"Of course I was, and have, you jigglebrain," Fenross snapped. "After we cleared up that last business, I didn't set my trajectory for the nearest vacation area. As undermanned as we are out here—Now we'll have to fight."
"I, sir?" Flandry couldn't resist saying. "That's the combat services' department, I'm told. Why pick on me?"
"You and every other man in the sector. Listen." Fenross seemed almost to lean out of the screen. "The bandits have not been identified, though mainly they look human. And... among the people they kidnapped is her Highness, Lady Megan of Luna, the favorite granddaughter of the Emperor himself!"
Not a muscle stirred in Flandry's visage, save to form a long, low whistle; but his belly tautened till it hurt. "Any clues at all?"
"Well, one officer did manage to lie hidden in the ruins and take a holofilm, just a few minutes' worth. Otherwise we've only the accounts of demoralized civilians, practically worthless." Fenross paused. Obviously it hurt him to add: "Maybe it's luck that you were here. We do need you."
"I should say you do, dear chief." Modesty was not a failing of Flandry's, nor would he pass by a chance to twit his superior when he couldn't be punished for it. "All right, I'll flit directly over. Cheers."
He cut the circuit and returned to the balcony. Chives was clearing away the breakfast dishes; Ella was nervously pacing. "So long, children," the man said. "I'm on my way."
Eyes like blued silver sought him. "What has happened?" the girl asked, all at once gone calm.
Flandry gave her a smile of sorts. "I've just been handed a chance for either a triumph that may earn me a fortune, or a failure that may earn me burial in a barbarian's barnyard. If a bookmaker quotes you odds of ten to one on the latter, bet your life savings, because he's ripe for the plucking."
It was like a scene from some mythic hell, save that its kind had been enacted much too many times in history.
Against a background of shattered walls and jumping flames, men crowded, surged, shouted, laughed—big men in helmet, cuirass, kilt, some carrying archaic swords as well as modern small arms. The picture was focused on an ornamental terrace above the central plaza. There huddled a dozen young women, stripped alike of clothing and hope, weeping, shuddering, or lost in an apathy of despair. Elsewhere, others were being led off to a disc-shaped vessel, doubtless a tender to an orbiting mother ship; still others were being herded through the swarm toward the upper level. It was a hastily conducted sale. Silver, gold, gems, the plunder of the city, were tossed at a gnomish unhuman figure that squatted there and pushed each purchase downstairs to a grinning conqueror.
The film ended. Flandry looked through the transparency in the undamaged, commandeered office where he sat, out over desolation. Smoke still made an acrid haze in what had been Fort Lone. Imperial marines stood guard, a relief station dispensed food and medical help, a pair of corvettes hung in the sky and heavier battlecraft swung beyond its blueness—all of which was rather too late to do much good.
"Well," rasped Fenross, "what do you make of it?"
Flandry replayed, stopped motion, and turned the enlarger knob, till a holographic image stood big and grotesque before him. "Except for this dwarf creature," he replied, "I'd say they were all of human race."
"Of course—" The admiral sounded as if he barely stopped himself from finishing, "—idiot!" After a moment: "Could they be from some early colony out in these parts that reverted to barbarism... during the Troubles, perhaps? I don't believe complete records are left on every attempt at emigration and settlement made during the Breakup, but we do know quite a few were less than successful. Could such a retrograded people have worked their way back up to a point where they could start reduplicating some of the ancestral technology, before outgrowing the wild ways they'd acquired meanwhile?"
"I wonder," Flandry said. "The spacecraft in the film is an odd design. I think there are some societies within the Merseian hegemony that employ more or less the same type, but it's not what I'd expect barbarians imitating our boats to have."
Fenross gulped. His fingernails whitened where he gripped the table edge. "If the Merseians are behind this—"
Flandry gestured at the dwarf. "Tall, dark, and handsome there may provide a clue to their origin. I don't know. That's for data retrieval in the nearest well-stocked xenological archive to tell us, and I'm afraid it is not very near at all."
He leaned back, tugged his chin, and continued low-voiced, "But I must say the pattern of this raid is strange in every respect. Varrak's well inside the border, with only a small area that's been worth colonizing, thus not an especially tempting mark. Plenty of better prospects lie closer to the Wilderness. Then too, the raiders knew exactly how to neutralize the defenses; it was done with almost unnecessary precision, scanty as they were. And, of course, the raid collared the princess. Suggests inside help, eh?"
"I thought of that, naturally," Fenross grunted. "I'm setting up a quiz of every survivor of the security force. If narco indicates anything suspicious about anybody, we'll give him the hypnoprobe."
"I suspect it's wasted effort, sir. The bandit chief is too smooth an operator to leave clues of that kind. If he had collaborators here, they left with his lads and we'll list them as ‘missing, presumed killed in action.' But what's the story on her Highness?"
Fenross groaned. "She was making a tour of the marches, according to a couple of servants who escaped. Officially it was an inspection, actually it seems to've been for thrills. How could those muck-heads on Terra conceivably have allowed it?" His fist struck the table, then he sighed: "Well, I've heard she has the Emperor around her little finger."
I suppose even the hardest old son of a bitch must have a sentimental streak, perhaps mushier than in most of us, Flandry thought. Also, his newly and forcibly acceded Majesty has so much else to worry about, one can understand how he could be wheedled into supposing a region was safe that never caused him trouble before, and indeed gave him support.
"Anyhow," Fenross went on, "she traveled incognito, as simply a nouveau riche tourist, and her staff included a crack secret service detail. No use, it turned out. The raiders blasted their way into the hotel where she was staying, gunned down her guards, and made off with her and most of her attendants."
"Again," said Flandry, "they appear to have had inside information. I'd hypothesize they got her itinerary beforehand, on Terra itself or early during the trip. The looting here was a sideline and a red herring. That includes the picturesque little bit of salacity we've seen filmed. There wasn't time to sell off any substantial fraction of an estimated thousand prisoners, but it's the kind of thing that barbarians are popularly supposed to do."
"I'm inclined to agree," Fenross said slowly. "I'm also afraid, however, that some powerful people in this sector will not. They'll demand that whole task forces be sent to scour the Wilderness before their own precious interests suffer attack; and they've got the influence to have their demands met."
Flandry nodded. "Exactly," he replied. He took forth a cigarette. "What's your guess at the real motive? Ransom?"
"Probably, and I hope to God the kidnappers only want money. But—you know as well as I, barbarian kings and the like may be rough, but they're seldom stupid. I'm afraid her ransom will be concessions we can ill afford. If they are barbarians we're dealing with. If they're really, let's say, the Merseians—That hardly bears thinking about, does it?"
"I can't see the Emperor—the present one, at any rate—selling out the Empire, even to get his favorite granddaughter back."
"No... no.... But he'll be distraught when he hears, I suppose. It may go ill with officers like you and me, who were on the scene or near it." Fenross' head bobbed up and down. "Yes, I'm quite sure it will."
Flandry scowled. He was fond of living. "Somehow I doubt the operation was mounted just to get rid of you, or even of me, sir. The political purpose—"
"I haven't had a chance to wonder about that yet," Fenross snapped. "I doubtless won't get one, either. Too
much else on hand. Setting up intensive studies here—probably useless, I know, but they must be carried out. Contacting commands throughout the sector. Getting an Intelligence operation mounted that'll go through the whole adjacent Wilderness, and in among the Merseians, and—" He lifted haunted eyes to meet Flandry's. "I'm an administrator, that's what I am, a bloody damned administrator, understaffed and swamped. You're the dashing, glamorous field agent, independent to the brink of insubordination, aren't you? Aren't you? Well, don't just sit there! Get going!"
"I might do something unorthodox, sir, without checking with you first," Flandry was careful to warn. "Time could be short and you preoccupied. For the proverbial covering of my own rear end, may I have a roving commission, duly entered in the data bank? And I'll also need clearance and code for instant access to any information whatsoever."
Fenross' desperation was made plain when he mumbled, "All right, you slippery bastard, you'll have 'em, and God help us both if you misuse the authority. Now go away and start whatever you have in mind." He retained the coolness not to ask what that might be.
Flandry rose. "It might stimulate my wits if a small reward were offered, sir," he said mildly.
The lodge was as good a place as any to commence work. Like all capital ships, the dreadnaught now in orbit around Varrak bore very complete electronic files of Intelligence material pertinent to the sector of her assignment, as well as much else. The special receiver which he had brought back with him, responding to his properly identified requisition, gave him any displays he called for that were available; when he demanded printouts, those were on sheets that would crumble within the hour. In dressing gown and slippers, he sat perusing records of which many had cost lives, of which some were worth an empire. Chives kept him supplied with coffee and cigarettes.
Near dawn of the planet's thirty-one-hour day, Ella stole up behind him and laid a hand on his head. "Aren't you ever coming in to sleep, Nick?" she asked. He had encouraged her to address him familiarly, but this was the first time she had yet done so.
"Not for a while," he answered curtly, without glancing at her. "I'll load up on stim instead, if need be. I'm on the track of a hunch; and if it's right, we're on mighty short rations of time."
She nodded, light sliding down unbound tresses, and settled herself quietly onto a couch. After a while the sun rose.
"Stars and planets and little pink asteroids," muttered Flandry all at once. "I may have an answer. The infotrieve is a splendid invention, if you're on the seeking rather than the hiding end of things."
She regarded him in continued silence. He got up, moved his cramped limbs about, rumpled his seal-brown hair. "The answer could be wrong," he said aloud, only half to her. "If it's right, the danger is the same, or perhaps more. Talking about sticking your head in a lion's mouth—when the lion has halitosis—"
He began to pace. "Chives is a handy fellow with a spacecraft, a gun, or a set of burglar's tools; but I need a different kind of help as well."
"Can I give it, Nick?" Ella asked low. "I'd be glad to. You've been good to me. I never quite expected that."
He regarded her a moment. She rose to stand before him, tall and lithe, descendant of those who made a home for themselves on a hostile world and even turned a small part of it into a bit of Terra—"My dear," he replied, "can you shoot?"
"I used to hunt axhorns in the mountains," she told him.
"Then... what'd you say if I set you free? Not just that, but hunted up what I could of your other kinfolk who had to be sold, and acquired them and manumitted them and provided a bit of a grubstake? The reward should cover that, with a trifle to spare for my next poker game."
She had never wept before in his presence. "I, I, I have no words."
He held her close. "The price is a considerable risk of losing everything," he murmured. "Of death, or torture, or degradation, or whatever horror you dare imagine, or maybe some that you can't. We're dealing with an utterly monstrous ego. If power corrupts, the prospect of it can do worse."
She lifted her tear-wet face to his. "You're... going too... aren't you?" she breathed. Stepping back, straightening: "No, don't you dare leave me behind!"
His laugh was shaken, but he slapped her in a not very brotherly fashion. "All right, macushla. You can come out on the target range and prove what you claimed about your shooting while Chives packs."
The boat Flandry chose was no match in any respect—speed, armament, comfort—for his private speedster; but the latter was afar, and this one was an agile fighter. In her, it was a three-day flit to Vor. After they had rehearsed what must be done as best they could, he spent the time amusing himself and his companions. There might not be another chance.
Vor had been discovered early in the age of exploration by Cynthians, but colonized by humans, like Varrak. More terrestroid, it had become populous and wealthy, and was a natural choice of capital for the duke who governed the Taurian Sector. Less grandiose than Terrans, but perhaps more energetic, its inhabitants eventually found themselves dominant in what was almost an empire within the Empire, their ruler sitting high in the councils of the Imperium.
Flandry left Chives in charge of the boat at Gloriana spaceport, and slipped the portmaster a substantial bribe in case he should need cooperation. He and Ella took a flittercab into the city and got a penthouse in one of its better hotels. He never stinted himself when he was on expense account, but this time the penthouse had a sound business reason. You could land on the roof, should a quick getaway become necessary.
Having settled in, he phoned the ducal palace and got through to a secretary in charge of appointments. "This is Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of his Majesty's Naval Intelligence Corps," he announced to the face in the screen with a pomposity equal to its effeminacy. "I have official business to conduct at his Grace's earliest convenience."
"I am afraid, Sir Dominic, that his Grace is engaged until—" A buzz sounded near the secretary's elbow. "Excuse me, sir." He turned and conferred over a sonic-shielded instrument out of the scanner field. When he resumed the earlier conversation, he was obsequious. "Of course, Sir Dominic. His Grace will be pleased to see you at 1400 tomorrow."
"Good," said Flandry. "I'll bring a lollipop for you." He switched off and laughed into Ella's astonishment: "Usually in this business one doesn't want fame, but sometimes the fact that one has a certain amount of it can be used. Pretty Boy there was being monitored, as I'd expected. He was informed that my presence is urgently desired at the palace. No doubt the idea is to find out whether I nourish any suspicions, and, if I do, to allay them."
Night had fallen. They had not yet turned on the lights, for the one great moon of Vor was in the wall transparency, its radiance making the roof garden outside into a sight of elven beauty. Ella also became dreamlike, quicksilver amidst shadow. But he saw how she bit her lip. "That doesn't sound good for us," she whispered.
"It sounds very much as though my notion is right. Look here." Flandry leaned back in his chair, confronted her where she hunched on a sofa, and bridged his fingers. He had been over this ground a dozen times already, but he liked to hear himself talk, and besides, it might soothe the poor, lonely, brave girl.
"The Corps is highly efficient if you point it in the right direction," he said. "In this case, the kidnapping was so designed that Fenross is pointed in a hundred different directions. He's forced to tackle the hopeless job of investigating uncounted barbarian worlds and the very Roidhunate of Merseia. But I, having a nasty suspicious mind, thought that our own space might harbor persons who wouldn't mind having the Emperor's favorite granddaughter for a house guest.
"That alien-type spaceship was a clue toward Merseia, but I didn't like it. Merseia's too far from here for it to be a likely influence on any local barbarians; and if the operation was Merseian, why such a blatant signature on it? Likewise, ordinary buccaneers would not have come to Varrak in the first place if they had any understanding of the economics of their trade, and could scarcely h
ave garnered such accurate information in the second place. But who then were the raiders, and who led them?
"That gnome creature gave me a hunch. He was obviously in some position of authority, or he wouldn't have been demanding loot in exchange for those girls. The pirates could simply have taken the women for themselves; it'd have made an equally effective charade. The files held no information on a race of that description, but I did find out that Duke Alfred of Tauria has a number of aliens in his household, some from regions little known or unknown.
"Let's make it a working hypothesis that those humans were also Alfred's folk, in operatic garb. What then?
"Well, my guess is that before long, word will come from what purports to be a barbarian king: he's got Princess Megan, and her ransom will be a goodly chunk of this sector. The Emperor will scarcely yield, but in his grief and outrage he'll want nothing but war. However, we're spread too thin, our internal peace is still too precarious, for him to dare bring the whole Navy to bear, or even a substantial part of it—especially when no one knows yet where the enemy lives. Duke Alfred is responsible for Tauria. He'll offer to mobilize its strength, to assume most of the burden. Mobilization en masse can't take place overnight, and under any other circumstances would rouse such suspicion that he'd instantly be replaced, with all his senior officers. But as matters stand, he'll be cheered on, given every possible assistance... and presently be ready to declare himself an independent monarch. I'm afraid that the key people in too many units will see too much gain for themselves to refuse his leadership. I'm also afraid the cost of crushing him will be too great. Probably, after some fighting, he'll get his wish. And so the Empire—human civilization—loses another prime bulwark.
"At least," finished Flandry, "that's how I'd work the swindle."
Ella shivered. "War," she said; her voice wavered. "Cities going up in flame. Deaths in the millions. Looting, enslaving—No!"
Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra Page 26