Tales of the Flying Mountains

by Poul Anderson

  “Not quite,” Flowers snapped. “Especially after the last battle.”

  “The engagement near Sam’s, you mean? I take it you were there?”

  “I sure was, chum.”

  “In what capacity?” drawled Ulstad.

  Flowers crammed on a deceleration vector. “Never mind. It’s enough that you took a licking.”

  “We’d at least like to know what happened to those of our ships which never reported back. Were all of them utterly destroyed?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Ulstad leaned across the desk. “Even if you weren’t told officially, you may have heard something.” His smile was wistful. “I’m interested for private reasons. A nephew on the Vega.”

  “Sorry. I can’t help you, though.”

  “We’ll find out about that.”

  “Go ahead!”

  “Very well, Lieutenant.” Ulstad rose. “If you please?”

  Flowers tensed himself. His entire being rebelled. But he stole a glance behind, and saw that the ensign would be only too glad to use force. Like, say, a pistol barrel against the prisoner’s head.

  Flowers got to his feet. “Look me up after the war,” he invited. “I know some back alleys where the cops won’t interfere.”

  “I might at that,” said the ensign.

  “Control yourself, young man,” said Ulstad. He led the way into the lab. “If you will lie down on this couch. Lieutenant.…”

  The anesthetic shot took rapid hold and Flowers spiraled into a darkness full of voices.

  Afterward he lay with closed eyes, letting will and strength creep back. He must be recovering faster than was usual, because he heard Ulstad say, as if across a black gulf:

  “Nothing to speak of. He’s what he claims to be, a big dumb rockjack who ordinarily commands an engineer group. I suppose they dispatched him precisely because he doesn’t have any worthwhile information. And I hope the poor devil doesn’t go stir crazy in prison camp, with so few inner resources.”

  “What’ll we do with him now, sir?”

  “Oh, lock him in a spare cabin. How long will he be on your hands?”

  “I checked that, sir. We’ll make contact with the transport in five hours.”

  “He’ll only need one meal from us, then. Inform the cook. Regular mess time is okay, three hours hence.” Ulstad chuckled. “Maybe I do him an injustice, calling him an ignorant boor. His cussing under dope was sheer poetry!”

  Save for a bunk, the cabin was bare. Tiny, comfortless, atremble with the energies of the ship, it surrounded Flowers like a robot womb. That was his first thought as again he struggled back to consciousness.

  Then, through the racking stutter of a pulse run wild, he knew that hands lifted his head off the deck. He gasped for breath. Sweat drenched his zipskin, chill and stinking. Fear reflexes turned the universe into horror. Through blurred vision, he looked up at the bluejacket who squatted to cradle his head.

  “Flip that intercom, Pete!” the North American was saying. “Get hold of the doc. Fast!”

  Flowers tried to speak, but could only rattle past the soreness in his throat.

  The other guard, invisible to him, reported: “The prisoner, sir. We heard him call out and then fall. He was unconscious when we opened the door. Came to in a couple of minutes, but he’s cold to touch and got a heartbeat like to bust his ribs.”

  “Possibly cardiac,” said the intercom. “Carry him to sickbay. I’ll be there.”

  Flowers tried to relax in the arms of the young men and bring his too-rapid breathing under control. That wasn’t easy. When they laid him on an examination bench, amidst goblin-eyed instruments, he must force his spine to unarch.

  The medical officer was a chubby man who poked him with deft fingers while reeling off, “Chest pains? Shortness of breath? Ever had any seizures before?” He signaled an orderly to attach electrodes.

  “No. No. I ache all over, but—”

  “Cardiogram normal, aside from the tachycardia,” the doctor read off the printouts. “Encephalogram … hm-m-m, hard to tell, not epileptiform, probably just extreme agitation. Neurogram shows low-level pain activity. Take a blood sample, Collins.” He ran his palms more thoroughly over abdomen, chest, and throat. “My God,” he muttered, “where did you get those tattoos?” His gaze sharpened. “Redness here, under the chin. Sore?”

  “Uh-huh,” whispered Flowers.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I dunno. Started feeling bad. Blacked out.”

  A chemical analyzer burped and extruded a strip of paper. The orderly ripped it off. “Blood pH quite low, sir,” he read. “Everything else negative.”

  “Well—” the doctor rubbed his chin. “We can’t do more except take an X-ray. A warcraft isn’t equipped like a clinic.” He nodded at Flowers. “Don’t worry. You’ll transfer to the other ship in half an hour or so, and I understand she’s going almost directly to Vesta. The camp there has adequate facilities. Though you look a little better already.”

  “What … might this … ’a been?” Flowers managed to ask.

  “My guess,” said the doctor, “is an allergic reaction to something you ate. That can overstimulate the vagus nerve and produce these other symptoms. You asterites never see a good many terrestrial foods, and this navy prides itself on its menus. I’ll find out what went into your dinner, including seasonings, and give you a list. Avoid those things, till the culprit has been identified, and you may have no more trouble.”

  Flowers lay back while they X-rayed him. That was negative, too. The doctor said he could stay where he was, under guard, till transfer time. He stared at the overhead and concentrated on getting well.

  The Chicago slid into orbit and halted her Emetts. The doctor came back with his list. “You appear to be in much better shape,” he said. “Got some color, and your breath and pulse are nearly normal. Think you can walk?”

  “I’ll try.” Flowers sat up. Slowly he swung his legs off the bench, put feet to deck, and raised himself. He staggered. Leaning on the bench, head hung low, he mumbled, “I get dizzy.”

  “Okay, we’ll take you on a stretcher,” said one of his guards. “Captain’s orders are to get you out fast so this ship can proceed to where she belongs.”

  Flowers would have enjoyed the ride had there not been such a tension gathering in him.

  At the air lock where they went, two sidearmed men from the transport waited. “What the hell?” exclaimed the right-hand man.

  A bearer related the situation. The newcomer made a spitting noise. “You’re mighty tender with a rebel,” he said.

  “Oh, ease off, Joe,” said his companion. “They’re not bad fellows. Hell, after we’ve beaten some sense into their thick heads, I’ve half a mind to quit the service and come live in the Belt myself.”

  Joe spoke a bad word, but took his end of the stretcher. They passed through a jointube, into the boat. As Flowers had expected, this was merely a gig, with a single cabin where the pilot sat in the forward end. You don’t bring full-size ships together if you can avoid it; too chancy an operation. The freighter lay several kilometers off; he glimpsed its bulky shape through a port, among the constellations.

  His new guards put his stretcher down in the aisle between the seats, dogged the air lock, and retracted the jointube. The pilot tickled his controls and the boat slid smoothly away from the Chicago. The bluejackets returned to sit on either side of their prisoner.

  “How you feel?” asked the man who had sympathized.

  “Like a court-martialed kitten,” Flowers whispered.

  The man laughed. His companion still looked sour.

  “I’d like to try sitting, though, if you’ll help me,” Flowers went on.

  “Sure you ought to?”

  “Well, I might be able to board your ship under my own power, but I’d better practice first.”

  “Okay. Gimme a hand, Joe.”

  Both guards bent close to the lying man. Flowers laid an arm across eit
her pair of shoulders. They raised him.

  His hands slid to the backs of their necks. His gorilla arms cracked the two skulls together.

  They lurched, stunned, blood running from their scalps. Flowers snatched the nearest pistol from its holster and sprang into the aisle.

  “Hands up or I shoot,” he rapped. To the pilot: “Cut the drive. Now. Get out o’ that chair.”

  Oaths ionized the atmosphere. He grinned. “I’m a desperate man,” he said. “As soon kill you as look at you. Maybe rather. Git!”

  The pilot got. Flowers approached him in the aisle. His hands were aloft, his belly exposed. Flowers’ unoccupied fist rocketed forward to the solar plexus. As the pilot doubled, Flowers hooked him in the jaw. He fell.

  The man called Joe reached for his gun. He was slow about it, and Flowers clopped him. With some regret, the asterite gave the same treatment to the other man, who had been nice to him. Before consciousness could return, he trussed all three with their belts and shirts and harnessed them in chairs.

  The radio buzzer sounded hysterical. Flowers vaulted to the pilot board and clicked the receiver switch. “What’s going on there?” bawled a voice.

  “Listen,” Flowers said. “This is the asterite. I’ve got your men prisoners. They’re not hurt to speak of. But I’m bound home. You can stop me, sure—by destroying this boat. That’ll cost you three North American lives, because I’m not issuing any spacesuits. It don’t seem like much of a bargain. Better just say good riddance to me.”

  Words squawked. Flowers used the time to swing the gig around and apply a vector in the general direction of Pallas. Later he would calculate an exact path; right now he wanted nothing more intensely than distance between himself and the guns of the Chicago.

  His victims awoke. He made them speak, to prove to their buddies they were alive. Cruiser and freighter dwindled beyond naked-eye vision. Stars blazed everywhere about.

  Ulstad’s tones leaped over the kilometers, cool and almost amused. “I’m not sure we ought to let a man of your capabilities escape, Lieutenant. My fault. I took you for a stupid laborer. I should have remembered, stupid people don’t survive in space.”

  Flowers gulped. “I’m no prize, Commander. But you got three good men here. I’m sorry I had to be rough with them, and I’ll treat them as decent as I can.”

  “How did you manage this caper?”

  “Tell you after the war.”

  Ulstad actually laughed. “Very well,” he said. “Seeing that we have no alternative except to fire on our own men, Captain Thomas has decided to let you go. After all, we have your dispatch, which is the important thing. I’m unmilitary to say this, but … good luck.”

  “Same to you,” Flowers husked.

  He broke the beam and concentrated on driving the boat.

  The revolutionaries were so short of manpower that quite a few women held high rank. Colonel Adler of Intelligence was among them. In uniform, her hair cut short, she didn’t much suggest the opera star who had once dazzled the capitals of Earth. But her tunic couldn’t flatten out every curve, and Flowers was in some respects a very suggestible man.

  He leaned back in the swivel chair, flourished his cigar, and tried to be modest. “Faking sickness was easy,” he said. “I counted time till I knew the transfer boat ’ud be along pretty soon.”

  “How did you count?” she asked.

  “Oh, I sang songs in my head. I’d timed that years ago. Often useful to know how long, say ‘The Ballad of Eskimo Nell’ takes—well, never mind that, ma’m. Anyhow, then I started hyperventilating. Do that a while and you get the doggonedest symptoms. When my body chemistry was way off kilter, I let out a yell, then pressed my carotid arteries till I passed out.”

  “That took courage,” she murmured, “when fear is part of the syndrome.”

  “You said it, I didn’t. Of course, I couldn’t be sure I’d get away with anything. The doc could’ve spotted the cause. However, since they took me for an ignorant nank, he never thought I could be faking it. Naturally, I recovered my strength fast, and didn’t let on. I kind of hoped I’d have a chance to do something, because they’d be off guard with a sick man. But, sure, I had luck with me.”

  Colonel Adler drummed fingers on her desk and glanced out the viewplate. Pallas Town bustled under a dark, starry sky. The geegee fields gave Earth weight and held atmosphere, but it was a thin atmosphere and space glittered through, cold and huge. She turned back to Flowers. “Why did you proceed here?” she asked. “Sam’s was closer.”

  “Uh, well, I figured GHQ should know as soon as possible about those code-busting machines of the enemy’s.”

  “GHQ already did, as your interrogator believed. In any event, the information could have been sent from Sam’s, along with a duplicate of your original dispatch.”

  Flowers reddened. He had expected to be treated like a hero. “So I made a mistake. I’m no professional.”

  She smiled. “Perhaps you did not err after all, Lieutenant. But come, let’s get the quizzing over with. Then I’ll authorize some furlough time for you. You’ve earned it.”

  Flowers nearly swallowed his cigar. “Quiz? You mean narco?”

  She nodded. “An examination in depth.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “SOP in cases like this. If nothing else, we have to be sure the enemy hasn’t begun on that dirty trick of implanting posthypnotic suggestions. I’ll handle the job myself, and anything personal which might come out will never get past me.”

  “You? Huh? I mean … look, I’ll go along with this if I’ve got to, but not with a lady!”

  The colonel chuckled. “I’m older and I’ve seen more of the universe than you might think. You won’t outrage any propriety of mine. Now come with me. That’s an order.”

  When he woke, he found her regarding him most thoughtfully. Her cheeks were a bit flushed.

  “Whuzzamattuh?” he mumbled.

  “I made a discovery,” she said. “I can be shocked.”

  Anger whipped him to full consciousness. He sat up and growled, “My private life’s my own. Isn’t that one of the ideas we’re supposed to be fighting for? Now with your permission, ma’m, I’ll get out of here.”

  “Please.” She fluttered hands at him. Also eyelashes. “I didn’t think I could be shocked any more. It was a delightful surprise. You mentioned some fascinating—well, Smelly, I mean to say, I get off at eighteen-hundred hours and I do have some civilian clothes and if you’d like to meet me somewhere.…”

  Trade boomed after independence was won, and Pallas boomed loudest. Each time he visited the place—which was often, since his construction business required him to see people there—Flowers thought it had doubled in population and noisiness. But one little bar near the space docks remained unchanged. You could sit in a booth, under a stereo mural of Saturn, and have an honest beer and an uninterrupted talk.

  “I see you changed tattoos,” Ulstad remarked.

  Flowers glanced at his left forearm, bare in an incandescent sports shirt, and grunted. “Yeah. That one. Very soon after I escaped from you, in fact. A dame I was going with for a while said she didn’t like the design. I didn’t either, so I had it removed. I, uh, this is a kind of sentimental thing to say, but I had reasons for substituting this eagle. Symbol of friendship with the mother country and all that sort of engine spew, huh?”

  “Yes. I’m glad you feel that way.” Ulstad took a swallow of Tuborg. “Glad I could finally get hold of you, too, and learn how you did get away from us. What a yarn!”

  Flowers grinned. “I didn’t know the whole story till after the war.”

  Ulstad pricked up his ears. “Go on.”

  “This is no secret any longer, or I wouldn’t’ve been told yet. But the message I was carrying—you never did decipher it, did you?”

  “No. We finally decided it was a blind, wasting much too much valuable computer time.”

  “Kee-rect. A pure random pattern. Quite a few of our courie
rs carried similar ones for a while. It was a safe bet that at least one man would get captured and so confuse you. I happened to be the man.”

  Ulstad frowned. “Seems like poor strategy. You couldn’t spare that many ships for a single trick.”

  “Oh, no. ’Course not. But you see, messages were being sent anyway.”

  “What? How in the name of——”

  Flowers drained his beer and bellowed for another. While he waited, he produced a cigar. “That tattoo on my arm,” he said. “I only knew I’d gotten blind drunk. Figured I must’ve ordered the damn thing put on and never remembered afterward. Actually, my booze had been mickeyed.

  “The message was important. They did capture the Vega in the battle off Sam’s, you know. And maybe by now you also know they locked onto her code books. Pallas had to be told what your ciphers were, but we couldn’t risk a maser beam being intercepted.”

  “Certainly not.” Ulstad grimaced. “It took several disasters before we realized what must have happened.”

  “That code was in my tattoo,” Flowers said. “There’re thousands of punctures in any such picture. For some of ’em you can use a needle with a special dye—standard color, nothing different except for a few iron atoms—to write anything you please. Put the arm under a scanner while I’m anesthetized and can’t blab, and there you are.”

  The beer arrived and he drained half the tankard. “I really needn’t have bothered escaping, I suppose,” he mused. “Our high command would’ve gotten me included in the next prisoner exchange. Still, I did get the information to HQ faster, and saved myself a bad time.”

  Ulstad whistled. After a while, with a touch of malice, he said: “Remember I told you I had a nephew on the Vega? Not true. I was only trying to soften you up a bit.”

  Flowers started. Then he guffawed and raising his draught, he said, “You know, I could use a man like you in my business.”

  “Might be fun at that,” said Ulstad. The tankards touched.