Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire

by Poul Anderson

  "Merseia does not.

  "Naturally, Erannath knew nothing about Aycharaych when he arrived here. But he did know Aeneas is a key planet in this sector, and expected Merseia to be at work somewhere underground. Because Terra and Ythri have an overwhelming common interest—peace, stability, containment of the insatiable aggressor—and because the environment of your world suited him well, he came to give whatever help he could."

  Desai cleared his throat. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't intend that long a speech. It surprised me too. I'm not an orator, just a glorified bureaucrat. But here's a matter on which billions of lives depend."

  "Did you find his body?" Ivar asked without tone.

  "Yes," Desai said. "His role is another thing we cannot make public: too revealing, too provocative. In fact, we shall have to play down Merseia's own part, for fear of shaking the uneasy peace.

  "However, Erannath went home on an Imperial cruiser; and aboard was an honor guard."

  "That's good," Ivar said after a while.

  "Have you any plans for poor Jaan?" Tatiana asked.

  "We will offer him psychiatric treatment, to rid him of the pseudo-personality," Desai promised. "I am told that's possible."

  "Suppose he refuses."

  "Then, troublesome though he may prove—because his movement won't die out quickly unless he himself denounces it—we will leave him alone. You may disbelieve this, but I don't approve of using people."

  Desai's look returned to Ivar. "Likewise you, Firstling," he said. "You won't be coerced. Nobody will pressure you. Rather, I warn you that working with my administration, for the restoration of Aeneas within the Empire, will be hard and thankless. It will cost you friends, and years of your life that you might well spend more enjoyably, and pain when you must make the difficult decision or the inglorious compromise. I can only hope you will join us."

  He rose. "I think that covers the situation for the time being," he said. "You have earned some privacy, you two. Please think this over, and feel free to call on me whenever you wish. Now, good day, Prosser Thane, Firstling Frederiksen." The High Commissioner of the Terran Empire bowed. "Thank you."

  Slowly, Ivar and Tatiana rose. They towered above the little man, before they gave him their hands.

  "Probably we will help," Ivar said. "Aeneas ought to outlive Empire."

  Tatiana took the sting out of that: "Sir, I suspect we owe you more thanks than anybody will ever admit, least of all you."

  As Desai closed the door behind him, he heard the tadmouse begin singing.

  * * *

  Jaan walked forth alone before sunrise.

  The streets were canyons of night where he often stumbled. But when he came out upon the wharf that the sea had lapped, heaven enclosed him.

  Behind this wide, shimmering deck, the town was a huddle turned magical by moonlight. High above lifted the Arena, its dark strength frosted with radiance. Beneath his feet, the mountain fell gray-white and shadow-dappled to the dim shield of the waters. North and east stood Ilion, cloven by the Linn-gleam.

  Mostly he knew sky. Stars thronged a darkness which seemed itself afire, till they melted together in the cataract of the Milky Way. Stateliest among them burned Alpha and Beta Crucis; yet he knew many more, the friends of his life's wanderings, and a part of him called on them to guide him. They only glittered and wheeled. Lavinia was down and Creusa hastening to set. Low above the barrens hung Dido, the morning star.

  Save for the distant falls it was altogether still here, and mortally cold. Outward breath smoked like wraiths, inward breath hurt.

  —Behold what is real and forever, said Caruith.

  —Let me be, Jaan said. You are a phantom. You are a lie.

  —You do not believe that. We do not.

  —Then why is your chamber now empty, and I alone in my skull?

  —The Others have won—not even a battle, if we remain steadfast; a skirmish in the striving of life to become God. You are not alone.

  —What should we do?

  —Deny their perjuries. Proclaim the truth.

  —But you are not there! broke from Jaan. You are a branded part of my own brain, hissing at me; and I can be healed of you.

  —Oh, yes, Caruith said in terrible scorn. They can wipe the traces of me away; they can also geld you if you want. Go, become domesticated, return to making shoes. Those stars will shine on.

  —Our cause in this generation, on this globe, is broken, Jaan pleaded. We both know that. What can we do but go wretched, mocked, reviled, to ruin the dreams of a last faithful few?

  —We can uphold the truth, and die for it.

  —Truth? What proves you are real, Caruith?

  —The emptiness I would leave behind me, Jaan.

  And that, he thought, would indeed be there within him, echoing "Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless" until his second death gave him silence.

  —Keep me, Caruith urged, and we will die only once, and it will be in the service of yonder suns.

  Jaan clung to his staff. Help me. No one answered save Caruith.

  The sky whitened to eastward and Virgil came, the sudden Aenean dawn. Everywhere light awoke. Whistles went through the air, a sound of wings, a fragrance of plants which somehow kept roots in the desert. Banners rose above the Arena and trumpets rang, whatever had lately been told.

  Jaan knew: Life is its own service. And I may have enough of it in me to fill me. I will go seek the help of men.

  He had never before known how steep the upward path was.

  But I pray you by the lifting skies,

  And the young wind over the grass,

  That you take your eyes from off my eyes,

  And let my spirit pass.

  —Kipling

  TIGER BY THE TAIL

  When Captain Dominic Flandry opened his eyes, he saw metal. At the same time came awareness of a thrum and quiver, almost subliminally faint but not to be mistaken for anything else in the universe. He was aboard a spacecraft running on hyperdrive.

  He sat up fast. Pain stabbed him through the temples. What the blue-flaming hell? He'd gone to sleep in one of the stews of Catawrayannis, with no intention of departure from that city for weeks or months to come—or, wait, had he passed out? Memory failed. Yet he hadn't drunk much.

  Realization chilled him. He was not in a ship meant for humans. The crew must be pretty manlike, to judge from the size and design of articles. He could breathe the air, though it was chilly, bore peculiar odors, and seemed a bit denser than Terran standard. The interior grav-field, while not handicapping to him, was perceptibly stronger too, laying several extra kilos on his body. Bunks, one of which he occupied, were made up with sheets of vegetable fiber and blankets woven of long bluish-gray hair. A chest which could, he supposed, double as a seat, was wooden, carved and inlaid in a style new to him; and planetary art forms were a hobby of his.

  He buried face in hands and struggled to think. The headache and a vile taste in his mouth were not from liquor—at least, not from the well-chosen stuff he had been drinking in reasonable moderation. And it made no sense that he'd dropped off so early; the girl had been attractive and bouncy. Therefore—

  Drugged. Oh, no! Don't tell me I've been as stupid as a hero of a holoplay. That idea is not to be borne.

  Well, who would have awaited such a trick? Certainly his opposition had no reason to . . . had they? Flandry had just been out developing a further part of that structure of demimonde acquaintances and information which would eventually, by tortuous routes, bring him to those whom he sought. He had been enjoying his work as conspicuously as possible, so that no one might suspect that it was work. Then somehow—

  He lurched to his feet and hunted blearily for his clothes. They were missing; he was naked. Damn, he'd paid three hundred credits for that outfit. He stamped across to a metal door. It wasn't automatic. In his state, he needed half a minute to figure out how the sliding latch, cast in the form of a monster's head, was operated. He flung the door open an
d stared down the projection cone of a blaster.

  The weapon was not of any make he recognized. However, there was no doubt as to its nature. Flandry sighed, attempted to relax, and considered the guard who held it.

  The being was remarkably humanoid. Certain differences of detail could quite likely be found beneath the clothes, and more basic ones beneath the skin. Among countless worlds, evolutionary coincidences are bound to happen now and then, but never evolutionary identities. Yet to the eye, crew member and captive resembled each other more than either resembled, say, a woman. Or an alien female? Flandry wondered. I'll bet this is a male, and equipped pretty much like me, too.

  The stranger could almost have passed for a tall, heavily built human. Variations in bodily proportions were slight, within the normal range. To be sure, Terra had never brought forth a race with his combination of features. The skin was very white, the hair and beard tawny, but the nose rather flat, lips full, eyes oblique and violet-colored. The ears were quite foreign, pointed, motile, cowrie-convoluted. Heavy brow ridges sprouted a pair of small, jet-black horns—scarcely for combat; they might perhaps have some sensory or sexual function. On the whole, the esthetic effect was pleasing, exotic enough to excite but familiar enough to attract.

  The trouble was, Flandry was not feeling pleasable. He scowled at the garb which confronted him. It consisted of a gaudily patterned kilt and tunic, cuirass and helmet of a reddish alloy, leather buskins, a murderous-looking dirk, and two shriveled right hands, hung at the belt, which had probably belonged to foes. Barbarian! Flandry knew.

  The guard gestured him back, unslung a horn from his shoulder, and blew a howling blast. That was pure flamboyancy; anyone who could build or buy spaceships would have intercoms installed. Old customs often lingered, though, especially when a people acquired modern technology overnight.

  Which too many have done, Flandry reflected with grimness. One would have been too many, and as is—No surprise that I never heard about this folk; it is their existence that is the nasty surprise.

  No individual could remember all the scores of thousands of sophont species over which the Terran Empire claimed hegemony—not to speak of those in the domains of other starfaring civilizations, Ythrian and Merseian and the rest. The majority were obscure, primitive by the standards of space travelers, seldom if ever visited, their allegiance nominal. This meant that strange things could develop among them over centuries, unbeknownst to worlds beyond. And known space itself was the tiniest splinter off the outer part of a spiral arm of a galaxy whose suns numbered above a hundred billion.

  Outside the Empire, knowledge faded swiftly away. Yet there had been sporadic contact with dwellers in the wilderness. Merchant adventurers had searched widely about in olden days, and not always been scrupulous about what they sold. In this way and that, individual natives had wangled passage to advanced planets, and sometimes brought back information of a revolutionizing sort. Often this got passed on to other societies.

  And so, here and there, cultures arose that possessed things like starships and nuclear weapons, and played ancient games with these new toys. Barbarian raiders had fearfully harried about during the Troubles. In the long run, the practice of hiring rival barbarians as mercenaries against them only worsened matters. After the Empire brought the Pax, it soon established lethal discouragements of raids and attempts at conquest within its sphere. The marches lay long quiet. But now the Empire was in a bad way, it relied ever more on nonhuman hireling fighters, its grip upon the border stars was slipping . . . word got around, and latter-day buccaneers began to venture forth. . . .

  Barbarians could be bought off, or played off against each other, or cowed by an occasional punitive expedition—most of the time. But if ever somebody among them formed a powerful coalition, and saw an opportunity—vae victis! Even if the Imperialists broke him, the harm he did first would be catastrophic. Vae victoris!

  Flandry halted his brooding. Footfalls rang in the corridor. A minute later, a party of his captors entered the cabin, seven warriors and a chieftain.

  The leader overtopped the prisoner, who was of above average height for a Terran, by a head. His eyes were pale blue, beneath a golden coronet which represented three intertwined serpentine forms. Though it would be folly to try interpreting facial expressions on such short acquaintance, this one sent a line from the remote past across Flandry's mind: "—sneer of cold command." He wore a robe of iridescent shimmerlyn, bought or looted from an Imperial world, trimmed with strips of scaly leather. A belt upheld a blaster and a slim sword. The latter might not be entirely an archaic symbol; to judge from wear on hilt and guard, it had seen use.

  His gaze went up and down the nude frame before him. Flandry gave back as bland a stare as possible. At length the newcomer spoke. His Anglic was heavily accented and his voice, which was deep, had subtle overtones hinting at a not quite human conformation of teeth, palate, tongue, and throat. Nevertheless he required no vocalizer to make the sounds understandable: "You seem to be in better condition than I awaited. You are not soft, but hard."

  The man shrugged. "One tries to keep in shape. It maintains capacity for drinking and lovemaking."

  The alien scowled. "Have a care. Show respect. You are a prisoner, Captain Dominic Flandry."

  They went through my pockets, naturally. "May I ask a respectful question? Was that girl last night paid to slip a little something extra into my drink?"

  "Indeed. The Scothani are not the brainless brutes of your folklore. Few of the so-called barbarians have ever been, in fact." A stern smile. "It can be useful having your folk believe we are."

  "Scothani? I don't think I've had the pleasure—"

  "Hardly. We are not altogether unknown to the Imperium, but hitherto we have avoided direct contact. However, we are they from whom the Alarri fled."

  Flandry harked back. He had been a boy then, but he well remembered news accounts of the fleets that swept across the marches with nuclear fire and energy sword. The Battle of Mirzan had been touch and go for a while, till a Navy task force smashed the gathered enemy strength. Yet it turned out that the Alarri were the victims of still another tribe, who had overrun their planet and laid it under tribute. Such an incident would scarcely have come to the notice of an indifferent Imperium, had not one nation of the conquered refused to surrender but, instead, boarded hordes into spacecraft and set forth in hopes of winning a new home. (They expected the Empire would buy peace from them, payment to be assistance in finding a planet they could colonize, preferably outside its borders. Terrestroid real estate is a galactic rarity. Instead, the remnants of them scattered back into the stellar wilderness. Maybe a few still survived.)

  "You must have a small empire of your own by now," Flandry said.

  "Aye, though not small. The gods who forged our destiny saw to it that our ancestors did not learn the secrets of power from humans, who might afterward have paid heed to us and tried to stop our growth. It was others who came to our world and started the great change."

  Flandry nodded his weary head. The historical pattern was time-worn; Terra herself had been through it, over and over, long before her children departed for the stars. By way of exploration, trade, missionary effort, or whatever, a culture met another which was technologically behind it. If the latter had sufficient strength to survive the encounter, it gained knowledge of the foreigner's tricks and tactics while losing awe of him. Perhaps in the end it overcame him.

  The gap between, say, a preindustrial Iron Age and an assembly of modern machines was enormous. It was not uncrossable. Basic equipment could be acquired, in exchange for natural resources or the like. Educations could be gotten. Once a class of engineers and applied scientists was in existence, progress could be made at home; if everything worked out right, it would accelerate like a landslide. After all, when you knew more or less how to build something, and had an entire, largely unplundered planet to draw on, your industrial base would soon suffice for most purposes. Presently you w
ould have an entire planetary system to draw on.

  It wasn't necessary to educate whole populations. Automated machinery did the bulk of the work. Peasants with hoes and sickles might well toil in sight of a spacefield for generations after it had come into being. In fact, the ruling class might consider extensive schooling undesirable, particularly among nationalities which its own had conquered.

  New instrumentalities—old, fierce ways—

  The Scothani, though, must have truly exploded forth on their interstellar career. Else Terra would not remain ignorant of them. That was suggestive of deliberate purpose with a long perspective. A prickling went along Flandry's skin. "Who were those beings that aided you?" he asked slowly. The Merseians? They'd dearly love to see us in trouble: the worse, the dearer.

  The chieftain lifted a hand. "You are overly forward," he growled. "Have you forgotten you are alone among us, in a ship already light-years from Llynathawr and bound for Scotha itself? If you would have mercy, conduct yourself as behooves you."

  Flandry assumed a humble stance. "Dare I ask why you took me, my lord?"

  "You are a ranking officer of the Imperial Intelligence service. As such, you may have hostage value; but primarily we want information."

  "From me? I—"

  "I know." The reply was clearly disgusted. "You're typical of your kind. I've studied the Empire long enough to recognize you; I've traveled there myself, incognito, and met persons aplenty. You are another worthless younger son, given a well-paid sinecure so you can wear a bedizened uniform and play at being a fighting man."

  Flandry decided to register a bit of indignation. "Sir, that isn't fair." In haste: "Not to contradict you, of course."

  The barbarian laughed. It was a very human-sounding laugh, save that its heartiness was seldom heard on Terra any more. "I know you," he said. "Did you imagine I had you snatched at random, without learning something first? Your mission was to find who the ultimate leaders were of a conspiracy against the throne which had lately been uncovered. How am I aware of this? Why, you registered under your proper name at the most luxurious hotel in Catawrayannis. On a seemingly unlimited expense account, you strutted about dropping hints about your business, hints which would have been childishly dark were they not transparent. Your actual activities amounted to drinking, gambling, wenching every night and sleeping the whole day." Humor gleamed cold in the blue eyes. "Was it perhaps your intention that the Empire's enemies should be rendered helpless by mirth at the spectacle?"