The Game of Empire df-9

by Poul Anderson

  A garden surrounded a fair-sized building. While not neglected, it showed signs of perfunctory care. That bore out Targovi’s estimate, that this post had seen little use until quite recently, and was still weakly and slackly manned. Why not? What need had the Zacharians had for military skills since Daedalus came under the Pax Terrana? What reason had they, even now, to worry about intruders? Nonetheless Targovi continued cautious. His venture was wild at best.

  First establish lines of retreat. A couple of big oaks offered those. A human could not leap from their upper boughs to the top of the wall, but a Tigery could. Avoiding paths, he eeled from hedge to bush. The building loomed ahead, darkling in the half-light of heaven. It too was old, weather-worn; it had the same peaked roof as those downhill but lacked their gracefulness, being an unrelieved block, though with ample windows and doors. Toward the rear, two of those windows glowed.

  They were plain vitryl. Targovi slipped alongside and peered around an edge. Breath hissed between his fangs. The hair erected over his body. This was the total and stunning confirmation of his—fears?—expectations?—guesses?—The quarry he had been tracing stood terrible before him.

  The windows gave on a room bare-walled and sparsely furnished, with a bath cubicle adjoining. Most of its space went to a computer. While engineering imposes basic similarity on all such machines, Targovi could see that this one had not been manufactured in the Terran Empire. Black-uniformed, blaster at belt and rifle grounded, on guard through the night watch, was a Merseian.

  For a long spell, the Tigery stood moveless. Ring-gleam and cloud shadows, wind-sough in leaves, odors of green life, grittiness of masonry under his palms, seemed abruptly remote, things of dream, against the reality which confronted him. What to do?

  The sensible thing was to withdraw unobserved, keep silence, let the Zacharians return him to the mainland, contact Naval Intelligence …

  Which would be the absolute in lunacy, he thought. What had happened when he just hinted that certain matters might rate investigation? And that was before Magnusson openly rebelled. How far today would a nonhuman outlaw get on his raw word?

  The overwhelming majority of Daedalans and, yes, members of the armed forces desired the survival of the Empire. What else was there for them? But they’d need proof, evidence that nobody could hide or explain away.

  “When we hunted the gaarnokh on Home-world,” Dragoika often said, “and he stood at bay, to spear him in the heart we must needs go in between his horns.”

  Targovi slipped along the wall to the next-nearest door. It was unlocked. Nobody came through the gate or up from the spaceport tunnel unless the leaders had complete confidence in him. Targovi entered a short hall which led to a corridor running the length of the building. Unlighted at this hour of rest, it reached dusky along rows of closed chambers—offices mainly, he assumed, long disused. Some must lately have been seeing activity, as must the weapon emplacements, wherever they were: but not much, because the Zacharians did not await any emergency. They knew Merseia wasn’t going to attack the Patrician System.

  Chiefly, Targovi decided, this strongpoint housed a few officers and their aides from the Roidhunate, observers, liaison agents, conveyors of whatever orders their superiors issued. Ships traveled to and fro, bringing replacements for those who went back to report. That traffic wouldn’t be hard to keep secret. It was infrequent; its captains knew the right recognition codes; Planetary Defense Command would assign sentry vessels to orbits that never gave them a good look at such arrivals; and private landing facilities waited on the island.

  The gatortails must have quarters under this roof. A smell of them reached Targovi as he neared. It was warm, like their blood, but neither Tigery-sweet nor human-sour—bitter. He bristled.

  Partly by scent, partly by keeping track of direction and distance, he identified the door to his goal. It was closed. Unfortunate, that. He’d have to proceed without plan. But if he stood here hesitating his chances would rapidly worsen. Dawn drew nigh. Though most people’s sleeptime might last later, many would soon be astir throughout Janua—must already be—and full sunlight upon wayfarers.

  He thumbed the “open” plate and stepped aside. As the door slid back, the Merseian would look this way and wonder why nobody trod through. He’d likely come closer to see—Now Targovi heard click of boots on the floor, now the sound stopped but he caught a noise of breathing—not quickened, the guard didn’t imagine an enemy at hand, he was probably puzzled, maybe thinking a collywobble had developed in these ancient circuits—

  Targovi came around the jamb and sprang.

  As he appeared, he saw what was needful, pivoted on his claws, and launched himself, in a single storm-swift movement. Driven by the muscles of his race, he struck faster than the Merseian could lift weapon. They tumbled down together. The rifle clattered aside. Targovi jammed his right forearm into a mouth that had barely started to gape in the green-skinned face. Only a stifled gurgle got around it.

  He could have killed a human with a karate chop, but had not studied Merseian anatomy and dared not suppose it was that similar. His left hand darted to catch the opponent’s right arm before the bolstered blaster could be drawn. Strength strained against strength.

  Meanwhile he hooked claws into the thick tail, which would else be a club smashing upon him or thumping a distress signal. The boots, which might have done likewise, he pinned between his calves.

  The Merseian was powerful, less so than him but surging against his pressure, sure to break free somewhere. Targovi released the gun wrist. His own arm whipped around behind the neck of the foe. Low and blunt, unlike Axor’s, the spinal ridge nevertheless bruised him—as his right arm shoved the head back over that fulcrum.

  The Merseian clutched his blaster. Targovi heard a crack. The head flopped. The body shuddered, once, and lay still.

  Whatever their variations, Merseian, Tigery, and human are vertebrates.

  Targovi jumped off the corpse, snatched the rifle, crouched to cover the doorway. If the noise had roused someone, he’d have to try shooting his way free.

  Minutes crawled by. Silence deepened. Light grew stronger in the windowpanes.

  Targovi lowered the weapon. Nobody had heard. Or, if anybody did, it had been so briefly that the being sank back into sleep. After all, he had taken just seconds to kill the guard.

  How much time remained before reveille, or whatever would reveal him? It was surely meager. Targovi got to work.

  Having closed the door, he examined the computer. Aye, Merseian made, and he was ignorant of the Eriau language. Not entirely, though. Like most mentally alive persons in this frontier space, he had picked up assorted words and catchphrases. His daydream of operating among the stars had also led him to learn the alphabet. Moreover, Merseia had originally acquired modern technology from Terra; and logic and natural law are the same everywhere.

  When they first arrived here, the gatortails must have brought this as their own mainframe computer. Not only would they be most familiar with it, they need not fear its being tampered with, whether directly or from afar. Besides making active use of it, they’d keep their database within … Yes. Targovi believed he had figured out the elementary instruction he wanted.

  He touched keys. “Microcopy everything.”

  The machine had rearranged molecules by the millions and deposited three discus-shaped containers on the drop shelf before Targovi finished the rest of his job. Yet what he did went swiftly. He stripped the tunic from the Merseian, who now resisted him with mere weight, and slashed it in places until he could tie it together as a package. The weapons would go in, as well as the data slabs and—He set things out of the way while his knife made the next cuts, and afterward fetched a towel from the bathroom. It wouldn’t do to have his bundle drip blood.

  Ready for travel, he opened the door a crack, peered, opened it wide, stepped through, closed it again. Quite possibly no one would be astir for another hour or two. Merseians tended to be early rise
rs, but had no good reason to reset their circadian rhythms according to the short Daedalan period. In fact, they had good reason to refrain. The effort was lengthy and demanding; meanwhile they’d be at less than peak efficiency.

  It was likewise possible that, whenever the rest of his mission got up, the sentry would not be immediately due for relief, and no other occasion would arise for them to pass this door.

  Targovi couldn’t count on any of that. Thus far his luck had been neither especially fair nor especially foul. Most of it he had made for himself. Had he come upon a different situation, he would have acted according to it as best he was able. Throughout, he had exploited surprise.

  How much longer could he continue to do so? Not very!

  He stole down corridor and hall. At the exit, he dropped to a belly-scraping all fours and crept, dragging his burden in his teeth. Up a tree—a flying leap to the outer wall and a bounce to the ground beyond—snake’s way through brush till a dip of terrain concealed him—He rose and ran.

  Zacharians stared at the carnivore form that sped unhumanly fast down their streets, a bundle under an arm. With his spare hand, he waved at them. They had gotten used to seeing the poor itinerant huckster around, his hopes of business gone, aimlessly adrift. If today he bounded along, why, he must be stretching his legs. He looked cheerful enough.

  The sun-ring had contracted to a broad, incandescent arc in the east. The sky above was nearly white; a few clouds hung gilded. Westward the blue deepened. Dew sparkled on grass. Songbirds twittered. A red squirrel flamed along a bough. Here and there, savants passed from hall to ivy-covered hall. It would have been hard to imagine a scene more innocent.

  When Targovi let himself into the hospice, he missed the scent of Diana. He went to her room and peeked in. The bed stood unused. For a second he stood irresolute. Should he try to find her? The loss of time could prove fatal. On the other hand, a third member of his party might tip the scales, and the gods knew that most weight now lay in the wrong pan … And what of his sisterling herself? Ought he make her share his danger? Would she be safest staying behind? Maybe. The Zacharians might be satisfied with a straightforward interrogation and do her no harm. If she had been romping with the man Kukulkan, he should have the decency to use his influence on her behalf … But maybe the Zacharians would work ghastliness upon her, in fear or in spite. Maybe none of them felt in any way honor-bound to an outsider lover.

  Decision. Targovi couldn’t hunt over Janua for her. But if she was where he thought was likely, it might not be too distant. He sought the infotrieve and keyed the area directory. Kukulkan’s home address appeared on the screen. Houses lacked numbers, but streets” had names, and coordinates on a grid indicated each location. Acacia Lane—yes—Targovi’s disconsolate wanderings while Axor conferred and Diana flirted had had the purpose of learning the geography. Acacia Lane was south of here, not really out of the way when you were trying to escape.

  He entered the Wodenite’s room. Axor filled it, curled on a seat of mattresses. His breathing was like surf below the sea cliffs. Targovi slipped past the scaly body, bent over the muzzle, took hold of its nostrils. Those, he had discovered, were the most sensitive point, He tweaked them. Horny lids flipped back under craggy brow ridges. A row of teeth, ; meant for both ripping and crushing, gleamed into view. “Ochla, hoo-oo, ksyan ngunggung,” rolled between them. “What’s this, eh, what, what?”

  “Quick!” Targovi said. “Follow me. I’ve come on something unique. It won’t last. You’ll want to see it.”

  “Really. I was awake late, reading.”

  “Please. I beg you. You’ll not regret it.”

  “Ah, well, if you insist.” Hoofs banged, the floor creaked, Axor’s tail scraped a wall. He followed Targovi out and across the greensward. Such people as were in sight gave them looks but continued on their own paths. The xenosophonts were no longer a novelty.

  Where a pair of majestic trees shaded a bench, Targovi stopped. “This will be an unpleasant surprise,” he warned. “Hold fast to your emotions. Reveal naught.”

  “What?” The Wodenite blinked. “But you said—”

  “I lied. Here is the truth. Curl around. I want you to screen off what you’re about to see.”

  Squatting, Targovi pulled his bundle from under the bench where he had left it and undid its knots. Three data slabs, two firearms on non-Technic make, and something wrapped in a wet red towel appeared. He unfolded the cloth. Axor failed to suppress a geyserish gasp. Beneath his gaze lay the severed head of a Merseian.

  Chapter 20

  A few times in the past, Diana had felt she was being well and thoroughly kissed. Now she found her estimates had been off by an order of magnitude. Kukulkan’s body pressed hard and supple. When she opened her eyes she saw his blurrily, but gold-brown, oblique, brilliant. The man-scent of him dizzied her. She felt his heartbeat against hers. She clung tight with her left arm and let her right fingers go ruffling through his hair.

  His hand slid from her hip, upward, inside her half-opened blouse. It went under her brassiere. Sweetness exploded.

  Wait! rang through. Dragoika’s voice purred across the years: “Give yourself to the wind, but first be sure ’tis the wind of your wish.” The loneliness of Maria Crowfeather—

  Diana pulled back. She must exert force. “Hold on,” she said with an unsteady laugh. “I need to come up for air.”

  “Oh, my beautiful!” His weight thrust her downward on the sofa where they sat.

  She resisted. A gentle judo break, decisive since unawaited, freed her. She sprang from him and stood breathing hard, flushed and atremble but back in charge of herself.

  “Easy, there,” she said, smiling, because warmth still pulsed. She found occupation in pushing back her tousled locks. “Let’s not get carried away.”

  He rose, too, himself apparently unoffended, though ardency throbbed in his tone: “Why not? What harm? What except love and joy?”

  He refrained from advancing, so she stayed where she was, and wondered if she could really resist the handsomeness that confronted her. “Well, I—Oh, Kukulkan, it’s been wonderful.” And it had been, culminating in this night’s flight above the Hellenes to a lake where they swam while the reflection of the sun-ring flashed everywhere around them, as if they swam in pure light; and ate pheasant and drank champagne ashore; and danced on a boat dock to music from the car’s player, music and a dance she had never known before, a waltz by somebody named Strauss; and finally came back to his place, where one thing led to another. “I thank you, I do, I do. But soon I’ll be gone.”

  “No, you won’t. I’ll see to that. You’ll stay as long as you want. And I’ll take you all over this planet, and eventually beyond, to the stars.”

  Did he mean it? Suppose he did!

  She had no intention of remaining a virgin for life, or until any particular age. Pride, if nothing else, forbade becoming somebody’s plaything or, for that matter, making a toy of a man. But she liked Kukulkan Zachary—more than liked him—and she must be a little special to him, or why would he have squired her around as he did? What an ingrate she was, not to trust him.

  If only she’d had a reversible shot. She wanted neither a baby in the near future nor an abortion ever; but living hand-to-mouth on Imhotep, as often as not among the Tigeries, she just hadn’t gotten around to the precaution. She thought this week was safe for her—

  “I’d better go,” she forced herself to say. “Let me think things over. Please don’t rush me.”

  “At least let me kiss you goodbye until later,” he replied in that melodious voice of his. “A few hours later, no more, I beg you.”

  She couldn’t refuse him so small a favor, could she, in common courtesy?

  He gathered her in. She responded. Resolution wobbled.

  Whether or not it would have stood fast, she never knew. The front door, unlocked on the crimeless island, opened. Targovi came in. Behind him reared the dragon head of Axor.

  Diana and K
ukulkan recoiled apart. “What the flickerin’ hell!” ripped from her. He snarled and tensed.

  Targovi leveled the blaster he carried. “Don’t,” he said.

  “Have you two jumped your orbits?” Diana yelled, and knew freezingly that they had not.

  Kukulkan straightened. His features stiffened. “Drop that thing,” he said as if giving a routine order to a servant. “Do you want the girl killed in a firefight?”

  “Who is to start one?” Targovi retorted. He gestured at a window. Leafage turned young daylight to gold-spattered green. Like most local homes, this was tucked into its garden, well back from the street, screened by trees and hedges. It was obvious that the intruders had entered unseen.

  Axor crowded in. He went to Diana, laid his enormous arms about her, drew her to his plated breast, as tenderly as her mother. “My dear, my dear, I am sorry,” he boomed low. “Horror is upon us. Would that you could be spared.”

  For a minute she clung tight. It was as though strength and calm flowed out of him, into her. She stepped back. Her gaze winged around the scene and came to rest on Targovi. “Explain,” she said.

  His scarlet eyes smoldered back at her. “The spoor I followed proved true,” he answered. “I followed it into the lair of the beast. Axor, show her what I brought back.”

  The Wodenite visibly shuddered. “Must I?”

  “Yes. Didn’t diddle about. Every tailshake we wait, the odds mount against us.”

  While Axor took a package from a carrier bag and untied it, Targovi’s words trotted remorseless: “The Zacharians are in collusion with the Merseians. This means they must be with Magnusson. The Merseians must be! You understand what this betokens.”

  “No,” she protested, “please, no. Impossible. How could they keep the secret? Why would they do such a thing?”

  Axor completed his task, and It stared sightlessly up at her.

  “They are not like your folk,” Targovi reminded.