If his scheme didn’t work, the Aeneans would be irritated when they learned the whole truth; but they didn’t strike him as the kind who would punish a ruse of war.
Essentially they were caretakers: besides the Rommel’s crew, a few scientists and service personnel. Their job was to maintain the fruitful relationship with neighboring Didonians and the fabric of the base. Being what they were, they attempted in addition to continue making studies.
Physically, they were isolated. Interplanetary radio silence persisted, for Josipist ships had raided the Virgilian System more than once. Every month or so, a boat from Aeneas brought supplies, mail, and news. The last arrival had been only a few days before. Thus Flandry got an up-to-date account of events.
From the Aenean viewpoint, they were dismal. Manufacture, logistics, and communications were falling apart beneath Hugh McCormac. He had given up trying to govern any substantial volume of space. Instead, he had assigned forces to defend individually the worlds which had declared for him. They were minimal, those forces. They hampered but could not prevent badgering attacks by Snelund’s squadrons. Any proper flotilla could annihilate them in detail.
Against that development, McCormac kept the bulk of his fleet around Satan. If the Josipists gathered in full strength, he would learn of it from his scouts, go meet the armada, and rely on his tactical abilities to scatter it.
“But they know that,” Director Jowett said. He stroked his white beard with a hand that trembled. “They won’t give our Emperor the decisive battle he needs. I wonder if Snelund ’ull even call for reinforcements when Terra can spare them. He may simply wear us down. I’m sure he’d enjoy our havin’ a long agony.”
“Do you think we should yield?” Flandry asked.
The old head lifted. “Not while our Emperor lives!”
Folk being starved for visitors, Flandry had no trouble in learning more than he needed to know. They fell in readily with a suggestion he made. Rather than dispatch arrears to fetch his companions, why not use the Rommel? No instrumental readings or flashed communication from Aeneas indicated any immediate reason to hold her in condition red. Jowett and her captain agreed. Of course, there wouldn’t be room for the whole gang unless most of the crew stayed behind. The few who did ride along could use the practice.
Flandry had sketched alternative plans. However, this simplified his task.
He guided the ship aloft and southward. En route, he called the camp. Somebody was sure to be listening on a helmet radio. “All’s fine,” he said. “We’ll land on the beach exactly west of your location and wait for you. Let me speak with Ensign Havelock … Tom? It’s Q. Better have Yuan and Christopher lead off.”
That meant that they were to don their armor.
The ship set down. Those who manned her stepped trustfully out on the sand. When they saw the travelers emerge from the woods, they shouted their welcomes across the wind.
Two gleaming metal shapes hurtled into view above the treetops. A second afterward, they were at hover above the ship, with blasters aimed.
“Hands up, if you please,” Flandry said.
“What?” the captain yelled. A man snatched at his sidearm. A beam sizzled from overhead, barely missing him. Sparks showered and steam puffed where it struck.
“Hands up, I repeat,” Flandry snapped. “You’d be dead before any shot of yours could penetrate.”
Sick-featured, they obeyed. “You’re being hijacked,” he told them. “You might as well start home at once. It’ll take you some hours on shank’s mare.”
“You Judas.” The captain spat.
Flandry wiped his face and answered, “Matter of definition, that. Get moving.” Yuan accompanied the group for some distance.
Beforehand, suddenly drawn guns had made prisoners of men whose loyalty was in question. More puzzled than angry, Lightning Struck The House guided the uncoupled units aboard. Woe marched Kathryn up the ramp.
When he saw her, Flandry found business to do on the other side of the ship.
With his crew embarked and stations assigned, he hauled gravs. Hovering above the settlement, he disabled the interplanetary transmitter with a shot to its mast. Next he broadcast a warning and allowed the people time to evacuate. Finally he demolished other selected installations.
The Aeneans would have food, shelter, ground defenses. But they wouldn’t be going anywhere or talking to anybody until a boat arrived from Aeneas, and none was due for a month.
“Take her east, Citizen Havelock,” Flandry directed. “We’ll fetch our chums at Thunderstone and let off the surplus livestock. And, yes, we’ll lay in some food for the new Didonian. I think I may have use for heesh.”
“Where at, sir?”
“Llynathawr. We’ll leave this system cautiously, not to be spotted. When well into space, we’ll run at maximum hyperspeed to Llynathawr.”
“Sir?” Havelock’s mien changed from adoration to puzzlement. “I beg the captain’s pardon, but I don’t understand. I mean, you’ve turned a catastrophe into a triumph, we’ve got the enemy’s current code and he doesn’t know we do, but shouldn’t we make for Ifri? Especially when Kathryn—”
“I have my reasons,” Flandry said. “Never fear, she will not go back to Snelund.” His own expression was so forbidding that no one dared inquire further.
XIV
Again the metal narrowness, chemical-tainted air, incessant beat of driving energies, but also the wintry wonder of stars, the steady brightening of a particular golden point among them. From Virgil to Llynathawr, in this ship, the flit was less than two standard days.
Flandry held captain’s mast. The wardroom was too cramped for everybody, but audiovisual intercoms were tuned. The crew saw him seated, in whites that did not fit well but were nonetheless the full uniform of his rank. Like theirs, his body was gaunt, the bones standing sharply forth in his countenance, the eyes unnaturally luminous by contrast with a skin burned almost black. Unlike most of them, he showed no pleasure in his victory.
“Listen carefully,” he said. “In an irregular situation such as ours, it is necessary to go through various formalities.” He took the depositions which, entered in the log, would retroactively legalize his seizure of Rommel and his status as her master.
“Some among you were put under arrest,” he went on. “That was a precautionary measure. In a civil war, one dares not trust a man without positive confirmation, and obviously I couldn’t plan a surprise move with our entire group. The arrest is hereby terminated and the subjects ordered released. I will specifically record and report that their detention was in no way meant to reflect on their loyalty or competence, and that I recommend every man aboard for promotion and a medal.”
He did not smile when they cheered. His hard monotone went on: “By virtue of the authority vested in me, and in conformance with Naval regulations on extraordinary recruitment, I am swearing the sophont from the planet Dido, known to us by the name Woe, into His Majesty’s armed service on a temporary basis with the rating of common spaceman. In view of the special character of this being, the enrollment shall be entered as that of three new crewpeople.”
Laughter replied. They thought his imp had spoken. They were wrong.
“All detection systems will be kept wide open,” he continued after the brief ceremony. “Instantly upon contact with any Imperial ship, the communications officer will signal surrender and ask for an escort. I daresay we’ll all be arrested when they board us, till our bona fides can be established. However, I trust that by the time we assume Llynathawr orbit, we’ll be cleared.
“A final item. We have an important prisoner aboard. I told Ensign Havelock, who must have told the rest of you, that Lady McCormac will not be returned to the custody of Sector Governor Snelund. Now I want to put the reason on official though secret record, since otherwise our action would be grounds for court-martial.
“It is not in the province of Nav
al officers to make political decisions. Because of the circumstances about Lady McCormac, including the questionable legality of her original detention, my judgment is that handing her over to His Excellency would be a political decision, fraught with possibly ominous consequences. My duty is to deliver her to Naval authorities who can dispose of her case as they find appropriate. At the same time, we cannot in law refuse a demand for her person by His Excellency.
“Therefore, as master of this vessel, and as an officer of the Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, charged with an informational mission and hence possessed of discretionary powers with respect to confidentiality of data, et cetera, I classify Lady McCormac’s presence among us as a state secret. She will be concealed before we are boarded. No one will mention that she has been along, then or at any future date, until such time as the fact may be granted public release by a qualified governmental agency. To do so will constitute a violation of the laws and rules on security, and subject you to criminal penalties. If asked, you may say that she escaped just before we left Dido. Is that understood?”
Reverberating shouts answered him.
He sat back. “Very well,” he said tiredly. “Resume your stations. Have Lady McCormac brought here for interview.”
He switched off the com. His men departed. I’ve got them in my pocket, he thought. They’d ship out for hell if I were the skipper. He felt no exaltation. I don’t really want another command.
He opened a fresh pack of the cigarets he had found among stocked rations. The room enclosed him in drabness. Under the machine noises and the footfalls outside, silence grew.
But his heart knocked when Kathryn entered. He rose.
She shut the door and stood tall in front of it. Her eyes, alone in the spacecraft, looked on him in scorn. His knife had stayed on her hip.
When she didn’t speak and didn’t speak, he faltered, “I — I hope the captain’s cabin — isn’t too uncomfortable.”
“How do you aim to hide me?” she asked. The voice had its wonted huskiness, and nothing else.
“Mitsui and Petrovic will take the works out of a message capsule. We can pad the casing and tap airholes that won’t be noticed. You can have food and drink and, uh, what else you’ll need. It’ll get boring, lying there in the dark, but shouldn’t be longer than twenty or thirty hours.”
“Then what?”
“If everything goes as I expect, well be ordered into parking orbit around Llynathawr,” he said. “The code teams won’t take much time getting their readouts from our computers. Meanwhile we’ll be interrogated and the men assigned temporarily to Catawrayannis Base till extended leave can be given them. Procedure cut and dried and quick; the Navy’s interested in what we bring, not our adventures while we obtained it. Those can wait for the board of inquiry on Asieneuve’s loss. The immediate thing will be to hit the rebels before they change their code.
“I’ll assert myself as captain of the Rommel, on detached service. My status could be disputed; but in the scramble to organize that attack, I doubt if any bureaucrat will check the exact wording of regs. They’ll be happy to let me have the responsibility for this boat, the more so when my roving commission implies that I need the means to rove.
“As master, I’m required to keep at least two hands on watch. In parking orbit, that’s a technicality, no more. And I’ve seen to it that technically, Woe is three crewmen. I’m reasonably confident I can fast-talk my way out of any objections to heesh. It’s such a minor-looking matter, a method of not tying up two skilled spacers who could be useful elsewhere.
“When you’re alone, heesh will let you out.”
Flandry ran down. He had lectured her in the same way as he might have battered his fists on a steel wall.
“Why?” she said.
“Why what?” He stubbed out his cigaret and reached for another.
“I can understand … maybe … why you did what you’ve done … to Hugh. I wouldn’t ’ve thought it of you, I saw you as brave and good enough to stand for what’s right, but I can imagine that down underneath, your spirit is small.
“But what I can’t understand, can’t grasp,” Kathryn sighed, “is that you — after everything — are bringin’ me back to enslavement. If you hadn’t told Woe to seize me, there’s not a man of your men who wouldn’t’ve turned away while I ran into the forest.”
He could not watch her any longer. “You’re needed,” he mumbled.
“For what? To be wrung dry of what little I know? To be dangled ’fore Hugh in the hope ’twill madden him? To be made an example of? And it doesn’t matter whether ’tis an example of Imperial justice or Imperial mercy, whatever was me will die when they kill Hugh.” She was not crying, not reproaching. Peripherally, he saw her shake her head in a slow, bewildered fashion. “I can’t understand.”
“I don’t believe I’d better tell you yet,” he pleaded. “Too many variables in the equation. Too much improvising to do. But—”
She interrupted. “I’ll play your game, since ’tis the one way I can at least ’scape from Snelund. But I’d rather not be with you.” Her tone continued quiet. “’Twould be a favor if you weren’t by when they put me in that coffin.”
He nodded. She left. Woe’s heavy tread boomed behind her.
Whatever his shortcomings, the governor of Sector Alpha Crucis set a magnificent table. Furthermore, he was a charming host, with a rare gift for listening as well as making shrewd and witty comments. Though most of Flandry crouched like a panther behind his smile, a part reveled in this first truly civilized meal in months.
He finished his narrative of events on Dido as noiseless live servants cleared away the last golden dishes, set forth brandy and cigars, and disappeared. “Tremendous!” applauded Snelund. “Utterly fascinating, that race. Did you say you brought one back? I’d like to meet the being.”
“That’s easily arranged, Your Excellency,” Flandry said. “More easily than you perhaps suspect.”
Snelund’s brows moved very slightly upward, his fingers tensed the tiniest bit on the stem of his snifter. Flandry relaxed, inhaled the bouquet of his own drink, twirled it to enjoy the play of color within the liquid, and sipped in conscious counterpoint to the background lilt of music.
They sat on an upper floor of the palace. The chamber was not large, but graciously proportioned and subtly tinted. A wall had been opened to the summer evening. Air wandered in from the gardens bearing scents of rose, jasmine, and less familiar blossoms. Downhill glistered the city, lights in constellations and fountains, upward radiance of towers, firefly dance of arrears. Traffic sounds were a barely perceptible murmur. You had trouble believing that all around and spilling to the stars, it roared with preparations for war.
Nor was Snelund laying on any pressure. Flandry might have removed Kathryn McCormac hence for “special interrogation deemed essential to the maximization of success probability on a surveillance mission” in sheer impudence. He might have lost first his ship and last his prisoner in sheer carelessness. But after he came back with a booty that should allow Admiral Pickens to give the rebellion a single spectacular deathblow, without help from Terra and with no subsequent tedious inspection of militia operations, the governor could not well be aught but courteous to the man who saved his political bacon.
Nevertheless, when Flandry requested a secret talk, it had not been with the expectation of dinner tête-à-tête.
“Indeed?” Snelund breathed.
Flandry glanced across the table at him: wavy, fiery hair, muliebrile countenance, gorgeous purple and gold robe, twinkle and shimmer of jewelry. Behind that, Flandry thought, were a bowel and a skull.
“The thing is, sir,” he said, “I had a delicate decision to make.”
Snelund nodded, smiling but with a gaze gone flat and hard as two stones. “I suspected that, Commander. Certain aspects of your report and behavior, certain orders you issued with a normally needless haste a
nd authoritative ring, were not lost on me. You have me to thank for passing the word that I felt you should not be argued with. I was, ah, curious as to what you meant.”
“I do thank Your Excellency.” Flandry started his cigar. “This matter’s critical to you too, sir. Let me remind you of my dilemma on Dido. Lady McCormac became extremely popular with my men.”
“Doubtless.” Snelund laughed. “I taught her some unusual tricks.”
I have no weapons under this blue and white dress uniform, Aaron Snelund. I have nothing but my hands and feet. And a black belt in karate, plus training in other techniques. Except for unfinished business, I’d merrily let myself be executed, in fair trade for the joy of dismantling you.
Because the creature must recall what her soul had been like when he flayed it open, and might be probing veracity now, Flandry gave him a sour grin. “No such luck, sir. She even refused my proposition, which fact I pray you to declare a top secret. But — well, there she was, the only woman, handsome, able, bright. Toward the end, most were a touch in love with her. She’d spread the impression that her stay here had been unpleasant. To be frank, sir, I feared a mutiny if the men expected she’d be remanded to you. Bringing in the code was too crucial to risk.”
“So you connived at her escape.” Snelund sipped. “That’s tacitly realized by everyone, Commander. A sound judgment, whether or not we dare put it in the record. She can be tracked down later.”
“But sir, I didn’t.”
“What!” Snelund sat bolt erect.
Flandry said fast: “Let’s drop the euphemisms, sir. She made some extremely serious accusations against you. Some people might use them to buttress a claim that your actions were what caused this rebellion. I didn’t want that. If you’ve read much history, you’ll agree nothing works like a Boadicea — no? — a martyr, especially an attractive female martyr, to create trouble. The Empire would suffer. I felt it was my duty to keep her. To get the men’s agreement, I had to convince them she would not be returned here. She’d go to a Naval section, where rules protect prisoners and testimony isn’t likely to be suppressed.”
The Rebel Worlds Page 15
