"Anderson, Poul - 1973 Flandry 10 - The Day of Their Return 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

III

Chunderban Desai's previous assignment had been to the delegation which negotiated an end of the Jihannath crisis. That wasn't the change of pace in his career which it seemed. His Majesty's administrators must forever be dickering, compromising, feeling their way, balancing conflicts of individuals, organizations, societies, races, sentient species. The need for skillЧquickly to grasp facts, comprehend a situation, brazen out a bluff when in spite of everything the unknown erupted into one's calculationsЧwas greatest at the intermediate level of bureaucracy which he had reached. A resident might deal with a single culture, and have no more to do than keep an eye on affairs. A sector governor oversaw such vastness that to him it became a set of abstractions. But the various ranks of commissioner were expected to handle personally large and difficult territories.

Desai had worked in regions that faced Betelgeuse and, across an unclaimed and ill-explored buffer zone, the Roidhunate of Merseia. Thus he was a natural choice for the special diplomatic team. In his quiet style, he backstopped the head of it, Lord Advisor Chardon, so well that afterward he received a raise in grade, and was appointed High Commissioner of the Virgilian System, at the opposite end of the Empire.

But this was due to an equally natural association of ideas. The mutiny in Sector Alpha Crucis had been possible because most of the Navy was tied up around Jihannath, where full-scale war looked far too likely. After Terra nevertheless, brilliantly, put the rebels down, Merseia announced that its wish all along had been to avoid a major clash and it was prepared to bargain.

When presently the Policy Board looked about for able people to reconstruct Sector Alpha Crucis, Lord Chardon recommended Desai with an enthusiasm that got him put in charge of Virgil, whose human-colonized planet Aeneas had been the spearhead of the revolt.

Perhaps that was why Desai often harked back to the Merseians, however remote from him they seemed these days.

In a rare moment of idleness, while he waited in his Nova Roma office for the next visitor, he remembered his final conversation with Uldwyr.

They had played corresponding roles on behalf of their respective sovereigns, and in a wry way had become friends. When the protocol had, at weary last, been drawn, the two of them supplemented the dull official celebration with a dinner of their own.

Desai recalled their private room in a restaurant. The wall animations were poor; but a place which catered to a variety of sophonts couldn't be expected to understand everybody's art, and the meal was an inspired combination of human and Merseian dishes.

"Have a refill," Uldwyr invited, and raised a crock of his people's pungent ale.

"No, thank you," Desai said. "I prefer tea. That dessert filled me to the scuppers."

"The what? ЧNever mind, I seize the idea, if not the idiom." Though each was fluent in the other's principal language, and their vocal organs were not very different, it was easiest for Desai to speak Anglic and Uldwyr Eriau. "You've tucked in plenty of food, for certain."

"My particular vice, I fear," Desai smiled. "Besides, more alcohol would muddle me. I haven't your mass to assimilate it."

"What matter if you get drunk? I plan to. Our job is done." And then Uldwyr added: "For now."

Shocked, Desai stared across the table.

Uldwyr gave him back a quizzical glance. The Merseian's face was almost human, if one overlooked thick bones and countless details of the flesh. But his finely scaled green skin had no hair whatsoever, he lacked earflaps, a low serration ran from the top of his skull, down his back to the end of the crocodilian tail which counterbalanced his big, forward-leaning body. Arms and hands were, again, nearly manlike; legs and clawed splay feet could have belonged to a biped dinosaur. He wore black, silver-trimmed military tunic and trousers, colorful emblems of rank and of the Vach Hallen into which he was born. A blaster hung on his hip.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Oh ... nothing." In Desai's mind went: He didn't mean it hostilelyЧhostilely to me as a personЧhis remark. He, his whole civilization, minces words less small than we do. Struggle against Terra is just a fact. The Roidhunate will compromise disputes when expediency dictates, but never the principle that eventually the Empire must be destroyed. Because weЧold, sated, desirous only of maintaining a peace which lets us pursue our pleasuresЧwe stand in the way of their ambitions for the Race. Lest the balance of power be upset, we block them, we thwart them, wherever we can; and they seek to undermine us, grind us down, wear us out. But this is nothing personal. I am Uldwyr's honorable enemy, therefore his friend. By giving him opposition, I give meaning to his life.

The other divined his thoughts and uttered the harsh Merseian chuckle. "If you want to pretend tonight that matters have been settled for aye, do. I'd really rather we both got drunk and traded war songs."

"I am not a man of war," Desai said.

Beneath a shelf of brow ridge, Uldwyr's eyelids expressed skepticism while his mouth grinned. "You mean you don't like physical violence. It was quite an effective war you waged at the conference table."

He swigged from his tankard. Desai saw that he was already a little tipsy. "I imagine the next phase will also be quiet," he went on. "Ungloved force hasn't worked too well lately. Starkad, JihannathЧno, I'd look for us to try something more crafty and long-range. Which ought to suit your Empire, khraich? You've made a good thing for your Naval Intelligence out of the joint commission on Talwin." Desai, who knew that, kept silence. "Maybe our turn is coming."

Hating his duty, Desai asked in his most casual voice, "Where?"

"Who knows?" Uldwyr gestured the equivalent of a shrug. "I have no doubt, and neither do you, we've a swarm of agents in Sector Alpha Crucis, for instance. Besides the recent insurrection, it's close to the Domain of

Ythri, which has enjoyed better relations with us than with youЧ" His hand chopped the air. "No, I'm distressing you, am I not? And with what can only be guesswork. Apologies. See here, if you don't care for more ale, why not arthberry brandy? I guarantee a first-class drunk andЧ You may suppose you're a peaceful fellow, Chunderban, but I know an atom or two about your people, your specific people, I mean. What's that old, old book I've heard you mention and quote from? Rixway?"