"Wasn't that a disaster to the enemy?" Kossara asked.
"'Fraid not. I don't imagine they'll get their Diomedean insurgency. But that's a minor disappointment. I'm sure the whole operation was chiefly a means to the end of maneuvering Terra into forcing Dennitza to revolt. And those false clues have long since been planted and let sprout; the false authoritative report has been filed; in short, about as much damage has been done on the planet as they could reasonably expect."
Anguish: "Do you think... we will find civil war?"
He laid an arm around her. She leaned into the curve of it, against his side. "The Empire seldom bumbles fast," he comforted her. "Remember, Hans himself didn't want to move without more information. He saw no grounds for doubting the Maspes report—that Dennitzans were involved—but he realized they weren't necessarily the Gospodar's Dennitzans. That's why I got recruited, to check further. In addition, plain old bureaucratic inertia works in our favor. Yes, as far as the problems created on Diomedes are concerned, I'm pretty sure we'll get you home in time."
"Thanks to you, Dominic." Her murmur trembled. "To none but you."
He did not remind her that Diomedes was not, could never have been the only world on which the enemy had worked, and that events on Dennitza would not have been frozen. This was no moment for reminders, when she kissed him.
Her shyness in it made him afraid to pursue. But they sat together a spell, mute before the stars, until she bade him goodnight
{On the tundra far north of the Kazan, Bodin Miyatovich kept a hunting lodge. Thence he rode forth on horseback, hounds clamorous around him, in quest of gromatz, yegyupka, or ice troll. At other times he and his guests boated on wild waters, skied on glacier slopes, sat indoors by a giant hearthfire talking, drinking, playing chess, playing music, harking to blizzard winds outside. Since her father bore her cradle from aircar to door, Kossara had loved coming here.
Though this visit was harshly for business, she felt pleasure at what surrounded her. She and her uncle stood on a slate terrace that jutted blue-black from the granite blocks of the house. Zoria wheeled dazzling through cloudless heaven, ringed with sun dogs. Left, right, and rearward the land reached endless, red-purple mahovina turf, wide-spaced clumps of firebush and stands of windblown plume, here and there a pool ablink. Forward, growth yielded to tumbled boulders where water coursed. In these parts, the barrens were a mere strip; she could see the ice beyond them. Two kilometers high, its cliff stood over the horizon, a worldwall, at its distance not dusty white but shimmering, streaked with blue crevasses. The river which ran from its melting was still swift when it passed near the lodge, a deep brawl beneath the lonesome tone of wind, the remote cries of a sheerwing flock. The air was cold, dry, altogether pure. The fur lining of her parka hood was soft and tickly on her cheeks.
The big man beside her growled, "Yes, too many ears in Zorkagrad. Damnation! I thought if we put Molitor on the throne, we'd again know who was friend and who foe. But things only get more tangled. How many faithful are left? I can't tell. And that's fouler than men becoming outright turncoats."
"You trust me, don't you?" Kossara answered in pride.
"Yes," Miyatovich said. "I trust you beyond your fidelity. You're strong and quick-witted. And your xenological background... qualifies you and gives you a cover story... for a mission I hope you'll undertake."
"To Diomedes? My father's told me rumors."
"Worse. Accusations. Not public yet. I actually had bloody hard work finding out, myself, why Imperial Intelligence agents have been snooping amongst us in such numbers. I sent men to inquire elsewhere and—Well, the upshot is, the Impies know revolt is brewing on Diomedes and think Dennitzans are the yeast. The natural conclusion is that a cabal of mine sent them, to keep the Imperium amused while we prepare a revolt of our own."
"You've denied it, I'm sure."
"In a way. Nobody's overtly charged me. I've sent the Emperor a memorandum, deploring the affair and offering to cooperate in a full-dress investigation. But guilty or not, I'd do that. How to prove innocence? As thin as his corps is spread, we could mobilize—on desert planets, for instance, without positive clues for them to find."
The Gospodar gusted a sigh. "And appearances are against us. There is a lot of sentiment for independence, for turning this sector into a confederacy free of an Empire that failed us and wants to sap the strength we survived by. Those could be Dennitzans yonder, working for a faction who plot to get us committed—who'll overthrow me if they must—"
"I'm to go search out the truth if I can," she knew. "Uncle, I'm honored. But me alone? Won't that be like trying to catch water in a net?"
"Maybe. Though at the bare least, you can bring me back... um... a feel of what's going on, better than anybody else. And you may well do more. I've watched you from babyhood. You're abler than you think, Kossara."
Miyatovich took her by the shoulders. Breath smoked white from his mouth, leaving frost in his beard, as he spoke: "I've never had a harder task than this, asking you to put your life on the line. You're like a daughter to me. I sorrowed nearly as much as you did when Mihail died, but told myself you'd find another good man who'd give you sound children. Now I can only say—go in Mihail's name, that your next man needn't die in another war."
"Then you think we should stay in the Empire?"
"Yes. I've made remarks that suggested different. But you know me, how I talk rashly in anger but try to act in calm. The Empire would have to get so bad that chaos was better, before I'd willingly break it. Terra, the Troubles, or the tyranny of Merseia—and those racists wouldn't just subject us, they'd tame us—I don't believe we have a fourth choice, and I'll pick Terra."
She felt he was right.}
A part of the Hooligan's hold had been converted to a gymnasium. Outbound, and at first on the flight from Diomedes, Flandry and Kossara used it at separate hours. Soon after her therapy commenced, she proposed they exercise together. "Absolutely!" he caroled. "It'll make calisthenics themselves fun, whether or not that violates the second law of thermodynamics."
In truth, it wasn't fun—when she was there in shorts and halter, sweat, laughter, herself—it was glory.
Halfway to Dennitza, he told her: "Let's end our psychosessions. You've regained everything you need. The rest would be detail, not worth further invasion of your privacy."
"No invasion," she said low. Her eyes dropped, her blood mounted. "You were welcome."
"Chives!" Flandry bellowed. "Get busy! Tonight we do not dine, we feast!"
"Very good, sir," the Shalmuan replied, appearing in the saloon as if his master had rubbed a lamp. "I suggest luncheon consist of a small salad and tea to drink."
"You're the boss," Flandry said. "Me, I can't sit still. How about a game of tennis, Kossara? Then after our rabbit repast we can snooze, in preparation for sitting up the whole nightwatch popping champagne."
She agreed eagerly. They changed into gym briefs and met below. The room was elastic matting, sunlamp fluorescence, gray-painted metal sides. In its bareness, she flamed.
The ball thudded back and forth, caromed, bounced, made them leap, for half an hour. At last, panting, they called time out and sought a water tap.
"Do you feel well?" She sounded anxious. "You missed an awful lot of serves." They were closely matched, her youth against his muscles.
"If I felt any better, you could turn off the ship's powerplant and hook me into the circuits," he replied.
"But why—?"
"I was distracted." He wiped the back of a hand across the salt dampness in his mustache, ran those fingers through his hair and recalled how it was turning gray. Decision came. He prepared a light tone before going on: "Kossara, you're a beautiful woman, and not just because you're the only woman for quite a few light-years around. Never fear, I can mind my manners. But I hope it won't bother you overmuch if I keep looking your way."
She stood quiet awhile, except for the rise and fall of her breasts. Her skin gleamed. A lock
of hair clung bronzy to her right cheekbone. The beryl eyes gazed beyond him.
Suddenly they returned, focused, met his as sabers meet in a fencing match between near friends. Her husky voice grew hoarse and, without her noticing, stammered Serbic: "Do you mean—Dominic, do you mean you never learned, while I was under... I love you?"
Meteorstruck, he heard himself croak, "No. I did try to avoid—as far as possible, I let Chives question you, in my absence—"
"I resisted," she said in wonder, "because I knew you would be kind but dared not imagine you might be for always."
"I'd lost hope of getting anybody who'd make me want to be."
She came to him.
Presently: "Dominic, darling, please, no. Not yet."
"—Do you want a marriage ceremony first?"
"Yes. If you don't mind too much. I know you don't care, but, well, did you know I still say my prayers every night? Does that make you laugh?"
"Never. All right, we'll be married, and in style!"
"Could we really be? In St. Clement's Cathedral, by Father Smed who christened and confirmed me—?"
"If he's game, I am. It won't be easy, waiting, but how can I refuse a wish of yours? Forgive these hands. They're not used to holding something sacred."
"Dominic, you star-fool, stop babbling! Do you think it will be easy for me?"
XIII
The earliest signs of trouble reached them faintly across distance. Fifty astronomical units from Zoria and well off the ecliptic plane, the Hooligan phased out of hyperdrive into normal state. Engines idle, she drifted at low kinetic velocity among stars, her destination sun only the brightest; and instruments strained after traces.
Flandry took readings and made computations. His lips tightened. "A substantial space fleet, including what's got to be a Nova-class dreadnaught," he told Kossara and Chives. "In orbits or under accelerations that fit the pattern of a battle-ready naval force."
The girl clenched her fists. "What can have happened?"
"We'll sneak in and eavesdrop."
Faster-than-light pseudospeed would give them away to detectors. (Their Schrödinger "wake" must already have registered, but no commander was likely to order interception of a single small vessel which he could assume would proceed until routinely checked by a picket craft.) However, in these far regions they could drive hard on force-thrust without anybody observing or wondering why. Nearing the inner system, where ships and meters were thick, Flandry plotted a roundabout course. It brought him in behind the jovian planet Svarog, whose gravitational, magnetic, and radiation fields screened the emissions of Hooligan. Amidst all fears for home and kin, Kossara exclaimed at the majestic sight as they passed within three million kilometers—amber-glowing disc, swarming moons—and at the neatness wherewith the planet swung them, their power again turned off, into the orbit Flandry wanted, between its own and that of Perun to sunward.
"With every system aboard at zero or minimum, we should pass for a rock if a radar or whatever sweeps us," he explained. "And we'll catch transmissions from Dennitza—maybe intercept a few messages between ships, though I expect those'll be pretty boring."
"How I hope you are right," Kossara said with a forlorn chuckle.
He regarded her, beside him in the control cabin. Interior illumination was doused, heating, weight generator, anything which might betray. They hung loosely harnessed in their seats, bodies if not minds enjoying the fantasy state of free fall. As yet, cold was no more than a nip in the air Chives kept circulating by a creaky hand-cranked fan. Against the clear canopy, stars crowned her head. On the opposite side, still small at this remove, Zoria blazed between outspread wings of zodiacal light.
"They're definitely Technic warcraft," he said, while wishing to speak her praises. "The neutrino patterns alone prove it. From what we've now learned, closer in, about their numbers and types, they seem to match your description of the Dennitzan fleet, though there're some I think must belong to the Imperium. My guess is, the Gospodar has gathered Dennitza's own in entirety, plus such units of the regular Navy as he felt he could rely on. In short, he's reached a dangerous brink, though I don't believe anything catastrophic has happened yet."
"We are in time, then?" she asked gladly.
He could not but lean over and kiss her. "Luck willing, yes. We may need patience before we're certain."
Fortune spared them that. Within an hour, they received the basic information. Transmitters on Dennitza sent broadbeam rather than precisely lased 'casts to the telsats for relay, wasting some cheap energy to avoid the cost of building and maintaining a more exact system. By the time the pulses got as far as Hooligan, their dispersal guaranteed they would touch her; and they were not too weak for a good receiver-amplifier-analyzer to reconstruct a signal. The windfall program Flandry tuned in was a well-organized commentary on the background of the crisis.
It broke two weeks ago. (Maybe just when Kossara and I found out about each other? he wondered. No; meaningless; simultaneity doesn't exist for interstellar distances.) Before a tumultuous parliament, Bodin Miyatovich announced full mobilization of the Narodna Voyska, recall of units from outsystem duty, his directing the Imperial Navy command for Tauria to maintain the Pax within the sector, his ordering specific ships and flotillas belonging to it to report here for assignment, and his placing Dennitzan society on a standby war footing.
A replay from his speech showed him at the wooden lectern, carved with vines and leaves beneath outward-sweeping yelen horns, from which Gospodar had addressed Skupshtina since the days of the Founders. In the gray tunic and red cloak of a militia officer, knife and pistol on hips, he appeared still larger than he was. His words boomed across crowded tiers in the great stone hall, seemed almost to make the stained-glass windows shiver.
"—Intelligence reports have grown more and more disquieting over the past few months. I can here tell you little beyond this naked fact—you will understand the need not to compromise sources—but our General Staff takes as grave a view of the news as I do. Scouts dispatched into the Roidhunate have brought back data on Merseian naval movements which indicate preparations for action.... Diplomatic inquiries both official and unofficial have gotten only assurances for response, unproved and vaguely phrased. After centuries, we know what Merseian assurances are worth....
"Thus far I have no reply to my latest message to the Emperor, and can't tell if my courier has even caught up with him on the Spican frontier.... High Terran authorities whom I've been able to contact have denied there is a Merseian danger at the present time. They've challenged the validity of the information given me, have insisted their own is different and is correct....
"They question our motives. Fleet Admiral Sandberg told me to my face, when I visited his command post, he believes our government has manufactured an excuse to marshal strength, not against foreign enemies but against the Imperium. He cited charges of treasonous Dennitzan activity elsewhere in the Empire. He forbade me to act. When I reminded him that I am the sector viceroy, he declared he would see about getting me removed. I think he would have had me arrested then and there"—a bleak half-smile—"if I'd not taken the precaution of bringing along more firepower than he had on hand....
"He revealed my niece, Kossara Vymezal, whom I sent forth to track down the origin of those lies—he claimed she'd been caught at subversion, had confessed under their damnable mind-twisting interrogation—I asked why I was not informed at once, I demanded she be brought home, and learned—" He smote the lectern. Tears burst from his eyes. "She has been sold for a slave on Terra."
The assembly roared.
"Uyak Bodin, Uyak Bodin," Kossara herself wept. She lifted her hands to the screen as if to try touching him.
"Sssh," Flandry said. "This is past, remember. We've got to find out what's happening today and what brought it on."
She gulped, mastered her sobs, and gave him cool help. He had a fair grasp of Serbic, and the news analyst was competent, but as always, much was taken
for granted of which a stranger was ignorant.
Ostensibly the Merseian trouble sprang from incidents accumulated and ongoing in the Wilderness. Disputes between traders, prospectors, and voortrekkers from the two realms had repeatedly brought on armed clashes. Dennitzans didn't react to overbearingness as meekly as citizens of the inner Empire were wont to. They overbore right back, or took the initiative from the beginning. Several actions were doubtless in a legal sense piracy by crews of one side or the other. Matters had sharpened during the civil war, when there was no effective Imperial control over humans.
Flandry had known about this, and known too that the Roidhunate had asked for negotiations aimed at solving the problem, negotiations to which Emperor Hans agreed on the principle that law and order were always worth establishing even with the cooperation of an enemy. The delegates had wrangled for months.
In recent weeks Merseia had changed its tack and made totally unacceptable demands—for example, that civilian craft must be cleared by its inspectors before entering the Wilderness. "They know that's ridiculous," Flandry remarked. "Without fail, in politics that kind of claim has an ulterior purpose. It may be as little as a propaganda ploy for domestic consumption, or as much as the spark put to a bomb fuse."
"A reason to bring their strength to bear—while most of the Empire's is tied up at Spica—and maybe denounce the Covenant of Alfzar and occupy a key system in the Wilderness?" Kossara wondered.
"Could be... if Merseia is dispatching warships in this direction," Flandry said. "The Imperium thinks not—thinks Dennitza concocted the whole business to justify mobilization. The Merseians would've been delighted to co-conspire, a behind-the-scenes arrangement with your uncle whereby they play intransigent at the conference. Any split among us is pure gain for them. From the Imperium's viewpoint, Dennitza has done this either to put pressure on it—to get the disbanding decree rescinded and other grievances settled—or else to start an out-and-out rebellion."
Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra Page 42