A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

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.