"Anderson, Poul - Flandry - A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS
==============================

Poul Anderson
=============

[22 feb 2003--scanned for #bookz]

[23 feb 2003--proofed for #bookz]

I
-

Every planet in the story is cold--even Terra, though Flandry came home
on a warm evening of northern summer. There the chill was in the spirit.

He felt a breath of it as he neared. Somehow, talk between him and his
son had drifted to matters Imperial. They had avoided all such during
their holiday.

Terra itself had not likely reminded them. The globe hung beautiful in
starry darkness, revealed by a view-screen in the cabin where they sat.
It was almost full, because they were accelerating with the sun behind
them and were not yet close enough to start on an approach curve. At
this remove it shone white-swirled blue, unutterably pure, near dewdrop
Luna. Nothing was visible of the scars that man had made upon it.

And the saloon was good to be in, bulkheads nacreous gray, benches
padded in maroon velvyl, table of authentic teak whereon stood Scotch
whisky and everything needed for the use thereof, warm and flawlessly
recycled air through which gamboled a dance tune and drifted an odor of
lilacs. The Hooligan, private speedster of Captain Sir Dominic Flandry,
was faster, better armed, and generally more versatile than any vessel
of her class had a moral right to be; but her living quarters reflected
her owner's philosophy that, if one is born into an era of decadence,
one may as well enjoy it while it lasts.

He leaned back, inhaled deeply of his cigarette, took more smokiness in
a sip from his glass, and regarded Dominic Hazeltine with some concern.
If the frontier was truly that close to exploding--and the boy must go
there again ... "Are you sure?" he asked. "What proved facts have you
got--proved by yourself, not somebody else? Why wouldn't I have heard
more?"

His companion returned a steady look. "I don't want to make you feel
old," he said; and the knowledge passed through Flandry that a
lieutenant commander of Naval Intelligence, twenty-seven standard years
of age, wasn't really a boy, nor was his father any longer the boy who
had begotten him. Then Hazeltine smiled and took the curse off: "Well, I
might want to, just so I can hope that at your age I'll have acquired,
let alone kept, your capacity for the three basic things in life."

"Three?" Flandry raised his brows. "Feasting, fighting, and--Wait; of
course I haven't been along when you were in a fight. But I've no doubt
you perform as well as ever in that department too. Still, you told me
for the last three years you've stayed in the Solar System, taking life
easy. If the whole word about Dennitza hasn't reached the Emperor--and
apparently it's barely starting to--why should it have come to a
pampered pet of his?"

"Hm. I'm not really. He pampers with a heavy hand. So I avoid the court
as much as politeness allows. This indefinite furlough I'm on--nobody
but him would dare call me back to duty, unless I grow bored and request
assignment--that's the only important privilege I've taken. Aside from
the outrageous amount of talent, capability, and charm with which I was
born; and I do my best to share those chromosomes."

Flandry had spoken lightly in half a hope of getting a similar response.
They had bantered throughout their month-long jaunt, whether on a
breakneck hike in the Great Rift of Mars or gambling in a miners' dive
in Low Venusberg, running the rings of Saturn or dining in elegance
beneath its loveliness on Iapetus with two ladies expert and expensive.
Must they already return to realities? They'd been more friends than
father and son. The difference in age hardly showed. They bore
well-muscled height in common, supple movement, gray eyes, baritone
voice. Flandry's face stood out in a perhaps overly handsome combination
of straight nose, high cheekbones, cleft chin--the result of a biosculp
job many years past, which he had never bothered to change again--and
trim mustache. His sleek seal-brown hair was frosted at the temples;
when Hazeltine accused him of bringing this about by artifice, he had
grinned and not denied it. Though both wore civilian garb, Flandry's
iridescent puff-sleeved blouse, scarlet cummerbund, flared blue
trousers, and curly-toed beefleather slippers opposed the other's plain
coverall.

Broader features, curved nose, full mouth, crow's-wing locks recalled
Persis d'Io as she had been when she and Flandry said farewell on a
planet now destroyed, he not knowing she bore his child. The tan of
strange suns, the lines creased by squinting into strange weathers, had
not altogether gone from Hazeltine in the six weeks since he reached
Terra. But his unsophisticated ways meant only that he had spent his
life on the fringes of the Empire. He had caroused with a gusto to match
his father's. He had shown the same taste in speech--

("--an itchy position for me, my own admiral looking for a nice lethal
job he could order me to do," Flandry reminisced. "Fenross hated my
guts. He didn't like the rest of me very much, either. I saw I'd better
produce a stratagem, and fast."

("Did you?" Hazeltine inquired.

("Of course. You see me here, don't you? It's practically a sine qua non
of a field agent staying alive, that he be able to outthink not just the
opposition, but his superiors."

("No doubt you were inspired by the fact that 'stratagem' spelled
backwards is 'megatarts.' The prospect of counting your loose women by
millions should give plenty of incentive."

(Flandry stared. "Now I'm certain you're my bairn! Though to be frank,
that awesomely pleasant notion escaped me. Instead, having developed my
scheme, I confronted a rather ghastly idea which has haunted me ever
afterward: that maybe there's no one alive more intelligent than I.")

--and yet, and yet, an underlying earnestness always remained with him.

Perhaps he had that from his mother: that, and pride. She'd let the
infant beneath her heart live, abandoned her titled official lover,
resumed her birthname, gone from Terra to Sassania and started anew as a
dancer, at last married reasonably well, but kept young Dominic by her
till he enlisted. Never had she sent word back from her frontier home,
not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded put down the barbarians of
Scotha and was knighted for it, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded
rescued the new Emperor's favorite granddaughter and headed off a
provincial rebellion and was summoned Home to be rewarded. Nor had her
son, who always knew his father's name, called on him until lately, when
far enough along in his own career that nepotism could not be thought
necessary.

Thus Dominic Hazeltine refused the offer of merry chitchat and said in
his burred un-Terran version of Anglic, "Well, if you've been taking
what amounts to a long vacation, the more reason why you wouldn't have
kept trace of developments. Maybe his Majesty simply hasn't been
bothering you about them, and has been quite concerned himself for quite
some while. Regardless, I've been yonder and I know."

Flandry dropped the remnant of his cigarette in an ash-taker. "You wound
my vanity, which is no mean accomplishment," he replied. "Remember, for
three or four years earlier--between the time I came to his notice and
the time we could figure he was planted on the throne too firmly to have
a great chance of being uprooted--I was one of his several right hands.
Field and staff work both, specializing in the problem of making the
marches decide they'd really rather keep Hans for their Emperor than
revolt all over again. Do you think, if he sees fresh trouble where I
can help, he won't consult me? Or do you think, because I've been
utilizing a little of the hedonism I fought so hard to preserve, I've
lost interest in my old circuits? No, I've followed the news, and an
occasional secret report."

He stirred, tossed off his drink, and added, "Besides, you claim the
Gospodar of Dennitza is our latest problem child. But you've also said
you were working Sector Arcturus: almost diametrically opposite, and
well inside those vaguenesses we are pleased to call the borders of the
Empire. Tell me, then--you've been almighty unspecific about your
operations, and I supposed that was because you were under security, and
didn't pry--tell me, as far as you're allowed, what does the space
around Arcturus have to do with Dennitza? With anything in the Taurian
Sector?"

"I stayed mum because I didn't want to spoil this occasion," Hazeltine
said. "From what Mother told me, I expected fun, when I could get a
leave long enough to justify the trip to join you; but you've opened
whole universes to me that I never guessed existed." He flushed. "If I
ever gave any thought to such things, I self-righteously labeled them
Vice.'"

"Which they are," Flandry put in. "What you bucolic types don't realize
is that worthwhile vice doesn't mean lolling around on cushions eating
drugged custard. How dismal! I'd rather be virtuous. Decadence requires
application. But go on."

"We'll land now, and I'll report back," Hazeltine said. "I don't know
where they'll send me next, and doubtless won't be free to tell you.
While the chance remains, I'll be honest. I came here wanting to know
you as a man, but also wanting to, oh, alert you if nothing else,
because I think your brains will be sorely needed, and it's damn hard to
communicate through channels."

Indeed, Flandry admitted.

His gaze went to the stars in the viewscreeen. Without amplification,
few that he could see lay in the more or less 200-light-year radius of
that rough and blurry-edged spheroid named the Terran Empire. Those were
giants, visible by virtue of shining across distances we can traverse,
under hyperdrive, but will never truly comprehend; and they filled the
merest, tiniest fragment of the galaxy, far out in a spiral arm where
their numbers were beginning to thin toward cosmic hollowness. Yet this
insignificant Imperial bit of space held an estimated four million suns.
Maybe half of those had been visited at least once. About a hundred
thousand worlds of theirs might be considered to belong to the Empire,
though for most the connection was ghostly tenuous ... It was too much.
There were too many environments, races, cultures, lives, messages. No
mind, no government could know the whole, let alone cope.

Nevertheless that sprawl of planets, peoples, provinces, and
protectorates must somehow cope, or see the Long Night fall. Barbarians,
who had gotten spaceships and nuclear weapons too early in their
history, prowled the borders; the civilized Roidhunate of Merseia
probed, withdrew a little--seldom the whole way--waited, probed again
... Rigel caught Flandry's eye, a beacon amidst the great enemy's
dominions. The Taurian Sector lay in that direction, fronting the
Wilderness beyond which dwelt the Merseians.

"You must know something I don't, if you claim the Dennitzans are
brewing trouble," he said. "However, are you sure what you know is
true?"

"What can you tell me about them?" Hazeltine gave back.

"Hm? Why--um, yes, that's sensible, first making clear to you what
information and ideas I have."

"Especially since they must reflect what the higher-ups believe, which
I'm not certain about."

"Neither am I, really. My attention's been directed elsewhere, Tauria
seeming as reliably under control as any division of the Empire."

"After your experience there?"

"Precisely on account of it. Very well. We'll save time if I run
barefoot through the obvious. Then you needn't interrogate me, groping
around for what you may not have suspected hitherto."

Hazeltine nodded. "Besides," he said, "I've never been in those parts
myself."

"Oh? You mentioned assignments which concerned the Merseia-ward frontier
and our large green playmates."

"Tauria isn't the only sector at that end of the Empire," Hazeltine
pointed out.

Too big, this handful of stars we suppose we know ... "Ahem." Flandry
took the crystal decanter. A refill gurgled into his glass. "You've
heard how I happpened to be in the neighborhood when the governor, Duke
Alfred of Varrak, kidnapped Princess Megan while she was touring, as
part of a scheme to detach the Taurian systems from the Empire and bring
them under Merseian protection--which means possession. Chives and I
thwarted him, or is 'foiled' a more dramatic word?

"Well, then the question arose, what to do next? Let me remind you, Hans
had assumed, which means grabbed, the crown less than two years earlier.
Everything was still in upheaval. Three avowed rivals were out to
replace him by force of arms, and nobody could guess how many more would
take an opportunity that came along, whether to try for supreme power or
for piratical autonomy. Alfred wouldn't have made his attempt without
considerable support among his own people. Therefore, not only must the
governorship change, but the sector capital.

"Now Dennitza may not be the most populous, wealthy, or up-to-date
human-colonized planet in Tauria. However, it has a noticeable sphere of
influence. And it has strength out of proportion, thanks to
traditionally maintaining its own military, under the original treaty of
annexation. And the Dennitzans always despised Josip. His tribute
assessors and other agents he sent them, through Duke Alfred, developed
a tendency to get killed in brawls, and somehow nobody afterward could
identify the brawlers. When Josip died, and the Policy Board split on
accepting his successor, and suddenly all hell let out for noon, the
Gospodar declared for Hans Molitor. He didn't actually dispatch troops
to help, but he kept order in his part of space, gave the Merseians no
opening--doubtless the best service he could have rendered.

"Wasn't he the logical choice to take charge of Tauria? Isn't he still?"

"In spite of Merseians on his home planet?" Hazeltine challenged.

"Citizens of Merseian descent," Flandry corrected. "Rather remote
descent, I've heard. There are humans who serve the Roidhunate, too, and
not every one has been bought or brainscrubbed; some families have lived
on Merseian worlds for generations."

"Nevertheless," Hazeltine said, "the Dennitzan culture isn't
Terran--isn't entirely human. Remember how hard the colonists of Avalon
fought to stay in the Domain of Ythri, way back when the Empire waged a
war to adjust that frontier? Why should Dennitzans feel brotherly toward
Terrans?"

"I don't suppose they do." Flandry shrugged. "I've never visited them
either. But I've met other odd human societies, not to speak of
nonhuman. They stay in the Empire because it gives them the Pax and
often a fair amount of commercial benefit, without usually charging too
high a price for the service. From what little I saw and heard in the
way of reports on the Gospodar and his associates, they aren't such
fools as to imagine they can stay at peace independently. Their history
includes the Troubles, and their ancestors freely joined the Empire when
it appeared."

"Nowadays Merseia might offer them a better deal."

"Uh-uh. They've been marchmen up against Merseia far too long. Too many
inherited grudges."

"Such things can change. I've known marchmen myself. They take on the
traits of their enemies, and eventually--" Hazeltine leaned across the
table. His voice harshened. "Why are the Dennitzans resisting the
Emperor's decree?"

"About disbanding their militia?" Flandry sipped. "Yes, I know, the
Gospodar's representatives here have been appealing, arguing,
logrolling, probably bribing, and certainly making nuisances of
themselves on governmental levels as high as the Policy Board. Meanwhile
he drags his feet. If the Emperor didn't have more urgent matters on
deck, we might have seen fireworks by now."

"Nuclear?"

"Oh, no, no. Haven't we had our fill of civil war? I spoke
metaphorically. And ... between us, lad, I can't blame the Gospodar very
much. True, Hans' idea is that consolidating all combat services may
prevent a repetition of what we just went through. I can't say it won't
help; nor can I say it will. If nothing else, the Dennitzans do nest way
out on a windy limb. They have more faith in their ability to protect
themselves, given Navy support, than in the Navy's ability to do it
alone. They may well be right. This is too serious a matter--a whole
frontier is involved--too serious for impulsive action: another reason,
I'm sure, why Hans has been patient, has not dismissed the Gospodar as
governor or anything."

"I believe he's making a terrible mistake," Hazeltine said.

"What do you think the Dennitzans have in mind, then?"

"If not a breakaway, and inviting the Merseians in--I'm far from
convinced that that's unthinkable to them, but I haven't proof--if not
that, then insurrection ... to make the Gospodar Emperor."

Flandry sat still for a while. The ship murmured, the music sang around
him. Terra waxed in his sight.

Finally, taking forth a fresh cigarette, he asked, "What gives you that
notion? Your latest work didn't bring you within a hundred parsecs of
Dennitza, did it?"

"No." Hazeltine's mouth, which recalled the mouth of Persis, drew into
thinner lines than ever hers had done. "That's what scares me. You see,
we've collected evidence that Dennitzans are engineering a rebellion on
Diomedes. Have you heard of Diomedes?"

"Ye-e-es. Any man who appreciates your three primaries of life ought to
study the biography of Nicholas van Rijn, and he was shipwrecked there
once. Yes, I know a little. But it isn't a terribly important planet to
this day, is it? Why should it revolt, and how could it hope to
succeed?"

"I wasn't on that team myself. But my unit was carrying out related
investigations in the same sector, and we exchanged data. Apparently the
Diomedeans--factions among them--hope the Domain of Ythri will help.
They've acquired a mystique about the kinship of winged beings ...
Whether the Ythrians really would intervene or not is hard to tell. I
suspect not, to the extent that'd bring on overt conflict with us. But
they might well use the potentiality, the threat, to steer us into new
orbits--We've barely started tracing the connections."

Flandry scowled. "And those turn out to be Dennitzan?"

"Correct. Any such conspiracy would have to involve members of a society
with spaceships--preferably humans--to plant and cultivate the seed on
Diomedes, and maintain at least enough liaison with Ythri that the
would-be rebels stay hopeful. When our people first got on the track of
this, they naturally assumed the humans were Avalonian. But a lucky
capture they made, just before I left for Sol, indicated otherwise.
Dennitzan agents, Dennitzan."

"Why, on the opposite side of Terra from their home?"

"Oh, come on! You know why. If the Gospodar's planning an uprising of
his own, what better preliminary than one in that direction?" Hazeltine
drew breath. "I don't have the details. Those are, or will be, in the
reports to GHQ from our units. But isn't something in the Empire always
going wrong? The word is, his Majesty plans to leave soon for Sector
Spica, at the head of an armada, and curb the barbarians there. That's a
long way from anyplace else. Meanwhile, how slowly do reports from an
obscure clod like Diomedes grind their way through the bureaucracy?"

"When a fleet can incinerate a world," Flandry said bleakly, "I prefer
governments not have fast reflexes. You and your teammates could well be
quantum-hopping to an unwarranted conclusion. For instance, those
Dennitzans who were caught, if they really are Dennitzans, could be
freebooters. Or if they have bosses at home, those bosses may be a
single clique--may be, themselves, maneuvering to overthrow the
Gospodar--and may or may not have ambitions beyond that. How much more
than you've told me do you know for certain?"

Hazeltine sighed. "Not much. But I hoped--" He looked suddenly,
pathetically young. "I hoped you might check further into the question."

Chives entered, on bare feet which touched the carpet soundlessly though
the gee-field was set at Terran standard. "I beg your pardon, sir," he
addressed his master. "If you wish dinner before we reach the landing
approach zone, I must commence preparations. The tournedos will
obviously require a red wine. Shall I open the Chateau Falkayn '35?"

"Hm?" Flandry blinked, recalled from darker matters. "Why ... um-m ...
I'd thought of Beaujolais."

"No, sir," said Chives, respectfully immovable. "I cannot recommend
Beaujolais to accompany a tournedos such as is contemplated. And may I
suggest drinking and smoking cease until your meal is ready?"

Summer evening around Catalina deepened into night. Flandry sat on a
terrace of the lodge which the island's owner, his friend the Mayor
Palatine of Britain, had built on its heights and had lent to him. He
wasn't sleepy; during the space trip, his circadian rhythm had slipped
out of phase with this area. Nor was he energetic. He felt--a bit
sad?--no, pensive, lonesome, less in an immediate fashion than as an
accumulation from the years--a mood he had often felt before and
recognized would soon become restlessness. Yet while it stayed as it
was, he could wonder if he should have married now and then. Or even for
life? It would have been good to help young Dominic grow.

He sighed, twisted about in his lounger till he found a comfortable
knees-aloft position, drew on his cigar and watched the view. Beneath
him, shadowy land plunged to a bay and, beyond, the vast metallic sheet
of a calm Pacific. A breeze blew cool, scented with roses and Buddha's
cup. Overhead, stars twinkled forth in a sky that ranged from amethyst
to silver-blue. A pair of contrails in the west caught the last glow of
a sunken sun. But the evening was quiet. Traffic was never routed near
the retreats of noblemen.

How many kids do I have? And how many of them know they're mine? (I've
only met or heard of a few.) And where are they and what's the universe
doing to them?

Hm. He pulled rich smoke across his tongue. When a person starts
sentimentalizing, it's time either to get busy or to take antisenescence
treatments. Pending this decision, how about a woman? That stopover on
Ceres was several days ago, after all. He considered ladies he knew and
decided against them, for each would expect personal
consideration--which was her right, but his mind was still too full of
his son. Therefore: Would I rather flit to the mainland and its bright
lights, or have Chives phone the nearest cepheid agency?

As if at a signal, his personal servant appeared, a Shalmuan, slim
kilt-clad form remarkably humanlike except for 140 centimeters of
height, green skin, hairlessness, long prehensile tail, and, to be sure,
countless more subtle variations. On a tray he carried a visicom
extension, a cup of coffee, and a snifter of cognac. "You have a call,
sir," he announced.

How many have you filtered out? Flandry didn't ask. Nor did he object.
The nonhuman in a human milieu--or vice versa--commonly appears as a
caricature of a personality, because those around him cannot see most of
his soul. But Chives had attended his boss for years. "Personal servant"
had come to mean more than "valet and cook"; it included being butler of
a household which never stayed long in a single place, and pilot, and
bodyguard, and whatever an emergency might require.

Chives brought the lounger table into position, set down the tray, and
disappeared again. Flandry's pulse bounced a little. In the screen
before him was the face of Dominic Hazeltine. "Why, hello," he said. "I
didn't expect to hear from you this soon."

"Well"--excitement thrummed--"you know, our conversation--When I came
back to base, I got a chance at a general data scanner, and keyed for
recent material on Dennitza. A part of what I learned will interest you,
I think. Though you'd better act fast."

II
--

Immediately after the two Navy yeomen who brought Kossara to the slave
depot had signed her over to its manager and departed, he told her:
"Hold out your left arm." Dazed--for she had been whisked from the ship
within an hour of landing on Terra, and the speed of the aircar had
blurred the enormousness of Archopolis--she obeyed. He glanced expertly
at her wrist and, from a drawer, selected a bracelet of white metal,
some three centimeters broad and a few millimeters thick. Hinged, it
locked together with a click. She stared at the thing. A couple of
sensor spots and a niello of letters and numbers were its only
distinctions. It circled her arm snugly though not uncomfortably.

"The law requires slaves to wear this," the manager explained in a bored
tone. He was a pudgy, faintly greasy-looking middle-aged person in whose
face dwelt shrewdness.

That must be on Terra, trickled through Kossara's mind. Other places
seem to have other ways. And on Dennitza we keep no slaves ...

"It's powered by body heat and maintains an audiovisual link to a global
monitor net," the voice went on. "If the computers notice anything
suspicious--including, of course, any tampering with the bracelet--they
call a human operator. He can stop you in your tracks by a signal." The
man pointed to a switch on his desk. "This gives the same signal."

He pressed. Pain burned like lightning, through flesh, bone, marrow,
until nothing was except pain. Kossara fell to her knees. She never knew
if she screamed or if her throat had jammed shut.

He lifted his hand and the anguish was gone. Kossara crouched shaking
and weeping. Dimly she heard: "That was five seconds' worth. Direct
nerve stim from the bracelet, triggers a center in the brain. Harmless
for periods of less than a minute, if you haven't got a weak heart or
something. Do you understand you'd better be a good girl? All right, on
your feet."

As she swayed erect, the shudders slowly leaving her, he smirked and
muttered, "You know, you're a looker. Exotic; none of this standardized
biosculp format. I'd be tempted to bid on you myself, except the price
is sure to go out of my reach. Well ... hold still."

He did no more than feel and nuzzle. She endured, thinking that probably
soon she could take a long, long, long hot shower. But when a guard had
conducted her to the women's section, she found the water was cold and
rationed. The dormitory gaped huge, echoing, little inside it other than
bunks and inmates. The mess was equally barren, the food adequate but
tasteless. Some twenty prisoners were present. They received her kindly
enough, with a curiosity that sharpened when they discovered she was
from a distant planet and this was her first time on Terra. Exhausted,
she begged off saying much and tumbled into a haunted sleep.

The next morning she got a humiliatingly thorough medical examination. A
psychotech studied the dossier on her which Naval Intelligence had
supplied, asked a few questions, and signed a form. She got the
impression he would have liked to inquire further--why had she
rebelled?--but a Secret classification on her record scared him off. Or
else (because whoever bought her would doubtless talk to her about it)
he knew from his study how chaotic and broken her memories of the
episode were, since the hypnoprobing on Diomedes.

That evening she couldn't escape conversation in the dormitory. The
women clustered around and chattered. They were from Terra, Luna, and
Venus. With a single exception, they had been sentenced to limited terms
of enslavement for crimes such as repeated theft or dangerous
negligence, and were not very bright or especially comely.

"I don't suppose anybody'll bid on me," lamented one. "Hard labor for
the government, then."

"I don't understand," said Kossara. Her soft Dennitzan accent intrigued
them. "Why? I mean, when you have a worldful of machines, every kind of
robot--why slaves? How can it ... how can it pay?"

The exceptional woman, who was handsome in a haggard fashion, answered.
"What else would you do with the wicked? Kill them, even for tiny
things? Give them costly psychocorrection? Lock them away at public
expense, useless to themselves and everybody else? No, let them work.
Let the Imperium get some money from selling them the first time, if it
can."

Does she talk like that because she's afraid of her bracelet? Kossara
wondered. Surely, oh, surely we can complain a little among ourselves!
"What can we do that a machine can't do better?" she asked.

"Personal services," the woman said. "Many kinds. Or ... well,
economics. Often a slave is less efficient than a machine, but needs
less capital investment."

"You sound educated," Kossara remarked.

The woman sighed. "I was, once. Till I killed my husband. That meant a
life term like yours, dear. To be quite safe, my buyer did pay to have
my mind corrected." A sort of energy blossomed in look and tone. "How
grateful I am! I was a murderess, do you hear, a murderess. I took it on
myself to decide another human being wasn't fit to live. Now I know--"
She seized Kossara's hands. "Ask them to correct you too. You committed
treason, didn't you say? Beg them to wash you clean!"

The rest edged away. Brain-channeled, Kossara knew. A crawling went
under her skin. "Wh-why are you here?" she stammered. "If you were
bought--"

"He grew tired of me and sold me back. I'll always long for him ... but
he had the perfect right, of course." The woman drew nearer. "I like
you, Kossara," she whispered. "I do hope we'll go to the same place."

"Place?"

"Oh, somebody rich may take you for a while. Likelier, though, a
brothel--"

Kossara yanked free and ran. She didn't quite reach a toilet before she
vomited. They made her clean the floor. Afterward, when they insisted on
circling close and talking and talking, she screamed at them to leave
her alone, then enforced it with a couple of skilled blows. No
punishment followed. It was dreadful to know that a half-aware
electronic brain watched every pulsebeat of her existence, and no doubt
occasionally a bored human supervisor examined her screen at random. But
seemingly the guardians didn't mind a fight, if no property was damaged.
She sought her bunk and curled up into herself.

Next morning a matron came for her, took a critical look, and nodded.
"You'll do," she said. "Swallow this." She held forth a pill.

"What's that?" Kossara crouched back.

"A euphoriac. You want to be pretty for the camera, don't you? Go on,
swallow." Remembering the alternative, Kossara obeyed.

As she accompanied the matron down the hall, waves of comfort passed
through her, higher at each tide. It was like being drunk, no, not
drunk, for she had her full senses and command of her body ... like
having savored a few glasses with Mihail, after they had danced, and the
violins playing yet ... like having Mihail here, alive again.

Almost cheerfully, in the recording room she doffed her gray issue gown,
went through the paces and said the phrases designed to show her off, as
instructed. She barely heard the running commentary:

"Kossara Vymezal [mispronounced, but a phonetic spell-out followed],
human female, age twenty-five, virgin, athletic, health and intelligence
excellent, education good though provincial. Spirited, but ought to
learn subordination in short order without radical measures. Life
sentence for treason, conspiracy to promote and aid rebellion. Suffers
from hostility to the Imperium and some disorientation due to
hypnoprobing. Neither handicap affects her wits or basic emotional
stability. Her behavior on the voyage here was cold but acceptable.

"She was born on the planet Dennitza, Zoria III in the Taurian Sector.
[A string of numbers] Her family is well placed, father being a district
administrator. [Why no mention of the fact Mother was a sister of Bodin
Miyatovich, Gospodar and sector governor? O Uncle, Uncle ... ] As is the
rule there, she received military training and served a hitch in the
armed forces. She has a degree in xenology. Having done field work on
planets near home, several months ago she went to Diomedes [a string of
numbers]--quite remote, her research merely a disguise. Most of the
report on her has not been made available to us; and as said, she
herself is confused and largely amnesiac about this period. Her main
purpose was to help instigate a revolt. Before much harm was done, she
was detected, arrested, interrogated, and sentenced by court-martial.
There being little demand for slaves in that region, and a courier ship
returning directly to Terra, she was brought along.

"We rate her unlikely to be dangerous, given the usual precautions, and
attractive both physically and personally--"

The camera projected back the holograms it had taken, for its operator's
inspection, and Kossara looked upon her image. She saw a big young
woman, 177 centimeters tall, a bit small in the bosom but robust in
shoulders, hips, and long free-striding legs, skin ivory-clear save for
a few freckles and the remnant of a tan. The face was wide, high in the
cheekbones, snub in the nose, full in the mouth, strong in chin and
jawline. Large blue-green eyes stood well apart beneath dark brows and
reddish-brown bangs; that hair was cropped below the ears in the manner
of both sexes on Dennitza. When she spoke, her voice was husky.

"--will be sullen unless drugged, but given the right training and
conditions, ought to develop a high sexual capacity. A private owner may
find that kindness will in due course make her loyal and responsive--"

Kossara slipped dreamily away from the words, the room, Terra ... the
whole way home. To Mihail? No, she couldn't quite raise him from the
dust between the stars--even now, she dared not. But, oh, just a few
years ago, she and Trohdwyr ...

{She had a vacation from her studies at the Shkola plus a furlough from
her ground defense unit in the Narodna Voyska. Ordinarily she would have
spent as much of this time as he could spare with her betrothed. But a
space force had been detected within a few light-years of the Zorian
System which might intend action on behalf of some other claimant to the
Imperium than Hans Molitor whom the Gospodar supported, or might use
such partisanship as an excuse for brigandage. Therefore Bodin
Miyatovich led some of the Dennitzan fleet out to warn off the
strangers, and if necessary fight them off. Mihail Svetich, engineer on
a Meteor-class torpedo craft, had kissed Kossara farewell.

Rather than fret idle in Zorkagrad, she flitted to her parents' home.
Danilo Vymezal, voivode of the Dubina Dolyina, was head of council,
chief magistrate, and military commander throughout a majestic country
at the northern rim of the Kazan. Soon after she reached the estate,
Kossara said she wished for a long hunt. Her father regarded her for a
moment before he nodded. "That will do you good," he said. "Who would
you like for a partner? Trohdwyr?"

She had unthinkingly supposed she would go alone. But of course he was
right; only fools went by themselves so far into wilderness that no
radio relay could pass on a distress call from a pocket transceiver. The
old zmay was welcome company, not least because he knew when to be
silent.

They took an aircar to a meadow on the unpeopled western slope and set
forth afoot. The days and nights, the leagues and heights, wind, rain,
sun, struggle, and sleep were elixir. More than once she had a clear
shot at a soaring orlik or a bull yelen poised on a crag, and forbore;
those wings or those horns were too splendid across the sky. But at last
it was sweet fire in the blood to stand before a charging dyavo, feel
the rifle surge back against her shoulder, see fangs and claws fall down
within a meter of her.

Trohdwyr reproved: "You were reckless, Dama."

"He came at me from his den," Kossara retorted.

"After you saw the entrance and took care to make much noise in the
bushes. Deny it not. I have known you longer than your own memory runs.
You learned to walk by clinging to my tail for safety. If I lose you
now, your father will dismiss me from his service, and where then shall
a poor lorn dodderer go? Back to his birth village to become a fisher
again, after these many years? Have mercy, Dama."

She chuckled. They set about making camp. This was high in the bowl of
the Kazan, where that huge crater bit an arc from the Vysochina. The
view could not have been imagined by anyone who had not seen it, save
God before He willed it.

Though treeless, the site bore a dense purple sward of mahovina, springy
underfoot and spicy to smell, studded by white and gold wildflowers; and
a nearby canebrake rustled in the breeze. Eastward the ringwall sloped
down to timberline. Beyond, yellow beams of evening fell on a bluish
mistiness of forest, as far as sight could reach, cloven by a river
which gleamed like a drawn blade. Westward, not far hence, the rim stood
shadowy-sharp athwart rough Vysochina hills. Behind them the snowpeaks
of the Planina Byelogorski lifted sungold whiteness into an absolute
azure. The purity of sky was not marred by a remote northward thread of
smoke from Vulkana Zemlya.

The air grew cold soon after the sun went behind the mountains, cold as
the brook which bubbled iron-tasting from a cleft in the crater's lip.
Kossara hunched into her jacket, squatted down, held palms forth to the
fire. Her breath drifted white through the dusk that rose from the
lowlands.

Before he put their meat on a spit above coals and dancing flamelets,
Trohdwyr drew a sign and spoke a few words of Eriau. Kossara knew them
well: "Aferdhi of the Deeps, Blyn of the Winds, Haawan who lairs on the
reefs, by this be held afar and trouble us not in our rest." Hundreds of
kilometers and a long lifetime from the Black Ocean, he remained an
old-fashioned pagan ychan. Early in her teens, eager in her faith,
Kossara had learned it was no use trying to make an Orthochristian of
him.

Surely the Pantocrator didn't mind much, and would receive his dear
battered soul into Heaven at the last.

She had never thought of him as a zmay. Not that the word had any
particularly bad overtones. Maybe once it had been a touch contemptuous,
four hundred years ago when the first immigrants arrived from Merseia;
but later it came to mean simply a Dennitzan of such ancestry. (Did the
growth of their original planet into a frightening rival of Terra have
anything to do with that?) However, from him and his family she had
learned Eriau--rather, the archaic and mutated version they spoke--at
the same time as she was learning Serbic from her parents and Anglic
from a governess. When finally prevailed upon to stop scrambling these
three into a private patois, she kept the habit of referring to
Trohdwyr's people by their own name for themselves, "ychani": "seekers."

For he had been close to the center of her child-universe. Father and
Mother were at its very heart, naturally, and so for a while were a doll
named Lutka, worn into shapelessness, and a cat she called Butterfeet.
Uncle Bodin approached them when he and Aunt Draga visited, or the
Vymezals went to Zorkagrad and he took her to the zoo and the merrypark.
Three younger siblings, two brothers and a sister, orbited like comets,
now radiant with love, now off into outer darkness. Trohdwyr never shone
quite as brightly as any of these; but the chief gamekeeper to three
generations of her house moved in an unchangeable path, always there for
her to reach when she needed him.

"Kraich." Having started dinner cooking, he settled back on the tripod
of clawed feet and massive tail. "You've earned a double drink this
evening, Dama. A regular sundowner, and one for killing the dyavo." He
poured into cups from a flask of shlivovitza. "Though I must skin the
beast and carry the hide," he added.

The hoarse basso seemed to hold a note of genuine complaint. Startled,
Kossara peered across the fire at him.

To a dweller in the inner Empire, he might have been any Merseian. No
matter how anthropoid a xenosophont was, the basic differences usually
drowned individuality unless you knew the species well. Trohdwyr roughly
resembled a large man--especially in the face, if you overlooked endless
details of its heavy-boned, brow-ridged, wide-nosed, thin-lipped
construction. But he had no external earflaps, only elaborately
contoured holes in the skull. Totally hairless, his skin was pale green
and faintly scaled. A sierra of low triangular spines ran from the top
of his forehead, down his back to the tail's end. When he stood, he
leaned forward, reducing his effective height to tall-human; when he
walked, it was not on heels and soles but on his toes, in an alien
rhythm. He was warm-blooded; females of his race gave live birth; but he
was no mammal--no kind of animal which Terra had ever brought forth.

By a million signs Kossara knew him for Trohdwyr and nobody else, as she
knew her kinfolk or Mihail. He had grown gaunt, deep furrows lay in his
cheeks, he habitually spurned boots and trousers for a knee-length tunic
with many pockets, he wore the same kind of curve-bladed sheath knife
with knuckleduster handle which he had given her and taught her to use,
years before ...

"Why, I'll abandon it if you want," she said, thinking, Has time begun
to wear him down? How hurtful to us both.

"Oh, no, no, Dama. No need." Trohdwyr grew abashed. "Forgive a gaffer if
he's grumpy. I was--well, today I almost saw you ripped apart. There I
stood, you in my line of fire, and that beast--Dama, don't do such
things."

"I'm sorry," Kossara said. "Though I really don't believe I was taking
too big a chance. I know my rifle."

"I too. Didn't you learn from me?"

"But those were lightweight weapons. Because I was a girl? Today I had a
Tashta, the kind they've issued me in the Voyska. I was sure it could
stop him." Kossara gazed aside, downslope toward the bottom of the
Kazan, which night had already filled. "Besides," she added softly, "I
needed such a moment. You're right, I did provoke the dyavo to attack."

"To get away from feeling helpless?" Trohdwyr murmured.

"Yes." She could never have opened thus to any human except Mihail,
maybe not even to him; but over the years the ychan had heard
confessions which she did not give her priest. "My man's yonder." She
flung a hand toward the first stars as they twinkled forth, white upon
violet above the lowlands. "I have to stay behind in my guard unit--when
Dennitza will never be attacked!"

"Thanks to units like yours, Datna," Trohdwyr said.

"Nevertheless, he--" Kossara took her drink in a gulp. It burned the
whole way down, and the glow spread fast to every part of her. She held
the cup out for a refill. "Why does it matter this much who's Emperor?
All right, Josip was foul and his agents did a great deal of harm. But
he's dead now; and the Empire did survive him; and I've heard enough
from my uncle to know that what really keeps it going is a lot of
nameless little officials whose work outlasts whole dynasties. Then why
do we fight over who'll sit crowned in Archopolis for the next few
years?"

"You are the human, Dama, not I," said Trohdwyr. After a minute: "Yet I
can think how on Merseia they would be glad to see another Terran
Emperor whose spirit is fear or foolishness. And ... we here are not
overly far from Merseia."

Kossara shivered beneath the stars and took a strong sip.

"Well, it'll get settled soon," she declared. "Uncle Bodin told me he's
sure it will be. This thing in space is a last gasp. Soon"--she lifted
her head--"Mihail and I can travel," exploring together the infinite
marvels on worlds that circle new suns.

"I hope so, Dama, despite that I'll miss you. Have plenty of young, and
let them play and grow around me on the manor as you did, will you?"

Exalted by the liquor--how the smell of the roasting meat awakened
hunger!--she blurted: "He wanted me to sleep with him before he left. I
said no, we'll wait till we're married. Should I have said yes? Tell me,
should I have?"

"You are the human," Trohdwyr repeated. "I can simply answer, you are
the voivode's daughter and the Gospodar's niece. But I remember from my
cubhood--when folk still lived in Old Aferoch, though already then the
sea brought worse and worse floods--a female ychan of that town. I knew
her somewhat, since a grown cousin of mine used to come in from our
village, courting her--"

The story, which was of a rivalry as fierce as might have stood between
two men of different clans in early days on Dennitza, but which ended
after a rescue on the water, was oddly comforting: almost as if she were
little again, and Trohdwyr rocked her against his warm dry breast and
rumbled a lullaby. That night Kossara slept well. Some days afterward
she returned happily to Dubina Dolyina. When her leave was up, she went
back to Zorkagrad.

There she got the news that Mihail Svetich had been killed in action.

But standing before the slave shop's audiovisual recorders, Kossara did
not think of this, nor of what had happened to Trohdwyr himself on cold
Diomedes. She remained in that one evening out of the many they had had
together.}

The chemical joy wore off. She lay on her bunk, bit her pillow and
fought not to yell.

A further day passed.

Then she was summoned to the manager's office. "Congratulations," he
said. "You've been bought, luckier than you deserve."

It roared in her. Darkness crossed her eyes. She swayed before his desk.
Distantly she heard:

"A private gentleman, and he must really have liked what he saw in the
catalogue, because he outbid two different cepheid houses. You can
probably do well for yourself--and me, I'll admit. Remember, if he sells
you later, he may well go through me again instead of making a deal
directly. I don't like my reputation hurt, and I've got this switch
here--Anyhow, you'll be wise if you show him your appreciation. His name
is Dominic Flandry, he's a captain of Naval Intelligence, a knight of
the Imperium, and, I'll tell you, a favorite of the Emperor. He doesn't
need a slave for his bed. Gossip is, he's tumbled half the female
nobility on Terra, and commoner girls past counting. Like I said, he
must think you're special. The more grateful you act, the better your
life is likely to be ... On your way, now. A matron will groom and gown
you."

She also provided a fresh euphoriac. Thus Kossara didn't even mind that
the servant who came to fetch her was hauntingly like and unlike an
ychan. He too was bald, green, and tailed; but the green was
grass-bright, without scales, the tail thin as a cat's, the posture
erect, the height well below her own, the other differences
unreckonable. "Sir Dominic saw fit to dub me Chives," he introduced
himself. "I trust you will find his service pleasant. Indeed, I declined
the manumission he offered me, until the law about spy bracelets went
into effect on Terra. May I direct you out?"

Kossara went along through rosiness, into an aircar, on across the city
and an ocean, eventually to an ornate house on an island which Chives
called Catalina. He showed her to a suite and explained that her owner
was busy elsewhere but would presently make his wishes known. Meanwhile
these facilities were hers to use, within reason.

Kossara fell asleep imagining that Mihail was beside her.

III
---

It was official: the Emperor Hans would shortly leave Terra, put himself
at the head of an armada, and personally see to quelling the
barbarians--war lords, buccaneers, crusaders for God knew what strange
causes--who still harassed a Sector Spica left weak by the late struggle
for the Imperial succession. He threw a bon voyage party at the Coral
Palace. Captain Sir Dominic Flandry was among those invited. Under such
circumstances, one comes.

Besides, Flandry reflected, I can't help liking the old bastard. He may
not be the best imaginable thing that could happen to us, but he's
probably the best available.

The hour was well after sunset in this part of Oceania. A crescent moon
stood high to westward; metrocenter star-points glinted across its dark
side. The constellations threw light of their own onto gently rolling
waves, argent shimmer on sable. Quietness broke where surf growled white
against ramparts. There walls, domes, towers soared aloft in a
brilliance which masked off most of heaven.

When Flandry landed his car and stepped forth, no clouds of perfume (or
psychogenic vapors, as had been common in Josip's reign) drifted from
the palace to soften salt odors. Music wove among mild breezes, but
formal, stately, neither hypersubtle nor raucous. Flandry wasn't sure
whether it was composed on a colony planet--if so, doubtless
Germania--or on Terra once, to be preserved through centuries while the
mother world forgot. He did know that a decade ago, the court would have
snickered at sounds this fusty-archaic.

Few servants bowed as he passed among fellow guests, into the main
building. More guardsmen than formerly saluted. Their dress uniforms
were less ornate than of yore and they and their weapons had seen
action. The antechamber of fountains hadn't changed, and the people who
swirled between them before streaming toward the ballroom wore clothes
as gorgeous as always, a rainbow spectacle. However, fantastic collars,
capes, sleeves, cuffs, footgear were passe. Garb was continuous from
neck or midbreast to soles, and, while many men wore robes rather than
trousers, every woman was in a skirt.

A reform I approve of, he thought. I suspect most ladies agree. The
suggestive rustle of skillfully draped fabric is much more stimulating,
really, and easier to arrange, than cosmetics and diadems on otherwise
bare areas of interest. For that matter, though it does take more
effort, a seduction is better recreation than an orgy.

There our good Hans goes too far. Every bedroom in the palace locked!

Ah, well. Conceivably he wants his entourage to cultivate ingenuity.

Crown Prince Dietrich received, a plain-faced middle-aged man whose
stoutness was turning into corpulence. Though he and Flandry had worked
together now and then in the fighting, his welcome was mechanical. Poor
devil, he must say a personal hello to each of three or four hundred
arrivals important enough to rate it, with no drug except stim to help
him. Another case of austere principles overdone, Flandry thought. The
younger brother, Gerhart, was luckier tonight, already imperially drunk
at a wallside table with several cronies. However, he looked as sullen
as usual.

Flandry drifted around the circumference of the ballroom. There was
nothing fancy about the lighting, save that it was cast to leave
unobscured the stars in the vitryl dome overhead. The floor sheened with
diffracted reflections from several score couples who swung through the
decorous measures of a quicksilver. He hailed acquaintances when he
glimpsed them, but didn't stop till he had reached an indoor arbor where
champagne was available. A goblet of tickle in his hand, roses around
him, a cheerful melody, a view of pretty women in motion--life could be
worse.

It soon was. "Greetin', Sir Dominic."

Flandry turned, and bowed in dismay to the newcomer beneath the leaves.
"Aloha, your Grace."

Tetsuo Niccolini, Duke of Mars, accepted a glass from the attendant
behind the table. It was obviously not his first. "Haven't seen you for
some while," he remarked. "Missed you. You've a way o' puttin' a little
spark into a scene, dull as the court is these days." Shrewdly: "Reason
you don't come often, what?"

"Well," Flandry admitted, "his Majesty's associates do tend to be a bit
earnest and firm-jawed." He sipped. "Still, my impression is, your Grace
spends a fair amount of time here regardless."

Niccolini sighed. He had never been more than a well-meaning fop; but in
these last years, when antisenescence and biosculp could no longer hold
wrinkles, baldness, feebleness at bay, he had developed a certain wry
perspective. Unfortunately, he remained a bore.

Shadows of petals stirred across a peacock robe as he lifted his drink.
"D'you think I should go to my ancestral estates and all that rubbish,
set up my own small court along lines I like, eh? No, m'boy, not
feasible. I'd get nothin' but sycophants, who'd pluck me while they
smiled. My real friends, who put their hearts into enjoyin' life, well,
they're dead or fled or sleepin' in an oldster's bed." He paused. "
'Sides, might's well tell you, H.M. gave me t'understand--he makes
himself very clear, ha?--gave me t'understand, he'd prefer no Duke o'
Mars henceforth visit the planet 'cept for a decent minimum o' speeches
an' dedications."

Flandry nodded. That makes sense, flickered through him. The Martians
[nonhumans; colonists by treaty arrangement in the time of the
Commonwealth; glad to belong to it, but feeling betrayed when it broke
down and the Troubles came; dragooned into the Empire] are still
restless. Terra can best control them by removing the signs of Terran
control. I suspect, after poor tottery Tetty is gone, Hans will buy out
his heirs with a gimcrack title elsewhere and a lot of money and make a
Martian the next Duke--who may not even know he's a puppet.

At least, that's what I'd consider doing.

"But we're in grave danger o' seriousness," Niccolini interrupted
himself. "Where've you been? Busy at what? Come, come, somethin' amusin'
must've happened."

"Oh, just knocking around with a friend." Flandry didn't care to get
specific. One reason why he had thus far declined promotion to admiral
was that then he'd be too conspicuous, too eagerly watched and sought
after, while he remained near the Emperor. He liked his privacy. As a
hanger-on who showed no further ambitions--and could therefore in time
be expected to lose his energetic patron's goodwill--he drew scant
attention.

"Or knockin' up a friend? Heh, heh, heh." The Duke nudged him. "I know
your sort o' friends. How was she?"

"In the first place, she was a he," Flandry said. Until he could escape,
he might as well reconcile himself to humoring a man who had discovered
the secret of perpetual adolescence. "Of course, we explored. Found a
new place on Ganymede which might interest your Grace, the Empress Wu in
Celestial City."

"No, no." Niccolini waggled his head and free hand. "Didn't y'know? I
never go anywhere near Jupiter. Never. Not since the La Reine Louise
disaster."

Flandry cast his mind back. He couldn't identify--Oh, yes. It had
happened five years ago, while he was out of the Solar System.
Undeterred by civil war, a luxury liner was approaching Callisto when
her screen field generators failed. The trapped radiation which seethes
around the giant planet, engulfing its inner moons, killed everybody
aboard; no treatment could restore a body burned by so much unfelt fire.

Nothing of the kind had happened for centuries of exploration and
colonization thereabouts. Magnetohydrodynamic shields and their backups
were supposed to be invulnerable to anything that wouldn't destroy a
vehicle or a settlement anyway. Therefore, sabotage? The passenger list
had included several powerful people. A court of inquiry had handed down
the vaguest finding of "cumulative negligence."

"My poor young nephew, that I inherited the Dukedom from, was among the
casualties," Niccolini droned on. "That roused the jolly old instinct o'
self-preservation, I can tell you. To blinkin' many hazards as is. Not
that I flatter myself I'm a political bull's-eye. Still, one never
knows, does one? So tell me 'bout this place you found. If it sounds
intriguin', I'll see 'bout gettin' a sensie."

Flandry was saved by a courier in Imperial livery who entered the arbor
and bowed. "A thousand pardons, your Grace," she said. "Sir Dominic,
there is an urgent message for you. Will you please follow me?"

"With twofold pleasure," Flandry responded, for she was young and
well-formed. He couldn't quite place her accent, though he guessed she
might be from some part of Hermes. Even when hiring humans, the
majordomos of the new Emperor's various households were under orders to
get as many non-Terrans as was politic.

Whoever the summons was from, and whether it was terrible or trivial, he
was free of the Duke before he could otherwise have disengaged. The
noble nodded a vague response to his apology and stood staring after
him, all alone.

His Imperial Majesty, High Emperor Hans Friedrich Molitor, of his
dynasty the first, Supreme Guardian of the Pax, Grand Director of the
Stellar Council, Commander-in-Chief, Final Arbiter, acknowledged supreme
on more worlds and honorary head of more organizations than any man
could remember, sat by himself in a room at the top of a tower. It was
sparsely furnished: a desk and communicator, a couch upholstered in worn
but genuine horse-hide, a few straightbacked chairs and the big
pneumatic that was his. The only personal items were a dolchzahn skin on
the floor, from Germania; two portraits of his late wife, in her youth
and her age, and one of a blond young man; a model of the corvette that
had been his first command. A turret roof, beginning at waist height,
was currently transparent, letting this eyrie overlook an illuminated
complex of roofs, steeples, gardens, pools, outer walls, attendant
rafts, and finally the night ocean.

The courier ushered Flandry through the door and vanished as it closed
behind him. He saluted and snapped to attention. "At ease," the Emperor
grunted. "Sit. Smoke if you want."

He was puffing a pipe whose foulness overcame the air 'fresher. In spite
of the blue tunic, white trousers, and gold braid with nebula and three
stars of a grand admiral, plus the pyrocrystal ring of Manuel the Great,
he was not very impressive to see. Yet meditechnics could not account
for so few traces of time. The short, stocky frame had grown a kettle
belly, bags lay beneath the small dark eyes, the hair was thin and gray
on the blocky head: nothing that could not easily be changed by the
biocosmetics he scorned to use. Nor had he ever troubled about his face,
low forehead, bushy brows, huge Roman nose, heavy jowls, gash of a mouth
between deep creases, prow of a chin.

"Thank you, your Majesty." Flandry settled his elegance opposite,
flipped out a cigarette case which was a work of art and, at need, a
weapon, and established a barrier against the reek around him.

"No foolish formalities," growled the rusty, accented basso. "I must
make my grand appearance, and empty chatter will rattle for hours, and
at last when I can go I'm afraid I'll be too tired for a nice new wench
who's joined the collection, no matter how much I need a little fun."

"A stim pill?" Flandry suggested.

"No. I take too many as is. The price to the body mounts, you know. And
... barely six years on the throne have I had. The first three, fighting
to stay there. I need another twenty or thirty for carpentering this
jerry-built, dry-rotted Empire into a thing that might last a few more
generations, before I can lay down my tools." Hans chuckled coarsely.
"Well, let the tool for pretty Thressa wait, recharging, till tomorrow
night. You should see her, Dominic, my friend. But not to tell anybody.
By herself she could cause a revolution."

Flandry grinned. "Yes, we humans are basically sexual beings, aren't we,
sir? If we can't screw each other physically, well do it politically."

Hans laughed aloud. He had never changed from a boy who deserted a
strait-laced colonial bourgeois home for several years of wild adventure
in space, the youth who enlisted in the Navy, the man who rose through
the ranks without connections or flexibility to ease his way.

But he had not changed either from the hero of Syrax, where the fleet he
led flung back the Merseians and forced a negotiated end to a short
undeclared war which had bidden fair to grow. Nor had he changed from
the leader who let his personnel proclaim him Emperor--himself
reluctantly, less from vainglory than a sense of workmanship, when the
legitimate order of succession had dissolved in chaos and every rival
claimant was a potential disaster.

A blunt pragmatist, uncultured and unashamed of it, shrewd rather than
intelligent, he either appalled Manuel Argos or won a grudging approval,
in whatever hypothetical hell or Valhalla the Founder dwelt. The
question was academic. His hour was now. How long that hour would be,
and what the consequences, were separate puzzles.

Mirth left. He leaned forward. The pipe smoldered between hairy hands
clenched upon his knees. "I talk too much," he said, a curious admission
from the curtest of the Emperors. Flandry understood, though. Few
besides him were left, maybe none, with whom Hans dared talk freely.
"Let us come to business. What do you know about Dennitza?"

Inwardly taken aback, Flandry replied soft-voiced, "Not much, sir. Not
much about the whole Taurian Sector, in spite of having had the good
luck to be there when Lady Megan needed help. Why ask me?"

Hans scowled. "I suppose you do know how the Gospodar, my sector
governor, is resisting my defense reorganization. Could be a simple
difference of judgment, yes. But ... now information suggests he plans
rebellion. And that--where he is--will involve the Merseians, unless he
is already theirs."

Flandry's backbone tingled. "What are the facts, sir?"

"A wretched planet in Sector Arcturus. Diomedes, it's called. Natives
who want to break away and babble of getting Ythrian help. Human agents
among them. We would expect such humans would be from the Domain,
likeliest Avalon--not true? But our best findings say the Ythrians hold
no wish to make trouble for us. And our people discover those humans are
Dennitzan. Only one was captured alive, and they had some problems with
the hypnoprobing, but it does appear she went to Diomedes under secret
official orders."

Hans sighed. "Not till yesterday did this reach me through the damned
channels. It never would have before I left, did I not issue strictest
orders about getting a direct look at whatever might possibly point to
treason. And--Gott in Himmel, I am swamped, on top of all else! My
computer screens out lese-majeste cases and the rest of such piddle.
Nevertheless--"

Flandry nodded. "Aye, sir. You can't give any single item more than a
glance. And even if you could pay full attention, you can't send the big
clumsy Imperial machine barging into Tauria, disrupting our whole
arrangement there, on the basis of a few accusations. Especially in your
absence."

"Yes. I must go. If we don't reorder Sector Spica, the barbarians will
soon ruin it. But meanwhile Tauria may explode. You see how an uprising
in Sector Arcturus would be the right distraction for a traitor
Dennitzan before he rebels too."

"Won't Intelligence mount a larger operation?"

"Ja, Ja, Ja. Though the Corps is still in poor shape, after wars and
weedings. Also, it has much other business. And ... Dominic, just the
Corps by itself is too huge for me to know, for me to control as I
should. I need--I am not sure what I need or if it can be had."

Flandry foreknew: "You want me to take a hand, sir?"

"Yes." The wild boar eyes were sighted straight on him. "In your olden
style. A roving commission, and you report directly to me.
Plenipotentiary authority."

Flandry's pulse broke into a canter. He kept his tone level. "Quite a
solo, sir."

"Co-opt. Hire. Bribe. Threaten. Whatever you see fit."

"The odds will stay long against my finding out anything useful--at
least, anything the Corps can't, quicker and better."

"You are not good at modesty," Hans said. "Are you unwilling?"

"N-n-no, sir." Surprised, Flandry realized he spoke truth. This could
prove interesting. In fact, he knew damn well it would, for he had
already involved himself in the affair. His motivation was half
curiosity, half kindliness--he thought at the time--though probably,
down underneath, the carnivore which had been asleep in him these past
three years had roused, pricked up its ears, snuffed game scent on a
night breeze. Was that always my real desire? Not to chase down enemies
of the Empire so I could go on having fun in it, but to have fun chasing
them down?

No matter. The blood surged. "I'm happy to accept, sir, provided you
don't expect much. Uh, my authority, access to funds and secret data and
whatnot ... better be kept secret itself."

"Right." Hans knocked the dottle from his pipe, a ringing noise through
a moment's silence. "Is this why you refused admiral's rank? You knew
sneaking off someday on a mission would be easier for a mere captain."

Flandry shrugged. "If you'll tip the word to--better be none less than
Kheraskov--I'll contact him as soon as may be and made arrangements."

"Have you any idea how you will begin?" Hans asked, relaxing a trifle.

"Well, I don't know. Perhaps with that alleged Dennitzan agent. What
became of ... her, did you say?"

"How can I tell? I saw a precis of many reports, remember. What
difference, after the 'probe wrung her dry?"

"Sometimes individuals count, sir." Excitement in Flandry congealed to
grimness. I should think the fact she's a niece of the Gospodar--a fact
available in the material on her that my son could freely scan from a
data bank--would be worth mentioning to the Emperor. I should think such
a hostage would not be sold for a slave, forced into whoredom except for
the chance that I learned about her when she was offered for sale.

Better not tell Hans. He'd only be distracted from the million things
he's got to do. And anyhow ... something strange here. I prefer to keep
my mouth shut and my options open.

"Proceed as you wish," the other said. "I know you won't likely get far.
But I can trust you will run a strong race."

His glance went to the picture of the young man. His face sagged.
Flandry could well-nigh read his mind: Ach, Otto! If you had not been
killed--if I could bring you back, yes, even though I must trade for you
dull Dietrich and scheming Gerhart both--we would have an heir to trust.

The Emperor straightened in his seat. "Very well," he rapped.
"Dismissed."

The festival wore on. Toward morning, Flandry and Chunderban Desai found
themselves alone.

The officer would have left sooner, were it not for his acquired job.
Now he seemed wisest if he savored sumptuousness, admired the centuried
treasures of static and fluid art which the palace housed, drank noble
wines, nibbled on delicate foods, conversed with witty men, danced with
delicious girls, finally brought one of these to a pergola he knew
(unlocked, screened by jasmine vines) and made love. He might never get
the chance again. After she bade him a sleepy goodbye, he felt like
having a nightcap. The crowd had grown thin. He recognized Desai, fell
into talk, ended in a small garden.

Its base was cantilevered from a wall, twenty meters above a courtyard
where a fountain sprang. The waters, full of dissolved fluorescents,
shone under ultraviolet illumination in colors more deep and pure than
flame. Their tuned splashing resounded from catchbowls to make an
eldritch music. Otherwise the two men on their bench had darkness and
quiet. Flowers sweetened an air gone slightly cool. The moon was long
down; Venus and a dwindling number of stars gleamed in a sky fading from
black to purple, above an ocean coming all aglow.

"No, I am not convinced the Emperor does right to depart," Desai said.
The pudgy little old man's hair glimmered white as his tunic;
chocolate-hued face and hands were nearly invisible among shadows. He
puffed on a cigarette in a long ivory holder. "Contrariwise, the move
invites catastrophe."

"But to let the barbarians whoop around at will--" Flandry sipped his
cognac and drew on his cigar, fragrances first rich, then pungent. He'd
wanted to end on a relaxing topic. Desai, who had served the Imperium in
many executive capacities on many different planets, owned a hoard of
reminiscences which made him worth cultivating. He was on Terra for a
year, teaching at the Diplomatic Academy, before he retired to
Ramanujan, his birthworld.

The military situation--specifically, Hans' decision to go--evidently
bothered him too much for pleasantries. "Oh, yes, that entire frontier
needs restructuring," he said. "Not simple reinforcement. New
administrations, new laws, new economics: ideally, the foundations of an
entire new society among the human inhabitants. However, his Majesty
should leave that task to a competent viceroy and staff whom he grants
extraordinary powers."

"There's the problem," Flandry pointed out. "Who's both competent and
trustworthy enough, aside from those who're already up to their armpits
in alligators elsewhere?"

"If he has no better choice," Desai said, "his Majesty should let the
Spican sector be ravaged--should even let it be lost, in hopes of
regaining the territory afterward--anything, rather than absent himself
for months. What ultimate good can he accomplish yonder if meanwhile the
Imperium is taken from him? The best service he can render the Empire is
simply to keep a grip on its heart. Else the civil wars begin again."

"I fear you exaggerate," Flandry said, though he recalled how Desai was
always inclined to understate things. And Dennitzans on Diomedes ... "We
seem to've pacified ourselves fairly well. Besides, why refer to civil
wars in the plural?"

"Have you forgotten McCormac's rebellion, Sir Dominic?"

Scarcely, seeing I was involved. Flandry winced at a memory. Lost
Kathryn, as well as the irregular nature of his actions at the time,
made him glad the details were still unpublic. "No. But that was, uh,
twenty-two years ago. And amounted to what? An admiral who revolted
against Josip's sector governor for personal reasons. True, this meant
he had to try for the crown. The Imperium could never have pardoned him.
But he was beaten, and Josip died in bed." Probably poisoned, to be
sure.

"You consider the affair an isolated incident?" Desai challenged in his
temperate fashion. "Allow me to remind you, please--I know you
know--shortly afterward I found myself the occupation commissioner of
McCormac's home globe, Aeneas, which had spearheaded the uprising. We
came within an angstrom there of getting a messianic religion that might
have burst into space and torn the Empire in half."

Flandry took a hard swallow from his snifter and a hard pull on his
cigar. Well had he studied the records of that business, after he
encountered Aycharaych who had engineered it.

"The thirteen following years--seeming peace inside the Empire, till
Josip's death--they are no large piece of history, are they?" Desai
pursued. "Especially if we bear in mind that conflicts have causes. A
war, including a civil war, is the flower on a plant whose seed went
into the ground long before ... and whose roots reach widely, and will
send up fresh growths, ... No, Sir Dominic, as a person who has read and
reflected for most of a lifetime on this subject, I tell you we are well
into our anarchic phase. The best we can do is minimize the damage, and
hold outside enemies off until we win back to a scarred kind of unity."

" 'Our' anarchic phase?" Flandry questioned.

Desai misheard his emphasis. "Or our interregnum, or whatever you wish
to call it. Oh, we may not always fight over who shall be Emperor; we
can find plenty of bones to contend about. And we may enjoy stretches of
peace and relative prosperity. I hoped Hans would provide us such a
respite."

"No, wait, you speak as if this is something we have to go through,
willy-nilly."

"Yes. For about eighty more years, I think--though of course modern
technology, nonhuman influences, the sheer scale of interstellar
dominion may affect the time-span. Basically, however, yes, a universal
state--and the Terran Empire is the universal state of Technic
civilization--only gives a respite from the wars and horrors which
multiply after the original breakdown. Its Pax is no more than a
subservience enforced at swordpoint, or today at blaster point. Its
competent people become untrustworthy from their very competence; anyone
who can make a decision may make one the Imperium does not like.
Incompetence grows with the growing suspiciousness and centralization.
Defense and civil functions alike begin to disintegrate. What can that
provoke except rebellion? So this universal state of ours has ground
along for a space of generations, from bad to worse, until now--"

"The Long Night?" Flandry shivered a bit in the gentle air.

"I think not quite yet. If we follow precedent, the Empire will rise
again ... if you can label as 'rise' the centralized divine autocracy we
have coming. To be sure, if the thought of such a government does not
cheer you, then remember that that second peace of exhaustion will not
last either. In due course will come the final collapse."

"How do you know?" Flandry demanded.

"The cycle fills the history, yes, the archeology of this whole planet
we are sitting on. Old China and older Egypt each went thrice through
the whole sorry mess. The Western civilization to which ours is
affiliated rose originally from the same kind of thing, that Roman
Empire some of our rulers have liked to hark back to for examples of
glory. Oh, we too shall have our Diocletian; but scarcely a hundred
years after his reconstruction, the barbarians were camping in Rome
itself and making emperors to their pleasure. My own ancestral
homeland--but there is no need for a catalogue of forgotten nations. For
a good dozen cases we have chronicles detailed to the point of nausea;
all in all, we can find over fifty examples just in the dust of this one
world.

"Growth, until wrong decisions bring breakdown; then ever more ferocious
wars, until the Empire brings the Pax; then the dissolution of that Pax,
its reconstitution, its disintegration forever, and a dark age until a
new society begins in the ruins. Technic civilization started on that
road when the Polesotechnic League changed from a mutual-aid
organization of free entrepreneurs to a set of cartels. Tonight we are
far along the way."

"You've discovered this yourself?" Flandry asked, not as skeptically as
he could have wished he were able to.

"Oh, no, no," Desai said. "The basic analysis was made a thousand years
ago. But it's not comfortable to live with. Prevention of breakdown, or
recovery from it, calls for more thought, courage, sacrifice than humans
have yet been capable of exercising for generation after generation.
Much easier first to twist the doctrine around, use it for
rationalization instead of rationality; then ignore it; finally suppress
it. I found it in certain archives, but you realize I am talking to you
in confidence. The Imperium would not take kindly to such a description
of itself."

"Well--" Flandry drank again. "Well, you may be right. And total
pessimism does have a certain bracing quality. If we're doomed to tread
out the measure, we can try to do so gracefully."

"There is no absolute inevitability." Desai puffed for a minute, his
cigarette end a tiny red pulsar. "I suppose, even this late in the game,
we could start afresh if we had the means--more importantly, the will.
But in actuality, the development is often aborted by foreign conquest.
An empire in the anarchic phase is especially tempting and especially
prone to suffer invaders. Osmans, Afghans, Moguls, Manchus, Spaniards,
British--they and those like them became overlords of cultures different
from their own, in that same way.

"Beyond our borders, the Merseians are the true menace. Not a barbarian
rabble merely filling a vacuum we have left by our own political
machinations--not a realistic Ythri which sees us as its natural
ally--not a pathetic Gorrazani remnant--but Merseia. We harass and
thwart the Roidhunate everywhere, because we dare not let it grow too
strong. Besides eliminating us as a hindrance to its dreams, think what
a furtherance our conquest would be!

"That's why I dread the consequences of the Emperor's departure. Staying
home, working to buttress the government and armed force, ready to stamp
fast on every attempt at insurrection, he might keep us united,
uninvadable, for the rest of his life. Without his presence--I don't
know."

"The Merseians would have to be prepared to take quick advantage of any
revolt," Flandry argued. "Assuming you're right about your historical
pattern, are they aware of it? How common is it?"

"True, we don't have the knowledge to say how far it may apply to
nonhumans, if at all," Desai admitted. "We should. In fact, it was
Merseia, not ourselves, that set me on this research--for the Merseians
too must have their private demons, and think what a weapon it would be
for our diplomacy to have a generalized mechanic for them as well as
us!"

"Hm?" said Flandry, surprised afresh. "Are you implying perhaps they
already are decadent? That's not what one usually hears."

"No, it isn't. But what is decadence to a nonhuman? I hope to do more
than read sutras in my retirement; I hope to apply my experience and my
studies to thought about just such problems." The old man sighed. "Of
necessity, this assumes the Empire will not fall prey to its foes before
I've made some progress. That may be an unduly optimistic assumption ...
considering what a head start they have in the Roidhunate where it comes
to understanding us."

"Are you implying they know this theory of human history which you've
been outlining to me?"

"Yes, I fear that at least a few minds among them are all too familiar
with it. For example, after considering the episode for many years, I
think that when Aycharaych tried to kindle a holy war of man against
man, starting on Aeneas, he knew precisely what he was doing."

Aycharaych. The chill struck full into Flandry. He raised his eyes to
the fading stars. Sol would soon drive sight away from them, but they
would remain where they were, waiting.

"I have often wondered what makes him and his kind serve Merseia," Desai
mused. "Genius can't really be conscripted. The Chereionites surely have
something to win for themselves. But what--from an alien species, an
alien culture?"

"Aycharaych's the only one of them I've ever actually met," Flandry
said. "I've sometimes thought he's an artist."

"An artist of espionage and sabotage, whose materials are living beings?
Well, conceivably. If that's all, he is no more to be envied than you or
I."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure I can make the reason clear to you, or even very clear to
myself. We have not had the good fortune to be born in an era when our
society offers us something transcendental to live and die for." Desai
cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to read you a lecture."

"No, I thank you," Flandry said. "Your ideas are quite interesting."

IV
--

The Hooligan sprang from Terra, pierced the sky, and lined out for deep
space. A steady standard gravity maintained by her interior fields gave
no hint of furious acceleration toward regions sufficiently distant that
she could go into hyperdrive and outpace light. Nor did her engine
energies speak above an almost subliminal whisper and quiver through the
hull. But standing in the saloon before its big viewscreen, Kossara
watched the planet shrink, ever faster, a cloudy vastness, a gibbous
globe of intricate blue and white, an agate in a diamondful jewel box.

At the back of her mind she wished she could appreciate this sight for
which she had left the stateroom assigned her. Terra, Manhome,
Maykasviyet; and sheer loveliness--But her heart knocked, her nails bit
into wet palms though her tongue was dry and thick, she smelled her
harsh sweat.

Yet when her owner entered, calm crystallized in her. By nature and
training she met crises coolly, and here was the worst since--As far as
she knew, nobody else was aboard but him and his servant. If she could,
somehow, kill them--or hogtie the funny, kindly Shalmuan--maybe before
he took her--

No. Not unless he grew altogether slack; and she sensed alertness
beneath his relaxed manner. He was tall and well built and moved like a
hunting vilya. Handsome too, she admitted to herself; then scorn added
that anybody could be handsome who bought a biosculpture. A loose
lace-trimmed blouse and flowing trousers gathered above sandals matched,
in their sheen of expensive fabric, the knee-length gown she had chosen
out of the wardrobe she found in her quarters.

"Good day, Donna Vymezal," the man said, and bowed.

What to do? She jerked a nod.

"Permit self-introduction," he went on. "Hardly to your surprise, I am
Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Intelligence Corps of his Majesty's Navy."
He gestured at a bench curved around two sides of a table. "Won't you be
seated?"

She stood her ground.

Flandry smiled, placed hands on hips, and drawled: "Please listen. I
have no intention of compelling you. None. Not that you don't inspire
certain daydreams, Donna. And not that I couldn't make you like it.
Drugs, you know. But vanity forbids. I've never needed force or
pharmacopoeia, even on those few young ladies I had occasion to buy in
the past. Have you noticed your cabin door locks on the inside?"

Strength went from Kossara. She stumbled backward, fell to the bench,
rested head in hands while whirling and darkness passed through her.

Presently she grew aware that Flandry stood above. His fingers kneaded
her neck and shoulders. As she looked up, he stroked her hair. She
gasped and drew aside.

He stepped back. "No offense, Donna." Sternly: "See here, we've a bundle
to discuss, none of it very amusing. Do you want a stim pill--or what,
to make you operational?"

She shook her head. After two tries, she husked forth, "Nothing, thank
you. I am all right now."

"Drink? The liquor cabinet is reasonably well stocked. I'm for Scotch."

"Nothing," she whispered, dreading in spite of his words what might be
in a glass he gave her.

He seemed to guess that, for he said, "You'll have to take from my
galley in due course if not sooner. We've a long trip ahead of us."

"What? ... Well, a little wine, please."

He got busy, while she worked to loosen muscles and nerves. When he sat
down, not too close, she could meet his eyes. She declined the cigarette
he offered, but the claret was marvelous. He streamed smoke from his
nostrils before saying, deliberately:

"You might recollect who else was bidding on you." She felt her face
blaze. "And I didn't spend quite a lot of beer money out of chivalry.
Your virtue is safe as long as you want it to be--while I'm your owner.
But I need your cooperation in some rather larger matters. Understood?"

She gulped. "If I can ... help you, sir--"

"In exchange for manumission and a ticket to Dennitza? Maybe. I haven't
the legal right to free you, seeing what you were convicted of. I'd have
to petition for a decree. Or I could simply order you to go back where
you came from and enjoy yourself." He saw her glance fall to the slave
bracelet. "Yes, now we're clear of Terra, I'm permitted to take that off
you. But I haven't a key for it, and my tools would damage it, which'd
put us through a certain amount of bureaucratic rain dance if we return
there. Never mind. Beyond range of the comnet, it's inert." Flandry
grinned. "If I were indeed a monster of lust, rather than a staid and
hardworking monster, I'd still have taken you into space before
commencing. The idea of an audience at any arbitrary time doesn't
appeal. Let them invent their own techniques."

Loathing tightened Kossara's throat. "The Terran way of life."

Flandry regarded her quizzically. "You don't have a high opinion of the
Empire, do you?"

"I hate it. I would die--be tortured--yes, go into a brothel, if I could
pull the rotten thing down around me." Kossara tossed off her wine.

Flandry refilled the glass. "Better be less outspoken," he advised. "I
don't mind, but various of my fellow Imperialists might."

She stared. The real horror of her situation shocked home. "Where are we
bound?"

"Diomedes, for openers at any rate." He nodded. "Yes, I'm investigating
what went on, what is going on, whether it threatens the Empire, and how
to prevent same."

Kossara rallied. "You have the records of my ... arrest and
interrogation, then," she said fast. "I have no further information.
Less, actually, because the hypnoprobe blanked out related memories,
including those from Dennitza. What's left is bits, blurry and jumbled
together, like barely remembered dreams. So how can I help
you--supposing I wanted to?"

"Oh, background and such." Flandry's tone was casual. "Give me the rest
of your biography. Explain what your people have against the Imperium.
I'll listen. Who knows, you may convert me. I won't hurry you. There's
an unsanctified amount of information pumped into the data banks aboard,
which I need to study en route. And we've time. Seventeen standard days
to destination."

"No more?" In spite of everything, astonishment touched her.

"This boat has legs, albeit not as well turned as yours. Do ease off,
Donna. Your culture has a soldierly orientation, right? Consider me your
honorable enemy, if nothing else, and the pair of us conducting a
parley."

She found little to say. He talked for two, mostly appealing to her
xenological interests with tales of sophonts he had met. All were
fascinating. A few eventually made her laugh.

Books, musical pieces, shows were available by the thousands, in
playback or printout. Kossara grew restless anyhow. Flandry had
withdrawn immediately after the first breakfast of the voyage (following
a nightwatch wherein she slept unexpectedly well) to concentrate on his
briefing material. Interstellar space, seen in the optical-compensating
screens, was utter splendor; but however fast the Hooligan drove, those
immensities changed too slowly for perception. She exercised, prowled
around, tried out different hobby kits, at last sought Chives. He was in
the galley fixing lunch. "Can I help you?" she offered.

"I regret not, Donna," the Shalmuan answered. "While I have no wish to
deprecate your culinary gifts, you can see that Sir Dominic does not
willingly trust this excellent chef-machine to prepare his meals, let
alone comparative strangers."

She stared at the open-faced sandwiches growing beneath his fingers.
Anchovies and pimientos lay across slices of hard-boiled egg on
fresh-made mayonnaise, caviar and lemon peel complemented pate de foie
gras, cucumber and alfalfa sprouts revitalized cheddar cheese in the
dignity of its age ... "No, I couldn't do that," she admitted. "You must
be a genius."

"Thank you, Donna. I endeavor to give satisfaction. Although, in candor,
Sir Dominic provided my initial training and the impetus to develop
further."

Kossara drew a long breath. A chance to learn about him? "You were his
slave, you said. How did that happen, if I may ask?"

Chives spoke imperturbably, never breaking the rhythm of his work. "My
planet of origin has no technologically advanced society, Donna. His
late Majesty Josip appointed a sector governor who organized a slave
trade in my people, chiefly selling to the barbarians beyond the limes.
The charges against those captured for this purpose were, shall we say,
arguable; but no one argued. When that governor met with misfortune, his
successor attempted to right matters. However, this was impossible. Not
even victims still within the Empire could be traced, across thousands
of worlds. Sir Dominic merely chanced upon me in a provincial market.

"I was not prepossessing, Donna. My owner had put me up for sale because
he doubted I could survive more labor in his mercury mine. Sir Dominic
did not buy me. He instigated a game of poker which lasted several days
and left him in possession of mine and workers alike."

Chives clicked his tongue. "My former master alleged cheating. Most
discourteous of him, especially compared to Sir Dominic's urbanity in
inviting him out. The funeral was well attended by the miners. Sir
Dominic arranged for their repatriation, but kept me since this was far
from Shalmu and, besides, I required a long course of chelating drugs to
cleanse my system. Meanwhile he employed me in his service. I soon
decided I had no wish to return to a society of ... natives ... and
strove to make myself valuable to him."

Head cocked, chin in hand, tail switching, Chives studied the lunch
layout. "Yes, I believe this will suffice. Akvavit and beer for
beverages, needless to say. Since you wish occupation, Donna, you may
assist me in setting the table."

She scarcely heard. "Maze, if he's a decent man," she blurted, "how can
he work for an Empire that lets things like, like your case happen?"

"I have oftener heard Sir Dominic described in such terms as--ah--for
example, a slightly overexcited gentleman once called him a
cream-stealing tomcat with his conscience in his balls, if you will
pardon the expression, Donna. The fact is, he did cheat in that poker
game. But as for the Empire, like the proverbial centenarian I suggest
you consider the alternative. You will find tableware in yonder
cabinet."

Kossara bit her lip and took the hint.

"To the best of my admittedly circumscribed knowledge," Chives said
after silver, china, and glass (not vitryl) stood agleam upon snowy
linen, "your folk have, on the whole, benefited from the Empire. Perhaps
I am misinformed. Would you care to summarize the history for me while
the spiced meatballs are heating?"

His slim emerald form squatted down on the deck. Kossara took a bench,
stared at her fists resting knotted on her lap, and said dully:

"I don't suppose the details, six hundred years of man on Dennitza,
would interest anybody else. That is how long since Yovan Matavuly led
the pioneers there. They were like other emigrant groups at the time,
hoping not alone for opportunity, room to breathe, but to save
traditions, customs, language, race--ethnos, identity, their souls if
you like--everything they saw being swallowed up. They weren't many, nor
had the means to buy much equipment. And Dennitza ... well, there are
always problems in settling a new planet, physical environment,
biochemistry, countless unknowns and surprises that can be lethal--but
Dennitza was particularly hard. It's in an ice age. The habitable areas
are limited. And in those days it was far from any trade routes, had
nothing really to attract merchants of the League--"

Speaking of the ancestors heartened her. She raised head and voice.
"They didn't fall back to barbarism, no, no. But they did, for
generations, have to put aside sophisticated technology. They lacked the
capital, you see. Clan systems developed; feuding, I must admit; a
spirit of local independence. The barons looked after their own. That
social structure persisted when industrialism began, and affected it."
Quickly: "Don't think we were ever ignorant yokels. The
Shkola--university and research centrum--is nearly as old as the colony.
The toughest backwoodsman respects learning as much as he does
marksmanship or battle bravery."

"Do you not have a Merseian element in the population?" Chives asked.

"Yes. Merseian-descended, that is, from about four hundred years ago.
You probably know Merseia itself was starting to modernize and move into
space then, under fearful handicaps because of that supernova nearby and
because of the multi-cornered struggle for power between Vachs,
Gethfennu, and separate nations. The young Dennitzan industries needed
labor. They welcomed strong, able, well-behaved displaced persons."

"Do such constitute a large part of your citizenry, Donna?"

"About ten percent of our thirty million. And twice as many human
Dennitzans live outsystem; since our industry and trade got well
underway, we've been everywhere in that part of space. So what is this
nonsense I hear about us being Merseian-infiltrated?"

Yet we might be happier in the Roidhunate, Kossara added.

Chives recalled her: "I have heard mention of the Gospodar. Does my lady
care to define his functions? Is he like a king?"

"M-m-m, what do you mean by 'king'? The Gospodar is elected out of the
Miyatovich family by the plemichi, the clan heads and barons. He has
supreme executive authority for life or good behavior, subject to the
Grand Court ruling on the constitutionality of what he does. A Court
verdict can be reversed by the Skuptshtina--Parliament, I suppose you
would say, though it has three chambers, for plemichi, commons, and
ychani ... zmayi ... our nonhumans. Domestic government is mainly left
to the different okruzhi--baronies? prefectures?--which vary a lot. The
head of one of those may inherit office, or may be chosen by the
resident clans, or may be appointed by the Gospodar, depending on
ancient usage. He--such a nachalnik, I mean--he generally lets townships
and rural districts tend their own affairs through locally elected
councillors."

"The, ah, ychani are organized otherwise, I take it."

Kossara gave Chives a look of heightened respect. "Yes. Strictly by
clans--or better say Vachs--subject only to planetary law unless there's
some special fealty arrangement. And while you can find them anywhere on
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 characters 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
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. Depending 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 is 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
made forest. Wings cruised on high, maybe upbearing brains that thought,
maybe simple beasts of prey. Faint through the hull sounded a yowl of
wind.

"Very well," Kossara said grimly. "I'll ask the question you want me to
ask. Why are we here? Aren't you supposed to report in at Thursday
Landing?"

"I exercised a special dispensation I have," Flandry said. "The
Residency doesn't yet know we've come. In fact, unless my right hand has
lost its cunning, nobody does."

At least I get a human startlement out of her. He liked seeing
expressions cross her face, like clouds and sunbeams on a gusty spring
day. "You see," he explained, "if subversive activities are going on,
there's bound to be a spy or two around Imperial headquarters. News of
your return would be just about impossible to suppress. And since you're
in the custody of a Naval officer, it'd alarm the outfit we're after.

"Whereas, if you suddenly reappear by yourself, right in this hotspot,
you'll surprise them. They won't have time to get suspicious, I trust.
They'll make you welcome--"

"Why should they?" Kossara interrupted. "They'll wonder how I got back."

"Ah, no. Because they won't know you were ever gone."

She stared. Flandry explained: "Your companions died. If rebel observers
learned that you lived, they learned nothing else. No matter how
idiotically my colleagues behaved toward you, I'm sure they followed
doctrine and let out no further information. You vanished into their
building, and that was that. You were brought from there to the
spaceship in a sealed vehicle, weren't you? ... Yes, I knew it ... The
Corpsmen had no reason to announce you'd been condemned and deported,
therefore they did not.

"Accordingly, the rest of the gang--human if any are left on Diomedes,
and most certainly a lot of natives--have no reason to suppose you
haven't just been held incommunicado. In fact, that would be a much more
logical thing to do than shipping you off to Terra for purchase by any
blabbermouth."

She frowned, less in dislike of him than from being caught up,
willy-nilly, by the intellectual problem which his planned deception
presented. "But wasn't it a special team that caught and, and processed
me? They may well have left the planet by now."

"If so, you can say they gave you in charge of the Intelligence agents
stationed here semi-permanently. In fact, that's the safest thing for
you to maintain in any event, and quite plausible. We'll work out a
detailed story for you. I have an outline already, subject to your
criticism. You wheedled a measure of freedom for yourself. That's
plausible too, if you don't mind pretending you became the mistress of a
bored, lonely commander. At last you managed to steal an aircar. I can
supply that; we have two in the hold, one a standard civilian
convertible we can set for Diomedean conditions. You fled back here,
having enough memories left to know this is where your chances are best
of being found by your organization."

She tensed again, and stretched the words out: "What will you do
meanwhile?"

Flandry shrugged. "Not having had your preventive-medical treatment, I'm
limited in my scope. Let's consult. Tentatively, I've considered making
an appearance in a persona I've used before, a harmlessly mad
Cosmenosist missionary prospecting for customers on yet another globe.
However, I may do best to stay put aboard ship, following your
adventures till the time looks ripe for whatever sort of action seems
indicated."

Her starkness deepened. "How will you keep track of me?"

From his pocket Flandry took a ring. On its gold band sparkled what
resembled a sapphire. "Wear this. If anybody asks, say you got it from
your jailer-lover. It's actually a portable transmitter, same as your
bracelet was on Terra but with its own power source."

"That little bit of a thing?" She sounded incredulous. "Needing no
electronic network around? Reaching beyond line-of-sight? And not
detectable by those I spy on?"

Flandry nodded. "It has all those admirable qualities."

"I can't believe that."

"I'm not at liberty to describe the principle. Anyway, nobody ever told
me. I've indulged in idle speculations about modulated neutrino
emission, but they're doubtless wildly wrong. What I do know is that the
thing works." Flandry paused. "Kossara, I'm sorry, but under any
circumstances ... before I can release you, before I can even land you
again on a prime world like Terra, you'll have to have wiped from your
memory the fact that such gadgets exist. The job will be painless and
very carefully done."

He held out the ring. She half reached for it, withdrew her hand,
flickered her glance about till it came to rest on his, and asked most
softly: "Why do you think I'll help you?"

"To earn your liberty," he answered. Each sentence wrenched at him.
"Defect, and you're outlaw. What chance would you have of getting home?
The orbital watch, the surface hunt would be doubled. If you weren't
caught, you'd starve to death after you used up your human-type food.

"And consider Dennitza. Your kin, your friends, small children in the
millions, the past and present and future of your whole world. Should
they be set at stake, in an era of planet-smasher weapons, for a
political point at best, the vainglory of a few aristocrats at worst?
You know better, Kossara."

She stood still for a long while before she took the ring from him and
put it on her bridal finger.

"Given the support of a dense atmosphere," said a text, "the evolution
of large flying organisms was profuse. At last a particular species
became fully intelligent.

"Typical of higher animals on Diomedes, it was migratory. Homeothermic,
bisexual, viviparous, it originally followed the same reproductive
pattern as its less developed cousins, and in most cultures still does.
In fall a flock moves to the tropics, where it spends the winter. The
exertion during so long a flight causes hormonal changes which stimulate
the gonads. Upon arrival, there is an orgy of mating. In spring the
flock returns home. Females give birth shortly before the next
migration, and infants are carried by their parents. Mothers lactate
like Terran mammals, and while they do, will not get pregnant. In their
second year the young can fly independently, they have been weaned,
their mothers are again ready to breed.

"This round formed the basis of a civilization centered on the islands
around the Sea of Achan. The natives built towns, which they left every
fall and reentered every spring. Here they carried on sedentary
occupations, stoneworking, ceramics, carpentry, a limited amount of
agriculture. The real foundation of their economy was, however, herding
and hunting. Except for necessary spurts of activity, in their homelands
they were an easygoing folk, indolent, artistic, ceremonious,
matrilineal--since paternity was never certain--and loosely organized
into what they called the Great Flock of Lannach.

"But elsewhere a different practice developed. Dwelling on large
oceangoing rafts, fishers and seaweed harvesters, the Fleet of Drak'ho
ceased migrating. Oars, sails, nets, windlasses, construction and
maintenance work kept the body constantly exercised; year-round
sexuality, season-free reproduction, was a direct consequence.
Patriarchal monogamy ensued. The distances traveled annually were much
less than for the Flock, and home was always nearby. It was possible to
accumulate heavy paraphernalia, stores, machines, books. While
civilization thus became more wealthy and complex than anywhere ashore,
the old democratic organization gave way to authoritarian aristocracy.

"Histories roughly parallel to these have taken place elsewhere on the
globe. But Lannach and Drak'ho remain the most advanced, populous,
materially well-off representatives of these two strongly contrasted
life-orderings. When they first made contact, they regarded each other
with mutual horror. A measure of tolerance and cooperation evolved,
encouraged by offplanet traders who naturally preferred peaceful
conditions. Yet rivalry persisted, sporadically flaring into war, and of
late has gained new dimensions.

"At the heart of the dilemma is this: that Lannachska culture cannot
assimilate high-energy technology, in any important measure, and
survive.

"The Drak'ho people have their difficulties, but no impossible choices.
Few of them today are sailors. However, fixed abodes ashore are not
altogether different from houses on rafts aforetime. Regular hours of
work are a tradition, labor is still considered honorable, mechanical
skills and a generally technophilic attitude are in the social
atmosphere which members inhale from birth. Though machinery has lifted
off most Drak'hoans the toil that once gave them a humanlike libido,
they maintain it by systematic exercise (or, in increasingly many cases,
by drugs), since the nuclear family continues to be the building block
of their civilization.

"As producers, merchants, engineers, industrialists, even occasional
spacefarers, they flourish, and are on the whole well content.

"But the cosmos of Lannach is crumbling. Either the Great Flock must
remain primitive, poor, powerless, prey to storm and famine, pirates and
pestilence, or it must modernize--with all that that implies, including
earning the cost of the capital goods required. How shall a folk do this
who spend half their lives migrating, mating, or living off nature's
summertime bounty? Yet not only is their whole polity founded upon that
immemorial cycle. Religion, morality, tradition, identity itself are.
Imagine a group of humans, long resident in an unchanged part of Terra,
devout churchgoers, for whom the price of progress was that they destroy
every relic of the past, embrace atheism, and become homosexuals who
reproduce by ectogenesis. For many if not all Lannachska, the situation
is nearly that extreme.

"In endless variations around the planet, the same dream is being
played. But precisely because the Great Flock has changed more than
other nations of its kind, it feels the hurt most keenly, is most
divided against itself and embittered vat the outside universe.

"No wonder if revolutionary solutions are sought. Economic, social,
spiritual secession, a return to the ways of the ancestors; shouts of
protest against 'discrimination,' demands for 'justice,' help, subsidy,
special consideration of every kind; political secession, no more taxes
to the planetary peace authority or the Imperium; seizure of power over
the whole sphere, establishment of a sovereign autarky--these are among
the less unreasonable ideas afloat.

"There is also Alatanism. The Ythrians, not terribly far away as
interstellar distances go, have wings. They should sympathize with their
fellow flyers on Diomedes more than any biped ever can. They have their
Domain, free alike of Empire and Roidhunate, equally foreign to both.
Might it not, are its duty and destiny not to welcome Diomedes in?

"The fact that few Ythrian leaders have even heard of Diomedes, and none
show the least interest in crusading, is ignored. Mystiques seldom
respond to facts. They are instruments which can be played on ... "

Twice had the sun come from the mountains and returned behind them.

"Goodbye, then," Kossara said.

Flandry could find no better words than "Goodbye. Good luck," hoarse out
of the grip upon his gullet.

She regarded him for a moment, in the entryroom where they stood. "I do
believe you mean that," she whispered.

Abruptly she kissed him, a brief brush of lips which exploded in his
heart. She drew back before he could respond. During another instant she
poised, upon her face a look of bewilderment at her own action.

Turning, she twisted the handle on the inner airlock valve. He took a
following step. "No," she said. "You can't live out there, remember?"
Her body prepared before she left Dennitza, she closed the portal on
him. He stopped where he was. Pumps chugged until gauges told him the
chamber beyond was now full of Diomedean air.

The outer valve opened. He bent over a viewscreen. Kossara's tiny image
stepped forth onto the mountainside. A car awaited her. She bounded into
it and shut its door. A minute later, it rose.

Flandry sought the control cabin, where were the terminals of his most
powerful and sensitive devices. The car had vanished above clouds.
"Pip-ho, Chives," he said tonelessly. A hatch swung wide. His Number Two
atmospheric vehicle glided from the hold. It looked little different
from the first, its engine, weapons, and special equipment being
concealed in the teardrop fuselage. It disappeared more slowly, for the
Shalmuan pilot wanted to stay unseen by the woman whom he stalked. But
at last Flandry sat alone.

She promised she'd help me. What an inexperienced liar she is.

He felt no surprise when, after a few minutes, Chives' voice jumped at
him: "Sir! She is descending ... She has landed in the forest beside a
river. I am observing through a haze by means of an infrared 'scope. Do
you wish a relay?"

"Not from that," Flandry said. Too small, too blurry. "From her
bracelet."

A screen blossomed in leaves and hasty brown water. Her right hand
entered. Off the left, which he could not see, she plucked the ring,
which he glimpsed before she tossed it into the stream.

"She is running for cover beneath the trees, sir," Chives reported.

Of course, replied the emptiness in Flandry. She thinks that, via the
ring, I've seen what she's just done, in the teeth of every pledge she
gave me. She thinks that now, if she moves fast, she can vanish into the
woods--make her own way afoot, find her people and not betray them, or
else die striving.

Whereas in fact the ring was only intended to lull any fears of
surveillance she might have after getting rid of it--only a circlet on
her bridal finger--and Chives has a radio resonator along to activate
her bracelet--the slave bracelet I told her would be blind and deaf
outside of Terra.

"I do not recommend that I remain airborne, sir," Chives said. "Allow me
to suggest that, as soon as the young lady has passed beyond observing
me, I land likewise and follow her on the ground. I will leave a
low-powered beacon to mark this site. You can flit here by grav-belt and
retrieve the vehicles, sir. Permit me to remind you to wear proper
protection against the unsalubrious ambience."

"Same to you, old egg, and put knobs on yours." Flandry's utterance
shifted from dull to hard. "I'll repeat your orders. Trail her, and call
in to the recorder cum relay 'caster I'll leave here, in whatever way
and at whatever times seem discreet. But 'discretion' is your key word.
If she appears to be in danger, getting her out of it--whether by
bringing me in to help or by taking action yourself--that gets absolute
priority. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." Did the high, not quite human accent bear a hint of shared
pain? "Despite regrettable tactical necessities, Donna Vymezal must
never be considered a mere counter in a game." That's for personnel and
planets, the anonymous billions--and, savingly, for you and me, eh,
Chives? "Will you proceed to the Technic settlement when your
preparations are complete?"

"Yes," Flandry said. "Soon. I may as well."

VII
---

Where the equator crossed the eastern shoreline of a continent men
called Centralia, Thursday Landing was founded. Though fertile by
Diomedean standards, the country had few permanent residents. Rather,
migration brought tides of travelers, northward and southward
alternately, to their ancestral breeding grounds. At first, once the
sharpest edge was off their sexual appetites, they had been glad to hunt
and harvest those things the newcomers wanted from the wilderness, in
exchange for portable trade goods. Later this business grew more
systematized and extensive, especially after a large contingent of
Drak'ho moved to these parts. Descending, Flandry saw a fair-sized town.

Most was man-built, blocky interconnected ferrocrete structures to
preserve a human-suitable environment from monstrous rains and slow but
ponderous winds. He glimpsed a park, vivid green beneath a vitryl dome,
brightened by lamps that imitated Sol. Farther out, widely spaced in
cultivated fields, stood native houses: tall and narrow, multiply
balconied, graceful of line and hue, meant less to resist weather then
to accept it, yielding enough to remain whole. Watercraft, ranging from
boats to floating communities, crowded the harbor as wings did the sky.

Yet Flandry felt bleakness, as if the cold outside had reached in to
enfold him. Beyond the fluorescents, half the world he saw was land,
hills, meadows, dwarfish woods, dim in purple and black twilight, and
half was bloodily glimmering ocean. For the sun stood barely above the
northern horizon, amidst sulfur-colored clouds. At this place and season
there was never true day or honest night.

Are you getting terracentric in your dotage? he gibed at himself. Here's
a perfectly amiable place for beings who belong in it.

His mood would not go away. Nevertheless it does feel unreal somehow, a
scene from a bad dream. The whole mission has been like that. Everything
shadowy, tangled, unstable, nothing what it seems to be ... nor anybody
who doesn't carry secrets within secrets ...

Myself included. He straightened in the pilot chair. Well, that's what
I'm paid for. I suppose these blue devils of mine come mainly from guilt
about Kossara, fear of what may happen to her. O God Who is also unreal,
a mask we put on emptiness, be gentle to her. She has been hurt so much.

Ground Control addressed him, in Anglic though not from a human mouth.
He responded, and set Hooligan down on the spacefield as directed. The
prospect of action heartened him. Since I can't trust the Almighty not
to soldier on the job, let me start my share now.

He had slipped back into space from Lannach, then returned openly. The
sentinel robots detected him, and an officer in a warship demanded
identification before granting clearance, at a distance from the planet
which showed a thoroughness seldom encountered around fifth-rate outpost
worlds. No doubt alarm about prospective rebellion and infiltration had
caused security to be tightened. Without the orbital information he
possessed, not even a vessel as begimmicked as his could have neared
Diomedes unbeknownst.

The image of the portmaster appeared in a comscreen. "Welcome, sir," he
said. "Am I correct that you are alone? The Imperial resident has been
notified of your coming and invites you to be his house guest during
your stay. If you will tell me where your accommodation lock
is--frankly, I have never seen a model quite like yours--a car will be
there for you in a few minutes."

He was an autochthon, a handsome creature by any standards. The size of
a short man, he stood on backward-bending, talon-footed legs.
Brown-furred, the slim body ran out in a broad tail which ended in a
fleshy rudder; at its middle, arms and hands were curiously anthropoid;
above a massive chest, a long neck bore a round head--high, ridged brow,
golden eyes with nictitating membranes, blunt-nosed black-muzzled face
with fangs and whiskers suggestive of a cat, no external ears but a
crest of muscle on top of the skull. From his upper shoulders grew the
bat wings, their six-meter span now folded. He wore a belt to support a
pouch, a brassard of authority, and, yes, a crucifix.

I'd better stay in character from the beginning. "Many thanks, my dear
chap," Flandry replied in his most affected manner. "I say, could you
tell the chauffeur to come aboard and fetch my bags? Deuced lot of
duffel on these extended trips, don't y' know." He saw the crest rise
and a ripple pass along the fur, perhaps from irritation at his rudeness
in not asking the portmaster's name.

The driver obeyed, though. He was a husky young civilian who bowed at
sight of Flandry's gaudy version of dress uniform. "Captain Ahab
Whaling?"

"Right." Flandry often ransacked ancient books. He had documentation
aboard for several different aliases. Why risk alerting someone? The
more everybody underestimated him, the better. Since he wanted to pump
his fellow, he added, "Ah, you are--"

"Diego Rostovsky, sir, handyman to Distinguished Citizen Lagard. You
mentioned baggage? ... Jumping comets, that much? ... Well, they'll have
room at the Residency."

"Nobody else staying there, what?"

"Not at the moment. We had a bunch for some while, till about a month
ago. But I daresay you know that already, seeing as how you're
Intelligence yourself." Rostovsky's glance at the eye insigne on
Flandry's breast indicated doubt about the metaphorical truth of it.

However, curiosity kept him friendly. When airlocks had decoupled and
the groundcar was moving along the road to town, he explained: "We don't
fly unnecessarily. This atmosphere plays too many tricks ... Uh, they'll
be glad to meet you at the Residency. Those officers I mentioned were
too busy to be very good company, except for--" He broke off. "Um. And,
since they left, the isolation and tension ... My master and his staff
have plenty to keep them occupied, but Donna Lagard always sees the same
people, servants, guards, commercial personnel and their families. She's
Terran-reared. She'll be happy for news and gossip."

And you judge me the type to furnish them, Flandry knew. Excellent. His
gaze drifted through the canopy, out over somber fields and tenebrous
heaven. But who was that exception whom you are obviously under orders
not to mention?

"Yes, I imagine things are a bit strained," he said. "Though really, you
need have no personal fears, need you? I mean, after all, if some of the
tribes revolted, an infernal nuisance, 'speci'lly for trade, but surely
Thursday Landing can hold out against primitives."

"They aren't exactly that," was the answer. "They have industrial
capabilities, and they do business directly with societies still further
developed. We've good reason to believe a great many weapons are stashed
around, tactical nukes among them. Oh, doubtless we could fend off an
attack and stand siege. The garrison and defenses have been augmented.
But trade would go completely to pieces--it wouldn't take many rebels to
interdict traffic--which'd hurt the economy of more planets than
Diomedes ... And then, if outsiders really have been the, uh, the--"

"Agents provocateurs," Flandry supplied. "Or instigators, if y' prefer.
Either way; I don't mind."

Rostovsky scowled. "Well, what might their bosses do?"

Martin Lagard was a small prim man in a large prim office. When he
spoke, in Anglic still tinged by his Atheian childhood, both his goatee
and the tip of his nose waggled. His tunic was of rich material but
unfashionable cut, and he had done nothing about partial baldness.

Blinking across his desk at Flandry, who lounged behind a cigarette, the
Imperial resident said in a scratchy voice, "Well, Fm pleased to make
your acquaintance, Captain Whaling, but frankly puzzled as to what may
be the nature of your assignment. No courier brought me any advance
word." He sounded hurt.

I'd better soothe him. Flandry had met his kind by the scores, career
administrators, conscientious but rule-bound and inclined to
self-importance. Innovators, or philosophers like Chunderban Desai, were
rare in that service, distrusted by their fellows, destined either for
greatness or for ruin. Lagard had advanced methodically, by the book,
toward an eventual pension.

He was uncreative but not stupid, a vital cog of empire. How could a
planetful of diverse nonhumans be closely governed by Terra, and why
should it be? Lagard was here to assist Imperials in their businesses
and their problems; to oversee continuous collection of information
about this world and put it in proper form to feed the insatiable data
banks at Home; to collect from the natives a modest tribute which paid
for their share of the Pax; to give their leaders advice as occasion
warranted, and not use his marines to see that they followed it unless
he absolutely must; to speak on their behalf to those officials of the
Crown with whom he dealt; to cope.

He had not done badly. It was not his fault that demons haunted the
planet which were beyond his capability of exorcising, and might yet
take possession of it.

"No, sir, they wouldn't give notice. Seldom do. Abominably poor manners,
but that's policy for you, what?" Flandry nodded at his credentials,
where they lay on the desk. " 'Fraid I can't be too explicit either.
Let's say I'm on a special tour of inspection."

Lagard gave him a close look. Flandry could guess the resident's
thought: Was this drawling clothes horse really an Intelligence officer
at work, or a pet relative put through a few motions to justify making
an admiral of him? "I will cooperate as far as possible, Captain."

"Thanks. Knew y' would. See here, d'you mind if I bore you for a few
ticks? Mean to say, I'd like to diagram the situation as I see it. You
correct me where I'm wrong, fill in any gaps, that kind of thing, eh?
You know how hard it is to get any proper overview of matters. And then,
distances between stars, news stale before it arrives, n'est-ce pas?"

"Proceed," Lagard said resignedly.

Flandry discarded his cigarette, crossed legs and bridged fingers. No
grav generator softened the pull of Diomedes. He let his added weight
flow into the chair's crannies of softness, as if already wearied. (In
actuality he did his calisthenics under two gees or more, because thus
he shortened the dreary daily time he needed for keeping fit.)
"Troublemakers afoot," he said. "Distinct possibility of hostiles taking
advantage of the disorganization left by the recent
unpleasantness--whether those hostiles be Merseian, Ythrian, barbarian,
Imperials who want to break away or even overthrow his Majesty--right?
You got hints, various of those troublemakers were active here, fanning
flames of discontent and all that sort of nonsense. How'd they get past
your security?"

"Not my security, Captain," Lagard corrected. "I've barely had this post
five years. I found the sentinel system in wretched
condition--expectable, after the Empire's woes--and did my best to
effect repairs. I also found our civil strife was doing much to heighten
resentment, particularly in the Great Flock of Lannach. It disrupted
offplanet commerce, you see. The migrant societies have become more
dependent on that than the sedentary ones like Drak'ho which have
industry to produce most of what they consume. But please realize, a new
man on a strange world needs time to learn its ins and outs, and develop
workable programs."

"Oh, quite." Flandry nodded. "At first you'd see no reason to screen
visitors from space. Rather, you'd welcome 'em. They might help restore
trade, what? Very natural. No discredit to you. At last, however, clues
started trickling in. Not every transient was spending his stay in the
outback so benignly. Right?

"You asked my Corps to investigate. That likewise takes time. We too
can't come cold onto a planet and hope for instant results, y' know. Ah,
according to my briefing, it was sector HQ you approached. Terra just
got your regular reports."

"Of course," Lagard said. "Going through there would have meant a delay
of months."

"Right, right. No criticism intended, sir," Flandry assured him. "Still,
we do like to keep tabs at Home. That's what I'm here for, to find out
what was done, in more detail than the official report"--which was
almighty sketchy--"could render. Or, you could say, my superiors want a
feel of how the operation went."

Lagard gave the least shrug.

"Well, then," Flandry proceeded. "The report does say a Commander Bruno
Maspes brought an Intelligence team, set up shop in Thursday Landing,
and got busy interrogating, collating data, sending people out into the
field--the usual intensive job. They worked how long?"

"About six months."

"Did you see much of them?"

"No. They were always occupied, often all away from here at once,
sometimes away from the whole system. Personnel of theirs came and went.
Even those who were my guests--" Lagard stopped. "You'll forgive me,
Captain, but I'm under security myself. My entire household is. We've
been forbidden to reveal certain items. This clearance of yours does not
give you power to override that."

Ah-ha. It tingled in Flandry's veins. His muscles stayed relaxed. "Yes,
yes. Perfectly proper. You and yours were bound to spot details--f'r
instance, a xenosophont with odd talents--" Look at his face! Again,
ah-ha.--"which ought not be babbled about. Never fret, I shan't pry.

"In essence, the team discovered it wasn't humans of Ythrian allegiance
who were inciting to rebellion and giving technical advice about same.
It was humans from Dennitza."

"So I was told," Lagard said.

"Ah ... during this period, didn't you entertain a Dennitzan scientist?"

"Yes. She and her companion soon left for the Sea of Achan, against my
warnings. Later I was informed that they turned out to be subversives
themselves." Lagard sighed. "Pity. She was a delightful person, in her
intense fashion."

"Any idea what became of her?"

"She was captured. I assume she's still detained."

"Here?"

"Seems unlikely. Maspes and his team left weeks ago. Why leave her
behind?"

What would I have done if they were around yet? Flandry wondered
fleetingly. Played that hand in style, I trust. "They might have decided
that was the easiest way to keep the affair under wraps for a bit," he
suggested.

"The Intelligence personnel now on Diomedes are simply those few who've
been stationed among us for years. I think I'd know if they were hiding
anything from me. You're free to talk to them, Captain, but better not
expect much."

"Hm." Flandry stroked his mustache. "I s'pose, then, Maspes felt he'd
cleaned out the traitors?"

"He said he had a new, more urgent task elsewhere. Doubtless a majority
of agents escaped his net, and native sympathizers may well keep any
humans among them fed. But, he claimed, if we monitor space traffic
carefully, they shouldn't rouse more unrest than we can handle. I hope
he was right."

"You're trying to defuse local conflicts, eh?"

"What else?" Lagard sounded impatient. "My staff and I, in consultation
with loyal Diomedeans, are hard at work. A fair shake for the migrants
is not impossible to achieve, if the damned extremists will let us
alone. I'm afraid I'll be a poor host, Captain. Day after
tomorrow--Terran, that is--I'm off for Lannach, to lay certain proposals
before the Commander of the Great Flock and his councillors. They feel a
telescreen is too impersonal."

Flandry smiled. "Don't apologize, sir. I'll be quite happy. And, I
suspect, only on this planet a few days anyhow, before bouncing on to
the next You and Maspes seem offhand to've put on a jolly good show."

Gratified, visions of bonuses presumably dancing through his head, the
resident beamed at him. "Thank you. I'll introduce you around tomorrow,
and you can question or look through the files as you wish, within the
limits of security I mentioned. But first I'm sure you'd like to rest. A
servant will show you to your room. We'll have aperitifs in half an
hour. My wife is eager to meet you."

VIII
----

At dinner Flandry laid on the wit and sophistication he had
preprogrammed, until over the liqueurs Susette Kalehua Lagard sighed,
"Oh, my, Captain Whaling, how marvelous you're here! Nobody like you has
visited us for ages--they've all been provincials, or if not, they've
been so ghastly serious, no sensitivity in them either, except a single
one and he wasn't human--Oh!" Her husband had frowned and nudged her.
She raised fingers to lips. "No, that was naughty of me. Please forget I
said it."

Flandry bowed in his chair. "Impractical, I fear, Donna. How could I
forget anything spoken by you? But I'll set the words aside in my mind
and enjoy remembering the music." Meanwhile alertness went electric
through him. This warm, well-furnished, softly lighted room, where a
recorded violin sang and from which a butler had just removed the dishes
of an admirable rubyfruit souffle, was a very frail bubble to huddle in.
He rolled curacao across his tongue and reached for a cigarette.

She fluttered her lashes. "You're a darling." She had had a good bit to
drink. "Isn't he, Martin? Must you really leave us in less than a week?"

Flandry shrugged. "Looks as if Distinguished Citizen Lagard hasn't left
me much excuse to linger, alas."

"Maybe we can find something. I mean, you can exercise judgment in your
mission, can't you? They wouldn't send a man like you out and keep a
leash on him."

"We'll see, Donna." He gave a look of precisely gauged meaningfulness.
She returned it in kind. The wine had not affected her control in that
respect.

His inner excitement became half sardonicism, half a moderately
interested anticipation. She was attractive in a buxom fashion, to which
her low-cut shimmerlyn gown lent an emphasis that would have raised
brows at today's Imperial court--the court she had never seen. Jewels
glinted in black hair piled about a round brown countenance. Vivacity
had increased in her throughout the meal, till her conversation sounded
less platitudinous than it was.

Flandry knew her as he knew her husband, from uncounted encounters: the
spouse of an official posted to a distant world of nonhumans.
Occasionally such a pair made a team. But oftener the member who did not
have the assignment was left to the dismal mercies of a tiny Imperial
community, the same homes, bodies, words, games, petty intrigues and
catfights for year after year. He or she might develop an interest in
the natives, get into adventures and fascinations, even contribute a
xenological study or a literary translation. Lady Susette lacked the
gift for that. Since she had had no children when she arrived, there
would be none for the rest of Lagard's ten-year hitch. The immunizations
which let her walk freely outdoors on Diomedes were too deep-going for
her organism to accept an embryo, and it would be too dangerous to have
them reversed before she departed. What then was Susette Kalehua Lagard,
daughter of prosperous and socially prominent Terrans, to do while she
waited?

She could terminate the marriage. But a man who had gotten resident's
rank was a fine catch. He could expect a subsequent commissionership on
a prime human-colonized planet like Hermes, where plenty of glamour was
available; in due course, he should become a functionary of some small
importance on Terra itself, and perhaps receive a minor patent of
nobility. She must feel this was worth her patience. Her eyes told
Flandry she did have a hobby.

"Well, if our time's to be short, let's make it sweet," she said. "May
I--we call you Ahab? We're Susette and Martin."

"I'm honored." Flandry raised his glass in salute. "And refreshed. Folk
on Terra have gotten stiffish these past few years, don't y' know.
Example set by his Majesty and the inner circle."

"Indeed?" Lagard asked. "Nuances don't reach us here. I'd have
thought--with due reverence--the present Emperor would be quite
informal."

"Not in public," Flandry said. "Career Navy man of Germanian background,
after all. I see us generally heading into a puritanical period." Which,
if Desal is right, is not the end of decadence, but rather its next
stage. "Luckily, we've plenty of nooks and crannies for carrying on in
the grand old tradition. In fact, disapproval lends spice, what? I
remember a while ago--"

His risqué reminiscence had happened to somebody else and the event had
lacked several flourishes he supplied. He never let such nigglements
hinder a story. It fetched a sour smile from Lagard but laughter and a
blush down to the decolletage from Susette.

The staff, assistants, clerks, technical chiefs, Navy and marine
personnel, were harried but cooperative, except when Flandry heard:
"Sorry, sir. I'm not allowed to discuss that. If you want information,
please apply at Sector HQ. I'm sure they'll oblige you there."

Yes, they'll oblige me with the same skeleton account that Terra got. I
could make a pest of myself, but I doubt if the secret files have ever
contained any mention of what Tm really after. I could check on the
whereabouts of Commander Maspes & Co., and make a long trip to find
them--no, him, for probably the team's dispersed ... ah, more probably
yet, the files will show orders cut for them similar to those in Captain
Whaling's papers, and the men have vanished ... maybe to bob up again
eventually, maybe never, depending on circumstances.

More deceptions, more phantoms.

He sauntered into the civilian part of town and was quickly on genial
terms with factors and employees. Most of them found their work
stimulating--they liked the Diomedeans--but were starved for new human
contact. And none were under security. The trouble was, there had been
no need for it. They knew a special Intelligence force came to search
out the roots of the unrest which plagued them in then business. They
totally approved, and did not resent not being invited to meet the
investigators save for interviews about what they themselves might know.
None had seen the entire team together; when not in the field, it kept
apart, officers in the Residency, enlisted men in a separate barrack.
Yes, rumor said it included a xeno or two. What of that?

Otherwise the community had only heard Lagard's brief announcement after
the group was gone. " ... I am not at liberty to say more than that
human traitors have been trying to foment a rebellion among the
Lannachska. Fortunately, the vast majority of the Great Flock stayed
loyal and sensible. And now the key agents have been killed or captured.
A few may still be at large, and information you may come upon
concerning these should be reported immediately. But I don't expect they
can do serious harm any longer, and I intend to proceed, with your
cooperation, to remove the causes of discontent ... "

The next Diomedean day, Flandry donned a heated coverall and a dome
helmet with an air recycler, passed through pressure change in a lock,
and circulated among natives in their part of town. Most knew Anglic and
were willing to talk; but none had further news. He wasn't surprised.

Finding a public phone booth, he took the opportunity to call Chives
when nobody who chanced to observe him was likely to wonder what a
solitary operative was doing there. He used a standard channel but a
language he was sure had never been heard on this world. The nearest
comsat bucked his words across the ocean to Lannach where, he having
paid for the service, they were broadcast rather than beamed. The relay
unit he had left under the cliff made contact with the Shalmuan's
portable.

"Yes, sir, at present the young lady is eating rations taken from her
car before she abandoned it. They should last her as far as the sea, for
she is setting a hard pace despite the overgrowth and rugged topography.
I must confess I have difficulty following, since I consider it
inadvisable to go aloft on my gravbelt. I feel a certain concern for her
safety. A fall down a declivity or a sudden tempest could have adverse
effects, and she does not let caution delay her."

"I think she can manage," Flandry said. "In any event, you can rescue
her. What worries me is what may happen after she gets where she's
going. Another twenty-four hours, did you estimate? I'd better try to
act fast myself, here."

Susette didn't wish to lose time either. Three hours after she and
Flandry had seen Lagard off, she was snuggled against him whispering how
wonderful he had been.

"You're no slouch on the couch yourself, mlove," he said, quite
honestly. "More, I hope?"

"Yes. As soon and often as you want. And do please want."

"Well, how about a breather first, and getting acquainted? A girl who
keeps a bedside beer cooler is a girl whose sound mind I want to know as
well as her delectable body." Warm and wudgy, she caressed him while he
leaned over to get bottles for them, and stayed in the circle of his
free arm when they leaned back against the pillows.

Too bad this can't be a simple romp for me, he thought. It deserves
that. And by the way, so do 1. Kossara was making chastity come hard.

He savored the chill brisk flavor while his glance roved about. The
resident's lady had a private suite where, she hinted, the resident was
an infrequent caller. This room of it was plushly carpeted, draped,
furnished, in rose and white. An incense stick joined its fragrance to
her own. A dressing table stood crowded with perfumes and cosmetics. Her
garments sheened above his, hastily tossed over a chair. In that
richness, her souvenirs of Home--pictures, bric-a-brac, a stuffed toy
such as she would have given to a child--seemed as oddly pathetic as the
view in the window was grim. Hail dashed against vitryl, thicker and
harder than ever fell on Terra, picked out athwart blue-black
lightning-jumping violence by an ember sunbeam which stabbed through a
rent in the clouds. Past every insulation and heaviness came a ghost of
the wind's clamor.

Kossara ... Yes, Chives is right to fret about her while she struggles
through yonder wildwood.

Susette stroked his cheek. "Why do you look sad all of a sudden?" she
asked.

"Eh?" He started. "How ridiculous. 'Pensive' is the word, my imp. Well,
perhaps a drop of melancholy, recalling how I'll have to leave you and
doubtless never see you again."

She nodded. "Me too. Though are you sure we won't--we can't?"

If I keep any control over events, yes, absolutely! Not that you aren't
likable; but frankly, in public you're a bore. And what if Kossara found
out?

Why should I care?

Well, she might accept my sporting as such. I get the impression hers is
a double-standard society. But I don't believe she'd forgive my
cuckolding a man whose salt I've eaten. To plead I was far from unique
would get me nowhere. To plead military necessity wouldn't help either;
I think she could see (those wave-colored eyes) that I'd have performed
the same service free and enjoyed every microsecond.

Hm. The problem is not how to keep a peccadillo decently veiled in
hypocrisy. The problem is what to do about the fact that I care whether
or not Kossara Vymezal despises me.

"Can't we?" Susette persisted. "The Empire's big, but people get around
in it."

Flandry pulled his attention back to the task on hand. He hugged her,
smiled into her troubled gaze, and said, "Your idea flatters me beyond
reason. I'd s'posed I was a mere escapade."

She flushed. "I supposed the same. But--well--" Defiantly: "I have
others. I guess I always will, till I'm too old. Martin must suspect,
and not care an awful lot. He's nice to me in a kind of absent-minded
way, but he's overworked, and not young, and--you know what I mean.
Diego, Diego Rostovsky, he's been the best. Except I know him inside out
by now, what there is to know. You come in like a fresh breeze--straight
from Home!--and you can talk about things, and make me laugh and feel
good, and--" She leaned hard on him. Her own spare hand wandered. "I'd
never have thought ... you knew right away what I'd like most. Are you a
telepath?"

No, just experienced and imaginative. Aycharaych is the telepath. "Thank
you for your commendation," Flandry said, and clinked his bottle on
hers.

"Then won't you stay a while extra, Ahab, and return afterward?"

"I must go whither the vagaries of war and politics require, amorita.
And believe me, they can be confoundedly vague." Flandry took a long
drink to gain a minute for assembling his next words. "F'r instance, the
secrecy Commander Maspes laid on you forces me to dash on to Sector HQ
as soon's I've given Diomedes a fairly clean bill of health--which I've
about completed. My task demands certain data, you see. Poor
communications again. Maspes tucked you under a blanket prohibition
because he'd no way of knowing I'd come here, and I didn't get a
clearance to lift it because nobody back Home knew he'd been that
ultracautious." If I produced the Imperial writ I do have, that might
give too much away.

Susette's palm stopped on his breast. "Why, your heart's going like a
hammer," she said.

"You do that to a chap," he answered, put down his bottle and gathered
her to him for an elaborate kiss.

Breathlessly, she asked, "You mean if you had the information you
wouldn't be in such a hurry? You could stay longer?"

"I should jolly well hope so," he said, running fingers through her
hair. "But what's the use?" He grinned. "Never mind. In your presence, I
am not prone to talk shop."

"No, wait." She fended him off, a push which was a caress. "What do you
need to know, Ahab?"

"Why--" He measured out his hesitation. "Something you're not allowed to
tell me."

"But they'd tell you at HQ."

"Oh, yes. This is a miserable technicality."

"All right," Susette said fast. "What is it?"

"You might--" Flandry donned enthusiasm. "Darling! You wouldn't get in
trouble, I swear. No, you'd be expediting the business of the Empire."

She shook her head and giggled. "Uh-uh. Remember, you've got to spend
the time you gain here. Promise?"

"On my honor" as a double agent.

She leaned back again, her beer set aside, hands clasped behind her
neck, enjoying her submission. "Ask me anything."

Flandry faced her, arms wrapped around drawn-up knees. "Mainly, who was
with Maspes? Nonhumans especi'lly. I'd better not spell out the reason.
But consider. No mind can conceive, let alone remember, the planets and
races we've discovered in this tiny offside corner of the solitary
galaxy we've explored a little bit. Infiltration, espionage--such things
have happened before."

She stared. "Wouldn't they check a memory bank?"

Memory banks can have lies put into them, whenever we get a government
many of whose officials can be bought, and later during the confusion of
disputed succession, civil war, and sweeping purges. Those lies can then
wait, never called on and therefore never suspected, till somebody has
need for one of them. "Let's say no system is perfect, 'cept yours for
lovemaking. Terra itself doesn't have a complete, fully updated file.
Regional bitkeepers don't try; and checking back with Terra seldom seems
worth the delay and trouble."

"Gollool" She was more titillated than alarmed. "You mean we might've
had an enemy spy right here?"

"That's what I'm s'posed to find out, sweetling."

"Well, there was only a single xeno on the team." She sighed. "I'd hate
to believe he was enemy. So beautiful a person. You know, I daydreamed
about going to bed with him, though of course I don't imagine that'd
have worked, even if he did look pretty much like a man."

"Who was he? Where from?"

"Uh--his name, Ay ... Aycharaych." She handled the diphthongs better
than the open consonants. "From, uh, he said his planet's called
Chereion. Way off toward Betelgeuse."

Further, Flandry thought amidst a thrumming.

This time he didn't bother to conceal his right name or his very origin.
And why should he? Nobody would check on a duly accredited member of an
Imperial Intelligence force--not that the files in Thursday Landing
would help anyway--and he could read in their minds that none had ever
heard of an obscure world within the Roidhunate--and the secrecy command
would cover his trail as long as he needed, after he'd done his damage
and was gone.

When at last, maybe, the truth came out: why, our people who do know a
little something about Chereion would recognize that was where he glided
from, as soon as they heard his description, regardless of whether he'd
given a false origin or not. He might as well amuse himself by leaving
his legal signature.

Which I'd already begun to think I saw in this whole affair. Dreams and
shadows and flitting ghosts--

"He's about as tall as you are," Susette was saying, "skinny--no, I mean
fine-boned and lean--except for wide shoulders and a kind of jutting
chest. Six fingers to a hand, extra-jointed, ambery nails; but four
claws to a foot and a spur behind, like a sort of bird. And he did say
his race conies from a, uh, an analogue of flightless birds. I can't say
a lot more about his body, because he always wore a long robe, though
usually going barefoot. His face ... well, I'd make him sound ugly if I
spoke about a dome of a brow, big hook nose, thin lips, pointed ears,
and of course all the, the shapes, angles, proportions different from
ours. Actually, he's beautiful. I could've spent days looking into those
huge red-brown whiteless eyes of his, if he'd let me. His skin is deep
gold color. He has no hair anywhere I saw, but a kind of shark-fin crest
on the crown of his head, made from dark-blue feathers, and tiny
feathers for eyebrows. His voice is low and ... pure music."

Flandry nodded. "M-hm. He stayed in your house?"

"Yes. We and the servants were strictly forbidden to mention him
anywhere outside. When he visited the building his team had taken
over--or maybe left town altogether; I can't say--he'd put on boots, a
cowl, a face mask, like he came from someplace where men cover up
everything in public; and walking slow, he could make his gait pass for
human."

"Did you get any hints of what he did?"

"No. They called him a ... consultant." Susette sat upright. "Was he
really a spy?"

"I can identify him," Flandry said, "and the answer is no." Why should
he spy on his own companions--subordinates? And he didn't bring them
here to collect information, except incidentally. Fm pretty sure he came
to kindle a war.

"Oh, I'm glad," Susette exclaimed. "He was such a lovely guest. Even
though I often couldn't follow his conversation. Martin did better, but
he'd get lost too when Aycharaych started talking about art and
history--of Terra! He made me ashamed I was that ignorant about my own
planet. No, not ashamed; really interested, wanting to go right out and
learn if only I knew how. And then he'd talk on my level, like
mentioning little things I'd never much noticed or appreciated, and
getting me to care about them, till this dull place seemed full of
wonder and--"

She subsided. "Have I told you enough?" she asked.

"I may have a few more questions later," Flandry said, "but for now,
yes, I'm through."

She held out her arms. "Oh, no, you're not, you man, you! You've just
begun. C'mere."

Flandry did. But while he embraced her, he was mostly harking back to
the last time he met Aycharaych.

IX
--

{That was four years ago, in the planet-wide winter of eccentrically
orbiting Talwin. Having landed simultaneously from the warships which
brought them hither, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry and his opposite
number, Qanryf Tachwyr the Dark, were received with painstaking
correctness by the two commissioners of their respective races who
administered the joint Merseian-Terran scientific base. After due
ceremony, they expressed a wish to dine privately, that they might
discuss the tasks ahead of them in frankness and at leisure.

The room for this was small, austerely outfitted as the entire outpost
necessarily was. Talwin's system coursed through the Wilderness, that
little-explored buffer zone of stars between Empire and Roidhunate; it
had no attraction for traders; the enterprise got a meager budget. A
table, some chairs and stools, a sideboard, a phone were the whole
furniture, unless you counted the dumbwaiter with sensors and extensible
arms for serving people who might not wish a live attendant while they
talked.

Flandry entered cheerily, 0.88 gee lending bounce to his gait. The
Merseian officer waited, half dinosaurian despite a close-fitting
silver-trimmed black uniform, bold against snowfields, frozen river, and
shrunken sun in crystalline sky which filled a wall transparency behind
him.

"Well, you old rascal, how are you?" The man held forth his hand in
Terran wise. Tachwyr clasped it between warm dry fingers and leathery
palm. They had no further amicable gesture to exchange, since Flandry
lacked a tail.

"Thirsty," Tachwyr rumbled. They sought the well-stocked sideboard.
Tachwyr reached for Scotch and Flandry for telloch. They caught each
other's glances and laughed, Merseian drumroll and human staccato. "Been
a long while for us both, arrach?"

Flandry noted the inference, that of recent years Tachwyr's work had
brought him into little or no contact with Terrans, for whatever it
might be worth. Likely that wasn't much. The Empire's mulish attitude
toward the aggrandizement of the Roidhunate was by no means the sole
problem which the latter faced. Still, Tachwyr was by way of being an
expert on Homo sapiens; so if a more urgent matter had called him--To be
sure, he might have planned his remark precisely to make his opponent
think along these lines.

"I trust your wives and children enjoy good fortune," Flandry said in
polite Eriau.

"Yes, I thank the God." The formula being completed, Tachwyr went on:
"Chydhwan's married, and Gelch has begun his cadetship. I presume you're
still a bachelor?" He must ask that in Anglic, for his native equivalent
would have been an insult. His jet eyes probed. "Aren't you the gaudy
one, though? What style is that?"

The man extended an arm to show off colors and embroideries of his
mufti. The plumes bobbed which sprang from an emerald brooch holding his
turban together. "Latest fashion in Dehiwala--on Ramanujan, you know. I
was there a while back. Garb at home has gotten positively drab." He
lifted his glass. "Well, tor ychwei."

"Here's to you," the Merseian responded in Anglic. They drank. The
telloch was thick and bitter-fiery.

Flandry looked outdoors. "Brrr!" he said. "I'm glad this time I won't
need to tramp through that."

"Khraich? I'd hoped we might go on a hunt."

"Don't let me stop you. But if nothing else, my time here is limited. I
must get back. Wouldn't have come at all except for your special
invitation."

Tachwyr studied Flandry. "I never doubted you are busy these days," he
said.

"Yes, jumping around like a probability function in a high wind."

"You do not seem discouraged."

"N-no." Flandry sipped, abruptly brought his gaze around, and stated:
"We're near the end of our troubles. What opposition is left has no real
chance."

"And Hans Molitor will be undisputed Emperor." Tachwyr's relaxation
evaporated. Flandry, who knew him from encounters both adversary and
half friendly since they were fledglings in their services, had rather
expected that. A big, faintly scaled hand clenched on the tumbler of
whisky. "My reason why I wanted this meeting."

"Your reason?" Flandry arched his brows, though he knew Tachwyr felt it
was a particularly grotesque expression.

"Yes. I persuaded my superiors to send your government--Molitor's--the
proposal, and put me in charge of our side. However, if you had not come
yourself, I imagine the conference would have proved as empty as my
datholch claimed it would, when I broached the idea to him."

I can't blame the good datholch, Flandry thought. It does seem ludicrous
on the face of it: discussions between Intelligence officers of rank
below admiral or fodaich, who can't make important
commitments--discussions about how to "resolve mutual difficulties" and
assure the Imperium that the Roidhunate has never had any desire to
interfere in domestic affairs of the Empire--when everybody knows how
gleefully Merseian agents have swarmed through every one of our camps,
trying their eternally damnedest to keep our family fight going.

Of course, Molitor's people couldn't refuse, because this is the first
overt sign that Merseia will recognize him rather than some rival as our
lord, and deal with his agents later on, about matters more real than
this farce.

The intention is no surprise, when he's obviously winning. The surprise
was the form the feeler took--and Tachwyr's note to me. Neither action
felt quite Merseian.

Therefore I had to come.

"Let me guess," Flandry said. "You know I'm close to his Majesty and act
as an odd-job man of his. You and your team hope to sound out me and
mine about him."

Tachwyr nodded. "If he's to be your new leader, stronger than the past
several, we want to know what to expect."

"You must have collected more bits of information on him than there are
stars in the galaxy. And he's not a complex man. And no individual can
do more than throw a small extra vector or two in among the millions
that whipsaw such a big and awkward thing as the Empire toward whatever
destiny it's got."

"He can order actions which have a multiplier effect, for war or peace
between our folk."

"Oh, come off it, chum! No Merseian has a talent for pious wormwords. He
only sounds silly when he tries. As far as you are concerned vis-a-vis
us, diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means." Flandry tossed
off his drink and poured a refill.

"Many Terrans disagree," Tachwyr said slowly.

"My species also has more talent than yours for wishful thinking,"
Flandry admitted. He waved at the cold landscape. "Take this base
itself. For two decades, through every clash and crisis, a beacon
example of cooperation. Right?" He leered. "You know better. Oh,
doubtless most of the scientists who come here are sincere enough in
just wanting to study a remarkable xenological development. Doubtless
they're generally on good personal terms. But they're subsidized--they
have their nice safe demilitarization--for no reason except that both
sides find it convenient to keep a place for secret rendezvous. Neutral
domains like Betelgeuse are so public, and their owners tend to be so
nosy."

He patted the Merseian's back. "Now let's sit down to eat, and afterward
serious drinking, like the cordial enemies we've always been," he urged.
"I don't mind giving you anecdotes to pad out your report. Some of them
may even be true."

The heavy features flushed olive-green. "Do you imply our attempt--not
at final disengagement, granted, but at practical measures of mutual
benefit--do you imply it is either idiotic or else false?"

Flandry sighed. "You disappoint me, Tachwyr. I do believe you've grown
stuffy in your middle age. Instead of continuing the charade, why not
ring up your Chereionite and invite him to join us? I'll bet he and I
are acquainted too."}

{The sun went down and night leaped forth in stars almost space-bright,
crowding the dark, making the winter world glow as if it had a moon.
"May I turn off the interior lights?" Aycharaych asked. "The outside is
too glorious for them."

Flandry agreed. The hawk profile across the table from him grew
indistinct, save for great starlight-catching eyes. The voice sang and
purred onward, soft as the cognac they shared, in Anglic whose accent
sounded less foreign than archaic.

"I could wish your turban did not cover a mindscreen and powerpack, my
friend. Not merely does the field make an ugliness through my nerves
amidst this frozen serenity; I would fain be in true communion with
you." Aycharaych's chuckle sounded wistful. "That can scarcely be, I
realize, unless you join my cause."

"Or you mine," Flandry said.

"And each of your men who might know something I would like to learn is
likewise screened against me. Does not that apparatus on their heads
make sleep difficult? I warn you in any case, wear the things not
overmany days at a stretch. Even for a race like yours, it is ill to
keep the brain walled off from those energies which inspirit the
universe, behind a screen of forces that themselves must roil your
dreams."

"I see no reason for us to stay."

Aycharaych inhaled from his glass. He had not touched the liquor yet. "I
would be happy for your company," he said. "But I understand. The
consciousness that dreary death will in a few more decades fold this
brightly checkered game board whereon you leap and capture--that keeps
you ever in haste."

He leaned back, gazed out at a tree turned into a jewel by icicles, and
was quiet awhile. Flandry reached for a cigarette, remembered the
Chereionite disliked tobacco smoke, and soothed himself with a swallow.

"It may be the root of your greatness as a race," Aycharaych mused.
"Could a St. Matthew Passion have welled from an immortal Bach? Could a
Rembrandt who knew naught of sorrow and had no need for steadfastness in
it have brought those things alive by a few daubs of paint? Could a Tu
Fu free of loss have been the poet of dead leaves flying amidst snow,
cranes departing, or an old parrot shabby in its cage? What depth does
the foreknowledge of doom give to your loves?"

He turned his head to face the man. His tone lightened: "Well. Now that
poor mortified Tachwyr is gone--most mightily had he looked forward to
the sauce which gloating would put on his dinner!--we can talk freely.
How did you deduce the truth?"

"Part hunch," Flandry confessed. "The more I thought about that message,
the more suggestions of your style I found. Then logic took over. Plain
to see, the Merseians had some ulterior motive in asking for a
conference as nugatory per se as this. It could be just a signal to us,
and an attempt at sounding out Molitor's prospective regime a bit. But
for those purposes it was clumsy and inadequate. And why go to such
trouble to bring me here?

"Well, I'm not privy to high strategic secrets, but I'm close enough to
him that I must have a fair amount of critical information--the kind
which'll be obsolete inside a year, but if used promptly could help
Merseia keep our kettle longer on the boil, with that much more harm to
us. And I have a freer hand than anybody else who's so well briefed; I
could certainly come if I chose. And an invitation from Tachwyr could be
counted on to pique my curiosity, if nothing else.

"The whole idea was yours, wasn't it?"

Aycharaych nodded, his crest a scimitar across the Milky Way. "Yes," he
said. "I already had business in these parts--negotiant perambulantem in
tenebris, if you like--and saw nothing to lose in this attempt. At least
I have won the pleasure of a few hours with you."

"Thanks. Although--" Flandry sought words. "You know I put modesty in a
class with virginity, both charming characteristics which should be
gotten rid of as fast as puberty allows. However ... why me, Aycharaych?
Do you relish the fact I'll kill you, regretfully but firmly, the
instant a chance appears? In that respect, there are hundreds like me.
True, I may be unusual in having come close, a time or two. And I can
make more cultured noises than the average Navy man. But I'm no scholar,
no esthete--a dilettante; you can do better than me."

"Let us say I appreciate your total personality." The smile, barely
visible, resembled that upon the oldest stone gods of Greece. "I admire
your exploits. And since we have interacted again and again, a bond has
formed between us. Deny not that you sense it."

"I don't deny. You're the only Chereionite I've ever met--" Flandry
stopped.

After a moment he proceeded: "Are you the only Chereionite anybody has
ever met?"

"Occasional Merseians have visited my planet, even resided there for
periods of study," Aycharaych pointed out.

Yes. Flandry remembered one such, who had endangered him here upon
Talwin; how far in the past that seemed, and how immediately near! I
realize why the coordinates of your home are perhaps the best-kept
secret in the Roidhunate. I doubt if a thousand beings from offworld
know; and in most of them, the numbers have been buried deep in their
unconsciousness, to be called forth by a key stimulus which is also
secret.

Secret, secret ... What do we know about you that is substance and not
shadow?

The data fled by, just behind his eyes.

Chereion's sun was dim, as Flandry himself had discovered when he
noticed Aycharaych was blind in the blue end of the spectrum though
seeing farther into the red than a man can. The planet was small, cold,
dry--deduced from Aycharaych's build, walk, capabilities,
preferences--not unlike human-settled Aeneas, because he could roam
freely there and almost start a holy war to split the Empire, nineteen
years ago.

In those days he had claimed that the enigmatic ruins found upon many
worlds of that sort were relics of his own people, who ranged and ruled
among the stars in an era geologically remote. He claimed ... He's as
big a liar as I am, when either of us wants to be. If they did build and
then withdraw, why? Where to? What are they upon this night?

Dismiss the riddles. Imperial Intelligence knew for certain, with scars
for reminders, he was a telepath of extraordinary power. Within a radius
of x meters, he could read the thoughts of any being, no matter how
alien, using any language, no matter how foreign to him. That had been
theoretically impossible. Hence the theory was crudely modified (there
is scant creativity in a waning civilization) to include suggestions of
a brain which with computerlike speed and capacity analyzed the impulses
it detected into basic units (binary?), compared this pattern with the
one which its own senses and knowledge presented, and by some incredible
process of trial and error synthesized in seconds a code which closely
corresponded to the original.

It did not seem he could peer far below the surface thoughts, if at all.
That mattered little. He could be patient; or in a direct confrontation,
he had skill to evoke the memories he wanted. No wonder that the highest
Merseian command paid heed to him. The Empire had never had a more
dangerous single enemy.

Single--

Flandry grew aware of the other's luminous regard. " 'Scuse me," he
said. "I got thinking. Bad habit."

"I can guess what." Aycharaych's smile continued. "You speculate whether
I am your sole Chereionite colleague."

"Yes. Not for the first time." Flandry drank again. "Well, are you? What
few photographs or eyewitness accounts we've garnered, of a Chereionite
among outsiders--never more than one. Were all of them you?"

"You don't expect me to tell you. I will agree to what's obvious, that
partakers in ephemeral affairs, like myself, have been rare among my
race. They laid such things aside before your kind were aught but apes."

"Why haven't you?"

"In action I find an art; and every art is a philosophical tool, whereby
we may seek to win an atom deeper into mystery."

Flandry considered Aycharaych for a silent span before he murmured: "I
came on a poem once, in translation--it goes back a millennium or
more--that's stayed with me. Tells how Pan--you know our Classical
myths--Pan is at a riverside, splashing around, his goat hoofs breaking
the lilies, till he plucks a reed and hollows it out, no matter the
agony it feels; then the music he pipes forth enchants the whole forest.
Is that what you think of yourself as doing?"

"Ah, yes," Aycharaych answered, "you have the last stanza in mind, I
believe." Low:

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,

To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

Damn! Flandry thought. I ought to stop letting him startle me.

"My friend," the other went on gently, "you too play a satanic role. How
many lives have you twisted or chopped short? How many will you? Would
you protest me if the accidents of history had flung Empire rather than
Roidhunate around my sun? Or if you had been born into those humans who
serve Merseia? Indeed, then you might have lived more whole of heart."

Anger flared. "I know," Flandry snapped. "How often have I heard? Terra
is old, tired, corrupt, Merseia is young, vigorous, pure. Thank you, to
the extent that's true, I prefer my anomie, cynicism, and existential
despair to counting my days in cadence and shouting huzza--worse,
sincerely meaning it--when Glorious Leader rides by. Besides ... the
device every conqueror, yes, every altruistic liberator should be
required to wear on his shield ... is a little girl and her kitten, at
ground zero."

He knocked back his cognac and poured another. His temper cooled. "I
suspect," he finished, "down inside, you'd like to say the same."

"Not in those terms," Aycharaych replied. "Sentimentality ill becomes
either of us. Or compassion. Forgive me, are you not drinking a trifle
heavily?"

"Could be."

"Since you won't get so drunk I can surreptitiously turn off your
mindscreen, I would be grateful if you stay clear-headed. The time is
long since last I relished discourse of Terra's former splendors, or
even of her modern pleasures. Come, let us talk the stars to rest."}

In the morning, Flandry told Susette he must scout around the globe a
few days, using certain ultrasensitive instruments, but thereafter he
would return.

He doubted that very much.

X
-

Shadow and thunder of wings fell over Kossara. She looked up from the
rolling, tawny-begrown down onto which she had come after stumbling from
the forest. Against clouds and the plum-colored sky beyond, a Diomedean
descended. She halted. Weariness shivered in her legs. Wind slithered
around her. It smelled of damp earth and, somehow, of boulders.

An end to my search. Her heart slugged. But what will I now find?
Comrades and trust, or a return to my punishment?

The native landed, a male, attired in crossbelts and armed with a knife
and rifle. He must have been out hunting, when he saw the remarkable
sight of a solitary human loose in the wilds, begrimed, footsore,
mapless and compassless. He uttered gutturals of his own tongue.

"No, I don't speak that," Kossara answered. The last water she had found
was kilometers behind. Thirst roughened her throat. "Do you know
Anglic?"

"Some bit," the native said. "How you? Help?"

"Y-yes. But--" But not from anybody who'll think he should call Thursday
Landing and inquire about me. During her trek she had sifted the
fragments of memory, over and over. A name and nonhuman face remained.
"Eonan. Bring me Eonan." She tried several different pronunciations,
hoping one would be recognizable.

"Gairath mochra. Eonan? Wh ... what Eonan? Many Eonan."

There would be, of course. She might as well have asked a random
Dennitzan for Andrei. However, she had expected as much. "Eonan who
knows Kossara Vymezal," she said. "Find. Give Eonan this." She handed
him a note she had scrawled. "Money." She offered a ten-credit bill from
the full wallet Flandry had included in her gear. "Bring Eonan, I give
you more money."

After repeated trials, she seemed to get the idea across, and an
approximation of her name. The hunter took off northward. God willing,
he'd ask around in the bayshore towns till he found the right person;
and while this would make the dwellers curious, none should see reason
to phone Imperial headquarters. God willing. She ought to kneel for a
prayer, but she was too tired; Mary who fled to Egypt would understand.
Kossara sat down on what resembled pale grass and wasn't, hugged herself
against the bitter breeze and stared across treelessness beneath a wan
sun.

Have I really won through?

If Eonan still had his life and liberty, he might have lost heart for
his revolution--if, in truth, he had ever been involved; she had nothing
more than a dream-vision from a cave. Or if he would still free his
people from the Empire, he might be the last. Or if cabals and
guerrillas remained, he might not know where they hid. Or if he brought
her to them, what could she hope for?

She tossed her head. A chance to fight. Maybe to win home in the end,
likelier to die here: as a soldier does, and in freedom,

Drowsiness overflowed. She curled herself as best she could on the
ground. Heavy garments blunted its hardness, though she hated the sour
smell they'd gotten. To be clean again ... Flandry had saved her from
the soiling which could never be washed off. He had that much
honor--and, yes, a diamond sort of mercy. If she'd done his bidding,
tried her best to lead him to whatever was left of her fellows, he would
surely have sent her back, manumitted--he'd have the prestige for such a
favor to be granted him--unscathed--No! Not whole in her own honor! And
release upon a Dennitza lashed to the Empire would be a cruel joke.

Then rest while you can, Kossara. Sleep comes not black, no, blue as a
summer sky over the Kazan, blue as the cloak of Mary ... Pray for us,
now and in the hour of our death.

A small callused hand shook her awake. Hunger said louder than her watch
what a time had passed while the sun brooded nightless. She stared into
yellow eyes above a blunt muzzle and quivering whiskers. Half open, bat
wings made a stormcloud behind. He carried a blaster.

His face--She sat up, aware of ache, stiffness, cold. "Eonan?"

"Torcha tracked me." Apart from the piping accent, mostly due to the
organs of speech, his Anglic came fluent. "But you do not know him, do
you?"

She struggled to her feet. "I don't know you either, quite," she got
out. "They made me forget."

"Ungn-n-n." He touched the butt of the gun, and his crest erected.
Otherwise he stood in taut quietness. She saw he had arrived on a
gravsled, no doubt to carry her.

Resolution unfroze him. "I am Eonan Guntrasson, of the Wendru clan in
the Great Flock of Lannach. And you are Kossara Vymezal, from the
distant planet Dennitza."

Gladness came galloping, and every weakness fled. "I know that, barem!
And you dared meet me? Then we are not finished yet!"

Eonan drew the membranes over his eyes. "We?"

"The revolution. Yours and mine." She leaned down to grip his upper
shoulders. Beneath fur and warmth, the flight muscles stood like rock.

"I must be careful." His tone underlined it. "Torcha said you promised
him a reward for fetching me. I paid him myself, not to have him along.
Best we go aside and ... talk. First, in sign of good faith, let me
search you."

The place he chose was back in the highlands. Canyon walls rose darkly
where a river rang; fog smoked and dripped till Kossara was soaked with
chill; at moments when the swirling grayness parted, she glimpsed the
black volcanic cone of Mount Oborch.

On the way, Eonan had fed her from a stock of preserved Terran food, and
explained he was the factor for Nakamura & Malaysia in the area where he
dwelt. This gave him wide contacts and sources of information, as well
as an easy excuse to travel, disappearing into the hinterland or across
the sea, whenever he wished. Thursday Landing had no suspicion of his
clandestine activities. He would not speak about those until she related
her story in full.

Then he breathed, "E-e-e-ehhh," and crouched in thought on the gravsled
bench. Finally, sharply: "Well, your Terran officer has likeliest
concluded you slipped off in search of the cloudflyers--the, keh, the
underground. A spacecraft was seen to lift from hereabouts not many
sunspins ago. When I heard, I wondered what that meant."

"I imagine he went to warn the resident and start a hunt for me,"
Kossara said. "He did threaten to, if I deserted." Anxiety touched her.
"Yes, and a tightened space watch. Have I caused us trouble?"

"We shall see. It may have been worth it in all events. To learn about
that spy device is no slight gain. We shall want your description of the
place where you threw the ring away. Perhaps we can safely look for it
and take it to study."

"Chances are he's recovered it. But Eonan!" Kossara twisted around
toward him. "How are you doing here? How many survive? With what
strength, what plans? How can I help?"

Again the third lids blurred his gaze. "Best I keep still. I am just a
link. They will answer you in the nest where I have decided to take
you."

The hideout was high in a mountainside. Approaching, Kossara felt her
eardrums twinge from pressure change and cold strike deep. Snowpeaks,
glaciers, ravines, cliffs, crags reached in monstrous confusion between
a cloud ocean which drowned the lower slopes, and a sky whose emptiness
the sun only seemed to darken. Silence dwelt here, save for ah- booming
over the windshield and a mutter of native language as Eonan radioed
ahead.

Why am I not happy? she wondered. I am about to rejoin my comrades and
regain my past--my purpose. What makes me afraid?

Eonan finished. "Everything will be ready," he informed her. Was he as
tense as he looked? She must have come to know Diomedeans well enough
during her stay that she could tell; but that had been robbed from her.
What had he to fear?

"I suppose," she ventured, "this is headquarters for the entire mission.
They tucked it away here to make it undiscoverable."

"Yes. They enlarged a cave."

She recalled another cave, where she and Trohdwyr and a few more had
huddled. "Were we--those who died when I was captured--were we out in
the field--liaison with freedom fighters whose homes were below
timber-line? Maybe we were betrayed by one of them"--she
grimaced--"who'd been caught at sabotage or whatever, and interrogated."

"That sounds plausible."

"But then nobody except us was destroyed! Am I right? Is the liberation
movement still healthy?"

"Yes."

Puzzlement: "Why didn't I tell the Impies about our main base when they
put me under hypnoprobe?"

"I do not know," Eonan said impatiently. "Please be quiet. I must bring
us in on an exact course, or they will shoot."

As the sled glided near, Kossara spied the defense, an energy cannon. It
was camouflaged, but military training had enhanced her natural ability
to notice things. A great steel door in the bluff behind it would go
unseen from above, should anyone fly across this lofty desert.
Instruments--infrared sensors, neutrino detectors, magnetometers,
gravitometers, atmosphere sniffers, a hundred kinds of robot
bloodhound--would expose the place at once. But who would think to come
searching?

The door swung aside. The sled passed through and landed in a garage
among several aircars. Here were warmth, echoes, a sudden brilliance of
light better suited for eyes human or Merseian. Kossara shed her parka
before she stepped off. Her pulse raced.

Four stood waiting. Three were men. She was not surprised to see the
last was a big green heavy-tailed person, though her heart said O
Trohdwyr--and for an instant tears stung and blurred.

She rallied herself and walked toward them. Her boots thudded on the
floor; Eonan's claws clicked. Those in front of her were simply clad,
shirts, trousers, shoes on the men, a tunic on the zmay. She had
expected them to be armed, as they were.

It flashed: Why did I think zmay, not ychan? And: They aren't
Dennitzans! None of them!

She slammed to a halt. The men differed widely, genes from every breed
of mankind scrambled in chance combinations. So they could be from
Terra--or a colony within the Empire--or--

Eonan left her side. The Merseian drew his pistol. "Hold," he rapped.
"You are under arrest."

He called himself Glydh of the Vach Rueth, nicknamed Far-Farer, an afal
of his navy's Intelligence corps. His immediate assistant was a lanky,
sallow, long-nosed man, introduced as Muhammad Snell but addressed by
the superior officer as Kluwych. In the middle of wreck, Kossara could
flickeringly wonder if the Eriau name had been given him by his parents,
when he was born somewhere in the Roidhunate.

They took her to an office. On the way she passed through such space and
among such personnel that she estimated the latter numbered about
twenty, two or three of them Merseian by species, the rest human. That
was probably all there were on Diomedes: sufficient to keep scores of
native dupes like Eonan going, who in their turn led thousands.

Though are they dupes? she thought drearily. Merseia would like to see
them unchained from the Empire.

No. That isn't true. Merseia doesn't give a curse. They're cheap,
expendable tools.

The office was cramped and bleak. "Sit," Glydh ordered, pointing to a
chair. He took a stool behind a desk. Snell settled on the left; his
eyes licked her, centimeter by centimeter and back again.

"Khraich." Glydh laid his hands flat on the desktop, broad and thick,
strangler's hands. "An astonishing turn of events. What shall we do with
you?" His Anglic was excellent.

"Isn't this, uh, Captain Flandry more urgent, sir?" his subordinate
asked.

"Not much, I believe," Glydh said. "True, from Vymezal's account via
Eonan, he appears to be capable. But what can he know? That she
defected, presumably joining a remnant of the underground if she didn't
perish en route." He pondered. "Maybe be isn't capable, at that--since
he let her go, trusting her mere self-interest to keep her on his side."

Hoy? Chives said Flandry is famous ... No. How many light-years, how
many millions of minds can fame cover before it spreads vanishingly
thin?

"Of course, we will have our cell in Thursday Landing keep him under
surveillance, and alert our agents globally is he leaves there," Glydh
continued. "But I doubt he represents more than a blind stab on the part
of somebody in the opposition. I don't think he is worth the risk of
trying to kidnap, or even kill."

"We may find out otherwise, sir, when we interrogate Vymezal in detail,"
said the man. He moistened his lips.

"Maybe. I leave that to you. Co-opt what helpers you need."

"Um-m-m ... procedures? Treatment? Final disposition?"

"No!" Kossara heard the yell and felt the leaping to her feet, as if
from outside her body. This was not real, could not be, must not be, God
and saints, no. "I am not a, a Terran agent--I came here to--at least
I'm a prisoner of war!"

"Sit!" Glydh's roar, and the gunshot slap of palm on desk, flung her
back like a belly blow. She heard his basso through fever-dream
distances and humming: "Don't babble about military conventions. You are
a slave, property we have acquired. If you do what you are told, there
need not be pain. Else there will be, until you are broken to obedience.
Do you hear me?"

Snell's fingers twisted together. He breathed fast. "Sir," he said, "it
could be a long while before we get a chance to send a report offplanet
and ask for instructions about her. So we have to use our own judgment,
don't we?"

"Yes," Glydh answered.

"Well, considering what was originally intended for her, and the
reason--sir, not a woman among us in this whole region--"

Glydh shrugged. His tone was faintly contemptuous. "Quiz her out first
under narco. Afterward do what you like, short of disfiguring damage.
Remember, we may find use for her later, and the nearest biosculp
laboratory is parsecs hence."

I will make them kill me! Even as she plunged toward Snell, fingernails
out to hook his eyeballs, Kossara knew Glydh would seize her and not let
her die.

The explosion threw her against a wall. It made a drum of her skull. The
floor heaved and cracked. Snell went over backward. Glydh flailed about
to keep his balance.

Faintly through the brief deafness that followed, she heard screams,
running, bang and hiss of firearms. Ozone drifted acrid to her nostrils,
smoke, smells of roastedness.

She was already out of the office, into the central chamber beyond. At
its far end, through the passageway which gave on the garage, she saw
how the main door lay blown off its trunnions, crumpled and red-hot.
Beyond was the ruin of the cannon. Men boiled around or sprawled
un-moving.

Enormous shone the bulk of a suit of combat armor. Bullets whanged off
it, blaster bolts fountained. The wearer stood where he was, and his own
weapon scythed.

As she broke into view--"Kossara!" Amplified from the helmet, his voice
resounded like God's. His free hand reached beneath a plate that
protected his gravbelt. He rose and moved slowly toward her. Survivors
fled.

Fingers closed on her arm. Around her shoulder she saw Glydh. He swung
her before his body. "That's not nice," the oncoming invader pealed. He
spun his blaster nozzle to needle beam, aimed, and fired.

Glydh's brow spurted steam, brains, blood, shattered bone across
Kossara. She knew a heartbeat's marvel at that kind of precision
shooting. But then the heavy corpse bore her down. Her head struck the
floor. Lightning filled the universe.

The armored man reached her, stood over her, shielded her. A
spacecraft's flank appeared in the entry. It had sprouted a turret,
whose gun sprayed every doorway where an enemy might lurk. Kossara let
darkness flow free.

XI
--

A breath of air cool, pine-scented; all noises gone soft; a sense of
muted energies everywhere around; a lessened weight--Kossara opened her
eyes. She lay in bed, in her cabin aboard the Hooligan. Flandry sat
alongside. He wore a plain coverall, his countenance was haggard and the
gray gaze troubled. Nonetheless he smiled. "Hello, there," he murmured.
"How do you feel?"

Drowsy, altogether at ease, she asked, "Have we left Diomedes?"

"Yes. We're bound for Dennitza." He took her right hand between both of
his. "Now listen. Everything is all right. You weren't seriously harmed,
but on examination we decided we'd better keep you under sleep induction
awhile, with intravenous feeding and some medication. Look at your left
wrist." She did. It was bare. "Yes, the bracelet is off. As far as I'm
concerned, you're free, and I'll take care of the technicalities as soon
as possible. You're going home, Kossara."

Examination--She dropped her glance. A sheer nightgown covered her. "I'm
sorry I never thought to bring anything more decorous for you to sleep
in," Flandry said. He appeared to be summoning courage. "Chives did the
doctoring, the bathing, et cetera. Chives alone." His mouth went wry.
"You may or may not believe that. It's true, but hell knows how much
I've lied to you."

And I to you, she thought.

He straightened in the chair and released her. "Well," he said, "would
you like a spot of tea and accompaniments? You should stay in bed for
another watch cycle or two, till you get your strength back."

"What happened ... to us?"

"We'd better postpone that tale. First you should rest." Flandry rose.
Almost timidly, he gave her hair a stroke. "I'll go now. Chives will
bring the tea."

Wakefulness returned. When the Shalmuan came to retrieve her tray,
Kossara sat propped against pillows, ready for him. "I hope the
refreshments were satisfactory, Donna," he said. "Would you care for
something more?"

"Yes," she replied. "Information."

The slim form showed unease. "Sir Dominic feels--"

"Sir Dominic is not me." She spread her palms. "Chives, how can I relax
in a jigsaw puzzle? Tell me, or ask him to tell me, what went on in that
den. How did you find me? What did you do after I lost consciousness?
Why?"

Chives reached a decision. "Well, Donna, we trust that in view of
results obtained, you will pardon certain earlier modifications of
strict veracity which Sir Dominic deemed essential. The ring he gave you
was a mere ring; no such device exists as he described, at least within
the purview of Technic civilization." She choked. He continued: "Sir
Dominic, ah, has been known to indulge in what he describes as wistful
fantasizing relevant to his occupation. Instead, the bracelet you wore
was slave-driven from an external source of radiated power."

"Slave-driven. A very good word." And yet Kossara could feel no anger.
She imitated it as a duty. Had they given her a tranquilizing drug which
had not completely worn off?

"Your indignation is natural, Donna." Chives' tail switched his ankles.
"Yet allow me to request you consider the total situation, including the
fact that those whom you met were not noble liberators but Merseian
operatives. Sir Dominic suspected this from the start. He believed that
if you reappeared, they were sure to contact you, if only to find out
what had transpired. He saw no method short of the empirical for
convincing you. Furthermore, admiration for your honesty made him
dubious of your ability knowingly to play a double role.

"Hence I trailed you at a discreet distance while he went to Thursday
Landing to investigate other aspects of the case. Albeit my assignment
had its vexations, I pinpointed the spot where you were brought and
called Sir Dominic, who by then had returned to Lannach. Underground and
surrounded by metal, your bracelet was blocked from us. We concluded
immediate attack was the most prudent course--for your sake
particularly, Donna. While Sir Dominic flitted down in armor, I blasted
the cannon and entrance. Shortly afterward I landed to assist and, if
you will excuse my immodesty, took the single prisoner we got. The rest
were either dead or, ah, holed up sufficiently well that we decided to
content ourselves with a nuclear missile dispatched through the
entrance.

"The resultant landslide was somewhat spectacular. Perhaps later you
will be interested to see the movie I took.

"Ah ... what he has learned has made Sir Dominic of the opinion that we
must speed directly to Dennitza. Nevertheless, I assure you he would in
all events have seen to your repatriation at the earliest feasible
date."

Chives lifted her tea tray. "This is as much as I should tell you at the
present stage, Donna. I trust you can screen whatever you wish in the
way of literary, theatrical, or musical diversion. If you require
assistance of any kind, please call on the intercom. I will return in
two hours with a bowl of chicken soup. Is that satisfactory?"

Stars filled the saloon viewscreen behind Flandry's head. The ship went
hush-hush-hush, on a voyage which, even at her pseudospeed, would take a
Terran month. The whisky he had poured for them glowed across tongue and
palate.

"It's a foul story," he warned.

"Does evil go away just because we keep silent?" Kossara answered.
Inwardly: How evil are you, you claw of the Empire?--but again without
heat, a thought she felt obliged to think.

After all, his lean features looked so grim and unhappy, across the
table from her. He shouldn't chain-smoke the way he did; anticancer
shots, cardiovascular treatments, lungflushes, and everything, it
remained a flagellant habit. One could serve a bad cause without being a
bad man. Couldn't one?

He sighed and drank. "Very well. A sketch. I got a lot of details from a
narcoquiz of our prisoner, but most are simply that, details, useful in
hunting down the last of his outfit if and when that seems worthwhile.
He did, though, confirm and amplify something much more scary."

Memory prodded her with a cold finger. "Where is he?"

"Oh, I needled him and bunged him out an airlock." Flandry observed her
shock. His tone changed from casual to defensive. "We were already in
space; this business doesn't allow delays. As for turning him over to
the authorities when we arrive--there may not be any authorities, or
they may be in full revolt, Merseian-allied. At best, the fact he was
alive could trickle across to enemy Intelligence, and give them valuable
clues to what we know. This is how the game's played, Kossara." He
trailed out smoke before he added, "Happens his name was Muhammad
Snell."

Blood beat in temples and cheeks. "He got no chance--I don't need
avengers."

"Maybe your people will," he said quietly.

After a second he leaned forward, locked eyes with her, and continued:
"Let's begin explanations from my viewpoint. I want you to follow my
experiences and reasoning, in hopes you'll then accept my conclusions.
You're an embittered woman, for more cause than you know right now. But
I think you're also intelligent, fair-minded, yes, tough-minded enough
to recognize truth, no matter what rags it wears."

Kossara told herself she must be calm, watchful, like a cat--like
Butterfeet when she was little ... She drank. "Go on."

Flandry filled his lungs. "The Gospodar, the Dennitzans in general are
furious at Hans' scheme to disband their militia and make them wholly
dependent on the Navy," he said. "After they supported him through the
civil war, too! And we've other sources of friction, inevitable; and
thoughts of breaking away or violently replacing the regnant Emperor are
no longer unthinkable. Dennitza has its own culture, deep-rooted,
virile, alien to Terra and rather contemptuous thereof--a culture
influenced by Merseia, both directly and through the, uh, zmay element
in your population.

"Aye, granted, you've long been in the forefront of resistance to the
Roidhunate. However, such attitudes can change overnight. History's
abulge with examples. For instance, England's rebellious North American
colonies calling on the French they fought less than two decades before;
or America a couple of centuries later, allied first with the Russians
against the Germans, then turning straight around and--" He stopped.
"This doesn't mean anything to you, does it? No matter. You can see the
workings in your own case, I'm sure. Dennitza is where your loyalties
lie. What you do, whom you support, those depend on what you judge is
best for Dennitza. Right? Yes, entirely right and wholesome. But
damnably mislead-able."

"Are you, then, a Terran loyalist?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "A civilization loyalist. Which is a pretty thin,
abstract thing to be; and I keep wondering whether we can preserve
civilization or even should.

"Well. Conflict of interest is normal. Compromise is too, especially
with as valuable a tributary as Dennitza--provided it stays tributary.
Now we'd received strong accusations that Dennitzans were engineering
revolt on Diomedes, presumably in preparation for something similar at
home. His Majesty's government wasn't about to bull right in. That'd be
sure to bring on trouble we can ill afford, perhaps quite unnecessarily.
But the matter had to be investigated.

"And I, I learned a Dennitzan girl of ranking family had been caught at
subversion on Diomedes. Her own statements out of partial recollections,
her undisguised hatred of the Imperium, they seemed to confirm those
accusations. Being asked to look into the questions, what would I do but
bring you along?"

He sighed. "A terrible mistake. We should've headed straight for
Dennitza. Hindsight is always keen, isn't it, while foresight stays
myopic, astigmatic, strabismic, and drunk. But I haven't even that
excuse. I'd guessed at the truth from the first. Instead of going off to
see if I could prove my hunch or not--" His fist smote the table. "I
should never have risked you the way I did. Kossara!"

She thought, amazed, He is in pain about that. He truly is.

"A-a-ah," Flandry said. "I'm a ruthless bastard. Better hunter than
prey, and have we any third choice in these years? Or so I thought. You
... were only another life."

He ground out his cigarette, sprang from the bench, strode back and
forth along the cabin. Sometimes his hands were gripped together behind
him, sometimes knotted at his sides. His voice turned quick and
impersonal:

"You looked like a significant pawn, though. Why such an incredibly
bungled job on you? Including your enslavement on Terra. I'd have heard
about you in time, but it was sheer luck I did before you'd been thrown
into a whorehouse. And how would your uncle the Gospodar react to that
news if it reached him?

"Might it be intended to reach him?

"Oh, our enemies couldn't be certain what'd happen; but you tilted the
probabilities in their favor. They must've spent considerable time and
effort locating you. Flandry's Law: 'Given a sufficiently large
population, at least one member will fit any desired set of
specifications.' The trick is to find that member."

"What?" Kossara exclaimed. "Do you mean--because I was who I was, in the
position I was--that's why Dennitza--" She could speak no further.

"Well, let's say you were an important factor," he replied. "I'm not
sure just how you came into play, though I can guess. On the basis of my
own vague ideas, I made a decoy of you in the manner you've already
heard about. That involved first deliberately antagonizing you on the
voyage; then deliberately gambling your life, health, sanity--"

He halted in midstride. His shoulders slumped. She could barely hear
him, though his look did not waver from hers: "Every minute makes what I
did hurt worse."

She wanted to tell him he was forgiven, yes, go take his hands and tell
him; but no, he had lied too often. With an effort, she said, "I am
surprised."

His grin was wry. "Less than I am." Returning, he flopped back onto the
bench, crossed ankle over thigh till he peered across his knee at her,
swallowed a long draught from his glass, took out his cigarette case;
and when the smoke was going he proceeded:

"Let's next assume the enemy's viewpoint, i.e. what I learned and
deduced.

"They--a key one of them, anyhow--he realizes the Terran Empire is in an
era when periods of civil war are as expectable as bouts of delirium in
chronic umwi fever. I wasn't quite aware of the fact myself till lately.
A conversation I had set me thinking and researching. But he knew right
along, my opponent. At last I see what he's been basing his strategy on
for the past couple of decades. Knowing him, if he believes the theory,
I think I will. These days we're vulnerable to fratricide, Kossara. And
what better for Merseia, especially if just the right conflict can be
touched off at just the right moment?

"We've been infiltrated. They've had sleepers among us for ... maybe a
lifetime ... notably in my own branch of service, where they can cover
up for each other ... and notably during this past generation, when the
chaos first of the Josip regime, then the succession struggle, made it
easier to pass off their agents as legitimate colonial volunteers.

"The humans on Diomedes. brewing revolution with the help of a clever
Alatanist pitch--thereby diverting some of our attention to Ythri--they
weren't Dennitzans. They were creatures of the Roidhunate, posing as
Dennitzans. Oh, not blatantly; that'd've been a giveaway. And they were
sincerely pushing for an insurrection, since any trouble of ours is a
gain for them. But a major objective of the whole operation was to drive
yet another wedge between your people and mine, Kossara."

Frost walked along her spine. She stared at him and whispered: "Those
men who caught me--murdered Trohdwyr--tortured and sentenced me--they
were Merseians too?"

"They were human," Flandry said flatly, while he unfolded himself into a
more normal posture. "They were sworn-in members of the Imperial Terran
Naval Intelligence Corps. But, yes, they were serving Merseia. They
arrived to 'investigate' and thus add credence to the clues about
Dennitza which their earlier-landed fellows had already been spreading
around.

"Let the Imperium get extremely suspicious of the Gospodar--d'you see?
The Imperium will have to act against him. It dare not stall any longer.
But this action forces the Gospodar to respond--he already having reason
to doubt the goodwill of the Terrans--"

Flandry smashed his cigarette, drank, laid elbows on table and said most
softly, his face near hers:

"He'd hear rumors, and send somebody he could trust to look into them.
Aycharaych--I'll describe him later--Aycharaych of the Roidhunate knew
that person would likeliest be you. He made ready. Your incrimination,
as far as Terra was concerned--your degradation, as far as Dennitza was
concerned--d'you see? Inadequate by themselves to provoke war. Still,
remind me and I'll tell you about Jenkins' Ear. Nations on the brink
don't need a large push to send them toppling.

"I've learned something about how you were lured, after you reached
Diomedes. The rest you can tell me, if you will. Because when he isn't
weaving mirages, Aycharaych works on minds. He directed the blotting out
of your memories. He implanted the false half-memories and that hate of
the Empire you carry around. Given his uncanny telepathic capabilities,
to let him monitor what drugs, electronics, hypnotism are doing to a
brain, he can accomplish what nobody else is able to.

"But I don't think he totally wiped what was real. That'd have left you
too unmistakably worked over. I think you keep most of the truth in you,
disguised and buried."

The air sucked between her teeth. Her fists clenched on the table. He
laid a hand across them, big and gentle.

"I hope I can bring back what you've lost, Kossara." The saying sounded
difficult. "And, and free you from those conditioned-reflex emotions.
It's mainly a matter of psychotherapy. I don't insist. Ask yourself: Can
you trust me that much?"

XII
---

Sickbay was a single compartment, but astonishingly well equipped.
Kossara entered with tightness in her gullet and dryness on her tongue.
Flandry and Chives stood behind a surgical table. An electronic helmet,
swiveled out above the pillow, crouched like an ugly arachnoid. The
faint hum of driving energies, ventilation, service and life-support
devices, seemed to her to have taken on a shrill note.

Flandry had left flamboyancy outside. Tall in a plain green coverall, he
spoke unsmiling: "Your decision isn't final yet. Before we go any
further, let me explain. Chives and I have done this sort of thing
before, and we aren't a bad team, but we're no professionals."

This sort of thing--Muhammad Snell must lately have lain on that
mattress, in the dream-bewildered helplessness of narco, while yonder
man pumped him dry and injected the swift poison. Shouldn't I fear the
Imperialist? Dare I risk becoming the ally of one who treated a sentient
being as we do a meat animal?

I ought to feel indignation. I don't, though. Nor do I feel guilty that
I don't.

Well, I'm not revengeful, either. At least, not very much. I do remember
how Trohdwyr died because he was an inconvenience; I remember how Mihail
Svetich died, in a war Flandry says our enemies want to kindle anew.

Flandry says--She heard him from afar, fast and pedantic. Had he
rehearsed his speech?

"This is not a hypnoprobe here, of course. It puts a human straight into
quasisleep and stimulates memory activity, after a drug has damped
inhibitions and emotions. In effect, everything the organism has
permanently recorded becomes accessible to a questioner--assuming no
deep conditioning against it. The process takes more time and skill than
an ordinary quiz, where all that's wanted is something the subject
consciously knows but isn't willing to tell. Psychiatrists use it to dig
out key, repressed experiences in severely disturbed patients. I've
mainly used it to get total accounts, generally from cooperative
witnesses--significant items they may have noticed but forgotten. In
your case, we'd best go in several fairly brief sessions, spaced three
or four watches apart. That way you can assimilate your regained
knowledge and avoid a crisis. The sessions will give you no pain and
leave no recollection of themselves."

She brought her whole attention to him. "Do you play the tapes for me
when I wake?" she asked.

"I could," he replied, "but wouldn't you prefer I wiped them? You see,
when our questions have brought out a coherent framework of what was
buried, a simple command will fix it in your normal memory. By
association, that will recover everything else. You'll come to with full
recall of whatever episode we concentrated on."

His eyes dwelt gravely upon her. "You must realize," he continued, "your
whole life will be open to us. We'll try hard to direct our questioning
so we don't intrude. However, there's no avoiding all related and
heavily charged items. You'll blurt many of them out. Besides, we'll
have to feel our way. Is such-and-such a scrap of information from your
recent, bad past--or is it earlier, irrelevant? Often we'll need to
develop a line of investigation for some distance before we can be sure.

"We're bound to learn things you'll wish we didn't. You'll simply have
to take our word that we'll keep silence ever afterward ... and, yes,
pass no judgment, lest we be judged by ourselves.

"Do you really want that, Kossara?"

She nodded with a stiff neck. "I want the truth."

"You can doubtless learn enough for practical purposes by talking to the
Gospodar, if he's alive and available when we reach Dennitza. And I make
no bones: one hope of mine is gaining insight into the modus operandi of
Merseian Intelligence, a few clear identifications of their agents among
us ... for the benefit of the Empire.

"I won't compel you," Flandry finished. "Please think again before you
decide."

She squared her shoulders. "I have thought." Holding out her hand: "Give
me the medicine."

The first eventide, her feet dragged her into the saloon. Flandry saw
her disheveled, drably clad, signs of weeping upon her, against the
stars. She had long been in her own room behind a closed door.

"You needn't eat here, you know," he said in his gentlest tone.

"Thank you, but I will," she answered.

"I admire your courage more than I have words to tell, dear. Come, sit
down, take a drink or three before dinner." Since he feared she might
refuse, lest that seem to herself like running away from what was in
her, he added, "Trohdwyr would like a toast to his manes, wouldn't he?"

She followed the suggestion in a numb way. "Will the whole job be this
bad?" she asked.

"No." He joined her, pouring Merseian telloch for them both though he
really wanted a Mars-dry martini. "I was afraid things might go as they
went, the first time, but couldn't see any road around. You did witness
Trohdwyr's murder, he suffered hideously, and he'd been your beloved
mentor your whole life. The pain wasn't annulled just because your
thalamus was temporarily anesthetized. Being your strongest lost memory,
already half in consciousness, it came out ahead of any others. And it's
still so isolated it feels like yesterday."

She settled wearily back. "Yes," she said. "Before, everything was
blurred, even that. Now ... the faces, the whole betrayal--"

{Nobody died in the cave except Trohdwyr. The rest stood by when a mere
couple of marines arrived to arrest her. "You called them!" she screamed
to the one who bore the name Steve Johnson, surely not his own. He
grinned. Trohdwyr lunged, trying to get her free, win her a chance to
scramble down the slope and vanish. The lieutenant blasted him. The life
in his tough old body had not ebbed out, under the red moons, when they
pulled her away from him.

Afterward she overheard Johnson: "Why'd you kill the servant? Why not
take him along?"

And the lieutenant: "He'd only be a nuisance. As is, when the Diomedeans
find him, they won't get suspicious at your disappearance. They'll
suppose the Terrans caught you. Which should make them handier material.
For instance, if we want any of those who met you here to go guerrilla,
our contact men can warn them they've been identified through data
pulled out of you prisoners."

"Hm, what about us four?"

"They'll decide at headquarters. I daresay they'll reassign you to a
different region. Come on, now, let's haul mass." The lieutenant's boot
nudged Kossara, where she slumped wrist-bound against the cold cave
wall. "On your feet, bitch!"}

"His death happened many weeks ago," Flandry said. "Once you get more
memories back, you'll see it, feel it in perspective--including time
perspective. You'll have done your grieving ... which you did, down
underneath; and you're too healthy to mourn forever."

"I will always miss him," she whispered.

Flandry regarded ghosts of his own. "Yes, I know."

She straightened. He saw her features harden, as if bones lent strength
to flesh. The blue-green eyes turned arctic. "Sir Dominic, you were
right in what you did to Snell. Nobody in that gang was--is--fit to
live."

"Well, we're in a war, we and they, the nastier for being undeclared,"
he said carefully. "What you and I must do, if we can, is keep the
sickness from infecting your planet. Or to the extent it has, if I may
continue the metaphor, we've got to supply an antibiotic before the high
fever takes hold and the eruptions begin."

His brutal practicality worked as he had hoped, to divert her from both
sorrow and rage. "What do you plan?" The question held some of the
crispness which ordinarily was hers.

"Before leaving Diomedes," he said, "I contacted Lagard's field office
on Lannach, transmitted a coded message for him to record, and showed
him my authority to command immediate courier service. The message is
directly to the Emperor. The code will bypass channels. In summary, it
says, 'Hold off at Dennitza, no matter what you hear, till I've
collected full information'--followed by a synopsis of all I've learned
thus far."

She began faintly to glow in her exhaustion. "Why, wonderful."

"M-m-m, not altogether, I'm afraid." Flandry let the telloch savage his
throat. "Remember, by now his Majesty's barbarian-quelling on the Spican
frontier. He'll move around a lot. The courier may not track him down
for a while. Meantime--the Admiralty on Terra may get word which
provokes it to emergency action, without consulting Emperor or Policy
Board. It has that right, subject to a later court of inquiry. And I've
no direct line there. Probably make no difference if I did. Maybe not
even any difference what I counsel Hans. I'm a lone agent. They could
easily decide I must be wrong."

He forced a level look at her. "Or Dennitza could in fact have exploded,
giving Emperor and Admiralty no choice," he declared. "The Merseians are
surely working that side of the street too."

"You hope I--we can get my uncle and the Skupshtina to stay their
hands?" she asked.

"Yes," Flandry said. "This is a fast boat. However ... we'll be a month
in transit, and Aycharaych & Co. have a long jump on us."

{The resident and his lady made her welcome at Thursday Landing. They
advised her against taking her research to the Sea of Achan countries.
Unrest was particularly bad there. Indeed, she and her Merseian--pardon,
her xenosophont companion--would do best to avoid migratory societies in
general. Could they not gather sufficient data among the sedentary and
maritime Diomedeans? Those were more intimate with modern civilization,
more accustomed to dealing with offworlders, therefore doubtless more
relevant to the problem which had caused her planetary government to
send her here.

Striving to mask her nervousness, she met Commander Maspes and a few
junior officers of the Imperial Naval Intelligence team that was
investigating the disturbances. He was polite but curt. His attitude
evidently influenced the younger men, who must settle for stock words
and sidelong stares. Yes, Maspes said, it was common knowledge that
humans were partly responsible for the revolutionary agitation and
organization on this planet. Most Diomedeans believed they were
Avalonians, working for Ythri. Some native rebels, caught and
interrogated, said they had actually been told so by the agents
themselves. And indeed the Alatanist mystique was a potent recruiter ...
Yet how could a naive native distinguish one kind of human from another?
Maybe Ythri was being maligned ... He should say no more at the present
stage. Had Donna Vymezal had a pleasant journey? What was the news at
her home?

Lagard apologized that he must bar her from a wing of the Residency. "A
team member, his work's confidential and--well, you are a civilian, you
will be in the outback, and he's a xeno, distinctive appearance--"

Kossara smiled. "I can dog my hatch," she said; "but since you wish,
I'll leash my curiosity." She gave the matter scant thought, amidst
everything else.}

Flandry greeted her at breakfast: "Dobar yutro, Dama."

Startled, she asked, "You are learning Serbic?"

"As fast as operant conditioning, electronics, and the pharmacopoeia can
cram it into me." He joined her at table. Orange juice shone above the
cloth. Coffee made the air fragrant. He drank fast. She saw he was
tired.

"I wondered why you are so seldom here when off duty," she said.

"That's the reason."

He gazed out at the stars. She considered him. After a while, during
which her pulse accelerated, she said, "No. I mean, if you're studying,
there is no need. You must know most of us speak Anglic. You need an
excuse to avoid me."

It was his turn for surprise. "Eh? Why in cosmos would I that?"

She drew breath, feeling cheeks, throat, breasts redden. "You think I'm
embarrassed at what you've learned of me."

"No--" He swung his look to her. "Yes. Not that I--Well, I try not to,
and what comes out regardless shows you clean as a ... knife blade--But
of course you're full of life, you've been in love and--" Abruptly he
flung his head back and laughed. "Oh, hellflash! I was afraid you would
make me stammer like a schoolboy."

"I'm not angry. Haven't you saved me? Aren't you healing me?" She
gathered resolution. "I did have to think hard, till I saw how nothing
about me could surprise you."

"Oh, a lot could. Does." Their eyes met fully.

"Maybe you can equalize us a little," she said through a rising
drumbeat. "Tell me of your own past, what you really are under that
flexmail you always wear." She smiled. "In exchange, I can help you in
your language lessons, and tell you stories about Dennitza that can't be
in your records. The time has been lonely for me, Dominic."

"For us both," he said as though dazed.

Chives brought in an omelet and fresh-baked bread.

{From a dealer in Thursday Landing, Kossara rented an aircamper and
field equipment, bought rations and guidebooks, requested advice. She
needed information for its own sake as well as for cover. On the long
voyage here--three changes of passenger-carrying freighter----she had
absorbed what material on Diomedes the Shkola in Zorkagrad could supply.
That wasn't much. It could well have been zero if the planet weren't
unusual enough to be used as an interest-grabbing example in certain
classes. She learned scraps of astronomy, physics, chemistry, topology,
meteorology, biology, ethnology, history, economics, politics; she
acquired a few phrases in several different languages, no real grasp of
their grammar or semantics; her knowledge was a twig to which she clung
above the windy chasm of her ignorance about an entire world.

After a few days getting the feel of conditions, she and Trohdwyr flew
to Lannach. The resident had not actually forbidden them. In the towns
along Sagna Bay, they went among the gaunt high dwellings of the winged
folk, seeking those who understood Anglic and might talk somewhat
freely. "We are from a planet called Dennitza. We wish to find out how
to make friends and stay friends with a people who resemble you--"

Eonan the factor proved helpful. Increasingly, Kossara tried to sound
him out, and had an idea he was trying to do likewise to her. Whether or
not he was involved in the subversive movement, he could well fear she
came from Imperial Intelligence to entrap comrades of his. And yet the
name "Dennitza" unmistakably excited more than one individual, quick
though the Diomedeans were to hide that reaction.

How far Dennitza felt, drowned in alien constellations! At night in
their camper, she and Trohdwyr would talk long and long about old days
and future days at home; he would sing his gruff ychan songs to her, and
she would recite the poems of Simich that he loved: until at last an
inner peace came to them both, bearing its gift of sleep.}

Flandry always dressed for dinner. He liked being well turned out; it
helped create an atmosphere which enhanced his appreciation of the food
and wine; and Chives would raise polite hell if he didn't. Kossara
slopped in wearing whatever she'd happened to don when she got out of
bed. Not to mock her mourning, he settled for the blue tunic, red sash,
white trousers, and soft half-boots that were a human officer's ordinary
mess uniform.

When she entered the saloon in evening garb, he nearly dropped the
cocktail pitcher. Amidst the subdued elegance around her, she suddenly
outblazed a great blue star and multitudinously lacy nebula which
dominated the viewscreen. Burgundy-hued velvyl sheathed each curve of
her tautness, from low on the bosom to silvery slippers. A necklace of
jet and turquoise, a bracelet of gold, gleamed against ivory skin.
Diamond-studded tiara and crystal earrings framed the ruddy hair; but a
few freckles across the snub nose redeemed that high-cheeked,
full-mouthed, large-eyed face from queenliness.

"Nom de Dieu!" he gasped, and there sang through him, Yes, God, Whom the
believers say made all triumphant beauty. She breaks on me and takes me
like a wave of sunlit surf. "Woman, that's not fair! You should have
sent a trumpeter to announce you."

She chuckled. "I decided it was past time I do Chives the courtesy of
honoring his cuisine. He fitted me yesterday and promised to exceed
himself in the galley."

Flandry shook head and clicked tongue. "Pity I won't be paying his
dishes much attention." Underneath, he hurt for joy.

"You will. I know you, Dominic. And I will too." She pirouetted. "This
gown is lovely, isn't it? Being a woman again--" The air sent him an
insinuation of her perfume, while it lilted with violins.

"Then you feel recovered?"

"Yes." She sobered. "I felt strength coming back, the strength to be
glad, more and more these past few days." A stride brought her to him.
He had set the pitcher down. She took both his hands--the touch radiated
through him--and said gravely: "Oh, I've not forgotten what happened,
nor what may soon happen. But life is good. I want to celebrate its
goodness ... with you, who brought me home to it. I can never rightly
thank you for that, Dominic."

Nor can I rightly thank you for existing, Kossara. In spite of what she
had let slip beneath the machine, she remained too mysterious for him to
hazard kissing her. He took refuge: "Yes, you can. You can throw off
your frontier steadfastness, foresight, common sense, devotion to
principle, et cetera, and be frivolous. If you don't know how to frivol,
watch me. Later you may disapprove to your heart's contempt, but tonight
let's cast caution to the winds, give three-point-one-four-one-six
cheers, and speak disrespectfully of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud."

Laughing, she released him. "Do you truly think we Dennitzans are so
stiff? I'd call us quite jolly. Wait till you've been to a festival, or
till I show you how to dance the luka."

"Why not now? Work up an appetite."

She shook her head. The tiara flung glitter which he noticed only
peripherally because of her eyes. "No, I'd rip this dress, or else pop
out of it like a cork. Our dances are all lively. Some people say they
have to be."

"The prospect of watching you demonstrate makes me admit there's
considerable to be said for an ice age."

Actually, the summers where she lived were warm. Farther south, the
Pustinya desert was often hot. A planet is too big, too many-sided for a
single idea like "glacial era" to encompass.

Through Flandry passed the facts he had read, a parched obbligato to the
vividness breathing before him. He would not truly know her till he knew
the land, sea, sky which had given her to creation; but the data were a
beginning.

Zoria was an F8 sun, a third again as luminous as Sol. Dennitza,
slightly smaller than Terra, orbiting at barely more than Terran
distance from the primary, should have been warmer--and had been for
most of its existence. Loss of water through ultraviolet cracking had
brought about that just half the surface was ocean-covered. This, an
axial tilt of 32.5°, and an 18.8-hour rotation period led to extremes of
weather and climate. Basically terrestroid, organisms adapted as they
evolved in a diversity of environments.

That stood them in good stead when the catastrophe came. Less than a
million years ago, a shower of giant meteoroids struck, or perhaps an
asteroid shattered in the atmosphere. Whirled around the globe by
enormous forces, the stones cratered dry land--devastated by impact,
concussion, radiation, fire which followed--cast up dust which dimmed
the sun for years afterward. Worse were the ocean strikes. The tsunamis
they raised merely ruined every coast on the planet; life soon returned.
But the thousands of cubic kilometers of water they evaporated became a
cloud cover that endured for millennia. The energy balance shifted. Ice
caps formed at the poles, grew, begot glaciers reaching halfway to the
equator. Species, genera, families died; fossil beds left hints that
among them had been a kind starting to make tools. New forms arose,
winter-hardy in the temperate zones, desperately contentious in the
tropics.

Then piece by piece the heavens cleared, sunlight grew brilliant again,
glaciers melted back. The retreat of the ice that men found when they
arrived, six hundred years later was a rout. The Great Spring brought
woes of its own, storms, floods, massive extinctions and migrations to
overthrow whole ecologies. In her own brief lifespan, Kossara had seen
coastal towns abandoned before a rising sea.

Her birth country lay not far inland, though sheltered from northerly
winds and easterly waters--the Kazan, Cauldron, huge astrobleme on the
continent Rodna, a bowl filled with woods, farmlands, rivers, at its
middle Lake Stoyan and the capital Zorkagrad. Her father was voivode of
Dubina Dolyina province, named for the gorge that the Lyubisha River had
cut through the ringwall on its way south from the dying snows. Thus she
grew up child of a lord close to the people he guided, wilderness child
who was often in town, knowing the stars both as other suns and as elven
friends to lead her home after dark ...

Flandry took her arm. "Come, my lady," he said. "Be seated. This evening
we shall not eat, we shall dine."

{At last Eonan told Kossara about a person in the mountain community
Salmenbrok who could give her some useful tidings. If she liked, he
would take her and Trohdwyr on his gravsled--he didn't trust her vehicle
in these airs--and introduce them. More he would not yet say. They
accepted eagerly.

Aloft he shifted course. "I bespoke one in Salmenbrok because I feared
spies overhearing," he explained. "The truth is, they are four in a cave
whom we will visit. I have asked them about you, and they will have you
as guests while you explore each other's intents."

She thought in unease that when the Diomedean went back, she and her
companion would be left flightless, having brought no gravbelts along.
The ychan got the same realization and growled. She plucked up the nerve
to shush him and say, "Fine."

The two men and two women she met were not her kind. Racial types,
accents, manners, their very gaits belied it. Eonan talked to them and
her passionately, as if they really were Dennitzans who had come to
prepare the liberation of his folk. She bided in chill and tension,
speaking little and nothing to contradict, until he departed. Then she
turned on them and cried, "What's this about?" Her hand rested on her
sidearm. Trohdwyr bulked close, ready to attack with pistol, knife,
tail, foot-claws if they threatened her.

Steve Johnson smiled, spread empty fingers, and replied, "Of course
you're puzzled. Please come inside where it's warmer and we'll tell
you." The rest behaved in equally friendly wise.

Their story was simple in outline. They too were Imperial subjects, from
Esperance. That planet wasn't immensely remote from here. True to its
pacifistic tradition, it had stayed neutral during the succession fight,
declaring it would pledge allegiance to whoever gave the Empire peace
and law again. (Kossara nodded. She had heard of Esperance.) But this
policy required a certain amount of armed might and a great deal of
politicking and intriguing abroad, to prevent forcible recruitment by
some or other pretender. The Esperancians thus got into the habit of
taking a more active role than hitherto. Conditions remained
sufficiently turbulent after Hans was crowned to keep the habit in tune.

When their Intelligence heard rumors of Ythrian attempts to foment
revolution on Diomedes, their government was immediately concerned.
Esperance was near the border of Empire and Domain. Agents were smuggled
onto Diomedes to spy out the truth--discreetly, since God alone knew
what the effect of premature revelations might be. Johnson's party was
such a band.

"Predecessors of ours learned Dennitzans were responsible," he said.
"Not Avalonian humans serving Ythri, but Dennitzan humans serving their
war lord!"

"No!" Kossara interrupted, horrified. "That isn't true! And he's not a
war lord!"

"It was what the natives claimed, Mademoiselle Vymezal," the
Asian-looking woman said mildly. "We decided to try posing as
Dennitzans. Our project had learned enough about the underground--names
of various members, for instance--that it seemed possible, granted the
autochthons couldn't spot the difference. Their reaction to us does
indicate they ... well, they have reason to believe Dennitzans are
sparking their movement. We've been, ah, leading them on, collecting
information without actually helping them develop paramilitary
capabilities. When Eonan told us an important Dennitzan had arrived,
openly but with hints she could be more than a straightforward
scientist--naturally, we grew interested."

"Well, you've been fooled," burst from Kossara. "I'm here to, to
disprove those exact same charges against us. The Gospodar, our head of
state, he's my uncle and he sent me as his personal agent. I should
know, shouldn't I? And I tell you, he's loyal. We are!"

"Why doesn't he proclaim it?" Johnson asked.

"Oh, he is making official representations. But what are they worth?
Across four hundred light-years--We need proof. We need to learn who's
been blackening us and why." Kossara paused for a sad smile. "I don't
pretend I can find out much. I'm here as a, a forerunner, a scout. Maybe
that special Navy team working out of Thursday Landing--have you heard
about them?--maybe they'll exonerate us without our doing anything.
Maybe they already have. The commander didn't act suspicious of me."

Johnson patted her hand. "I believe you're honest, Mademoiselle," he
said. "And you may well be correct, too. Let's exchange what we've
discovered--and, in between, give you some outdoor recreation. You look
space-worn."

The next three darkling springtime days were pleasant. Kossara and
Trohdwyr stopped wearing weapons in the cave.}

Flandry sighed. "Aycharaych." He had told her something of his old
antagonist. "Who else? Masks within masks, shadows that cast shadows ...
Merseian operatives posing as Esperancians posing as Dennitzans whose
comrades had formerly posed as Avalonians, while other Merseian
creatures are in fact the Terran personnel they claim to be. Yes, I'll
bet my chance of a peaceful death that Aycharaych is the engineer of the
whole diablerie."

He drew on a cigarette, rolled acridity over his tongue and streamed it
out his nostrils, as if this mordant would give reality a fast hold on
him. He and she sat side by side on a saloon bench. Before them was the
table, where stood glasses and a bottle of Demerara rum. Beyond was the
viewscreen, full of night and stars. They had left the shining nebula
behind; an unlit mass of cosmic dust reared thunderhead tall across the
Milky Way. The ship's clocks declared the hour was late. Likewise did
the silence around, above the hum which had gone so deep into their
bones that they heard it no more.

Kossara wore a housedress whose brevity made him all too aware of long
legs, broad bosom, a vein lifting blue from the dearest hollow that her
shoulderbones made at the base of her throat. She shivered a trifle and
leaned near him, unperfumed now except for a sunny odor of woman.
"Monstrous," she mumbled.

"N-no ... well, I can't say." Why do I defend him? Flandry wondered, and
knew: I see in my mirror the specter of him. Though who of us is flesh
and who image? "I'll admit I can't hate him, even for what he did to you
and will do to your whole people and mine if he can. I'll kill him the
instant I'm able, but--Hm, I suppose you never saw or heard of a coral
snake. It's venomous but very beautiful, and strikes without malice ...
Not that I really know what drives Aycharaych. Maybe he's an artist of
overriding genius. That's a kind of monster, isn't it?"

She reached for her glass, withdrew her hand--she was a light
drinker--and gripped the table edge instead, till the ends of her nails
turned white. "Can such a labyrinth of a scheme work? Aren't there
hopelessly many chances for something to go wrong?"

Flandry found solace in a return to pragmatics, regardless of what
bitterness lay behind. "If the whole thing collapses, Merseia hasn't
lost much. Not Hans nor any Emperor can make the Terran aristocrats give
up their luxuries--first and foremost, their credo that eventual
accommodation is possible--and go after the root of the menace. He
couldn't manage anything more than a note of protest and perhaps the
suspension of a few negotiations about trade and the like. His
underlings would depose him before they allowed serious talk about
singeing the beard the Roidhun hasn't got."

His cigarette butt scorched his fingers. He tossed it away and took a
drink of his own. The piratical pungency heartened him till he could
speak in detachment, almost amusement: "Any plotter must allow for his
machine losing occasional nuts and bolts. You're an example. Your likely
fate as a slave was meant to outrage every man on Dennitza when the news
arrived there. By chance, I heard about you in the well-known and
deservedly popular nick of time--I, not someone less cautious--"

"Less noble," She stroked his arm. It shone inside.

Nonetheless he grinned and said, "True, I may lack scruples, but not
warm blood. I'm a truncated romantic. A mystery, a lovely girl, an
exotic planet--could I resist hallooing off--"

It jarred through him:--off into whatever trap was set by a person who
knew me? His tongue went on. "However, prudence, not virtue, was what
made me careful to do nothing irrevocable" to you, darling; I praise the
Void that nothing irrevocable happened to you. "And we did luck out, we
did destroy the main Merseian wart on Diomedes." Was the luck poor silly
Susette and her husband's convenient absence? Otherwise I'd have stayed
longer at Thursday Landing, playing sleuth--long enough to give an
assassin, who was expecting me specifically, a chance at me.

No! This is fantastic! Forget it!

"Wasn't that a disaster to the enemy?" Kossara asked.

" 'Fraid not. I don't imagine they'll get their Diomedean insurgency.
But that's a minor disappointment. I'm sure the whole operation was
chiefly a means to the end of maneuvering Terra into forcing Dennitza to
revolt And those false clues have long since been planted and let
sprout; the false authoritative report has been filed; in short, about
as much damage has been done on the planet as they could reasonably
expect."

Anguish: "Do you think ... we will find civil war?"

He laid an arm around her. She leaned into the curve of it, against his
side. "The Empire seldom bumbles fast," he comforted her. "Remember,
Hans himself didn't want to move without more information. He saw no
grounds for doubting the Maspes report--that Dennitzans were
involved--but he realized they weren't necessarily the Gospodar's
Dennitzans. That's why I got recruited, to check further. In addition,
plain old bureaucratic inertia works in our favor. Yes, as far as the
problems created on Diomedes are concerned, I'm pretty sure well get you
home in time."

"Thanks to you, Dominic." Her murmur trembled. "To none but you."

He did not remind her that Diomedes was not, could never have been the
only world on which the enemy had worked, and that events on Dennitza
would not have been frozen. This was no moment for reminders, when she
kissed him.

Her shyness in it made him afraid to pursue. But they sat together a
spell, mute before the stars, until she bade him goodnight.

{On the tundra far north of the Kazan, Bodin Miyatovich kept a hunting
lodge. Thence he rode forth on horseback, hounds clamorous around him,
in quest of gromatz, yegyupka, or ice troll. At other times he and his
guests boated on wild waters, skied on glacier slopes, sat indoors by a
giant hearthfire talking, drinking, playing chess, playing music,
harking to blizzard winds outside. Since her father bore her cradle from
aircar to door, Kossara had loved coming here.

Though this visit was harshly for business, she felt pleasure at what
surrounded her. She and her uncle stood on a slate terrace that jutted
blue-black from the granite blocks of the house. Zoria wheeled dazzling
through cloudless heaven, ringed with sun dogs. Left, right, and
rearward the land reached endless, red-purple mahovina turf, widespaced
clumps of firebush and stands of windblown plume, here and there a pool
ablink. Forward, growth yielded to tumbled boulders where water coursed.
In these parts, the barrens were a mere strip; she could see the ice
beyond them. Two kilometers high, its cliff stood over the horizon, a
worldwall, at its distance not dusty white but shimmering, streaked with
blue crevasses. The river which ran from its melting was still swift
when it passed near the lodge, a deep brawl beneath the lonesome tone of
wind, the remote cries of a sheerwing flock. The air was cold, dry,
altogether pure. The fur lining of her parka hood was soft and tickly on
her cheeks.

The big man beside her growled, "Yes, too many ears in Zorkagrad.
Damnation! I thought if we put Molitor on the throne, we'd again know
who was friend and who foe. But things only get more tangled. How many
faithful are left? I can't tell. And that's fouler than men becoming
outright turncoats."

"You trust me, don't you?" Kossara answered in pride.

"Yes," Miyatovich said. "I trust you beyond your fidelity. You're strong
and quick-witted. And your xenological background ... qualifies you and
gives you a cover story ... for a mission I hope you'll undertake."

"To Diomedes? My father's told me rumors."

"Worse. Accusations. Not public yet. I actually had bloody hard work
finding out, myself, why Imperial Intelligence agents have been snooping
amongst us in such numbers. I sent men to inquire elsewhere and--Well,
the upshot is, the Impies know revolt is brewing on Diomedes and think
Dennitzans are the yeast. The natural conclusion is that a cabal of mine
sent them, to keep the Imperium amused while we prepare a revolt of our
own."

"You've denied it, I'm sure."

"In a way. Nobody's overtly charged me. I've sent the Emperor a
memorandum, deploring the affair and offering to cooperate in a
full-dress investigation. But guilty or not, I'd do that. How to prove
innocence? As thin as his corps is spread, we could mobilize--on desert
planets, for instance, without positive clues for them to find."

The Gospodar gusted a sigh. "And appearances are against us. There is a
lot of sentiment for independence, for turning this sector into a
confederacy free of an Empire that failed us and wants to sap the
strength we survived by. Those could be Dennitzans yonder, working for a
faction who plot to get us committed--who'll overthrow me if they
must--"

"I'm to go search out the truth if I can," she knew. "Uncle, I'm
honored. But me alone? Won't that be like trying to catch water in a
net?"

"Maybe. Though at the bare least, you can bring me back ... um ... a
feel of what's going on, better than anybody else. And you may well do
more. I've watched you from babyhood. You're abler than you think,
Kossara."

Miyatovich took her by the shoulders. Breath smoked white from his
mouth, leaving frost in his beard, as he spoke: "I've never had a harder
task than this, asking you to put your life on the line. You're like a
daughter to me. I sorrowed nearly as much as you did when Mihail died,
but told myself you'd find another good man who'd give you sound
children. Now I can only say--go in Mihail's name, that your next man
needn't die in another war."

"Than you think we should stay in the Empire?"

"Yes. I've made remarks that suggested different. But you know me, how I
talk rashly in anger but try to act in calm. The Empire would have to
get so bad that chaos was better, before Fd willingly break it. Terra,
the Troubles, or the tyranny of Merseia--and those racists wouldn't just
subject us, they'd tame us--I don't believe we have a fourth choice, and
I'll pick Terra."

She felt he was right.}

A part of the Hooligan's hold had been converted to a gymnasium.
Outbound, and at first on the flight from Diomedes, Flandry and Kossara
used it at separate hours. Soon after her therapy commenced, she
proposed they exercise together. "Absolutely!" he caroled. "It'll make
calisthenics themselves fun, whether or not that violates the second law
of thermodynamics."

In truth, it wasn't fun--when she was there in shorts and halter, sweat,
laughter, herself--it was glory.

Halfway to Dennitza, he told her: "Let's end our psychosessions. You've
regained everything you need. The rest would be detail, not worth
further invasion of your privacy."

"No invasion," she said low. Her eyes dropped, her blood mounted. "You
were welcome."

"Chives!" Flandry bellowed. "Get busy! Tonight we do not dine, we
feast!"

"Very good, sir," the Shalmuan replied, appearing in the saloon as if
his master had rubbed a lamp. "I suggest luncheon consist of a small
salad and tea to drink."

"You're the boss," Flandry said. "Me, I can't sit still. How about a
game of tennis, Kossara? Then after our rabbit repast we can snooze, in
preparation for sitting up the whole nightwatch popping champagne."

She agreed eagerly. They changed into gym briefs and met below. The room
was elastic matting, sunlamp fluorescence, gray-painted metal sides. In
its bareness, she flamed.

The ball thudded back and forth, caromed, bounced, made them leap, for
half an hour. At last, panting, they called time out and sought a water
tap.

"Do you feel well?" She sounded anxious. "You missed an awful lot of
serves." They were closely matched, her youth against his muscles.

"If I felt any better, you could turn off the ship's powerplant and hook
me into the circuits," he replied. "But why--?"

"I was distracted." He wiped the back of a hand across the salt dampness
in his mustache, ran those fingers through his hair and recalled how it
was turning gray. Decision came. He prepared a light tone before going
on: "Kossara, you're a beautiful woman, and not just because you're the
only woman for quite a few light-years around. Never fear, I can mind my
manners. But I hope it won't bother you overmuch if I keep looking your
way."

She stood quiet awhile, except for the rise and fall of her breasts. Her
skin gleamed. A lock of hair clung bronzy to her right cheekbone. The
beryl eyes gazed beyond him. Suddenly they returned, focused, met his as
sabers meet in a fencing match between near friends. Her husky voice
grew hoarse and, without her noticing, stammered Serbic: "Do you
mean--Dominic, do you mean you never learned, while I was under ... I
love you?"

Meteorstruck, he heard himself croak, "No. I did try to avoid--as far as
possible, I let Chives question you, in my absence--"

"I resisted," she said in wonder, "because I knew you would be kind but
dared not imagine you might be for always."

"I'd lost hope of getting anybody who'd make me want to be."

She came to him.

Presently: "Dominic, darling, please, no. Not yet."

"--Do you want a marriage ceremony first?"

"Yes. If you don't mind too much. I know you don't care, but, well, did
you know I still say my prayers every night? Does that make you laugh?"

"Never. All right, we'll be married, and in style!"

"Could we really be? In St. Clement's Cathedral, by Father Smed who
christened and confirmed me--?"

"If he's game, I am. It won't be easy, waiting, but how can I refuse a
wish of yours? Forgive these hands. They're not used to holding
something sacred."

"Dominic, you star-fool, stop babbling! Do you think it will be easy for
me?"

XIII
----

The earliest signs of trouble reached them faintly across distance.
Fifty astronomical units from Zoria and well off the ecliptic plane, the
Hooligan phased out of hyperdrive into normal state. Engines idle, she
drifted at low kinetic velocity among stars, her destination sun only
the brightest; and instruments strained after traces.

Flandry took readings and made computations. His lips tightened. "A
substantial space fleet, including what's got to be a Nova-class
dreadnaught," he told Kossara and Chives. "In orbits or under
accelerations that fit the pattern of a battle-ready naval force."

The girl clenched her fists. "What can have happened?"

"We'll sneak in and eavesdrop."

Faster-than-light pseudospeed would give them away to detectors. (Their
Schrodinger "wake" must already have registered, but no commander was
likely to order interception of a single small vessel which he could
assume would proceed until routinely checked by a picket craft.)
However, in these far regions they could drive hard on force-thrust
without anybody observing or wondering why. Nearing the inner system,
where ships and meters were thick, Flandry plotted a roundabout course.
It brought him in behind the jovian planet Svarog, whose gravitational,
magnetic, and radiation fields screened the emissions of Hooligan.
Amidst all fears for home and kin, Kossara exclaimed at the majestic
sight as they passed within three million kilometers--amber-glowing
disc, swarming moons--and at the neatness wherewith the planet swung
them, their power again turned off, into the orbit Flandry wanted,
between its own and that of Perun to sunward.

"With every system aboard at zero or minimum, we should pass for a rock
if a radar or whatever sweeps us," he explained. "And we'll catch
transmissions from Dennitza--maybe intercept a few messages between
ships, though I expect those'll be pretty boring."

"How I hope you are right," Kossara said with a forlorn chuckle.

He regarded her, beside him in the control cabin. Interior illumination
was doused, heating, weight generator, anything which might betray. They
hung loosely harnessed in their seats, bodies if not minds enjoying the
fantasy state of free fall. As yet, cold was no more than a nip in the
air Chives kept circulating by a creaky hand-cranked fan. Against the
clear canopy, stars crowned her head. On the opposite side, still small
at this remove, Zoria blazed between outspread wings of zodiacal light.

"They're definitely Technic warcraft," he said, while wishing to speak
her praises. "The neutrino patterns alone prove it. From what we've now
learned, closer in, about their numbers and types, they seem to match
your description of the Dennitzan fleet, though there're some I think
must belong to the Imperium. My guess is, the Gospodar has gathered
Dennitza's own in entirety, plus such units of the regular Navy as he
felt he could rely on. In short, he's reached a dangerous brink, though
I don't believe anything catastrophic has happened yet."

"We are in time, then?" she asked gladly.

He could not but lean over and kiss her. "Luck willing, yes. We may need
patience before we're certain."

Fortune spared them that. Within an hour, they received the basic
information. Transmitters on Dennitza sent broadbeam rather than
precisely lased 'casts to the telsats for relay, wasting some cheap
energy to avoid the cost of building and maintaining a more exact
system. By the time the pulses got as far as Hooligan, their dispersal
guaranteed they would touch her; and they were not too weak for a good
receiver-amplifier-analyzer to reconstruct a signal. The windfall
program Flandry tuned in was a well-organized commentary on the
background of the crisis.

It broke two weeks ago. (Maybe just when Kossara and I found out about
each other? he wondered. No; meaningless; simultaneity doesn't exist for
interstellar distances.) Before a tumultuous parliament, Bodin
Miyatovich announced full mobilization of the Narodna Voyska, recall of
units from outsystem duty, his directing the Imperial Navy command for
Tauria to maintain the Pax within the sector, his ordering specific
ships and flotillas belonging to it to report here for assignment, and
his placing Dennitzan society on a standby war footing.

A replay from his speech showed him at the wooden lectern, carved with
vines and leaves beneath outward-sweeping yelen horns, from which
Gospodar had addressed Skupshtina since the days of the Founders. In the
gray tunic and red cloak of a militia officer, knife and pistol on hips,
he appeared still larger than he was. His words boomed across crowded
tiers in the great stone hall, seemed almost to make the stained-glass
windows shiver.

"--Intelligence reports have grown more and more disquieting over the
past few months. I can here tell you little beyond this naked fact--you
will understand the need not to compromise sources--but our General
Staff takes as grave a view of the news as I do. Scouts dispatched into
the Roidhunate have brought back data on Merseian naval movements which
indicate preparations for action ... Diplomatic inquiries both official
and unofficial have gotten only assurances for response, unproved and
vaguely phrased. After centuries, we know what Merseian assurances are
worth ...

"Thus far I have no reply to my latest message to the Emperor, and can't
tell if my courier has even caught up with him on the Spican frontier
... High Terran authorities whom I've been able to contact have denied
there is a Merseian danger at the present time. They've challenged the
validity of the information given me, have insisted their own is
different and is correct ...

"They question our motives. Fleet Admiral Sandberg told me to my face,
when I visited his command post, he believes our government has
manufactured an excuse to marshal strength, not against foreign enemies
but against the Imperium. He cited charges of treasonous Dennitzan
activity elsewhere in the Empire. He forbade me to act. When I reminded
him that I am the sector viceroy, he declared he would see about getting
me removed. I think he would have had me arrested then and there"--a
bleak half-smile--"if I'd not taken the precaution of bringing along
more firepower than he had on hand ...

"He revealed my niece, Kossara Vymezal, whom I sent forth to track down
the origin of those lies--he claimed she'd been caught at subversion,
had confessed under their damnable mind-twisting interrogation--I asked
why I was not informed at once, I demanded she be brought home, and
learned--" He smote the lectern. Tears burst from his eyes. "She has
been sold for a slave on Terra." The assembly roared.

"Uyak Bodin, Uyak Bodin," Kossara herself wept. She lifted her hands to
the screen as if to try touching him.

"Sssh," Flandry said. "This is past, remember. We've got to find out
what's happening today and what brought it on."

She gulped, mastered her sobs, and gave him cool help. He had a fair
grasp of Serbic, and the news analyst was competent, but as always, much
was taken for granted of which a stranger was ignorant.

Ostensibly the Merseian trouble sprang from incidents accumulated and
ongoing in the Wilderness. Disputes between traders, prospectors, and
voortrekkers from the two realms had repeatedly brought on armed
clashes. Dennitzans didn't react to overbearingness as meekly as
citizens of the inner Empire were wont to. They overbore right back, or
took the initiative from the beginning. Several actions were doubtless
in a legal sense piracy by crews of one side or the other. Matters had
sharpened during the civil war, when there was no effective Imperial
control over humans.

Flandry had known about this, and known too that the Roidhunate had
asked for negotiations aimed at solving the problem, negotiations to
which Emperor Hans agreed on the principle that law and order were
always worth establishing even with the cooperation of an enemy. The
delegates had wrangled for months.

In recent weeks Merseia had changed its tack and made totally
unacceptable demands--for example, that civilian craft must be cleared
by its inspectors before entering the Wilderness. "They know that's
ridiculous," Flandry remarked. "Without fail, in politics that kind of
claim has an ulterior purpose. It may be as little as a propaganda ploy
for domestic consumption, or as much as the spark put to a bomb fuse."

"A reason to bring their strength to bear--while most of the Empire's is
tied up at Spica--and maybe denounce the Covenant of Alfzar and occupy a
key system in the Wilderness?" Kossara wondered.

"Could be ... if Merseia is dispatching warships in this direction,"
Flandry said. "The Imperium thinks not--thinks Dennitza concocted the
whole business to justify mobilization. The Merseians would've been
delighted to co-conspire, a behind-the-scenes arrangement with your
uncle whereby they play intransigent at the conference. Any split among
us is pure gain for them. From the Imperium's viewpoint, Dennitza has
done this either to put pressure on it--to get the disbanding decree
rescinded and other grievances settled--or else to start an out-and-out
rebellion."

He puffed on his cigarette, latest of a chain. "From your uncle's
viewpoint--I assume he was honest with you about his opinions and
desires--if he believes Merseia may be readying for combat, he dare not
fail to respond. Terra can think in terms of settling border disputes by
negotiation, even after several battles. Dennitza, though, will be under
attack. A tough, proud people won't sit still for being made pawns of.
And given the accusations against them, the horrible word about you--how
alienated must they not feel?"

The commentator had said: "Is it possible the connivance is between
Emperor and Roidhun? Might part of a secret bargain be that Merseia rids
the Imperium of troublesomely independent subjects? It would like to
destroy us. To it, we are worse than a nuisance, we are the potential
igniters of a new spirit within the Empire, whose future leadership may
actually come from among us. On the Terran side, the shock of such an
event would tend to unite the Empire behind the present bearer of the
crown, securing it for him and his posterity ... "

Flandry said: "I'm pretty sure that by now, throughout the Dennitzan
sphere of influence, a majority favors revolution. The Gospodar's
stalling, trying to bide his time in hopes the crisis will slack off
before fighting starts. Wouldn't you guess so, love? I suspect, however,
if it turns out he doesn't have to resist Merseia, he will then use his
assembled power to try squeezing concessions from Terra. His citizens
won't let him abstain--and I doubt if he wants to. And ... any wrong
action on the part of the Imperium or its Navy, or any wrong inaction,
anywhere along the line, will touch off rebellion."

"Well go straight to him--" she began.

Flandry shook his head. "Uh-uh. Most reckless thing we could do. Who
supplied those Intelligence reports that scared Miyatovich and his
staff--reports contradicted by findings of my Corps in separate
operations? If the Merseian fleet is making ominous motions, is this a
mere show for the Dennitzan scouts they knew would sneak into then:
space? How did the news about you get here so speedily, when the sale of
one obscure slave never rated a word on any Terran newscast? Could
barbarian activity in Sector Spica have been encouraged from outside,
precisely to draw the Emperor there and leave his officers on this
frontier to respond as awkwardly as they've done?"

He sighed. "Masks and mirages again, Kossara. The program we heard
showed us only the skin across the situation. We can't tell what's
underneath, except that it's surely explosive, probably poisonous.
Zorkagrad must be acrawl with Merseian undercover men. I'd be astonished
if some of them aren't high and trusted in the Gospodar's councils,
fending off any information they prefer he doesn't get. Aycharaych's
been at work for a long time."

"What shall we do?" she asked steadily.

Flandry's glance sought for Dennitza. It should be visible here, soft
blue against black. But the brightnesses which burned were too many.
"Suppose you and I pay a covert visit on your parents," he said. "From
there we can send a household servant, seemingly on an ordinary errand,
who can find a chance to slip your uncle a word. Meanwhile Chives lands
at Zorkagrad port and takes quarters to be our contact in the city.
Shalmuan spacers aren't common but they do exist--not that the average
person hereabouts ever heard of Shalmu--and I'll modify one of our spare
documentations to support his story of being an innocent entrepreneur
just back from a long exploration, out of touch, in the Wilderness."

"It seems terribly roundabout," Kossara said.

"Everything is on this mission."

She smiled. "Well, you have the experience, Dominic. And it will give us
a little time alone together."

XIV
---

First the planet loomed immense in heaven, clouds and ice lending it a
more than Terran whiteness against which the glimpsed oceans became a
dazzlingly deep azure. Then it was no longer ahead, it was land and sea
far below. When Flandry and Kossara bailed out, it became a roar of
night winds.

They rode their gravbelts down as fast as they dared, while the Hooligan
vanished southward. The chance of their being detected was maybe slight,
but not nonexistent. They need have no great fear of being shot at; as a
folk who lived with firearms, the Dennitzans were not trigger-happy.
However, two who arrived like this, in time of emergency, would be
detained, and the matter reported to military headquarters. Hence
Kossara had proposed descending on the unpeopled taiga north of the
Kazan. The voivode of Dubina Dolyina must have patrols and instruments
active throughout his district.

Even at their present distance from it, she and Flandry could not have
left the vessel secretly in an aircraft. The captain of the picket ship
which contacted Chives had settled for a telecom inspection of his
papers, without boarding, and had cleared him for a path through
atmosphere which was a reasonable one in view of his kinetic vector. Yet
orbital optics and electronics must be keeping close watch until
ground-based equipment could take over.

Hoar in moonlight, treetops rushed upward. The forest was not dense,
though, and impact quickly thudded through soles. At once the humans
removed their space-suits, stopping only for a kiss when heads emerged
from helmets. Flandry used a trenching tool to bury the outfits while
Kossara restowed their packs. In outdoor coveralls and hiking boots,
they should pass for a couple who had spent a furlough on a trip afoot.
Before they established camp for what remained of the night, they'd
better get several kilometers clear of any evidence to the contrary.

Flandry bowed. "Now we're down, I'm in your hands," he said. "I can
scarcely imagine a nicer place to be."

Kossara looked around, filled her lungs full of chill sweet-scented air,
breathed out, "Domovina"--home--and began striding.

The ground was soft and springy underfoot, mahovina turf and woodland
duff. A gravity seven percent less than Terran eased the burden on
backs. Trees stood three or four meters apart, low, gnarly, branches
plumed blue-black, an equivalent of evergreens. Shrubs grew in between,
but there was no real underbrush; moonlight and shadow dappled open sod.
A full Mesyatz turned the sky nearly violet, leaving few stars and
sheening off a great halo. Smaller but closer in than Luna, it looked
much the same save for brilliance and haste. No matter countless
differences, the entire scene had a familiarity eerie and wistful, as if
the ghosts of mammoth hunters remembered an age when Terra too was
innocent.

"Austere but lovely," the man said into silence. His breath smoked,
though the season, late summer, brought no deep cold. "Like you. Tell
me, what do Dennitzans see in the markings on their moon? Terrans
usually find a face in theirs."

"Why ... our humans call the pattern an orlik. That's a winged theroid;
this planet has no ornithoids." A sad smile flickered over Kossara's
night-ivory lips. "But I've oftener thought of it as Ri. He's the hero
of some funny ychan fairy tales, who went to live on Mesyatz. I used to
beg Trohdwyr for stories about Ri when I was a child. Why do you ask?"

"Hoping to learn more about you and yours. We talked a lot in space, but
we've our lifetimes, and six hundred years before them, to explain if we
can."

"We'll have the rest of them for that." She crossed herself. "If God
wills."

They were laconic thereafter, until they had chosen a sleeping place and
spread their bags. By then the crater wall showed dream-blue to south,
and the short night of the planet was near an end. Rime glimmered.
Flandry went behind a tree to change into pajamas. When he came back,
Kossara was doing so. "I'm sorry!" he apologized, and wheeled about. "I
forgot you'd say prayers."

She was quiet an instant before she laughed, unsteadily but honestly. "I
was forgetful too. Well, look if you wish, darling. What harm? You must
have seen the holograms ... " She lifted her arms and made a slow turn
before his eyes. "Do you like what you're getting?"

"Sun and stars--"

She stopped to regard him, as if unaware of chill. He barely heard her:
"Would it be wrong? Here in these clean spaces, under heaven?"

He took a step in her direction, halted, and grinned his most rueful.
"It would not be very practical, I'm afraid. You deserve better."

She sighed. "You are too kind to me, Dominic." She put on her
bedclothes. They kissed more carefully than had been their way of late,
and got into the bags that lay side by side in the heavy shadow of a
furbark tree.

"I'm not sleepy," she told him after a few minutes.

"How could I be?" he answered.

"Was I wanton just now? Or unfair? That would be much worse."

"I was the Fabian this time, not you."

"The what? ... Never mind." She lay watching the final stars and the
first silvery flush before daybreak. Her voice stumbled. "Yes, I must
explain. You could have had me if you'd touched me with a fingertip. You
can whenever you ask, beloved. Chastity is harder than I thought."

"But it does mean a great deal to you, doesn't it? You're young and
eager. I can wait awhile."

"Yes--I suppose that is part of what I feel, the wanting to know--to
know you. You've had many women, haven't you? I'm afraid there's no
mystery left for me to offer."

"On the contrary," he said, "you have the greatest of all. What's it
like to be really man and wife? I think you'll teach me more about that
than I can teach you about anything else."

She was mute until she could muster the shy words: "Why have you never
married, Dominic?"

"Nobody came along whom I couldn't be happy without--what passes for
happy in an Imperial Terran."

"Nobody? Out of hundreds to choose from?"

"You exaggerate ... Well, once, many years ago. But she was another
man's, and left with him when he had to flee the Empire. I can only hope
they found a good home at some star too far away for us to see from
here."

"And you have longed for her ever since?"

"No, I can't say that I have in any romantic sense, though you are a lot
like her." Flandry hesitated. "Earlier, I'd gotten a different woman
angry at me. She had a peculiar psionic power, not telepathy but--beings
tended to do what she desired. She wished on me that I never get the one
I wanted in my heart. I'm not superstitious, I take no more stock in
curses or spooks than I do in the beneficence of governments. Still, an
unconscious compulsion--Bah! If there was any such thing, which I
positively do not think, then you've lifted it off me, Kossara, and I
refuse to pursue this morbid subject when I could be chattering about
how beautiful you are."

At glaciation's midwinter, a colter of ice opened a gap in the Kazan
ringwall. Melt-begotten, the Lyubisha River later enlarged this to a
canyon. Weathering of mostly soft crater material lowered and blurred
the heights. But Flandry found his third campsite enchanting.

He squatted on a narrow beach. Before him flowed the broad brown stream,
quiet except where it chuckled around a boulder or a sandbar near its
banks. Beyond, and at his back, the gorge rose in braes, bluffs, coombs
where brooks flashed and sang, to ocherous palisades maned with forest.
The same deep bluish-green and plum-colored leaves covered the lower
slopes, borne on trees which grew taller than the taiga granted. Here
and there, stone outcrops thrust them aside to make room for
wild-flower-studded glades. A mild breeze, full of growth and soil
odors, rustled through the woods till light and shadow danced. That
light slanted from a sun a third again as bright as Sol is to Terra,
ardent rather than harsh, an evoker of infinite hues.

Guslars trilled on boughs, other wings flew over in their hundreds, a
herd of yelen led by a marvelously horned bull passed along the opposite
shore, a riba hooked from the water sputtered in Flandry's frying pan
while a heap of cloud apples waited to be dessert--no dismally
predictable field rations in this meal. He gestured. "How well a planet
does if left to its own devices," he remarked.

"Nature could take a few billion years for R & D," Kossara pointed out.
"We mortals are always in a hurry."

He gave her a sharp look. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

"N-no. You echoed an idea I've heard before--coincidence, surely." He
relaxed, threw a couple of sticks on the fire, turned the fillets over.
"I am surprised your people haven't long since trampled this area dead.
Such restraint seems downright inhuman."

"Well, the Dolyina has belonged to the Vymezals from olden time, and
without forbidding visitors, we've never encouraged them. You've seen
there are no amenities, and we ban vehicles. Besides, it's less
reachable than many wild lands elsewhere--though most of those are more
closely controlled."

Kossara hugged knees to chin. Her tone grew slow and thoughtful. "We
Dennitzans are ... are conservationists by tradition. For generations
after the Founding, our ancestors had to take great care. They could not
live entirely off native life, but what they brought in could too easily
ruin the whole little-understood ecology. The ... zemly-oradnik ... the
landsman learned reverence for the land, because otherwise he might not
survive. Today we could, uh, get away with more; and in some parts of
the planet we do, where the new industries are. Even there, law and
public opinion enforce carefulness--yes, even Dennitzans who live in
neighboring systems, the majority by now, even they generally frown on
bad practices. And as for the Kazan, the cradle of mankind out here,
haven't heartlands often in history kept old ways that the outer
dominions forgot?"

Flandry nodded. "I daresay it helps that wealth flows in from outside,
to support your barons and yeomen in the style to which they are
accustomed." He patted her hand. "No offense, darling. They're obviously
progressive as well as conservative, and less apt than most people to
confuse the two. I don't believe in Arcadian Utopias, if only because
any that might appear would shortly be gobbled up by somebody else. But
I do think you here have kept a balance, a kind of inner sanity--or
found it anew--long after Terra lost it."

She smiled. "I suspect you're prejudiced."

"Of course. Common sense dictates acquiring a good strong prejudice in
favor of the people you're going to live among."

Her eyes widened. She unfolded herself, leaned on her knuckles toward
him, and cried, "Do you mean you'll stay?"

"Wouldn't you prefer that?"

"Yes, yes. But I'd taken for granted--you're a Terran--where you go, I
go."

Flandry said straight to her flushed countenance: "At the very least,
I'd expect us to spend considerable time on Dennitza. Then why not all,
or most? I can wangle a permanent posting if events work out well.
Otherwise I'll resign my commission."

"Can you really settle down to a squire's life, a storm-bird like you?"

He laughed and chucked her under the chin. "Never fear. I don't imagine
you're ambitious either to rise every dawn, hog the slops, corn the
shuck, and for excitement discuss with your neighbors the scandalous
behavior of 'Uncle Vanya when he lurched through the village, red-eyed
and reeling from liter after liter of buttermilk. No, well make a
topnotch team for xenology, and for Intelligence when need arises."
Soberly: "Need will keep arising."

Graveness took her too. "Imagine the worst, Dominic. Civil war again,
Dennitza against Terra."

"I think then the two of us could best be messengers between Emperor and
Gospodar. And if Dennitza does tear loose ... it still won't be the
enemy. It'll still deserve whatever we can do to help it survive. I'm
not that fond of Terra anyway. Here is much more hope."

Flandry broke off. "Enough," he said. "We've had our minimum adult daily
requirement of apocalypse, and dinner grows impatient."

The Vymezal estate lay sufficiently far inside the crater that the
ringwall cut off little sky--but on high ground just the same, to
overlook the river and great reaches of farm and forest. Conducted from
an outer gate, on a driveway which curved through gardens and parkscape,
Flandry saw first the tile roof of the manor above shading trees, then
its half-timbered brick bulk, at last its outbuildings. Situated around
a rear court, they made a complete hamlet: servants' cottages, garages,
sheds, stables, kennels, mews, workshops, bakery, brewery, armory,
recreation hall, school, chapel. For centuries the demesne must have
brawled with life.

On this day it felt more silent and deserted than it was. While many of
the younger adults were gone to their militia units, many folk of every
other age remained. Most of them, though, went about their tasks
curt-spoken; chatter, japes, laughter, song or whistling were so rare as
to resound ghostly between walls; energy turned inward on itself and
became tension. Dogs snuffed the air and walked stiff-legged, ready to
growl.

At a portico, the gamekeeper who accompanied Flandry explained to a
sentry: "We met this fellow on the riverside lumber road. He won't talk
except to insist he has to see the voivode alone. How he got here
unbeknownst I couldn't well guess. He claims he's friendly."

The soldier used an intercom. Flandry offered cigarettes around. Both
men looked tempted but refused. "Why not?" he asked. 'They aren't
drugged. Nothing awful has happened since mobilization, right?" Radio
news received on his minicom had been meager during the seven planetary
days of march; entering inhabited country, he and Kossara had shunned
its dwellers.

"We haven't been told," the ranger grated. "Nobody tells us a thing.
They must be waiting--for what?"

"I'm lately back from an errand in the city," the guardsman added. "I
heard, over and over--Well, can we trust those Impies the Gospodar
called in along with our own ships? Why did he? If we've got to fight
Terra, what keeps them from turning on us, right here in the Zorian
System? They sure throw their weight around in town. What're you up to,
Impie?"

A voice from the loudspeaker ended the exchange. Danilo Vymezal would
see the stranger as requested. Let him be brought under armed escort to
the Gray Chamber.

Darkly wainscoted and heavily furnished like most of the interior,
smaller than average, that room must draw its name from rugs and drapes.
An open window let in cool air, a glimpse of sunlight golden through the
wings of a hovering chiropteroid. Kossara's father stood beside, arms
folded, big in the embroidered, high-collared shirt and baggy trousers
of his home territory. She resembled her uncle more, doubtless through
her mother, but Flandry found traces of her in those weather-darkened
craggy features. Her gaze could be as stern.

"Zdravo, stranac," Vymezal said, formal greeting, tone barely polite. "I
am he you seek, voivode and nachalnik." Local aristocrat by inheritance,
provincial governor by choice of Gospodar and popular assembly. "Who are
you and what is your business?"

"Are we safe from eavesdroppers, sir?" Flandry responded.

"None here would betray." Scorn: "This isn't Zorka-grad, let alone
Archopolis."

"Nevertheless, you don't want some well-intentioned retainer shouting
forth what I'll say. Believe me, you don't."

Vymezal studied Flandry for seconds. A little wariness left him, a
little eagerness came in. "Yes, we are safe. Three floors aloft,
double-thick door, for hearing confidences." A haunted smile touched his
lips. "A cook who wants me to get the father of her child to marry her
has as much right to privacy as an admiral discussing plans for regional
defense. Speak."

The Terran gave his name and rank. "My first news--your daughter Kossara
is unharmed. I've brought her back."

Vymezal croaked a word that might be oath or prayer, and caught a table
to brace himself.

He rallied fast. The next half-hour was furiously paced talk, while
neither man sat down.

Flandry's immediate declaration was simple. He and the girl lacked
accurate knowledge of how matters stood, of what might happen if her
return was announced. She waited in the woods for him to fetch her, or
guide Vymezal to her, depending on what was decided. Flandry favored the
latter course--the voivode only, and a secret word to the Gospodar.

He must spell out his reasons for that at length. Finally the Dennitzan
nodded. "Aye," he growled. "I hate to keep the tidings from her mother
... from all who love her ... but if she truly is witness to a
galaxy-sized trick played on us--we'll need care, oh, very great
care"--he clapped hand on sidearm--"till we're ready to kill those
vermin."

"Then you agree Zorkagrad, the planet's government and armed service,
must be infested with them?"

"Yes." Vymezal gnawed his mustache. "If things are as you say--you
realize I'll see Kossara first, out of your earshot, Captain--but I've
small doubt you're honest. The story meshes too well with too much else.
Why is our crisis hanging fire? Why--Ha, no more gabble. Tomorrow dawn
I'll send ... him, yes, Milosh Tesar, he's trusty, quick of wit and slow
of mouth--I'll send him on a 'family matter' as you suggest. Let me see
... my wife's dowry includes property wherein her brother also has an
interest--something like that."

"Kossara will have to lie low," Flandry reminded. "Me too. You can call
me an Imperial officer who stopped off on his liberty to give you a
minor message. Nobody will think or talk much about that. But you'd
better squirrel me away."

" 'Squirrel'?" Vymezal dismissed the question. "I understand. Well, I've
a cabin in the Northrim, stocked and equipped for times when I want to
be unpestered a while. Includes a car. Ill flit you there, telling the
household I'm lending it to you. They can't see us land at Kossara's
hideout, can they?"

"No. We foresaw--" Flandry stopped, aware of how intent the stare was
upon him. "Sir, I've told you she and I aim to get married."

"And aren't yet--and nobody wants a hedge-wedding, not I myself when I
don't know you." The voivode sketched a grin. "Thanks, Captain. But if
you've told me truth, she needs a marksman more than a chaperone.
Anyhow, whatever's between you two must already have happened or not
happened. Come, let's go."

XV
--

The year wanes rapidly on Dennitza. On the morning after Danilo Vymezal
had shaken Flandry's hand, kissed Kossara's brow, and left them, they
woke to frost on the windows and icy clearness outside. They spent much
of the day scrambling around wooded steeps begun to flaunt hues that
recalled fall upon ancient Manhome. Flocks of southbound yegyupka made
heaven clangorous. Once they heard the cry of a vilya, and savage though
the beast was, its voice sang wonderfully sweet. Firebush, spontaneously
burning to ripen and scatter its seeds, spread faint pungency through
the air. By a waterfall whose spray stung their skins with cold, they
gathered feral walnuts. Regardless of what spun around the world beyond
its frail blue roof, they often laughed like children.

At dusk they returned to the log building, cooked dinner together, sated
huge appetites, and took brandy-laced coffee to the hearth, where they
settled down on a shaggy rug, content to let the blaze they had kindled
light the room for them. Red flames crackled jokelets of green and blue
and yellow, sent warmth in waves, made shadows leap. The humans looked
at each other, at the fire, back again, and talked about their
tomorrows.

"--we'd better stay around the house hereafter," Flandry said. "Your
father's man could scarcely have gotten an appointment today, but he
should soon. Your uncle's aides can't all be traitors, assuming I'm
right that some are. Two or three, in critical posts, are the most I'd
guess possible. And they themselves will see no reason to stall his
brother-in-law's personal business. In fact, that'd look too queer. So I
expect we'll get word shortly; and Miyatovich may want us to move fast."

Highlights crossed Kossara's face above her cheekbones, shone in eyes,
glowed in hair. "What do you think he'll do, Dominic?"

"Well, he's tough, smart, and experienced; he may have better ideas than
I. But in his place, I'd manufacture an excuse to put myself somewhere
more or less impregnable. Like your Nova-class warship; she's the
biggest around, Dennitzan or Imperial, and the pride of your fleet damn
well ought to have a solidly loyal crew. I'd get the most important
persons, including us, there with me. And, oh, yes, a copy of the
microfiles on everybody who might be involved in the plot, Imperial
officers and locals who've worked themselves close to the Gospodar's
hand in the past several years. A clever, widely traveled captain of
Naval Intelligence, such as--ahem--could help me get a shrewd notion of
whom to suspect. I'd order fleet dispositions modified accordingly,
again on an unalarming pretext. When this was done, I'd have the
appropriate arrests made, then broadcast a 'hold everything' to the
populace, then wait on the qui vive to see what the interrogators dig
out."

Memory made Kossara wince. Flandry laid an arm about her shoulder.
"We've a stiff way yet to go," he said, "but we should be home safe by
blossom time."

She thawed, flowed into his embrace, and whispered, "Thanks to you."

"No, you. If you'd lacked courage to visit Diomedes, the strength to
stay sane and fight on--Why quibble? We're both magnificent. The species
has need of our chromosomes."

"Lots and lots of fat babies," she agreed. "But do you mean it about
spring ... we may have to wait that long?"

"I hope not. The creaking sound you hear is my gentlemanliness. I'm
sitting on its safety valve, which is blistering hot."

She touched a corner of his smile. Her own look became wholly serious.
"Are your jests always armor?" The question trembled. "Dominic, we may
not live till spring."

"We'll take no chances, heart of mine. None. I plan for us to scandalize
our respectable grandchildren."

"We'll have to take chances." She drew breath. "I can't become pregnant
till my immunity treatment's reversed. Tonight--We'll not deceive Father
and Mother. The first chaplain we find can marry us."

"But, uh, your cathedral wedding--"

"I've come to see how little it matters, how little the universe does,
next to having you while I can. Tonight, Dominic. Now."

He seized her to him.

A flash went blue-white in the front windows.

They sprang up. The light had not been blinding, but they knew its
color.

Flandry flung the door wide and himself out onto the porch. Cold poured
over him, sharp liquid in his nostrils. Stars glinted countless. Between
shadow-masses that were trees, he saw the craterside shelve away
downward into the murk which brimmed its bowl. Distance-dwindled, a
fireball yonder lifted and faded. The cloud pillar following appeared
against a constellation just as the thunder rumbled faintly in his
skull.

"That was home," Kossara said out of numbness.

"A tactical nuke, doubtless fired from an aircraft," responded a machine
within Flandry.

The danger to her flogged him aware. He grabbed her arm. "Inside!" She
staggered after him. He slammed the door and drew her against his
breast. She clung, beginning to shudder.

"My love, my love, my love, we've got to get away from here," he said in
a frantic chant. "They must have been after us."

"After you--" She tautened, freed herself, snapped at steadiness and
caught it. Her eyes gleamed steel-dry.

"Yes. But we'll take a few minutes to pack. Food, clothes, weapons."

Defiant, he also tried phoning the manor. Emptiness hummed reply. They
trotted to the shed where the car was, stowed survival gear within,
trotted back for more, boarded.

The cabin tumbled from sight. Flandry swept radar around the
encompassing darkness. Nothing registered. A traffic safety unit wasn't
much use here, of course, but at least this bubble carrying them had a
prayer of crawling to safety before the military vessel that did the
murder could find it.

If--"Wait a second," Flandry said.

"What?" Kossara asked dully.

He glanced at her, dim in star-glow and wanness off the control panel.
She sat hunched into her parka, staring ahead through the canopy. The
heater had not yet taken hold and the chill here was no honest outside
freeze, but dank. Air muttered around the car body.

He dropped near treetop level and activated the optical amplifier. Its
screen showed the wilderness as a gray jumble, above which he zigzagged
in search of a secure hiding place. Though belike they had no immediate
need of any--"I'll take for granted we were a principal target," he
said, quick and toneless. "Snatching us from the household would be too
revealing. But if the killers knew where we were, why not come directly
to our lodge? If they even suspected we might be there, why not try it
first? My guess is, they don't know it exists. However, we're safer in
motion regardless."

She bit a knuckle till blood came forth, before she could say:
"Everybody died on our account?"

"No, I think not. Your father, at least, had to be gotten rid of, since
he knew the truth. And there was no being sure he hadn't told somebody
else. I dare hope the enemy thinks we went out with him."

"How did they learn, Dominic?" Through the curbed hardness of her voice,
he sensed dread. "Is Aycharaych in Zorkagrad?"

"Conceivable." Flandry's words fell one by one. "But not probable.
Remember, we did consider the possibility. If we were to land on the
taiga, Chives must proceed to the spaceport, simply to maintain our
fiction. Wearing his mindscreen would make him overly conspicuous.
Anyhow, Aycharaych wouldn't fail to check on each newcomer, and he knows
both Chives and Hooligan by sight. I decided the odds were he went to
Dennitza from Diomedes, but having made sure the mischief he'd started
was proceeding along the lines he wanted, didn't linger. He's no coward,
but he knows he's too valuable to risk in a merely warlike action--which
this affair has to bring, and soon, or else his efforts have gone for
naught. My guess was, he's hanging around Zoria in a wide orbit known
only to a few of his most trusted chessmen,"

"Yes, I remember now. Talk on. Please, Dominic. I have to be nothing
except practical for a while, or I'll fall apart."

"Me too. Well, I still believe my assessment was confirmed when we made
such trouble-free contact with your father. Chives had been in Zorkagrad
for days. Aycharaych would have found him, read him, and prepared a trap
to spring on us the minute we arrived. Anything else would have been an
unnecessary gamble." Bleakness softened: "You know, I went into the
manor house using every psychotrick they ever drilled into me to keep my
knowledge of where you were out of conscious thought, and ready to
swallow the old poison pill on the spot should matters go awry."

"What?" She turned her head toward him. "Why, you ... you told me to
leave the rendezvous if you didn't return by sunset--but--Oh, Dominic,
no!"

Then she did weep. He comforted her as best he could. Meanwhile he found
a place to stop, a grove on the rim beneath which he could taxi and be
sheltered from the sky.

She gasped back to self-mastery and bade him tell her the rest of his
thoughts. "I feel certain what caused the attack tonight was the capture
of your father's courier," he said. "He must have been interrogated
hastily. Aycharaych would have found out about our cabin, whether or not
your father explicitly told his man. But a quick narcoquiz by
nontelepaths--" He scowled into murk. "The problem is, what made the
enemy suspicious of him? He wasn't carrying any written message, and his
cover story was plausible. Unless--"

He leaned forward, snapped a switch. "Let's try for news."

"The next regular 'cast is in about half an hour," Kossara said in a
tiny voice, "if that hasn't changed too."

He tuned in the station she named. Ballet dancers moved to cruelly happy
music. He held her close and murmured.

A woman's countenance threw the program out. Terror distorted it.
"Attention!" she screeched. "Special broadcast! Emergency! We have just
received word from a spokesman of the Zamok--officers of the Imperial
Navy have arrested Gospodar Miyatovich for high treason. Citizens are
required to remain calm and orderly. Those who disobey can be shot. And
... and weather satellites report a nuclear explosion in the Dubina
Dolyina area--neighborhood of the voivode's residence--attempts to phone
there have failed. The voivode was, is ... the Gospodar's brother-in-law
... No announcement about whether he was trying to rebel or--Stay calm!
Don't move till we know more! Ex-except ... the city police office just
called in--blast shelters will be open to those who wish to enter. I
repeat, blast shelters will be open--"

Repetition raved on for minutes. Beneath it, Flandry snarled, "If ever
they hope to provoke their war, they've reckoned this is their last and
maybe their best chance."

The newsroom vanished. "Important recorded announcement," said a man in
Dennitzan uniform. "A dangerous agent of Merseia is at large in
Zorkagrad or vicinity." What must be a portrait from some xenological
archive, since it was not of Chives, flashed onto the screen. "He landed
eight days ago, posing as a peaceful traveler. Four days ago" (the
computer must redub every 18.8 hours) "he was identified, but fought his
way free of arrest and disappeared. He is of this species, generally
known as Shalmuan. When last seen he wore a white kilt and had taken a
blaster from a patrolman after injuring the entire squad. I repeat, your
government identifies him as a Merseian secret agent, extremely
dangerous because of his mission as well as his person. If you see him,
do not take risks. Above all, do not try talking with him. If he cannot
safely be killed, report the sighting to your nearest military post. A
reward of 10,000 gold dinars is offered for information leading to his
death or capture. Dead or alive, he himself is worth a reward of
50,000--"

Air hissed between Kossara's teeth. Flandry sat moveless for minutes
before he said stonily, "That's how. Somebody, in some fashion,
recognized Chives. That meant I was around, and most likely you. That
meant--any contact between your family and the Gospodar--yes."

Kossara wept anew, in sorrow and in rage.

Yet at the end it was she who lifted her head and said, hoarse but
level-toned, "I've thought of where we might go, Dominic, and what we
might try to do."

XVI
---

Clouds and a loud raw wind had blown in across the ocean. Morning along
the Obala, the east coast of Rodna, was winterlike, sky the color of
lead, sea the colors of iron and gunmetal. But neither sky nor sea was
quiet. Beneath the overcast a thin smoky wrack went flying; surf
cannonaded and exploded on reefs and beaches.

All Nanteiwon boats were in, big solid hulls moored behind the jetty or
tied at the wharf. Above the dunes the fisher village huddled. Each
house was long and wide as an ychan family needed, timbers tarred black,
pillars that upheld the porch carved and brightly painted with ancestral
symbols, blue-begrown sod roof cable-anchored against hurricanes, a
spacious and sturdy sight. But there were not many houses. Beyond them
reached the flatlands the dwellers cultivated, fields harvested bare and
brown, trees a-toss by roadsides, on the horizon a vague darkening which
betokened the ringwall of the Kazan. The air smelled of salt and
distances.

Inside the home of Ywodh were warmth, sun-imitating fluorescents, musky
odor of bodies, growls to drown out the piping at the windows. Some
forty males had crowded between the frescoed walls of the mootroom,
while more spilled throughout the building. They wore their common garb,
tunic in bright colors thrown over sinewy green frame and secured by a
belt which held the knuckleduster knife. But this was no common
occasion. Perched on tails and feet, muscles knotted, they stared at the
three on the honor-dais.

Two were human. One they knew well, Kossara Vymezal. She used to come
here often with Trohdwyr, brother to Khwent, Yffal, drowned Qythwy ...
How weary she looked. The other was a tall man who bore a mustache,
frosted brown hair, eyes the hue of today's heaven.

Ywodh, Hand of the Vach Anochrin, steadcaptain of Nanteiwon, raised his
arms. "Silence!" he called. "Hark." When he had his desire, he brought
his gaunt, scarred head forward and told them:

"You have now heard of the outrages done and the lies proclaimed.
Between dawn, when I asked you to keep ashore today, and our meeting
here, I was in phonetalk up and down the Obala. Not an ychan leader but
swore us aid. We know what Merseian rule would bring.

"Let us know, too, how empty of hope is a mere rebellion against
rebellion. We have boats, civilian aircars, sporting guns; a
revolutionary government would have military flyers and armored
groundcars, spacecraft, missiles, energy weapons, gases, combat
shielding. The plotters have ignored us partly because they took for
granted we care little about a change of human overlords and might
welcome Merseians--untrue--but mainly because they see us as well-nigh
powerless against their crews--true.

"Can we then do aught? These two have made me believe it. Rebellion can
be forestalled. Yet we've netted a flailfish. We need care as much as
courage.

"To most of us, what's gone on of late in Zorkagrad and in space has
been troubling, even frightening, and not understandable, like an evil
dream. Therefore we went about our work, trusting Gospodar Miyatovich
and his councillors to do what was right for Dennitza. Last night's tale
of his arrest as a traitor stunned us. We'd have stood bewildered until
too late for anything--this was intended--had not Kossara Vymezal and
Dominic Flandry come to us in our darkness.

"The whole planet must be in the same clubbed state, and likewise its
fighting forces. What to do? Where is truth? Who is friend and who is
foe? Everyone will think best he wait a few days, till he has more
knowledge.

"In that brief span, a small band of well-placed illwish-ers, who know
exactly what they are at, can put us on the tack they want, too hard
over to come about: unless, in the same span, we go up against them,
knowing what we do.

"This day, leaders will meet in Novi Aferoch and decide on a course for
us. This morning along the Obala, other meetings hear what I tell you:
Stand fast with your weapons, speak to no outsiders, keep ready to
move."

Father. Mother. Ivan. Gyorgye. Little, little Natalie.

Mihail. Trohdwyr. And every soul who perished in our home, every living
thing that did.

Father of Creation, receive them. Jesus, absolve them. Mary, comfort
them. Light of the Holy Spirit, shine upon them forever.

I dare not ask for more. Amen.

Kossara signed herself and rose. The boulder behind which she had knelt
no longer hid Nanteiwon. It looked very small, far down the beach
between gray sea and gray sky. Lutka her doll and Butterfeet her cat
might take shelter in those houses from the wind that blew so cold, so
cold.

Strange she should think of them when their loss belonged to her
childhood and most of her dead were not a day old. She turned from the
village and walked on over the strand. It gritted beneath her boots.
Often an empty shell crunched, or she passed a tangle of weed torn from
the depths and left to dry out. On her right, a hedge of cane barred
sight of autumn fields, rattling and clicking. Waves thundered in,
rushed out, trundled hollowly back again. Wind shrilled, thrust, smacked
her cheeks and laid bitterness across her lips.

Do I comprehend that they are gone?

If only things would move. They had hours to wait, safest here, before
the ychan chiefs could be gathered together. Flandry had offered her
medicines from his kit, for sleep, for calm and freedom from pain, but
when she declined, he said, "I knew you would. You'll always earn your
way," and when she told him she would like to go out for a while, he saw
she needed aloneness. He saw deeper than most, did her Dominic, and
covered the hurt of it with a jape. If only he did not see right past
God.

In time? I'll never preach at him, nor admit outright that I pray for
him. But if we are given time--

They had had no end to their plans. A house in the Dubina Dolyina
country, an apartment in Zorkagrad; they could afford both, and children
should have elbow room for body and mind alike. Quests among the stars,
wild beauties, heart-soaring moment of a new truth discovered, then
return to the dear well-known. Service, oh, nothing too hazardous any
more, staff rather than field Intelligence--nonetheless, swordplay of
wits in the glad knowledge that this was for the future, not the poor
wayworn Empire but a world he too could believe in, the world of their
own blood. Ideas, investments, enterprises to start; the things they
might undertake had sparkled from them like fireworks ...

It had all gone flat and blurred, unreal. What she could still hold
whole in her daze were the small hopes. She shows him an overlook she
knows in the Vysochina highlands. He teaches her the fine points of
winetasting. She reads aloud to him from Simich, he to her from Genji.
They attend the opera in Zorkagrad. They join in the dances at a land
festival. They sail a boat across Lake Stoyan to a cafe beneath
flowering viyenatz trees on Gar-landmakers' Island. They take their
children to the zoo and the merrypark.

If we prevail.

She stopped. Her body ached, but she straightened, faced into the wind,
and told it, We will. We will. I can borrow strength and clarity from
his medicines. The repayment afterward will simply be a time of sleep, a
time of peace. She wheeled and started back. As she fared, her stride
lengthened.

Novi Aferoch climbed from the docks at the Elena River mouth, up a hill
from whose top might be spied the ruins of Stari Aferoch when they
jutted from the sea at low tide. There stood Council Hall, slate-roofed,
heavy-timbered, colonnaded with carven water monsters. In the main
chamber was a table made three hundred years ago from timbers out of
Gwyth's ship. Around it perched the steadcaptains of the Obala. At its
head, stood their moot-lord Kyrwedhin, Hand of the Vach Mannoch, and the
two humans.

A storm hooted and dashed rain on windowpanes. Inside, the air was blue
and acrid from the pipes whereon many had been puffing. Anger smoldered
behind obsidian eyes, but the leathery visages were moveless and not a
tailtip twitched. These males had heard what the voivode's daughter had
to tell, and roared their curses. The hour had come to think.

Kyrwedhin addressed them in quick, precise words. He was short for an
ychan, though when he was younger it had not been wise to fight him. He
was the wealthy owner of seareaping and merchant fleets. And ... he held
a degree from the Shkola, a seat in the Skupshtina, a close experience
of great affairs.

"For myself I will merely say this," he declared in Eriau. (Flitting
from Zorkagrad after receiving Ywodh's urgent, argot-phrased call, he
had been pleased to learn Flandry was fluent in the language, at least
its modern Merseian version. His own Serbic was excellent, his Anglic
not bad, but that wasn't true of everybody here.) "The ideas of our
Terran guest feel right. We in the House of the Zmayi have doubtless
been too parochial where the Empire was concerned, too narrowly aimed at
Dennitzan matters--much like the House of the Folk. However, we have
always kept a special interest in our mother world, many of us have gone
there to visit, some to study, and the inhabitants are our species. Thus
we have a certain sense for what the Roidhunate may or may not do. And,
while I never doubted its masters wish us harm, what news and clues have
reached me do not suggest current preparations for outright war. For
instance, I've corresponded for years with Korvash, who lately became
Hand of the Vach Rueth there. If an attack on us were to be mounted
soon, he would know, and he must be more cunning than I believe for this
not to change the tone of his letters.

"No proof, I agree. A single bit of flotsam in the maelstrom. I will
give you just one more out of many, given me by Lazar Ristich, voivode
of Kom Kutchki. Like most members of the House of the Lords, he takes
close interest in Imperial business and is familiar with several prime
parts of the inner Empire; he had friends on Terra itself, where he's
spent considerable time. He told me the story we heard about Kossara
Vymezal could not be right. Whether truly accused because she belonged
to an overzealous faction among us, or falsely accused for a twisted
political reason elsewhere, a person of her rank would not be shipped
off to shame like any common criminal. That could only happen through
monumental incompetence--which he felt sure was unlikely--or as a
deliberate provocation--which he felt sure the present Im-perium itself
would not give us, though a cabal within it might. He wanted to discuss
this with her uncle. The Zamok kept putting him off, claiming the
Gospodar was too busy during the crisis.

"Well, both Ristich and I know Bodin Miyatovich of old. Such was not his
way. It had to be the doing of his staff. Expecting we'd get a chance at
him somehow, soon--since he was never one to closet himself in an
office--we did not press too hard. We should have. For now he is
captive."

Kyrwedhin halted. The wind shrilled. Finally Kossara said, tone as
uncertain as words, "I can't find out what's really happened to him. Do
you know?"

"Nobody does except the doers," he answered. "There are--were--Imperial
liaison officers about, and their aides. Bodin had explained publicly
why he, as sector governor, called in chosen craft that serve the
Emperor directly, as well as those of the Voyska. Besides their guns,
should Merseia attack, he wanted to demonstrate our reluctance to break
with Terra.

"Spokesmen for the Zamok--the Castle," he added to Flandry; "the
executive center and those who work there--spokesmen for the Zamok have
said they aren't sure either. Apparently a party of Imperials got Bodin
alone, took him prisoner, and spirited him away to a ship of theirs.
Which vessel is not revealed. None have responded to beamed inquiries."

"They wouldn't," Flandry observed.

Kyrwedhin nodded his serrated head. "Naturally not. Imperial personnel
still on the ground deny any knowledge. Thus far we have nothing except
the statement that a high Terran officer contacted Milutin Protich,
informed him Bodin Miyatovich was under arrest for treason, and demanded
Dennitza and its armed forces give immediate total obedience to Admiral
da Costa. He's the ranking Imperial in the Zorian System at the moment,
therefore can be considered the Emperor's representative."

"And who is, m-m, Milutin Protich?"

"A special assistant to the Gospodar. According to the announcement, he
was the first important man in the Zamok whom the Terrans managed to get
in touch with." Kyrwedhin pondered. "Yes-s-s. He isn't
Dennitzan-born--from a nearby system where many families from here have
settled. He arrived several years back, entered administrative service,
did brilliantly, rose fast and far. Bodin had much faith in him."

Flandry drew forth a cigarette. "I take it everybody's been pretty well
paralyzed throughout today," he said.

"Aye. We must decide what to do. And we've fiendish little information
to go on, half of it contradicting the other half. Were the Imperialists
essentially right to seize our Gospodar, or was this their next step in
subjugating us, or even getting us destroyed? Should we declare
independence--when Merseia lurks in the wings? The Imperials can't
prevent that; our ships vastly outnumber theirs hereabouts. But if
fighting starts, they could make us pay heavily."

"You Dennitzans, human and zmay--ychan--you don't strike me as hesitant
people," Flandry remarked. "As we say in Anglic, 'He who dithers is
diddled.' The newscasts have been forgivably confused. But am I right in
my impression that your parliament--Skupshtina--meets tomorrow?"

"Yes. In the Gospodar's absence, the Chief Justice will preside."

"Do you think the vote will go for secession?"

"I had no doubt of it ... until I heard from Dama Vymezal and yourself."

The captains gripped their pipes, knife handles, the edge of the table,
hard. They would have their own words to say later on; but what they
heard in the next few minutes would be their compass.

"If you rise and tell them--" Flandry began.

Kossara cut him off. "No, dear. That's impossible."

"What?" He blinked at her.

She spoke carefully, clearly. The stim she had taken made vigor shine
pale through flesh and eyes. "The Skupshtina's no controlled
inner-Empire congress. It's about five hundred different proud
individuals, speaking for as many different proud sections of land or
walks of life. It's often turbulent--fights have happened, yes, a few
killings--and tomorrow it'll be wild. Do you think our enemy hasn't
prepared for the climax of his work? I know the Chief Justice; he's
honest but aged. He can be swayed about whom he recognizes. And if
somebody did get the floor, started telling the whole truth--do you
imagine he'd live to finish?"

"She's right," Kyrwedhin said.

Flandry drew on his cigarette till his face creased before he replied,
"Yes, I'd supposed something like that must be the case. Assassination's
easy. A few concealed needle guns, shotted around--and as a backup,
maybe, some thoroughly armed bully boys hidden away in buildings near
the Capitol. If necessary, they seize it, proclaim themselves the
Revolutionary Committee ... and, given the spadework the enemy's done
over the years, they can probably raise enough popular support to commit
your people beyond any chance of turning back."

"If you have thought of this and not despaired," Kyrwedhin said, "you
must have a plan."

Flandry frowned. "I'd rather hear what you have in mind. You know your
establishment."

"But I am taken by surprise."

Kossara spoke against storm-noise: "I know. If you and I,
Dominic--especially I--if we appear before them, suddenly, in
person--why, killing us would be worse than useless."

Kyrwedhin's tail smacked the floor. "Yes!" he cried. "My thoughts were
headed your same way. Though you can't simply walk in from Constitution
Square. You'd never pass the Iron Portal alive. What you need is an
escort, bodies both shielding and concealing you, on your way right into
the Union Chamber."

"How?" snapped from a village chief.

Kossara had the answer: "Ychani have always been the Peculiar People of
Dennitza. The House of the Zmayi has never entirely spoken for them;
it's a human invention. If, in a desperate hour, several hundred Obala
fishers enter Zorkagrad, march through Square and Portal into the
Chamber, demanding their leaders be heard--it won't be the first time in
history. The enemy will see no politic way to halt that kind of
demonstration. They may well expect it'll turn to their advantage;
outsiders would naturally think Merseian-descended Dennitzans are
anti-Terran, right? Then too late--" She flung her hands wide, her voice
aloft. "Too late, they see who came along!"

Beneath the surf of agreement, Flandry murmured to her: "My idea also. I
kept hoping somebody would have a better one."

XVII
----

Just before their car set down, Flandry protested to Kossara, "God damn
it, why does your parliament have to meet in person? You've got holocom
systems. Your politicians could send and receive images ... and we
could've rigged untraceable methods to call them and give them the facts
last night."

"Hush, darling." She laid a hand across his fist. "You know why.
Electronics will do for ornamental relics. The Skupshtina is alive, it
debates and decides real things, the members need intimacies,
subtleties, surprises."

"But you, you have to go among murderers to reach them."

"And I fear for you," she said quietly. "We should both stop."

He looked long at her, and she at him, in the seat they shared. Beryl
eyes under wide brow and bronze hair, strong fair features though her
smile quivered the least bit, height, ranginess, fullness, the warmth of
her clasp and the summery fragrance of herself: had she ever been more
beautiful? The vitality that surged in her, the serenity beneath, were
no work of a drug; it had simply let her put aside shock, exhaustion,
grief for this while and be altogether Kossara.

"If there is danger today," she said, "I thank God He lets me be in it
with you."

He prevented himself from telling her he felt no gratitude. They kissed,
very briefly and lightly because the car was crammed with ychans.

It landed in a parking lot at the edge of Zorkagrad,

None farther in could have accommodated the swarm of battered vehicles
which was arriving. Besides, a sudden appearance downtown might have
provoked alarm and a quick reaction by the enemy. A march ought to have
a calming effect. Flandry and Kossara donned cowled cloaks, which should
hide their species from a cursory glance when they were surrounded by
hemianthropoid xenos, and stepped outside.

A west wind skirled against the sun, whose blaze seemed paled in a pale
heaven. Clouds were brighter; they scudded in flocks, blinding white,
their shadows sweeping chill across the world, off, on, off, on. Winged
animals wheeled and thinly cried. Trees around the lot and along the
street that ran from it--mostly Terran, oak, elm, beech, maple--cast
their outer branches about, creaked, soughed Delphic utterances though
tongue after fire-tongue ripped loose to scrittle off over the pavement.
Rainpuddles wandered and wandered. All nature was saying farewell.

The ychans closed in around the humans. They numbered a good four
hundred, chosen by their steadcaptains as bold, cool-headed, skilled
with the knives, tridents, harpoons, and firearms they bore. Ywodh of
Nanteiwon, appointed their leader by Kyrwedhin before the
parliamentarian returned here, put them in battle-ready order. They
spoke little and showed scant outward excitement, at least to human eyes
or nostrils; such was the way of the Obala. They did not know the ins
and outs of what had happened, nor greatly care. It was enough that
their Gospodar had been betrayed by the enemy of their forefathers, that
his niece had come home to speak truth, and that they were her soldiers.
The wind snapped two standards in their van, star white on blue of Yovan
Matavuly, ax red on gold of Gwyth.

"All set," Ywodh reported. A shout: "Forward!" He took the lead. Flandry
and Kossara would fain have clasped hands as they walked, but even
surrounded must clutch their cloaks tight against this tricksy air. The
thud of their boots was lost amidst digitigrade slither and click.

At first it was predictable they would encounter nobody. Here was a new
district of private homes and clustered condominium units, beyond the
scope of forcefield generators that offered the inner city some
protection. Residents had sought safer quarters. An occasional militia
squad, on patrol to prevent looting, observed the procession from a
distance but did not interfere.

Farther on, buildings were older, higher, close-packed on streets which
had narrowed and went snakily uphill: red tile roofs, stucco walls of
time-faded gaudiness, signs and emblems hung above doorways, tenements,
offices, midget factories, restaurants, taverns, amusements, a
bulbous-domed parish church, a few big stores and tiny eccentric shops
by the score, the kind of place that ought to have pulsed with traffic
of vehicles and foot, been lively with movement, colors, gestures broad
or sly, words, laughter, whistling, song, sorrow, an accordion or a
fiddle somewhere, pungencies of roast corn and nuts for sale to keep the
passerby warm, oddments in display windows, city men, landmen,
offworlders, vagabonds, students, soldiers, children, grannies, the
unforgettably gorgeous woman whom you know you will never glimpse again
... A few walkers stepped aside, a few standers poised in doorways or
leaned on upper-story sills, warily staring. Now and then a groundcar
detoured. A civilian policeman in brown uniform and high-crowned hat
joined Ywodh; they talked; he consulted his superiors via minicom,
stayed till an aircar had made inspection from above, and departed.

"This is downright creepy," Flandry murmured to Kossara. "Has everybody
evacuated, or what?"

She passed the question on. Untrained humans could not have conveyed
information accurately in that wise; but soon she told Flandry from
Ywodh: "Early this morning--the organizers must have worked the whole
night--an ispravka started against Imperial personnel. That's when
ordinary citizens take direct action. Not a riot or lynching. The people
move under discipline, often in their regular Voyska units; remember,
every able-bodied adult is a reservist. Such affairs seldom get out of
control, and may have no violence at all. Offenders may simply be
expelled from an area. Or they may be held prisoner while spokesmen of
the people demand the authorities take steps to punish them. A few
ispravkai have brought down governments. In this case, what's happened
is that Terrans and others who serve the Imperium were rounded up into
certain buildings: hostages for the Gospodar's release and the good
behavior of their Navy ships. The Zamok denounced the action as illegal
and bound to increase tension, demanded the crowds disperse, and sent
police. The people stand fast around those buildings. The police haven't
charged them; no shots have yet been fired on either side."

"I've heard of worse customs," Flandry said.

Puzzled, she asked, "Shouldn't the plotters be pleased?"

Flandry shrugged. "I daresay they are. Still, don't forget the vast
majority of your officials must be patriotic, and whether or not they
prefer independence, consider civil war to be the final recourse. The
top man among them issued that cease-and-desist order." He frowned.
"But, um, you know, this nails down a lot of our possible helpers, both
citizens and police. The enemy isn't expecting us. However, if too many
parliament members refuse to board the secession railroad, he'll have a
clear field for attempting a coup d'etat. Maybe the firebrand who
instigated that, uh, ispravka is a Merseian himself, in human skin."

The wind boomed between walls.

A minor commotion occurred on the fringes of the troop. Word flew back
and forth. "Chives!" Kossara gasped.

The ychans let him through. He also went cloaked to muffle the fact of
his race from any quick glance. Emerald features were eroded from spare
to gaunt; eyes were more fallow than amber; but when Flandry whooped and
took him by the shoulders, Chives said crisply, "Thank you, sir. Donna
Vymezal, will you allow me the liberty of expressing my sympathy at your
loss?"

"Oh, you dear clown!" She hugged him. Her lashes gleamed wet. Chives
suffered the gesture in embarrassed silence. Flandry sensed within him a
deeper trouble.

They continued through hollow streets. A fighter craft passed low above
chimneys. Air whined and snarled in its wake. "What've you been doing?"
Flandry asked. "How'd you find us?"

"If you have no immediate statement or directive for me, sir," the
precise voice replied, "I will report chronologically. Pursuant to
instructions, I landed at the spaceport and submitted to inspection. My
cover story was approved and I given license, under police registry, to
remain here for a stated period as per my declared business. Interested
in exotics, many townspeople conversed with me while I circulated among
them in the next few planetary days. By pretending to less familiarity
with Homo sapiens than is the case, I gathered impressions of their
individual feelings as respects the present imbroglio. At a more
convenient time, sir, if you wish, I will give you the statistical
breakdown.

"I must confess it was a complete surprise when a Naval patrol entered
my lodgings and declared an intention to take me in custody. Under the
circumstances, sir, I felt conformity would be imprudent. I endeavored
not to damage irreparably men who wore his Majesty's uniform, and in due
course will return the borrowed blaster you observe me wearing.
Thereupon I took refuge with a gentleman I suspected of vehement
anti-Terran sentiments. May I respectfully request his name and the
names of his associates be omitted from your official cognizance?
Besides their hospitality and helpfulness toward me, they exhibited no
more than a misguided zeal for the welfare of this planet, and indeed I
was the occasion of their first overt unlawful act. They sheltered me
only after I had convinced them I was a revolutionary for my own
society, and that my public designation as a Merseian agent was a
calumny which the Imperialists could be expected to employ against their
kind too. They were persuaded rather easily; I would not recommend them
for the Intelligence Corps. I got from them clothes, disguise materials,
equipment convertible to surveillance purposes, and went about
collecting data for myself.

"They do possess a rudimentary organization. Through this, via a phone
call, my host learned that a large delegation of zmays was moving on the
Capitol. Recalling Donna Vymezal's accounts of her background, and
trusting she and you had not perished after all, I thought you might be
here. To have this deduction confirmed was ... most gratifying, sir."

Flandry chewed his lip for a while before he said,

"Those were Imperials who came to arrest you? Not Dennitzans?"

"No, sir, not Dennitzans. There could be no mistake." Chives spoke
mutedly. His thin green fingers hauled the cowl closer around his face.

"You went unmolested for days, and then in a blink--" Flandry's speech
chopped off. They were at their goal.

Well into Old Town, the party passed between two many-balconied
mansions, out onto a plateau of Royal Hill. Constitution Square opened
before them, broad, slate-flagged, benches, flowerbeds, trees--empty,
empty. In the middle was a big fountain, granite catchbasin, Toman
Obilich and Vladimir locked in bronze combat, water dancing white but
its sound and spray borne off by the wind. Westward buildings stood well
apart, giving a view down across roofs to Lake Stoyan, metal-bright
shimmer and shiver beyond the curve of the world. Directly across the
square was the Capitol, a sprawling, porticoed marble mass beneath a
gilt dome whose point upheld an argent star. A pair of kilometers
further on, a rock lifted nearly sheer, helmeted with the battlements
and banners of the Zamok.

Flandry's gaze flickered. He identified a large hotel, office buildings,
cafes, fashionable stores, everything antiquated but dignified, the gray
stones wearing well; how many Constitution Squares had he known in his
life? But this lay deserted under wind, chill, and hasty cloud shadows.
A militia squad stood six men on the Capitol verandah, six flanking the
bottom of the stairs; their capes flapped, their rifles gleamed whenever
a sunbeam smote and then went dull again. Aircraft circled far overhead.
Otherwise none save the newcomers were in sight. Yet surely watchers
waited behind yonder shut doors, yonder blank panes: proprietors,
caretakers, maybe a few police--a few, since the turmoil was elsewhere
in town and no disturbance expected here. Who besides? He walked as if
through a labyrinth of mirages. Nothing was wholly what he sensed,
except the blaster butt under his hand and a stray russet lock of
Kossara's hair.

She had no such dreads. As they trod into the plaza, he heard her
whisper, "Here we go, my brave beloved. They'll sing of you for a
thousand years."

He shoved hesitation out of his mind and readied himself to fight.

But no clash came. Despite what they told him when the move was being
planned, he'd more or less awaited behavior like that when a gaggle of
demonstrators wanted to invade a legislative session on any human planet
he knew--prohibition, resistance, then either a riot or one of the sides
yielding. If officialdom conceded in order to avoid the riot, it would
be grudgingly, after prolonged haggling; and whatever protesters were
admitted would enter under strict conditions, well guarded, to meet
indignant stares.

Dennitza, though, had institutionalized if not quite legalized
procedures like the ispravka. Through the officer he met on the way,
Ywodh had explained his band's intent. Word had quickly reached the
Chief Justice. Four hundred zmays would not lightly descend on
Zorkagrad, claiming to represent the whole Obala; they could be trusted
to be mannerly and not take an unreasonable time to make their points;
urged by Kyrwedhin, a majority in the third house of the Skupshtina
endorsed their demand. No guns greeted them, aside from those of the
corporal's guard at the entrance; and they bore their own arms inside.

Up the stairs--past armored doors that recalled the Troubles--through an
echoful lobby--into a central chamber where the parliament in joint
session waited--Flandry raked his glance around, seeking menaces to his
woman and shelters for her.

The room was a half ellipsoid. At the far-end focus, a dais bore the
Gospodar's lectern, a long desk, and several occupied chairs. To right
and left, tiers held the seats of members, widely spaced. Skylights cast
fleetingness of weather into steadiness of fluorescents, making the
polished marble floor seem to stir. On gilt mural panels were painted
the saints and heroes of Dennitza. The lawmakers sat according to their
groupings, Lords in rainbow robes, Folk in tunics and trousers or in
gowns, Zmayi in leather and metal. After the outdoors, Flandry breathed
an air which felt curdled by fear and fury.

Banners dipped to an old man in black who sat behind the lectern. Slowly
the fishers advanced, while unseen telescanners watched on behalf of the
world. In the middle of the floor, the ychans halted. Silence
encompassed them. Flandry's pulse thuttered.

"Zdravo," said the Chief Justice, and added a courteous Eriau "Hydhref."
His hand forgot stateliness, plucked at his white beard. "We have ...
let you in ... for unity's sake. My understanding is, your delegation
wishes to speak relevantly to the present crisis--a viewpoint which
might else go unheard. You in turn will, will understand why we must
limit your time to fifteen minutes."

Ywodh bowed, palms downward, tail curved. Straightening, he let his
quarterdeck basso roll. "We thank the assembly. I'll need less than
that; but I think you'll then want to give us more." Flandry's eyes
picked out Kyrwedhin. Weird, that the sole Dennitzan up there whom he
knew should bear Merseian genes. "Worthies and world," Ywodh was saying,
"you've heard many a tale of late: how the Emperor wants to crush us,
how a new war is nearly on us because of his folly or his scheming to
slough us off, how his agents rightly or wrongly charged the Gospodar's
niece Kossara Vymezal with treason and--absolutely wrongly--sold her for
a slave, how they've taken the Gospodar himself prisoner on the same
excuse, how they must have destroyed the whole homestead of his
brother-in-law the voivode of Dubina Dolyina to grind out any spark of
free spirit, how our last choices left are ruin or revolution--You've
heard this.

"I say each piece of it is false." He flung an arm in signal. With a
showmanship that humans would have had to rehearse, his followers opened
their ranks. "And here to gaff the lies is Kossara Vymezal, sister's
daughter to Bodin Miyatovich our Gospodar!"

She bounded from among them, across the floor, onto the dais, to take
her place between the antlers of the lectern. A moan lifted out of the
benched humans, as if the fall wind had made entry; the zmayi uttered a
surflike rumble. "What, what, what is this?" quavered the Chief Justice.
Nobody paid him heed. Kossara raised her head and cried forth so the
room rang:

"Hear me, folk! I'm not back from the dead, but I am back from hell, and
I bear witness. The devils are not Terrans but Merseians and their
creatures. My savior was, is, not a Dennitzan but a Terran. Those who
shout, 'Independence!' are traitors not to the Empire but to Dennitza.
Their single wish is to set humans at each other's throats, till the
Roidhun arrives and picks our bones. Hear my story and judge."

Flandry walked toward her, Chives beside him. He wished it weren't too
disturbing to run. Nike of Samothrace had not borne a higher or more
defenseless pride than she did. They took stance beneath her, facing the
outer door. Her tones marched triumphant:

"--I escaped the dishonor intended me by the grace of God and the
decency of this man you see here, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of his
Majesty's service. Let me tell what happened from the beginning. Have I
your leave, worthies?"

"Aye!"

Gunshots answered. Screams flew ragged. A blaster bolt flared outside
the chamber.

Flandry's weapon jumped free. The tiers of the Skupshtina turned into a
yelling scramble. Fifty-odd men pounded through the doorway. Clad like
ordinary Dennitzans, all looked hard and many looked foreign. They bore
firearms.

"Get down, Kossara!" Flandry shouted. Through him ripped: Yes, the enemy
did have an emergency force hidden in a building near the square, and
somebody in this room used a minicom to bring them. The Revolutionary
Committee--they'll take over, they'll proclaim her an impostor--

He and Chives were on the dais. She hadn't flattened herself under the
lectern. She had gone to one knee behind it, sidearm in hand, ready to
snipe. The attackers were deploying around the room. Two dashed by
either side of the clustered, bewildered fishers.

Their blaster beams leaped, convergent on the stand. Its wood exploded
in flame, its horns toppled. Kossara dropped her pistol and fell back.

Chives pounced zigzag. A bolt seared and crashed within centimeters of
him. He ignored it; he was taking aim. The first assassin's head became
a fireball. The second crumpled, grabbed at the stump of a leg, writhed
and shrieked a short while. Chives reached the next nearest, wrapped his
tail around that man's neck and squeezed, got an elbow-beaking
single-arm lock on another, hauled him around for a shield and commenced
systematic shooting.

"I say," he called through the din to Ywodh, "you chaps might pitch in a
bit, don't you know."

The steadcaptain bellowed. His slugthrower hissed. A male beside him
harpooned a foeman's belly. Then heedless of guns, four hundred big
seafarers joined battle.

Flandry knelt by Kossara. From bosom to waist was seared bloody
wreckage. He half raised her. She groped after him with hands and eyes.
"Dominic, darling," he barely heard, "I wish--" He heard no more.

For an instant he imagined revival, life-support machinery, cloning ...
No. He'd never get her to a hospital before the brain was gone beyond
any calling back of the spirit. Never.

He lowered her. I won't think yet. No time. I'd better get into that
fight. The ychans don't realize we need a few prisoners.

Dusk fell early in fall. Above the lake smoldered a sunset remnant.
Otherwise blue-black dimness drowned the land. Overhead trembled a few
stars; and had he looked from his office window aloft in the Zamok,
Flandry could have seen city lights, spiderwebs along streets and single
glows from homes. Wind mumbled at the panes.

Finally granted a rest, he sat back from desk and control board, feeling
his chair shape its embrace to his contours. Despite the drugs which
suppressed grief, stimulated metabolism, and thus kept him going,
weariness weighted every cell. He had turned off the fluoros. His
cigarette end shone red. He couldn't taste the smoke, maybe because the
dark had that effect, maybe because tongue and palate were scorched.

Well, went his clockwork thought, that takes care of the main business.
He had just been in direct conversation with Admiral da Costa. The
Terran commander appeared reasonably well convinced of the good faith of
the provisional government whose master, for all practical purposes,
Flandry had been throughout this afternoon. Tomorrow be would discuss
the Gospodar's release. And as far as could be gauged, the Dennitzan
people were accepting the fact they had been betrayed. They'd want a
full account, of course, buttressed by evidence; and they wouldn't
exactly become enthusiastic Imperialists; but the danger of revolution
followed by civil war seemed past.

So maybe tomorrow I can let these chemicals drain out of me, let go my
grip and let in my dead. Tonight the knowledge that there was no more
Kossara reached him only like the wind, an endless voice beyond the
windows. She had been spared that, he believed, had put mourning quite
from her for the last span, being upheld by urgency rather than a need
to go through motions, by youth and hope, by his presence beside her.
Whereas I--ah, well, I can carry on. She'd've wanted me to.

The door chimed. What the deuce? His guards had kept him alone among
electronic ghosts. Whoever got past them at last in person must be
authoritative and persuasive. He waved at an admit plate and to turn the
lights back on. Their brightness hurt his eyes.

A slim green form in a white kilt entered, bearing a tray where stood
teapot, cup, plates and bowls of food. "Your dinner, sir," Chives
announced.

"I'm not hungry," said the clockwork. "I didn't ask for--"

"No, sir. I took the liberty." Chives set his burden down on the desk.
"Allow me to remind you, we require your physical fitness."

Her planet did. "Very good, Chives." Flandry got down some soup and
black bread. The Shalmuan waited unobtrusively.

"That did help," the man agreed. "You know, give me the proper pill and
I might sleep."

"You--you may not wish it for the nonce, sir."

"What?" Flandry sharpened his regard. Chives had lost composure. He
stood head lowered, tail a-droop, hands hard clasped: miserable.

"Go on," Flandry said. "You've gotten me nourished. Tell me."

The voice scissored off words: "It concerns those personnel, sir, whom
you recall the townsmen took into custody."

"Yes. I ordered them detained, well treated, till we can check them out
individually. What of them?"

"I have discovered they include one whom I, while a fugitive,
ascertained had come to Zorkagrad several days earlier. To be frank,
sir, this merely confirmed my suspicion that such had been the case. I
must have been denounced by a party who recognized your speedster at the
port and obtained the inspectors' record of me. This knowledge must then
have made him draw conclusions and recommend actions with respect to
Voivode Vymezal."

"Well?"

"Needless to say, sir, I make no specific accusations. The guilt could
lie elsewhere than in the party I am thinking of."

"Not measurably likely, among populations the size we've got." Beneath
the drumhead of imposed emotionlessness, Flandry felt his body stiffen.
"Who?"

Seldom did he see Chives' face distorted. "Lieutenant Commander Dominic
Hazeltine, sir. Your son."

XVIII
-----

Two militiamen escorted the prisoner into the office. "You may go,"
Flandry told them.

They stared unsurely from him, standing slumped against night in a
window, to the strong young man they guarded. "Go," Flandry repeated.
"Wait outside with my servant. I'll call on the intercom when I want
you."

They saluted and obeyed. Flandry and Hazeltine regarded each other,
mute, until the door had closed. The older saw an Imperial undress
uniform, still neat upon an erect frame, and a countenance half Persis'
where pride overmastered fear. The younger saw haggardness clad in a
soiled coverall.

"Well," Flandry said at last. Hazeltine extended a hand. Flandry looked
past it. "Have a seat," he invited. "Care for a drink?" He indicated
bottle and glasses on his desk. "I remember you like Scotch."

"Thanks, Dad." Hazeltine spoke as low, free of the croak in the opposite
throat. He smiled, and smiled again after they had both sat down holding
their tumblers. Raising his, he proposed, "Here's to us. Damn few like
us, and they're all dead."

They had used the ancient toast often before. This time Flandry did not
respond. Hazeltine watched him a moment, grimaced, and tossed off a
swallow. Then Flandry drank.

Hazeltine leaned forward. His words shook. "Father, you don't believe
that vapor about me. Do you?"

Flandry took out his cigarette case. "I don't know what else to
believe." He flipped back the lid. "Somebody who knew Chives and the
Hooligan fingered him. The date of your arrival fits in." He chose a
cigarette. "And thinking back, I find the coincidence a trifle much that
you called my attention to Kossara Vymezal precisely when she'd reached
Terra. I was a pretty safe bet to skyhoot her off to Diomedes, where she
as an inconvenient witness and I as an inconvenient investigator could
be burked in a way that'd maximize trouble." He puffed the tobacco into
lighting, inhaled, streamed smoke till it veiled him, and sighed: "You
were overeager. You should have waited till she'd been used at least a
few days, and a reputable Dennitzan arranged for to learn about this."

"I didn't--No, what are you saying?" Hazeltine cried.

Flandry toyed with the case. "As was," he continued levelly, "the only
word which could be sent, since the Gospodar would require proof and is
no fool ... the word was merely she'd been sold for a slave. Well, ample
provocation. Where were you, between leaving Terra and landing here? Did
you maybe report straight to Aycharaych?"

Hazeltine banged his glass down on the chair arm. "Lies!" he shouted.
Red and white throbbed across his visage. "Listen, I'm your son. I swear
to you by--"

"Never mind. And don't waste good liquor. If I'd settled on Dennitza as
I planned, the price we'd've paid for Scotch--" Flandry gave his lips a
respite from the cigarette. He waved it. "How were you recruited? By the
Merseians, I mean. Couldn't be brainscrub. I know the signs too well.
Blackmail? No, implausible. You're a bright lad who wouldn't get
suckered into that first mistake they corral you by--a brave lad who'd
sneer at threats. But sometime during the contacts you made in line of
duty--"

Hazeltine's breath rasped. "I didn't! How can I prove to you, Father, I
didn't?"

"Simple," Flandry said. "You must have routine narco immunization. But
we can hypnoprobe you."

Hazeltine sagged back. His glass rolled across the floor.

"The Imperial detachment brought Intelligence personnel and their
apparatus, you know," Flandry continued. "I've asked, and they can take
you tomorrow morning. Naturally, any private facts which emerge will
stay confidential."

Hazeltine raised an aspen hand. "You don't know--I--I'm
deep-conditioned."

"By Terra?"

"Yes, of course, of course. I can't be 'probed ... without my mind being
... destroyed--"

Flandry sighed again. "Come, now. We don't deep-condition our agents
against giving information to their own people, except occasional
supersecrets. After all, a 'probe can bring forth useful items the
conscious mind has forgotten. Don't fear if you're honest, son. The
lightest treatment will clear you, and the team will go no further."

"But--oh, no-o-o--"

Abruptly Hazeltine cast himself on his knees before Flandry. Words burst
from his mouth like the sweat from his skin. "Yes, then, yes, I've been
working for Merseia. Not bought, nothing like that, I thought the future
was theirs, should be theirs, not this walking corpse of an
Empire--Merciful angels, can't you see their way's the hope of humankind
too?--" Flandry blew smoke to counteract the reek of terror. "I'll
cooperate. I will, I will. I wasn't evil, Dad. I had my orders about
you, yes, but I hated what I did, and Aycharaych doubted you'd really be
killed, and I knew I was supposed to let that girl be bought first by
somebody else before I told you but when we happened to arrive in time I
couldn't make myself wait--" He caught Flandry by the knees. "Dad, in
Mother's name, let my mind live!"

Flandry shoved the clasp aside, rose, stepped a couple of meters off,
and answered, "Sorry. I could never trust you not to leave stuff buried
in your confession that could rise to kill or enslave too many more
young girls." For a few seconds he watched the crouched, spastic shape.
"I'm under stim and heavy trank," he said. "A piece of machinery. I've a
far-off sense of how this will feel later on, but mostly that's
abstract. However ... you have till morning, son. What would you like
while you wait? Ill do my best to provide it."

Hazeltine uncoiled. On his feet, he howled, "You cold devil, at least
I'll kill you first! And then myself!"

He charged. The rage which doubled his youthful strength was not amok;
he came as a karate man, ready to smash a ribcage and pluck out a heart.

Flandry swayed aside. He passed a hand near the other.

Razor-edged, the lid of the cigarette case left a shallow red gash in
the right cheek. Hazeltine whirled for a renewed assault. Flandry gave
ground. Hazeltine followed, boxing him into a corner. Then the knockout
potion took hold. Hazeltine stumbled, reeled, flailed his arms, mouthed,
and caved in.

Flandry sought the intercom. "Come remove the prisoner," he directed.

Day broke windless and freezing cold. The sun stood in a rainbow ring
and ice crackled along the shores of Lake Stoyan. Zorkagrad lay silent
under bitter blue, as if killed. From time to time thunders drifted
across its roofs, arrivals and departures of spacecraft. They gleamed
meteoric. Sometimes, too, airships whistled by, armored vehicles
rumbled, boots slammed on pavement. About noon, one such vessel and one
such march brought Bodin Miyatovich home.

He was as glad to return unheralded. Too much work awaited him for
ceremonies--him and Dominic Flandry. But the news did go out on the
'casts; and that was like proclaiming Solstice Feast. Folk ran from
their houses, poured in from the land, left their patrols to shout,
dance, weep, laugh, sing, embrace perfect strangers; and every church
bell pealed.

From a balcony of the Zamok he watched lights burn and bob through
twilit streets, bonfires in squares, tumult and clamor. His breath
smoked spectral under the early stars. Frost tinged his beard. "This
can't last," he muttered, and stepped back into the office.

When the viewdoor closed behind him, stillness fell except for chimes
now muffled. The chill he had let in remained a while. Flandry, hunched
in a chair, didn't seem to notice.

Miyatovich gave the Terran a close regard. "You can't go on either," he
said. "If you don't stop dosing yourself and let your glands and nerves
function normally, they'll quit on you."

Flandry nodded. "I'll stop soon." From caverns his eyes observed a
phonescreen.

The big gray-blond man hung up his cloak. "I'll admit I couldn't have
done what got done today, maybe not for weeks, maybe never, without
you," he said. "You knew the right words, the right channels; you had
the ideas. But we are done. I can handle the rest."

He went to stand behind his companion, laying ringers on shoulders,
gently kneading. "I'd like to hide from her death myself," he said.
"Aye, it's easier for me. I'd thought her lost to horror, and learned
she was lost in honor. While if you and she--Dominic, listen. I made a
chance to call my wife. She's at our house, not our town house, a place
in the country, peace, woods, cleanness, healing. We want you there." He
paused. "You're a very private man, aren't you? Well, nobody will poke
into your grief."

"I'm not hiding," Flandry replied in monotone. "I'm waiting. I expect a
message shortly. Then I'll take your advice."

"What message?"

"Interrogation results from a certain Mers--Roidhunate agent we
captured. I've reason to think he has some critical information."

"Hoy?" Miyatovich's features, tired in their own right, kindled. He cast
himself into an armchair confronting Flandry. It creaked beneath his
weight.

"I'm in a position to evaluate it better than anyone else," the Terran
persisted. "How long does da Costa insist on keeping his ships here 'in
case we need further help'?--Ah, yes, five standard days, I remember.
Well, I'll doubtless need about that long at your house; I'll be numb,
and afterward--

"I'll take a printout in my luggage, to study when I'm able. Your job
meanwhile will be to ... not suppress the report. You probably couldn't;
besides, the Empire needs every drop of data we can wring out of what
enemy operatives we catch. But don't let da Costa's command scent any
special significance in the findings of this particular 'probe job."

The Gospodar fumbled for pipe and tobacco pouch. "Why?"

"I can't guarantee what we'll learn, but I have a logical suspicion--Are
you sure you can keep the Dennitzan fleet mobilized, inactive, another
couple of weeks?"

"Yes." Miyatovich grew patient. "Maybe you don't quite follow the
psychology, Dominic. Da Costa wants to be certain we won't rebel. The
fact that we aren't dispersing immediately makes him leery. He hasn't
the power to prevent us from whatever we decide to do, but he thinks his
presence as a tripwire will deter secessionism. All right, in five
Terran days his Intelligence teams can establish it's a bogeyman, and he
can accept my explanation that we're staying on alert for a spell yet in
case Merseia does attack. He'll deem us a touch paranoid, but he'll
return to base with a clear conscience."

"You have to give your men the same reason, don't you?"

"Right. And they'll accept it. In fact, they'd protest if I didn't issue
such an order, Dennitza's lived too many centuries by the abyss; this
time we nearly went over."

Miyatovich tamped his pipe bowl needlessly hard. "I've gotten to know
you well enough, I believe, in this short while, that I can tell you the
whole truth," he added. "You thought you were helping me smooth things
out with respect to the Empire. And you were, you were. But my main
reason for quick reconciliation is ... to get the Imperials out of the
Zorian System while we still have our own full strength."

"And you'll strike back at Merseia," Flandry said.

The Gospodar showed astonishment. "How did you guess?"

"I didn't guess. I knew--Kossara. She told me a lot."

Miyatovich gathered wind and wits. "Don't think I'm crazy," he urged.
"Rather, I'll have to jump around like sodium in the rain, trying to
keep people and Skupshtina from demanding action too loudly before the
Terrans leave. But when the Terrans do--" His eyes, the color of hers,
grew leopard-intent. "We want more than revenge. In fact, only a few of
us like myself have suffered what would have brought on a blood feud in
the old days. But I told you we live on the edge. We have got to show we
aren't safe for unfriends to touch. Otherwise, what's next?"

"Nemo me impune lacessit," Flandry murmured.

"Hm?"

"No matter. Ancient saying. Too damned ancient; does nothing ever change
at the heart?" Flandry shook his head. The chemical barriers were
growing thin. "I take it, then, in the absence of da Costa or some other
Imperial official--who'd surely maintain anything as atavistic as
response to aggression is against policy and must in all events be
referred to the appropriate authorities, in triplicate, for debate--in
the absence of that, as sector governor you'll order the Dennitzan fleet
on a retaliatory strike."

Miyatovich nodded. "Yes."

"Have you considered the consequences?"

"I'll have time to consider them further, before we commit. But ... if
we choose the target right, I don't expect Merseia will do more than
protest. The fact seems to be, at present they are not geared for war
with Terra. They were relying on a new civil war among us. If instead
they get hit, the shock ought to make them more careful about the whole
Empire."

"What target have you in mind?"

Miyatovich frowned, spent a minute with a lighter getting his pipe
started, finally said, "I don't yet know. The object is not to start a
war, but to punish behavior which could cause one. The Roidhunate
couldn't write off a heavily populated planet. Nor would I lead a
genocidal mission. But, oh, something valuable, maybe an industrial
center on a barren metal-rich globe--I'll have the War College study
it."

"If you succeed," Flandry warned, "you'll be told you went far beyond
your powers."

"That can be argued. Those powers aren't too well defined, are they? I
like to imagine Hans Molitor will sympathize." The Gospodar shrugged.
"If not, what becomes of me isn't important. I'm thinking of the
children and grandchildren."

"Uh-huh. Well, you've confirmed what--Hold on." The phone buzzed.
Flandry reached to press accept. He had to try twice before he made it.

A countenance half as stark as his looked from the screen. "Lieutenant
Mitchell reporting, sir. Hypnoprobing of the prisoner Dominic Hazeltine
has been completed."

"Results?" The question was plane-flat.

"You predicted aright, sir. The subject was deep-conditioned." Mitchell
winced at a recollection unpleasant even in his line of work. "I'd never
seen or heard of so thorough a treatment. He went into shock almost at
once. In later stages, the stimuli necessary were--well, he hasn't got a
forebrain left to speak of."

"I want a transcript in full," Flandry said. "Otherwise, you're to seal
the record, classified Ultimate Secret, and your whole team will keep
silence. I'll give you a written directive on that, authorized by
Governor Miyatovich."

"Yes, sir." Mitchell showed puzzlement. He must be wondering why the
emphasis. Intelligence didn't make a habit of broadcasting what it
learned. Unless--"Sir, you realize, don't you, this is still raw
material? More incoherent than usual, too, because of the brain
channeling. We did sort out his basic biography, details of his most
recent task, that kind of thing. Offhand, the rest of what we got seems
promising. But to fit the broken, scrambled association chains together,
interpret the symbols and find their significance--"

"I'll take care of that," Flandry snapped. "Your part is over."

"Yes, sir." Mitchell dropped his gaze. "I'm ... sorry ... on account of
the relationship involved. He really did admire you. Uh, what shall we
do about him now?"

Flandry fell quiet. Miyatovich puffed volcanic clouds. Outside, the
bells caroled.

"Sir?"

"Let me see him," Flandry said.

Interlinks flickered. In the screen appeared the image of a young man,
naked on a bed, arms spreadeagled to meet the tubes driven into his
veins, chest and abdominal cavities opened for the entry of machines
that kept most cells alive. He stared at the ceiling with eyes that
never moved nor blinked. His mouth dribbled. Click, chug, it said in the
background, click, chug.

Flandry made a noise. Miyatovich seized his hand.

After a while Flandry stated, "Thank you. Switch it off."

They held Kossara Vymezal in a coldvault until the Imperials had left.
This was by command of the Gospodar, and folk supposed the reason was
she was Dennitza's, nobody else's, and said he did right. As many as
were able would attend her funeral.

The day before, she was brought to the Cathedral of St. Clement, though
none save kin were let near. Only the four men of her honor guard were
there when Dominic Flandry came.

They stood in uniform of the Narodna Voyska, heads lowered, rifles
reversed, at the corners of her bier. He paid them no more mind than he
did the candles burning in tall holders, the lilies, roses, viyenatz
everywhere between, their fragrance or a breath of incense or the
somehow far-off sound of a priest chanting behind the iconostasis, which
filled the cool dim air. Alone he walked over the stones to her. Evening
sunlight slanted through windows and among columns, filtered to a domed
ceiling, brought forth out of dusk, remote upon gold and blue, the
Twelve Apostles and Christ Lord of All.

At first he was afraid to look, dreading less the gaping glaring
hideousness he had last seen--that was only what violent death
wrought--than the kind of rouged doll they made when Terran bodies lay
in state. Forcing himself, he found that nothing more had been done than
to cleanse her, close the eyes, bind the chin, gown and garland her. The
divided coffin lid showed her down to the bosom. The face he saw was
hers, hers, though color was gone and time had eased it into an inhuman
serenity.

This makes me a little happier, dear, he thought. I didn't feel it was
fitting that they mean to build you a big tomb on Founders' Hill. I
wanted your ashes strewn over land and sea, into sun and wind. Then if
ever I came back here I could dream every brightness was yours. But they
understand what they do, your people. A corner of his mouth bent upward.
It's I who am the sentimental old fool. Would you laugh if you could
know?

He stooped closer. You believed you would know, Kossara. If you do,
won't you help me believe too--believe that you still are?

His sole answer was the priest's voice rising and falling through
archaic words. Flandry nodded. He hadn't expected more. He couldn't keep
himself from telling her, I'm sorry, darling.

And I won't kiss what's left, I who kissed you. He searched among his
languages for the best final word. Sayonara. Since it must be so.
Stepping back a pace, he bowed three times very deeply, turned, and
departed.

Bodin Miyatovich and his wife waited outside. The weather was milder
than before, as if a ghost of springtime flitted fugitive ahead of
winter. Traffic boomed in the street. Walkers cast glances at the three
on the stairs, spoke to whatever companions they had, but didn't stop;
they taught good manners on Dennitza.

Draga Miyatovich took Flandry by the elbow. "Are you well, Dominic?" she
asked anxiously. "You've gone pale."

"No, nothing," he said. "I'm recovering fast, thanks to your kindness."

"You should rest. I've noticed you hour after hour poring over that
report--" She saw his expression and stopped her speech.

In a second he eased his lips, undamped his fists, and raised memory of
what he had come from today up against that other memory. "I'd no
choice," he said. To her husband: "Bodin, I'm ready to work again. With
you. You see, I've found your target."

The Gospodar peered around. "What? Wait," he cautioned.

"True, we can't discuss it here," Flandry agreed. "Especially, I
suppose, on holy ground ... though she might not have minded."

She'd never have been vindictive. But she'd have understood how much
this matters to her whole world: that in those broken mutterings of my
son's I found what I thought I might find, the coordinates of Chereion,
Aycharaych's planet.

XIX
---

The raiders from Dennitza met the guardians of the red sun, and
lightning awoke.

Within the command bridge of the Vatre Zvezda, Bodin Miyatovich stared
at a display tank. Color-coded motes moved around a stellar globe to
show where each vessel of his fleet was--and, as well as scouts and
instruments could learn, each of the enemy's--and what it did and when
it died. But their firefly dance, of some use to a lifelong
professional, bewildered an unskilled eye; and it was merely a sideshow
put on by computers whose real language was numbers. He swore and looked
away in search of reality.

The nearest surrounded him in metal, meters, intricate consoles,
flashing signal bulbs, dark-uniformed men who stood to their duties, sat
as if wired in place, walked back and forth on rubbery-shod feet.
Beneath a hum of engines, ventilators, a thousand systems throughout the
great hull, their curt exchanges chopped. To stimulate them, it was cool
here, with a thunderstorm tang of ozone.

The Gospodar's gaze traveled on, among the view-screens which studded
bulkheads, overhead, deck--again, scarcely more than a means for keeping
crew who did not have their ship's esoteric senses from feeling trapped.
Glory brimmed the dark, stars in glittering flocks and Milky Way shoals,
faerie-remote glimmer of nebulae and a few sister galaxies. Here in the
outer reaches of its system, the target sun was barely the brightest, a
coal-glow under Bellatrix. At chance moments a spark would flare and
vanish, a nuclear burst close enough to see. But most were too distant;
and never another vessel showed, companion or foe. Such was the scale of
the battle.

And yet it was not large as space combats went. Springing from
hyperdrive to normal state, the Dennitzan force--strong, but hardly an
armada--encountered Merseian craft which sought to bar it from
accelerating inward. As more and more of the latter drew nigh and
matched courses with invaders, action spread across multimillions of
kilometers. Hours passed before two or three fighters came so near, at
such low relative speeds, that they could hope for a kill; and often
their encounter was the briefest spasm, followed by hours more of
maneuver. Those gave time to make repairs, care for the wounded, pray
for the dead.

"They've certainly got protection," Miyatovich growled. "Who'd have
expected this much?"

Scouts had not been able to warn him. The stroke depended altogether on
swiftness. Merseian observers in the neighborhood of Zoria had surely
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 alongside," 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
beings who laired here.

"Have you control over your course?" inquired the voice.

"Yes. Let me speak to a ranking officer."

"You will go approximately five hundred kilometers northwest of your
immediate position. Prepare to record a map." The visage vanished, a
chart appeared, two triangles upon it. "The red apex shows where you
are, the blue your mandatory landing site, a spacefield. You will stay
inboard and await instructions. Is this understood?"

"We'll try. We, uh, we have a lot of speed to kill. In our condition,
fast braking is unsafe. Can you give us about half an hour?"

Aycharaych would not have spent several seconds reaching a decision.
"Permitted. Be warned, deviations may cause you to be shot down.
Proceed." Nor would he have broken contact with not a single further
inquiry.

Outside was no longer black, but purple. The spacecraft strewed thunder
across desert. "What the hell, sir?" Chives exploded.

"Agreed," said Flandry. His tongue shifted to an obscure language they
both knew. "Use this lingo while that channel's open."

"What shall we do?"

"First, play back any pictures we got of the place we're supposed to
go." Flandry's fingers brushed a section of console. On an inset screen
came a view taken from nearby space under magnification. His trained
eyes studied it and a few additional. "A spacefield, aye, standard
Merseian model, terminal and the usual outbuildings. Modest-sized, no
vessels parked. And way off in wilderness." He twisted his mustache.
"You know, I'll bet that's where every visitor's required to land. And
then he's brought in a closed car to a narrowly limited area which is
all he ever sees."

"Shall we obey, sir?"

"Um, 'twould be a pity, wouldn't it, to pass by that lovely city we had
in mind. Besides, they doubtless keep heavy weapons at the port; our
pictures show signs of it. Once there, we'd be at their mercy. Whereas I
suspect that threat to blast us elsewhere was a bluff. Imagine a
stranger pushing into a prohibited zone on a normal planet--when the
system's being invaded! Why aren't we at least swarmed by military
aircraft?"

"Very good, sir. We can land in five minutes." Chives gave his master a
pleading regard. "Sir, must I truly stay behind while you debark?"

"Somebody has to cover us, ready to scramble if need be. We're
Intelligence collectors, not heroes. If I call you and say, 'Escape,'
Chives, you will escape."

"Yes, sir," the Shalmuan forced out. "However, please grant me the
liberty of protesting your decision not to wear armor like your men."

"I want the full use of my senses." Flandry cast him a crooked smile and
patted the warm green shoulder. "I fear I've often strained your
loyalty, old chap. But you haven't failed me yet."

"Thank you, sir." Chives stared hard at his own busy hands. "I ...
endeavor ... to give satisfaction."

Time swooped past.

"Attention!" cried from the screen. "You are off course! You are in
absolutely barred territory!"

"Say on," Flandry jeered. He half hoped to provoke a real response. The
voice only denounced his behavior.

A thump resounded and shivered. The tone of wind and engines ceased.
They were down.

Flandry vaulted from his chair, snatched a combat helmet, buckled it on
as he ran. Beneath it he already wore a mindscreen, as did everybody
aboard. Otherwise he was' attired in a gray coverall and stout leather
boots. On his back and across his chest were the drive cones and
controls of a grav unit. His pouchbelt held field rations, medical
supplies, canteen of water, ammunition, blaster, slugthrower, and
Merseian war knife.

At the head of his dozen Dennitzan marines, he bounded from the main
personnel lock, along the extruded gangway, onto the soil of Chereion.
There he crouched in what shelter the hull afforded and glared around,
fingers on weapons.

After a minute or two he stepped forth. Awe welled in him.

A breeze whispered, blade-sharp with cold and dryness. It bore an iron
tang off uncounted leagues of sand and dust. In cloudless violet, the
sun stood at afternoon, bigger to see than Sol over Terra, duller and
redder than the sun over Diomedes; squinting, he could look straight
into it for seconds without being blinded, and through his lashes find
monstrous dark spots and vortices. It would not set for many an hour,
the old planet turned so wearily.

Shadows were long and purple across the dunes which rolled cinnabar and
ocher to the near horizon. Here and there stood the gnawed stump of a
pinnacle, livid with mineral hues, or a ravine clove a bluff which might
once have been a mountain. The farther desert seemed utterly dead.
Around the city, wide apart, grew low bushes whose leaves glittered in
rainbows as if crystalline. The city itself rose from foundations that
must go far down, must have been buried until the landscape eroded from
around them and surely have needed renewal as the ages swept past.

The city--it was not a giant chaos such as besat Terra or Merseia;
nothing on Chereion was. An ellipse defined it, some ten kilometers at
the widest, proportioned in a right-ness Flandry had recognized from
afar though not knowing how he did. The buildings of the perimeter were
single-storied, slenderly colonnaded; behind them, others lifted ever
higher, until they climaxed in a leap of slim towers. Few windows
interrupted the harmonies of colors and iridescence, the interplay of
geometries that called forth visions of many-vaulted infinity. The heart
rode those lines and curves upward until the whole sight became a silent
music.

Silent ... only the breeze moved or murmured.

A time passed beyond time.

"Milostiv Bog," Lieutenant Vymezal breathed, "is it Heaven we see?"

"Then is Heaven empty?" said another man as low.

Flandry shook himself, wrenched his attention away, sought for his
purposefulness in the ponderous homely shapes of their armor, the guns
and grenades they bore. "Let's find out." His words were harsh and loud
in his ears. "This is as large a community as any, and typical insofar
as I could judge." Not that they are alike. Each is a separate song. "If
it's abandoned, we can assume they all are."

"Why would the Merseians guard ... relics?" Vymezal asked.

"Maybe they don't." Flandry addressed his minicom. "Chives, jump aloft
at the first trace of anything untoward. Fight at discretion. I think we
can maintain radio contact from inside the town. If not, I may ask you
to hover. Are you still getting a transmission?"

"No, sir." That voice came duly small. "It ceased when we landed."

"Cut me in if you do ... Gentlemen, follow me in combat formation.
Should I come to grief, remember your duty is to return to the fleet if
possible, or to cover our boat's retreat if necessary. Forward."

Flandry started off in flat sub-gee bounds. His body felt miraculously
light, as light as the shapes which soared before him, and the air
diamond clear. Yet behind him purred the gravity motors which helped his
weighted troopers along. He reminded himself that they hugged the ground
to present a minimal target, that the space they crossed was
terrifyingly open, that ultimate purity lies in death. The minutes grew
while he covered the pair of kilometers. Half of him stayed cat-alert,
half wished Kossara could somehow, safely, have witnessed this wonder.

The foundations took more and more of the sky, until at last he stood
beneath their sheer cliff. Azure, the material resisted a kick and an
experimental energy bolt with a hardness which had defied epochs. He
whirred upward, over an edge, and stood in the city.

A broad street of the same blue stretched before him, flanked by dancing
rows of pillars and arabesque friezes on buildings which might have been
temples. The farther he scanned, the higher fountained walls, columns,
tiers, cupolas, spires; and each step he took gave him a different
perspective, so that the whole came alive, intricate, simple, powerful,
tranquil, transcendental. But footfalls echoed hollow.

They had gone a kilometer inward when nerves twanged and weapons snapped
to aim. "Hold," Flandry said. The man-sized ovoid that floated from a
side lane sprouted tentacles which ended in tools and sensors. The lines
and curves of it were beautiful. It passed from sight again on its
unnamed errand. "A robot," Flandry guessed. "Fully automated, a city
could last, could function, for--millions of years?" His prosiness felt
to him as if he had spat on consecrated earth.

No, damn it! I'm hunting my woman's murderers.

He trod into a mosaic plaza and saw their forms.

Through an arcade on the far side the tall grave shapes walked,
white-robed, heads bare to let crests shine over luminous eyes and
lordly brows. They numbered perhaps a score. Some carried what appeared
to be books, scrolls, delicate enigmatic objects; some appeared to be in
discourse, mind to mind; some went alone in their meditations. When the
humans arrived, most heads turned observingly. Then, as if having
exhausted what newness was there, the thoughtfulness returned to them
and they went on about their business of--wisdom?

"What'll we do, sir?" Vymezal rasped at Flandry's ear.

"Talk to them, if they'll answer," the Terran said. "Even take them
prisoner, if circumstances warrant."

"Can we? Should we? I came here for revenge, but--God help us, what
filthy monkeys we are."

A premonition trembled in Flandry. "Don't you mean," he muttered, "what
animals we're intended to feel like ... we and whoever they guide this
far?"

He strode quickly across the lovely pattern before him. Under an ogive
arch, one stopped, turned, beckoned, and waited. The sight of gun loose
in holster and brutal forms at his back did not stir the calm upon that
golden face. "Greeting," lulled in Eriau.

Flandry reached forth a hand. The other slipped easily aside from the
uncouth gesture. "I want somebody who can speak for your world," the man
said.

"Any of us can that," sang the reply. "Call me, if you wish, Liannathan.
Have you a name for use?"

"Yes. Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Imperial Navy of Terra. Your
Aycharaych knows me. Is he around?"

Liannathan ignored the question. "Why do you trouble our peace?"

The chills walked faster along Flandry's spine. "Can't you read that in
my mind?" he asked.

"Sta pakao," said amazement behind him.

"Hush," Vymezal warned the man, his own tone stiff with intensity; and
there was no mention of screens against telepathy.

"We give you the charity of refraining," Liannathan smiled.

To and fro went the philosophers behind him.

"I ... assume you're aware ... a punitive expedition is on its way,"
Flandry said. "My group came to ... parley."

Calm was unshaken. "Think why you are hostile."

"Aren't you our enemies?"

"We are enemies to none. We seek, we shape."

"Let me talk to Aycharaych. I'm certain he's somewhere on Chereion. He'd
have left the Zorian System after word got beamed to him, or he learned
from broadcasts, his scheme had failed. Where else would he go?"

Liannathan curved feathery brows upward. "Best you explain yourself,
Captain, to yourself if not us."

Abruptly Flandry snapped off the switch of his mind-screen. "Read the
answers," he challenged.

Liannathan spread graceful hands in gracious signal. "I told you,
knowing what darkness you must dwell in, for mercy's sake we will leave
your thoughts alone unless you compel us. Speak."

Conviction congealed in Flandry, iceberg huge. "No, you speak. What are
you on Chereion? What do you tell the Merseians? I already know, or
think I know, but tell me."

The response rang grave: "We are not wholly the last of an ancient race;
the others have gone before us. We are those who have not yet reached
the Goal; the bitter need of the universe for help still binds us. Our
numbers are few, we have no need of numbers. Very near we are to those
desires that lie beyond desire, those powers that lie beyond power."
Compassion softened Liannathan's words. "Terran, we mourn the torment of
you and yours. We mourn that you can never feel the final reality, the
spirit born out of pain. We have no wish to return you to nothingness.
Go in love, before too late."

Almost, Flandry believed. His sense did not rescue him; his memories
did. "Yah!" he shouted. "You phantom, stop haunting!"

He lunged. Liannathan wasn't there. He crashed a blaster bolt among the
mystics. They were gone. He leaped in among the red-tinged shadows of
the arcade and peered after light and sound projectors to smash.
Everywhere else, enormous, brooded the stillness of the long afternoon.
The image of a single Chereionite flashed into sight, in brief white
tunic, bearing though not brandishing a sidearm, palm
uplifted--care-worn, as if the bones would break out from the skin, yet
with life in flesh and great garnet eyes such as had never burned in
those apparitions which were passed away. Flandry halted. "Aycharaych!"

He snatched for the switch to turn his mindscreen back on. Aycharaych
smiled. "You need not bother, Dominic," he said in Anglic. "This too is
only a hologram."

"Lieutenant," Flandry snapped over his shoulder, "dispose your squad
against attack."

"Why?" said Aycharaych. The armored men gave him scant notice. His form
glimmered miragelike in the gloom under that vaulted roof, where sullen
sunlight barely reached. "You have discovered we have nothing to resist
you."

You're bound to have something, Flandry did not reply. A few missiles or
whatever. You're just unwilling to use them in these environs. Where are
you yourself, and what were you doing while your specters held us quiet?

As if out of a stranger's throat, he heard: "Those weren't
straightforward audiovisuals like yours that we met, were they? No
reason for them to put on a show of being present, of being real, except
that none of them ever were. Right? They're computer-generated
simulacrums, will-o'-the-wisps for leading allies and enemies alike from
the truth. Well, life's made me an unbeliever.

"Aycharaych, you are in fact the last Chereionite alive. The very last.
Aren't you?"

Abruptly such anguish contorted the face before him that he looked away.
"What did they die of?" he was asking. "How long ago?" He got no answer.

Instead: "Dominic, we share a soul, you and I. We have both always been
alone."

For a while I wasn't; and now she is; she is down in the aloneness which
is eternal. Rage ripped Flandry. He swung back to see a measure of
self-command masking the gaunt countenance. "You must have played your
game for centuries," he grated. "Why? And ... whatever your reason to
hide that your people are extinct ... why prey on the living? You, you
could let them in and show them what'd make your Chereionites the ...
Greeks of the galaxy--but you sit in a tomb or travel like a
vampire--Are you crazy, Aycharaych? Is that what drives you?"

"No!"

Flandry had once before heard the lyric voice in sorrow. He had not
heard a scream: "I am not! Look around you. Who could go mad among
these? And arts, music, books, dreams--yes, more, the loftiest spirits
of a million years--they lent themselves to the scanners, the
recorders--If you could have the likenesses to meet whenever you would
... of Gautama Buddha, Kung Fu-Tse, Rabbi Hillel, Jesus the Christ, Rumi
... Socrates, Newton, Hokusai, Jefferson, Gauss, Beethoven, Einstein,
Ulfgeir, Manuel the Great, Manuel the Wise--would you let your war lords
turn these instruments to their own vile ends? No!"

And Flandry understood.

Did Aycharaych, half blinded by his dead, see what he had given away?
"Dominic," he whispered hastily, shakily, "I've used you ill, as I've
used many. It was from no will of mine. Oh, true, an art, a sport--yours
too--but we had our services, you to a civilization you know is dying, I
to a heritage I know can abide while this sun does. Who has the better
right?" He held forth unsubstantial hands.

"Dominic, stay. We'll think how to keep your ships off and save
Chereion--"

Almost as if he were again the machine that condemned his son, Flandry
said, "I'd have to lure my company into some kind of trap. Merseia would
take the planet back, and the help it gives. Your shadow show would go
on. Right?"

"Yes. What are a few more lives to you? What is Terra? In ten thousand
years, who will remember the empires? They can remember you, though, who
saved Chereion for them."

Candle flames stood around a coffin. Flandry shook his head. "There've
been too many betrayals in too many causes." He wheeled. "Men, we're
returning."

"Aye, sir." The replies shuddered with relief.

Aycharaych's eidolon brought fingers together as if he prayed. Flandry
touched his main grav switch. Thrust pushed harness against breast. He
rose from the radiant city, into the waning murky day. Chill flowed
around him. Behind floated his robot-encased men.

"Brigate!" bawled Vymezal. "Beware!"

Around the topmost tower flashed a score of javelin shapes. Firebeams
leaped out of their nozzles. Remote-controlled flyer guns, Flandry knew.
Does Aycharaych still hope, or does he only want revenge? "Chives," he
called into his sender, "come get us!"

Sparks showered off Vymezal's plate. He slipped aside in midair, more
fast and nimble than it seemed he could be in armor. His energy weapon,
nearly as heavy as the assailants, flared back. Thunders followed
brilliances. Bitterness tinged air. A mobile blast cannon reeled in
midflight, spun downward, crashed in a street, exploded. Fragments
ravaged a fragile facade.

"Shield the captain," Vymezal boomed.

Flandry's men ringed him in. Shots tore at them. The noise stamped in
his skull, the stray heat whipped over his skin. Held to his protection,
the marines could not dodge about. The guns converged.

A shadow fell, a lean hull blocked off the sun. Flames reaped. Echoes
toned at last to silence around smoking ruin down below. Vymezal shouted
triumph. He waved his warriors aside, that Flandry might lead them
through the open lock, into the Hooligan.

Wounded, dwindled, victorious, the Dennitzan fleet took orbits around
Chereion. Within the command bridge, Bodin Miyatovich and his chieftains
stood for a long while gazing into the viewscreens. The planet before
them glowed among the stars, softly, secretly, like a sign of peace. But
it was the pictures they had seen earlier, the tale they had heard,
which made those hard men waver.

Miyatovich even asked through his flagship's rustling stillness: "Must
we bombard?"

"Yes," Flandry said. "I hate the idea too."

Qow of Novi Aferoch stirred. Lately taken off his crippled light
cruiser, he was less informed than the rest. "Can't sappers do what's
needful?" he protested.

"I wish they could," Flandry sighed. "We haven't time. I don't know how
many millennia of history we're looking down on. How can we read them
before the Merseian navy arrives?"

"Are you sure, then, the gain to us can justify a deed which someday
will make lovers of beauty, seekers of knowledge, curse our names?" the
zmay demanded. "Can this really be the center of the opposition's
Intelligence?"

"I never claimed that," Flandry said. "In fact, obviously not. But it
must be important as hell itself. We here can give them no worse setback
than striking it from their grasp."

"Your chain of logic seems thin."

"Of course it is! Were mortals ever certain? But listen again, Qow.

"When the Merseians discovered Chereion, they were already
conquest-hungry. Aycharaych, among the ghosts those magnificent
computers had been raising for him--computers and programs we today
couldn't possibly invent--he saw they'd see what warlike purposes might
be furthered by such an instrumentality. They'd bend it wholly to their
ends, bring their engineers in by the horde, ransack, peer, gut, build
over, leave nothing unwrecked except a few museum scraps. He couldn't
bear the thought of that.

"He stopped them by conjuring up phantoms. He made them think a few
million of his race were still alive, able to give the Roidhunate
valuable help in the form of staff work, while he himself would be a
unique field agent--if they were otherwise left alone. We may never know
how he impressed and tricked those tough-minded fighter lords; he did,
that's all. They believe they have a worldful of enormous intellects for
allies, whom they'd better treat with respect. He draws on a micro part
of the computers, data banks, stored knowledge beyond our imagining, to
generate advice for them ... excellent advice, but they don't suspect
how much more they might be able to get, or by what means.

"Maybe he's had some wish to influence them, as if they learned from
Chereion. Or maybe he's simply been biding his time till they too erode
from his planet."

Flandry was quiet for a few heartbeats before he finished: "Need we care
which, when real people are in danger?"

The Gospodar straightened, walked to an intercom, spoke his orders.

There followed a span while ships chose targets. He and Flandry moved
aside, to stand before a screen showing stars that lay beyond every
known empire. "I own to a desire for vengeance," he confessed. "My
judgment might have been different otherwise."

Flandry nodded. "Me too. That's how we are. If only--No, never mind."

"Do you think we can demolish everything?"

"I don't know. I'm assuming the things we want to kill are under the
cities--some of the cities--and plenty of megatonnage will if nothing
else crumble their caverns around them." Flandry smote a fist hurtfully
against a bulkhead. "I told Qow, we don't ever have more to go on than
guesswork!"

"Still, the best guess is, we'll smash enough of the system--whether or
not we reach Aycharaych himself--"

"For his sake, let's hope we do."

"Are you that forgiving, Dominic? Well, regardless, Intelligence is the
balance wheel of military operations. Merseian Intelligence should be
... not broken, but badly knocked askew ... Will Emperor Hans feel
grateful?"

"Yes, I expect he'll defend us to the limit against the nobles who'll
want our scalps." Flandry wolf-grinned. "In fact, he should welcome such
an issue. The quarrel can force influential appeasers out of his regime.

"And ... he's bound to agree you've proved your case for keeping your
own armed forces."

"So Dennitza stays in the Empire--" Miyatovich laid a hand on his
companion's shoulder. "Between us, my friend, I dare hope myself that
what I care about will still be there when the Empire is gone. However,
that scarcely touches our lifetimes. What do you plan to do with the
rest of yours?"

"Carry on as before," Flandry said.

"Go back to Terra?" The eyes which were like Kossara's searched him. "In
God's name, why?"

Flandry made no response. Shortly sirens whooped and voices crackled.
The bombardment was beginning.

A missile sprang from a ship. Among the stars it flew arrow slim; but
when it pierced air, hurricane furies trailed its mass. That drum-roar
rolled from horizon to horizon beneath the moon, shook apart wind-carven
crags, sent landslides grumbling to the bottoms of canyons. When it
caught the first high dawnlight, the missile turned into a silver comet.
Minutes later it spied the towers and treasures it was to destroy, and
plunged. It had weapons ready against ground defenses; but only the
spires reached gleaming for heaven.

The fireball outshone whole suns. It bloomed so tall and wide that the
top of the atmosphere, too thin to carry it further, became a roof;
therefore it sat for minutes on the curve of the planet, ablaze, before
it faded. Dust then made a thick and deadly night above a crater full of
molten stone. Wrath tolled around the world.

And more strikes came, and more.

Flandry watched. When the hour was ended, he answered Miyatovich: "I
have my own people."

In glory did Gospodar Bodin ride home.

Maidens danced to crown him with flowers. The songs of their joy rang
from the headwaters of the Lyubisha to the waves of the Black Ocean, up
the highest mountains and down the fairest glens; and all the bells of
Zorkagrad pealed until Lake Stoyan gave back their music.

Springtime came, never more sweet, and blossoms well-nigh buried the
tomb which Gospodar Bodin had raised for St. Kossara. There did he often
pray, in after years of his lordship over us; and while he lived, no
foeman troubled the peace she brought us through his valor. Sing, poets,
of his fame and honor! Long may God give us folk like these!

And may they hearten each one of us. For in this is our hope.

Amen

A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS
==============================

Poul Anderson
=============

[22 feb 2003--scanned for #bookz]

[23 feb 2003--proofed for #bookz]

I
-

Every planet in the story is cold--even Terra, though Flandry came home
on a warm evening of northern summer. There the chill was in the spirit.

He felt a breath of it as he neared. Somehow, talk between him and his
son had drifted to matters Imperial. They had avoided all such during
their holiday.

Terra itself had not likely reminded them. The globe hung beautiful in
starry darkness, revealed by a view-screen in the cabin where they sat.
It was almost full, because they were accelerating with the sun behind
them and were not yet close enough to start on an approach curve. At
this remove it shone white-swirled blue, unutterably pure, near dewdrop
Luna. Nothing was visible of the scars that man had made upon it.

And the saloon was good to be in, bulkheads nacreous gray, benches
padded in maroon velvyl, table of authentic teak whereon stood Scotch
whisky and everything needed for the use thereof, warm and flawlessly
recycled air through which gamboled a dance tune and drifted an odor of
lilacs. The Hooligan, private speedster of Captain Sir Dominic Flandry,
was faster, better armed, and generally more versatile than any vessel
of her class had a moral right to be; but her living quarters reflected
her owner's philosophy that, if one is born into an era of decadence,
one may as well enjoy it while it lasts.

He leaned back, inhaled deeply of his cigarette, took more smokiness in
a sip from his glass, and regarded Dominic Hazeltine with some concern.
If the frontier was truly that close to exploding--and the boy must go
there again ... "Are you sure?" he asked. "What proved facts have you
got--proved by yourself, not somebody else? Why wouldn't I have heard
more?"

His companion returned a steady look. "I don't want to make you feel
old," he said; and the knowledge passed through Flandry that a
lieutenant commander of Naval Intelligence, twenty-seven standard years
of age, wasn't really a boy, nor was his father any longer the boy who
had begotten him. Then Hazeltine smiled and took the curse off: "Well, I
might want to, just so I can hope that at your age I'll have acquired,
let alone kept, your capacity for the three basic things in life."

"Three?" Flandry raised his brows. "Feasting, fighting, and--Wait; of
course I haven't been along when you were in a fight. But I've no doubt
you perform as well as ever in that department too. Still, you told me
for the last three years you've stayed in the Solar System, taking life
easy. If the whole word about Dennitza hasn't reached the Emperor--and
apparently it's barely starting to--why should it have come to a
pampered pet of his?"

"Hm. I'm not really. He pampers with a heavy hand. So I avoid the court
as much as politeness allows. This indefinite furlough I'm on--nobody
but him would dare call me back to duty, unless I grow bored and request
assignment--that's the only important privilege I've taken. Aside from
the outrageous amount of talent, capability, and charm with which I was
born; and I do my best to share those chromosomes."

Flandry had spoken lightly in half a hope of getting a similar response.
They had bantered throughout their month-long jaunt, whether on a
breakneck hike in the Great Rift of Mars or gambling in a miners' dive
in Low Venusberg, running the rings of Saturn or dining in elegance
beneath its loveliness on Iapetus with two ladies expert and expensive.
Must they already return to realities? They'd been more friends than
father and son. The difference in age hardly showed. They bore
well-muscled height in common, supple movement, gray eyes, baritone
voice. Flandry's face stood out in a perhaps overly handsome combination
of straight nose, high cheekbones, cleft chin--the result of a biosculp
job many years past, which he had never bothered to change again--and
trim mustache. His sleek seal-brown hair was frosted at the temples;
when Hazeltine accused him of bringing this about by artifice, he had
grinned and not denied it. Though both wore civilian garb, Flandry's
iridescent puff-sleeved blouse, scarlet cummerbund, flared blue
trousers, and curly-toed beefleather slippers opposed the other's plain
coverall.

Broader features, curved nose, full mouth, crow's-wing locks recalled
Persis d'Io as she had been when she and Flandry said farewell on a
planet now destroyed, he not knowing she bore his child. The tan of
strange suns, the lines creased by squinting into strange weathers, had
not altogether gone from Hazeltine in the six weeks since he reached
Terra. But his unsophisticated ways meant only that he had spent his
life on the fringes of the Empire. He had caroused with a gusto to match
his father's. He had shown the same taste in speech--

("--an itchy position for me, my own admiral looking for a nice lethal
job he could order me to do," Flandry reminisced. "Fenross hated my
guts. He didn't like the rest of me very much, either. I saw I'd better
produce a stratagem, and fast."

("Did you?" Hazeltine inquired.

("Of course. You see me here, don't you? It's practically a sine qua non
of a field agent staying alive, that he be able to outthink not just the
opposition, but his superiors."

("No doubt you were inspired by the fact that 'stratagem' spelled
backwards is 'megatarts.' The prospect of counting your loose women by
millions should give plenty of incentive."

(Flandry stared. "Now I'm certain you're my bairn! Though to be frank,
that awesomely pleasant notion escaped me. Instead, having developed my
scheme, I confronted a rather ghastly idea which has haunted me ever
afterward: that maybe there's no one alive more intelligent than I.")

--and yet, and yet, an underlying earnestness always remained with him.

Perhaps he had that from his mother: that, and pride. She'd let the
infant beneath her heart live, abandoned her titled official lover,
resumed her birthname, gone from Terra to Sassania and started anew as a
dancer, at last married reasonably well, but kept young Dominic by her
till he enlisted. Never had she sent word back from her frontier home,
not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded put down the barbarians of
Scotha and was knighted for it, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded
rescued the new Emperor's favorite granddaughter and headed off a
provincial rebellion and was summoned Home to be rewarded. Nor had her
son, who always knew his father's name, called on him until lately, when
far enough along in his own career that nepotism could not be thought
necessary.

Thus Dominic Hazeltine refused the offer of merry chitchat and said in
his burred un-Terran version of Anglic, "Well, if you've been taking
what amounts to a long vacation, the more reason why you wouldn't have
kept trace of developments. Maybe his Majesty simply hasn't been
bothering you about them, and has been quite concerned himself for quite
some while. Regardless, I've been yonder and I know."

Flandry dropped the remnant of his cigarette in an ash-taker. "You wound
my vanity, which is no mean accomplishment," he replied. "Remember, for
three or four years earlier--between the time I came to his notice and
the time we could figure he was planted on the throne too firmly to have
a great chance of being uprooted--I was one of his several right hands.
Field and staff work both, specializing in the problem of making the
marches decide they'd really rather keep Hans for their Emperor than
revolt all over again. Do you think, if he sees fresh trouble where I
can help, he won't consult me? Or do you think, because I've been
utilizing a little of the hedonism I fought so hard to preserve, I've
lost interest in my old circuits? No, I've followed the news, and an
occasional secret report."

He stirred, tossed off his drink, and added, "Besides, you claim the
Gospodar of Dennitza is our latest problem child. But you've also said
you were working Sector Arcturus: almost diametrically opposite, and
well inside those vaguenesses we are pleased to call the borders of the
Empire. Tell me, then--you've been almighty unspecific about your
operations, and I supposed that was because you were under security, and
didn't pry--tell me, as far as you're allowed, what does the space
around Arcturus have to do with Dennitza? With anything in the Taurian
Sector?"

"I stayed mum because I didn't want to spoil this occasion," Hazeltine
said. "From what Mother told me, I expected fun, when I could get a
leave long enough to justify the trip to join you; but you've opened
whole universes to me that I never guessed existed." He flushed. "If I
ever gave any thought to such things, I self-righteously labeled them
Vice.'"

"Which they are," Flandry put in. "What you bucolic types don't realize
is that worthwhile vice doesn't mean lolling around on cushions eating
drugged custard. How dismal! I'd rather be virtuous. Decadence requires
application. But go on."

"We'll land now, and I'll report back," Hazeltine said. "I don't know
where they'll send me next, and doubtless won't be free to tell you.
While the chance remains, I'll be honest. I came here wanting to know
you as a man, but also wanting to, oh, alert you if nothing else,
because I think your brains will be sorely needed, and it's damn hard to
communicate through channels."

Indeed, Flandry admitted.

His gaze went to the stars in the viewscreeen. Without amplification,
few that he could see lay in the more or less 200-light-year radius of
that rough and blurry-edged spheroid named the Terran Empire. Those were
giants, visible by virtue of shining across distances we can traverse,
under hyperdrive, but will never truly comprehend; and they filled the
merest, tiniest fragment of the galaxy, far out in a spiral arm where
their numbers were beginning to thin toward cosmic hollowness. Yet this
insignificant Imperial bit of space held an estimated four million suns.
Maybe half of those had been visited at least once. About a hundred
thousand worlds of theirs might be considered to belong to the Empire,
though for most the connection was ghostly tenuous ... It was too much.
There were too many environments, races, cultures, lives, messages. No
mind, no government could know the whole, let alone cope.

Nevertheless that sprawl of planets, peoples, provinces, and
protectorates must somehow cope, or see the Long Night fall. Barbarians,
who had gotten spaceships and nuclear weapons too early in their
history, prowled the borders; the civilized Roidhunate of Merseia
probed, withdrew a little--seldom the whole way--waited, probed again
... Rigel caught Flandry's eye, a beacon amidst the great enemy's
dominions. The Taurian Sector lay in that direction, fronting the
Wilderness beyond which dwelt the Merseians.

"You must know something I don't, if you claim the Dennitzans are
brewing trouble," he said. "However, are you sure what you know is
true?"

"What can you tell me about them?" Hazeltine gave back.

"Hm? Why--um, yes, that's sensible, first making clear to you what
information and ideas I have."

"Especially since they must reflect what the higher-ups believe, which
I'm not certain about."

"Neither am I, really. My attention's been directed elsewhere, Tauria
seeming as reliably under control as any division of the Empire."

"After your experience there?"

"Precisely on account of it. Very well. We'll save time if I run
barefoot through the obvious. Then you needn't interrogate me, groping
around for what you may not have suspected hitherto."

Hazeltine nodded. "Besides," he said, "I've never been in those parts
myself."

"Oh? You mentioned assignments which concerned the Merseia-ward frontier
and our large green playmates."

"Tauria isn't the only sector at that end of the Empire," Hazeltine
pointed out.

Too big, this handful of stars we suppose we know ... "Ahem." Flandry
took the crystal decanter. A refill gurgled into his glass. "You've
heard how I happpened to be in the neighborhood when the governor, Duke
Alfred of Varrak, kidnapped Princess Megan while she was touring, as
part of a scheme to detach the Taurian systems from the Empire and bring
them under Merseian protection--which means possession. Chives and I
thwarted him, or is 'foiled' a more dramatic word?

"Well, then the question arose, what to do next? Let me remind you, Hans
had assumed, which means grabbed, the crown less than two years earlier.
Everything was still in upheaval. Three avowed rivals were out to
replace him by force of arms, and nobody could guess how many more would
take an opportunity that came along, whether to try for supreme power or
for piratical autonomy. Alfred wouldn't have made his attempt without
considerable support among his own people. Therefore, not only must the
governorship change, but the sector capital.

"Now Dennitza may not be the most populous, wealthy, or up-to-date
human-colonized planet in Tauria. However, it has a noticeable sphere of
influence. And it has strength out of proportion, thanks to
traditionally maintaining its own military, under the original treaty of
annexation. And the Dennitzans always despised Josip. His tribute
assessors and other agents he sent them, through Duke Alfred, developed
a tendency to get killed in brawls, and somehow nobody afterward could
identify the brawlers. When Josip died, and the Policy Board split on
accepting his successor, and suddenly all hell let out for noon, the
Gospodar declared for Hans Molitor. He didn't actually dispatch troops
to help, but he kept order in his part of space, gave the Merseians no
opening--doubtless the best service he could have rendered.

"Wasn't he the logical choice to take charge of Tauria? Isn't he still?"

"In spite of Merseians on his home planet?" Hazeltine challenged.

"Citizens of Merseian descent," Flandry corrected. "Rather remote
descent, I've heard. There are humans who serve the Roidhunate, too, and
not every one has been bought or brainscrubbed; some families have lived
on Merseian worlds for generations."

"Nevertheless," Hazeltine said, "the Dennitzan culture isn't
Terran--isn't entirely human. Remember how hard the colonists of Avalon
fought to stay in the Domain of Ythri, way back when the Empire waged a
war to adjust that frontier? Why should Dennitzans feel brotherly toward
Terrans?"

"I don't suppose they do." Flandry shrugged. "I've never visited them
either. But I've met other odd human societies, not to speak of
nonhuman. They stay in the Empire because it gives them the Pax and
often a fair amount of commercial benefit, without usually charging too
high a price for the service. From what little I saw and heard in the
way of reports on the Gospodar and his associates, they aren't such
fools as to imagine they can stay at peace independently. Their history
includes the Troubles, and their ancestors freely joined the Empire when
it appeared."

"Nowadays Merseia might offer them a better deal."

"Uh-uh. They've been marchmen up against Merseia far too long. Too many
inherited grudges."

"Such things can change. I've known marchmen myself. They take on the
traits of their enemies, and eventually--" Hazeltine leaned across the
table. His voice harshened. "Why are the Dennitzans resisting the
Emperor's decree?"

"About disbanding their militia?" Flandry sipped. "Yes, I know, the
Gospodar's representatives here have been appealing, arguing,
logrolling, probably bribing, and certainly making nuisances of
themselves on governmental levels as high as the Policy Board. Meanwhile
he drags his feet. If the Emperor didn't have more urgent matters on
deck, we might have seen fireworks by now."

"Nuclear?"

"Oh, no, no. Haven't we had our fill of civil war? I spoke
metaphorically. And ... between us, lad, I can't blame the Gospodar very
much. True, Hans' idea is that consolidating all combat services may
prevent a repetition of what we just went through. I can't say it won't
help; nor can I say it will. If nothing else, the Dennitzans do nest way
out on a windy limb. They have more faith in their ability to protect
themselves, given Navy support, than in the Navy's ability to do it
alone. They may well be right. This is too serious a matter--a whole
frontier is involved--too serious for impulsive action: another reason,
I'm sure, why Hans has been patient, has not dismissed the Gospodar as
governor or anything."

"I believe he's making a terrible mistake," Hazeltine said.

"What do you think the Dennitzans have in mind, then?"

"If not a breakaway, and inviting the Merseians in--I'm far from
convinced that that's unthinkable to them, but I haven't proof--if not
that, then insurrection ... to make the Gospodar Emperor."

Flandry sat still for a while. The ship murmured, the music sang around
him. Terra waxed in his sight.

Finally, taking forth a fresh cigarette, he asked, "What gives you that
notion? Your latest work didn't bring you within a hundred parsecs of
Dennitza, did it?"

"No." Hazeltine's mouth, which recalled the mouth of Persis, drew into
thinner lines than ever hers had done. "That's what scares me. You see,
we've collected evidence that Dennitzans are engineering a rebellion on
Diomedes. Have you heard of Diomedes?"

"Ye-e-es. Any man who appreciates your three primaries of life ought to
study the biography of Nicholas van Rijn, and he was shipwrecked there
once. Yes, I know a little. But it isn't a terribly important planet to
this day, is it? Why should it revolt, and how could it hope to
succeed?"

"I wasn't on that team myself. But my unit was carrying out related
investigations in the same sector, and we exchanged data. Apparently the
Diomedeans--factions among them--hope the Domain of Ythri will help.
They've acquired a mystique about the kinship of winged beings ...
Whether the Ythrians really would intervene or not is hard to tell. I
suspect not, to the extent that'd bring on overt conflict with us. But
they might well use the potentiality, the threat, to steer us into new
orbits--We've barely started tracing the connections."

Flandry scowled. "And those turn out to be Dennitzan?"

"Correct. Any such conspiracy would have to involve members of a society
with spaceships--preferably humans--to plant and cultivate the seed on
Diomedes, and maintain at least enough liaison with Ythri that the
would-be rebels stay hopeful. When our people first got on the track of
this, they naturally assumed the humans were Avalonian. But a lucky
capture they made, just before I left for Sol, indicated otherwise.
Dennitzan agents, Dennitzan."

"Why, on the opposite side of Terra from their home?"

"Oh, come on! You know why. If the Gospodar's planning an uprising of
his own, what better preliminary than one in that direction?" Hazeltine
drew breath. "I don't have the details. Those are, or will be, in the
reports to GHQ from our units. But isn't something in the Empire always
going wrong? The word is, his Majesty plans to leave soon for Sector
Spica, at the head of an armada, and curb the barbarians there. That's a
long way from anyplace else. Meanwhile, how slowly do reports from an
obscure clod like Diomedes grind their way through the bureaucracy?"

"When a fleet can incinerate a world," Flandry said bleakly, "I prefer
governments not have fast reflexes. You and your teammates could well be
quantum-hopping to an unwarranted conclusion. For instance, those
Dennitzans who were caught, if they really are Dennitzans, could be
freebooters. Or if they have bosses at home, those bosses may be a
single clique--may be, themselves, maneuvering to overthrow the
Gospodar--and may or may not have ambitions beyond that. How much more
than you've told me do you know for certain?"

Hazeltine sighed. "Not much. But I hoped--" He looked suddenly,
pathetically young. "I hoped you might check further into the question."

Chives entered, on bare feet which touched the carpet soundlessly though
the gee-field was set at Terran standard. "I beg your pardon, sir," he
addressed his master. "If you wish dinner before we reach the landing
approach zone, I must commence preparations. The tournedos will
obviously require a red wine. Shall I open the Chateau Falkayn '35?"

"Hm?" Flandry blinked, recalled from darker matters. "Why ... um-m ...
I'd thought of Beaujolais."

"No, sir," said Chives, respectfully immovable. "I cannot recommend
Beaujolais to accompany a tournedos such as is contemplated. And may I
suggest drinking and smoking cease until your meal is ready?"

Summer evening around Catalina deepened into night. Flandry sat on a
terrace of the lodge which the island's owner, his friend the Mayor
Palatine of Britain, had built on its heights and had lent to him. He
wasn't sleepy; during the space trip, his circadian rhythm had slipped
out of phase with this area. Nor was he energetic. He felt--a bit
sad?--no, pensive, lonesome, less in an immediate fashion than as an
accumulation from the years--a mood he had often felt before and
recognized would soon become restlessness. Yet while it stayed as it
was, he could wonder if he should have married now and then. Or even for
life? It would have been good to help young Dominic grow.

He sighed, twisted about in his lounger till he found a comfortable
knees-aloft position, drew on his cigar and watched the view. Beneath
him, shadowy land plunged to a bay and, beyond, the vast metallic sheet
of a calm Pacific. A breeze blew cool, scented with roses and Buddha's
cup. Overhead, stars twinkled forth in a sky that ranged from amethyst
to silver-blue. A pair of contrails in the west caught the last glow of
a sunken sun. But the evening was quiet. Traffic was never routed near
the retreats of noblemen.

How many kids do I have? And how many of them know they're mine? (I've
only met or heard of a few.) And where are they and what's the universe
doing to them?

Hm. He pulled rich smoke across his tongue. When a person starts
sentimentalizing, it's time either to get busy or to take antisenescence
treatments. Pending this decision, how about a woman? That stopover on
Ceres was several days ago, after all. He considered ladies he knew and
decided against them, for each would expect personal
consideration--which was her right, but his mind was still too full of
his son. Therefore: Would I rather flit to the mainland and its bright
lights, or have Chives phone the nearest cepheid agency?

As if at a signal, his personal servant appeared, a Shalmuan, slim
kilt-clad form remarkably humanlike except for 140 centimeters of
height, green skin, hairlessness, long prehensile tail, and, to be sure,
countless more subtle variations. On a tray he carried a visicom
extension, a cup of coffee, and a snifter of cognac. "You have a call,
sir," he announced.

How many have you filtered out? Flandry didn't ask. Nor did he object.
The nonhuman in a human milieu--or vice versa--commonly appears as a
caricature of a personality, because those around him cannot see most of
his soul. But Chives had attended his boss for years. "Personal servant"
had come to mean more than "valet and cook"; it included being butler of
a household which never stayed long in a single place, and pilot, and
bodyguard, and whatever an emergency might require.

Chives brought the lounger table into position, set down the tray, and
disappeared again. Flandry's pulse bounced a little. In the screen
before him was the face of Dominic Hazeltine. "Why, hello," he said. "I
didn't expect to hear from you this soon."

"Well"--excitement thrummed--"you know, our conversation--When I came
back to base, I got a chance at a general data scanner, and keyed for
recent material on Dennitza. A part of what I learned will interest you,
I think. Though you'd better act fast."

II
--

Immediately after the two Navy yeomen who brought Kossara to the slave
depot had signed her over to its manager and departed, he told her:
"Hold out your left arm." Dazed--for she had been whisked from the ship
within an hour of landing on Terra, and the speed of the aircar had
blurred the enormousness of Archopolis--she obeyed. He glanced expertly
at her wrist and, from a drawer, selected a bracelet of white metal,
some three centimeters broad and a few millimeters thick. Hinged, it
locked together with a click. She stared at the thing. A couple of
sensor spots and a niello of letters and numbers were its only
distinctions. It circled her arm snugly though not uncomfortably.

"The law requires slaves to wear this," the manager explained in a bored
tone. He was a pudgy, faintly greasy-looking middle-aged person in whose
face dwelt shrewdness.

That must be on Terra, trickled through Kossara's mind. Other places
seem to have other ways. And on Dennitza we keep no slaves ...

"It's powered by body heat and maintains an audiovisual link to a global
monitor net," the voice went on. "If the computers notice anything
suspicious--including, of course, any tampering with the bracelet--they
call a human operator. He can stop you in your tracks by a signal." The
man pointed to a switch on his desk. "This gives the same signal."

He pressed. Pain burned like lightning, through flesh, bone, marrow,
until nothing was except pain. Kossara fell to her knees. She never knew
if she screamed or if her throat had jammed shut.

He lifted his hand and the anguish was gone. Kossara crouched shaking
and weeping. Dimly she heard: "That was five seconds' worth. Direct
nerve stim from the bracelet, triggers a center in the brain. Harmless
for periods of less than a minute, if you haven't got a weak heart or
something. Do you understand you'd better be a good girl? All right, on
your feet."

As she swayed erect, the shudders slowly leaving her, he smirked and
muttered, "You know, you're a looker. Exotic; none of this standardized
biosculp format. I'd be tempted to bid on you myself, except the price
is sure to go out of my reach. Well ... hold still."

He did no more than feel and nuzzle. She endured, thinking that probably
soon she could take a long, long, long hot shower. But when a guard had
conducted her to the women's section, she found the water was cold and
rationed. The dormitory gaped huge, echoing, little inside it other than
bunks and inmates. The mess was equally barren, the food adequate but
tasteless. Some twenty prisoners were present. They received her kindly
enough, with a curiosity that sharpened when they discovered she was
from a distant planet and this was her first time on Terra. Exhausted,
she begged off saying much and tumbled into a haunted sleep.

The next morning she got a humiliatingly thorough medical examination. A
psychotech studied the dossier on her which Naval Intelligence had
supplied, asked a few questions, and signed a form. She got the
impression he would have liked to inquire further--why had she
rebelled?--but a Secret classification on her record scared him off. Or
else (because whoever bought her would doubtless talk to her about it)
he knew from his study how chaotic and broken her memories of the
episode were, since the hypnoprobing on Diomedes.

That evening she couldn't escape conversation in the dormitory. The
women clustered around and chattered. They were from Terra, Luna, and
Venus. With a single exception, they had been sentenced to limited terms
of enslavement for crimes such as repeated theft or dangerous
negligence, and were not very bright or especially comely.

"I don't suppose anybody'll bid on me," lamented one. "Hard labor for
the government, then."

"I don't understand," said Kossara. Her soft Dennitzan accent intrigued
them. "Why? I mean, when you have a worldful of machines, every kind of
robot--why slaves? How can it ... how can it pay?"

The exceptional woman, who was handsome in a haggard fashion, answered.
"What else would you do with the wicked? Kill them, even for tiny
things? Give them costly psychocorrection? Lock them away at public
expense, useless to themselves and everybody else? No, let them work.
Let the Imperium get some money from selling them the first time, if it
can."

Does she talk like that because she's afraid of her bracelet? Kossara
wondered. Surely, oh, surely we can complain a little among ourselves!
"What can we do that a machine can't do better?" she asked.

"Personal services," the woman said. "Many kinds. Or ... well,
economics. Often a slave is less efficient than a machine, but needs
less capital investment."

"You sound educated," Kossara remarked.

The woman sighed. "I was, once. Till I killed my husband. That meant a
life term like yours, dear. To be quite safe, my buyer did pay to have
my mind corrected." A sort of energy blossomed in look and tone. "How
grateful I am! I was a murderess, do you hear, a murderess. I took it on
myself to decide another human being wasn't fit to live. Now I know--"
She seized Kossara's hands. "Ask them to correct you too. You committed
treason, didn't you say? Beg them to wash you clean!"

The rest edged away. Brain-channeled, Kossara knew. A crawling went
under her skin. "Wh-why are you here?" she stammered. "If you were
bought--"

"He grew tired of me and sold me back. I'll always long for him ... but
he had the perfect right, of course." The woman drew nearer. "I like
you, Kossara," she whispered. "I do hope we'll go to the same place."

"Place?"

"Oh, somebody rich may take you for a while. Likelier, though, a
brothel--"

Kossara yanked free and ran. She didn't quite reach a toilet before she
vomited. They made her clean the floor. Afterward, when they insisted on
circling close and talking and talking, she screamed at them to leave
her alone, then enforced it with a couple of skilled blows. No
punishment followed. It was dreadful to know that a half-aware
electronic brain watched every pulsebeat of her existence, and no doubt
occasionally a bored human supervisor examined her screen at random. But
seemingly the guardians didn't mind a fight, if no property was damaged.
She sought her bunk and curled up into herself.

Next morning a matron came for her, took a critical look, and nodded.
"You'll do," she said. "Swallow this." She held forth a pill.

"What's that?" Kossara crouched back.

"A euphoriac. You want to be pretty for the camera, don't you? Go on,
swallow." Remembering the alternative, Kossara obeyed.

As she accompanied the matron down the hall, waves of comfort passed
through her, higher at each tide. It was like being drunk, no, not
drunk, for she had her full senses and command of her body ... like
having savored a few glasses with Mihail, after they had danced, and the
violins playing yet ... like having Mihail here, alive again.

Almost cheerfully, in the recording room she doffed her gray issue gown,
went through the paces and said the phrases designed to show her off, as
instructed. She barely heard the running commentary:

"Kossara Vymezal [mispronounced, but a phonetic spell-out followed],
human female, age twenty-five, virgin, athletic, health and intelligence
excellent, education good though provincial. Spirited, but ought to
learn subordination in short order without radical measures. Life
sentence for treason, conspiracy to promote and aid rebellion. Suffers
from hostility to the Imperium and some disorientation due to
hypnoprobing. Neither handicap affects her wits or basic emotional
stability. Her behavior on the voyage here was cold but acceptable.

"She was born on the planet Dennitza, Zoria III in the Taurian Sector.
[A string of numbers] Her family is well placed, father being a district
administrator. [Why no mention of the fact Mother was a sister of Bodin
Miyatovich, Gospodar and sector governor? O Uncle, Uncle ... ] As is the
rule there, she received military training and served a hitch in the
armed forces. She has a degree in xenology. Having done field work on
planets near home, several months ago she went to Diomedes [a string of
numbers]--quite remote, her research merely a disguise. Most of the
report on her has not been made available to us; and as said, she
herself is confused and largely amnesiac about this period. Her main
purpose was to help instigate a revolt. Before much harm was done, she
was detected, arrested, interrogated, and sentenced by court-martial.
There being little demand for slaves in that region, and a courier ship
returning directly to Terra, she was brought along.

"We rate her unlikely to be dangerous, given the usual precautions, and
attractive both physically and personally--"

The camera projected back the holograms it had taken, for its operator's
inspection, and Kossara looked upon her image. She saw a big young
woman, 177 centimeters tall, a bit small in the bosom but robust in
shoulders, hips, and long free-striding legs, skin ivory-clear save for
a few freckles and the remnant of a tan. The face was wide, high in the
cheekbones, snub in the nose, full in the mouth, strong in chin and
jawline. Large blue-green eyes stood well apart beneath dark brows and
reddish-brown bangs; that hair was cropped below the ears in the manner
of both sexes on Dennitza. When she spoke, her voice was husky.

"--will be sullen unless drugged, but given the right training and
conditions, ought to develop a high sexual capacity. A private owner may
find that kindness will in due course make her loyal and responsive--"

Kossara slipped dreamily away from the words, the room, Terra ... the
whole way home. To Mihail? No, she couldn't quite raise him from the
dust between the stars--even now, she dared not. But, oh, just a few
years ago, she and Trohdwyr ...

{She had a vacation from her studies at the Shkola plus a furlough from
her ground defense unit in the Narodna Voyska. Ordinarily she would have
spent as much of this time as he could spare with her betrothed. But a
space force had been detected within a few light-years of the Zorian
System which might intend action on behalf of some other claimant to the
Imperium than Hans Molitor whom the Gospodar supported, or might use
such partisanship as an excuse for brigandage. Therefore Bodin
Miyatovich led some of the Dennitzan fleet out to warn off the
strangers, and if necessary fight them off. Mihail Svetich, engineer on
a Meteor-class torpedo craft, had kissed Kossara farewell.

Rather than fret idle in Zorkagrad, she flitted to her parents' home.
Danilo Vymezal, voivode of the Dubina Dolyina, was head of council,
chief magistrate, and military commander throughout a majestic country
at the northern rim of the Kazan. Soon after she reached the estate,
Kossara said she wished for a long hunt. Her father regarded her for a
moment before he nodded. "That will do you good," he said. "Who would
you like for a partner? Trohdwyr?"

She had unthinkingly supposed she would go alone. But of course he was
right; only fools went by themselves so far into wilderness that no
radio relay could pass on a distress call from a pocket transceiver. The
old zmay was welcome company, not least because he knew when to be
silent.

They took an aircar to a meadow on the unpeopled western slope and set
forth afoot. The days and nights, the leagues and heights, wind, rain,
sun, struggle, and sleep were elixir. More than once she had a clear
shot at a soaring orlik or a bull yelen poised on a crag, and forbore;
those wings or those horns were too splendid across the sky. But at last
it was sweet fire in the blood to stand before a charging dyavo, feel
the rifle surge back against her shoulder, see fangs and claws fall down
within a meter of her.

Trohdwyr reproved: "You were reckless, Dama."

"He came at me from his den," Kossara retorted.

"After you saw the entrance and took care to make much noise in the
bushes. Deny it not. I have known you longer than your own memory runs.
You learned to walk by clinging to my tail for safety. If I lose you
now, your father will dismiss me from his service, and where then shall
a poor lorn dodderer go? Back to his birth village to become a fisher
again, after these many years? Have mercy, Dama."

She chuckled. They set about making camp. This was high in the bowl of
the Kazan, where that huge crater bit an arc from the Vysochina. The
view could not have been imagined by anyone who had not seen it, save
God before He willed it.

Though treeless, the site bore a dense purple sward of mahovina, springy
underfoot and spicy to smell, studded by white and gold wildflowers; and
a nearby canebrake rustled in the breeze. Eastward the ringwall sloped
down to timberline. Beyond, yellow beams of evening fell on a bluish
mistiness of forest, as far as sight could reach, cloven by a river
which gleamed like a drawn blade. Westward, not far hence, the rim stood
shadowy-sharp athwart rough Vysochina hills. Behind them the snowpeaks
of the Planina Byelogorski lifted sungold whiteness into an absolute
azure. The purity of sky was not marred by a remote northward thread of
smoke from Vulkana Zemlya.

The air grew cold soon after the sun went behind the mountains, cold as
the brook which bubbled iron-tasting from a cleft in the crater's lip.
Kossara hunched into her jacket, squatted down, held palms forth to the
fire. Her breath drifted white through the dusk that rose from the
lowlands.

Before he put their meat on a spit above coals and dancing flamelets,
Trohdwyr drew a sign and spoke a few words of Eriau. Kossara knew them
well: "Aferdhi of the Deeps, Blyn of the Winds, Haawan who lairs on the
reefs, by this be held afar and trouble us not in our rest." Hundreds of
kilometers and a long lifetime from the Black Ocean, he remained an
old-fashioned pagan ychan. Early in her teens, eager in her faith,
Kossara had learned it was no use trying to make an Orthochristian of
him.

Surely the Pantocrator didn't mind much, and would receive his dear
battered soul into Heaven at the last.

She had never thought of him as a zmay. Not that the word had any
particularly bad overtones. Maybe once it had been a touch contemptuous,
four hundred years ago when the first immigrants arrived from Merseia;
but later it came to mean simply a Dennitzan of such ancestry. (Did the
growth of their original planet into a frightening rival of Terra have
anything to do with that?) However, from him and his family she had
learned Eriau--rather, the archaic and mutated version they spoke--at
the same time as she was learning Serbic from her parents and Anglic
from a governess. When finally prevailed upon to stop scrambling these
three into a private patois, she kept the habit of referring to
Trohdwyr's people by their own name for themselves, "ychani": "seekers."

For he had been close to the center of her child-universe. Father and
Mother were at its very heart, naturally, and so for a while were a doll
named Lutka, worn into shapelessness, and a cat she called Butterfeet.
Uncle Bodin approached them when he and Aunt Draga visited, or the
Vymezals went to Zorkagrad and he took her to the zoo and the merrypark.
Three younger siblings, two brothers and a sister, orbited like comets,
now radiant with love, now off into outer darkness. Trohdwyr never shone
quite as brightly as any of these; but the chief gamekeeper to three
generations of her house moved in an unchangeable path, always there for
her to reach when she needed him.

"Kraich." Having started dinner cooking, he settled back on the tripod
of clawed feet and massive tail. "You've earned a double drink this
evening, Dama. A regular sundowner, and one for killing the dyavo." He
poured into cups from a flask of shlivovitza. "Though I must skin the
beast and carry the hide," he added.

The hoarse basso seemed to hold a note of genuine complaint. Startled,
Kossara peered across the fire at him.

To a dweller in the inner Empire, he might have been any Merseian. No
matter how anthropoid a xenosophont was, the basic differences usually
drowned individuality unless you knew the species well. Trohdwyr roughly
resembled a large man--especially in the face, if you overlooked endless
details of its heavy-boned, brow-ridged, wide-nosed, thin-lipped
construction. But he had no external earflaps, only elaborately
contoured holes in the skull. Totally hairless, his skin was pale green
and faintly scaled. A sierra of low triangular spines ran from the top
of his forehead, down his back to the tail's end. When he stood, he
leaned forward, reducing his effective height to tall-human; when he
walked, it was not on heels and soles but on his toes, in an alien
rhythm. He was warm-blooded; females of his race gave live birth; but he
was no mammal--no kind of animal which Terra had ever brought forth.

By a million signs Kossara knew him for Trohdwyr and nobody else, as she
knew her kinfolk or Mihail. He had grown gaunt, deep furrows lay in his
cheeks, he habitually spurned boots and trousers for a knee-length tunic
with many pockets, he wore the same kind of curve-bladed sheath knife
with knuckleduster handle which he had given her and taught her to use,
years before ...

"Why, I'll abandon it if you want," she said, thinking, Has time begun
to wear him down? How hurtful to us both.

"Oh, no, no, Dama. No need." Trohdwyr grew abashed. "Forgive a gaffer if
he's grumpy. I was--well, today I almost saw you ripped apart. There I
stood, you in my line of fire, and that beast--Dama, don't do such
things."

"I'm sorry," Kossara said. "Though I really don't believe I was taking
too big a chance. I know my rifle."

"I too. Didn't you learn from me?"

"But those were lightweight weapons. Because I was a girl? Today I had a
Tashta, the kind they've issued me in the Voyska. I was sure it could
stop him." Kossara gazed aside, downslope toward the bottom of the
Kazan, which night had already filled. "Besides," she added softly, "I
needed such a moment. You're right, I did provoke the dyavo to attack."

"To get away from feeling helpless?" Trohdwyr murmured.

"Yes." She could never have opened thus to any human except Mihail,
maybe not even to him; but over the years the ychan had heard
confessions which she did not give her priest. "My man's yonder." She
flung a hand toward the first stars as they twinkled forth, white upon
violet above the lowlands. "I have to stay behind in my guard unit--when
Dennitza will never be attacked!"

"Thanks to units like yours, Datna," Trohdwyr said.

"Nevertheless, he--" Kossara took her drink in a gulp. It burned the
whole way down, and the glow spread fast to every part of her. She held
the cup out for a refill. "Why does it matter this much who's Emperor?
All right, Josip was foul and his agents did a great deal of harm. But
he's dead now; and the Empire did survive him; and I've heard enough
from my uncle to know that what really keeps it going is a lot of
nameless little officials whose work outlasts whole dynasties. Then why
do we fight over who'll sit crowned in Archopolis for the next few
years?"

"You are the human, Dama, not I," said Trohdwyr. After a minute: "Yet I
can think how on Merseia they would be glad to see another Terran
Emperor whose spirit is fear or foolishness. And ... we here are not
overly far from Merseia."

Kossara shivered beneath the stars and took a strong sip.

"Well, it'll get settled soon," she declared. "Uncle Bodin told me he's
sure it will be. This thing in space is a last gasp. Soon"--she lifted
her head--"Mihail and I can travel," exploring together the infinite
marvels on worlds that circle new suns.

"I hope so, Dama, despite that I'll miss you. Have plenty of young, and
let them play and grow around me on the manor as you did, will you?"

Exalted by the liquor--how the smell of the roasting meat awakened
hunger!--she blurted: "He wanted me to sleep with him before he left. I
said no, we'll wait till we're married. Should I have said yes? Tell me,
should I have?"

"You are the human," Trohdwyr repeated. "I can simply answer, you are
the voivode's daughter and the Gospodar's niece. But I remember from my
cubhood--when folk still lived in Old Aferoch, though already then the
sea brought worse and worse floods--a female ychan of that town. I knew
her somewhat, since a grown cousin of mine used to come in from our
village, courting her--"

The story, which was of a rivalry as fierce as might have stood between
two men of different clans in early days on Dennitza, but which ended
after a rescue on the water, was oddly comforting: almost as if she were
little again, and Trohdwyr rocked her against his warm dry breast and
rumbled a lullaby. That night Kossara slept well. Some days afterward
she returned happily to Dubina Dolyina. When her leave was up, she went
back to Zorkagrad.

There she got the news that Mihail Svetich had been killed in action.

But standing before the slave shop's audiovisual recorders, Kossara did
not think of this, nor of what had happened to Trohdwyr himself on cold
Diomedes. She remained in that one evening out of the many they had had
together.}

The chemical joy wore off. She lay on her bunk, bit her pillow and
fought not to yell.

A further day passed.

Then she was summoned to the manager's office. "Congratulations," he
said. "You've been bought, luckier than you deserve."

It roared in her. Darkness crossed her eyes. She swayed before his desk.
Distantly she heard:

"A private gentleman, and he must really have liked what he saw in the
catalogue, because he outbid two different cepheid houses. You can
probably do well for yourself--and me, I'll admit. Remember, if he sells
you later, he may well go through me again instead of making a deal
directly. I don't like my reputation hurt, and I've got this switch
here--Anyhow, you'll be wise if you show him your appreciation. His name
is Dominic Flandry, he's a captain of Naval Intelligence, a knight of
the Imperium, and, I'll tell you, a favorite of the Emperor. He doesn't
need a slave for his bed. Gossip is, he's tumbled half the female
nobility on Terra, and commoner girls past counting. Like I said, he
must think you're special. The more grateful you act, the better your
life is likely to be ... On your way, now. A matron will groom and gown
you."

She also provided a fresh euphoriac. Thus Kossara didn't even mind that
the servant who came to fetch her was hauntingly like and unlike an
ychan. He too was bald, green, and tailed; but the green was
grass-bright, without scales, the tail thin as a cat's, the posture
erect, the height well below her own, the other differences
unreckonable. "Sir Dominic saw fit to dub me Chives," he introduced
himself. "I trust you will find his service pleasant. Indeed, I declined
the manumission he offered me, until the law about spy bracelets went
into effect on Terra. May I direct you out?"

Kossara went along through rosiness, into an aircar, on across the city
and an ocean, eventually to an ornate house on an island which Chives
called Catalina. He showed her to a suite and explained that her owner
was busy elsewhere but would presently make his wishes known. Meanwhile
these facilities were hers to use, within reason.

Kossara fell asleep imagining that Mihail was beside her.

III
---

It was official: the Emperor Hans would shortly leave Terra, put himself
at the head of an armada, and personally see to quelling the
barbarians--war lords, buccaneers, crusaders for God knew what strange
causes--who still harassed a Sector Spica left weak by the late struggle
for the Imperial succession. He threw a bon voyage party at the Coral
Palace. Captain Sir Dominic Flandry was among those invited. Under such
circumstances, one comes.

Besides, Flandry reflected, I can't help liking the old bastard. He may
not be the best imaginable thing that could happen to us, but he's
probably the best available.

The hour was well after sunset in this part of Oceania. A crescent moon
stood high to westward; metrocenter star-points glinted across its dark
side. The constellations threw light of their own onto gently rolling
waves, argent shimmer on sable. Quietness broke where surf growled white
against ramparts. There walls, domes, towers soared aloft in a
brilliance which masked off most of heaven.

When Flandry landed his car and stepped forth, no clouds of perfume (or
psychogenic vapors, as had been common in Josip's reign) drifted from
the palace to soften salt odors. Music wove among mild breezes, but
formal, stately, neither hypersubtle nor raucous. Flandry wasn't sure
whether it was composed on a colony planet--if so, doubtless
Germania--or on Terra once, to be preserved through centuries while the
mother world forgot. He did know that a decade ago, the court would have
snickered at sounds this fusty-archaic.

Few servants bowed as he passed among fellow guests, into the main
building. More guardsmen than formerly saluted. Their dress uniforms
were less ornate than of yore and they and their weapons had seen
action. The antechamber of fountains hadn't changed, and the people who
swirled between them before streaming toward the ballroom wore clothes
as gorgeous as always, a rainbow spectacle. However, fantastic collars,
capes, sleeves, cuffs, footgear were passe. Garb was continuous from
neck or midbreast to soles, and, while many men wore robes rather than
trousers, every woman was in a skirt.

A reform I approve of, he thought. I suspect most ladies agree. The
suggestive rustle of skillfully draped fabric is much more stimulating,
really, and easier to arrange, than cosmetics and diadems on otherwise
bare areas of interest. For that matter, though it does take more
effort, a seduction is better recreation than an orgy.

There our good Hans goes too far. Every bedroom in the palace locked!

Ah, well. Conceivably he wants his entourage to cultivate ingenuity.

Crown Prince Dietrich received, a plain-faced middle-aged man whose
stoutness was turning into corpulence. Though he and Flandry had worked
together now and then in the fighting, his welcome was mechanical. Poor
devil, he must say a personal hello to each of three or four hundred
arrivals important enough to rate it, with no drug except stim to help
him. Another case of austere principles overdone, Flandry thought. The
younger brother, Gerhart, was luckier tonight, already imperially drunk
at a wallside table with several cronies. However, he looked as sullen
as usual.

Flandry drifted around the circumference of the ballroom. There was
nothing fancy about the lighting, save that it was cast to leave
unobscured the stars in the vitryl dome overhead. The floor sheened with
diffracted reflections from several score couples who swung through the
decorous measures of a quicksilver. He hailed acquaintances when he
glimpsed them, but didn't stop till he had reached an indoor arbor where
champagne was available. A goblet of tickle in his hand, roses around
him, a cheerful melody, a view of pretty women in motion--life could be
worse.

It soon was. "Greetin', Sir Dominic."

Flandry turned, and bowed in dismay to the newcomer beneath the leaves.
"Aloha, your Grace."

Tetsuo Niccolini, Duke of Mars, accepted a glass from the attendant
behind the table. It was obviously not his first. "Haven't seen you for
some while," he remarked. "Missed you. You've a way o' puttin' a little
spark into a scene, dull as the court is these days." Shrewdly: "Reason
you don't come often, what?"

"Well," Flandry admitted, "his Majesty's associates do tend to be a bit
earnest and firm-jawed." He sipped. "Still, my impression is, your Grace
spends a fair amount of time here regardless."

Niccolini sighed. He had never been more than a well-meaning fop; but in
these last years, when antisenescence and biosculp could no longer hold
wrinkles, baldness, feebleness at bay, he had developed a certain wry
perspective. Unfortunately, he remained a bore.

Shadows of petals stirred across a peacock robe as he lifted his drink.
"D'you think I should go to my ancestral estates and all that rubbish,
set up my own small court along lines I like, eh? No, m'boy, not
feasible. I'd get nothin' but sycophants, who'd pluck me while they
smiled. My real friends, who put their hearts into enjoyin' life, well,
they're dead or fled or sleepin' in an oldster's bed." He paused. "
'Sides, might's well tell you, H.M. gave me t'understand--he makes
himself very clear, ha?--gave me t'understand, he'd prefer no Duke o'
Mars henceforth visit the planet 'cept for a decent minimum o' speeches
an' dedications."

Flandry nodded. That makes sense, flickered through him. The Martians
[nonhumans; colonists by treaty arrangement in the time of the
Commonwealth; glad to belong to it, but feeling betrayed when it broke
down and the Troubles came; dragooned into the Empire] are still
restless. Terra can best control them by removing the signs of Terran
control. I suspect, after poor tottery Tetty is gone, Hans will buy out
his heirs with a gimcrack title elsewhere and a lot of money and make a
Martian the next Duke--who may not even know he's a puppet.

At least, that's what I'd consider doing.

"But we're in grave danger o' seriousness," Niccolini interrupted
himself. "Where've you been? Busy at what? Come, come, somethin' amusin'
must've happened."

"Oh, just knocking around with a friend." Flandry didn't care to get
specific. One reason why he had thus far declined promotion to admiral
was that then he'd be too conspicuous, too eagerly watched and sought
after, while he remained near the Emperor. He liked his privacy. As a
hanger-on who showed no further ambitions--and could therefore in time
be expected to lose his energetic patron's goodwill--he drew scant
attention.

"Or knockin' up a friend? Heh, heh, heh." The Duke nudged him. "I know
your sort o' friends. How was she?"

"In the first place, she was a he," Flandry said. Until he could escape,
he might as well reconcile himself to humoring a man who had discovered
the secret of perpetual adolescence. "Of course, we explored. Found a
new place on Ganymede which might interest your Grace, the Empress Wu in
Celestial City."

"No, no." Niccolini waggled his head and free hand. "Didn't y'know? I
never go anywhere near Jupiter. Never. Not since the La Reine Louise
disaster."

Flandry cast his mind back. He couldn't identify--Oh, yes. It had
happened five years ago, while he was out of the Solar System.
Undeterred by civil war, a luxury liner was approaching Callisto when
her screen field generators failed. The trapped radiation which seethes
around the giant planet, engulfing its inner moons, killed everybody
aboard; no treatment could restore a body burned by so much unfelt fire.

Nothing of the kind had happened for centuries of exploration and
colonization thereabouts. Magnetohydrodynamic shields and their backups
were supposed to be invulnerable to anything that wouldn't destroy a
vehicle or a settlement anyway. Therefore, sabotage? The passenger list
had included several powerful people. A court of inquiry had handed down
the vaguest finding of "cumulative negligence."

"My poor young nephew, that I inherited the Dukedom from, was among the
casualties," Niccolini droned on. "That roused the jolly old instinct o'
self-preservation, I can tell you. To blinkin' many hazards as is. Not
that I flatter myself I'm a political bull's-eye. Still, one never
knows, does one? So tell me 'bout this place you found. If it sounds
intriguin', I'll see 'bout gettin' a sensie."

Flandry was saved by a courier in Imperial livery who entered the arbor
and bowed. "A thousand pardons, your Grace," she said. "Sir Dominic,
there is an urgent message for you. Will you please follow me?"

"With twofold pleasure," Flandry responded, for she was young and
well-formed. He couldn't quite place her accent, though he guessed she
might be from some part of Hermes. Even when hiring humans, the
majordomos of the new Emperor's various households were under orders to
get as many non-Terrans as was politic.

Whoever the summons was from, and whether it was terrible or trivial, he
was free of the Duke before he could otherwise have disengaged. The
noble nodded a vague response to his apology and stood staring after
him, all alone.

His Imperial Majesty, High Emperor Hans Friedrich Molitor, of his
dynasty the first, Supreme Guardian of the Pax, Grand Director of the
Stellar Council, Commander-in-Chief, Final Arbiter, acknowledged supreme
on more worlds and honorary head of more organizations than any man
could remember, sat by himself in a room at the top of a tower. It was
sparsely furnished: a desk and communicator, a couch upholstered in worn
but genuine horse-hide, a few straightbacked chairs and the big
pneumatic that was his. The only personal items were a dolchzahn skin on
the floor, from Germania; two portraits of his late wife, in her youth
and her age, and one of a blond young man; a model of the corvette that
had been his first command. A turret roof, beginning at waist height,
was currently transparent, letting this eyrie overlook an illuminated
complex of roofs, steeples, gardens, pools, outer walls, attendant
rafts, and finally the night ocean.

The courier ushered Flandry through the door and vanished as it closed
behind him. He saluted and snapped to attention. "At ease," the Emperor
grunted. "Sit. Smoke if you want."

He was puffing a pipe whose foulness overcame the air 'fresher. In spite
of the blue tunic, white trousers, and gold braid with nebula and three
stars of a grand admiral, plus the pyrocrystal ring of Manuel the Great,
he was not very impressive to see. Yet meditechnics could not account
for so few traces of time. The short, stocky frame had grown a kettle
belly, bags lay beneath the small dark eyes, the hair was thin and gray
on the blocky head: nothing that could not easily be changed by the
biocosmetics he scorned to use. Nor had he ever troubled about his face,
low forehead, bushy brows, huge Roman nose, heavy jowls, gash of a mouth
between deep creases, prow of a chin.

"Thank you, your Majesty." Flandry settled his elegance opposite,
flipped out a cigarette case which was a work of art and, at need, a
weapon, and established a barrier against the reek around him.

"No foolish formalities," growled the rusty, accented basso. "I must
make my grand appearance, and empty chatter will rattle for hours, and
at last when I can go I'm afraid I'll be too tired for a nice new wench
who's joined the collection, no matter how much I need a little fun."

"A stim pill?" Flandry suggested.

"No. I take too many as is. The price to the body mounts, you know. And
... barely six years on the throne have I had. The first three, fighting
to stay there. I need another twenty or thirty for carpentering this
jerry-built, dry-rotted Empire into a thing that might last a few more
generations, before I can lay down my tools." Hans chuckled coarsely.
"Well, let the tool for pretty Thressa wait, recharging, till tomorrow
night. You should see her, Dominic, my friend. But not to tell anybody.
By herself she could cause a revolution."

Flandry grinned. "Yes, we humans are basically sexual beings, aren't we,
sir? If we can't screw each other physically, well do it politically."

Hans laughed aloud. He had never changed from a boy who deserted a
strait-laced colonial bourgeois home for several years of wild adventure
in space, the youth who enlisted in the Navy, the man who rose through
the ranks without connections or flexibility to ease his way.

But he had not changed either from the hero of Syrax, where the fleet he
led flung back the Merseians and forced a negotiated end to a short
undeclared war which had bidden fair to grow. Nor had he changed from
the leader who let his personnel proclaim him Emperor--himself
reluctantly, less from vainglory than a sense of workmanship, when the
legitimate order of succession had dissolved in chaos and every rival
claimant was a potential disaster.

A blunt pragmatist, uncultured and unashamed of it, shrewd rather than
intelligent, he either appalled Manuel Argos or won a grudging approval,
in whatever hypothetical hell or Valhalla the Founder dwelt. The
question was academic. His hour was now. How long that hour would be,
and what the consequences, were separate puzzles.

Mirth left. He leaned forward. The pipe smoldered between hairy hands
clenched upon his knees. "I talk too much," he said, a curious admission
from the curtest of the Emperors. Flandry understood, though. Few
besides him were left, maybe none, with whom Hans dared talk freely.
"Let us come to business. What do you know about Dennitza?"

Inwardly taken aback, Flandry replied soft-voiced, "Not much, sir. Not
much about the whole Taurian Sector, in spite of having had the good
luck to be there when Lady Megan needed help. Why ask me?"

Hans scowled. "I suppose you do know how the Gospodar, my sector
governor, is resisting my defense reorganization. Could be a simple
difference of judgment, yes. But ... now information suggests he plans
rebellion. And that--where he is--will involve the Merseians, unless he
is already theirs."

Flandry's backbone tingled. "What are the facts, sir?"

"A wretched planet in Sector Arcturus. Diomedes, it's called. Natives
who want to break away and babble of getting Ythrian help. Human agents
among them. We would expect such humans would be from the Domain,
likeliest Avalon--not true? But our best findings say the Ythrians hold
no wish to make trouble for us. And our people discover those humans are
Dennitzan. Only one was captured alive, and they had some problems with
the hypnoprobing, but it does appear she went to Diomedes under secret
official orders."

Hans sighed. "Not till yesterday did this reach me through the damned
channels. It never would have before I left, did I not issue strictest
orders about getting a direct look at whatever might possibly point to
treason. And--Gott in Himmel, I am swamped, on top of all else! My
computer screens out lese-majeste cases and the rest of such piddle.
Nevertheless--"

Flandry nodded. "Aye, sir. You can't give any single item more than a
glance. And even if you could pay full attention, you can't send the big
clumsy Imperial machine barging into Tauria, disrupting our whole
arrangement there, on the basis of a few accusations. Especially in your
absence."

"Yes. I must go. If we don't reorder Sector Spica, the barbarians will
soon ruin it. But meanwhile Tauria may explode. You see how an uprising
in Sector Arcturus would be the right distraction for a traitor
Dennitzan before he rebels too."

"Won't Intelligence mount a larger operation?"

"Ja, Ja, Ja. Though the Corps is still in poor shape, after wars and
weedings. Also, it has much other business. And ... Dominic, just the
Corps by itself is too huge for me to know, for me to control as I
should. I need--I am not sure what I need or if it can be had."

Flandry foreknew: "You want me to take a hand, sir?"

"Yes." The wild boar eyes were sighted straight on him. "In your olden
style. A roving commission, and you report directly to me.
Plenipotentiary authority."

Flandry's pulse broke into a canter. He kept his tone level. "Quite a
solo, sir."

"Co-opt. Hire. Bribe. Threaten. Whatever you see fit."

"The odds will stay long against my finding out anything useful--at
least, anything the Corps can't, quicker and better."

"You are not good at modesty," Hans said. "Are you unwilling?"

"N-n-no, sir." Surprised, Flandry realized he spoke truth. This could
prove interesting. In fact, he knew damn well it would, for he had
already involved himself in the affair. His motivation was half
curiosity, half kindliness--he thought at the time--though probably,
down underneath, the carnivore which had been asleep in him these past
three years had roused, pricked up its ears, snuffed game scent on a
night breeze. Was that always my real desire? Not to chase down enemies
of the Empire so I could go on having fun in it, but to have fun chasing
them down?

No matter. The blood surged. "I'm happy to accept, sir, provided you
don't expect much. Uh, my authority, access to funds and secret data and
whatnot ... better be kept secret itself."

"Right." Hans knocked the dottle from his pipe, a ringing noise through
a moment's silence. "Is this why you refused admiral's rank? You knew
sneaking off someday on a mission would be easier for a mere captain."

Flandry shrugged. "If you'll tip the word to--better be none less than
Kheraskov--I'll contact him as soon as may be and made arrangements."

"Have you any idea how you will begin?" Hans asked, relaxing a trifle.

"Well, I don't know. Perhaps with that alleged Dennitzan agent. What
became of ... her, did you say?"

"How can I tell? I saw a precis of many reports, remember. What
difference, after the 'probe wrung her dry?"

"Sometimes individuals count, sir." Excitement in Flandry congealed to
grimness. I should think the fact she's a niece of the Gospodar--a fact
available in the material on her that my son could freely scan from a
data bank--would be worth mentioning to the Emperor. I should think such
a hostage would not be sold for a slave, forced into whoredom except for
the chance that I learned about her when she was offered for sale.

Better not tell Hans. He'd only be distracted from the million things
he's got to do. And anyhow ... something strange here. I prefer to keep
my mouth shut and my options open.

"Proceed as you wish," the other said. "I know you won't likely get far.
But I can trust you will run a strong race."

His glance went to the picture of the young man. His face sagged.
Flandry could well-nigh read his mind: Ach, Otto! If you had not been
killed--if I could bring you back, yes, even though I must trade for you
dull Dietrich and scheming Gerhart both--we would have an heir to trust.

The Emperor straightened in his seat. "Very well," he rapped.
"Dismissed."

The festival wore on. Toward morning, Flandry and Chunderban Desai found
themselves alone.

The officer would have left sooner, were it not for his acquired job.
Now he seemed wisest if he savored sumptuousness, admired the centuried
treasures of static and fluid art which the palace housed, drank noble
wines, nibbled on delicate foods, conversed with witty men, danced with
delicious girls, finally brought one of these to a pergola he knew
(unlocked, screened by jasmine vines) and made love. He might never get
the chance again. After she bade him a sleepy goodbye, he felt like
having a nightcap. The crowd had grown thin. He recognized Desai, fell
into talk, ended in a small garden.

Its base was cantilevered from a wall, twenty meters above a courtyard
where a fountain sprang. The waters, full of dissolved fluorescents,
shone under ultraviolet illumination in colors more deep and pure than
flame. Their tuned splashing resounded from catchbowls to make an
eldritch music. Otherwise the two men on their bench had darkness and
quiet. Flowers sweetened an air gone slightly cool. The moon was long
down; Venus and a dwindling number of stars gleamed in a sky fading from
black to purple, above an ocean coming all aglow.

"No, I am not convinced the Emperor does right to depart," Desai said.
The pudgy little old man's hair glimmered white as his tunic;
chocolate-hued face and hands were nearly invisible among shadows. He
puffed on a cigarette in a long ivory holder. "Contrariwise, the move
invites catastrophe."

"But to let the barbarians whoop around at will--" Flandry sipped his
cognac and drew on his cigar, fragrances first rich, then pungent. He'd
wanted to end on a relaxing topic. Desai, who had served the Imperium in
many executive capacities on many different planets, owned a hoard of
reminiscences which made him worth cultivating. He was on Terra for a
year, teaching at the Diplomatic Academy, before he retired to
Ramanujan, his birthworld.

The military situation--specifically, Hans' decision to go--evidently
bothered him too much for pleasantries. "Oh, yes, that entire frontier
needs restructuring," he said. "Not simple reinforcement. New
administrations, new laws, new economics: ideally, the foundations of an
entire new society among the human inhabitants. However, his Majesty
should leave that task to a competent viceroy and staff whom he grants
extraordinary powers."

"There's the problem," Flandry pointed out. "Who's both competent and
trustworthy enough, aside from those who're already up to their armpits
in alligators elsewhere?"

"If he has no better choice," Desai said, "his Majesty should let the
Spican sector be ravaged--should even let it be lost, in hopes of
regaining the territory afterward--anything, rather than absent himself
for months. What ultimate good can he accomplish yonder if meanwhile the
Imperium is taken from him? The best service he can render the Empire is
simply to keep a grip on its heart. Else the civil wars begin again."

"I fear you exaggerate," Flandry said, though he recalled how Desai was
always inclined to understate things. And Dennitzans on Diomedes ... "We
seem to've pacified ourselves fairly well. Besides, why refer to civil
wars in the plural?"

"Have you forgotten McCormac's rebellion, Sir Dominic?"

Scarcely, seeing I was involved. Flandry winced at a memory. Lost
Kathryn, as well as the irregular nature of his actions at the time,
made him glad the details were still unpublic. "No. But that was, uh,
twenty-two years ago. And amounted to what? An admiral who revolted
against Josip's sector governor for personal reasons. True, this meant
he had to try for the crown. The Imperium could never have pardoned him.
But he was beaten, and Josip died in bed." Probably poisoned, to be
sure.

"You consider the affair an isolated incident?" Desai challenged in his
temperate fashion. "Allow me to remind you, please--I know you
know--shortly afterward I found myself the occupation commissioner of
McCormac's home globe, Aeneas, which had spearheaded the uprising. We
came within an angstrom there of getting a messianic religion that might
have burst into space and torn the Empire in half."

Flandry took a hard swallow from his snifter and a hard pull on his
cigar. Well had he studied the records of that business, after he
encountered Aycharaych who had engineered it.

"The thirteen following years--seeming peace inside the Empire, till
Josip's death--they are no large piece of history, are they?" Desai
pursued. "Especially if we bear in mind that conflicts have causes. A
war, including a civil war, is the flower on a plant whose seed went
into the ground long before ... and whose roots reach widely, and will
send up fresh growths, ... No, Sir Dominic, as a person who has read and
reflected for most of a lifetime on this subject, I tell you we are well
into our anarchic phase. The best we can do is minimize the damage, and
hold outside enemies off until we win back to a scarred kind of unity."

" 'Our' anarchic phase?" Flandry questioned.

Desai misheard his emphasis. "Or our interregnum, or whatever you wish
to call it. Oh, we may not always fight over who shall be Emperor; we
can find plenty of bones to contend about. And we may enjoy stretches of
peace and relative prosperity. I hoped Hans would provide us such a
respite."

"No, wait, you speak as if this is something we have to go through,
willy-nilly."

"Yes. For about eighty more years, I think--though of course modern
technology, nonhuman influences, the sheer scale of interstellar
dominion may affect the time-span. Basically, however, yes, a universal
state--and the Terran Empire is the universal state of Technic
civilization--only gives a respite from the wars and horrors which
multiply after the original breakdown. Its Pax is no more than a
subservience enforced at swordpoint, or today at blaster point. Its
competent people become untrustworthy from their very competence; anyone
who can make a decision may make one the Imperium does not like.
Incompetence grows with the growing suspiciousness and centralization.
Defense and civil functions alike begin to disintegrate. What can that
provoke except rebellion? So this universal state of ours has ground
along for a space of generations, from bad to worse, until now--"

"The Long Night?" Flandry shivered a bit in the gentle air.

"I think not quite yet. If we follow precedent, the Empire will rise
again ... if you can label as 'rise' the centralized divine autocracy we
have coming. To be sure, if the thought of such a government does not
cheer you, then remember that that second peace of exhaustion will not
last either. In due course will come the final collapse."

"How do you know?" Flandry demanded.

"The cycle fills the history, yes, the archeology of this whole planet
we are sitting on. Old China and older Egypt each went thrice through
the whole sorry mess. The Western civilization to which ours is
affiliated rose originally from the same kind of thing, that Roman
Empire some of our rulers have liked to hark back to for examples of
glory. Oh, we too shall have our Diocletian; but scarcely a hundred
years after his reconstruction, the barbarians were camping in Rome
itself and making emperors to their pleasure. My own ancestral
homeland--but there is no need for a catalogue of forgotten nations. For
a good dozen cases we have chronicles detailed to the point of nausea;
all in all, we can find over fifty examples just in the dust of this one
world.

"Growth, until wrong decisions bring breakdown; then ever more ferocious
wars, until the Empire brings the Pax; then the dissolution of that Pax,
its reconstitution, its disintegration forever, and a dark age until a
new society begins in the ruins. Technic civilization started on that
road when the Polesotechnic League changed from a mutual-aid
organization of free entrepreneurs to a set of cartels. Tonight we are
far along the way."

"You've discovered this yourself?" Flandry asked, not as skeptically as
he could have wished he were able to.

"Oh, no, no," Desai said. "The basic analysis was made a thousand years
ago. But it's not comfortable to live with. Prevention of breakdown, or
recovery from it, calls for more thought, courage, sacrifice than humans
have yet been capable of exercising for generation after generation.
Much easier first to twist the doctrine around, use it for
rationalization instead of rationality; then ignore it; finally suppress
it. I found it in certain archives, but you realize I am talking to you
in confidence. The Imperium would not take kindly to such a description
of itself."

"Well--" Flandry drank again. "Well, you may be right. And total
pessimism does have a certain bracing quality. If we're doomed to tread
out the measure, we can try to do so gracefully."

"There is no absolute inevitability." Desai puffed for a minute, his
cigarette end a tiny red pulsar. "I suppose, even this late in the game,
we could start afresh if we had the means--more importantly, the will.
But in actuality, the development is often aborted by foreign conquest.
An empire in the anarchic phase is especially tempting and especially
prone to suffer invaders. Osmans, Afghans, Moguls, Manchus, Spaniards,
British--they and those like them became overlords of cultures different
from their own, in that same way.

"Beyond our borders, the Merseians are the true menace. Not a barbarian
rabble merely filling a vacuum we have left by our own political
machinations--not a realistic Ythri which sees us as its natural
ally--not a pathetic Gorrazani remnant--but Merseia. We harass and
thwart the Roidhunate everywhere, because we dare not let it grow too
strong. Besides eliminating us as a hindrance to its dreams, think what
a furtherance our conquest would be!

"That's why I dread the consequences of the Emperor's departure. Staying
home, working to buttress the government and armed force, ready to stamp
fast on every attempt at insurrection, he might keep us united,
uninvadable, for the rest of his life. Without his presence--I don't
know."

"The Merseians would have to be prepared to take quick advantage of any
revolt," Flandry argued. "Assuming you're right about your historical
pattern, are they aware of it? How common is it?"

"True, we don't have the knowledge to say how far it may apply to
nonhumans, if at all," Desai admitted. "We should. In fact, it was
Merseia, not ourselves, that set me on this research--for the Merseians
too must have their private demons, and think what a weapon it would be
for our diplomacy to have a generalized mechanic for them as well as
us!"

"Hm?" said Flandry, surprised afresh. "Are you implying perhaps they
already are decadent? That's not what one usually hears."

"No, it isn't. But what is decadence to a nonhuman? I hope to do more
than read sutras in my retirement; I hope to apply my experience and my
studies to thought about just such problems." The old man sighed. "Of
necessity, this assumes the Empire will not fall prey to its foes before
I've made some progress. That may be an unduly optimistic assumption ...
considering what a head start they have in the Roidhunate where it comes
to understanding us."

"Are you implying they know this theory of human history which you've
been outlining to me?"

"Yes, I fear that at least a few minds among them are all too familiar
with it. For example, after considering the episode for many years, I
think that when Aycharaych tried to kindle a holy war of man against
man, starting on Aeneas, he knew precisely what he was doing."

Aycharaych. The chill struck full into Flandry. He raised his eyes to
the fading stars. Sol would soon drive sight away from them, but they
would remain where they were, waiting.

"I have often wondered what makes him and his kind serve Merseia," Desai
mused. "Genius can't really be conscripted. The Chereionites surely have
something to win for themselves. But what--from an alien species, an
alien culture?"

"Aycharaych's the only one of them I've ever actually met," Flandry
said. "I've sometimes thought he's an artist."

"An artist of espionage and sabotage, whose materials are living beings?
Well, conceivably. If that's all, he is no more to be envied than you or
I."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure I can make the reason clear to you, or even very clear to
myself. We have not had the good fortune to be born in an era when our
society offers us something transcendental to live and die for." Desai
cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to read you a lecture."

"No, I thank you," Flandry said. "Your ideas are quite interesting."

IV
--

The Hooligan sprang from Terra, pierced the sky, and lined out for deep
space. A steady standard gravity maintained by her interior fields gave
no hint of furious acceleration toward regions sufficiently distant that
she could go into hyperdrive and outpace light. Nor did her engine
energies speak above an almost subliminal whisper and quiver through the
hull. But standing in the saloon before its big viewscreen, Kossara
watched the planet shrink, ever faster, a cloudy vastness, a gibbous
globe of intricate blue and white, an agate in a diamondful jewel box.

At the back of her mind she wished she could appreciate this sight for
which she had left the stateroom assigned her. Terra, Manhome,
Maykasviyet; and sheer loveliness--But her heart knocked, her nails bit
into wet palms though her tongue was dry and thick, she smelled her
harsh sweat.

Yet when her owner entered, calm crystallized in her. By nature and
training she met crises coolly, and here was the worst since--As far as
she knew, nobody else was aboard but him and his servant. If she could,
somehow, kill them--or hogtie the funny, kindly Shalmuan--maybe before
he took her--

No. Not unless he grew altogether slack; and she sensed alertness
beneath his relaxed manner. He was tall and well built and moved like a
hunting vilya. Handsome too, she admitted to herself; then scorn added
that anybody could be handsome who bought a biosculpture. A loose
lace-trimmed blouse and flowing trousers gathered above sandals matched,
in their sheen of expensive fabric, the knee-length gown she had chosen
out of the wardrobe she found in her quarters.

"Good day, Donna Vymezal," the man said, and bowed.

What to do? She jerked a nod.

"Permit self-introduction," he went on. "Hardly to your surprise, I am
Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Intelligence Corps of his Majesty's Navy."
He gestured at a bench curved around two sides of a table. "Won't you be
seated?"

She stood her ground.

Flandry smiled, placed hands on hips, and drawled: "Please listen. I
have no intention of compelling you. None. Not that you don't inspire
certain daydreams, Donna. And not that I couldn't make you like it.
Drugs, you know. But vanity forbids. I've never needed force or
pharmacopoeia, even on those few young ladies I had occasion to buy in
the past. Have you noticed your cabin door locks on the inside?"

Strength went from Kossara. She stumbled backward, fell to the bench,
rested head in hands while whirling and darkness passed through her.

Presently she grew aware that Flandry stood above. His fingers kneaded
her neck and shoulders. As she looked up, he stroked her hair. She
gasped and drew aside.

He stepped back. "No offense, Donna." Sternly: "See here, we've a bundle
to discuss, none of it very amusing. Do you want a stim pill--or what,
to make you operational?"

She shook her head. After two tries, she husked forth, "Nothing, thank
you. I am all right now."

"Drink? The liquor cabinet is reasonably well stocked. I'm for Scotch."

"Nothing," she whispered, dreading in spite of his words what might be
in a glass he gave her.

He seemed to guess that, for he said, "You'll have to take from my
galley in due course if not sooner. We've a long trip ahead of us."

"What? ... Well, a little wine, please."

He got busy, while she worked to loosen muscles and nerves. When he sat
down, not too close, she could meet his eyes. She declined the cigarette
he offered, but the claret was marvelous. He streamed smoke from his
nostrils before saying, deliberately:

"You might recollect who else was bidding on you." She felt her face
blaze. "And I didn't spend quite a lot of beer money out of chivalry.
Your virtue is safe as long as you want it to be--while I'm your owner.
But I need your cooperation in some rather larger matters. Understood?"

She gulped. "If I can ... help you, sir--"

"In exchange for manumission and a ticket to Dennitza? Maybe. I haven't
the legal right to free you, seeing what you were convicted of. I'd have
to petition for a decree. Or I could simply order you to go back where
you came from and enjoy yourself." He saw her glance fall to the slave
bracelet. "Yes, now we're clear of Terra, I'm permitted to take that off
you. But I haven't a key for it, and my tools would damage it, which'd
put us through a certain amount of bureaucratic rain dance if we return
there. Never mind. Beyond range of the comnet, it's inert." Flandry
grinned. "If I were indeed a monster of lust, rather than a staid and
hardworking monster, I'd still have taken you into space before
commencing. The idea of an audience at any arbitrary time doesn't
appeal. Let them invent their own techniques."

Loathing tightened Kossara's throat. "The Terran way of life."

Flandry regarded her quizzically. "You don't have a high opinion of the
Empire, do you?"

"I hate it. I would die--be tortured--yes, go into a brothel, if I could
pull the rotten thing down around me." Kossara tossed off her wine.

Flandry refilled the glass. "Better be less outspoken," he advised. "I
don't mind, but various of my fellow Imperialists might."

She stared. The real horror of her situation shocked home. "Where are we
bound?"

"Diomedes, for openers at any rate." He nodded. "Yes, I'm investigating
what went on, what is going on, whether it threatens the Empire, and how
to prevent same."

Kossara rallied. "You have the records of my ... arrest and
interrogation, then," she said fast. "I have no further information.
Less, actually, because the hypnoprobe blanked out related memories,
including those from Dennitza. What's left is bits, blurry and jumbled
together, like barely remembered dreams. So how can I help
you--supposing I wanted to?"

"Oh, background and such." Flandry's tone was casual. "Give me the rest
of your biography. Explain what your people have against the Imperium.
I'll listen. Who knows, you may convert me. I won't hurry you. There's
an unsanctified amount of information pumped into the data banks aboard,
which I need to study en route. And we've time. Seventeen standard days
to destination."

"No more?" In spite of everything, astonishment touched her.

"This boat has legs, albeit not as well turned as yours. Do ease off,
Donna. Your culture has a soldierly orientation, right? Consider me your
honorable enemy, if nothing else, and the pair of us conducting a
parley."

She found little to say. He talked for two, mostly appealing to her
xenological interests with tales of sophonts he had met. All were
fascinating. A few eventually made her laugh.

Books, musical pieces, shows were available by the thousands, in
playback or printout. Kossara grew restless anyhow. Flandry had
withdrawn immediately after the first breakfast of the voyage (following
a nightwatch wherein she slept unexpectedly well) to concentrate on his
briefing material. Interstellar space, seen in the optical-compensating
screens, was utter splendor; but however fast the Hooligan drove, those
immensities changed too slowly for perception. She exercised, prowled
around, tried out different hobby kits, at last sought Chives. He was in
the galley fixing lunch. "Can I help you?" she offered.

"I regret not, Donna," the Shalmuan answered. "While I have no wish to
deprecate your culinary gifts, you can see that Sir Dominic does not
willingly trust this excellent chef-machine to prepare his meals, let
alone comparative strangers."

She stared at the open-faced sandwiches growing beneath his fingers.
Anchovies and pimientos lay across slices of hard-boiled egg on
fresh-made mayonnaise, caviar and lemon peel complemented pate de foie
gras, cucumber and alfalfa sprouts revitalized cheddar cheese in the
dignity of its age ... "No, I couldn't do that," she admitted. "You must
be a genius."

"Thank you, Donna. I endeavor to give satisfaction. Although, in candor,
Sir Dominic provided my initial training and the impetus to develop
further."

Kossara drew a long breath. A chance to learn about him? "You were his
slave, you said. How did that happen, if I may ask?"

Chives spoke imperturbably, never breaking the rhythm of his work. "My
planet of origin has no technologically advanced society, Donna. His
late Majesty Josip appointed a sector governor who organized a slave
trade in my people, chiefly selling to the barbarians beyond the limes.
The charges against those captured for this purpose were, shall we say,
arguable; but no one argued. When that governor met with misfortune, his
successor attempted to right matters. However, this was impossible. Not
even victims still within the Empire could be traced, across thousands
of worlds. Sir Dominic merely chanced upon me in a provincial market.

"I was not prepossessing, Donna. My owner had put me up for sale because
he doubted I could survive more labor in his mercury mine. Sir Dominic
did not buy me. He instigated a game of poker which lasted several days
and left him in possession of mine and workers alike."

Chives clicked his tongue. "My former master alleged cheating. Most
discourteous of him, especially compared to Sir Dominic's urbanity in
inviting him out. The funeral was well attended by the miners. Sir
Dominic arranged for their repatriation, but kept me since this was far
from Shalmu and, besides, I required a long course of chelating drugs to
cleanse my system. Meanwhile he employed me in his service. I soon
decided I had no wish to return to a society of ... natives ... and
strove to make myself valuable to him."

Head cocked, chin in hand, tail switching, Chives studied the lunch
layout. "Yes, I believe this will suffice. Akvavit and beer for
beverages, needless to say. Since you wish occupation, Donna, you may
assist me in setting the table."

She scarcely heard. "Maze, if he's a decent man," she blurted, "how can
he work for an Empire that lets things like, like your case happen?"

"I have oftener heard Sir Dominic described in such terms as--ah--for
example, a slightly overexcited gentleman once called him a
cream-stealing tomcat with his conscience in his balls, if you will
pardon the expression, Donna. The fact is, he did cheat in that poker
game. But as for the Empire, like the proverbial centenarian I suggest
you consider the alternative. You will find tableware in yonder
cabinet."

Kossara bit her lip and took the hint.

"To the best of my admittedly circumscribed knowledge," Chives said
after silver, china, and glass (not vitryl) stood agleam upon snowy
linen, "your folk have, on the whole, benefited from the Empire. Perhaps
I am misinformed. Would you care to summarize the history for me while
the spiced meatballs are heating?"

His slim emerald form squatted down on the deck. Kossara took a bench,
stared at her fists resting knotted on her lap, and said dully:

"I don't suppose the details, six hundred years of man on Dennitza,
would interest anybody else. That is how long since Yovan Matavuly led
the pioneers there. They were like other emigrant groups at the time,
hoping not alone for opportunity, room to breathe, but to save
traditions, customs, language, race--ethnos, identity, their souls if
you like--everything they saw being swallowed up. They weren't many, nor
had the means to buy much equipment. And Dennitza ... well, there are
always problems in settling a new planet, physical environment,
biochemistry, countless unknowns and surprises that can be lethal--but
Dennitza was particularly hard. It's in an ice age. The habitable areas
are limited. And in those days it was far from any trade routes, had
nothing really to attract merchants of the League--"

Speaking of the ancestors heartened her. She raised head and voice.
"They didn't fall back to barbarism, no, no. But they did, for
generations, have to put aside sophisticated technology. They lacked the
capital, you see. Clan systems developed; feuding, I must admit; a
spirit of local independence. The barons looked after their own. That
social structure persisted when industrialism began, and affected it."
Quickly: "Don't think we were ever ignorant yokels. The
Shkola--university and research centrum--is nearly as old as the colony.
The toughest backwoodsman respects learning as much as he does
marksmanship or battle bravery."

"Do you not have a Merseian element in the population?" Chives asked.

"Yes. Merseian-descended, that is, from about four hundred years ago.
You probably know Merseia itself was starting to modernize and move into
space then, under fearful handicaps because of that supernova nearby and
because of the multi-cornered struggle for power between Vachs,
Gethfennu, and separate nations. The young Dennitzan industries needed
labor. They welcomed strong, able, well-behaved displaced persons."

"Do such constitute a large part of your citizenry, Donna?"

"About ten percent of our thirty million. And twice as many human
Dennitzans live outsystem; since our industry and trade got well
underway, we've been everywhere in that part of space. So what is this
nonsense I hear about us being Merseian-infiltrated?"

Yet we might be happier in the Roidhunate, Kossara added.

Chives recalled her: "I have heard mention of the Gospodar. Does my lady
care to define his functions? Is he like a king?"

"M-m-m, what do you mean by 'king'? The Gospodar is elected out of the
Miyatovich family by the plemichi, the clan heads and barons. He has
supreme executive authority for life or good behavior, subject to the
Grand Court ruling on the constitutionality of what he does. A Court
verdict can be reversed by the Skuptshtina--Parliament, I suppose you
would say, though it has three chambers, for plemichi, commons, and
ychani ... zmayi ... our nonhumans. Domestic government is mainly left
to the different okruzhi--baronies? prefectures?--which vary a lot. The
head of one of those may inherit office, or may be chosen by the
resident clans, or may be appointed by the Gospodar, depending on
ancient usage. He--such a nachalnik, I mean--he generally lets townships
and rural districts tend their own affairs through locally elected
councillors."

"The, ah, ychani are organized otherwise, I take it."

Kossara gave Chives a look of heightened respect. "Yes. Strictly by
clans--or better say Vachs--subject only to planetary law unless there's
some special fealty arrangement. And while you can find them anywhere on
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 characters 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
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. Depending 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 is 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
made forest. Wings cruised on high, maybe upbearing brains that thought,
maybe simple beasts of prey. Faint through the hull sounded a yowl of
wind.

"Very well," Kossara said grimly. "I'll ask the question you want me to
ask. Why are we here? Aren't you supposed to report in at Thursday
Landing?"

"I exercised a special dispensation I have," Flandry said. "The
Residency doesn't yet know we've come. In fact, unless my right hand has
lost its cunning, nobody does."

At least I get a human startlement out of her. He liked seeing
expressions cross her face, like clouds and sunbeams on a gusty spring
day. "You see," he explained, "if subversive activities are going on,
there's bound to be a spy or two around Imperial headquarters. News of
your return would be just about impossible to suppress. And since you're
in the custody of a Naval officer, it'd alarm the outfit we're after.

"Whereas, if you suddenly reappear by yourself, right in this hotspot,
you'll surprise them. They won't have time to get suspicious, I trust.
They'll make you welcome--"

"Why should they?" Kossara interrupted. "They'll wonder how I got back."

"Ah, no. Because they won't know you were ever gone."

She stared. Flandry explained: "Your companions died. If rebel observers
learned that you lived, they learned nothing else. No matter how
idiotically my colleagues behaved toward you, I'm sure they followed
doctrine and let out no further information. You vanished into their
building, and that was that. You were brought from there to the
spaceship in a sealed vehicle, weren't you? ... Yes, I knew it ... The
Corpsmen had no reason to announce you'd been condemned and deported,
therefore they did not.

"Accordingly, the rest of the gang--human if any are left on Diomedes,
and most certainly a lot of natives--have no reason to suppose you
haven't just been held incommunicado. In fact, that would be a much more
logical thing to do than shipping you off to Terra for purchase by any
blabbermouth."

She frowned, less in dislike of him than from being caught up,
willy-nilly, by the intellectual problem which his planned deception
presented. "But wasn't it a special team that caught and, and processed
me? They may well have left the planet by now."

"If so, you can say they gave you in charge of the Intelligence agents
stationed here semi-permanently. In fact, that's the safest thing for
you to maintain in any event, and quite plausible. We'll work out a
detailed story for you. I have an outline already, subject to your
criticism. You wheedled a measure of freedom for yourself. That's
plausible too, if you don't mind pretending you became the mistress of a
bored, lonely commander. At last you managed to steal an aircar. I can
supply that; we have two in the hold, one a standard civilian
convertible we can set for Diomedean conditions. You fled back here,
having enough memories left to know this is where your chances are best
of being found by your organization."

She tensed again, and stretched the words out: "What will you do
meanwhile?"

Flandry shrugged. "Not having had your preventive-medical treatment, I'm
limited in my scope. Let's consult. Tentatively, I've considered making
an appearance in a persona I've used before, a harmlessly mad
Cosmenosist missionary prospecting for customers on yet another globe.
However, I may do best to stay put aboard ship, following your
adventures till the time looks ripe for whatever sort of action seems
indicated."

Her starkness deepened. "How will you keep track of me?"

From his pocket Flandry took a ring. On its gold band sparkled what
resembled a sapphire. "Wear this. If anybody asks, say you got it from
your jailer-lover. It's actually a portable transmitter, same as your
bracelet was on Terra but with its own power source."

"That little bit of a thing?" She sounded incredulous. "Needing no
electronic network around? Reaching beyond line-of-sight? And not
detectable by those I spy on?"

Flandry nodded. "It has all those admirable qualities."

"I can't believe that."

"I'm not at liberty to describe the principle. Anyway, nobody ever told
me. I've indulged in idle speculations about modulated neutrino
emission, but they're doubtless wildly wrong. What I do know is that the
thing works." Flandry paused. "Kossara, I'm sorry, but under any
circumstances ... before I can release you, before I can even land you
again on a prime world like Terra, you'll have to have wiped from your
memory the fact that such gadgets exist. The job will be painless and
very carefully done."

He held out the ring. She half reached for it, withdrew her hand,
flickered her glance about till it came to rest on his, and asked most
softly: "Why do you think I'll help you?"

"To earn your liberty," he answered. Each sentence wrenched at him.
"Defect, and you're outlaw. What chance would you have of getting home?
The orbital watch, the surface hunt would be doubled. If you weren't
caught, you'd starve to death after you used up your human-type food.

"And consider Dennitza. Your kin, your friends, small children in the
millions, the past and present and future of your whole world. Should
they be set at stake, in an era of planet-smasher weapons, for a
political point at best, the vainglory of a few aristocrats at worst?
You know better, Kossara."

She stood still for a long while before she took the ring from him and
put it on her bridal finger.

"Given the support of a dense atmosphere," said a text, "the evolution
of large flying organisms was profuse. At last a particular species
became fully intelligent.

"Typical of higher animals on Diomedes, it was migratory. Homeothermic,
bisexual, viviparous, it originally followed the same reproductive
pattern as its less developed cousins, and in most cultures still does.
In fall a flock moves to the tropics, where it spends the winter. The
exertion during so long a flight causes hormonal changes which stimulate
the gonads. Upon arrival, there is an orgy of mating. In spring the
flock returns home. Females give birth shortly before the next
migration, and infants are carried by their parents. Mothers lactate
like Terran mammals, and while they do, will not get pregnant. In their
second year the young can fly independently, they have been weaned,
their mothers are again ready to breed.

"This round formed the basis of a civilization centered on the islands
around the Sea of Achan. The natives built towns, which they left every
fall and reentered every spring. Here they carried on sedentary
occupations, stoneworking, ceramics, carpentry, a limited amount of
agriculture. The real foundation of their economy was, however, herding
and hunting. Except for necessary spurts of activity, in their homelands
they were an easygoing folk, indolent, artistic, ceremonious,
matrilineal--since paternity was never certain--and loosely organized
into what they called the Great Flock of Lannach.

"But elsewhere a different practice developed. Dwelling on large
oceangoing rafts, fishers and seaweed harvesters, the Fleet of Drak'ho
ceased migrating. Oars, sails, nets, windlasses, construction and
maintenance work kept the body constantly exercised; year-round
sexuality, season-free reproduction, was a direct consequence.
Patriarchal monogamy ensued. The distances traveled annually were much
less than for the Flock, and home was always nearby. It was possible to
accumulate heavy paraphernalia, stores, machines, books. While
civilization thus became more wealthy and complex than anywhere ashore,
the old democratic organization gave way to authoritarian aristocracy.

"Histories roughly parallel to these have taken place elsewhere on the
globe. But Lannach and Drak'ho remain the most advanced, populous,
materially well-off representatives of these two strongly contrasted
life-orderings. When they first made contact, they regarded each other
with mutual horror. A measure of tolerance and cooperation evolved,
encouraged by offplanet traders who naturally preferred peaceful
conditions. Yet rivalry persisted, sporadically flaring into war, and of
late has gained new dimensions.

"At the heart of the dilemma is this: that Lannachska culture cannot
assimilate high-energy technology, in any important measure, and
survive.

"The Drak'ho people have their difficulties, but no impossible choices.
Few of them today are sailors. However, fixed abodes ashore are not
altogether different from houses on rafts aforetime. Regular hours of
work are a tradition, labor is still considered honorable, mechanical
skills and a generally technophilic attitude are in the social
atmosphere which members inhale from birth. Though machinery has lifted
off most Drak'hoans the toil that once gave them a humanlike libido,
they maintain it by systematic exercise (or, in increasingly many cases,
by drugs), since the nuclear family continues to be the building block
of their civilization.

"As producers, merchants, engineers, industrialists, even occasional
spacefarers, they flourish, and are on the whole well content.

"But the cosmos of Lannach is crumbling. Either the Great Flock must
remain primitive, poor, powerless, prey to storm and famine, pirates and
pestilence, or it must modernize--with all that that implies, including
earning the cost of the capital goods required. How shall a folk do this
who spend half their lives migrating, mating, or living off nature's
summertime bounty? Yet not only is their whole polity founded upon that
immemorial cycle. Religion, morality, tradition, identity itself are.
Imagine a group of humans, long resident in an unchanged part of Terra,
devout churchgoers, for whom the price of progress was that they destroy
every relic of the past, embrace atheism, and become homosexuals who
reproduce by ectogenesis. For many if not all Lannachska, the situation
is nearly that extreme.

"In endless variations around the planet, the same dream is being
played. But precisely because the Great Flock has changed more than
other nations of its kind, it feels the hurt most keenly, is most
divided against itself and embittered vat the outside universe.

"No wonder if revolutionary solutions are sought. Economic, social,
spiritual secession, a return to the ways of the ancestors; shouts of
protest against 'discrimination,' demands for 'justice,' help, subsidy,
special consideration of every kind; political secession, no more taxes
to the planetary peace authority or the Imperium; seizure of power over
the whole sphere, establishment of a sovereign autarky--these are among
the less unreasonable ideas afloat.

"There is also Alatanism. The Ythrians, not terribly far away as
interstellar distances go, have wings. They should sympathize with their
fellow flyers on Diomedes more than any biped ever can. They have their
Domain, free alike of Empire and Roidhunate, equally foreign to both.
Might it not, are its duty and destiny not to welcome Diomedes in?

"The fact that few Ythrian leaders have even heard of Diomedes, and none
show the least interest in crusading, is ignored. Mystiques seldom
respond to facts. They are instruments which can be played on ... "

Twice had the sun come from the mountains and returned behind them.

"Goodbye, then," Kossara said.

Flandry could find no better words than "Goodbye. Good luck," hoarse out
of the grip upon his gullet.

She regarded him for a moment, in the entryroom where they stood. "I do
believe you mean that," she whispered.

Abruptly she kissed him, a brief brush of lips which exploded in his
heart. She drew back before he could respond. During another instant she
poised, upon her face a look of bewilderment at her own action.

Turning, she twisted the handle on the inner airlock valve. He took a
following step. "No," she said. "You can't live out there, remember?"
Her body prepared before she left Dennitza, she closed the portal on
him. He stopped where he was. Pumps chugged until gauges told him the
chamber beyond was now full of Diomedean air.

The outer valve opened. He bent over a viewscreen. Kossara's tiny image
stepped forth onto the mountainside. A car awaited her. She bounded into
it and shut its door. A minute later, it rose.

Flandry sought the control cabin, where were the terminals of his most
powerful and sensitive devices. The car had vanished above clouds.
"Pip-ho, Chives," he said tonelessly. A hatch swung wide. His Number Two
atmospheric vehicle glided from the hold. It looked little different
from the first, its engine, weapons, and special equipment being
concealed in the teardrop fuselage. It disappeared more slowly, for the
Shalmuan pilot wanted to stay unseen by the woman whom he stalked. But
at last Flandry sat alone.

She promised she'd help me. What an inexperienced liar she is.

He felt no surprise when, after a few minutes, Chives' voice jumped at
him: "Sir! She is descending ... She has landed in the forest beside a
river. I am observing through a haze by means of an infrared 'scope. Do
you wish a relay?"

"Not from that," Flandry said. Too small, too blurry. "From her
bracelet."

A screen blossomed in leaves and hasty brown water. Her right hand
entered. Off the left, which he could not see, she plucked the ring,
which he glimpsed before she tossed it into the stream.

"She is running for cover beneath the trees, sir," Chives reported.

Of course, replied the emptiness in Flandry. She thinks that, via the
ring, I've seen what she's just done, in the teeth of every pledge she
gave me. She thinks that now, if she moves fast, she can vanish into the
woods--make her own way afoot, find her people and not betray them, or
else die striving.

Whereas in fact the ring was only intended to lull any fears of
surveillance she might have after getting rid of it--only a circlet on
her bridal finger--and Chives has a radio resonator along to activate
her bracelet--the slave bracelet I told her would be blind and deaf
outside of Terra.

"I do not recommend that I remain airborne, sir," Chives said. "Allow me
to suggest that, as soon as the young lady has passed beyond observing
me, I land likewise and follow her on the ground. I will leave a
low-powered beacon to mark this site. You can flit here by grav-belt and
retrieve the vehicles, sir. Permit me to remind you to wear proper
protection against the unsalubrious ambience."

"Same to you, old egg, and put knobs on yours." Flandry's utterance
shifted from dull to hard. "I'll repeat your orders. Trail her, and call
in to the recorder cum relay 'caster I'll leave here, in whatever way
and at whatever times seem discreet. But 'discretion' is your key word.
If she appears to be in danger, getting her out of it--whether by
bringing me in to help or by taking action yourself--that gets absolute
priority. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." Did the high, not quite human accent bear a hint of shared
pain? "Despite regrettable tactical necessities, Donna Vymezal must
never be considered a mere counter in a game." That's for personnel and
planets, the anonymous billions--and, savingly, for you and me, eh,
Chives? "Will you proceed to the Technic settlement when your
preparations are complete?"

"Yes," Flandry said. "Soon. I may as well."

VII
---

Where the equator crossed the eastern shoreline of a continent men
called Centralia, Thursday Landing was founded. Though fertile by
Diomedean standards, the country had few permanent residents. Rather,
migration brought tides of travelers, northward and southward
alternately, to their ancestral breeding grounds. At first, once the
sharpest edge was off their sexual appetites, they had been glad to hunt
and harvest those things the newcomers wanted from the wilderness, in
exchange for portable trade goods. Later this business grew more
systematized and extensive, especially after a large contingent of
Drak'ho moved to these parts. Descending, Flandry saw a fair-sized town.

Most was man-built, blocky interconnected ferrocrete structures to
preserve a human-suitable environment from monstrous rains and slow but
ponderous winds. He glimpsed a park, vivid green beneath a vitryl dome,
brightened by lamps that imitated Sol. Farther out, widely spaced in
cultivated fields, stood native houses: tall and narrow, multiply
balconied, graceful of line and hue, meant less to resist weather then
to accept it, yielding enough to remain whole. Watercraft, ranging from
boats to floating communities, crowded the harbor as wings did the sky.

Yet Flandry felt bleakness, as if the cold outside had reached in to
enfold him. Beyond the fluorescents, half the world he saw was land,
hills, meadows, dwarfish woods, dim in purple and black twilight, and
half was bloodily glimmering ocean. For the sun stood barely above the
northern horizon, amidst sulfur-colored clouds. At this place and season
there was never true day or honest night.

Are you getting terracentric in your dotage? he gibed at himself. Here's
a perfectly amiable place for beings who belong in it.

His mood would not go away. Nevertheless it does feel unreal somehow, a
scene from a bad dream. The whole mission has been like that. Everything
shadowy, tangled, unstable, nothing what it seems to be ... nor anybody
who doesn't carry secrets within secrets ...

Myself included. He straightened in the pilot chair. Well, that's what
I'm paid for. I suppose these blue devils of mine come mainly from guilt
about Kossara, fear of what may happen to her. O God Who is also unreal,
a mask we put on emptiness, be gentle to her. She has been hurt so much.

Ground Control addressed him, in Anglic though not from a human mouth.
He responded, and set Hooligan down on the spacefield as directed. The
prospect of action heartened him. Since I can't trust the Almighty not
to soldier on the job, let me start my share now.

He had slipped back into space from Lannach, then returned openly. The
sentinel robots detected him, and an officer in a warship demanded
identification before granting clearance, at a distance from the planet
which showed a thoroughness seldom encountered around fifth-rate outpost
worlds. No doubt alarm about prospective rebellion and infiltration had
caused security to be tightened. Without the orbital information he
possessed, not even a vessel as begimmicked as his could have neared
Diomedes unbeknownst.

The image of the portmaster appeared in a comscreen. "Welcome, sir," he
said. "Am I correct that you are alone? The Imperial resident has been
notified of your coming and invites you to be his house guest during
your stay. If you will tell me where your accommodation lock
is--frankly, I have never seen a model quite like yours--a car will be
there for you in a few minutes."

He was an autochthon, a handsome creature by any standards. The size of
a short man, he stood on backward-bending, talon-footed legs.
Brown-furred, the slim body ran out in a broad tail which ended in a
fleshy rudder; at its middle, arms and hands were curiously anthropoid;
above a massive chest, a long neck bore a round head--high, ridged brow,
golden eyes with nictitating membranes, blunt-nosed black-muzzled face
with fangs and whiskers suggestive of a cat, no external ears but a
crest of muscle on top of the skull. From his upper shoulders grew the
bat wings, their six-meter span now folded. He wore a belt to support a
pouch, a brassard of authority, and, yes, a crucifix.

I'd better stay in character from the beginning. "Many thanks, my dear
chap," Flandry replied in his most affected manner. "I say, could you
tell the chauffeur to come aboard and fetch my bags? Deuced lot of
duffel on these extended trips, don't y' know." He saw the crest rise
and a ripple pass along the fur, perhaps from irritation at his rudeness
in not asking the portmaster's name.

The driver obeyed, though. He was a husky young civilian who bowed at
sight of Flandry's gaudy version of dress uniform. "Captain Ahab
Whaling?"

"Right." Flandry often ransacked ancient books. He had documentation
aboard for several different aliases. Why risk alerting someone? The
more everybody underestimated him, the better. Since he wanted to pump
his fellow, he added, "Ah, you are--"

"Diego Rostovsky, sir, handyman to Distinguished Citizen Lagard. You
mentioned baggage? ... Jumping comets, that much? ... Well, they'll have
room at the Residency."

"Nobody else staying there, what?"

"Not at the moment. We had a bunch for some while, till about a month
ago. But I daresay you know that already, seeing as how you're
Intelligence yourself." Rostovsky's glance at the eye insigne on
Flandry's breast indicated doubt about the metaphorical truth of it.

However, curiosity kept him friendly. When airlocks had decoupled and
the groundcar was moving along the road to town, he explained: "We don't
fly unnecessarily. This atmosphere plays too many tricks ... Uh, they'll
be glad to meet you at the Residency. Those officers I mentioned were
too busy to be very good company, except for--" He broke off. "Um. And,
since they left, the isolation and tension ... My master and his staff
have plenty to keep them occupied, but Donna Lagard always sees the same
people, servants, guards, commercial personnel and their families. She's
Terran-reared. She'll be happy for news and gossip."

And you judge me the type to furnish them, Flandry knew. Excellent. His
gaze drifted through the canopy, out over somber fields and tenebrous
heaven. But who was that exception whom you are obviously under orders
not to mention?

"Yes, I imagine things are a bit strained," he said. "Though really, you
need have no personal fears, need you? I mean, after all, if some of the
tribes revolted, an infernal nuisance, 'speci'lly for trade, but surely
Thursday Landing can hold out against primitives."

"They aren't exactly that," was the answer. "They have industrial
capabilities, and they do business directly with societies still further
developed. We've good reason to believe a great many weapons are stashed
around, tactical nukes among them. Oh, doubtless we could fend off an
attack and stand siege. The garrison and defenses have been augmented.
But trade would go completely to pieces--it wouldn't take many rebels to
interdict traffic--which'd hurt the economy of more planets than
Diomedes ... And then, if outsiders really have been the, uh, the--"

"Agents provocateurs," Flandry supplied. "Or instigators, if y' prefer.
Either way; I don't mind."

Rostovsky scowled. "Well, what might their bosses do?"

Martin Lagard was a small prim man in a large prim office. When he
spoke, in Anglic still tinged by his Atheian childhood, both his goatee
and the tip of his nose waggled. His tunic was of rich material but
unfashionable cut, and he had done nothing about partial baldness.

Blinking across his desk at Flandry, who lounged behind a cigarette, the
Imperial resident said in a scratchy voice, "Well, Fm pleased to make
your acquaintance, Captain Whaling, but frankly puzzled as to what may
be the nature of your assignment. No courier brought me any advance
word." He sounded hurt.

I'd better soothe him. Flandry had met his kind by the scores, career
administrators, conscientious but rule-bound and inclined to
self-importance. Innovators, or philosophers like Chunderban Desai, were
rare in that service, distrusted by their fellows, destined either for
greatness or for ruin. Lagard had advanced methodically, by the book,
toward an eventual pension.

He was uncreative but not stupid, a vital cog of empire. How could a
planetful of diverse nonhumans be closely governed by Terra, and why
should it be? Lagard was here to assist Imperials in their businesses
and their problems; to oversee continuous collection of information
about this world and put it in proper form to feed the insatiable data
banks at Home; to collect from the natives a modest tribute which paid
for their share of the Pax; to give their leaders advice as occasion
warranted, and not use his marines to see that they followed it unless
he absolutely must; to speak on their behalf to those officials of the
Crown with whom he dealt; to cope.

He had not done badly. It was not his fault that demons haunted the
planet which were beyond his capability of exorcising, and might yet
take possession of it.

"No, sir, they wouldn't give notice. Seldom do. Abominably poor manners,
but that's policy for you, what?" Flandry nodded at his credentials,
where they lay on the desk. " 'Fraid I can't be too explicit either.
Let's say I'm on a special tour of inspection."

Lagard gave him a close look. Flandry could guess the resident's
thought: Was this drawling clothes horse really an Intelligence officer
at work, or a pet relative put through a few motions to justify making
an admiral of him? "I will cooperate as far as possible, Captain."

"Thanks. Knew y' would. See here, d'you mind if I bore you for a few
ticks? Mean to say, I'd like to diagram the situation as I see it. You
correct me where I'm wrong, fill in any gaps, that kind of thing, eh?
You know how hard it is to get any proper overview of matters. And then,
distances between stars, news stale before it arrives, n'est-ce pas?"

"Proceed," Lagard said resignedly.

Flandry discarded his cigarette, crossed legs and bridged fingers. No
grav generator softened the pull of Diomedes. He let his added weight
flow into the chair's crannies of softness, as if already wearied. (In
actuality he did his calisthenics under two gees or more, because thus
he shortened the dreary daily time he needed for keeping fit.)
"Troublemakers afoot," he said. "Distinct possibility of hostiles taking
advantage of the disorganization left by the recent
unpleasantness--whether those hostiles be Merseian, Ythrian, barbarian,
Imperials who want to break away or even overthrow his Majesty--right?
You got hints, various of those troublemakers were active here, fanning
flames of discontent and all that sort of nonsense. How'd they get past
your security?"

"Not my security, Captain," Lagard corrected. "I've barely had this post
five years. I found the sentinel system in wretched
condition--expectable, after the Empire's woes--and did my best to
effect repairs. I also found our civil strife was doing much to heighten
resentment, particularly in the Great Flock of Lannach. It disrupted
offplanet commerce, you see. The migrant societies have become more
dependent on that than the sedentary ones like Drak'ho which have
industry to produce most of what they consume. But please realize, a new
man on a strange world needs time to learn its ins and outs, and develop
workable programs."

"Oh, quite." Flandry nodded. "At first you'd see no reason to screen
visitors from space. Rather, you'd welcome 'em. They might help restore
trade, what? Very natural. No discredit to you. At last, however, clues
started trickling in. Not every transient was spending his stay in the
outback so benignly. Right?

"You asked my Corps to investigate. That likewise takes time. We too
can't come cold onto a planet and hope for instant results, y' know. Ah,
according to my briefing, it was sector HQ you approached. Terra just
got your regular reports."

"Of course," Lagard said. "Going through there would have meant a delay
of months."

"Right, right. No criticism intended, sir," Flandry assured him. "Still,
we do like to keep tabs at Home. That's what I'm here for, to find out
what was done, in more detail than the official report"--which was
almighty sketchy--"could render. Or, you could say, my superiors want a
feel of how the operation went."

Lagard gave the least shrug.

"Well, then," Flandry proceeded. "The report does say a Commander Bruno
Maspes brought an Intelligence team, set up shop in Thursday Landing,
and got busy interrogating, collating data, sending people out into the
field--the usual intensive job. They worked how long?"

"About six months."

"Did you see much of them?"

"No. They were always occupied, often all away from here at once,
sometimes away from the whole system. Personnel of theirs came and went.
Even those who were my guests--" Lagard stopped. "You'll forgive me,
Captain, but I'm under security myself. My entire household is. We've
been forbidden to reveal certain items. This clearance of yours does not
give you power to override that."

Ah-ha. It tingled in Flandry's veins. His muscles stayed relaxed. "Yes,
yes. Perfectly proper. You and yours were bound to spot details--f'r
instance, a xenosophont with odd talents--" Look at his face! Again,
ah-ha.--"which ought not be babbled about. Never fret, I shan't pry.

"In essence, the team discovered it wasn't humans of Ythrian allegiance
who were inciting to rebellion and giving technical advice about same.
It was humans from Dennitza."

"So I was told," Lagard said.

"Ah ... during this period, didn't you entertain a Dennitzan scientist?"

"Yes. She and her companion soon left for the Sea of Achan, against my
warnings. Later I was informed that they turned out to be subversives
themselves." Lagard sighed. "Pity. She was a delightful person, in her
intense fashion."

"Any idea what became of her?"

"She was captured. I assume she's still detained."

"Here?"

"Seems unlikely. Maspes and his team left weeks ago. Why leave her
behind?"

What would I have done if they were around yet? Flandry wondered
fleetingly. Played that hand in style, I trust. "They might have decided
that was the easiest way to keep the affair under wraps for a bit," he
suggested.

"The Intelligence personnel now on Diomedes are simply those few who've
been stationed among us for years. I think I'd know if they were hiding
anything from me. You're free to talk to them, Captain, but better not
expect much."

"Hm." Flandry stroked his mustache. "I s'pose, then, Maspes felt he'd
cleaned out the traitors?"

"He said he had a new, more urgent task elsewhere. Doubtless a majority
of agents escaped his net, and native sympathizers may well keep any
humans among them fed. But, he claimed, if we monitor space traffic
carefully, they shouldn't rouse more unrest than we can handle. I hope
he was right."

"You're trying to defuse local conflicts, eh?"

"What else?" Lagard sounded impatient. "My staff and I, in consultation
with loyal Diomedeans, are hard at work. A fair shake for the migrants
is not impossible to achieve, if the damned extremists will let us
alone. I'm afraid I'll be a poor host, Captain. Day after
tomorrow--Terran, that is--I'm off for Lannach, to lay certain proposals
before the Commander of the Great Flock and his councillors. They feel a
telescreen is too impersonal."

Flandry smiled. "Don't apologize, sir. I'll be quite happy. And, I
suspect, only on this planet a few days anyhow, before bouncing on to
the next You and Maspes seem offhand to've put on a jolly good show."

Gratified, visions of bonuses presumably dancing through his head, the
resident beamed at him. "Thank you. I'll introduce you around tomorrow,
and you can question or look through the files as you wish, within the
limits of security I mentioned. But first I'm sure you'd like to rest. A
servant will show you to your room. We'll have aperitifs in half an
hour. My wife is eager to meet you."

VIII
----

At dinner Flandry laid on the wit and sophistication he had
preprogrammed, until over the liqueurs Susette Kalehua Lagard sighed,
"Oh, my, Captain Whaling, how marvelous you're here! Nobody like you has
visited us for ages--they've all been provincials, or if not, they've
been so ghastly serious, no sensitivity in them either, except a single
one and he wasn't human--Oh!" Her husband had frowned and nudged her.
She raised fingers to lips. "No, that was naughty of me. Please forget I
said it."

Flandry bowed in his chair. "Impractical, I fear, Donna. How could I
forget anything spoken by you? But I'll set the words aside in my mind
and enjoy remembering the music." Meanwhile alertness went electric
through him. This warm, well-furnished, softly lighted room, where a
recorded violin sang and from which a butler had just removed the dishes
of an admirable rubyfruit souffle, was a very frail bubble to huddle in.
He rolled curacao across his tongue and reached for a cigarette.

She fluttered her lashes. "You're a darling." She had had a good bit to
drink. "Isn't he, Martin? Must you really leave us in less than a week?"

Flandry shrugged. "Looks as if Distinguished Citizen Lagard hasn't left
me much excuse to linger, alas."

"Maybe we can find something. I mean, you can exercise judgment in your
mission, can't you? They wouldn't send a man like you out and keep a
leash on him."

"We'll see, Donna." He gave a look of precisely gauged meaningfulness.
She returned it in kind. The wine had not affected her control in that
respect.

His inner excitement became half sardonicism, half a moderately
interested anticipation. She was attractive in a buxom fashion, to which
her low-cut shimmerlyn gown lent an emphasis that would have raised
brows at today's Imperial court--the court she had never seen. Jewels
glinted in black hair piled about a round brown countenance. Vivacity
had increased in her throughout the meal, till her conversation sounded
less platitudinous than it was.

Flandry knew her as he knew her husband, from uncounted encounters: the
spouse of an official posted to a distant world of nonhumans.
Occasionally such a pair made a team. But oftener the member who did not
have the assignment was left to the dismal mercies of a tiny Imperial
community, the same homes, bodies, words, games, petty intrigues and
catfights for year after year. He or she might develop an interest in
the natives, get into adventures and fascinations, even contribute a
xenological study or a literary translation. Lady Susette lacked the
gift for that. Since she had had no children when she arrived, there
would be none for the rest of Lagard's ten-year hitch. The immunizations
which let her walk freely outdoors on Diomedes were too deep-going for
her organism to accept an embryo, and it would be too dangerous to have
them reversed before she departed. What then was Susette Kalehua Lagard,
daughter of prosperous and socially prominent Terrans, to do while she
waited?

She could terminate the marriage. But a man who had gotten resident's
rank was a fine catch. He could expect a subsequent commissionership on
a prime human-colonized planet like Hermes, where plenty of glamour was
available; in due course, he should become a functionary of some small
importance on Terra itself, and perhaps receive a minor patent of
nobility. She must feel this was worth her patience. Her eyes told
Flandry she did have a hobby.

"Well, if our time's to be short, let's make it sweet," she said. "May
I--we call you Ahab? We're Susette and Martin."

"I'm honored." Flandry raised his glass in salute. "And refreshed. Folk
on Terra have gotten stiffish these past few years, don't y' know.
Example set by his Majesty and the inner circle."

"Indeed?" Lagard asked. "Nuances don't reach us here. I'd have
thought--with due reverence--the present Emperor would be quite
informal."

"Not in public," Flandry said. "Career Navy man of Germanian background,
after all. I see us generally heading into a puritanical period." Which,
if Desal is right, is not the end of decadence, but rather its next
stage. "Luckily, we've plenty of nooks and crannies for carrying on in
the grand old tradition. In fact, disapproval lends spice, what? I
remember a while ago--"

His risqué reminiscence had happened to somebody else and the event had
lacked several flourishes he supplied. He never let such nigglements
hinder a story. It fetched a sour smile from Lagard but laughter and a
blush down to the decolletage from Susette.

The staff, assistants, clerks, technical chiefs, Navy and marine
personnel, were harried but cooperative, except when Flandry heard:
"Sorry, sir. I'm not allowed to discuss that. If you want information,
please apply at Sector HQ. I'm sure they'll oblige you there."

Yes, they'll oblige me with the same skeleton account that Terra got. I
could make a pest of myself, but I doubt if the secret files have ever
contained any mention of what Tm really after. I could check on the
whereabouts of Commander Maspes & Co., and make a long trip to find
them--no, him, for probably the team's dispersed ... ah, more probably
yet, the files will show orders cut for them similar to those in Captain
Whaling's papers, and the men have vanished ... maybe to bob up again
eventually, maybe never, depending on circumstances.

More deceptions, more phantoms.

He sauntered into the civilian part of town and was quickly on genial
terms with factors and employees. Most of them found their work
stimulating--they liked the Diomedeans--but were starved for new human
contact. And none were under security. The trouble was, there had been
no need for it. They knew a special Intelligence force came to search
out the roots of the unrest which plagued them in then business. They
totally approved, and did not resent not being invited to meet the
investigators save for interviews about what they themselves might know.
None had seen the entire team together; when not in the field, it kept
apart, officers in the Residency, enlisted men in a separate barrack.
Yes, rumor said it included a xeno or two. What of that?

Otherwise the community had only heard Lagard's brief announcement after
the group was gone. " ... I am not at liberty to say more than that
human traitors have been trying to foment a rebellion among the
Lannachska. Fortunately, the vast majority of the Great Flock stayed
loyal and sensible. And now the key agents have been killed or captured.
A few may still be at large, and information you may come upon
concerning these should be reported immediately. But I don't expect they
can do serious harm any longer, and I intend to proceed, with your
cooperation, to remove the causes of discontent ... "

The next Diomedean day, Flandry donned a heated coverall and a dome
helmet with an air recycler, passed through pressure change in a lock,
and circulated among natives in their part of town. Most knew Anglic and
were willing to talk; but none had further news. He wasn't surprised.

Finding a public phone booth, he took the opportunity to call Chives
when nobody who chanced to observe him was likely to wonder what a
solitary operative was doing there. He used a standard channel but a
language he was sure had never been heard on this world. The nearest
comsat bucked his words across the ocean to Lannach where, he having
paid for the service, they were broadcast rather than beamed. The relay
unit he had left under the cliff made contact with the Shalmuan's
portable.

"Yes, sir, at present the young lady is eating rations taken from her
car before she abandoned it. They should last her as far as the sea, for
she is setting a hard pace despite the overgrowth and rugged topography.
I must confess I have difficulty following, since I consider it
inadvisable to go aloft on my gravbelt. I feel a certain concern for her
safety. A fall down a declivity or a sudden tempest could have adverse
effects, and she does not let caution delay her."

"I think she can manage," Flandry said. "In any event, you can rescue
her. What worries me is what may happen after she gets where she's
going. Another twenty-four hours, did you estimate? I'd better try to
act fast myself, here."

Susette didn't wish to lose time either. Three hours after she and
Flandry had seen Lagard off, she was snuggled against him whispering how
wonderful he had been.

"You're no slouch on the couch yourself, mlove," he said, quite
honestly. "More, I hope?"

"Yes. As soon and often as you want. And do please want."

"Well, how about a breather first, and getting acquainted? A girl who
keeps a bedside beer cooler is a girl whose sound mind I want to know as
well as her delectable body." Warm and wudgy, she caressed him while he
leaned over to get bottles for them, and stayed in the circle of his
free arm when they leaned back against the pillows.

Too bad this can't be a simple romp for me, he thought. It deserves
that. And by the way, so do 1. Kossara was making chastity come hard.

He savored the chill brisk flavor while his glance roved about. The
resident's lady had a private suite where, she hinted, the resident was
an infrequent caller. This room of it was plushly carpeted, draped,
furnished, in rose and white. An incense stick joined its fragrance to
her own. A dressing table stood crowded with perfumes and cosmetics. Her
garments sheened above his, hastily tossed over a chair. In that
richness, her souvenirs of Home--pictures, bric-a-brac, a stuffed toy
such as she would have given to a child--seemed as oddly pathetic as the
view in the window was grim. Hail dashed against vitryl, thicker and
harder than ever fell on Terra, picked out athwart blue-black
lightning-jumping violence by an ember sunbeam which stabbed through a
rent in the clouds. Past every insulation and heaviness came a ghost of
the wind's clamor.

Kossara ... Yes, Chives is right to fret about her while she struggles
through yonder wildwood.

Susette stroked his cheek. "Why do you look sad all of a sudden?" she
asked.

"Eh?" He started. "How ridiculous. 'Pensive' is the word, my imp. Well,
perhaps a drop of melancholy, recalling how I'll have to leave you and
doubtless never see you again."

She nodded. "Me too. Though are you sure we won't--we can't?"

If I keep any control over events, yes, absolutely! Not that you aren't
likable; but frankly, in public you're a bore. And what if Kossara found
out?

Why should I care?

Well, she might accept my sporting as such. I get the impression hers is
a double-standard society. But I don't believe she'd forgive my
cuckolding a man whose salt I've eaten. To plead I was far from unique
would get me nowhere. To plead military necessity wouldn't help either;
I think she could see (those wave-colored eyes) that I'd have performed
the same service free and enjoyed every microsecond.

Hm. The problem is not how to keep a peccadillo decently veiled in
hypocrisy. The problem is what to do about the fact that I care whether
or not Kossara Vymezal despises me.

"Can't we?" Susette persisted. "The Empire's big, but people get around
in it."

Flandry pulled his attention back to the task on hand. He hugged her,
smiled into her troubled gaze, and said, "Your idea flatters me beyond
reason. I'd s'posed I was a mere escapade."

She flushed. "I supposed the same. But--well--" Defiantly: "I have
others. I guess I always will, till I'm too old. Martin must suspect,
and not care an awful lot. He's nice to me in a kind of absent-minded
way, but he's overworked, and not young, and--you know what I mean.
Diego, Diego Rostovsky, he's been the best. Except I know him inside out
by now, what there is to know. You come in like a fresh breeze--straight
from Home!--and you can talk about things, and make me laugh and feel
good, and--" She leaned hard on him. Her own spare hand wandered. "I'd
never have thought ... you knew right away what I'd like most. Are you a
telepath?"

No, just experienced and imaginative. Aycharaych is the telepath. "Thank
you for your commendation," Flandry said, and clinked his bottle on
hers.

"Then won't you stay a while extra, Ahab, and return afterward?"

"I must go whither the vagaries of war and politics require, amorita.
And believe me, they can be confoundedly vague." Flandry took a long
drink to gain a minute for assembling his next words. "F'r instance, the
secrecy Commander Maspes laid on you forces me to dash on to Sector HQ
as soon's I've given Diomedes a fairly clean bill of health--which I've
about completed. My task demands certain data, you see. Poor
communications again. Maspes tucked you under a blanket prohibition
because he'd no way of knowing I'd come here, and I didn't get a
clearance to lift it because nobody back Home knew he'd been that
ultracautious." If I produced the Imperial writ I do have, that might
give too much away.

Susette's palm stopped on his breast. "Why, your heart's going like a
hammer," she said.

"You do that to a chap," he answered, put down his bottle and gathered
her to him for an elaborate kiss.

Breathlessly, she asked, "You mean if you had the information you
wouldn't be in such a hurry? You could stay longer?"

"I should jolly well hope so," he said, running fingers through her
hair. "But what's the use?" He grinned. "Never mind. In your presence, I
am not prone to talk shop."

"No, wait." She fended him off, a push which was a caress. "What do you
need to know, Ahab?"

"Why--" He measured out his hesitation. "Something you're not allowed to
tell me."

"But they'd tell you at HQ."

"Oh, yes. This is a miserable technicality."

"All right," Susette said fast. "What is it?"

"You might--" Flandry donned enthusiasm. "Darling! You wouldn't get in
trouble, I swear. No, you'd be expediting the business of the Empire."

She shook her head and giggled. "Uh-uh. Remember, you've got to spend
the time you gain here. Promise?"

"On my honor" as a double agent.

She leaned back again, her beer set aside, hands clasped behind her
neck, enjoying her submission. "Ask me anything."

Flandry faced her, arms wrapped around drawn-up knees. "Mainly, who was
with Maspes? Nonhumans especi'lly. I'd better not spell out the reason.
But consider. No mind can conceive, let alone remember, the planets and
races we've discovered in this tiny offside corner of the solitary
galaxy we've explored a little bit. Infiltration, espionage--such things
have happened before."

She stared. "Wouldn't they check a memory bank?"

Memory banks can have lies put into them, whenever we get a government
many of whose officials can be bought, and later during the confusion of
disputed succession, civil war, and sweeping purges. Those lies can then
wait, never called on and therefore never suspected, till somebody has
need for one of them. "Let's say no system is perfect, 'cept yours for
lovemaking. Terra itself doesn't have a complete, fully updated file.
Regional bitkeepers don't try; and checking back with Terra seldom seems
worth the delay and trouble."

"Gollool" She was more titillated than alarmed. "You mean we might've
had an enemy spy right here?"

"That's what I'm s'posed to find out, sweetling."

"Well, there was only a single xeno on the team." She sighed. "I'd hate
to believe he was enemy. So beautiful a person. You know, I daydreamed
about going to bed with him, though of course I don't imagine that'd
have worked, even if he did look pretty much like a man."

"Who was he? Where from?"

"Uh--his name, Ay ... Aycharaych." She handled the diphthongs better
than the open consonants. "From, uh, he said his planet's called
Chereion. Way off toward Betelgeuse."

Further, Flandry thought amidst a thrumming.

This time he didn't bother to conceal his right name or his very origin.
And why should he? Nobody would check on a duly accredited member of an
Imperial Intelligence force--not that the files in Thursday Landing
would help anyway--and he could read in their minds that none had ever
heard of an obscure world within the Roidhunate--and the secrecy command
would cover his trail as long as he needed, after he'd done his damage
and was gone.

When at last, maybe, the truth came out: why, our people who do know a
little something about Chereion would recognize that was where he glided
from, as soon as they heard his description, regardless of whether he'd
given a false origin or not. He might as well amuse himself by leaving
his legal signature.

Which I'd already begun to think I saw in this whole affair. Dreams and
shadows and flitting ghosts--

"He's about as tall as you are," Susette was saying, "skinny--no, I mean
fine-boned and lean--except for wide shoulders and a kind of jutting
chest. Six fingers to a hand, extra-jointed, ambery nails; but four
claws to a foot and a spur behind, like a sort of bird. And he did say
his race conies from a, uh, an analogue of flightless birds. I can't say
a lot more about his body, because he always wore a long robe, though
usually going barefoot. His face ... well, I'd make him sound ugly if I
spoke about a dome of a brow, big hook nose, thin lips, pointed ears,
and of course all the, the shapes, angles, proportions different from
ours. Actually, he's beautiful. I could've spent days looking into those
huge red-brown whiteless eyes of his, if he'd let me. His skin is deep
gold color. He has no hair anywhere I saw, but a kind of shark-fin crest
on the crown of his head, made from dark-blue feathers, and tiny
feathers for eyebrows. His voice is low and ... pure music."

Flandry nodded. "M-hm. He stayed in your house?"

"Yes. We and the servants were strictly forbidden to mention him
anywhere outside. When he visited the building his team had taken
over--or maybe left town altogether; I can't say--he'd put on boots, a
cowl, a face mask, like he came from someplace where men cover up
everything in public; and walking slow, he could make his gait pass for
human."

"Did you get any hints of what he did?"

"No. They called him a ... consultant." Susette sat upright. "Was he
really a spy?"

"I can identify him," Flandry said, "and the answer is no." Why should
he spy on his own companions--subordinates? And he didn't bring them
here to collect information, except incidentally. Fm pretty sure he came
to kindle a war.

"Oh, I'm glad," Susette exclaimed. "He was such a lovely guest. Even
though I often couldn't follow his conversation. Martin did better, but
he'd get lost too when Aycharaych started talking about art and
history--of Terra! He made me ashamed I was that ignorant about my own
planet. No, not ashamed; really interested, wanting to go right out and
learn if only I knew how. And then he'd talk on my level, like
mentioning little things I'd never much noticed or appreciated, and
getting me to care about them, till this dull place seemed full of
wonder and--"

She subsided. "Have I told you enough?" she asked.

"I may have a few more questions later," Flandry said, "but for now,
yes, I'm through."

She held out her arms. "Oh, no, you're not, you man, you! You've just
begun. C'mere."

Flandry did. But while he embraced her, he was mostly harking back to
the last time he met Aycharaych.

IX
--

{That was four years ago, in the planet-wide winter of eccentrically
orbiting Talwin. Having landed simultaneously from the warships which
brought them hither, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry and his opposite
number, Qanryf Tachwyr the Dark, were received with painstaking
correctness by the two commissioners of their respective races who
administered the joint Merseian-Terran scientific base. After due
ceremony, they expressed a wish to dine privately, that they might
discuss the tasks ahead of them in frankness and at leisure.

The room for this was small, austerely outfitted as the entire outpost
necessarily was. Talwin's system coursed through the Wilderness, that
little-explored buffer zone of stars between Empire and Roidhunate; it
had no attraction for traders; the enterprise got a meager budget. A
table, some chairs and stools, a sideboard, a phone were the whole
furniture, unless you counted the dumbwaiter with sensors and extensible
arms for serving people who might not wish a live attendant while they
talked.

Flandry entered cheerily, 0.88 gee lending bounce to his gait. The
Merseian officer waited, half dinosaurian despite a close-fitting
silver-trimmed black uniform, bold against snowfields, frozen river, and
shrunken sun in crystalline sky which filled a wall transparency behind
him.

"Well, you old rascal, how are you?" The man held forth his hand in
Terran wise. Tachwyr clasped it between warm dry fingers and leathery
palm. They had no further amicable gesture to exchange, since Flandry
lacked a tail.

"Thirsty," Tachwyr rumbled. They sought the well-stocked sideboard.
Tachwyr reached for Scotch and Flandry for telloch. They caught each
other's glances and laughed, Merseian drumroll and human staccato. "Been
a long while for us both, arrach?"

Flandry noted the inference, that of recent years Tachwyr's work had
brought him into little or no contact with Terrans, for whatever it
might be worth. Likely that wasn't much. The Empire's mulish attitude
toward the aggrandizement of the Roidhunate was by no means the sole
problem which the latter faced. Still, Tachwyr was by way of being an
expert on Homo sapiens; so if a more urgent matter had called him--To be
sure, he might have planned his remark precisely to make his opponent
think along these lines.

"I trust your wives and children enjoy good fortune," Flandry said in
polite Eriau.

"Yes, I thank the God." The formula being completed, Tachwyr went on:
"Chydhwan's married, and Gelch has begun his cadetship. I presume you're
still a bachelor?" He must ask that in Anglic, for his native equivalent
would have been an insult. His jet eyes probed. "Aren't you the gaudy
one, though? What style is that?"

The man extended an arm to show off colors and embroideries of his
mufti. The plumes bobbed which sprang from an emerald brooch holding his
turban together. "Latest fashion in Dehiwala--on Ramanujan, you know. I
was there a while back. Garb at home has gotten positively drab." He
lifted his glass. "Well, tor ychwei."

"Here's to you," the Merseian responded in Anglic. They drank. The
telloch was thick and bitter-fiery.

Flandry looked outdoors. "Brrr!" he said. "I'm glad this time I won't
need to tramp through that."

"Khraich? I'd hoped we might go on a hunt."

"Don't let me stop you. But if nothing else, my time here is limited. I
must get back. Wouldn't have come at all except for your special
invitation."

Tachwyr studied Flandry. "I never doubted you are busy these days," he
said.

"Yes, jumping around like a probability function in a high wind."

"You do not seem discouraged."

"N-no." Flandry sipped, abruptly brought his gaze around, and stated:
"We're near the end of our troubles. What opposition is left has no real
chance."

"And Hans Molitor will be undisputed Emperor." Tachwyr's relaxation
evaporated. Flandry, who knew him from encounters both adversary and
half friendly since they were fledglings in their services, had rather
expected that. A big, faintly scaled hand clenched on the tumbler of
whisky. "My reason why I wanted this meeting."

"Your reason?" Flandry arched his brows, though he knew Tachwyr felt it
was a particularly grotesque expression.

"Yes. I persuaded my superiors to send your government--Molitor's--the
proposal, and put me in charge of our side. However, if you had not come
yourself, I imagine the conference would have proved as empty as my
datholch claimed it would, when I broached the idea to him."

I can't blame the good datholch, Flandry thought. It does seem ludicrous
on the face of it: discussions between Intelligence officers of rank
below admiral or fodaich, who can't make important
commitments--discussions about how to "resolve mutual difficulties" and
assure the Imperium that the Roidhunate has never had any desire to
interfere in domestic affairs of the Empire--when everybody knows how
gleefully Merseian agents have swarmed through every one of our camps,
trying their eternally damnedest to keep our family fight going.

Of course, Molitor's people couldn't refuse, because this is the first
overt sign that Merseia will recognize him rather than some rival as our
lord, and deal with his agents later on, about matters more real than
this farce.

The intention is no surprise, when he's obviously winning. The surprise
was the form the feeler took--and Tachwyr's note to me. Neither action
felt quite Merseian.

Therefore I had to come.

"Let me guess," Flandry said. "You know I'm close to his Majesty and act
as an odd-job man of his. You and your team hope to sound out me and
mine about him."

Tachwyr nodded. "If he's to be your new leader, stronger than the past
several, we want to know what to expect."

"You must have collected more bits of information on him than there are
stars in the galaxy. And he's not a complex man. And no individual can
do more than throw a small extra vector or two in among the millions
that whipsaw such a big and awkward thing as the Empire toward whatever
destiny it's got."

"He can order actions which have a multiplier effect, for war or peace
between our folk."

"Oh, come off it, chum! No Merseian has a talent for pious wormwords. He
only sounds silly when he tries. As far as you are concerned vis-a-vis
us, diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means." Flandry tossed
off his drink and poured a refill.

"Many Terrans disagree," Tachwyr said slowly.

"My species also has more talent than yours for wishful thinking,"
Flandry admitted. He waved at the cold landscape. "Take this base
itself. For two decades, through every clash and crisis, a beacon
example of cooperation. Right?" He leered. "You know better. Oh,
doubtless most of the scientists who come here are sincere enough in
just wanting to study a remarkable xenological development. Doubtless
they're generally on good personal terms. But they're subsidized--they
have their nice safe demilitarization--for no reason except that both
sides find it convenient to keep a place for secret rendezvous. Neutral
domains like Betelgeuse are so public, and their owners tend to be so
nosy."

He patted the Merseian's back. "Now let's sit down to eat, and afterward
serious drinking, like the cordial enemies we've always been," he urged.
"I don't mind giving you anecdotes to pad out your report. Some of them
may even be true."

The heavy features flushed olive-green. "Do you imply our attempt--not
at final disengagement, granted, but at practical measures of mutual
benefit--do you imply it is either idiotic or else false?"

Flandry sighed. "You disappoint me, Tachwyr. I do believe you've grown
stuffy in your middle age. Instead of continuing the charade, why not
ring up your Chereionite and invite him to join us? I'll bet he and I
are acquainted too."}

{The sun went down and night leaped forth in stars almost space-bright,
crowding the dark, making the winter world glow as if it had a moon.
"May I turn off the interior lights?" Aycharaych asked. "The outside is
too glorious for them."

Flandry agreed. The hawk profile across the table from him grew
indistinct, save for great starlight-catching eyes. The voice sang and
purred onward, soft as the cognac they shared, in Anglic whose accent
sounded less foreign than archaic.

"I could wish your turban did not cover a mindscreen and powerpack, my
friend. Not merely does the field make an ugliness through my nerves
amidst this frozen serenity; I would fain be in true communion with
you." Aycharaych's chuckle sounded wistful. "That can scarcely be, I
realize, unless you join my cause."

"Or you mine," Flandry said.

"And each of your men who might know something I would like to learn is
likewise screened against me. Does not that apparatus on their heads
make sleep difficult? I warn you in any case, wear the things not
overmany days at a stretch. Even for a race like yours, it is ill to
keep the brain walled off from those energies which inspirit the
universe, behind a screen of forces that themselves must roil your
dreams."

"I see no reason for us to stay."

Aycharaych inhaled from his glass. He had not touched the liquor yet. "I
would be happy for your company," he said. "But I understand. The
consciousness that dreary death will in a few more decades fold this
brightly checkered game board whereon you leap and capture--that keeps
you ever in haste."

He leaned back, gazed out at a tree turned into a jewel by icicles, and
was quiet awhile. Flandry reached for a cigarette, remembered the
Chereionite disliked tobacco smoke, and soothed himself with a swallow.

"It may be the root of your greatness as a race," Aycharaych mused.
"Could a St. Matthew Passion have welled from an immortal Bach? Could a
Rembrandt who knew naught of sorrow and had no need for steadfastness in
it have brought those things alive by a few daubs of paint? Could a Tu
Fu free of loss have been the poet of dead leaves flying amidst snow,
cranes departing, or an old parrot shabby in its cage? What depth does
the foreknowledge of doom give to your loves?"

He turned his head to face the man. His tone lightened: "Well. Now that
poor mortified Tachwyr is gone--most mightily had he looked forward to
the sauce which gloating would put on his dinner!--we can talk freely.
How did you deduce the truth?"

"Part hunch," Flandry confessed. "The more I thought about that message,
the more suggestions of your style I found. Then logic took over. Plain
to see, the Merseians had some ulterior motive in asking for a
conference as nugatory per se as this. It could be just a signal to us,
and an attempt at sounding out Molitor's prospective regime a bit. But
for those purposes it was clumsy and inadequate. And why go to such
trouble to bring me here?

"Well, I'm not privy to high strategic secrets, but I'm close enough to
him that I must have a fair amount of critical information--the kind
which'll be obsolete inside a year, but if used promptly could help
Merseia keep our kettle longer on the boil, with that much more harm to
us. And I have a freer hand than anybody else who's so well briefed; I
could certainly come if I chose. And an invitation from Tachwyr could be
counted on to pique my curiosity, if nothing else.

"The whole idea was yours, wasn't it?"

Aycharaych nodded, his crest a scimitar across the Milky Way. "Yes," he
said. "I already had business in these parts--negotiant perambulantem in
tenebris, if you like--and saw nothing to lose in this attempt. At least
I have won the pleasure of a few hours with you."

"Thanks. Although--" Flandry sought words. "You know I put modesty in a
class with virginity, both charming characteristics which should be
gotten rid of as fast as puberty allows. However ... why me, Aycharaych?
Do you relish the fact I'll kill you, regretfully but firmly, the
instant a chance appears? In that respect, there are hundreds like me.
True, I may be unusual in having come close, a time or two. And I can
make more cultured noises than the average Navy man. But I'm no scholar,
no esthete--a dilettante; you can do better than me."

"Let us say I appreciate your total personality." The smile, barely
visible, resembled that upon the oldest stone gods of Greece. "I admire
your exploits. And since we have interacted again and again, a bond has
formed between us. Deny not that you sense it."

"I don't deny. You're the only Chereionite I've ever met--" Flandry
stopped.

After a moment he proceeded: "Are you the only Chereionite anybody has
ever met?"

"Occasional Merseians have visited my planet, even resided there for
periods of study," Aycharaych pointed out.

Yes. Flandry remembered one such, who had endangered him here upon
Talwin; how far in the past that seemed, and how immediately near! I
realize why the coordinates of your home are perhaps the best-kept
secret in the Roidhunate. I doubt if a thousand beings from offworld
know; and in most of them, the numbers have been buried deep in their
unconsciousness, to be called forth by a key stimulus which is also
secret.

Secret, secret ... What do we know about you that is substance and not
shadow?

The data fled by, just behind his eyes.

Chereion's sun was dim, as Flandry himself had discovered when he
noticed Aycharaych was blind in the blue end of the spectrum though
seeing farther into the red than a man can. The planet was small, cold,
dry--deduced from Aycharaych's build, walk, capabilities,
preferences--not unlike human-settled Aeneas, because he could roam
freely there and almost start a holy war to split the Empire, nineteen
years ago.

In those days he had claimed that the enigmatic ruins found upon many
worlds of that sort were relics of his own people, who ranged and ruled
among the stars in an era geologically remote. He claimed ... He's as
big a liar as I am, when either of us wants to be. If they did build and
then withdraw, why? Where to? What are they upon this night?

Dismiss the riddles. Imperial Intelligence knew for certain, with scars
for reminders, he was a telepath of extraordinary power. Within a radius
of x meters, he could read the thoughts of any being, no matter how
alien, using any language, no matter how foreign to him. That had been
theoretically impossible. Hence the theory was crudely modified (there
is scant creativity in a waning civilization) to include suggestions of
a brain which with computerlike speed and capacity analyzed the impulses
it detected into basic units (binary?), compared this pattern with the
one which its own senses and knowledge presented, and by some incredible
process of trial and error synthesized in seconds a code which closely
corresponded to the original.

It did not seem he could peer far below the surface thoughts, if at all.
That mattered little. He could be patient; or in a direct confrontation,
he had skill to evoke the memories he wanted. No wonder that the highest
Merseian command paid heed to him. The Empire had never had a more
dangerous single enemy.

Single--

Flandry grew aware of the other's luminous regard. " 'Scuse me," he
said. "I got thinking. Bad habit."

"I can guess what." Aycharaych's smile continued. "You speculate whether
I am your sole Chereionite colleague."

"Yes. Not for the first time." Flandry drank again. "Well, are you? What
few photographs or eyewitness accounts we've garnered, of a Chereionite
among outsiders--never more than one. Were all of them you?"

"You don't expect me to tell you. I will agree to what's obvious, that
partakers in ephemeral affairs, like myself, have been rare among my
race. They laid such things aside before your kind were aught but apes."

"Why haven't you?"

"In action I find an art; and every art is a philosophical tool, whereby
we may seek to win an atom deeper into mystery."

Flandry considered Aycharaych for a silent span before he murmured: "I
came on a poem once, in translation--it goes back a millennium or
more--that's stayed with me. Tells how Pan--you know our Classical
myths--Pan is at a riverside, splashing around, his goat hoofs breaking
the lilies, till he plucks a reed and hollows it out, no matter the
agony it feels; then the music he pipes forth enchants the whole forest.
Is that what you think of yourself as doing?"

"Ah, yes," Aycharaych answered, "you have the last stanza in mind, I
believe." Low:

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,

To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

Damn! Flandry thought. I ought to stop letting him startle me.

"My friend," the other went on gently, "you too play a satanic role. How
many lives have you twisted or chopped short? How many will you? Would
you protest me if the accidents of history had flung Empire rather than
Roidhunate around my sun? Or if you had been born into those humans who
serve Merseia? Indeed, then you might have lived more whole of heart."

Anger flared. "I know," Flandry snapped. "How often have I heard? Terra
is old, tired, corrupt, Merseia is young, vigorous, pure. Thank you, to
the extent that's true, I prefer my anomie, cynicism, and existential
despair to counting my days in cadence and shouting huzza--worse,
sincerely meaning it--when Glorious Leader rides by. Besides ... the
device every conqueror, yes, every altruistic liberator should be
required to wear on his shield ... is a little girl and her kitten, at
ground zero."

He knocked back his cognac and poured another. His temper cooled. "I
suspect," he finished, "down inside, you'd like to say the same."

"Not in those terms," Aycharaych replied. "Sentimentality ill becomes
either of us. Or compassion. Forgive me, are you not drinking a trifle
heavily?"

"Could be."

"Since you won't get so drunk I can surreptitiously turn off your
mindscreen, I would be grateful if you stay clear-headed. The time is
long since last I relished discourse of Terra's former splendors, or
even of her modern pleasures. Come, let us talk the stars to rest."}

In the morning, Flandry told Susette he must scout around the globe a
few days, using certain ultrasensitive instruments, but thereafter he
would return.

He doubted that very much.

X
-

Shadow and thunder of wings fell over Kossara. She looked up from the
rolling, tawny-begrown down onto which she had come after stumbling from
the forest. Against clouds and the plum-colored sky beyond, a Diomedean
descended. She halted. Weariness shivered in her legs. Wind slithered
around her. It smelled of damp earth and, somehow, of boulders.

An end to my search. Her heart slugged. But what will I now find?
Comrades and trust, or a return to my punishment?

The native landed, a male, attired in crossbelts and armed with a knife
and rifle. He must have been out hunting, when he saw the remarkable
sight of a solitary human loose in the wilds, begrimed, footsore,
mapless and compassless. He uttered gutturals of his own tongue.

"No, I don't speak that," Kossara answered. The last water she had found
was kilometers behind. Thirst roughened her throat. "Do you know
Anglic?"

"Some bit," the native said. "How you? Help?"

"Y-yes. But--" But not from anybody who'll think he should call Thursday
Landing and inquire about me. During her trek she had sifted the
fragments of memory, over and over. A name and nonhuman face remained.
"Eonan. Bring me Eonan." She tried several different pronunciations,
hoping one would be recognizable.

"Gairath mochra. Eonan? Wh ... what Eonan? Many Eonan."

There would be, of course. She might as well have asked a random
Dennitzan for Andrei. However, she had expected as much. "Eonan who
knows Kossara Vymezal," she said. "Find. Give Eonan this." She handed
him a note she had scrawled. "Money." She offered a ten-credit bill from
the full wallet Flandry had included in her gear. "Bring Eonan, I give
you more money."

After repeated trials, she seemed to get the idea across, and an
approximation of her name. The hunter took off northward. God willing,
he'd ask around in the bayshore towns till he found the right person;
and while this would make the dwellers curious, none should see reason
to phone Imperial headquarters. God willing. She ought to kneel for a
prayer, but she was too tired; Mary who fled to Egypt would understand.
Kossara sat down on what resembled pale grass and wasn't, hugged herself
against the bitter breeze and stared across treelessness beneath a wan
sun.

Have I really won through?

If Eonan still had his life and liberty, he might have lost heart for
his revolution--if, in truth, he had ever been involved; she had nothing
more than a dream-vision from a cave. Or if he would still free his
people from the Empire, he might be the last. Or if cabals and
guerrillas remained, he might not know where they hid. Or if he brought
her to them, what could she hope for?

She tossed her head. A chance to fight. Maybe to win home in the end,
likelier to die here: as a soldier does, and in freedom,

Drowsiness overflowed. She curled herself as best she could on the
ground. Heavy garments blunted its hardness, though she hated the sour
smell they'd gotten. To be clean again ... Flandry had saved her from
the soiling which could never be washed off. He had that much
honor--and, yes, a diamond sort of mercy. If she'd done his bidding,
tried her best to lead him to whatever was left of her fellows, he would
surely have sent her back, manumitted--he'd have the prestige for such a
favor to be granted him--unscathed--No! Not whole in her own honor! And
release upon a Dennitza lashed to the Empire would be a cruel joke.

Then rest while you can, Kossara. Sleep comes not black, no, blue as a
summer sky over the Kazan, blue as the cloak of Mary ... Pray for us,
now and in the hour of our death.

A small callused hand shook her awake. Hunger said louder than her watch
what a time had passed while the sun brooded nightless. She stared into
yellow eyes above a blunt muzzle and quivering whiskers. Half open, bat
wings made a stormcloud behind. He carried a blaster.

His face--She sat up, aware of ache, stiffness, cold. "Eonan?"

"Torcha tracked me." Apart from the piping accent, mostly due to the
organs of speech, his Anglic came fluent. "But you do not know him, do
you?"

She struggled to her feet. "I don't know you either, quite," she got
out. "They made me forget."

"Ungn-n-n." He touched the butt of the gun, and his crest erected.
Otherwise he stood in taut quietness. She saw he had arrived on a
gravsled, no doubt to carry her.

Resolution unfroze him. "I am Eonan Guntrasson, of the Wendru clan in
the Great Flock of Lannach. And you are Kossara Vymezal, from the
distant planet Dennitza."

Gladness came galloping, and every weakness fled. "I know that, barem!
And you dared meet me? Then we are not finished yet!"

Eonan drew the membranes over his eyes. "We?"

"The revolution. Yours and mine." She leaned down to grip his upper
shoulders. Beneath fur and warmth, the flight muscles stood like rock.

"I must be careful." His tone underlined it. "Torcha said you promised
him a reward for fetching me. I paid him myself, not to have him along.
Best we go aside and ... talk. First, in sign of good faith, let me
search you."

The place he chose was back in the highlands. Canyon walls rose darkly
where a river rang; fog smoked and dripped till Kossara was soaked with
chill; at moments when the swirling grayness parted, she glimpsed the
black volcanic cone of Mount Oborch.

On the way, Eonan had fed her from a stock of preserved Terran food, and
explained he was the factor for Nakamura & Malaysia in the area where he
dwelt. This gave him wide contacts and sources of information, as well
as an easy excuse to travel, disappearing into the hinterland or across
the sea, whenever he wished. Thursday Landing had no suspicion of his
clandestine activities. He would not speak about those until she related
her story in full.

Then he breathed, "E-e-e-ehhh," and crouched in thought on the gravsled
bench. Finally, sharply: "Well, your Terran officer has likeliest
concluded you slipped off in search of the cloudflyers--the, keh, the
underground. A spacecraft was seen to lift from hereabouts not many
sunspins ago. When I heard, I wondered what that meant."

"I imagine he went to warn the resident and start a hunt for me,"
Kossara said. "He did threaten to, if I deserted." Anxiety touched her.
"Yes, and a tightened space watch. Have I caused us trouble?"

"We shall see. It may have been worth it in all events. To learn about
that spy device is no slight gain. We shall want your description of the
place where you threw the ring away. Perhaps we can safely look for it
and take it to study."

"Chances are he's recovered it. But Eonan!" Kossara twisted around
toward him. "How are you doing here? How many survive? With what
strength, what plans? How can I help?"

Again the third lids blurred his gaze. "Best I keep still. I am just a
link. They will answer you in the nest where I have decided to take
you."

The hideout was high in a mountainside. Approaching, Kossara felt her
eardrums twinge from pressure change and cold strike deep. Snowpeaks,
glaciers, ravines, cliffs, crags reached in monstrous confusion between
a cloud ocean which drowned the lower slopes, and a sky whose emptiness
the sun only seemed to darken. Silence dwelt here, save for ah- booming
over the windshield and a mutter of native language as Eonan radioed
ahead.

Why am I not happy? she wondered. I am about to rejoin my comrades and
regain my past--my purpose. What makes me afraid?

Eonan finished. "Everything will be ready," he informed her. Was he as
tense as he looked? She must have come to know Diomedeans well enough
during her stay that she could tell; but that had been robbed from her.
What had he to fear?

"I suppose," she ventured, "this is headquarters for the entire mission.
They tucked it away here to make it undiscoverable."

"Yes. They enlarged a cave."

She recalled another cave, where she and Trohdwyr and a few more had
huddled. "Were we--those who died when I was captured--were we out in
the field--liaison with freedom fighters whose homes were below
timber-line? Maybe we were betrayed by one of them"--she
grimaced--"who'd been caught at sabotage or whatever, and interrogated."

"That sounds plausible."

"But then nobody except us was destroyed! Am I right? Is the liberation
movement still healthy?"

"Yes."

Puzzlement: "Why didn't I tell the Impies about our main base when they
put me under hypnoprobe?"

"I do not know," Eonan said impatiently. "Please be quiet. I must bring
us in on an exact course, or they will shoot."

As the sled glided near, Kossara spied the defense, an energy cannon. It
was camouflaged, but military training had enhanced her natural ability
to notice things. A great steel door in the bluff behind it would go
unseen from above, should anyone fly across this lofty desert.
Instruments--infrared sensors, neutrino detectors, magnetometers,
gravitometers, atmosphere sniffers, a hundred kinds of robot
bloodhound--would expose the place at once. But who would think to come
searching?

The door swung aside. The sled passed through and landed in a garage
among several aircars. Here were warmth, echoes, a sudden brilliance of
light better suited for eyes human or Merseian. Kossara shed her parka
before she stepped off. Her pulse raced.

Four stood waiting. Three were men. She was not surprised to see the
last was a big green heavy-tailed person, though her heart said O
Trohdwyr--and for an instant tears stung and blurred.

She rallied herself and walked toward them. Her boots thudded on the
floor; Eonan's claws clicked. Those in front of her were simply clad,
shirts, trousers, shoes on the men, a tunic on the zmay. She had
expected them to be armed, as they were.

It flashed: Why did I think zmay, not ychan? And: They aren't
Dennitzans! None of them!

She slammed to a halt. The men differed widely, genes from every breed
of mankind scrambled in chance combinations. So they could be from
Terra--or a colony within the Empire--or--

Eonan left her side. The Merseian drew his pistol. "Hold," he rapped.
"You are under arrest."

He called himself Glydh of the Vach Rueth, nicknamed Far-Farer, an afal
of his navy's Intelligence corps. His immediate assistant was a lanky,
sallow, long-nosed man, introduced as Muhammad Snell but addressed by
the superior officer as Kluwych. In the middle of wreck, Kossara could
flickeringly wonder if the Eriau name had been given him by his parents,
when he was born somewhere in the Roidhunate.

They took her to an office. On the way she passed through such space and
among such personnel that she estimated the latter numbered about
twenty, two or three of them Merseian by species, the rest human. That
was probably all there were on Diomedes: sufficient to keep scores of
native dupes like Eonan going, who in their turn led thousands.

Though are they dupes? she thought drearily. Merseia would like to see
them unchained from the Empire.

No. That isn't true. Merseia doesn't give a curse. They're cheap,
expendable tools.

The office was cramped and bleak. "Sit," Glydh ordered, pointing to a
chair. He took a stool behind a desk. Snell settled on the left; his
eyes licked her, centimeter by centimeter and back again.

"Khraich." Glydh laid his hands flat on the desktop, broad and thick,
strangler's hands. "An astonishing turn of events. What shall we do with
you?" His Anglic was excellent.

"Isn't this, uh, Captain Flandry more urgent, sir?" his subordinate
asked.

"Not much, I believe," Glydh said. "True, from Vymezal's account via
Eonan, he appears to be capable. But what can he know? That she
defected, presumably joining a remnant of the underground if she didn't
perish en route." He pondered. "Maybe be isn't capable, at that--since
he let her go, trusting her mere self-interest to keep her on his side."

Hoy? Chives said Flandry is famous ... No. How many light-years, how
many millions of minds can fame cover before it spreads vanishingly
thin?

"Of course, we will have our cell in Thursday Landing keep him under
surveillance, and alert our agents globally is he leaves there," Glydh
continued. "But I doubt he represents more than a blind stab on the part
of somebody in the opposition. I don't think he is worth the risk of
trying to kidnap, or even kill."

"We may find out otherwise, sir, when we interrogate Vymezal in detail,"
said the man. He moistened his lips.

"Maybe. I leave that to you. Co-opt what helpers you need."

"Um-m-m ... procedures? Treatment? Final disposition?"

"No!" Kossara heard the yell and felt the leaping to her feet, as if
from outside her body. This was not real, could not be, must not be, God
and saints, no. "I am not a, a Terran agent--I came here to--at least
I'm a prisoner of war!"

"Sit!" Glydh's roar, and the gunshot slap of palm on desk, flung her
back like a belly blow. She heard his basso through fever-dream
distances and humming: "Don't babble about military conventions. You are
a slave, property we have acquired. If you do what you are told, there
need not be pain. Else there will be, until you are broken to obedience.
Do you hear me?"

Snell's fingers twisted together. He breathed fast. "Sir," he said, "it
could be a long while before we get a chance to send a report offplanet
and ask for instructions about her. So we have to use our own judgment,
don't we?"

"Yes," Glydh answered.

"Well, considering what was originally intended for her, and the
reason--sir, not a woman among us in this whole region--"

Glydh shrugged. His tone was faintly contemptuous. "Quiz her out first
under narco. Afterward do what you like, short of disfiguring damage.
Remember, we may find use for her later, and the nearest biosculp
laboratory is parsecs hence."

I will make them kill me! Even as she plunged toward Snell, fingernails
out to hook his eyeballs, Kossara knew Glydh would seize her and not let
her die.

The explosion threw her against a wall. It made a drum of her skull. The
floor heaved and cracked. Snell went over backward. Glydh flailed about
to keep his balance.

Faintly through the brief deafness that followed, she heard screams,
running, bang and hiss of firearms. Ozone drifted acrid to her nostrils,
smoke, smells of roastedness.

She was already out of the office, into the central chamber beyond. At
its far end, through the passageway which gave on the garage, she saw
how the main door lay blown off its trunnions, crumpled and red-hot.
Beyond was the ruin of the cannon. Men boiled around or sprawled
un-moving.

Enormous shone the bulk of a suit of combat armor. Bullets whanged off
it, blaster bolts fountained. The wearer stood where he was, and his own
weapon scythed.

As she broke into view--"Kossara!" Amplified from the helmet, his voice
resounded like God's. His free hand reached beneath a plate that
protected his gravbelt. He rose and moved slowly toward her. Survivors
fled.

Fingers closed on her arm. Around her shoulder she saw Glydh. He swung
her before his body. "That's not nice," the oncoming invader pealed. He
spun his blaster nozzle to needle beam, aimed, and fired.

Glydh's brow spurted steam, brains, blood, shattered bone across
Kossara. She knew a heartbeat's marvel at that kind of precision
shooting. But then the heavy corpse bore her down. Her head struck the
floor. Lightning filled the universe.

The armored man reached her, stood over her, shielded her. A
spacecraft's flank appeared in the entry. It had sprouted a turret,
whose gun sprayed every doorway where an enemy might lurk. Kossara let
darkness flow free.

XI
--

A breath of air cool, pine-scented; all noises gone soft; a sense of
muted energies everywhere around; a lessened weight--Kossara opened her
eyes. She lay in bed, in her cabin aboard the Hooligan. Flandry sat
alongside. He wore a plain coverall, his countenance was haggard and the
gray gaze troubled. Nonetheless he smiled. "Hello, there," he murmured.
"How do you feel?"

Drowsy, altogether at ease, she asked, "Have we left Diomedes?"

"Yes. We're bound for Dennitza." He took her right hand between both of
his. "Now listen. Everything is all right. You weren't seriously harmed,
but on examination we decided we'd better keep you under sleep induction
awhile, with intravenous feeding and some medication. Look at your left
wrist." She did. It was bare. "Yes, the bracelet is off. As far as I'm
concerned, you're free, and I'll take care of the technicalities as soon
as possible. You're going home, Kossara."

Examination--She dropped her glance. A sheer nightgown covered her. "I'm
sorry I never thought to bring anything more decorous for you to sleep
in," Flandry said. He appeared to be summoning courage. "Chives did the
doctoring, the bathing, et cetera. Chives alone." His mouth went wry.
"You may or may not believe that. It's true, but hell knows how much
I've lied to you."

And I to you, she thought.

He straightened in the chair and released her. "Well," he said, "would
you like a spot of tea and accompaniments? You should stay in bed for
another watch cycle or two, till you get your strength back."

"What happened ... to us?"

"We'd better postpone that tale. First you should rest." Flandry rose.
Almost timidly, he gave her hair a stroke. "I'll go now. Chives will
bring the tea."

Wakefulness returned. When the Shalmuan came to retrieve her tray,
Kossara sat propped against pillows, ready for him. "I hope the
refreshments were satisfactory, Donna," he said. "Would you care for
something more?"

"Yes," she replied. "Information."

The slim form showed unease. "Sir Dominic feels--"

"Sir Dominic is not me." She spread her palms. "Chives, how can I relax
in a jigsaw puzzle? Tell me, or ask him to tell me, what went on in that
den. How did you find me? What did you do after I lost consciousness?
Why?"

Chives reached a decision. "Well, Donna, we trust that in view of
results obtained, you will pardon certain earlier modifications of
strict veracity which Sir Dominic deemed essential. The ring he gave you
was a mere ring; no such device exists as he described, at least within
the purview of Technic civilization." She choked. He continued: "Sir
Dominic, ah, has been known to indulge in what he describes as wistful
fantasizing relevant to his occupation. Instead, the bracelet you wore
was slave-driven from an external source of radiated power."

"Slave-driven. A very good word." And yet Kossara could feel no anger.
She imitated it as a duty. Had they given her a tranquilizing drug which
had not completely worn off?

"Your indignation is natural, Donna." Chives' tail switched his ankles.
"Yet allow me to request you consider the total situation, including the
fact that those whom you met were not noble liberators but Merseian
operatives. Sir Dominic suspected this from the start. He believed that
if you reappeared, they were sure to contact you, if only to find out
what had transpired. He saw no method short of the empirical for
convincing you. Furthermore, admiration for your honesty made him
dubious of your ability knowingly to play a double role.

"Hence I trailed you at a discreet distance while he went to Thursday
Landing to investigate other aspects of the case. Albeit my assignment
had its vexations, I pinpointed the spot where you were brought and
called Sir Dominic, who by then had returned to Lannach. Underground and
surrounded by metal, your bracelet was blocked from us. We concluded
immediate attack was the most prudent course--for your sake
particularly, Donna. While Sir Dominic flitted down in armor, I blasted
the cannon and entrance. Shortly afterward I landed to assist and, if
you will excuse my immodesty, took the single prisoner we got. The rest
were either dead or, ah, holed up sufficiently well that we decided to
content ourselves with a nuclear missile dispatched through the
entrance.

"The resultant landslide was somewhat spectacular. Perhaps later you
will be interested to see the movie I took.

"Ah ... what he has learned has made Sir Dominic of the opinion that we
must speed directly to Dennitza. Nevertheless, I assure you he would in
all events have seen to your repatriation at the earliest feasible
date."

Chives lifted her tea tray. "This is as much as I should tell you at the
present stage, Donna. I trust you can screen whatever you wish in the
way of literary, theatrical, or musical diversion. If you require
assistance of any kind, please call on the intercom. I will return in
two hours with a bowl of chicken soup. Is that satisfactory?"

Stars filled the saloon viewscreen behind Flandry's head. The ship went
hush-hush-hush, on a voyage which, even at her pseudospeed, would take a
Terran month. The whisky he had poured for them glowed across tongue and
palate.

"It's a foul story," he warned.

"Does evil go away just because we keep silent?" Kossara answered.
Inwardly: How evil are you, you claw of the Empire?--but again without
heat, a thought she felt obliged to think.

After all, his lean features looked so grim and unhappy, across the
table from her. He shouldn't chain-smoke the way he did; anticancer
shots, cardiovascular treatments, lungflushes, and everything, it
remained a flagellant habit. One could serve a bad cause without being a
bad man. Couldn't one?

He sighed and drank. "Very well. A sketch. I got a lot of details from a
narcoquiz of our prisoner, but most are simply that, details, useful in
hunting down the last of his outfit if and when that seems worthwhile.
He did, though, confirm and amplify something much more scary."

Memory prodded her with a cold finger. "Where is he?"

"Oh, I needled him and bunged him out an airlock." Flandry observed her
shock. His tone changed from casual to defensive. "We were already in
space; this business doesn't allow delays. As for turning him over to
the authorities when we arrive--there may not be any authorities, or
they may be in full revolt, Merseian-allied. At best, the fact he was
alive could trickle across to enemy Intelligence, and give them valuable
clues to what we know. This is how the game's played, Kossara." He
trailed out smoke before he added, "Happens his name was Muhammad
Snell."

Blood beat in temples and cheeks. "He got no chance--I don't need
avengers."

"Maybe your people will," he said quietly.

After a second he leaned forward, locked eyes with her, and continued:
"Let's begin explanations from my viewpoint. I want you to follow my
experiences and reasoning, in hopes you'll then accept my conclusions.
You're an embittered woman, for more cause than you know right now. But
I think you're also intelligent, fair-minded, yes, tough-minded enough
to recognize truth, no matter what rags it wears."

Kossara told herself she must be calm, watchful, like a cat--like
Butterfeet when she was little ... She drank. "Go on."

Flandry filled his lungs. "The Gospodar, the Dennitzans in general are
furious at Hans' scheme to disband their militia and make them wholly
dependent on the Navy," he said. "After they supported him through the
civil war, too! And we've other sources of friction, inevitable; and
thoughts of breaking away or violently replacing the regnant Emperor are
no longer unthinkable. Dennitza has its own culture, deep-rooted,
virile, alien to Terra and rather contemptuous thereof--a culture
influenced by Merseia, both directly and through the, uh, zmay element
in your population.

"Aye, granted, you've long been in the forefront of resistance to the
Roidhunate. However, such attitudes can change overnight. History's
abulge with examples. For instance, England's rebellious North American
colonies calling on the French they fought less than two decades before;
or America a couple of centuries later, allied first with the Russians
against the Germans, then turning straight around and--" He stopped.
"This doesn't mean anything to you, does it? No matter. You can see the
workings in your own case, I'm sure. Dennitza is where your loyalties
lie. What you do, whom you support, those depend on what you judge is
best for Dennitza. Right? Yes, entirely right and wholesome. But
damnably mislead-able."

"Are you, then, a Terran loyalist?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "A civilization loyalist. Which is a pretty thin,
abstract thing to be; and I keep wondering whether we can preserve
civilization or even should.

"Well. Conflict of interest is normal. Compromise is too, especially
with as valuable a tributary as Dennitza--provided it stays tributary.
Now we'd received strong accusations that Dennitzans were engineering
revolt on Diomedes, presumably in preparation for something similar at
home. His Majesty's government wasn't about to bull right in. That'd be
sure to bring on trouble we can ill afford, perhaps quite unnecessarily.
But the matter had to be investigated.

"And I, I learned a Dennitzan girl of ranking family had been caught at
subversion on Diomedes. Her own statements out of partial recollections,
her undisguised hatred of the Imperium, they seemed to confirm those
accusations. Being asked to look into the questions, what would I do but
bring you along?"

He sighed. "A terrible mistake. We should've headed straight for
Dennitza. Hindsight is always keen, isn't it, while foresight stays
myopic, astigmatic, strabismic, and drunk. But I haven't even that
excuse. I'd guessed at the truth from the first. Instead of going off to
see if I could prove my hunch or not--" His fist smote the table. "I
should never have risked you the way I did. Kossara!"

She thought, amazed, He is in pain about that. He truly is.

"A-a-ah," Flandry said. "I'm a ruthless bastard. Better hunter than
prey, and have we any third choice in these years? Or so I thought. You
... were only another life."

He ground out his cigarette, sprang from the bench, strode back and
forth along the cabin. Sometimes his hands were gripped together behind
him, sometimes knotted at his sides. His voice turned quick and
impersonal:

"You looked like a significant pawn, though. Why such an incredibly
bungled job on you? Including your enslavement on Terra. I'd have heard
about you in time, but it was sheer luck I did before you'd been thrown
into a whorehouse. And how would your uncle the Gospodar react to that
news if it reached him?

"Might it be intended to reach him?

"Oh, our enemies couldn't be certain what'd happen; but you tilted the
probabilities in their favor. They must've spent considerable time and
effort locating you. Flandry's Law: 'Given a sufficiently large
population, at least one member will fit any desired set of
specifications.' The trick is to find that member."

"What?" Kossara exclaimed. "Do you mean--because I was who I was, in the
position I was--that's why Dennitza--" She could speak no further.

"Well, let's say you were an important factor," he replied. "I'm not
sure just how you came into play, though I can guess. On the basis of my
own vague ideas, I made a decoy of you in the manner you've already
heard about. That involved first deliberately antagonizing you on the
voyage; then deliberately gambling your life, health, sanity--"

He halted in midstride. His shoulders slumped. She could barely hear
him, though his look did not waver from hers: "Every minute makes what I
did hurt worse."

She wanted to tell him he was forgiven, yes, go take his hands and tell
him; but no, he had lied too often. With an effort, she said, "I am
surprised."

His grin was wry. "Less than I am." Returning, he flopped back onto the
bench, crossed ankle over thigh till he peered across his knee at her,
swallowed a long draught from his glass, took out his cigarette case;
and when the smoke was going he proceeded:

"Let's next assume the enemy's viewpoint, i.e. what I learned and
deduced.

"They--a key one of them, anyhow--he realizes the Terran Empire is in an
era when periods of civil war are as expectable as bouts of delirium in
chronic umwi fever. I wasn't quite aware of the fact myself till lately.
A conversation I had set me thinking and researching. But he knew right
along, my opponent. At last I see what he's been basing his strategy on
for the past couple of decades. Knowing him, if he believes the theory,
I think I will. These days we're vulnerable to fratricide, Kossara. And
what better for Merseia, especially if just the right conflict can be
touched off at just the right moment?

"We've been infiltrated. They've had sleepers among us for ... maybe a
lifetime ... notably in my own branch of service, where they can cover
up for each other ... and notably during this past generation, when the
chaos first of the Josip regime, then the succession struggle, made it
easier to pass off their agents as legitimate colonial volunteers.

"The humans on Diomedes. brewing revolution with the help of a clever
Alatanist pitch--thereby diverting some of our attention to Ythri--they
weren't Dennitzans. They were creatures of the Roidhunate, posing as
Dennitzans. Oh, not blatantly; that'd've been a giveaway. And they were
sincerely pushing for an insurrection, since any trouble of ours is a
gain for them. But a major objective of the whole operation was to drive
yet another wedge between your people and mine, Kossara."

Frost walked along her spine. She stared at him and whispered: "Those
men who caught me--murdered Trohdwyr--tortured and sentenced me--they
were Merseians too?"

"They were human," Flandry said flatly, while he unfolded himself into a
more normal posture. "They were sworn-in members of the Imperial Terran
Naval Intelligence Corps. But, yes, they were serving Merseia. They
arrived to 'investigate' and thus add credence to the clues about
Dennitza which their earlier-landed fellows had already been spreading
around.

"Let the Imperium get extremely suspicious of the Gospodar--d'you see?
The Imperium will have to act against him. It dare not stall any longer.
But this action forces the Gospodar to respond--he already having reason
to doubt the goodwill of the Terrans--"

Flandry smashed his cigarette, drank, laid elbows on table and said most
softly, his face near hers:

"He'd hear rumors, and send somebody he could trust to look into them.
Aycharaych--I'll describe him later--Aycharaych of the Roidhunate knew
that person would likeliest be you. He made ready. Your incrimination,
as far as Terra was concerned--your degradation, as far as Dennitza was
concerned--d'you see? Inadequate by themselves to provoke war. Still,
remind me and I'll tell you about Jenkins' Ear. Nations on the brink
don't need a large push to send them toppling.

"I've learned something about how you were lured, after you reached
Diomedes. The rest you can tell me, if you will. Because when he isn't
weaving mirages, Aycharaych works on minds. He directed the blotting out
of your memories. He implanted the false half-memories and that hate of
the Empire you carry around. Given his uncanny telepathic capabilities,
to let him monitor what drugs, electronics, hypnotism are doing to a
brain, he can accomplish what nobody else is able to.

"But I don't think he totally wiped what was real. That'd have left you
too unmistakably worked over. I think you keep most of the truth in you,
disguised and buried."

The air sucked between her teeth. Her fists clenched on the table. He
laid a hand across them, big and gentle.

"I hope I can bring back what you've lost, Kossara." The saying sounded
difficult. "And, and free you from those conditioned-reflex emotions.
It's mainly a matter of psychotherapy. I don't insist. Ask yourself: Can
you trust me that much?"

XII
---

Sickbay was a single compartment, but astonishingly well equipped.
Kossara entered with tightness in her gullet and dryness on her tongue.
Flandry and Chives stood behind a surgical table. An electronic helmet,
swiveled out above the pillow, crouched like an ugly arachnoid. The
faint hum of driving energies, ventilation, service and life-support
devices, seemed to her to have taken on a shrill note.

Flandry had left flamboyancy outside. Tall in a plain green coverall, he
spoke unsmiling: "Your decision isn't final yet. Before we go any
further, let me explain. Chives and I have done this sort of thing
before, and we aren't a bad team, but we're no professionals."

This sort of thing--Muhammad Snell must lately have lain on that
mattress, in the dream-bewildered helplessness of narco, while yonder
man pumped him dry and injected the swift poison. Shouldn't I fear the
Imperialist? Dare I risk becoming the ally of one who treated a sentient
being as we do a meat animal?

I ought to feel indignation. I don't, though. Nor do I feel guilty that
I don't.

Well, I'm not revengeful, either. At least, not very much. I do remember
how Trohdwyr died because he was an inconvenience; I remember how Mihail
Svetich died, in a war Flandry says our enemies want to kindle anew.

Flandry says--She heard him from afar, fast and pedantic. Had he
rehearsed his speech?

"This is not a hypnoprobe here, of course. It puts a human straight into
quasisleep and stimulates memory activity, after a drug has damped
inhibitions and emotions. In effect, everything the organism has
permanently recorded becomes accessible to a questioner--assuming no
deep conditioning against it. The process takes more time and skill than
an ordinary quiz, where all that's wanted is something the subject
consciously knows but isn't willing to tell. Psychiatrists use it to dig
out key, repressed experiences in severely disturbed patients. I've
mainly used it to get total accounts, generally from cooperative
witnesses--significant items they may have noticed but forgotten. In
your case, we'd best go in several fairly brief sessions, spaced three
or four watches apart. That way you can assimilate your regained
knowledge and avoid a crisis. The sessions will give you no pain and
leave no recollection of themselves."

She brought her whole attention to him. "Do you play the tapes for me
when I wake?" she asked.

"I could," he replied, "but wouldn't you prefer I wiped them? You see,
when our questions have brought out a coherent framework of what was
buried, a simple command will fix it in your normal memory. By
association, that will recover everything else. You'll come to with full
recall of whatever episode we concentrated on."

His eyes dwelt gravely upon her. "You must realize," he continued, "your
whole life will be open to us. We'll try hard to direct our questioning
so we don't intrude. However, there's no avoiding all related and
heavily charged items. You'll blurt many of them out. Besides, we'll
have to feel our way. Is such-and-such a scrap of information from your
recent, bad past--or is it earlier, irrelevant? Often we'll need to
develop a line of investigation for some distance before we can be sure.

"We're bound to learn things you'll wish we didn't. You'll simply have
to take our word that we'll keep silence ever afterward ... and, yes,
pass no judgment, lest we be judged by ourselves.

"Do you really want that, Kossara?"

She nodded with a stiff neck. "I want the truth."

"You can doubtless learn enough for practical purposes by talking to the
Gospodar, if he's alive and available when we reach Dennitza. And I make
no bones: one hope of mine is gaining insight into the modus operandi of
Merseian Intelligence, a few clear identifications of their agents among
us ... for the benefit of the Empire.

"I won't compel you," Flandry finished. "Please think again before you
decide."

She squared her shoulders. "I have thought." Holding out her hand: "Give
me the medicine."

The first eventide, her feet dragged her into the saloon. Flandry saw
her disheveled, drably clad, signs of weeping upon her, against the
stars. She had long been in her own room behind a closed door.

"You needn't eat here, you know," he said in his gentlest tone.

"Thank you, but I will," she answered.

"I admire your courage more than I have words to tell, dear. Come, sit
down, take a drink or three before dinner." Since he feared she might
refuse, lest that seem to herself like running away from what was in
her, he added, "Trohdwyr would like a toast to his manes, wouldn't he?"

She followed the suggestion in a numb way. "Will the whole job be this
bad?" she asked.

"No." He joined her, pouring Merseian telloch for them both though he
really wanted a Mars-dry martini. "I was afraid things might go as they
went, the first time, but couldn't see any road around. You did witness
Trohdwyr's murder, he suffered hideously, and he'd been your beloved
mentor your whole life. The pain wasn't annulled just because your
thalamus was temporarily anesthetized. Being your strongest lost memory,
already half in consciousness, it came out ahead of any others. And it's
still so isolated it feels like yesterday."

She settled wearily back. "Yes," she said. "Before, everything was
blurred, even that. Now ... the faces, the whole betrayal--"

{Nobody died in the cave except Trohdwyr. The rest stood by when a mere
couple of marines arrived to arrest her. "You called them!" she screamed
to the one who bore the name Steve Johnson, surely not his own. He
grinned. Trohdwyr lunged, trying to get her free, win her a chance to
scramble down the slope and vanish. The lieutenant blasted him. The life
in his tough old body had not ebbed out, under the red moons, when they
pulled her away from him.

Afterward she overheard Johnson: "Why'd you kill the servant? Why not
take him along?"

And the lieutenant: "He'd only be a nuisance. As is, when the Diomedeans
find him, they won't get suspicious at your disappearance. They'll
suppose the Terrans caught you. Which should make them handier material.
For instance, if we want any of those who met you here to go guerrilla,
our contact men can warn them they've been identified through data
pulled out of you prisoners."

"Hm, what about us four?"

"They'll decide at headquarters. I daresay they'll reassign you to a
different region. Come on, now, let's haul mass." The lieutenant's boot
nudged Kossara, where she slumped wrist-bound against the cold cave
wall. "On your feet, bitch!"}

"His death happened many weeks ago," Flandry said. "Once you get more
memories back, you'll see it, feel it in perspective--including time
perspective. You'll have done your grieving ... which you did, down
underneath; and you're too healthy to mourn forever."

"I will always miss him," she whispered.

Flandry regarded ghosts of his own. "Yes, I know."

She straightened. He saw her features harden, as if bones lent strength
to flesh. The blue-green eyes turned arctic. "Sir Dominic, you were
right in what you did to Snell. Nobody in that gang was--is--fit to
live."

"Well, we're in a war, we and they, the nastier for being undeclared,"
he said carefully. "What you and I must do, if we can, is keep the
sickness from infecting your planet. Or to the extent it has, if I may
continue the metaphor, we've got to supply an antibiotic before the high
fever takes hold and the eruptions begin."

His brutal practicality worked as he had hoped, to divert her from both
sorrow and rage. "What do you plan?" The question held some of the
crispness which ordinarily was hers.

"Before leaving Diomedes," he said, "I contacted Lagard's field office
on Lannach, transmitted a coded message for him to record, and showed
him my authority to command immediate courier service. The message is
directly to the Emperor. The code will bypass channels. In summary, it
says, 'Hold off at Dennitza, no matter what you hear, till I've
collected full information'--followed by a synopsis of all I've learned
thus far."

She began faintly to glow in her exhaustion. "Why, wonderful."

"M-m-m, not altogether, I'm afraid." Flandry let the telloch savage his
throat. "Remember, by now his Majesty's barbarian-quelling on the Spican
frontier. He'll move around a lot. The courier may not track him down
for a while. Meantime--the Admiralty on Terra may get word which
provokes it to emergency action, without consulting Emperor or Policy
Board. It has that right, subject to a later court of inquiry. And I've
no direct line there. Probably make no difference if I did. Maybe not
even any difference what I counsel Hans. I'm a lone agent. They could
easily decide I must be wrong."

He forced a level look at her. "Or Dennitza could in fact have exploded,
giving Emperor and Admiralty no choice," he declared. "The Merseians are
surely working that side of the street too."

"You hope I--we can get my uncle and the Skupshtina to stay their
hands?" she asked.

"Yes," Flandry said. "This is a fast boat. However ... we'll be a month
in transit, and Aycharaych & Co. have a long jump on us."

{The resident and his lady made her welcome at Thursday Landing. They
advised her against taking her research to the Sea of Achan countries.
Unrest was particularly bad there. Indeed, she and her Merseian--pardon,
her xenosophont companion--would do best to avoid migratory societies in
general. Could they not gather sufficient data among the sedentary and
maritime Diomedeans? Those were more intimate with modern civilization,
more accustomed to dealing with offworlders, therefore doubtless more
relevant to the problem which had caused her planetary government to
send her here.

Striving to mask her nervousness, she met Commander Maspes and a few
junior officers of the Imperial Naval Intelligence team that was
investigating the disturbances. He was polite but curt. His attitude
evidently influenced the younger men, who must settle for stock words
and sidelong stares. Yes, Maspes said, it was common knowledge that
humans were partly responsible for the revolutionary agitation and
organization on this planet. Most Diomedeans believed they were
Avalonians, working for Ythri. Some native rebels, caught and
interrogated, said they had actually been told so by the agents
themselves. And indeed the Alatanist mystique was a potent recruiter ...
Yet how could a naive native distinguish one kind of human from another?
Maybe Ythri was being maligned ... He should say no more at the present
stage. Had Donna Vymezal had a pleasant journey? What was the news at
her home?

Lagard apologized that he must bar her from a wing of the Residency. "A
team member, his work's confidential and--well, you are a civilian, you
will be in the outback, and he's a xeno, distinctive appearance--"

Kossara smiled. "I can dog my hatch," she said; "but since you wish,
I'll leash my curiosity." She gave the matter scant thought, amidst
everything else.}

Flandry greeted her at breakfast: "Dobar yutro, Dama."

Startled, she asked, "You are learning Serbic?"

"As fast as operant conditioning, electronics, and the pharmacopoeia can
cram it into me." He joined her at table. Orange juice shone above the
cloth. Coffee made the air fragrant. He drank fast. She saw he was
tired.

"I wondered why you are so seldom here when off duty," she said.

"That's the reason."

He gazed out at the stars. She considered him. After a while, during
which her pulse accelerated, she said, "No. I mean, if you're studying,
there is no need. You must know most of us speak Anglic. You need an
excuse to avoid me."

It was his turn for surprise. "Eh? Why in cosmos would I that?"

She drew breath, feeling cheeks, throat, breasts redden. "You think I'm
embarrassed at what you've learned of me."

"No--" He swung his look to her. "Yes. Not that I--Well, I try not to,
and what comes out regardless shows you clean as a ... knife blade--But
of course you're full of life, you've been in love and--" Abruptly he
flung his head back and laughed. "Oh, hellflash! I was afraid you would
make me stammer like a schoolboy."

"I'm not angry. Haven't you saved me? Aren't you healing me?" She
gathered resolution. "I did have to think hard, till I saw how nothing
about me could surprise you."

"Oh, a lot could. Does." Their eyes met fully.

"Maybe you can equalize us a little," she said through a rising
drumbeat. "Tell me of your own past, what you really are under that
flexmail you always wear." She smiled. "In exchange, I can help you in
your language lessons, and tell you stories about Dennitza that can't be
in your records. The time has been lonely for me, Dominic."

"For us both," he said as though dazed.

Chives brought in an omelet and fresh-baked bread.

{From a dealer in Thursday Landing, Kossara rented an aircamper and
field equipment, bought rations and guidebooks, requested advice. She
needed information for its own sake as well as for cover. On the long
voyage here--three changes of passenger-carrying freighter----she had
absorbed what material on Diomedes the Shkola in Zorkagrad could supply.
That wasn't much. It could well have been zero if the planet weren't
unusual enough to be used as an interest-grabbing example in certain
classes. She learned scraps of astronomy, physics, chemistry, topology,
meteorology, biology, ethnology, history, economics, politics; she
acquired a few phrases in several different languages, no real grasp of
their grammar or semantics; her knowledge was a twig to which she clung
above the windy chasm of her ignorance about an entire world.

After a few days getting the feel of conditions, she and Trohdwyr flew
to Lannach. The resident had not actually forbidden them. In the towns
along Sagna Bay, they went among the gaunt high dwellings of the winged
folk, seeking those who understood Anglic and might talk somewhat
freely. "We are from a planet called Dennitza. We wish to find out how
to make friends and stay friends with a people who resemble you--"

Eonan the factor proved helpful. Increasingly, Kossara tried to sound
him out, and had an idea he was trying to do likewise to her. Whether or
not he was involved in the subversive movement, he could well fear she
came from Imperial Intelligence to entrap comrades of his. And yet the
name "Dennitza" unmistakably excited more than one individual, quick
though the Diomedeans were to hide that reaction.

How far Dennitza felt, drowned in alien constellations! At night in
their camper, she and Trohdwyr would talk long and long about old days
and future days at home; he would sing his gruff ychan songs to her, and
she would recite the poems of Simich that he loved: until at last an
inner peace came to them both, bearing its gift of sleep.}

Flandry always dressed for dinner. He liked being well turned out; it
helped create an atmosphere which enhanced his appreciation of the food
and wine; and Chives would raise polite hell if he didn't. Kossara
slopped in wearing whatever she'd happened to don when she got out of
bed. Not to mock her mourning, he settled for the blue tunic, red sash,
white trousers, and soft half-boots that were a human officer's ordinary
mess uniform.

When she entered the saloon in evening garb, he nearly dropped the
cocktail pitcher. Amidst the subdued elegance around her, she suddenly
outblazed a great blue star and multitudinously lacy nebula which
dominated the viewscreen. Burgundy-hued velvyl sheathed each curve of
her tautness, from low on the bosom to silvery slippers. A necklace of
jet and turquoise, a bracelet of gold, gleamed against ivory skin.
Diamond-studded tiara and crystal earrings framed the ruddy hair; but a
few freckles across the snub nose redeemed that high-cheeked,
full-mouthed, large-eyed face from queenliness.

"Nom de Dieu!" he gasped, and there sang through him, Yes, God, Whom the
believers say made all triumphant beauty. She breaks on me and takes me
like a wave of sunlit surf. "Woman, that's not fair! You should have
sent a trumpeter to announce you."

She chuckled. "I decided it was past time I do Chives the courtesy of
honoring his cuisine. He fitted me yesterday and promised to exceed
himself in the galley."

Flandry shook head and clicked tongue. "Pity I won't be paying his
dishes much attention." Underneath, he hurt for joy.

"You will. I know you, Dominic. And I will too." She pirouetted. "This
gown is lovely, isn't it? Being a woman again--" The air sent him an
insinuation of her perfume, while it lilted with violins.

"Then you feel recovered?"

"Yes." She sobered. "I felt strength coming back, the strength to be
glad, more and more these past few days." A stride brought her to him.
He had set the pitcher down. She took both his hands--the touch radiated
through him--and said gravely: "Oh, I've not forgotten what happened,
nor what may soon happen. But life is good. I want to celebrate its
goodness ... with you, who brought me home to it. I can never rightly
thank you for that, Dominic."

Nor can I rightly thank you for existing, Kossara. In spite of what she
had let slip beneath the machine, she remained too mysterious for him to
hazard kissing her. He took refuge: "Yes, you can. You can throw off
your frontier steadfastness, foresight, common sense, devotion to
principle, et cetera, and be frivolous. If you don't know how to frivol,
watch me. Later you may disapprove to your heart's contempt, but tonight
let's cast caution to the winds, give three-point-one-four-one-six
cheers, and speak disrespectfully of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud."

Laughing, she released him. "Do you truly think we Dennitzans are so
stiff? I'd call us quite jolly. Wait till you've been to a festival, or
till I show you how to dance the luka."

"Why not now? Work up an appetite."

She shook her head. The tiara flung glitter which he noticed only
peripherally because of her eyes. "No, I'd rip this dress, or else pop
out of it like a cork. Our dances are all lively. Some people say they
have to be."

"The prospect of watching you demonstrate makes me admit there's
considerable to be said for an ice age."

Actually, the summers where she lived were warm. Farther south, the
Pustinya desert was often hot. A planet is too big, too many-sided for a
single idea like "glacial era" to encompass.

Through Flandry passed the facts he had read, a parched obbligato to the
vividness breathing before him. He would not truly know her till he knew
the land, sea, sky which had given her to creation; but the data were a
beginning.

Zoria was an F8 sun, a third again as luminous as Sol. Dennitza,
slightly smaller than Terra, orbiting at barely more than Terran
distance from the primary, should have been warmer--and had been for
most of its existence. Loss of water through ultraviolet cracking had
brought about that just half the surface was ocean-covered. This, an
axial tilt of 32.5°, and an 18.8-hour rotation period led to extremes of
weather and climate. Basically terrestroid, organisms adapted as they
evolved in a diversity of environments.

That stood them in good stead when the catastrophe came. Less than a
million years ago, a shower of giant meteoroids struck, or perhaps an
asteroid shattered in the atmosphere. Whirled around the globe by
enormous forces, the stones cratered dry land--devastated by impact,
concussion, radiation, fire which followed--cast up dust which dimmed
the sun for years afterward. Worse were the ocean strikes. The tsunamis
they raised merely ruined every coast on the planet; life soon returned.
But the thousands of cubic kilometers of water they evaporated became a
cloud cover that endured for millennia. The energy balance shifted. Ice
caps formed at the poles, grew, begot glaciers reaching halfway to the
equator. Species, genera, families died; fossil beds left hints that
among them had been a kind starting to make tools. New forms arose,
winter-hardy in the temperate zones, desperately contentious in the
tropics.

Then piece by piece the heavens cleared, sunlight grew brilliant again,
glaciers melted back. The retreat of the ice that men found when they
arrived, six hundred years later was a rout. The Great Spring brought
woes of its own, storms, floods, massive extinctions and migrations to
overthrow whole ecologies. In her own brief lifespan, Kossara had seen
coastal towns abandoned before a rising sea.

Her birth country lay not far inland, though sheltered from northerly
winds and easterly waters--the Kazan, Cauldron, huge astrobleme on the
continent Rodna, a bowl filled with woods, farmlands, rivers, at its
middle Lake Stoyan and the capital Zorkagrad. Her father was voivode of
Dubina Dolyina province, named for the gorge that the Lyubisha River had
cut through the ringwall on its way south from the dying snows. Thus she
grew up child of a lord close to the people he guided, wilderness child
who was often in town, knowing the stars both as other suns and as elven
friends to lead her home after dark ...

Flandry took her arm. "Come, my lady," he said. "Be seated. This evening
we shall not eat, we shall dine."

{At last Eonan told Kossara about a person in the mountain community
Salmenbrok who could give her some useful tidings. If she liked, he
would take her and Trohdwyr on his gravsled--he didn't trust her vehicle
in these airs--and introduce them. More he would not yet say. They
accepted eagerly.

Aloft he shifted course. "I bespoke one in Salmenbrok because I feared
spies overhearing," he explained. "The truth is, they are four in a cave
whom we will visit. I have asked them about you, and they will have you
as guests while you explore each other's intents."

She thought in unease that when the Diomedean went back, she and her
companion would be left flightless, having brought no gravbelts along.
The ychan got the same realization and growled. She plucked up the nerve
to shush him and say, "Fine."

The two men and two women she met were not her kind. Racial types,
accents, manners, their very gaits belied it. Eonan talked to them and
her passionately, as if they really were Dennitzans who had come to
prepare the liberation of his folk. She bided in chill and tension,
speaking little and nothing to contradict, until he departed. Then she
turned on them and cried, "What's this about?" Her hand rested on her
sidearm. Trohdwyr bulked close, ready to attack with pistol, knife,
tail, foot-claws if they threatened her.

Steve Johnson smiled, spread empty fingers, and replied, "Of course
you're puzzled. Please come inside where it's warmer and we'll tell
you." The rest behaved in equally friendly wise.

Their story was simple in outline. They too were Imperial subjects, from
Esperance. That planet wasn't immensely remote from here. True to its
pacifistic tradition, it had stayed neutral during the succession fight,
declaring it would pledge allegiance to whoever gave the Empire peace
and law again. (Kossara nodded. She had heard of Esperance.) But this
policy required a certain amount of armed might and a great deal of
politicking and intriguing abroad, to prevent forcible recruitment by
some or other pretender. The Esperancians thus got into the habit of
taking a more active role than hitherto. Conditions remained
sufficiently turbulent after Hans was crowned to keep the habit in tune.

When their Intelligence heard rumors of Ythrian attempts to foment
revolution on Diomedes, their government was immediately concerned.
Esperance was near the border of Empire and Domain. Agents were smuggled
onto Diomedes to spy out the truth--discreetly, since God alone knew
what the effect of premature revelations might be. Johnson's party was
such a band.

"Predecessors of ours learned Dennitzans were responsible," he said.
"Not Avalonian humans serving Ythri, but Dennitzan humans serving their
war lord!"

"No!" Kossara interrupted, horrified. "That isn't true! And he's not a
war lord!"

"It was what the natives claimed, Mademoiselle Vymezal," the
Asian-looking woman said mildly. "We decided to try posing as
Dennitzans. Our project had learned enough about the underground--names
of various members, for instance--that it seemed possible, granted the
autochthons couldn't spot the difference. Their reaction to us does
indicate they ... well, they have reason to believe Dennitzans are
sparking their movement. We've been, ah, leading them on, collecting
information without actually helping them develop paramilitary
capabilities. When Eonan told us an important Dennitzan had arrived,
openly but with hints she could be more than a straightforward
scientist--naturally, we grew interested."

"Well, you've been fooled," burst from Kossara. "I'm here to, to
disprove those exact same charges against us. The Gospodar, our head of
state, he's my uncle and he sent me as his personal agent. I should
know, shouldn't I? And I tell you, he's loyal. We are!"

"Why doesn't he proclaim it?" Johnson asked.

"Oh, he is making official representations. But what are they worth?
Across four hundred light-years--We need proof. We need to learn who's
been blackening us and why." Kossara paused for a sad smile. "I don't
pretend I can find out much. I'm here as a, a forerunner, a scout. Maybe
that special Navy team working out of Thursday Landing--have you heard
about them?--maybe they'll exonerate us without our doing anything.
Maybe they already have. The commander didn't act suspicious of me."

Johnson patted her hand. "I believe you're honest, Mademoiselle," he
said. "And you may well be correct, too. Let's exchange what we've
discovered--and, in between, give you some outdoor recreation. You look
space-worn."

The next three darkling springtime days were pleasant. Kossara and
Trohdwyr stopped wearing weapons in the cave.}

Flandry sighed. "Aycharaych." He had told her something of his old
antagonist. "Who else? Masks within masks, shadows that cast shadows ...
Merseian operatives posing as Esperancians posing as Dennitzans whose
comrades had formerly posed as Avalonians, while other Merseian
creatures are in fact the Terran personnel they claim to be. Yes, I'll
bet my chance of a peaceful death that Aycharaych is the engineer of the
whole diablerie."

He drew on a cigarette, rolled acridity over his tongue and streamed it
out his nostrils, as if this mordant would give reality a fast hold on
him. He and she sat side by side on a saloon bench. Before them was the
table, where stood glasses and a bottle of Demerara rum. Beyond was the
viewscreen, full of night and stars. They had left the shining nebula
behind; an unlit mass of cosmic dust reared thunderhead tall across the
Milky Way. The ship's clocks declared the hour was late. Likewise did
the silence around, above the hum which had gone so deep into their
bones that they heard it no more.

Kossara wore a housedress whose brevity made him all too aware of long
legs, broad bosom, a vein lifting blue from the dearest hollow that her
shoulderbones made at the base of her throat. She shivered a trifle and
leaned near him, unperfumed now except for a sunny odor of woman.
"Monstrous," she mumbled.

"N-no ... well, I can't say." Why do I defend him? Flandry wondered, and
knew: I see in my mirror the specter of him. Though who of us is flesh
and who image? "I'll admit I can't hate him, even for what he did to you
and will do to your whole people and mine if he can. I'll kill him the
instant I'm able, but--Hm, I suppose you never saw or heard of a coral
snake. It's venomous but very beautiful, and strikes without malice ...
Not that I really know what drives Aycharaych. Maybe he's an artist of
overriding genius. That's a kind of monster, isn't it?"

She reached for her glass, withdrew her hand--she was a light
drinker--and gripped the table edge instead, till the ends of her nails
turned white. "Can such a labyrinth of a scheme work? Aren't there
hopelessly many chances for something to go wrong?"

Flandry found solace in a return to pragmatics, regardless of what
bitterness lay behind. "If the whole thing collapses, Merseia hasn't
lost much. Not Hans nor any Emperor can make the Terran aristocrats give
up their luxuries--first and foremost, their credo that eventual
accommodation is possible--and go after the root of the menace. He
couldn't manage anything more than a note of protest and perhaps the
suspension of a few negotiations about trade and the like. His
underlings would depose him before they allowed serious talk about
singeing the beard the Roidhun hasn't got."

His cigarette butt scorched his fingers. He tossed it away and took a
drink of his own. The piratical pungency heartened him till he could
speak in detachment, almost amusement: "Any plotter must allow for his
machine losing occasional nuts and bolts. You're an example. Your likely
fate as a slave was meant to outrage every man on Dennitza when the news
arrived there. By chance, I heard about you in the well-known and
deservedly popular nick of time--I, not someone less cautious--"

"Less noble," She stroked his arm. It shone inside.

Nonetheless he grinned and said, "True, I may lack scruples, but not
warm blood. I'm a truncated romantic. A mystery, a lovely girl, an
exotic planet--could I resist hallooing off--"

It jarred through him:--off into whatever trap was set by a person who
knew me? His tongue went on. "However, prudence, not virtue, was what
made me careful to do nothing irrevocable" to you, darling; I praise the
Void that nothing irrevocable happened to you. "And we did luck out, we
did destroy the main Merseian wart on Diomedes." Was the luck poor silly
Susette and her husband's convenient absence? Otherwise I'd have stayed
longer at Thursday Landing, playing sleuth--long enough to give an
assassin, who was expecting me specifically, a chance at me.

No! This is fantastic! Forget it!

"Wasn't that a disaster to the enemy?" Kossara asked.

" 'Fraid not. I don't imagine they'll get their Diomedean insurgency.
But that's a minor disappointment. I'm sure the whole operation was
chiefly a means to the end of maneuvering Terra into forcing Dennitza to
revolt And those false clues have long since been planted and let
sprout; the false authoritative report has been filed; in short, about
as much damage has been done on the planet as they could reasonably
expect."

Anguish: "Do you think ... we will find civil war?"

He laid an arm around her. She leaned into the curve of it, against his
side. "The Empire seldom bumbles fast," he comforted her. "Remember,
Hans himself didn't want to move without more information. He saw no
grounds for doubting the Maspes report--that Dennitzans were
involved--but he realized they weren't necessarily the Gospodar's
Dennitzans. That's why I got recruited, to check further. In addition,
plain old bureaucratic inertia works in our favor. Yes, as far as the
problems created on Diomedes are concerned, I'm pretty sure well get you
home in time."

"Thanks to you, Dominic." Her murmur trembled. "To none but you."

He did not remind her that Diomedes was not, could never have been the
only world on which the enemy had worked, and that events on Dennitza
would not have been frozen. This was no moment for reminders, when she
kissed him.

Her shyness in it made him afraid to pursue. But they sat together a
spell, mute before the stars, until she bade him goodnight.

{On the tundra far north of the Kazan, Bodin Miyatovich kept a hunting
lodge. Thence he rode forth on horseback, hounds clamorous around him,
in quest of gromatz, yegyupka, or ice troll. At other times he and his
guests boated on wild waters, skied on glacier slopes, sat indoors by a
giant hearthfire talking, drinking, playing chess, playing music,
harking to blizzard winds outside. Since her father bore her cradle from
aircar to door, Kossara had loved coming here.

Though this visit was harshly for business, she felt pleasure at what
surrounded her. She and her uncle stood on a slate terrace that jutted
blue-black from the granite blocks of the house. Zoria wheeled dazzling
through cloudless heaven, ringed with sun dogs. Left, right, and
rearward the land reached endless, red-purple mahovina turf, widespaced
clumps of firebush and stands of windblown plume, here and there a pool
ablink. Forward, growth yielded to tumbled boulders where water coursed.
In these parts, the barrens were a mere strip; she could see the ice
beyond them. Two kilometers high, its cliff stood over the horizon, a
worldwall, at its distance not dusty white but shimmering, streaked with
blue crevasses. The river which ran from its melting was still swift
when it passed near the lodge, a deep brawl beneath the lonesome tone of
wind, the remote cries of a sheerwing flock. The air was cold, dry,
altogether pure. The fur lining of her parka hood was soft and tickly on
her cheeks.

The big man beside her growled, "Yes, too many ears in Zorkagrad.
Damnation! I thought if we put Molitor on the throne, we'd again know
who was friend and who foe. But things only get more tangled. How many
faithful are left? I can't tell. And that's fouler than men becoming
outright turncoats."

"You trust me, don't you?" Kossara answered in pride.

"Yes," Miyatovich said. "I trust you beyond your fidelity. You're strong
and quick-witted. And your xenological background ... qualifies you and
gives you a cover story ... for a mission I hope you'll undertake."

"To Diomedes? My father's told me rumors."

"Worse. Accusations. Not public yet. I actually had bloody hard work
finding out, myself, why Imperial Intelligence agents have been snooping
amongst us in such numbers. I sent men to inquire elsewhere and--Well,
the upshot is, the Impies know revolt is brewing on Diomedes and think
Dennitzans are the yeast. The natural conclusion is that a cabal of mine
sent them, to keep the Imperium amused while we prepare a revolt of our
own."

"You've denied it, I'm sure."

"In a way. Nobody's overtly charged me. I've sent the Emperor a
memorandum, deploring the affair and offering to cooperate in a
full-dress investigation. But guilty or not, I'd do that. How to prove
innocence? As thin as his corps is spread, we could mobilize--on desert
planets, for instance, without positive clues for them to find."

The Gospodar gusted a sigh. "And appearances are against us. There is a
lot of sentiment for independence, for turning this sector into a
confederacy free of an Empire that failed us and wants to sap the
strength we survived by. Those could be Dennitzans yonder, working for a
faction who plot to get us committed--who'll overthrow me if they
must--"

"I'm to go search out the truth if I can," she knew. "Uncle, I'm
honored. But me alone? Won't that be like trying to catch water in a
net?"

"Maybe. Though at the bare least, you can bring me back ... um ... a
feel of what's going on, better than anybody else. And you may well do
more. I've watched you from babyhood. You're abler than you think,
Kossara."

Miyatovich took her by the shoulders. Breath smoked white from his
mouth, leaving frost in his beard, as he spoke: "I've never had a harder
task than this, asking you to put your life on the line. You're like a
daughter to me. I sorrowed nearly as much as you did when Mihail died,
but told myself you'd find another good man who'd give you sound
children. Now I can only say--go in Mihail's name, that your next man
needn't die in another war."

"Than you think we should stay in the Empire?"

"Yes. I've made remarks that suggested different. But you know me, how I
talk rashly in anger but try to act in calm. The Empire would have to
get so bad that chaos was better, before Fd willingly break it. Terra,
the Troubles, or the tyranny of Merseia--and those racists wouldn't just
subject us, they'd tame us--I don't believe we have a fourth choice, and
I'll pick Terra."

She felt he was right.}

A part of the Hooligan's hold had been converted to a gymnasium.
Outbound, and at first on the flight from Diomedes, Flandry and Kossara
used it at separate hours. Soon after her therapy commenced, she
proposed they exercise together. "Absolutely!" he caroled. "It'll make
calisthenics themselves fun, whether or not that violates the second law
of thermodynamics."

In truth, it wasn't fun--when she was there in shorts and halter, sweat,
laughter, herself--it was glory.

Halfway to Dennitza, he told her: "Let's end our psychosessions. You've
regained everything you need. The rest would be detail, not worth
further invasion of your privacy."

"No invasion," she said low. Her eyes dropped, her blood mounted. "You
were welcome."

"Chives!" Flandry bellowed. "Get busy! Tonight we do not dine, we
feast!"

"Very good, sir," the Shalmuan replied, appearing in the saloon as if
his master had rubbed a lamp. "I suggest luncheon consist of a small
salad and tea to drink."

"You're the boss," Flandry said. "Me, I can't sit still. How about a
game of tennis, Kossara? Then after our rabbit repast we can snooze, in
preparation for sitting up the whole nightwatch popping champagne."

She agreed eagerly. They changed into gym briefs and met below. The room
was elastic matting, sunlamp fluorescence, gray-painted metal sides. In
its bareness, she flamed.

The ball thudded back and forth, caromed, bounced, made them leap, for
half an hour. At last, panting, they called time out and sought a water
tap.

"Do you feel well?" She sounded anxious. "You missed an awful lot of
serves." They were closely matched, her youth against his muscles.

"If I felt any better, you could turn off the ship's powerplant and hook
me into the circuits," he replied. "But why--?"

"I was distracted." He wiped the back of a hand across the salt dampness
in his mustache, ran those fingers through his hair and recalled how it
was turning gray. Decision came. He prepared a light tone before going
on: "Kossara, you're a beautiful woman, and not just because you're the
only woman for quite a few light-years around. Never fear, I can mind my
manners. But I hope it won't bother you overmuch if I keep looking your
way."

She stood quiet awhile, except for the rise and fall of her breasts. Her
skin gleamed. A lock of hair clung bronzy to her right cheekbone. The
beryl eyes gazed beyond him. Suddenly they returned, focused, met his as
sabers meet in a fencing match between near friends. Her husky voice
grew hoarse and, without her noticing, stammered Serbic: "Do you
mean--Dominic, do you mean you never learned, while I was under ... I
love you?"

Meteorstruck, he heard himself croak, "No. I did try to avoid--as far as
possible, I let Chives question you, in my absence--"

"I resisted," she said in wonder, "because I knew you would be kind but
dared not imagine you might be for always."

"I'd lost hope of getting anybody who'd make me want to be."

She came to him.

Presently: "Dominic, darling, please, no. Not yet."

"--Do you want a marriage ceremony first?"

"Yes. If you don't mind too much. I know you don't care, but, well, did
you know I still say my prayers every night? Does that make you laugh?"

"Never. All right, we'll be married, and in style!"

"Could we really be? In St. Clement's Cathedral, by Father Smed who
christened and confirmed me--?"

"If he's game, I am. It won't be easy, waiting, but how can I refuse a
wish of yours? Forgive these hands. They're not used to holding
something sacred."

"Dominic, you star-fool, stop babbling! Do you think it will be easy for
me?"

XIII
----

The earliest signs of trouble reached them faintly across distance.
Fifty astronomical units from Zoria and well off the ecliptic plane, the
Hooligan phased out of hyperdrive into normal state. Engines idle, she
drifted at low kinetic velocity among stars, her destination sun only
the brightest; and instruments strained after traces.

Flandry took readings and made computations. His lips tightened. "A
substantial space fleet, including what's got to be a Nova-class
dreadnaught," he told Kossara and Chives. "In orbits or under
accelerations that fit the pattern of a battle-ready naval force."

The girl clenched her fists. "What can have happened?"

"We'll sneak in and eavesdrop."

Faster-than-light pseudospeed would give them away to detectors. (Their
Schrodinger "wake" must already have registered, but no commander was
likely to order interception of a single small vessel which he could
assume would proceed until routinely checked by a picket craft.)
However, in these far regions they could drive hard on force-thrust
without anybody observing or wondering why. Nearing the inner system,
where ships and meters were thick, Flandry plotted a roundabout course.
It brought him in behind the jovian planet Svarog, whose gravitational,
magnetic, and radiation fields screened the emissions of Hooligan.
Amidst all fears for home and kin, Kossara exclaimed at the majestic
sight as they passed within three million kilometers--amber-glowing
disc, swarming moons--and at the neatness wherewith the planet swung
them, their power again turned off, into the orbit Flandry wanted,
between its own and that of Perun to sunward.

"With every system aboard at zero or minimum, we should pass for a rock
if a radar or whatever sweeps us," he explained. "And we'll catch
transmissions from Dennitza--maybe intercept a few messages between
ships, though I expect those'll be pretty boring."

"How I hope you are right," Kossara said with a forlorn chuckle.

He regarded her, beside him in the control cabin. Interior illumination
was doused, heating, weight generator, anything which might betray. They
hung loosely harnessed in their seats, bodies if not minds enjoying the
fantasy state of free fall. As yet, cold was no more than a nip in the
air Chives kept circulating by a creaky hand-cranked fan. Against the
clear canopy, stars crowned her head. On the opposite side, still small
at this remove, Zoria blazed between outspread wings of zodiacal light.

"They're definitely Technic warcraft," he said, while wishing to speak
her praises. "The neutrino patterns alone prove it. From what we've now
learned, closer in, about their numbers and types, they seem to match
your description of the Dennitzan fleet, though there're some I think
must belong to the Imperium. My guess is, the Gospodar has gathered
Dennitza's own in entirety, plus such units of the regular Navy as he
felt he could rely on. In short, he's reached a dangerous brink, though
I don't believe anything catastrophic has happened yet."

"We are in time, then?" she asked gladly.

He could not but lean over and kiss her. "Luck willing, yes. We may need
patience before we're certain."

Fortune spared them that. Within an hour, they received the basic
information. Transmitters on Dennitza sent broadbeam rather than
precisely lased 'casts to the telsats for relay, wasting some cheap
energy to avoid the cost of building and maintaining a more exact
system. By the time the pulses got as far as Hooligan, their dispersal
guaranteed they would touch her; and they were not too weak for a good
receiver-amplifier-analyzer to reconstruct a signal. The windfall
program Flandry tuned in was a well-organized commentary on the
background of the crisis.

It broke two weeks ago. (Maybe just when Kossara and I found out about
each other? he wondered. No; meaningless; simultaneity doesn't exist for
interstellar distances.) Before a tumultuous parliament, Bodin
Miyatovich announced full mobilization of the Narodna Voyska, recall of
units from outsystem duty, his directing the Imperial Navy command for
Tauria to maintain the Pax within the sector, his ordering specific
ships and flotillas belonging to it to report here for assignment, and
his placing Dennitzan society on a standby war footing.

A replay from his speech showed him at the wooden lectern, carved with
vines and leaves beneath outward-sweeping yelen horns, from which
Gospodar had addressed Skupshtina since the days of the Founders. In the
gray tunic and red cloak of a militia officer, knife and pistol on hips,
he appeared still larger than he was. His words boomed across crowded
tiers in the great stone hall, seemed almost to make the stained-glass
windows shiver.

"--Intelligence reports have grown more and more disquieting over the
past few months. I can here tell you little beyond this naked fact--you
will understand the need not to compromise sources--but our General
Staff takes as grave a view of the news as I do. Scouts dispatched into
the Roidhunate have brought back data on Merseian naval movements which
indicate preparations for action ... Diplomatic inquiries both official
and unofficial have gotten only assurances for response, unproved and
vaguely phrased. After centuries, we know what Merseian assurances are
worth ...

"Thus far I have no reply to my latest message to the Emperor, and can't
tell if my courier has even caught up with him on the Spican frontier
... High Terran authorities whom I've been able to contact have denied
there is a Merseian danger at the present time. They've challenged the
validity of the information given me, have insisted their own is
different and is correct ...

"They question our motives. Fleet Admiral Sandberg told me to my face,
when I visited his command post, he believes our government has
manufactured an excuse to marshal strength, not against foreign enemies
but against the Imperium. He cited charges of treasonous Dennitzan
activity elsewhere in the Empire. He forbade me to act. When I reminded
him that I am the sector viceroy, he declared he would see about getting
me removed. I think he would have had me arrested then and there"--a
bleak half-smile--"if I'd not taken the precaution of bringing along
more firepower than he had on hand ...

"He revealed my niece, Kossara Vymezal, whom I sent forth to track down
the origin of those lies--he claimed she'd been caught at subversion,
had confessed under their damnable mind-twisting interrogation--I asked
why I was not informed at once, I demanded she be brought home, and
learned--" He smote the lectern. Tears burst from his eyes. "She has
been sold for a slave on Terra." The assembly roared.

"Uyak Bodin, Uyak Bodin," Kossara herself wept. She lifted her hands to
the screen as if to try touching him.

"Sssh," Flandry said. "This is past, remember. We've got to find out
what's happening today and what brought it on."

She gulped, mastered her sobs, and gave him cool help. He had a fair
grasp of Serbic, and the news analyst was competent, but as always, much
was taken for granted of which a stranger was ignorant.

Ostensibly the Merseian trouble sprang from incidents accumulated and
ongoing in the Wilderness. Disputes between traders, prospectors, and
voortrekkers from the two realms had repeatedly brought on armed
clashes. Dennitzans didn't react to overbearingness as meekly as
citizens of the inner Empire were wont to. They overbore right back, or
took the initiative from the beginning. Several actions were doubtless
in a legal sense piracy by crews of one side or the other. Matters had
sharpened during the civil war, when there was no effective Imperial
control over humans.

Flandry had known about this, and known too that the Roidhunate had
asked for negotiations aimed at solving the problem, negotiations to
which Emperor Hans agreed on the principle that law and order were
always worth establishing even with the cooperation of an enemy. The
delegates had wrangled for months.

In recent weeks Merseia had changed its tack and made totally
unacceptable demands--for example, that civilian craft must be cleared
by its inspectors before entering the Wilderness. "They know that's
ridiculous," Flandry remarked. "Without fail, in politics that kind of
claim has an ulterior purpose. It may be as little as a propaganda ploy
for domestic consumption, or as much as the spark put to a bomb fuse."

"A reason to bring their strength to bear--while most of the Empire's is
tied up at Spica--and maybe denounce the Covenant of Alfzar and occupy a
key system in the Wilderness?" Kossara wondered.

"Could be ... if Merseia is dispatching warships in this direction,"
Flandry said. "The Imperium thinks not--thinks Dennitza concocted the
whole business to justify mobilization. The Merseians would've been
delighted to co-conspire, a behind-the-scenes arrangement with your
uncle whereby they play intransigent at the conference. Any split among
us is pure gain for them. From the Imperium's viewpoint, Dennitza has
done this either to put pressure on it--to get the disbanding decree
rescinded and other grievances settled--or else to start an out-and-out
rebellion."

He puffed on his cigarette, latest of a chain. "From your uncle's
viewpoint--I assume he was honest with you about his opinions and
desires--if he believes Merseia may be readying for combat, he dare not
fail to respond. Terra can think in terms of settling border disputes by
negotiation, even after several battles. Dennitza, though, will be under
attack. A tough, proud people won't sit still for being made pawns of.
And given the accusations against them, the horrible word about you--how
alienated must they not feel?"

The commentator had said: "Is it possible the connivance is between
Emperor and Roidhun? Might part of a secret bargain be that Merseia rids
the Imperium of troublesomely independent subjects? It would like to
destroy us. To it, we are worse than a nuisance, we are the potential
igniters of a new spirit within the Empire, whose future leadership may
actually come from among us. On the Terran side, the shock of such an
event would tend to unite the Empire behind the present bearer of the
crown, securing it for him and his posterity ... "

Flandry said: "I'm pretty sure that by now, throughout the Dennitzan
sphere of influence, a majority favors revolution. The Gospodar's
stalling, trying to bide his time in hopes the crisis will slack off
before fighting starts. Wouldn't you guess so, love? I suspect, however,
if it turns out he doesn't have to resist Merseia, he will then use his
assembled power to try squeezing concessions from Terra. His citizens
won't let him abstain--and I doubt if he wants to. And ... any wrong
action on the part of the Imperium or its Navy, or any wrong inaction,
anywhere along the line, will touch off rebellion."

"Well go straight to him--" she began.

Flandry shook his head. "Uh-uh. Most reckless thing we could do. Who
supplied those Intelligence reports that scared Miyatovich and his
staff--reports contradicted by findings of my Corps in separate
operations? If the Merseian fleet is making ominous motions, is this a
mere show for the Dennitzan scouts they knew would sneak into then:
space? How did the news about you get here so speedily, when the sale of
one obscure slave never rated a word on any Terran newscast? Could
barbarian activity in Sector Spica have been encouraged from outside,
precisely to draw the Emperor there and leave his officers on this
frontier to respond as awkwardly as they've done?"

He sighed. "Masks and mirages again, Kossara. The program we heard
showed us only the skin across the situation. We can't tell what's
underneath, except that it's surely explosive, probably poisonous.
Zorkagrad must be acrawl with Merseian undercover men. I'd be astonished
if some of them aren't high and trusted in the Gospodar's councils,
fending off any information they prefer he doesn't get. Aycharaych's
been at work for a long time."

"What shall we do?" she asked steadily.

Flandry's glance sought for Dennitza. It should be visible here, soft
blue against black. But the brightnesses which burned were too many.
"Suppose you and I pay a covert visit on your parents," he said. "From
there we can send a household servant, seemingly on an ordinary errand,
who can find a chance to slip your uncle a word. Meanwhile Chives lands
at Zorkagrad port and takes quarters to be our contact in the city.
Shalmuan spacers aren't common but they do exist--not that the average
person hereabouts ever heard of Shalmu--and I'll modify one of our spare
documentations to support his story of being an innocent entrepreneur
just back from a long exploration, out of touch, in the Wilderness."

"It seems terribly roundabout," Kossara said.

"Everything is on this mission."

She smiled. "Well, you have the experience, Dominic. And it will give us
a little time alone together."

XIV
---

First the planet loomed immense in heaven, clouds and ice lending it a
more than Terran whiteness against which the glimpsed oceans became a
dazzlingly deep azure. Then it was no longer ahead, it was land and sea
far below. When Flandry and Kossara bailed out, it became a roar of
night winds.

They rode their gravbelts down as fast as they dared, while the Hooligan
vanished southward. The chance of their being detected was maybe slight,
but not nonexistent. They need have no great fear of being shot at; as a
folk who lived with firearms, the Dennitzans were not trigger-happy.
However, two who arrived like this, in time of emergency, would be
detained, and the matter reported to military headquarters. Hence
Kossara had proposed descending on the unpeopled taiga north of the
Kazan. The voivode of Dubina Dolyina must have patrols and instruments
active throughout his district.

Even at their present distance from it, she and Flandry could not have
left the vessel secretly in an aircraft. The captain of the picket ship
which contacted Chives had settled for a telecom inspection of his
papers, without boarding, and had cleared him for a path through
atmosphere which was a reasonable one in view of his kinetic vector. Yet
orbital optics and electronics must be keeping close watch until
ground-based equipment could take over.

Hoar in moonlight, treetops rushed upward. The forest was not dense,
though, and impact quickly thudded through soles. At once the humans
removed their space-suits, stopping only for a kiss when heads emerged
from helmets. Flandry used a trenching tool to bury the outfits while
Kossara restowed their packs. In outdoor coveralls and hiking boots,
they should pass for a couple who had spent a furlough on a trip afoot.
Before they established camp for what remained of the night, they'd
better get several kilometers clear of any evidence to the contrary.

Flandry bowed. "Now we're down, I'm in your hands," he said. "I can
scarcely imagine a nicer place to be."

Kossara looked around, filled her lungs full of chill sweet-scented air,
breathed out, "Domovina"--home--and began striding.

The ground was soft and springy underfoot, mahovina turf and woodland
duff. A gravity seven percent less than Terran eased the burden on
backs. Trees stood three or four meters apart, low, gnarly, branches
plumed blue-black, an equivalent of evergreens. Shrubs grew in between,
but there was no real underbrush; moonlight and shadow dappled open sod.
A full Mesyatz turned the sky nearly violet, leaving few stars and
sheening off a great halo. Smaller but closer in than Luna, it looked
much the same save for brilliance and haste. No matter countless
differences, the entire scene had a familiarity eerie and wistful, as if
the ghosts of mammoth hunters remembered an age when Terra too was
innocent.

"Austere but lovely," the man said into silence. His breath smoked,
though the season, late summer, brought no deep cold. "Like you. Tell
me, what do Dennitzans see in the markings on their moon? Terrans
usually find a face in theirs."

"Why ... our humans call the pattern an orlik. That's a winged theroid;
this planet has no ornithoids." A sad smile flickered over Kossara's
night-ivory lips. "But I've oftener thought of it as Ri. He's the hero
of some funny ychan fairy tales, who went to live on Mesyatz. I used to
beg Trohdwyr for stories about Ri when I was a child. Why do you ask?"

"Hoping to learn more about you and yours. We talked a lot in space, but
we've our lifetimes, and six hundred years before them, to explain if we
can."

"We'll have the rest of them for that." She crossed herself. "If God
wills."

They were laconic thereafter, until they had chosen a sleeping place and
spread their bags. By then the crater wall showed dream-blue to south,
and the short night of the planet was near an end. Rime glimmered.
Flandry went behind a tree to change into pajamas. When he came back,
Kossara was doing so. "I'm sorry!" he apologized, and wheeled about. "I
forgot you'd say prayers."

She was quiet an instant before she laughed, unsteadily but honestly. "I
was forgetful too. Well, look if you wish, darling. What harm? You must
have seen the holograms ... " She lifted her arms and made a slow turn
before his eyes. "Do you like what you're getting?"

"Sun and stars--"

She stopped to regard him, as if unaware of chill. He barely heard her:
"Would it be wrong? Here in these clean spaces, under heaven?"

He took a step in her direction, halted, and grinned his most rueful.
"It would not be very practical, I'm afraid. You deserve better."

She sighed. "You are too kind to me, Dominic." She put on her
bedclothes. They kissed more carefully than had been their way of late,
and got into the bags that lay side by side in the heavy shadow of a
furbark tree.

"I'm not sleepy," she told him after a few minutes.

"How could I be?" he answered.

"Was I wanton just now? Or unfair? That would be much worse."

"I was the Fabian this time, not you."

"The what? ... Never mind." She lay watching the final stars and the
first silvery flush before daybreak. Her voice stumbled. "Yes, I must
explain. You could have had me if you'd touched me with a fingertip. You
can whenever you ask, beloved. Chastity is harder than I thought."

"But it does mean a great deal to you, doesn't it? You're young and
eager. I can wait awhile."

"Yes--I suppose that is part of what I feel, the wanting to know--to
know you. You've had many women, haven't you? I'm afraid there's no
mystery left for me to offer."

"On the contrary," he said, "you have the greatest of all. What's it
like to be really man and wife? I think you'll teach me more about that
than I can teach you about anything else."

She was mute until she could muster the shy words: "Why have you never
married, Dominic?"

"Nobody came along whom I couldn't be happy without--what passes for
happy in an Imperial Terran."

"Nobody? Out of hundreds to choose from?"

"You exaggerate ... Well, once, many years ago. But she was another
man's, and left with him when he had to flee the Empire. I can only hope
they found a good home at some star too far away for us to see from
here."

"And you have longed for her ever since?"

"No, I can't say that I have in any romantic sense, though you are a lot
like her." Flandry hesitated. "Earlier, I'd gotten a different woman
angry at me. She had a peculiar psionic power, not telepathy but--beings
tended to do what she desired. She wished on me that I never get the one
I wanted in my heart. I'm not superstitious, I take no more stock in
curses or spooks than I do in the beneficence of governments. Still, an
unconscious compulsion--Bah! If there was any such thing, which I
positively do not think, then you've lifted it off me, Kossara, and I
refuse to pursue this morbid subject when I could be chattering about
how beautiful you are."

At glaciation's midwinter, a colter of ice opened a gap in the Kazan
ringwall. Melt-begotten, the Lyubisha River later enlarged this to a
canyon. Weathering of mostly soft crater material lowered and blurred
the heights. But Flandry found his third campsite enchanting.

He squatted on a narrow beach. Before him flowed the broad brown stream,
quiet except where it chuckled around a boulder or a sandbar near its
banks. Beyond, and at his back, the gorge rose in braes, bluffs, coombs
where brooks flashed and sang, to ocherous palisades maned with forest.
The same deep bluish-green and plum-colored leaves covered the lower
slopes, borne on trees which grew taller than the taiga granted. Here
and there, stone outcrops thrust them aside to make room for
wild-flower-studded glades. A mild breeze, full of growth and soil
odors, rustled through the woods till light and shadow danced. That
light slanted from a sun a third again as bright as Sol is to Terra,
ardent rather than harsh, an evoker of infinite hues.

Guslars trilled on boughs, other wings flew over in their hundreds, a
herd of yelen led by a marvelously horned bull passed along the opposite
shore, a riba hooked from the water sputtered in Flandry's frying pan
while a heap of cloud apples waited to be dessert--no dismally
predictable field rations in this meal. He gestured. "How well a planet
does if left to its own devices," he remarked.

"Nature could take a few billion years for R & D," Kossara pointed out.
"We mortals are always in a hurry."

He gave her a sharp look. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

"N-no. You echoed an idea I've heard before--coincidence, surely." He
relaxed, threw a couple of sticks on the fire, turned the fillets over.
"I am surprised your people haven't long since trampled this area dead.
Such restraint seems downright inhuman."

"Well, the Dolyina has belonged to the Vymezals from olden time, and
without forbidding visitors, we've never encouraged them. You've seen
there are no amenities, and we ban vehicles. Besides, it's less
reachable than many wild lands elsewhere--though most of those are more
closely controlled."

Kossara hugged knees to chin. Her tone grew slow and thoughtful. "We
Dennitzans are ... are conservationists by tradition. For generations
after the Founding, our ancestors had to take great care. They could not
live entirely off native life, but what they brought in could too easily
ruin the whole little-understood ecology. The ... zemly-oradnik ... the
landsman learned reverence for the land, because otherwise he might not
survive. Today we could, uh, get away with more; and in some parts of
the planet we do, where the new industries are. Even there, law and
public opinion enforce carefulness--yes, even Dennitzans who live in
neighboring systems, the majority by now, even they generally frown on
bad practices. And as for the Kazan, the cradle of mankind out here,
haven't heartlands often in history kept old ways that the outer
dominions forgot?"

Flandry nodded. "I daresay it helps that wealth flows in from outside,
to support your barons and yeomen in the style to which they are
accustomed." He patted her hand. "No offense, darling. They're obviously
progressive as well as conservative, and less apt than most people to
confuse the two. I don't believe in Arcadian Utopias, if only because
any that might appear would shortly be gobbled up by somebody else. But
I do think you here have kept a balance, a kind of inner sanity--or
found it anew--long after Terra lost it."

She smiled. "I suspect you're prejudiced."

"Of course. Common sense dictates acquiring a good strong prejudice in
favor of the people you're going to live among."

Her eyes widened. She unfolded herself, leaned on her knuckles toward
him, and cried, "Do you mean you'll stay?"

"Wouldn't you prefer that?"

"Yes, yes. But I'd taken for granted--you're a Terran--where you go, I
go."

Flandry said straight to her flushed countenance: "At the very least,
I'd expect us to spend considerable time on Dennitza. Then why not all,
or most? I can wangle a permanent posting if events work out well.
Otherwise I'll resign my commission."

"Can you really settle down to a squire's life, a storm-bird like you?"

He laughed and chucked her under the chin. "Never fear. I don't imagine
you're ambitious either to rise every dawn, hog the slops, corn the
shuck, and for excitement discuss with your neighbors the scandalous
behavior of 'Uncle Vanya when he lurched through the village, red-eyed
and reeling from liter after liter of buttermilk. No, well make a
topnotch team for xenology, and for Intelligence when need arises."
Soberly: "Need will keep arising."

Graveness took her too. "Imagine the worst, Dominic. Civil war again,
Dennitza against Terra."

"I think then the two of us could best be messengers between Emperor and
Gospodar. And if Dennitza does tear loose ... it still won't be the
enemy. It'll still deserve whatever we can do to help it survive. I'm
not that fond of Terra anyway. Here is much more hope."

Flandry broke off. "Enough," he said. "We've had our minimum adult daily
requirement of apocalypse, and dinner grows impatient."

The Vymezal estate lay sufficiently far inside the crater that the
ringwall cut off little sky--but on high ground just the same, to
overlook the river and great reaches of farm and forest. Conducted from
an outer gate, on a driveway which curved through gardens and parkscape,
Flandry saw first the tile roof of the manor above shading trees, then
its half-timbered brick bulk, at last its outbuildings. Situated around
a rear court, they made a complete hamlet: servants' cottages, garages,
sheds, stables, kennels, mews, workshops, bakery, brewery, armory,
recreation hall, school, chapel. For centuries the demesne must have
brawled with life.

On this day it felt more silent and deserted than it was. While many of
the younger adults were gone to their militia units, many folk of every
other age remained. Most of them, though, went about their tasks
curt-spoken; chatter, japes, laughter, song or whistling were so rare as
to resound ghostly between walls; energy turned inward on itself and
became tension. Dogs snuffed the air and walked stiff-legged, ready to
growl.

At a portico, the gamekeeper who accompanied Flandry explained to a
sentry: "We met this fellow on the riverside lumber road. He won't talk
except to insist he has to see the voivode alone. How he got here
unbeknownst I couldn't well guess. He claims he's friendly."

The soldier used an intercom. Flandry offered cigarettes around. Both
men looked tempted but refused. "Why not?" he asked. 'They aren't
drugged. Nothing awful has happened since mobilization, right?" Radio
news received on his minicom had been meager during the seven planetary
days of march; entering inhabited country, he and Kossara had shunned
its dwellers.

"We haven't been told," the ranger grated. "Nobody tells us a thing.
They must be waiting--for what?"

"I'm lately back from an errand in the city," the guardsman added. "I
heard, over and over--Well, can we trust those Impies the Gospodar
called in along with our own ships? Why did he? If we've got to fight
Terra, what keeps them from turning on us, right here in the Zorian
System? They sure throw their weight around in town. What're you up to,
Impie?"

A voice from the loudspeaker ended the exchange. Danilo Vymezal would
see the stranger as requested. Let him be brought under armed escort to
the Gray Chamber.

Darkly wainscoted and heavily furnished like most of the interior,
smaller than average, that room must draw its name from rugs and drapes.
An open window let in cool air, a glimpse of sunlight golden through the
wings of a hovering chiropteroid. Kossara's father stood beside, arms
folded, big in the embroidered, high-collared shirt and baggy trousers
of his home territory. She resembled her uncle more, doubtless through
her mother, but Flandry found traces of her in those weather-darkened
craggy features. Her gaze could be as stern.

"Zdravo, stranac," Vymezal said, formal greeting, tone barely polite. "I
am he you seek, voivode and nachalnik." Local aristocrat by inheritance,
provincial governor by choice of Gospodar and popular assembly. "Who are
you and what is your business?"

"Are we safe from eavesdroppers, sir?" Flandry responded.

"None here would betray." Scorn: "This isn't Zorka-grad, let alone
Archopolis."

"Nevertheless, you don't want some well-intentioned retainer shouting
forth what I'll say. Believe me, you don't."

Vymezal studied Flandry for seconds. A little wariness left him, a
little eagerness came in. "Yes, we are safe. Three floors aloft,
double-thick door, for hearing confidences." A haunted smile touched his
lips. "A cook who wants me to get the father of her child to marry her
has as much right to privacy as an admiral discussing plans for regional
defense. Speak."

The Terran gave his name and rank. "My first news--your daughter Kossara
is unharmed. I've brought her back."

Vymezal croaked a word that might be oath or prayer, and caught a table
to brace himself.

He rallied fast. The next half-hour was furiously paced talk, while
neither man sat down.

Flandry's immediate declaration was simple. He and the girl lacked
accurate knowledge of how matters stood, of what might happen if her
return was announced. She waited in the woods for him to fetch her, or
guide Vymezal to her, depending on what was decided. Flandry favored the
latter course--the voivode only, and a secret word to the Gospodar.

He must spell out his reasons for that at length. Finally the Dennitzan
nodded. "Aye," he growled. "I hate to keep the tidings from her mother
... from all who love her ... but if she truly is witness to a
galaxy-sized trick played on us--we'll need care, oh, very great
care"--he clapped hand on sidearm--"till we're ready to kill those
vermin."

"Then you agree Zorkagrad, the planet's government and armed service,
must be infested with them?"

"Yes." Vymezal gnawed his mustache. "If things are as you say--you
realize I'll see Kossara first, out of your earshot, Captain--but I've
small doubt you're honest. The story meshes too well with too much else.
Why is our crisis hanging fire? Why--Ha, no more gabble. Tomorrow dawn
I'll send ... him, yes, Milosh Tesar, he's trusty, quick of wit and slow
of mouth--I'll send him on a 'family matter' as you suggest. Let me see
... my wife's dowry includes property wherein her brother also has an
interest--something like that."

"Kossara will have to lie low," Flandry reminded. "Me too. You can call
me an Imperial officer who stopped off on his liberty to give you a
minor message. Nobody will think or talk much about that. But you'd
better squirrel me away."

" 'Squirrel'?" Vymezal dismissed the question. "I understand. Well, I've
a cabin in the Northrim, stocked and equipped for times when I want to
be unpestered a while. Includes a car. Ill flit you there, telling the
household I'm lending it to you. They can't see us land at Kossara's
hideout, can they?"

"No. We foresaw--" Flandry stopped, aware of how intent the stare was
upon him. "Sir, I've told you she and I aim to get married."

"And aren't yet--and nobody wants a hedge-wedding, not I myself when I
don't know you." The voivode sketched a grin. "Thanks, Captain. But if
you've told me truth, she needs a marksman more than a chaperone.
Anyhow, whatever's between you two must already have happened or not
happened. Come, let's go."

XV
--

The year wanes rapidly on Dennitza. On the morning after Danilo Vymezal
had shaken Flandry's hand, kissed Kossara's brow, and left them, they
woke to frost on the windows and icy clearness outside. They spent much
of the day scrambling around wooded steeps begun to flaunt hues that
recalled fall upon ancient Manhome. Flocks of southbound yegyupka made
heaven clangorous. Once they heard the cry of a vilya, and savage though
the beast was, its voice sang wonderfully sweet. Firebush, spontaneously
burning to ripen and scatter its seeds, spread faint pungency through
the air. By a waterfall whose spray stung their skins with cold, they
gathered feral walnuts. Regardless of what spun around the world beyond
its frail blue roof, they often laughed like children.

At dusk they returned to the log building, cooked dinner together, sated
huge appetites, and took brandy-laced coffee to the hearth, where they
settled down on a shaggy rug, content to let the blaze they had kindled
light the room for them. Red flames crackled jokelets of green and blue
and yellow, sent warmth in waves, made shadows leap. The humans looked
at each other, at the fire, back again, and talked about their
tomorrows.

"--we'd better stay around the house hereafter," Flandry said. "Your
father's man could scarcely have gotten an appointment today, but he
should soon. Your uncle's aides can't all be traitors, assuming I'm
right that some are. Two or three, in critical posts, are the most I'd
guess possible. And they themselves will see no reason to stall his
brother-in-law's personal business. In fact, that'd look too queer. So I
expect we'll get word shortly; and Miyatovich may want us to move fast."

Highlights crossed Kossara's face above her cheekbones, shone in eyes,
glowed in hair. "What do you think he'll do, Dominic?"

"Well, he's tough, smart, and experienced; he may have better ideas than
I. But in his place, I'd manufacture an excuse to put myself somewhere
more or less impregnable. Like your Nova-class warship; she's the
biggest around, Dennitzan or Imperial, and the pride of your fleet damn
well ought to have a solidly loyal crew. I'd get the most important
persons, including us, there with me. And, oh, yes, a copy of the
microfiles on everybody who might be involved in the plot, Imperial
officers and locals who've worked themselves close to the Gospodar's
hand in the past several years. A clever, widely traveled captain of
Naval Intelligence, such as--ahem--could help me get a shrewd notion of
whom to suspect. I'd order fleet dispositions modified accordingly,
again on an unalarming pretext. When this was done, I'd have the
appropriate arrests made, then broadcast a 'hold everything' to the
populace, then wait on the qui vive to see what the interrogators dig
out."

Memory made Kossara wince. Flandry laid an arm about her shoulder.
"We've a stiff way yet to go," he said, "but we should be home safe by
blossom time."

She thawed, flowed into his embrace, and whispered, "Thanks to you."

"No, you. If you'd lacked courage to visit Diomedes, the strength to
stay sane and fight on--Why quibble? We're both magnificent. The species
has need of our chromosomes."

"Lots and lots of fat babies," she agreed. "But do you mean it about
spring ... we may have to wait that long?"

"I hope not. The creaking sound you hear is my gentlemanliness. I'm
sitting on its safety valve, which is blistering hot."

She touched a corner of his smile. Her own look became wholly serious.
"Are your jests always armor?" The question trembled. "Dominic, we may
not live till spring."

"We'll take no chances, heart of mine. None. I plan for us to scandalize
our respectable grandchildren."

"We'll have to take chances." She drew breath. "I can't become pregnant
till my immunity treatment's reversed. Tonight--We'll not deceive Father
and Mother. The first chaplain we find can marry us."

"But, uh, your cathedral wedding--"

"I've come to see how little it matters, how little the universe does,
next to having you while I can. Tonight, Dominic. Now."

He seized her to him.

A flash went blue-white in the front windows.

They sprang up. The light had not been blinding, but they knew its
color.

Flandry flung the door wide and himself out onto the porch. Cold poured
over him, sharp liquid in his nostrils. Stars glinted countless. Between
shadow-masses that were trees, he saw the craterside shelve away
downward into the murk which brimmed its bowl. Distance-dwindled, a
fireball yonder lifted and faded. The cloud pillar following appeared
against a constellation just as the thunder rumbled faintly in his
skull.

"That was home," Kossara said out of numbness.

"A tactical nuke, doubtless fired from an aircraft," responded a machine
within Flandry.

The danger to her flogged him aware. He grabbed her arm. "Inside!" She
staggered after him. He slammed the door and drew her against his
breast. She clung, beginning to shudder.

"My love, my love, my love, we've got to get away from here," he said in
a frantic chant. "They must have been after us."

"After you--" She tautened, freed herself, snapped at steadiness and
caught it. Her eyes gleamed steel-dry.

"Yes. But we'll take a few minutes to pack. Food, clothes, weapons."

Defiant, he also tried phoning the manor. Emptiness hummed reply. They
trotted to the shed where the car was, stowed survival gear within,
trotted back for more, boarded.

The cabin tumbled from sight. Flandry swept radar around the
encompassing darkness. Nothing registered. A traffic safety unit wasn't
much use here, of course, but at least this bubble carrying them had a
prayer of crawling to safety before the military vessel that did the
murder could find it.

If--"Wait a second," Flandry said.

"What?" Kossara asked dully.

He glanced at her, dim in star-glow and wanness off the control panel.
She sat hunched into her parka, staring ahead through the canopy. The
heater had not yet taken hold and the chill here was no honest outside
freeze, but dank. Air muttered around the car body.

He dropped near treetop level and activated the optical amplifier. Its
screen showed the wilderness as a gray jumble, above which he zigzagged
in search of a secure hiding place. Though belike they had no immediate
need of any--"I'll take for granted we were a principal target," he
said, quick and toneless. "Snatching us from the household would be too
revealing. But if the killers knew where we were, why not come directly
to our lodge? If they even suspected we might be there, why not try it
first? My guess is, they don't know it exists. However, we're safer in
motion regardless."

She bit a knuckle till blood came forth, before she could say:
"Everybody died on our account?"

"No, I think not. Your father, at least, had to be gotten rid of, since
he knew the truth. And there was no being sure he hadn't told somebody
else. I dare hope the enemy thinks we went out with him."

"How did they learn, Dominic?" Through the curbed hardness of her voice,
he sensed dread. "Is Aycharaych in Zorkagrad?"

"Conceivable." Flandry's words fell one by one. "But not probable.
Remember, we did consider the possibility. If we were to land on the
taiga, Chives must proceed to the spaceport, simply to maintain our
fiction. Wearing his mindscreen would make him overly conspicuous.
Anyhow, Aycharaych wouldn't fail to check on each newcomer, and he knows
both Chives and Hooligan by sight. I decided the odds were he went to
Dennitza from Diomedes, but having made sure the mischief he'd started
was proceeding along the lines he wanted, didn't linger. He's no coward,
but he knows he's too valuable to risk in a merely warlike action--which
this affair has to bring, and soon, or else his efforts have gone for
naught. My guess was, he's hanging around Zoria in a wide orbit known
only to a few of his most trusted chessmen,"

"Yes, I remember now. Talk on. Please, Dominic. I have to be nothing
except practical for a while, or I'll fall apart."

"Me too. Well, I still believe my assessment was confirmed when we made
such trouble-free contact with your father. Chives had been in Zorkagrad
for days. Aycharaych would have found him, read him, and prepared a trap
to spring on us the minute we arrived. Anything else would have been an
unnecessary gamble." Bleakness softened: "You know, I went into the
manor house using every psychotrick they ever drilled into me to keep my
knowledge of where you were out of conscious thought, and ready to
swallow the old poison pill on the spot should matters go awry."

"What?" She turned her head toward him. "Why, you ... you told me to
leave the rendezvous if you didn't return by sunset--but--Oh, Dominic,
no!"

Then she did weep. He comforted her as best he could. Meanwhile he found
a place to stop, a grove on the rim beneath which he could taxi and be
sheltered from the sky.

She gasped back to self-mastery and bade him tell her the rest of his
thoughts. "I feel certain what caused the attack tonight was the capture
of your father's courier," he said. "He must have been interrogated
hastily. Aycharaych would have found out about our cabin, whether or not
your father explicitly told his man. But a quick narcoquiz by
nontelepaths--" He scowled into murk. "The problem is, what made the
enemy suspicious of him? He wasn't carrying any written message, and his
cover story was plausible. Unless--"

He leaned forward, snapped a switch. "Let's try for news."

"The next regular 'cast is in about half an hour," Kossara said in a
tiny voice, "if that hasn't changed too."

He tuned in the station she named. Ballet dancers moved to cruelly happy
music. He held her close and murmured.

A woman's countenance threw the program out. Terror distorted it.
"Attention!" she screeched. "Special broadcast! Emergency! We have just
received word from a spokesman of the Zamok--officers of the Imperial
Navy have arrested Gospodar Miyatovich for high treason. Citizens are
required to remain calm and orderly. Those who disobey can be shot. And
... and weather satellites report a nuclear explosion in the Dubina
Dolyina area--neighborhood of the voivode's residence--attempts to phone
there have failed. The voivode was, is ... the Gospodar's brother-in-law
... No announcement about whether he was trying to rebel or--Stay calm!
Don't move till we know more! Ex-except ... the city police office just
called in--blast shelters will be open to those who wish to enter. I
repeat, blast shelters will be open--"

Repetition raved on for minutes. Beneath it, Flandry snarled, "If ever
they hope to provoke their war, they've reckoned this is their last and
maybe their best chance."

The newsroom vanished. "Important recorded announcement," said a man in
Dennitzan uniform. "A dangerous agent of Merseia is at large in
Zorkagrad or vicinity." What must be a portrait from some xenological
archive, since it was not of Chives, flashed onto the screen. "He landed
eight days ago, posing as a peaceful traveler. Four days ago" (the
computer must redub every 18.8 hours) "he was identified, but fought his
way free of arrest and disappeared. He is of this species, generally
known as Shalmuan. When last seen he wore a white kilt and had taken a
blaster from a patrolman after injuring the entire squad. I repeat, your
government identifies him as a Merseian secret agent, extremely
dangerous because of his mission as well as his person. If you see him,
do not take risks. Above all, do not try talking with him. If he cannot
safely be killed, report the sighting to your nearest military post. A
reward of 10,000 gold dinars is offered for information leading to his
death or capture. Dead or alive, he himself is worth a reward of
50,000--"

Air hissed between Kossara's teeth. Flandry sat moveless for minutes
before he said stonily, "That's how. Somebody, in some fashion,
recognized Chives. That meant I was around, and most likely you. That
meant--any contact between your family and the Gospodar--yes."

Kossara wept anew, in sorrow and in rage.

Yet at the end it was she who lifted her head and said, hoarse but
level-toned, "I've thought of where we might go, Dominic, and what we
might try to do."

XVI
---

Clouds and a loud raw wind had blown in across the ocean. Morning along
the Obala, the east coast of Rodna, was winterlike, sky the color of
lead, sea the colors of iron and gunmetal. But neither sky nor sea was
quiet. Beneath the overcast a thin smoky wrack went flying; surf
cannonaded and exploded on reefs and beaches.

All Nanteiwon boats were in, big solid hulls moored behind the jetty or
tied at the wharf. Above the dunes the fisher village huddled. Each
house was long and wide as an ychan family needed, timbers tarred black,
pillars that upheld the porch carved and brightly painted with ancestral
symbols, blue-begrown sod roof cable-anchored against hurricanes, a
spacious and sturdy sight. But there were not many houses. Beyond them
reached the flatlands the dwellers cultivated, fields harvested bare and
brown, trees a-toss by roadsides, on the horizon a vague darkening which
betokened the ringwall of the Kazan. The air smelled of salt and
distances.

Inside the home of Ywodh were warmth, sun-imitating fluorescents, musky
odor of bodies, growls to drown out the piping at the windows. Some
forty males had crowded between the frescoed walls of the mootroom,
while more spilled throughout the building. They wore their common garb,
tunic in bright colors thrown over sinewy green frame and secured by a
belt which held the knuckleduster knife. But this was no common
occasion. Perched on tails and feet, muscles knotted, they stared at the
three on the honor-dais.

Two were human. One they knew well, Kossara Vymezal. She used to come
here often with Trohdwyr, brother to Khwent, Yffal, drowned Qythwy ...
How weary she looked. The other was a tall man who bore a mustache,
frosted brown hair, eyes the hue of today's heaven.

Ywodh, Hand of the Vach Anochrin, steadcaptain of Nanteiwon, raised his
arms. "Silence!" he called. "Hark." When he had his desire, he brought
his gaunt, scarred head forward and told them:

"You have now heard of the outrages done and the lies proclaimed.
Between dawn, when I asked you to keep ashore today, and our meeting
here, I was in phonetalk up and down the Obala. Not an ychan leader but
swore us aid. We know what Merseian rule would bring.

"Let us know, too, how empty of hope is a mere rebellion against
rebellion. We have boats, civilian aircars, sporting guns; a
revolutionary government would have military flyers and armored
groundcars, spacecraft, missiles, energy weapons, gases, combat
shielding. The plotters have ignored us partly because they took for
granted we care little about a change of human overlords and might
welcome Merseians--untrue--but mainly because they see us as well-nigh
powerless against their crews--true.

"Can we then do aught? These two have made me believe it. Rebellion can
be forestalled. Yet we've netted a flailfish. We need care as much as
courage.

"To most of us, what's gone on of late in Zorkagrad and in space has
been troubling, even frightening, and not understandable, like an evil
dream. Therefore we went about our work, trusting Gospodar Miyatovich
and his councillors to do what was right for Dennitza. Last night's tale
of his arrest as a traitor stunned us. We'd have stood bewildered until
too late for anything--this was intended--had not Kossara Vymezal and
Dominic Flandry come to us in our darkness.

"The whole planet must be in the same clubbed state, and likewise its
fighting forces. What to do? Where is truth? Who is friend and who is
foe? Everyone will think best he wait a few days, till he has more
knowledge.

"In that brief span, a small band of well-placed illwish-ers, who know
exactly what they are at, can put us on the tack they want, too hard
over to come about: unless, in the same span, we go up against them,
knowing what we do.

"This day, leaders will meet in Novi Aferoch and decide on a course for
us. This morning along the Obala, other meetings hear what I tell you:
Stand fast with your weapons, speak to no outsiders, keep ready to
move."

Father. Mother. Ivan. Gyorgye. Little, little Natalie.

Mihail. Trohdwyr. And every soul who perished in our home, every living
thing that did.

Father of Creation, receive them. Jesus, absolve them. Mary, comfort
them. Light of the Holy Spirit, shine upon them forever.

I dare not ask for more. Amen.

Kossara signed herself and rose. The boulder behind which she had knelt
no longer hid Nanteiwon. It looked very small, far down the beach
between gray sea and gray sky. Lutka her doll and Butterfeet her cat
might take shelter in those houses from the wind that blew so cold, so
cold.

Strange she should think of them when their loss belonged to her
childhood and most of her dead were not a day old. She turned from the
village and walked on over the strand. It gritted beneath her boots.
Often an empty shell crunched, or she passed a tangle of weed torn from
the depths and left to dry out. On her right, a hedge of cane barred
sight of autumn fields, rattling and clicking. Waves thundered in,
rushed out, trundled hollowly back again. Wind shrilled, thrust, smacked
her cheeks and laid bitterness across her lips.

Do I comprehend that they are gone?

If only things would move. They had hours to wait, safest here, before
the ychan chiefs could be gathered together. Flandry had offered her
medicines from his kit, for sleep, for calm and freedom from pain, but
when she declined, he said, "I knew you would. You'll always earn your
way," and when she told him she would like to go out for a while, he saw
she needed aloneness. He saw deeper than most, did her Dominic, and
covered the hurt of it with a jape. If only he did not see right past
God.

In time? I'll never preach at him, nor admit outright that I pray for
him. But if we are given time--

They had had no end to their plans. A house in the Dubina Dolyina
country, an apartment in Zorkagrad; they could afford both, and children
should have elbow room for body and mind alike. Quests among the stars,
wild beauties, heart-soaring moment of a new truth discovered, then
return to the dear well-known. Service, oh, nothing too hazardous any
more, staff rather than field Intelligence--nonetheless, swordplay of
wits in the glad knowledge that this was for the future, not the poor
wayworn Empire but a world he too could believe in, the world of their
own blood. Ideas, investments, enterprises to start; the things they
might undertake had sparkled from them like fireworks ...

It had all gone flat and blurred, unreal. What she could still hold
whole in her daze were the small hopes. She shows him an overlook she
knows in the Vysochina highlands. He teaches her the fine points of
winetasting. She reads aloud to him from Simich, he to her from Genji.
They attend the opera in Zorkagrad. They join in the dances at a land
festival. They sail a boat across Lake Stoyan to a cafe beneath
flowering viyenatz trees on Gar-landmakers' Island. They take their
children to the zoo and the merrypark.

If we prevail.

She stopped. Her body ached, but she straightened, faced into the wind,
and told it, We will. We will. I can borrow strength and clarity from
his medicines. The repayment afterward will simply be a time of sleep, a
time of peace. She wheeled and started back. As she fared, her stride
lengthened.

Novi Aferoch climbed from the docks at the Elena River mouth, up a hill
from whose top might be spied the ruins of Stari Aferoch when they
jutted from the sea at low tide. There stood Council Hall, slate-roofed,
heavy-timbered, colonnaded with carven water monsters. In the main
chamber was a table made three hundred years ago from timbers out of
Gwyth's ship. Around it perched the steadcaptains of the Obala. At its
head, stood their moot-lord Kyrwedhin, Hand of the Vach Mannoch, and the
two humans.

A storm hooted and dashed rain on windowpanes. Inside, the air was blue
and acrid from the pipes whereon many had been puffing. Anger smoldered
behind obsidian eyes, but the leathery visages were moveless and not a
tailtip twitched. These males had heard what the voivode's daughter had
to tell, and roared their curses. The hour had come to think.

Kyrwedhin addressed them in quick, precise words. He was short for an
ychan, though when he was younger it had not been wise to fight him. He
was the wealthy owner of seareaping and merchant fleets. And ... he held
a degree from the Shkola, a seat in the Skupshtina, a close experience
of great affairs.

"For myself I will merely say this," he declared in Eriau. (Flitting
from Zorkagrad after receiving Ywodh's urgent, argot-phrased call, he
had been pleased to learn Flandry was fluent in the language, at least
its modern Merseian version. His own Serbic was excellent, his Anglic
not bad, but that wasn't true of everybody here.) "The ideas of our
Terran guest feel right. We in the House of the Zmayi have doubtless
been too parochial where the Empire was concerned, too narrowly aimed at
Dennitzan matters--much like the House of the Folk. However, we have
always kept a special interest in our mother world, many of us have gone
there to visit, some to study, and the inhabitants are our species. Thus
we have a certain sense for what the Roidhunate may or may not do. And,
while I never doubted its masters wish us harm, what news and clues have
reached me do not suggest current preparations for outright war. For
instance, I've corresponded for years with Korvash, who lately became
Hand of the Vach Rueth there. If an attack on us were to be mounted
soon, he would know, and he must be more cunning than I believe for this
not to change the tone of his letters.

"No proof, I agree. A single bit of flotsam in the maelstrom. I will
give you just one more out of many, given me by Lazar Ristich, voivode
of Kom Kutchki. Like most members of the House of the Lords, he takes
close interest in Imperial business and is familiar with several prime
parts of the inner Empire; he had friends on Terra itself, where he's
spent considerable time. He told me the story we heard about Kossara
Vymezal could not be right. Whether truly accused because she belonged
to an overzealous faction among us, or falsely accused for a twisted
political reason elsewhere, a person of her rank would not be shipped
off to shame like any common criminal. That could only happen through
monumental incompetence--which he felt sure was unlikely--or as a
deliberate provocation--which he felt sure the present Im-perium itself
would not give us, though a cabal within it might. He wanted to discuss
this with her uncle. The Zamok kept putting him off, claiming the
Gospodar was too busy during the crisis.

"Well, both Ristich and I know Bodin Miyatovich of old. Such was not his
way. It had to be the doing of his staff. Expecting we'd get a chance at
him somehow, soon--since he was never one to closet himself in an
office--we did not press too hard. We should have. For now he is
captive."

Kyrwedhin halted. The wind shrilled. Finally Kossara said, tone as
uncertain as words, "I can't find out what's really happened to him. Do
you know?"

"Nobody does except the doers," he answered. "There are--were--Imperial
liaison officers about, and their aides. Bodin had explained publicly
why he, as sector governor, called in chosen craft that serve the
Emperor directly, as well as those of the Voyska. Besides their guns,
should Merseia attack, he wanted to demonstrate our reluctance to break
with Terra.

"Spokesmen for the Zamok--the Castle," he added to Flandry; "the
executive center and those who work there--spokesmen for the Zamok have
said they aren't sure either. Apparently a party of Imperials got Bodin
alone, took him prisoner, and spirited him away to a ship of theirs.
Which vessel is not revealed. None have responded to beamed inquiries."

"They wouldn't," Flandry observed.

Kyrwedhin nodded his serrated head. "Naturally not. Imperial personnel
still on the ground deny any knowledge. Thus far we have nothing except
the statement that a high Terran officer contacted Milutin Protich,
informed him Bodin Miyatovich was under arrest for treason, and demanded
Dennitza and its armed forces give immediate total obedience to Admiral
da Costa. He's the ranking Imperial in the Zorian System at the moment,
therefore can be considered the Emperor's representative."

"And who is, m-m, Milutin Protich?"

"A special assistant to the Gospodar. According to the announcement, he
was the first important man in the Zamok whom the Terrans managed to get
in touch with." Kyrwedhin pondered. "Yes-s-s. He isn't
Dennitzan-born--from a nearby system where many families from here have
settled. He arrived several years back, entered administrative service,
did brilliantly, rose fast and far. Bodin had much faith in him."

Flandry drew forth a cigarette. "I take it everybody's been pretty well
paralyzed throughout today," he said.

"Aye. We must decide what to do. And we've fiendish little information
to go on, half of it contradicting the other half. Were the Imperialists
essentially right to seize our Gospodar, or was this their next step in
subjugating us, or even getting us destroyed? Should we declare
independence--when Merseia lurks in the wings? The Imperials can't
prevent that; our ships vastly outnumber theirs hereabouts. But if
fighting starts, they could make us pay heavily."

"You Dennitzans, human and zmay--ychan--you don't strike me as hesitant
people," Flandry remarked. "As we say in Anglic, 'He who dithers is
diddled.' The newscasts have been forgivably confused. But am I right in
my impression that your parliament--Skupshtina--meets tomorrow?"

"Yes. In the Gospodar's absence, the Chief Justice will preside."

"Do you think the vote will go for secession?"

"I had no doubt of it ... until I heard from Dama Vymezal and yourself."

The captains gripped their pipes, knife handles, the edge of the table,
hard. They would have their own words to say later on; but what they
heard in the next few minutes would be their compass.

"If you rise and tell them--" Flandry began.

Kossara cut him off. "No, dear. That's impossible."

"What?" He blinked at her.

She spoke carefully, clearly. The stim she had taken made vigor shine
pale through flesh and eyes. "The Skupshtina's no controlled
inner-Empire congress. It's about five hundred different proud
individuals, speaking for as many different proud sections of land or
walks of life. It's often turbulent--fights have happened, yes, a few
killings--and tomorrow it'll be wild. Do you think our enemy hasn't
prepared for the climax of his work? I know the Chief Justice; he's
honest but aged. He can be swayed about whom he recognizes. And if
somebody did get the floor, started telling the whole truth--do you
imagine he'd live to finish?"

"She's right," Kyrwedhin said.

Flandry drew on his cigarette till his face creased before he replied,
"Yes, I'd supposed something like that must be the case. Assassination's
easy. A few concealed needle guns, shotted around--and as a backup,
maybe, some thoroughly armed bully boys hidden away in buildings near
the Capitol. If necessary, they seize it, proclaim themselves the
Revolutionary Committee ... and, given the spadework the enemy's done
over the years, they can probably raise enough popular support to commit
your people beyond any chance of turning back."

"If you have thought of this and not despaired," Kyrwedhin said, "you
must have a plan."

Flandry frowned. "I'd rather hear what you have in mind. You know your
establishment."

"But I am taken by surprise."

Kossara spoke against storm-noise: "I know. If you and I,
Dominic--especially I--if we appear before them, suddenly, in
person--why, killing us would be worse than useless."

Kyrwedhin's tail smacked the floor. "Yes!" he cried. "My thoughts were
headed your same way. Though you can't simply walk in from Constitution
Square. You'd never pass the Iron Portal alive. What you need is an
escort, bodies both shielding and concealing you, on your way right into
the Union Chamber."

"How?" snapped from a village chief.

Kossara had the answer: "Ychani have always been the Peculiar People of
Dennitza. The House of the Zmayi has never entirely spoken for them;
it's a human invention. If, in a desperate hour, several hundred Obala
fishers enter Zorkagrad, march through Square and Portal into the
Chamber, demanding their leaders be heard--it won't be the first time in
history. The enemy will see no politic way to halt that kind of
demonstration. They may well expect it'll turn to their advantage;
outsiders would naturally think Merseian-descended Dennitzans are
anti-Terran, right? Then too late--" She flung her hands wide, her voice
aloft. "Too late, they see who came along!"

Beneath the surf of agreement, Flandry murmured to her: "My idea also. I
kept hoping somebody would have a better one."

XVII
----

Just before their car set down, Flandry protested to Kossara, "God damn
it, why does your parliament have to meet in person? You've got holocom
systems. Your politicians could send and receive images ... and we
could've rigged untraceable methods to call them and give them the facts
last night."

"Hush, darling." She laid a hand across his fist. "You know why.
Electronics will do for ornamental relics. The Skupshtina is alive, it
debates and decides real things, the members need intimacies,
subtleties, surprises."

"But you, you have to go among murderers to reach them."

"And I fear for you," she said quietly. "We should both stop."

He looked long at her, and she at him, in the seat they shared. Beryl
eyes under wide brow and bronze hair, strong fair features though her
smile quivered the least bit, height, ranginess, fullness, the warmth of
her clasp and the summery fragrance of herself: had she ever been more
beautiful? The vitality that surged in her, the serenity beneath, were
no work of a drug; it had simply let her put aside shock, exhaustion,
grief for this while and be altogether Kossara.

"If there is danger today," she said, "I thank God He lets me be in it
with you."

He prevented himself from telling her he felt no gratitude. They kissed,
very briefly and lightly because the car was crammed with ychans.

It landed in a parking lot at the edge of Zorkagrad,

None farther in could have accommodated the swarm of battered vehicles
which was arriving. Besides, a sudden appearance downtown might have
provoked alarm and a quick reaction by the enemy. A march ought to have
a calming effect. Flandry and Kossara donned cowled cloaks, which should
hide their species from a cursory glance when they were surrounded by
hemianthropoid xenos, and stepped outside.

A west wind skirled against the sun, whose blaze seemed paled in a pale
heaven. Clouds were brighter; they scudded in flocks, blinding white,
their shadows sweeping chill across the world, off, on, off, on. Winged
animals wheeled and thinly cried. Trees around the lot and along the
street that ran from it--mostly Terran, oak, elm, beech, maple--cast
their outer branches about, creaked, soughed Delphic utterances though
tongue after fire-tongue ripped loose to scrittle off over the pavement.
Rainpuddles wandered and wandered. All nature was saying farewell.

The ychans closed in around the humans. They numbered a good four
hundred, chosen by their steadcaptains as bold, cool-headed, skilled
with the knives, tridents, harpoons, and firearms they bore. Ywodh of
Nanteiwon, appointed their leader by Kyrwedhin before the
parliamentarian returned here, put them in battle-ready order. They
spoke little and showed scant outward excitement, at least to human eyes
or nostrils; such was the way of the Obala. They did not know the ins
and outs of what had happened, nor greatly care. It was enough that
their Gospodar had been betrayed by the enemy of their forefathers, that
his niece had come home to speak truth, and that they were her soldiers.
The wind snapped two standards in their van, star white on blue of Yovan
Matavuly, ax red on gold of Gwyth.

"All set," Ywodh reported. A shout: "Forward!" He took the lead. Flandry
and Kossara would fain have clasped hands as they walked, but even
surrounded must clutch their cloaks tight against this tricksy air. The
thud of their boots was lost amidst digitigrade slither and click.

At first it was predictable they would encounter nobody. Here was a new
district of private homes and clustered condominium units, beyond the
scope of forcefield generators that offered the inner city some
protection. Residents had sought safer quarters. An occasional militia
squad, on patrol to prevent looting, observed the procession from a
distance but did not interfere.

Farther on, buildings were older, higher, close-packed on streets which
had narrowed and went snakily uphill: red tile roofs, stucco walls of
time-faded gaudiness, signs and emblems hung above doorways, tenements,
offices, midget factories, restaurants, taverns, amusements, a
bulbous-domed parish church, a few big stores and tiny eccentric shops
by the score, the kind of place that ought to have pulsed with traffic
of vehicles and foot, been lively with movement, colors, gestures broad
or sly, words, laughter, whistling, song, sorrow, an accordion or a
fiddle somewhere, pungencies of roast corn and nuts for sale to keep the
passerby warm, oddments in display windows, city men, landmen,
offworlders, vagabonds, students, soldiers, children, grannies, the
unforgettably gorgeous woman whom you know you will never glimpse again
... A few walkers stepped aside, a few standers poised in doorways or
leaned on upper-story sills, warily staring. Now and then a groundcar
detoured. A civilian policeman in brown uniform and high-crowned hat
joined Ywodh; they talked; he consulted his superiors via minicom,
stayed till an aircar had made inspection from above, and departed.

"This is downright creepy," Flandry murmured to Kossara. "Has everybody
evacuated, or what?"

She passed the question on. Untrained humans could not have conveyed
information accurately in that wise; but soon she told Flandry from
Ywodh: "Early this morning--the organizers must have worked the whole
night--an ispravka started against Imperial personnel. That's when
ordinary citizens take direct action. Not a riot or lynching. The people
move under discipline, often in their regular Voyska units; remember,
every able-bodied adult is a reservist. Such affairs seldom get out of
control, and may have no violence at all. Offenders may simply be
expelled from an area. Or they may be held prisoner while spokesmen of
the people demand the authorities take steps to punish them. A few
ispravkai have brought down governments. In this case, what's happened
is that Terrans and others who serve the Imperium were rounded up into
certain buildings: hostages for the Gospodar's release and the good
behavior of their Navy ships. The Zamok denounced the action as illegal
and bound to increase tension, demanded the crowds disperse, and sent
police. The people stand fast around those buildings. The police haven't
charged them; no shots have yet been fired on either side."

"I've heard of worse customs," Flandry said.

Puzzled, she asked, "Shouldn't the plotters be pleased?"

Flandry shrugged. "I daresay they are. Still, don't forget the vast
majority of your officials must be patriotic, and whether or not they
prefer independence, consider civil war to be the final recourse. The
top man among them issued that cease-and-desist order." He frowned.
"But, um, you know, this nails down a lot of our possible helpers, both
citizens and police. The enemy isn't expecting us. However, if too many
parliament members refuse to board the secession railroad, he'll have a
clear field for attempting a coup d'etat. Maybe the firebrand who
instigated that, uh, ispravka is a Merseian himself, in human skin."

The wind boomed between walls.

A minor commotion occurred on the fringes of the troop. Word flew back
and forth. "Chives!" Kossara gasped.

The ychans let him through. He also went cloaked to muffle the fact of
his race from any quick glance. Emerald features were eroded from spare
to gaunt; eyes were more fallow than amber; but when Flandry whooped and
took him by the shoulders, Chives said crisply, "Thank you, sir. Donna
Vymezal, will you allow me the liberty of expressing my sympathy at your
loss?"

"Oh, you dear clown!" She hugged him. Her lashes gleamed wet. Chives
suffered the gesture in embarrassed silence. Flandry sensed within him a
deeper trouble.

They continued through hollow streets. A fighter craft passed low above
chimneys. Air whined and snarled in its wake. "What've you been doing?"
Flandry asked. "How'd you find us?"

"If you have no immediate statement or directive for me, sir," the
precise voice replied, "I will report chronologically. Pursuant to
instructions, I landed at the spaceport and submitted to inspection. My
cover story was approved and I given license, under police registry, to
remain here for a stated period as per my declared business. Interested
in exotics, many townspeople conversed with me while I circulated among
them in the next few planetary days. By pretending to less familiarity
with Homo sapiens than is the case, I gathered impressions of their
individual feelings as respects the present imbroglio. At a more
convenient time, sir, if you wish, I will give you the statistical
breakdown.

"I must confess it was a complete surprise when a Naval patrol entered
my lodgings and declared an intention to take me in custody. Under the
circumstances, sir, I felt conformity would be imprudent. I endeavored
not to damage irreparably men who wore his Majesty's uniform, and in due
course will return the borrowed blaster you observe me wearing.
Thereupon I took refuge with a gentleman I suspected of vehement
anti-Terran sentiments. May I respectfully request his name and the
names of his associates be omitted from your official cognizance?
Besides their hospitality and helpfulness toward me, they exhibited no
more than a misguided zeal for the welfare of this planet, and indeed I
was the occasion of their first overt unlawful act. They sheltered me
only after I had convinced them I was a revolutionary for my own
society, and that my public designation as a Merseian agent was a
calumny which the Imperialists could be expected to employ against their
kind too. They were persuaded rather easily; I would not recommend them
for the Intelligence Corps. I got from them clothes, disguise materials,
equipment convertible to surveillance purposes, and went about
collecting data for myself.

"They do possess a rudimentary organization. Through this, via a phone
call, my host learned that a large delegation of zmays was moving on the
Capitol. Recalling Donna Vymezal's accounts of her background, and
trusting she and you had not perished after all, I thought you might be
here. To have this deduction confirmed was ... most gratifying, sir."

Flandry chewed his lip for a while before he said,

"Those were Imperials who came to arrest you? Not Dennitzans?"

"No, sir, not Dennitzans. There could be no mistake." Chives spoke
mutedly. His thin green fingers hauled the cowl closer around his face.

"You went unmolested for days, and then in a blink--" Flandry's speech
chopped off. They were at their goal.

Well into Old Town, the party passed between two many-balconied
mansions, out onto a plateau of Royal Hill. Constitution Square opened
before them, broad, slate-flagged, benches, flowerbeds, trees--empty,
empty. In the middle was a big fountain, granite catchbasin, Toman
Obilich and Vladimir locked in bronze combat, water dancing white but
its sound and spray borne off by the wind. Westward buildings stood well
apart, giving a view down across roofs to Lake Stoyan, metal-bright
shimmer and shiver beyond the curve of the world. Directly across the
square was the Capitol, a sprawling, porticoed marble mass beneath a
gilt dome whose point upheld an argent star. A pair of kilometers
further on, a rock lifted nearly sheer, helmeted with the battlements
and banners of the Zamok.

Flandry's gaze flickered. He identified a large hotel, office buildings,
cafes, fashionable stores, everything antiquated but dignified, the gray
stones wearing well; how many Constitution Squares had he known in his
life? But this lay deserted under wind, chill, and hasty cloud shadows.
A militia squad stood six men on the Capitol verandah, six flanking the
bottom of the stairs; their capes flapped, their rifles gleamed whenever
a sunbeam smote and then went dull again. Aircraft circled far overhead.
Otherwise none save the newcomers were in sight. Yet surely watchers
waited behind yonder shut doors, yonder blank panes: proprietors,
caretakers, maybe a few police--a few, since the turmoil was elsewhere
in town and no disturbance expected here. Who besides? He walked as if
through a labyrinth of mirages. Nothing was wholly what he sensed,
except the blaster butt under his hand and a stray russet lock of
Kossara's hair.

She had no such dreads. As they trod into the plaza, he heard her
whisper, "Here we go, my brave beloved. They'll sing of you for a
thousand years."

He shoved hesitation out of his mind and readied himself to fight.

But no clash came. Despite what they told him when the move was being
planned, he'd more or less awaited behavior like that when a gaggle of
demonstrators wanted to invade a legislative session on any human planet
he knew--prohibition, resistance, then either a riot or one of the sides
yielding. If officialdom conceded in order to avoid the riot, it would
be grudgingly, after prolonged haggling; and whatever protesters were
admitted would enter under strict conditions, well guarded, to meet
indignant stares.

Dennitza, though, had institutionalized if not quite legalized
procedures like the ispravka. Through the officer he met on the way,
Ywodh had explained his band's intent. Word had quickly reached the
Chief Justice. Four hundred zmays would not lightly descend on
Zorkagrad, claiming to represent the whole Obala; they could be trusted
to be mannerly and not take an unreasonable time to make their points;
urged by Kyrwedhin, a majority in the third house of the Skupshtina
endorsed their demand. No guns greeted them, aside from those of the
corporal's guard at the entrance; and they bore their own arms inside.

Up the stairs--past armored doors that recalled the Troubles--through an
echoful lobby--into a central chamber where the parliament in joint
session waited--Flandry raked his glance around, seeking menaces to his
woman and shelters for her.

The room was a half ellipsoid. At the far-end focus, a dais bore the
Gospodar's lectern, a long desk, and several occupied chairs. To right
and left, tiers held the seats of members, widely spaced. Skylights cast
fleetingness of weather into steadiness of fluorescents, making the
polished marble floor seem to stir. On gilt mural panels were painted
the saints and heroes of Dennitza. The lawmakers sat according to their
groupings, Lords in rainbow robes, Folk in tunics and trousers or in
gowns, Zmayi in leather and metal. After the outdoors, Flandry breathed
an air which felt curdled by fear and fury.

Banners dipped to an old man in black who sat behind the lectern. Slowly
the fishers advanced, while unseen telescanners watched on behalf of the
world. In the middle of the floor, the ychans halted. Silence
encompassed them. Flandry's pulse thuttered.

"Zdravo," said the Chief Justice, and added a courteous Eriau "Hydhref."
His hand forgot stateliness, plucked at his white beard. "We have ...
let you in ... for unity's sake. My understanding is, your delegation
wishes to speak relevantly to the present crisis--a viewpoint which
might else go unheard. You in turn will, will understand why we must
limit your time to fifteen minutes."

Ywodh bowed, palms downward, tail curved. Straightening, he let his
quarterdeck basso roll. "We thank the assembly. I'll need less than
that; but I think you'll then want to give us more." Flandry's eyes
picked out Kyrwedhin. Weird, that the sole Dennitzan up there whom he
knew should bear Merseian genes. "Worthies and world," Ywodh was saying,
"you've heard many a tale of late: how the Emperor wants to crush us,
how a new war is nearly on us because of his folly or his scheming to
slough us off, how his agents rightly or wrongly charged the Gospodar's
niece Kossara Vymezal with treason and--absolutely wrongly--sold her for
a slave, how they've taken the Gospodar himself prisoner on the same
excuse, how they must have destroyed the whole homestead of his
brother-in-law the voivode of Dubina Dolyina to grind out any spark of
free spirit, how our last choices left are ruin or revolution--You've
heard this.

"I say each piece of it is false." He flung an arm in signal. With a
showmanship that humans would have had to rehearse, his followers opened
their ranks. "And here to gaff the lies is Kossara Vymezal, sister's
daughter to Bodin Miyatovich our Gospodar!"

She bounded from among them, across the floor, onto the dais, to take
her place between the antlers of the lectern. A moan lifted out of the
benched humans, as if the fall wind had made entry; the zmayi uttered a
surflike rumble. "What, what, what is this?" quavered the Chief Justice.
Nobody paid him heed. Kossara raised her head and cried forth so the
room rang:

"Hear me, folk! I'm not back from the dead, but I am back from hell, and
I bear witness. The devils are not Terrans but Merseians and their
creatures. My savior was, is, not a Dennitzan but a Terran. Those who
shout, 'Independence!' are traitors not to the Empire but to Dennitza.
Their single wish is to set humans at each other's throats, till the
Roidhun arrives and picks our bones. Hear my story and judge."

Flandry walked toward her, Chives beside him. He wished it weren't too
disturbing to run. Nike of Samothrace had not borne a higher or more
defenseless pride than she did. They took stance beneath her, facing the
outer door. Her tones marched triumphant:

"--I escaped the dishonor intended me by the grace of God and the
decency of this man you see here, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry of his
Majesty's service. Let me tell what happened from the beginning. Have I
your leave, worthies?"

"Aye!"

Gunshots answered. Screams flew ragged. A blaster bolt flared outside
the chamber.

Flandry's weapon jumped free. The tiers of the Skupshtina turned into a
yelling scramble. Fifty-odd men pounded through the doorway. Clad like
ordinary Dennitzans, all looked hard and many looked foreign. They bore
firearms.

"Get down, Kossara!" Flandry shouted. Through him ripped: Yes, the enemy
did have an emergency force hidden in a building near the square, and
somebody in this room used a minicom to bring them. The Revolutionary
Committee--they'll take over, they'll proclaim her an impostor--

He and Chives were on the dais. She hadn't flattened herself under the
lectern. She had gone to one knee behind it, sidearm in hand, ready to
snipe. The attackers were deploying around the room. Two dashed by
either side of the clustered, bewildered fishers.

Their blaster beams leaped, convergent on the stand. Its wood exploded
in flame, its horns toppled. Kossara dropped her pistol and fell back.

Chives pounced zigzag. A bolt seared and crashed within centimeters of
him. He ignored it; he was taking aim. The first assassin's head became
a fireball. The second crumpled, grabbed at the stump of a leg, writhed
and shrieked a short while. Chives reached the next nearest, wrapped his
tail around that man's neck and squeezed, got an elbow-beaking
single-arm lock on another, hauled him around for a shield and commenced
systematic shooting.

"I say," he called through the din to Ywodh, "you chaps might pitch in a
bit, don't you know."

The steadcaptain bellowed. His slugthrower hissed. A male beside him
harpooned a foeman's belly. Then heedless of guns, four hundred big
seafarers joined battle.

Flandry knelt by Kossara. From bosom to waist was seared bloody
wreckage. He half raised her. She groped after him with hands and eyes.
"Dominic, darling," he barely heard, "I wish--" He heard no more.

For an instant he imagined revival, life-support machinery, cloning ...
No. He'd never get her to a hospital before the brain was gone beyond
any calling back of the spirit. Never.

He lowered her. I won't think yet. No time. I'd better get into that
fight. The ychans don't realize we need a few prisoners.

Dusk fell early in fall. Above the lake smoldered a sunset remnant.
Otherwise blue-black dimness drowned the land. Overhead trembled a few
stars; and had he looked from his office window aloft in the Zamok,
Flandry could have seen city lights, spiderwebs along streets and single
glows from homes. Wind mumbled at the panes.

Finally granted a rest, he sat back from desk and control board, feeling
his chair shape its embrace to his contours. Despite the drugs which
suppressed grief, stimulated metabolism, and thus kept him going,
weariness weighted every cell. He had turned off the fluoros. His
cigarette end shone red. He couldn't taste the smoke, maybe because the
dark had that effect, maybe because tongue and palate were scorched.

Well, went his clockwork thought, that takes care of the main business.
He had just been in direct conversation with Admiral da Costa. The
Terran commander appeared reasonably well convinced of the good faith of
the provisional government whose master, for all practical purposes,
Flandry had been throughout this afternoon. Tomorrow be would discuss
the Gospodar's release. And as far as could be gauged, the Dennitzan
people were accepting the fact they had been betrayed. They'd want a
full account, of course, buttressed by evidence; and they wouldn't
exactly become enthusiastic Imperialists; but the danger of revolution
followed by civil war seemed past.

So maybe tomorrow I can let these chemicals drain out of me, let go my
grip and let in my dead. Tonight the knowledge that there was no more
Kossara reached him only like the wind, an endless voice beyond the
windows. She had been spared that, he believed, had put mourning quite
from her for the last span, being upheld by urgency rather than a need
to go through motions, by youth and hope, by his presence beside her.
Whereas I--ah, well, I can carry on. She'd've wanted me to.

The door chimed. What the deuce? His guards had kept him alone among
electronic ghosts. Whoever got past them at last in person must be
authoritative and persuasive. He waved at an admit plate and to turn the
lights back on. Their brightness hurt his eyes.

A slim green form in a white kilt entered, bearing a tray where stood
teapot, cup, plates and bowls of food. "Your dinner, sir," Chives
announced.

"I'm not hungry," said the clockwork. "I didn't ask for--"

"No, sir. I took the liberty." Chives set his burden down on the desk.
"Allow me to remind you, we require your physical fitness."

Her planet did. "Very good, Chives." Flandry got down some soup and
black bread. The Shalmuan waited unobtrusively.

"That did help," the man agreed. "You know, give me the proper pill and
I might sleep."

"You--you may not wish it for the nonce, sir."

"What?" Flandry sharpened his regard. Chives had lost composure. He
stood head lowered, tail a-droop, hands hard clasped: miserable.

"Go on," Flandry said. "You've gotten me nourished. Tell me."

The voice scissored off words: "It concerns those personnel, sir, whom
you recall the townsmen took into custody."

"Yes. I ordered them detained, well treated, till we can check them out
individually. What of them?"

"I have discovered they include one whom I, while a fugitive,
ascertained had come to Zorkagrad several days earlier. To be frank,
sir, this merely confirmed my suspicion that such had been the case. I
must have been denounced by a party who recognized your speedster at the
port and obtained the inspectors' record of me. This knowledge must then
have made him draw conclusions and recommend actions with respect to
Voivode Vymezal."

"Well?"

"Needless to say, sir, I make no specific accusations. The guilt could
lie elsewhere than in the party I am thinking of."

"Not measurably likely, among populations the size we've got." Beneath
the drumhead of imposed emotionlessness, Flandry felt his body stiffen.
"Who?"

Seldom did he see Chives' face distorted. "Lieutenant Commander Dominic
Hazeltine, sir. Your son."

XVIII
-----

Two militiamen escorted the prisoner into the office. "You may go,"
Flandry told them.

They stared unsurely from him, standing slumped against night in a
window, to the strong young man they guarded. "Go," Flandry repeated.
"Wait outside with my servant. I'll call on the intercom when I want
you."

They saluted and obeyed. Flandry and Hazeltine regarded each other,
mute, until the door had closed. The older saw an Imperial undress
uniform, still neat upon an erect frame, and a countenance half Persis'
where pride overmastered fear. The younger saw haggardness clad in a
soiled coverall.

"Well," Flandry said at last. Hazeltine extended a hand. Flandry looked
past it. "Have a seat," he invited. "Care for a drink?" He indicated
bottle and glasses on his desk. "I remember you like Scotch."

"Thanks, Dad." Hazeltine spoke as low, free of the croak in the opposite
throat. He smiled, and smiled again after they had both sat down holding
their tumblers. Raising his, he proposed, "Here's to us. Damn few like
us, and they're all dead."

They had used the ancient toast often before. This time Flandry did not
respond. Hazeltine watched him a moment, grimaced, and tossed off a
swallow. Then Flandry drank.

Hazeltine leaned forward. His words shook. "Father, you don't believe
that vapor about me. Do you?"

Flandry took out his cigarette case. "I don't know what else to
believe." He flipped back the lid. "Somebody who knew Chives and the
Hooligan fingered him. The date of your arrival fits in." He chose a
cigarette. "And thinking back, I find the coincidence a trifle much that
you called my attention to Kossara Vymezal precisely when she'd reached
Terra. I was a pretty safe bet to skyhoot her off to Diomedes, where she
as an inconvenient witness and I as an inconvenient investigator could
be burked in a way that'd maximize trouble." He puffed the tobacco into
lighting, inhaled, streamed smoke till it veiled him, and sighed: "You
were overeager. You should have waited till she'd been used at least a
few days, and a reputable Dennitzan arranged for to learn about this."

"I didn't--No, what are you saying?" Hazeltine cried.

Flandry toyed with the case. "As was," he continued levelly, "the only
word which could be sent, since the Gospodar would require proof and is
no fool ... the word was merely she'd been sold for a slave. Well, ample
provocation. Where were you, between leaving Terra and landing here? Did
you maybe report straight to Aycharaych?"

Hazeltine banged his glass down on the chair arm. "Lies!" he shouted.
Red and white throbbed across his visage. "Listen, I'm your son. I swear
to you by--"

"Never mind. And don't waste good liquor. If I'd settled on Dennitza as
I planned, the price we'd've paid for Scotch--" Flandry gave his lips a
respite from the cigarette. He waved it. "How were you recruited? By the
Merseians, I mean. Couldn't be brainscrub. I know the signs too well.
Blackmail? No, implausible. You're a bright lad who wouldn't get
suckered into that first mistake they corral you by--a brave lad who'd
sneer at threats. But sometime during the contacts you made in line of
duty--"

Hazeltine's breath rasped. "I didn't! How can I prove to you, Father, I
didn't?"

"Simple," Flandry said. "You must have routine narco immunization. But
we can hypnoprobe you."

Hazeltine sagged back. His glass rolled across the floor.

"The Imperial detachment brought Intelligence personnel and their
apparatus, you know," Flandry continued. "I've asked, and they can take
you tomorrow morning. Naturally, any private facts which emerge will
stay confidential."

Hazeltine raised an aspen hand. "You don't know--I--I'm
deep-conditioned."

"By Terra?"

"Yes, of course, of course. I can't be 'probed ... without my mind being
... destroyed--"

Flandry sighed again. "Come, now. We don't deep-condition our agents
against giving information to their own people, except occasional
supersecrets. After all, a 'probe can bring forth useful items the
conscious mind has forgotten. Don't fear if you're honest, son. The
lightest treatment will clear you, and the team will go no further."

"But--oh, no-o-o--"

Abruptly Hazeltine cast himself on his knees before Flandry. Words burst
from his mouth like the sweat from his skin. "Yes, then, yes, I've been
working for Merseia. Not bought, nothing like that, I thought the future
was theirs, should be theirs, not this walking corpse of an
Empire--Merciful angels, can't you see their way's the hope of humankind
too?--" Flandry blew smoke to counteract the reek of terror. "I'll
cooperate. I will, I will. I wasn't evil, Dad. I had my orders about
you, yes, but I hated what I did, and Aycharaych doubted you'd really be
killed, and I knew I was supposed to let that girl be bought first by
somebody else before I told you but when we happened to arrive in time I
couldn't make myself wait--" He caught Flandry by the knees. "Dad, in
Mother's name, let my mind live!"

Flandry shoved the clasp aside, rose, stepped a couple of meters off,
and answered, "Sorry. I could never trust you not to leave stuff buried
in your confession that could rise to kill or enslave too many more
young girls." For a few seconds he watched the crouched, spastic shape.
"I'm under stim and heavy trank," he said. "A piece of machinery. I've a
far-off sense of how this will feel later on, but mostly that's
abstract. However ... you have till morning, son. What would you like
while you wait? Ill do my best to provide it."

Hazeltine uncoiled. On his feet, he howled, "You cold devil, at least
I'll kill you first! And then myself!"

He charged. The rage which doubled his youthful strength was not amok;
he came as a karate man, ready to smash a ribcage and pluck out a heart.

Flandry swayed aside. He passed a hand near the other.

Razor-edged, the lid of the cigarette case left a shallow red gash in
the right cheek. Hazeltine whirled for a renewed assault. Flandry gave
ground. Hazeltine followed, boxing him into a corner. Then the knockout
potion took hold. Hazeltine stumbled, reeled, flailed his arms, mouthed,
and caved in.

Flandry sought the intercom. "Come remove the prisoner," he directed.

Day broke windless and freezing cold. The sun stood in a rainbow ring
and ice crackled along the shores of Lake Stoyan. Zorkagrad lay silent
under bitter blue, as if killed. From time to time thunders drifted
across its roofs, arrivals and departures of spacecraft. They gleamed
meteoric. Sometimes, too, airships whistled by, armored vehicles
rumbled, boots slammed on pavement. About noon, one such vessel and one
such march brought Bodin Miyatovich home.

He was as glad to return unheralded. Too much work awaited him for
ceremonies--him and Dominic Flandry. But the news did go out on the
'casts; and that was like proclaiming Solstice Feast. Folk ran from
their houses, poured in from the land, left their patrols to shout,
dance, weep, laugh, sing, embrace perfect strangers; and every church
bell pealed.

From a balcony of the Zamok he watched lights burn and bob through
twilit streets, bonfires in squares, tumult and clamor. His breath
smoked spectral under the early stars. Frost tinged his beard. "This
can't last," he muttered, and stepped back into the office.

When the viewdoor closed behind him, stillness fell except for chimes
now muffled. The chill he had let in remained a while. Flandry, hunched
in a chair, didn't seem to notice.

Miyatovich gave the Terran a close regard. "You can't go on either," he
said. "If you don't stop dosing yourself and let your glands and nerves
function normally, they'll quit on you."

Flandry nodded. "I'll stop soon." From caverns his eyes observed a
phonescreen.

The big gray-blond man hung up his cloak. "I'll admit I couldn't have
done what got done today, maybe not for weeks, maybe never, without
you," he said. "You knew the right words, the right channels; you had
the ideas. But we are done. I can handle the rest."

He went to stand behind his companion, laying ringers on shoulders,
gently kneading. "I'd like to hide from her death myself," he said.
"Aye, it's easier for me. I'd thought her lost to horror, and learned
she was lost in honor. While if you and she--Dominic, listen. I made a
chance to call my wife. She's at our house, not our town house, a place
in the country, peace, woods, cleanness, healing. We want you there." He
paused. "You're a very private man, aren't you? Well, nobody will poke
into your grief."

"I'm not hiding," Flandry replied in monotone. "I'm waiting. I expect a
message shortly. Then I'll take your advice."

"What message?"

"Interrogation results from a certain Mers--Roidhunate agent we
captured. I've reason to think he has some critical information."

"Hoy?" Miyatovich's features, tired in their own right, kindled. He cast
himself into an armchair confronting Flandry. It creaked beneath his
weight.

"I'm in a position to evaluate it better than anyone else," the Terran
persisted. "How long does da Costa insist on keeping his ships here 'in
case we need further help'?--Ah, yes, five standard days, I remember.
Well, I'll doubtless need about that long at your house; I'll be numb,
and afterward--

"I'll take a printout in my luggage, to study when I'm able. Your job
meanwhile will be to ... not suppress the report. You probably couldn't;
besides, the Empire needs every drop of data we can wring out of what
enemy operatives we catch. But don't let da Costa's command scent any
special significance in the findings of this particular 'probe job."

The Gospodar fumbled for pipe and tobacco pouch. "Why?"

"I can't guarantee what we'll learn, but I have a logical suspicion--Are
you sure you can keep the Dennitzan fleet mobilized, inactive, another
couple of weeks?"

"Yes." Miyatovich grew patient. "Maybe you don't quite follow the
psychology, Dominic. Da Costa wants to be certain we won't rebel. The
fact that we aren't dispersing immediately makes him leery. He hasn't
the power to prevent us from whatever we decide to do, but he thinks his
presence as a tripwire will deter secessionism. All right, in five
Terran days his Intelligence teams can establish it's a bogeyman, and he
can accept my explanation that we're staying on alert for a spell yet in
case Merseia does attack. He'll deem us a touch paranoid, but he'll
return to base with a clear conscience."

"You have to give your men the same reason, don't you?"

"Right. And they'll accept it. In fact, they'd protest if I didn't issue
such an order, Dennitza's lived too many centuries by the abyss; this
time we nearly went over."

Miyatovich tamped his pipe bowl needlessly hard. "I've gotten to know
you well enough, I believe, in this short while, that I can tell you the
whole truth," he added. "You thought you were helping me smooth things
out with respect to the Empire. And you were, you were. But my main
reason for quick reconciliation is ... to get the Imperials out of the
Zorian System while we still have our own full strength."

"And you'll strike back at Merseia," Flandry said.

The Gospodar showed astonishment. "How did you guess?"

"I didn't guess. I knew--Kossara. She told me a lot."

Miyatovich gathered wind and wits. "Don't think I'm crazy," he urged.
"Rather, I'll have to jump around like sodium in the rain, trying to
keep people and Skupshtina from demanding action too loudly before the
Terrans leave. But when the Terrans do--" His eyes, the color of hers,
grew leopard-intent. "We want more than revenge. In fact, only a few of
us like myself have suffered what would have brought on a blood feud in
the old days. But I told you we live on the edge. We have got to show we
aren't safe for unfriends to touch. Otherwise, what's next?"

"Nemo me impune lacessit," Flandry murmured.

"Hm?"

"No matter. Ancient saying. Too damned ancient; does nothing ever change
at the heart?" Flandry shook his head. The chemical barriers were
growing thin. "I take it, then, in the absence of da Costa or some other
Imperial official--who'd surely maintain anything as atavistic as
response to aggression is against policy and must in all events be
referred to the appropriate authorities, in triplicate, for debate--in
the absence of that, as sector governor you'll order the Dennitzan fleet
on a retaliatory strike."

Miyatovich nodded. "Yes."

"Have you considered the consequences?"

"I'll have time to consider them further, before we commit. But ... if
we choose the target right, I don't expect Merseia will do more than
protest. The fact seems to be, at present they are not geared for war
with Terra. They were relying on a new civil war among us. If instead
they get hit, the shock ought to make them more careful about the whole
Empire."

"What target have you in mind?"

Miyatovich frowned, spent a minute with a lighter getting his pipe
started, finally said, "I don't yet know. The object is not to start a
war, but to punish behavior which could cause one. The Roidhunate
couldn't write off a heavily populated planet. Nor would I lead a
genocidal mission. But, oh, something valuable, maybe an industrial
center on a barren metal-rich globe--I'll have the War College study
it."

"If you succeed," Flandry warned, "you'll be told you went far beyond
your powers."

"That can be argued. Those powers aren't too well defined, are they? I
like to imagine Hans Molitor will sympathize." The Gospodar shrugged.
"If not, what becomes of me isn't important. I'm thinking of the
children and grandchildren."

"Uh-huh. Well, you've confirmed what--Hold on." The phone buzzed.
Flandry reached to press accept. He had to try twice before he made it.

A countenance half as stark as his looked from the screen. "Lieutenant
Mitchell reporting, sir. Hypnoprobing of the prisoner Dominic Hazeltine
has been completed."

"Results?" The question was plane-flat.

"You predicted aright, sir. The subject was deep-conditioned." Mitchell
winced at a recollection unpleasant even in his line of work. "I'd never
seen or heard of so thorough a treatment. He went into shock almost at
once. In later stages, the stimuli necessary were--well, he hasn't got a
forebrain left to speak of."

"I want a transcript in full," Flandry said. "Otherwise, you're to seal
the record, classified Ultimate Secret, and your whole team will keep
silence. I'll give you a written directive on that, authorized by
Governor Miyatovich."

"Yes, sir." Mitchell showed puzzlement. He must be wondering why the
emphasis. Intelligence didn't make a habit of broadcasting what it
learned. Unless--"Sir, you realize, don't you, this is still raw
material? More incoherent than usual, too, because of the brain
channeling. We did sort out his basic biography, details of his most
recent task, that kind of thing. Offhand, the rest of what we got seems
promising. But to fit the broken, scrambled association chains together,
interpret the symbols and find their significance--"

"I'll take care of that," Flandry snapped. "Your part is over."

"Yes, sir." Mitchell dropped his gaze. "I'm ... sorry ... on account of
the relationship involved. He really did admire you. Uh, what shall we
do about him now?"

Flandry fell quiet. Miyatovich puffed volcanic clouds. Outside, the
bells caroled.

"Sir?"

"Let me see him," Flandry said.

Interlinks flickered. In the screen appeared the image of a young man,
naked on a bed, arms spreadeagled to meet the tubes driven into his
veins, chest and abdominal cavities opened for the entry of machines
that kept most cells alive. He stared at the ceiling with eyes that
never moved nor blinked. His mouth dribbled. Click, chug, it said in the
background, click, chug.

Flandry made a noise. Miyatovich seized his hand.

After a while Flandry stated, "Thank you. Switch it off."

They held Kossara Vymezal in a coldvault until the Imperials had left.
This was by command of the Gospodar, and folk supposed the reason was
she was Dennitza's, nobody else's, and said he did right. As many as
were able would attend her funeral.

The day before, she was brought to the Cathedral of St. Clement, though
none save kin were let near. Only the four men of her honor guard were
there when Dominic Flandry came.

They stood in uniform of the Narodna Voyska, heads lowered, rifles
reversed, at the corners of her bier. He paid them no more mind than he
did the candles burning in tall holders, the lilies, roses, viyenatz
everywhere between, their fragrance or a breath of incense or the
somehow far-off sound of a priest chanting behind the iconostasis, which
filled the cool dim air. Alone he walked over the stones to her. Evening
sunlight slanted through windows and among columns, filtered to a domed
ceiling, brought forth out of dusk, remote upon gold and blue, the
Twelve Apostles and Christ Lord of All.

At first he was afraid to look, dreading less the gaping glaring
hideousness he had last seen--that was only what violent death
wrought--than the kind of rouged doll they made when Terran bodies lay
in state. Forcing himself, he found that nothing more had been done than
to cleanse her, close the eyes, bind the chin, gown and garland her. The
divided coffin lid showed her down to the bosom. The face he saw was
hers, hers, though color was gone and time had eased it into an inhuman
serenity.

This makes me a little happier, dear, he thought. I didn't feel it was
fitting that they mean to build you a big tomb on Founders' Hill. I
wanted your ashes strewn over land and sea, into sun and wind. Then if
ever I came back here I could dream every brightness was yours. But they
understand what they do, your people. A corner of his mouth bent upward.
It's I who am the sentimental old fool. Would you laugh if you could
know?

He stooped closer. You believed you would know, Kossara. If you do,
won't you help me believe too--believe that you still are?

His sole answer was the priest's voice rising and falling through
archaic words. Flandry nodded. He hadn't expected more. He couldn't keep
himself from telling her, I'm sorry, darling.

And I won't kiss what's left, I who kissed you. He searched among his
languages for the best final word. Sayonara. Since it must be so.
Stepping back a pace, he bowed three times very deeply, turned, and
departed.

Bodin Miyatovich and his wife waited outside. The weather was milder
than before, as if a ghost of springtime flitted fugitive ahead of
winter. Traffic boomed in the street. Walkers cast glances at the three
on the stairs, spoke to whatever companions they had, but didn't stop;
they taught good manners on Dennitza.

Draga Miyatovich took Flandry by the elbow. "Are you well, Dominic?" she
asked anxiously. "You've gone pale."

"No, nothing," he said. "I'm recovering fast, thanks to your kindness."

"You should rest. I've noticed you hour after hour poring over that
report--" She saw his expression and stopped her speech.

In a second he eased his lips, undamped his fists, and raised memory of
what he had come from today up against that other memory. "I'd no
choice," he said. To her husband: "Bodin, I'm ready to work again. With
you. You see, I've found your target."

The Gospodar peered around. "What? Wait," he cautioned.

"True, we can't discuss it here," Flandry agreed. "Especially, I
suppose, on holy ground ... though she might not have minded."

She'd never have been vindictive. But she'd have understood how much
this matters to her whole world: that in those broken mutterings of my
son's I found what I thought I might find, the coordinates of Chereion,
Aycharaych's planet.

XIX
---

The raiders from Dennitza met the guardians of the red sun, and
lightning awoke.

Within the command bridge of the Vatre Zvezda, Bodin Miyatovich stared
at a display tank. Color-coded motes moved around a stellar globe to
show where each vessel of his fleet was--and, as well as scouts and
instruments could learn, each of the enemy's--and what it did and when
it died. But their firefly dance, of some use to a lifelong
professional, bewildered an unskilled eye; and it was merely a sideshow
put on by computers whose real language was numbers. He swore and looked
away in search of reality.

The nearest surrounded him in metal, meters, intricate consoles,
flashing signal bulbs, dark-uniformed men who stood to their duties, sat
as if wired in place, walked back and forth on rubbery-shod feet.
Beneath a hum of engines, ventilators, a thousand systems throughout the
great hull, their curt exchanges chopped. To stimulate them, it was cool
here, with a thunderstorm tang of ozone.

The Gospodar's gaze traveled on, among the view-screens which studded
bulkheads, overhead, deck--again, scarcely more than a means for keeping
crew who did not have their ship's esoteric senses from feeling trapped.
Glory brimmed the dark, stars in glittering flocks and Milky Way shoals,
faerie-remote glimmer of nebulae and a few sister galaxies. Here in the
outer reaches of its system, the target sun was barely the brightest, a
coal-glow under Bellatrix. At chance moments a spark would flare and
vanish, a nuclear burst close enough to see. But most were too distant;
and never another vessel showed, companion or foe. Such was the scale of
the battle.

And yet it was not large as space combats went. Springing from
hyperdrive to normal state, the Dennitzan force--strong, but hardly an
armada--encountered Merseian craft which sought to bar it from
accelerating inward. As more and more of the latter drew nigh and
matched courses with invaders, action spread across multimillions of
kilometers. Hours passed before two or three fighters came so near, at
such low relative speeds, that they could hope for a kill; and often
their encounter was the briefest spasm, followed by hours more of
maneuver. Those gave time to make repairs, care for the wounded, pray
for the dead.

"They've certainly got protection," Miyatovich growled. "Who'd have
expected this much?"

Scouts had not been able to warn him. The stroke depended altogether on
swiftness. Merseian observers in the neighborhood of Zoria had surely
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 alongside," 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
beings who laired here.

"Have you control over your course?" inquired the voice.

"Yes. Let me speak to a ranking officer."

"You will go approximately five hundred kilometers northwest of your
immediate position. Prepare to record a map." The visage vanished, a
chart appeared, two triangles upon it. "The red apex shows where you
are, the blue your mandatory landing site, a spacefield. You will stay
inboard and await instructions. Is this understood?"

"We'll try. We, uh, we have a lot of speed to kill. In our condition,
fast braking is unsafe. Can you give us about half an hour?"

Aycharaych would not have spent several seconds reaching a decision.
"Permitted. Be warned, deviations may cause you to be shot down.
Proceed." Nor would he have broken contact with not a single further
inquiry.

Outside was no longer black, but purple. The spacecraft strewed thunder
across desert. "What the hell, sir?" Chives exploded.

"Agreed," said Flandry. His tongue shifted to an obscure language they
both knew. "Use this lingo while that channel's open."

"What shall we do?"

"First, play back any pictures we got of the place we're supposed to
go." Flandry's fingers brushed a section of console. On an inset screen
came a view taken from nearby space under magnification. His trained
eyes studied it and a few additional. "A spacefield, aye, standard
Merseian model, terminal and the usual outbuildings. Modest-sized, no
vessels parked. And way off in wilderness." He twisted his mustache.
"You know, I'll bet that's where every visitor's required to land. And
then he's brought in a closed car to a narrowly limited area which is
all he ever sees."

"Shall we obey, sir?"

"Um, 'twould be a pity, wouldn't it, to pass by that lovely city we had
in mind. Besides, they doubtless keep heavy weapons at the port; our
pictures show signs of it. Once there, we'd be at their mercy. Whereas I
suspect that threat to blast us elsewhere was a bluff. Imagine a
stranger pushing into a prohibited zone on a normal planet--when the
system's being invaded! Why aren't we at least swarmed by military
aircraft?"

"Very good, sir. We can land in five minutes." Chives gave his master a
pleading regard. "Sir, must I truly stay behind while you debark?"

"Somebody has to cover us, ready to scramble if need be. We're
Intelligence collectors, not heroes. If I call you and say, 'Escape,'
Chives, you will escape."

"Yes, sir," the Shalmuan forced out. "However, please grant me the
liberty of protesting your decision not to wear armor like your men."

"I want the full use of my senses." Flandry cast him a crooked smile and
patted the warm green shoulder. "I fear I've often strained your
loyalty, old chap. But you haven't failed me yet."

"Thank you, sir." Chives stared hard at his own busy hands. "I ...
endeavor ... to give satisfaction."

Time swooped past.

"Attention!" cried from the screen. "You are off course! You are in
absolutely barred territory!"

"Say on," Flandry jeered. He half hoped to provoke a real response. The
voice only denounced his behavior.

A thump resounded and shivered. The tone of wind and engines ceased.
They were down.

Flandry vaulted from his chair, snatched a combat helmet, buckled it on
as he ran. Beneath it he already wore a mindscreen, as did everybody
aboard. Otherwise he was' attired in a gray coverall and stout leather
boots. On his back and across his chest were the drive cones and
controls of a grav unit. His pouchbelt held field rations, medical
supplies, canteen of water, ammunition, blaster, slugthrower, and
Merseian war knife.

At the head of his dozen Dennitzan marines, he bounded from the main
personnel lock, along the extruded gangway, onto the soil of Chereion.
There he crouched in what shelter the hull afforded and glared around,
fingers on weapons.

After a minute or two he stepped forth. Awe welled in him.

A breeze whispered, blade-sharp with cold and dryness. It bore an iron
tang off uncounted leagues of sand and dust. In cloudless violet, the
sun stood at afternoon, bigger to see than Sol over Terra, duller and
redder than the sun over Diomedes; squinting, he could look straight
into it for seconds without being blinded, and through his lashes find
monstrous dark spots and vortices. It would not set for many an hour,
the old planet turned so wearily.

Shadows were long and purple across the dunes which rolled cinnabar and
ocher to the near horizon. Here and there stood the gnawed stump of a
pinnacle, livid with mineral hues, or a ravine clove a bluff which might
once have been a mountain. The farther desert seemed utterly dead.
Around the city, wide apart, grew low bushes whose leaves glittered in
rainbows as if crystalline. The city itself rose from foundations that
must go far down, must have been buried until the landscape eroded from
around them and surely have needed renewal as the ages swept past.

The city--it was not a giant chaos such as besat Terra or Merseia;
nothing on Chereion was. An ellipse defined it, some ten kilometers at
the widest, proportioned in a right-ness Flandry had recognized from
afar though not knowing how he did. The buildings of the perimeter were
single-storied, slenderly colonnaded; behind them, others lifted ever
higher, until they climaxed in a leap of slim towers. Few windows
interrupted the harmonies of colors and iridescence, the interplay of
geometries that called forth visions of many-vaulted infinity. The heart
rode those lines and curves upward until the whole sight became a silent
music.

Silent ... only the breeze moved or murmured.

A time passed beyond time.

"Milostiv Bog," Lieutenant Vymezal breathed, "is it Heaven we see?"

"Then is Heaven empty?" said another man as low.

Flandry shook himself, wrenched his attention away, sought for his
purposefulness in the ponderous homely shapes of their armor, the guns
and grenades they bore. "Let's find out." His words were harsh and loud
in his ears. "This is as large a community as any, and typical insofar
as I could judge." Not that they are alike. Each is a separate song. "If
it's abandoned, we can assume they all are."

"Why would the Merseians guard ... relics?" Vymezal asked.

"Maybe they don't." Flandry addressed his minicom. "Chives, jump aloft
at the first trace of anything untoward. Fight at discretion. I think we
can maintain radio contact from inside the town. If not, I may ask you
to hover. Are you still getting a transmission?"

"No, sir." That voice came duly small. "It ceased when we landed."

"Cut me in if you do ... Gentlemen, follow me in combat formation.
Should I come to grief, remember your duty is to return to the fleet if
possible, or to cover our boat's retreat if necessary. Forward."

Flandry started off in flat sub-gee bounds. His body felt miraculously
light, as light as the shapes which soared before him, and the air
diamond clear. Yet behind him purred the gravity motors which helped his
weighted troopers along. He reminded himself that they hugged the ground
to present a minimal target, that the space they crossed was
terrifyingly open, that ultimate purity lies in death. The minutes grew
while he covered the pair of kilometers. Half of him stayed cat-alert,
half wished Kossara could somehow, safely, have witnessed this wonder.

The foundations took more and more of the sky, until at last he stood
beneath their sheer cliff. Azure, the material resisted a kick and an
experimental energy bolt with a hardness which had defied epochs. He
whirred upward, over an edge, and stood in the city.

A broad street of the same blue stretched before him, flanked by dancing
rows of pillars and arabesque friezes on buildings which might have been
temples. The farther he scanned, the higher fountained walls, columns,
tiers, cupolas, spires; and each step he took gave him a different
perspective, so that the whole came alive, intricate, simple, powerful,
tranquil, transcendental. But footfalls echoed hollow.

They had gone a kilometer inward when nerves twanged and weapons snapped
to aim. "Hold," Flandry said. The man-sized ovoid that floated from a
side lane sprouted tentacles which ended in tools and sensors. The lines
and curves of it were beautiful. It passed from sight again on its
unnamed errand. "A robot," Flandry guessed. "Fully automated, a city
could last, could function, for--millions of years?" His prosiness felt
to him as if he had spat on consecrated earth.

No, damn it! I'm hunting my woman's murderers.

He trod into a mosaic plaza and saw their forms.

Through an arcade on the far side the tall grave shapes walked,
white-robed, heads bare to let crests shine over luminous eyes and
lordly brows. They numbered perhaps a score. Some carried what appeared
to be books, scrolls, delicate enigmatic objects; some appeared to be in
discourse, mind to mind; some went alone in their meditations. When the
humans arrived, most heads turned observingly. Then, as if having
exhausted what newness was there, the thoughtfulness returned to them
and they went on about their business of--wisdom?

"What'll we do, sir?" Vymezal rasped at Flandry's ear.

"Talk to them, if they'll answer," the Terran said. "Even take them
prisoner, if circumstances warrant."

"Can we? Should we? I came here for revenge, but--God help us, what
filthy monkeys we are."

A premonition trembled in Flandry. "Don't you mean," he muttered, "what
animals we're intended to feel like ... we and whoever they guide this
far?"

He strode quickly across the lovely pattern before him. Under an ogive
arch, one stopped, turned, beckoned, and waited. The sight of gun loose
in holster and brutal forms at his back did not stir the calm upon that
golden face. "Greeting," lulled in Eriau.

Flandry reached forth a hand. The other slipped easily aside from the
uncouth gesture. "I want somebody who can speak for your world," the man
said.

"Any of us can that," sang the reply. "Call me, if you wish, Liannathan.
Have you a name for use?"

"Yes. Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, Imperial Navy of Terra. Your
Aycharaych knows me. Is he around?"

Liannathan ignored the question. "Why do you trouble our peace?"

The chills walked faster along Flandry's spine. "Can't you read that in
my mind?" he asked.

"Sta pakao," said amazement behind him.

"Hush," Vymezal warned the man, his own tone stiff with intensity; and
there was no mention of screens against telepathy.

"We give you the charity of refraining," Liannathan smiled.

To and fro went the philosophers behind him.

"I ... assume you're aware ... a punitive expedition is on its way,"
Flandry said. "My group came to ... parley."

Calm was unshaken. "Think why you are hostile."

"Aren't you our enemies?"

"We are enemies to none. We seek, we shape."

"Let me talk to Aycharaych. I'm certain he's somewhere on Chereion. He'd
have left the Zorian System after word got beamed to him, or he learned
from broadcasts, his scheme had failed. Where else would he go?"

Liannathan curved feathery brows upward. "Best you explain yourself,
Captain, to yourself if not us."

Abruptly Flandry snapped off the switch of his mind-screen. "Read the
answers," he challenged.

Liannathan spread graceful hands in gracious signal. "I told you,
knowing what darkness you must dwell in, for mercy's sake we will leave
your thoughts alone unless you compel us. Speak."

Conviction congealed in Flandry, iceberg huge. "No, you speak. What are
you on Chereion? What do you tell the Merseians? I already know, or
think I know, but tell me."

The response rang grave: "We are not wholly the last of an ancient race;
the others have gone before us. We are those who have not yet reached
the Goal; the bitter need of the universe for help still binds us. Our
numbers are few, we have no need of numbers. Very near we are to those
desires that lie beyond desire, those powers that lie beyond power."
Compassion softened Liannathan's words. "Terran, we mourn the torment of
you and yours. We mourn that you can never feel the final reality, the
spirit born out of pain. We have no wish to return you to nothingness.
Go in love, before too late."

Almost, Flandry believed. His sense did not rescue him; his memories
did. "Yah!" he shouted. "You phantom, stop haunting!"

He lunged. Liannathan wasn't there. He crashed a blaster bolt among the
mystics. They were gone. He leaped in among the red-tinged shadows of
the arcade and peered after light and sound projectors to smash.
Everywhere else, enormous, brooded the stillness of the long afternoon.
The image of a single Chereionite flashed into sight, in brief white
tunic, bearing though not brandishing a sidearm, palm
uplifted--care-worn, as if the bones would break out from the skin, yet
with life in flesh and great garnet eyes such as had never burned in
those apparitions which were passed away. Flandry halted. "Aycharaych!"

He snatched for the switch to turn his mindscreen back on. Aycharaych
smiled. "You need not bother, Dominic," he said in Anglic. "This too is
only a hologram."

"Lieutenant," Flandry snapped over his shoulder, "dispose your squad
against attack."

"Why?" said Aycharaych. The armored men gave him scant notice. His form
glimmered miragelike in the gloom under that vaulted roof, where sullen
sunlight barely reached. "You have discovered we have nothing to resist
you."

You're bound to have something, Flandry did not reply. A few missiles or
whatever. You're just unwilling to use them in these environs. Where are
you yourself, and what were you doing while your specters held us quiet?

As if out of a stranger's throat, he heard: "Those weren't
straightforward audiovisuals like yours that we met, were they? No
reason for them to put on a show of being present, of being real, except
that none of them ever were. Right? They're computer-generated
simulacrums, will-o'-the-wisps for leading allies and enemies alike from
the truth. Well, life's made me an unbeliever.

"Aycharaych, you are in fact the last Chereionite alive. The very last.
Aren't you?"

Abruptly such anguish contorted the face before him that he looked away.
"What did they die of?" he was asking. "How long ago?" He got no answer.

Instead: "Dominic, we share a soul, you and I. We have both always been
alone."

For a while I wasn't; and now she is; she is down in the aloneness which
is eternal. Rage ripped Flandry. He swung back to see a measure of
self-command masking the gaunt countenance. "You must have played your
game for centuries," he grated. "Why? And ... whatever your reason to
hide that your people are extinct ... why prey on the living? You, you
could let them in and show them what'd make your Chereionites the ...
Greeks of the galaxy--but you sit in a tomb or travel like a
vampire--Are you crazy, Aycharaych? Is that what drives you?"

"No!"

Flandry had once before heard the lyric voice in sorrow. He had not
heard a scream: "I am not! Look around you. Who could go mad among
these? And arts, music, books, dreams--yes, more, the loftiest spirits
of a million years--they lent themselves to the scanners, the
recorders--If you could have the likenesses to meet whenever you would
... of Gautama Buddha, Kung Fu-Tse, Rabbi Hillel, Jesus the Christ, Rumi
... Socrates, Newton, Hokusai, Jefferson, Gauss, Beethoven, Einstein,
Ulfgeir, Manuel the Great, Manuel the Wise--would you let your war lords
turn these instruments to their own vile ends? No!"

And Flandry understood.

Did Aycharaych, half blinded by his dead, see what he had given away?
"Dominic," he whispered hastily, shakily, "I've used you ill, as I've
used many. It was from no will of mine. Oh, true, an art, a sport--yours
too--but we had our services, you to a civilization you know is dying, I
to a heritage I know can abide while this sun does. Who has the better
right?" He held forth unsubstantial hands.

"Dominic, stay. We'll think how to keep your ships off and save
Chereion--"

Almost as if he were again the machine that condemned his son, Flandry
said, "I'd have to lure my company into some kind of trap. Merseia would
take the planet back, and the help it gives. Your shadow show would go
on. Right?"

"Yes. What are a few more lives to you? What is Terra? In ten thousand
years, who will remember the empires? They can remember you, though, who
saved Chereion for them."

Candle flames stood around a coffin. Flandry shook his head. "There've
been too many betrayals in too many causes." He wheeled. "Men, we're
returning."

"Aye, sir." The replies shuddered with relief.

Aycharaych's eidolon brought fingers together as if he prayed. Flandry
touched his main grav switch. Thrust pushed harness against breast. He
rose from the radiant city, into the waning murky day. Chill flowed
around him. Behind floated his robot-encased men.

"Brigate!" bawled Vymezal. "Beware!"

Around the topmost tower flashed a score of javelin shapes. Firebeams
leaped out of their nozzles. Remote-controlled flyer guns, Flandry knew.
Does Aycharaych still hope, or does he only want revenge? "Chives," he
called into his sender, "come get us!"

Sparks showered off Vymezal's plate. He slipped aside in midair, more
fast and nimble than it seemed he could be in armor. His energy weapon,
nearly as heavy as the assailants, flared back. Thunders followed
brilliances. Bitterness tinged air. A mobile blast cannon reeled in
midflight, spun downward, crashed in a street, exploded. Fragments
ravaged a fragile facade.

"Shield the captain," Vymezal boomed.

Flandry's men ringed him in. Shots tore at them. The noise stamped in
his skull, the stray heat whipped over his skin. Held to his protection,
the marines could not dodge about. The guns converged.

A shadow fell, a lean hull blocked off the sun. Flames reaped. Echoes
toned at last to silence around smoking ruin down below. Vymezal shouted
triumph. He waved his warriors aside, that Flandry might lead them
through the open lock, into the Hooligan.

Wounded, dwindled, victorious, the Dennitzan fleet took orbits around
Chereion. Within the command bridge, Bodin Miyatovich and his chieftains
stood for a long while gazing into the viewscreens. The planet before
them glowed among the stars, softly, secretly, like a sign of peace. But
it was the pictures they had seen earlier, the tale they had heard,
which made those hard men waver.

Miyatovich even asked through his flagship's rustling stillness: "Must
we bombard?"

"Yes," Flandry said. "I hate the idea too."

Qow of Novi Aferoch stirred. Lately taken off his crippled light
cruiser, he was less informed than the rest. "Can't sappers do what's
needful?" he protested.

"I wish they could," Flandry sighed. "We haven't time. I don't know how
many millennia of history we're looking down on. How can we read them
before the Merseian navy arrives?"

"Are you sure, then, the gain to us can justify a deed which someday
will make lovers of beauty, seekers of knowledge, curse our names?" the
zmay demanded. "Can this really be the center of the opposition's
Intelligence?"

"I never claimed that," Flandry said. "In fact, obviously not. But it
must be important as hell itself. We here can give them no worse setback
than striking it from their grasp."

"Your chain of logic seems thin."

"Of course it is! Were mortals ever certain? But listen again, Qow.

"When the Merseians discovered Chereion, they were already
conquest-hungry. Aycharaych, among the ghosts those magnificent
computers had been raising for him--computers and programs we today
couldn't possibly invent--he saw they'd see what warlike purposes might
be furthered by such an instrumentality. They'd bend it wholly to their
ends, bring their engineers in by the horde, ransack, peer, gut, build
over, leave nothing unwrecked except a few museum scraps. He couldn't
bear the thought of that.

"He stopped them by conjuring up phantoms. He made them think a few
million of his race were still alive, able to give the Roidhunate
valuable help in the form of staff work, while he himself would be a
unique field agent--if they were otherwise left alone. We may never know
how he impressed and tricked those tough-minded fighter lords; he did,
that's all. They believe they have a worldful of enormous intellects for
allies, whom they'd better treat with respect. He draws on a micro part
of the computers, data banks, stored knowledge beyond our imagining, to
generate advice for them ... excellent advice, but they don't suspect
how much more they might be able to get, or by what means.

"Maybe he's had some wish to influence them, as if they learned from
Chereion. Or maybe he's simply been biding his time till they too erode
from his planet."

Flandry was quiet for a few heartbeats before he finished: "Need we care
which, when real people are in danger?"

The Gospodar straightened, walked to an intercom, spoke his orders.

There followed a span while ships chose targets. He and Flandry moved
aside, to stand before a screen showing stars that lay beyond every
known empire. "I own to a desire for vengeance," he confessed. "My
judgment might have been different otherwise."

Flandry nodded. "Me too. That's how we are. If only--No, never mind."

"Do you think we can demolish everything?"

"I don't know. I'm assuming the things we want to kill are under the
cities--some of the cities--and plenty of megatonnage will if nothing
else crumble their caverns around them." Flandry smote a fist hurtfully
against a bulkhead. "I told Qow, we don't ever have more to go on than
guesswork!"

"Still, the best guess is, we'll smash enough of the system--whether or
not we reach Aycharaych himself--"

"For his sake, let's hope we do."

"Are you that forgiving, Dominic? Well, regardless, Intelligence is the
balance wheel of military operations. Merseian Intelligence should be
... not broken, but badly knocked askew ... Will Emperor Hans feel
grateful?"

"Yes, I expect he'll defend us to the limit against the nobles who'll
want our scalps." Flandry wolf-grinned. "In fact, he should welcome such
an issue. The quarrel can force influential appeasers out of his regime.

"And ... he's bound to agree you've proved your case for keeping your
own armed forces."

"So Dennitza stays in the Empire--" Miyatovich laid a hand on his
companion's shoulder. "Between us, my friend, I dare hope myself that
what I care about will still be there when the Empire is gone. However,
that scarcely touches our lifetimes. What do you plan to do with the
rest of yours?"

"Carry on as before," Flandry said.

"Go back to Terra?" The eyes which were like Kossara's searched him. "In
God's name, why?"

Flandry made no response. Shortly sirens whooped and voices crackled.
The bombardment was beginning.

A missile sprang from a ship. Among the stars it flew arrow slim; but
when it pierced air, hurricane furies trailed its mass. That drum-roar
rolled from horizon to horizon beneath the moon, shook apart wind-carven
crags, sent landslides grumbling to the bottoms of canyons. When it
caught the first high dawnlight, the missile turned into a silver comet.
Minutes later it spied the towers and treasures it was to destroy, and
plunged. It had weapons ready against ground defenses; but only the
spires reached gleaming for heaven.

The fireball outshone whole suns. It bloomed so tall and wide that the
top of the atmosphere, too thin to carry it further, became a roof;
therefore it sat for minutes on the curve of the planet, ablaze, before
it faded. Dust then made a thick and deadly night above a crater full of
molten stone. Wrath tolled around the world.

And more strikes came, and more.

Flandry watched. When the hour was ended, he answered Miyatovich: "I
have my own people."

In glory did Gospodar Bodin ride home.

Maidens danced to crown him with flowers. The songs of their joy rang
from the headwaters of the Lyubisha to the waves of the Black Ocean, up
the highest mountains and down the fairest glens; and all the bells of
Zorkagrad pealed until Lake Stoyan gave back their music.

Springtime came, never more sweet, and blossoms well-nigh buried the
tomb which Gospodar Bodin had raised for St. Kossara. There did he often
pray, in after years of his lordship over us; and while he lived, no
foeman troubled the peace she brought us through his valor. Sing, poets,
of his fame and honor! Long may God give us folk like these!

And may they hearten each one of us. For in this is our hope.

Amen