Dragoika plucked a command. Most of the crew put aside their weapons and joined a firefighting party. There was a hand pump at either rail, buckets with ropes bent to them, sails to drag from the deckhouse and wet and lower.
Ferok, or someone, yelled through voices, wind, waves, brawling, and smoke of the flames. The Seatrolls were coming over the opposite rail.
They must have climbed the nets. (Better invent a different warning gadget, raced through Flandry's mind.) They wore the Merseian equipment which had enabled their kind to carry the war ashore elsewhere on Starkad. Waterfilled helmets covered the blunt heads, black absorbent skinsuits kept everything else moist. Pumps cycled atmospheric oxygen, running off powerpacks. The same capacitors energized their legs. Those were clumsy. The bodies must be harnessed into a supporting framework, the two flippers and the fluked tail control four mechanical limbs with prehensile feet. But they lurched across the deck, huge, powerful, their hands holding spears and axes and a couple of waterproof machine pistols. Ten of them were now aboard . . . and how many sailors could be spared from the fire?
A rifle bullet wailed. A Seatroll sprayed lead in return. Tigeries crumpled. Their blood was human color.
Flandry rammed home another shell and lobbed it into the sea some distance off. "Why?" screamed a gunner.
"May have been more coming," he said. "I hope hydrostatic shock got 'em." He didn't notice he used Anglic.
Dragoika cast her fish spear. One pistol wielder went down, the prongs in him. He scrabbled at the shaft. Rifles barked, crossbows snapped, driving his mate to shelter between the deckhouse and a lifeboat. Then combat ramped, leaping Tigeries, lumbering Seatrolls, sword against ax, pike against spear, clash, clatter, grunt, shriek, chaos run loose. Several firefighters went for their weapons. Dragoika drummed them back to work. The Seatrolls made for them, to cut them down and let the ship burn. The armed Tigeries tried to defend them. The enemy pistoleer kept the Kursovikian rifle shooters pinned down behind masts and bollards—neutralized. The battle had no more shape than that.
A bullet splintered the planks a meter from Flandry. For a moment, panic locked him where he stood. What to do, what to do? He couldn't die. He mustn't. He was Dominic, himself, with a lifetime yet to live. Outnumbered though they were, the Seatrolls need but wreak havoc till the fire got beyond control and he was done. Mother! Help me!
For no sound reason, he remembered Lieutenant Danielson. Rage blossomed in him. He bounded down the ladder and across the main deck. A Seatroll chopped at him. He swerved and continued.
Dragoika's door stood under the poop. He slid the panel aside and plunged into her cabin. It was appointed in barbaric luxury. Sunlight sickled through an oval port, across the bulkhead as the ship rolled, touching bronze candlesticks, woven tapestry, a primitive sextant, charts and navigation tables inscribed on parchment. He snatched what he had left here to satisfy her curiosity, his impeller, buckled the unit on his back with frantic fingers and hooked in his capacitors. Now, that sword, which she hadn't taken time to don. He re-emerged, flicked controls, and rose.
Over the deckhouse! The Seatroll with the machine pistol lay next to it, a hard target for a rifle, himself commanding stem and stern. Flandry drew his blade. The being heard the slight noise and tried awkwardly to look up. Flandry struck. He missed the hand but knocked the gun loose. It flipped over the side.
He whirred aft, smiting from above. "I've got him!" he shouted. "I've got him! Come out and do some real shooting!"
The fight was soon finished. He used a little more energy to help spread the wet sail which smothered the fire.
After dark, Egrima and Buruz again ruled heaven. They cast shivering glades across the waters. Few stars shone through, but one didn't miss them with so much other beauty. The ship plowed northward in an enormous murmurous hush.
Dragoika stood with Flandry by the totem at the prow. She had offered thanks. Kursovikian religion was a paganism more inchoate than any recorded from ancient Terra—the Tigery mind was less interested than the human in finding ultimate causes—but ritual was important. Now the crew had returned to watch or to sleep and they two were alone. Her fur was sparked with silver, her eyes pools of light.
"Our thanks belong more to you," she said softly. "I am high in the Sisterhood. They will be told, and remember."
"Oh, well." Flandry shuffled his feet and blushed.
"But have you not endangered yourself? You explained what scant strength is left in those boxes which keep you alive. And then you spent it to fly about."
"Uh, my pump can be operated manually if need be."
"I shall appoint a detail to do so."
"No need. You see, now I can use the Siravo powerpacks. I have tools in my pouch for adapting them."
"Good." She looked awhile into the shadows and luminance which barred the deck. "That one whose pistol you removed—" Her tone was wistful.
"No, ma'am," Flandry said firmly. "You cannot have him. He's the only survivor of the lot. We'll keep him alive and unhurt."
"I simply thought of questioning him about their plans. I know a little of their language. We've gained it from prisoners or parleys through the ages. He wouldn't be too damaged, I think."
"My superiors can do a better job in Highport."
Dragoika sighed. "As you will." She leaned against him, "I've met vaz-Terran before, but you are the first I have really known well." Her tail wagged. "I like you."
Flandry gulped. "I . . . I like you too."
"You fight like a male and think like a female. That's something new. Even in the far southern islands—" She laid an arm around his waist. Her fur was warm and silken where it touched his skin. Somebody had told him once that could you breathe their air undiluted, the Tigeries would smell like new-mown hay. "I'll have joy of your company."
"Um-m-m . . . uh." What can I say?
"Pity you must wear that helmet," Dragoika said. "I'd like to taste your lips. But otherwise we're not made so differently, our two kinds. Will you come to my cabin?"
For an instant that whirled, Flandry was tempted. He had everything he could do to answer. It wasn't based on past lectures about taking care not to offend native mores, nor on principle, nor, most certainly, on fastidiousness. If anything, her otherness made her the more piquant. But he couldn't really predict what she might do in a close relationship, and—
"I'm deeply sorry," he said. "I'd love to, but I'm under a—" what was the word?—"a geas."
She was neither offended nor much surprised. She had seen a lot of different cultures. "Pity," she said. "Well, you know where the forecastle is. Goodnight." She padded aft. En route, she stopped to collect Ferok.
—and besides, those fangs were awfully intimidating.
Chapter Five
When Lord Hauksberg arrived in Highport, Admiral Enriques and upper-echelon staff had given a formal welcoming party for their distinguished visitor and his aides as protocol required. Hauksberg was expected to reciprocate on the eve of departure. Those affairs were predictably dull. In between, however, he invited various officers to small gatherings. A host of shrewd graciousness, he thus blunted resentment which he was bound to cause by his interviewing of overworked men and his diversion of already inadequate armed forces to security duty.
"I still don't see how you rate," Jan van Zuyl complained from the bunk where he sprawled. "A lousy ensign like you."
"You're an ensign yourself, me boy," Flandry reminded him from the dresser. He gave his blue tunic a final tug, pulled on his white gloves, and buffed the jetflare insignia on his shoulders.
"Yes, but not a lousy one," said his roommate.
"I'm a hero. Remember?"
"I'm a hero too. We're all heroes." Van Zuyl's gaze prowled their dismal little chamber. The girlie animations hardly brightened it. "Give L'Etoile a kiss for me."
"You mean she'll be there?" Flandry's pulses jumped.
"She was when Carruthers got invited. Her and Sharine and—"
"Carrut
hers is a lieutenant j.g. Therefore he is ex officio a liar. Madame Cepheid's choicest items are not available to anyone below commander."
"He swears milord had 'em on hand, and in hand, for the occasion. So he lies. Do me a favor and elaborate the fantasy on your return. I'd like to keep that particular illusion."
"You provide the whisky and I'll provide the tales." Flandry adjusted his cap to micrometrically calculated rakishness.
"Mercenary wretch," van Zuyl groaned. "Anyone else would lie for pleasure and prestige."
"Know, O miserable one, that I possess an inward serenity which elevates me far beyond any need for your esteem. Yet not beyond need for your booze. Especially after the last poker game. And a magnificent evening to you. I shall return."
Flandry proceeded down the hall and out the main door of the junior officer's dorm. Wind struck viciously at him. Sea-level air didn't move fast, being too dense, but on this mountaintop Saxo could energize storms of more than terrestroid ferocity. Dry snow hissed through chill and clamor. Flandry wrapped his cloak about him with a sigh for lost appearances, hung onto his cap, and ran. At his age he had soon adapted to the gravity.
HQ was the largest building in Highport, which didn't say much, in order to include a level of guest suites. Flandry had remarked on that to Commander Abrams, in one of their conversations following the numerous times he'd been summoned for further questioning about his experience with the Tigeries. The Intelligence chief had a knack for putting people at their ease. "Yes, sir, quite a few of my messmates have wondered if—uh—"
"If the Imperium has sludge on the brain, taking up shipping space with luxuries for pestiferous junketeers that might've been used to send us more equipment. Hey?" Abrams prompted.
"Uh . . . nobody's committing lèse majesté, sir."
"The hell they aren't. But I guess you can't tell me so right out. In this case, though, you boys are mistaken." Abrams jabbed his cigar at Flandry. "Think, son. We're here for a political purpose. So we need political support. We won't get it by antagonizing courtiers who take champagne and lullaby beds for granted. Tell your friends that silly-looking hotel is an investment."
Here's where I find out. A scanner checked Flandry and opened the door. The lobby beyond was warm! It was also full of armed guards. They saluted and let him by with envious glances. But as he went up the gravshaft, his self-confidence grew thinner. Rather than making him bouncy, the graduated shift to Terran weight gave a sense of unfirmness.
"Offhand," Abrams had said when he learned about the invitation, "milord seems to want you for a novelty. You've a good yarn and you're a talented spinner. Nu, entertain him. But watch yourself. Hauksberg's no fool. Nor any idler. In fact, I gather that every one of his little soirees has served some business purpose—off-the-record information, impressions of what we really expect will happen and expect to do and how we really feel about the whole schtick."
By that time, Flandry knew him well enough to venture a grin. "How do we really feel, sir? I'd like to know."
"What's your opinion? Your own, down inside? I haven't got any recorder turned on."
Flandry frowned and sought words. "Sir, I only work here, as they say. But . . . indoctrination said our unselfish purpose is to save the land civilizations from ruin; islanders depend on the sea almost as much as the fishfolk. And our Imperial purpose is to contain Merseian expansionism wherever it occurs. But I can't help wondering why anybody wants this planet."
"Confidentially," Abrams said, "my main task is to find the answer to that. I haven't succeeded yet."
—A liveried servant announced Flandry. He stepped into a suite of iridescent walls, comfortable loungers, an animation showing a low-gee production of Ondine. Behind a buffet table poised another couple of servants, and three more circulated. A dozen men stood conversing: officers of the mission in dress uniform. Hauksberg's staff in colorful mufti. Only one girl was present. Flandry was a little too nervous for disappointment. It was a relief to see Abrams' square figure.
"Ah. Our gallant ensign, eh?" A yellow-haired man set down his glass—a waiter with a tray was there before he had completed the motion—and sauntered forth. His garments were conservatively purple and gray, but they fitted like another skin and showed him to be in better physical shape than most nobles. "Welcome. Hauksberg."
Flandry saluted. "My lord."
"At ease, at ease." Hauksberg made a negligent gesture. "No rank or ceremony tonight. Hate 'em, really." He took Flandry's elbow. "C'mon and be introduced."
The boy's superiors greeted him with more interest than hitherto. They were men whom Starkad had darkened and leaned; honors sat burnished on their tunics; they could be seen to resent how patronizingly the Terran staffers addressed one of their own. "—and my concubine, the right honorable Persis d'Io."
"I am privileged to meet you, Ensign," she said as if she meant it.
Flandry decided she was an adequate substitute for L'Etoile, at least in ornamental function. She was equipped almost as sumptuously as Dragoika, and her shimmerlyn gown emphasized the fact. Otherwise she wore a fire ruby at her throat and a tiara on high-piled crow's-wing tresses. Her features were either her own or shaped by an imaginative biosculptor: big green eyes, delicately arched nose, generous mouth, uncommon vivacity. "Please get yourself a drink and a smoke," she said. "You'll need a soothed larynx. I intend to make you talk a lot."
"Uh . . . um—" Flandry barely stopped his toes from digging in the carpet. The hand he closed on a proffered wine glass was damp. "Little to talk about, Donna. Lots of men have, uh, had more exciting things happen to them."
"Hardly so romantic, though," Hauksberg said. "Sailin' with a pirate crew, et cet'ra."
"They're not pirates, my lord," Flandry blurted. "Merchants . . . . Pardon me."
Hauksberg studied him. "You like 'em, eh?"
"Yes, sir," Flandry said. "Very much." He weighed his words, but they were honest. "Before I got to know the Tigeries well, my mission here was only a duty. Now I want to help them."
"Commendable. Still, the sea dwellers are also sentient bein's, what? And the Merseians, for that matter. Pity everyone's at loggerheads."
Flandry's ears burned. Abrams spoke what he dared not: "My lord, those fellow beings of the ensign's did their level best to kill him."
"And in retaliation, after he reported, an attack was made on a squadron of theirs," Hauksberg said sharply. "Three Merseians were killed, plus a human. I was bein' received by Commandant Runei at the time. Embarrassin'."
"I don't doubt the Fodaich stayed courteous to the Emperor's representative," Abrams said. "He's a charming scoundrel when he cares to be. But my lord, we have an authorized, announced policy of paying back any attacks on our mission." His tone grew sardonic. "It's a peaceful, advisory mission, in a territory claimed by neither empire. So it's entitled to protection. Which means that bushwhacking its personnel has got to be made expensive."
"And if Runei ordered a return raid?" Hauksberg challenged.
"He didn't, my lord."
"Not yet. Bit of evidence for Merseia's conciliatory attitude, what? Or could be my presence influenced Runei. One day soon, though, if these skirmishes continue, a real escalation will set in. Then everybody'll have the devil's personal job controllin' the degree of escalation. Might fail. The time to stop was yesterday."
"Seems to me Merseia's escalated quite a big hunk, starting operations this near our main base."
"The seafolk have done so. They had Merseian help, no doubt, but it's their war and the landfolk's. No one else's."
Abrams savaged a cold cigar. "My lord," he growled, "seafolk and landfolk alike are divided into thousands of communities, scores of civilizations. Many never heard of each other before. The dwellers in the Zletovar were nothing but a nuisance to the Kursovikians, till now. So who gave them the idea of mounting a concerted attack? Who's gradually changing what was a stable situation into a planet-wide war of race against race? Merseia!"
"You overrea
ch yourself, Commander," said Captain Abdes-Salem reluctantly. The viscount's aides looked appalled.
"No, no." Hauksberg smiled into the angry brown face confronting him. "I appreciate frankness. Terra's got quite enough sycophants without exportin' 'em. How can I find facts as I'm s'posed to without listening? Waiter—refill Commander Abrams' glass."
"Just what are the, ah, opposition doing in local waters?" inquired a civilian.
Abrams shrugged. "We don't know. Kursovikian ships have naturally begun avoiding that area. We could try sending divers, but we're holding off. You see, Ensign Flandry did more than have an adventure. More, yet, than win a degree of respect and good will among the Tigeries that'll prove useful to us. He's gathered information about them we never had before, details that escaped the professional xenologists, and given me the data as tightly organized as a limerick. Above the lot, he delivered a live Seatroll prisoner."
Hauksberg lit a cheroot. "I gather that's unusual?"
"Yes, sir, for obvious environmental reasons as well as because the Tigeries normally barbecue any they take."
Persis d'Io grimaced. "Did you say you like them?" she scolded Flandry.
"Might be hard for a civilized being to understand, Donna," Abrams drawled. "We prefer nuclear weapons that can barbecue entire planets. Point is, though, our lad here thought up gadgets to keep that Seatroll in health, things a smith and carpenter could make aboard ship. I better not get too specific, but I've got hopes about the interrogation."
"Why not tell us?" Hauksberg asked. "Surely you don't think anyone here is a Merseian in disguise."
"Probably not," Abrams said. "However, you people are bound on to the enemy's home planet. Diplomatic mission or no, I can't impose the risk on you of carrying knowledge they'd like to have."
Hauksberg laughed. "I've never been called a blabbermouth more tactfully."
Persis interrupted. "No arguments, please, darling. I'm too anxious to hear Ensign Flandry."
"You're on, son," Abrams said.
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