Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra

by Poul Anderson

  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.

&n
bsp; 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."