle. Therefore we ought to. But Snelund is holding her back with a yarn about her illness. Why? What's in it for him, besides herself? His sector's being torn apart. Why isn't he more cooperative in this tiny matter?"
"I couldn't say." Rovian implied indifference.
"I wonder if she may not know something he would prefer didn't get out," Flandry said. "The assumption has been that Snelund may be a bad governor, but he is loyal and McCormac's the enemy. It's only an assumption."
"Should you not then invoke the authority in your second set of orders, and demand her person?"
Flandry made a face. "Huh! Give them five minutes of stalling at the gate, and I'll be presented with a corpse. Or ten minutes under a misused hypnoprobe could produce a memoryless idiot. Wherefore I walked very softly indeed. I don't expect to be summoned before the fleet leaves, either."
"And on our return—"
"She can easily have 'passed away' during the campaign."
Rovian tautened. The bunk where he crouched made a groaning noise. "You tell me this for a purpose, captain," he said.
Flandry nodded. "How did you guess?"
Again Rovian waited, until the man sighed and proceeded:
"I think we can spring her loose, if we time it exactly right. You'll be here in town, with some crewmen you've picked and an aircar handy. An hour or so before the armada accelerates, I'll present my sealed orders to the admiral and formally remove us from his command. It's a safe bet Snelund's attention will be on the fleet, not on the palace. You'll take your squad there, serve a warrant I'll have given you, and collect Kathryn McCormac before anybody can raise the governor and ask what to do. If need be, you can shoot; whoever tries to stop you will be in defiance of the Imperium. But I doubt the necessity will arise if you work fast. I'll have the gig waiting not too far off. You and your lads flit Lady McCormac there, haul gravs for space, rendezvous with Asieneuve, and we'll depart this system in a hurry."
"The scheme appears hazardous," Rovian said, "and for slight probable gain."
"It's all I can think of," Flandry answered. "I know you'll be getting the operative end of the reamer. Refuse if you think I'm a fool."
Rovian licked his saber teeth and switched his tail. "I do not refuse my captain," he said, "I, a Brother of the Oath. It does seem to me that we might discuss the problem further. I believe your tactics could be made somewhat more elegant."
Chapter Five
Ship by ship, Pickens' forces departed orbit and moved outward. When the sun of Llynathawr had shrunk to a bright point, the vessels assumed formation and went into hyperdrive. Space swirled with impalpable energies. As one, the warcraft and their ministrants aimed themselves at the star called Virgil, to find the man who would be Emperor.
They were not many. Reassignments, to help confront Merseia, had depleted the sector fleet. A shocking number of units had subsequently joined McCormac. Of those which stayed true, enough must remain behind to screen—if not solidly guard—the key planets. It was estimated that the rebels had about three-fourths the strength that Pickens would be able to bring to bear on them. Given nuclear-headed missiles and firebeams powered by hydrogen fusion, such numerical comparisons are less meaningful than the layman thinks. A single penetration of defenses can put a ship out of action, often out of existence.
On that account, Pickens traveled cautiously, inside a wide-flung net of scoutboats. His fastest vessels could have covered the distance in a day and a half, his slowest in twice that time; but he planned on a whole five days. He had not forgotten the trap his former commander sprang on the Valdotharian corsairs.
And on the bridge of Asien
euve, Dominic Flandry leaned forward in his control chair and said: "Twenty degrees north, four degrees clockwise, 3000 kilometers negative, then match quasi-velocities and steady as she goes."
"Aye, sir." The pilot repeated the instructions and programmed the computer that operated the hyperdrive.
Flandry kept his attention on the console before him, whose meters and readouts summarized the far more complex data with which the pilot dealt, until he dared say, "Can you hold this course, Citizen Rovian?"
In point of fact, he was asking his executive officer if the destroyer was moving as planned—tagging along after the fleet in order that her wake be drowned in many and that she thus be hidden from pursuit. They both knew, and both knew the master's ritual infallibility must be preserved. Rovian studied the board and said, "Aye, sir," with complete solemnity.
Flandry opened the general intercom. "Now hear this," he intoned. "Captain to all officers and crew. You are aware that our ship has a special mission, highly confidential and of the utmost importance. We are finally embarked on it. For success, we require absolute communications silence. No messages will be received except by Lieutenant Commander Rovian or myself, nor will any be sent without my express authorization. When treason has infected His Majesty's very Navy, the danger of subversion and of ruses must be guarded against." How's that for casuistry? he grinned within. "The communications officer will set his circuits accordingly. Carry on."
He switched off. His gaze lifted to the simulacrum of heaven projected on the viewscreens. No spacecraft showed. The greatest of them was lost in immensity, findable only by instruments and esoteric calculations. The stars ignored them, were not touched by the wars and pains of life, were immortal—No, not that either. They have their own Long Night waiting for them.
"Outercom circuits ready, sir," Rovian announced after a study of the main panel. He slipped on a headband receiver. Every incoming signal would go there, to be heard by him alone.
"Take the bridge, then." Flandry rose. "I'll interrogate the prisoner. When the time comes to change vectors, notify me immediately but don't wait for me to arrive before you do it."
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