Flandry's Legacy: The Technic Civilization Saga

by Poul Anderson

  “The Imperial court and bureaucracy are pretty expensive too, I hear,” Diana snapped. “Well, never mind. I don’t pay taxes.”

  “I have, yes, I have encountered tales of Admiral Flandry’s exploits,” said Axor in haste. “But he cannot have spent much time on Imhotep, surely.”

  “Oh, no. He looked in once in a while, when he happened to be in the region. A natural curiosity. My mother and he—Well, I keep tellin’ myself I shouldn’t blame him. She never did.”

  Once Maria Crowfeather had admitted to her daughter that she got Dominic Flandry’s child in hopes that that would lead to something permanent. It had not. After he found out on his next visit, he bade a charming, rueful goodbye. Maria got on with her own life.

  “Your mother worked in the resettlement project?” Axor inquired tactfully.

  Diana nodded. “A xenologist. She died in an accident, a sudden tidal bore on a strange coast, three standard years ago.”

  Maria Crowfeather had been born on the planet Atheia, in the autonomous community Dakotia. It had been among the many founded during the Breakup, when group after ethnic group left a Commonwealth that they felt was drowning them in sameness. The Dakota people had already been trying to revive a sense of identity in North America. Diana, though, kept only bits of memory, fugitive and wistful, about ancestral traditions. She had passed her life among Tigeries and Seafolk.

  “Leaving you essentially orphaned,” said Axor. “Why did nobody take care of you?”

  “I ran away,” Diana replied.

  The man who had been living with Maria at the time of her death did not afterward reveal himself to be a bad sort. He turned out to be officious, which was worse. He had wanted to marry the girl’s mother legally, and now he wanted to put the girl in the Navy brat school on Daedalus, and eventually see to it that she wed some nice officer. Meanwhile Tigeries were hunting through hills where wind soughed in waves across forests, and surf burst under three moons upon virgin islands.

  “Did not the authorities object?” Axor wondered.

  “They couldn’t find me at first. Later they forgot.”

  Axor uttered a splintering noise that might be his equivalent of a laugh. “Very well, little sprite of all the world, let us see how you guide a poor bumbler. Make the arrangements, and leave me to my data and breviary until we are ready for departure. But can you give me an idea of what to expect?”

  “I’ll try, but I don’t make any promises,” Diana said. “Especially these days. You didn’t arrive at the best time, sir.”

  Scales stirred above the brow ridges. “What do you mean, pray?” Grimness laid grip on her. She had ignored the news as much as possible. What could she do about it? Well, she had mentally listed various refuges, according to where she would be when the trouble exploded, if it was going to. But here she was committing herself to an expedition which could take her anyplace, and— “That ruckus with the Merseians last year was just a thing off in space,” she said. “Since, I’ve kept hearin’ rumors—ask your God to make them only rumors, will you?—Sir, we may be on the edge of a real war.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  On Daedalus, the world without a horizon, a Tigery was still an uncommon sight, apt to draw everybody’s attention. Targovi had made an exception of himself. The capital Aurea, its hinterland, communities the length of the Highroad River as far as the Phosphoric Ocean, no few of the settlements scattered elsewhere, had grown used to him. He would put his battered Moonjumper down at the spaceport, exchange japes with guards and officials, try to sell them something, then load his wares into an equally disreputable-looking van and be off. His stock in trade was Imhotepan, a jackdaw museum of the infinite diversity that is every planet’s. Artifacts of his people he had, cutlery, tapestries, perfumes; things strange and delicate, made underwater by the Seafolk; exotic products of nature, skins, mineral gems, land pearls, flavorful wild foods—for the irony was that huge Imhotep had begotten life which Terrans, like Starkadians, could safely take nourishment from, whereas Terra-sized Daedalus had not.

  For a number of years he had thus ranged, dickering, swapping, amusing himself and most whom he encountered, a generally amiable being whom—certain individuals discovered too late—it was exceedingly dangerous to affront. Even when tensions between Merseia and Terra snapped asunder, sporadic combats erupted throughout the marches, and at last Sector Admiral Magnusson took his forces to meet an oncoming armada of the Roidhunate, even then had Targovi plied his trade unhindered.

  Thus he registered shock when he landed in routine fashion a twelvemonth later, and the junior port officer who gave him his admission certificate warned: “You had better stay in touch with us. Interplanetary traffic may be suddenly curtailed. You could find yourself unable to get off Daedalus for an indefinite time.”

  “Eyada shkor!” ripped from Targovi. His tendrils grew stiff. A hand dropped to the knife at his side. “What is this?”

  “Possible emergency,” said the human. “Understand, I am trying to be friendly. There ought to be a short grace period. If you then return here immediately, I can probably get you clearance to go home. Otherwise you could be stranded and unable to earn your keep, once your goods were sold and the proceeds spent.”

  “I . . . think . . . I would survive,” Targovi murmured.

  The officer peered across his desk. “You may be right,” he said. “But we may not like the ways you would find. I would be sorry to see you jailed, or gunned down.”

  The Tigery looked predatory enough to arouse qualms. His resemblance to a man was merely in the roughest outlines. He stood as tall as an average one, but on disproportionately long and powerful legs whose feet were broad and clawed. Behind, a stubby tail twitched. The torso was thick, the arms and their four-fingered hands cabled with muscle. The round head bore a countenance flat and narrow-chinned, a single breathing slit in the nose, carnivore teeth agleam in the wide mouth. Beneath the fronded chemosensor tendrils, eyes were slanted and scarlet-hued. The large, movable ears were scalloped around the edges as if to suggest bat wings. Fur clothed him in silkiness that had now begun to bristle, black-striped orange except for a white triangle at the throat. His voice purred, hissed, sometimes growled or screeched, making its fluent Anglic an outlandish dialect.

  He wore nothing at present but a breechclout, pocketed belt, knife, and amulet hung from his neck—these, and an oxygill. Its pleated pearly ruff lifted from his shoulders at the back of the head, framing the latter. Strange it might seem, to observe such a molecularly-convoluted intricacy upon such a creature, and to recollect what chemical subtleties went on within, oxygen captured and led into the bloodstream through capillary-fine tubes surgically installed. Yet it gave him the freedom to be barbaric, where he would else have been encumbered with a helmet and pump, or have perished. His kind had evolved under an air pressure more than nine times the Terran.

  “I think your efforts might fail,” he said low. Easing: “However, surely naught untoward will happen. You are kind to advise me, Dosabhai Patel. You wife may find some pleasant trinket in her mail. But what is this extremity you await?”

  “I did not say we are bound to have one,” replied the officer quickly.

  “What could it be, does it come on us?”

  “Too many wild rumors are flying about. Both naval and civil personnel are under orders not to add to them.”

  Targovi’s chair had been designed for a human, but he was sufficiently supple to flow down into it. His eyelids drooped; he bridged his fingertips. “Ah, good friend, you realize I am bound to hear those rumors. Were it not best to arm me with truths whereby I may slay them? I am, of course, a simple, wandering trader, who knows no secrets. Yet I should have had some inkling if, say, a new Merseian attack seemed likely.”

  “Not that! Admiral Magnusson gave them a lesson they will remember for a while.” Patel cleared his throat. “Understand, what happened was not a war.”

  Targovi did not overtly resent the patronizing lecture that f
ollowed, meant for a half-civilized xeno: “Bloody incidents are all too common. It is inevitable, when two great powers, bitter rivals, share an ill-defined and thinly peopled buffer zone which is, actually, an arena for them. This latest set of clashes began when negotiations over certain spheres of influence broke down and commanders in various locations grew, ah, trigger-happy. True, the Roidhunate did dispatch a task force to ‘restore order.’ Had it succeeded, the Merseians would undoubtedly have occupied the Patrician System, thereby making this entire sector almost indefensible and driving a salient deep into the Empire. We would have had to settle with them on highly disadvantageous terms. As you know, Admiral Magnusson beat them back, and diplomats on both sides are trying to mend things. . . . No, we are in no immediate danger from outside.”

  “From inside, then?” Targovi drawled. “Even we poor, uprooted vaz-Toborko—aye, even the vaz-Siravo beneath their seas—have learned a little about your great Empire. Rebellions and attempted rebellions have grown, regrettably, not infrequent, during the past half century. The present dynasty itself, did it not come to power by—?—”

  “The glorious revolution was necessary,” Patel declared. “Emperor Hans restored order and purged corruption.”

  “Ah, but his sons—”

  Patel’s fist struck the desktop. “Very well, you insolent barbarian! Daedalus, this whole system, the Empire itself were in grave peril last year. Admiral Magnusson rectified the situation, but it should never have arisen. The Imperial forces in these parts should have been far stronger. As matters stood, under a less brilliant commander, they would almost certainly have been smashed.” He moistened his lips. “No question of disloyalty. No lèse majesté. But there is a widespread feeling on Daedalus, especially among Navy personnel, that Emperor Gerhart and his Policy Board have . . . not been well advised . . . that some of the counsel they heeded may actually have been treasonable in intent . . . that drastic reform has again become overdue. The Admiral has sent carefully reasoned recommendations to Terra. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction leads to restlessness. He may have to impose martial law, or—Enough. These matters are not for subjects like you and me to decide.” Nonetheless eagerness lighted his features and shrilled in his voice. “You have had your warning, Targovi. Be off, but stay in touch; attend to your business and nothing else; and you will probably be all right.”

  The trader rose, spoke his courteous farewell, departed. In Terran-like gravity he rippled along, his padded feet silent across the floor.

  Well-nigh the whole of Aurea was new, built to accommodate the burgeoning sector defense command that had been established on the planet, together with the civil bureaucracy and private enterprises that it drew. Architecture soared boldly in towers, sprawled in ponderous industrial plants. Vehicles beswarmed streets, elways, skies. Around the clock, the throb of traffic never ceased.

  Hardly anything remained of the original town, demolished and engulfed. It had been small anyhow, for colonization was far-flung, enclaves in wilderness that could not be tamed but only, slowly, destroyed. Still, a bit from early days clung yet to a steep slope beneath the plateau. Targovi went there, to an inn he knew.

  He mingled readily with the crowds. He might be the sole member of his race on Daedalus, but plenty of other xenosophonts were present. The vague borders of the Terran Empire held an estimated four million suns, of which perhaps a hundred thousand had some degree of contact with it. Out of that many, no few were bound to have learned from Technic civilization—if they had learned nothing else—the requirements for traveling between the stars. They included spacehands, Naval personnel, Imperial officials, besides those engaged on affairs of their own. Then too, colonization of Daedalus had not been exclusively human by any means. It made for a variegated scene, which Targovi enjoyed. His inmost wish was to get beyond this single planetary system, out into the freedom of the galaxy.

  Descending, he followed a lane along a cliff. On his left were walls time-gnawed, unpretentious, reminiscent of those in the Old Town of Olga’s Landing. On his right were a guard rail, empty air, and a tremendous view. The river glimmered silver, grandly curved, through hundreds of kilometers of its valley, sunset bound. That land lay in shades of dark, metallic green, save where softer tones showed that farmsteads or plantations had been wrested out of it. The northern mountains and the ice fields beyond them, the southward sweep of plains, faded out of sight, lost in sheer distance.

  Closer by, the headwaters of the river rushed downward in cataracts. The mountainside was covered with native growth. Although air was cool at this altitude, Targovi caught a harsh pungency. Raindrops that were cars flitted to and fro through heaven. A spaceship lifted, her gravs driving her in silence, but the hull carving out muted thunder.

  Ju Shao’s inn perched ramshackle on the brink. Targovi entered the taproom. The owner bounded to greet him: a Cynthian by species, small, white-furred, bushy-tailed. “Welcome back!” she piped. “A sweet sight, you, after the klongs who’ve been infesting this place lately. What will you have?”

  “Dinner, and a room for the night,” Targovi answered. “Also—” His eyes flickered about. Besides himself, the customers thus far were just four humans in Navy uniform, seated around a table, talking over their liquor. “What mean you by ‘klongs’?” he asked. “I thought you got folk here as well-behaved as is reasonable. Those who’re not, the rest always cast out.”

  “Too many are akindle nowadays,” Ju Shao grumbled. “Young, from Navy or Marine Corps. They yell about how the Imperium’s abandoned us and how we need strong leadership—that sort of spew. They get drunk and noisy and start throwing things around. Then the patrol arrives, and I have to waste an hour recording a statement before I can clean up the mess.” She reached high to pat his hand. “You’re the right sort. You stay quiet till you need to kill, which you do without fuss. We can cook you a nice roast, real cowbeef. And I’ve gotten a packet of that stuff they grow on Imhotep—ryushka, is that the name?—if you’d like some.”

  “I thank you, but the Winged Smoke is only for when I can take my ease, out of any danger,” Targovi said. “Bring me a bowl of tea while I talk with my . . . friends yonder. Afterward, aye, rare cowbeef will be good to taste again, the more so if you add your crinkletongue sauce, O mother of wonders.”

  He strolled to the occupied table. “Health and strength to you, Janice Combarelles,” he said, translating the Toborko formality into Anglic.

  The blond woman with the ringed planet of a lieutenant commander on her blue tunic looked up. “Why, Targovi!” she exclaimed. “Sit down! I didn’t expect you back this soon, you scoundrel. You can’t have escaped hearing how uneasy things have gotten, and that must be bad for a business like yours.”

  He accepted the invitation. “Well, but a merchant must needs keep aware of what is in the wind. I had hopes of finding you here,” he said, truthfully if incompletely.

  “Introductions first,” Combarelles said to her companions. “This is Targovi. You may have noticed him before, roving about with his trade goods. We met when I was on a tour of duty in the Imhotep garrison. He helped vastly to relieve the dullness.” Her corps was Intelligence, for which the big planet had slight demand. Starkadians of either species were not about to turn on the Empire that had saved them from extinction.

  She named the others, men of her age. “We’re out on the town, relaxing while we can,” she explained. “Leaves may soon be hard to get.”

  Targovi lapped from the container that Ju Shao had brought him. “Forgive a foreigner,” he requested. “The subtleties of politics lie far beyond his feeble grasp. What is it that you tauten yourselves against? Surely not the Merseians again.”

  “Yes and no,” Combarelles replied. “They’ll pounce on any weakness they think they see in us—”

  “Same as we should do to them,” muttered a man who had been drinking hard. “But the Empire’s gone soft, bloated, ready to pay anything for one more lifetime’s worth of peace, and to hell with the child
ren and grandchildren. When are we going to get another Argolid dynasty?”

  “Sh!” Combarelles cautioned. To Targovi: “He’s right, though, after a fashion. His Majesty’s badly served. We, out on the frontier, we’ve been made sacrificial goats to incompetence. If it weren’t for Admiral Magnusson, we’d be dead. He’s trying to set matters right, but—No, I shouldn’t say more.” She ignited a cigarette and smoked raggedly. “At that, the Merseians aren’t infallible. I’ve found a terrible bitterness among them too.”

  “How could you do that?” Targovi asked innocently. “Merseia is far and far away.”

  Combarelles laughed. “Not all the Merseians are. Well, you see, actually I’ve been talking to prisoners. We took a few in the battle, and exchange hasn’t yet been negotiated. My section has responsibility for them, and—No. I’d better not say any more except that we had a lot of luck, though that wouldn’t have helped much if the admiral hadn’t taken advantage of it. Tell us how things are on Imhotep. At least there we humans have been accomplishing something decent.”

  Targovi spun out anecdotes. They led in the direction of smuggling operations. “Oh, yes,” Combarelles laughed, “we have the same problems.”

  “How could you, milady?” Targovi wondered. “I know no way to land unbeknownst, as guarded as this globe is, and they always inspect my humble cargoes.”

  “The trick is to set down openly, but in a port where inspectors don’t go. Like Zacharia.”

  “Za—It seems I have heard the name, but—” In point of fact, he was quite familiar with it. He also knew things about the running of contraband which the authorities would have been glad to learn. Feigned ignorance was a way of leading conversation onward.

  “A large island out in the Phosphoric Ocean. Autonomous since pioneer days. Secretive. If I were Admiral Magnusson, I’d set the treaty aside. He has the power to do it if he sees fit, and I would see fit.” Combarelles shrugged. “Not that it matters if untaxed merchandise arrives once in a while and goes discreetly upriver. But . . . I’ve retrieved reports filed with Naval Traffic Control. I can’t really believe that some of the vessels cleared to land on Zacharia were what they claimed to be, or else were simple smugglers. They looked too sleek for that.”