A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

by Anderson, Poul

  Dennitza, they concentrate on the eastern seaboard of Rodna, the main

  continent, in the northern hemisphere. Because they can stand cold

  better than humans, they do most of the fishing, pelagiculture, et

  cetera."

  "Nevertheless, I presume considerable cultural blending has taken

  place."

  "Certainly--"

  Recollection rushed in of Trohdwyr, who died on Diomedes whither she was

  bound; of her father on horseback, a-gallop against a windy autumn

  forest, and the bugle call he blew which was an immemorial Merseian

  war-song; of her mother cuddling her while she sang an Eriau lullaby,

  "Dwynafor, dwynafor, odhal tiv," and then laughing low, "But you, little

  sleepyhead, you have no tail, do you?"; of herself and Mihail in an

  ychan boat on the Black Ocean, snowfall, ice floes, a shout as a sea

  beast magnificently broached to starboard; moonlit gravbelt flight over

  woods, summer air streaming past her cheeks, a campfire glimpsed, a

  landing among great green hunters, their gruff welcome; and, "I'm not

  hungry," Kossara said, and left the saloon before Chives or, worse,

  Flandry should see her weep.

  V

  -

  Flandry's office, if that was the right name for it, seemed curiously

  spare amidst the sybaritic arrangements Kossara had observed elsewhere

  aboard. She wondered what his private quarters were like. But don't ask.

  He might take that as an invitation. Seated in front of the desk behind

  which he was, she made her gaze challenge his.

  "I know this will be painful to you," he said. "You've had a few days to

  rest, though, and we must go through with it. You see, the team that

  'probed you appears to have made every imaginable blunder and maybe

  created a few new ones." She must have registered her startlement, for

  he continued, "Do you know how a hypnoprobe works?"

  Bitterness rose in her. "Not really," she said. "We have no such vile

  thing on Dennitza."

  "I don't approve either. But sometimes desperation dictates." Flandry

  leaned back in his chair, ignited a cigarette, regarded her out of eyes

  whose changeable gray became the hue of a winter overcast. His tone

  remained soft: "Let me explain from the ground up. Interrogation is an

  unavoidable part of police and military work. You can do it on several

  levels of intensity. First, simple questioning; if possible, questioning

  different subjects separately and comparing their stories. Next,

  browbeating of assorted kinds. Then torture, which can be the crude

  inflicting of pain or something like prolonged sleep deprivation. The

  trouble with these methods is, they aren't too dependable. The subject

  may hold out. He may lie. If he's had psychosomatic training, he can

  fool a lie detector; or, if he's clever, he can tell only a misleading

  part of the truth. At best, procedures are slow, especially when you

  have to crosscheck whatever you get against whatever other information

  you can find.

  "So we move on to narcoquiz, drugs that damp the will to resist. Problem

  here is, first, you often get idiosyncratic reactions or nonreactions.

  People vary a lot in their body chemistry, especially these days when

  most of humanity has lived for generations or centuries on worlds that

  aren't Terra. And, of course, each nonhuman species is a whole separate

  bowl of spaghetti. Then, second, your subject may have been immunized

  against everything you have in your medicine chest. Or he may have been

  deep-conditioned, in which case no drug we know of will unlock his

  mind."

  Between the shoulderblades, Kossara's back hurt from tension. "What

  about telepathy?" she snapped.

  "Often useful but always limited," Flandry said. "Neural radiations have

  a low rate of information conveyance. And the receiver has to know the

  code the sender is using. For instance, if I were a telepath, and you

  concentrated on thinking in Serbic, I'd be as baffled as if you spoke

  aloud. Or worse, because individual thought patterns vary tremendously,

  especially in species like ours which don't normally employ telepathy. I

  might learn to read your mind--slowly, awkwardly, incompletely at

  best--but find that everybody else's was transmitting gibberish as far

  as I was concerned. Interspecies telepathy involves still bigger

  difficulties. And we know tricks for combatting any sort of brain

  listener. A screen worn on the head will heterodyne the outgoing

  radiation in a random fashion, make it absolutely undecipherable. Or,

  again, training, or deep conditioning, can be quite effective."

  He paused. Wariness crossed his mobile countenance. "There are

  exceptions to everything," he murmured, "including what I've said. Does

  the name Aycharaych mean anything to you?"

  "No," she answered honestly. "Why?"

  "No matter now. Perhaps later."

  "I am a xenologist," Kossara reminded him. "You've told me nothing new."

  "Eh? Sorry. Unpredictable what somebody else does or does not know about

  the most elementary things, in a universe where facts swarm like gnats.

  Why, I was thirty years old before I learned what the Empress Theodora

  used to complain about."

  She stared past his smile. "You were going to describe the hypnoprobe."

  He sobered. "Yes. The final recourse. Direct electronic attack on the

  brain. On a molecular level, bypassing drugs, conditionings, anything.

  Except--the subject can have been preconditioned, in his whole organism,

  to die when this happens. Shock reaction. If the interrogation team is

  prepared, it can hook him into machines that keep the vital processes

  going, and so have a fair chance of forcing a response. But his mind

  won't survive the damage."

  He ground his cigarette hard against the lip of an ash-taker before

  letting the stub be removed. "You weren't in that state, obviously." His

  voice roughened. "In fact, you had no drug immunization. Why weren't you

  narcoed instead of 'probed? Or were you, to start with?"

  "I don't remember--" Astounded, Kossara exclaimed, "How do you know?

  About me and drugs, I mean? I didn't myself!"

  "The slave dealer's catalogue. His medic ran complete cytological

  analyses. I put the data through a computer. It found you've had

  assorted treatments to resist exotic conditions, but none of the traces

  a psychimmune would show."

  Flandry shook his head, slowly back and forth. "An overzealous

  interrogator might order an immediate 'probe, instead of as a last

  resort," he said. "But why carry it out in a way that wiped your

  associated memories? True, such things do happen occasionally. For

  instance, a particular subject might have a low threshold of tolerance;

  the power level might then be too high, and disrupt the RNA molecules as

  they come into play under questioning. As a rule, though, permanent

  psychological effects--beyond those which bad experiences generally

  leave--are rare. A competent team will test the subject beforehand and

  establish the parameters."

  He sighed. "Well, the civil war and aftermath lopped a lot off the top,

  in my Corps too. Coprolite-brained charact
ers who'd ordinarily have been

  left in safe routineering assignments were promoted to fill vacancies.

  Maybe you had the bad luck to encounter a bunch of them."

  "I am not altogether sorry to have forgotten," Kossara mumbled.

  Flandry stroked his mustache. "Ah ... you don't think you've suffered

  harm otherwise?"

  "I don't believe so. I can reason as well as ever. I remember my life in

  detail till shortly before I left for Diomedes, and I'm quite clear

  about everything since they put me aboard ship for Terra."

  "Good." Flandry's warmth seemed genuine. "There are enough unnecessary

  horrors around, without a young and beautiful woman getting annulled."

  He rescued me from the slime pit, she thought. He has shown me every

  kindness and courtesy. Thus far. He admits--his purpose is to preserve

  the Empire.

  "What pieces do you recall, Kossara?" Flandry had not used her first

  name before.

  She strained fingers against each other. Her pulse beat like a trapped

  bird. No. Don't bring them back. The fear, the hate, the beloved dead.

  "You see," he went on, "I'm puzzled as to why Dennitza should turn

  against us. Your Gospodar supported Hans, and was rewarded with

  authority over his entire sector. Granted, that's laid a terrible work

  load on him if he's conscientious. But it gives him--his people--a major

  say in the future of their region. A dispute about the defense

  mechanisms for your home system and its near neighbors ... well, that's

  only a dispute, isn't it, which he may still have some hope of winning.

  Can't you give me a better reason for him to make trouble? Isn't a

  compromise possible?"

  "Not with the Imperium!" Kossara said out of upward-leaping rage.

  "Between you and me, at least? Intellectually? Won't you give me your

  side of the story?"

  Kossara's blood ebbed. "I ... well, speaking for myself, the fighting

  cost me the man I was going to marry. What use an Empire that can't keep

  the Pax?"

  "I'm sorry. But did any mortal institution ever work perfectly? Hans is

  trying to make repairs. Besides, think. Why would the Gospodar--if he

  did plan rebellion--why would he send you, a girl, his niece, to

  Diomedes?"

  She summoned what will and strength she had left, closed her eyes,

  searched back through time.

  {Bodin Miyatovich was a big man, trim and erect in middle age. He bore

  the broad, snub-nosed, good-looking family face, framed in graying

  dark-blond hair and close-cropped beard, tanned and creased by a

  lifetime of weather. He eyes were beryl. Today he wore a red cloak over

  brown tunic and breeks, gromatz leather boots, customary knife and

  sidearm sheathed on a silver-studded belt.

  Dyavo-like, he paced the sun deck which jutted from the Zamok. In gray

  stone softened by blossoming creepers, that ancestral castle reared

  walls, gates, turrets, battlements, wind-blown banners (though the

  ultimate fortress lay beneath, carved out of living rock) above steep

  tile roofs and pastel-tinted half-timbered stucco of Old Town houses.

  Thence Zorkagrad sloped downward; streets changed from twisty lanes to

  broad boulevards; traffic flitted around geometrical buildings raised in

  modern materials by later generations. Waterborne shipping crowded docks

  and bay. Lake Stoyan stretched westward over the horizon, deep blue

  dusted with glitter cast from a cloudless heaven. Elsewhere beyond the

  small city, Kossara could from this height see cultivated lands along

  the shores: green trees, hedges, grass, and yellowing grain of Terran

  stock; blue or purple where native foliage and pasture remained; homes,

  barns, sheds, sunpower towers, widely spaced; a glimpse of the Lyubisha

  River rolling from the north as if to bring greeting from her father's

  manse. Closer by, the Elena flowed eastward, oceanward; barges plodded

  and boats danced upon it. Here in the middle of the Kazan, she could not

  see the crater walls which those streams clove. But she had a sense of

  them, ramparts against glacier and desert, a chalice of warmth and

  fertility.

  A breeze embraced her, scented by flowers, full of the sweet songs of

  guslars flitting ruddy to and from their nests in the vines. She sat

  back in her chair and thought, guilty at doing so, what a pity to spend

  such an hour on politics.

  Her uncle's feet slammed the planks. "Does Molitor imagine we'll never

  get another Olaf or Josip on the throne?" the Gospodar rumbled. "A clown

  or a cancer ... and, once more, Policy Board, Admiralty, civil service

  bypassed, or terrorized, or corrupted. If we rely on the Navy for our

  whole defense, what defense will we have against future foolishness or

  tyranny? Let the foolishness go too far, and we'll have no defense at

  all."

  "Doesn't he speak about preventing any more civil wars?" Kossara

  ventured.

  Bodin spat an oath. "How much of a unified command is possible, in

  practical fact, on an interstellar scale? Every fleet admiral is a

  potential war lord. Shall we keep nothing to set against him?" He

  stopped. His fist thudded on a rail. "Molitor trusts nobody. That's

  what's behind this. So why should I trust him?"

  He turned about. His gaze smoldered at her. "Besides," he said, slowly,

  far down in his throat, "the time may come ... the time may not be far

  off ... when we need another civil war."}

  "No--" she whispered. "I can't remember more than ... resentment among

  many. The Narodna Voyska has been a, a basic part of our society, ever

  since the Troubles. Squadron and regimental honors, rights, chapels,

  ceremonies--I'd stand formation on my unit's parade ground at sunset--us

  together, bugle calls, volley, pipes and drums, and while the flag came

  down, the litany for those of our dead we remembered that day--and often

  tears would run over my cheeks, even in winter when they froze."

  Flandry smiled lopsidedly. "Yes, I was a cadet once." He shook himself a

  bit. "Well. No doubt your militia intertwines with a lot of civilian

  matters, social and economic. For instance, I'd guess it doubles as

  constabulary in some areas, and is responsible for various public works,

  and--yes. Disbanding it would disrupt a great deal of your lives, on a

  practical as well as emotional level. His Majesty may not appreciate

  this enough. Germania doesn't contain your kind of society, and though

  he's seen a good many others, between us, I wouldn't call him a terribly

  imaginative man.

  "Still, I repeat, negotiations have not been closed. And whatever their

  upshot, don't you yourself have the imagination to see he means well?

  Why this fanatical hatred of yours? And how many Dennitzans share it?"

  "I don't know," Kossara said. "But personally, after what men of the

  Empire did to, to people I care about--and later to me--"

  "May I ask you to describe what you recall?" Flandry answered. She

  glared defiance. "You see, if nothing else, maybe I'll find out, and be

  able to prove to their superiors, those donnickers rate punishment for

  aggravated stupidity."

  He picked up a sheaf of papers on his
desk and riffled them. The report

  on me must have violated my privacy more than I could ever do myself,

  she thought in sudden weariness. All right, let me tell him what little

  I can.

  {A cave in the mountains near Salmenbrok held the sparse gear which kept

  her and her fellows alive. They stood around her on a ledge outside, but

  except for Trohdwyr shadowy, no real faces or names upon them any more.

  Cliffs and crags loomed in darkling solidity, here and there a gnarled

  tree or a streak of snow tinged pink by a reddish sun high in a purple

  heaven. The wind thrust slow, strong, chill; it had not only an odor but

  a taste like metal. A cataract, white and green half a kilometer away,

  boomed loud through thick air that also shifted the pitch and timbre of

  every sound. Huddled in her parka, she felt how Diomedes drew on her

  more heavily than Dennitza, nearly two kilograms added to every ten.

  Eonan of the Lannachska poised almost clear in her mind. Yellow eyes

  aglow, wings unfurled for departure, he said in his shrill-accented

  Anglic: "You understand, therefore, how these things strike at the very

  life of my folk? And thus they touch our whole world. We thought the

  wars between Flock and Fleet were long buried. Now they stir again--"

  (Both moons were aloft and near the full, copper-colored, twice the

  seeming size of Mesyatz (or Luna), one slow, one hasty across a sky

  where few stars blinked and those in alien constellations. The night

  cold gnawed. Flames sputtered and sparked. Their light fetched Trohdwyr

  from darkness, where he sat on feet and tail in the cave mouth, roasting

  meat from the ration box. The smoke bore a sharp aroma. He said to