The Game of Empire

Chapter 2

On Daedalus, the world without a horizon, a Tigery was still an uncommon sight, apt to draw everybody’s attention. Targovi had made an exception of himself. The capital Aurea, its hinterland, communities the length of the Highroad River as far as the Phosphoric Ocean, no few of the settlements scattered elsewhere, had grown used to him. He would put his battered Moonjumper down at the spaceport, exchange japes with guards and officials, try to sell them something, then load his wares into an equally disreputable-looking van and be off. His stock in trade was Imhotepan, a jackdaw museum of the infinite diversity that is every planet’s. Artifacts of his people he had, cutlery, tapestries, perfumes; things strange and delicate, made underwater by the Seafolk; exotic products of nature, skins, mineral gems, land pearls, flavorful wild foods—for the irony was that huge Imhotep had begotten life which Terrans, like Starkadians, could safely take nourishment from, whereas Terra-sized Daedalus had not.

For a number of years he had thus ranged, dickering, swapping, amusing himself and most whom he encountered, a generally amiable being whom—certain individuals discovered too late—it was exceedingly dangerous to affront. Even when tensions between Merseia and Terra snapped asunder, sporadic combats erupted throughout the marches, and at last Sector Admiral Magnusson took his forces to meet an oncoming armada of the Riodhunate, even then had Targovi plied his trade unhindered.

Thus he registered shock when he landed in routine fashion a twelvemonth later, and the junior port officer who gave him his admission certificate warned: “You had better stay in touch with us. Interplanetary traffic may be suddenly curtailed. You could find yourself unable to get off Daedalus for an. indefinite time.”

“Eyada shkor!” ripped from Targovi. His tendrils grew stiff. A hand dropped to the knife at his side. “What is this?”

“Possible emergency,” said the human. “Understand, I am trying to be friendly. There ought to be a short grace period. If you then return here immediately, I can probably get you clearance to go home. Otherwise you could be stranded and unable to earn your keep, once your goods were sold and the proceeds spent.”

“I … think … I would survive,” Targovi murmured.

The officer peered across his desk. “You may be right,” he said. “But we may not like the ways you would find. I would be sorry to see you jailed, or gunned down.”

The Tigery looked predatory enough to arouse qualms. His resemblance to a man was merely in the roughest outlines. He stood as tall as an average one, but on disproportionately long and powerful legs whose feet were broad and clawed. Behind, a stubby tail twitched. The torso was thick, the arms and their four-fingered hands cabled with muscle. The round head bore a countenance flat and narrow-chinned, a single breathing slit in the nose, carnivore teeth agleam in the wide mouth. Beneath the fronded chemosensor tendrils, eyes were slanted and scarlet-hued. The large, movable ears were scalloped around the edges as if to suggest bat wings. Fur clothed him in silkiness that had now begun to bristle, black-striped orange except for a white triangle at the throat. His voice purred, hissed, sometimes growled or screeched, making its fluent Anglic an outlandish dialect.

He wore nothing at present but a breech-clout, pocketed belt, knife, and amulet hung from his neck—these, and an oxygill. Its pleated pearly ruff lifted from his shoulders at the back of the head, framing the latter. Strange it might seem, to observe such a molecularly-convoluted intricacy upon such a creature, and to recollect what chemical subtleties went on within, oxygen captured and led into the bloodstream through capillary-fine tubes surgically installed. Yet it gave him the freedom to be barbaric, where he would else have been encumbered with a helmet and pump, or have perished. His kind had evolved under an air pressure more than nine times the Terran.

“I think your efforts might fail,” he said low. Easing: “However, surely naught untoward will happen. You are kind to advise me, Dosabhai Patel. You wife may find some pleasant trinket in her mail. But what is this extremity you await?”

“I did not say we are bound to have one,” replied the officer quickly.

“What could it be, does it come on us?”

“Too many wild rumors are flying about. Both naval and civil personnel are under orders not to add to them.”

Targovi’s chair had been designed for a human, but he was sufficiently supple to flow down into it. His eyelids drooped; he bridged his fingertips. “Ah, good friend, you realize I am bound to hear those rumors. Were it not best to arm me with truths whereby I may slay them? I am, of course, a simple, wandering trader, who knows no secrets. Yet I should have had some inkling if, say, a new Merseian attack seemed likely.”

“Not that! Admiral Magnusson gave them a lesson they will remember for a while.” Patel cleared his throat. “Understand, what happened was not a war.”

Targovi did not overtly resent the patronizing lecture that followed, meant for a half-civilized xeno: “Bloody incidents are all too common. It is inevitable, when two great powers, bitter rivals, share an ill-defined and thinly peopled buffer zone which is, actually, an arena for them. This latest set of clashes began when negotiations over certain spheres of influence broke down and commanders in various locations grew, ah, trigger-happy. True, the Roidhunate did dispatch a task force to ‘restore order.’ Had it succeeded, the Merseians would undoubtedly have occupied the Patrician System, thereby making this entire sector almost indefensible and having a salient deep into the Empire. We would have had to settle with them on highly disadvantageous terms. As you know, Admiral Magnusson beat them back, and diplomats on both sides are trying to mend things … No, we are in no immediate danger from outside.”

“From inside, then?” Targovi drawled. “Even we poor, uprooted vaz-Toborko—aye, even the vaz-Siravo beneath their seas—have learned a little about your great Empire. Rebellions and attempted rebellions have grown, regrettably, not infrequent, during the past half century. The present dynasty itself, did it not come to power by—?—”

“The glorious revolution was necessary,” Patel declared. “Emperor Hans restored order and purged corruption.”

“Ah, but his sons—”

Patel’s fist struck the desktop. “Very well, you insolent barbarian! Daedalus, this whole system, the Empire itself were in grave peril last year. Admiral Magnusson rectified the situation, but it should never have arisen. The Imperial forces in these parts should have been far stronger. As matters stood, under a less brilliant commander, they would almost certainly have been smashed.” He moistened his lips. “No question of disloyalty. No lèse majesté. But there is a widespread feeling on Daedalus, especially among Navy personnel, that Emperor Gerhart and his Policy Board have … not been well advised … that some of the counsel they heeded may actually have been treasonable in intent … that drastic reform has again become overdue. The Admiral has sent carefully reasoned recommendations to Terra. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction leads to restlessness. He may have to impose martial law, or—Enough. These matters are not for subjects like you and me to decide.” Nonetheless eagerness lighted his features and shrilled in his voice. “You have had your warning, Targovi. Be off, but stay in touch; attend to your business and nothing else; and you will probably be all right.”

The trader rose, spoke his courteous farewell, departed. In Terran-like gravity he rippled along, his padded feet silent across the floor.

Well-nigh the whole of Aurea was new, built to accommodate the burgeoning sector defense command that had been established on the planet, together with the civil bureaucracy and private enterprises that it drew. Architecture soared boldly in towers, sprawled in ponderous industrial plants. Vehicles beswarmed streets, elways, skies. Around the clock, the throb of traffic never ceased.

Hardly anything remained of the original town, demolished and engulfed. It had been small anyhow, for colonization was far-flung, enclaves in wilderness that could not be tamed but only, slowly, destroyed. Still, a bit from early days clung yet to a steep slope beneath the plateau. Targovi went there, to an inn he knew.

He mingled readily with the crowds. He might be the sole member of his race on Daedalus, but plenty of other xenosophonts were present. The vague borders of the Terran Empire held an estimated four million suns, of which perhaps a hundred thousand had some degree of contact with it. Out of that many, no few were bound to have learned from Technic civilization—if they had learned nothing else—the requirements for traveling between the stars. They included spacehands, Naval personnel, Imperial officials, besides those engaged on affairs of their own. Then too, colonization of Daedalus had not been exclusively human by any means. It made for a variegated scene, which Targovi enjoyed. His inmost wish was to get beyond this single planetary system, out into the freedom of the galaxy.

Descending, he followed a lane along a cliff. On his left were walls time-gnawed, unpretentious, reminiscent of those in the Old Town of Olga’s Landing. On his right were a guard rail, empty air, and a tremendous view. The river glimmered silver, grandly curved, through hundreds of kilometers of its valley, sunset bound. That land lay in shades of dark, metallic green, save where softer tones showed that farmsteads or plantations had been wrested out of it. The northern mountains and the ice fields beyond them, the southward sweep of plains, faded out of sight, lost in sheer distance. Closer by, the headwaters of the river rushed downward in cataracts. The mountainside was covered with native growth. Although air was cool at this altitude, Targovi caught a harsh pungency. Raindrops that were cars flitted to and fro through heaven. A spaceship lifted, her gravs driving her in silence, but the hull carving out muted thunder.

Ju Shao’s inn perched ramshackle on the brink. Targovi entered the taproom. The owner bounded to greet him: a Cynthian by species, small, white-furred, bushy-tailed. “Welcome back!” she piped. “A sweet sight, you, after the klongs who’ve been infesting this place lately. What will you have?”

“Dinner, and a room for the night,” Targovi answered. “Also—” His eyes flickered about. Besides himself, the customers thus far were just four humans in Navy uniform, seated around a table, talking over their liquor. “What mean you by ‘klongs’?” he asked. “I thought you got folk here as well-behaved as is reasonable. Those who’re not, the rest always cast out.”

“Too many are akindle nowadays,” Ju Shao grumbled. “Young, from Navy or Marine Corps. They yell about how the Imperium’s abandoned us and how we need strong leadership—that sort of spew. They get drunk and noisy and start throwing things around. Then the patrol arrives, and I have to waste an hour recording a statement before I can clean up the mess.” She reached high to pat his hand. “You’re the right sort. You stay quiet till you need to kill, which you do without fuss. We can cook you a nice roast, real cowbeef. And I’ve gotten a packet of that stuff they grow on Imhotep—ryushka, is that the name?—if you’d like some.”

“I thank you, but the Winged Smoke is only for when I can take my ease, out of any danger,” Targovi said. “Bring me a bowl of tea while I talk with my … friends yonder. Afterward, aye, rare cowbeef will be good to taste again, the more so if you add your crinkle tongue sauce, O mother of wonders.”

He strolled to the occupied table. “Health and strength to you, Janice Combarelles,” he said, translating the Toborko formality into Anglic.

The blond woman with the ringed planet of a lieutenant commander on her blue tunic looked up. “Why, Targovi!” she exclaimed. “Sit down! I didn’t expect you back this soon, you scoundrel. You can’t have escaped hearing how uneasy things have gotten, and that must be bad for a business like yours.”

He accepted the invitation. “Well, but a merchant must needs keep aware of what is in the wind. I had hopes of finding you here,” he said, truthfully if incompletely.

“Introductions first,” Combarelles said to her companions. “This is Targovi. You may have noticed him before, roving about with , his trade goods. We met when I was on a tour of duty in the Imhotep garrison. He helped vastly to relieve the dullness.” Her corps was Intelligence, for which the big planet had slight demand. Starkadians of either species were not about to turn on the Empire that had saved them from extinction.

She named the others, men of her age. “We’re out on the town, relaxing while we can,” she explained. “Leaves may soon be hard to get.”

Targovi lapped from the container that Ju Shao had brought him. “Forgive a foreigner,” he requested. “The subtleties of politics lie far beyond his feeble grasp. What is it that you tauten yourselves against? Surely not the Merseians again.”

“Yes and no,” Combarelles replied. “They’ll pounce on any weakness they think they see in us—”

“Same as we should do to them,” muttered a man who had been drinking hard. “But the Empire’s gone soft, bloated, ready to pay anything for one more lifetime’s worth of peace, and to hell with the children and grandchildren. When are we going to get another Argolid dynasty?”

“Sh!” Combarelles cautioned. To Targovi: “He’s right, though, after a fashion. His Majesty’s badly served. We, out on the frontier, we’ve been made sacrificial goats to incompetence. If it weren’t for Admiral Magnusson, we’d be dead. He’s trying to set matters right, but—No, I shouldn’t say more.” She ignited a cigarette and smoked raggedly. “At that, the Merseians aren’t infallible. I’ve found a terrible bitterness among them too.”

“How could you do that?” Targovi asked innocently. “Merseia is far and far away.”

Combarelles laughed. “Not all the Merseians are. Well, you see, actually I’ve been talking to prisoners. We took a few in the battle, and exchange hasn’t yet been negotiated. My section has responsibility for them, and—No. I’d better not say any more except that we had a lot of luck, though that wouldn’t have helped much if the admiral hadn’t taken advantage of it. Tell us how things are on Imhotep. At least there we humans have been accomplishing something decent.”

Targovi spun out anecdotes. They led in the direction of smuggling operations. “Oh, yes,” Combarelles laughed, “we have the same problems.”

“How could you, milady?” Targovi wondered. “I know no way to land unbeknownst, as guarded as this globe is, and they always inspect my humble cargoes.”

“The trick is to set down openly, but in a port where inspectors don’t go. Like Zacharia.”

“Za—It seems I have heard the name, but—” In point of fact, he was quite familiar with it. He also knew things about the running of contraband which the authorities would have been glad to learn. Feigned ignorance was a way of leading conversation onward.

“A large island out in the Phosphoric Ocean. Autonomous since pioneer days. Secretive. If I were Admiral Magnusson, I’d set the treaty aside. He has the power to do it if he sees fit, and I would see fit.” Combarelles shrugged. “Not that it matters if untaxed merchandise arrives once in a while and goes discreetly upriver. But … I’ve retrieved reports filed with Naval Traffic Control. I can’t really believe that some of the vessels cleared to land on Zacharia were what they claimed to be, or else were simple smugglers. They looked too sleek for that.”

“The admiral knows what he’s doing,” asserted a man stoutly.

“Y-yes. And what he’s not doing. Those could be ships of his—No more! Say on, Targovi.”

Targovi did. He told tales of his tarings to the vaz-Siravo in their seas. On Starkad, his race and theirs had often been mortal enemies. Feelings lingered, not to mention abysses of difference. They tried to get along together these days, because they must, and usually they succeeded, more or less, but it could be difficult. This led to chat about the care and feeding of Merseians …

Prisoners were not maltreated, if only because the opposition could retaliate. In particular, officers were housed as well as feasible. Fodaich Eidhafor the Bold, Vach Dathyr, highest among those plucked from ruined ships of the Roidhunate, got an entire house and staff of servants to himself, lent by a prosperous businessman who anticipated governmental favor for his civic-mindedness. It was guarded by electronics and a couple of live sentries. Lesser captives were held almost as lightly. Where could they flee to, on a planet where they would starve in the wilds and every soul in every settlement would instantly know them for what they were? The house was in a fashionable residential district a hundred kilometers north of Aurea. It stood alone on a knoll amidst flowerbeds, hedges, and bowers.

True night never fell on Daedalus. The city was distance-dwindled to a miniature mosaic of lights, sparse because it had no need to illuminate streets. Sunlight was a red-gold ring, broadest and most nearly bright to the west, where Patricius had lately set, fading and thinning toward the east, but at this hour complete. Otherwise the sky was a gray-blue in which nearly every star was lost.

Eidhafor awoke when a hand gently shook him by the shoulder. He sat up in bed. Windows filled the room with dusk. Beside him stood a form shadowy but not human, not Merseian—“Hssh!” it hissed. “Stay quiet.” Fingers increased their pressure, not painfully, but enough to suggest what strength lay behind them. “I mean you no harm. Rather, I wish you well. If you do not cry out, then we shall talk, only talk.”

“Who are you?” Eidhafor rasped, likewise in Anglic. “What are you? How did you get in?”

The stranger chuckled. Teeth flashed briefly white below the ember gleam of eyes. “As to that last, fodaich, it was not difficult, the more so when unawaited. A car that landed well away from here, a hunter who used his tricks of stalking to get close, a pair of small devices—surely the fodaich can imagine.”

Eidhafor regained equilibrium. If murder had been intended, it would have happened while he slept. “Under my oath to the Roidhun and my honor within my Vach, I cannot talk freely to an unknown,” he said.

“Understood,” the stranger purred. “I will ask no secrets of you: nothing but frankness, such as I suspect you have already indulged in, and doubtless will again when you return home. It could well prove in the interest of your cause.”

“And what is your own interest?” Eidhafor flung.

“Softly, I beg you, softly. You will presently agree how unwise it would be to rouse the household.” The stranger let go his grip and curled down to sit on the end of the bed. “No matter my name. We shall concern ourselves with you for a while. Afterward I will depart by the way I came, and you may go back to sleep.”

Eidhafor squinted through the gloom. He had felt fur. And those ears and tendrils—He had seen pictures in his briefings before the fleet took off. “You are a Starkadian from Imhotep,” he declared flatly.

“Mayhap.” The eyes held steady. Could they see better in the dark than human or Merseian eyes?

If so, they beheld a being roughly the size and shape of a big man. Standing, Eidhafor would lean forward on tyrannosaurian legs, counterbalanced by a heavy tail; but his hands and his visage were humanoid, if you ignored countless details. External ears were lacking. The skin was hairless, pale green, meshed by fine scales. He was warm-blooded, male, wedded to a female who had borne their young alive. His species and the human had biochemistries so closely similar that they desired the same kinds of worlds; and it might well be that the mindsets were not so different, either.

“What could a Starkadian want of a Merseian?” he asked.

“It is true, there is a grievance,” whispered back. “Had the Roidhunate had its way, all life on Starkad would long since be ashes. The Terrans rescued some of us. But that was a generation or more ago. Times change; gratitude is mortal; likewise is enmity, though apt to be longer-lived. If I am a Starkadian, then imagine that certain among us are reconsidering where our own best interests lie. Furthermore, Merseia almost took control of this system, thus of Imhotep. The next round may have another outcome. It would be well for us to gain understanding of you. If I am a Starkadian, then I have taken this opportunity to try for a little insight.”

“A-a-ahhh,” Eidhafor breathed.

Captain Jerrold Ronan was in charge of Naval Intelligence for the Patrician System. That was a more important and demanding job than it appeared to be or than his rank suggested. Subordinates had reason to believe that he stood high in the confidence of his superiors, including Admiral Magnusson.

Hence it would grossly have blown cover for Targovi, obscure itinerant chapman, to see him in person. Instead, the Tigery called from his van, away off in the outback. The message went through sealed circuits and an array of encoding programs.

At contact, by appointment: “Well?” snapped Ronan. “Be quick. Matters are close to the breaking point. I can’t spare time for every hint-collector who imagines he’s come across a sensational piece of revelation.” He sighed. “Why did I ever give you direct access to me?”

The least of ripples went across Targovi’s pelt, and underneath. His tone held smooth. “The noble captain is indeed overburdened, if he forgets the honor that his dignity requires he grant those who operate in his service. Let me remind him that he himself felt, years agone, an individual like this one could prove uniquely able to gather special kinds of clues.”

The man’s thin, freckled countenance drew into a scowl. “You and your damned pride! Close to insubordination—” He calmed. “All right. I’m harassed, and it probably has made me rude. You did pick up some useful leads in the past.”

They had been leads to nothing enormous; nevertheless, they had been useful. Like humans, Merseians employed various agents not of their own species. A racial and cultural patchwork such as Daedalus, remote from the Imperial center, was vulnerable to subversion—and not just from Merseia; the Empire seethed with criminality, dissension, unbounded ambitions. To hold the sector, the Navy must be the police force of their main-base planet. Colonists tended to feel less constrained in the presence of an affable nonhuman trader than with somebody more readily imaginable as working undercover.

“I think this time I have truly significant news,” Targovi said.

The screen image ran fingers through its red hair. “You’ve been on Daedalus a while?”

“Yes, sir. Going to and fro on my usual rounds, and some not so usual. Looking, listening, talking, snooping. Scarce need I tell the captain how much discontent is afoot, sense of betrayal, demands for amendment—especially in the Navy—although it may be that many persons spoke more freely before me than they would have before others. Sir, I cannot but feel that this sentiment is very largely being fomented. To a natural aggravation, which should but cause grumbling, come unfounded allegations, repeated until everyone takes their truth for given; inflammatory slogans; hostile japes—”

“That’s merely your impression,” Ronan interrupted. “And, no offense, you are not human. You are not even properly acquainted with Technic civilization. I hope you have something more definite to tell.”

“I do, sir. First, scant doubt remains that spacecraft have been calling at Zacharia island, suspiciously often, for more than a year. I have garnered accounts of sightings by dwellers on the mainland and sailors who were at sea. They thought little about it. Yet when I compared data from the main traffic control bank, a most curious pattern emerged. Activity has been going on yonder, sir, and I misdoubt it is not harmless smuggling. Could it be Merseian?”

“No. Have a care. Remember, the Navy conducts secret operations. You will speak no more about this, not to anybody. Do you understand?”

Targovi glided past the question. “Sir, there is another eldritch thing, directly concerning the Merseians. I have word from green lips.”

Ronan started. “What? How? Who with? How dared you?”

Targovi imitated a human smile. It made his teeth sheen sharp. “The captain must permit me my own small secrets. Did we not agree that any value I might have lies in my ability to work irregularly? Rest assured, no harm was done. Again, I have simply wormed out confidences which would not otherwise be forthcoming—although bits of memory and feeling that the Merseians let drop before their guards should have been heeded more closely than they were.”

Ronan swallowed hard. “Say on.”

“Those officers who know what actually happened are bewildered. Several are embittered. It is like the impression here that Daedalus was left neglected to face danger alone; but this impression has more reason behind it. Sir, the Merseian fleet was led with unprecedented stupidity. Its advance squadrons flew straight into the trap that Admiral Magnusson had set at Black Hole 1571—although the hazard should have been plain to any commander who knew aught of astrophysics or naval history. Then, instead of reforming to mount a rescue operation, Cyntath Merwyn split his main strength north and south, creating two pincers which Terra’s rear echelons broke one by one. It should never have happened.”

“Aren’t you glad it did?” Ronan asked dryly. “I daresay harsh things have been done to high-ranking people, back in the Roidhunate. It doesn’t publicize its failures.”

“Sir, this was a failure too grotesque. An experienced, senior officer admitted as much to me. His rage came nigh to making him vomit.” Targovi paused. “And yet, captain, and yet … our fleet could have pursued the advantage gained further than it did. It could have inflicted far worse damage. Instead, it was content to let the bulk of the enemy armada retreat.”

Ronan flushed. “Who are you to talk strategy? What do you know that Admiral Magnusson did not? Has it occurred to you that his first duty was not to risk our forces, but to save them?”

“Captain, I simply suggest—”

“You have said quite enough,” Ronan bit off. “Do you care to submit a detailed report? No, don’t answer that. It would be worthless. Or worse than worthless, in the present explosive situation.” His image stiffened. “Agent Targovi, you will drop this line of inquiry. That is an order. Return to Imhotep. Do not, repeat not attempt any additional amateurish investigation of matters which do not concern you. If we should have an assignment for you later, you will be informed.”

The Tigery was quiet for a space.

“May I ask why the captain is displeased?” he ventured.

“No. Official secrets.”

“Aye, sir. If I have transgressed, I am … sorry.”

Ronan relented a trifle. “I’ll accept that you didn’t know any better.”

“Very good, sir. But—Well, about my Moonjumper, sir. Of course, everybody thinks I bought her, and my piloting instruction, out of my gains from storming a pirate stronghold on Imhotep. I can return now, with half my cargo unsold, claiming a family crisis. But would it not arouse wonder, should I fail to come back soon to Daedalus?”

“Are you that well known?” The man considered. “As you will. You do have a living to make.” Part-time clandestines received a pittance for their efforts, though retirement benefits, when they could plausibly claim to be living off their savings, were fairly good. “But watch your actions. If you step over the bounds, you’re dead.”

“Understood, sir. Aught else? No, sir? Out.” Targovi switched off.

By himself, he sank into thought. Rather, he went racing away on a dozen different trails of thought, the hunter’s thrill along his nerves. Certain suspicions were strengthening.

He needed help, and was unsure where to seek it. Well, since he must go home anyway, he could begin there. If he probed deeper, he might die. Quite possibly. But if not—if he did a deed that they would notice on Terra itself—