“I don’t want to tell you more than I’ve got to,” Abrams said. “Just this: I’ve learned where Brechdan’s ultrasecret file is. That wasn’t hard; everybody knows about it. But I think I can get an agent in there. The next and worst problem will be to get the information out, and not have the fact we’re doing so be known.
“I dare not wait till we all go home. That gives too much time for too many things to go wrong. Nor can I leave beforehand by myself. I’m too damn conspicuous. It’d look too much as if I’d finished whatever I set out to do. Hauksberg himself might forbid me to go, precisely because he suspected I was going to queer his pea-ea-eace mission. Or else … I’d be piloted out of the system by Merseians. Brechdan’s bully boys could arrange an unfortunate accident merely as a precaution. They could even spirit me off to a hypnoprobe room, and what happened to me there wouldn’t matter a hoot-let compared to what’d happen to our forces later. I’m not being melodramatic, son. Those are the unbuttered facts of life.”
Flandry sat still. “You want me to convey the data out, if you get them,” he said.
“Ah, you do know what an elephant is.”
“You must have a pretty efficient pipeline to Merseian HQ.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Abrams said rather smugly.
“Couldn’t have been developed in advance.” Flandry spoke word by word. Realization was freezing him. “Had it been, why should you yourself come here? Must be something you got hold of on Starkad, and hadn’t a chance to instruct anyone about that you trusted and who could be spared.”
“Let’s get down to business,” Abrams said fast.
“No. I want to finish this.”
“You?”
Flandry stared past Abrams like a blind man. “If the contact was that good,” he said, “I think you got a warning about the submarine attack on Ujanka. And you didn’t tell. There was no preparation. Except for a fluke, the city would have been destroyed.” He rose. “I saw Tigeries killed in the streets.”
“Sit down!”
“One mortar planted on a wharf would have gotten that boat.” Flandry started to walk away. His voice lifted. “Males and females and little cubs, blown apart, buried alive under rubble, and you did nothing!”
Abrams surged to his feet and came after him. “Hold on, there,” he barked.
Flandry whirled on him. “Why the obscenity should I?”
Abrams grabbed the boy’s wrists. Flandry tried to break free. Abrams held him where he was. Rage rode across the dark Chaldean face. “You listen to me,” Abrams said. “I did know. I knew the consequences of keeping silent. When you saved that town, I went down on my knees before God. I’d’ve done it before you if you could’ve understood. But suppose I had acted. Runei is no man’s fool. He’d have guessed I had a source, and there was exactly one possibility, and after he looked into that my pipeline would’ve been broken like a dry stick. And I was already developing it as a line into Brechdan’s own files. Into the truth about Starkad. How many lives might that save? Not only human. Tigery, Siravo, hell, Merseian! Use your brains, Dom. You must have a couple of cells clicking together between those ears. Sure, this is a filthy game. But it has one point of practicality which is also a point of honor. You don’t compromise your sources. You don’t!”
Flandry struggled for air. Abrams let him go. Flandry went back to his lounger, collapsed in it, and drank deep. Abrams stood waiting.
Flandry looked up. “I’m sorry, sir,” he got out. “Overwrought, I guess.”
“No excuses needed.” Abrams clapped his shoulder. “You had to learn sometime. Might as well be now. And you know, you give me a tinge of hope. I’d begun to wonder if anybody was left on our side who played the game for anything but its own foul sake. When you get some rank—Well, we’ll see.”
He sat down too. Silence lay between them for a while.
“I’m all right now, sir,” Flandry ventured.
“Good,” Abrams grunted. “You’ll need whatever all rightness you can muster. The best way I can see to get that information out soon involves a pretty dirty trick too. Also a humiliating one. I’d like to think you can hit on a better idea, but I’ve tried and failed.”
Flandry gulped. “What is it?”
Abrams approached the core gingerly. “The problem is this,” he said. “I do believe we can raid that file unbeknownst. Especially now while Brechdan is away, and the three others who I’ve found have access to that certain room. But even so, it’d look too funny if anyone left right after who didn’t have a plausible reason. You can have one.”
Flandry braced himself. “What?”
“Well … if Lord Hauksberg caught you in flagrante delicto with his toothsome traveling companion—”
That would have unbraced a far more sophisticated person. Flandry leaped from his seat. “Sir!”
“Down, boy. Don’t tell me the mice haven’t been playing while the cat’s elsewhere. You’ve been so crafty that I don’t think anybody else guesses, even in our gossipy little enclave. Which augurs well for your career in Intelligence. But son, I work close to you. When you report draggle-tailed on mornings after I noticed Lord Hauksberg was dead tired and took a hypnotic; when I can’t sleep and want to get some work done in the middle of the night and you aren’t in your room; when you and she keep swapping glances—Must I spell every word? No matter. I don’t condemn you. If I weren’t an old man with some eccentric ideas about my marriage, I’d be jealous.
“But this does give us our chance. All we need do is keep Persis from knowing when her lord and master is coming back. She don’t mix much with the rest of the compound—can’t say I blame her—and you can provide the distraction to make sure. Then the message sent ahead—which won’t be to her personally anyhow, only to alert the servants in the expectation they’ll tell everyone—I’ll see to it that the word doesn’t reach her. For the rest, let nature take its course.”
“No!” Flandry raged.
“Have no fears for her,” Abrams said. “She may suffer no more than a scolding. Lord Hauksberg is pretty tolerant. Anyway, he ought to be. If she does lose her position … our corps has a slush fund. She can be supported in reasonable style on Terra till she hooks someone else. I really don’t have the impression she’d be heartbroken at having to trade Lord Hauksberg in on a newer model.”
“But—” Confound that blush! Flandry stared at the deck. His fists beat on his knees. “She trusts me. I can’t.”
“I said this was a dirty business. Do you flatter yourself she’s in love with you?”
“Well—uh—”
“You do. I wouldn’t. But supposing she is, a psych treatment for something that simple is cheap, and she’s cool enough to get one. I’ve spent more time worrying about you.”
“What about me?” asked Flandry miserably.
“Lord Hauksberg has to retaliate on you. Whatever his private feelings, he can’t let something like this go by; because the whole compound, hell, eventually all Terra is going to know, if you handle the scene right. He figures on dispatching a courier home a day or two after he gets back from Dhangodhan, with a progress report. You’ll go on the same boat, in disgrace, charged with some crime like disrespect for hereditary authority.
“Somewhere along the line—I’ll have to work out the details as we go—my agent will nobble the information and slip it to me. I’ll pass it to you. Once on Terra, you’ll use a word I’ll give you to get the ear of a certain man. Afterward—son, you’re in. You shouldn’t be fumblydiddling this way. You should be licking my boots for such an opportunity to get noticed by men who count. My boots need polishing.”
Flandry shifted, looked away, out to the clouds which drifted across the green and brown face of Merseia. The motor hum pervaded his skull.
“What about you?” he asked finally. “And the rest?”
“We’ll stay here till the farce is over.”
“But … no, wait, sir … so many things could go wrong. Deadly wrong.”
“I know. That’s the risk you take.”
“You more.” Flandry swung back to Abrams. “I might get free without a hitch. But if later there’s any suspicion—”
“They won’t bother Persis,” Abrams said. “She’s not worth the trouble. Nor Hauksberg. He’s an accredited diplomat, and arresting him would damn near be an act of war.”
“But you, sir! You may be accredited to him, but—”
“Don’t fret,” Abrams said. “I aim to die of advanced senile decay. If that starts looking unlikely, I’ve got my blaster. I won’t get taken alive and I won’t go out of the cosmos alone. Now: are you game?”
It took Flandry’s entire strength to nod.
12
Two days later, Abrams departed the Embassy again in his boat. Ahead, on the ocean’s rim, smoldered a remnant of sunset. The streets of Ardaig glowed ever more visible as dusk deepened into night. Windows blinked to life, the Admiralty beacon flared like a sudden red sun. Traffic was heavy, and the flier’s robopilot must keep signals constantly flickering between itself, others, and the nearest routing stations. The computers in all stations were still more tightly linked, by a web of data exchange. Its nexus was Central Control, where the total pattern was evaluated and the three-dimensional grid of airlanes adjusted from minute to minute for optimum flow.
Into this endless pulsation, it was easy to inject a suitably heterodyned and scrambled message. None but sender and recipient would know. Nothing less than a major job of stochastic analysis could reveal to an outsider that occasional talk had passed (and even then, would not show what the talk had been about). Neither the boat nor the Terran Embassy possessed the equipment for that.
From the darkness where he lay, Dwyr the Hook willed a message forth. Not sent: willed, as one wills a normal voice to speak; for his nerve endings meshed directly with the circuits of the vessel and he felt the tides in the electronic sea which filled Ardaig like a living creature feeling the tides in its own blood.
“Prime Observer Three to Intelligence Division Thirteen.” A string of code symbols followed. “Prepare to receive report.”
Kilometers away, a Merseian tautened at his desk. He was among the few who knew about Dwyr; they alternated shifts around the clock. Thus far nothing of great interest had been revealed to them. But that was good. It proved the Terran agent, whom they had been warned was dangerous, had accomplished nothing. “Division Thirteen to Prime Three. Dhech on duty. Report.”
“Abrams has boarded alone and instructed the ’pilot to take him to the following location.” Dwyr specified. He identified the place as being in a hill suburb, but no more; Ardaig was not his town.
“Ah, yes,” Dhech nodded. “Fodaich Qwynn’s home. We knew already Abrams was going there tonight.”
“Shall I expect anything to happen?” Dwyr asked.
“No, you’ll be parked for several hours, I’m sure, and return him to the Embassy. He’s been after Qwynn for some time for an invitation, so they could talk privately and at length about certain questions of mutual interest. Today he pressed so hard that Qwynn found it impossible not to invite him for tonight without open discourtesy.”
“Is that significant?”
“Hardly. We judge Abrams makes haste simply because he got word that his chief will return tomorrow with the Hand of the Vach Ynvory, great protector of us all. Thereafter he can expect once more to be enmeshed in diplomatic maneuverings. This may be his last chance to see Qwynn.”
“I could leave the boat and spy upon them,” Dwyr offered.
“No need. Qwynn is discreet, and will make his own report to us. If Abrams hopes to pick up a useful crumb, he will be disappointed. Quite likely, though, his interest is academic. He appears to have abandoned any plans he may have entertained for conducting espionage.”
“He has certainly done nothing suspicious under my surveillance,” Dwyr said, “in a boat designed to make him think it ideal for hatching plots. I will be glad when he leaves. This has been a drab assignment.”
“Honor to you for taking it,” Dhech said. “No one else could have endured so long.” A burst of distortion made him start. “What’s that?”
“Some trouble with the communicator,” said Dwyr, who had willed the malfunction. “It had better be checked soon. I might lose touch with you.”
“We’ll think of some excuse to send a technician over in a day or so. Hunt well.”
“Hunt well.” Dwyr broke the connection.
Through the circuits, which included scanners, he observed both outside and inside the hull. The boat was slanting down toward its destination. Abrams had risen and donned a formal cloak. Dwyr activated a speaker. “I have contacted Division Thirteen,” he said. “They are quite unsuspicious. I planted the idea that my sender may go blank, in case for some reason they try to call me while I am absent.”
“Good lad.” Abrams’ tones were likewise calm, but he took a last nervous pull on his cigar and stubbed it out viciously. “Now remember, I’ll stay put for several hours. Should give you ample time to do your job and slip back into this shell. But if anything goes wrong, I repeat, what matters is the information. Since we can’t arrange a safe drop, and since mine host tonight will have plenty of retainers to arrest me, in emergency you get hold of Ensign Flandry and tell him. You recall he should be in Lord Hauksberg’s suite, or else his own room; and I’ve mapped the Embassy for you. Now also, make damn sure the phone here is hooked to the ’pilot, so you or he can call this boat to him. I haven’t told him about you, but I have told him to trust absolutely whoever has the key word. You remember?”
“Yes, of course. Meshuggah. What does it mean?”
“Never mind.” Abrams grinned.
“What about rescuing you?”
“Don’t. You’d come to grief for certain. Besides, my personal chances are better if I invoke diplomatic immunity. I hope, though, our stunt will go off without a hitch.” Abrams looked about. “I can’t see you, Dwyr, and I can’t shake your hand, but I’d sure like to. And one day I plan to.” The boat grounded. “Good luck.”
Dwyr’s electronic gaze followed the stocky figure out, down the ramp and across the small parking strip in the garden. A pair of clan members saluted the Terran and followed him toward the mansion. A screen of trees soon hid them. No one else was in view. Shadows lay heavy around the boat.
Let us commence, Dwyr thought. His decision was altogether unperturbed. Once he would have tasted fear, felt his heart thud, clutched to him the beloved images of wife and young and their home upon far Tanis. Courage would have followed, sense of high purpose, joy of proving his maleness by a leap between the horns of death—thus did you know yourself wholly alive! But those things had departed with his body. He could no longer recollect how they felt. The one emotion which never left him, like an unhealing wound, was the wish to know all emotions again.
He had a few. Workmanship gave a cerebral pleasure. Hate and fury could still burn … though cold, cold. He wondered if they were not mere habits, engraved in the synapses of his brain.
He stirred in the womblike cubicle where he lay. Circuit by circuit, his living arm disconnected his machine parts from the boat. For a moment he was totally cut off. How many hours till sensory deprivation broke down his sanity? He had been kept supplied with impressions of the world, and asleep he never dreamed. But suppose he stayed where he was, in this lightless, soundless, currentless nothing. When he began to hallucinate, would he imagine himself back on Tanis ? Or would Sivilla his wife come to him?
Nonsense. The objective was that he come to her, whole. He opened a panel and glided forth. The systems that kept him functional were mounted in a tiny gravsled. His first task would be to exchange it for a more versatile body.
Emerging, he floated low, keeping to the bushes and shadows. Stars were plainer to see here, away from the city web and the beacon flare which lay at the foot of these hills. He noted the sun of Tanis, where Merseians had made their homes among mountains and fo
rests, where Sivilla lived yet with their children. She thought him dead, but they told him she had not remarried and the children were growing up well.
Was that another lie?
The problem of weaving his way unseen into the city occupied a bare fragment of Dwyr’s attention. His artificial senses were designed for this kind of task, and he had a decade of experience with them. Mostly he was remembering.
“I was reluctant to leave,” he had confessed to Abrams on Starkad. “I was happy. What was the conquest of Janair to me? They spoke of the glory of the race. I saw nothing except that other race, crushed, burned, enslaved as we advanced. I would have fought for my liberty as they did for theirs. Instead, being required to do my military service, I was fighting to rob them of their birthright. Do not misunderstand. I stayed loyal to my Roidhun and my people. It was they who betrayed me.”
“They sure as the seventh hell did,” Abrams said.
That was after the revelation which knocked Dwyr’s universe apart. “What?” Abrams had roared. “You could not be regenerated? Impossible!”
“But radiation damage to the cells—”
“With that kind of radiation damage, you’d’ve been dead. The basic gene pattern governs the organism throughout life. If everything mutated at once, life would have to stop. And the regeneration process uses the chromosomes for a chemical template. No, they saw their chance to make a unique tool out of you, and lied. I suppose they must’ve planted an unconscious mental block too, so you’d never think to study basic biomedicine for yourself, and avoid situations where somebody might tell you. God! I’ve seen some vile tricks in my time, but this one takes the purple shaft, with pineapple clusters.”
“You can heal me?” Dwyr screamed.
“Our chemosurgeons can. But slow down. Let’s think a bit. I could order the job done on you, and would as a matter of ethics. Still, you’d be cut off from your family. What we ought to do is smuggle them out also. We could resettle you on an Imperial planet. And I haven’t the authority to arrange that. Not unless you rate it. Which you could, by serving as a double agent.”
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