Agent of the Terran Empire

Introduction

Here is a set of swashbuckling, breathtaking adventures among the stars, in the future yet to come. Sir Dominic Flandry, captain in Earth’s Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, schemes and fights his way through a clutch of enemies, human and nonhuman.

At the same time, these stories deal with more than wild battles, hairbreadth escapes, and escapades involving some of the galaxy’s most enticing young ladies. Beneath all the swashbuckling there is a view of history, as it has been and as it perhaps always will be.

The wildest adventures seem to come at two different stages in the life of a civilization. First the adventures come when the civilization is fresh, vigorous, and aggressively expanding. But there is also the time when the civilization is old, when it wants nothing but to be left in peace. Then the ruthless new peoples arise, beyond the imperial borders or even within them. It happened to Egypt , Persia , India , China , Greece , Rome . Someday it may happen to all Earth.

In those eras, someone must man the ramparts. He may be a Roman legionnaire, or he may be an intelligence agent of Terra’s empire among the stars. But he is always a lonely man. Sir Dominic, no grim and humorless professional hero, can crack a joke, hoist a bottle, or kiss a girl with the best of them. But he sees the barbarians pressing inward through the stellar marches. He sees the purpose of the powerful, nonhuman Merseian Empire — to end the uneasy peace with mankind by sweeping mankind aside. And he sees corruption and cowardice at home. If the Long Night is not to come in his own lifetime, if the things he cares about are to be saved, he must do what he can.

And he does it very well — often lethally well. When a gang of atomic-powered savages are unwise enough to kidnap him, they find they have a tiger by the tail. When a traitor begins to intrigue with the enemy, that creature finds himself up against an agent who can out-intrigue him in cards and spades. From world to world Flandry goes, risking his neck time after time, that Earth may live.

—To Ted Cogswell and the ITFCS