Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra

by Poul Anderson

  His comrades growled. Knives flashed clear. "Stop!" yelled an appalled Bandang. "Stop this instant!" But it was Warouw's sharp whistle, like a man calling a dog to heel, which brought the Guards crouching in their tracks.

  "Enough," said Warouw. "Put that toy away, Flandry."

  "But it's a useful toy." The Terran skinned teeth in a grin. "I can kill things with it."

  "What good would that do you? You would never get off this planet. And in thirty days—two Terrestrial weeks, more or less—Watch."

  Ignoring stunned governors and angry Guards, Warouw crossed the floor to a telecom screen. He twirled the dials. Breath wheezed from the Biocontrol table; otherwise the room grew very quiet.

  "It so happens that a condemned criminal is on public exhibition in the Square of the Four Gods." Warouw flicked a switch. "Understand, we are not inhuman. Ordinary crime is punished less drastically. But this man is guilty of assault on a Biocontrol technicial. He reached the state of readiness for display a few hours ago."

  The screen lit up. Flandry saw an image of a plaza surrounded by canal water. A statue loomed in each corner, male figures dancing with many arms radiating from their shoulders. In the middle stood a cage. A placard on it described the offense. A naked man lay within.

  His back arched, he clawed the air and screamed. It was as if his ribs must break with the violence of breath and heartbeat. Blood trickled out of his nose. His jaw had dislocated itself. His eyes were blind balls starting from the sockets.

  "It will progress," said Warouw dispassionately. "Death in a few more hours."

  From the middle of nightmare, Flandry said, "You took his pills away."

  Warouw turned down the dreadful shrieking and corrected: "No, we merely condemned him not to receive any more. Of course, an occasional criminal under the ban prefers to commit suicide. This man gave himself up, hoping to be sentenced to enslavement. But his offense was too great. Human life on Unan Besar depends on Biocontrol, which must therefore be inviolable."

  Flandry took his eyes from the screen. He had thought he was tough, but this was impossible to watch. "What's the cause of death?" he asked without tone.

  "Well, fundamentally the life which evolved on Unan Besar is terrestroid, and nourishing to man. But there is one phylum of airborne bacteria that occurs everywhere on the planet. The germs enter the human bloodstream, where they react with certain enzymes normal and necessary to us and start excreting acetylcholine. You know what an overly high concentration of acetylcholine does to the nervous system."

  "Yes."

  "Unan Besar could not be colonized until scientists from the mother planet, New Djawa, had developed an antitoxin. The manufacture and distribution of this antitoxin is the responsibility of Biocontrol."

  Flandry looked at the faces behind the table. "What happens to me in thirty days," he said, "would not give you gentlemen much satisfaction."

  Warouw switched off the telecom. "You might kill a few of us before the Guards overcame you," he said. "But no member of Biocontrol fears death."

  Bandang's sweating countenance belied him. But others looked grim, and a fanatic's voice whispered from age-withered lips: "No, not as long as the holy mission exists."

  Warouw extended his hand. "So give me that gun," he finished, almost lightly.

  Flandry fired.

  Bandang squealed and dove under the table. But the blaster bolt had gone by him anyway. It smote the window. Thunder crackled behind it.

  "You fool!" shouted Warouw.

  Flandry plunged across the floor. A Guard ran to intercept him. Flandry stiff-armed the man and sprang to the tabletop. An overlord grabbed at him. Teeth crunched under Flandry's boot. He leapfrogged a bald head and hit the floor beyond.

  A thrown dagger went past his cheek. The broken window gaped before him. He sprang through the hole and hit the roof underneath. It slanted steeply downward. He rolled all the way, tumbled from the edge, and straightened out as he fell toward the canal.

  IV

  The water was dirty. As he broke its surface, he wondered for one idiotic moment what the chances were of salvaging his clothes. They had cost him a pretty sum. Then alien smells filled his nostrils, and he struck out in search of darkness.

  Dreamlike in this hunted moment, a boat glided past. Its stem and stern curved upward, extravagantly shaped, and the sides were gay with tiny electric lamps. A boy and girl snuggled in the waist under a transparent canopy. Their kilts and Dutch boy bob seemed the universal style here for both sexes, but they had added bangles and had painted intricate designs on their skins. Music caterwauled from a radio. Rich kids, no doubt. Flandry sank back under water as the boat came near. He felt its propeller vibrations in ears and flesh.

  When his head came up again, he heard a new sound. It was like a monstrous gong, crashing from some loudspeaker on the golden pagoda. An alarm! Warouw's corps would be after him in minutes. Solu Bandang might be content to wait, expecting the Terran to die in two weeks—but Nias Warouw wanted to quiz him. Flandry kicked off his boots and began swimming faster.

  Lights blazed overhead at the intersection of the next canal. Every one seemed focused on him. There was a thick traffic of boats, not only pleasure craft but water buses and freight carriers. Pedestrians crowded the narrow walks that ran along the housefronts, and the high bridges crossing the waterways. The air was full of city babble. Flandry eased up against the weed-grown brick of an embankment.

  Four young men stood on the walk opposite. They were muscular, the look of illiterate commoners in their mannerisms and the coarse material of their kilts. But they talked with animation, gesturing, possibly a little drunk. Another man approached. He was a small fellow, distinguished only by robe and shaven pate. But the four big ones grew still the moment they saw him. They backed against the wall to let him go by and bent their heads over folded hands. He paid no attention. When he was gone, it took them a few minutes to regain their good humor.

  So, thought Flandry.

  The chance he had been waiting for came, a freight boat putt-putting close to the canal bank in the direction he wanted. Flandry pushed away from the bricks, seized a rope bumper hung from the rail, and snuggled close to the hull. Water streamed silkily around his body and trailing legs. He caught smells of tar and spice. Somewhere above, the steersman tapped a gamelan and crooned to himself.

  Within two kilometers, the boat reached an invisible boundary common to most cities. On one side of a cross-canal, an upper-class apartment house lifted tiers of delicate red columns toward a gilt roof. On the other side there was no solid land, only endless pilings to hold structures above the water. There the lamps were few, with darknesses between, and the buildings crouched low. Flandry could just see that those warehouses and tenements and small factories were not plastifaced like the rich part of town. This was all sheet metal and rough timber, thatch roofs, dim light glowing through little dirty-paned windows. He saw two men pad by with knives in their hands.

  The truckboat continued, deeper into slum. Now that the great gong was stilled and the heavy traffic left behind, it was very quiet around Flandry. He heard only a muted background growl of distant machines. But if the canals had been dirty before, they were now disgusting. Once something brushed him in the night; with skin and nose he recognized it as a corpse. Once, far off, a woman screamed. And once he glimpsed a little girl, skipping rope all alone under a canalside lamp. Its harsh blue glow was as solitary as a star. Darkness enclosed the child. She didn't stop jumping as the boat passed, but her eyes followed it with a hag's calculation. Then Flandry was beyond her and had lost her.

  About time to get off, he thought.

  Suddenly the stillness and desertion were broken. It began as a faint irregular hooting, which drew closer. Flandry didn't know what warned him—perhaps the way the truck pilot stopped musicking and revved up the motor. But his nerves tingled and he knew: School's out.

  He let go the bumper. The boat chugged on in haste, rounded a corner and w
as gone. Flandry swam through warm slimy water till he grasped a ladder. It led up to a boardwalk, which fronted a line of sleazy houses with tin sides and peaked grass roofs and lightless windows. The night was thick and hot and stinking around him, full of shadows. No other human stirred. But the animal hooting came nearer.

  After a moment, their hides agleam in the light of one lamp twenty meters away, the pack swam into sight. There were a dozen, about the size and build of Terrestrial sea lions. They had glabrous reptile skins, long necks and snaky heads. Tongues vibrated between rows of teeth. Tasting the water? Flandry didn't know how they had traced him. He crouched on the ladder, the canal lapping about his ankles, and drew his gun.

  The swimmers saw him, or smelled him, and veered. Their high blasts of sound became a shrill ululation. Give tongue, the fox is gone to earth!

  As the nearest of them surged close, Flandry's blaster fired. Blue lightning spat in the dark, and a headless body rolled over. He scrambled up onto the walk.

  The beasts kept pace as he ran, reaching up to snap at his feet. The planks resounded. He fired again, and missed. Once he stumbled, hit a corrugated metal wall, and heard it boom.

  Far down the canal, engines whined and the fierce sun of a searchlight waxed in his eyes. He didn't need to be told it was a police boat, tracking him with the help of the swimmers. He stopped before a doorway. The animals churned the water below the pier. He felt its piles tremble from the impact of heavy bodies. Their splashing and whistling filled his skull. Where to go, what to do?—Yes. He turned the primitive doorknob. Locked of course. He thumbed his blaster to narrow beam and used it as a cutting torch, with his body between the flame and the approaching speedboat.

  There! The door opened under his pressure. He slipped through, closed it, and stood in the dark. An after-image of the gunbeam still flickered across his blindness, and his pulse was loud.

  Got to get out of here, he thought. The cops won't know offhand precisely where I went, but they'll check every door in this row and find the cut lock.

  He could just make out a gray square of window across the room, and groped toward it. Canal water dripped off his clothes.

  Feet pattered on bare boards. "Who goes?" An instant later, Flandry swore at himself for having spoken. But there was no answer. Whoever else was in this room—probably asleep till he came—was reacting to his intrusion with feline presence of mind. There was no more noise.

  He barked his shins on a low bedstead. He heard a creak and saw an oblong of dull shimmering light appear. A trapdoor in the floor had been opened. "Stop!" he called. The trapdoor was darkened with a shadow. Then that was gone too. Flandry heard a splash below. He thought he heard the unknown start swimming quickly away. The trapdoor fell down again.

  It had all taken a bare few seconds. He grew aware of the animals, hooting and plunging outside. The unknown had nerve, to dive into the same water as that hell-pack! And now engine-roar slowed to a whine, a sputter, the boat had arrived. A voice called something, harsh and authoritative.

  Flandry's eyes were adapting. He could see that this house—cabin, rather—comprised a single big room. It was sparsely furnished: a few stools and cushions, the bed, a brazier and some cooking utensils, a small chest of drawers. But he sensed good taste. There were a couple of exquisitely arabesqued wooden screens; and he thought he could identify fine drawing on a scroll which decorated one wall.

  Not that it mattered! He stepped to the window on the side through which he had come. Several Guards crouched in the boat, flashing its searchlight around. A needle gun was mounted on its prow, but otherwise the men were armed only with their knives and nightsticks. There might be another boatload along soon, but for the moment—

  Flandry set his blaster to full power, narrow beam, and opened the door a crack. I couldn't get more than one or two men at this range, he calculated, and the others would radio HQ that they'd found me. But could be I can forestall that with some accurate shooting. Very accurate. Fortunately, I count marksmanship among my many superiorities.

  The weapon blazed.

  He chopped the beam down, first across cockpit and dashboard to knock out the radio, then into the hull itself. The Guards bellowed. Their searchlight swung blindingly toward him and he heard needles thunk into the door panels. Then the boat was pierced. It filled and sank like a diving whale.

  The Guards had already sprung overboard. They could come up the ladder, dash at their quarry, and be shot down. Wherefore they would not come very fast. They'd most likely swim around waiting for reinforcements. Flandry closed the door with a polite "Auf Wiedersehen" and hurried across the room. There was no door on that side, but he opened a window, vaulted to the boardwalk beneath, and loped off fast and quietly. With any luck, he'd leave men and seal-hounds milling about under the place he'd just quitted until he was safely elsewhere.

  At the end of the pier, a bridge arched across to another row of shacks. It wasn't one of the beautiful metallic affairs in the center part of town. This bridge was of planks suspended from vine cables. But it had a grace of its own. It swayed under Flandry's tread. He passed the big pillars anchoring the suspension at the far end—

  One brawny arm closed around his neck. The other hand clamped numbingly on his gun wrist. A bass voice told him, very low, "Don't move, outlander. Not till Kemul says you can."

  Flandry, who didn't wish a fractured larynx, stood deathstill. The blaster was plucked from his hand. "Always wanted one of these," the mugger chuckled. "Now, who in the name of fifty million devils are you, and what d' you mean breaking into Luang's crib that way?"

  The pressure tightened around his throat. Flandry thought in bitterness, Sure, I get it. Luang escaped down the trap and fetched help. They figured I'd have to come in this direction, if I escaped at all. I seemed worth catching. This ape simply lurked behind the pillar waiting for me.

  "Come now." The arm cut off all breath. "Be good and tell Kemul." Pressure eased a trifle.

  "Guards—Biocontrol agents—back there," rattled Flandry.

  "Kemul knows. Kemul isn't blind or deaf. A good citizen should hail them and turn you over to them. Perhaps Kemul will. But he is curious. No one like you has ever been seen on all Unan Besar. Kemul would like to hear your side of the tale before he decides what to do."

  Flandry relaxed against a bare chest solid as a wall. "This is hardly the place for long stories," he whispered. "If we could go somewhere and talk—"

  "Aye. If you will behave." Having tucked the blaster in his kilt, Kemul patted Flandry in search of other goods. He removed watch and wallet, released the Terran, and stepped back, tigerishly fast, ready for counterattack.

  Vague greasy light fell across him. Flandry saw a giant by the standards of any planet, an ogre among these folk: 220 centimeters high, with shoulders to match. Kemul's face had from time to time been slashed with knives and beaten with blunt instruments; his hair was grizzled; but still he moved as if made of rubber. He wore body paint that wove a dozen clashing colors together. A kris was thrust in the garish batik of his kilt.

  He grinned. It made his ruined countenance almost human. "Kemul knows a private spot," he offered. "We can go there if you really want to talk. But so private is it, even the house god wears a blindfold. Kemul must blindfold you too."

  Flandry massaged his aching neck. "As you will." He studied the other man a moment before adding, "I had hoped to find someone like you."

  Which was true enough. But he hadn't expected to meet Kompong Timur's underworld at such a severe disadvantage. If he couldn't think of something to bribe them with—his blaster had been the best possibility, and it was gone now—they'd quite likely slit his weasand. Or turn him over to Warouw. Or just leave him to die screaming, a couple of weeks hence.

  V

  Boats clustered around a long two-story building which stood by itself in the Canal of the Fiery Snake. Everywhere else lay darkness, the tenements of the poor, a few sweatshop factories, old warehouses abandoned to rats a
nd robbers. But there was life enough on the first floor of the Tavern Called Swampman's Ease. Its air was thick with smoke, through which grinned jack-o'-lantern lights, and with the smells of cheap arrack and cheaper narcotics. Freightboat crewmen, fishers, dock wallopers, machine tenders, hunters and loggers from the jungle, bandits, cutpurses, gamblers, and less identifiable persons lounged about on the floor mats: drinking, smoking, quarreling, plotting, rattling dice, watching a dancer swing her hips to plang of gamelan and squeal of flute and thump-thump of a small drum. Occasionally, behind a beaded curtain, one of the joy girls giggled. High on her throne, Madame Udjung watched with jet eyes nearly buried in fat. Sometimes she spoke to the noseless daggerman who crouched at her feet in case of trouble, but mostly she drank gin and talked to the ketjil bird on her wrist. It was not large, but its tail swept down like a rain of golden fire and it could sing in a woman's voice.

  Flandry could hear enough of the racket to know he was in some such place. But there were probably a hundred like it, and his eyes had only been unbandaged when he reached this second-floor room. Which was not the sort of layout he would have expected. It was clean, and much like the one he'd blundered onto earlier: simple furnishings, a decorative scroll, a couple of screens, a shallow bowl holding one stone and two white flowers. A glowlamp in the hand of a small, blindfolded wooden idol on a shelf showed that every article was of exquisite simplicity. One window stood open to warm breezes, but incense drowned the garbage smell of the canal.

  Kemul tossed Flandry a kilt, which the Terran was glad enough to belt around his middle. "Well," said the giant, "what are his things worth after they've been cleaned, Luang?"

  The girl studied the clothes Flandry had been forced to take off. "All synthetic fiber... but never have color and fineness like this been seen on Unan Besar." Her voice was husky. "I should say they are worth death in the cage, Kemul."