The Rebel Worlds

II

A metropolis in its own right, Admiralty Center lifted over that part of North America’s Rocky Mountains which it occupied, as if again the Titans of dawn myth were piling Pelion on Ossa to scale Olympus. “And one of these days,” Dominic Flandry had remarked to a young woman whom he was showing around, and to whom he had made that comparison in order to demonstrate his culture, “the gods are going to get as irritated as they did last time — let us hope with less deplorable results.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Because his objective was not to enlighten but simply to seduce her, he had twirled his mustache and leered: “I mean that you are far too lovely for me to exercise my doomsmanship on. Now as for that plotting tank you wanted to see, this way, please.”

He didn’t tell her that its spectacular three-dimensional star projections were mainly for visitors. The smallest astronomical distance is too vast for any pictorial map to have much value. The real information was stored in the memory banks of unpretentious computers which the general public was not allowed to look on.

As his cab entered the area today, Flandry recalled the little episode. It had terminated satisfactorily. But his mind would not break free of the parallel he had not uttered.

Around him soared many-tinted walls, so high that fluoropanels must glow perpetually on the lower levels, a liana tangle of elevated ways looping between them, the pinnacles crowned with clouds and sunlight. Air traffic swarmed and glittered in their sky, a dance too dense and complex for anything but electronic brains to control; and traffic pulsed among the towers, up and down within them, deep into the tunnels and chambers beneath their foundations. Those cars and buses, airborne or ground, made barely a whisper; likewise the slideways; and a voice or a footfall was soon lost. Nevertheless, Admiralty Center stood in a haze of sound, a night-and-day hum like a beehive’s above an undergroundish growling, the noise of its work.

For here was the nexus of Imperial strength; and Terra ruled a rough sphere some 400 light-years across, containing an estimated four million suns, of which a hundred thousand were in one way or another tributary to her.

Thus far the pride. When you looked behind it, though—

Flandry emerged from his reverie. His cab was slanting toward Intelligence headquarters. He took a hasty final drag on his cigaret, pitched it in the disposer, and checked his uniform. He preferred the dashing dress version, with as much elegant variation as the rather elastic rules permitted, or a trifle more. However, when your leave has been cancelled after a mere few days Home, and you are ordered to report straight to Vice Admiral Kheraskov, you had better arrive in plain white tunic and trousers, the latter not tucked into your half-boots, and belt instead of sash, and simple gray cloak, and bonnet cocked to bring its sunburst badge precisely over the middle of your forehead.

Sackcloth and ashes would be more appropriate, Flandry mourned. Three, count ’em, three gorgeous girls, ready and eager to help me celebrate my birth week, starting tomorrow at Everest House with a menu I spent two hours planning; and we’d’ve continued as long as necessary to prove that a quarter century is less old than it sounds. And now this!

A machine in the building talked across seething communications to a machine in the cab. Flandry was deposited on the fiftieth-level parking flange. The gravs cut out. He lent his card to the meter, which transferred credit and unlocked the door for him. A marine guard at the entrance verified his identity and appointment with the help of another machine and let him through. He passed down several halls on his way to the lift shaft he wanted. Restless, he walked in preference to letting a strip carry him.

Crowds moved by and overflowed the offices. Their members ranged from junior technicians to admirals on whose heads might rest the security of a thousand worlds and scientists who barely kept the empire afloat in a universe full of lethal surprises. By no means all were human. Shapes, colors, words, odors, tactile sensations when he brushed against a sleeve or an alien skin, swirled past Flandry in endless incomprehensible patterns.

Hustle, bustle, hurry, scurry, run, run, run, said his glumness. Work, for the night is coming — the Long Night, when the Empire goes under and the howling peoples camp in its ruins. Because how can we remain forever the masters, even of our insignificant spatter of stars, on the fringe of a galaxy so big we’ll never know a decent fraction of it? Probably never more than this sliver of one spiral arm that we’ve already seen. Why, better than half the suns, just in the micro-bubble of space we claim, have not been visited once!

Our ancestors explored further than we in these years remember. When hell cut loose and their civilization seemed about to fly into pieces, they patched it together with the Empire. And they made the Empire function. But we … we’ve lost the will. We’ve had it too easy for too long. And so the Merseians on our Betelgeusean flank, the wild races everywhere else, press inward … Why do I bother? Once a career in the Navy looked glamorous to me. Lately I’ve seen its backside. I could be more comfortable doing almost anything else.

A woman stopped him. She must be on incidental business, because civilian employees here couldn’t get away with dressing in quite such a translucent wisp of rainbow. She was constructed for it. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “Could you tell me how to find Captain Yuan-Li’s office? I’m afraid I’m lost.”

Flandry bowed. “Indeed, my lady.” He had reported in there on arrival at Terra, and now directed her. “Please tell him Lieutenant Commander Flandry said he’s a lucky captain.”

She fluttered her lashes. “Oh, sir.” Touching the insigne on his breast, a star with an eye: “I noticed you’re in Intelligence. That’s why I asked you. It must be fascinating. I’d love to—”

Flandry beamed. “Well, since we both know friend Yuan-Li—”

They exchanged names and addresses. She departed, wagging her tail. Flandry continued. His mood was greatly lightened. After all, another job might prove boring. He reached his upbound point. Here’s where I get the shaft. Stepping through the portal, he relaxed while the negagrav field lifted him.

Rather, he tried to relax, but did not succeed a hundred percent. Attractive women or no, a new-made lieutcom summoned for a personal interview with a subchief of operations is apt to find his tongue a little dry and his palms a little wet.

Catching a handhold, he drew himself out on the ninety-seventh level and proceeded down the corridor. Here dwelt a hush; the rare soft voices, the occasional whirr of a machine, only deepened for him his silence between these austere walls. What persons he met were of rank above his, their eyes turned elsewhere, their thoughts among distant suns. When he reached Kheraskov’s suite of offices, the receptionist was nothing but a scanner and talkbox hooked to a computer too low-grade to be called a brain. More was not needed. Everybody unimportant got filtered out at an earlier stage. Flandry cooled his heels a mere five minutes before it told him to proceed through the inner door.

The room beyond was large, high-ceilinged, lushly carpeted. In one corner stood an infotriever and an outsize vidiphone, in another a small refreshment unit. Otherwise there were three or four pictures, and as many shelves for mementos of old victories. The rear wall was an animation screen; at present it had an image of Jupiter seen from an approaching ship, so vivid that newcomers gasped. He halted at an expanse of desktop and snapped a salute that nearly tore his arm off. “Lieutenant Commander Dominic Flandry, reporting as ordered, sir.”

The man aft of the desk was likewise in plain uniform. He wore none of the decorations that might have blanketed his chest, save the modest jewel of knighthood that was harder to gain than a patent of nobility. But his nebula and star outglistened Flandry’s ringed planet. He was short and squat, with tired pugdog features under bristly gray hair. His return salute verged on being sloppy. But Flandry’s heartbeat accelerated.

“At ease,” said Vice Admiral Sir Ilya Kheraskov. “Sit down. Smoke?” He shoved forward a box of cigars.

“Thank you, sir.” Flandry collected his wits. He chose a cigar and made a production of starting it, while the chair fitted itself around his muscles and subtly encouraged them to relax. “The admiral is most kind. I don’t believe a better brand exists than Corona Australis.” In fact, he knew of several: but these weren’t bad. The smoke gave his tongue a love bite and curled richly by his nostrils.

“Coffee if you like,” offered the master of perhaps a million agents through the Empire and beyond. “Or tea or jaine.”

“No, thanks, sir.”

Kheraskov studied him, wearily and apologetically; he felt X-rayed. “I’m sorry to break your furlough like this, Lieutenant Commander,” the admiral said. “You must have been anticipating considerable overdue recreation. I see you have a new face.”

They had never met before. Flandry made himself smile. “Well, yes, sir. The one my parents gave me had gotten monotonous. And since I was coming to Terra, where biosculp is about as everyday as cosmetics—” He shrugged.

Still that gaze probed him. Kheraskov saw an athlete’s body, 184 centimeters tall, wide in the shoulders and narrow in the hips. From the white, tapered hands you might guess how their owner detested the hours of exercise he must spend in maintaining those cat-supple thews. His countenance had become straight of nose, high of cheekbones, cleft of chin. The mobile mouth and the eyes, changeable gray beneath slightly arched brows, were original. Speaking, he affected a hint of drawl.

“No doubt you’re wondering why your name should have been plucked off the roster,” Kheraskov said, “and why you should have been ordered straight here instead of to your immediate superior or Captain Yuan-Li.”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t seem to rate your attention.”

“Nor were you desirous to.” Kheraskov’s chuckle held no humor. “But you’ve got it.” He leaned back, crossed stumpy legs and bridged hairy fingers. “I’ll answer your questions.

“First, why you, one obscure officer among’ tens of similar thousands? You may as well know, Flandry, if you don’t already — though I suspect your vanity has informed you — to a certain echelon of the Corps, you aren’t obscure. You wouldn’t hold the rank you’ve got, at your age, if that were the case. No, we’ve taken quite an interest in you since the Starkad affair. That had to be hushed up, of course, but it was not forgotten. Your subsequent assignment to surveillance had intriguing consequences.” Flandry could not totally suppress a tinge of alarm. Kheraskov chuckled again; it sounded like iron chains. “We’ve learned things that you hushed up. Don’t worry … yet. Competent men are so heartbreakingly scarce these days, not to mention brilliant ones, that the Service keeps a blind eye handy for a broad range of escapades. You’ll either be killed, young man, or you’ll do something that will force us to step on you, or you’ll go far indeed.”

He drew breath before continuing: “The present business requires a maverick. I’m not letting out any great secret when I tell you the latest Merseian crisis is worse than the government admits to the citizens. It could completely explode on us. I think we can defuse it. For once, the Empire acted fast and decisively. But it demands we keep more than the bulk of our fleets out on that border, till the Merseians understand we mean business about not letting them take over Jihannath. Intelligence operations there have reached such a scale that the Corps is sucked dry of able field operatives elsewhere.

“And meanwhile something else has arisen, on the opposite side of our suzerainty. Something potentially worse than any single clash with Merseia.” Kheraskov lifted a hand. “Don’t imagine you’re the only man we’re sending to cope, or that you can contribute more than a quantum to our effort. Still, stretched as thin as we are, every quantum is to be treasured. It was your bad luck but the Empire’s good luck … maybe … that you happened to check in on Terra last week. When I asked Files who might be available with the right qualifications, your reel was among a dozen that came back.” Flandry waited.

Kheraskov rocked forward. The last easiness dropped from him. A grim and bitter man spoke: “As for why you’re reporting directly to me — this is one place where I know there isn’t any spybug, and you are one person I think won’t backstab me. I told you we need a maverick. I tell you in addition, you could suck around the court and repeat what I’m about to say. I’d be broken, possibly shot or enslaved. You’d get money, possibly a sycophant’s preferment. I have to take the chance. Unless you know the entire situation, you’ll be useless.”

Flandry said with care, “I’m a skilled liar, sir, so you’d better take my word rather than my oath that I’m not a very experienced buglemouth.”

“Ha!” Kheraskov sat quiet for several seconds. Then he jumped to his feet and started to pace back and forth, one fist hammering into the other palm. The words poured from him:

“You’ve been away. After Starkad, your visits to Terra were for advanced training and the like. You must have been too busy to follow events at court. Oh, scandal, ribald jokes, rumor, yes, you’ve heard those. Who hasn’t? But the meaningful news — Let me brief you.

“Three years, now, since poor old Emperor Georgios died and Josip II succeeded. Everybody knows what Josip is: too weak and stupid for his viciousness to be highly effective. We all assumed the Dowager Empress will keep him on a reasonably short leash while she lives. And he won’t outlast her by much, the way he treats his organism. And he won’t have children — not him! And the Policy Board, the General Staff, the civil service, the officers corps, the Solar and extra-Solar aristocracies … they hold more crooks and incompetents than they did in former days, but we have a few good ones left, a few …

“I’ve told you nothing new, have I?” Flandry barely had time to shake his head. Kheraskov kept on prowling and talking. “I’m sure you made the same quiet evaluation as most informed citizens. The Empire is so huge that no one individual can do critical damage, no matter if he’s theoretically all-powerful. Whatever harm came from Josip would almost certainly be confined to a relative handful of courtiers, politicians, plutocrats, and their sort, concentrated on and around Terra — no great loss. We’ve survived other bad Emperors.

“A logical judgment. Correct, no doubt, as far as it went. But it didn’t go far enough. Even We who’re close to the seat of power were surprised by Aaron Snelund. Ever hear of him?”

“No, sir,” Flandry said.

“He kept out of the media,” Kheraskov explained. “Censorship’s efficient on this planet, if nothing else is. The court knew about him, and people like me did. But our data were incomplete.

“Later you’ll see details. I want to give you the facts that aren’t public. He was born 34 years ago on Venus, mother a prostitute, father unknown. That was in Sub-Lucifer, where you learn ruthlessness early or go down. He was clever, talented, charming when he cared to be. By his mid-teens he was a sensie actor here on Terra. I can see by hindsight how he must have planned, investigated Josip’s tastes in depth, sunk his money into just the right mannerisms. Once they met, it went smooth as gravitation. By the age of 25, Aaron Snelund had gone from only another catamite to the Crown Prince’s favorite. His next step was to ease out key people and obtain their offices for those who were beholden to Snelund.

“It roused opposition. More than jealousy. Honest men worried about him becoming the power behind the crown when Josip succeeded. We heard mutters about assassination. I don’t know if Josip and Snelund grew alarmed or if Snelund foresaw the danger and planned against it. At any rate, they must have connived.

“Georgios died suddenly, you recall. The following week Josip made Snelund a viscount and appointed him governor of Sector Alpha Crucis. Can you see how well calculated that was? Elevation to a higher rank would have kicked up a storm, but viscounts are a millo a thousand. However, it’s sufficient for a major governorship. Many sectors would be too rich, powerful, close to home, or otherwise important. The Policy Board would not tolerate a man in charge of them who couldn’t be trusted. Alpha Crucis is different.”

Kheraskov slapped a switch. The fluoros went off. The breathtaking view of Jupiter, huge and banded among its moons, vanished. A trikon of the principal Imperial stars jumped into its place. Perhaps Kheraskov’s rage demanded that he at least have something to point at. His blocky form stood silhouetted against a gem-hoard. “Betelgeuse.” He stabbed one finger at a red spark representing the giant sun which dominated the borderlands between the Terran and Merseian empires. “Where the war threat is. Now, Alpha Crucis.”

His hand swept almost 100 degrees counterclockwise. The other hand turned a control, swinging the projection plane about 70 degrees south. Keenly flashed the B-type giants at that opposite end of Terra’s domain, twinned Alpha and bachelor Beta of the Southern Cross. Little showed beyond them except darkness. It was not that the stars did not continue as richly strewn in those parts; it was that they lay where Terra’s writ did not run, the homes of savages and of barbarian predators who had too soon gotten spacecraft and nuclear weapons; it was that they housed darkness.

Kheraskov traced the approximately cylindrical outline of the sector. “Here,” he said, “is where war could really erupt.”

Flandry dared say into the shadowed silence which followed, “Does the admiral mean the wild races are going to try a fresh incursion? But sir, I understood they were well in check. After the battle of — uh — I forget its name, but wasn’t there a battle—”

“Forty-three years ago.” Kheraskov agreed in the shoulders. “Too big, this universe,” he said tiredly. “No one brain, no one species can keep track of everything. So we let the bad seed grow unnoticed until too late.

“Well.” He straightened. “It was hard to see what harm Snelund could do yonder that was worth provoking a constitutional crisis to forestall. The region’s as distant as they come among ours. It’s not highly productive, not densely populated; its loyalty and stability are no more doubtful than most. There are only two things about it that count. One’s the industrial rogue planet Satan. But that’s an ancient possession of the Dukes of Hermes. They can be trusted to protect their own interests. Second is the sector’s position as the shield between us and various raiders. But that means defense is the business of the fleet admiral; and we have — had — a particularly fine man in that post, one Hugh McCormac. You’ve never heard of him, but you’ll get data.

“Of course Snelund would grow fat. What of it? A cento or two per subject per year, diverted from Imperial taxes, won’t hurt any individual so badly he’ll make trouble. But it will build a fortune to satisfy any normal greed. He’d retire in time to a life of luxury. Meanwhile the Navy and civil service would do all the real work as usual. Everyone was happy to get Snelund that cheaply off Terra. It’s the kind of solution which has been reached again and again.”

“Only this time,” Flandry said lazily, “they forgot to allow for a bugger factor.”

Kheraskov switched the map off, the fluoros on, and gave him a hard look. Flandry’s return glance was bland and deferential. Presently the admiral said, “He left three years ago. Since then, increasing complaints have been received of extortion and cruelty. But no single person saw enough of those reports to stir action. And if he had, what could he do? You don’t run an interstellar realm from the center. It isn’t possible. The Imperium is hardly more than a policeman, trying to keep peace internal and external. Tribes, countries, planets, provinces are autonomous in most respects. The agony of millions of sentient beings, 200 light-years away, doesn’t register on several trillion other sophonts elsewhere, or whatever the figure is. It can’t. And we’ve too much else to worry about anyway.

“Think, though, what a governor of a distant region, who chose to abuse his power, might do.” Flandry did, and lost his lightness. “McCormac himself finally sent protests to Terra,” Kheraskov plodded on. “A two-star admiral can get through. The Policy Board began talking about appointing a commission to investigate. Almost immediately after, a dispatch came from Snelund himself. He’d had to arrest McCormac for conspiracy to commit treason. He can do that, you know, and select an interim high commander. The court-martial must be held on a Naval base or vessel, by officers of suitable rank. But with this Merseian crisis — Do you follow me?”

“Too damn well.” Flandry’s words fell muted. “Provincial rebellions aren’t unheard of,” Kheraskov said. “We can less afford one today than we could in the past.”

He has stood looking down at the younger man, across his desk. Turning, he stared into the grand vision of Jupiter, that had come back. “The rest you can find in the data tapes,” he said.

“What do you want me to do … sir?”

“As I told you, we’re sending what undercover agents we can spare, plus a few inspectors. With all that territory to deal with, they’ll take long to compile a true picture. Perhaps fatally long. I want to try something in between also. A man who can nose around informally but openly, with authorizations to flash when needed. The master of a warship, posted to Llynathawr as a reinforcement, has standing. Governor Snelund, for instance, has no ready way of refusing to see him. At the same time, if she’s not a capital ship, her skipper isn’t too blazing conspicuous.”

“But I’ve never had a command, sir.”

“Haven’t you?”

Tactfully, Kheraskov did not watch while the implications of that question sank in. He proceeded: “We’ve found an escort destroyer whose captain is slated for higher things. The record says she has an able executive officer. That should free your attention for your true job. You’d have gotten a ship eventually, in the normal course of grooming you and testing your capabilities. We like our field operatives to have a broad background.”

Not apt to be many broads in my background for a while, passed through the back of Flandry’s mind. He scarcely noticed or cared. Excitement bayed in him.

Kheraskov sat down. “Go back to your place,” he said. “Pack up and check out. Report at 1600 hours to Rear Admiral Yamaguchi. He’ll provide you with quarters, tapes, hypnos, synapse transforms, stimpills, every aid you need. And you will need them. I want your information to be as complete as mine, inside 48 hours. You will then report to Mars Prime Base and receive your brevet commission as a full commander. Your ship is in Mars orbit. Departure will be immediate. I hope you can fake the knowledge of her you don’t have, until you’ve gathered it.

“If you acquit yourself well, we’ll see about making that temporary rank permanent. If you don’t, God help you and maybe God help me. Good luck, Dominic Flandry.”