Lady Varvara was caucasoid herself, though the Chinese strain in the Ayres pedigree showed in dark hair and small-boned body. She posed, exquisite in a simple white mourning gown, beside a full-length stereo of her late husband. Hurri Chundra Bannerji had been a little brown middle-aged Terran with wistful eyes: doubtless the typical fussy, rule-bound, conscientious civil servant whose dreams of a knighthood die slowly over the decades. And now he was murdered.
Flandry bowed over Lady Varvara’s frail hand. “Your Ladyship,” he said, “accept my most heartfelt sympathy, and grant me forgiveness that I must intrude at a moment of such loss.”
“I am glad you came,” she whispered. “So very glad.”
It had a shaken sincerity that almost upset Flandry’s court manners. He backed off with another ritual bow. “You must not trouble yourself further, your Ladyship. Let me deal with the authorities.”
“Authorities!” The word was a bitter explosion among her few thin pieces of Terran crystal. Otherwise the room was dominated by the conch-whorls of an art that had not seen Earth in centuries.’ ‘What authorities? Did you bring a regiment with you?”
“No.” Flandry glanced around the long low-ceilinged room. A noiseless City-bred butler had just placed decanter and glasses by the trellis-wall which opened on the garden. When he left, there did not seem to be anyone else in earshot. Flandry took out his cigarettes and raised his brows inquiringly at the woman. He saw she was younger than himself.
Her colorless lips bent into a smile. “Thank you,” she said, so low he could almost not hear it.
“Eh? For what, your Ladyship? I’m afraid it’s a frosty comfort to have me here.”
“Oh, no,” she said. She moved closer. Her reactions were not wholly natural: too calm and frank for a new-made widow, then suddenly and briefly too wild. A heavy dose of mysticine, he guessed. It was quite the thing for upper-class Imperials to erect chemical walls against grief, or fear or- What do you do when the walls come down? he thought.
“Oh, no,” repeated Lady Varvara. Her words flowed quick and high-pitched. “Perhaps you do not understand, Captain. You are the first Terran I have seen, besides my husband, for… how long? Something like three Nyanzan years, and that’s about four Terran. And then it was just a red-faced military legate making a routine check. Otherwise, who did we see? The City Warden and his officers paid a few courtesy calls every year. The sea chiefs had to visit us too when they happened to be on Altla… not for our sake, you understand, not to curry favor, only because it was beneath their dignity not to observe the formalities. Their dignity!” Her cheeks flamed. She stood close to him now glaring upward; her fists drew the skin tight over bird-like knuckles. “As you would feel obliged to notice the existence of an unwelcome guest!”
“So the Empire is not popular here?” murmured Flandry.
“I don’t know,” she said pallidly, relaxing. “I don’t know. All I know is the only people we ever saw, with any regularity-our only friends, God help us, friends!-were the Lubbers.”
“The what, my lady?”
“City people. Technicians. Pinkskins. Whatever you want to call them. Like that fat little von Sonderburg.” She was shrill again. “Do you know what it’s like, Captain, to associate with no one but an inferior class? It rubs off on you. Your soul gets greasy. Von Sonderburg now… always toadying up to Hurri Chundra… he would never light a cigar in my presence without asking me, in the most heavy way-exactly the same words, I have heard them a million times, till I could scream-‘Does my lady object if I have a little smoke?’ ”
Varvara whirled from him. Her bare shoulders shuddered. “Does my lady object? Does my lady object? And then you come, Captain-your lungs still full of Earth air, I swear-you come and take out a cigarette case and raise your eyebrows. Like that. No more. A gesture we all used at Home, a ritual, an assumption that I have eyes to see what you’re doing and intelligence to know what you want-Oh, be welcome, Captain Flandry, be welcome!” She gripped the trellis with both hands and stared out into the garden. “You’re from Terra,” she whispered. “I’ll come to you tonight, any time, right now if you want, just to repay you for being a Terran.”
Flandry tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail, put it to his lips at half mast, and drew deeply. He glanced at the sad brown eyes of Hurri Chundra Bahnerji and said without words: Sorry, old chap. I’m not a ghoul, and I’ll do what I can to avoid this, but my job demands I be tactful. For the Empire and the Race
“I’m sorry to intrude when you’re overwrought, your Ladyship,” he said. “Of course, I’ll arrange for your passage to provincial headquarters, and if you want to return Home from there—”
“After all these years,” she mumbled, “who would I know?”
“Uh… may I suggest my lady, that you rest for a while—?”
An intercom chime saved both of them. Varvara said a shaky “Accept” and the connection closed.
The butler’s voice came: “Beg pardon, madam, but I have just received word of a distinguished native person who has arrived. Shall I ask postponement of the formal visit?”
“Oh… I don’t know.” Varvara’s tone was dead. She did not look at Flandry. “Who is it?”
“Lady Tessa Hoorn, madam, Lightmistress of Little Skua in Jairnovaunt.”
III
When they reached the Zurian Current, the water, which had been a Homeric blue, turned deep purple, streaked with foam that flashed like crystallized snow. “This bends to north beyond Iron Shoals and carries on past the Reefs of Sorrow,” remarked Tessa Hoorn. “Gains us a few knots speed. Though we’ve naught to hurry for, have we?”
Flandry blinked through dark contact lenses at the incredible horizon. Sunlight glimmered off the multitudinous laughter of small waves. “I suppose the color is due to plankton,” he said.
“Plankton-like organisms,” corrected Tessa. “We’re nay on Earth, Captain. But aye, off this feed the oilfish, and off them the decapus, both of use to us.” She pointed. “Yonder flags bear Dilolo stripes, quartered on Saleth green: the fishing boats of the Prince of Aquant.”
Flandry’s dazzled eyes could hardly even see the vessels, in that merciless illumination. Since the wind dropped, the Hoorn ship had been running on its auxiliary engine and now there was no shade from the great sails. An awning was spread amidships and some superbly muscled deck hands sprawled under it, clapping time to an eerie chant-pipe, like young gods carved in oiled ebony. The Terran would have given much for some of that shadow. But since Tessa Hoorn stood here in the bows, he must admit. It was an endurance contest, he recognized, with all the advantages on her side.
“Does your nation fish this current too?” he asked.
“A little,” she nodded. “But mostly we in Jairnovaunt sail west and north, with harpoons for the kraken-ha, it’s a pale life never to have speared fast to a beast with more of bulk than your own ship and smaller game. Then T’chaka Kruger farms a great patch of beanweed in the Lesser Sargasso. And in sooth I confess, not alone the commons but some captains born will scrape the low-tide reefs for shells or dive after sporyx. Then there are carpenters, weavers, engineers, medics, machinists, all trades that must be plied: and mummers and mimes, though most such sport is given by wandering boats of actors, masterless madcap folk who come by as fancy strikes ‘em.” She shrugged broad shoulders. “The Commander can list you all professions in his realm if you wish it, Imperial.”
Flandry regarded her with more care than pleasure. He had not yet understood her attitude. Was it contempt, or merely hatred?
The sea people of Nyanza were almost entirely African by descent, which meant that perhaps three-fourths of their ancestors had been negroid, back when more or less “pure” stocks still existed. In a world of light, more actinic than anything on Earth, reflected off water, there had been a nearly absolute selection for dark coloring: not a Nyanzan outside the city on Altla was any whiter than the ace of spades. Otherwise genes swapped around pretty freely-kinky hair, broad no
ses, and full lips were the rule, but with plenty of exceptions. Tessa’s hair formed a soft, tightly curled coif around her ears; her nostrils flared, in a wide arch-browed face, but the bridge was aquiline. Without her look of inbred haughtiness, it would have been a wholly beautiful face. The rest of her was even more stunning, almost as tall as Flandry, full-breasted, slim-waisted, and muscled like a Siamese cat. She wore merely a gold medallion of rank on her forehead, a belt with a knife, and the inevitable aqualung on her back… which left plenty on view to admire. But even in plumes and gown and rainbow cloak, she had been a walking shout as she entered the resident’s mansion.
However, thought Dominic Flandry, that word “stunning” can be taken two ways. I am not about to make a pass at the Lightmistress of Little Skua.
He asked cautiously: “Where are the Technicians from?”
“Oh, those.” A faint sneer flickered on her red mouth. “Well, see you, the firstcomers here settled on Altla, but then as more folk came in, space was lacking, so they began to range the sea. That proved so much better a life that erelong few cared to work on land. Most came from Deutschwelt, as it happened. When we had enough of yon ilk, and knew they’d breed, we closed the sluice, for they dare nay work as sailors, they get skin sicknesses, and Altla has little room.”
“I should think they’d be powerful on the planet, what with the essential refineries and—”
“Nay, Captain. Altla and all thereon is owned in common by the true Nyanzan nations. The Technicians are but hirelings. Though in sooth, they’ve a sticky way with money and larger bank accounts than many a skipper. That’s why we bar them from owning ships.”
Flandry glanced down at himself. He had avoided the quasi-uniform of the despised class and had packed outfits of blouse, slacks, zori, and sash for himself; the winged cap sat on his head bearing the sunburst of Empire. But he could not evade the obvious fact, that his own culture was more Lubberly than pelagic. And an Imperial agent was often hated, but must not ever allow himself to be despised. Hence Flandry cocked a brow (Sardonic Expression 22-C, he thought) and drawled:
“I see. You’re afraid that, being more intelligent, they’d end up owning every ship on the planet.”
He could not see if she flushed, under the smooth black sweat-gleaming skin, but her lips drew back and one hand clapped to her knife. He thought that the sea bottom was no further away than a signal to her crew. Finally she exclaimed, “Is it the new fashion on Terra to insult a hostess? Well you know it’s nay a matter of inborn brain, but of skill. The Lubbers are reared from birth to handle monies. But how many of ‘em can handle a rigging-or even name the lines? Can you?”
Flandry’s unfairness had been calculated. So was his refusal to meet her reply squarely. “Well,” he said, “the Empire tries to respect local law and custom. Only the most uncivilized practices are not tolerated.”
It stung her, she bridled. Most colonials were violently sensitive to their isolation from the Galactic mainstream. They did not see that their own societies were not backward on that account-were often healthier-and the answer to that lay buried somewhere in the depths of human unreasonableness. But the fact could be used.
Having angered her enough, Flandry finished coldly: “And, of course, the Empire cannot tolerate treasonable conspiracies.”
Tessa Hoorn answered him in a strained voice, “Captain, there’s nay conspiring here. Free-born folk are honest with foemen, too. It’s you who put on slyness. For see you, I happened by Altla homebound from The Kraal, and visited yon mansion for courtesies sake. When you asked passage to Jaimovaunt, I granted it, sith such is nay refused among ocean people. But well I knew you fared with me, liefer than fly the way in an hour or two, so you could draw me out and spy on me. And you’ve nay been frank as to your reasons for guesting my country.” Her deep tones became a growl. “That’s Lubber ways! You’ll nay get far ‘long your mission, speaking for a planet of Lubbers and Lubberlovers!”
She drew her knife, looked at it, and clashed it back into the sheath. Down on the quarterdeck, the crewmen stirred, a ripple of panther bodies. It grew so quiet that Flandry heard the steady snore of the bow through murmuring waves, and the lap-lap on the hull, and the creak of spars up in the sky.
He leaned back against a blistering bulwark and said with care: “I’m going to Jairnovaunt because a boy died holding my hand. I want to find his parents… ” He offered her a cigarette, and helped himself when she shook her head. “But I’m not going just to extend my personal sympathies. Imperial expense accounts are not quite that elastic. For that matter, while we’re being honest, I admit I’d hardly invite Bubbles or Flutters to my own house.”
He blew smoke; it was almost invisible in the flooding light. “Maybe you wouldn’t conspire behind anyone’s back, m’ lady. Come to think of it, who would conspire in front of anyone’s face? But somebody on Nyanza is hatching a very nasty egg. That kid didn’t sign up when the Imperial recruiter stopped by for glory or money: he enlisted to learn modern militechnics, with the idea of turning them against the Empire. And he died in trampled snow, sniped by a local patriot he was chasing. Who lured that young fellow out to die, Lightmistress? And who sneaked up a wall and harpooned a harmless little lonely bureaucrat in his sleep? Rather more to the point, who sent that murderer-by-stealth, and why? Really, this is a pretty slimy business all around. I should think you’d appreciate my efforts to clean it off your planet.”
Tessa bit her lip. At last, not meeting his shielded gaze, she said, “I’m nay wise of any such plots, Captain. I won’t speak ‘loud ‘gainst your Empire-my thoughts are my own, but it’s true we’ve nay suffered much more than a resident and some taxes—”
“Which were doubtless higher when every nation maintained its own defenses,” said Flandry. “Yes, we settle for a single man on worlds like this. We’d actually like to have more, because enough police could smell out trouble before it’s grown too big, and could stop the grosser barbarities left over from independent days—”
Again she bristled. He said in a hurry: “No, please, for once that’s not meant to irritate. By and large, Nyanza looks as if it’s always been quite a humane place. If you don’t use all the latest technological gimcrackery, it’s because it’s nonfunctional in this culture, not because you’ve forgotten what your ancestors knew. I’m just enough of a jackleg engineer to see that these weird-looking sails of yours are aerodynamic marvels; I’m certain that paraboloidal jib uses the Venturi effect with malice aforethought. Your language is grammatically archaic but semantically efficient. I can envision some of the bucolic poets at court going into raptures over your way of life. And getting seasick if they tried it, but that’s another story… Therefore,” he finished soberly, “I’m afraid I’m a little more sympathetic to Hurri Chundra Bannerji, who fussed about and established extrasystemic employment contacts for your more ambitious young men and built breakwaters and ordered vaccines and was never admitted to your clubs, than I am sorry for you.”
She looked over the side, into curling white and purple water, and said very low, “The Empire was nay asked here.”
“Neither was anyone else. The Terran Empire established itself in this region first. The Merseian Empire would be a rather more demanding master-if only because it’s still vigorous, expansive, virtuous, and generally uncorrupted, while Terra is the easygoing opposite.” That brought her up sharply in astonishment, as he had expected. “Since the Empire must protect its frontiers, lest Terra herself be clobbered out of the sky, we’re going to stay. It would not be advisable for some young Nyanzan firebrains to try harpooning space dreadnaughts. Anyone who provokes such gallant idiocy is an enemy of yours as well as mine.”
Her eyes were moody upon his. After a long time she asked him, “Captain, have you ever swum undersea?”
“I’ve done a little skindiving for fun,” he said, taken aback. He had spoken half honestly and half meretriciously, never quite sure which sentence was one or another, and thought he had
touched the proper keys. But this surprised him.
“Nay more? And you stand all ‘lone on a world that’s aloof of you where it doesn’t, perchance, scheme murder? Captain, I repent me what I said ‘bout your folk being Lubbers.”
The relief was like a wave of weakness. Flandry sucked in his cheeks around his cigarette and answered lightly: “They cannot do worse than shoot me, which would distress only my tailor and my vintner. Have you ever heard that the coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but once?”
“Aye.”
“Well, after the 857th death I got bored with it.”
She laughed and he continued a line of banter, so habitual by now that most of him thought on other affairs. Not that he seriously expected the Lightmistress of Little Skua to become bodily accessible to him; he had gathered an impression of a chaste folk. But the several days’ voyage to Jairnovaunt could be made very pleasant by a small shipboard flirtation, and he would learn a great deal more than if his fellow voyagers were hostile. For instance, whether the imported wine he had noticed in the galley was preferable to native sea-berry gin. He had not been truthful in claiming indifference whether he lived or died: not while a supple young woman stood clad in sunlight, and blooded horses stamped on the ringing plains of Ilion, and smoke curled fragrant about coffee and cognac on Terra. But half the pleasure came from these things being staked against darkness.
IV
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