Agent of the Terran Empire df-5

by Poul Anderson

  Aline said drearily, “No wonder he spared your life; you’ve become the most valuable man on his side!”

  “And not a thing I can do about it,” said Flandry. “He sees me every day. I don’t know what the range of his mind is — probably only a few meters; it’s known that all mental pulses are weak and fade rapidly with distance. But in any case, every time he meets me he skims my mind, reads all my plans — I just can’t help thinking about them all the time — and takes action to forestall them.”

  “We’ll have to get the Imperial scientists to work on a thought screen.”

  “Of course. But that doesn’t help us now.”

  “Couldn’t you just avoid him, stay in your rooms—”

  “Sure. And become a complete cipher. I have to get around, see my agents and the rulers of Betelgeuse, learn facts and keep my network operating. And every single thing I learn is just so much work done for Aycharaych — with no effort on his part.” Flandry puffed a cigaret into lighting and blew nervous clouds of smoke. “What to do, what to do?”

  “Whatever we do,” said Aline, “it has to be fast. The Sartaz is getting more and more cool toward our people. While we blunder and fail, Aycharaych is working — bribing, blackmailing, influencing one key official after another. We’ll wake up some fine morning to find ourselves under arrest and Betelgeuse the loyal ally of Merseia.”

  “Fine prospect,” said Flandry bitterly.

  The waning red sunlight streamed through his windows, throwing pools of dried blood on the floor. The palace was quiet, the nobles resting after the hunt, the servants scurrying about preparing the night’s feast. Flandry looked around at the weird decorations, at the unearthly light and the distorted landscape beyond the windows. Strange world under a strange sun, and himself the virtual prisoner of its alien and increasingly hostile people. He had a sudden wild feeling of being trapped.

  “I suppose I should be spinning some elaborate counterplot,” he said hopelessly. “And then, of course, I’ll have to go down to the banquet and let Aycharaych read every detail of it — every little thing I know, laid open to his eyes because I just can’t suppress my own thoughts—”

  Aline’s eyes widened, and her slim hand tightened over his. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s your idea?”

  “Oh — nothing, Dominic, nothing.” She smiled. “I have some direct contact with Sol and—”

  “You never told me that.”

  “No reason for you to know it. I was just wondering if I should report this new trouble or not. Galaxy knows how those muddle-headed bureaucrats will react to the news. Probably yank us back and cashier us for incompetence.”

  She leaned closer and her words came low and urgent. “Go find Aycharaych, Dominic. Talk to him, keep him busy, don’t let him come near me to interfere. He’ll know what you’re doing, naturally, but he won’t be able to do much about it if you’re as clever a talker as they say. Make some excuse for me tonight, too, so I don’t have to attend the banquet — tell them I’m sick or something. Keep him away from me!”

  “Sure,” he said with a little of his old spirit. “But whatever you’re hatching in that lovely head, be quick about it. He’ll get at you mighty soon, you know.”

  He got up and left. She watched him go, with a dawning smile on her lips.

  Flandry was more than a little drunk when the party ended. Wine flowed freely at a Betelgeusean banquet, together with music, food, and dancing girls of every race present. He had enjoyed himself — in spite of everything — most of all, he admitted, he’d enjoyed talking to Aycharaych. The being was a genius of the first order in almost every field, and it had been pleasant to forget the dreadfully imminent catastrophe for a while.

  He entered his chambers. Aline stood by a little table, and the muted light streamed off her unbound hair and the shimmering robe she wore. Impulsively, he kissed her.

  “Goodnight, honey,” he said. “It was nice of you to wait for me.”

  She didn’t leave for her own quarters. Instead, she held out one of the ornate goblets on the table. “Have a nightcap, Dominic,” she invited.

  “No, thanks. I’ve had entirely too many.”

  “For me.” She smiled irresistibly. He clinked glasses with her and let the dark wine go down his throat.

  It had a peculiar taste, and suddenly he felt dizzy, the room wavered and tilted under him. He sat down on his bed until it had passed, but there was an — oddness — in his head that wouldn’t go away.

  “Potent stuff,” he muttered.

  “We don’t have the easiest job in the world,” said Aline softly. “We deserve a little relaxation.” She sat down beside him. “Just tonight, that’s all we have. Tomorrow is another day, and a worse day.”

  He would never have agreed before, his nature was too cool and self-contained, but now it was all at once utterly reasonable. He nodded.

  “And you love me, you know,” said Aline.

  And he did.

  Much later, she leaned close against him in the dark, her hair brushing his cheek, and whispered urgently: “Listen, Dominic, I have to tell you this regardless of the consequences; you have to be prepared for it.”

  He stiffened with a return of the old tension. Her voice went on, a muted whisper in the night: “I’ve contacted Sol by courier robot and gotten in touch with Fenross. He has brains, and he saw at once what must be done. It’s a poor way, but the only way.

  “The fleet is already bound for Betelgeuse. The Merseians think most of our strength is concentrated near Llynathawr, but that’s just a brilliant piece of deception — Fenross’ work. Actually, the main body is quite near, and they’ve got a new energy screen that’ll let them slip past the Betelgeusean cordon without being detected. The night after tomorrow, a strong squadron will land in Gunazar Valley , in the Borthudians, and establish a beachhead. A detachment will immediately move to occupy the capital and capture the Sartaz and his court.”

  Flandry lay rigid with shock. “But this means war!” he strangled. “Merseia will strike at once, and we’ll have to fight Betelgeuse too.”

  “I know. But the Imperium has decided we’ll have a better chance this way. Otherwise, it looks as if Betelgeuse will go to the enemy by default.

  “It’s up to us to keep the Sartaz and his court from suspecting the truth till too late. We have to keep them here at the palace. The capture of the leaders of an absolute monarchy is always a disastrous blow. Fenross and Walton think Betelgeuse will surrender before Merseia can get here.

  “By hook or crook, Dominic, you’ve got to keep them unaware. That’s your job; at the same time, keep on distracting Aycharaych, keep him off my neck.”

  She yawned and kissed him. “Better go to sleep now,” she said. “We’ve got a tough couple of days ahead of us.”

  He couldn’t sleep. He got up when she was breathing quietly and walked over to the balcony. The knowledge was staggering. That the Empire, the bungling decadent Empire, could pull such a stroke and hope to get away with it!

  Something stirred in the garden below. The moonlight was dim red on the figure that paced between two Merseian bodyguards. Aycharaych!

  Flandry stiffened in dismay. The Chereionite looked up and he saw the wise smile on the telepath’s face. He knew.

  In the following two days, Flandry worked as he had rarely worked before. There wasn’t much physical labor involved, but he had to maintain a web of complications such that the Sartaz would have no chance for a private audience with any Merseian and would not leave the capital on one of his capricious journeys. There was also the matter of informing such Betelgeusean traitors as were on his side to be ready, and—

  It was nerve-shattering. To make matters worse, something was wrong with him: clear thought was an effort; he had a new and disastrous tendency to take everything at face value. What had happened to him?

  Aycharaych excused himself on the morning after Aline’s revelation and disappeared. He was out arranging something hellish for t
he Terrans when they arrived, and Flandry could do nothing about it. But at least it left him and Aline free to carry on their own work.

  He knew the Merseian fleet could not get near Betelgeuse before the Terrans landed. It is simply not possible to conceal the approximate whereabouts of a large fighting force from the enemy. How it had been managed for Terra, Flandry couldn’t imagine. He supposed that it would not be too large a task force which was to occupy Alfzar — but that made its mission all the more precarious.

  The tension gathered, hour by slow hour. Aline went her own way, conferring with General Bronson, the human-Betelgeusean officer whom she had made her personal property. Perhaps he could disorganize the native fleet at the moment when Terra struck. The Merseian nobles plainly knew what Aycharaych had found out; they looked at the humans with frank hatred, but they made no overt attempt to warn the Sartaz. Maybe they didn’t think they could work through the wall of suborned and confused officials which Flandry had built around him — more likely, Aycharaych had suggested a better plan for them. There was none of the sense of defeat in them which slowly gathered in the human.

  It was like being caught in spider webs, fighting clinging gray stuff that blinded and choked and couldn’t be pulled away. Flandry grew haggard, he shook with nervousness, and the two days dragged on.

  He looked up Gunazar Valley in the atlas. It was uninhabited and desolate, the home of winds and the lair of dragons, a good place for a secret landing — only how secret was a landing that Aycharaych knew all about and was obviously ready to meet?

  “We haven’t much chance, Aline,” he said to her. “Not a prayer, really.”

  “We’ll just have to keep going.” She was more buoyant than he, seemed almost cheerful as time stumbled past. She stroked his hair tenderly. “Poor Dominic, it isn’t easy for you.”

  The huge sun sank below the horizon — the second day, and tonight was the hour of decision. Flandry came out into the great conference hall to find it almost empty.

  “Where are the Merseians, your Majesty?” he asked the Sartaz.

  “They all went off on a special mission,” snapped the ruler. He was plainly ill pleased with the intriguing around him, of which he would be well aware.

  A special mission — O almighty gods!

  Aline and Bronson came in and gave the monarch formal greeting. “With your permission, your Majesty,” said the general, “I would like to show you something of great importance in about two hours.”

  “Yes, yes,” mumbled the Sartaz and stalked out.

  Flandry sat down and rested his head on one hand. Aline touched his shoulder gently. “Tired, Dominic?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I feel rotten. Just can’t think these days.”

  She signaled to a slave, who brought a beaker forward. “This will help,” she said. He noticed sudden tears in her eyes. What was the matter?

  He drank it down without thought. It caught at him, he gasped and grabbed the chair arms for support. “What the devil—”

  It spread through him with a sudden coolness that ran along his nerves toward his brain. It was like the hand that Aline had laid on his head, calming, soothing — Clearing!

  Suddenly he sprang to his feet. The whole preposterous thing stood forth in its raw grotesquerie — tissue of falsehoods, monstrosity of illogic!

  The Fleet couldn’t have moved a whole task force this close without the Merseian intelligence knowing of it. There couldn’t be a new energy screen that he hadn’t heard of. Fenross would never try so fantastic a scheme as the occupation of Betelgeuse before all hope was gone.

  He didn’t love Aline. She was brave and beautiful, but he didn’t love her.

  But he had. Three minutes ago, he had been desperately in love with her.

  He looked at her through blurring eyes as the enormous truth grew on him. She nodded, gravely, not seeming to care that tears ran down her cheeks. Her lips whispered a word that he could barely catch.

  “Goodbye, my dearest.”

  IV

  They had set up a giant televisor screen in the conference hall, with a row of seats for the great of Alfzar. Bronson had also taken the precaution of lining the walls with royal guardsmen whom he could trust — long rows of flashing steel and impassive blue faces, silent and moveless as the great pillars holding up the soaring roof.

  The general paced nervously up and down before the screen, looking at his watch unnecessarily often. Sweat glistened on his forehead. Flandry sat relaxed; only one who knew him well could have read the tension that was like a coiled spring in him. Only Aline seemed remote from the scene, too wrapped in her own thoughts to care what went on.

  “If this doesn’t work, you know, we’ll probably be hanged,” said Bronson.

  “It ought to,” answered Flandry tonelessly. “If it doesn’t, I won’t give much of a damn whether we hang or not.”

  He was prevaricating there; Flandry was most fond of living, for all the wistful half-dreams that sometimes rose in him.

  A trumpet shrilled, high brassy music between the walls and up to the ringing rafters. They rose and stood at attention as the Sartaz and his court swept in.

  His yellow eyes were suspicious as they raked the three humans.

  “You said that there was to be a showing of an important matter,” he declared flatly. “I hope that is correct.”

  “It is, your Majesty,” said Flandry easily. He was back in his element, the fencing with words, the casting of nets to entrap minds. “It is a matter of such immense importance that it should have been revealed to you weeks ago. Unfortunately, circumstances did not permit that — as the court shall presently see — so your Majesty’s loyal general was forced to act on his own discretion with what help we of Terra could give him. But if our work has gone well, the moment of revelation should also be that of salvation.”

  “It had better be,” said the Sartaz ominously. “I warn you — all of you — that I am sick of the spying and corruption the empires have brought with them. It is about time to cut the evil growth from Betelgeuse.”

  “Terra has never wished Betelgeuse anything but good, your Majesty,” said Flandry, “and as it happens, we can offer proof of that. If—”

  Another trumpet cut off his voice, and the warder’s shout rang and boomed down the hall: “Your Majesty, the Ambassador of the Empire of Merseia asks audience.”

  The huge green form of Lord Korvash of Merseia filled the doorway with a flare of gold and jewelry. And beside him — Aycharaych!

  Flandry was briefly rigid with shock. If that opponent came into the game now, the whole plan might crash to ruin. It was a daring, precarious structure which Aline had built; the faintest breath of argument could dissolve it — and then the lightnings would strike!

  One was not permitted to bear firearms within the palace, but the dueling sword was a part of full dress. Flandry drew his with a hiss of metal and shouted aloud: “Seize those beings! They mean to kill the Sartaz!”

  Aycharaych’s golden eyes widened as he saw what was in Flandry’s mind. He opened his mouth to denounce the Terran — and leaped back in bare time to avoid the man’s murderous thrust.

  His own rapier sprang into his hand. In a whirr of steel, the two spies met.

  Korvash the Merseian drew his own great blade in sheer reflex. “Strike him down!” yelled Aline. Before the amazed Sartaz could act, she had pulled the stun pistol he carried from the holster and sent the Merseian toppling to the floor.

  She bent over him, deftly removing a tiny needle gun from her bodice and palming it on the ambassador. “Look, your Majesty,” she said breathlessly, “he had a deadly weapon. We knew the Merseians planned no good, but we never thought they would dare—”

  The Sartaz’s gaze was shrewd on her. “Maybe we’d better wait to hear his side of it,” he murmured.

  Since Korvash would be in no position to explain his side for a good hour, Aline considered it a victory.

  But Flandry — her eyes grew
wide and she drew a hissing gasp as she saw him fighting Aycharaych. It was the swiftest, most vicious duel she had ever seen, leaping figures and blades that were a blur of speed, back and forth along the hall in a clamor of steel and blood.

  “Stop them!” she cried, and raised the stunner.

  The Sartaz laid a hand on hers and took the weapon away. “No,” he said. “Let them have it out. I haven’t seen such a show in years.”

  “Dominic—” she whispered.

  Flandry had always thought himself a peerless fencer, but Aycharaych was his match. Though the Chereionite was hampered by gravity, he had a speed and precision which no human could ever meet, his thin blade whistled in and out, around and under the man’s guard to rake face and hands and breast, and he was smiling — smiling.

  His telepathy did him little or no good. Fencing is a matter of conditioned reflex — at such speeds, there isn’t time for conscious thought. But perhaps it gave him an extra edge, just compensating for the handicap of weight.

  Leaping, slashing, thrusting, parrying, clang and clash of cold steel, no time to feel the biting edge of the growing weariness — dance of death while the court stood by and cheered.

  Flandry’s own blade was finding its mark; blood ran down Aycharaych’s gaunt cheeks and his tunic was slashed to red ribbons. The Terran’s plan was simple and the only one possible for him. Aycharaych would tire sooner, his reactions would slow — the thing to do was to stay alive that long!

  He let the Chereionite drive him backward down the length of the hall, leap by leap, whirling around with sword shrieking in hand. Thrust, parry, riposte, recovery — whirr, clang! The rattle of steel filled the hall and the Sartaz watched with hungry eyes.

  The end came as he was wondering if he would ever live to see Betelgeuse rise again. Aycharaych lunged and his blade pierced Flandry’s left shoulder. Before he could disengage it, the man had knocked the weapon spinning from his hand and had his own point against the throat of the Chereionite.