Kossara and her fellow humans: "It's not for an old zmay to tell you
wise heads how to handle a clutch of xenos. I'm here as naught but my
lady's servant and bodyguard. However, if you want to keep peace among
the natives, why not bring some Ythrians to explain Ythri really has no
aim of backing any rebellion-minded faction?"
Steve Johnson--no! Stefan Ivanovich. Why in the name of madness should
she think of him as Steve Johnson?--replied out of the face she could
not give a shape: "That'd have to be arranged officially. The resident
can't on his own authority. He'd have to go through the sector governor.
And I'm not sure if the sector governor wants Ythri--or Terra--to know
how bad the situation is on Diomedes."
"Besides," added -?-, "the effects aren't predictable, except they'd be
far-reaching. We do have a full-scale cultural crisis here. Among
nonhumans, at that."
"Still," said a third man (woman? And was his/her nose really flat, eyes
oblique, complexion tawny?), "whatever instincts and institutions they
have, I think we can credit them--enough of them--with common sense.
What we will need, however, is a least a partial solution to the Flock's
difficulties. Otherwise, dashing their hopes of Ythrian help could drive
them to ... who knows what?" (If those features were not a mere trick of
tattered memory, well, maybe this was a non-Dennitzan whom Uncle Bodin
or his agents had engaged.}
"Yes," Kossara opined, "the trick will be to stay on top of events."
Was that the very night when the Imperial marines stormed them?
{Or another night? Trohdwyr shouted, "Let go of my lady!" In the gloom
he snatched forth his knife. A stun pistol seat him staggering out onto
the ledge, to collapse beneath the moons. After a minute, quite
deliberately, the marine lieutenant gave him a low-powered blaster shot
in the belly.
No surprise that Kossara didn't remember the fight which killed her
companions. She knew only Trohdwyr, stirring awake again. His guts lay
cooked below his ribs. After she tore loose from the grip upon her and
fell to her knees beside him, she caught the smell. "Trohdwyr, draganr
He coughed, could not speak, maybe could not know her through the pain
that blinded him. She raised his head, hugged it close, felt the blunt
spines press into her breasts. "Dwynafor, dwynafor, odhal tiv," she
heard herself crazily croak.
A man dragged her away. "Come along." She turned on him, spitting,
fingers rigid for a karate attack. Another man got a lock on her from
behind. The first cuffed her till the world rocked. "All that fuss over
a xeno," he complained, and booted Trohdwyr for a while. She couldn't
tell whether the ychan felt the blows; but his body jerked like a
dropped puppet.}
{The office was cramped, its air stale. The commander of Intelligence
said, "Nothing slow and easy for you, Vymezal. Treason's too urgent a
matter; and traitors deserve no careful handling."
"I am not--"
"We'll soon find out. Take her away, O'Brien. I want her prepared for
hypnoprobing."}
{Downward whirl through shrieks, thunders, flashes, pain and pain, down
toward emptiness, but oh, she cannot reach blessed cool nothing;
eternity has her.
The Golden Face, the cinnabar eyes, an indigo plume above, a voice of
mercy: "Rest, Kossara. Sleep. Forget." No more.}
{She was still dazed, numb, when the drumhead court-martial condemned
her to life enslavement.}
Flandry considered the papers in his hands. Her few dry words appeared
to have turned him as impersonal, for he said in the same tone,
expressionless, "Thank you. Not much left in your mind, is there? No
explanation of your hatred for the Empire."
"What do you mean?" exploded from her. "After what I told!"
"Please," he said. "You're a bright, educated, reasonably objective
person. Taking your memories as correct--which they may not be; you
could be recalling pieces of delirium--you should be able to entertain
the possibility that you and your friends had the bad luck to meet fools
and brutes such as infest every outfit. You should consider using
established procedures to have them identified, traced, penalized.
Unless, of course, you're so set in your attitude that this business
seems typical, mere confirmation of what you already knew."
He glanced up. "Have you been told exactly what's in this report on you?
The Intelligence report, that is."
"No," she got forth.
"I didn't expect you would. It's secret. Let me give you a summary." His
vision skimmed the sheets he flipped through as he recited:
"Overtly, you and your attendant Trohdwyr arrived at Thursday Landing
for a duly approved xenological research project on behalf of your, um,
Shkola, among the Diomedeans of the Sea of Achan area. The declared
motivation was that Dennitzans have lately opened trade with a
comparable species near home, and want an idea of what to expect from
continued impact of high-technology civilization on them. Quite normal.
The Imperial resident provided you the customary assistance. He and his
household depose that you were a charming guest who gave them no hint of
bad intentions. However, you were soon off for the field. They never saw
you again.
"Meanwhile, Naval Intelligence was busy throughout that part of space.
There was reason to suspect some kind of hostile operation, taking
advantage of widespread disorganization caused by the war and not yet
amended. Diomedes was certainly a trouble spot, secessionism steadily
gaining strength in a principal society of the planet. Those
revolutionaries seemed to hope for Ythrian support.
"But other, more reliable sources indicated Ythri had nothing to do with
this. Then who were the humans known, from loyal native witnesses, to be
active on Diomedes? If not Avalonians, working for the Domain they live
in, who?
"With the help of informers, Intelligence agents tracked down a group of
these subversives to a mountain hideout. Seeing what they took for a
Merseian, they leaped to conclusions ... not unjustified, it turned out.
The gang resisted arrest and, except for you, perished in the fire
fight. Blasters in an enclosed space like a cave--the marines were
wearing combat armor and your companions were not. The fact that the
suspects fought, under those circumstances, seems to prove they were as
fanatical as your psychograph says you are.
"Hypnoprobed, you revealed you were the deputy of your uncle the
Gospodar, come to check on the progress. His idea was that Dennitzans
posing as Avalonians could incite an uprising on Diomedes. This by
itself would draw Imperial attention there. The apparent likelihood of
Ythri being behind it would decoy considerable of our armed strength,
too. Then at the right moment--you quoted your uncle simply as speaking
of a 'lever' to use on the Imperium, for getting concessions. But you
spilled your belief--and you ought to know--that, if events broke
favorably, he'd seize the chance to rebel. Dependi
ng on circumstances,
he'd either try for the throne, or carry out the same plan as the late
Duke Alfred was nursing along, to rip a sizable region loose from the
Empire and place it under Merseian protection.
"Which, of course"--Flandry lifted his gaze again--"would give the
Roidhunate a bridgehead right in that frontier. Do you wonder that the
treatment you got was rough?"
Kossara sprang from her chair. "How crazy do you think we are?" she
yelled.
"We're bound for Diomedes to find out," he said.
"Why not straight to Dennitza like an honest man?"
"Others will, never fear. Detective work on an entire nation, or just on
its leaders, takes personnel and patience. A singleton like me does best
vis-a-vis a small operation, as I suppose the one on Diomedes
necessarily is."
Flandry's eyes narrowed. "If you want your liberty back, my dear, rather
than being resold when I decide you're not worth your keep, you will
cooperate," he said. "Think of it not as betraying your folk, but as
helping save them from disastrously wrong-headed adventurers.
"We have a libraryful of material on Diomedes aboard. Study it. Ponder
it. Something may jog your memory; a lot that you've forgotten is
probably not irretrievably lost. Or you should be able to make
deductions--you're a smart girl--deductions about likely rendezvous
points remaining, where we can snare more agents. Or, better yet, I'd
guess: Diomedeans involved in the movement, never identified by our
people, they should recognize you, if you show yourself in the proper
ways. They should make contact and--do you see?"
"Yes!" she screamed. "And I won't!"
She fled.
The man sat quiet for a while before he said to the empty air, "Very
well, if you wish, Chives will bring you your meals in your cabin."
VI
--
As Flandry conned the Hooligan, Diomedes grew huge in the screens before
him. Too heavily clouded for oceans and continents to show as anything
but blurs, the dayside glowed amber-orange, with tinges of rose and
violet, under the light of a dull sun. The nighted part gave pale
whiteness back to moons and stars, reflections off ice and snow. When
Kossara last came here, equinox was not long past; now absolute winter
lay upon fully half the planet
Flandry's attention was concentrated on piloting. Ordinarily he would
have left that to the automatics, or to Chives if no ground-control
facilities existed. But this time he must use both skill and the secret
data he had commandeered back on Terra, to elude the Imperial space
sentries.
Most were small detector-computer units in orbit, such as supervised
traffic around any world of the Empire which got any appreciable amount
of it, guarding against smugglers, hostiles, recklessness, or equipment
failures. Flandry had long since rigged his speedster to evade them
without much effort, given foreknowledge of their paths. But surely the
unrest on Diomedes, the suspicion of outside interference, had caused
spacecraft to be added. Sneaking past these required an artist. He
enjoyed it.
Just the same, somewhere at the back of awareness, memory rehearsed what
he had learned about his goal. Pictures and passages of text flickered
by:
"Among the bodies which men have named Diomedes--among all the planets
we know--in many respects, this one is unique.
"Though not unusually old, the system is metal-poor. To explain that,
Montoya suggested chemical fractionation of the original cloud of dust
and gas by the electromagnetic action of a passing neutron star ... As a
result, while Diomedes has a mass of 4.75 Terra, the low net density
gives it a surface gravity of only 1.10 standard. However, so large an
object was bound to generate an extensive atmosphere. Between
gravitational potential resulting from a diameter twice Terran, and low
temperature and irradiation resulting from the G8 sun, much gas was
retained. Life has modified it. Today mean sea-level pressure is 6.2
bars; the partial pressures of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide are
about the same as on Terra, the rest of the air consisting chiefly of
neon ...
"Through some cosmic accident, the spin axis of Diomedes, like that of
Uranus in the Solar System, lies nearly in the orbital plane. The arctic
and antarctic circles thus almost coincide with the equator. In the
course of a year 11 percent longer than Terra's, practically the whole
of each hemisphere will be sunless for a period ranging from weeks to
months. Chill even in summer, land and sea become so frigid in winter
that all but highly specialized life-forms must either hibernate or
migrate ...
"Progressive autochthonous cultures had brought Stone Age technology,
the sole kind possible for them, to an astonishing sophistication. Once
contacted by humans, they were eager to trade, originally for metals,
subsequently for means to build modern industries of their own. Diomedes
offers numerous organic substances, valuable for a variety of purposes,
cheaper to buy from natives than to synthesize ...
"The biochemistry producing these compounds is only terrestroid in the
most general sense. It consists of proteins in water solution,
carbohydrates, lipids, etc. But few are nourishing to humans and many
are toxic. They permeate the environment. A man cannot survive a drink
of water or repeated breaths of air, unless he has received thorough
immunization beforehand. (Of course, that includes adaptation to the
neon, which otherwise at this concentration would have ill effects too.)
Short-term visitors prefer to rely on their basic antiallergen, helmets,
protective clothing, and packaged rations.
"The Diomedean must be similarly careful about materials from offplanet.
In particular, most metals are poisonous to him. That he can use copper
and iron anyway, as safely as we use beryllium or plutonium, is a
tribute to his intelligence. But the precautions by themselves have
inevitably joined those factors which force radical change upon ancient
customs. Some cultures have adjusted without extreme stress. Others
continue to suffer upheaval. Injustice and alienation bring dissension
and violence ... "
Although, Flandry thought, if we Imperials packed up our toys and went
home, everybody here would soon be a great deal worse off. There've been
too many irreversible changes. You can't even sit still in this universe
and not make waves.
The sun was never down in summer; but Diomedes' 12.5-hour rotation spun
it through a circle. At the point in space and time where Hooligan
landed, sharply rising mountains to the south concealed the disc.
The saloon was warm and scented. Nevertheless, what he saw in the screen
made Flandry grimace and give an exaggerated shiver. "Brrr! No wonder
climes like this foster Spartan virtues. The inhabitants have to be in
training before they can emigrate and dispossess whoever lives on
desirable real estate."
"You can't appreciate, can you, here i
s home for the Lannachska that
they only want to keep unruined," Kossara said.
Couldn't she recognize a joke? Maybe not. She'd held aloof since he
interviewed her, studying as he urged but saying nothing about what
meaning she drew from it.
What a waste, Flandry sighed. We could have had a gorgeous voyage, you
and 1.
His gaze lingered on her. A coverall did not hide the fullness of a tall
and supple body. Blue-green eyes, mahogany locks, strongly sculptured
countenance had begun to haunt his reveries, and in the last few
nightwatches his dreams. Did she really speak in the exact husky
contralto of Kathryn McCormac? ...
She sensed his regard, flushed, and attacked: "We are on Lannach, are we
not? I think I recall several of these peaks."
Flandry nodded and gave his attention back to the view. "Yes. Not far
south of Sagna Bay." He hoped she'd admire how easily he'd found a
particular site on the big island, nothing except maps and navigation to
guide him down through the stormy atmosphere. But she registered unmixed
anger. Well, I suppose I shouldn't object to that, seeing how carefully
I fueled it.
Concealed by an overhanging cliff, the ship stood halfway up a mountain,
with an overlook down rugged kilometers to a horizon-gleam which
betokened sea. Clouds towered in amethyst heaven, washed by faint pink
where lightning did not flicker in blue-black caverns. Crags, boulders,
waterfalls reared above talus slopes and murky scraps. Thin grasslike
growth, gray thornbushes, twisted low trees grew about; they became more
abundant as sight descended toward misty valleys, until at last they
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