Ensign Flandry

4

Ensign Dominic Flandry, Imperial Naval Flight Corps, did not know whether he was alive through luck or management. At the age of nineteen, with the encoding molecules hardly settled down on your commission, it was natural to think the latter. But had a single one of the factors he had used to save himself been absent—He didn’t care to dwell on that.

Besides, his troubles were far from over. As a merchant ship belonging to the Sisterhood of Kursoviki, the Archer had been given a radio by the helpful Terrans. But it was crap-out; some thumblewit had exercised some Iron Age notion of maintenance. Dragoika had agreed to put back for her home. But with a foul wind, they’d be days at sea in this damned wallowing bathtub before they were even likely to speak a boat with a transmitter in working order. That wasn’t fatal per se. Flandry could shovel local rations through the chowlock of his helmet; Starkadian biochemistry was sufficiently like Terran that most foods wouldn’t poison him, and he carried vitamin supplements. The taste, though, my God, the taste!

Most ominous was the fact that he had been shot down, and at no large distance from here. Perhaps the Seatrolls, and Merseians, would let this Tigery craft alone. If they weren’t yet ready to show their hand, they probably would. However, his misfortune indicated their preparations were more or less complete. When he chanced to pass above their latest kettle of mischief, they’d felt so confident they opened fire.

“And then the Outside Folk attacked you?” Ferok prodded. His voice came as a purr through whistle of wind, rush and smack of waves, creak of rigging, all intensified and distorted by the thick air.

“Yes,” Flandry said. He groped for words. They’d given him an electronic cram in the language and customs of Kursovikian civilization while the transport bore him from Terra. But some things are hard to explain in pre-industrial terms. “A type of vessel which can both submerge and fly rose from the water. Its radio shout drowned my call and its firebeams wrecked my craft before mine could pierce its thicker armor. I barely escaped my hull as it sank, and kept submerged until the enemy went away. Then I flew off in search of help. The small engine which lifted me was nigh exhausted when I came upon your ship.”

Truly his gravity impeller wouldn’t lug him much further until the capacitors were recharged. He didn’t plan to use it again. What power remained in the pack on his shoulders must be saved to operate the pump and reduction valve in the vitryl globe which sealed off his head. A man couldn’t breathe Starkadian sea-level air and survive. Such an oxygen concentration would burn out his lungs faster than nitrogen narcosis and carbon dioxide acidosis could kill him.

He remembered how Lieutenant Danielson had gigged him for leaving off the helmet. “Ensign, I don’t give a ball of fertilizer how uncomfortable the thing is, when you might be enjoying your nice Terra-conditioned cockpit. Nor do I weep at the invasion of privacy involved in taping your every action in flight. The purpose is to make sure that pups like you, who know so much more than a thousand years of astronautics could possibly teach them, obey regulations. The next offense will earn you thirty seconds of nerve-lash. Dismissed.”

So you saved my life, Flandry grumbled. You’re still a snot-nosed bastard.

Nobody was to blame for his absent blaster. It was torn from the holster in those wild seconds of scrambling clear. He had kept the regulation knife and pouchful of oddments. He had boots and gray coverall, sadly stained and in no case to be compared with the glamorous dress uniform. And that was just about the lot.

Ferok lowered the plumy thermosensor tendrils above his eyes: a frown. “If the vaz-Siravo search what’s left of your flier, down below, and don’t find your body, they may guess what you did and come looking for you,” he said.

“Yes,” Flandry agreed, “they may.”

He braced himself against pitch and roll and looked outward—tall, the lankiness of adolescence still with him; brown hair, gray eyes, a rather long and regular face which Saxo had burned dark. Before him danced and shimmered a greenish ocean, sun-flecks and whitecaps on waves that marched faster, in Starkadian gravity, than on Terra. The sky was pale blue. Clouds banked gigantic on the horizon, but in a dense atmosphere they did not portend storm. A winged thing cruised, a sea animal broached and dove again. At its distance, Saxo was only a third as broad as Sol is to Terra and gave half the illumination. The adaptable human vision perceived this as normal, but the sun was merciless white, so brilliant that one dared not look anywhere near. The short day stood at late afternoon, and the temperature, never very high in these middle northern latitudes, was dropping. Flandry shivered.

Ferok made a contrast to him. The land Starkadian, Tigery, Toborko, or whatever you wanted to call him, was built not unlike a short man with disproportionately long legs. His hands were four-fingered, his feet large and clawed, he flaunted a stubby tail. The head was less anthropoid, round, with flat face tapering to a narrow chin. The eyes were big, slanted, scarlet in the iris, beneath his fronded tendrils. The nose, what there was of it, had a single slit nostril. The mouth was wide and carnivore-toothed. The ears were likewise big, outer edges elaborated till they almost resembled bat wings. Sleek fur covered his skin, black-striped orange that shaded into white at the throat.

He wore only a beaded pouch, kept from flapping by thigh straps, and a curved sword scabbarded across his back. By profession he was the boatswain, a high rank for a male on a Kursovikian ship; as such, he was no doubt among Dragoika’s lovers. By nature he was impetuous, quarrelsome, and dog-loyal to his allegiances. Flandry liked him.

Ferok lifted a telescope and swept it around an arc. That was a native invention. Kursoviki was the center of the planet’s most advanced land culture. “No sign of anything yet,” he said. “Do you think yon Outsider flyboat may attack us?”

“I doubt that,” Flandry said. “Most likely it was simply on hand because of having brought some Merseian advisors, and shot at me because I might be carrying instruments which would give me a clue as to what’s going on down below. It’s probably returned to Kimraig by now.” He hesitated before continuing: “The Merseians, like us, seldom take a direct role in any action, and then nearly always just as individual officers, not representatives of their people. Neither of us wishes to provoke a response in kind.”

“Afraid?” Lips curled back from fangs.

“On your account,” Flandry said, somewhat honestly. “You have no dream of what our weapons can do to a world.”

“World … hunh, the thought’s hard to seize. Well, let the Sisterhood try. I’m happy to be a plain male.”

Flandry turned and looked across the deck. The Archer was a big ship by Starkadian measure, perhaps five hundred tons, broad in the beam, high in the stern, a carven post at the prow as emblem of her tutelary spirit. A deckhouse stood amidships, holding galley, smithy, carpenter shop, and armory. Everything was gaudily painted. Three masts carried yellow square sails aloft, fore-and-aft beneath; at the moment she was tacking on the latter and a genoa. The crew were about their duties on deck and in the rigging. They numbered thirty male hands and half a dozen female officers. The ship had been carrying timber and spices from Ujanka port down the Chain archipelago.

“What armament have we?” he asked.

“Our Terran deck gun,” Ferok told him. “Five of your rifles. We were offered more, but Dragoika said they’d be no use till we had more people skilled with them. Otherwise, swords, pikes, crossbows, knives, belaying pins, teeth, and nails.” He gestured at the mesh which passed from side to side of the hull, under the keel. “If that twitches much, could mean a Siravo trying to put a hole in our bottom. Then we dive after him. You’d be best for that, with your gear.”

Flandry winced. His helmet was adjustable for underwater; on Starkad, the concentration of dissolved oxygen was almost as high as in Terra’s air. But he didn’t fancy a scrap with a being evolved for such an environment.

“Why are you here, yourself?” Ferok asked conversationally. “Pleasure or plunder?”

“Neither. I was sent.” Flandry didn’t add that the Navy reckoned it might as well use Starkad to give certain promising young officers some experience. “Promising” made him sound too immature. At once he realized he’d actually sounded unaggressive and prevaricated in haste: “Of course, with the chance of getting into a fight, I would have asked to go anyway.”

“They tell me your females obey males. True?”

“Well, sometimes.” The second mate passed by and Flandry’s gaze followed her. She had curves, a tawny mane rippling down her back, breasts standing fuller and firmer than any girl could have managed without technological assistance, and a nearly humanoid nose. Her clothing consisted of some gold bracelets. But her differences from the Terran went deeper than looks. She didn’t lactate; those nipples fed blood directly to her infants. And hers was the more imaginative, more cerebral sex, not subordinated in any culture, dominant in the islands around Kursoviki. He wondered if that might trace back to something as simple as the female body holding more blood and more capacity to regenerate it.

“But who, then, keeps order in your home country?” Ferok wondered. “Why haven’t you killed each other off?”

“Um-m-m, hard to explain,” Flandry said. “Let me first see if I understand your ways, to compare mine. For instance, you owe nothing to the place where you live, right? I mean, no town or island or whatever is ruled, as a ship is … right? Instead—at any rate in this part of the world—the females are organized into associations like the Sisterhood, whose members may live anywhere, which even have their special languages. They own all important property and make all important decisions through those associations. Thus disputes among males have little effect on them. Am I right?”

“I suppose so. You might have put it more politely.”

“Apology-of-courage is offered. I am a stranger. Now among my people—”

A shout fell from the crow’s nest. Ferok whirled and pointed his telescope. The crew sprang to the starboard rail, clustered in the shrouds, and yelled.

Dragoika bounded from the captain’s cabin under the poop. She held a four-pronged fish spear in one hand, a small painted drum beneath her arm. Up the ladder she went, to stand by the quartermistress at the wheel and look for herself. Then, coolly, she tapped her drum on one side, plucked the steel strings across the recessed head on the other. Twang and thump carried across noise like a bugle call. All hands to arms and battle stations!

“The vaz-Siravo!” Ferok shouted above clamor. “They’re on us!” He made for the deckhouse. Restored to discipline, the crew were lining up for helmets, shields, byrnies, and weapons.

Flandry strained his eyes into the glare off the water. A score or so blue dorsal fins clove it, converging on the ship. And suddenly, a hundred meters to starboard, a submarine rose.

A little, crude thing, doubtless home-built to a Merseian design—for if you want to engineer a planet-wide war among primitives, you should teach them what they can make and do for themselves. The hull was greased leather stretched across a framework of some undersea equivalent of wood. Harness trailed downward to the four fish which pulled it; he could barely discern them as huge shadows under the surface. The deck lay awash. But an outsize catapult projected therefrom. Several dolphin-like bodies with transparent globes on their heads and powerpacks on their backs crouched alongside. They rose onto flukes and flippers; their arms reached to swing the machine around.

“Dommaneek!” Dragoika screeched. “Dommaneek Falan-daree! Can you man ours?”

“Aye, aye!” The Terran ran prow-ward. Planks rolled and thudded beneath his feet.

On the forward deck, the two females whose duty it was were trying to unlimber the gun. They worked slowly, getting in each other’s way, spitting curses. There hadn’t yet been time to drill many competent shots, even with a weapon as simple as this, a rifle throwing 38 mm. chemical shells. Before they got the range, that catapult might—

“Gangway!” Flandry shoved the nearest aside. She snarled and swatted at him with long red nails. Dragoika’s drum rippled an order. Both females fell back from him.

He opened the breech, grabbed a shell from the ammo box, and dogged it in. The enemy catapult thumped. A packet arced high, down again, made a near miss and burst into flame which spread crimson and smoky across the waves. Some version of Greek fire—undersea oil wells—Flandry put his eye to the range finder. He was too excited to be scared. But he must lay the gun manually. A hydraulic system would have been too liable to breakdown. In spite of good balance and self-lubricating bearings, the barrel swung with nightmare slowness. The Seatrolls were rewinding their catapult … before Andromeda, they were fast! They must use hydraulics.

Dragoika spoke to the quartermistress. She put the wheel hard over. Booms swung over the deck. The jib flapped thunderous until crewmales reset the sheets. The Archer came about. Flandry struggled to compensate. He barely remembered to keep one foot on the brake, lest his gun travel too far. Bet those she-cats would’ve forgotten. The enemy missile didn’t make the vessel’s superstructure as intended. But it struck the hull amidships. Under this oxygen pressure, fire billowed heavenward.

Flandry pulled the lanyard. His gun roared and kicked. A geyser fountained, mingled with splinters. One draught fish leaped, threshed, and died. The rest already floated bellies up. “Got him!” Flandry whooped.

Dragoika plucked a command. Most of the crew put aside their weapons and joined a firefighting party. There was a hand pump at either rail, buckets with ropes bent to them, sails to drag from the deckhouse and wet and lower.

Ferok, or someone, yelled through voices, wind, waves, brawling, and smoke of the flames. The Seatrolls were coming over the opposite rail.

They must have climbed the nets. (Better invent a different warning gadget, raced through Flandry’s mind.) They wore the Merseian equipment which had enabled their kind to carry the war ashore elsewhere on Starkad. Waterfilled helmets covered the blunt heads, black absorbent skinsuits kept everything else moist. Pumps cycled atmospheric oxygen, running off powerpacks. The same capacitors energized their legs. Those were clumsy. The bodies must be harnessed into a supporting framework, the two flippers and the fluked tail control four mechanical limbs with prehensile feet. But they lurched across the deck, huge, powerful, their hands holding spears and axes and a couple of waterproof machine pistols. Ten of them were now aboard … and how many sailors could be spared from the fire?

A rifle bullet wailed. A Seatroll sprayed lead in return. Tigeries crumpled. Their blood was human color.

Flandry rammed home another shell and lobbed it into the sea some distance off. “Why?” screamed a gunner.

“May have been more coming,” he said. “I hope hydrostatic shock got ’em.” He didn’t notice he used Anglic.

Dragoika cast her fish spear. One pistol wielder went down, the prongs in him. He scrabbled at the shaft. Rifles barked, crossbows snapped, driving his mate to shelter between the deckhouse and a lifeboat. Then combat ramped, leaping Tigeries, lumbering Seatrolls, sword against ax, pike against spear, clash, clatter, grunt, shriek, chaos run loose. Several firefighters went for their weapons. Dragoika drummed them back to work. The Seatrolls made for them, to cut them down and let the ship burn. The armed Tigeries tried to defend them. The enemy pistoleer kept the Kursovikian rifle shooters pinned down behind masts and bollards—neutralized. The battle had no more shape than that.

A bullet splintered the planks a meter from Flandry. For a moment, panic locked him where he stood. What to do, what to do? He couldn’t die. He mustn’t. He was Dominic, himself, with a lifetime yet to live. Outnumbered though they were, the Seatrolls need but wreak havoc till the fire got beyond control and he was done. Mother! Help me!

For no sound reason, he remembered Lieutenant Danielson. Rage blossomed in him. He bounded down the ladder and across the main deck. A Seatroll chopped at him. He swerved and continued.

Dragoika’s door stood under the poop. He slid the panel aside and plunged into her cabin. It was appointed in barbaric luxury. Sunlight sickled through an oval port, across the bulkhead as the ship rolled, touching bronze candlesticks, woven tapestry, a primitive sextant, charts and navigation tables inscribed on parchment. He snatched what he had left here to satisfy her curiosity, his impeller, buckled the unit on his back with frantic fingers and hooked in his capacitors. Now, that sword, which she hadn’t taken time to don. He re-emerged, flicked controls, and rose.

Over the deckhouse! The Seatroll with the machine pistol lay next it, a hard target for a rifle, himself commanding stem and stern. Flandry drew blade. The being heard the slight noise and tried awkwardly to look up. Flandry struck. He missed the hand but knocked the gun loose. It flipped over the side.

He whirred aft, smiting from above. “I’ve got him!” he shouted. “I’ve got him! Come out and do some real shooting!”

The fight was soon finished. He used a little more energy to help spread the wet sail which smothered the fire.

After dark, Egrima and Buruz again ruled heaven. They cast shivering glades across the waters. Few stars shone through, but one didn’t miss them with so much other beauty. The ship plowed northward in an enormous murmurous hush.

Dragoika stood with Flandry by the totem at the prow. She had offered thanks. Kursovikian religion was a paganism more inchoate than any recorded from ancient Terra—the Tigery mind was less interested than the human in finding ultimate causes—but ritual was important. Now the crew had returned to watch or to sleep and they two were alone. Her fur was sparked with silver, her eyes pools of light.

“Our thanks belong more to you,” she said softly. “I am high in the Sisterhood. They will be told, and remember.”

“Oh, well.” Flandry shuffled his feet and blushed.

“But have you not endangered yourself? You explained what scant strength is left in those boxes which keep you alive. And then you spent it to fly about.”

“Uh, my pump can be operated manually if need be.”

“I shall appoint a detail to do so.”

“No need. You see, now I can use the Siravo powerpacks. I have tools in my pouch for adapting them.”

“Good.” She looked awhile into the shadows and luminance which barred the deck. “That one whose pistol you removed—” Her tone was wistful.

“No, ma’m,” Flandry said firmly. “You cannot have him. He’s the only survivor of the lot. We’ll keep him alive and unhurt.”

“I simply thought of questioning him about their plans. I know a little of their language. We’ve gained it from prisoners or parleys through the ages. He wouldn’t be too damaged, I think.”

“My superiors can do a better job in Highport.”

Dragoika sighed. “As you will.” She leaned against him. “I’ve met vaz-Terran before, but you are the first I have really known well.” Her tail wagged. “I like you.”

Flandry gulped. “I … I like you too.”

“You fight like a male and think like a female. That’s something new. Even in the far southern islands—” She laid an arm around his waist. Her fur was warm and silken where it touched his skin. Somebody had told him once that could you breathe their air undiluted, the Tigeries would smell like new-mown hay. “I’ll have joy of your company.”

“Um-m-m … uh.” What can I say?

“Pity you must wear that helmet,” Dragoika said. “I’d like to taste your lips. But otherwise we’re not made so differently, our two kinds. Will you come to my cabin?”

For an instant that whirled, Flandry was tempted. He had everything he could do to answer. It wasn’t based on past lectures about taking care not to offend native mores, nor on principle, nor, most certainly, on fastidiousness. If anything, her otherness made her the more piquant. But he couldn’t really predict what she might do in a close relationship, and—

“I’m deeply sorry,” he said. “I’d love to, but I’m under a—” what was the word?—“a geas.”

She was neither offended nor much surprised. She had seen a lot of different cultures. “Pity,” she said. “Well, you know where the forecastle is. Goodnight.” She padded aft. En route, she stopped to collect Ferok.

—and besides, those fangs were awfully intimidating.