Agent of the Terran Empire

I

The door swung open behind him and a voice murmured gently: “Good evening, Captain Flandry.”

He spun around, grabbing for his stun pistol in a wild reflex, and found himself looking down the muzzle of a blaster. Slowly, then, he let his hands fall and stood taut, his eyes searching beyond the weapon, and the slender six-fingered hand that held it, to the tall gaunt body and the sardonically smiling face behind.

The face was humanoid — lean, hawk-nosed, golden-skinned, with brilliant amber eyes under feathery blue brows, and a high crest of shining blue feathers rising from the narrow hairless skull. The being was dressed in the simple white tunic of his people, leaving his clawed avian feet bare, but insignia of rank hung bejeweled around his neck and a cloak like a gush of blood from his wide shoulders.

But they’d all been occupied elsewhere — Flandry had seen to that. What had slipped up—?

With an effort, Flandry relaxed and let a wry smile cross his face. Never mind who was to blame; he was trapped in the Merseian chambers and had to think of a way to escape with a whole skin. His mind whirred with thought. Memory came — this was Aycharaych of Chereion, who had come to join the Merseian embassy only a few days before, presumably on some mission corresponding to Flandry’s.

“Pardon the intrusion,” he said; “it was purely professional. No offense meant.”

“And none taken,” said Aycharaych politely. He spoke faultless Anglic, only the faintest hint of his race’s harsh accent in the syllables. But courtesy between spies was meaningless. It would be too easy to blast down the intruder and later express his immense regret that he had shot down the ace intelligence officer of the Terrestrial Empire under the mistaken impression that it was a burglar.

Somehow, though, Flandry didn’t think that the Chereionite would be guilty of such crudeness. His mysterious people were too old, too coldly civilized, and Aycharaych himself had too great a reputation for subtlety. Flandry had heard of him before; he would be planning something worse.

“That is quite correct,” nodded Aycharaych. Flandry started — could the being guess his exact thoughts? “But if you will pardon my saying so, you yourself have committed a bit of clumsiness in trying to search our quarters. There are better ways of getting information.”

Flandry gauged distances and angles. A vase on a table stood close to hand. If he could grab it up and throw it at Aycharaych’s gun hand—

The blaster waved negligently. “I would advise against the attempt,” said the Chereionite.

He stood aside. “Good evening, Captain Flandry,” he said.

The Terran moved toward the door. He couldn’t let himself be thrown out this way, not when his whole mission depended on finding out what the Merseians were up to. If he could make a sudden lunge as he passed close—

He threw himself sideways with a twisting motion that brought him under the blaster muzzle. Hampered by a greater gravity than the folk of his small planet were used to, Aycharaych couldn’t dodge quickly enough. But he swung the blaster with a vicious precision across Flandry’s jaw. The Terran stumbled, clasping the Chereionite’s narrow waist. Aycharaych slugged him at the base of the skull and he fell to the floor.

He lay there a moment, gasping, blood running from his face. Aycharaych’s voice jeered at him from a roaring darkness: “Really, Captain Flandry, I had thought better of you. Now please leave.”

Sickly, the Terran crawled to his feet and went out the door.

Aycharaych stood in the entrance watching him go, a faint smile on his hard, gaunt visage.

Flandry went down endless corridors of polished stone to the suite given the Terrestrial mission. Most of them were at the feast, the ornate rooms stood almost empty. He threw himself into a chair and signaled his personal slave for a drink. A stiff one.

There was a light step and the suggestive whisper of a long silkite skirt behind him. He looked around and saw Aline Chang-Lei, the Lady Marr of Syrtis, his partner on the mission and one of Sol’s top field agents for intelligence.

She was tall and slender, dark of hair and eye, with the high cheekbones and ivory skin of a mixed heritage such as most Terrans showed these days; her sea-blue gown did little more than emphasize the appropriate features. Flandry liked to look at her, though he was pretty well immune to beautiful women by now.

“What was the trouble?” she asked at once.

“What brings you here?” he responded. “I thought you’d be at the party, helping distract everyone.”

“I just wanted to rest for a while,” she said. “Official functions at Sol get awfully dull and stuffy, but they go to the other extreme at Betelgeuse. I wanted to hear silence for a while.” And then, with grave concern: “But you ran into trouble.”

“How the hell it happened, I can’t imagine,” said Flandry “Look — we prevailed on the Sartaz to throw a brawl with everybody invited. We made double sure that every Merseian on the planet would be there. They’d trust to their robolocks to keep their quarters safe — they have absolutely no way of knowing that I’ve found a way to nullify a robolock. So what happens? I no sooner get inside than Aycharaych of Chereion walks in with a blaster in his hot little hand. He anticipates everything I try and finally shows me the door. Finis.”

“Aycharaych — I’ve heard the name somewhere. But it doesn’t sound Merseian.”

“It isn’t. Chereion is an obscure but very old planet in the Merseian Empire. Its people have full citizenship with the dominant race, just as our empire grants Terrestrial citizenship to many nonhumans. Aycharaych is one of Merseia’s leading intelligence agents. Few people have heard of him, precisely because he is so good. I’ve never clashed with him before, though.”

“I know whom you mean now,” she nodded. “If he’s as you say, and he’s here on Alfzar, it isn’t good news.”

Flandry shrugged. “We’ll just have to take him into account, then. As if this mission weren’t tough enough!”

He got up and walked to the balcony window. The two moons of Alfzar were up, pouring coppery light on the broad reach of the palace gardens. The warm wind blew in with scent of strange flowers that had never bloomed under Sol and they caught the faint sound of the weird, tuneless music which the monarch of Betelgeuse favored.

For a moment, as he looked at the ruddy moonlight and the thronging stars, Flandry felt a wave of discouragement. The Galaxy was too big. Even the four million stars of the Terrestrial Empire were too many for one man ever to know in a lifetime. And there were the rival imperia out in the darkness of space, Gorrazan and Ythri and Merseia, like a hungry beast of prey — Too much, too much. The individual counted for too little in the enormous chaos which was modern civilization. He thought of Aline — it was her business to know who such beings as Aycharaych were, but one human skull couldn’t hold a universe; knowledge and power were lacking.

Too many mutually alien races; too many forces clashing in space, and so desperately few who comprehended the situation and tried their feeble best to help — naked hands battering at an avalanche as it ground down on them.

Aline came over and took his arm. Her face turned up to his, vague in the moonlight, with a look he knew too well. He’d have to avoid her, when or if they got back to Terra; he didn’t want to hurt her but neither could he be tied to any single human.

“You’re discouraged with one failure?” she asked lightly. “Dominic Flandry, the single-handed conqueror of Scothania, worried by one skinny bird-being?”

“I just don’t see how he knew I was going to search his place,” muttered Flandry. “I’ve never been caught that way before, not even when I was the worst cub in the Service. Some of our best men have gone down before Aycharaych. I’m convinced MacMurtrie’s disappearance at Polaris was his work. Maybe it’s our turn now.”

“Oh, come off it,” she laughed. “You must have been drinking sorgan when they told you about him.”

“Sorgan?” His brows lifted.

“Ah, now I can tell you something you don’t know.” She was trying desperately hard to be gay. “Not that it’s very important; I only happened to hear of it while talking with one of the Alfzarian narcotics detail. It’s a drug produced on one of the planets here — Cingetor, I think — with the curious property of depressing certain brain centers such that the victim loses all critical sense. He has absolute faith in whatever he’s told.”

“Hm. Could be useful in our line of work.”

“Not very. Hypnoprobes are better for interrogation, and there are more reliable ways of producing fanatics. The drug has an antidote which also confers permanent immunity. So it’s not much use, really, and the Sartaz has suppressed its manufacture.”

“I should think our Intelligence would like to keep a little on hand, just in case,” he said thoughtfully. “And of course certain nobles in all the empires, ours included, would find it handy for purposes of seduction.”

“What are you thinking of?” she teased him.

“Nothing; I don’t need it,” he said smugly.

The digression had shaken him out of his dark mood. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go join the party.”

She went along at his side. There was a speculative look about her.

II

Usually the giant stars have many planets, and Betelgeuse, with forty-seven, is no exception. Of these, six have intelligent native races, and the combined resources of the whole system are considerable, even in a civilization used to thinking in terms of thousands of stars.

When the first Terrestrial explorers arrived, almost a thousand years previously, they found that the people of Alfzar had already mastered interplanetary travel and were in the process of conquering the other worlds — a process speeded up by their rapid adoption of the more advanced human technology. However, they had not attempted to establish an empire on the scale of Sol or Merseia, contenting themselves with maintaining hegemony over enough neighbor suns to protect their home. There had been clashes with the expanding powers around them, but generations of wily Sartazes had found it profitable to play their potential enemies off against each other; and the great states had, in turn, found it expedient to maintain Betelgeuse as a buffer against their rivals and against the peripheral barbarians.

But the gathering tension between Terra and Merseia had raised Betelgeuse to a position of critical importance. Lying squarely between the two great empires, she was in a position with her powerful fleet to command the most direct route between them and, if allied with either one, to strike at the heart of the other. If Merseia could get the alliance, it would very probably be the last preparation she considered necessary for war with Terra. If Terra could get it, Merseia would suddenly be in a deteriorated position and would almost have to make concessions.

So both empires had missions on Alfzar trying to persuade the Sartaz of the rightness of their respective causes and the immense profits to be had by joining. Pressure was being applied wherever possible; officials were lavishly bribed; spies were swarming through the system getting whatever information they could and — of course — being immediately disowned by their governments if they were caught.

It was normal diplomatic procedure, but its critical importance had made the Service send two of its best agents, Flandry and Aline, to Betelgeuse to do what they could in persuading the Sartaz, finding out his weaknesses, and throwing as many monkey wrenches as possible into the Merseian activities. Aline was especially useful in working on the many humans who had settled in the system long before and become citizens of the kingdom; quite a few of them held important positions in the government and the military. Flandry—

And now, it seemed, Merseia had called in her top spy, and the subtle, polite, and utterly deadly battle was on.

The Sartaz gave a hunting party for his distinguished guests. It pleased his sardonic temperament to bring enemies together under conditions where they had to be friendly to each other. Most of the Merseians must have been pleased, too; hunting was their favorite sport. The more citified Terrestrials were not at all happy about it, but they could hardly refuse.

Flandry was especially disgruntled at the prospect. He had never cared for physical exertion, though he kept in trim as a matter of necessity. And he had too much else to do.

Too many things were going disastrously wrong. The network of agents, both Imperial and bribed Betelgeusean — who ultimately were under his command — were finding the going suddenly rugged. One after another, they disappeared; they walked into Merseian or Betelgeusean traps; they found their best approaches blocked by unexpected watchfulness. Flandry couldn’t locate the source of the difficulty, but since it had begun with Aycharaych’s arrival, he could guess. The Chereionite was too damned smart to be true. Sunblaze, it just wasn’t possible that anyone could have known about those Jurovian projects, or that Yamatsu’s hiding place should have been discovered, or — And now this damned hunting party! Flandry groaned.

His slave roused him in the dawn. Mist, tinged with blood by the red sun, drifted through the high windows of his suite. Someone was blowing a horn somewhere, a wild call in the vague mysterious light, and he heard the growl of engines warming up.

“Sometimes,” he muttered sourly, “I feel like going to the Emperor and telling him where to put our beloved Empire.”

Breakfast made the universe slightly more tolerable. Flandry dressed with his usual finicky care in an ornate suit of skintight green and a golden cloak with hood and goggles, hung a needle gun and dueling sword at his waist, and let the slave trim his reddish-brown mustache to the micrometric precision he demanded. Then he went down long flights of marble stairs, past royal guards in helmet and corselet, to the courtyard.

The hunting party was gathering. The Sartaz himself was present, a typical Alfzarian humanoid — short, stocky, hairless, blue-skinned, with huge yellow eyes in the round, blunt-faced head. Other nobles of Alfzar and its fellow planets were present, more guardsmen, a riot of color in the brightening dawn. There were the members of the regular Terrestrial embassy and the special mission, a harried and unhappy looking crew. And there were the Merseians.

Flandry gave them all formal geetings. After all, Terra and Merseia were nominally at peace, however many men were being shot and cities burning on the marches. His gray eyes looked sleepy and indifferent but they missed no detail of the enemy’s appearance.

The Merseian nobles glanced at him with the thinly covered contempt they had for all humans. They were mammals, but with more traces of reptilian ancestry in them than Terrans showed. A huge-thewed two meters they stood, with a spiny ridge running from forehead to the end of the long, thick tail which they could use to such terrible effect in hand-to-hand battle. Their hairless skins were pale green, faintly scaled, but their massive faces were practically human. Arrogant black eyes under heavy brow ridges met Flandry’s gaze with a challenge.

I can understand that they despise us, he thought. Their civilization is young and vigorous, its energies turned ruthlessly outward; Terra is old, satiated — decadent. Our whole policy is directed toward maintaining the galactic status quo, not because we love peace but because we’re comfortable the way things are. We stand in the way of Merseia’s dream of an all-embracing galactic empire. We’re the first ones they have to smash.

I wonder — historically, they may be on the right side. But Terra has seen too much bloodshed in her history, has too wise and weary a view of life. We’ve given up seeking perfection and glory; we’ve learned that they’re chimerical — but that knowledge is a kind of death within us.

Still — I certainly don’t want to see planets aflame and humans enslaved and an alien culture taking up the future. Terra is willing to compromise; but the only compromise Merseia will ever make is with overwhelming force. Which is why I’m here.

A stir came in the streaming red mist, and Aycharaych’s tall form was beside him. The Chereionite smiled amiably. “Good morning, Captain Flandry,” he said.

“Oh — good morning,” said Flandry, starting. The avian unnerved him. For the first time, he had met his professional superior, and he didn’t like it.

But he couldn’t help liking Aycharaych personally. As they stood waiting, they fell to talking of Polaris and its strange worlds, from which the conversation drifted to the comparative xenology of intelligent primitives throughout the galaxy. Aycharaych had a vast fund of knowledge and a wry humor matching Flandry’s. When the horn blew for assembly, they exchanged the regretful glance of brave enemies. It’s too bad we have to be on opposite sides. If things had been different —

But they weren’t.

The hunters strapped themselves into their tiny one-man airjets. Each had a needle-beam projector in the nose, not too much armament when you hunted the Borthudian dragons. Flandry thought that the Sartaz would be more than pleased if the game disposed of some of his guests.

The squadron lifted into the sky and streaked northward for the mountains. Fields and forests lay in dissolving fog below them, and the enormous red disc of Betelgeuse was rising into a purplish sky. Despite himself, Flandry enjoyed the reckless speed and the roar of cloven air around him. It was godlike, this rushing over the world to fight the monsters at its edge.

In a couple of hours, they raised the Borthudian mountains, gaunt windy peaks rearing into the upper sky, the snow on their flanks like blood in the ominous light. Signals began coming over the radio; scouts had spotted dragons here and there, and jet after jet broke away to pursue them. Presently Flandry found himself alone with one other vessel.

As they hummed over fanged crags and swooping canyons, he saw two shadows rise from the ground and his belly muscles tightened. Dragons!

The monsters were a good ten meters of scaled, snake-like length, with jaws and talons to rend steel. Huge leathery wings bore them aloft, riding the wind with lordly arrogance as they hunted the great beasts that terrorized villagers but were their prey.

Flandry kicked over his jet and swooped for one of them. It grew monstrously in his sights. He caught the red glare of its eyes as it banked to meet him. No running away here; the dragons had never learned to be afraid. It rose against him.

He squeezed his trigger and a thin sword of energy leaped out to burn past the creature’s scales into its belly. The dragon held to its collision course. Flandry rolled out of its way. The mighty wings clashed meters from him.

He had not allowed for the tail. It swung savagely and the blow shivered the teeth in his skull. The airjet reeled and went into a spin. The dragon stooped down on it and the terrible claws ripped through the thin hull.

Wildly, Flandry slammed over his controls, tearing himself loose. He barrel-rolled, metal screaming as he swung about to meet the charge. His needle beam lashed into the open jaws and the dragon stumbled in midnight . Flandry pulled away and shot again, flaying one of the wings.

He could hear the dragon’s scream. It rushed straight at him, swinging with fantastic speed and precision as he sought to dodge. The jaws snapped together and a section of hull skin was torn from the framework. Wind came in to sear the man with numbing cold.

Recklessly, he dove to meet the plunging monster, his beam before him like a lance. The dragon recoiled. With a savage grin, Flandry pursued, slashing and tearing.

The torn airjet handled clumsily. In midflight, it lurched and the dragon was out of his sights. Its wings buffeted him and he went spinning aside with the dragon after him.

The damned thing was forcing him toward the cragged mountainside. Its peaks reached hungrily after him, and the wind seemed to be a demon harrying him closer to disaster. He swung desperately, aware with sudden grimness that it had become a struggle for life with the odds on the dragon’s side.

If this was the end, to be shattered against a mountain and eaten by his own quarry — He fought for control.

The dragon was almost on him, rushing down like a thunderbolt. It could survive a collision, but the jet would be knocked to earth. Flandry fired again, struggling to pull free. The dragon swerved and came on in the very teeth of his beam.

Suddenly it reeled and fell aside. The other jet was on it from behind, raking it with deadly precision. Flandry thought briefly that the remaining dragon must be dead or escaped and now its hunter had come to his aid — all the gods bless him, whoever he was!

Even as he watched, the dragon fell to earth, writhing and snapping as it did. It crashed onto a ledge and lay still.

Flandry brought his jet to a landing nearby. He was shaking with reaction, but his chief emotion was a sudden overwhelming sadness. There went another brave creature down into darkness, wiped out by a senseless history that seemed only to have the objective of destroying. He raised a hand in salute as he grounded.

The other jet had already landed a few meters off. As Flandry opened his cockpit canopy, its pilot stepped out.

Aycharaych.

The man’s reaction was almost instantaneous. Gratitude and honor had no part in the Service. Here was his greatest enemy, all unsuspecting, and it would be the simplest thing in the world to shoot him down. Aycharaych of Chereion, lost in a hunt for dangerous game, too bad — and remorse could come later, when there was time—

His needle pistol was halfway from the holster when Aycharaych’s weapon was drawn. Through the booming wind, he heard the alien’s quiet voice: “No.”

He raised his own hands, and his smile was bitter. “Go ahead,” he invited. “You’ve got the drop on me.”

“Not at all,” said Aycharaych. “Believe me, Captain Flandry, I will never kill you except in self-defense. But since I will always be forewarned of your plans, you may as well abandon them.”

The man nodded, too weary to feel the shock of the revelation which was here. “Thanks,” he said. “For saving my life, that is.”

“You’re too useful to die,” replied Aycharaych candidly, “but I’m glad of it.”

They took the dragon’s head and flew slowly back toward the palace. Flandry’s mind whirled with a gathering dismay.

There was only one way in which Aycharaych could have known of the murder plan, when it had sprung into instantaneous being. And that same fact explained how he knew of every activity and scheme the Terrestrials tried, and how he could frustrate every one of them while his own work went on unhampered.

Aycharaych could read minds!

III

Aline’s face was white and tense in the red light that streamed into the room. “No,” she whispered.

“Yes,” said Flandry grimly. “It’s the only answer.”

“But telepathy — everyone knows its limitations—”

Flandry nodded. “The mental patterns of different races are so alien that a telepath who can sense them has to learn a different ‘language’ for every species — in fact, for every individual among non-telepathic peoples, whose minds, lacking mutual contact, develop purely personal thought-types. Even then it’s irregular and unreliable. I’ve never let myself be studied by any telepath not on our side, so I’d always considered myself safe.

“But Chereion is a very old planet. Its people have the reputation among the more superstitious Merseians of being sorcerers. Actually, of course, it’s simply that they’ve discovered certain things about the nervous system which nobody else suspects yet. Somehow, Aycharaych must be able to detect some underlying resonance-pattern common to all intelligent beings.

“I’m sure he can only read surface thoughts, those in the immediate consciousness. Otherwise he’d have found out so much from all the Terrans with whom he must have had contact that Merseia would be ruling Sol by now. But that’s bad enough!”

Aline said drearily, “No wonder he spared your life; you’ve become the most valuable man on his side!”

“And not a thing I can do about it,” said Flandry. “He sees me every day. I don’t know what the range of his mind is — probably only a few meters; it’s known that all mental pulses are weak and fade rapidly with distance. But in any case, every time he meets me he skims my mind, reads all my plans — I just can’t help thinking about them all the time — and takes action to forestall them.”

“We’ll have to get the Imperial scientists to work on a thought screen.”

“Of course. But that doesn’t help us now.”

“Couldn’t you just avoid him, stay in your rooms—”

“Sure. And become a complete cipher. I have to get around, see my agents and the rulers of Betelgeuse, learn facts and keep my network operating. And every single thing I learn is just so much work done for Aycharaych — with no effort on his part.” Flandry puffed a cigaret into lighting and blew nervous clouds of smoke. “What to do, what to do?”

“Whatever we do,” said Aline, “it has to be fast. The Sartaz is getting more and more cool toward our people. While we blunder and fail, Aycharaych is working — bribing, blackmailing, influencing one key official after another. We’ll wake up some fine morning to find ourselves under arrest and Betelgeuse the loyal ally of Merseia.”

“Fine prospect,” said Flandry bitterly.

The waning red sunlight streamed through his windows, throwing pools of dried blood on the floor. The palace was quiet, the nobles resting after the hunt, the servants scurrying about preparing the night’s feast. Flandry looked around at the weird decorations, at the unearthly light and the distorted landscape beyond the windows. Strange world under a strange sun, and himself the virtual prisoner of its alien and increasingly hostile people. He had a sudden wild feeling of being trapped.

“I suppose I should be spinning some elaborate counterplot,” he said hopelessly. “And then, of course, I’ll have to go down to the banquet and let Aycharaych read every detail of it — every little thing I know, laid open to his eyes because I just can’t suppress my own thoughts—”

Aline’s eyes widened, and her slim hand tightened over his. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s your idea?”

“Oh — nothing, Dominic, nothing.” She smiled. “I have some direct contact with Sol and—”

“You never told me that.”

“No reason for you to know it. I was just wondering if I should report this new trouble or not. Galaxy knows how those muddle-headed bureaucrats will react to the news. Probably yank us back and cashier us for incompetence.”

She leaned closer and her words came low and urgent. “Go find Aycharaych, Dominic. Talk to him, keep him busy, don’t let him come near me to interfere. He’ll know what you’re doing, naturally, but he won’t be able to do much about it if you’re as clever a talker as they say. Make some excuse for me tonight, too, so I don’t have to attend the banquet — tell them I’m sick or something. Keep him away from me!”

“Sure,” he said with a little of his old spirit. “But whatever you’re hatching in that lovely head, be quick about it. He’ll get at you mighty soon, you know.”

He got up and left. She watched him go, with a dawning smile on her lips.

Flandry was more than a little drunk when the party ended. Wine flowed freely at a Betelgeusean banquet, together with music, food, and dancing girls of every race present. He had enjoyed himself — in spite of everything — most of all, he admitted, he’d enjoyed talking to Aycharaych. The being was a genius of the first order in almost every field, and it had been pleasant to forget the dreadfully imminent catastrophe for a while.

He entered his chambers. Aline stood by a little table, and the muted light streamed off her unbound hair and the shimmering robe she wore. Impulsively, he kissed her.

“Goodnight, honey,” he said. “It was nice of you to wait for me.”

She didn’t leave for her own quarters. Instead, she held out one of the ornate goblets on the table. “Have a nightcap, Dominic,” she invited.

“No, thanks. I’ve had entirely too many.”

“For me.” She smiled irresistibly. He clinked glasses with her and let the dark wine go down his throat.

It had a peculiar taste, and suddenly he felt dizzy, the room wavered and tilted under him. He sat down on his bed until it had passed, but there was an — oddness — in his head that wouldn’t go away.

“Potent stuff,” he muttered.

“We don’t have the easiest job in the world,” said Aline softly. “We deserve a little relaxation.” She sat down beside him. “Just tonight, that’s all we have. Tomorrow is another day, and a worse day.”

He would never have agreed before, his nature was too cool and self-contained, but now it was all at once utterly reasonable. He nodded.

“And you love me, you know,” said Aline.

And he did.

Much later, she leaned close against him in the dark, her hair brushing his cheek, and whispered urgently: “Listen, Dominic, I have to tell you this regardless of the consequences; you have to be prepared for it.”

He stiffened with a return of the old tension. Her voice went on, a muted whisper in the night: “I’ve contacted Sol by courier robot and gotten in touch with Fenross. He has brains, and he saw at once what must be done. It’s a poor way, but the only way.

“The fleet is already bound for Betelgeuse. The Merseians think most of our strength is concentrated near Llynathawr, but that’s just a brilliant piece of deception — Fenross’ work. Actually, the main body is quite near, and they’ve got a new energy screen that’ll let them slip past the Betelgeusean cordon without being detected. The night after tomorrow, a strong squadron will land in Gunazar Valley , in the Borthudians, and establish a beachhead. A detachment will immediately move to occupy the capital and capture the Sartaz and his court.”

Flandry lay rigid with shock. “But this means war!” he strangled. “Merseia will strike at once, and we’ll have to fight Betelgeuse too.”

“I know. But the Imperium has decided we’ll have a better chance this way. Otherwise, it looks as if Betelgeuse will go to the enemy by default.

“It’s up to us to keep the Sartaz and his court from suspecting the truth till too late. We have to keep them here at the palace. The capture of the leaders of an absolute monarchy is always a disastrous blow. Fenross and Walton think Betelgeuse will surrender before Merseia can get here.

“By hook or crook, Dominic, you’ve got to keep them unaware. That’s your job; at the same time, keep on distracting Aycharaych, keep him off my neck.”

She yawned and kissed him. “Better go to sleep now,” she said. “We’ve got a tough couple of days ahead of us.”

He couldn’t sleep. He got up when she was breathing quietly and walked over to the balcony. The knowledge was staggering. That the Empire, the bungling decadent Empire, could pull such a stroke and hope to get away with it!

Something stirred in the garden below. The moonlight was dim red on the figure that paced between two Merseian bodyguards. Aycharaych!

Flandry stiffened in dismay. The Chereionite looked up and he saw the wise smile on the telepath’s face. He knew.

In the following two days, Flandry worked as he had rarely worked before. There wasn’t much physical labor involved, but he had to maintain a web of complications such that the Sartaz would have no chance for a private audience with any Merseian and would not leave the capital on one of his capricious journeys. There was also the matter of informing such Betelgeusean traitors as were on his side to be ready, and—

It was nerve-shattering. To make matters worse, something was wrong with him: clear thought was an effort; he had a new and disastrous tendency to take everything at face value. What had happened to him?

Aycharaych excused himself on the morning after Aline’s revelation and disappeared. He was out arranging something hellish for the Terrans when they arrived, and Flandry could do nothing about it. But at least it left him and Aline free to carry on their own work.

He knew the Merseian fleet could not get near Betelgeuse before the Terrans landed. It is simply not possible to conceal the approximate whereabouts of a large fighting force from the enemy. How it had been managed for Terra, Flandry couldn’t imagine. He supposed that it would not be too large a task force which was to occupy Alfzar — but that made its mission all the more precarious.

The tension gathered, hour by slow hour. Aline went her own way, conferring with General Bronson, the human-Betelgeusean officer whom she had made her personal property. Perhaps he could disorganize the native fleet at the moment when Terra struck. The Merseian nobles plainly knew what Aycharaych had found out; they looked at the humans with frank hatred, but they made no overt attempt to warn the Sartaz. Maybe they didn’t think they could work through the wall of suborned and confused officials which Flandry had built around him — more likely, Aycharaych had suggested a better plan for them. There was none of the sense of defeat in them which slowly gathered in the human.

It was like being caught in spider webs, fighting clinging gray stuff that blinded and choked and couldn’t be pulled away. Flandry grew haggard, he shook with nervousness, and the two days dragged on.

He looked up Gunazar Valley in the atlas. It was uninhabited and desolate, the home of winds and the lair of dragons, a good place for a secret landing — only how secret was a landing that Aycharaych knew all about and was obviously ready to meet?

“We haven’t much chance, Aline,” he said to her. “Not a prayer, really.”

“We’ll just have to keep going.” She was more buoyant than he, seemed almost cheerful as time stumbled past. She stroked his hair tenderly. “Poor Dominic, it isn’t easy for you.”

The huge sun sank below the horizon — the second day, and tonight was the hour of decision. Flandry came out into the great conference hall to find it almost empty.

“Where are the Merseians, your Majesty?” he asked the Sartaz.

“They all went off on a special mission,” snapped the ruler. He was plainly ill pleased with the intriguing around him, of which he would be well aware.

A special mission — O almighty gods!

Aline and Bronson came in and gave the monarch formal greeting. “With your permission, your Majesty,” said the general, “I would like to show you something of great importance in about two hours.”

“Yes, yes,” mumbled the Sartaz and stalked out.

Flandry sat down and rested his head on one hand. Aline touched his shoulder gently. “Tired, Dominic?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I feel rotten. Just can’t think these days.”

She signaled to a slave, who brought a beaker forward. “This will help,” she said. He noticed sudden tears in her eyes. What was the matter?

He drank it down without thought. It caught at him, he gasped and grabbed the chair arms for support. “What the devil—”

It spread through him with a sudden coolness that ran along his nerves toward his brain. It was like the hand that Aline had laid on his head, calming, soothing — Clearing!

Suddenly he sprang to his feet. The whole preposterous thing stood forth in its raw grotesquerie — tissue of falsehoods, monstrosity of illogic!

The Fleet couldn’t have moved a whole task force this close without the Merseian intelligence knowing of it. There couldn’t be a new energy screen that he hadn’t heard of. Fenross would never try so fantastic a scheme as the occupation of Betelgeuse before all hope was gone.

He didn’t love Aline. She was brave and beautiful, but he didn’t love her.

But he had. Three minutes ago, he had been desperately in love with her.

He looked at her through blurring eyes as the enormous truth grew on him. She nodded, gravely, not seeming to care that tears ran down her cheeks. Her lips whispered a word that he could barely catch.

“Goodbye, my dearest.”

IV

They had set up a giant televisor screen in the conference hall, with a row of seats for the great of Alfzar. Bronson had also taken the precaution of lining the walls with royal guardsmen whom he could trust — long rows of flashing steel and impassive blue faces, silent and moveless as the great pillars holding up the soaring roof.

The general paced nervously up and down before the screen, looking at his watch unnecessarily often. Sweat glistened on his forehead. Flandry sat relaxed; only one who knew him well could have read the tension that was like a coiled spring in him. Only Aline seemed remote from the scene, too wrapped in her own thoughts to care what went on.

“If this doesn’t work, you know, we’ll probably be hanged,” said Bronson.

“It ought to,” answered Flandry tonelessly. “If it doesn’t, I won’t give much of a damn whether we hang or not.”

He was prevaricating there; Flandry was most fond of living, for all the wistful half-dreams that sometimes rose in him.

A trumpet shrilled, high brassy music between the walls and up to the ringing rafters. They rose and stood at attention as the Sartaz and his court swept in.

His yellow eyes were suspicious as they raked the three humans.

“You said that there was to be a showing of an important matter,” he declared flatly. “I hope that is correct.”

“It is, your Majesty,” said Flandry easily. He was back in his element, the fencing with words, the casting of nets to entrap minds. “It is a matter of such immense importance that it should have been revealed to you weeks ago. Unfortunately, circumstances did not permit that — as the court shall presently see — so your Majesty’s loyal general was forced to act on his own discretion with what help we of Terra could give him. But if our work has gone well, the moment of revelation should also be that of salvation.”

“It had better be,” said the Sartaz ominously. “I warn you — all of you — that I am sick of the spying and corruption the empires have brought with them. It is about time to cut the evil growth from Betelgeuse.”

“Terra has never wished Betelgeuse anything but good, your Majesty,” said Flandry, “and as it happens, we can offer proof of that. If—”

Another trumpet cut off his voice, and the warder’s shout rang and boomed down the hall: “Your Majesty, the Ambassador of the Empire of Merseia asks audience.”

The huge green form of Lord Korvash of Merseia filled the doorway with a flare of gold and jewelry. And beside him — Aycharaych!

Flandry was briefly rigid with shock. If that opponent came into the game now, the whole plan might crash to ruin. It was a daring, precarious structure which Aline had built; the faintest breath of argument could dissolve it — and then the lightnings would strike!

One was not permitted to bear firearms within the palace, but the dueling sword was a part of full dress. Flandry drew his with a hiss of metal and shouted aloud: “Seize those beings! They mean to kill the Sartaz!”

Aycharaych’s golden eyes widened as he saw what was in Flandry’s mind. He opened his mouth to denounce the Terran — and leaped back in bare time to avoid the man’s murderous thrust.

His own rapier sprang into his hand. In a whirr of steel, the two spies met.

Korvash the Merseian drew his own great blade in sheer reflex. “Strike him down!” yelled Aline. Before the amazed Sartaz could act, she had pulled the stun pistol he carried from the holster and sent the Merseian toppling to the floor.

She bent over him, deftly removing a tiny needle gun from her bodice and palming it on the ambassador. “Look, your Majesty,” she said breathlessly, “he had a deadly weapon. We knew the Merseians planned no good, but we never thought they would dare—”

The Sartaz’s gaze was shrewd on her. “Maybe we’d better wait to hear his side of it,” he murmured.

Since Korvash would be in no position to explain his side for a good hour, Aline considered it a victory.

But Flandry — her eyes grew wide and she drew a hissing gasp as she saw him fighting Aycharaych. It was the swiftest, most vicious duel she had ever seen, leaping figures and blades that were a blur of speed, back and forth along the hall in a clamor of steel and blood.

“Stop them!” she cried, and raised the stunner.

The Sartaz laid a hand on hers and took the weapon away. “No,” he said. “Let them have it out. I haven’t seen such a show in years.”

“Dominic—” she whispered.

Flandry had always thought himself a peerless fencer, but Aycharaych was his match. Though the Chereionite was hampered by gravity, he had a speed and precision which no human could ever meet, his thin blade whistled in and out, around and under the man’s guard to rake face and hands and breast, and he was smiling — smiling.

His telepathy did him little or no good. Fencing is a matter of conditioned reflex — at such speeds, there isn’t time for conscious thought. But perhaps it gave him an extra edge, just compensating for the handicap of weight.

Leaping, slashing, thrusting, parrying, clang and clash of cold steel, no time to feel the biting edge of the growing weariness — dance of death while the court stood by and cheered.

Flandry’s own blade was finding its mark; blood ran down Aycharaych’s gaunt cheeks and his tunic was slashed to red ribbons. The Terran’s plan was simple and the only one possible for him. Aycharaych would tire sooner, his reactions would slow — the thing to do was to stay alive that long!

He let the Chereionite drive him backward down the length of the hall, leap by leap, whirling around with sword shrieking in hand. Thrust, parry, riposte, recovery — whirr, clang! The rattle of steel filled the hall and the Sartaz watched with hungry eyes.

The end came as he was wondering if he would ever live to see Betelgeuse rise again. Aycharaych lunged and his blade pierced Flandry’s left shoulder. Before he could disengage it, the man had knocked the weapon spinning from his hand and had his own point against the throat of the Chereionite.

The hall rang with the savage cheering of Betelgeuse’s masters. “Disarm them!” shouted the Sartaz.

Flandry drew a sobbing breath. “Your Majesty,” he gasped, “let me guard this fellow while General Bronson goes on with our show.”

The Sartaz nodded. It fitted his sense of things.

Flandry thought with a hard glee: Aycharaych, if you open your mouth, so help me, I’ll run you through.

The Chereionite shrugged, but his smile was bitter.

“Dominic, Dominic!” cried Aline, between laughter and tears.

General Bronson turned to her. He was shaken by the near ruin. “Can you talk to them?” he whispered. “I’m no good at it.”

Aline nodded and stood boldly forth. “Your Majesty and nobles of the court,” she said, “we shall now prove the statements we made about the treachery of Merseia.

“We of Terra found out that the Merseians were planning to seize Alfzar and hold it and yourselves until their own fleet could arrive to complete the occupation. To that end they are assembling this very night in Gunazar Valley of the Borthudian range. A flying squad will attack and capture the palace—”

She waited until the uproar had subsided. “We could not tell your Majesty or any of the highest in the court,” she resumed coolly, “for the Merseian spies were everywhere and we had reason to believe that one of them could read your minds. If they had known anyone knew of their plans, they would have acted at once. Instead we contacted General Bronson, who was not high enough to merit their attention, but who did have enough power to act as the situation required.

“We planted a trap for the enemy. For one thing, we mounted telescopic telecameras in the valley. With your permission, I will now show what is going on there this instant.”

She turned a switch and the scene came to life — naked crags and cliffs reaching up toward the red moons, and a stir of activity in the shadows. Armored forms were moving about, setting up atomic guns, warming the engines of spaceships — and they were Merseians.

The Sartaz snarled. Someone asked, “How do we know this is not a falsified transmission?”

“You will be able to see their remains for yourself,” said Aline. “Our plan was very simple. We planted atomic land mines in the ground. They are radio controlled.” She held up a small switch-box wired to the televisor, and her smile was grim. “This is the control. Perhaps your Majesty would like to press the button?”

“Give it to me,” said the Sartaz thickly. He thumbed the switch.

A blue-white glare of hell-flame lit the screen. They had a vision of the ground fountaining upward, the cliffs toppling down, a cloud of radioactive dust boiling up toward the moons, and then the screen went dark.

“The cameras have been destroyed,” said Aline quietly. “Now, your Majesty, I suggest that you send scouts there immediately. They will find enough remains to verify what the televisor has shown. I would further suggest that a power which maintains armed forces within your own territory is not a friendly one!”

Korvash and Aycharaych were to be deported with whatever other Merseians were left in the system — once Betelgeuse had broken diplomatic relations with their state and begun negotiating an alliance with Terra. The evening before they left, Flandry gave a small party for them in his apartment. Only he and Aline were there to meet them when they entered.

“Congratulations,” said Aycharaych wryly. “The Sartaz was so furious he wouldn’t even listen to our protestations. I can’t blame him — you certainly put us in a bad light.”

“No worse than your own,” grunted Korvash angrily. “Hell take you for a lying hypocrite, Flandry. You know that Terra has her own forces and agents in the Betelgeusean System, hidden on wild moons and asteroids. It’s part of the game.”

“Of course I know it,” smiled the Terran. “But does the Sartaz? However, it’s as you say — the game. You don’t hate the one who beats you in chess. Why then hate us for winning this round?”

“Oh, I don’t,” said Aycharaych. “There will be other rounds.”

“You’ve lost much less than we would have,” said Flandry. “This alliance has strengthened Terra enough for her to halt your designs, at least temporarily. But we aren’t going to use that strength to launch a war against you, though I admit that we should. The Empire wants only to keep the peace.”

“Because it doesn’t dare fight a war,” snapped Korvash.

They didn’t answer. Perhaps they were thinking of the cities that would not be bombed and the young men that would not go out to be killed. Perhaps they were simply enjoying a victory.

Flandry poured wine. “To our future amiable enmity,” he toasted.

“I still don’t see how you did it,” said Korvash.

“Aline did it,” said Flandry. “Tell them, Aline.”

She shook her head. She had withdrawn into a quietness which was foreign to her. “Go ahead, Dominic,” she murmured. “It was really your show.”

“Well,” said Flandry, not loath to expound, “when we realized that Aycharaych could read our minds, it looked pretty hopeless. How can you possibly lie to a telepath? Aline found the answer — by getting information which just isn’t true.

“There’s a drug in this system called sorgan which has the property of making its user believe anything he’s told. Aline fed me some without my knowledge and then told me that fantastic lie about Terra coming in to occupy Alfzar. And, of course, I accepted it as absolute truth. Which you, Aycharaych, read in my mind.”

“I was puzzled,” admitted the Chereionite. “It just didn’t look reasonable to me; but as you said, there didn’t seem to be any way to lie to a telepath.”

“Aline’s main worry was then to keep out of mind-reading range,” said Flandry. “You helped us there by going off to prepare a warm reception for the Terrans. You gathered all your forces in the valley, ready to blast our ships out of the sky.”

“Why didn’t you go to the Sartaz with what you knew — or thought you knew?” asked Korvash accusingly.

Aycharaych shrugged. “I realized Captain Flandry would be doing his best to prevent me from doing that and to discredit any information I could get that high,” he said. “You yourself agreed that our best opportunity lay in repulsing the initial attack ourselves. That would gain us far more favor with the Sartaz; moreover, since there would have been overt acts on both sides, war between Betelgeuse. and Terra would then have been inevitable — whereas if the Sartaz had learned in time of the impending assault, he might have tried to negotiate.”

“I suppose so,” said Korvash glumly.

“Aline, of course, prevailed on Bronson to mine the valley,” said Flandry. “The rest you know. When you yourselves showed up—”

“To tell the Sartaz, now that it was too late,” said Aycharaych.

“ — we were afraid that the ensuing argument would damage our own show. So we used violence to shut you up until it had been played out.” Flandry spread his hands in a gesture of finality. “And that, gentlemen, is that.”

“There will be other tomorrows,” said Aycharaych gently. “But I am glad we can meet in peace tonight.”

The party lasted well on toward dawn. When the aliens left, with many slightly tipsy expressions of good will and respect, Aycharaych took Aline’s hand in his own bony fingers. His strange golden eyes searched hers, even as she knew his mind was looking into the depths of her own.

“Goodbye, my dear,” he said, too softly for the others to hear. “As long as there are women like you, I think Terra will endure.”

She watched his tall form go down the corridor and her vision blurred a little. It was strange to think that her enemy knew what the man beside her did not.