Biology was well developed in every macroscopic facet, including genetic laws. Physics proper, as opposed to its conceptual framework, was still early Newtonian, and chemistry little more than an embryo. But Judas on Jupiter, Flandry thought, give these fellows some equipment tailored for underwater use and watch them lift!
“Come along,” Zoomboy said impatiently. “Wiggle a flipper. We’re off to Reefcastle.”
En route, Flandry did his unskilled best to get an outline of social structure. The fundamental Weltanschauung eluded him. You could say the People of the Davidstar were partly Apollonian and partly Dionysian, but those were mere metaphors which anthropology had long discarded and were worse than useless in dealing with nonhumans. Politics (if that word was applicable) looked simpler. Being more gregarious and ceremony-minded than most humans, and less impulsive, and finding travel easier than land animals do, the sea dwellers on Starkad tended to form large nations without strong rivalries.
The Zletovar culture was organized hieratically. Governors inherited their positions, as did People in most other walks (swims?) of life. On the individual level there existed a kind of serfdom, binding not to a piece of territory but to the person of the master. And females had that status with respect to their polygamous husbands.
Yet such expressions were misleading. The decision makers did not lord it over the rest. No formalities were used between classes. Merit brought promotion; so had Allhealer won her independence and considerable authority. Failure, especially the failure to meet one’s obligation to dependents, brought demotion. For the system did nothing except apportion rights and duties.
Terra had known similar things, in theory. Practice had never worked out. Men were too greedy, too lazy. But it seemed to operate among the People. At least, Isinglass claimed it had been stable for many generations, and Flandry saw no evidence of discontent.
Reefcastle was nothing like Shellgleam. Here the houses were stone and coraloid, built into the skerries off a small island. The inhabitants were more brisk, less contemplative than their bottom-dwelling cousins; Isinglass scoffed at them as a bunch of wealth-grubbing traders. “But I must admit they have bravely borne an undue share of trouble from the Hunters,” he added, “and they went in the van of our late attack, which took courage, when none knew about the Merseian boat.”
“None?” asked Flandry in surprise.
“I daresay the governors were told beforehand. Otherwise we knew only that when the signal was given our leg-equipped troops were to go ashore and lay waste what they could while our swimmers sank the ships.”
“Oh.” Flandry did not describe his role in frustrating that. He felt an enormous relief. If Abrams had learned from Evenfall about the planned bombardment, Abrams ought to have arranged countermeasures. But since the information hadn’t been there to obtain—Flandry was glad to stop finding excuses for a man who was rapidly becoming an idol.
The party went among the reefs beyond town to see their tide pools. Surf roared, long wrinkled azure-and-emerald billows which spouted white under a brilliant sky. The People frolicked, leaping out of the waves, plunging recklessly through channels where cross-currents ramped. Flandry discarded the staleness of his armor for a plain helmet and knew himself fully alive.
“We shall take you next to Outlier,” Isinglass said on the way home to Shellgleam. “It is something unique. Below its foundations the abyss goes down into a night where fish and forests glow. The rocks are gnawed by time and lividly hued. The water tastes of volcano. But the silence—the silence!” “I look forward,” Flandry said.
“—?—. So. You scent a future perfume.”
When he cycled through the airlock and entered the Terran dome, Flandry was almost repelled. This narrow, stinking, cheerless bubble, jammed with hairy bodies whose every motion was a jerk against weight! He started peeling off his undergarment to take a shower.
“How was your trip?” Ridenour asked. “Wonderful,” Flandry glowed.
“All right, I guess,” said Ensign Quarles, who had been along. “Good to get back, though. How ’bout putting on a girlie tape for us?”
Ridenour nipped the switch of the recorder on his desk. “First things first,” he said. “Let’s have your report.”
Flandry suppressed an obscenity. Adventures got spoiled by being reduced to data. Maybe he didn’t really want to be a xenologist.
At the end, Ridenour grimaced. “Wish to blazes my part of the job were doing as well.”
“Trouble?” Flandry asked, alarmed.
“Impasse. Problem is, the Kursovikians are too damned efficient. Their hunting, fishing, gathering do make serious inroads on resources, which are never as plentiful in the sea. The governors refuse any terms which don’t involve the land-folk stopping exploitation. And of course the landfolk won’t. They can’t, without undermining their own economy and suffering famine. So I’m trying to persuade the Sixpoint to reject further Merseian aid. That way we might get the Zletovar out of the total-war mess. But they point out, very rightly, that what we’ve given the Kursovikians has upset the balance of power. And how can we take our presents back? We’d antagonize them—which I don’t imagine Runei’s agents would be slow to take advantage of.” Ridenour sighed. “I still have some hopes of arranging for a two-sided phaseout, but they’ve grown pretty dim.”
“We can’t start killing the People again!” Flandry protested.
“Can’t we just?” Quarles said.
“After what we’ve seen, what they’ve done for us—”
“Grow up. We belong to the Empire, not some barnacle-bitten gang of xenos.”
“You may be out of the matter anyhow, Flandry,” Ridenour said. “Your orders came through several hours ago.”
“Orders?”
“You report to Commander Abrams at Highport. An amphibian will pick you up at 0730 tomorrow, Terran clock. Special duty, I don’t know what.”
Abrams leaned back, put one foot on his battered desk, and drew hard on his cigar. “You’d really rather’ve stayed underwater?”
“For a while, sir,” Flandry said from the edge of his chair. “I mean, well, besides being interesting, I felt I was accomplishing something. Information—friendship—” His voice trailed off.
“Modest young chap, aren’t you? Describing yourself as ‘interesting.’ ” Abrams blew a smoke ring. “Oh, sure, I see your point. Not a bad one. Were matters different, I wouldn’t’ve hauled you topside. You might, though, ask what I have in mind for you.”
“Sir?”
“Lord Hauksberg is continuing to Merseia in another couple days. I’m going along in an advisory capacity, my orders claim. I rate an aide. Want the job?”
Flandry goggled. His heart somersaulted. After a minute he noticed that his mouth hung open.
“Plain to see,” Abrams continued, “my hope is to collect some intelligence. Nothing melodramatic; I hope I’m more competent than that. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. Nose, too. But none of our diplomats, attachés, trade-talk representatives, none of our sources has ever been very helpful. Merseia’s too distant from Terra. Almost the only contact has been on the level of brute, chip-on-your-shoulder power. This may be a chance to circulate under fewer restrictions.
“So I ought to bring an experienced, proven man. But we can’t spare one. You’ve shown yourself pretty tough and resourceful for a younker. A bit of practical experience in Intelligence will give you a mighty long leg up, if I do succeed in making you transfer. From your standpoint, you get off this miserable planet, travel in a luxury ship, see exotic Merseia, maybe other spots as well, probably get taken back to Terra and then probably not reassigned to Starkad even if you remain a flyboy—and make some highly useable contacts. How about it?”
“Y-y-yes, sir!” Flandry stammered.
Abrams’ eyes crinkled. “Don’t get above yourself, son. This won’t be any pleasure cruise. I’ll expect you to forget about sleep and live on stimpills from now till departure, learning what an a
ide of mine has to know. You’ll be saddled with everything from secretarial chores to keeping my uniforms neat. En route, you’ll take an electrocram in the Eriau language and as much Merseiology as your brain’ll hold without exploding. I need hardly warn you that’s no carnival. Once we’re there, if you’re lucky you’ll grind through a drab list of duties. If you’re unlucky—if things should go nova—you won’t be a plumed knight of the skies any longer, you’ll be a hunted animal, and if they take you alive their style of quizzing won’t leave you any personality worth having. Think about that.”
Flandry didn’t. His one regret was that he’d likely never see Dragoika again, and it was a passing twinge. “Sir,” he declaimed, “you’ve got yourself an aide.”
9
The Dronning Margrete was not of a size to land safely on a planet. Her auxiliaries were small spaceships in their own right. Officially belonging to Ny Kalmar, in practice a yacht for whoever was the current viscount, she did sometimes travel in the Imperial service: a vast improvement with respect to comfort over any Navy vessel. Now she departed her orbit around Starkad and accelerated outward on gravities. Before long she was into clear enough space that she could switch over to hyperdrive and outpace light. Despite her mass, with her engine power and phase frequency, top pseudo-speed equalled that of a Planet class warcraft. The sun she left behind was soon dwindled to another star, and then to nothing. Had the viewscreens not compensated for aberration and Doppler effect, the universe would have looked distorted beyond recognition.
Yet the constellations changed but slowly. Days and nights passed while she fled through the marches. Only once was routine broken, when alarms sounded. They were followed immediately by the All Clear. Her force screens, warding off radiation and interstellar atoms, had for a microsecond brushed a larger piece of matter, a pebble estimated at five grams. Though contact with the hull would have been damaging, given the difference in kinetic velocities, and though such meteoroids occur in the galaxy to the total of perhaps 1050, the likelihood of collision was too small to worry about. Once, also, another vessel passed within a light-year and thus its “wake” was detected. The pattern indicated it was Ymirite, crewed by hydrogen breathers whose civilization was nearly irrelevant to man or Merseian. They trafficked quite heavily in these parts. Nonetheless this sign of life was the subject of excited conversation. So big is the cosmos.
There came at last the time when Hauksberg and Abrams sat talking far into the middle watch. Hitherto their relationship had been distant and correct. But with journey’s end approaching they saw a mutual need to understand each other better. The viscount invited the commander to dinner à deux in his private suite. His chef transcended himself for the occasion and his butler spent considerable time choosing wines. Afterward, at the cognac stage of things, the butler saw he could get away with simply leaving the bottle on the table plus another in reserve, and went off to bed.
The ship whispered, powerplant, ventilators, a rare hail when two crewmen on duty passed in the corridor outside. Light glowed soft off pictures and drapes. A heathery scent in the air underlay curling smoke. After Starkad, the Terran weight maintained by the gravitors was good; Abrams still relished a sense of lightness and often in his sleep had flying dreams.
“Pioneer types, eh?” Hauksberg kindled a fresh cheroot. “Sounds int’restin’. Really must visit Dayan someday.”
“You wouldn’t find much there in your line,” Abrams grunted. “Ordinary people.”
“And what they’ve carved for themselves out of howlin’ wilderness. I know.” The blond head nodded. “Natural you should be a little chauvinistic, with such a background. But’s a dangerous attitude.”
“More dangerous to sit and wait for an enemy,” Abrams said around his own cigar. “I got a wife and kids and a million cousins. My duty to them is to keep the Merseians at a long arm’s length.”
“No. Your duty is to help make that unnecess’ry.”
“Great, if the Merseians’ll cooperate.”
“Why shouldn’t they? No, wait.” Hauksberg lifted a hand. “Let me finish. I’m not int’rested in who started the trouble. That’s childish. Fact is, there we were, the great power among oxygen breathers in the known galaxy. S’pose they’d been? Wouldn’t you’ve plumped for man acquirin’ a comparable empire? Otherwise we’d’ve been at their mercy. As was, they didn’t want to be at our mercy. So, by the time we took real notice, Merseia’d picked up sufficient real estate to alarm us.
We reacted, propaganda, alliances, diplomacy, economic maneuvers, subversion, outright armed clashes now and then. Which was bound to confirm their poor opinion of our intentions. They re-reacted, heightenin’ our fears. Positive feedback. Got to be stopped.”
“I’ve heard this before,” Abrams said. “I don’t believe a word of it. Maybe memories of Assyria, Rome, and Germany are built into my chromosomes, I dunno. Fact is, if Merseia wanted a real détente she could have one today. We’re no longer interested in expansion. Terra is old and fat. Merseia is young and full of beans. She hankers for the universe. We stand in the way. Therefore we have to be eaten. Everything else is dessert.”
“Come, come,” Hauksberg said. “They’re not stupid. A galactic government is impossible. It’d collapse under its own weight. We’ve everything we can do to control what we have, and we don’t control tightly. Local self-government is so strong, most places, that I see actual feudalism evolvin’ within the Imperial structure. Can’t the Merseians look ahead?”
“Oh, Lord, yes. Can they ever. But I don’t imagine they want to copy us. The Roidhunate is not like the Empire.”
“Well, the electors of the landed clans do pick their supreme chief from the one landless one, but that’s a detail.”
“Yes, from the Vach Urdiolch. It’s not a detail. It reflects their whole concept of society. What they have in mind for their far future is a set of autonomous Merseian-ruled regions. The race, not the nation, counts with them. Which makes them a hell of a lot more dangerous than simple imperialists like us, who only want to be top dogs and admit other species have an equal right to exist. Anyway, so I think on the basis of what information is available. While on Merseia I hope to read a lot of their philosophers.”
Hauksberg smiled. “Be my guest. Be theirs. Long’s you don’t get zealous and upset things with any cloak-and-dagger stuff, you’re welcome aboard.” The smile faded. “Make trouble and I’ll break you.”
Abrams looked into the blue eyes. They were suddenly very cold and steady. It grew on him that Hauksberg was not at all the fop he pretended to be.
“Thanks for warning me,” the officer of Intelligence said. “But damnation!” His fist smote the table. “The Merseians didn’t come to Starkad because their hearts bled for the poor oppressed seafolk. Nor do I think they stumbled in by mistake and are looking for any face-saving excuse to pull out again. They figure on a real payoff there.”
“F’r instance?”
“How the devil should I know? I swear none of their own personnel on Starkad do. Doubtless just a hatful of higher-ups on Merseia itself have any idea what the grand strategy is. But those boys see it in clockwork detail.”
“Valuable minerals undersea, p’rhaps?”
“Now you must realize that’s ridiculous. Likewise any notion that the seafolk may possess a great secret like being universal telepaths. If Starkad per se has something useful, the Merseians could have gotten it more quietly. If it’s a base they’re after, say for the purpose of pressuring Betelgeuse, then there are plenty of better planets in that general volume. No, they for sure want a showdown.”
“I’ve speculated along those lines,” Hauksberg said thoughtfully. “S’pose some fanatical militarists among ’em plan on a decisive clash with Terra. That’d have to be built up to. If nothin’ else, lines of communication are so long that neither power could hope to mount a direct attack on the other. So if they escalate things on an intrinsically worthless Starkad—well, eventually there could be a
confrontation. And out where no useful planet got damaged.”
“Could be,” Abrams said. “In fact, it’s sort of a working hypothesis for me. But it don’t smell right somehow.”
“I aim to warn them,” Hauksberg said. “Informally and privately, to keep pride and such from complicatin’ matters. If we can discover who the reasonable elements are in their government, we can cooperate with those—most discreetly—to freeze the warhawks out.”
“Trouble is,” Abrams said, “the whole bunch of them are reasonable. But they don’t reason on the same basis as us.”
“No, you’re the unreasonable one, old chap. You’ve gotten paranoid on the subject.” Hauksberg refilled their glasses, a clear gurgle through the stillness. “Have another drink while I explain to you the error of your ways.”
The officers’ lounge was deserted. Persis had commandeered from the bar a demi of port but had not turned on the fluoros. Here in the veranda, enough light came through the viewport which stretched from deck to overhead. It was soft and shadowy, caressed a cheek or a lock of hair and vanished into susurrant dark.
Stars were the source, uncountable throngs of them, white, blue, yellow, green, red, cold and unwinking against an absolute night. And the Milky Way was a shining smoke and the nebulae and the sister galaxies glimmered at vision’s edge. That was a terrible beauty.
Flandry was far too conscious of her eyes and of the shape enclosed by thin, slightly phosphorescent pajamas, where she faced him in her lounger. He sat stiff on his. “Yes,” he said, “yonder bright one, you’re right, Donna, a nova. What … uh … what Saxo’s slated to become before long.”
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