The Rebel Worlds

XIV

Again the metal narrowness, chemical-tainted air, incessant beat of driving energies, but also the wintry wonder of stars, the steady brightening of a particular golden point among them. From Virgil to Llynathawr, in this ship, the flit was less than two standard days.

Flandry held captain’s mast. The wardroom was too cramped for everybody, but audiovisual intercoms were tuned. The crew saw him seated, in whites that did not fit well but were nonetheless the full uniform of his rank. Like theirs, his body was gaunt, the bones standing sharply forth in his countenance, the eyes unnaturally luminous by contrast with a skin burned almost black. Unlike most of them, he showed no pleasure in his victory.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “In an irregular situation such as ours, it is necessary to go through various formalities.” He took the depositions which, entered in the log, would retroactively legalize his seizure of Rommel and his status as her master.

“Some among you were put under arrest,” he went on. “That was a precautionary measure. In a civil war, one dares not trust a man without positive confirmation, and obviously I couldn’t plan a surprise move with our entire group. The arrest is hereby terminated and the subjects ordered released. I will specifically record and report that their detention was in no way meant to reflect on their loyalty or competence, and that I recommend every man aboard for promotion and a medal.”

He did not smile when they cheered. His hard monotone went on: “By virtue of the authority vested in me, and in conformance with Naval regulations on extraordinary recruitment, I am swearing the sophont from the planet Dido, known to us by the name Woe, into His Majesty’s armed service on a temporary basis with the rating of common spaceman. In view of the special character of this being, the enrollment shall be entered as that of three new crewpeople.”

Laughter replied. They thought his imp had spoken. They were wrong.

“All detection systems will be kept wide open,” he continued after the brief ceremony. “Instantly upon contact with any Imperial ship, the communications officer will signal surrender and ask for an escort. I daresay we’ll all be arrested when they board us, till our bona fides can be established. However, I trust that by the time we assume Llynathawr orbit, we’ll be cleared.

“A final item. We have an important prisoner aboard. I told Ensign Havelock, who must have told the rest of you, that Lady McCormac will not be returned to the custody of Sector Governor Snelund. Now I want to put the reason on official though secret record, since otherwise our action would be grounds for court-martial.

“It is not in the province of Naval officers to make political decisions. Because of the circumstances about Lady McCormac, including the questionable legality of her original detention, my judgment is that handing her over to His Excellency would be a political decision, fraught with possibly ominous consequences. My duty is to deliver her to Naval authorities who can dispose of her case as they find appropriate. At the same time, we cannot in law refuse a demand for her person by His Excellency.

“Therefore, as master of this vessel, and as an officer of the Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, charged with an informational mission and hence possessed of discretionary powers with respect to confidentiality of data, et cetera, I classify Lady McCormac’s presence among us as a state secret. She will be concealed before we are boarded. No one will mention that she has been along, then or at any future date, until such time as the fact may be granted public release by a qualified governmental agency. To do so will constitute a violation of the laws and rules on security, and subject you to criminal penalties. If asked, you may say that she escaped just before we left Dido. Is that understood?”

Reverberating shouts answered him.

He sat back. “Very well,” he said tiredly. “Resume your stations. Have Lady McCormac brought here for interview.”

He switched off the com. His men departed. I’ve got them in my pocket, he thought. They’d ship out for hell if I were the skipper. He felt no exaltation. I don’t really want another command.

He opened a fresh pack of the cigarets he had found among stocked rations. The room enclosed him in drabness. Under the machine noises and the footfalls outside, silence grew.

But his heart knocked when Kathryn entered. He rose.

She shut the door and stood tall in front of it. Her eyes, alone in the spacecraft, looked on him in scorn. His knife had stayed on her hip.

When she didn’t speak and didn’t speak, he faltered, “I — I hope the captain’s cabin — isn’t too uncomfortable.”

“How do you aim to hide me?” she asked. The voice had its wonted huskiness, and nothing else.

“Mitsui and Petrovic will take the works out of a message capsule. We can pad the casing and tap airholes that won’t be noticed. You can have food and drink and, uh, what else you’ll need. It’ll get boring, lying there in the dark, but shouldn’t be longer than twenty or thirty hours.”

“Then what?”

“If everything goes as I expect, well be ordered into parking orbit around Llynathawr,” he said. “The code teams won’t take much time getting their readouts from our computers. Meanwhile we’ll be interrogated and the men assigned temporarily to Catawrayannis Base till extended leave can be given them. Procedure cut and dried and quick; the Navy’s interested in what we bring, not our adventures while we obtained it. Those can wait for the board of inquiry on Asieneuve’s loss. The immediate thing will be to hit the rebels before they change their code.

“I’ll assert myself as captain of the Rommel, on detached service. My status could be disputed; but in the scramble to organize that attack, I doubt if any bureaucrat will check the exact wording of regs. They’ll be happy to let me have the responsibility for this boat, the more so when my roving commission implies that I need the means to rove.

“As master, I’m required to keep at least two hands on watch. In parking orbit, that’s a technicality, no more. And I’ve seen to it that technically, Woe is three crewmen. I’m reasonably confident I can fast-talk my way out of any objections to heesh. It’s such a minor-looking matter, a method of not tying up two skilled spacers who could be useful elsewhere.

“When you’re alone, heesh will let you out.”

Flandry ran down. He had lectured her in the same way as he might have battered his fists on a steel wall.

“Why?” she said.

“Why what?” He stubbed out his cigaret and reached for another.

“I can understand … maybe … why you did what you’ve done … to Hugh. I wouldn’t ’ve thought it of you, I saw you as brave and good enough to stand for what’s right, but I can imagine that down underneath, your spirit is small.

“But what I can’t understand, can’t grasp,” Kathryn sighed, “is that you — after everything — are bringin’ me back to enslavement. If you hadn’t told Woe to seize me, there’s not a man of your men who wouldn’t’ve turned away while I ran into the forest.”

He could not watch her any longer. “You’re needed,” he mumbled.

“For what? To be wrung dry of what little I know? To be dangled ’fore Hugh in the hope ’twill madden him? To be made an example of? And it doesn’t matter whether ’tis an example of Imperial justice or Imperial mercy, whatever was me will die when they kill Hugh.” She was not crying, not reproaching. Peripherally, he saw her shake her head in a slow, bewildered fashion. “I can’t understand.”

“I don’t believe I’d better tell you yet,” he pleaded. “Too many variables in the equation. Too much improvising to do. But—”

She interrupted. “I’ll play your game, since ’tis the one way I can at least ’scape from Snelund. But I’d rather not be with you.” Her tone continued quiet. “’Twould be a favor if you weren’t by when they put me in that coffin.”

He nodded. She left. Woe’s heavy tread boomed behind her.

Whatever his shortcomings, the governor of Sector Alpha Crucis set a magnificent table. Furthermore, he was a charming host, with a rare gift for listening as well as making shrewd and witty comments. Though most of Flandry crouched like a panther behind his smile, a part reveled in this first truly civilized meal in months.

He finished his narrative of events on Dido as noiseless live servants cleared away the last golden dishes, set forth brandy and cigars, and disappeared. “Tremendous!” applauded Snelund. “Utterly fascinating, that race. Did you say you brought one back? I’d like to meet the being.”

“That’s easily arranged, Your Excellency,” Flandry said. “More easily than you perhaps suspect.”

Snelund’s brows moved very slightly upward, his fingers tensed the tiniest bit on the stem of his snifter. Flandry relaxed, inhaled the bouquet of his own drink, twirled it to enjoy the play of color within the liquid, and sipped in conscious counterpoint to the background lilt of music.

They sat on an upper floor of the palace. The chamber was not large, but graciously proportioned and subtly tinted. A wall had been opened to the summer evening. Air wandered in from the gardens bearing scents of rose, jasmine, and less familiar blossoms. Downhill glistered the city, lights in constellations and fountains, upward radiance of towers, firefly dance of arrears. Traffic sounds were a barely perceptible murmur. You had trouble believing that all around and spilling to the stars, it roared with preparations for war.

Nor was Snelund laying on any pressure. Flandry might have removed Kathryn McCormac hence for “special interrogation deemed essential to the maximization of success probability on a surveillance mission” in sheer impudence. He might have lost first his ship and last his prisoner in sheer carelessness. But after he came back with a booty that should allow Admiral Pickens to give the rebellion a single spectacular deathblow, without help from Terra and with no subsequent tedious inspection of militia operations, the governor could not well be aught but courteous to the man who saved his political bacon.

Nevertheless, when Flandry requested a secret talk, it had not been with the expectation of dinner tête-à-tête.

“Indeed?” Snelund breathed.

Flandry glanced across the table at him: wavy, fiery hair, muliebrile countenance, gorgeous purple and gold robe, twinkle and shimmer of jewelry. Behind that, Flandry thought, were a bowel and a skull.

“The thing is, sir,” he said, “I had a delicate decision to make.”

Snelund nodded, smiling but with a gaze gone flat and hard as two stones. “I suspected that, Commander. Certain aspects of your report and behavior, certain orders you issued with a normally needless haste and authoritative ring, were not lost on me. You have me to thank for passing the word that I felt you should not be argued with. I was, ah, curious as to what you meant.”

“I do thank Your Excellency.” Flandry started his cigar. “This matter’s critical to you too, sir. Let me remind you of my dilemma on Dido. Lady McCormac became extremely popular with my men.”

“Doubtless.” Snelund laughed. “I taught her some unusual tricks.”

I have no weapons under this blue and white dress uniform, Aaron Snelund. I have nothing but my hands and feet. And a black belt in karate, plus training in other techniques. Except for unfinished business, I’d merrily let myself be executed, in fair trade for the joy of dismantling you.

Because the creature must recall what her soul had been like when he flayed it open, and might be probing veracity now, Flandry gave him a sour grin. “No such luck, sir. She even refused my proposition, which fact I pray you to declare a top secret. But — well, there she was, the only woman, handsome, able, bright. Toward the end, most were a touch in love with her. She’d spread the impression that her stay here had been unpleasant. To be frank, sir, I feared a mutiny if the men expected she’d be remanded to you. Bringing in the code was too crucial to risk.”

“So you connived at her escape.” Snelund sipped. “That’s tacitly realized by everyone, Commander. A sound judgment, whether or not we dare put it in the record. She can be tracked down later.”

“But sir, I didn’t.”

“What!” Snelund sat bolt erect.

Flandry said fast: “Let’s drop the euphemisms, sir. She made some extremely serious accusations against you. Some people might use them to buttress a claim that your actions were what caused this rebellion. I didn’t want that. If you’ve read much history, you’ll agree nothing works like a Boadicea — no? — a martyr, especially an attractive female martyr, to create trouble. The Empire would suffer. I felt it was my duty to keep her. To get the men’s agreement, I had to convince them she would not be returned here. She’d go to a Naval section, where rules protect prisoners and testimony isn’t likely to be suppressed.”

Snelund had turned deadpan. “Continue,” he said.

Flandry sketched his means of smuggling her in. “The fleet should be assembled and ready to depart for Satan in about three days,” he finished, “now that scouts have verified the enemy is still using the code I brought. I’m not expected to accompany it. I am expected, though, by my men, to obtain orders for myself that will send the Rommel to Ifri, Terra, or some other place where she’ll be safe. They’ll have ways of finding out whether I do. You know how word circulates in any set of offices. If I don’t — I’m not sure that secrecy will bind every one of those lads. And disclosure would inconvenience you, sir, at this highly critical time.”

Snelund drained his brandy glass and refilled it. The little glug-glug sounded loud across the music. “Why do you tell me?”

“Because of what I’ve said. As a patriot, I can’t allow anything that might prolong the rebellion.”

Snelund studied him. “And she refused you?” he said at length.

Spite etched Flandry’s tones. “I don’t appreciate that, from third-hand goods like her.” With quick smoothness: “But this is beside the point. My obligation … to you, Your Excellency, as well as to the Imperium—”

“Ah, yes.” Snelund eased. “It does no harm to have a man in your debt who is on his way up, does it?”

Flandry looked smug.

“Yes-s-s, I think we resonate, you and I,” Snelund said. “What is your suggestion?”

“Well,” Flandry replied, “as far as officialdom knows, Rommel contains no life other than my multiple Didonian. And heesh will never talk. If my orders were cut tonight — not specifically to anywhere, let’s say, only for ‘reconnaissance and report at discretion, employing minimal crew’ — a phone call by Your Excellency to someone on Admiral Bickens’ staff would take care of that — I could go aboard and depart. My men would relax about Lady McCormac. When they haven’t heard news of her in a year or two — well, reassignment will have scattered them and feelings will have cooled. Oblivion is a most valuable servant, Your Excellency.”

“Like yourself,” Snelund beamed. “I do believe our careers are going to be linked, Commander. If I can trust you—”

“Come see for yourself,” Flandry proposed.

“Eh?”

“You said you’d be interested in meeting my Didonian anyway. It can be discreet. I’ll give you the Rommel’s orbital elements and you go up alone in your flitter, not telling anybody where you’re bound.” Flandry blew a smoke ring. “You might like to take personal charge of the execution. To make sure it’s done in a manner suitable to the crime. We could have hours.”

Then he waited.

Until sweat made beads on Snelund’s skin and an avid voice said, “Yes!”

Flandry hadn’t dared hope to catch the prize for which he angled. Had he failed, he would have made it his mission in life to accomplish the same result by other methods. The fact left him feeling so weak and lightheaded that he wondered vaguely if he could walk out of there.

He did, after a period of conference and arrangement-making. A gubernatorial car delivered him at Catawrayannis Base, where he changed into working garb, accepted his orders, and got a flitter to the Rommel.

Time must be allowed for that craft to descend again, lest the pilot notice another and ornate one lay alongside. Flandry sat on the bridge, alone with his thoughts. The viewscreen showed him planet and stars, a huge calm beauty.

Vibration sounded in the metal, as airlocks joined and magnetronic grapples made fast. Flandry went down to admit his guest.

Snelund came through the airlock breathing hard. He carried a surgical kit. “Where is she?” he demanded.

“This way, sir.” Flandry let him go ahead. He did not appear to have noticed Flandry’s gun, packed in case of bodyguards. There weren’t any. They might have gossiped.

Woe stood outside the captain’s cabin. Xenological interest or no, Snelund barely glanced at heesh and jittered while Flandry said in pidgin: “Whatever you hear, stay where you are until I command you otherwise.”

The noga’s horn dipped in acknowledgment. The ruka touched the ax at his side. The krippo sat like a bird of prey.

Flandry opened the door. “I brought you a visitor, Kathryn,” he said.

She uttered a noise that would long run through his nightmares. His Merseian war knife flew into her hand.

He wrenched the bag from Snelund and pinioned the man in a grip that was not to be shaken. Kicking the door shut behind him, he said, “Any way you choose, Kathryn. Any way at all.”

Snelund began screaming.