He strolled with elaborate casualness from the turret to his cabin. It must not be suspected on Altai what he had already seen: or, if that information leaked out, it must absolutely not be suspected that he suspected these new installations involved more than suppressing a local rebellion. The Khan had been careless about hiding the evidence, presumably not expecting a Terran investigator. He would certainly not be so careless as to let the investigator take significant information home again.
At his cabin, Flandry dressed with his usual care. According to report, the Altaians were people after his own heart: they liked color on their clothes, in great gobs. He chose a shimmerite blouse, green embroidered vest, purple trousers with gold stripe tucked into tooled-leather half boots, crimson sash and cloak, black beret slanted rakishly over his sleek seal-brown hair. He himself was a tall well-muscled man; his long face bore high cheekbones and straight nose, gray eyes, neat mustache. But then, he patronized Terra’s best cosmetic biosculptor.
The spaceship landed at one end of the concrete field. Another Betelgeusean vessel towered opposite, confirming Zalat’s claims about the trade. Not precisely brisk-maybe a score of ships per standard year-but continuous, and doubtless by now important to the planet’s economy.
As he stepped out the debarkation lock, Flandry felt the exhilaration of a gravity only three-fourths that of Home. But it was quickly lost when the air stung him. Ulan Baligh lay at eleven degrees north latitude. With an axial tilt about like Terra’s, a wan dwarf sun, no oceans to moderate the climate, Altai knew seasons almost to the equator. The northern hemisphere was approaching winter. A wind streaking off the pole sheathed Flandry in chill, hooted around his ears, and snatched the beret from his head.
He grabbed it back, swore, and confronted the portmaster with less dignity than he had planned. “Greeting,” he said as instructed; “may peace dwell in your yurt. This person is named Dominic Flandry, and ranges Terra, the Empire.”
The Altaian blinked narrow black eyes, but otherwise kept his face a mask. It was a wide, rather flat countenance, but not purely mongoloid: hook nose, thick close-cropped beard, light skin bespoke caucasoid admixture as much as the hybrid language. He was short, heavy-set, a wide-brimmed fur hat was tied in place, his leather jacket was lacquered in an intricate design, his pants were of thick felt and his boots fleece-lined. An old-style machine pistol was bolstered at his left side, a broad-bladed knife oh the right.
“We have not had such visitors-” He paused, collected himself, and bowed. “Be welcome, all guests who come with honest words,” he said ritually. “This person is named Pyotr Gutchluk, of the Kha Khan’s sworn men.” He turned to Zalat. “You and your crew may proceed directly to the yamen. We can handle the formalities later. I must personally conduct so distinguished a… a guest to the palace.”
He clapped his hands. A couple of servants appeared, men of his own race, similarly dressed and similarly armed. Their eyes glittered, seldom leaving the Terran; the woodenness of their faces must cover an excitement which seethed. Flandry’s luggage was loaded on a small electro-truck of antique design. Pyotr Gutchluk said, half inquiringly, “Of course so great an orluk as yourself would prefer a varyak to a tulyak.”
“Of course,” said Flandry, wishing his education had included those terms.
He discovered that a varyak was a native-made motorcycle. At least, that was the closest Terran word. It was a massive thing on two wheels, smoothly powered from a bank of energy capacitors, a baggage rack aft and a machine-gun mount forward. It was steered with the knees, which touched a crossbar. Other controls were on a manual panel behind the windscreen. An outrigger wheel could be lowered for support when the vehicle was stationary or moving slowly. Pyotr Gutchluk offered a goggled crash helmet from a saddlebag and took off at 200 kilometers an hour.
Flandry, accelerating his own varyak, felt the wind come around the screen, slash his face and nearly drag him from the saddle. He started to slow down. But-Come now, old chap. Imperial prestige, stiff upper lip, and so on drearily. Somehow he managed to stay on Gutchluk’s tail as they roared into the city.
Ulan Baligh formed a crescent, where the waters of Ozero Rurik cut a bay into the flat shore. Overhead was a deep-blue sky, and the rings. Pale by day, they made a frosty halo above the orange sun. in such a light, the steeply upcurving red tile roofs took on the color of fresh blood. Even the ancient gray stone walls beneath were tinged faint crimson. All the buildings were large, residences holding several families each, commercial ones jammed with tiny shops. The streets were wide, clean-swept, full of nomads and the wind. Gutchluk took an overhead road, suspended from pylons cast like dragons holding the cables in their teeth. It seemed an official passageway, nearly empty save for an occasional varyak patrol.
It also gave a clear view of the palace, standing in walled gardens: a giant version of the other houses but gaudily painted and colonnaded with wooden dragons. The royal residence was, however, overshadowed by the Prophet’s Tower. So was everything else.
Flandry understood from vague Betelgeusean descriptions that most of Altai professed a sort of Moslem-Buddhist synthesis, codified centuries ago by the Prophet Subotai. The religion had only this one temple, but that was enough. A sheer two kilometers it reared up into the thin hurried air, as if it would spear a moon. Basically a pagoda, blinding red, it had one blank wall facing north. No, not blank either, but a single flat tablet on which, in a contorted Sino-Cyrillic alphabet, the words of the Prophet stood holy forever. Even Flandry, with scant reverence in his heart, knew a moment’s awe. A stupendous will had raised that spire above these plains.
The elevated road swooped downward again. Gutchluk’s varyak slammed to a halt outside the palace. Flandry, taller than any man of Altai, was having trouble with his steering bar. He almost crashed into the wrought-bronze gate. He untangled his legs and veered in bare time, a swerve that nearly threw him. Up on the wall, a guard leaned on his portable rocket launcher and laughed. Flandry heard him and swore. He continued the curve, steered a ring around Gutchluk so tight that it could easily have killed them both, slapped down the third wheel and let the cycle slow itself to a halt while he leaped from the saddle and took a bow.
“By the Ice People!” exclaimed Gutchluk. Sweat shone on his face. He wiped it off with a shaky hand. ‘They breed reckless men on Terra!”
“Oh, no,” said Flandry, wishing he dared mop his own wet skin. “A bit demonstrative, perhaps, but never reckless.”
Once again he had occasion to thank loathed hours of calisthenics and judo practice for a responsive body. As the gates opened Gutchluk had used his panel radio to call ahead-Flandry jumped back on his varyak and putt-putted through under the guard’s awed gaze.
The garden was rocks, arched bridges, dwarf trees, and mutant lichen. Little that was Terran would grow on Altai. Flandry began to feel the dryness of his own nose and throat. This air snatched moisture from him as greedily as it did heat. He was more grateful for the warmth inside the palace than he wished to admit.
A white-bearded man in a fur-trimmed robe made a deep bow. “The Kha Khan himself bids you welcome, Orluk Flandry,” he said. “He will see you at once.”
“But the gifts I brought—”
“No matter now, my lord.” The chamberlain bowed again, turned and led the way down arched corridors hung with tapestries. It was very silent: servants scurried about whispering, guards with modern blasters stood rigid in dragon-faced leather tunics and goggled helmets, tripods fumed bitter incense. The entire sprawling house seemed to crouch, watchful.
I imagine I have upset them somewhat, thought Flandry. Here they have some cozy little conspiracy-with beings sworn to lay all Terra waste, I suspect-and suddenly a Terran officer drops in, for the first time in five or six hundred years. Yes-s-s.
So what do they do next? It’s their move.
III
Oleg Yesukai, Kha Khan of All the Tribes, was bigger than most Altaians, with a long sharp face and a stiff
reddish beard. He wore gold rings, a robe thickly embroidered, silver trim on his fur cap, but all with an air of impatient concession to tedious custom. The hand which Flandry, kneeling, touched to his brow, was hard and muscular; the gun at the royal waist had seen use. This private audience chamber was curtained in red, its furniture inlaid and grotesquely carved; but it also held an ultramodern Betelgeusean graphone and a desk buried under official papers.
“Be seated,” said the Khan. He himself took a low-legged chair and opened a carved-bone cigar box. A smile of sorts bent his mouth. “Now that we’ve gotten rid of all my damned fool courtiers, we need no longer act as if you were a vassal.” He took a crooked purple stogie from the box. “I would offer you one of these, but it might make you ill. In thirty-odd generations, eating Altaian food, we have probably changed our metabolism a bit.”
“Your majesty is most gracious.” Flandry inhaled a cigarette of his own and relaxed as much as the straightbacked furniture permitted.
Oleg Khan spoke a stockbreeder’s pungent obscenity. “Gracious? My father was an outlaw on the tundra at fifteen.” (He meant local years, a third again as long as Terra’s. Altai was about one A.U. distant from Krasna, but the sun was less massive than Sol.) “At thirty he had seized Ulan Baligh with 50,000 warriors and deposited old Tuli Khan naked on the artic snows: so as not to shed royal blood, you understand. But he never would live here, and all his sons grew up in the ordu, the encampment, as he had. done, practiced war against the Tebtengri as he had known war, and mastered reading, writing, and science to boot. Let us not bother with graciousness, Orluk Flandry. I never had time to learn any.”
The Terran waited passive. It seemed to disconcert Oleg, who smoked for a minute in short ferocious drags, then leaned forward and said, “Well, why does your government finally deign to notice us?”
“I had the impression, your majesty,” said Flandry in a mild voice, “that the colonists of Altai came this far from Sol in order to escape notice.”
“True. True. Don’t believe that rat crud in the hero songs. Our ancestors came here because they were weak, not strong. Planets where men could settle at all were rare enough to make each one a prize, and there was little law in those days. By going far and picking a wretched icy desert, a few shiploads of Central Asians avoided having to fight for their home. Nor did they plan to become herdsmen. They tried to farm, but it proved impossible. Too cold and dry, among other things. They could not build an industrial, food-synthesizing society either: not enough heavy metals, fossil fuels, fissionables. This is a low density planet, you know. Step by step, over generations, with only dim traditions to guide them, they were forced to evolve a nomadic life. And that was suited to Altai; that worked, and their numbers increased. Of course, legends have grown up. Most of my people still believe Terra is some kind of lost Utopia and our ancestors were hardy warriors.” Oleg’s rust-colored eyes narrowed upon Flandry. He stroked his beard. “I’ve read enough, thought enough, to have a fair idea of what your Empire is and what it can do. So-why this visit, at this exact moment?”
“We are no longer interested in conquest for its own sake, your majesty,” said Flandry. True, as far as it went. “And our merchants have avoided this sector for several reasons. It lies far from heartland stars; the Betelgeuseans, close to their own home, can compete on unequal terms; the risk of meeting some prowling warship of our Merseian enemies is unattractive. There has, in short, been no occasion, military or civilian, to search out Altai.” He slipped smoothly into prevarication gear. “However, it is not the Emperor’s wish that any members of the human family be cut off. At the very least, I bring you his brotherly greetings.” (That was subversive. It should have been “fatherly.” But Oleg Khan would not take kindly to being patronized.) “At most, if Altai wished to rejoin us, for mutual protection and other benefits, there are many possibilities which could be discussed. An Imperial resident, say, to offer help and advice—”
He let the proposal trail off, since in point of fact a resident’s advice tended to be, “I suggest you do thus and so lest I call in the Marines.”
The Altaian king surprised him by not getting huffy about sovereign status. Instead, amiable as a tiger, Oleg Yesukai answered: “If you are distressed about our internal difficulties, pray do not be. Nomadism necessarily means tribalism, which usually means feud and war. I already spoke of my father’s clan seizing planetary leadership from the Nuro Bator. We in turn have rebellious gurkhans. As you will hear in court, that alliance called the Tebtengri Shamanate is giving us trouble. But such is nothing new in Altain history. Indeed, I have a firmer hold over more of the planet than any Kha Khan since the Prophet’s day. In a little while more I shall bring every last clan to heel.”
“With the help of imported armament?” Flandry elevated his brows a millimeter. Risky though it was to admit having seen the evidence, it might be still more suspicious not to. And indeed the other man seemed unruffled. Flandry continued, “The Imperium would gladly send a technical mission.”
“I do not doubt it.” Oleg’s response was dry.
“May I respectfully ask what planet supplies the assistance your majesty is now receiving?”
“Your question is impertinent, as well you know. I do not take offense, but I decline to answer.” Confidentially: “The old mercantile treaties with Betelgeuse guarantee monopolies in certain exports to then: traders. This other race is taking payment in the same articles, I am not bound by oaths sworn by the Nuro Bator dynasty, but at present it would be inexpedient that Betelgeuse discover the facts.”
It was a good spur-of-the-moment lie: so good that Flandry hoped Oleg would believe he had fallen for it. He assumed a fatuous Look-Mom-I’m-a-man-of-the-world smirk. “I understand, great Khan. You may rely on Terrestrial discretion.”
“I hope so,” said Oleg humorously. “Our traditional punishment for spies involves a method to keep them alive for days after they have been flayed.”
Flandry’s gulp was calculated, but not altogether faked. “It is best to remind your majesty,” he said, “just in case some of your less well-educated citizens should act impulsively, that the Imperial Navy is under standing orders to redress any wrong suffered by any Terran national anywhere in the universe.”
“Very rightly,” said Oleg. His tone made clear his knowledge that that famous rule had become a dead letter, except as an occasional excuse for bombarding some obstreperous world unable to fight back. Between the traders, his own study missions sent to Betelgeuse, and whoever was arming him-the Kha Khan had become as unmercifully well-informed about galactic politics as any Terran aristocrat.
Or Merseian. The realization was chilling. Flandry had perforce gone blind into his assignment. Only now, piece by piece, did he see how big and dangerous it was,
“A sound policy,” continued Oleg. “But let us be perfectly frank, Orluk. If you should suffer, let us say, accidental harm in my dominions-and if your masters should misinterpret the circumstances, though of course they would not-I should be forced to invoke assistance which is quite readily available.”
Merseia isn’t far, thought Flandry, and Intelligence knows they’ve massed naval units at their closest base. If I want to hoist Terran vintages again, I’d better start acting the fool as never before in a gloriously misspent life.
Aloud, a hint of bluster: “Betelgeuse has treaties with the Imperium, your majesty. They would not interfere in a purely inter human dispute!” And then, as if appalled at himself: “But surely there won’t be any. The, uh, conversation has, uh, taken an undesirable turn. Most unfortunate, your majesty! I was ah, am interested in, er, unusual human colonies, and it was suggested to me by an archivist that—”
And so on and so on.
Oleg Yesukai grinned.
IV
Altai rotated once in 35 hours. The settlers had adapted, and Flandry was used to postponing sleep. He spent the afternoon being guided around Ulan Baligh, asking silly questions which he felt sure his guide
s would relay to the Khan. The practice of four or five meals during the long day-his were offered in the town houses of chieftains belonging to Clan Yesukai-gave him a chance to build up the role of a young Terran fop who had wangled this assignment from an uninterested Imperium, simply for a lark. A visit to one of the joyhouses, operated for transient nomads, helped reinforce the impression. Also, it was fun.
Emerging after sunset, he saw the Prophet’s Tower turned luminous, so that it stood like a bloody lance over brawling, flicker-lit streets. The tablet wall was white, the words thereon in jet: two kilometers of precepts for a stern and bitter way of life. “I say,” he exclaimed, “we haven’t toured that yet. Let’s go.”
The chief guide, a burly gray warrior leathered by decades of wind and frost, looked uneasy. “We must hasten back to the palace, Orluk,” he said. “A banquet is being prepared.”
“Oh, fine. Fine! Though I don’t know how much of an orgy I’m in any shape for after this bout. Eh, what?” Flandry nudged the man’s ribs with an indecent thumb. “Still, a peek inside, really I must. It’s unbelievable, that skyscraper, don’t you know.”
“We must first cleanse ourselves.”
A young man added bluntly: “In no case could it be allowed. You are not an initiate, and there is no holier spot in all the stars.”
“Oh, well, in that case-Mind if I photograph it tomorrow?”
“Yes,” said the young man. “It is not forbidden, perhaps, but we could not be responsible for what the ordinary tribesman who saw you with your camera might do. None but the Tebtengri would look on the Tower with anything but reverent eyes.”
“Teb—”
“Rebels and heathen, up in the north.” The older man touched brow and lips, a sign against evil. “Magic-workers at Tengri Nor, traffickers with the Ice People. It is not well to speak of them, only to exterminate them. Now we must hasten, Orluk.”
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