A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

by Anderson, Poul

  detected the fleet's setting out. Some would have gone to tell their

  masters, others would have dogged the force, trying to learn where it

  was bound. (A few of those had been spotted and destroyed, but not

  likely all.) No matter how carefully plotted its course, and no matter

  that its destination was a thinly trafficked part of space, during the

  three-week journey its hyperwake must have been picked up by several

  travelers who passed within range. So many strange hulls together,

  driving so hard through Merseian domains, was cause to bring in the

  Navy.

  If Miyatovich was to do anything to Chereion, he must get there, finish

  his work, and be gone before reinforcements could arrive. Scouts of his,

  prowling far in advance near a sun whose location seemed to be the

  Roidhunate's most tightly gripped secret, would have carried too big a

  risk of giving away his intent. He must simply rush in full-armed, and

  hope.

  "We can take them, can't we?" he asked.

  Rear Admiral Raich, director of operations, nodded.

  "Oh, yes. They're outnumbered, outgunned. I wonder why they don't

  withdraw."

  "Merseians aren't cowards," Captain Yulinatz, skipper of the

  dreadnaught, remarked. "Would you abandon a trust?"

  "If my orders included the sensible proviso that I not contest lost

  cases when it's possible to scramble clear and fight another day--yes, I

  would," Raich said. "Merseians aren't idiots either."

  "Could they be expecting help?" Miyatovich wondered. He gnawed his

  mustache and scowled.

  "I doubt it," Raich replied. "We know nothing significant can reach us

  soon." He did keep scouts far-flung throughout this stellar vicinity,

  now that he was in it. "They must have the same information to base the

  same conclusions on."

  Flandry, who stood among them, his Terran red-white-and-blue gaudy

  against their indigo or gray, cleared his throat. "Well, then," he said,

  "the answer's obvious. They do have orders to fight to the death. Under

  no circumstances may they abandon Chereion. If nothing else, they must

  try to reduce our capability of damaging whatever is on the planet."

  "Bonebrain doctrine," Raich grunted.

  "Not if they're guarding something vital," Miyatovich said. "What might

  it be?"

  "We can try for captures," Yulinatz suggested: reluctantly, because it

  multiplied the hazard to his men.

  Flandry shook his head. "No point in that," he declared. "Weren't you

  listening when he talked en route? Nobody lands on Chereion except by

  special permission which is damn hard to get--needs approval of both the

  regional tribune and the planet's own authorities, and movements are

  severely restricted. I don't imagine a single one of the personnel we're

  killing and being killed by has come within an astronomical unit of the

  globe."

  "Yes, yes, I heard," Yulinatz snapped. "What influence those beings must

  have."

  "That's why we've come to hit them," the Gospodar said in his beard.

  Yulinatz's glance went to the tank. A green point blinked: a cruiser was

  suffering heavily from three enemy craft which paced her. A yellow point

  went out, and quickly another: two corvettes lost. His tone grew raw.

  "Will it be worth the price to us?"

  "That we can't tell till afterward." Miyatovich squared his shoulders.

  "We could disengage and go home, knowing we've thrown a scare into the

  enemy. But we'd never know what opportunity we did or did not forever

  miss. We will proceed."

  In the end, a chieftain's main duty is to say, "On my head be it."

  "Gentlemen."

  Flandry's word brought their eyes to him. "I anticipated some such

  quandary," he stated. "What we need is a quick survey--a forerunner to

  get a rough idea of what is on Chereion and report back. Then we can

  decide."

  Raich snorted. "We need veto rights over the laws of statistics too."

  "If the guard is this thick at this distance," Yulinatz added, "what

  chance has the best speedster ever built for any navy of getting

  anywhere near?"

  Miyatovich, comprehending, swallowed hard.

  "I brought along my personal boat," Flandry said. "She was not built for

  a navy."

  "No, Dominic," Miyatovich protested.

  "Yes, Bodin," Flandry answered.

  Vatre Zvezda unleashed a salvo. No foes were close. None could match a

  Nova-class vessel. She was huge, heavy-armored, intricately

  compartmented, monster-powered in engines, weapons, shielding fields,

  less to join battle than to keep battle away from the command posts at

  her heart. Under present conditions, it was not mad, but it was

  unreasonable that she fired at opponents more than a million kilometers

  distant. They would have time to track those missiles, avoid them or

  blow them up.

  The reason was to cover Hooligan's takeoff.

  She slipped from a boat lock, through a lane opened momentarily in the

  fields, outward like an outsize torpedo. Briefly in her aft-looking

  viewscreens the dreadnaught bulked, glimmering spheroid abristle with

  guns, turrets, launch tubes, projectors, sensors, generators, snatchers,

  hatches, watchdomes, misshapen moon adrift among the stars. Acceleration

  dwindled her so fast that Yovan Vymezal gasped, as if the interior were

  not at a steady Dennitzan gravity but the full unbalanced force had

  crushed the breath from him.

  In the pilot's chair, Flandry took readings, ran off computations,

  nodded, and leaned back. "We won't make approach for a good

  three-quarters of an hour," he said, "and nothing's between us and our

  nominal target. Relax." '

  Vymezal--a young cadre lieutenant of marines, Kossara's cousin and in a

  sturdy male fashion almost unendurably like her--undid his safety web.

  He had been invited to the control cabin as a courtesy; come passage

  near the enemy destroyer they were aimed at, he would be below with his

  dozen men, giving them what comfort he could in their helplessness, and

  Chives would be here as copilot. His question came hesitant, not

  frightened but shy: "Sir, do you really think we can get past? They'll

  know pretty soon we're not a torp, we're a manned vessel. I should think

  they won't be satisfied to take evasive action, they'll try for a kill."

  "You volunteered, didn't you? After being warned this is a dangerous

  mission."

  Vymezal flushed. "Yes, sir. I wouldn't beg off if I could. I was just

  wondering. You explained it's not necessarily a suicide mission."

  The odds are long that it is, my boy.

  "You said," the earnest voice stumbled on, "your oscillators are well

  enough tuned that you can go on hyper-drive deep into a gravity

  well--quite near the sun. You planned to make most of our transit that

  way. Why not start at once? Why first run straight at hostile guns? I'm

  just wondering, sir, just interested."

  Flandry smiled. "Sure you are," he replied, "and I'm sorry if you

  supposed for a minute I suppose otherwise. The reason is simple. We've a

  high kinetic velocity right now with respect to Chereion. You don't lose

 
energy of relativistic motion merely because for a while you quantum-hop

  around the light-speed limit. Somewhere along the line, we have to match

  our vector to the planet's. That's better done here, where we have elbow

  room, than close in, where space may be crammed with defenses. We gain

  time--time to increase surprise at the far end--by

  A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

  posing as a missile while we adjust our velocity. But a missile should

  logically have a target. Within the cone of feasible directions, that

  destroyer seemed like our best bet. Let me emphasize, the operative word

  is 'bet.'"

  Vymezal eased and chuckled. "Thank you, sir. I'm a dice addict. I know

  when to fade."

  "I'm more a poker player." Flandry offered a cigarette, which was

  accepted, and took one for himself. It crossed his mind: how strange he

  should still be using the box which had snapped shut on his son, and

  give it no particular thought.

  Well, why throw away a tool I'd want duplicated later? I've been taught

  to avoid romantic gestures except when they serve a practical demagogic

  purpose.

  Vymezal peered ahead at the ruby sun. Yes, his profile against the

  star-clouds of Sagittarius was as much like Kossara's as young Dominic's

  had been like Persis'. What can I write to Persis? Can I? Maybe my

  gesture is to carry this cigarette case in my pocket for the rest of my

  days.

  "What information have we?" the lieutenant almost whispered.

  "Very little, and most we collected personally while we approached,"

  Flandry said. "Red dwarf star, of course; early type, but still billions

  of years older than Sol or Zoria, and destined to outlive them. However,

  not unduly metal-poor," as Diomedes is where I put her at stake for no

  more possible win than the damned Empire. "Distribution of higher

  elements varies a good bit in both space and time. The system appears

  normal for its kind, whatever 'normal' may mean: seven identified

  planets, Chereion presumably the only vitafer. We can't predict further;

  life has no such thing as a norm. I do expect Chereion will be, m-m,

  interesting."

  And not an inappropriate place to leave my bones. Flandry inhaled

  acridity and gazed outward. With all the marvels and mysteries yonder,

  he wasn't seeking death. In the last few weeks, his wounds had scarred

  over. But scar tissue is not alive. He no longer minded the idea of

  death. He wished, though, it had been possible to leave Chives behind,

  and Kossara's cousin.

  A magnifying screen emblazoned the Merseian destroyer, spearhead on a

  field of stars.

  "Torpedo coming, sir," Chives stated. "Shall I dispose of it?" His

  fingers flicked across the gun control board before him. A firebolt

  sprang hell-colored. Detector-computer systems signaled a hit. The

  missile ceased accelerating. Either its drive was disabled or this was a

  programmed trick. In the second case, if Hooligan maintained the same

  vector, a moment's thrust would bring it sufficiently close that

  radiation from the exploding warhead could cripple electronics, leave

  her helpless and incidentally pass a death sentence on her crew.

  "Keep burning till we're sure," Flandry ordered. That required a quick

  change of course. Engines roared, steel sang under stress,

  constellations whirled. He felt his blood tingle and knew he was still a

  huntsman.

  Flame fountained. A crash went through hull and flesh. The deck heaved.

  Shouts came faintly from aft.

  Gee-fields restabilized. "The missile obviously had a backup detonator,"

  Chives said. "It functioned at a safe remove from us, and our force

  screens fended off a substantial piece of debris without harm. Those

  gatortails are often inept mechanicians, would you not agree, sir?" His

  own tail switched slim and smug.

  "Maybe. Don't let that make you underestimate the Chereionites." Flandry

  studied the readouts before him.

  His pulse lifted. They were matched to their goal world. A few minutes

  at faster-than-light would bring them there, and--

  "Stand by," he called.

  XX

  --

  The eeriest thing was that nothing happened.

  The planet spun in loneliness around its ember sun. Air made a thin

  bordure to its shield, shading from blue to purple to the winter sky of

  space. Hues were iron-rusty and desert-tawny, overlaid by blue-green

  mottlings, hoar polar caps, fierce glint off the few shrunken seas which

  remained. A small, scarred moon swung near.

  It had to be the world of Flandry's search. No other was possible. But

  who stood guard? War raved through outer space; here his detectors

  registered only a few automatic traffic-control stations in orbit,

  easily bypassed. Silence seeped through the hull of his vessel and

  filled the pilot's cabin.

  Chives broke it: "Analysis indicates habitability for us is marginal,

  sir. Biotypes of the kind which appear to be present--sparsely--have

  adapted to existing conditions but could not have been born under them.

  Given this feeble irradiation, an immense time was required for the loss

  of so much atmosphere and hydrosphere." He paused. "The sense of age and

  desolation is quite overwhelming, sir."

  Flandry, his face in the hood of a scannerscope, muttered, "There are

  cities. In good repair, fusion powerplants at work ... though putting

  out very little energy for complexes their size ... The deserts are

  barren, the begrown regions don't look cultivated--too saline, I'd

  guess. Maybe the dwellers live on synthetic food. But why no visible

  traffic? Why no satellite or ground defenses?"

  "As for the former, sir," Chives ventured, "the inhabitants may

  generally prefer a contemplative, physically austere existence. Did not

  Aycharaych intimate that to you on various occasions? And as for the

  latter question, Merseian ships have maintained a cordon, admitting none

  except an authorized few."

  "That is"--the tingle in Flandry sharpened--"if an intruder like us ever

  came this close, the game would be up anyway?"

  "I do not suggest they have no wiles in reserve, sir."

  "Ye-e-es. The Roidhunate wouldn't keep watch over pure philosophers."

  Decision slammed into Flandry like sword into sheath. "We can't learn

  more where we are, and every second we linger gives them an extra chance

  to notice us and load a trap. We're going straight down!"

  He gave the boat a surge of power.

  Nonetheless, his approach was cautious. If naught else, he needed a

  while to reduce interior air pressure to the value indicated for the

  surface ahead of them. (Sounds grew muffled; pulse quickened; breast

  muscles worked enough to feel. Presently he stopped noticing much,

  having always taken care to maintain a level of acclimation to thin air.

  But he was glad that gravity outside would be weak, about half a gee.)

  Curving around the night hemisphere, he studied light-bejeweled towers

  set in the middle of rock and sand wastes, wondered greatly at what he

  saw, and devised a plan of sorts.

  "We'll find us a daylit place and settle along
side," he announced on the

  intercom. "If they won't talk to us, we'll maybe go in and talk to

  them." For his communicator, searching all bands, had drawn no hint of--

  No! A screen flickered into color. He looked at the first Chereionite

  face he could be certain was not Aycharaych's. It had the same spare

  beauty, the same deep calm, but as many differences of sculpture as

  between one human countenance and the next. And from the start, even

  before speech began, he felt a ... heaviness: nothing of sardonic humor

  or flashes of regret.

  "Talk the conn, Chives," he directed. A whistling had begun, and the

  badlands were no longer before but below him. Hooligan was an easier

  target now than she had been in space; she had better be ready to dodge

  and strike back.

  "You are not cleared for entry," said the screen in Eriau which was

  mellow-toned but did not sing like Aycharaych's. "Your action is

  forbidden under strict penalties, by command of the Roidhun in person,

  renewed in each new reign. Can you offer a justification?"

  Huh? jabbed through Flandry. Does he assume this is a Merseian boat and

  I a Merseian man? "Em--emergency," he tried, too astonished to invent a

  glib story. He had expected he would declare himself as more or less

  what he was, and hold his destination city hostage to his guns and

  missiles. Whether or not the attempt could succeed in any degree, he had

  no notion. At best he'd thought he might bear away a few hints about the